had a medical emergency. He had to be on the next plane out. There was a U.N. aid flight leaving in the morning, and Klaussen talked the pilot into letting him ride as cargo. “And off I was, I was gone,” he said. “When I arrived in Dubai I felt so relieved. But of course then the trouble only started.”

After about a week, Klaussen called Le Roux to inform him that he wasn't coming back. “It's getting out of hand,” he told his boss. “It's crossing lines that I don't want to cross. I'm done.” Le Roux wasn't angry, not at first. “Okay, no problem” is all Klaussen re- membered him saying. But with Klaussen's departure, and the So- malian operation now in the hands of the likes of Agent Orange, the wheels started coming off. Money disappeared, and the local security forces' monthly salaries became irregular. Klaussen kept in contact with his former employees, and then suddenly they went dark. An email to his British deputy prompted a reply from a newly created anonymous address. “Hey buddy sorry but I can't talk to you,” the deputy wrote. “You gotta understand, I don't want to end up dead.”

Then Klaussen got a call from his old friend Chris De Meyer, who was still working for Le Roux in Manila.

“There's a hit on you,” De Meyer said.

“A what?”

“Yeah, apparently Le Roux put a hit on you.”

“Why?”

“It's about things that happened in Somalia. Joe is on his way to Dubai.” “Joe” meant Hunter, which meant that Klaussen was in deep shit.

They'd had a pact, Klaussen remembered: If Le Roux ever asked one of them to kill another, they'd let each other know, and then fake the killing. Hunter, apparently, had decided not to honor it. Klaussen hung up the phone and started making calculations. Hunter would have trouble getting to him at home in Dubai, where he lived in a secure building, in a condo rented from his girlfriend's employer. Instead, he'd likely try to take Klaussen out in the street.