Helmut Dalitz was sitting in the third box on the right of the stage. He was seated very close to the rail, listening intently to the music. Behind him sat two bodyguards, dressed as impeccably as he was; they were a sharp contrast to his daughter, who though not slovenly, could easily have afforded something more stylish than the plain black polyester pants and print silk shirt she wore.

She was alone. The Black Wolf had expected her boyfriend to be with her. This was not necessarily a problem for him—one less potential obstruction, perhaps—but he noted it nonetheless.

The night’s performance was grouped into three sections. As the first came to an end, Helmut Dalitz rose with the rest of the audience and applauded. And then, being a man of habit, he kissed his daughter on the cheek and told her he was going home.

Even with his superior hearing, the Black Wolf couldn’t hear the conversation. But he saw the girl shaking her head, and guessed what her father was saying. Helmut Dalitz habitually left the concert hall before the last intermission, and obviously he had decided to leave now.

Habits were a bad thing, especially when someone was aiming to kill you.

The girl would be pleading with him not to leave her alone. And he would suggest that she come with him.

She was torn. What would she decide?

To stay. She turned away abruptly.

Easier for him.

The Black Wolf waited to make sure that Helmut Dalitz was actually leaving, then turned and walked swiftly to the exit. He slipped easily between the people making their way down to the restroom and the large hall at the front of the orchestra house to stretch their legs. He moved quickly, almost lithely, despite the bulk of his legs and shoulders. His body had the fluidity of a much lighter and, it had to be admitted, younger man. While Wolf thought of himself as barely into his early twenties, he was in fact over fifty.

Not that anyone seeing him would have guessed that. On the contrary, he looked exactly as if he were in his twenties, just reaching his physical peak, with a bright future yet to come.

The Black Wolf reached the marble hallway at the front of the building, pausing near one of the elaborate columns. Helmut Dalitz would approach from the right, accompanied by his bodyguards; a third man would be waiting just outside, alerted by radio.

Taking him in the concert hall was tempting—there were so many people present that he could sidle right up to Dalitz and shoot him with the silenced gun. But getting away would be problematic. He wasn’t so much worried about witnesses as simply being able to slip quickly through the crowd. Outside would be easier.

A surge of people blocked his vision, and he lost Dalitz momentarily. The Black Wolf took a step in the direction he knew Dalitz would take, then stopped. He scanned the faces, looking.

One of the bodyguards was walking at the far end of the hall. Wolfe realized Dalitz must be in front of the man, though he couldn’t see him.

Why was he that far away? Had he changed his mind—was he going back to his daughter?

No. His escorts were simply trying to avoid the worst of the crowd.

It was too late to cut him off. Wolf took a step back, sliding toward the door on his left.

The worst thing to do was to rush. He had to move slowly and deliberately. If he did not kill Helmut Dalitz now, he would kill him later, or tomorrow, or the next day. Success was the only thing that mattered in this assignment, not timing.

The crisp Berlin air invigorated Wolf as he came through the doors. The square in front of the theater was yellow, lit by clusters of old-fashioned lamps at each of the corners. He paused, getting his bearings. Dalitz turned right, toward the Gendarmenmarkt. If he followed his usual practice—and being a man of habit, he surely would—he would walk up Markgrafenstrausse toward Französische.

Wolf started down the steps. The light in the square was dim, but he could see as well in the dark as most people could see during the day. He quickened his pace, turning parallel to his quarry.

Dalitz’s two bodyguards moved closer. Did they sense the danger?

No. They were just doing their job, closing up ranks, anxious to get to the next waypoint.

The Black Wolf put his hand into the pocket of his overcoat, gripping his pistol. The gun and its bullets were made completely of carbon composites. They wouldn’t trip the most finicky metal detector, yet the bullets were as fatal as Magnums at a hundred yards. The long, boxy barrel had a noise suppresser; the bullet sounded like a metal slug dropping through a vending machine, and was only a little louder.

The Black Wolf picked up his pace, moving closer.

He liked to be close, not just to ensure that he hit the target, but to viscerally feel the kill. It touched something inside, some primitive emotion. Nothing else he felt came close to that feeling. It was the feeling of life, as paradoxical as it seemed: only in someone else’s death could he actually live.

Helmut Dalitz turned the corner. Wolf notched up his pace even higher, careful not to break into a run.

The white Mercedes was waiting just ahead.

The two bodyguards were spaced three and a half meters apart, trailing their client by a half pace each.

Wolf was ten meters behind them.

Seven.

Five.

He pulled the gun from his pocket. The man on the right started to turn.

A single shot took him down. Wolf swiveled, his left hand grabbing his forearm to steady the gun. He caught the second bodyguard in the temple.

And then it was Helmut Dalitz’s turn.

The businessman turned, his face an expression of utter surprise.

The Black Wolf grinned, and squeezed the trigger.

3

Room 4, CIA Headquarters Campus (Langley)

McLean, Virginia

“Good morning, Colonel Freah. How would you like your coffee?”

Danny Freah turned to the ceiling as the elevator car plunged down toward its destination. “How do you know I want coffee?” he asked.

“You always want coffee,” responded the voice.

“I can’t break the pattern?”

“Breaking the pattern would be unexpected.”

The elevator stopped and the door opened.

“Colonel Freah, you did not answer my question,” said the voice.

“Surprise me,” said Danny, stepping out into the wide hall in front of the elevator. The space looked like the bottom level of a mall parking garage. A spider work of girders, beams, and pipes ran through it.

They weren’t for show, exactly, but the overall look was definitely intentional. The insides of the nondescript building—known only as Room 4—had an ambiance that mixed high-tech functional and blow-your-mind weirdness.

Case in point was the gray wall facing Danny at the far end of the room. He walked toward it, then straight through it.

Danny Freah was still so new to Room 4 and the high-tech gizmos associated with it that it felt eerily cool to do that. But he was too professional to admit it—or give in to the temptation to do it a few more times for fun.

The wall was not an optical illusion, exactly. It could keep someone out if the security system didn’t want them in. The barrier was a physical manifestation of an energy array—a kind of force field in layman’s terms, though the man responsible for inventing it, Dr. Ray Rubeo, hated the term force field.