The doorway led to a windowless room – a vault, of sorts, where the air was heavy with cigarette smoke. Two men sat at a heavy wooden table that was covered in green baize. The men were drinking tea.

One of them looked like an oversized Buddha with beige teeth. The other man was da Rosa, who glanced over his shoulder with a laugh and said, “What took you so long?”

Wilson frowned. He didn’t like being played.

The fat man chuckled, and lighted a foul-smelling Gitane. As a gesture of goodwill, he made an effort at English: “Good night!”

Da Rosa laughed. “I see you’ve met Little Ping.”

Wilson glanced at the young man in the white suit.

The young man smiled. “My father’s English isn’t very good. But, please, have a seat.” He gestured to a chair. Wilson took it.

The fat man – Big Ping – leaned forward: “American?”

Wilson nodded.

“We don’t see a lot of Americans here,” da Rosa said. “You’re like a celebrity.”

Big Ping’s eyes widened. His great head nodded, as if to confirm some astonishing insight. “You CIA?!”

Wilson shook his head. “No.”

Big Ping looked disappointed. Said something to his son in Chinese.

Little Ping translated. “He says, if you’re CIA, we could do some good business.”

“I’ll bet we could. Only… I’m not.”

“Too bad. You want some tea?” Little Ping asked.

Wilson shook his head.

Big Ping’s brows collapsed into a chevron. Leaning toward Wilson, he demanded, “Qui vous-êtes? Que voulez-vous?”

Wilson turned to Little Ping. “Tell your father that I don’t speak French.”

Little Ping shrugged. “He wants to know who you are, what you want.”

Wilson sat back in his chair. Then he glanced from Big Ping to da Rosa, and back again. The silence began to peal. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticked.

Finally, Big Ping smiled, as if he’d just had another realization. With a look of great contentment, he placed his hands palms-down, fingers spread, on the baize-covered table. Little Ping remained where he was, hands crossed in front of his crotch.

It took Wilson a moment, and then he saw it. All three of them had the same tattoo: a triangle of little blue dots between the thumb and forefinger. Wilson glanced at da Rosa.

The mercenary smiled. “I was born in Macau.”

Big Ping nodded.

Little Ping said, “Mr. da Rosa’s a good friend. We don’t have secrets from him.”

Wilson thought about it some more, and decided he didn’t have much choice. With a sigh, he said, “Okay, I’ve got a couple of diamonds to sell. Quite a few, actually.”

To Wilson’s surprise, da Rosa said something in Chinese. Big Ping replied, and da Rosa laughed. Turning to Wilson, he said, “He says he doesn’t see any diamonds. He wants to know if you’ve stuck them up your ass.”

Wilson acknowledged the bon mot with a weak grimace. “No,” he said. “I decided to use the bank. It seemed more professional, somehow.”

Little Ping laughed as da Rosa translated.

Wilson complimented him. “You speak Chinese. I’m impressed!”

Da Rosa shook his head. “It’s not Chinese. It’s Fuzhou.”

When da Rosa failed to elaborate, Wilson turned to Little Ping.

“My family’s from Fujian,” the younger Ping explained, “so the Fuzhou dialect comes naturally. Most Chinese don’t understand it, so it’s like talking in code. Good for business.”

Big Ping looked uncomprehendingly from Wilson to da Rosa to his son. Then he stubbed his cigarette out, and cut loose with a burst of incomprehensible lingo.

Little Ping nodded, and turned to Wilson. “My father says you should go to the bank, and bring the diamonds here, so he can evaluate them. He’s a good appraiser, and he’ll give you an excellent price.”

Wilson dismissed the idea with a bored nod. “Right! But you know what? I don’t think we’ll do that. Because it occurs to me that maybe – just maybe – something might go wrong, and, well, I could be robbed. So we’ll do something else. But before we do anything, there’s a couple of things I need to know.”

Little Ping translated for his father. Finally, he said, “Yes?”

“If we agree that four million dollars is a fair price, can you handle it?”

Suddenly, Big Ping gave up the pretense of not speaking English. With a wave of his hand, he interrupted his son’s translation, and said, “Of course.”

Wilson turned to him. “Good. And if we do business, you can wire the money to my bank?”

“Oui,” Big Ping replied. “If everything is in order, we can make the transfer through the HongShang Bank.”

“Great! So we’ll do it like this: We’ll go to the Banque Zaïroise, and take a look at the diamonds. They have a private room available for box holders, and you can bring any equipment you need.”

“Then what?” Big Ping asked.

“If we’re in agreement, you ask your bank to make the wire transfer to my bank. Not the one in Bunia, but a British bank. Isle of Man. I’ll wait with you until my bank confirms the funds are in the right account. Then we’ll go to the Banque Zaïroise a second time. I’ll give you the diamonds, and… bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye,” Big Ping repeated.

“And there’s one other thing,” Wilson said.

“There’s always ‘one other thing,’” da Rosa observed.

“I’ve got two friends outside…” Wilson told them. Big Ping raised his eyebrows in a way that was meant to be a question. “I want to make sure they’re taken care of.”

Big Ping cocked his head, and frowned. Little Ping looked bewildered. After a moment, he said, “I think it’s better – you pay your own people.”

Wilson shook his head. “That’s not what I mean,” he said. “What I mean is, I want you to take care of them. Can you do that?”

Silence. Da Rosa looked puzzled. Big Ping stroked his chin. After a moment, he turned to da Rosa with a grin and said, “Flyswattah! He means: flyswattah!”

It went down exactly as Wilson expected.

In the morning, he went to the bank with the Pings, who brought along a kit with a felt cloth, a small microscope, and an array of loupes. The three of them sat at a small iron table in a glorified broom closet for nearly three hours, looking at the diamonds, one by one. Eventually, Big Ping got to his feet, and announced they had a deal. There would be no bargaining. He would pay four million dollars, as Wilson suggested.

Less a finder’s fee for da Rosa, he added. Plus a second fee for the wire transfer, and a third fee for what he called “the other business.” Wilson agreed with a hurried “Okay, okay!,” sealing the deal before the Chinaman tacked on a value added tax and cab fare.

In the end, Wilson would receive $3.6 million by wire transfer from Hong Kong to St. Helier.

He handed the Chinaman a piece of paper with the transfer codes he needed, and promised to meet him at his office the next day. Zero and Khalid would accompany him. In the meantime, it was decided that he would stay in his hotel, where Ping and his friends could keep an eye on him. Once the wire transfer came through, he would accompany Ping to the bank and give him the diamonds.

That night, Wilson treated the boys to a dinner of elephant steaks, washed down with a bottle of what was alleged to be Dom Pérignon, but which tasted suspiciously like Asti Spumante.

He told the two of them that he’d spoken to Hakim by satellite phone from Big Ping’s office, and that the old man was delighted with the way things had gone. He had reservations for each of them on a flight from Kampala to Antwerp in two days’ time. Big Ping’s people would take them to Kampala, and Hakim would meet them at the airport in Antwerp. And there was one other thing, Wilson said. He had a surprise.

Khalid’s eyes widened. “What?” He looked like a kid, coming downstairs to a Christmas tree.

“You’re getting a bonus,” Wilson told him.

“A bonus?”

Wilson nodded. “Ten thousand dollars.” He paused for a second, and added, “Each.”