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Something or someone outside, moving around the house. He rushed down the wooden staircase and went straight into his office. Opening his desk drawer, he took out the Jericho 941 semi-automatic he kept there. He stared at the gun for a moment, amazed at how alien it looked in his hand and trying to work out what the hell he was proposing to do with it. It had been Benjamin, Hoberman’s younger brother, who had given him the Israeli-made pistol, even arranging the license for him, insisting it was essential for Josh, living so remotely, to have protection. A gun like this wouldn’t look odd in Benny’s hands. Benny knew how to handle weapons, handle situations, handle women. Benny differed from his brother in every possible way.
    There was another sound outside, and Josh found himself wishing that Benny had been there. He would know what to do.
    He slipped the magazine into the handgrip, switched the safety off and snapped back the carriage, all the way, just like Benny had shown him. Walking back out into the hall, Josh killed the lights and moved across to the front door. He paused, straining to hear any sound from outside, holding his head close to the heavy oak of the door.
    The sound of knocking was so loud that Josh almost droppedthe automatic. The kind of knocking that the police do in the middle of the night. The kind of knocking the police had done in Cologne the night they had come for Josh’s grandparents and twelve-year-old father.
    “Professor Josh Hoberman?” The voice was all business. All authority.
    “Professor Hoberman?” it repeated when Josh did not respond.
    Josh took a deep breath. “Who is it?”
    “This is Special Agent Roesler, sir. FBI. I’m here with Special Agent Forbes. May we speak with you, Professor Hoberman?”
    “Hold on …” Josh looked around himself: at the hall and staircase behind him, at the study to his left, at his pot belly above the elasticated band of his shorts, at the gun in his hand. What were the FBI doing here? If it
was
the FBI. He switched on the porch light, slid the security chain into place and opened the door a crack, keeping the gun raised but out of sight behind the door. Two crew-cuts in suits looked back at him. There was a black Crown Victoria parked on the drive behind them with a third figure at the wheel.
    “Let me see some identification …” Josh tried to invest as much authority into the demand as possible.
    “Certainly, Professor Hoberman.” The young man at the door did not, as Josh had expected, simply hold up his ID, instead handing the black leather wallet to him through the gap in the door. Josh studied it carefully, looking from the photograph on the ID to the face at the door and back again, as if he would really have had any idea how to tell a fake FBI identity card from a real one.
    “What do you want? Do you know what time it is?” Josh handed the wallet back.
    “Yes, I’m sorry to disturb you so late, Professor Hoberman,” Special Agent Roesler said without a hint of apology. “But your help is needed with something very important, sir.”
    “Needed with what?”
    “I’ve been instructed to give you this …” Roesler handed a sealed envelope to Josh, who opened it and read it.
    “Do you know what is in this?” he asked the young FBI agent, when he had finished reading the note. “Do you know who sent it?”
    “No sir. We’re just here to transport you to where you need to be.”
    Josh stared at the two FBI men for a moment, trying to grasp if what was happening really was happening. “Give me ten minutes to get dressed,” he said eventually. “I’ll be right out.”
    He closed the door and, before turning and heading back up the stairs, looked again at the note.
    The note headed with the seal of the President of the United States.

5

JOHN MACBETH. BOSTON
    Confined by windows he could not wind down, doors he could not open and the heavy gauge mesh between him and the uniformed driver, Macbeth felt an