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“Are your fingerprints on file?” he asked, looking over my shoulder at the concierge at the entrance to the building.

“Yes. It was part of becoming a park ranger.”

“But you're not on some national fingerprint list, are you? Who is going to compare those papers to fingerprints in southern California? You're panicking, and you're not thinking straight.”

I ran my hand through my hair. “The more time we talk, the less likely I am to get safely into the room.”

“You're not going back in there, Mike. I'm sorry, but I can't let you do that.”

“You can't
let
me?”

He pulled back his jacket a little, flashing just enough of his gun for me to get the idea.

“I can't let you,” he repeated.

I couldn't believe what was happening. Peaceful, hippie John was threatening me. Maybe he wasn't really into peace and love and all that. Maybe that was just a ruse, and this was his real personality. It was like half the training we'd gone through had been a bluff to trick us into thinking we were more than just assassins.

“I'm going in,” I said. His hand grabbed my arm, but I wrenched free
and ran inside.

At the top of the stairs, the concierge stopped me. “You can't enter,” he said in heavily accented English.
“Sie können hier nicht reinkommen.”

“I will only be a minute,” I said.

“But sir, it's not safe.
Sie sind in Gefahr. Achtung!
”

“I'll be right back,” I said, pushing past him.

“Sir!” he called after me. “Sir!”

I turned a corner and raced up the stairs. There were still no police here, only firemen. Even so, I switched my gun from the back of my pants to the large pocket of the robe. It was heavy and made the bathrobe sag. I moved quietly and swiftly up the steps until I reached the fourth floor. We had done so many runs up the mountains at Mary's ranch that I wasn't even winded when I got to the right door. I knew the room was down the hall about forty yards. I didn't relish seeing Raakel again. Her face was stained into my memory now too. Her brains and blood were sprayed across the blankets. I would never be able to unsee that.

I could see the door. It wasn't closed all the way, but there were no firefighters, no crime-scene tape. I pulled out my M1911 and moved quietly to the door.

I shouldn't have felt so afraid. Kat and I had gone head-to-head with a trained killer, and we'd won. It was a complete victory, with the exception of Kat's arm injury. But stepping into the dim room made it look like a disaster. There was blood everywhere. It wasn't like a shooting in the movies, not a simple hole in the forehead and a pool of blood under her body. No, she had slumped down, her face turned
toward the floor, and I could see the enormous holes in the back of her head. There were tufts of hair and scalp on the bed, and the blood had spilled onto the blanket, soaking and spreading into a wide patch.

I could see the sheriff, but this was worse than the sheriff. He'd been a middle-aged fat guy carrying a gun. Raakel was a 17-year-old elite athlete. Sexy. Armed only with a Turkish sword. And I'd talked to her. I'd pleaded with her. This hadn't been a simple execution. It had been a negotiation. I hadn't realized how quickly it would escalate, but it had, and there was nothing I could do about it now.

I should have been less hopeful. It had been my hope to be able to talk her into a peaceful resolution, and I'd stuck to that so firmly that I hadn't realized I had lost. It was my fault that Kat got injured.

The papers were lying on the floor, with only a spot or two of blood. I bent down to pick them up.

“Don't move.” An American accent. I heard the sound of a gun cocking.

My heart sank. I hadn't heard the door, hadn't seen a shadow. But the voice was close behind me.

I raised my hands. I still had the M1911 in my hand. “What do you want?”

“Take a guess.”

“I just got here. I didn't do anything.”

“Look in front of you,” he said. “You wonder what I want?”

“I don't know anything about this.”

“Right.” He moved closer to me and took my gun. I heard him pull back the slide and eject the round.

“Look,” I said. “I'm not who you're looking for.”

“Why are you carrying a gun?”

“Look at this room. Why do you think I'm carrying a gun? We're all in danger.”

“Danger from who?”

I started to turn around, to find out who I was talking to. Maybe a Player? He was American. Maybe a partner with the La Tène? Maybe a
Minoan with a really good accent?

“Keep your face to the front.”

I stopped. “Who are you?”

“I'm the one asking the questions.”

He grabbed my hand and twisted it down to the hollow of my back. I felt the steel of a handcuff snapping into place. I had to get away. I couldn't have him stop me here and take me away to a jail cell. I had to get back to Kat and John.

I yanked away from his grip and spun around, the cuff flying out of his hand. But as I made a motion toward him, his revolver pointed solidly into my chest. He had both hands on it now, finger on the trigger.

“Stop,” he said, “or you'll end up dead on the floor next to your Player.”

I stared back at him. The room was dark, with the only light coming from the hallway, making him a silhouette. I gazed into his face and fell silent, knowing he could squeeze off a shot faster than I could move.

“How do you know about Players?” I asked.

“Put the other handcuff on your own wrist.”

“Tell me how you know about this. If you know, and you're stopping me, you'll be as guilty as the Players themselves.”

“Put the handcuff on.”

I did as he ordered. I was restrained, my hands in front of me.

“Let's get to another room,” he said. “Somewhere we can talk.” He took the Brotherhood of the Snake papers and stuffed them into his suit pocket. He directed me out the door. Instead of going downstairs, we went up. No one was around, not the fire department, not housekeeping—nobody.

“Who are you?” I asked as we walked, me in front, him telling me where to go.

“I work for the American government. Security for the Olympians. They sent me over to find you.”

“Shouldn't you be protecting the Olympians, then?”

“Just walk.”

“If you know about the Players,” I said, “you have to understand why we're doing this.”

“All I understand is that too many people are dying today. Are you a part of this? Are you killing Israelis too? Are you Black September?”

“I have no idea about that. You probably know more about them than I do.”

He opened the door to a hotel room and pushed me inside.

He sat me in a chair at a small circular table, handcuffing one of my hands to the armrest, then sat on the bed to use the phone, his eyes still on me. He was on for a long time—maybe an hour, maybe more. I tried to catch parts of his conversation, but it was hard to follow only one side of it, and the person on the other end was doing more talking than he was. He was listening or waiting on hold or something.

At long last he hung up and walked over to the window.

“I know you killed a sheriff in Redding, California. I know that you've been part of a militant terrorist group called Zero line. I know that you've spent the summer practicing to kill twelve kids—like that girl back there.”

“She's a trained killer.”

“She was. So are you.”

“Listen,” I said. “You seem to know a lot about this. You have to know the danger we're in if we don't get to all the Players.”

“If you don't kill all the Players, you mean.”

“No, I don't. You have to understand: we're trying to talk to them. Our goal is not to kill a bunch of people. We're trying to get them to stop. To stop Playing.”

He smirked. “Because that's how to stop the aliens, right?”

“Yes,” I said angrily. “I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.”

“Prove it.”

My mind raced. I had no idea how to talk my way out of this. He had that gun trained on my chest.

“We faked a Calling,” I said. “Do you know what a Calling is?”

“It's when they all get together—the twelve Players.”

“Yes, but it's when Endgame starts. When they all try to kill each other, to fight for survival. The fact that they're here, that they're prepared to kill, that should be plenty of proof that this is real.”

“Nice try,” he said. “So maybe they're as delusional as you are. Two sides of the same cult. What I want to know, Michael—”

“My name's Frank Finn.”

“That will come as a surprise to your parents in Pasadena. Come now, you don't think I haven't done my homework? We've talked to your parents. They know about the cult. They know about killing the sheriff. Now just talk to me. Tell me about him.”

“The sheriff? He wasn't supposed to be there.”

“So that was your first murder?”

“No. It was my first kill,” I responded, pissed off. “It wasn't planned. I'm not a murderer. I killed him, but I'm not . . . it's not what you think.”

The American sat down across from me at the table in the corner by the hotel window. My left wrist was handcuffed to the armrest, but it was an old wooden chair, and when I leaned back, the arm came out of joint. I thought that I could get the handcuffs loose if he looked away. I had to be ready to move when I did that. I only had one shot at escape.

“How is that not murder?” he asked, his face a mask. “Tell me what I'm misunderstanding.”

“It was self-defense.” My heart was pounding in my chest. I couldn't even tell if I was bluffing anymore, or if it was the truth.

“You had just killed two other men. Was that self-defense, too?”

“I didn't kill two men.”

“Your friends did.” The agent—was he CIA, FBI maybe?—stood up from his chair and paced the room. I had no idea how he had tied me to anything in California. The papers from the Brotherhood of the Snake were on the table—no one had even run prints, and now the
man's fingerprints were on them as well.

I didn't know what to say to him. All I knew was that I had to get out of there, fast. The team was counting on me. Kat was counting on me. We didn't have much time.

She was probably already gone. I'd been in the hotel far too long. She couldn't just be waiting in the park, like I'd left her. John had been there. The two of them might have written me off as captured, a lost cause. John had shown his true colors. He was ruthless. He didn't care about any of us.

Kat wouldn't abandon me. And she knew I wouldn't abandon her. She had to know that something had stopped me from getting back to her. She'd wait.

No, Kat needed to get to a hospital. Would someone still be waiting for me? The fire department was likely gone. It was up to the Munich police to worry about Raakel's body, and they were so busy with the Olympics that they might not come for hours. John said we would all be meeting at the park, but they would have had to leave without me. They couldn't wait this long.

“The cop,” I said, thinking fast, “had just shot my friend in the chest.”

“Your
friend
was shot in the chest while you were robbing a store at gunpoint. You face charges of grand larceny, assault with a deadly weapon, and murder, and that doesn't begin to address what you're doing here in Germany.”

He was the only agent there—alone and stupid. Maybe he was just from the US Consulate. He clearly had no idea who he was dealing with. He thought I was just a run-of-the-mill terrorist. But I wasn't. I was Zero line. What we were doing was so much bigger than one California sheriff's life. So much bigger than an FBI or CIA agent. So much bigger than me. He was wasting my time, and time was the one thing we needed on our side.

“Listen,” I said. “Can I use the bathroom?” I'd scanned the place for anything I could use to escape. It was no prison—it was just a hotel. Someone had slept in the bed last night. It wasn't made. “We've been
sitting in here for hours.”

He stared at me through narrowed eyes. “I'll let you get up when you're finished answering my questions.” He leaned forward, trying to intimidate me. “Why are you in Munich? What's your plan here?”

“I want a lawyer.”

“We're not in the United States,” he said. “Different rules.”

“Different rules?” I said, nervously laughing a little bit. “You're an American; I'm an American. The Constitution guarantees my rights.”

“Here's the passenger manifest from your flight out of Reno. I'm going to read through the names, and you're going to tell me who else is in your group.”

“Seriously?” I said, and laughed. “I thought you already had all the answers. You obviously have no idea what is going on. No idea.”

While the agent talked, I leaned back in my chair. The armrest wasn't moving enough. The joint was loose, but the back of the chair hit the wall, and I wasn't able to squeeze the handcuff out through the gap. I gripped the armrest, trying to guess its weight.

He sat again, his chair scooted all the way in to the table. “I know you're not here alone. Who else from the plane is working with you? I've heard about Katherine McKnight—Kat.”

“You're wasting my time,” I said. “I need to get out of here. I don't have time.”

I gripped the arm of the chair with my handcuffed left hand.

“If it's so important, why won't you tell me what it is?”

And then it hit me.

“Eugene,” I said, looking at him. “You've been talking to Eugene. That's how you know about all this stuff.”

He smugly straightened his tie. “Eugene West. We were told to watch for you. I knew you'd start your killing today, but I didn't know the magnitude. Tell me: How did you get involved with Black September?”

“You have no idea what you're talking about,” I said, shaking my head. “We're not with Black September.”

He leaned toward me, our faces only inches apart. “Then explain it to
me.”

I shoved the table with my right hand, tipping it into the agent's stomach. I leaped to my feet, yanked up the chair, and smashed it into him. It lost some of its momentum as it scraped against the wall, but I was still able to bring it down on him hard. The chair broke as it hit his shoulder and the table, but the armrest was still in my hand. I beat him across the face with it until he went down. He was dazed, and I scrambled out from behind the table and pieces of the broken chair.

He went for his gun, slowly pushing the broken chair away. He was bleeding from his head—a lot. I hit him again with the armrest and then gave him a right hook. He wasn't struggling anymore, and I grabbed his pistol from his holster.

I pulled the broken armrest out of the handcuff and knelt down next to him to find his keys. I grabbed them just as he tried to throw a weak punch. It caught me off guard, and I stumbled back slightly. But I had his keys and gun, and I held the pistol in my left hand while I unlocked the cuffs.