The following June, after the current minister of State Security surprised almost everyone with his resignation, for personal reasons, Fao Bhang was named China’s next minister of State Security.

He owed Dillman his job. He owed Dillman his life.

*   *   *

Bhang reached into the trunk, grabbed the Star of David from Dillman’s neck, ripped it off, then turned and walked out of the morgue.

Back in his office, Bhang assembled his three deputies; Ming-húa, head of clandestine operations; Quan, who ran the ministry’s intelligence-gathering unit; and Wuzhou, Bhang’s chief of staff.

“Where did the trunk come from?” asked Bhang.

“Hong Kong. It arrived yesterday.”

“And the girl saw it?”

“Yes. She opened the trunk herself. Premier Li was present as well, as was the first lady.”

Bhang’s nostrils flared.

“Do we know who it was actually sent from?” he demanded.

The two aides looked at each other, neither wanting to be the one to answer Bhang’s question. Finally, one spoke.

“The origin on the manifest was Hong Kong. That’s all we have.”

Bhang sat down. He leaned back in silence, then lit a cigarette.

“Minister Bhang,” said one of the men, “Premier Li insisted you see him immediately.”

“Please,” said Bhang, holding his index finger up for silence.

Bhang took several deep drags without speaking. His mind raced. He processed what had happened. There was a strategy here. Whoever found Mikal Dillman—presumably Mossad—was up to something.

He took several hard puffs, looking for inspiration in the rush of nicotine.

If terminating Dillman was the objective, they could have simply done so, then deposited the corpse in a landfill. When Dillman missed his weekly check-in, the ministry would have assumed he’d been found out. But Mossad had done no such thing. Dillman checked in three days ago and then they put the ax into his skull. The Israelis could have—should have—brought him in and interrogated him. But they didn’t. They killed him, stuffed him into a box, shipped him to Hong Kong. They could have kept Dillman alive and used him, as Bhang would have, to penetrate back into Beijing and the ministry, to try to learn who Dillman’s handlers were, perhaps even tried to blackmail Dillman. They didn’t. Instead, Dillman’s killers not only sent him back, they did so in a particularly interesting and provocative way.

Their target was Bhang himself.

It was unmistakable. This thrust was aimed at him. There could be no other explanation.

Not bad, thought Bhang.

They were smart enough to know they would never be able to get at Bhang themselves. He was too well guarded, his movements too unpredictable, his activities too secret. His enemies would attempt to get at those surrounding Bhang. Premier Li, the most powerful man in China, would be furious over what had happened to his granddaughter. Much worse was the subtle effect Dillman’s corpse—and its flamboyant delivery—would have on everyone surrounding Bhang. It was a dagger, sent to pierce the shroud of invincibility that Bhang had built and enforced over a decade atop the ministry, through terror, force, and fear. If Dillman’s corpse could be delivered in such an ostentatious, unexpected, and undetected manner, well, then, someone out there, perhaps one of the three men seated in his office, might develop the confidence to strike at Bhang as well.

“And so the game begins,” said Bhang quietly, to himself, as he stared at the burning ember atop his cigarette.

“Minister?”

Bhang stood up. He reached for Dillman’s Star of David, which was on his desk. He picked it up and held it, examining it.

“Who outside of the ministry was aware of Dillman?” asked Bhang.

One of the men handed a single sheet of paper to Bhang. The list was short, only four names. Bhang studied it, then nodded his head slowly up and down.

“Aziz,” said Bhang.

“The Iran station chief? He’s not on the list, sir.”

“Please see that he’s here, in my office, as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Minister.”

“Then see that the first three gentlemen on this list are killed, in a manner that is quiet, and, if possible, dignified.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bhang stubbed out his cigarette. He removed his blazer from the back of his chair.

“Tell the premier I’ll be there in ten minutes. Also, have gifts sent to his granddaughter; wonderful gifts—a large teddy bear, flowers, sweets. I want you to personally oversee the wrapping of the presents as well as their delivery. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Minister Bhang.”

5

WHEATON ICE ARENA

WHEATON, MARYLAND

Dewey Andreas climbed out of his Ford F-150 and glanced up at the sky, still dark at 4:55 A.M. It was cold out, not Maine cold, but cold enough to see his breath. He reached into the back of the pickup and grabbed his equipment bag and a pair of hockey sticks.

“You must be the ringer Jessica was bragging about,” said a brown-haired man walking by, carrying his equipment.

Dewey nodded and smiled but said nothing. He recognized the speaker; Mark Hastings, chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. Hastings, Dewey knew, had played goalie at Harvard. His equipment bag was twice as big as Dewey’s.

“You need a hand?” Dewey asked.

“Do I really look that old?” Hastings laughed.

“Let me get your stick.”

Dewey took Hastings’s goalie stick and walked with him toward the rink doors.

It was the most exclusive pickup hockey game in Washington. It was probably the most exclusive pickup hockey game in the world. After all, where else on a cold Saturday morning at five o’clock could you find three members of the cabinet, a Supreme Court justice, four U.S. senators, half a dozen congressmen, a few assorted Pentagon officials, and a variety of other denizens of the Washington elite gathering to lace up their old pairs of CCM Super Tacks, pull on equipment last used in high school or college, and play an hour of hockey?

Of course, the main attraction was the occupant of the black limousine now pulling into the rink’s parking lot, with small American flags waving from the front and rear corners of the vehicle, flanked by a convoy of Chevy Suburbans: The president of the United States, J. P. Dellenbaugh.

Dellenbaugh and Senator Anthony DiNovi were the only participants in the weekly pickup game to have actually played professional hockey, Dellenbaugh for the Detroit Red Wings, DiNovi for the Boston Bruins. Most of the other players played hockey in college. A few only made it to high school. The only requirement was that a player played through high school and that Dellenbaugh like them. There was also a no-business rule—no talking politics, legislation, poll numbers, upcoming elections, nothing political whatsoever. Also, no lobbyists.

Originally, the game was Dellenbaugh’s idea, begun when he was a freshman senator. It became a slightly more exclusive ticket when Dellenbaugh was selected as Rob Allaire’s running mate. When Allaire was elected president, and Dellenbaugh became vice president of the United States, it became still harder to get an invite to the game. After Rob Allaire’s untimely death, and J. P. Dellenbaugh’s swearing in as president of the United States, everyone assumed Dellenbaugh wouldn’t be able to continue the game. But they were wrong. Except for the occasional vacation, foreign trip, or crisis, Dellenbaugh had kept it up.

Now it was next to impossible to get an invite to the game, played every Saturday morning at the blue-roofed Wheaton Ice Arena. Dellenbaugh himself needed to approve everyone invited. The Secret Service screened the names of all participants. Every week, FBI bomb dogs came out to the rink at 3:00 A.M. to sweep the facility.

If you were an ex–hockey player, you probably knew about the game. That was the way the hockey world worked. Even if they were despised opponents in college, after the rivalry was over and the skates were off, hockey players reunited, like a tribe. Ex–hockey players didn’t like to brag or call attention to themselves. They were secretive too. Until recently, few people outside of the tight-knit D.C. community of former hockey players knew about the game. That is, until one of the players—still unidentified—leaked word of the weekly pickup game to a female reporter for The Washington Post. The reporter, a long-legged, beautiful sports reporter named Summer Swenson, wrote a piece entitled “The Pickup Artists,” with an old photograph of Dellenbaugh, showing him beating the daylights out of some unfortunate member of the New York Rangers. The article detailed the ins and outs of the president’s weekly game. It caused the Secret Service to move the time and location of the game.