“When you sober up and wish to apologize,” Janson said, coldly, “please do not concern yourself. I accept your apologies in advance. Such confusions happen.”

What else could he say? How would the victim of mistaken identity react? With bafflement, amusement, and then ire.

Of course, it was not a case of mistaken identity, and Janson remembered exactly who Donald Weldon was. A senior manager in charge of security at a Delawarebased engineering firm, he was a complacent lifer who filled his staffing positions with cousins, nephews, and friends, treating the security division as a source of sinecures. As long as no major disaster occurred, who would call his competence and probity into question? Meanwhile, employee theft and the systematic filing of false workmen’s compensation claims had become an invisible drag on the operating budget, while a company vice president was doubling his executive compensation by reporting confidential information to a competitor firm. It was Janson’s experience that errant executives, rather than blaming themselves and their own dereliction for their dismissal, invariably blamed whoever brought their misconduct to light. In truth, Donald Weldon should have been grateful that he was only fired; Janson’s report made it clear that some of the false-compensation claims were made with his complicity, and he provided sufficient evidence for criminal prosecution, one that could easily have resulted in jail time. Janson’s recommendation, however, was that Vice President Weldon be relieved of his duties but not prosecuted, to spare the company further embarrassment and prevent potentially damaging revelations at the pretrial and discovery phases. You owe me your freedom, you corrupt son of a bitch, Janson thought.

Now the American wagged a finger very near Janson’s nose. “You goddamn candy-ass bastard—you’ll get yours some day.” As the woman led him back to their seats, several tabletops away, his unsteady gait betrayed the alcohol that fueled his fury.

Janson turned brightly to his companion, but a sense of dread filled him. Lakatos had grown cold; he was not a fool, and the drunken American’s display could not automatically be discounted. The Hungarian’s eyes were hard, like small black marbles.

“You’re not drinking your wine,” Lakatos said, gesturing with his fork. He smiled an icy executioner’s smile.

Janson knew how such people thought: probabilities were weighed, but caution dictated that negative inferences were assumed true. Janson also knew that his protestations could have provided little reassurance. He had been burned, exposed, shown to be someone other than the person as whom he had presented himself. Men like Sandor Lakatos feared nothing more than the possibility of deception: Adam Kurzweil now represented not opportunity, but danger. And, however obscure its motivations, such danger was to be eliminated.