“Stand and fight!” he screamed, and his voice broke mid-shout.

I kept smiling.

“Tell you what… I’ll let you hit me. How’s that? Just to make it fair.” I patted my gut.

“Fuck you!” Spit flew from from his lips as he snarled, but he also took the opening and threw everything he had into an uppercut that was probably his favorite deal closer. I sucked my gut back and shifted ever so slightly with bent knees so that only some of the impact hit my tensed abs, but most of the real force was defused. I knew that it wouldn’t feel that way to him. In fact, he’d feel the firmness of contact, feel the shock of the impact in his knuckles and wrist. It simply wasn’t anywhere near as hard as he thought it was. I learned that trick from a West Baltimore boxer named Little Charlie Brown. Hell of a sweet trick. The guy slams you one and he’s convinced that he nailed you, but aside from some sting you aren’t hurt.

I slapped Carteret across the face and stepped back, lightly patting my gut. I put a look of amused disappointment on my face. If I’d used my fist and beaten him to a pulp he would have had a totally different reaction. That was big pain; that was a warrior being defeated in battle. He would have manned up and endured and stonewalled. This was different. It made him a different person because it disallowed anything connected to his adult strength.

Down on the primal level, in the logic centers of the lizard brain, he knew he could not beat me. He believed that he couldn’t hurt me. He’d given me his best and it hadn’t even put a twitch on my mouth. Carteret’s face was a mask of pain. His subconscious mind kept scrambling to assign emotional cause to the tears in his eyes. I could see the tension grow in his face but leak out of his muscles; his shoulders began to slump.

I slapped him again. Quick and light, like a period at the end of a sentence.

“You’re all alone out here,” I said.

He tried to slide past me toward the door. I shifted into his path, faked him out, and slapped him with my right. He made an attempt at a block, but it was weak-he was already telling himself that it wouldn’t work.

“And you’re going to tell me everything I want to know.”

He looked past me at the knife lying on the table. He lunged for it. I pivoted off of his lunge and used my turning hip to send him crashing into the wall. While he was getting to his feet I folded the knife and put it in my pocket. Then I kick-faked him and slapped his right and left cheeks.

Tears were streaming down his face. The skin on his cheeks was a ferocious red.

“The people you work for can’t help you.”

Another slap.

“And they’ll never know you told me.”

Slap.

“But it’s the only chance you have left.”

Slap.

“Stop it!” he said, but his voice was as broken as his spirit.

Slap. A bit harder, sending a message about insubordination. Carteret collapsed against the wall. He tried to push himself off. I moved to slap him again and his knees buckled. He slid down the wall, shaking his head, weeping openly now.

I stood over him, within reach, the dare implied in my distance to him, but my smile was the promise of what would happen if he tried and failed.

He didn’t try. His cheeks were so raw there were drops of blood coming from his pores. It looked like he was weeping blood.

I stood there. “Look at me.”

He shook his head.

“Look at me,” I said more forcefully, putting terrible promise in the words.

Slowly, warily, he raised his head. I would like to think that at that moment he was taking personal inventory of the things he’d done, of the abuse he’d heaped upon the helpless New Men. That would be sweet, but this wasn’t a TV movie. All he cared about was whether he could save his own ass-from the immediacy of further harm and ultimately from whatever kind of punishment I chose to inflict. He was using what wits he had to sort through his options. How to spin this. How to survive the moment. How to spin a deal.

“I want immunity,” he said. I don’t know what court he thought would grant it. He was right; these were international waters. Maybe he was afraid I’d turn him over to the Costa Ricans, or take him back to the states, or maybe put him in the dock in some world court. It didn’t matter. He wanted something that he thought would save him, and in exchange I knew he’d tell me everything.

“I want immunity,” he said again. “Or I won’t tell you anything.”

“Sure,” I lied.

In flight

Conrad Veder was unhappy.

The private jet was luxurious, the food excellent, the cabin service first rate, but he was not pleased. His contact, DaCosta, had reached out to Veder using a private number to a disposable phone that he carried for single-use communication.

“There’s been a change of plans,” said DaCosta.

“What change?”

“My client would like you to put your current assignment on hold.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“This is irregular,” said Veder.

“I know. But he was insistent.”

“Does that mean the contract is canceled?”

“Canceled?” DaCosta sounded surprised. “No. No, not at all. Apparently there is another matter he would like to discuss with you. A side job.”

“And you don’t know what it is.”

“No. He said he would like to discuss it with you.”

“I can give you a phone number-”

“No… he wants to discuss it with you face-to-face.”

“I don’t do face-to-face. You know that.”

“I told him.”

“Then why are we having this conversation?”

“He told me to say that he will provide a bonus equal to half the agreed price of the current contract if you meet with him.”

That was three and a half million dollars. Even so, Veder said, “No.”

“He said that he would wire the money to your account before the meeting.”

Veder said nothing.

“And he said to tell you that if you accept the side job, he will double the entire amount of the original contract.”

Veder said nothing.

“On top of the meeting bonus.”

Veder, for all of his deep-rooted calm, felt a flutter in his chest. That would mean that this entire job would net seventeen and a half million dollars. He thought about that for a long minute, and DaCosta waited him out.

“Where and when?”

“He’ll send a private jet.” DaCosta told Veder the location and time.

“You know I’ll assess the situation,” Veder said. “If this is a trick or a trap, then I’ll walk away.”

“My client knows that.”

“And I’ll hold you responsible for setting me up.”

This time DaCosta said nothing for almost thirty seconds.

“It’s not a setup. Check with your bank in thirty minutes. The money will have been wire transferred.”

Veder said nothing.

“Are you there?” DaCosta asked.

“How do I know that this will even be the client?”

“He told me that you’d ask. He said that if you did I was to say this: you are needed in the West.”

Veder said nothing. It was the right code. The client had to be either Otto Wirths or Cyrus Jakoby. Veder had already determined that they were the ones who had been paying him to assassinate the remaining members of the List. They were the only people-apart from Church and the woman named Aunt Sallie-who knew about the Brotherhood of the Scythe and of his code name: West.

Veder did not like it. It meant stepping out of the antiseptic world of clean kills with no emotional connection and back into the muddier world of politics and idealism. Veder held both in contempt. Thirty years ago he had been recruited into the Brotherhood for his skills, and back then he was susceptible to idealistic rhetoric and flattery. The Brotherhood was to be the world’s most deadly alliance-the four greatest living assassins. It had been done with the ostentatious ritualism of the old Nazi Thule Society. The members of the Brotherhood wore masks when they met. They swore blood oaths. They promised fealty to the Cabal and all it stood for.