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bounce straight back to Gibb and the clunk of a car door as the surveillance operative got out to follow on foot.
    ‘Yes, we have him.’
    Kerr split the traffic waiting on the south side of the bridge and called up Langton. ‘Jack, confirm our guys are armed?’
    ‘Roger that,’ replied Langton. ‘Do we let him run?’
    ‘Yeah, we stay with him,’ ordered Kerr. ‘Mel, let’s have two of you on foot while I get back-up. Zulu, receiving, over?’
    A soft burr came out of the ether: ‘Go ahead, John.’
    Kerr was relieved to hear Alan Fargo. After more than a decade of working counter-terrorism together, they often anticipated each other’s thoughts, which meant they could cut the crap. ‘Al, I want you to go with a full ops-room set-up, just to be on the safe side.’
    ‘I already pressed the button.’
    Kerr was not surprised. He had guessed Fargo would be firing up state-of-the-art comms equipment in the operations room on the sixteenth floor of the Yard. Alan Fargo was that rare breed, a good field officer with an analyst’s brain, as effective in the ops room as 1830. He was from Falmouth, non-flashy, cerebral and self-deprecating. But no one else could join the dots so quickly, which was why they all felt safe with him managing two key jobs.
    ‘When do I break the news to Mr Ritchie?’ asked Fargo.
    Kerr heard voices and movement around Fargo and pictured the comms monitors taking their places in front of him and plugging in their headsets. ‘How much does he know?’
    ‘No one above you knows anything about this,’ said Fargo. ‘Remember?’
    ‘I’ll take care of it,’ said Kerr, after a pause.
    ‘John, I’m getting some good photographs from Steve Gibb coming through now.’ Fargo’s voice faded and Kerr imagined him swinging round to check as the images rolled onto the two giant screens in the ops room. ‘I’ll get them copied through to 1830.’
    ‘This is Mel. He’s crossing the road and onto a bus, number eighty-eight, upper deck, heading south.’ There was a pause with the microphone open and Kerr heard Melanie’s breathing quicken as she sprinted for the bus. ‘I’m on with him.’
    Jack Langton’s voice came on the air as soon as Melanie closed her mike. ‘John, I’m pulling units from Leyton for support.’
    ‘I need him covered, so keep two units there. Where’s the firearms back-up?’
    ‘Camberwell,’ said Langton. ‘Reckon they can be on scene in seven.’
    ‘OK. Alan, who do we have for Gold?’ Kerr heard a commotion in the ops room and several voices colliding with each other.
    ‘Weatherall,’ said Fargo, softly. Everyone groaned.

Six
    Thursday, 13 September, 08.39, Operations Room, New Scotland Yard
    Commander Paula Weatherall polished her glasses as she took her place in the ops-room chair marked ‘Gold’. She had come straight from her working breakfast in the commissioner’s mess with the top man himself. He hosted breakfast for his senior officers on a rotational basis, interrogating them over muesli and fruit tea on their ideas for his Big Tent of top management. Some would ultimately be invited inside, others exiled to manage IT projects, youth justice and community-support officers. Success depended on image, hyperactivity and a culture of presenteeism. Prepared to make any sacrifice to get under canvas with the commissioner, Weatherall engineered more than her share of free breakfasts.
    The moment Fargo’s coded text came through she had excused herself with a private word to her boss. The timing was perfect, the whispered exchange suggesting privileged access and higher importance. The previous year the commissioner had promoted her from a uniform backwater to head the intelligence unit of SO15, Counter-terrorism Command, the forgettable new title for the organisation formerly known as Special Branch, in which John Kerr and his team had spent most of their careers. Weatherall calculated her new role was a springboard for even greater advancement.