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  For James Gregory Smith

  It was a mistake in the system; perhaps it lay in the precept which until now he had held to be uncontestable, in whose name he had sacrificed others and was himself being sacrificed: in the precept, that the end justifies the means.

  —Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon

  PROLOGUE

  118 Partridge Lane, N.W.

  Palisades

  Washington, D.C.

  Rob Tacoma sped the Italian sports car across downtown Washington, D.C. It was a balmy evening in early spring, cooler than usual, and the sky was filled with stars and the occasional roar of a jet overhead, descending into Reagan National Airport. The lights of the capital city this Friday evening were like diamonds, glittering from every direction. Tacoma had the roof of the Huracan Spyder down and the wind blew his long dirty-blond hair back and tousled it. The engine revved loud enough for pedestrians along Wisconsin Avenue to turn their heads, though it was a tempered, frustrated growl by the 630-horsepower engine, for Tacoma stayed within ten miles per hour of the speed limit. He crossed through the campus of Georgetown University, where students watched the sleek vehicle, and its driver, as it purred down one of the cobblestone alleys on campus. He took a side route down to Canal Road, along the Potomac, and opened it up a little, finding 100 mph while at the same time keeping in check and not creating any risk for the cars he was weaving by on the busy road. He took a right on Arizona and found his way to a residential street, an address north of Georgetown, a neighborhood of simple, Colonial-style homes, in a part of Washington called Palisades.

  The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Hector Calibrisi, had given Tacoma the address. He was to meet a man named Billy Cosgrove—an operator just back from the Middle East. Like Tacoma, he was an ex–Navy SEAL, but Cosgrove had stayed in government, and was now the Pentagon’s top exfoliation man in the thousand-square-mile territory bordering the Khyber Pass, where Pakistan met Afghanistan. He ran all kill teams in-theater. He liked two-man teams. Occasionally, if the target required an extra layer of manpower, Cosgrove went along.

  Or at least he used to. The CIA had recruited Cosgrove for a different job. Tacoma too. They would be working together. A two-man team. It would be their first meeting.

  Tacoma parked the car in the driveway, next to a maroon Chevy Silverado pickup. He walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. Tacoma waited, listening for footsteps, but he heard nothing. After a few moments, he rang it again.

  Tacoma reached for the doorbell a third time, then stopped before pressing the button. He remained silent and still for a dozen seconds. He smelled the faintest trace of chemicals, a smoky aroma of petrolate. He glanced at Cosgrove’s pickup. Tacoma removed a pick-gun from his pocket and put it against the lock and pressed the button. A small alloy pin extended from the device and found its way into the keyhole. A few seconds later, the lock clicked open. Tacoma opened the door and slowly pushed the door in.

  He said nothing as he stepped inside the house.

  The entrance hallway was empty except for a few cardboard boxes stacked against a bare wall. He walked into Cosgrove’s home. He shut the door gently and looked around. The entrance hallway was dark and it was hard to see anything. He looked into a room off the hallway. There was enough light from outside to illuminate the room. He saw several large cardboard boxes stacked up, a leather chair, and a rolled-up carpet. Cosgrove was a man who had never unpacked.

  The house was a picture of divorce, the result of trying to build a family inside the life of an operator. The fruits of Cosgrove’s sacrifice to his country.

  Though all was still, the scene had the sense of prior chaos.

  After a few moments, Tacoma became aware of a light flickering at the end of the hallway. He walked toward it and came to a set of stairs. But what he thought was the flickering of a light was something altogether different.

  There were lights on upstairs. The flickering was caused by something twirling slowly in the air at the bottom of the stairs, causing the light to undulate, light then dark, as it spun slowly around in a makeshift hanging ground.

  He looked up. Strung up from the ceiling, by a rope around the neck, was Cosgrove.

  Cosgrove’s face was beet red, his eyes were shut and badly bruised, his face caked in dried blood. A long iron railroad spike was nailed completely through his chest. His shirt and everything below were drenched in red.

  Tacoma looked up at Cosgrove with a feeling of utter horror, a feeling, even, of fear. He had killed many men and he’d seen many men die, but he felt, in that moment, as if he was looking into the eyes of the devil himself.

  Tacoma removed his cell and dialed Hector Calibrisi. As he pressed the button for speed dial, he forced himself to look up at Cosgrove’s face. It was badly beaten. There had been a fight.

  The floor felt sticky beneath his shoes. He looked down and registered a wet, glassy sheen of liquid. A pool of blood covered the floor, and Tacoma suddenly realized he was standing in the middle of it.

  He studied the growing pool of crimson. He felt paralyzed. For several seconds, he had a hard time breathing. He remained still and, as he waited for Calibrisi to answer, checked his weapons.

  Tacoma knew Cosgrove’s wife was remarried and lived with their two young children in Atlanta. Tacoma would never wish divorce on anyone, but as he looked up at Cosgrove’s swollen face, he was glad he was the one—and not Cosgrove’s wife or children—who had found him.

  “What is it?” said Calibrisi.

  “Cosgrove is dead,” said Tacoma as he stared at the steel spike that was stabbed into the center of Cosgrove’s chest.

  “What?”

  “Billy Cosgrove, the guy you sent me to meet. I’m at his house.”

  There was a long pause. Through the phone, Tacoma could hear the din of conversation at a restaurant in the background.

  “Say that again, Rob,” Calibrisi whispered.

  “He’s hanging by a rope,” said Tacoma. “They hung him by the rafters and stabbed him with a spike.”

  “Don’t touch him,” said Calibrisi. “And for chrissakes, get out of the goddam house right now!”

  Tacoma saw movement. He looked up past Cosgrove’s dangling corpse to the stairwell that ran up straight to the second floor. He hung up the cell and pocketed it, then stepped behind Cosgrove to the base of the stairs. It was just a patch of light—or darkness—a flutter in his peripheral vision.

  Tacoma knelt. He removed a gun from beneath his armpit, a P226R, with a custom-made, snub-nose alloy suppressor screwed into the muzzle. Tacoma moved to the stairs, stepping around the dangling corpse, which continued to slowly turn and create a prism of patterns across the wall, and across Tacoma’s face as he moved up the dark stairwell.

  CHAPTER 1

  Saint-Tropez

  France

  Three Days Ago

  Tacoma took the RISCON Gulfstream G150 across the ocean and landed in Nice at 4 P.M. local time. He rented, with an anonymous Mastercard, a Ducati 1199 Panigale and took it at a furious clip down the coast of France to Saint-Tropez, along the D559, which zigged and zagged above the rocky Mediterranean coastline, like a rattlesnake on the side of a steep cliff. It was a sun-filled day and the waning bright light wreaked havoc on the roadway, blinding Tacoma for moments at a time as the light hit the tinted visor of the helmet, a black and silver Reevu MSX1, yet he pushed the Ducati to 156.7 mph, screaming into turns no sane man would take at 80. He slowed as he saw the outline of Saint-Tropez in the distance, cutting right onto a road called Boulevard des Sommets, which led through a pretty golf course. After a few winding country roads into the hills, Tacoma saw guards at the end of a driveway. He didn’t acknowledge them, as if he belonged, and they did nothing. He pulsed the bright yellow Ducati past the guards and up a steep hill, then pulled up in front of the crowded, brightly lit château, uninvited. He climbed off the bike and removed the helmet.

  Tacoma was in a blue blazer with white piping along the edges. Beneath he wore a red T-shirt and white jeans. He had on a pair of Adidas running shoes.

  He cut around into the backyard of the beautifully kept, sprawling limestone mansion built in the 1700s. Down a gravel walkway that led from the terrace, he walked through a sweeping garden of perfectly manicured boxwoods and wild bluffs of lavender, now at the seasonal apex of their purple-colored beauty. Ahead stood a large white tent, filled with people.

  Music could be heard from inside the tent along with the sound of conversation, laughter, and celebration. Somewhere there was a band—and Tacoma entered the tent with his eyes scanning.

  Tomorrow, the vows would be taken in the chapel, a small, pretty stone and brick structure, built by hand along with the villa,
which loomed now behind Tacoma, back behind the geometric green gardens lit by lanterns in the dusk.

  This was a celebration. A rehearsal dinner for the daughter of a billionaire, a man, in fact, worth more than $10 billion. It was one of the man’s many properties. She was his only daughter—the man had three sons—and her rehearsal dinner would cost him more than $2 million.

  Much less than RISCON’s fee, a charge being footed by the father of one of the bridesmaids.

  The temperature was in the seventies and there were no clouds in the sky. In the distance, the dark blue waters of the Mediterranean glimmered beneath an early evening that was painted tangerine, black, silver, and blue. Yachts were visible as small white appurtenances and appeared as if they weren’t moving, as if placed there by a small paintbrush in the hands of a master in an Impressionist painting of striking beauty.

  Beneath the large white canvas tent, the rehearsal dinner was well under way. Several hundred people were there, spread out at big tables, men, women, and children, all dressed in stylish clothing, casual but neat. This was the highest echelon of society.

  Tacoma knew no one at the rehearsal dinner, yet he soon blended into the alcohol-infused anarchy of the party.

  He found a seat at a long, fancifully accoutered dining table, with a white tablecloth, crystal stemware, and beautiful women in low-cut dresses. The men were in button-downs and casual linen and khaki pants, and were, like the women, tan and good-looking.

  According to the report, all the bridesmaids were from England. One was royalty, and all but one were the daughters of privilege, including the daughter of his client, who was seated next to the bride-to-be.

  The table was packed. The lighting was low. The sound of music from another part of the estate whistled above conversation and laughter.

  The château was located in the hills above Saint-Tropez. The meal was prepared by Yves Soucant, considered the best chef in France.

  Tacoma’s dirty-blond hair was brushed back over a thick cowlick that jutted up slightly at his forehead, parted to the left, dangling down to the lower ends of his ears. His face was tan. He was clean-shaven, with a sharp nose and big lips. Tacoma was thick and athletic, all muscle. The blazer pressed out, a little tight, accentuating Tacoma’s body.

  * * *

  RISCON had been approached through MI6 about the project.

  This individual—the client—had received a call from a high-level SAP executive whose daughter had been pawned—that is, conned and robbed by a very adept thief who’d already stolen millions from women across Europe and the United States.

  RISCON had been hired to penetrate the wedding and take action on a charming twenty-five-year old Dubliner with dashing Irish looks and swagger. He was at the wedding with one of the bridesmaids, the client’s daughter. His name was Jonathan Greene, but Greene was a fraud, a serial scam artist who’d run through Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, San Francisco, and Dallas, and was now preying upon London. His methods were textbook and well executed. Get women to fall in love, propose marriage, then, in the interim period between engagement and wedding, steal millions.

  According to the report RISCON had done upon being hired, the man, Jonathan Greene, was engaged to two different women in London, and had already pilfered more than nine hundred thousand dollars from the client’s daughter. His basic strategy was simple. Can I borrow a hundred dollars? Write me a check. Greene would then write “thousand dollars” after the “one hundred” and add a few zeros.

  Nobody seemed to notice until after Greene had moved on to another city, another country, another woman. He left little trace.

  RISCON took on the job based on its standard fee structure. A $10 million monthly retainer was required for a minimum of four months; oftentimes RISCON’s actions would lead to counteractions and their continued involvement would be necessary. After the retainer, RISCON proposed fees and such things as per diem, based upon the feasibility of the mission. The harder the objective, the higher the fee. Hiring RISCON wasn’t cheap.

  In this case, if RISCON succeeded in removing the con artist, an $8 million bonus was to be wired immediately. It wasn’t the highest of RISCON’s success fees, but it wasn’t the lowest either.

  The client, a New York City–based oil trader, had agreed to it immediately. He didn’t care what it cost to save his daughter from a scoundrel.

  Tacoma ate ravenously but didn’t drink anything except water. He made small talk with a middle-aged couple from London.

  * * *

  The wedding party took limousines to a nightclub in downtown Saint-Tropez, Les Caves.

  At Les Caves, Tacoma found himself seated in a big leather booth. He started talking to a girl in the wedding party near the bar. She was black and beautiful, had straight jet-black hair, and wore a sheer pink dress. Tacoma and the woman talked for almost an hour, and normally he would’ve been interested in her except he was working. However, he used her interest in him and soon he was in the same booth as the target, Greene.

  Someone made a toast and pretty soon everyone was taking turns.

  “To Thomas and Lizzy,” said one of the bridesmaids in a clipped English accent. “This rehearsal dinner is just so superb and you two are the most beautiful couple ever. Hear hear!”

  In the leather booth, Tacoma was seated beside a young blonde in a white dress. Her hair was curly and she had a British accent. Their legs were pressed against each other and she kept looking over at Tacoma, though she never introduced herself. Her dress was short, at the top of her thighs, and her legs were tan. Tacoma knew many models, and she was as perfect as any he’d seen. He saw a man across the table, a Brazilian whom he recognized, a soccer player.

  The toasts went on forever. Eventually, Tacoma watched as Greene stood up at the far side of the table.

  The lights were dim.

  At some point her hand went down, beneath the table, to Tacoma’s knee.

  She rubbed his thigh softly for several minutes, then turned, speaking to him for the first time.

  “My yacht is down the street,” she said in a pretty British accent. “But we’ll have to be careful. I don’t want my husband to find out.”

  Tacoma tracked Greene’s movement, a weaving, drunken gait toward the restrooms. After Greene went out of view, Tacoma stood up and moved along the same path Greene had just taken. He moved slowly, stopping near the bar and glancing about, buying time. By the time Tacoma reached the restroom, Greene was drying his hands at the sink on the far side of the dimly lit, marble-walled bathroom. They were alone.

  As Tacoma shut the door behind him, he flipped the lock, then stepped toward the sink, meeting Greene as he was leaving.

  “Excuse me,” said Tacoma.

  “Perfectly all right,” Greene said in an aristocratic British accent.

  “Jonathan, right?” said Tacoma enthusiastically.

  Greene’s face took on a horrified look, but he hid it well, and extended his hand.

  “Good to see you again,” said Greene, smiling. He reached out to shake Tacoma’s hand. “And you are?”

  “Rob,” he said.

  “That’s right. Good to see you again, Rob.”

  As Greene extended his hand to shake Tacoma’s, Tacoma seized Greene’s middle finger and bent it sharply back, nearly snapping it. He pushed Greene’s arm down to his side, next to his torso, twisting brutally.

  Greene winced and yelped.

  “What the—” Greene shouted, then he tried to lunge his knee at Tacoma. But Tacoma held the finger tight, the bone at the breaking point. Tacoma suddenly lurched with his other hand as Greene tried to hit him and kick at him. Tacoma snapped Greene’s middle finger mid-bone as his other hand grabbed Greene at the nape of the neck, near the carotid artery, and locked his fingers around a small confluence of bone and nerve, gripping it tightly. Greene abruptly dropped to the floor, letting out a pained moan as he clutched at his neck. Tacoma calmly removed the P226R from beneath his armpit. He threaded a thin but long silencer, designed for maximum noise suppression, as Greene sought to breathe again. Tacoma finished preparing the sidearm just as Greene was able to finally get air into his lungs.