JENKINS TURNED the corner on Marshall, headed down the hill toward the clubhouse at the Town and Country Club. The place was lit like a Christmas tree, people all over the entry and parking lot.

“Do you have any idea of exactly what Hoa’s doing?” Virgil asked.

“No. But I believe it’s a gun, I believe it’s Warren. All I get is what seeps through from phone calls that Hoa makes. I’ve also got the feeling that they may have a line on the last man. One thing I didn’t tell you-they’ve got a direct connect, I think, with somebody in Washington. I don’t know where. Homeland Security, probably. They have access to every record you can think of. I got Hoa’s laptop password, not without a lot of trouble, I can tell you, and signed on when she was gone with you. If you get your hands on it, you’ll find documents that you won’t believe. The U.S. government vectored them right in on Utecht and Sanderson.”

“So why tell me now?”

“Because we’re at the end of this,” Sinclair said. “My daughter will be okay-the Viets will have what they want, so they’ll be done with us. I just might be able to fuck with the people who did this to me, the guys over here. Depending on what you want to do.”

A guy in a black tuxedo, accessorized with a Beretta 93R with the twenty-round mag, was flagging them down and Jenkins slowed and held up his ID. Davenport called, “That guy’s okay,” and they went through. Sinclair said, “I wonder if that’s his dress gun?”

DAVENPORT MET Virgil in the street: “We’ve got people coming in on the corners: they’ll do it all at once, when they isolate the streets.” He looked at Sinclair, still cuffed in the backseat, then asked Virgil, “What’s the deal?”

“I’m not exactly clear on that,” Virgil said. “But Professor Sinclair has been talking up a storm. Things have gotten a little out of my pay grade.”

“So maybe I should hear his story,” Davenport said.

“Little out of your pay grade, too. And Rose Marie’s,” Virgil said.

“So whose pay grade are we talking about?” Davenport asked.

“Dunno-maybe the president.”

Rose Marie Roux was walking toward them in a political orange dress the size of an army tent.

“Got to be quite a story,” Davenport said to Sinclair.

“Oh, it is,” he said. He nodded across the room at a cluster of men in front of a fireplace. “Is that the governor? I’m sure he’d be fascinated.”

THEY TOOK Sinclair into the women’s locker room. Davenport spoke quietly with Rose Marie, who got another glass of something and tagged along.

“First piece of business,” she said to Sinclair. “We’re not talking about a machine gun or a rocket or a bomb?”

Sinclair shook his head. “They’re operating under pretty strict guidelines: nobody dies except the people involved in the original rape and murder. There were actually five killed back then: the woman, her two young children, three and two years of age, the woman’s grandfather, and a housekeeper. These people, Hoa and her team, messed up when they killed Wigge’s bodyguard. That wasn’t supposed to happen. That was a lapse. The cop up in Red Lake was an even bigger lapse, but I think by that time they didn’t care so much. They were making the final run.”

“My God,” Rose Marie said. She looked at Virgil. “You knew this?”

“Not the details-the outline,” Virgil said. “I was getting pieces.”

Rose Marie said to Jenkins, “Go get Warren.”

When Jenkins had gone, Davenport asked Sinclair, “How many more people are on their list?”

“Warren and one more. Six altogether, or seven, if you count Chester Utecht. The last guy-I don’t know the name-lives on a lake somewhere. They were having a hard time tracking him down, exactly, but I think their… outside… contacts came through on that.”

“He means Homeland Security,” Virgil said to Davenport and Rose Marie. “The guy they were looking for is Carl Knox.”

WARREN WALKED IN a minute later, followed by Jenkins and a security man. Rose Marie said, “We’ve identified the people who are trying to kill you. Agent Flowers has information that they will attempt to shoot you, probably with a rifle. We’re putting officers around the golf course, where we think they are. If you wish, you could go out the back unseen.”

Warren bobbed his head. “I’ll do that. I’ll be at home. I’ve got some serious protection there. Call me when you get them.” He glanced at Virgil, his upper lip rippled, and he left, followed by his security man.

Sinclair said, “There goes the worst man in this whole episode, dressed in a tuxedo and patent-leather shoes, untouched by human hands.”

Davenport said to Sinclair, “All right-we’ve got ten minutes before we drop the net around the golf course. Tell the rest of us what happened.”

At that moment, the governor walked in, shadowed by Neil Mitford, his personal weasel. The governor smiled at everybody, said, “Ah, that fuckin’ Flowers. How are you, Virgil?” He shook Virgil’s hand. “Love the cowboy boots. I just bought a pair myself. What’s up with all you people? Are we going to be assassinated, or what?”

Rose Marie said, “Governor, I’m not sure you want to be here.”

“That’s what I said,” Mitford muttered.

“Better than making small talk with a guy who wants more ethanol subsidies.” He looked around. “I haven’t been in a women’s locker room since my junior year at Princeton.” He chuckled. “Anna Sweat, I swear to God she had… Never mind.” He peered at Sinclair. “So-let’s hear it.”

24

A WONDERFUL, soft summer night: when Mai returned to Vietnam, she would take with her, she thought, the memory of these nights. There was nothing quite like them in Hanoi, where the sea was always close and dominated the weather. Here, the nights could be both cool and soft, or warm and soft, with the air resting on your skin like a feather, scented with flowers, and without the overriding tang of salt and seaweed.

She and Phem lay on the edge of the lake, deep in the brush, dressed all in black except for the olive-drab head nets that Tai had found in a sporting goods store. They’d be heading north after they killed Warren, and Phem had sworn that he wouldn’t go back without what he called “country equipment.”

They had no excuse for being where they were at: if they were seen, or found, then the person who found them would die. Mai had a silenced Beretta pistol, fitted with a strap, hanging on her back; Phem had the rifle, and a pistol as well.

Tai was four hundred meters away, where he would have a better view of the approaches to the target. Phem eased forward and sideways, moving an inch at a time, so that his face was only inches from Mai’s. “No wind,” he whispered quietly. “Look at the water.”

The water was smooth as a piece of silk, doubling the lights across the way as shimmering upside-down reflections.

“Perfect,” she said. They were whispering in Vietnamese.

After another moment, he said, “I wonder what happened?”

“Virgil must have figured something out,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine that he was there just to help with security.”

“Maybe he was there for Warren.”

“I don’t think so. He came so fast-he felt so urgent… he discovered something.”

“If he did, do you think he took Sinclair?”

“I don’t know. There are too many possibilities.”

THE EARBUD in Mai’s right ear clicked and she saw Phem put a hand to his ear. Mai slipped out the walkie-talkie and said, “Yes.”

“Four cars coming, convoy.”

“Yes.”

Phem moved away from her, and though she couldn’t see him well, she felt him extending the rifle toward the target and then stripping off the head net. He’d bought a bag of beans to use as a rifle rest, and she heard that crunch as the forestock wiggled down into it, and a click as the safety came off. If the target appeared, there wouldn’t be much time-maybe only a second or two.