Most important for Rapp, though, was that he now knew how the man moved. How he carried himself. They had him on tape for twenty-seven seconds while he waited in line to order his drink. Thanks to the time stamp on the surveillance footage they were also able to go back and find out exactly what the assassin had ordered-a double espresso. Definitely more European or Middle Eastern than American, and that was where the hunt had led them-to the countries that bordered the Mediterranean.

Rapp started with the CIA’s database and then contacted his colleagues in Britain, France, and Italy. For close to four weeks Rapp and a small team had been hopping all over the Mediterranean running down leads. They’d been in Tunisia, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and now Cyprus. They had narrowed the search down to three names. Whether those three names represented three separate individuals or one, they couldn’t be sure. The business was funny that way. It was very easy for an operator to take on multiple identities and use different pseudonyms depending on the target, the type of hit, or the region. With each passing day, though, Rapp was beginning to believe it was one man. There were too many similarities. Too many intersecting paths.

Rapp’s contact in Istanbul was dependable: a deputy undersecretary in the Turkish National Intelligence Organization who had been on the CIA payroll for almost three decades. He told Rapp there was a good chance the man he was looking for lived in Cyprus. He did business in Istanbul from time to time, but Limassol, Cyprus, was his home. The Turkish spy gave Rapp an address, an e-mail account, and a low-quality surveillance photograph. Dumond pulled all the information together in less than a day and was still trying to connect the dots. They had real estate records, tax returns, past and present e-mail accounts, and banking records. The guy he was looking for operated a front company out of an office above the café he’d been sitting across from for the past two hours. The owner of the café was his landlord. The tenant went by the name of Alexander Deckas. Rapp thought it a strange irony that the suspected assassin went by the same first name as the last name of the man he had tried to kill.

Rapp stood and dabbed the wine from his pants. A sympathetic waiter handed him a second napkin. He cleaned the wine as best he could while trying to come up with the worst possible overseas posting for Brooks. The waiter gave him a third napkin, and Rapp gave him the two soiled ones. He glanced around the area to see how much attention he had garnered. The café was on a one-way street in front of the hotel so all the parked cars were pointed east. Halfway down the block to his left, something caught his eye. Casually, he threw some cash down on the table and thanked the waiter in Italian. He didn’t know Greek and figured it was the next best option. Rapp then started down the street. He pulled at his wet shirt and continued to act concerned over his soiled clothes. He glanced to his right and confirmed what he had seen. Two men were sitting in a car. One of them was holding a camera with a telephoto lens and it was pointed at the same café Rapp had been watching.

Rapp looked away and grabbed his phone. After several rings a man answered.

“What’s up?”

“Where are you?” asked Rapp.

“ Athens.”

“Get your ass to Cyprus, and I mean yesterday.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think we’re the only people looking for this guy.”

“I’m at the airport right now. I’ll see what’s available and get back to you.”

Rapp hit the end button and kept walking. He was trying to figure out his next move when it presented itself in the form of a mannequin perched in a storefront window near the end of the block. New clothes and a view of the two men across the street were exactly what he needed.

The partygoers in the Alex Hotel were all in a good mood, and they should have been since not a single one of them had paid for a thing all weekend. This particular environmental conference was one of the hottest tickets on the annual circuit. One day of workshops and panels, and two days of skiing and debauchery at one of Europe ’s finest ski resorts. A Grateful Dead cover band was on a tiny stage playing “Cumberland Blues” as the crowd of rhythmically challenged, Birkenstock wearing, patchouli oil-smelling, prematurely gray, Mother Earth lovers danced a herky-jerky dance that would have made any lover of the Motown Sound either cry or double over in laughter.

Mark Ross stood near the back of the room with a permanent smile on his face. He had attended the event five previous times as a U.S. senator and the attendees had always been nice to him, but now they treated him like royalty. He had been smart to embrace this issue years ago. If one was to rise to the top of the Democratic Party it was very important to have the proper credentials. No résumé builder was more vital than the role of compassionate environmentalist. These were the foot soldiers. The people who got out the vote. Who organized things from the grass roots with their e-mail blasts and blogs. He appreciated everything they’d done for him, and would hopefully do for him in the future. He was already thinking about his turn. Eight years wasn’t so long. There were limits though. He was now at the top of the political heap. One place from the pinnacle. He’d put in enough time with the unwashed. Now it was time to head off to Mount Olympus and bask in the adoration of the truly powerful.

The toughest invite of the entire weekend was for Joseph Speyer’s party at his mountainside villa. The Deadheads were not welcome. Speyer’s party was for the heavy hitters-European royalty; fashion icons from Paris, London, New York, and Milan; international financiers; media moguls; the occasional movie or rock star; hip politicians; and ultra-wealthy trust funders. In other words, the beautiful people who flew in on their private planes, partied hard, wrote big checks, and then flew on to the next big party, or one of several mansions they owned. Conservation to these people meant having their staff recycle their diet pop cans and designer plastic water bottles. Some of them went so far as to buy a small hybrid car, but the purchase was simply to drive to a friend’s house on the weekend. They still kept their limos, SUVs, luxury sedans, and sports cars.

For Ross, Speyer ’s party was a must. It allowed him to tap into people with obscene money. People who could write million dollar soft-money checks, because that was how much money their bond portfolio had earned the previous week. Ross had been welcomed into this crowd from the get-go. He was tall, relatively handsome, and fit. But equally important was the fact that he’d built himself a small fortune on Wall Street, which endeared him to his fellow multimillionaires. The ultra wealthy had a much easier time writing checks to people who were already in the club. On some level they thought a fellow millionaire was less likely to abscond with the funds.

Ross shook a few more hands and turned for the door. The smell of cannabis was pungent. Michael Brown, the Secret Service agent in charge of his detail, stood a few steps away with a frown on his face. He fell into step with Ross as they left the room.

“What’s the matter, Michael?” Ross asked with a smile. “You’ve never been stoned?”

“I don’t do drugs, sir. Never have.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Ross said casually. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Five more agents fell in around them. The shortest was six feet one and the tallest was six feet six. They looked more like a basketball team than a security detail.

“I don’t lie, sir.” Brown’s eyes scanned the crowd in the lobby. “Just so you know, I’m going to have to put this in my report.”