FREELANCING?

WHEN MILES MARTINEK, REDUCED BY age, knees blown and needing to hold himself up with crutches, showed him his collection of firearms, a couple of pieces in particular impressed Nihilo: the .30-30 Centenary Winchester, with a lever action mechanism and silver incrustations; and the .410 handgun with sawn-off barrels. And, most of all, the walking stick–carbine, that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a James Bond flick.

“What calibre?” Samuel asked him.

“Oh, that . . . A special calibre. Don’t look for another like it, you won’t find it. Comes from the States. Back when I used to freelance for the CIA . . .”

“When you used to what?”