She heard the footsteps of a group behind her, and she knew the president was near. She turned to see him following two EMP agents around the corner, his eyes on his speech. This stop was another chance to refine the remarks he was preparing to deliver at the formal treaty signing that night.

When President Vargas looked up, he saw Garza and went to her. Garza relaxed, anticipating an apology for his being so short with her earlier.

He said, “This needs to go off like clockwork. I must return to the hotel in time to shower and change and prepare.”

Garza waited a beat before answering. “Yes, señor,” she said.

Vargas nodded, stepping back. He was apparently unaware of the offense he had caused her earlier.

Normally she would not have been so bold, so forward, as to speak out of place. But the new president’s manner grated on her. The lack of respect she felt from him was an affront.

She said, “I do not believe Andrés León will be in attendance this evening.”

The president looked at her with a very odd expression. It was as though he had not heard her correctly . . . and had heard every word she had said at the same time.

He stepped forward, keeping his detail back with an impertinent wave of his hand.

“What did you say?” he said.

“Andrés León,” said Garza, unbowed. “Or whatever his name used to be.”

Vargas squinted as though trying to guess at her intent in telling him this. “That information is extremely privileged. You should not know about him.”

Now it was Garza’s turn to parse his words. “Why not, Señor Presidente?”

He scowled at her use of the formal. “Because, Comandante, such knowledge is powerful and even dangerous. Who else knows? Tell me now.”

Garza only told him because he would eventually find out anyway. “An NYPD Detective named Jeremy Fisk.”

“The one you’ve been going around with these past few days.”

Now she was not happy. “ ‘Going around with’?”

Vargas got closer, ensuring that their conversation remained private. “If it were to be made public that I am in any way affiliated with a man like León, it would weaken my hand.”

“Why is that?” she said.

“That is none of your business, Comandante.”

“Because he seems like a man eager to right his wrongs. You certainly have taken advantage of his largesse.”

Vargas’s eyes flared. “This is very much a game of perception. When the right things are done in the wrong way, people revolt.”

“The wrong way?” said Garza.

The president made to end the conversation. “Some things are better left unstudied, Cecilia,” he said. “Some stones are better left unturned.”

CHAPTER 60

The 101st Precinct police station was a brick and limestone box occupying the entire corner at 16-12 Mott Avenue. The arched doorway was accented on both sides by green hanging lanterns featuring the old-school, slanted, stylized NYPD font reading 101ST.

Fisk quickly found Kiser, who led him to an interview room. A young Vietnamese man in short sleeves and a home haircut sat at the table waiting for them. Near him, setting down and neatly folding a Vietnamese newspaper, was a more Americanized Asian wearing a white shirt and a maroon necktie.

Kiser said, “Nam Thring is his name. This fellow is Jerry, a translator we use.”

Jerry nodded.

Kiser said, “Mr. Thring, uh, evidently has had a relationship with this Silvia Volpi. At least twice. He says she was very beautiful, very innocent. Second time he saw her, it was business as usual, except that on his way out she slipped him a folded piece of paper. Pressed it into his hand, clamping her hand over his mouth to tell him don’t say anything. She pushed his hand into his pocket to hide it there. Then watched him walk out of the room without a word.

“He says he didn’t open the note until he got back to his home. It was a flyer for a car wash place, the kind people leave under doors and elasticized to door handles. There was writing in the margins, done in a small hand. It was all in Spanish. Mr. Thring does not speak Spanish, but knew a friend who did and brought the note to him. Mr. Thring thought it might be a mash note or something, I guess. Instead it was a plea for help.

“It gave her full name, the Mexican city she was kidnapped from, the names and addresses of her parents. In it, she said she was being held captive by force, in total silence, unable to leave the building she was in. She said she did not know where she was, what town or city. She feared she was going to be traded or sold again. She asked him to go to the police.”

Fisk exhaled. “Which he did not.”

“Too scared,” said Kiser. “That’s his excuse. He didn’t do anything except throw away the note. He didn’t come here on his own. His friend, the one who translated the note from Spanish, turned him in. Recognized the girl’s name. Mr. Thring is also living in this country illegally.”

Fisk looked at Jerry, the translator. He was a little too disgusted at Mr. Thring to look at him just yet. “How did he first meet her?”

Jerry asked Thring in rapid-fire Vietnamese. Thring answered him slowly, eyes downcast.

Jerry relayed, “An online advertisement for massages, on a Vietnamese site.”

Kiser said, “Illegals advertising for illegals. That way nobody goes to the authorities.”

Fisk said to Jerry, “I need an address. Right now. Where was she?”

Thring answered back that he did not know.

Fisk said, “A house? An apartment? You weren’t blindfolded. Describe!”

Thring answered that it was in a part of the city he was unfamiliar with.

Fisk said, “Jesus, you went there twice. He have GPS on his phone? The address in there?”

Thring shook his head, unable to meet the eyes even of his translator.

Fisk dug out his own phone. He went to Google Maps Street View. “Give me his address.”

Fisk entered it. A tall apartment building in Kew Gardens, Queens.

“Okay,” said Fisk, taking Jerry’s seat so Thring could see the display. “Turn right or left?”

It went like that, painstakingly, and with many wrong turns. Block by block. Fisk learned the Vietnamese words for right, left, and straight.

The display had him heading toward the Williamsburg end of Bushwick, just over the line from Queens into Brooklyn. A residential area gave way to a mostly industrial area on the other side of Flushing Avenue. Lightly traveled, no retail business. The neighborhood was still a decade away from loft conversions, coffee bars, and hipsters.

Fisk moved virtually through the side streets of this neighborhood, coming to a large garage door covered in peeling paint the color of dried blood. Opposite the garage was an unbroken wall of warehouse.

“This is it?”

Thring nodded, relieved that his eyes could find the floor again.

Fisk turned to Jerry. “I need the layout of the place inside.”

Thring was not very helpful. Jerry translated, “You knock on the door. It is dark. They take money and bring you down basement, unlock door to room.”

“Unlock door?” said Fisk.

“Many doors,” Jerry translated.

Many girls, thought Fisk.

CHAPTER 61

Fisk knew Garza would not be answering her phone, so he texted her and e-mailed her a link to the address in Bushwick. She probably wanted to stay put with the Mexican president, but it was her call.

Dubin was at lunch when Fisk reached him. He talked over Dubin’s opening diatribe, laying out where he was headed and why.

“You want a SWAT team?” said Dubin.

Fisk had had about enough. He said, “Barry, this is me. Do it. Or don’t. I’m not waiting.”

And he hung up.