It was a boy. If Janson had had to guess, he would have said that the boy was eight years old. Large eyes, mocha skin, short black hair. He was shirtless and wore blue madras shorts. His sneakers looked too large for his slender calves and gave him a puppyish look. The boy’s eyes were trained on the next step: he had been entrusted with an important responsibility, and he was going to be as careful as possible about his footing. Nothing would be dropped. Nothing would be spilled.

He was two-thirds of the way down the stairs when he pulled up short. Probably the smell had alerted him that something was out of the ordinary—either that or the silence.

The boy now turned and regarded the carnage—the guards sprawled in pooled, congealing blood—and Janson could hear him gasp. Involuntarily, the little boy dropped the tray. His precious tray. The tray that the guards were to have received with such gratitude and merriment. As it rolled like a hoop, down the stairs, the cups smashed on the steps below him, and the teapot splashed its steaming contents at the boy’s feet. Janson watched it all happen in slow motion.

Everything would be dropped. Everything would be spilled. Including blood.

Janson knew precisely what he must do. Left to his own devices, the boy would flee and alert the others. What had to be done was regrettable but inarguable. There was no other choice. In one fluid movement, he leveled the silenced HK at the boy.

A boy who returned his gaze with large, frightened eyes.

A slack-jawed eight-year-old. An innocent, given no choice as to his decisions in life.

Not a combatant. Not a conspirator. Not a rebel. Not involved.

A boy. Armed with—what?—a hot jug of mint tea?

No matter. The field manuals had a name for persons like him: engaged noncombatants. Janson knew what he had to do.

But his hand did not. It refused to follow his command. His finger would not squeeze the trigger.

Janson stood stock-still, frozen as he had never been in his life, even as turbulence overtook his mind. His disgust for the casualties of “standard tactical protocol” became absolute, and now paralyzing.

The boy turned from him and scampered up the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time—back up the stairs, back to safety.

Yet his safety was their doom! Recriminations flooded Janson like lava: his two seconds of sentimentality had fatally compromised the mission.

The boy would sound the alarm. By allowing him to live, Janson had signed a death warrant for Peter Novak. For Theo Katsaris. For himself. And quite possibly for the other participants in the mission.