“Do you have it?” Eichmann repeated, hiding his fear but letting his irritation come through. He was scheduled to leave for North Korea in less than three hours and after everything he’d gone through to get permission for the trip, he would not let this meeting delay him.

“Of course,” Géroux said, switching to accented English. “And you?”

“Yes.”

The Frenchman didn’t display his fear either, but in his case that was likely because he felt none. Why would he? Eichmann knew he looked like exactly what he was: an academic reaching an age when thin became frail and pale became sickly. Géroux would look on him with little more than amusement.

Comfortable that he had the upper hand, the Frenchman casually handed a thumb drive across the table. Eichmann pulled a small laptop from its case and slid the drive into the USB port. After a quick glance to confirm that the only thing behind him was a cracked wall and the feral cat perched on top of it, he entered the agreed-upon password and opened the video file that appeared.

Skipping through the violent footage for a few moments, he felt the strange mix of fascination and revulsion that had become so familiar to him over the last quarter century.

“I didn’t think there was anything new under the sun,” Géroux said, accepting a bottle of water from the waiter and falling silent until he’d moved on. “They didn’t fight back or even try to save themselves. The Afghans always fight. In fact, you could say that it’s all they do.”

Eichmann ignored him, connecting the laptop to the Internet and pulling up a bank account in Yemen.

“Was it the plastic boxes they had strapped to their waists—the ones that were taken from them? Was it drugs?”

Eichmann continued to concentrate on what he was doing, acting as though he hadn’t heard. The boxes Géroux was referring to did not contain drugs; nor did they still exist. He had confirmation that they’d been delivered to an obscure military outpost and incinerated more than twelve hours ago.

“It’s done,” Eichmann said, shutting down the laptop and slamming the lid shut.

Géroux kept his dead eyes on him and took another sip of his water before pulling a smartphone from his pocket. A nearly imperceptible smile broke across his lips as the screen registered the funds transferred into his account.

“You’ll have to excuse my curiosity,” he said, beginning to rise. “I’ve fought in many wars, in many places. And this…”

He shook his head and threw down a hundred-dirham note before standing and weaving through the busy tables. Eichmann watched him wade into traffic, jogging athletically past a rusting cab as he made his way toward a median crowded with people waiting for an opportunity to cross the remaining lanes.

He was almost there when a truck piled with mattresses lost control and swerved out of its lane. It crossed into the median, catching him dead center in its grille with enough force that his head shattered the windshield. The entire vehicle listed right as terrified people dove out of the way and oncoming traffic veered onto sidewalks crowded with pedestrians.