“You betrayed me!” screamed the Iranian.

“You’ll get over it.”

The Iranian assumed a sophisticated fighting stance. “I was trained as a mujahideen. I fought the devils in Iraq and Afghanistan for years. I look forward to killing you with my bare hands. Serve me well in death, filth.”

Before he could attack, Shaw pulled his throwing knife and let it fly. It struck the other man in the foot, sliced through skin and bone, its point finally embedding in the wooden treads of the bridge underneath.

The Iranian screamed in pain and hurled obscenities at Shaw as he tried to pull his limb free.

Shaw used this moment of distraction to knock the Middle Easterner cold, his foot still pinned to the wood like a butterfly on a corkboard as he lay sprawled on the planks.

“You talk too much,” he told the unconscious man.

An hour later, Shaw sat in the back of a white van with a blanket around his burly shoulders sipping a cup of hot Dutch coffee. Two men in uniforms that were conspicuous for not having a single identifying mark, along with a third fellow in an off-the-rack business suit, sat across from him.

“Diving out windows? Into the canal? At your age?” the suit said as he scratched at a patch of reddened skin on his bald, egg-shaped head.

“Did you trace the call?”

The man nodded. “Quick thinking giving him your phone. We nailed Mazloomi and his crew in Helsinki about ten minutes ago. Nasty group of people. Yeah, real tough.” The man did a mock shiver and then laughed.

Shaw didn’t crack a smile. “Good guys rarely try to nuke innocent people. That’s why we have governments.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yeah, and so do you, Frank, if you had the balls to admit it.”

Frank looked at the twin uniforms and nodded at the door. They quickly got up and left. Frank edged closer to Shaw.

“What’s this I hear about you wanting to hang it up?”