“As for his allies,” said Li, “we will continue to expect and appreciate their service to the republic. Indeed, I like to consider myself one of Bhang’s strongest allies. This need not be contentious. But it must be.”

*   *   *

At noon, a silver GV touched down at Orly Airport on the outskirts of Paris.

But for the man aboard the jet, Lacey James, it was 3:00 A.M.

With James was his girlfriend, a svelte, beautiful twenty-eight-year-old Swarthmore grad named Didi, with ghost white skin, and a face that garnered ten thousand dollars an hour modeling, when she felt like it, which wasn’t often. She had on a pair of glasses and was reading a book, her third on the flight.

James was dressed in bright yellow leather pants, cowboy boots, a J.Crew flannel shirt, and a cowboy hat. As the plane taxied toward the black Mercedes sedan parked on the tarmac, outside the private terminal, he opened a can of Red Bull and guzzled it.

The jet came to a stop a few feet from the Mercedes. James looked out the window. An MI6 agent climbed from the car’s driver’s seat. He was tall, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved green Under Armour T-shirt.

“See you in a few hours,” he said.

Didi looked up.

“Are we here already?”

“Yes. They’re going to fly you to London. I’ll get there tonight.”

“Cool. See you then, L.J.”

James smiled at her nickname for him.

As far as Didi was concerned, he was getting off in Paris to meet with a French film director named Bruggé, who was interested in hiring him for an upcoming film about the French Revolution. She’d agreed to come when promised a long weekend in London, her favorite city, mainly because she loved its bookstores.

One of the pilots opened the cabin door and lowered the stairs. James lifted a large stainless-steel trunk from a back seat and walked toward the door.

“You need a hand, sir?”

“I got it.”

“London, then back to get you, correct, sir?”

“That’s right. See you later.”

The sound of footsteps on the stairs made him turn just as the agent from the tarmac stuck his head in the cabin. He scanned James from head to toe.

“You got any other clothing?” he asked.

“Yes, why? You don’t like what I’m wearing?”

“The pants are hideous, but that has nothing to do with it, sir,” said the agent. “We’re going to be passing through a residential neighborhood. You can’t stand out. Lose the pleather.”

James went to the back of the plane.

“They’re leather,” he muttered to himself under his breath, as he changed in back. “Versace. Twenty thousand dollars.”

The agent had already put the steel box in the trunk. James went to open the passenger-seat door, but the black window suddenly lowered. Another agent was already seated. Across his lap was a submachine gun. The agent looked up.

“Why don’t you sit in back, Mr. James.”

“If you insist,” said James.

*   *   *

Dewey took a shower and put on clean clothing. When he returned to the library, someone had placed a mug of fresh coffee in front of his seat. He looked around, trying to figure out who had done it, but no one said anything, which was, he realized, the point.

He took a sip, ran his hand through his still-wet hair, and looked across the room at Chalmers, then Calibrisi.

“I’m in,” Dewey said. “Tell me how we’re going to kill this motherfucker.”

Chalmers smiled then looked at the woman on the sofa.

“I’m Veronica Smythson,” she said to Dewey. “I run paramilitary operations at MI6.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“First, some context. Two weeks ago, you succeeded in finding the name of an elusive double agent working inside Mossad. The discovery of that mole, Dillman, began a chain of very brutal, very lethal reprisals and counterreprisals. For a variety of reasons, what began as a fairly traditional East–West intelligence battle has become personal between its two protagonists. Bhang’s behavior, we believe, holds the key to the operation. In his increasing obsession with killing you lies the architecture of his own demise.”

“Speakay Anglay,” said Dewey, sipping from his coffee cup, “s’il vous plaît.”

Smythson grinned.

“As reckless as killing Bo Minh was, it served a vital purpose,” said Smythson. “You personalized it.”

“Bhang issued a worldwide kill order on you,” said Chalmers.

“In Bhang’s eighteen years running the ministry, he’s issued six,” said Smythson. “Killing you is now the highest priority of Chinese intelligence. Every move you’ve taken—killing his brother, killing the squad over at Borchardt’s house, escaping from Lisbon—has only added to the anger that now drives Bhang. It’s his obsession with you, ultimately, that’s going to be his undoing. Or yours. The operation we’ve designed takes that anger and directs it back at Bhang himself. The code name is ‘Eye for an Eye.’ It means revenge. But it also means deception; we are going to manipulate what Bhang sees for a brief period of time. Unknowingly, he will see something different than what is actually occurring. A series of lies. We will be substituting an eye for an eye.”

Smythson nodded at the bald man next to her on the couch, who began typing on his laptop. Suddenly, the curtains slid shut over the windows, and the lights in the room dimmed. A large screen lowered from the ceiling behind Smythson. The screen lit up. It displayed a picture of the exterior facade of a hotel.

“This afternoon, at approximately three fifty-five P.M., you’ll check into the Bristol Hotel,” said Smythson. “You’ll pay with a credit card that we’ll provide you. The name on the card will comport with a passport we’ll also provide.”

A photo of a passport appeared showing Dewey’s face. The name “Walker, Dane M.” appeared next to it, along with “Kansas City, Missouri.” Next to the photo of the fake passport was a black American Express card, the name “Dane Walker” in the lower corner.

Something about the name triggered a memory in Dewey.

“Does that name sound familiar?” asked Smythson.

“Yes,” said Dewey. “I don’t know why, though.”

“Delta,” said Smythson. “That was your alias when you went to Munich and exfiltrated the Russian, Vargarin.”

Dewey nodded.

“When that credit card is swiped,” continued Smythson, “it will trigger the alias. It’s one of the aliases we assume the ministry will be in possession of. When that credit card is swiped, they’ll know within approximately ten seconds you’ve checked into the Bristol.”

Smythson nodded at her aide, and the screen changed. A photo appeared of a man in a baseball hat. He was middle-aged, with a mustache and dark complexion.

“We also have a backup, for redundancy. This man, Louis Vonnes, is a parking valet at the hotel. He’s also a Chinese informant. Yesterday afternoon, he was shown your photograph and promised a bunch of money if he sees you and phones you in. We would like you to smoke a cigarette outside the hotel before you check in.”

“Does Dewey need to worry about this guy doing more than phoning it in?” asked Tacoma.

“There’s always unpredictability,” said Smythson. “That said, we checked him out. He doesn’t own a gun or have any sort of criminal background.”

A photo of the hotel’s front desk appeared.

“After checking in, you will place your bags in room one-oh-one-one,” said Smythson. “You’ll put on this shirt.”

She stood up and walked to a credenza on the side of the room. From a leather weekend bag, she lifted a blue button-down shirt and held it up. It appeared normal from the outside, but on the inside of the shirt was a thin sheet of mesh that resembled Bubble Wrap. Four fist-sized bladders of transparent liquid were attached to the mesh. It looked like water.

She carried it to Dewey. “Put this on; let’s make sure it fits.”

Dewey stood up and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He tried the shirt on. It was snug but would work.