The bus came, and he paid his fare and took a seat. He leaned back, closed his eyes. “Should’ve graduated from St. John’s, asshole,” he told himself. He could’ve become a professor of classical languages, a doctor of philosophy. He could have led a quiet life, tasted of love and marriage. Except if you went through a childhood like his you were—well, you were scarred. He was a strong man. Tough guy.

But why? What motivated him to get so good with a gun, to learn the art of killing, to live in the shadows?

He knew. Hell yes, he did. This particular mystery man had himself figured out. When his dad disappeared, the world changed for him. It became a place where anything could happen and nobody was safe. He was as he was for a very simple reason: he lived in deep inner terror, and it never, ever went away.

What if his kids disappeared? Or his wife, or him? He was too insecure to be able to enjoy real love.

In his lifetime, he’d killed at least fifty men, some of them with his bare hands. He’d tortured people, done it sadly and methodically, but with the same determination that drove him now. He could see beyond the immediate tragedy to the greater reward. He had wired up the gonads of Cambodian kids to get information that would save American lives. Would the mothers and wives whose lovers and sons he’d sent home alive tell him he’d done wrong?

He transferred to another bus line and rode this one to the station. He went to the newsstand and picked up some magazines, then bought a club ticket for the 4:35 Metroliner.

There was always the possibility that the station was being watched, so he went to the men’s room and sat in one of the stalls reading. Guys came and went, toilets flushed around him. He read about elk hunting, then paged through the classifieds. Field and Stream always reminded him of the last time he had hunted, which had been with his dad. They gone up along the Chattaminimi Ridge, and just at sunrise had seen a buck to stop your heart. That had been about two weeks before Dad was killed. The vampire would have been watching him by then, for sure. It was probably only a few feet away during that walk, pacing them, waiting, doing its research on its victim. “What’s that smell?” young Paul had asked. “Bats,” Dad had said. “There’s a lotta bat caves up this way.” It had not been bats.

He waited until four-thirty-two, then left the john and hurried across the station. This would cause a sudden redeployment of officers, if there was anybody there. He knew how to flush a tail.