And if Mr. Reilly was still in the spook business, he didn't have to have a reason to kill Halvorson. Or throw the other guy from his balcony, either, for that matter. Somebody in Washington could have decided the doorman was actually an agent for some terrorist cell and ordered him terminated. Or that the alleged burglar was bin Laden's brother-in-law, for that matter.

Morse slammed on the brakes, almost running a red light.

National security or not, people didn't get away with murder, not on Morse's watch. He'd report his suspicion to the federal boys to add to their international alert. Maybe they could pry something out of the cloak-and-dagger crowd, find out who Reilly knew in Rome, where he might be hiding.

London

The next day

The ping of the seat belt and "no smoking" lights woke Lang from a deep sleep. He rubbed stinging eyes and leaned across Gurt to peer out the window. A sea of dirty clouds was rising to meet the MD 880. Across the narrow aisle, a young couple of Eastern European origin were unsuccessful in comforting a howling infant. The British Airways flight attendants were scurrying to collect the last plastic drinking cups before trays were ordered back into their upright positions.

He let the seat up and ran a finger across his upper lip, making sure the moustache was still glued into place. Graying hair and thick glasses aged him a bit, Lang hoped. Bits of foam rubber stuffed into cheeks made his face match the jowly photograph of Heinrich Schneller on the German passport in his pocket.

Gurt and Lang had the picture taken at a photographer's shop a block from the embassy. The glue on it had hardly been dry when she applied a copy of the official stamp to the blank passport.

Facial hair was a new sensation for him. He had always believed it silly to cultivate on an upper lip what grew wild elsewhere.

The ticket clerk at Milan's Malpensa Airport had given their documents a cursory glance before wishing them a cheerful arrivederci. The only attention from the gray uniformed Policia with their gloss polished gun belts and boots had been appreciative stares at Gurt.

A blunt-cut dark wig and a slight stoop to minimize her height were the only disguise to which she would agree. There was, after all, no reason to think They had ever seen her face. Still, she was worth the unabashed gaping for which Italian men are notorious.

Herr Schneller and his wife, the much younger-looking Freda, had departed Milan on a flight to the relatively new City Airport in Docklands just outside London. Had anyone checked with the company whose name was on the credit card paying for the tickets, Frau Schneller was accompanying her husband on a trip to price carpet-grade wool in Milan and then London, from where they would proceed to Manchester.

Lang had no idea if the address for Herr Schneller's employer even existed, but he knew from experience the Hamburg telephone number would be answered by someone speaking credible Hochdeutsch and probably sitting in a room in Virginia. He also knew the passports and drivers' licenses would pass scrutiny. Anyone attempting to verify the Visa or American Express cards would find valid accounts, although he had had to promise not to use them for anything other than identification. Gurt had called in a number of favors to get the paperwork and plastic. Making charges to the account would overstep whatever agreements she had made. It was comforting to have the chicanery of professionals on his side.

As the aircraft trembled, Lang cinched himself tighter into the seat, a Pavlovian response to the airlines' implicit assurances that no problem could not be solved by a fastened seat belt. On a rational level, he knew the plane's bucking and groaning was due to the deployment of flaps and landing gear, and that the aircraft was the consummate product of American engineering. Still, he could take little comfort from the quality of American-made parts that would litter the countryside should something go wrong.

Lang had become no fonder of flying.

The landing and subsequent taxi to the terminal were uneventful and blood began its normal circulation through Lang's hands once he relinquished his death grip on the arm rests.

As anticipated, there were neither customs nor immigration facilities. Within minutes, Lang and Gurt were handing their bags to a smiling cabby for storage in the boot of his shiny black Austin Motors taxi. Lang gave him the destination, thankful London cab drivers were not only required to speak English but also to possess an encyclopedic knowledge of the city.

It might have been April in Italy, but winter was reluctant to release its hold on England. The sky was the color of the bottom of a cookie sheet, with burned spots for clouds. The cab's wiper moaned across wet glass as they headed for the West End.

London had not been a favorite of Dawn's. That had been largely Lang's fault. He had brought her there for Christmas with visions of a Dickensesque holiday, complete with fresh snow, plum pudding and yule logs. Instead they got fog, darkness at three-thirty in the afternoon, and runny noses from a cold induced by their hotel's archaic heating system.

Even the Victorian opulence of one of the Savoy's River Suites, exquisitely furnished and oval shaped, could not compensate for the gloom that met every morning's glance from the window. Lang and his wife spent an afternoon at the Tower, watched the changing of the guard, and endured overcooked beef at Simpson's, all the tourist activities he thought she would enjoy.

The weather was a blanket that smothered any enthusiasm she could muster.

The couple had dinner with Lang's friends from MI6 at their clubs, evenings of drinks and war stories; they spent an afternoon of extravagance at Harrods. Neither lifted Dawn's mood, as dark as the view from the window.

Lang had been frustrated. London had been one of his favorite cities in the world. He and Dawn had their first and only fight. They went home early, on Boxing Day, notwithstanding Ben Jonson's observation that he who tires of London has tired of life. According to Dawn, Dr. Jonson obviously enjoyed beastly weather and worse food.

The day they left, the weather was as bad as the day they arrived.

Lang remembered that trip with particular pain, for it had been only a week later that Dawn experienced menstrual cramps that curled her into a fetal position. Another week and she was under the doctors' death sentence.

Lang had never returned to London until now.

Changes in the city were obvious. Every vista included building cranes. New office space, new dwellings for the City's new e-millionaires. Lang had recently read that London was outstripping the rest of Great Britain combined in construction, prosperity and expansion.

He watched the West End from the moisture-streaked windows of the cab until Buckingham Palace flashed by. On the other side of the car, the Victoria Monument was alive with rain slickers and umbrellas, tourists seeking a vantage point for the changing of the guard. A quick left onto St. James Street and the area of the same name. They were only blocks from Piccadilly Circus, the entrance to Soho, the shopping, restaurant and theater district. Just past the crenellated twin Tudor towers of St. James's Palace, the cab turned into a small mew, made a right and stopped in front of an unimpressive brick building, identified only by a brass plaque announcing it to be the Stafford Hotel.

Small, cheap accommodations hadn't helped Lang evade Them in Rome. He was certain he had been followed from the pensione to Orvieto. This time he· was choosing an upbeat hotel, a place Herr Schneller might stay with his wife, what the guidebooks called "moderateto expensive," well located. The deciding factor had been its location in a cul-de-sac, a short street that hosted one private club, two small hotels and a few businesses. No shops, no restaurants. Anyone loitering there would be obvious.