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advance. That’s a long time from now. Four and a half months.”
    â€œLots to do. Really an awful lot. And it needs doing.”
    â€œAnd nobody but you can do it.”
    â€œNobody.”
    â€œSounds like lonely work.”
    â€œVery lonely,” I said. “Very, very lonely.”
    Â 
    Griffin was out of breath as he fell in beside me and we ran along the edge of a long, shallow lake in the middle of Hyde Park in central London. He didn’t say hello at first. He concentrated on keeping pace, and keeping control.
    â€œYou’re toast,” he said at last. “You killed the wrong man.”
    â€œThat’s what you think.”
    â€œThat’s what the Brits think. He was one of theirs.”
    â€œFuck he was.”
    â€œHe was.”
    â€œHe was a user,” I said. “Using them.” I picked up the pace. More breaths, less words is what I wanted. “They know about me?”
    â€œNobody made connection—but me.”
    â€œSo no problem.”
    â€œIt’s over.”
    â€œJust beginning.” Faster now. “Five. Six. More like him.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou firing me?”
    â€œSending you home.”
    We ran for a few hundred yards without saying anything, through a little tunnel under a road, then up toward a huge fountain and pond. The sun was up now, and we were starting to have company in the park.
    â€œWhat’d Brits tell you?” I asked.
    â€œAsset murdered. Ealing.”
    â€œHis hard drive?”
    â€œThey got it.”
    â€œNo, man, you got it,” I said, “if you want it.”
    We were in the middle of a small meadow with a stone monument in the center that looked like a miniature Washington monument. From there we could see everyone for 360 degrees around, and nobody was close. I sprinted toward the monument and stopped beside it like I’d just crossed a finish line. Griffin came up about five strides behind me.
    â€œ You got the drive?” he said.
    I nodded. “You’ll get it.”
    Griffin laughed. “Lord,” he said. “Lord. There is justice.”
    I laughed, too.
    â€œWhen it comes to this stuff,” said Griffin, “the Brits don’t share shit. But—”
    â€œBut—?”
    â€œBut seriously. Time for you to go home.”
    â€œThink so?”
    â€œKnow so.”
    I took a long, deep breath. Then another one. “You were smart to find me, Griffin.”
    â€œYeah. Right.”
    â€œSmart enough. But you don’t know these guys. You don’t know what they can do.”
    â€œI know ’em as well as anybody in my shop,” said Griffin. He put his hands on his knees and tried to get more air. I thought he was going to puke. “I know the faith. Like you. I know the files, which you don’t. And”—his face went stone hard—“I saw Ground Zero.”
    â€œYeah, well, they can do that again.” I took another deep breath. “And again.” One more breath, slow. “And worse.”
    â€œThey’re smart,” said Griffin. “Smart as hell. Unpredictable as hell. And that’s why…” He groaned. “That’s why we got to coordinate, got to keep everybody on board—the Brits, the Germans, even the fucking French—work with the other services.”
    â€œUh-hunh.”
    â€œThis thing with Abu Seif. Shit! Your mission was to penetrate the organization, not take it out all by yourself.”
    â€œLet me ask you something. How much time do you think we’ve got?”
    â€œDon’t know.”
    â€œMe either. But somebody out there is checking off days on a calendar, maybe even setting his alarm clock. And you’re not going to find out who that is and what he knows with some interservice liaison committee.”
    â€œYou don’t follow procedures and I get fucked. I don’t like that.”
    â€œWe stick to procedures and we all get