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is I’m working on something, but I’m not there yet and may never get there. You don’t know what you’re up against, so please drop it, for old times’ sake. You’re swimming in shark-infested waters.”
    Stupenagel took the offered arm and allowed herself to be escorted away from the party. “It’s for old times’ sake that I can’t, Mick. Besides, you do remember who you’re talking to, right? The first journalist—not just female journalist—in Phnom Penh when Pol Pot was overthrown. And I was sipping mojitos in Panama City before you, Sam, and the rest of the cavalry showed up to arrest that pimply-faced, drug-dealing dictator Noriega.”
    This time Swindells’s laugh was real. “Yes, I remember that—and more.” Then his eyes hardened again. “But I won’t have your blood on my hands, which is why—and the only reason why—I have to ask you not to contact me again.”
    Stupenagel held his gaze and then shook her head. “What do you think Sam would say, Mick?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Swindells shot back. “Sam’s dead, and you’re the last person I need to remind about why he died.”
    Stupenagel dropped her hand from his arm. “He died because some power-hungry bastards saw him as an impediment to their plans. And he died because he was trying to do the right thing. Goodbye, Mick.” With that she turned and walked away.She supposed it might have appeared to anyone watching that she and Mick had a falling out of the jilted woman variety.
    A couple of minutes later, as she was fishing in her purse for her cell phone, she nearly bumped into a young man going in the opposite direction. He had a military-style crew cut and his eyes were hidden by dark sunglasses; he didn’t say a word as he sidestepped her.
    Still thinking about her talk with Colonel Mick Swindells, she punched in the number for Lucy Karp.
    Lucy answered just as Ariadne reached the sidewalk leading out of the park toward Central Park West. “Ariadne?”
    â€œHi, honey. I just saw my friend,” Stupenagel reported. “I think you’re barking up the right tree, but he’s not talking. Maybe I can try again in a few—” She never finished the sentence.
    Gunshots rang out in the direction from which she’d come. One, two, then several more.
    Without knowing exactly why, she suddenly felt sick to her stomach. “Sorry, Lucy, I have to go,” she said as she reached down, removed her high heels, and began to run. Back toward the reunion. Back toward a nightmare she knew in her heart had to do with the reason she was there.

3
    â€œI DON ’ T GET IT. ”
    At the sound of his elder son’s voice, Butch Karp lowered the Sunday New York Times and peered over the top of the newspaper. Isaac, known to his family and friends as Zak, was seated at the island in the kitchen of their SoHo loft surrounded by the books and papers he’d gathered for a school project. He was leaning on his elbows with his face in his hands and staring down at his laptop.
    â€œWhat don’t you get?” Karp asked.
    Zak picked up his head and gestured toward the items on the counter. “This.”
    Karp knew in general terms what “this” was. As part of their­senior projects in history class, his twin sons and their classmates had been assigned to choose a revolution that had occurred somewhere in the world and write a paper on it. It was no small task; they were expected to address the causes, identify the principal characters, explain why the winners succeeded, and state whether in hindsight the revolutionaries had accomplished their stated goals.
    As expected, Giancarlo, the younger by a couple of minutes and the better student, had sailed right through his selection: the American Revolution. An obvious choice, but Karp had been impressed that Giancarlo had reached back to June 15,