Heart of the Assassin

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It's been over six years since I started the Assassin Trilogy and I had no idea where it was going to take me. I feel like I've been gone a long time and I'm not the person I was when I started…thank God.

Many people are owed my thanks, and here's a few of them.

Thanks to my family for putting up with my moodiness and distraction during this time, for covering for me when I forgot the names of people I've known for years, and reminding me by their every action why it's good to be home.

Thanks to my agent, Mary Evans, for her insight and determination.

Thanks to my editor, Colin Harrison, for his talent and ability to see to the heart of what I was trying to accomplish. He made the trilogy better and I am grateful.

Thanks to my publisher, Susan Moldow, for her creativity and unwavering support for a difficult project. When writers get together, we mostly talk about how clueless publishers are. Susan left me with nothing to say.

My research led me to the work of many fine writers and thinkers. The five I feel most indebted to are Samuel P. Huntington, Bernard Lewis, Robert D. Kaplan, Mark Steyn and the columnist for Asia Times who writes under the name Spengler. I would also like to thank Hugh Hewitt, law professor and broadcast journalist, whose nationally syndicated radio show both informed me and exposed the Assassin Trilogy to a broader audience.

Thanks to my readers who, by buying the books, have allowed me to finish the trilogy. And put a new roof on my house. A special thanks to the many readers who have written me-your encouragement meant a great deal. I didn't even mind when you asked me to write faster.

Finally, I would like to thank my characters, Rakkim and Sarah, Anthony Colarusso, Spider and Leo, the Colonel and John Moseby and General Kidd. Thanks to the Old One too, and Baby, of course, and preacherman Malcolm Crews, Satan's own holy roller. Lester Gravenholtz, you sick, redheaded warthog, you belong dead. But you're not, of course, not you, not any of them, least of all you, Darwin. I created every one of you, but you outgrew me and I can't follow. The best dialogue you wrote yourselves, whispered it in my ear as I typed. You cracked me up, scared me, made me cry at the Tigards' farmhouse and again at Graceland. I had the best seat in the house because of you, and I couldn't wait to get to the keyboard in the morning. Thanks for the ride.