“About your death?” Bloch paused, choosing his words carefully. “I’m not sure. Edmund Deadmarsh was declared legally dead in the Commonwealth of Virginia last month. And of course she hasn’t heard from you. As you know, I went to see her a few weeks after Geneva, when you first insisted on this madness. She had trouble with it then, but now she seems more … accepting. I think she believes that if you’d survived you would have found your way to her by now.”

They meandered the promenade in silence, and at the crest of the cliff reached a white stone wall beyond which was a thousand-foot plunge to the deep blue Mediterranean. Bloch knew they were less than three hundred miles north of Tripoli, the roof of the Sahara, yet the arid onshore breeze born of the sirocco seemed at odds with the azure seascape before them.

He said, “Christine permitted me to see your son. He is only two months old but already has your—”

“Son?” Slaton stopped abruptly. He turned away, the dry breeze whipping his hair.

“My God!” Bloch stammered. He watched the kidon closely, saw his hands thrust deep into his pockets, the thick muscles tensing under his shirt. “You didn’t even know that much?”

“The less I know the better.”

Bloch pulled out his phone, called up the photograph he’d taken, and said, “Here, David. I took a picture of him with—”

In a flash Slaton whipped around and snatched Bloch’s phone. Without even looking at the screen, he smashed it against the stone wall and heaved the plastic and silicon remains spinning toward the sea below.

Bloch said nothing, and for a very long time they stood side by side at the stone precipice. “David—” he finally picked up, “you don’t have to do this. I can go back to Tel Aviv. I could tell them that—”

“No!” Slaton cut in. His voice fell to a quiet, hushed tone. “You will go back to Tel Aviv and tell this director and any other that if Christine and my son are ever … I repeat, ever put at risk, I will start with the prime minister of Israel and work my way down.” He met Bloch’s eyes. “Are we perfectly clear on this?”

“And your wife and child? You truly intend to never see them again?”

Slaton shifted his stare out to sea.

Bloch shook his head and looked up at the flawless blue sky. He tried to put himself in the kidon’s untenable position. He tried to understand. “Tell me, David. Is it possible to care for someone that much?”

Without answering, Slaton turned and walked away.