“Yes, sir, you do. Most perfectly.”

Bhang stared for several silent moments at Ming-húa, scorn on his face. He finished his cigarette, then opened the top drawer of his desk. He removed a yellow folder, put it on the desk, then flipped it open. He removed a small stack of photos, all of Dewey Andreas. He picked one up. It showed Andreas in a crisp white uniform, a military hat on his head, shaking someone’s hand as he was formally sworn in as a member of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta.

Bhang stared at the photo, then handed it toward Ming-húa. Bhang’s hand appeared to be trembling slightly as he attempted to control his anger.

“Second, I want Andreas dead. Issue a worldwide termination order. Immediately. I want our top paramilitary project team on this. Their sole responsibility is finding and killing Andreas. I will oversee the group personally, not you. It will be run out of the conference room next to my office.”

Ming-húa remained silent. He didn’t react, but he was listening.

“Am I perfectly clear, Ming-húa? I want to hear you state that I’ve been clear.”

“Perfectly clear, Minister.”

Bhang walked to the door.

“Where are you going, Minister?”

“Where am I going?” answered Bhang, calmly, turning, a vicious sneer on his face. “Your highly paid marksman just assassinated the American national security advisor. I’m going to clean up your mess.”

27

PEOPLE’S BANK OF CHINA

BEIJING

Bhang stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor of a modern, low-slung office building, its curvilinear glass wrapped in a half-moon around a squat round granite centerpiece. This was the People’s Bank of China. Bhang was accompanied by two security guards. He was here to see Ji-tao Zhu, governor of the People’s Bank.

The bank’s modest-sized building belied its vast global reach and influence. It was the People’s Bank that controlled all monetary policy for the country, the world’s second-largest and fastest growing economy. The People’s Bank had the most financial assets of any single public financial institution ever, including the Federal Reserve. This small building and the men and women walking through its hushed corridors were sitting on more than $3.5 trillion of liquid reserves and tens of trillions of dollars in other nonliquid assets, such as foreign debt. The bank’s tentacles were everywhere, both inside the country and across the globe.

If China’s long-term vision was to be the most powerful nation on earth, it was through the bank that such a vision was being slowly but inevitably implemented. Beginning in 1948, when the bank was formed, the People’s Bank of China had woven its way into economies large and small, across the world, democracies and dictatorships alike, creating an interlocking grid of influence and dependence in virtually every country on every continent. The bank was owed money by virtually every government of consequence in the world.

The bank rarely if ever used its financial influence, especially in matters of foreign policy. Those who were naïve thought it was because the Chinese government was, deep down, a moral institution, which would never dare use its power to harm others, to exert pressure, or to exact revenge. Those who were smart knew that it was just the opposite. Like a poisonous snake, the bank chose to lurk in the tall grass and the shadows, as it grew stronger and stronger with each passing day, until it was ready and willing to show its fangs and, if necessary, to attack.

Bhang entered through another set of metal detectors into the suite of offices that were the purview of Zhu and his small executive staff. The walls along the corridor were thick, opaque glass, tinted in gold. In a large conference room, he saw Zhu, seated at the end of the table, a half dozen functionaries seated around the table before him. Zhu saw Bhang approaching. He stood up and walked to the door, then stepped into the hallway.

With his hand, Bhang flicked at the security detail, telling them to move away so that he and Zhu could speak.

“I assume you’re not here to open a savings account, Minister Bhang?” asked Zhu, smiling.

“We might need your help, Governor,” said Bhang, a serious expression on his face.

“How can I be of assistance?”

“We could be in a situation,” said Bhang.

“A ‘situation’?” asked Zhu, blinking rapidly.

“A situation that requires some of the bank’s legendary powers of persuasion, Governor Zhu.”

28

IN THE AIR

Dewey sat on a plush, black leather captain’s chair in the cabin of a CIA-owned Citation X jet, heading north, toward America. Except for the two copilots, he was alone. Out the window, the snow-capped peaks of the Andes passed beneath.

He removed the framed photograph from Jessica’s suitcase. He stared at it for more than a minute. It showed him giving Jessica a piggyback ride. It had been taken in Castine, during the early summer, along the path that ran near Wadsworth Cove. The photo was lopsided because they couldn’t find a flat place to set the camera before putting the timer on and getting into place. They were both laughing. Jessica’s hair was in pigtails. He had a big smile. That was why she’d framed it, he guessed. She always said he looked too serious in photographs. On some level, that, more than anything, affected him profoundly. That this was how she saw them. That was the moment that captured, for her, their love.

Fumbling inside his bag, he unzipped a pocket along the liner. He removed another frame, this one made of silver. It was a black-and-white photo, old and faded. It had been a sunny day in Southern California. He was fresh out of college, his hair short, a military uniform on, the Ranger tab visible on his shoulder, before he’d been asked to try out for Delta. When he was still innocent to it all, to the misery of loss, the finality of it, to the feeling of fighting for a country you loved alongside men who were closer than brothers, then watching them die by your side, in your arms. To the feeling of losing a son.

On his lap, Robbie ate a chocolate ice cream cone, his cheeks and the tip of his nose messed with chocolate. His arm was around a beautiful dark-haired woman, who seemed more and more, with time’s passage, an ember, barely a memory: Holly, so beautiful, his high school sweetheart, the first person to make him understand what love was, the second person, after Robbie, to teach Dewey what it meant to lose.

He fought to push the thoughts away. He stacked the frames together. He put them in the pocket of the bag and zipped it up.

Leave it behind. Walk away. It’s dust now, memories, broken thoughts, and it will only cause you pain.

There’s only one thing you can do. It’s all you could ever do.

Fight.

Dewey knew what he had to do. He’d been trained to do it, and he was the best at it. He wanted revenge, and he alone, he uniquely, could exact it. But a more-powerful urge swept over him then, an even darker force than revenge or the desire to kill.

He stood and walked to the front of the cabin. He opened one storage compartment after another until he found what he thought might be there. A line of liquor bottles crowded a low shelf. He scanned it then lifted a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He unscrewed the cap, then raised the bottle to his lips, taking a tremendous gulp before removing the bottle from his lips.

“Sir,” said one of the copilots, poking his head out from the cabin after hearing the opening and closing of cabinet doors. “Mr. Calibrisi wants to talk to you.”

Dewey put the bottle back to his lips and took a smaller, more-refined slug this time, perhaps self-conscious about what he looked like in front of the Special Operations Group pilot, though, of course precisely the opposite phenomenon occurred; the image of Dewey was already engraved in the man’s mind by the swaying, by the large bottle gripped in his hands, by the look of madness on Dewey’s face.