Assignment: Carlotta Cortez — Edward S. Aarons

Sam Durell's work for the C.I.A. was lonely, dangerous, mean and dirty. The risks went unheralded by medals and Sunday supplement stories. Death walked with the man who yielded to a moment's carelessness, or who was unlucky, and death came in ugly, small ways -- in a Hong Kong alley, a train in Poland, a traffic accident on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It came with a knife, a garrotte, or a push under crushing, spinning wheels…