There were the brutes and the ones who were more refined, but all the guards were sadistic. Had to give credit where it was due. They all really enjoyed their work.

One day Henri's schedule was changed.

He was taken from his cell and kicked into the corner of a windowless room – along with the three remaining men from his unit, all bloodied, with broken bones and oozing sores.

Bright lights flashed on, and when Henri could finally see he took in the cameras and the half-dozen hooded men lined up against a wall.

One of those men grabbed his cellmate and friend Marty Switzer, pulled him to the center of the room, and hauled him to his feet.

Switzer answered their questions, saying that he was Canadian, twenty-eight, that his parents and girlfriend lived in Ottawa, that he was a military operative. Yes, he was a spy.

He lied as expected, saying that he was being treated well, and then one of the hooded men threw Switzer to the ground, lifted his head by his hair, and drew a serrated knife across the back of his neck. Blood spouted, and there was a chorus of the takbir: Allahu Akbar. Allah is great.

Henri was transfixed by how easily Switzer's head had been severed with a few saws of the blade, an act both infinite and quick.

When the executioner held up Switzer's head for the camera, his friend's expression of despair was fixed on his face. Henri had thought to call out to him – as though Marty could still speak.

There was one other thing that Henri could never forget. How as he waited to die, he felt a flush of excitement. He couldn't understand the emotion, and he couldn't put it down. As he lay on the killing floor, he had wondered if he was elated because soon he'd be free of his misery.

Or maybe he'd just realized who he really was, and what was at his core.

He got a thrill from death – even his own.

Chapter 62

Fresh tea was poured into his cup at the Edomae, and Henri came back to the present; he thanked the waiter automatically. He sipped the tea but couldn't entirely pull himself back from the memory.

He thought of the hooded tribunal, the headless body of a man who'd been his friend, the stickiness of the killing floor. His senses had been so acute then; he could hear the electricity singing in the light fixtures.

He had kept his eyes on the remaining men in his unit as they were separated from the heap. Raymond Drake, the former marine from Alabama who screamed for God to help him. The other boy, Lonnie Bell, an ex-SEAL from Louisiana, who was in shock and never said a word, never even screamed.

Both men were beheaded to exultant cries, and then Henri was dragged by his hair to the bloody center of the room. A voice came out of the darkness beyond the lights.

“Say your name for the camera. Say where you are from.”

He answered in Arabic, “I will be armed and waiting for you in hell. Send my bottomless contempt to Saddam.”

They laughed. They mocked his accent. And then, with the smell of shit in his nostrils, Henri was blindfolded. He waited to be shoved to the ground, but instead a coarse blanket was thrown over his head.

He must have passed out because when he awoke, he was tied with ropes and folded into the rear of a vehicle in which he rode for hours. Then he was dumped at the Syrian border.

He was afraid to believe it, but it was true.

He was alive. He was alive.

“Tell the Americans what we have done, infidel. What we will do. At least you try to speak our language.”

A boot struck him hard in the lower back, and the vehicle sped away.

He returned to the United States through an underground chain of friendly back doors from Syria to Beirut, where he got new documentation, and by cargo plane from Beirut to Vancouver. He hitched a ride to Seattle, stole a car, and made his way to a small mining town in Wisconsin. But Henri didn't contact his controller at Brewster-North.

He never wanted to see Carl Obst again.

Still, Brewster-North had done great things for Henri. They'd eradicated his past when they hired him, had thoroughly expunged his real name, his fingerprints, his entire history from the records. And now he was presumed dead.

He counted on that.

Across from him now, inside an exclusive Japanese club in Thailand, the lovely Mai-Britt had noticed that Henri's mind had drifted far away from her.

“Are you okay, Paul?” she asked. “Are you angry that that man was staring at me?”

Together they watched Carl Obst leave the restaurant with his date. He didn't look back.

Henri smiled, said, “No, I'm not angry. Everything is fine.”

“Good, because I was wondering if we should continue the evening more privately?”

“Hey, I'm sorry. I wish I could,” Henri told the girl with the most elegant neck since Henry VIII's second wife. “I really wish I had the time,” he said, taking her hand. “I have that early flight tomorrow morning.”

“Screw business,” Mai-Britt joked. “You're on holiday tonight.”

Henri leaned across the table and kissed her cheek.

He imagined her nakedness under his hands – and he let the fantasy go. He was already thinking ahead to his business in L.A., laughing inside at how surprised Ben Hawkins would be to see him.

Chapter 63

Henri spent a three-day weekend at the airport Sheraton in L.A., moving anonymously among the other business travelers. He used the time to reread Ben Hawkins's novels and every newspaper story Ben had written. He'd purchased supplies and made dry runs to Venice Beach and the street where Ben lived, right around the corner from Little Tokyo.

At just after five that Monday afternoon, Henri took his rental car onto the 105 Freeway. The yellowing cement walls lining the eight-laner were illuminated by a golden light, randomly splashed with spiky vines of red and purple bougainvillea and gothic Latino gang graffiti, giving the drab Los Angeles highway a Caribbean flavor, at least in his mind.

Henri took the 105 to the 110 exit at Los Angeles Street, and from there he made his way through stop-and-go traffic to Alameda, a major artery running to the heart of downtown.

It was rush hour, but Henri was in no rush. He was keyed up, focused on an idea that over the last three weeks had taken on potential for life-changing drama and a hell of a finale.

The plan centered on Ben Hawkins, the journalist, the novelist, the former detective.

Henri had been thinking about him since that evening in Maui, outside the Wailea Princess, when Ben had stretched out his hand to touch Barbara McDaniels.

Henri waited out the red light, and when it changed he took a right turn onto Traction, a small street near the Union Pacific tracks that ran parallel to the Los Angeles River.

Following the poky SUV in front of him, Henri trawled down the middle of Ben's homey neighborhood, with its L.A. hipster restaurants and vintage clothing shops, finding a parking spot across from the eight-story, white-brick building where Ben lived.

Henri got out of the car, opened the trunk, and took a sports jacket from his bag. He stuck a gun into the waistband of his slacks, buttoned his jacket, and raked back his brown and silver-streaked hair.

Then he got back into the car and found a good music station, spent about twenty minutes watching pedestrians meander along the pleasant street, listening to Beethoven and Mozart, until he saw the man he was waiting for.

Ben was in Dockers and a polo shirt and was carrying a beat-up leather briefcase in his right hand. He entered a restaurant called Ay Caramba, and Henri waited patiently until Ben emerged with his take-out Mexican dinner in a plastic bag.

Henri got out of his car, locked it, followed Ben across Traction right up the short flight of stairs to where Ben was fitting his key into the lock.