Cipher Number 7

“A good sniper feels the presence of time, the movement. Death's not just a matter of accuracy, but ultimately the order of things and finality in terms both clean and humane.”

Ivan Stavros hears his father Yannis’s voice echo through a life emptied after losing him to CIA extraordinary rendition. In the more than twenty years since, the voice guides Ivan's sense of responsibility, in both life and the act of taking it. Clean. Humane. Swift.

None of these principles describe the perverse deat...