“The Doppelgänger” by Michael Morrissey

I admit that I was startled when I saw him reading a newspaper in a café in Polignano the day after I killed him. The same black chin beard, long face, muscular arms. He held the paper high, with both hands, moving his head just enough to make it look like he was reading and not surveilling, as we are all taught.

I forced myself to sit down two tables away, half-expecting him to call out my name, but as far as I could tell he hadn’t even noticed me. I ordered a cappuccino, loud enough for him to hear, but he kept his attention firmly on the paper — the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the best German paper, according to Bruno. He was always quoting from it. A doppelgänger? Not impossible, but what were the chances of him showing up here in Italy, in the same town where he died, reading Bruno’s favorite German newspaper?

I had been trained for this too — the mind playing tricks. I concentrated on what I knew. I had put only one .45 ACP hollow point through the roof of his mouth, to make it look like suicide, but I checked his jugular and there wasn’t a flicker. He was dead all right. Indeed, from my seated position now I could see his face in profile, and the nose was definitely different — blunt and snubby as opposed to Bruno’s aquiline beak. Still, the resemblance was uncanny.

I had violated the first rule of intelligence: Suspicions are fine — in fact, the more the merrier — but knowing is a different ball game. Bruno knew because I told him. I told him I was the guy who informed the BBC on 9/11 that WTC 7 had collapsed, knowing that it would be seen still standing right over Jane Standley’s shoulder in the live feed twenty minutes before it actually happened. The message was loud and clear for anyone still capable of independent thought (which we figure to be about 1% of the population): We’ve got you by the balls. Resistance is futile.

I never thought that Bruno would let it slip. A wink, a smile, a double take, a raised eyebrow in the right context — anyone in the loop would have noticed that and reported it back to Langley, which is exactly what happened. He knew, thanks to me, and he wasn’t cleared for it, so I of course was given the kill order. It wasn’t my intention. It was my punishment. He was my best friend, to the extent that one can have friends in this business. It was my fault. I killed him by telling him. Shooting him was just a formality. Shit happens. I follow orders. For God and country. That’s it.

Bruno 2 had put down the paper and was thumbing his cell phone. He still hadn’t looked at me, as far as I could tell. Which was suspicious. If you watch somebody long enough, even surreptitiously, they will look back at you, unless they’re trying not to. That’s human nature. It’s in our skin cells. He must have stared at the little screen in the palm of his hand for a full ten minutes, texting or playing some video game. Surveillance was more exciting before cell phones. Not that I was supposed to be watching him, but I couldn’t help it.

When he paid his bill and got up to leave, it took all my willpower to keep from following him. I signalled to the waiter. He arrived at my table just as “Bruno” was exiting the outside seating area and was about to disappear in the crowd. If I lost sight of him then I felt I would never see him again. I know it’s weird, but I didn’t want to lose him twice.

“Uno cinquanta, signore.”

I fished out a two euro coin and started to hand it to him, then put it on the table. My hand was shaking badly.

“Grazie,” I said.

I walked in the opposite direction from where Bruno had disappeared. My pulse was racing. I tried to think about my other life, my wife Marge and the grandchildren. I wasn’t the only family man at Langley who liked to play around with guys on the sly. We’re good at sly. Jack would love it here. He’s such a loud kid. Italians always sound like they’re yelling. In fact, they are. And they’d be all over Isabel, tall and sandy haired like her mother. Don’t know if she would like that or not. At sixteen she gets plenty of attention at home. Marge might still turn a few heads, too, gray ones at least. She can still fit into a bikini. At least the women keep their tops on here, unlike the whole of northern Europe, even Britain nowadays. You can’t look anywhere without staring at somebody’s nipples. Why don’t men go naked? Bruno took me to an FKK beach once in Berlin, years ago. There’s a lot of water in Berlin. Lots of lakes and rivers. People don’t know that. I didn’t know it. There are so many things I wish I didn’t know.

I stopped walking. I couldn’t see. I tasted salt. Had I fallen into the sea? Was I drowning? I felt helpless, but somehow relieved.

Weeks later, when I started recovering my senses at St. Elizabeth’s, the doctors told me how someone had called the carabinieri about a man sitting in the middle of the sidewalk bawling and babbling like a baby. Langley had me on a plane back to Washington within hours. I’m doing better now. I was dangerously close to “normal.” I’ve got to get him out out my head completely if I want to ever get out of here. I’m working on it.