The man opened his mouth as if to scream, the excruciating pain reinforced by his awareness that he had just been maimed for life. The knee was broken and would never work quite properly again. Combat injuries usually produced their greatest pain afterward; endorphins and stress hormones dampened much of the acute agony at the time the injuries were inflicted. But the figure-four leg lock had its intended consequence, and the agony of the break was, Janson knew, often sufficient to induce unconsciousness by itself. The guard was no ordinary specimen, however, and his powerful arms were forming grapple hooks even as the pain convulsed him. Janson dropped abruptly, pitching forward so that his knees hit the man’s face with the weight of his body. It was an anvil blow. Janson heard the man’s quick expulsion of breath as unconsciousness overtook him.

He picked up the gun—it was, he now saw, a CZ-75, a highly effective handgun of Czech manufacture—and shoved it awkwardly into his deep breast pocket.

There was a knock on the door—dimly, he realized there had been such knocks earlier, which the focus of his mind had not permitted to register—and there were urgent Magyar mutterings as well: guests in need of relief. Janson lifted the burly guard and carefully positioned him on one of the toilets, pulling his trousers down around his ankles. The upper body lolled against the wall, but only his lower extremities would be visible to the guests. He latched the door from the inside, slid underneath the partition, and retracted the dead bolt of the rest room. He walked out to the baleful glares of four florid-faced diners and shrugged apologetically.

The bulky revolver was pressed uncomfortably against his chest; Janson buttoned the lowermost button of his jacket, and that one only. At the end of the hallway, he saw the two bodyguards who had been at the bar. From their expressions—dismay turning to congealed hatred—he saw that they had expected to assist their colleague in escorting a “drunk” from the restaurant. As he turned the corner to the dining room, one of them, the taller of the two, stepped directly in front of him.

The man’s hatchet face was perfectly expressionless as he spoke to Janson in quiet, accented English. “You’ll want to be extremely careful. My partner has a gun trained on you. Very powerful, very silent. The rate of heart attacks is very high in this country. Nonetheless, if you are stricken, it will attract some attention. I should not prefer it. There are more graceful ways. But we will not think twice about dealing with you right here.”