Page 119 of Near Miss

“Greco is dead.” He didn’t need to tell her the rest as he’d informed her about what had been going on when he’d first arrived.

“Which means you’re next,” she said.

“Me or Stone. Or, depending on how ambitious they are, both of us at the same time.”

“I don’t like the sound of any of that.”

“It doesn’t exactly fill me with joy, either.”

“Shall I call my friends at Scotland Yard? I could have two dozen officers surrounding my house within the half hour.” Sarah was the retired chief of the Metropolitan Police in London.

Ed considered the suggestion, then nodded. “Make the call but let me check the area before you have them show up.”

She pulled out her phone, and he headed upstairs.

Ed checked Sarah’s security cameras on the monitor in the bedroom and saw no obvious signs of trouble. But if the Sarge was as good as his reputation, there wouldn’t be.

Ed opened his suitcase. While he had followed Mike Freeman’s instructions to the tee and had brought no weapons with him on the flight from Teterboro, hehadpacked a few items typical travelers would not have. Tucked among the stuff in his bag were a pair of binoculars, with both available light and night vision modes.

He grabbed them, made his way onto the roof, and crawled to a position from where he could survey the street. He used available light mode first and scanned as far as he could in either direction. Nothing stood out. He then switched to night vision and paid special attention to the areas where little light reached.

His gaze stopped on a person crouched behind a car near the end of the block, who was leaning out just far enough for a sliver of their body to glow green in the binoculars.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

He watched the figure for a few moments, waiting for the person to move. But whoever it was just peered down the street toward Sarah’s house.

Ed crawled back until there was no chance he’d be seen, and called Sarah.

“The police are all set,” she said, “just waiting for my go ahead.”

He told her what he’d seen.

“I’ll send a few officers in on foot first,” she said.

“Good idea.”

Ed moved back to his former position and trained the binoculars on the lurker. Soon, two of London’s finest came around the corner on the same side of the street the lurker was hiding. A moment after that, two more appeared at the corner on the opposite side.

Hearing the steps, the lurker dropped to the ground and scooted under the car. This did not fool the officers. They surrounded the vehicle, then one of them shouted something Ed couldn’t make out.

After a moment, an arm appeared from under the car, then the lurker’s head and shoulders. As soon as the officers saw that the suspect—who appeared to be a man—was unarmed, they rushed in and yanked him to his feet.

Ed called Sarah. “Send in the rest of the troops.”

When he rejoined her downstairs, a policeman was with her.

“Ed, this is Chief Superintendent Rogers,” Sarah said. “Chief Superintendent, this is Ed Rawls. The Chief Superintendent is in charge of the officers who will be watching the house.”

“Thank you for coming,” Ed said. “What’s happening with the person you apprehended down the street?”

“He is outside,” Rogers said. “Dame Deerfield thought you might wish to speak to him.”

“Very much.”

“This way.”

The lurker was in the back seat of a police car, eyes wide in fear. He was younger than Ed had expected, much younger—no more than eighteen or nineteen.

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