The speaker said softly, "It's your friend and classmate. Gerard Dupre."

Hansen's face melted into pasty blankness. The voice was less angry, less animated than he remembered. But it could be Dupre, he thought. For a moment Hausen wasn't able to say anything else. His head filled with a nightmare collage of faces and images.

The caller intruded on the vision. "Yes, it's Dupre. The man you threatened. The man you warned not to come back. But now I have come back. As Gerard Dominique, revolutionary."

"I don't believe it's you," Hausen finally said.

"Shall I give you the name of the café? The name of the street?" The voice hardened. "The names of the girls?"

"No!" Hansen snapped. "That was your doing, not mine!"

"So you say."

"No! That's how it was."

The voice repeated slowly, "So you say."

Hausen said, "How did you get this number?"

"There's nothing I cannot get," the caller said, "no one I cannot reach."

Hausen shook his head. "Why now?" he asked. "It's been fifteen years--"

"Only a moment of time in the eyes of the gods." The caller laughed. "The gods, by the way, who now want to judge you."

"Judge me?" Hausen said. "For what? Telling the truth about your crime? What I did was right--"

"Right?" the caller cut him off. "You ass. Loyalty, Haussier. That's the key to everything. Loyalty in bad times as well as in good. Loyalty in life and loyalty at the moment of death. That is one thing which separates the human from the subhuman. And in my desire to eliminate subhumans, I plan, Haussier, to begin with you."

"You are as monstrous now as you were then," Hausen declared. His hands were sweating. He had to grip the phone tightly to keep from dropping it.

"No," the caller said. "I am more monstrous. Very much more. Because not only do I have the desire to execute my will, but now I have established the means."

"You?" Hausen said. "Your father established those means--"

"I did!" the caller snapped. "Me. All me. Everything I have, I earned. Papa was lucky after the war. Anyone with a factory became rich then. No, he was as foolish as you are, Haussier. Though at least he had the good grace to die."

This is madness, Hausen thought. "Dupre," he said, "Or should I say Dominique. I don't know where you are or what you've become. But I, too, am more than I was. Very much more. I'm not the college boy you remember."

"Oh, I know." The caller laughed. "I've followed your moves. Every one of them. Your rise in the government, your campaign against hate groups, your marriage, the birth of your daughter, your divorce. A lovely girl, by the way, your daughter. How is she enjoying ballet?"

Hausen squeezed the phone tighter. "Harm her and I'll find you and kill you."