It had taken Haddad a considerable amount of time and money to cultivate a relationship with the Bulgarian, and he couldn’t afford to start over. Normally, he would have sent someone else to handle this task but there was too much at stake.

So he had a choice. Lose the Turk-or kill him.

The meeting place was less than a mile away, a fifteen-minute walk. Haddad knew he could quickly hail a taxi and be there in less than five minutes, but taxi drivers had eyes and ears, and while the chances of anything coming of such a casual encounter were nearly nonexistent, he had always been a cautious man who preferred to travel on foot whenever possible.

After receiving Chilikov’s text message this evening, Haddad had spent nearly an hour checking and rechecking the route to their meeting place using a portable GPS unit he’d picked up in Belgrade. He had found three possible routes to his destination and had memorized them all, certain that he would not be followed but prepared for the possibility.

Now that possibility was quite real.

Haddad stepped through the revolving door onto the sidewalk, paying no attention to the man as he passed but not overtly looking away as the Turk was doing. Because of that, Haddad was able to see, peripherally, what he needed to see.

Haddad moved with deliberation, never rushing. He was a tourist going out for a stroll, nothing more.

The Turk would know this was a lie, of course. But Haddad saw no reason to betray that he was aware of being watched. As he walked away from the hotel, he kept his gaze forward, never glancing back at that revolving lobby door but knowing that the Turk would soon emerge and head in his direction.

Haddad was relatively sure the man was working alone. The best surveillance is done in teams, the larger the better. The subject gets passed along like a baton, giving him less opportunity to make-or lose-a tail. But the modern spy tends to wear iPod earbuds or a Bluetooth, innocuous technology that keeps him plugged in to partners or HQ. Haddad’s cursory look as he passed the Turk revealed neither of these. Besides, he’d been in enough of these situations to trust his instincts and they told him that the Turk was working alone.