A forklift rolled up to the loading dock door from inside the mission. Suspended on its forks was a large wooden crate, a meter wide and a meter deep and two meters long. It looked to be very sturdily made. Stenciled on its side were the words “DIPLOMATIC BAG - Federal Republic of Nigeria.” The forklift driver lowered it slowly into the back of the panel van. The movement was surprisingly gentle.

Rafe watched all that happen. “Any size?” he said.

Okoro nodded.

And Rafe knew. “Jesus! He’s in there.”

“Jesus is?” Okoro smiled.

“Stavro is.” He turned to Okoro. “How? Were you at the bank?”

Okoro shrugged. “I’ve told you, you’re easy to follow. I thought you might be going somewhere interesting.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“You never see me. Anyway, you were too busy shooting people.”

The driver of the van climbed into its cargo hold and strapped the crate down.

“When he ran, you got him?”

Okoro shrugged modestly.

“Why do you want him so bad? The money is gone.”

“I never wanted the money. I wanted him.”

“Evil,” Rafe said, remembering. “God put you on earth to bring evil to justice. That’s what you told me. That struck me as so . . . simple.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Rafe thought: is that a bad thing? Firing Frank’s gun had been simple, it had happened without thought, and that had not been a bad thing either.

“The man is an accomplice to murder in Nigeria,” Okoro said. “He can lead us to others involved. If Nigerians were involved, we want to know. I don’t think that would be a priority for the Americans.”

The driver of the van climbed out of the cargo bay and circled back to the cab.

“What if I tell my people? Or the Swiss?”

“A diplomatic pouch cannot be touched. It would cause an international incident.”

The driver got into his seat and started the engine.

Okoro turned to Rafe. “You’re not going to pull out a gun and start shooting, are you?”

“No,” Rafe said. “I think my shooting days are over.”

“Really? You were good. The professionals went down, and you got the job done. I was impressed.”

The van started to move. It passed them as it drove to the exit of the parking lot.

“Maybe you should reconsider,” Okoro said.

The van turned right and disappeared into traffic, and Rafe, thinking about yesterday and about his brother and Afghanistan and about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, said, “I don’t know. Maybe I will.”

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to Amanda (Binky) Urban, who sold this book, and to Lilly Golden, who bought it and gently suggested that I cut out the bad parts.

My wife, Liza Levine, suspected (I think) that I spent the entire pandemic typing “All work and no play makes Ed a dull boy” and was relieved that I wasn’t.