“Then, after a journalist named Harry Meyers wrote a story about the way your tankers dump toxic materials into the Atlantic Ocean, he inexplicably committed suicide. Just two days prior to his wedding!

“Oh, and let’s not forget Countess Maria Sarkov, who had the terrible misfortune to be hit by a truck as she crossed 42nd Street one week after referring to your wife as ‘an ugly pig’ in a New York society column. No, my friend, you not only work for The Agency,” Douay added grimly, “but they pay you in blood.

“Yet even The Agency can’t do anything about the fact that you and your company have been turned away by bankers in Zurich, London, and New York. Your stock is down thirty percent, the litigation from the oil spill will drag on for ten years, and your cruise ships are sailing half-full. Still, you know best, so we’ll speak of more enjoyable things…

“How are your children? Well, I hope.”

Thorakis felt a rising sense of despair, and desperately tried to keep it from showing. The thing he feared most was that he would be the one to lose the Thorakis family fortune, and not only bring shame onto himself, but rob his children of their birthright.

Finally, after an uncomfortable silence, the Greek looked up from his plate.

“Perhaps I was too hasty in my response,” he said hesitantly. “What sort of information would you be seeking? Who knows…there may be some way for me to accommodate you.”

“There, you see,” Douay replied genially. “I knew we could do business! In answer to your question I want to know everything you know. Especially whatever you can tell me about the man called Agent 47.”

The plume of dust was quickly followed by a blur as the man who was about to die topped a distant rise.

Both the rider and his motorcycle were soon lost from sight as the gravel road took him down into one of the many gullies that separated Agent 47 from his target. The oncoming biker was still too far away for a positive identification, so the assassin lowered his binoculars and allowed a sun-warmed rock to accept his weight. It was a hot day and the road seemed to shimmer as the man called the Grim Reaper rematerialized in the distance. His real name was Mel Johnson, and his main claims to fame were a long criminal record and a willingness to kill anyone who got in his way. He wore wraparound shades, a black leather vest similar to the one 47 had on, and a pair of faded Levis. The sort of outfit real bikers wear, and wannabe weekend riders emulate, hoping to look tough.

Not Johnson, though. He was the real deal, and his meaty arms hung straight down from ape-hanger handlebars as the chopper barreled up the road toward a meeting with the rest of the “Big Six.” A fun-loving consortium of motorcycle gangs led by a swell guy known as the “Big Kahuna,” the “Big K,” or just BK for short.

The Big K ran the joint enterprise for the benefit of all its members. A business strategy calculated to ward off incursions by vertically integrated competitors, like the Colombian drug cartels.

That’s how it was supposed to work, although there were rumors that some of the gangs weren’t all that happy with the Kahuna’s self-serving management style. Which explained why chieftains like Johnson had been ordered to come alone. The Big Kahuna didn’t want to be outgunned.

It was a rather sensible policy, from 47’s point of view.

Satisfied now that he was about to kill the right man, 47 lowered his binoculars and checked his Audemars Piguet, Royal Oak Offshore wristwatch. Johnson was running late, which meant 47 was running late, but it couldn’t be helped.

Agent 47 felt the familiar hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach as he stood and forced himself to take a long, slow look around. The assassin knew from hard-won experience how many things can change during the brief amount of time it takes to sip a mouthful of coffee, piss against a wall, or check a safety. A witness can appear out of nowhere, the wind can strengthen unexpectedly, or any of a thousand other variables can interfere with the machinery of death.

But there were no witnesses here, other than the hawk that circled high above, and the wind direction didn’t matter as 47 made his way out onto the bridge that spanned a mostly dry watercourse. The wire had been there for hours by now, laid crosswise across the dusty road as cars, trucks, and motorcycles rumbled over it. With the steel thread already fastened to the railing on the opposite side of the bridge, it was a simple matter to lift the wire and secure it to the framework. Then, having concealed himself in the deep shadow the harsh sun cast next to the two-lane bridge, all the assassin had to do was wait for Mel Johnson to come along and execute himself.

Harleys make a very distinctive sound, and it wasn’t long before he heard a throaty growl as Johnson approached. At the last moment, 47 gauged the size of his prey and realized that he had set the wire a little too high. The technique, which had been utilized by both the Germans and the French underground during World War II, was extremely effective against motorcyclists and people riding in open vehicles.

There was no way to know if the gang leader saw the wire at the very last second, and had time to process what was about to occur, but it didn’t seem likely. Rather than make contact with his throat, as it was supposed to, the steel wire caught Johnson across his partially opened mouth. The gang leader was traveling at a good fifty-five miles per hour at that point, so the wire sliced the top of his head off and left the lower part of his jaw attached to his neck.

A mixture of blood and brains flew back over the roadway as the top of Johnson’s helmet-clad skull bounced off the wooden planks, even as the Harley carried the rest of his body north. But only for a short distance, before Johnson’s hands fell away from the handlebars, the engine lost power, and the front tire hit a pothole. The result was a horrible grinding sound as the $25,000 motorcycle toppled over and slid along the gravel road, taking the blood-spurting corpse with it, before finally coming to a stop.

After a quick check to make sure the hit had gone unobserved, Agent 47 began to run. The binoculars bounced off his chest, and it was necessary to reach up and grab them as he ran toward a small, isolated structure.

There was no way to know what the wooden building’s original purpose had been, and the assassin didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was the fact that the structure was large enough to accommodate the four-wheel-drive Dodge pickup truck that was parked within. It was a few degrees cooler inside the shed, but 47 didn’t have time to enjoy the difference as he jumped into the cab and brought the big V-8 back to life.

Dirt sprayed the back wall as the assassin gunned the vehicle out into bright sunlight, turned onto the dirt road, and traveled for about twenty feet before he was forced to apply the brakes or hit the body that was partially trapped by the Harley. Then it was time to put the binoculars aside, exit the 4X4, and round the front end of the truck. After checking the contents of Johnson’s saddlebags, the next task was to work them free.

Once the leather bags were stowed in the cab, he hooked the pickup’s winch cable to the chopper, and dragged the nine-hundred-pound bike behind the shed. The trip was kind of hard on what remained of Johnson, but the dead biker didn’t seem to mind, even though his body flopped free halfway through the process.

As soon as the wreckage was safely out of sight, 47 freed the winch cable, and took the time necessary to back the truck into the shed before returning to the bridge. He had been assigned to work in the asylum’s slaughterhouse at the age of ten, so the assassin was used to looking at dead bodies, and felt nothing beyond a sense of annoyance as he scanned the roadway for the top of Johnson’s head. Fortunately the chunk of skull and upper jawbone were still tucked inside the minimal half-helmet that so many bikers preferred. The bloody mess lay next to the road where it had come to rest and it was a simple matter to kick dust over the bloodstains and drop the brain bucket into the watercourse below.