A Chance Meeting of Friends.

We met in a Turkish prison cell. I was caught on a covert mission for the CIA (curse that bartender! He was merely a serendipitous fool, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time); he never told me why he was there. He did tell me how we were to escape, and escape we did.

With Houdini-like skill, he picked the lock on the door in the blink of an eye. "Follow me, and you may live," he told me. I did as instructed. Creeping along the shadows, backs against the wall, we made our way toward freedom. Near the hall entrance, he crept up behind a tall, burly guard, and with one precisely delivered blow, felled him silently to the ground. Now we were armed.

The guards at the main entrance never stood a chance. We were out of the jail within minutes, and nobody was the wiser.

After buying decent clothing and new passports (which weren't hard to come by if one knew the right people, which he did), we boarded a plane for Paris. On the plane, he said to me, "I cannot guarantee you will live to see tomorrow, but if you will be my partner, I can guarantee that you will not regret dying today." He said nothing else; I agreed with a nod.

I cannot speak of the adventures we had; it would take me a lifetime to recount them all. But I must speak of the day he died. He had been gut-shot during a botched train robbery in Luxembourg. We had still managed to flee the scene, but we had been forced to leave the Hope Diamond on the train. We hid in a small cave on a nearby hillside. I held him in my arms and knew he would not survive the hour. Though he seldom spoke in all the years I had known him, on this occasion, he thanked me for my service. "Kind friend," I replied, "I have served you faithfully since the day we met, and I have asked for little. But now, before you pass, I must know, what is your name?"

With his dying breath he whispered, "My name is Bravo de la Tromeo."