on contemplatively. "A stroke. A heart attack. Cancer. Who can say? But like all of us he is mortal, and one day he will die. We simply wish to place a rush order on that eventuality. That is all."
"Why me?"
The Sikh made a face. "This is so embarrassing, really."
Ambler just stared.
"Well, the truth is, we don't exactly know what he looks like. Occupational hazard, right? The person he had direct dealings with isn't in a position to help us out."
"Because he's dead?"
"The reason is irrelevant-let's not get distracted from the big picture here. We've got a venue, we're got a time, but we don't want to take out the wrong person. We don't want to make a mistake. You see how scrupulous we are? Some people would just machine-gun everyone in the vicinity. But that's not our way."
"Mother Teresa, watch your back."
"I'm not saying we're in competition for sainthood, Tarquin. But then you aren't, either." His dark eyes flashed. "To return to my point: you'll be able to tell at a glance who the mark is. Because, being the mark, he knows he's marked. That's the sort of thing you'll be able to pick up on."
"I see," Ambler said, and he did, or was beginning to. Some sort of rogue outfit wanted his services. The job discussed was indeed an audition-but what they needed to establish was not his ability to read people. No, by killing a federal agent, he would be proving his bona fides-proving that he had severed all loyalties to his former employers, not to mention conventional morality. They must have had reason to believe that he was sufficiently embittered and disaffected to entertain the assignment.
Perhaps they were misinformed. Perhaps, though, they simply knew more than he did-perhaps they knew, as he did not, exactly why he had been committed to Parrish Island. Perhaps he had cause for grievance far beyond that of which he was aware.
"Then do we have a deal?"
Ambler thought for a moment. "If I say no?"
"You'll never know, will you?" Arkady smiled. "Maybe you should say no. And resign yourself to ignorance. There are worse things. They say that curiosity proved fatal to the feline."
"And that satisfaction brought it back." Not to know was the one thing he could not survive. He needed to know, and he needed to serve justice on those who had tried to destroy his life. Ambler glanced at the blue-jacketed man behind the gate counter. "I think we can do business."
It was madness, and it was the one thing that might save him from madness. Ambler recalled, from some long-ago classroom, the Greek legend about the labyrinth of Crete, the lair of the Minotaur. The labyrinth was so intricately twisted that those imprisoned within could never find their way out. But Theseus had been aided by Ariadne, who gave him a ball of thread, and tied one end to the door of the maze. By following the thread, he had made his escape. At the moment, this man was the closest thing Ambler had to a thread. What he could not know was which end of the maze it would lead to freedom, or to death. He would chance either rather than remaining lost in the maze.
Finally, Arkady began to speak in the tone of someone who had committed precise instructions to memory. "At ten a.m. tomorrow, the undercover agent has a meeting scheduled with the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York. We believe that an armored limousine will bring him to the corner of 1 St. Andrew's Plaza near Foley Square in lower Manhattan. He may be accompanied, part of a group; he may be alone. Either way, it will be a rare interval of vulnerability: the agent will have to traverse an extended pedestrian area on foot. You must be there."
"No backup?"
"One of our people will be there to help. At the appropriate time, our person will pass you a weapon. The rest is in your hands. All we insist is that you follow the instructions exactly. I realize this is like asking a jazz musician to follow the notes on a score rather than improvise, but in this instance, there can be no improvisation. How does that American expression go? 'It's my way or the thoroughfare,' right?" Yet another English idiom he had obviously learned in his native tongue; the double translation was exacting a considerable toll. "The plan must be respected in its particulars."
"It's highly exposed," Ambler protested. "A lousy plan."
"As