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took it for granted that there would be agents inside the building, and that the lawn would be covered by motion-detectors, pressure-sensors and cameras with thermal-imaging capacity. There was no way he was going to get across that open space undetected. He just had to get across it fast.
    The way Carver looked at it, the odds weren’t really too bad. It would take less than four seconds to cross the open grass, hurdle the wall and get to the building. The man on the dock wasn’t likely to pick him up straight away, and even if he did, he would have to be damn good to hit a running man from where he was standing. The agents up on the roof would be hampered by basic geometry. They would have to shoot downwards, and the closer he got to the house, the tougher that shot would become. And again, they would have to react with remarkable speed.
    There were two possible ways into the house from where he was positioned: French windows leading into the main living-room and a back door by the kitchen. If Carver could get to either of those entrances, blast them open and then start shooting, he backed himself to take down anyone he met inside, including Lincoln Roberts.
    So he crouched by the foot of the steps, as tense as a sprinter on the blocks, took three deep breaths, then sprang upwards over the stone and on to the grass. And then he just ran like hell.
    Carver didn’t need Einstein to tell him that time was relative. Four seconds feels like a lifetime when it only takes a fraction of one of them to trigger the alarm system that sets bells ringing and lights blazing … and suddenly you feel as if you’re running through treacle. Warnings are being shouted from all directions. Guns are being raised. You’re trying to jink and swerve to unsettle the shooters, but every sidestep only slows you down. Then the firecracker explosions of small-arms fire rip through the screaming of the alarm bells, and you wait for the first bullet to tear your flesh, but none comes, and then you just throw yourself the last twenty feet, and …
    Carver hit the ground, ducked into a forward roll and made it alive to the wall of the house. The French windows were just ahead of him. A shaped charge was in his hand, ready to blow them open, and then the gunfire and bells both stopped, instantaneously, and his ringing ears heard a voice shout, ‘Drop your weapons, now!’
    Carver did as he was told. Slowly, without giving anyone any cause for alarm or reason to shoot, he placed the gun and the explosive charge on the stone flagstones at his feet.
    ‘Now place your hands behind your head.’
    Again, Carver obeyed the instruction.
    ‘Turn around. Nice and easy.’
    Carver turned and came face to face with Special Agent Tord Bahr. There was a hint of a smirk playing round the corners of his mouth. And there was a look of real pleasure in Bahr’s eyes as he raised the pistol in his right hand, aimed it directly at Samuel Carver’s unprotected chest. And fired.

9

    Carver spent the small hours on a bunk in the estate’s staff quarters, his chest unharmed by the blanks that had been fired at it. At six thirty in the morning, after three hours’ sleep, he was in the dining-room, with one hand round a mug of strong coffee and the other holding a steak sandwich, the bread richly infused with blood and melted fat.
    The Secret Service had fixed Carver up with a dark blue T-shirt and a pair of athletic grey sweatpants. They’d given him a toothbrush but no razor, nor a hairbrush. He was looking pretty much the same as any other man on a Saturday morning after a hard Friday night. That was the way he liked it, appearing so normal as to be almost nondescript.
    Carver wasn’t especially tall, just a fraction under six feet. He didn’t ripple with muscle, or exude the air of physical menace that characterized so many men who dealt in violence for a living. He was happy to blend into the crowd and go about his business unnoticed. Only the most sharp-eyed