After that exchange, the Russian had been kept busy, sent off base on various missions, but he was never again part of the actual command sessions. And for every trip outside the wire, Jian would be by his side, his around-the-clock shadow, not so much to keep him out of trouble but to make sure he didn’t cause any.

“The local commander reports it as an assassination by insurgents,” said Jian now.

Markov raised his eyebrows. “Assassinating an enlisted man? The only thing less effective would be assassinating staff lieutenants.” Markov had turned the burden Yu had placed on him into a gift; teasing Jian was one of the rare joys he had during this deployment.

“Some marines likely got rid of a weak link,” said Markov. “There’s a runt in every litter, and they don’t tend to fare well on tough deployments like this.”

“His unit claims it is not the case, and the screenings back them up,” said Jian.

“Hooking some sergeant up to a brain scan isn’t going to tell you what actually happened. Sergeants spend their whole careers learning how to lie to officers,” said Markov. “Let’s go.”

The aide blustered that there was no reason for them to leave unless ordered. Markov brushed Jian aside as he stormed out of the room.

They were onsite at Duke’s Bar in less than five minutes, driving there in one of the Wolf armored fighting vehicles that General Yu insisted his senior officers use every time they ventured into Honolulu. If Yu had bothered to listen, Markov would have told him that this was a classic mistake, choosing force protection over situational awareness.

Markov strode past the Directorate sentries and walked through the empty bar, Jian following a few paces behind. He closed his eyes once he got to the stairwell and let his other senses absorb all they could. It was dank and humid, the salty-sweet smell of almost-dry blood mixing with that of old beer. He opened his eyes and took in the scene. The body sat against the wall, almost as if taking a drunk’s rest. A river of dark red caked the young marine’s neck, his face now forever locked in an expression of shock.

Markov smiled at the thought of what Jian would make of this and slowly and intently examined the body. No penetration points other than the neck, no obvious struggle. No sign of sexual trauma.

“So, Lieutenant,” he asked his shadow, “how many people in a war zone would bother to kill a lowly enlisted Directorate marine by gouging a hole in his neck?”

He did not wait for the rote response that anything that did not go according to plan was the fault of the insurgents. Perhaps the lieutenant had been right for once; if it had been the marine’s mates who’d done this, they would have beat him unconscious and held him under the surf. He’d seen that one already.

Yet this was an oddly personal way for an insurgent to kill. A killing of intense proximity.

Markov stared hard at the sticky floor. Who but someone this runt knew could get close enough to kill him without leaving bruises or any sign of struggle? It was a savage killing, but with a delicate weapon. A paring knife, perhaps? It had to be somebody the marine wanted to be very close to in a dark stairway at the back of a collaborator bar. A woman? One of the locals? Or perhaps a man? Maybe one of his squad mates, who had killed him to make sure their secret went no further?

War rarely offered answers, only questions. That was why Markov enjoyed it so much.

At the Pentagon, everyone waits. You wait at the Metro station to get to the escalator. You wait at the security line to get your badge. You wait at the screening gates. And once inside, you wait at security checkpoints to move between the five-sided building’s ring-like corridors. Later you wait to enter the food courts and the bathrooms.

It depressed Daniel Aboye. This place of waiting was for sour-faced people preparing to explain why they were losing.

He handed over his freshly printed and still warm ID badge to a submachine-gun-wielding hired guard.

“Thank you,” the guard said. “Just need a little patience, and you’ll be fine.”

Aboye snapped his head up and stared into the guard’s eyes. How many years had it been since he’d heard the Dinka dialect of South Sudan? Aboye answered with a smile and responded in the tongue he hadn’t used for years.

“Thank you, brother. Long way from home?”

“Home? Home is here now,” replied the guard in the same language. “For you too, I see.”

Aboye nodded, grateful for the connection. Maybe it was a good omen. He moved past the checkpoint and joined the next line. Such serendipity no longer shocked him. After his parents had been killed by the janjaweed gunmen, he’d walked for weeks and weeks on an empty belly and bloodied feet. Oprah had called his group of wartime orphans “the Lost Boys.” The name did not fit. Daniel did not think of himself as lost. That he could build a life of incomprehensible good fortune atop such sadness seemed so improbable that it could only be part of something unexplainable, something much bigger than himself. That was why he’d easily fallen into engineering at Stanford. It was predictable, the opposite of what his life had been to that point. And so it was Daniel’s ability to distinguish between what was predictable and what required serendipity that had powered his rise through Silicon Valley’s venture-capital investment firms; he knew which tech startups to back and which to avoid.

After he finally made it through the security line’s sequential body scanners and DNA tagging, a petite young redheaded woman in a light gray pantsuit stepped forward, her rubber-soled pumps squeaking as she halted before him.

“Mr. Aboye, I am Catherine Hines, special assistant to the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for Acquisitions, Technology, and Logistics,” she said, rattling her title off like an auctioneer with a rare treasure. “We can talk in my office,” she said, not waiting for him to reply. “Please follow me.”

They walked 317 steps — Aboye counted — and he did not see one window.

Once in her cubicle, they sat, and she looked at him as if expecting him to explain himself.

“Are we still on schedule to meet with Secretary Claiburne? The security line was quite long and I hope I have not inconvenienced her,” he said.

“I’m afraid there has been some sort of misunderstanding, Mr. Aboye. Your meeting is with me,” she said. “The SecDef isn’t even in the building today.”

He stood up immediately, rising to his full six foot five inches, and looked up at dusty fiberboard and crop-like rows of LED lights. He paused, and then glared down at her.

“If I’m not meeting the secretary, why am I here?” he said.

“The secretary was pleased to receive the senator’s note about finding you a role, but he should not have promised that,” she said. “The way things go in Silicon Valley does not always carry over to here. There’s a war on.”

“Please do not speak to me as if I do not know war,” he said.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean any offense,” she said. “What I meant is that we are appreciative that you want to contribute to the war effort, but there are procedures we all have to follow, whether we like them or not. I would urge you to speak with either of the Big Two firms here in the Beltway, perhaps to explore their interest in some sort of partnership. They’ll also have the best means to navigate any projects through the various offices in the building and, of course, the relevant congressional committees. I have to warn you, though, the profit margins are not going to be what you are used to.”

“This is not about contracts or making money!” Daniel said, his voice rising. “I came here to see how I could give back to the country that has done so much for me.”

“Ah, if that’s what is motivating you, our model for citizen involvement is the National Guard. I would urge you to explore that. Or perhaps speak with the senator about joining a special study commission?”