He tilted his head and opened his mouth. Letting the sounds of the night echo in his mouth.

Nothing.

“Don’t forget the doorbell . . .”

He knelt and gently unhooked the almost invisible trip wire from the booby-trapped grenade he had set earlier. He reassembled the grenade quickly and dropped it into his satchel. He picked up his rifle, then stepped through the hole in the wall and out into the dark back alleyway.

“Do not move,” a voice barked from behind him. “I mean it . . . do not move one muscle or we will blow your fucking head clean off.”

The Englishman sounded like he was about to shit his pants. The Bear weighed the odds as he stared off down the alleyway toward where he had parked his car. He took a breath, quarter-turning his head to the left, looking for a shadow, some clue to where the man behind him was standing.

“Stand still!” Another voice, to his right. “We are police, drop your weapons!”

He was flanked on both sides. He did the calculations and worked out that he would be able to get them both if he dropped to a knee to throw off their aim as he turned. He steadied himself.

“Do as you’re told!”

Another one, farther back, judging by the sound of his voice, maybe crouching.

Shit.

He raised his free hand slowly in surrender.

“Okay, I surrender. Let’s see where this takes us.”

Chapter 1

Wapping, London

Rossett sat silent in the darkness. The sounds of the night settled on his shoulders like sorrow, then faded until it was so quiet, he could hear the ticking of his watch drowning out the beating of his heart.

He didn’t move.

He barely breathed.

He was alone, patient, staring into nothing. A part of the darkness, as much as it was a part of him.

He knew they were near; they’d come eventually.

He’d be waiting.

“I find punching people rather relaxing.” Finnegan rubbed his chin with a hand that looked like a bruised ham and looked across at Hall.

“What?” Hall was tired; the night had been long and his patience was short.

“I’m just saying, I find it relaxing.”

Hall shook his head and went back to staring at a poster of the Führer. It was pasted on a sooty black brick wall, right next to where they were parked. Old Adolf was shaking hands with Prime Minister Mosley, who was bending a little at the waist, so as not to look too tall next to his boss.

Hall thought that Mosley looked like a spiv or some sort of ponce with his pencil mustache. He shook his head, embarrassed that that was the best that Britain could come up with to run the country.

Hall frowned. Someone had had a go at ripping the poster off the wall, but only the top left corner had come away. It was hanging limp, damp in the morning air like a mongrel’s ear.

god save the king! was daubed in thick strokes of red paint across Hitler’s face. Hall wondered which king they were talking about: the one in England, or his brother, hiding halfway around the world?

“There is something about the ‘whump, whump, whump,’” Finnegan started up again. “I don’t know . . . it calms me down, makes me feel peaceful.”

Hall dragged his eyes away from Hitler and over to the darkened shop on the other side of the road. He willed it to open up for the day so they could get on with what they had gone there to do.

Finnegan kept on talking to nobody but himself.

“When I was a kid, I used to like smacking the sheep’s heads my mam would buy to make soup with. I’d take them in the back alley and see if I could break the bones. When my old mam found out she’d try to do the same to me, ’cos I’d gone and ruined the dinner.”

“Will you be quiet?” Hall’s patience tapped out.

“I’m bored, that’s all.”

“Be bored quiet.”

Finnegan folded his arms and shifted on the leather seat with a squeak. And then a forty-watt bulb across the street saved Hall from more torture.

“Finally,” Finnegan said for both of them.

Hall looked around to check nobody was about. Finnegan licked his lips and started to rock slightly, excitement mounting, boredom forgotten, seat creaking softly, as if the springs were getting excited, too.

“Wait till we can see him, all right?” Hall said, trying to put the brakes on his partner.

“Yeah,” Finnegan replied, suddenly a man of few words.

“No speeches. Just in and out, there’s no need for drama.” He looked at his partner. “No drama. Yeah?”

Finnegan’s blood was rising; Hall could tell by the sound of the springs creaking faster underneath him. He had another go at reining Finnegan back in.

“Don’t kill him.