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Liquida’s line of work, two million dollars could turn an associate into beef on the hoof in less time than it took to say the word tip.
    His natural paranoia was telling him that the stuff in the drop box could be a trap. He looked at the date on the message. It was two days old. Unless Bruno somehow knew about the reward before it was posted on the FBI’s site, he could not have known about it when he sent the message. In which case it might not be a trap at all. Or else . . . Liquida’s mind searched for the hook and its jagged barb.
    What if the message wasn’t from Bruno at all? What if the FBI had somehow found the box? Liquida had been using the drop box for about seven months. That was too long. It was time to get a new one, to find a fresh location. But it was too late to think about that now. If the message was real, then the money was there. But if the FBI knew about the box, they could know about the messaging service as well. They might be using the box as bait.

Chapter
Ten

    H ow many times do I have to tell you? I just want to go home,” said Raji. “This is not going to work. That’s all there is to it.”
    “It will work if you help us,” said Bruno.
    “I already told you, no. I made a mistake. I admit that. I should never have come to Paris.”
    “It’s too late for that,” said Leffort. “There’s no way back. They already know. The authorities will be looking for both of us by now.”
    “I’ll take my chances,” said Raji.
    “Unfortunately, that is no longer possible.” Bruno Croleva was an equal opportunity merchant of death. There was no cause he would not fuel with guns or munitions. He was totally nonpartisan in the same way politicians are who take donations from all sides on every issue. Bruno was in it for the money. Warm bodies or cold steel, it didn’t matter to Bruno. If there was a profit to be made, he would deliver it.
    “You know what I think?” said Bruno.
    Raji sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
    “I think you are a little homesick, is all. Maybe you have someone waiting for you back there. A nice woman perhaps?” Bruno wrinkled an eyebrow at him with the delivery of this diagnosis.
    Raji looked up at him and winced, as if to tell Bruno that he had an air bubble trapped somewhere between his ears. “No. You’re wrong.” Raji shook his head.
    “No need to be embarrassed.” Croleva fancied himself a mind reader, a delusion fostered by the fact that most people were sufficiently terrified of him that any semicivil suggestion from Bruno was generally followed by the word yes.
    Larry Leffort sat on the couch against the far wall in Raji’s Paris hotel room. He knew that playing twenty questions with Bruno could end with piano wire being used to make something other than musical notes.
    “Listen to me,” said Raji. “You don’t understand.”
    Bruno’s forced smile compressed the furrows above his eyebrows. The no-man’s-land between there and the shiny bald dome up top looked like a crooked plowed field. “Tell me. What is it that bothers you? Why do you want to go back?”
    “I just want to go home, that’s all.”
    “There is nothing there for you,” said Bruno.
    “I want my life back. Can’t you get that through your head?” Raji was afflicted more by anger than fear at the moment. “I know that coming here was a mistake. We all make mistakes. I’m sorry if I caused you problems. But now I just want to go home. That’s all there is to it. Understand?” Raji looked up at Bruno, all three hundred and sixty pounds of him and gave the man an annoyed expression, like what part of no don’t you understand.
    “I knew it,” said Bruno. “It is a woman. I can see it in your eyes. You miss her. You are in love. Admit it. Dat’s only natural. Young man like you. But soon you will be a rich man. You must learn to cast your net into the open sea, where there are many fish.”