Couture leaned in toward the door.

“We found evidence linking Iran,” he whispered.

“Really?” said Marti.

The dead bolt turned. The door opened slightly. Marti put his head behind the chain.

Couture kicked viciously, ripping the chain off and slamming the door into Marti’s face, where it struck his nose, crushing it.

Couture followed the door in and leapt at Marti, wrapping his thick muscled fingers around the older man’s neck and tackling him to the floor. He straddled Marti as he choked him.

“Did I say Iran?” asked Couture, gripping his throat and strangling the life out if him. “I meant you, motherfucker.”

Couture felt the weak swings of Marti’s fists against his back. He watched as Argentina’s top law-enforcement official turned reddish blue and suffocated to death.

41

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF

WEST WING

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The White House chief of staff’s office was a stone’s throw from the Oval Office, connected by a short private hallway.

The doors to the interconnecting hallway sometimes stayed open, usually during crunch times, such as just before an important speech, like the State of the Union. During these times, the president, chief of staff, and various senior-level White House and administration staffers walked freely between the two rooms.

Then there were times when the doors between the two offices were shut. Usually this happened when the president needed to conduct a private meeting, outside the earshot of anyone or anything. But for the most part, the president’s life, and consequently the Oval Office, was a relatively open book.

It wasn’t the Oval Office where the shit hit the fan. That took place in the chief of staff’s office.

If the Oval Office was large and fancy, with every inch of space, wall, curtain, fabric, photograph, and painting as orchestrated and thought-out as a symphony, the chief of staff’s office was more private, intimate, comfortable, luxurious in its own special way, with stunning views of the White House grounds.

It was the place where the grittier business of running the hardball, day-to-day, between-the-lines work of the presidency took place. The Oval Office was where hands were shaken; the chief of staff’s office was where arms were broken.

Adrian King Jr. was the White House chief of staff. King, thirty-five, was five feet eight, with brown hair that was as thick as shag carpeting. His trademark feature was a set of bushy eyebrows that looked like some form of rare caterpillar.

King was the most feared man in Washington. He didn’t play politics. He was loyal to a fault and the most hardworking person at the White House. But if you fucked with the president, with anyone under his general purview, or with him, watch out.

King stood behind his desk. In front of him was the complete dossier on Hu-Shao, including photos, a complete biography, and indisputable evidence that placed the Chinese agent in the sniper’s nest in Córdoba.

He pored through the dossier with the speed, thoroughness, and efficiency of a trained prosecutor. When he was done, he put the papers back into the folder.

“Hector, I’m going to ask this once,” said King, looking at Calibrisi, who was seated on the houndstooth sofa against the wall, beneath bookshelves lined with leather volumes and silver-framed photos. “Are you absolutely, positively fucking sure Dewey cut the finger off himself?”

“Yes,” said Calibrisi.

“Would Premier Li have to sanction this?” asked King.

“Not if Dewey was the intended target.”

King breathed heavily. He looked at the other man in the office, Secretary of State Lindsay.

“And was he?”

“Yes,” said Calibrisi. “Dewey exposed the identity of a high-placed MSS asset inside Israeli intelligence. This was payback.”

“Some fucking payback,” asked King. “If this was sanctioned by Li, this is war. If it wasn’t, well, what the hell is it then? They still assassinated America’s top national security official. It’s still war.”

Lindsay put his coffee cup down on the table in front of him.

“We all know that’s not practicable,” said Lindsay.

“Tell that to Jessica, Tim,” snapped King.

Lindsay sat back, chastened.

“What I mean, Adrian, is we can’t just go to war with China. We don’t have the troops. We would have to reinstitute the draft. I mean, it’s an absurd conversation to even have.”

“Oh, yeah,” said King, seething. “We might not have the troops, but we have enough fucking nukes to turn that miserable fucking no-good goddamn rice bog into a glow-in-the-dark cockroach park.”

Lindsay, a former admiral and chief of naval operations, who was almost thirty years King’s senior, nodded calmly.

“I’m angry too, but we’re not going to war over it,” said Lindsay. “You know it. I know it. Hector knows it.”

“The Chinese tried to alter the identity of the dead operative,” said Calibrisi. “They planted prints from a known terrorist with no ties to China. They think we don’t know. They had help from someone inside Argentina.”

“Who?” asked King.

“The head of AFP,” said Calibrisi.

King looked as if he was about to flip his desk over.

“Do you know how much we give those ungrateful bastards!” yelled King, reaching for the speaker button on his phone console.

“Yes, Mr. King,” came the voice of King’s assistant.

“Get me President Salazar down in Argentina,” he yelled at the phone.

He looked at Calibrisi.

“Who is the head of AFP?” asked King.

Calibrisi leaned forward and pressed the speaker button, cutting off the phone.

“You mean, who was the head of AFP?” answered Calibrisi calmly.

King smiled.

Lindsay glanced at Calibrisi, incredulous.

“Your guys killed—”

“Spare me,” snapped King, interrupting Lindsay. “He got what he deserved. As far as I’m concerned, Hector here can do whatever he feels like. But that’s that world. Right now, we’re in this world. And the question is, what do we do?”

“I think it’s appropriate to expel their ambassador from the country,” said Lindsay, “along with the entire embassy staff and the entire staff of the mission to the UN, and any satellite missions—L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, et cetera.”

“That’s symbolic horseshit,” said King. “What about the fuckers who actually did it?”

“It’s Fao Bhang,” said Calibrisi. “It’s his operation.”

King straightened his tie.

“Do you have a recommendation?”

“We need to confront the Chinese,” said Calibrisi. “They might deny it, but they also might administer their own form of justice and remove Bhang. That would be significant.”

“I’m going upstairs to brief the president,” said King. “When I get back, I want the Chinese ambassador in my office.”

King walked to the door.

“One more thing,” he said, looking at Lindsay. “You call Li. You call him or I’ll call him.”

“I’ll call him.”

“Tell Li the president expects him at Jessica’s funeral,” said King. “And tell him to bring Fao Bhang’s head in one of his suitcases.”

42

UPPER PHILLIMORE GARDENS

KENSINGTON

LONDON

The taxicab pulled up to Borchardt’s limestone mansion as the sun was setting over London.

The usually quiet street in front of Borchardt’s palatial estate was busy. A long line of limousines was queued up, along with taxis, assorted sports cars, and luxury sedans, and a Range Rover or two thrown in for good measure. A line of valets was opening the doors of the cars and taking those cars that needed to be parked to a parking lot around the corner. Well-dressed men, many in tuxedos, along with women in elegant, formal gowns, drifted up the dimly lit front steps toward the entrance to Borchardt’s house.