On the back, he—or perhaps someone else—had scribbled three lines of text.

The first:

ZDUQ KHU

The second:

7379623618

And the third line was simply three diamonds inside parentheses.

(<><><>)

A code of some sort.

His head hurt too much for codes.

He laid the card on the vanity, exited the bathroom, and walked through the bedroom into the living area, where he stopped cold. A man lay on the floor. His face was pale and ashy. He wasn’t breathing.

A single white page lay near the dead man, in front of the door to the suite. It was a bill for the stay, which apparently had begun a week before and included several deliveries from room service and nothing from the minibar.

Most importantly, the guest name was printed at the top. Desmond Hughes. He knew at once that this was his name, but seeing it brought no flood of memories, only recognition.

The man on the floor was tall and slender. His hair was gray, thinning, and closely cropped. He wore a dark suit, a white dress shirt, and no tie. A ring of bruises circled his muscular neck.

Desmond knelt next to the body and began to reach into the man’s pants pockets—then stopped, his instincts kicking in. He grabbed the small wastebasket under the desk, pulled out the plastic liner, and covered his hand, ensuring he didn’t leave any fingerprints or DNA.

The man’s pocket held a wallet and a hard plastic employee ID card for Rapture Therapeutics. There was no job title listed on the ID card, just a name: Gunter Thorne. The picture matched the pale face lying sideways on the thin carpet. His German ID card and credit cards all showed the same name.

Desmond slid the items back into the man’s pocket and gently pulled the lapel of his suit back, revealing a black handgun in a holster.

Desmond sat back on his haunches, which made his legs ache. He stood, trying to stretch them, and scanned the room. It was pristine. Cleaned recently, no doubt. He searched it, but it was utterly devoid of any clues. There was no luggage, nothing hanging in the closet. The small safe was open and empty. There weren’t even any toiletries.

He checked the bill again. No calls.

What did it all mean? It was as if he had only come here to eat. Or to hide. Did he live in Berlin? If not for Gunter Thorne’s dead body in the living room, Desmond would have already called the front desk to find a reputable urgent care facility. He couldn’t now, not without knowing more. And he had only one clue.

He walked back to the bathroom and picked up the coupon with the sequence of letters and numbers on the back. As he stared at it, he realized something about the parentheses. In financial statements, they indicated a negative number—a loss. A deduction from a running balance.

How did he know that? Was he in finance?