He was pulled away from his ruminations by the sharp sound of the bell. Opening the front door, he was confronted by a woman in her mid- to late thirties, her hair pulled back from her heart-shaped face in a tomboyish ponytail. She wore round steel-rimmed glasses, denim overalls atop a plaid man’s shirt, frog-green clogs, and a floppy canvas sun hat.

She introduced herself as Maggie Penrod and presented her credentials just as she had with the bodyguards patrolling the property. Hendricks studied them. She was trained at the Sorbonne and at Trinity at Oxford. Her father (deceased) had been a social worker, her Swedish mother (also deceased) a language teacher in the Bethesda school district. There was nothing memorable about her except, as she leaned forward to take back her ID, her scent, which had a decided tang. What was it? Hendricks asked himself. He sniffed as inconspicuously as possible. Ah, yes. Cinnamon and something slightly bitter, burnt almond, maybe.

As he led the way outside to the sad-looking rose bed, he said, “What’s an art history major doing—”

“In a place like this?”

She laughed, a soft, mellow sound that somehow stirred something inside him, long hidden.

“Art history was a totally unrealistic career choice. Besides, I don’t do well in academia—too much skulduggery and intrigue.”

She had a slight accent, doubtless a product of her Swedish mother, Hendricks thought.

She paused at the edge of the rose bed, hands on hips. “And I like being my own boss. No one but me to answer to.”

Listening more closely, he became aware that her accent softened her words, lending them an unmistakable sensuality.

She knelt down, her soft, strong fingers pushing aside stillborn flowers, their edges tight, ruffled, and brown. Blood streaked her skin, but she seemed unmindful of the thorns.

“The roses are balled and the leaves are being eaten.” She stood up and turned to him. “For one thing, you’re overwatering them. For another, they need to be sprayed once a week. Not to worry, I use only organics.” She smiled up at him, her cheeks aflame in sunlight. “It’ll take a couple of weeks, but I think I can get them out of intensive care.”

Hendricks gestured. “Whatever you need.”

The sunlight slid over her forearms like oil, illuminating tiny white-gold hairs that seemed to stir beneath his gaze. Hendricks’s breath felt hot in his throat.

And then, without his knowing quite how the words slipped out, he said, “Care to come inside for a drink?”

She smiled sweetly at him, the sun in her eyes. “Not today.”

I don’t believe it,” Bourne said. “It simply isn’t possible.”

“Anything is possible,” Essai said. “Everything is possible.”

“No,” Bourne said firmly, “it’s not.”

Essai smiled his enigmatic smile. “Mr. Bourne, you are now in the dominion of Severus Domna. Please believe me in this.”

Bourne stared into the fire. Darkness had come and, with it, a fresh wild pig, which Corellos’s men had trapped, scraped free of hair, and spitted. The rich odor of its melting fat suffused the campsite. He and Essai sat near the fire, talking.

Some distance away, Corellos was talking animatedly to his lieutenant. “Petty victories,” Essai said, eyeing him.

Bourne looked at him inquiringly.

“You see how it is. He knows I can’t eat pork and yet this is what he offers for dinner. If you ask him, he’ll say it’s a treat for his men.”

“Let’s return to Boris Karpov.”

The enigmatic smile returned. “Benjamin El-Arian, our enemy, is a master chess player. He thinks many moves ahead. He planned for the eventuality that you might succeed in keeping the Domna from finding Solomon’s hoard of gold.” He turned his head, the firelight glinting off his eyes. “You’ve heard of Viktor Cherkesov, yes?”

“Until several months ago, he was the head of FSB-2. He left under mysterious circumstances and Boris took his place. Boris told me all this. Cleaning up FSB-2 has been a long-held dream of his.”

“A good man, your friend Boris. Did he happen to tell you why Cherkesov abdicated his powerful throne?”

“Mysterious circumstances,” Bourne repeated.

“Not so mysterious to me. Benjamin El-Arian contacted Cherkesov through the appropriate intermediary and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

Bourne’s muscles tensed. “Cherkesov is part of the Domna now?”

Essai nodded. “And now I can see by your expression that you have intuited the rest of it. Cherkesov offered your friend Boris a deal: He’d give him FSB-2 in return for future favors.”

“And the first one is killing me.”

Essai saw that Corellos, having finished giving orders, was coming toward them. He sat forward and, lowering his voice, said with some urgency, “You see what a clever fellow Benjamin El-Arian is. The Domna is no ordinary cabal. Now you know the extent of what we are up against.”

As Corellos pulled over a camp chair, Bourne said, “There’s still the matter of why I came here in the first place.”

Corellos stared at him with stainless-steel eyes. Above him a tree grew with bark peeling off like strips of flayed skin. The air shimmered and danced with mosquitoes.

“Assurances,” Bourne said. It was clear he was addressing both Essai and the drug lord.

Corellos made a soundless laugh, bared his teeth and snapped his jaws together like a villain in a Tarantino film. “My dead partner’s sister is paranoid. I mean her no harm, all assurances given.”

“The business was Gustavo’s and yours,” Bourne said. “Now it belongs to you.”

“That’s the line she fed you.”

“She has no use for blood money derived from drugs.”

Corellos spread his hands wide. “Then why did he want her to take it over?”

“Family. But she’s not like him.”

“You don’t know her.”

Bourne made no reply. There was something about the drug lord that brought out an instinctive animosity, like seeing a scorpion or a black widow spider. The creature might not be threatening you at the moment, but what about in the future? Bourne studied him. He was the polar opposite of Gustavo Moreno, whom Bourne had met years ago. Whatever else he might have been, Moreno was a gentleman—that is, when he gave his word it meant something. Bourne did not have that sense with Corellos. Berengária was right to be afraid of him.

During this buzzing lull, Corellos sat back, lounging in his chair so that it creaked like an old man’s bones. “So. What does the puta want?”

“Berengária wants only to be left alone.”

Corellos threw his head back and laughed. Bourne could see the thick red welt from where he’d begun to strangle him.

“Bueno. Okay, we go to the next step. How much does she want?”

“I told you,” Bourne said evenly, “nothing.”

“Now I know you’re fucking with me. Come on, give it.”

A thin breeze stirred the swarms of mosquitoes. The forest was dense with the sounds of insects, tree frogs, and small nocturnal mammals. Bourne wanted nothing more than to bury his fist in Corellos’s face. Now that he had met him, he suspected that Moreno had left his half of the business to his sister to piss his partner off. They could not have gotten on personally.

“You might believe the bitch,” Corellos said. “Doesn’t mean I do.”

“Just leave her alone and this will be at an end.”

Corellos shook his head. “She has all my contacts.”

“This came directly off her hard drive.” Bourne handed him the computer printout Berengária had given him before he’d left Phuket.

Corellos opened it and ran his thick, callused forefinger down the list. “All here.” He looked up and shrugged. “This is a copy.” He waved it in the air. “It means nothing.”

Bourne handed him the hard drive from Berengária’s laptop.

Corellos stared at it for a moment. “Fuck me.” Laughing, he nodded. “Done.”