He’d swiped the sweat on his eye brow, casually looked over his shoulder and noticing that none of Luigi’s men were following him,slowed down.He’d turned left into Place Vendome,from Rue St.Honore.No one had seemed to notice him,or his dishevelled appearance.Not even the clerk who’d helped him check into the Ritz…

His room was dimly lit but one could still make out the object d’art that littered two walls.Three batiks and the largest piece of art work, a manet.A black leather briefcase lay open on his bed,the papers in it in disarray as if he’d packed them in a great hurry.Beside the briefcase,were his rolex watch,his passport and wallet with a couple of a hundred dollar bills sticking out.

He stood at the balcony of his hotel room,absentmindedly running his right hand along its rail.In the distance urban sprawl spread out before his eyes;mostly rusty,corrugated roofs with the occassional storey building.The air was crisp, the sky, a blanket of countless twinkling lights.He knew he should be worrying about Luigi and his men, or God-forbid, the C.I.A but the it was the thought of being home that played in his mind.How the country had changed!There was a subway right at the Constitutional Square.The tube linked most of the city’s suburbs in addition to the cities:Gulu, Jinja, Masaka, Mbarara and Fort Portal.Who could have thought that Uganda would have an Indian president or  predicted the country’s thriving tourism and stable economy?Then he thought about Leah and his son Ethan.He’d be 7 now…

In the building just across the street,from his hotel the lights were put out in one of the rooms. Suddenly he became aware of the fact that only his light was on along the entire street.He swore at his stupidity and made for the room to switch it off.The bullet tore through the back of his neck, ripping the conus medullaris after it had shattered one of his cervical vertebrae. The second shot shattered the back of his skull and remained lodged just between the two hemispheres of the brain.He was dead before his body hit the floor.