There was a muted explosion, like a dull popping noise, and the car suddenly lurched to the left: one of his tires had blown out.

  They were firing at his tires. Trying to disable him. Ben remembered the security expert who’d lectured the senior executives at Hartman Capital Management about kidnapping risks in third-world countries, drilling them on a list of recommended countermeasures. They seemed laughably inadequate to the reality, then as now. Don’t get out of the car was one of the pointers, he remembered. It wasn’t clear he was going to have much of a choice.

  Just then, he heard the unmistakable wail of a police siren. Through a jagged hole in the opaque rear windshield, he saw that a third vehicle was coming up fast from behind the gray sedan, this one a civilian unmarked car with a flashing blue light on its roof. That was all he could see: it was too far away to make out the model. Confusion filled Ben’s mind again, but abruptly the gunfire ceased.

  He watched as the gray sedan made a sudden 180-degree turn over the shoulder of the road, zooming back on the narrow embankment and taking off past the police car. The Renault, his pursuers inside, had gotten away!

  Ben brought his car to a halt just after the stone bridge, lolling his head back in his shock and exhaustion, waiting for the Polizei to arrive. A minute went by, and then another. He craned his neck back to the lethal stretch of road.

  But the police car was gone now, too. The crumpled Saab had been abandoned.

  He was alone, the only sound the ticking of his car’s engines, and the hammering of his own heart. He pulled his Nokia from his pocket, remembered his conversation with Schmid, and made a decision. They can lock you up for twenty-four hours without any cause, Howie had told him. Schmid had made it clear that he was looking for an excuse to do just that. He would put off calling the Polizei. He couldn’t think straight anymore.

  As the adrenaline ebbed, panic gave way to a sense of profound depletion. He badly needed to rest. He needed to refuel, to take stock.

  He drove his ruined Opel, the engine straining, the shredded tires making for a bone-jarring ride, a few miles up a hilly road to the nearest town, although really it was a village, a Dorf. Its narrow streets were lined with ancient stone buildings, progressing from tiny dilapidated structures to larger, half-timbered houses. A few lights were on, but most of the windows were dark. The street was unevenly paved, and the car’s undercarriage, now low to the ground, regularly bumped and scraped against the cobblestone.

  The narrow road became a main street soon enough, lined now with great gabled stone houses and rows of slate-shingled buildings. Now he came to a large cobblestoned square, marked RATHAUSPLATZ, dominated by an ancient Gothic cathedral. At the center of the square was a stone fountain. He appeared to be in a seventeenth-century village built upon much older ruins, its buildings a peculiar hodgepodge of architectural styles.

  Across the town square from the cathedral was a seventeenth-century manor house with crow-stepped gables, marked with a small wooden sign identifying it as the Altes Gebäude, the Old Building, though it looked newer than most of the other buildings in town. Lights blazed from its small-mullioned windows. It was a tavern, a place to get food and drink, to sit and rest and think. He parked his wreck alongside an old farm truck, where it would be largely concealed from view, and went in, his trembling, twitching legs barely supporting his weight.

  Inside, the place was warm and cozy, lit by a flickering fire in an immense stone hearth. It smelled of wood smoke and fried onions and roasted meats, wonderful and inviting. It looked like a traditional Swiss Stübli, an old-style restaurant. One round wooden table was obviously the Stammtisch, the place reserved for the regulars who came in every day to drink beer and play cards for hours. Five or six men, mostly farmers or laborers, regarded him with hostile suspicion, then went back to their cards. Sprinkled throughout the room were others having dinner or drinking.

  Ben realized only now how famished he was. He looked around for a waiter or waitress, saw none, and sat down at an empty table. When a waiter arrived, a small round man of early middle age, Ben ordered something typically Swiss, heavy and reliable: Rösti, roasted potatoes, with Geschnetzeltes, or bits of veal in cream sauce, with a Vierterl, a quarterliter carafe of local red wine. When the waiter returned ten minutes later, balancing several plates on his arm, Ben asked in English: “Where’s a good place to spend the night?”

  The waiter frowned and set down the dinner plates in silence. He moved aside the glass ashtray and the red Altes Gebäude matchbook, poured the deep red wine into a stemmed glass. “The Langasthof,” he said, in a heavy Romansch accent. “It’s the only place for twenty kilometers around.”

  While the waiter gave him directions, Ben tucked into his Rösti. They were brown and crisp, onion-tangy, delicious. He continued wolfing down his dinner, glancing through the partly fogged window at the small parking area outside. Another car was parked alongside his; obstructing his view. A green Audi.

  Something twanged at the back of his mind.

  Wasn’t a green Audi behind him for a good stretch of A3 out of Zurich? He remembered having seen one, worrying whether he was being followed, dismissing it as a figment of an overactive imagination.

  Turning his gaze, he thought he saw, in his peripheral vision, someone staring at him. Yet when his eyes swept the room, there was no one giving him so much as a casual glance. Ben set down his wineglass. What I need is some black coffee, he thought, not more wine. I’m starting to see things that aren’t there.

  Most of his dinner was gone, downed in record time. Now it sat heavily in his stomach, a leaden mass of greasy potatoes and cream sauce. He looked around for the waiter to order a strong coffee. Once again he got that creepy sensation of someone looking over at him, then looking away. He turned to his left, where most of the scarred wooden tables were empty, but a few people sat in dark booths, deep in shadow, next to a long, ornately carved wooden bar that was dark and unoccupied, the only object on its surface an old-fashioned white rotary-dial telephone. One man was sitting alone in a booth, drinking coffee and smoking, a middle-aged man in a worn brown leather bomber jacket with long graying hair pulled back into a ponytail. I’ve seen him before, Ben thought. I know I’ve seen him before. But where? Now the man casually brought an elbow to the table, leaned forward, and rested his head on the outstretched palm, the hand cradling the side of his face.

  The gesture was too studied. The man was trying to hide his face, trying too hard to be casual about it.

  Ben remembered a tall man in a business suit, sallow complexion, long gray hair worn in a ponytail. But from where? He had caught a quick glance of such a man, thinking in passing how ridiculous, how dated, a ponytail looked on a businessman. How … eighties.

  The Bahnhofstrasse.

  Ponytail man had been among the crowd milling around the pedestrian shopping district just before he spotted Jimmy Cavanaugh. Now he was certain of it. The man had been in the vicinity of the Hotel St. Gotthard; later, he’d followed Ben in a green Audi; now he was here, looking decidedly out of place.

  Dear Christ, he’s tailing me, too, Ben thought. Since this afternoon, he’s been watching me. He felt his stomach tighten.

  Who was he, and why was he here? If, like Jimmy Cavanaugh, he wanted to kill Ben—for whatever reason Cavanaugh had tried—why hadn’t he done so already? There had been plenty of opportunities. Cavanaugh had pulled out a gun in broad daylight right on the Bahnhofstrasse. Why would Ponytail hesitate to fire at him in a mostly empty tavern?

  He signaled the waiter, who bustled over with a questioning look. “Could I have a coffee?” Ben asked.

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “And where’s your rest room, your WC?”

  The waiter pointed toward a dimly lit corner of the room, where a small corridor was barely visible. Ben pointed in that direction too, confirming the rest room’s location in as broad a gesture as possible.

  So Ponytail could see where he was going.

  Ben slipped some money under his plate, pocketed one of the restaurant’s matchbooks, got up slowly, and made his way toward the rest room. It was located just off the small corridor, on the other side of the dining room from the kitchen. Restaurant kitchens usually had service entrances from the outdoors, Ben knew, so they made good escape routes. And he didn’t want Ponytail thinking he was trying to leave the restaurant through the kitchen. This rest room was small and windowless; he couldn’t leave this way. Ponytail, presumably some sort of professional, would likely have already checked out the means of egress.

  He locked the rest room door. There was an ancient toilet and equally ancient marble sink basin, and it smelled pleasantly of cleaning liquid. He pulled out his digital phone and dialed the telephone number of the Altes Gebäude. Ben could hear the faint sound of a telephone ringing somewhere in the restaurant. Probably the old rotary-dial phone he’d seen on the bar near Ponytail’s booth, or one in the kitchen, if there was one there. Or both.

  A man’s voice answered, “Altes Gebäude, guten Abend.” Ben was fairly sure it was the waiter.

  Making his voice deep and gravelly, Ben said, “I need to speak to one of your customers, please. Someone who’s having dinner there tonight. It’s urgent.”

  “Ja? Who is that?”

  “Someone you probably don’t know. Not a regular. It’s a gentleman with long gray hair in a ponytail. He’s probably wearing a leather jacket, he always does.”

  “Ah, yes, I think I know what you mean. A man of about fifty years?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. Can you please ask him to come to the phone. As I said, it’s urgent. An emergency.”

  “Yes, at once, sir,” the waiter said, responding to the tension Ben had put in his voice. He set the phone down.

  Leaving the line open, Ben slipped his phone into the breast pocket of his sport coat, left the rest room, and returned to the dining room. Ponytail was no longer sitting at his booth. The telephone was at the bar, which was situated in such a way that it couldn’t be seen from the entrance to the restaurant—Ben hadn’t seen it until he was seated at his table—and no one standing or sitting at it could see either the entrance or the area of the restaurant roughly between the rest room and the entrance. Ben moved quickly to the entrance and out the door. He had bought himself maybe fifteen seconds during which he could leave, unseen by Ponytail, who was at the moment talking into the telephone’s handset, hearing nothing but silence, wondering what had happened to the caller who had identified him so carefully.

  Ben grabbed his bags from the ruined sedan and raced to the green Audi; a key was in the ignition, as if the driver had made preparations for a rapid getaway. Theft was probably unknown in this sleepy village, but there had to be a first time. Besides, Ben had a strong suspicion that Ponytail wasn’t in a position to notify the police about his vehicle’s disappearance. This way, he gained a working vehicle while depriving his pursuer of one. Ben leaped in and started it up. There was no sense in trying to be quiet now; Ponytail would hear the ignition of the engine. He threw the car into reverse, then, with a squeal of rubber, barreled over the cobblestoned expanse and, at top speed, out of the Rathausplatz.

  Fifteen minutes later, he pulled up near a half-timbered stone building in a remote, wooded area off the small country road. A small sign in front read LANGASTHOF.

  He tucked the car away discreetly behind a dense stand of pine trees and walked back to the front door of the guest house, where a small sign said EMPFANG, reception.

  He rang the bell, and waited a few minutes before a light came on. It was midnight, and obviously he had awakened the proprietor.

  An old man with a deeply lined face opened the door and, with a put-upon air, led Ben down a long, dark hall, switching on little wall sconce lights as he went, until he came to an oak-plank doorway marked 7. With an old skeleton key, he unlocked the door and switched on a small bulb, illuminating a snug room dominated by a double bed on which a white duvet was neatly folded. The diamond-patterned wallpaper was peeling.

  “This is all we have,” the proprietor said gruffly.

  “It’ll do.”

  “I’ll put the heat on. It will take a good ten minutes.”

  A few minutes later, after he’d unpacked only what he needed for the night, Ben went into the bathroom to run the shower. The setup looked so alien, so complicated—four or five knobs and dials, a telephone-style hand-shower hanging on a hook—that Ben decided it wasn’t worth it. He splashed cold water on his face, unwilling to wait for hot water to find its way through the pipes, brushed his teeth, and undressed.

  The duvet was luxurious and lofty with goose down. He fell asleep almost immediately.

  Some time later—hours, it seemed, though he couldn’t be sure, since his travel alarm clock was still in his suitcase—he heard a noise.

  He sat upright, his heart racing.

  He heard it again. It was a soft but audible squeak, floorboards beneath the carpet. It came from near the doorway.

  He reached over to the end table and grabbed the brass lamp at its base. With the other hand, he slowly yanked the cord out of its wall socket, freeing the lamp to be swung.

  He swallowed hard. His heart hammered. He quietly swung his feet free of the duvet and over to the floor.

  He lifted the lamp slowly, careful not to disturb anything else on the end table. When he had a good grip on it, he quietly, quietly, hoisted it up above his head.

  And sprang suddenly off the bed.

  A powerful arm reached out, grabbed at the lamp, wrenched it from his hands. Ben lunged toward the dark shape, turned his shoulder, and jammed it into the intruder’s chest.

  But in the same instant a foot swung out, catching Ben at the ankles, knocking him down. With all his strength, Ben tried to rear up and pummel his attacker with his elbows, but a knee rammed into his chest and his solar plexus, and the wind was knocked out of him. Before he had the chance to attempt another move, the intruder’s hands shot forward, slamming Ben’s shoulders down, pinning him to the floor. As soon as his breath came back, Ben let out a great bellow, but then a large hand clapped his mouth shut and Ben found himself looking into the haunted face of his brother.

  “You’re good,” Peter said, “but I’m still better.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Asunción, Paraguay

  The rich Corsican was dying.

  He had been dying for three or four years, however, and probably had a good two years or more left in him.

  He lived in a grand Spanish Mission-style villa in a wealthy suburb of Asunción, at the end of a long drive lined with palm trees, surrounded by acres of beautifully landscaped property.

  Señor Prosperi’s bedroom was on the second floor, and though it was flooded with light, it was so choked with medical equipment that it looked like an emergency room. His much younger wife, Consuela, had slept in her own bedroom for years.

  When he opened his eyes this morning, he did not recognize the nurse.

  “You’re not the regular girl,” he said, his voice a phlegm-laden croak.

  “Your regular nurse is ill this morning,” said the pleasant-looking blond young woman. She was standing at the side of his bed, doing something to his IV drip.

  “Who sent you?” Marcel Prosperi demanded.

  “The nursing agency,” she replied. “Please calm down. It will do you no good to be upset.” She turned the valve on the drip fully open.

  “You people are always pumping me full of things,” Señor Prosperi grumbled, but this was all he was able to get out before his eyes closed and he lost consciousness.

  A few minutes later the substitute nurse checked his pulse at the wrist and found there was none. Casually she turned the IV valve back to its usual setting.

  Then, her face suddenly contorted by grief, she ran to break the terrible news to the old man’s widow.

  Ben sat up on the carpeted floor, felt the blood drain from his head, then fell forward onto his knees.

  He was overcome by vertigo, felt as if his head were spinning while his body was frozen, as if his head were disconnected from his body.

  He was overcome by memories, of the funeral, of the burial ceremony at the small cemetery in Bedford. Of the rabbi chanting the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead: Yisgadal v’yiskadash shmay rabbo … Of the small wooden casket that held the remains, his father’s composure suddenly cracking as the casket was lowered into the hole, crumpling to the ground, fists clenched, his hoarse wail.

  Ben squeezed his eyes shut. The memories kept flooding his overloaded mind. The call in the middle of the night. Driving out to Westchester County to break the news to his parents. He couldn’t do it over the phone. Mom, Dad, I have some bad news about Peter. A beat of silence; do I really have to go through this, what else is there to say? His father had been asleep in the immense bed, of course: it was four o’clock in the morning, an hour or so before the old man normally awoke.

  His mother in her mechanized hospital bed in the adjoining room, the night nurse dozing on the couch.

  Mom first. It seemed the right thing. Her love for her boys was uncomplicated, unconditional.

  She whispered simply, “What is it?” and stared at Ben uncomprehending. She seemed to have been yanked from deep in a dream: disoriented, still half in the dream world. I just got a call from Switzerland, Mom, and Ben, kneeling, put a gentle hand on her soft cheek as if to cushion the blow.

  Her long hoarse scream awakened Max, who lurched in, one hand outstretched. Ben wanted to hug him, but Dad had never encouraged such intimacy. His father’s breath was fetid. His few strands of gray hair were matted, in wild disarray. There’s been an accident. Peter … At times like these we speak in clichés and mind it not a bit. Cliches are comforting; they’re well-worn grooves through which we can move easily, unthinkingly.

  Max had at first reacted not at all as Ben had expected: the old man’s expression was stern, his eyes flashed with anger, not grief; his mouth came open in an O. Then he shook his head slowly, closing his eyes, and tears coursed down his pale lined cheeks as he shook his head and then collapsed to the floor. Now he seemed vulnerable, small, defenseless. Not the powerful, formidable man in the perfectly tailored suits, always composed, always in control.