playing a game to try and help them, and help himself. And we just said, ‘I'll take care of it, Paul.’”)

Still, the letter raised the possibility that the government might place Le Roux into witness protection if and when he gets out. “I'm sure he's thinking about printing his next passports,” Klaussen said. “If the U.S. government helps him disappear, so much the better. For him that's ideal. That's what he wants. For him it's just time to plan the next thing. This time he knows the way they work. They made him smarter, a lot smarter.”

Plenty of Le Roux's associates harbored a fear that once he was out, he would seek vengeance against them. But the man who committed the ultimate betrayal against Le Roux, Felix Klaussen, doubted that he would ever bother to come after him. “I'm sure if ever a day comes when he's out and I run into him at an airport or something, he probably smiles at me and shakes my hand,” he said. “That's Le Roux.”

Others warned that they were ready to exact vengeance in the other direction, for Le Roux's decision to save himself by inform- ing on them while they kept their mouths shut. “I got loads of in- formation. I kept a file, I've got photos, I've got fucking transcripts of emails,” Marcus, the South African assassin, told me. Now that Le Roux had sung to the authorities, Marcus was prepared to do the same to his former boss if necessary. “Paul Le Roux must re- member one thing: If he ever comes to South Africa, or tries to, I will fucking sort him out.”

I often asked people if they thought Le Roux's time in American custody could change him, that he could emerge chastened, maybe even ready to commit his technical brilliance to a positive cause. “I really doubt it,” his cousin Mathew Smith said. “He loved what he did and wouldn't give it up. I think it was fun for him, I think he really wanted to be the biggest thing. He wanted the infamy. He told me a few times that when he gets caught, he'll be on CNN.”

What Le Roux wanted and why is a subject I puzzled over for years. For some the answer was obvious: money. He was cor-