After Grace had been killed—after I’d tracked down her killer and torn him apart—I thought I’d reached my limit with this kind of work and this kind of life. Then the Seven Kings case blew up in my face and suddenly I was ankle deep in blood again. As much as I hated being a part of that fight, I discovered the ugly truth that it defined me. Not the killing. No, not that. It was the fight itself. It never seemed to be over and until it was, how could I, in good conscience, lay down my gun and let the innocent fend for themselves? How could I do that and not go crazy myself? Church had been a warrior in this far longer than anyone else I knew. During the Kings thing he tried to explain it to me. He said, “The darkness is all around us. Very few people have the courage to light a candle against it. We hold a candle against the darkness. Like the unknown and unseen enemy we fight, people like you and me—we are the darkness. In some ways we are more like the things we’re fighting than the people we’re protecting. We are part of the darkness. Granted our motives are better—from our perspective—but we wait in the darkness for our unseen enemy to make a move against those innocents with the candles. And by that light, we take aim.”

I repeated those words to Rudy.

“I remember you telling me this. And I remember when you decided that this was, in fact, who you were.”

“Sure, and that’s all very noble, very grand, but can I say that I’m that kind of warrior and measure it against cracking a joke while I shoot a bound prisoner who’s praying for mercy from God?”

Rudy began to answer, but there was a discreet tap on the door.

“I have to go, Rude.”

“Joe—we need to finish this conversation.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

I hung up, got to my feet, and pulled my gun from my waistband.

Chapter Sixty-six

Chapter Sixty-Six

Mustapha’s Daily Goods

Tehran, Iran

June 15, 3:19 p.m.

I opened the door a quarter inch. Enough to see a single eye peering in at me. If that eye was red or even reddish I was going to put a bullet through it.

“Are you okay in there, my friend? Do you need assistance?”

They were the kinds of question anyone would ask, but the exact phrasing was a prearranged code. I opened the door a few inches, pistol out of sight. Ghost stuck his nose into the crack and began cataloging everything he could about the man outside.

“I’m just a little tired from the trip,” I said, using the proper response to the coded questions.

“Perhaps I can help,” he said.