“If we decide to work with you,” said Gold, “there is a precondition you must accept. That is, in our employ you will regard Juba as our property. Our goal is not to put a bullet in his head. That does limited good and would only satisfy in an Old Testament sense—”

“And nobody here believes in the Old Testament,” said Cohen, and this time there was some laughter.

“Our goal,” said Gold, “is to have a series of chats with him. We need to unravel his life. He harbors many mysteries and will settle many issues. Assuming our success at that enterprise, we will try him, then imprison him. He will live the remainder of his life in an Israeli prison. If you shoot him without cause, we will try you for murder. Though oceans of our blood have been spilled, we are not, as a culture, particularly bloodthirsty. We are justice thirsty. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Can you live by those rules?”

“Yes.”

“We are professionals, not avengers. We expect the same from you.”

That seemed to do it. The session had lasted six hours, he realized. He was hungry. But the men at the table seemed to communicate by nod or even subtler stratagems, and after a pause for wordless communication, Gold went through the nature of the professional arrangements, involving contracts, payments, insurance, next-of-kin notification, and other bureaucratic necessities.

“Do you have any questions?”

“I am curious about one thing. What in the presentation convinced you this was worth following and not a scam or a dumb-ass initiative by amateurs?”

“On January fifteenth, 2014, an Israeli businessman, who was secretly our agent and very well known by many of the men in this room, was leaving Dubai. He was shot by a sniper on the tarmac as he waited to board the jet and killed. Very long, impressive shot. But mysterious too.”

“Why?”

“He thought—and we thought—his cover was secure. He had been in Dubai for two weeks, attending to issues. On several occasions, he was accessible, we realized, to shorter, easier, more certain shots. We were baffled by the fact that it was not until his last day that he was taken from us, and the shot was much harder. But the bill of lading that Mrs. McDowell located in the SouthStar files provides the answer. Juba was out of ammunition. He had fired his quarterly allotment, and he would not move without the Bulgarian in his magazine. It arrived the thirteenth. He immediately was dispatched to Dubai. With his preferred ammunition finally in stock, he made the shot, though much harder than it could have been. The bullet was recovered, and indeed it was the heavy ball, although we attached no importance to that at the time. But now we see that it explains the timing.”