ELATA WALKED ONTO THE DOCK AS A DEAD MAN MUST walk—with great purpose and deliberation. The Italian’s boat had taken him back to Astona, still in Switzerland. But the location did not matter. Morgan undoubtedly had people to trail him; this might even be part of his plan, not the Italian’s. Elata would not get away, and did not intend to. He had already sent the e-mail to Interpol, using their public address obtained off the Web clipper service. He trusted that the note would find its way to the proper person; if it did not, a second one to the FBI in the U.S. was bound to.

The man guiding the Zodiac rubberized craft hadn’t minded him using the pager as they sped toward shore, nor had he reacted when Elata threw the device into the water.

What became of the notes and what the police did in reaction to them no longer concerned him. He had a few Swiss francs in his pocket, enough to buy a small notebook and a pen from the stationer he found two blocks away from the dock. There was enough change for a large coffee at the cafe next door. Wanting privacy and feeling somewhat considerate—surely Morgan’s men would be here at any minute, and he didn’t want to trouble the patrons—he decided to sit outside despite the brisk breeze. Elata took a long sip of the strong, black liquid, then began to write.

“Today, God has proven to me that he does exist,” he wrote on his pad. He labored over the words; he was a painter, not a writer, and even if he was merely writing the truth, he had difficulty letting it flow.

“He has shown how petty man is. Or no, how petty and evil some men are. I must include myself among them. For until today I did not fully understand the potential man has, or what he should truly aspire to. I did not understand how good and evil coexist and do battle always, nor the importance of—”

Elata looked up. A man in a hooded blue sweatsuit stood a few feet from him. A newspaper was folded over his hand; beneath the newspaper, a slim, silenced .22 pistol.

Elata nodded. The paper jerked upward and he heard the sound of a bee swarming around his head. The buzz turned into the drone of a Junker Ju 86; as he slid forward against the table, his eyes were filled with tears, not because of his pain or regret at the way he had lived his life, but because he saw the images Picasso had drawn once more as he died.