Swann was presently in a restaurant on Henry Street across from the prosecutor’s apartment in Brooklyn, a four-floor walk-up. He was nursing a very bittersweet Cuban coffee.

Scanning Laurel’s abode. Not a doorman building, he noticed. Good.

Swann had decided that now he could use a cover crime for the murder: In addition to prosecuting patriotic Americans for taking out vile traitors, Laurel had sent plenty of rapists to jail. He’d looked up her conviction record—extremely impressive—and learned that among those she’d put away were dozens of serial rapists and molesters. One of these suspects could easily decide to get his revenge following his release. Or a relative of a prisoner might do just that.

Her own past would come back to get her.

Yes, he’d gotten word from headquarters that the investigation into Moreno’s death was over. But that didn’t mean it might not surface again. Laurel was the sort who might leave government service and start writing letters or articles in the papers or online about what had happened, about NIOS, about the STO assassination program.

Better if she just went away. And anyway, Swann had set off a bomb in Little Italy and stabbed an interpreter and limo driver to death. If nothing else, Laurel might be called on to help in the investigation of those crimes. He needed her dead and all her files destroyed.

He fantasized. Not about the sex but about faking the attack, which he was looking at like a recipe. Planning, preparation, execution. He’d break into her apartment, stun her with a blow to the head (not the throat; there couldn’t be a connection to Ms. Lydia Foster, of course), rip her clothes off, make sure her breasts and groin displayed severe striking hematoma (no biting, though he was tempted; that bothersome DNA). Then he’d beat her to death and penetrate her with a foreign object.

He didn’t have time to go to an adult bookstore with video booths or a porn theater and scoop up a bit of somebody’s DNA to swab on her. But he had stolen some stained and torn underwear, teenager’s size, from the trash behind a tenement not far away. Fibers from this garment he’d work under her fingernails and hope the teen had been masturbating at some point in the past few days. Likely.

This would be enough evidence.

He dipped his tongue into the coffee. Enjoyed the intense sensation throughout his mouth; it’s a myth that different tastes are experienced in different parts of the tongue: salt, sour, sweet, bitter. Another sip. Swann cooked with coffee sometimes—he’d made a Mexican mole-type sauce for pork with 80 percent cacao and espresso. He’d been tempted to submit it for a contest then decided it wasn’t a good idea for him to be too public.