“’Bout a week, I suppose,” replied Reggie. “Seemed a nice sort of bloke. I saw him yesterday lunchtime. He was in his tracksuit, said he was going jogging later. I expect in the park.”

“What did he look like?”

“Youngish. About thirty. Fair hair. Moustache and goatee beard. Spectacles. Not very tall-less than six feet. Spoke with a Finnish accent.”

“Do you know what a Finnish accent sounds like?” asked the policeman.

“’Course not,” said Reggie. “Never spoke to one of ’em, have I? ’Cept for Santa Claus-and Mr. Fretheim.”

“What I mean, Reggie, is, was that a Finnish accent, or could it have been French, or German, or Arabian?”

“Beats me, guv’nor. Could have been anything. I just assumed it was Finnish, because he said that’s where he was from.”

The detective smiled. “Anything else about him?”

“Not really. But I had the impression he was an athletic sort of bloke. I mean he was always dressed very casual, jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers.”

The detective nodded. “Did he keep regular hours?”

“Well, I can’t rightly say about that. Our shifts change at 2 P.M., so we don’t really know if people are in or out when we come on afternoon duty.”

“Did he ever come in at unusual times, like evenings or anything?”

“I don’t think so. I never saw him here in the evening. Matter of fact I haven’t seen him since yesterday lunchtime.”

“And you never saw him leave?”

“No. But I wouldn’t, would I? Don did the afternoon shift and locked up last night.”

“Could Fretheim have been in the building overnight?”

“No. Don would have known that. You always know if someone’s here in the evening. Tell you the truth, we usually nip out for a pint around nine o’clock, and the first thing you’d notice would be a light on at the front of the building.”

“Perhaps Mr. Fretheim was sitting in the dark,” said the detective. “Thank you, Reggie. Tell Don we’d like a word this afternoon.”

“Righto, sir.”

At that moment, the two police marksmen were making their way down from the roof. When they reached the detective sergeant, one of them said, “We just heard, on the phone, sir. But neither of us saw a thing, and we never heard anything either. Me and Brian here were watching the area around the hotel all the time. Whoever fired must have done it from somewhere in here. But it was a damn quiet gun, I’ll say that.”

In the meantime, General Rashood had completed his walk up Dover Street and had turned left down Hay Hill and into Berkeley Street. He crossed and strolled into the narrow walkway of Lansdowne Row, where he was when the police began their search of his office building.

He knew Lansdowne Row mostly because it contained one of the best newspaper shops in London. Ravi used to go there with his father occasionally to pick up Middle Eastern publications.

He bought the London Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail and then walked into the café next door and ordered some coffee and buttered toast. He took off his jacket and placed it over the back of his chair, and put down his briefcase. He’d been here before, in another life, and it looked much the same, but better. It seemed bigger, and Ravi thought they must have purchased the flower shop next door.

Anyway, it felt like a haven right now, and happily he did not recognize the proprietor. Calmly he sipped his coffee and read the newspapers. It was a busy place, filled with shirtsleeved young advertising and financial executives. Ravi fitted right in, and outside, to the south, he heard the constant wail of police sirens. And the distant clatter of a helicopter swooping low over the city.

It was a little after 12:30 when he left. He put on his jacket and walked into Berkeley Square, which was lunchtime busy. He made his way up the west side of the square, past the distinctive awning of Annabel’s, the world’s most exclusive nightclub, and then turned left into Mount Street.

Up ahead he could see the Audi, Shakira at the wheel. He watched her step out and walk around to the front passenger seat. Casually, he made his way to the driver’s side, tossed his jacket and briefcase in the back, and positioned himself behind the wheel. Without a word, he drove down the north side of Berkeley Square and then swung left, heading up the one-way system in fast-moving traffic. He neither stopped nor spoke for fifteen minutes. Shakira knew everything had gone wrong, but at least he had not been shot, and in a sense she felt an overwhelming feeling of relief.

The helicopter he had heard was currently standing on the Horse Guards parade ground. Arnold and Kathy were aboard, along with two of the secret agents. They were just waiting for the luggage to arrive from the now-besieged Ritz Hotel, which currently contained more policemen than guests.

The body of Big George had been removed by ambulance to St. Mary’s Hospital. And before it left, the police pathologist had confirmed that the bullet had been fired from a height and had hit George at a shallow angle to the horizontal.

The westbound lanes of Piccadilly were still blocked, and the hotel staff car containing the Americans’ luggage was forced to take a circuitous route to Horse Guards. When it arrived, the loadmaster packed the suitcases into the hold, and the helicopter from the Queen’s Flight took off, heading west. Destination: classified.

The Royal Air Force pilot followed the River Thames all the way, flying at around ten thousand feet. Putney Bridge, Hammersmith Bridge, Barnes Bridge, and Chiswick all passed beneath them. They continued on to the Berkshire town of Maidenhead, then Henley-on-Thames, where Arnold could still see the famous blue-and-white tents at the end of the Royal Regatta course.

This had once been familiar territory for the Big Man. He’d rowed here in an Annapolis crew more than forty years before, got beat by the Harvard lightweights. “Bastards,” muttered Arnold.

“Sorry?” said Kathy.

“Bastards,” repeated Arnold wistfully. “They got a half length at the start, beat the umpire’s call. We never pegged ’ em back. Finished only a canvas down.”

“Who did?”

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I was just reliving one of my early disasters, when the Naval Academy got beat down there at the Henley Regatta. See those blue-and-white tents? Where the river runs straight? Right there.”

“Were you rowing?”

“Stroke. But I can’t talk about it. It’s too painful.”

“You mean you can talk about some lunatic almost blowing your head off, but you can’t speak about a boat race?”

“Correct. The lunatic missed, so it’s just a fantasy. But the boat race was real. Oh boy, was it ever real.”

Kathy shook her head, and the helicopter kept going west until it swung right just before the market town of Wallingford, with its thirteenth-century bridge over the Thames. And now the pilot began to lose height, dropping down and flying a hundred feet above the river, following it downstream.

To the left were the Chiltern Hills, to the right the Berkshire Downs, and along the lonely river valley, clattering noisily in the soft summer air, came the helo from the Queen’s Flight, bearing the admiral to a place of safety. You could search for a hundred years and never find him here.

The GPS numbers in the cockpit finally signaled their arrival, and the pilot slewed the helicopter in the air, making it almost stationary forty feet above the water. And there before them, on the banks of the river, was the picturesque Leather Bottle, except it was spelled differently-The Leatherne Bottel.

“Jesus,” said Arnold, staring at the lettering on the sign. “These guys can’t even spell, never mind cook!”

“Olde English,” yelled the loadmaster. “This place has been here for centuries.”

The pilot dropped down almost to water level and then edged forward, landing on the concrete parking lot, with the tail jutting out over the river. The admiral and Kathy disembarked with the two agents, who unloaded the baggage, and the four of them walked across the stone terrace and into the bright, low-ceilinged restaurant with its stunning views across the river to the Downs. Way along the summit, it was just possible to see one of the fabled Long Woods.