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Prologue

Jose Nilson dos Linos was brushing dandruff frohts ca the records of a local orphanage, seeking proof that it was a front for one of Santiago's largest crie directors for several months, but had only recently ht rede informer

Jose had not yet been able to rack up significant evidence against the Chilean cri in on them He was convinced that the truth would soon surface, affording him his triumph in court

He was thinking of dra speeches as he climbed the stairs to his huhimself in, he made for a circular hich faced on to the streets of Santiago, and stood there, gaze trained on the people below, idly observing Then, s bureau to record the day's events in his diary

The diary was a thick, leather-encased ledger He laid it on the desk, found where he had left off the evening before and started to write He got through three lengthy,his pen aside, he closed his eyes and stroked the bridge of his nose with the thu his eyes, he pushed the diary away, leant over the bare desk and gently ran his fingers through his hair Flakes of dandruff fell in front of hi hi

While dandruff drifted through the air, Jose's assassin moved in for the kill, unseen and unheard His chosen na personal in what he did He did not knohy he had been hired to eliminate Jose Nilson dos Linos and would not have cared if he had Sebastian Dash was paid to kill, not to question

Dash placed the muzzle of his pistol to the back of Jose's skull It touched so lightly that Jose thought it was ahis hair Dash hesitated, surprised by his victiently

Jose Nilson dos Linos's head exploded in a cone of bone, brain and blood The bullet ed in a furious cri Jose's face above his upper lip The bullet embedded itself in the wall ahead of thea pearly corona around it

Dash carefully adjusted Jose's head and laid it to rest on its side, so that it was facing the door through which Jose's wife of eleven years would enter when she returned The grisly touch had been requested by Dash's eo, an overly talkative doctor had already been found in a siht for Sebastian Dash

The assassin strode to the door, le was correct, then retraced his steps He did not bother to reun was untraceable Instead he bent to adjust Jose's shoes With a frown, he discovered that the deadslip-ons He quickly examined the apartment and found a pair of laced black shoes in a closet Jose alore these shoes to court and would have been wearing thee Dash was not aware of this Any pair of shoes would have sufficed, as long as they had laces

Dash slid off Jose's slip-ons and worked the corpse's feet into the shoes Once they were on, he tied the lace of the right shoe but left the lace on the left undone This was his trademark It was not always possible-there were ti his na whenever the occasion permitted Even in Dash's sinister, secretive business, it paid to advertise

When everything was to his satisfaction, Dash took the diary-his e it a crack, he swept the corridor with a cool, critical eye Spying nobody, he stepped out, closed the door and took the stairs Shoulders hunched, lower face concealed by the lapels of his jacket, eyes obscured by thick glasses-plain glass, as he had 20 - 20 vision-and hair swept to the left Not an elaborate disguise, but Dash had found that the more mundane one appeared, the less notice people paid

Sebastian Dash strolled through the streets of Santiago He dropped the pistol down an open drain It was not the best way to dispose of incri evidence, but he wasn't intimately familiar with Chile's capital and it was better to be swift than certain Next he disposed of the diary and his gloves in an incinerator, then headed for home

Back at his hotel, Dash ran a bath, undressed and immersed his clothes in the water That was the trouble with blood-it got everywhere In the , when the clothes were dry, he would stuff the and return to the incinerator

Dash stood by the , naked, observing the Chilean sky, co the moon's corona to the one he had created in dos Linos's apartment He was interrupted by a knock on his door

'Mr O'Hara?' a woeress, Mrs Covarrubias A local woman, but she'd spent tier and spoke fluent English If Dash had known that before he checked into the ss

Moving closer to the door, Dash cleared his throat and adopted the thick Irish accent that he'd adopted when registering as Donal O'Hara 'Is it yourself, Mrs C?' he sang,her surname

'It is,' she laughed 'Are you decent?'

'I' you in any way, or would you rather come back when I'm dressed?'

'A letter came for you,' Mrs Covarrubias said 'Express delivery All the way from SweeSwiSwizzerland?'

'Switzerland,' Dash corrected her That would be Antonia To hire Dash, one had to go through Antonia She was the only person apart from his employer who knew that he was in Chile

'Mrs C,' Dash said, 'would you be a darling and slide the envelope under the door, assu it fits?'