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  Navarro took another photograph and stuck it on the wall. This one was a picture of a boat.

  “I co-opted local agents to look for PROSPERO, but he’s been difficult to find. We only found out where he lived yesterday. This vessel”—he slapped the picture—“belongs to him. The Constance. It’s currently at anchor in the harbour. He was there until last night, when he disappeared again.”

  “What happened?”

  “The locals found him. I told them to go and get him, but it would appear that they are incompetent. Their failure is the reason you ladies are all in a room together this morning. We’re going to take the operation in-house. No more mistakes.” He tapped the picture of the boat again. “I want two men at the harbour, watching at all times. Rotating shifts. I don’t care who goes first, but we start now, as soon as we’re done here.”

  “I’ll take first shift,” Millman said.

  Schroder raised a hand. “And me.”

  Morley was relieved; perhaps he might be able to grab a couple of hours of shut-eye.

  Navarro turned to the man whom Morley had not seen before. “This is Mazzetti. He’s seconded to us from the NSA. Say hello, Mazzetti.”

  “Hello,” Mazzetti said, and nodded a greeting to the others. He looked like an analyst: late twenties, pasty, skinny as a rake, a fanciful attempt at a beard, complete with a pair of heavy black glasses.

  “Tell them what you’ve got,” Navarro told him.

  “I got here a week ago,” he said. “Made some progress. I looked for family and found a daughter in the States. Her name’s Melissa—”

  “Her crypt for this is MIRANDA,” Navarro said.

  “Lives in Miami,” Mazzetti continued. “Mid forties, teaches public school, single. She was born while PROSPERO was in Vietnam—they’ve never met. SIGINT suggests PROSPERO’s been in touch with her for the last few months. Seems like that’s the reason he’s shown up after all this time—he wants to go home and see her. He’s made suggestions that his health isn’t great, said he wants to get to know her while he still can.”

  Morley raised a hand. “If he’s emailing her—”

  “I wish he was,” Mazzetti said, anticipating the question. “There were emails at the start, but not recently.”

  “Why? Does he have any reason to think we’re onto him?”

  “No reason to think that,” Mazzetti said. “Not through our surveillance, anyway. We’ve been discreet.”

  “We think PROSPERO is involved with the local triad clan,” Navarro added. “There was an internal disagreement earlier this month—the man we’re using, Wang, was targeted by Michael Yeung.”

  “And he is…?” Morley asked.

  “The local chieftain. I learned that Yeung ordered a hit on Wang, but I got to Wang before it happened. PROSPERO and Yeung are close. PROSPERO will think that the activity at his boat was because of that—Wang going after him because he wants to score a point against Yeung. It’s been a mess, but there’s no reason to think that PROSPERO has any suspicion that we’re involved.”

  Mazzetti took over again. “PROSPERO and MIRANDA have been talking on the phone. It would’ve been easier if they had stayed online—I can hack her emails without needing anyone else, but we’d need a warrant to get her cell carrier on board, and it’s been made clear to me that anything official is off the table.” He looked over at Navarro.

  “This is off book,” Navarro clarified. “We can’t go and get a warrant. No paper.”

  “But it’d still be worth the effort to get into her email,” Mazzetti said. “I’m concentrating on getting into the school’s servers. Should be done this morning. And then, once I’m in, I can spoof an email from her to him with a Trojan attached. If he opens that, I’ll have his location, and… well, you can do your thing.”

  “We’ve got MIRANDA under surveillance,” Navarro said.

  “Who does?” Millman asked.

  “Hook and Ramalhete. They’ve staked her out for the last week. If PROSPERO goes to her, we’ll be there. If she goes to him, we’ll follow.”

  “She’s the bait?”

  “The fallback,” Navarro corrected. “We know PROSPERO’s in Hong Kong. I’d very much like to find him without having to involve her at all.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Schroder said. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. PROSPERO stole government property before he left. Two tape recordings. We don’t know where they are, or even if he still has them, but we would very much like to get them back if he does.”

  “Understood,” Schroder said.

  “Get out to the harbour,” Navarro said. “Start the surveillance. I want him found.”

  29

  Beatrix got up early, just as dawn was breaking over the ocean, the light slowly brightening the room. She went into the bathroom and showered, then checked the wound on her side. The cut was healing; it had only been shallow, and her prompt treatment of it had prevented any chance of an infection developing. She peeled off the dressing, applied the cream again, and re-dressed it. She stretched out, then windmilled her arm; she had a full range of movement with only mild irritation. She doubted that it would impede her at all.

  She went outside and put her head through the door into Danny’s room. He was still in bed, snoring loudly. She wrote him a quick note, reminding him to stay on the property, and left it on the kitchen table where he would see it.

  George had asked them how they had arrived at the house since they didn’t have a car. Danny had answered that he didn’t own a car, and that they had relied upon public transport and taxis. Soto had said that they were welcome to use one of his vehicles while they were staying with him, and that he would have one waiting in the morning. She opened the door and saw that he had been true to his word: a vintage Mercedes 190SL was parked in the turning circle. It was a beautiful two-door roadster painted in pastel yellow with a chocolate-coloured soft top. It looked as if it had been lovingly restored, with evidence of repainting to the exterior coachwork, and, as she opened the door, she saw that the leather had been refreshed.

  She dumped her go-bag in the trunk, lowered herself into the driver’s seat and saw that the keys had been left in the ignition. She started the engine, enjoying the throaty rumble as it warmed up and then settled down, and lowered the handbrake. She dabbed the gas, rolling the car around and turning it to face the driveway that led back up the slope to the main house and then the gate to the road beyond.

  She pulled away, passing Soto’s house and slowing for the gates to open. She nudged the nose ahead, checked that the road was clear, and then accelerated away. The road was narrow here, hewn into the face of the cliff, and, given the hour, it was empty. She punched down on the gas, felt the car race eagerly ahead, and allowed a smile to crack her face.

  Beatrix followed Repulse Bay Road to Kimberly Road and then took Route 1 into Central. She parked the car in a car park in Robinson Heights and then walked down the hill to the first internet café she found. She booked a terminal and ordered a glass of bubble tea. She took the tea to an empty table near the back, stirred the tea with her straw and watched the tapioca pearls swirl inside the clouds of sweet cream.

  She navigated to the Usenet group that she had used to contact Hathaway and logged in again. There was a new private message waiting for her.

  Passport arranged. 7 p.m., same place. Some light reading until then.

  The message came with a collection of PDF and .jpg files.

  She bought a thumb drive from the man at the counter and copied the files across. She glanced around to be sure that no one could see what was on her screen, opened the first document and started to read.

  She stayed in the café for two hours, working her way through the documents one by one and noting down the most pertinent information in a separate file. Each new document revealed a little more information and made it increasingly clear that Danny had not told her everything.

  Not even close.

  She started to see the bigge
r picture.

  Jimmy Wang wanted Danny. That much was true. But Wang wasn’t looking for Danny to settle some grievance between him and Michael.

  Beatrix doubted that had anything to do with it at all.

  The truth—if she was right—was far more dangerous.

  She ejected the thumb drive, slipped it into her pocket again, and left the café.

  She needed to talk to Danny.

  30

  Jimmy Wang had been cooped up in his house in Stanley for two weeks. He knew that Michael Yeung had sanctioned the attempt on his life, and that Yeung would not allow the failure of the first attempt to prevent him from trying again.

  Before he had been excommunicated, Wang had held the post of Red Pole within the Wo Shun Wo. He was the enforcer responsible for ensuring that the clan’s rules were followed, that internal dissent was quashed, and external threats dissuaded. But he had been disenchanted with Yeung for months. The Dragon Head represented everything that was wrong about the Wo Shun Wo: the rigid hierarchy, the patriarchal attitude, the reliance on tradition that had rendered them hidebound and unable to adapt to the changes that were sweeping through the region. The imposition of Chinese rule had seemingly daunted the old guard like Yeung, and, instead of taking advantage of the new opportunities that had been created as the Politburo opened up China to the world, they had settled into a routine of lowered expectations, dutifully following a path that would lead them to obsolescence.

  Wang was ambitious and willing to take risks. The old sources of income—fraud, extortion, prostitution—held no interest for him. He wanted the outsized profits that could be made by going hard into large-scale drug running and people smuggling.

  He had developed a contact in a chemical plant in Shenzhen and was confident that he could acquire large quantities of the precursors that were combined to make methamphetamine. There were two ways that the opportunity could be exploited: they could ship the base chemicals to North America, or they could cook the meth here and export the completed product. Both options offered vast profits. Wang had taken the opportunity to Yeung, expecting praise and recognition for his ingenuity. Instead, he had received neither; Yeung had said that it held no interest for the Wo Shun Wo. He had chastised him for his presumptiveness, forbidding him from pursuing the opportunity.

  That would have been galling enough, but the humiliation of having his idea dismissed in front of Yeung’s lieutenants—the Deputy Mountain Master, the Incense Master, the White Paper Fan, the Straw Sandal—was the final insult. He had determined then that he would develop the opportunity himself. Yeung had somehow discovered his disobedience and had issued the diktat that he was to be killed.

  It was only the intervention of the American that had prevented that order from being executed. He didn’t know his name, but his sources within the Wo Shun Wo leadership had verified the man’s suggestion that an attempt on his life had been authorised. The American had made it plain that Wang’s gratitude would not be sufficient recompense for saving his life, and that he would now be expected to provide favours when they were asked of him. Delivering Danny Wu—Yeung’s White Paper Fan, his administrator and sounding board—was the first request.

  The American had made it clear that there would be a bonus for finding Wu; the CIA would provide assistance in his plan to usurp Yeung as the head of the clan.

  That prospect was what had made the two failures—on the boat, and then in Chungking Mansions—so frustrating.

  Wang put on his dressing gown, retrieved his phone, and went out into his pleasant garden. It was just coming around to eight, and the air was already warm.

  He looked to see if there had been any news overnight, but Kwan had not sent anything. He called him instead.

  “Anything?”

  “No,” Kwan said. “Wu has not returned.”

  “The boat?”

  “Still there. No one has been out to it.”

  There was a packet of cigarettes on the outside table. Wang took one and searched in the pockets of his gown for a lighter.

  “What should we do?” Kwan asked him.

  Wang lit the cigarette and inhaled. “Stay there,” he said. “We wait. His things are on the boat. He will have to come back.”

  “And then?”

  “You know what to do.”

  31

  Beatrix parked the Mercedes next to the cottage. She lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out of the open window, and waited for the nicotine hit. She was annoyed with Danny, but she knew that nothing would be achieved by a frustrated confrontation. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to continue to offer him her help, but she owed him enough to give him the chance to explain.

  There were a lot of questions that he was going to have to answer.

  She finished her cigarette and went inside.

  “Danny?”

  No reply. She went inside and looked around.

  He wasn’t there.

  “Danny?”

  She suspected the worst, that he had ignored her and headed into the city, and she was about to curse herself for leaving him unattended when she heard the sound of a splash from the direction of the terrace. She went into the kitchen and saw that the French doors were parted. She went outside and followed the noise down a secluded path to a pool area that she hadn’t noticed before. It was set on the side of the slope below the cottage and featured an infinity pool set against the backdrop of the beautiful bayside vista. Danny was floating in the water, his forearms braced on the edge of the pool, staring absently at the view.

  “Danny,” she said, startling him.

  As he swung around to face her, his arms slipped off the side, and he slid under the surface. He kicked up, spluttering as he reached for the side again.

  “Jesus, Beatrix!” He wiped the water from his eyes.

  “Having fun?”

  “If I’m going to be cooped up here, I might as well enjoy myself.”

  She walked around to the edge of the pool nearest Danny, sat, and dangled her legs over the side. Behind them, the slope dropped away sharply, with an almost vertical decline of twenty feet before it became a little less vertiginous.

  “Where have you been?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. “I think we need to have a conversation,” she said instead. “You haven’t told me everything.”

  He frowned. “About?”

  “Go get your laptop,” she said.

  “What for?”

  “Just do it.”

  He got out of the pool, put on a dressing gown and went into the house. Beatrix followed him and waited in the kitchen. Danny came back with his laptop, set it up on the breakfast counter and stepped aside to give her access. She pushed the thumb drive into the port, opened the files that she wanted, and then turned the laptop around so that Danny could see the screen.

  She tapped her finger against it. “This is your USMC personnel file.”

  He looked at the screen and paused, his mouth falling open. “How…” He stopped. “How did you get this?”

  “I was owed a favour. I called it in.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would you want it?”

  “Because I’m thorough. And because I wanted to see if there was anything on your file that would give us an idea how you’d be treated when you went back, if they found you.”

  “Was there?” he asked nervously.

  “It wasn’t what I expected. Look at it. Read.”

  Danny started to scroll. His mouth fell open again and the colour drained from his face.

  She got up and went to stand next to him. The first collection of documents comprised Danny’s personnel reports for 1968. They were all signed by a Dwight Lincoln, and the cover page bore a stamp that marked it as CLASSIFIED. The date below the stamp was just six weeks earlier. Danny scrolled through the pages, from his fitness reports to an Article 15 and then his report for desertion.

  “Lincoln was your CO?” she asked him as he read.

  “I was a Marine
,” he said distractedly.

  “So what was he?”

  “CIA. Junior operations officer. I was assigned to him as his translator.”

  “He’s a big fish now.”

  “I wouldn’t know—he is?”

  She opened a browser window and typed LINCOLN and CIA into the search bar. Google fired back its results. She opened the press release that she had found earlier; it set out a list of new federal appointments.

  “Lincoln is senior Agency management,” she said. “And he’s in line to be made deputy director.”

  “I didn’t know,” Danny said. “I haven’t thought about him for years.”

  She tapped her finger on the screen. “Let me tell you what I think is going on here. Stop me if I get anything wrong.”

  He bit his lip.

  “Your last personnel report is dated six months before you deserted. It’s excellent. You were well regarded. A solid soldier. Then you get an Article 15—you have a disciplinary hearing coming. Lincoln says you were insubordinate. You desert before the hearing, though, and you get another Article 15—this time for stealing government property. Lincoln immediately marks your file as confidential. Time passes. The war ends. You stay in hiding. Lincoln, on the other hand—he’s doing well. He rises through the ranks. He makes chief of Station in Beijing. In 1989, he’s promoted again. Head of Operations. He gets made deputy director of Ops, and now, this year, he’s in the running for deputy director of the CIA. You go to the consulate six weeks ago to ask for a new passport. Two days later, your file is pulled for the first time in forty years and is made secret.”

  Beatrix opened the fitness report again and dragged it to the left of the screen. She reduced the size of the desertion report and dragged it so that it was on the right of the screen.

  “Something happened between this”—she tapped her finger on the fitness report—“and this.” She tapped the desertion report. “You need to tell me what it was.”