Killers of a Certain Age

The timeline shifts to December 1978, with a young Billie in a jail cell in Texas, knowing she cannot pay bail. The narrator emphasizes she has no idea that her life is about to change.

Unexpectedly, Billie is taken to a separate room where an older man is sitting and reading the newspaper. After asking about her injuries from a recent fight, he introduces himself as Major Richard Halliday. Halliday explains he works for a “clandestine” organization she might be a fit for, and Billie, skeptical, asks, “it’s porn, isn’t it?” (39). Halliday goes into the organizational history of espionage and clandestine warfare, highlighting the role of the Special Operations Executive, which recruited civilians to do clandestine work in Nazi-occupied territory during World War II. When Halliday expresses regret that SOE dissolved, Billie guesses he was a member, which he confirms.

He explains that SOE members, along with some members of the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, remained actively concerned with the presence of Nazis on the run from justice and their possession of priceless artworks, often stolen from Jewish individuals who died in the Holocaust. In response, they formed the Museum, an espionage and assassination agency. Halliday explains that while some Nazis remain at large, the organization has expanded to fight other dictatorships.