Chapter 1

The sun had long since set, and the late spring night was growing cool. I checked my watch: 10:43 PM. As I shifted my position to get more comfortable on the flat roof, I heard the crunching sound of a vehicle on the gravel driveway below me.

In an instant I came fully alert, peering down through an open skylight into the gloomy old warehouse. After a moment, one of the garage doors along the east wall slid open, and a black van rolled slowly inside. The man who had opened the door stepped in after it, pulled the door back down behind him, then switched on the lights.

I blinked at the brightness, and moved back a bit from the skylight. The driver of the van cut the engine, then jumped out and came around to open the side door. As it slid aside, I could see a pair of small feet, encased in black high heels and bound together at the ankles, sticking out over the edge of the seat. The driver grabbed the ankles and stepped back, and the slight form of a young girl emerged from the van. She was wearing a deep burgundy dress -- a prom dress, I thought -- which ended slightly above her knees. Not a hooker this time, I thought. And she's white... another Jewish schoolgirl, like poor Becky Stein? I could see that she was being lifted from behind by another man who held her by her upper arms; her wrists had been tied behind her, and she was gagged and blindfolded with three-inch duct tape. Though I couldn't see much of her face, she seemed vaguely familiar. I considered it for a moment, then dismissed the thought in favor of more immediate concerns.

Once they had her out of the van, the driver slung the girl over his shoulder, ignoring the groan she gave as the air was forced out of her lungs, and carried her to the center of the warehouse, where he dumped her unceremoniously on a large couch. As his cohorts came to join him, he began adjusting the video cameras arranged on tripod mounts around the couch. A wide variety of whips, chains, tools, knives, and sex toys were arrayed on a large table to one side; one of the men walked over and began examining them, while the other sat down next to the girl and started kneading her breasts through the dress.

The driver spoke for the first time since they had arrived. "Hey, Hans, wasn't Curtis supposed to be here by now?"

The man on the couch looked up and said, "Yeah, but you know how he is; he probably had to work late at the garage. I'm sure he'll be along in a few minutes." I smiled grimly, bringing up my rifle and quietly thumbing the safety off; the fourth member of this vicious crew, Curtis Byron, was lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor of his basement, where I had left him after extracting the information I needed about the whereabouts of his accomplices.

"Well," said the man by the table, turning around with a cat-o-nine-tails in his hand, "I don't see why we need to wait for him; let's get started."

"Good idea," said Hans, running one hand up the girl's silk-sheathed leg and under her dress. "I can't wait to get a piece of this little kike. Hey Scott, I'll flip you for first turn with her." So those are Hans Schultz and Scott Clarkson, I thought. That would make the cameraman Dennis Kessler: ex-Marine, ex-cop, and by far the most dangerous of the group. So he gets the first round... I slipped my finger into the trigger guard. Come on, asshole, give me a clear shot.

Clarkson, the man with the whip, leered and moved toward the couch as the girl shook her head violently and tried to protest through the gag. Kessler said, "Hey, guys, just hang on until I get all the cameras working, okay?" As he bent to look through the eyepiece of the last camera, I sighted on the base of his skull and squeezed the trigger, simultaneously thumbing the switch on the remote control in my other hand.

The soft "pfft!" of the silencer was masked by the much louder "crack!" of the blasting cap I had hidden behind some crates in one corner of the warehouse earlier. Kessler dropped without a sound, the junction of his brain and spine obliterated by the 9mm hollow point round. The other two men dived to the floor, seeking cover from the apparent source of the shot. I sighted on Schultz's head, fired, then quickly shifted my aim and put two rounds in Clarkson's torso before he could react. He gave an awful, gurgling cry, which cut off abruptly as my third shot hit just behind his ear.

A wave of exultation washed over me. It was over! After nearly two years, it had all ended in less than a minute; the men who had murdered my parents and fiancee were dead.

A frightened whimper from the girl brought me back to reality. I swiftly anchored the climbing rope I had used to reach the roof, then slid down into the warehouse. The moment I hit the floor, I moved quickly over to the couch, careful not to slip in the spreading puddles of blood around the dead men. Reaching the girl, I laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, and spoke in my most reassuring voice: "It's all right, you're safe now. Your kidnappers are dead." She made a quizzical sound; sitting down beside her, I carefully peeled away the tape that covered her mouth.

"Thank you," she said. "May I ask who you are?" Her voice was vaguely familiar, too, but I still couldn't place her.

"A friend," I said, drawing my knife and cutting the cords that bound her ankles. "Can you stand?"

"I'm not sure," she replied, as I freed her wrists. Immediately she lifted her hands to pull away the tape over her eyes, but I stopped her. "Not yet," I said. "Wait until we get outside. It's dark out, which will make it easier for your eyes to adjust. Besides, you do not want to see the scene in here, believe me you don't."

"Okay, I'll buy that. Will you help me?"

"Of course." I stood up, took her hands in mine, and helped her to stand. She was a bit unsteady on her feet, so I put her right arm over my shoulders, and wrapped my left around her back to support her. Then we walked to the back door of the warehouse, which I had unlocked earlier, and out into the night.

Once the door was shut behind us, I helped her to sit on a nearby boulder, and very carefully removed the blindfold. As she blinked in the dim light from the street lamps around the corner of the building, I stared at her face, finally realizing why it was familiar. "Well, I'll be especially damned..." I said. "Natalie Portman!"

She smiled shyly -- the same smile that had melted the hearts of millions of movie viewers at The Professional, Beautiful Girls, and, most recently, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. "That's just a screen name, you know," she said.

"I do, but I don't know your real name," I replied. "I love your work, though."

"Thank you," she said, coloring slightly. "My real name is Natalie Levine, but you can just call me Natalie. Heck, after what you just did for me, you can call me anything you like."

"How about Ôsweetheart?'" I asked with a grin, kneeling down to chafe her ankles where the cords had been. She flushed a deeper shade of pink, and replied, "Sure, I guess that's okay, if you want to... what do I call you?"

"My name is..." I hesitated. I hadn't used my real name in over two years, I realized, but now I was free to do so again. "My name is Samuel Goldberg." Damn, it felt good to say that. "My friends, back when I had friends, called me Sam. I'd like very much to think of you as a friend, Natalie."

"Oh, I don't think I'll have too hard a time seeing you as a friend, Sam. But what do you mean, Ôback when you had friends?'"

"I'm legally dead," I replied. "I've lived the last two years of my life under an assumed name, infiltrating my way into the neo-Nazi underground until I got to the men who died in that warehouse tonight... the White Shadows."

"White Shadows... ? I've heard that name before... oh, right, the Goldberg-Braithewaite murders! You were the Goldbergs' son... so you didn't commit suicide after all! Oh, shoot, I'm sorry Sam..." she trailed off, seeing the old pain in my face.

"It's all right, Natalie," I said, softly. "It's been a long time now, and tonight I've had my revenge."

"You spent two years tracking those creeps down? Wow... are you sure your name isn't Inigo?"

I struck a pose, and declaimed in a rough approximation of a Spanish accent, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" Then I sobered. "Actually, if it had been just my parents, I would have grieved, certainly, and done anything I could to help the police catch the bastards... but I think I would have put it behind me and gotten on with my life. It was what they did to my Andi that set me on this path..." Andrea Braithewaite had been the love of my life -- a brilliant, beautiful college student from England whom I had met while she was doing an internship under my mother at the Anti-Defamation League. When the neo-Nazi thugs who called themselves White Shadows had invaded my home and shot my parents, they had taken her alive; after holding a mock trial and sentencing her to death for the "crimes" of miscegenation and race treason, they had used her in their first snuff movie. Since then, they had tortured and murdered six other young women and girls that I knew about, and probably a few more that I didn't. Most of their victims had been black or Hispanic prostitutes, but one had been a middle-class high school student, whom they had apparently chosen because she was an Orthodox Jew... and of course, their last intended victim had been the lovely young actress before me.

"So, what do we do now?" she asked.

"Well, my car is parked just through the trees over there," I said, pointing. "I'll have to take you home, of course, but I think that had better wait until morning; it's going to be a very long ride.

"It was getting here. Six hours in that van, tied up and blindfolded, with those bastards pinching and pawing at me..." she shuddered, and I though she was about to be sick, but after a moment she managed to get control of her emotions again. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Maryland," I replied. "Northwest of Baltimore, near the New Jersey border."

"Really? I used to live here, before we moved up to Long Island. I guess I won't be getting back there tonight."

"No. We'll go to my place; it's only about half an hour away. You can call your parents from there and let them know you're all right."

"God, yes," she agreed. "They must be worried sick. Those creeps called my father on a cell phone right after they picked me up; they said they wanted ten million dollars, which they expected he could get from George. They put me on the phone just long enough so that he'd know they were telling the truth, then cut it off."

"George?... Oh. Clever bastards. Ten million is a drop in the bucket to George Lucas, and I'm sure he'd pay it to get you back unharmed."

"He wouldn't want to have to recast the role of Amidala in the next two movies," she deadpanned. "But seriously, he'd do it even if he didn't need me professionally; he's a good friend, and like you said, ten million is nothing to him."

"They wouldn't have let you go, though, Natalie," I said. "I'm sorry to have to talk about this, but it may become important. It's possible I'll be tried for murder for this night's work, and you may be called to testify. Those men were going to rape you and kill you tonight, on camera. That's one of the ways they finance their terrorist activities: the production and sale of snuff movies. It's what they did to Andrea, and at least six other girls. They might have tried to collect the ransom, but you would have been dead before it was ever paid -- after starring in one last, horrible movie."

The blood had all drained from her face, and her eyes were very wide. "That's what he meant about the cameras," she said, recalling her kidnappers' conversation back in the warehouse. "Oh, God..." She started shaking uncontrollably. I wrapped her in my arms and rocked her gently until the horror passed, murmuring over and over again, "It's all right sweetheart, you're safe now, nobody's going to hurt you..." After a few minutes she calmed down, and I released her.

"Thanks again," she said, softly. "I needed that."

"You're welcome, Natalie. Shall we go?"

"Lead on."

We walked down a narrow path through the green belt behind the warehouse to another empty lot where I had parked. "Nice car," Natalie commented, on seeing my Taurus.

"Thanks. I suppose it is a pretty nice car, but I got it mainly because it's inconspicuous; there are more maroon Tauruses on the highway these days than you can shake a stick at."

She nodded. "Smart. Do you think of everything?"

"I certainly try; you sort of have to, when you're dealing on a regular basis with very suspicious people who would kill you if they knew who you really were... not to mention trying to work your way into the confidences of criminals without attracting attention from the law." I opened the passenger door first and stood back.

"Sounds like quite a balancing act," she observed as she got in, graciously accepting the unnecessary but chivalrous hand I offered. "And I thought I had it tough trying to balance school with my acting career..."

"Don't underrate yourself," I told her. "If half of what I've read about you is true, I'll bet you could do everything I've done, given sufficient motivation. Just thank your lucky stars you never had it."

"Amen to that," she replied. I shut the door, then went around to climb in the driver's side.

"So, Natalie," I asked, pulling out of the parking lot, "Would you mind telling me how those bastards managed to kidnap you? I would have thought, given your fame and the risk of being stalked, that you would have a bodyguard or two."

"Not at home," she ruefully replied. "When I'm working, I usually have someone from studio security along when I leave the set, and one of my parents as well, but when I'm home I've relied on being anonymous. Based on what I've read about celebrity stalkers, I figured that I'd have plenty of warning before someone like that became dangerous -- they generally start by sending lots of fan mail. I get my share of that, of course, but I've never had anything that would make a person nervous enough to hire a full-time bodyguard."

"I see," I said. "So what happened tonight?"

"Well, I was on my way to the senior prom with my friend Seth Ruben -- no, he's only a friend, so don't get any ideas..."

"I didn't say a thing," I demurred.

"Your eyes did," she replied. "I suppose it's inevitable, though, this country seems to live on gossip about actors. I think it's a silly waste of time, as well as an invasion of privacy, but what can a person do?"

"Exactly what you do," I replied. "Keep your real name and where you live secret, and live the kind of personal life that doesn't generate any interesting gossip. But you were saying..."

"Yeah. Seth picked me up in the limo about 4:30; we were supposed to pick up another couple, then go to dinner before the dance. Instead, the driver pulled off into a grocery store parking long, and parked behind the store where nobody usually goes. Then he opened the partition and pulled a gun on us. He told me to get out of the car and Seth to stay where he was. There were two men in ski masks waiting to grab me when I got out; they pulled me into their van, slapped duct tape over my eyes, and tied my wrists and ankles. Then they called my parents and made their demands. After putting me on the phone just long enough to tell my father that it wasn't a hoax, they cut it off and taped my mouth. I still can't figure out how they replaced the limo driver with one of their people."

"Well, I can't say for sure, but I'll tell you how I would have done it. First I'd have to find out where you lived and who you were going to the prom with; I presume they accomplished that by following you, and possibly tapping your phones -- the leader of the group was an ex-cop, and they had some skill at surveillance. Then I'd get a limo of my own and arrive at your friend's house before the one he'd hired. If they tapped his phone as well after establishing that he was your date, they would know which company he called, and they could just rent one from the same place. Or they might have car-jacked the one that Seth had called before it got to his house. Speaking of which, I hope they didn't hurt your friend; it wasn't like those bastards to leave living witnesses."

"I think I'd have heard if the driver had shot him," she said. "I mean, his gun wasn't silenced or anything. Anyway, he had dark glasses and a full beard when he was driving the limo; after they grabbed me, they drove for about fifteen minutes and then stopped for a while. I think they changed the license plates on the van, and I also heard an electric razor; I don't think he was worried about being recognized after that."

"I suppose not," I said. "They probably didn't want a murder investigation to start right away. As long as they'd only committed kidnapping, there was a chance your parents wouldn't involve the police immediately; even if they did, the cops would be more circumspect in pursuing kidnappers who hadn't killed anyone yet."

"That makes sense. They did tell my parents not to call the police."

"Do you think they listened?"

"I don't know. They might have called George first, to see if he would help pay the ransom. If he said yes, it's possible that they wouldn't risk calling the police."

"I rather hope that they didn't," I said. "It would make my life a bit easier."

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"I'd like to have some time to consider my options before they find those bodies and the manhunt starts," I replied. "If the police know you were kidnapped and then rescued, they'll be onto me a lot faster than they would otherwise. I still haven't decided what to do. My original plan was to flee to Israel after I'd killed the Shadows -- if they didn't extradite that psychopath Samuel Sheinbein, they certainly aren't going to extradite Samuel Goldberg. However, with you in the picture, I might not have to leave the country; under the circumstances, what I did might be considered justifiable homicide."

"Well, Sam, you can count on me to support that argument," she said, with a grateful smile. "You saved my life; I'll be happy to do anything I can to help you."

"Thanks, Natalie."

We drove on in companionable silence for a few minutes. Then she said, "I was wondering, where did you get that gun? It looks military."

"It is," I said. "Actually, you and my rifle have something in common; it was made in Israel. It's a sniper's variant of the Uzi, used mainly by IDF commandos and Mossad operatives. It's light, compact, accurate, and silent -- and of course, very illegal in this country."

"I see. So how does a lone gunman on a quest for revenge come by a fancy Israeli weapon?"

"Trade secret, Natalie; the less you know, the easier it'll be for you to testify in my defense without lying. Maybe after I've been acquitted I'll tell you the rest of the story. I shouldn't have told you even this much; I'd much rather let the law think that I shot the White Shadows with my perfectly legal, registered Glock."

"Sam, I said I'd do anything to help you. I am an actress after all; don't you think I can tell a convincing story?"

"I'm sure you can, but I'd rather you didn't have to. But if you're really that curious, I suppose I can take the chance... just remember, this conversation never happened."

"Okay. So what is this story I'm never going to hear?"

I flashed her a grin. "My closest living relative is my mother's brother -- Colonel Avram Jacob Lefkowitz, Israeli Defense Forces, retired. The Ôretired' part is misleading, though; he actually works for the Mossad. In return for a substantial contribution to his directorate's black budget, he enabled me to spend six months training in Israel -- the same sort of training that Mossad field operatives receive -- and to requisition some equipment from the agency's arsenal. Now that my Ômission' is over, that equipment is going home; I have most of it boxed up already, addressed to a townhouse in Tel Aviv that the agency uses as a mail drop. The rifle is the last thing; it'll be going back in several pieces, sent from several different UPS and Fed-Ex offices."

"I see. Well, that was a long silence." She winked. "Do you have any music we could listen to?"

"Every song Billy Joel ever wrote," I replied. Sharing my music was another pleasure that I had had to deny myself over the last two years. I often reflected that one of the hardest parts of my mission of infiltration was pretending to share the atrocious musical tastes of the skinheads and Klansmen with whom I had to rub elbows, while keeping my real music collection carefully hidden. "Plus an eclectic mix of classical, pop, and movie and Broadway soundtracks. What would you like?"

"Billy Joel sounds good. How about ÔOnly the Good Die Young?'"

"I thought I disproved that theory tonight," I cracked. "And I prefer to listen to that one when I can dance to it. But pick whatever you like; the CDs are in a case in the glove compartment." She opened the hatch, pulled out the CD case, and leafed through it. After a moment's consideration, she pulled out "Glass Houses" and slipped it into the player. "Good album," I approved. "I hope you don't mind if I sing along..."

"Not if I can too."

"Fair enough. ÔFriday night I crashed your party, /Saturday I said I'm sorry, /Sunday came and trashed me out again... '" we sang in unison, as the music started.

Twenty minutes later we arrived at my home, a small, secluded farm house on a wooded side road in Harford County. "This looks like a good place for someone who doesn't want to attract attention," she commented.

"That's why I chose it," I said. "Come on inside." I deactivated my security system and led her into the house. "What do you think?"

She looked around, clearly surprised. "This is really nice," she said, finally. "Different than I expected..." While the outside of my house has the weatherbeaten, slightly dilapidated look typical of old farm houses, the inside is thoroughly modern and very comfortable, with deep pile carpeting, hardwood furniture, well-stocked bookshelves, and prints of various Renaissance and Impressionist paintings decorating the walls.

"You expected something more spartan, perhaps?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think so. I guess I was imagining something like Leon's apartment in ÔThe Professional.'"

"Ah. No, that isn't my style at all; I like to live comfortably. And, as a certain Robert Heinlein character once said, ÔI'm not an assassin. Killing is more of a hobby with me.'"

She gave me a quizzical look. "Which character was that? I've read a few of his books, but I don't remember that line."

"That was Dr. Richard Ames, in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, " I replied.

"Oh. I never read that one. I've read Stranger in a Strange Land, of course, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough for Love, The Door into Summer, Podkayne of Mars, and few of his juvenile novels."

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is my favorite novel," I said. "If you've read that one, you really should read Cat; they resurrect Mike at the end of that one."

"Oh, cool. I will have to read it some time. What I have to do right now, though, is call my parents and tell them I'm all right. May I use your phone?"

"Of course," I said, handing her the receiver. She quickly dialed, then held it up to her ear.

"Hello, Dad? Yes, of course it's me... I'm fine. It's kind of a long story, but the short version is that I was rescued... No, not the police... he's a sort of modern-day knight-errant. His name's Sam Goldberg. The guys that kidnapped me killed his parents and his fiance two years ago, and he's been looking for them ever since... yeah, that Sam Goldberg; it seems he didn't kill himself after all. He says..." she swallowed, looked at me for reassurance, then collected herself and continued. "He says that they were planning to do to me what they did to Andrea Braithewaite... that they make snuff films, like in that awful Nicholas Cage movie that came out a few months ago. We're down in Maryland somewhere; Sam says he'll drive me back to Long Island tomorrow morning. You want to talk to him? Okay..." She handed me the phone.

"Hello, Dr. Levine. I'm Sam Goldberg."

"So I gather," said the faintly accented voice on the other end of the line. "I want to thank you for what you've done for my daughter; if there's ever anything I can do for you in return, you have only to ask."

"Thank you," I replied. "There is something, actually; I'd like you not to tell the police about me just yet. You see, in the process of rescuing Natalie, I had to kill all three of her kidnappers -- and while you might agree with me that the Nazi bastards had it coming, I don't know that the law will see it that way."

"I understand," he said. "As it happens, we haven't called the police. When the kidnappers called me before, they said that they had contacts within the police department who would tell them if I called, and that I would never see my daughter alive again; they told Natalie's date and the limousine driver the same, and I wasn't about to call their bluff."

"It might not have been a bluff," I said. "The leader of the gang, Dennis Kessler, was a former NYPD officer; it's conceivable he knew someone who would share information with him. It wouldn't even have to be an accomplice; the kidnapping of a famous actress is the sort of thing that would come up if he simply asked an old friend whether there were any interesting new cases being investigated. Even if the informant was a bluff, it's very hard to keep the tabloids away from something like this; if you had called the police, there's at least a fifty-fifty chance the National Enquirer or the New York Post would have had the kidnapping on the front page tomorrow. Not that it would have made a difference; those thugs never intended to let your daughter go."

"So she tells me. Again, thank you for saving her life."

"You're welcome. You mentioned Seth and the limo driver just now; are they okay?" I asked.

"Yes. The driver had been drugged and locked in the trunk, but he was alive, and Seth was fine too, if somewhat shaken. The poor boy kept apologizing for letting this happen -- as if there was anything he could have done to stop it."

"You tell him, from me, that not resisting them was exactly the right thing to do," I said. "If he had fought, the only thing he could have accomplished would have been to get himself killed, and maybe Natalie with him."

"I'll tell him," he said. "May I speak with Natalie again?"

"Certainly," I replied, and handed her the phone. "I'm going to go in the kitchen and make something for us to eat," I told her. "Come on in when you're finished talking." She smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.

A few minutes later she joined me in the kitchen. "What's for dinner?" She asked.

"Hummus and tabouli salad in pita pockets," I replied, handing her a plate. "It's the one thing I like that a strict vegetarian can eat."

"Sounds good," she said. "How did you know I was a vegetarian?"

"I've read a couple of articles about you. The one in Vanity Fair mentioned that you don't eat any kind of meat or cheese."

She gave me an odd look. "You read Vanity Fair?"

"Only when they put you on the cover, my dear."

"Oh." She blushed deep red and became preoccupied with her dinner.

"The cover photo was nice," I continued, enjoying the effect of my half-teasing flattery, "But what I really liked was the one inside where you posed as both Sleeping Beauty and the Prince. That was absolutely gorgeous."

"It was the photographer's idea," she demurred. "I just posed the way he told me to."

"All the same, it was your beauty and poise, no less than the composition, that made that picture work," I said. "That, and the symbolism involved in having you play both of those roles."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, as the prince you explore, learn, and overcome obstacles, all with the goal of awakening the sleeping princess -- which is yourself, your own potential..." I saw the look she was giving me and burst out laughing.

"What's the joke?" she asked, sounding slightly put out.

"I'm sorry, Natalie," I said. "It's just that you just gave me the exact same ÔYou've got to be joking' look you gave Liam Neeson in Star Wars, right after finding out that the kid he's betting your ship on has never managed to finish a pod race, let alone win one. So you think I'm reading too much into that picture?"

She thought for a moment. "Maybe, maybe not. I never really thought of it the way you described, but maybe that is what the photographer had in mind. So what do you think my potential is?"

"Whatever you want," I replied. "To be America's next screen goddess, if you continue your film career. Otherwise, whatever attracts your interest while you're in college. Again, based on what I've read about you, you're smart enough and determined enough to do whatever strikes your fancy -- medicine, law, science, business, politics... anything."