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the tiled corridor halfway to the next exit sign, he noticed the elevator door beginning to close. At the same time, another man in a suit was exiting the stairwell he had hoped to use as his exit. Collin skidded to slow down, then lurched into the elevator car just as the doors shut behind him. To his chagrin, it was going up, not down.
    That makes three of them. At least.
    Two floors up, Collin bolted out the doors and to his left toward the south stairwell. One of the suits poked his head around the corner from the stairwell door and, seeing Collin coming toward him, stepped into the hallway. Collin was at full speed and didn’t hesitate. As the man reached into his jacket, Collin dropped his bags and went airborne. Before the man in the suit could produce the 9 mm Beretta from its holster, Collin’s feet kicked out, one landing a vicious blow to the man’s chin, the other to his chest. The man flew backward, landing on the burgundy carpet with a thud. His body cushioned Collin’s fall, and he let out a pained grunt as something crunched under Collin’s backside.
    In one fluid motion, Collin popped to his feet and through the door to the stairwell, slinging his backpack and computer bag over his shoulder as he went. He leapt down each flight, touching no more than two stairs between landings, one hand on the rail for balance. For ten floors he bounded downward.
    His brain was working just as hard as his body. What started with two guys in London had grown to three that he knew of. He had to assume the three brought reinforcements and that someone would be stationed in the lobby. Therefore, he didn’t stop at ground level but continued to the basement, knowing there was a car rental kiosk there.
    Exiting the stairwell into the garage, Collin met with a surprise. What appeared to be a high school rugby team from out of town was just loading into a large passenger van twenty yards from him. To his delight, the rear doors to the cargo area were wide open. There was the typical commotion and chaos associated with teenage boys. Punching and pushing and laughing and loud voices and music. With so many bodies and so much activity, no one noticed him slip inside and roll under the back bench. Within seconds someone slammed the doors shut and, speaking German, ordered all those who wanted food to get in and get buckled.
    Fifteen minutes later, the van stopped and a group of hungry teenagers and coaches piled out. Collin waited until the voices faded away, then crawled out from his hiding spot.
    Thirty minutes after that, he was on a train to Munich.
    With his narrow escape from the hotel in Hamburg, Collin knew he would have to step up his intensity and focus to match that of Pho Nam Penh and the Komodos. Otherwise, he was a goner.
    It was a long train ride to Munich, giving Collin plenty of time to ponder, analyze, and lament the series of events that brought him to this unenviable state of affairs. He wondered how he had been found and thought back through the previous days and weeks of living life on the run. Time and events and places melted into one another as if his recent memory were more of a soup, void of form or boundaries. Naturally, his mind went back to the beginning, though he begged it not to.
    His mind went back to his rather ordinary existence ten months ago. At the time, he thought he hated his life. He hated his sales job. He hated his boss and his insatiable appetite for more. No matter how much Collin sold, it was never enough. He hated his financial situation. No matter how hard he worked, there were always more bills to pay. But he loved his wife and three children dearly. The stress often made it difficult to show it.
    Sitting on that Munich-bound train, the lack of sleep and the non-stop tension brought on by the sense of being hunted, memories crept into Collin’s consciousness, like a thin line of invading ants, one after the other, searching. Despite his efforts to resist, his mind went back to the