OBIE SAT IN the small room that he had used as an office for the last five years. No chubby middle-aged man in a rumpled suit came to bring him yet another flash drive. He was not here for another mission. He was here to see what had come before.

The trip he had referred to with Vance had been one taken in his mind. He stared at the computer screen in front of him. Staring back at him were the reports on his last five missions that had carried him back a full year in time.

He had eliminated, at least for now, three of them. The last two had captured his attention for a couple of reasons: They were the most recent ones, and they involved targets with long arms and many friends.

He clicked a few computer keys and an image of the deceased Carlos Rivera appeared on the screen. The last time Robie had seen the Latino, he had been screaming obscenities at Robie in Underground Edinburgh. Robie had killed Rivera and the man’s bodyguards and made what he thought had been an undetected escape.

Rivera had a younger brother, Donato, who had taken over much of his brother’s cartel operations. The book on Donato was that he was every bit as ruthless as his late brother, but with far less ambition. He was content to run his drug empire without inserting himself into the political situation in Mexico. Perhaps this was also due to what had happened to his big brother. Still, he might want to avenge Carlos’s death. And if he had found out Robie’s identity through Robie’s handler, he might have the necessary information to do so.

In his mind’s eye Robie went through the events leading up to the killing of Carlos and company. After completing this process he thought, Do I fly to Mexico and attempt to kill Donato?

Something deep in his gut told Robie that the man’s relations could care less who had gunned Rivera down. Little brother was alive and doing very well without big brother around.

So Robie moved on to the next target of interest.

Khalid bin Talal, one of the Saudi princes, a fixture on the Forbes 400 list, richer even than Rivera.

Once more Robie closed his eyes, and this time transported himself back to the Costa del Sol.

On the third night the target had walked right into his crosshairs along with the Palestinian and the Russian, geopolitically an odd couple. Talal had exited his motorcade, walked up the steps to the hulking plane. Robie had lost visual on him for a few seconds. But then Talal had sat down across from his fellow conspirators.

Robie’s shot had hit the man dead center in the head. No possibility of survival. Robie had gunned down two bodyguards, disabled the plane, executed his escape, and been on the slow ferry to Barcelona within the hour.

Clean kill, clean exit. And the truth was, bin Talal was not popular in the Muslim world. His ideas were too radical for the moderates. The ruling family was well aware that he desired to overthrow it, and it was largely at the family’s behest that Robie had been sent out on this mission. And even the Islamic fundamentalists tended to give Talal a wide berth because they did not trust his close business ties to Western capitalists.

He sat back in his chair and rubbed his temples. If he still smoked he would have lit up right now. He needed something to take his mind off a deep sense of failure. Something was staring him in the face. Perhaps it was the truth, the answer he needed. But it wouldn’t come.

He went back through the three missions previous to Rivera and bin Talal. Every step, like he had with the Latino and the Muslim. Clean executions, clean exits, all of them.

And yet if not one of them, who?

He took out his pistol and laid it on the desk in front of him, the muzzle facing away from him. He stared down at the Glock. A fine weapon, it almost always performed flawlessly. This was not a mass-produced piece. This was customized to fit his hand, his grip, and his way of shooting. Every piece was meticulously crafted to make success a foregone conclusion. But it wasn’t just about aiming straight. There were a million parts to every mission, and if any one of them failed, so did the mission. For Robie the easiest part was the actual killing. He was good at it, and had some semblance of control over events. The other parts of the puzzles often came down to others doing their job, totally outside of his control.

He had not always killed on behalf of the U.S. government. He had worked for others, all allies of the Americans. That’s what had gotten their attention. The pay was better on this side of the Atlantic, but if it had solely been about money Robie would have moved into another line of work a long time ago.

There was a reason he kept taking these assignments, kept pulling the trigger on one monster after another. He had never talked to anyone about it, and doubted he ever would. It wasn’t that the memories were too painful. It was that he had frozen that part of his mind. He was incapable of articulating a single sentence about it. That was the way he wanted it. Anything less would not allow him to function.

He rose from behind the desk, the sense of failure now profound.

His phone was buzzing as he reached the door of his car.

It was Blue Man.

They had tracked down the military ties among Curtis Getty, Rick Wind, and Leo Broome. They had all served together.

“I’m on my way,” said Robie.