in this.”
“But I live with you,” Hannah said. “For four years. That was the deal. I think I managed to prove myself last year when the going got tough.”
“You have a point,” Roper said. “And I know you also break the law by carrying a gun in your pocket. But your primary responsibility is the Royal College of Music, and don’t you forget it.”
“I won’t,” Hannah said. “But to take care, I need to know who the enemy is.”
“All right,” Roper said. “Besides the new Master, our own small part of the front, as Sean put it, has to do with the Muslim Brotherhood and the rascals at the Pound Street mosque. They had a go at us when Imam Hamid Bey was in charge there. His death was none of our doing—a car crash—but a new man has just moved in there. His name is Yousef Shah, an Oxford graduate and an unknown quantity. We’re going to be keeping a very close eye on him.”
“If I meet him, I’ll remember to give him Sean’s favorite greeting,” Hannah said. “God bless all here.”
Roper laughed, and said to Sara, “I think she’ll do just fine. But speaking of security, if we’re a target, then so are those close to us, probably. I think it’s time you checked in with your grandfather, Sara.”
SHE DID, but it was Sadie Cohen, the housekeeper, who answered the phone. “So you’ve finally remembered where you live.”
“We’ve been really busy, love,” Sara told her. “Things aren’t looking too good at the moment. General Ferguson was wondering whether you and Grandad would care to move in with us for a while just in case anyone might show an unhealthy interest.”
“You could be offering the Dorchester, but it wouldn’t do you any good. He’s on his way to Leeds. Some important person has taken ill, tickets sold out, could Professor Rabbi Nathan Gideon step in. He said he’d call you.”
“Well, he didn’t.”
“He has a lot on his plate.”
“I’m sure, but never mind. We can’t leave you alone. It won’t do, not the way things are at the moment.”
“So you and Hannah won’t be here tonight?” Sadie asked.
“Well, that is the general idea.”
“Leaving the house with no one in it? What nonsense; I haven’t the slightest intention of doing that. Now you take care of yourself, and we’ll see you when we can,” and she cut off.
Sara said to Roper and Hannah, “I can’t leave it like that. I must go and try to make her see sense,” and she made for the door.
Roper called, “Just watch your back.”
Hannah took the silenced Colt .25 from her pocket. “I’ll take care of that department.”
“Yes, but who’s going to watch your back,” Roper said. “You’re getting to be worse than Sara. Tell her to use the Land Rover and take care.”
Which sent Hannah running out of the door smiling.
THE LATE AFTERNOON RAIN came with a sudden rush at Highfield Court that sent Sadie Cohen running upstairs to see that no windows were open. She checked all the bedrooms, finishing with Hannah’s, where she found one open a little.
“Naughty girl,” she muttered. “Typical.”
Not that she meant it, for she had come to realize for some time now that Hannah was the daughter she’d never had. Hannah, who’d lost her mother and father to the car bomb in Northern Ireland that had killed them and crippled her, returned her affection completely. The fact that she was Catholic and Sadie Jewish was irrelevant.
Sadie slammed the window down, peering out because this was her favorite view, high up on the fourth floor of the house, the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square no more than a couple of hundred yards away.
It never failed to please, and she looked down at the garden, which was at its best, flowers in season, poplar trees swaying, but then she frowned at a flash of yellow down there. A man in an oilskin jacket stepped out of the rhododendron bushes, stood there in the rain, then stepped back into cover.
Sadie went downstairs, entered the kitchen, opened a large wooden drawer, and took out a sawed-off shotgun and a packet of cartridges. She loaded the weapon quickly, then went out in the hall, approached the front door cautiously, and waited, the shadow of a man outside.
Her Codex sounded, and as she pulled it out one-handed to answer, the shadow vanished from view.
“Sadie Cohen,” she said.
“Hi, love,” Hannah replied. “Sara and I are on our way. Should be with you in fifteen minutes.”
“You’ll be welcome,” Sadie told her. “Because we appear to have a guest in the garden. Could be others, too.”
“Remain inside,” Hannah told her. “Intruder,” she said to Sara, and called Roper. “Where’s Dillon?”
“When he turned up and found you gone, he said he’d join you,” Roper told her. “I’ll check and tell him to put his foot down.”
“Dillon’s on his way,” she told Sara, who said, “That’s a comfort. I bet it’s the Brotherhood. They’ve tried before, three or four pretending to be seeing to waterworks or drains or something like that.”
Hannah produced her Colt .25 and checked it. “Well, the bastards can bring it on as far as I’m concerned.”
“I couldn’t agree more, love.” Sara was smiling. “Isn’t it great to be a woman?”
“Absolutely,” Hannah told her.
“So as the great Bette Davis said, ‘Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,’” and Sara put her foot down hard as they roared away.
SADIE TURNED OFF the hall light, but as the darkness had increased considerably and very quickly, she switched on the garden lights. The conservatory was in darkness, and she stood there beside the Schiedmayer concert grand in the study, waiting and watching.
There was some sort of movement out there. She waited, then switched on the conservatory lights, illuminating two men in yellow oilskin uniforms peering in the window.
They backed away hurriedly into the darkness, and Sadie was filled with fury, turned the key, and flung open the door.
“Who the hell are you?” she called. “Get out of this house.” She went down the terrace steps, cocking the sawed-off. “I’ll shoot without hesitation,” which she did, firing one barrel into the night sky.
One of the men jumped out of the thicket behind her, grabbing at her
