Night-vision optics were strapped to each man’s head, ready to be pulled down at a moment’s notice.

The four killers sat in silence, earbuds in, waiting.

*   *   *

Half a world away, Fao Bhang was seated in the conference room next to his office. Ming-huá was with him. They were patched into Borchardt’s VPN, monitoring the operation in real time. It was 6:00 A.M. in Beijing.

On the wall, a large video screen was live-linked to Borchardt’s security system. The screen displayed a dozen different views, tiled across the screen. In the upper left corner was the live feed of Dewey’s bedroom, now dark.

A triangular speaker phone sat on a table in front of Bhang and Ming-huá.

“What floor is he on?” asked Bhang, leaning toward the mic.

“Three,” came the voice of the agent in London, “in back.”

“I believe we’re close,” said Ming-huá.

He pointed at the screens. At least three-fourths of the screens were devoid of activity. One screen showed the front steps of the mansion. Couples were filing out.

“Is that a tactical order?” came the voice of the agent in London.

Bhang pointed at a screen showing a man and a woman kissing in a shadowy corner of the back terrace.

“No,” said Bhang sharply. “Mr. Borchardt was kind enough to notify us. In return, what he asked for was discretion and cleanliness. We wait until the party is over.”

*   *   *

Borchardt stood near the front door, saying goodbye to his guests as they filed out. The party was coming to a close, though many people still continued to mill about. The sound of a Mozart sonata, played with utmost skill by the violinist, lent a soothing, elegant air to the din.

When one of Borchardt’s servants walked nearby, Borchardt snapped his fingers.

“Go tell the violin to pack it up,” he said. “Last song.”

*   *   *

Dewey lay in bed for just over an hour, eyes open, staring at the dark bedroom, with the sounds of the party echoing softly up from the terrace and gardens at the rear of the estate.

In the dark, he climbed from his bed. He pulled on his jeans, T-shirt, and a pair of running shoes from his duffel. He went to the window and stepped behind the curtain.

Quietly, he climbed onto the brass banister and stared down at the gardens below. The party had thinned out. Only a few couples were still on the terrace. The music from the violin abruptly stopped.

Dewey reached up and placed his hands on the eave. He wrapped his fingertips around the front of the eave. He stepped off the banister into the open air, clinging onto the eave with both hands. For several seconds, he hung from the eave, dangling above the gardens three stories below, then threw his right foot up onto the eave. He pulled himself up to the roof.

The roof was pitch-black. Floodlights every six feet cast light up, out, and down from the flat roof, toward the gardens, the sides of the house, and, in front, at Upper Phillimore Gardens.

He stood in the shadows catching his breath.

He moved quietly across the roof to the front of the mansion. He leaned over the edge, clinging to the roof eave, and lowered himself. He was hanging now, staring into a well-lit room, inside of which stood a large red billiards table. A couple, a young blond man with glasses and his tuxedo jacket off, and a woman in a pink dress, was in the room. She was watching him prepare to hit the ball.

Dewey inched along the roof eave, dangling three stories over the sidewalk. He could see people below, couples talking, a man walking a black Labrador retriever. Down the sidewalk, at the entrance to Borchardt’s, a pair of armed guards stood watch.

The next window was dark. Dewey swung in and dropped, grabbing the railing. His feet slammed into the limestone beneath the window, barely missing the glass. Slowly, cautiously, he lowered his hands from the banister to the landing where his feet were. He clutched the edge of the landing, then lowered himself again, so that he now hung outside a window on the second floor.

As he dangled in the dark, he scanned the room. It was the biggest bedroom in the house. It was also the only bedroom that wouldn’t have security cameras peering in; Borchardt liked his privacy.

Dewey felt for the railing with his shoe. He stepped delicately atop the railing, then climbed down onto the small terrace in front of the window.

From his pocket, Dewey removed a small ice pick, which he’d taken from the bar. He stuck it into the seam between the upper and lower windows.

Dewey knew Borchardt had a state-of-the-art security system, more than capable of detecting penetrations at doors and windows. He guessed that the system would be off for the party. He popped the latch, then lifted the window open.

*   *   *

The agent in the basement security room pulled a pair of thin leather gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. He reached to his ear.

“We’re near hard count,” said the agent, scanning the screens, which were mostly blank and lifeless. “The right gate is the open access. Move in one-minute intervals along the right side of the gardens to the door closest to the swimming pool. I’ll meet you inside the door. Give me a weapons check.”

*   *   *

Inside the delivery truck, the four agents, one by one, checked their machine guns, then responded to the lead agent.

“Over one.”

“Two.”

“Over three.”

“Four, out.”

Each man pulled the night optics down over his eyes.

*   *   *

“Hold,” said the lead agent. He continued to stare at the screens. He saw movement in one of the rooms.

“What’s that?” he asked in English, pointing.

“Staff,” said one of Borchardt’s men with a heavy Russian accent. “Cook.”

The agent swung his submachine gun from around his back, to his front. He checked the magazine without looking, then pressed his ear.

“On my go,” said the agent in Mandarin. “I want dark COMM. No talk. We move on my lead.”

*   *   *

Dewey moved silently to Borchardt’s bed. He opened the drawer of a bedside table. Beneath a book, a handgun lay in the drawer: Glock 24 with a suppressor. He checked the magazine, making sure it was good to go.

He went to a closet, pulled a shoelace from one of Borchardt’s shoes, then put it through the trigger guard and tied a knot around his neck so that the Glock now hung at his neck. He stuffed an extra mag in his jeans pocket.

Dewey got down on his knees and looked beneath the bed. He reached under the bed and pulled out an MP7A1.

Dewey knew Borchardt was paranoid. He didn’t think he was this paranoid.

At the window, he took the ice pick and jabbed it into the curtain. He tore off a long strip of silk from the curtain. He tied it through the MP7’s trigger guard, then made a knot. He made a sling, wrapping it around his neck. He strapped the MP7 across his back, then tightened the sling.

*   *   *

Bhang lit a cigarette as he waited in the conference room, watching the operation unfold.

Ming-huá glanced up at him.

“Are we good?” he asked.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” said Bhang, deep in thought.

“What do you want to do?” asked Ming-huá. “I can abort.”

Bhang shook his head without saying anything.

“Proceed,” said Bhang.

Ming-huá turned and leaned into the mic.

“Lead one, you have tactical authority,” said Ming-huá, into the mic. “You’re hot.”

*   *   *

Borchardt sat in the library, leg bouncing nervously, sipping a vodka, staring at the Chinese ambassador, Sūn Mă, who paced back and forth across the room.

“The guests are gone,” said Mă, looking at Borchardt. “Honestly, what can be taking so long?”

Borchardt stared at Mă.

“Stop talking,” said Borchardt. “I told you, I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to hear about it.”

“I apologize,” said Mă.