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Luther.
    â€œYes. Deavers is now in possession of that information, too,” said Kilmer. Then his brow furrowed, just for a second but long enough for Luther to take notice. His eyes opened a little wider and then returned to their usual half-closed position. “From there he made it to London, where he contacted and killed MI6 agent Lisa Radcliff.”
    â€œLisa,” said Luther under his breath.
    â€œYes, I believe you knew her.”
    â€œAlex introduced us, many years ago when I was just starting.”
    â€œHe contacted her, and then we assume he asked for her assistance. Presumably when it was refused, he resorted to his training.”
    Luther envisioned a battle between the two agents. Lisa and Deavers had been lovers at one point. No good agent would have been caught off guard, he thought. Lisa was a black belt in tae kwon do. He saw Alex disabling her formidable style and crushing her with his greater power.
    â€œHe snapped her neck, in case you’re wondering,” said Kilmer. “And she put up a fight. His blood was found in her flat. Following this little incident, British authorities came after him. Deavers easily eluded them. One man was killed and two others hospitalized. He killed an agent named Victor Jansen with a mini-stress charge that blew off the man’s foot. We believe that it was an item from Radcliff’s utility pack.”
    This was Kilmer’s clinical name for what E-1 agents called a “goodie box,” an arsenal of weaponry.
    â€œThe other two men were beaten badly,” Kilmer continued. “We believed that Deavers bribed his way onto a freighter thatwent into Canada, or at least that was what we thought. When we caught up with the man on the ship, he turned out to be an illegal immigrant from Norway.”
    Kilmer turned off the display panel and then added, “I’m almost proud of him.”
    â€œSo where do we think he might be?” asked Luther.
    â€œThat’s where you begin,” said Kilmer. “We lost him. He left no ordinarily readable trail—nothing.”
    â€œAnd ‘nothing’ means an agent is on the case,” said Luther, remembering something that Alex had taught him. In the normal discharge of life, people leave evidence that they’ve been present in a place. There’s no reason for a normal person to cover his tracks or otherwise obfuscate the fact of his presence. But the only trail an agent leaves is no trail at all. When it’s examined closely by another agent, though, there’s always something there.
    â€œThis mission is nonrecourse,” said Kilmer. His eyelids seemed to close all the way for a moment.
    â€œWhy?” asked Luther. He had been thinking that Deavers was to be captured. But for a kill mission, he didn’t mind asking Kilmer this.
    The director was smart enough not to tell Luther it was a kill mission until he’d given him some information on what his old friend had done. Kilmer would not think of his question as weakness or hesitation. It was a request for more information.
    â€œDeavers is clearly a loose cannon,” said Kilmer. “If he was injured in the explosion, he might be mentally imbalanced. We don’t know what he’s planning, but it can’t be good. We can assume that when you catch up to him, he will try to eliminate you just as he has every other agent he’s encountered. I will not sendan agent after him without teeth in his orders. So do you accept the terms?”
    Luther took just a moment, but in that instant he relived his history with Alex, an exceptional man who had introduced Luther to the world and his role in it Alex was a friend, but Luther was a creature of duty. E-1 was not unlike a sports team, a place where personal achievement never outweighs a common cause. The goal of the team was to win at all costs, and in that regard Luther had no choice.
    â€œYes, sir,” said Luther. “I