He made a quick pass through the restaurant and patio, returned to the cashier station, where a lean brunette in a pencil skirt flipped through a ledger. He pointed to the phone beside the register and made a go of rusty German.

“Darf ich Anruf zu die Rezeption machen?”

She smiled, polite and patiently forced, lifted the handset, punched in a quick code, and offered the handset to him. In his ear, a crisp male voice welcomed him to the Savoy with Teutonic efficiency.

Jack said, “English?”

If English wasn’t an option, French surely would be. That was the beauty of Europe, where even the lowest patron-facing staff members were trilingual at least.

In his ear the accent remained, but the language changed.

Jack said, “There is a man standing near the lounge. He has a shaved head, dark blue suit, and brown shoes. Could you please tell him Mr. Lefevre and his sister are waiting on the restaurant patio? We are the couple with the red dress and light blue jacket. He may not understand in English. Try Russian if you can.”

That last request was a long shot, but it let the messenger know there might be trouble communicating and gave him a chance to accommodate.

Jack tabbed his watch and started the clock.

The front-desk messenger would relay information to Lounge Guy, and Lounge Guy would relay information to Elevator Guy. They couldn’t both abandon their posts, and the lobby was a critical no-miss juncture, so Elevator Guy would be the one who came creeping in.

Two minutes from front desk to patio was his bet.

He counted down a minute, turned back toward the restaurant tables, and made a slow return to the double French patio doors.

Rushed footsteps at his back announced his quarry’s arrival.

Senses engaged, feeding a composite picture into his brain, and when the body was broadside, Jack dropped umbrella shiv from sleeve into hand, jabbed shiv into waist, reached right arm over torso and into holster, gripped weapon, retrieved it, pressed muzzle to gut.

One second.

The speed felt unnatural, like moving on fast-forward in a world that paused to let him by. In his head he knew the difference between a lifetime of torment under Clare’s paranoid tutelage and moderate skills that had grown rusty through infrequent use, but it felt wrong all the same. Clare had taught him to hunt, to hide to kill; had desensitized him to death and pain and fear so that if, God forbid, the time came, he’d have that edge; and had then forced him to deny what he was capable of.

Training said hide first and fight last, that the best fights were those won by never having to fight at all, and he couldn’t count the times he’d taken blows from bullies and strangers, refusing to engage, because drawing attention to his skills would result in far greater pain than getting hit.