The phone on the nightstand bleated. He jerked with alarm. Mother of God, it’s already starting. He stared at the phone, willing his wits to return, willing fortitude and backbone and courage. 


“Hello,” he said, his voice far less unsteady than his gut.


“James Hayward?” 


“Yes,” he lied. How many years had it taken for him to master himself, to finally inhabit his own skin? And now, on the last day of his life, the last man to speak to him wouldn’t even use his real name.


“You are ordered to proceed,” the male voice said in an American accent. “Do not deviate. You are now and will remain under surveillance until termination.”


Termination . . . how artfully apropos, Hayward thought. Anger flashed, but he let it pass.

“I understand.”


“You are instructed to infiltrate and retrieve the item in one hour.” The man didn’t wait for a response. Hayward heard a click and the hum of an open circuit.


Hayward replaced the receiver, stood on trembling legs, and let the bedsheets fall at his feet. He walked slowly to the shower and started the water. He felt the shower’s soothing calm and the sensation sparked a pang of regret. Death really seemed to put life into perspective, he mused with an idle detachment that seemed inappropriately irreverent. But what the hell was an appropriately reverent thought to entertain in a circumstance like this?


He turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and stood before the mirror. His mid-life paunch was gone, replaced by muscular contours. His stooped, apologetic posture was also gone, replaced by a confident, capable stance. Hair once stringy and long was now close-cropped, and a wastrel’s padded jawline had given way to the carved hardness of an operator. But the biggest change was in the eyes. They were clear, hard, purposeful, understanding. 
But none of that would do him any good today. Today wasn’t for clarity or hardness or purpose. It wasn’t for action, for striving, for victory. Today was for atonement.


“Fine mess you’ve made,” Hayward said. It sounded small and inane, a waste of breath, a waste of time. 


Breath and time.

Suddenly his most precious commodities.


He dressed in yesterday’s clothes. He left his 9mm Smith & Wesson under the pillow and his little Ruger .380 on the nightstand. He wouldn’t need either of them and they might complicate things. Their comforting heft might plant seeds of revolt, might entice him to do something foolish or prevent him from doing what had to be done.


On top of the ornate dresser sat a hotel room key card and the keys to a rented car. He ignored them and palmed an ID badge, covered in Chinese characters and a photograph of a Westerner’s face. He slipped the ID card into his pocket and left the room.


Hayward strode out of the hotel and into the morning sun, its smothering warmth already settling heavily over the towering bustle of Singapore, and reached into his pocket to retrieve a cell phone. He texted a memorized message to a number he’d come to know and despise, one last bit of sick humor at his own expense: “The end begins.”