Artemis wasn't the only one with a case of instruments. Butler opened a chrome briefcase on the coffee table. It was one of a dozen such cases that he held in safe-deposit boxes in the world's capitals. Each case was full to bursting with surveillance equipment, counter surveillance equipment, and weaponry. Having one in each country meant that he did not have to break customs laws on each overseas trip from Ireland.
He selected a bug sweeper and quickly ran it around the room, searching for listening devices. He concentrated on the electrical appliances: phone, television, fax machine. The electronic waffle from those items could often drown a bug's signal, but not with this particular sweeper. The Eye Spy was the most advanced sweeper on the market and could detect a pinhole mike half a
mile away.
After several minutes he was satisfied, and was on the point of returning the device to the case, when it registered a tiny electrical field. Nothing much, barely a single flickering blue bar on the indicator. The first bar solidified, then turned bright blue. The second bar began to flicker. Something electronic was closing in on them. most men would have discounted the reading. After all, there were several thousand electronic devices within a square mile of the Kronski Hotel. But normal electronic fields did not register on the Eye Spy, and Butler was not most men. He extended the sweeper's aerial, and panned the device around the room. The reading spiked when the aerial was pointed at the window. A claw of anxiety tugged at Butler 's intestines. Something airborne was coming closer at high speed.
He dashed to the window, ripped the net curtains from their hooks, and flung open the window. The winter air was pale blue with remarkably few clouds.
