Barrett touches the pistol. “My father carried this in Vietnam, until a round from a Chinese-made SKS-56 blew off his right knee. For the rest of his life, even as a schoolteacher, my father was a bitter drunk, thanks to you folks. But now…your aggression, your violence, ends with me.”

  Enough is enough, Dejiang thinks. He has to get out of here and report back to Beijing the condition of this nation’s president. Quickly.

  He abruptly gets up. “You have made your position quite clear, Mr. President. We have offered you a way out from our dilemma. You have refused any consideration, any compromise. You have until noon tomorrow to reverse course.”

  The president of the United States stands up as well, face red, eyes wide.

  “Fine,” he says. “And you have sixty seconds to get the hell out of my White House.”

  CHAPTER 104

  LIAM GREY IS driving the beat-up Polo into Johannesburg, yawning, desperately trying to stay awake.

  It’s taken nearly nine hours to get here from the truck stop where he had met Chin Lin. She left before him, allowing him time for a burger, fries, and refueling the Polo before driving east. Along the way he pulled over for a nap, refueled the Polo twice more, and kept on going with water, energy bars, and coffee. Now he’s on Stiemens Street, following the directions Lin gave him.

  There.

  A bulky, concrete parking garage, part of the Joburg Theatre complex, consisting of four separate theatres in the Braamfontein area of the city.

  Liam slowly drives in, notes that it costs twenty rands to park—money supplied to him before he left the States—and then he goes into the complex, up a level, and finds a certain spot. He parks the Polo, takes his duffel bag and steps out, stretches, and a voice says, “You’re cutting it close.”

  Lin emerges from between two parked cars, walking to him, feet echoing on the concrete.

  “Had to pass through a herd of water buffalo, sorry,” he says. “I’m ready if you are.”

  She nods, gestures him over. She has on gray slacks and a white, button-front blouse with the same leather jacket as yesterday. Lin is alert and looking smart.

  “Come along,” she says, leading Liam to a dark-gray Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan. She toggles a key fob and the rear trunk pops open, makes a gesture, and Liam says, “No.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not getting in that trunk, not now.”

  “You agreed.”

  Liam says, “No, I’ve agreed to this op because it’s the only way I see to get Benjamin freed and find out how to help the vice president. But this op goes against every bit of tradecraft I’ve learned over the years. And climbing into a car trunk in a parking garage, trusting you’ll take me to the right place? That’s not going to happen.”

  With anger in her dark eyes, Lin says, “Then what is going to happen?”

  Liam goes around to the passenger’s-side door, opens it. “Lady, I’m trying to minimize this big-ass risk. Which means I need to see the target building before we begin. I’m not going in cold. All right?”

  “What difference will it make?”

  “It’ll make me happy,” he says. “Aren’t you in favor of improving Sino-American relations?”

  “Only for one particular American,” she quietly says.

  “Making me happier will help,” he says. “Now, you have a choice to make.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Which one of us drives?”

  It’s about a twenty-minute drive north along a busy Jan Smuts Avenue. As Lin drives, Liam presses her again about the upcoming op, what she has planned, the fallback and alternatives if the plan goes wrong.

  As they talk, Liam takes in the bustling side streets and sidewalks of Johannesburg, and knows that even if this op is successful, getting Benjamin Lucas out and learning the cure for the vice president’s condition—a long shot indeed—he will probably never be able to operate in Africa, ever again. The Chinese will make sure of that, passing along his information to every other intelligence agency on the continent.

  Big deal, he thinks.

  If it works, that will be all that matters.

  He feels wide awake now, tingling in anticipation of what is ahead, realizing he’s on the knife edge of disaster. No matter the promises and reassurances the attractive young woman next to him has professed, she’s still an intelligence officer from a nation that hasn’t made secret its desire to turn the United States into a Second World nation.

  Add in the fact that the local CIA station chief doesn’t know he’s here, and there’s no time to do a surveillance detection route, just to see who might be out there with eyes watching. This op might end up making the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion look like the successful D-Day of 1944.

  Lin drives smoothly and expertly through the narrow streets off Jan Smuts Avenue, into residential areas, all of which have tall concrete walls and gated entrances. Lin slows down as they pass through a roundabout, and she says, “Killarney Street. That’s where Benjamin is being held.”

  Liam says, “One street over from your consulate on Cleveland Road. How convenient.”

  “You are distressingly well informed,” Lin says, slowing down in front of 24 Killarney Street, marked in bronze colored metal letters and numbers on the concrete wall. Underneath that is Burnham Associates, in the same letter style. Liam gets a quick view of a gate and beyond that, a one-story concrete building with small windows, painted a dull yellow.

  Lin speeds up. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, I wish I had a day to surveil the joint,” Liam says, turning in his seat for one last glance. One way in or out. Easy to block to prevent any escape. Hell, it looked like it could be blocked by a damn golf cart.

  “There must be a utility or access tunnel connecting the consulate to your satellite building,” Liam says. “What happens when the action starts? Every armed person at your consulate will come at us.”

  Lin pulls into a driveway where a building seems to be under renovation. But while there are piles of stone and pallets of lumber, no workers are visible. Lin drives to the rear where there’s an open green bin filled with broken plaster and chunks of lumber and parks the car.

  “That’s taken care of,” Lin says. “When we start, the tunnel closes off automatically at each end. There should be minimal occupation and resistance in the building where Benjamin is being held. Anything else?”

  Liam can think of another half dozen questions or so but he knows they don’t have the time.

  “No,” he says. “Let’s do this.”

  They both get out and Lin opens the car’s trunk—or is it called a boot over here? Liam randomly wonders—and he starts to get dressed from the gear Lin earlier placed in there.

  As he puts on the gear, Lin sees him placing his borrowed 10mm Glock into a pocket.

  Lin says, “I can’t let you bring that in there.”

  Liam zippers the pocket shut. “Too late now. Lady, if I’m going into a trap, I’m not going in unarmed.”

  “You still don’t trust me.”

  “Yes, but at least I’m polite enough not to point it out all the time,” Liam says. “Let’s get this thing done.”

  This time, he gets in the trunk for the short drive to the op.

  CHAPTER 105

  AT HER GEORGETOWN home, CIA Director Hannah Abrams sits in her kitchen, cup of coffee in hand. Her security officer Ralph says, “The DC police have come here twice, looking to talk to Noa. The next time they come, they’ll be coming with a search warrant.”

  Hannah rubs at the side of her head. “I’ll make some calls, see if I can get them to hold off for a while. How’s everything else?”

  “We have six additional security officers on the grounds, and I’ve got two other officers watching from vehicles parked on the streets,” he says. “Noa’s friend from the Agency, Gina Stasio, arrived about an hour ago. Do you expect any other visitors?”

  “Probably Deputy Director Swantish, either late tonight or early tomorrow morning,” she says. “Any news about Bruce?”

  Ralph works his massive jaw. “In surgery at the moment. Months of rehab ahead of him. But he’ll bounce back, if it takes months or years.”

  Hannah stands up, briefly touches Ralph’s shoulder. It’s like touching a cloth-covered chunk of granite. “Thanks for the update.”

  Even though it’s late in the evening, Hannah needs to check in on her overnight guest. Up on the second floor she gives the guest bedroom door a quick knock, and opens it and slips in. Noa is asleep on one of the two guest beds. Her friend, Gina Stasio of the Office of Technical Services, is sitting on the other bed. She stands up and Hannah gently raises a hand.

  “No, don’t bother,” Hannah says. “How’s she doing?”

  Sitting back down on the bed, Gina says, “She’s woken up a couple of times, but has slipped back into sleep. What did the doctor say?”

  After Noa arrived, bleeding and injured, Hannah arranged for one of the Agency’s medical teams to come in and treat her. Hannah says, “The wound on her wrist has been stitched and bandaged, as well as the bullet wound to her left side. It was a through and through, and the doctor cleaned and stitched that as well. Gave her an IV to replenish her lost fluids.”

  Gina says, “She should be in a hospital.”

  “She will be,” Hannah says. “Once I talk to her.”

  “Director, that’s—”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Hannah says, walking closer to Noa, whose head is moving back and forth on the pillow. The room is small but Noa notices that Gina had arrived with two large pieces of rolling luggage. Talk about overpacking, she thinks.

  Hannah sits on Noa’s bed, gently strokes her forehead. “Noa, are you awake?”

  Her eyelids flutter open, her eyes move, and then focus.

  “Director,” Noa whispers. “You’ve got to…hear what I have to say…”

  Hannah leans in. “Go. Tell me what you found out.”

  “Kay…Darcy. Is she alive?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Wounded but alive. She’s at GW, and we’re guarding her. But currently unconscious. What else?”

  Noa licks her lips. “Donna Otterson…the financial officer…she was telling Kay Darcy about…illegal payment requests from the president’s Special Access Account.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m so thirsty, can I get something to drink?”

  Gina says, “On it.”

  She leaves the bedroom and Noa says, “The fund…it’s been used to pay the salaries of Barrett’s teams, so it was hidden from standard oversight.”

  Gina comes in with a glass of water. She holds up Noa’s head and Noa takes a healthy drink.

  “God, that tastes good,” she says. “Director…the president has been buying other things as well. Automatic weapons. C-4. Even a damn Lincoln Town Car.”

  “A Town Car? Wait—”

  Noa nods. “Yes…the Iranian Quds unit we ambushed. They had C-4, AK-47s, and they were in a Town Car. All provided by President Barrett. A setup. But that’s not the worst of it.”

  Hannah feels the temperature of the room seemingly plummet. “Go on.”

  Noa says, “He’s illegally transferred millions of dollars to FEMA, for upgrades to the continuity of government bunkers at Mount Weather in Virginia and the Raven Rock Mountain Complex in Pennsylvania.”

  She coughs and catches her breath for a cold moment.

  “Ma’am,” Noa says. “He’s preparing to go to war.”

  CHAPTER 106

  LIAM GREY IS finding it hard to breathe in the trunk of the Mercedes-Benz, wearing some of the gear Chin Lin has provided, but he’s thankful the drive will be a short one.

  His hand touches the shape of his Glock.

  It’d better be a short one.

  He feels the car stop, barely hears a rattling noise—the gate moving aside—and the car surges forward.

  Moves a few seconds, then halts.

  He hears footsteps outside.

  His pistol in his hand.

  The trunk lid opens and there’s Lin.

  Alone.

  Good.

  He stiffly clambers out of the trunk, wearing heavy boots, thick pants, and a black firefighter’s jacket with Chinese characters on the front and back. Firefighters’ bunker gear, identical to those used by the fire brigade at the consulate. Earlier Lin had said, “We don’t trust the Joburg firefighters, so we use our own. But you’ll have to be quick.”

  Reaching back in the trunk, he pulls out an air pack, shrugs it on his shoulders, pulls the straps tight, and applies the face mask, tightening that as well around his face. A helmet with rear flaps goes on, the helmet also bearing Chinese characters. Liam twists the valve and starts breathing the air, puts on heavy gloves, and picks up a heavy folded length of firehose, which he puts on his shoulder.

  Lin leans into him. “Hurry up, now, the barbecue’s just started. And remember what to say. Now go get my Benjamin!”

  He walks quickly around the Mercedes, parked and hidden near a small garage, hears an alarm ringing from the building, and sees two nervous-looking young Chinese women moving quickly out of the front door. His hearing and vision are obscured, but that should work in his favor.

  Just bull through, he thinks, just go.

  Inside the glassed-in lobby. The door is open. He goes through, smelling now the heavy smoke that’s coming up through the elevator banks. Two more young women and a man emerge from a stairwell, and Grey calls out, his voice muffled, “Shūsàn jiànzhú wù, shūsàn jiànzhú wù!”

  Which Lin says, means, “Evacuate the building!”

  He hopes she’s right.

  He goes into the stairwell, starts descending, his boots heavy on the steel and concrete steps. Another door opens and four or five men in suits look up at him, and, just for a moment, he feels trapped—these guys are intelligence officers, just like him, smart and probably tougher—and he keeps on keeping on.

  He waves his hand up the stairs and repeats, “Shūsàn jiànzhú wù!”

  They go by him, racing up the stairs.

  Basement floor, two levels down now, where Benjamin’s cell is located.

  Close.

  Getting real close.

  And then the lights go out, plunging everything into absolute darkness.

  CHAPTER 107

  HANNAH ABRAMS WALKS down the cobblestoned driveway of her home this morning, her lead, Ralph, matching her stride for stride. There are at least four other security officers in the yard, all with radio earpieces, wrist microphones, and weapons under their jackets. Hannah has a brief, funny thought of the local historical commission filing a complaint that her security force isn’t fitting in with the nature and style of the neighborhood, and that they should have to dress in period clothing, circa 1850 or something like that.

  Earlier she got off the phone with Jean Swantish, who is now en route to her home. When that call was complete, she was notified that someone was at the gate, demanding to see her.

  Two more security officers are at the closed gate and a big-boned man—even larger than Ralph—nods at her and says, “Sorry to disturb you, Madam Director, but I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “What is it, then?” she asks, looking past the iron bars of the driveway gate, spotting an unmarked DC police cruiser parked in front of a hydrant.

  The man says, “My name is Aldo Sloan. I’ve been working for Noa Himel these past couple of months, working on some delicate domestic operations, and now she’s disappeared. I mean, people who should know about her whereabouts now claim they don’t know anything about her and her job. Which is bullshit, ma’am. Excuse my language.”

  “I’ve heard worse. Go on.”

  “The last op we were on, we intercepted an Iranian terrorist cell that looked like it was about to strike at an intelligence center in Virginia.”

  Hannah says, “Yes, I know. The National Ground Intelligence Center.”

  Aldo allows himself a slight smile. “Good. You know about it. Well, that day we smoked three of the Quds guys, but there was something else there, too. A black Lincoln Town Car, filled with C-4, RPG-7s, and AK-47s. It looked like we got to the Iranians just before a transfer was to take place. Noa, she was going to wait a day, but decided to hit them early.”

  Noa last night, telling her that the president had authorized the purchase of a Lincoln Town Car, along with weaponry and explosives.

  “Wasn’t there a man with the Town Car who made an escape?”

  Aldo reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a folded-up piece of paper.

  “Noa tasked me to find out who the driver was, what connection he might have with those Iranian terrorists,” Aldo says. “It took a while—I mean, the ownership of that Town Car was behind so many cutouts you’d think it was made of cardboard—but then I thought about going back to the source. Or the scene.”

  He slips the paper through the ironwork.

  Hannah slowly unfolds it.

  Sees a man running in a dark suit, necktie flopping, holding a pistol, running past a large pine tree.

  “From the outer perimeter surveillance cameras at the National Ground Intelligence Center,” Aldo says. “He’s on government property but not close enough to the perimeter fence to cause a response. But…there he is.”

  Hannah stares at the man, caught in mid-run. Thinks of a phone call she will be making shortly to an acquaintance of hers, FBI Deputy Director Edie Hicks, with whom she spent several miserable weeks at the Farm years ago.

  Aldo says, “Noa said it was very important. But with her absent…I thought I should give it to you. Is that all right, ma’am?”

  “It is,” Hannah says.

  “So it’s important?”

  Hannah folds up the paper, puts it carefully in her jacket pocket, like it was a loaded weapon. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”