Fool me once, he thought and tapped a concealed button to release a section of the wall behind which were a half dozen handguns. One of them was a Snellig loaded with Sandman. Jäger pulled it free, checked the magazine, and crept to the door, smiling and thinking the blackest thoughts he owned.

“Wer ist es?” he asked, leaning close to the door.

He peered through the peephole, and there he was. Tall, broad-shouldered, blond. Wearing a thick leather jacket.

Ledger.

Du Hurensohn! he thought, raising the pistol as he unlocked the door.

He whipped it open just as Ledger turned around.

Except it was not Joe Ledger. This man could have been his brother, but it wasn’t Joe. It was a stranger.

And the stranger held a gun.

A pistol with a long black sound suppressor.

Jäger brought his own gun up, and both weapons fired at exactly the same time. The glass dart struck the sleeve of the leather jacket and exploded harmlessly.

The man’s bullet took Jäger in the hip, tearing through meat and exploding the bone, spinning him, detonating incredible agony all through his body. The man shoved Jäger inside even before the agent could fall; then he kicked the door shut. The stranger slapped the Snellig from his hand and buried the hot barrel of the suppressor under Jäger’s chin.

In very good, very clear German with a definite American accent, the blond man said, “Wo ist Joe Ledger?”

Where is Joe Ledger?

CHAPTER 125

HOTEL TIMIȘOARA

TIMIȘOARA, ROMANIA

I washed Ghost and myself.

I brushed him and pampered him. I ordered his favorite stuff from room service. I took him for walks and played with him, and spooned him when we needed to sleep. I’m pretty sure he knew I was feeling guilty and was milking the hell out of it.

That’s fine. He deserved it.

We went and visited the other rooms I’d booked during my fugue, and in the second one, I found the notes I’d written after my abortive conversation with Casanova. So much of that had been shoved back into the recesses of my brain because of the fight with the Fixers. It took a while for me to remember that I’d written it down already and emailed it to Bug. Which meant Church and everyone who mattered knew about what happened at the processing plant.

That was good. It was important, and I had a feeling it was even more critical than it seemed. Those Fixers had cutting-edge gear and were wearing suicide vests. Ones that went boom in a way that was out of all proportion to what I knew of explosives.

The possibilities were staggering. However, I trusted Church, Wilson, Bug, and Doc to grasp that potential and put the right wheels in motion.

For now, though, I had to concentrate on this part of my mission. My self-imposed mission.