“Sorry. I just got your messages.”

“I heard what happened,” said Chalmers. “I’m very sorry. You have my thoughts and prayers.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t think it would happen so soon,” said Chalmers. “We should have known. I blame myself.”

“Should’ve known what?” asked Calibrisi.

“Fao Bhang,” said Chalmers. “Obviously, he was behind this. We’ve drawn him out, just as we wanted. Unfortunately, his response was much more lethal than we anticipated.”

“Forgive me, Derek, it’s been a long day. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Take me off speaker,” said Chalmers.

Calibrisi picked up the handset.

“Jessica was assassinated by Fao Bhang,” said Chalmers, his voice sharp with impatience. “It’s clear. Our little package to Li’s granddaughter had an impact, just as we intended it to. This was revenge for Dillman. He wanted Dewey Andreas dead.”

A feeling of uneasiness came over Calibrisi. Had their operation resulted in Jessica’s death? There was no way. He pushed aside the thought. But a pang of guilt washed over him. The thought that he might have inadvertently done something that led to her death was too terrible to even contemplate.

“We don’t have anything linking Beijing to this,” Calibrisi said. “Dewey Andreas has a lot of enemies. China isn’t one of them. What evidence do you have?”

“Our sources inside Beijing say the premier’s granddaughter has been under medical care for three days now, and Li is extremely angry at Bhang. In addition, we’re seeing heightened activity out of the clandestine service. Ming-húa has canceled all vacation for his agents across the Eurasian theater. He’s exercised the retainers on an army of mercenaries they keep at the ready. Beijing is preparing for something.”

Calibrisi stared at the photos of Jessica.

“Are you there, Hector?” asked Chalmers. “Look, I know this is a hard time for you, but you need to keep your head. Jessica was, tragically, collateral damage in a larger war. It’s terrible. But this is our opening. We can’t lose sight of the objective. Bhang has popped his head out of the hole. We need to figure out how to chop it off. And we have to be careful. As Jessica’s death demonstrates, Bhang doesn’t play nice.”

Calibrisi’s door opened and Missy entered, placing a coffee down on his desk.

“Katie Foxx is on hold,” she whispered. “They found Dewey.”

“Derek, I have to call you back,” said Calibrisi.

35

MOTEL TRASO

LIMA

Pascal clicked send. His intended recipient, Raul, had yet to return even one of his texts. Not to mention the phone calls. Pascal had left so many voice mails on Raul’s cell phone that eventually the automated voice of a female came on and told him the mailbox was full.

With each passing minute, Pascal became more vulnerable. Pascal had information, valuable information. It was China who was behind Jessica Tanzer’s death. Properly leveraged, that information was worth a great deal. But that knowledge could also be his death knell.

Pascal walked to the window. In the distance, he could see the lights of downtown Lima. The motel room he stood in was disgusting. It reeked of old cigarettes, sex with prostitutes who wore cheap perfume, johns who sprayed on too much cologne, and room deodorizer. The bed was small. He’d slept most of the night on the filthy carpet because he could feel the springs pressing into his back as he’d tried to sleep. Sure, he could have stayed at the Four Seasons, but that’s what Ming-húa would be expecting. Ming-húa knew Pascal had expensive tastes, and that’s the first place he’d think to look for him. Pascal knew he needed to lay low.

Pascal had begun the slow, ineluctable realization that he had to run. Through the evening, he tried to convince himself that he could reach out to Beijing, to Ming-húa, and appeal to them to trust him. But it was a naïve illusion. He had to run. He had more than forty million dollars squirreled away, and he could afford to go wherever he wanted.

He heard the chime from his computer.

It was from Raul. Finally.

Help. Need to talk

Pascal double-clicked the chat icon on his laptop. A small video box popped up.

Where are you

Pascal waited for the photo to sharpen. He didn’t get a response from Raul. He typed in again.

WHERE ARE YOU

Finally, letters appeared:

Beijing

Suddenly, the video focused and became lighter. It was a live feed showing a hallway. Someone was holding a camera as they walked. Pascal stared into the screen. A door appeared, the number 6 on it.

“Fuck,” he said to himself, staring at the video.

Pascal reached for his pack of cigarettes. Behind him, he suddenly heard the sound of the door being opened.

“Maid,” came a female voice from behind him.

“Stay out,” he barked.

Pascal’s eye moved from the computer screen to a red plastic room key on the desk. A gold 6 was etched into the plastic.

In the same moment that the video feed showed a black boot kicking a door, the motel-room door behind him exploded violently, kicked in from the outside.

Turning, Pascal saw a woman. She was Chinese, with a camera on her forehead, and tight black shirt and pants. She clutched a PP-19 Bizon submachine gun, suppressor jutting from the muzzle.

Pascal charged the assassin, but she triggered the weapon. A spray of bullets sliced horizontally across his torso, stopping his forward progress, then catapulting Pascal backward. The assassin stepped forward, stood above him, then watched as Pascal’s eyes rolled back in his head. She sprayed another suppressed hail of slugs down at his head, grabbed his laptop, then turned and walked quickly out of the room, leaving the door open and Pascal’s cigarette burning on the carpet next to his destroyed skull.

36

DISTRICT 7 REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS

ARGENTINE FEDERAL POLICE

CÓRDOBA

Colonel Arman Marti closed the door to his temporary office on the third and top floor of AFP’s regional headquarters. The room was dark. He did not turn on the lights. Instead, he groped through the large bottom drawer of his desk, feeling for a pair of night-vision goggles. He pulled them out, then flipped on the power button.

On the desk in front of him was a small manila envelope.

It was 3:00 A.M.

It had been four hours since he’d left Charlie Couture, the CIA chief of station, at the hotel bar, where the entire team was staked out for the duration of the investigation into Jessica Tanzer’s death.

Couture was like a bulldog, and Marti was sick of him. The young American clung to Marti like a spider monkey. Marti knew full well he was just obeying orders from his bosses at Langley, but it was grating nonetheless.

Marti knew the CIA didn’t trust him, or anyone at AFP, for that matter. Couture and his team from the CIA, as well as an even larger contingent from the FBI, had demanded access to all aspects of the investigation and all phases of the autopsy, as well as deliberations by the AFP forensics team afterward. It was, Marti thought, overkill. As far as he was concerned, he wished AFP didn’t have jurisdiction over the death of Jessica Tanzer. It was turning out to be a grade-A pain in the ass, and he would be happy when it was over.

But then, just when he thought it couldn’t get worse, it did.

The phone call had come to his eighty-four-year-old mother in Buenos Aires. In his typical Machiavellian way, Ming-húa had called Marti’s mother, knowing most other avenues to Marti were likely being monitored by the National Security Agency and the CIA. Ming-húa had asked Marti’s mother, politely, to call his friend Juan in Mexico City. In the precise code Ming-húa had forced Marti to memorize many years ago, Juan meant Ming-húa, and Mexico City meant “extremely urgent.”