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and shouting. The only guy in the whole firm not suffering from arthritis, I launch myself into the crowd, arms up high. I’m soon surrounded by a clutch of diabolically sexy babes in miniskirts. Bodies touch, then rub together, forming a heaving and sensual whole. The music makes the debauchery all right. High-class hookers have moved in on my bosses. They can afford them, but tonight is on me. It’s my day. Money, power, women. We are masters of the universe in a gloriously pathetic caricature. Who cares? Morality, codes of conduct and good behavior are for losers. The chick with her tongue down my throat wouldn’t look at me twice if I were a mechanic or steelworker. Her friend wouldn’t be copping a feel if I didn’t drive an Aston Martin. And I’m going to sleep with them both because I’m rich. They say power is a great aphrodisiac. It’s true. Vile but true. I’m about to prove it. One last flaming scotch with the new loves of my life. A great shot of alcoholic vapor in the nostrils. Bartenders call it a shooter. It certainly kills you.
    No point saying goodbye. Everybody’s in good hands. These aren’t women on my arms, but two crutches helping me walk straight. The valet brings up my DB9. However hard I look, only James Bond’s wheels suit my present and future standing. And away we go for a high-speed ride through downtown Manhattan. Let’s enjoy the moment.
    The blonde chick puts her heels on the walnut dash. That makes me mad. I knock her feet away and start to explain with a stern bordering-on-crude lecture that you don’t behave like that in a car that’s worth more than her whole apartment. Suddenly, two screams ring out. I’m propelled toward the wheel, but the airbag stops me. I screech to a halt and leap out like a wildcat. A couple stares at me in disbelief. Lying on the pavement a dozen yards away is an upside-down stroller. Blood trickles out of it.
    My father was taken from me. I’ve just taken a child. I slump down on the sidewalk and begin to retch. I puke my guts out on the pavement and try to get my head around what I’ve done. I wipe my mouth with the lapel of my jacket. I pull out my state-of-the-art cell phone. “Bernard, I’ve screwed up.”
    “Tell me where you are. I’m on my way.”
    I tell him. I hurl the damn phone against the wall. The hookers have melted away. The parents are in tears, kneeling over the stroller. They speak a language I don’t know. The father points at me. They look like the Al-Qaeda people you see on TV. His swarthy complexion and black beard close in on me fast. He hits me. He’s going to kill me. That’s fine. I killed his four-month-old daughter.
    This day was supposed to be mine.
    That’s when I always wake up. I’m condemned to relive the scene every night. And the shrink asks why I can’t sleep.

DAY 2

CHAPTER 9
    Tower of London, May 1941 .
    T he English doctors had done a remarkable job. The crash landing wasn’t part of the plan. The broken ankle either. Another three weeks’ rest, and he’d be gamboling around Berlin. No doubt the führer would be proud of him and the risks he’d taken for the grandeur of the Reich. Even Himmler and Göring would stop shouting their mouths off. For months, he’d suffered the humiliations in silence—excluded from crucial meetings, sidelined from decisions about the war. But this mission was his and his alone. And he was going to change the course of history.
    The unhappy child, bullied by a controlling father who had moved the family to Egypt for business reasons, wasn’t doing so bad. He’d developed a taste for insubordination from an early age, but only when he was twenty-one and the Great War was raging did he rebel against his father’s strictures, abandoning his boring business school to enlist in the hope of becoming a fighter pilot. The war ended before he could join the battle for the sky, but at least he’d broken free of his oppressive family. Then came the move into politics and