Seagraves could actually buy all that he needed on an Internet site that required a carefully guarded password. A few clicks of the Dell, a server somewhere in India hummed, and from one's fancy laser printer out popped a new you with all the official bells, whistles and available credit. Fortunately, changing identities was stunningly easy to do in the computer age. In his previous career with the federal government he'd adopted false identities and traveled across the world.

A wife and brats would certainly have complicated his unorthodox lifestyle. Roger Seagraves was forty-two, single and childless. He had never suffered from that shortcoming. However, if there were a fourth rule, it would have to be: exploit the fact that most people are fools when it comes to things that actually matter, like their own survival. The three imperatives of his mission were embedded in every action he performed: (1) keep it simple (2) provide for every contingency and (3) never panic no matter how much your plan goes awry, which it occasionally did. He spent the next two days in careful, decisive preparation efficiently conducted around his day job. He'd killed before, many times in fact the only difference now was he wouldn't be doing it for his government. Seagraves finally concluded that he would do the deed himself, unwilling to trust it to a third party. Sitting at his desk in a space that was small and cluttered, and looked exactly the same as other work spaces up and down the corridor, he mentally assembled the critical pieces of his task. The next morning Seagraves drove to his office in northern Virginia. Instead of a daunting proposition, Seagraves saw it as a worthy challenge. He had to kill someone, and that someone was a very significant target.

That evening he sat alone in the living room of his modest suburban home after arriving at an important decision. Capitol after an interesting meeting that, surprisingly, had had little to do with politics.

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