The target’s movements were like clockwork. Up at seven, a walk to the Alta Vista library at nine. Lunch at the café on the corner of Main and Mountain Streets, then back to the library until closing time. A quick stop at the market on the way home, dinner, in bed with the lights out by nine thirty. Little social life, certainly no love life. Occasional visits with an acquaintance from the library, but no close friends; mail limited to bills and catalogs; phone calls limited to insurance scams and pollsters. No contact with family. Nemo couldn’t imagine why anyone would choose this target, but that didn’t concern him. After all, one of his professional rules was “Never know the client’s endgame.” So he watched and waited and enjoyed the mountain air.

He had been lodging in an abandoned motel on the edge of town, a relic from the days when travelers still ventured this far back in the hills to marvel at the autumn colors. The windows and doors had been boarded up years ago, the parking lot was just patches of weeds, the roof sagged in some places and had ceased to exist in others. But in Room 6, Nemo found a spot with no leaks in the roof and something still recognizable as a mattress in one corner.

Nemo had no qualms about living rough. He felt equally at home squatting in an abandoned motor lodge and posing as a wealthy businessman in a five-star hotel. Neither situation would last long, and after each he would shed his identity and begin again. He kept no phone or computer. When he needed to look for a new job, he simply lifted an iPad or laptop from a Starbucks, pitching it into the storm sewer when he’d finished with it. He had no permanent address, though he did rent seven safety deposit boxes in different cities, all under different names. He traveled with no more than he could carry, acquiring the tools for each job as the need arose. This time, he had stashed everything he might need in the trunk of his car—a used gray Ford Taurus he bought for cash a few weeks ago. He had already ground off the VIN number, and when he finished this job he would abandon it somewhere no one would notice. There are a surprising number of such places. His black backpack contained three identities, $15,000 in cash, a change of clothes, and a few toiletries.