Maybe it was just bad luck, plain and simple. Maybe the gods had just decided that Ilich Ramirez Sanchez would not be allowed to retire, to rest on his laurels and spend his old age with his wife and family. His luck had clearly run out the day he’d escaped from France. He was like a cat which had used up all of its nine lives. The displays on the radios in the control panel were blank. There was no one that Carlos wanted, or needed, to speak to.

He flew south, down the centre of the Chesapeake Bay.

Carlos thought about his wife and children. He wondered how they were, and if Magdalena had found the time to get the stereo repaired. They had a nice house, a house he could relax in, with several acres of well-tended garden behind a high stone wall.

He turned the plane to the left until the heading indicator showed that he was flying east. He remembered how his children had cried when he’d told them that he’d be leaving them for a while, and how they’d nodded seriously when he’d made them promise to take care of their mother. His own mother had cried, too, and she’d held him tightly as if knowing that she would never see him again. He remembered, too, how urgent Magdalena’s love-making had been on his final night in the house, his suitcase packed and locked on the floor at the end of the bed.

There was no going back, Carlos knew. That had been the deal. If he had succeeded he would have had a sanctuary for the rest of his life, no matter what the international pressure. But if he failed, there was to be no link to his paymasters. In return for his silence, his family would be allowed to stay in their home. Carlos had made sure that whatever happened there was enough money in their overseas bank accounts to ensure that Magdalena and their children would never want for anything. Ahead of him he saw the blue vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, the sky above it beginning to darken as the sun dipped down below the horizon.

Carlos relaxed as he flew over the water. He’d given it his best shot. He had done nothing to be ashamed of. He looked down at the white tips of the waves some four thousand feet below him. A man could hide for a long time under the water, he thought. Maybe for ever. He opened the briefcase and took out the P228. He unscrewed the silencer and tossed it into the rear of the plane. There would be nobody around to hear the shot. He took his left hand off the control yolk and pressed the barrel of the gun to his right temple.

“Magdalena, I love you,” he whispered.

The doctor put the finishing touches to the dressings and stepped back to admire his handiwork. “You’re a very lucky man, Special Agent Howard,” he said.