HERE WERE TWO GUARDS at the bottom of the stairs leading to the jet. The rest of the security was in the plane, surrounding what would be the main target for any attack. The fuselage door was closed, locked. It was like a vault. A very expensive vault. But as with all vaults, there were weaknesses.

The prince sat at the center of the table in the main part of the cabin. The interior was entirely of his own design. The plane consisted of nearly eight thousand square feet of marble and exotic woods, oriental rugs, and exquisite paintings and sculptures by long-dead, museum-quality artists that he could admire at forty-one thousand feet and five hundred miles an hour. Talal was a man who spent his money and thereby enjoyed his wealth.

He gazed around the table. There were two visitors here. One was Russian, the other Palestinian. An unlikely partnership, but it intrigued the prince.

They had promised that for the right price they could accomplish something that virtually everyone, the prince included, would have thought impossible.

The prince cleared his throat. “You’re sure you can do this?” His tone was full of incredulity.

The Russian, a big man with a full beard and a hairless head that gave him an unbalanced, bottom-heavy appearance, nodded slowly but firmly.

The prince said, “I am curious as to how this is possible, because I have been told that it is absolutely pointless even to try.”

“The strongest chain is defeated by its weakest link.” This came from the Palestinian. He was a small man, but with a fuller beard than the Russian. They were like a tugboat and a battleship, but it was clear that the small man was the leader of the partnership.

“And what is the weakest link?”

“One person. But that person is placed next to the one you want. We own that person.”

“I cannot see how that is possible,” said the prince.

“It is not just possible. It is fact.”

“But even so, access to weapons?”

“The person’s job will allow access to the necessary weapon.”

“And how do you own such a person?”

“That detail is not important.”

“It is important to me. This person must be willing to die, then. There is no other way.”

The Palestinian nodded. “That condition is met.”

“Why? Westerners do not do that.”

“I did not say that the person is a westerner.”

“A plant?”

“Decades in the making.”

“Why?”

“Why do any of us do anything? We believe in certain things. And we must take steps to realize those beliefs.”

The prince sat back. He looked intrigued.

The Palestinian said, “The plans are in place. But as you know, significant funds are required for something like this. Much of it in the aftermath. Our person is secure, for now. But that could change soon. There are eyes and ears everywhere. The longer we wait, the greater the chances of the mission failing before it has been given a chance to succeed.”

The prince ran his fingers over the carved wood of the table as he glanced out the window. The windows were extra large, because he enjoyed the views from his high perch.

The subsonic round hit him squarely in the forehead, exploding his brain. He fell back against his leather seat and then slowly slid to the floor. Gray matter, blood, bone, and tissue covered the plane’s once beautiful interior.

The Russian leapt up but had no weapon. It had been confiscated at the door. The Palestinian just sat there, paralyzed.

The guards reacted. One pointed to the shattered plane window. “Out there!”

They rushed to the door.

The two guards outside the plane had drawn their weapons and fired at the source of the fatal shot.

Shots pinged around Robie’s position. He aimed and fired back. The first sentry fell with a kill shot to the head. The second collapsed a few moments after that with a bullet wedged in his heart.

From his high perch Robie pointed his rifle’s muzzle at the door of the plane. He sent five shots right through the center, destroying the opening mechanism. He swiveled around and took out the cockpit window and with it the plane’s controls. The big bird would be grounded for a while. It was fortunate for his mission that bulletproof material was too thick and heavy to carry on planes. That made it simply a hundred-million-dollar vault with a very large Achilles’ heel.

Then he was done with killing.

Now came the hardest part.

The exit.

He tightwalked down the girder until he reached a wall on the far side of the hangar. He pushed open the window, attached his cable to the support ring he had bolted into place the night before, and rappelled down the wall. His feet touched the asphalt and he ran due east away from the hangar and the dead prince. He scaled a fence, dropped to the other side. He heard shouts behind him. Some beams of light broke the darkness. Shots headed his way, all far off target. He knew that could change.

The car raced up. He threw his gear in the backseat, jumped in, and it drove off before his door was even shut. Robie did not look at the driver and the driver did not look at him. The car traveled for only a few miles, into the outskirts of Tangier, before stopping. Robie slipped out, headed down an alley, walked another five hundred feet, and entered a small courtyard. A blue Fiat was there. He slid into the driver’s seat, snagged the keys from under the visor, and started it up. He gunned the engine and left the courtyard. Five minutes later he neared the center of Tangier. He drove through the city and parked the car at the port. He popped the rear hatch and pulled out a small bag packed with clothes and other essentials, including travel documents and local currency.

He boarded not the high-speed ferry back to Spain, which he had taken to get here, but instead the slow ferry from Tangier to Barcelona. It took twenty-four hours to go from Barcelona to Tangier and three hours longer in the other direction.

His employer had sprung for a three-person family berth rather than simply a seat. He went to this space, stowed his bag, locked his door, and lay on the bed. A few minutes later the ferry slipped away from the dock.

Robie could see the logic. No one would expect an assassin to escape via a boat that took over a full day to get to its destination. They would check the airports, the high-speed ferries, the highways, and the train stations. But not the lumbering old bathtub that would take twenty-seven hours to go a few hundred miles up the Med. He would actually arrive two days from now, since it was nearly midnight.

Robie had had with him a long-range surveillance cone that had allowed him to hear the conversation on the plane between the prince and the two other men. Access to weapons. Decades in the making. Significant funds for the aftermath. It would have to be followed up. But that was not his job. He had completed his task. He would make his report and others would now take over. He was certain that even the Saudi royal family would be relieved that one of their black sheep had been killed. Their official statement would condemn such an act of violence. They would demand a full investigation. They would posture and fume and whine. Tense diplomatic communications would be exchanged. But in private they would toast the ones responsible for the killing. In other words, they would toast the Americans.

It had been a clean operation. Robie had had the prince in his crosshairs from the moment he’d gotten out of his SUV. He could’ve taken him out then, but wanted to wait until the prince and his guards were on the plane. It would allow him more time to get away if the security detail were trapped inside the aircraft. He had lost sight of the prince for about half a minute right after he had entered the plane, but had reacquired him as he walked down the aisle and sat at the table.

Robie had aimed for the head of Talal even though it was a tougher shot, because of something he’d seen through his scope. When the prince had leaned forward in his chair, Robie had seen the straps underneath the man’s robes. He was wearing body armor. One did not wear body armor around the head.

Robie had spent three days and nights of his life perched high up, peeing into a jar and eating power bars while waiting for his target in a facility that was supposedly in lockdown and totally secure.

Now the prince was dead.

His plans would die with him.

Will Robie closed his eyes and slept as the ferry gently swayed on its slow ride over the calm waters of the Med.