“Forget Krieger,” Barrow had urged, patting Klay’s shoulder. “Chuck Yeager was a helluva pilot. But he never went to the moon. Didn’t have to. Moon was for other folks.”

“What other folks?” Klay had asked. “In this particular case.”

Barrow hadn’t tapped his incisor at that. Instead, he’d shrugged. When it came to Terry Krieger, Barrow was toothless. So was the rest of the world.

It wasn’t that different from how Little Nicky took over Atlantic City, only on a much larger and more lethal scale. Anyone paying attention could see what turning the keys over to Terry Krieger meant. But instead of objecting, they gambled. People took what benefitted them and ignored the rest. Conservationists gratefully accepted Krieger’s wildlife-tracking technology. Farmers deployed his agricultural drones. Governments used his security services. People tuned in to his easy-to-digest, hate-mongering Perseus Group News. Even the CIA had invested in Perseus Group stock. The list went on. Behind Perseus Group’s new and popular technologies was a second truth: many of those same technologies were being used for terrible ends. Everyone knew it, but no one did anything about it. They got what they wanted and left policing Krieger to someone else. But there was no one else. Barrow had confirmed that.

Someone had to stand up to him.

“Something wrong?” the bartender asked.

Klay looked up. He’d been talking to himself. “No,” he said. “Just something a friend of mine said once. About history repeating itself . . .”

“It tends to do that,” the bartender said, but Klay didn’t hear him.

He didn’t hear the bartender calling to tell him he’d left too much money, either. He was moving too quickly. Outside, on the sidewalk, Klay took out his cell phone and dialed South Africa.

“Botha,” he said. “It’s time to go hunting.”

HERE LIES TOM KLAY

Greenwood Cemetery

Alexandria, Virginia

He had killed before. That was his thought. A boy riding a bicycle. It was raining now, too, a soft rain, nearly a mist. Klay stood out of view on a rise far above the grave site, near the grave digger’s utility shed, watching Tenchant’s mourners arrive. He reminded himself that what he was seeing was their reality, not his. Tenchant was the victim of a terrible crime. Klay was in mourning for Tenchant, not because of him.

“My husband,” Maggie had cried into the phone. “You promised,” she wept. “You promised me.”

“Wife has no idea,” Barrow had said with a firmness suggesting he had gone to some length to be sure.

“I’m so sorry, Maggie,” Klay said, and recited a version of what he knew she’d already been told. They went after the prosecutor’s task force, and Tenchant was there . . . It happened in seconds . . . He felt no pain . . .