“‘Hahaha,’” Eady echoed, looking quizzically at Klay. “How do you know it was Botha?”

“I don’t know it. But he signed it. ‘Ras Botha.’”

Eady shook his head. “The Octopus, you called him, right? He’s a murderer, Tom. We knew that before, but now you know it firsthand. That changes things, I’d say.”

“There was something else on that plateau,” Klay said. “Something just before the shot . . .”

“I know. Bernard. Pity. But you’re a hero, Tom. Your actions saved the rest of—”

“No, something else. It’s on the edge of my memory. I can’t quite get it.”

“Something else?” Eady looked at Klay thoughtfully for a moment. He seemed to decide something, then got to his feet and began to pace. “Good. Keep at it. Though it might not be a memory at all. Had a gorilla subadult hit me on the head once. Just a punch right on top here—” He poked a finger into his white hair. “Woke up thinking the old man had popped me for playing hooky from Exeter. Saw the whole thing down to the shine on his wingtips. Called for my mother, only mother wintered in Palm Beach and I wasn’t sixteen anymore. You never know. Memory is a tricky thing.” He turned to Klay. “If you think of anything, any clue at all, let me know. We want to get the bastard. By that I don’t just mean me. The public has an interest.”

The public has an interest.

Klay looked at Eady. It had been a while since Eady had used that particular phrase. Klay felt a sharp pain run down his injured arm.

ASSIGNMENT

Washington, DC

Klay was sitting on his usual stool at the end of the Gray Pigeon’s dimly lit bar with a laptop open in front of him, thinking. Eady had gone quiet. He’d seen the old man three, maybe four times since Kenya, and each time Eady had somewhere else to be, something more important on his mind. Klay sipped his drink. Maybe he was making too much of things, overthinking it. It’s why he was here, wasn’t it, watching Billy Thurman stack glasses behind a bar on a Saturday morning with a bourbon in front of him? For the thinking.

“You mind if I switch to the game?” Billy asked.

Klay didn’t have to ask the bar’s owner which game he was referring to. Any other day Billy wore a black T-shirt and jeans, his smoker-veined arms and faded tattoos exposed. But today he had on a blue sweatshirt, sleeves pushed to the elbow, and the word “Navy” emblazoned across his chest in gold. It was eleven o’clock. Except for Phil the Economist, perched on his regular stool, the Pigeon was empty.