Austin's heart ratcheted up a beat. He was defenseless. All he could do was stall for time. “I think you've made a mistake.”

“No mistake. That's why I asked what you were doing here. I didn't want to shoot some tourist who just dropped by to buy some eggs. The fact that you were looking for Martin shows you're here to stop me.”

“Stop you from doing what?”

“Carrying out my contract.”

“I don't know anything about any contract, but are you telling me you're not Martin?”

“Heck no. I killed him a long time ago.”

“Why? He was just a test pilot.”

“Nothing personal, just like with you. I worked for the OSS under Wild Bill Donovan. I was what they'd call a hit man today. I pulled a few assignments after the war, then told them I wanted to retire. The boss said there was no way they could let me do that. I knew too much. So we worked out a deal. They'd keep me active for one more job. The only problem was, they didn't know when the order would be carried out. It could be five months or five years.” He chuckled. “No one figured it would go on this long, especially me.” Austin noticed that Martin had lost his folksy farm accent.

“Who were you supposed to kill?” one to know about. They devised a system so that if anyone started snooping and got too close, the protocol would be activated. Here's the real clever thing. They would make potential opposition come to me. They set me up here in the middle of nowhere. When you started poking around, it triggered a series of commands. One would tell you where I was. The last would tell me to carry out the original sanction against the speaker of the House. Seems he heard about the government's secret and was going to blow the whistle."

“This protocol you're talking about must be fifty years old The congressman you were supposed to kill has been dead for years.”

“That doesn't matter,” he said with a shake of his head. “I'm still under orders. Sad thing, that secret's so old it probably doesn't make a difference one way or the other.” He lapsed back into his farm accent, and the blue eyes grew hard and cold. “Sure glad you came, son. I'm officially retired after this.”

The gun came up. Austin braced himself for the deafening blast. He tensed his stomach muscles as if by sheer will he could prevent the slug from tearing into his rib cage. Had he time to think about it, he would have ruminated on the irony, after surviving countless near-fatal assignments, of dying at the hands of a half-deaf, near-blind, octogenarian assassin.

A figure suddenly materialized behind Martin. It was Buzz. The old man's sight was still keen enough for him to detect an involuntary change in Austin's expression. He whirled around as Buzz cried out in surprise. “You're not my father!”