At that point, Matthias had felt like there was no other choice, and told the man to go along his merry way.

In the aftermath, the suicidal thing had come back and he had considered it seriously. But then his second in command had shown up just in time—sure as if the guy had seen where he was headed.

Very persuasive man, that one. And as it had turned out, Jim had saved his body, but that second in command had somehow brought him back to life.

Although there had been consequences to the renewal: almost immediately, Matthias had opened his eyes—or one eye, as it were—to the mistake of letting Heron go: that soldier was out in the world with too much information, and the exposure wasn’t acceptable.

His second in command had agreed, and they had been about to set the wheels in motion for an “accident” when Jim had called looking for information on one Marie-Terese Boudreau. Perfect. Timing. The plan had been to have Jim take out Isaac in exchange for the intel he wanted—and then to murder Jim.

Except someone had gotten to Heron first.

Dead. Jim was dead. Matthias had seen the body with his own eyes. And yet . . . somehow he felt as though he’d spoken to the guy. Yes, he had dreamed that he had talked with Jim Heron—

Matthias came awake with his gun in his hand, the safety off the weapon and the muzzle pointed at a white guy in a navy blue uniform—who had, going by the jimmy in his hand, just pried the lock and opened the car door.

The paramedic froze and put his hands up. “I just want to help you, man.”

Probably true enough. But damn it to hell, the guy’s partner was undoubtedly calling in the police right now, and p.s., doing any kind of face-to-face with a civilian wasn’t a bene in Matthias’s book.

He lowered his gun. “I’m a federal agent.” He put his hand into his coat and decided to flash his FBI credentials—which were legit to a point.

The paramedic leaned in and squinted at the laminated photograph and the bullshit name and the very real crest. “Oh . . . sorry, sir. We got a call. . . .”

“It’s okay. Just pulled three days straight up at the Canadian border and I’m on my way to Manhattan. I got off the Northway looking for some chow around four a.m., but there was nothing open and I had to get some sleep. You know how that is.”

“Oh, I so get that.”

Chatter, chatter, chatter . . . blah, blah, blah . . .

When the police showed up, they ran the ID in their system, and gee frickin’ whiz, it checked out. And his story about being on a classified mission and having to pull over from exhaustion was consumed like a Thanksgiving dinner: He went from criminal to celebrity.

Stupid fools.