They nodded: Boaz, seemingly satisfied; Gil, as though mentally confirming that, in a pinch, he could drop me. Christ, he was in his forties, he really should have been past that sort of shit. Well, I guess you never get past it.

After a moment, Boaz said, “Regardless, we would prefer if he died of something other than lead poisoning.” He raised his eyebrows, and I nodded to indicate I understood the joke. He smiled.

Gil added, “As we’ve explained, the less this looks like an assassination, the better.”

“The ultimate point being deniability,” I said.

To that, they both nodded.

I wanted to ask about that, but I sensed it might be a sensitive subject, so I decided to hold off for a moment. “Tell me,” I said, “what has our friend Manny done that’s made you want to wish him other than a long, prosperous life?”

The truth was, I didn’t particularly care why they wanted him dead. What I needed was who, and where, and when. But I’ve learned from experience in the business that their ostensible reasons, and what I might glean from between the lines of their response, could help me protect myself from unpleasant surprises.

Gil took a briefcase from the floor and placed it on the table, then reached inside. Although we were in a public place and all seemed comfortable enough, I noted that he moved reassuringly slowly. The implication was: If you have a problem with me reaching into a bag, just say so, and I’ll stop. The move was courteous and showed experience.

Gil took out a sheaf of about a dozen color photographs and handed them to me. Holding them so that no one in the restaurant could get a casual look, I started leafing through them.

Boaz said, “The top one is Bali, October twelfth, 2001.”

The photo was of a demolished building. Charred bodies were everywhere, lying among burning palm trees and smoking rubble. A dismembered hand was front center, a man’s wedding band prominent on the fourth finger, bloody tendons protruding from the stump of the wrist like wiring ripped from the back of an electronic appliance.

“You’re saying Manny did this?” I asked, my tone dubious. “I thought Bali was Jemaah Islamiah.”

“Yes, JI carried out the op,” Boaz said. “The Malaysian Azahari Husin was the bombmaker. But where did Azahari acquire his expertise? From our friend.”

“Lavi is a chemist by training,” Gil said. “He has special expertise in the explosive properties of various materials. That expertise is now for sale.”

“Take Bali,” Boaz said. “The Bali bomb used lots of low explosives-potassium chlorate, sulfur, aluminum powder, alum, and chlorine-and only a small amount of TNT. The mixture created a shock wave and blistering heat. Most of the victims were roasted alive.”

“He’s Israeli, and he’s doing this?” I asked.

Boaz nodded. “It’s… how do you say, ‘infamy’? But yes, just like everyone else, we have some people who will do anything for money. There are Israeli soldiers who’ve been prosecuted for selling weapons to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza-the same weapons that are then used to kill their own brothers in the army.”

Gil shook his head disgustedly and said, “I don’t understand why we bother prosecuting them.”

Boaz reached over and showed me another photo. “This is the Jakarta Marriott, August 2003. For this bomb, the terrorists used sulfur, potassium chlorate, gasoline, and TNT. The resulting bomb was both smaller and more powerful than the Bali device. This mixture created a shock wave and again a horrible burning effect.”

He pointed to the next photo. “The Australian embassy in Kuningan, Jakarta, September 2004. This time we have sulfur, potassium chlorate, and TNT. The mixture created a tremendous shock wave followed by fire. Again, more powerful than the Bali bomb.”

Gil said, “This is Lavi, learning by experimentation.”

Boaz said, “Lavi isn’t just disseminating his knowledge. He’s refining it. He’s briefed on the composition of these bombs, he analyzes the results, and he proposes ‘improvements.’ Lavi is one of the linchpins of a worldwide terrorist knowledge base. He helps these monsters improve their tools and tactics all over the world. What is learned in Southeast Asia is passed on in Europe, in the United States, in the Middle East.”

“How long have you known about what he’s up to?”

“Not long enough,” Boaz said. “A chance observation of a meeting with an Azahari cutout, more focused attention after that. We want him removed as soon as possible. As you understand, though, and personally I consider it unfortunate, we need deniability.”

“Otherwise,” Gil said, “the list of volunteers for this job would be long.”

It was clear to me that Gil would be first in line.

“Knowledge,” I said, musing. “How can you stop it? Isn’t the genie out of the bottle?”

“We do what we can,” Boaz said, without any trace of his characteristic good humor, and for a moment I wondered whether I had misjudged in thinking that between them Gil was the only killer. “We do our part.”

I went through the rest of the photos. Boaz gave each a place and date in a monotone: first World Trade Center attack, 1993; Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center, 1994; U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, 1998; USS Cole, 2000; others. Gil explained Manny’s behind-the-scenes involvement, and how his participation was increasing the lethality of the bombs and furthering knowledge of how to create them.

“So you see,” Boaz said when I was finished and had handed the sheaf back to Gil, “to us, eradicating Lavi is like curing a fatal disease. We can’t bring back the people he has already murdered, but we can save the lives that will be lost if his life were to continue.”

“We think you can help us,” Gil said.

Boaz added, “And we think you can do it the right way.”

I got the point. The main thing was, they weren’t looking for something foolproof, only something deniable. If they had insisted on a heart attack, I would have taken it to mean that their fundamental concern was that no questions even be asked. I would then have assumed that Manny was an unusually connected target, and would have reevaluated accordingly. Instead, they seemed willing to have questions asked, as long as the answers didn’t lead back to them.

I found it interesting that they had approached me directly. They might have used someone else, and insulated themselves with cutouts. My guess was that, in their judgment, the extra insulation afforded by the cutouts would have been outweighed by the greater chance of discovery. If Manny were to die of a headshot from a high-powered rifle, somebody might feel compelled to look very hard for whoever was behind it. Sure, there would be some insulation then, but the method of the hit would make the insulation necessary. My methods, and my track record, were such that they must have been more confident of my ultimate success. Less insulation, less need for it. A trade-off. And regardless, Delilah had brought me in. She’d pitched the work to me, she’d brokered the meeting. It would have been pointless to try to run things under a false flag after that.

The flexibility we’d agreed on was helpful, but overall I was still operating in a relatively constrained universe of possibilities. The whole thing would have been simpler if I could have just learned Manny’s routine and then positioned Dox to blow his head off from a thousand yards away. But I didn’t mind the constraints, really, and I suppose I never have. After all, they’re part of what justifies my prices. And “natural” means no investigation, perhaps not even any questions. I can slip away afterward without pursuit. And make fewer enemies in the process.

“One thing concerns me,” I said. “I don’t understand the need for deniability. With the kind of stuff he’s been up to, I would think that you or anyone else could kill Manny any way you wanted.”