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Margaret now looked him over carefully. “Which brings me to our reunion.” A sip of wine. “I had to find the Compound. I knew about it, but not where it was. And I was too paranoid to use a computer or phone to contact Mary Dove or you. One of the reasons I’ve survived this long is because of what Ashton taught me.” She paused a moment. “And the reason I wanted to find the Compound was…because I needed you, Colter.”

He could see where this was going and he gestured encouragingly.

“In my reporting I learned about a company based in Brussels. A chocolate manufacturer, what else? Their confections are quite good. Popular throughout Europe. But that is merely a cover. Their main function is to engineer misinformation campaigns. And, far more troubling, the company employs one particular individual to identify and murder those exposing totalitarian and anti-democratic threats. Activists and journalists like myself. He’s killed at least five in Russia and other Eastern European Countries. Two in the Middle East.

“I learned that last week he was given the assignment of killing a person or persons within the next month here in the U.S. My source had only limited information. The assassin is a man, middle aged, and he works in the bookkeeping department of the company. That’s what he’s known as, his code name: the Bookkeeper. No one outside the organization knows his identity but the rumors are he is obsessed with balance sheets—and numbers—and is quite good at that job. As good as he is at murder.”

She smiled. “Yes, yes, Colter. You understand now. The Institute for the Freedom of Journalism has offered a reward for information leading to the identity and arrest of this man. And yes, thisisthe man who killed Robert. Now, I must say—”

“I’ll do it.”

“You don’t want to know about what the Institute is offering?”

If ever there was a reward-free reward job this was it.

“No.”

“Thank you, thank you,” she whispered as relief and gratitude flooded her face. “No one has the resources or the desire, frankly, to pursue anyone with no known record—and no known identity. MI5 and -6, the FBI, the State Department, Homeland, the SDECE in France…If we could give them a name and location, proof of past crimes, maybe some evidence of what he has planned, then they would start a file and assign investigators. But until then, we are on our own.”

“Do you know the targets?”

“No, just that they’re in or near the same city in the U.S.

“The institute has several safe houses they use for at-risk journalists. They will set you up in one there, if you’d like. I’ll meet you there and—”

“No,” Colter said. “It’s time for you to go back underground. It’s what”—he smiled—“ourfather would have wanted.”

A sigh. “The truth is, I am tired. Endless fighting finally catches up with old bones. The damn body. It simply does not always cooperate.” She dug into her purse and pulled out an envelope. “Here’s the address of the safe house and the phone number of the institute.”

He opened the envelope and glanced at the details of the place that would be his new home for—well, however long it took to find the Bookkeeper and report him to the authorities.

Or come up with a different, perhaps a more efficient, solution to bring him to justice.

In his work, Coler Shaw had learned that sometimes one person’s survival means another person’s demise.

Margaret added, “The Institute will get you more information if they can find any.”

Shaw nodded, then he noted the hour was nearly midnight and he knew everyone was feeling the same exhaustion he was.

This had been a long, long two days.

He said good night and returned to the camper. Walking over the damp gritty asphalt, he was thinking about where the institute’s safe house, for which he would leave at first light, was located.

Colter Shaw’s profession had taken him to some exceedingly inhospitable and dangerous locales.

He wondered if this particular destination would prove to be themostinhospitable and dangerous of any he’d yet worked.

Those were the rumors, at least.

But then he’d never been to New York City.

And he recalled one of his father’s most important rules.

Never judge a place until you plant your feet on the ground.