Over the years, China had paid Marti more than a million dollars to do nothing more than keep Beijing apprised of activities in Argentina. For the most part, Marti often wondered if MSS even cared about what happened in Argentina. Marti knew he was just another investment, sprinkled across the country and the world by Fao Bhang—an investment that might never get cashed in.

But when his frail, aging mother Francita muttered the words “Mexico City,” Marti knew the time had come to pay the piper.

Of course, Marti could say no. But Marti didn’t want to find out what happened to people who said no to Ming-húa or, God forbid, Fao Bhang. Ming-húa had called his mother. The message was clear. It wouldn’t just be Marti who paid the price.

After leaving the Sheraton, Marti had driven to Córdoba airport. There, taped to the underside of the wing of an aging Cessna turboprop with peeling paint, he’d removed a small tan envelope.

Now at his desk in the darkness he removed its contents. Inside were two sheets of thick paper, almost like cardboard, each showing ten separate squares, each of the squares with dark, inky fingerprints.

The typeface at the top of the page showed the AFP crime-scene investigator’s specific logo, dark orange font with slightly raised, embossed lettering, a security precaution.

Marti left his office. He skulked down the hall. Removing a key from his pocket, he unlocked a door, went inside, then closed the door behind him. He went to the desk of AFP’s lead investigator, Sandoval. Marti searched through three neat piles of folders. He found the folder that held the dead Chinese agent’s prints. He removed a piece of thick paper and replaced it with a duplicate, then put the folder back. He folded the original and stuffed it in his back pocket.

Marti moved to Couture’s desk. The American’s files were stacked on the desk. He flipped through the thick pile. He found the original sheets of prints, replaced it with the new one, then put it back on Couture’s desk.

Half an hour later, Marti sat on the brown sofa in his hotel room. He opened a beer from the refrigerator, then lit a cigarette. After lighting the end of the cigarette, he put the match to the corners of the two sheets of fingerprints. He watched as the true identity of the dead Chinese agent vanished up in smoke.

37

MIAMI

It was the sound of the hotel housekeepers that awoke Dewey.

“Housekeeping,” called a voice through the door.

Dewey opened his eyes, looking in front of him, trying to remember where he was. Pain kicked the back of his skull.

“Go away,” he said, without moving.

“Sir, what time would you like us to come back?”

“Fuck off,” said Dewey.

He fell back asleep.

How many hours later it was, he didn’t know, but it was knocking at the door that stirred him again.

“Fuck off,” he said, barely above a whisper.

He heard the sound of the lock turning. The door pushed in and stopped on the chain. Then came a kick. The chain ripped from the wall as the door slammed open.

From the ground, all Dewey could make out was a blur. A tall green hazy figure. The alcohol was still teeming in his system. He barely moved. Then he felt his stomach tightening. He fought against another wave of nausea.

His eyes began to focus and he saw the man’s feet: he had on flip-flops. His eyes moved up. He wore madras shorts and a green T-shirt that read I’D RATHER BE WATERBOARDING. He had long brown hair, past his shoulders.

Dewey looked behind the man, suddenly noticing a woman stepping slowly into the room. She had short blond hair, wore white jeans, and a blue T-shirt.

“Get up, grampa,” said the man in the green T-shirt, and Dewey recognized the voice.

“Rob?” Dewey whispered.

Tacoma helped him up, putting his arm under his shoulder and lifting him.

“Fuck, you’re a goddamn load, Andreas,” said Tacoma, struggling. “You’re getting fat, old man.”

“Fuck you,” said Dewey. “It’s all muscle.”

“Yeah, right.”

Katie and Rob looked around the bedroom. It was a mess of broken glass and vomit.

“I wasn’t expecting company.”

“It’s okay,” Katie said, smiling. She walked over to Dewey and gave him a hug. She stepped back and looked up at him.

“How are you doing?” Katie asked.

“Not too good.”

“I’m sorry about Jessica,” she said.

“Me too.”

Dewey walked to the minibar and removed two small bottles of Jack Daniel’s from the refrigerator as Katie and Tacoma watched, then glanced at each other. He unscrewed the caps, then stuck the ends of both bottles in his mouth and chugged them down in one gulp. He felt the warmth immediately, and the pain in the back of his head went away.

Dewey went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He looked into the mirror. He’d been there before. Staring into the eyes of a dead man.

He inspected his mauled right fist. The knuckles were worse than he remembered, the skin missing. He saw a sparkle near the knuckle of the index finger. He reached down and yanked a thin, inch-long piece of mirror that had slid into the skin between the knuckles, easing it painfully out. Blood trickled from the hole, which he unconsciously put to his mouth to try to stop.

Hector had sent Katie and Rob, Dewey knew. Tacoma, a former SEAL, and Katie, who had been number-two inside CIA Special Operations Group, were about the closest friends Dewey had right now, other than Hector. Part of him appreciated the gesture from Hector. But Dewey knew he didn’t want to get them involved in what he was about to do.

He dried his face and looked one last time at himself in the mirror.

You need to risk it all, Dewey. To strike back at the one who wants to kill you, you need to put everything you have at risk. In order to fight, you must be willing to be hit. In order to kill, you must be willing to be killed.

Back in the bedroom, Katie was stuffing his belongings into his leather bag.

“What are you doing?” Dewey asked.

“Packing your stuff. We’re going back to D.C.”

“There’s no ‘we,’ Katie. There’s me. Me and the motherfuckers who did this. Remember Iran? You didn’t want to take unnecessary risks? You didn’t want to die? Remember all that?”

Dewey’s face was flushing red. Several moments of awkward silence passed.

“Hector exercised our retainer,” said Katie icily. “Whether you like it or not, we’re going to be working on this.”

“This is not going to be some sort of Langley shit show,” said Dewey.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No one is going on trial at The Hague or being flown to Gitmo,” said Dewey. “Whoever did this is dead. Whoever helped is dead. This isn’t about justice.”

Katie glanced at Tacoma, then nodded.

“We’re on the same page,” she said.

*   *   *

Thirty minutes later, they were airborne. The three sat around a small conference table as the black CIA Citation X flew north.

“Someone tracked you to a remote ranch in Argentina,” said Katie. “That fact alone indicates a level of organization that could only be a foreign intelligence agency. They did an assessment of the security rotations, then timed the strike around them. They used a sniper, who took a night shot, which, as you know, is much more difficult. That’s what we know.”

Katie reached into a light blue leather handbag. She pulled out a manila envelope. Inside it were photographs of the corpse, more than twenty in all, from various angles, displaying the crater in the back of his head, and several close-ups of his destroyed face. The fact that he was Asian was obvious. Yet they all knew it was irrelevant. He could have been from anywhere.

Tacoma was looking at his laptop.

“Langley just finished the print runs,” he said. “Looks like he popped up at INTERPOL. I’ll print them out.”