In the corridor above, Ridgeway watched the elevator come to a stop at his floor. The door opened gracefully and Seth was about to step in when he heard a voice calling to him.

“Mein Herr.”

The voice sounded foreign yet familiar. Friend or assassin? Seth whirled toward the voice, plunged his hand into his pocket, and found the Magnum. Near the door to his room, he saw a man coming toward him, looking vaguely familiar. Seth tensed. Where had he seen the man? Where had he heard his voice?

“I am glad to have found you before you left,” the man said as he continued to walk toward Seth. He was dark, thin, plainly dressed. “The desk telephoned and there was no answer in your room. You are in great danger.”

There was no danger in the man’s voice or in the way he walked. Confusing signals, a stranger in his hotel corridor. How did the man know he was here? Ridgeway’s heart pounded. The man seemed harmless.

And so did a young woman who appeared at the companionway on your boat.

Seth cocked the hammer of the Magnum as the man stepped into a pool of light spilled into the corridor by a brass sconce.

It was the taxi driver who had brought him from the train station the previous night. Behind him, Seth heard the elevator door close.

Ridgeway flicked the safety back on the Magnum, pulled his right hand from his pocket, and extended it toward the smiling Turkish Gastarbeiter who had shared a meal and his dreams of a better life with Ridgeway the night before. The man took Ridgeway’s hand and shook it enthusiastically. Then the smile vanished from his face.

“There are men asking questions about you,” the cab driver said in his terrible German. “They say they are with the police… the government. But something smells with these men. I have seen their type too many times. They are arrogant and they are bad men. I believe they work for the Russian Mafia or perhaps some other evil organization just like them. They dress like bankers and they offer great sums of money to know where you are. I have told them nothing. You have been too kind to me.”

Ridgeway looked at the cabdriver, and for a brief moment felt ashamed that such a small kindness such as he had shown to this man was all it had taken to win his allegiance. And then he felt grateful, thankful that there were still good people in the world, people like this simple immigrant, who were good, honest, decent people.

“How many of them were there?” Seth asked.

“Two, three, I think. They arrived at the train station this morning and began showing your picture around.”

“My picture! What kind of picture? What did it look like?”

The cabdriver closed his eyes and screwed up his face as if he were searching files in his head. “A color picture,” he said finally. “There was a lady in the picture with you.” He opened his eyes. “A very pretty lady. You were sitting at a table, maybe a café or a nightclub. I remember there was a name in the background behind you but I don’t remember the name.”