But that's not the case here.

I'm about to meet with a really bad guy and I don't have so much as a fingernail file with which to defend myself. I could have, of course, packed a fingernail file in my suitcase, thus eluding the attentions of my coworkers in the Department of Homeland Security at the airport.

And a knife. But not a gun. The only way I could legally get my hands on a gun here is from the CIA and they wouldn't give me one without authorization, which would be hard to get, inasmuch as they don't know why I'm here and Hall is not about to tell Powell.

Tonight, I can probably buy one. That will mean first finding a hooker and, through her, her pimp, and through him a retail dealer in firearms – as opposed to Mr. Pevsner, who is in the wholesale weapons business – who will get me a pistol of some sort for an exorbitant price, not a dime of which can I expect to get back from the government.

But I can't do that until late tonight, and it's possible, but improbable, that when I go to the Sacher bar Pevsner will send someone to fetch me to the rendezvous. To which I would be very foolish to go without a weapon of some sort.

To which I would be foolish to go armed with all the weapons in the combined arsenals of Mssrs. Caine, Hackman, and Whatsisname, 007.

The answer is a knife. Knives.

Despite the best efforts of professionals in the knife-fighting profession to teach me how to use a blade, the archbishop of Canterbury is probably a better knife fighter than I am.

But as it's said, desperate times call for desperate measures.

In a sporting goods store on Singerstrasse, not far from Saint Stefan's Cathedral, Castillo bought two knives, telling the salesman he wanted something suitable to gut a boar, which he intended to hunt in Hungary.

"I thought there were boar in Hesse," the salesman said, more to make it known that he had cleverly picked up on Castillo's Hessian accent-which Viennese believed was harsh and coarse-than anything else.

"They're a lot cheaper to hunt in Hungary," Castillo replied, which happened to be true.

He bought a horn-handled hunting knife with an eight-inch blade, a folding knife with a six-inch blade, and whetstone and oil and took it all back with him to the Bristol.

None of the faces of people standing around on the sidewalk or sitting where they could see who got onto the elevators looked familiar. Which meant that either Pevsner hadn't sent someone to keep an eye on him or that whoever had been sent had been relieved and replaced.

He went to his room, ordered a large pot of coffee, and, when it had been delivered, placed a towel on a small desk and began to sharpen the blades of both knives. When he'd finished, he worked on the mechanism of the folding knife until he was able to bring it to the open position with a flick of his wrist.

Then he lay down on the bed, turned the television on, found the pay-per-view movie selection, and chose a film called The Package, starring Gene Hackman.

[ONE]

Abeche, Chad

1325 7 June 2005

There are no hangars at the Abeche airport, only an open-sided shack that serves as the terminal building for the one "scheduled flight" from N'Djamena each week-which is more often canceled than flown.

There is not much call for transportation to Abeche, a town of some forty thousand inhabitants 470 miles east of N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. Most travelers catch rides on trucks-a three-day journey-if they have reason to go to what is actually a picturesque small city of narrow streets, falling-down buildings, markets-and mosques.

But there is an airfield on which a Boeing 727 aircraft can land-except in the rainy season-and if it is the intention of those controlling the aircraft to strip the aircraft of its paint and registration numbers, then repaint it, and do so without attracting any attention whatever, Abeche is ideal.

For one thing, the available labor pool is large and grateful for any kind of work and the wage scale is minimal. A job involving sandpapering paint off an aircraft under a "sun shield" patched together from tents is better than no job at all.

And a patched-together sun shield on an airfield categorized in most official aviation publications as "dirt strip, no radio or navigation aids" is unlikely to attract the attention of those scrutinizing satellite photography looking for a missing Boeing 727.

It took three days, with workers swarming around the wings and fuselage like so many ants feasting on a candy bar, to remove the markings of Lease-Aire LA-9021 from the wings, fuselage, and tail.

It was taking considerably longer to repaint the aircraft in the paint scheme and appropriate registration numbers of Air Suriname. The generator providing power to the air compressor for the spray guns, which those in charge of the aircraft had thoughtfully shipped ahead of them by truck, had failed and there was no way of making repairs to it in Abeche.

It was thus necessary to apply the paint-including a primer coat; they didn't want the new paint scheme and markings to come off thirty thousand feet in the air-by hand, and the two men in charge of the aircraft were agreed that a genuine-looking-that is to say, neat-paint scheme was essential to their plans.

They were also agreed, when examining the progress of the work, that another three-perhaps four-days would pass before the job was finished.

They had hoped to be finished long before then but it couldn't be helped.

It was the will of Allah.

[TWO]

Hotel Bristol

Kaerntner Ring 1

Vienna, Austria

1650 7 June 2005

When Karl W. Gossinger, of the Fulda Tages Zeitung, got off the elevator, he glanced around the lobby looking for a familiar face. There was none.

He went onto The Ring through the revolving door and turned right, again looking for someone familiar. Then he started walking down Kaertnerstrasse toward Saint Stefan's Cathedral.

Walking was easier than he thought it would be. After experimenting, Castillo had decided the best way to carry the bone-handled hunting knife was to strap the sheath to the inside of his left calf with adhesive tape. It wouldn't be easy to get at it there, but it would probably go unnoticed. The flip-open knife was in his shirt pocket even though that meant he had to keep his jacket buttoned.

He was aware of the weight of the hunting knife, but he didn't think it made him walk funny. The only problem was the flip-open: He would have to remember not to bend over.

He turned left onto Philharmonikerstrasse and walked past the Hotel Sacher to the corner before turning and walking back and going into the bar.

There were six people in the bar, four men and two women, none of whom looked as if they were likely to be connected with a big-time Russian arms dealer like Aleksandr Pevsner.

Castillo took a seat at the bar and after studying the array of beer bottles lined up under the mirror behind the bar ordered a Czech beer, a Dzban.

It came with a bowl of pretzels, a bowl of peanuts, and a bowl of potato chips, which he thought was a nice custom until the barman laid the bill on the bar and Castillo turned it over to see that the beer was going to cost about eleven dollars, American.

As discreetly as he could, Castillo studied his fellow drinkers in the none-too-reflective mirror. And turned his ears up. The couple at the end of the bar was speaking American English, which permitted him to devote his attention to the others.

They were all speaking Viennese German. The second couple was probably married, for they had the rings and he heard the woman say, "You've never liked my mother and you know it."