I put black photographer’s tape over the reflective surfaces of the Under Armour gear and the running shoes, checking it all by laying it on the bed in the dark and hitting it with the flashlight from various angles. No reflections. Then I suited up, putting the binoculars and the flashlight into the fanny pack and slipping the parka over the whole ensemble.

I drove back to Jannick’s office and parked in the Ming’s parking lot so I was facing Embarcadero and East Bayshore. Unless Jannick made a right on East Bayshore, which would take him in the opposite direction of his house and which was a different route than the one he’d arrived by this morning, he would pass me on his way home. But if I missed him tonight, I could always get a little more aggressive tomorrow. In fact, it was possible I’d missed him already, that he had already headed home. But I doubted it. It was only four o’clock, earlier than regular people could get off work. As for people like Jannick, with the drive and passion to start their own companies, they tend not to quit until much later. I was less concerned that he’d gone home early than I was that he might keep me waiting past midnight. But either way, again, if things didn’t work today, there was always tomorrow.

Just before dark, it started to rain. That might have been good news or it might have been bad. Good, because it would make the road slippery. Bad, because maybe Jannick’s wife would pick him up, or he’d get a ride home from a colleague, or otherwise leave his bike at the office. But my guess was, the weather worked to my favor. There was the windbreaker he was wearing against the cold this morning, for one thing; it would do the trick in the rain, too. And there was the determination in the personality type of an entrepreneur, for another. Yeah, something told me Jannick wasn’t someone to be dissuaded by a little precipitation. The rain felt like a good omen.

It was. At just past seven-thirty, the end of a twelve-hour day, I saw the fluorescent-yellow windbreaker and white helmet coming toward me. I checked through the night-vision binoculars to confirm. No question, it was him.

He made a right on Embarcadero. By the time I got out of the parking lot and through the light, he was too far ahead of me to see. But it was a safe bet he had stayed on Embarcadero, the same route he had used this morning. I peeled off onto the exit ramp to 101 and Page Mill. Between the car and the shorter route, I estimated I’d get to OPM ten minutes ahead of him.

I parked in an office park just north of the corner of Page Mill and Junípero Serra. I pulled on the hat and the gloves, strapped on the fanny pack, and got out. I walked for a minute, but as soon as I was clear of the car, and anyone who might have seen me leave it, I started jogging. The rain on my face was cold, and my breath fogged in the chill air, but I felt warm and insulated in the Under Armour. My heart was beating hard, not from exertion.

I got to the construction site and was pleased to find the area exceptionally dark. I could hear the patter of the rain on the road and in the creek, the white noise of it quieting the area, masking noises and reducing the distance sound could travel. I used the night-vision binoculars to scope out the road, the site, and the underside of the bridge. I was alone. I still had to be careful about an evening dog walker, or a determined jogger, or another commuting bicyclist, but overall the chances that I would have this little stretch of road to myself for the necessary moments, and that I would remain unobserved even if someone happened along, were as good as I could hope.

I set up next to the bridge by the construction site, keeping low and scanning the area through the binoculars. Everything was illuminated beautifully. The fanny pack was open, and the flashlight, like the binoculars, was getting wet, but the equipment was top quality and waterproof. I wasn’t concerned.

Five minutes of waiting and scanning. And then I saw him, coming toward me on the bike path along Page Mill. I could make out his face perfectly through the night-vision magnification, all the way down to the droplets of water on his glasses. A headlight on the front of the bike showed up in the viewfinder like a glowing yellow flare.

I felt a hot rush of adrenaline through my gut, and my heart started kicking harder. I breathed in and out deeply several times and did one last scan of the area. All clear.

I dropped the binoculars into the fanny pack, pulled out the SureFire, and walked into the middle of the road. Without the night vision, I couldn’t see Jannick himself, but his headlight shone like a beacon a hundred fifty yards out. One hundred. Fifty.

He slowed slightly as the bike path fed onto OPM, but he was still moving at what I guessed was close to fifteen miles an hour. More than fast enough.

Thirty yards now. I raised the SureFire to my shoulder. I closed one eye to protect it from the glare and preserve my night vision, and squinted with the other. Twenty. Ten.

Just before the forward edge of his headlight illumination reached my position, I pressed down on the flashlight’s tailcap switch. Five hundred lumens hit him in the face, as momentarily bright and white as a bolt of lightning. I heard a cry of pain and surprise.

He must have instinctively hit the brakes, as I had hoped. I heard the tires skidding on the wet leaves and leaped out of the way. The headlight weaved crazily as Jannick fought to control the bike. But he was too startled, and too blinded. And the road was too wet. For an instant, the headlight gyrations grew wilder. Then the bike went over and Jannick hit the pavement.

I dropped the SureFire into the fanny pack next to the binoculars and zipped the pouch shut. I looked around, confirming once more that we were alone.

“Are you all right?” I asked, walking over. He was on his hands and knees, spitting out blood, trying to get up.

He moaned, sounding as though the wind had been knocked out of him.

I walked closer, my heart hammering. “Don’t try to move,” I said. “You might be hurt.”

He started to say something back. I didn’t hear what. I stepped over him and sat down hard on his back. He grunted and collapsed to the ground. I planted my feet solidly along either side of his head, reached with both gloved hands under his chin, and arched savagely back. His neck snapped with the sound of a thick piece of dry firewood and his body spasmed under me.

I stood and immediately moved back to the bridge, where I had some concealment. I took out the binoculars again and scanned the area. No one. Then I examined the tableau before me. Jannick’s bike was on its side, the headlight shining uselessly upward into the falling rain, the front wheel slowly rotating. Jannick himself remained facedown, steam rising slowly off his body, the rain continuing its indifferent patter on and around him. It looked like a freak accident: a bicyclist, going a little too fast in the dark and the wet, loses control and falls the wrong way. There was no reason to think it was anything else, and no way to prove it, either.