Soon the big man came back out of the house carrying an armful of computer laptops, which he placed on the patio. He waved his dog away and knelt by the banker. Bruno was not sure whether he wished he could have heard the conversation that followed or not. Maybe not. He watched, though, riveted to his seat, unable to look away.

Until the knife came out.

After that, Bruno turned away, appalled, sickened. He pressed one hand to his chest, sure that his old heart was going to burst. With the other, he crossed himself and said a prayer to the Madonna. Over and over again, as sweat beaded his face and the world seemed to swim around him.

Then, finally, he summoned the courage to turn back to his telescope and look down at the patio.

And this time, his heart nearly did freeze.

The big man stood above a red ruin of a thing that had once been Otranto. The man was not looking at the dead banker. Nor at the fallen guards or even the house. No … the big man was looking up the hill, toward the promontory on which Bruno Melis sat. The goggles were off and the balaclava, too. The big man had blond hair that was soaked with sweat and plastered to his scalp. He was unshaven and hollow-eyed.

But he was looking directly at Bruno.

There was no way he could see that far without at least binoculars, and Bruno sat in the utter blackness of his unlighted backyard. He had not even gone inside to turn on the kitchen light.

The man, though, seemed to see him anyway.

There was something wrong about the way he stood, about the way he looked. It was as if Bruno were seeing a cutout of a man pasted badly onto the moment. Shadows seemed to cling to the man, though he was not near enough to the house or the garden wall for any shadow to fall across him.

The man looked at Bruno and gave a single, slow nod.

And then he turned, picked up the stack of laptops, stuffed them into an empty backpack, slung the pack, gestured to his dog, and left.

Bruno did not watch them go back down the hill.

No. By then, he was in his house, the doors locked and windows closed. Bruno sat by the cold hearth clutching his wife’s crucifix to his chest. Praying.

What surprised him, though, was that he was not praying for his own immortal soul, nor the souls of the people he had just watched die.

For some reason he could never thereafter explain to himself, his son, his friends, or the police, he prayed for the soul of that stranger. He prayed far into that night.

INTERLUDE 12

THE PAVILION

BLUE DIAMOND ELITE TRAINING CENTER

STEVENS COUNTY, WASHINGTON

FOUR MONTHS AGO

“This is the target,” said Eve.