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1

OVAL OFFICE

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Late morning sunshine crossed from the large windows of the Oval Office, creating geometric patterns on the paintings that hung upon the walls; paintings by Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper, Milton Avery, Benjamin Foster, and Winslow Homer, the president’s favorite American artists. It was a gallery of the country’s finest painters, a gallery of past greatness and, in the present, of American tradition, for today on display was an act in one part, the passing of power, the continuation of the great American experiment that was democracy.

The ceremony lasted only ten minutes. It was intimate, solemn, and in its own way, historic. There were seven people in the Oval Office, including President J.P Dellenbaugh; Antonio Ribalsi, the White House photographer; Chief of Staff Adrian King; and Mark Hastings, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Hastings held a Bible as he began to speak.

“Please repeat after me,” said Hastings, a smile on his face. He looked into the eyes of an attractive forty-eight-year-old woman with brown hair, who placed her hand on the Bible. “I, Judith Xavier Brown, do solemnly swear…”

“I, Judith Xavier Brown, do solemnly swear…”

“… that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”

“… that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”

An hour ago, Judith Brown was the governor of the State of New York. Now, she was being sworn in as Vice President of the United States. Standing next to her were the two remaining individuals in the room, Brown’s twenty-five-year-old daughter, Caroline, and her nineteen-year-old son, Toby.

“… that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”

“… that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” repeated Brown in a confident voice.

“… that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion…”

“… that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion…”

“And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

“That I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Hastings extended his hand to Brown and shook it.

“Congratulations,” said Dellenbaugh as he came over and shook Brown’s hand, then gave her an enthusiastic but polite hug. “The first female vice president of the United States. It’s about time.”

“Thank you, President Dellenbaugh,” Brown said, smiling widely. She went to her children, who stepped to her and hugged her. “Thank you for your belief in me, sir.”

2

CONDESA BEACH

ACAPULCO, MEXICO

The Acapulco evening was warm, but a soft wind came in from the west, off the water, and helped clear much of the day’s humidity, the stale, sweaty, baked-on Acapulco heat, away until another day.

Dewey, Katie, and Tacoma walked south, down the beach. The sky was almost sherbet-colored over the horizon as night approached. The beach was empty except for a few old men walking, stooped over, with metal detectors, and a few others walking dogs.

They’d been in Acapulco for three days now, on a job. Katie and Rob’s private security firm, RISCON, had been hired by one of the largest software companies in the United States to manage a transaction. A computer hacker, nationality unknown, had penetrated the company’s network and stolen more than ten terabytes of customer data, design specifications, and advanced, proprietary algorithms. RISCON had been hired to deliver a check for $75 million to the mysterious hacker in Mexico. The company had employed RISCON at the suggestion of the National Security Advisor, Josh Brubaker.

At age thirty-four, Katie Foxx ran RISCON. Katie had started the firm after working at the CIA as head of Special Operations Group, running operations all over the world. Katie was five feet, five inches tall and had shoulder-length blond hair. She brought with her from the CIA her most talented and trusted operator, Rob Tacoma, an ex-Navy SEAL who had proven himself to be a uniquely talented assassin. Tacoma was twenty-nine years old, six feet one, with medium-length brown hair. He had the looks of a movie star. Dewey Andreas had gotten to know Katie and Tacoma after working with them to stop Iran from detonating a nuclear device in Israel. Dewey, at six-four, 225-lbs., loomed larger than the two of them and had a distinctly rougher aspect about him. His brown hair was unruly, uncombed, and down to his shoulders. A beard and mustache covered his face. Perhaps his most distinctive feature was his eyes, which were a piercing blue. Until recently, Dewey had never worked at Langley—but he’d been an operator in Combat Applications Group, known more commonly as Delta.

The company who’d hired RISCON didn’t want the hacker harmed—the money was a rounding error for them. But they wanted a message sent.

An old man carrying a metal detector approached.

“Excuse me,” he said with a Spanish accent. “Have you seen my dog, Alberto?”

Dewey and Tacoma stopped in their tracks, pulling guns from concealed holsters beneath their armpits. Katie walked to the disguised individual.

“Where’s the information?” she said as Dewey and Tacoma flanked her, keeping the guns tucked against their chests but scanning the beach for others.

“There’s no one else here,” said the man. His voice was harsher now, his accent British. “Where’s the money?”

“Where’s the information?” said Katie.

“Show me the bearer’s note,” said the hacker. “Then I will tell you.”

Katie pulled a letter-sized envelope from her satchel and handed it to him. As he removed it, she took her phone and took several photos of the man.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he snarled. “I told them—”

“Shut the fuck up,” snapped Tacoma, taking a step closer and training the gun on the man’s foot. “You’re about to make seventy-five million dollars, you goddam thief. Don’t fuck it up.”

The hacker read the document for a few moments, then handed it back to her.

“The information?” Katie said.

He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

“It’s on Google Drive,” he said. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

Katie pulled the document from the envelope and handed it to him.

“In addition to your photo, we now have your prints,” she said. “If the information isn’t there, or if you made copies of it, we will hunt you down and kill you. You’ve been warned. The money is yours. You’re lucky our employer doesn’t want a problem.”

“How do I know you won’t kill me anyway?”

“You don’t, fuckhead,” said Tacoma. “Now go back to your mom’s basement and fuck off. ¿Comprendez, señorita?”

The hacker folded the document and tucked it into his coat. He turned and walked away from Dewey, Tacoma, and Katie.

They watched him as he meandered down the long beach, waving the metal detector, blending into the distance, another old man out looking for treasure.

Finally, it was Tacoma who spoke.

“Look at that little fuck,” he said. “Probably took him an hour to steal that shit. We should’ve at least kneecapped him.”

Dewey holstered his gun.

“Hey, Dirty Harry, relax a little, will you?” said Dewey. “Let’s go get some dinner. By the way, how much did we make for this little trip?”

“Twelve million dollars,” said Katie.

*   *   *

The sidewalk along Bella Vista was becoming more crowded as Dewey, Tacoma, and Katie walked back toward the Ritz. People were heading out of the hotels for drinks and dinner. At a casual bar with views of Acapulco Bay, they found a table outside on the terrace.

Katie started to sit down, then stopped.

“I’m going to go work out,” she said.

“One drink?” said Dewey.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m going to work out, then order room service. We’re leaving tomorrow, early. I suggest you two not stay up too late.”

“We won’t, grandma,” said Tacoma.

When the waitress came, Tacoma ordered a beer. Dewey ordered two shots of bourbon and two beers. He swigged the first bourbon down and took a sip from the second as Tacoma watched with a consternated look, sipping his beer.

“What?” said Dewey as he took a sip from his second beer. “You worried about my caloric intake?”

“Not your caloric intake, though you are a fucking load. Your alcohol intake.”

“If man wasn’t meant to drink, God wouldn’t have invented alcohol,” said Dewey knowingly. “Last supper? Remember that?”

“And how did that end?” said Tacoma.

Dewey laughed.

They talked for the next half hour and watched as people walked by.

“What should we do for dinner?” said Tacoma.

“Steak,” said Dewey.

Dewey paid and stood up. He and Tacoma meandered through the crowded sidewalks in the busy neighborhood off the beach, finding a steakhouse. They sat at the bar and ordered steaks and a bottle of red wine. Behind the bar, a pair of flat-screen televisions were on. On one was a golf tournament somewhere. On the other, a soccer game. The atmosphere was boisterous. The bar was filled, mostly with couples eating steak and watching one of the TVs. At some point, the chair next to Tacoma opened up and an attractive brown-haired woman sat down. She had brown skin and looked Mexican. She wore a simple, very short, backless, red-and-yellow dress. Tacoma glanced at her as she sat down, and she returned the look, and smiled.

Tacoma swiveled and looked at Dewey.

“Feliz navidad,” he sang quietly to Dewey, imitating the Christmas song.

“Those are probably the only words you know,” said Dewey.

“They’re all I need to know.”

Tacoma struck up a conversation with the young woman. After a few minutes, she was joined by a tall, blond-haired woman, also with dark skin. Both were very attractive. Soon, the two women were conversing with Tacoma as Dewey ate his steak and pretended to be interested in the soccer game on TV. He ordered another bourbon as Tacoma chatted with the two women to his right. He tried not to listen, but couldn’t help it. Tacoma was regaling them with a story about playing golf. Whether out of politeness or because they actually thought it was funny, they were laughing uproariously every once in a while as Tacoma went on and on.

“By the way, Rachel, Erin, this is my friend, Dewey,” said Tacoma, elbowing Dewey in the ribs.

Dewey turned and grinned.

“Hi,” he said.

“These two are both models,” said Tacoma. “Sports Illustrated. They’re doing the swimsuit issue.”

Dewey nodded, saying nothing.

“He’s not very talkative,” said Tacoma, looking back at the two women. “It doesn’t mean he doesn’t like girls.”

They started laughing. The blonde came over and sat down next to Dewey.

“Do you mind?” she asked. Her accent was Russian.

“Not at all,” said Dewey. He motioned to the bartender. “Please, whatever she’d like.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Tacoma tapped Dewey on the shoulder.

“Are you up for a game of pool?” Tacoma said to Dewey.

“Sure,” said Dewey.

3

SAYULITA, NAYARIT

MEXICO

Samantha Ponce sat on the deck of the beach villa, a cup of espresso in her hand, her legs crossed, staring out at the ocean. There was no furniture on the deck, so she sat on the wood, leaning back up against the wall, the sun hitting her pretty face. Her eyes were closed. She opened them and glanced at her watch. It was two o’clock.

The couple was supposed to meet her at the house at noon. She shook her head and laughed. She wasn’t mad anymore. It was so absurd, how could she be? Still, two hours late. She hated when prospective buyers were even fifteen minutes late, but this was so ridiculous that eventually she simply sat down and relaxed out on the deck, letting the sun warm her face and body. Samantha had removed her blouse, leaving only her brassiere. What was the difference between that and a bikini top? she told herself. Besides, she would know if anyone approached. The villa was isolated that way. Protected and isolated.

She was twenty-seven years old but looked like a teenager. Still, somehow she’d gotten the commission to sell the stunning beachfront property. She was not the most well-known of the area’s real estate agents, but the old man who owned the house, Juan Sturgis, liked Samantha more than the other established agents who served the exclusive coastal area.

Samantha took being stood up in stride. She could’ve driven back to the office and tried to call, but the prospective buyer, a man named Winterthur, from Los Angeles, hadn’t given her any cell phone number, only an email address. In fact, the entire communication with him had been done by email. She’d sent half-a-dozen notes to him, with no response. She took out her iPhone and started typing for the umpteenth time.

Senor Winterthur-please give me an update?

She probably should have just taken off. They obviously weren’t going to show. But then, she knew, Juan Sturgis, the sixty-seven-year-old absentee owner of the stunning, indescribably beautiful, ocean villa, nestled atop a stony cliff along the Mexican coast, would berate her for not waiting. Houses along this part of the beach didn’t come on the market very often, and the commission, if she could sell it, would be by far the biggest of her career: $350,000, assuming they sold it for its ten-million-dollar asking price. It was worth the wait, even of she had to sit there until dinner time.

The beach at Sayulita was empty. Not a soul in sight. One straight mile of sand and ocean. She could’ve stared at it all day. It was the most beautiful view in the world, the most beautiful beach in the world. What was most amazing was the simple fact that even now, it could still be empty. There were thirty houses in this remote, exclusive stretch of sand and cliff. If you didn’t own one of the houses, you weren’t allowed to step foot on the beach. There were never crowds.

Samantha stood up. In the distance, she saw two people walking along the sand.

4

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

TIGER CLUB

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Toby Brown pulled up in front of the big brick building that housed Tiger Club, one of many exclusive eating clubs at Princeton. Brown wasn’t a member, though he’d been asked. He found most of the members to be assholes. Not all, though—his best friend, Dave Willoughby, was a member.

Brown honked the horn of his BMW twice. A moment later, Willoughby emerged, carrying a tennis racket and a leather duffel bag.

Brown had the passenger window rolled down and yelled:

“Hurry up! I lost him!”

Willoughby didn’t change his pace. He reached the BMW and threw his belongings in the back seat, then climbed into the front. Brown sped off.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Mexico?” said Brown. “It’s spring fucking break, Dave. Where else do you want to go?”

“You know I’m not talking about Mexico,” said Willoughby. “You can’t just ‘lose’ your Secret Service detail. Your mom is the vice president. All you’re going to do is create problems for her.”

Brown grinned.

“A week ago, she wasn’t,” said Brown. “Now, she is. What’s the difference? If that wet blanket is following us around Mexico we’ll have a miserable time.”

“He seems nice enough to me,” said Willoughby. “Stevens, Stephenson, whatever his name is.”

“Jed Stevens. He’s fine, I guess, but come on, can we drop this? You think we’ll be able to buy blow down there in front of a Secret Service agent? Negative, and I want to have fun. That involves girls, beer, tequila, and blow.”

Willoughby shook his head, saying nothing as Brown ripped the M3 through Princeton, eventually steering the sedan onto the highway.

“Next stop, Newark Airport,” said Brown.

“Your mom is going to be pissed, Toby,” said Willoughby. “I like your mom. She’s going to blame me.”

“No, she won’t,” Brown scoffed. “By the time she finds out she’ll just laugh it off.”

“You bought the fucking tickets! They’ll trace it and you know it.”

“Can you lay off?” said Brown. “Come on, this was supposed to be fun. Old times before we graduate. Remember that time at Middlesex? That time we brought all that vodka back to the dorm and had a fucking rager?”

“You got suspended, Toby. The cops came.”

Brown grinned.

“But I didn’t get kicked out,” he said conspiratorially, “or arrested.”

“That makes me feel good,” said Willoughby. “I’m flying to Mexico with the son of the Vice President of the United States whose main goal in life is to not get arrested.”

Brown reached for the glove compartment and pulled out an envelope, removing a thick joint. He took a lighter from his pocket and lit it, then took a puff. He offered it to Willoughby, who took it and, a dour look on his face, took a few puffs.

Willoughby cracked his window, letting in air.

“Fine,” said Willoughby. “Just don’t be surprised when I say, ‘I told you so.’”

5

SAYULITA, NAYARIT

MEXICO

Samantha Ponce wondered what Señor Winterthur did for a living. Probably another Hollywood type. Who else could afford the prices, especially for a house you might actually use only two or three months out of the year? Sturgis, like many of the owners on this stretch of Sayulita, had run through the money left to him by his parents. Most of Sayulita was that way: the children and grandchildren of successful businessmen who originally bought here, who’d mostly pissed through their inheritances and were unable keep up with the sizable maintenance bills associated with the big villas. Sayulita was at the beginning of a slow-motion changing of the guard. Samantha and a few other prominent real estate agents stood to make tons in the coming decade.

It was a man and a woman. They walked slowly, holding hands. Samantha watched as they drew closer. They looked young. The man had short-cropped hair and a baseball hat. He was tall, and wore khaki shorts and a red polo shirt. The woman had long black hair. She looked dark, perhaps Mediterranean. As they reached the rocks below the house, she waved.

“Señor Winterthur?” she asked.

The couple waved, saying nothing, then started climbing the winding wooden stairs that led from the beach up to the house.

“Per perdone,” he said in Spanish, extending his hand, “I am so sorry. I am Joseph Winterthur. This is my wife, Laura.”

Samantha detected an accent, a foreign sound, not too strong. She shook hands with the couple.

“It’s quite all right,” said Samantha in English, with a soft Spanish accent. “I got to spend the afternoon at the most beautiful place on earth.”

“Boy, isn’t it ever?” said Winterthur, looking back at the beach and shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s stunning.”

“Where did you come from?” asked Samantha. “I hope my directions didn’t get you lost.”

“Well, to be honest, I think it was Laura’s fault,” said Winterthur. “We ended up at a place down the beach. We decided to walk. It was well worth it.”

“I do that walk once a week,” said Samantha, “even in winter.”

Winterthur laughed. Samantha glanced at Winterthur’s wife. She’d been silent to that point. She stood, staring out at the beach. She reached into her pocket and removed a cell phone, then snapped a photo.

Winterthur was handsome. His hair was cut very short, but he was powerful, with a chiseled, severe face. Laura Winterthur was small and gorgeous. She had very dark skin and bright, light blue eyes. Samantha stared at her for several moments.

“Where are you two from?” asked Samantha.

“New York City,” said Winterthur. “I’m an investor.”

“Well, let’s look around the home,” said Samantha.

“It won’t be necessary,” said the woman, her first words. She had a much stronger accent than her husband. It was Russian. She smiled, her teeth as white as snow. A small gap was visible between her two front teeth, which made her even more intriguing. “We’ll take it.”

“You are aware that the asking price is ten million dollars?” asked Samantha. “Now you didn’t hear this from me, but I believe Señor Sturgis would probably be willing to move a little lower.”

“It won’t be necessary,” said the woman. “We’ll pay cash. We’d like to close this afternoon. Now.”

Samantha did a slight double take, then nodded.

“That … should be possible,” said Samantha. “Of course, it will take a day for the wire to clear.”

“When I said we’ll pay in cash, I meant cash,” said the woman. “Otherwise we’ll look elsewhere.”

“I think that will be fine,” said Samantha.

The woman turned and looked one more time at the beach.

“Now, if you wouldn’t mind,” said the woman, “could we bother you for a ride back to our car?”

6

HEADQUARTERS BUILDING

UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE

H STREET, N.W.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

William Callahan, the deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service, was reading a briefing paper when an urgent knock came to his door.

“Come in,” Callahan barked.

A bald man in an ill-fitting suit opened the door. His face was beet red and he was perspiring. It was Hill, the agency’s assistant director for vice presidential protection. Hill had operational oversight of all Secret Service agents protecting Vice President Brown as well as her family.

“The fucking kid lost Stevens,” said Hill, exasperated and shaking his head. “Fucking college students—”

“What do you mean, lost Stevens?” said Callahan.

“One of the agents at Princeton,” said Hill. “Brown and a friend took off this afternoon. We traced the purchases. They flew down to Mexico.”

“Where in Mexico?”

“Guadalajara. They land in an hour.”

Callahan reached for the phone.

“I’ll call the vice president,” said Callahan. “You find out who the FBI has in Guadalajara and get them over to the airport.”

“Should we bring them back?”

“No,” said Callahan. “He’s a college kid, probably going on break. Get Stevens or someone on the next flight, and tell the FBI their agent is going to need to meet the plane and babysit the little fucker until we get there.”

7

MIGUEL HIDALGO Y COSTILLA AIRPORT

GUADALAJARA, MEXICO

Toby Brown and Dave Willoughby strolled through the airport.

“It’s warm,” said Brown, smiling. “Gotta love it, my man. A week in Mexico.”

“We need to rent a car,” said Willoughby, pointing.

As they walked to the rental car area, a man in a dark suit approached. He was young, tall, and white—American.

“Toby?” said the man, standing in front of Brown. He looked at Willoughby. “David, I assume?”

The man’s demeanor was unemotional, with a slight edge.

“Who are you?” said Brown.

“My name is Dan Edwards,” said the man in the suit. “I work for the FBI.” He opened his wallet, showing them his identification. In addition to an ID card, a large gold badge with the letters FBI occupied part of the thick wallet. “Come on. Do you have bags?”

“What the hell do you want?” said Brown.

Edwards looked at Brown with a vicious stare, then caught Willoughby’s eyes.

“I told you,” whispered Willoughby.

“You know exactly why I’m here, Toby,” said the FBI agent evenly, looking hard at Brown. “So drop the attitude. Did you check any bags?”

“No,” said Brown. “Sorry. Are we in trouble?”

“I have no idea,” said Edwards. “I was told to pick you up and bring you in. Now get your shit and follow me.”

Willoughby and Brown trailed Edwards toward the airport exit. The three walked along the sidewalk toward a parking garage, weaving through crowds of tourists waiting for taxis and buses.

A white Chevy Tahoe pulled up alongside them and the two doors on the passenger side of the SUV opened. Two men appeared, both clutching weapons. In the moment Edwards noticed and reached for his gun, two loud gun blasts rang out above the din. Edwards was struck in the eye by a bullet, kicking him sideways and down to the concrete.

Brown and Willoughby watched in horror—then Brown yelled, “Run!”

But the two gunmen were upon the pair and they were abruptly thrown to the ground. Another thug from the SUV came over as Brown and Willoughby were bound at the wrists. They were led at gunpoint to the Tahoe and shoved into the back, followed by the three goons.

It had all occurred in less than half a minute.

As silver duct tape was wrapped around each of their mouths, the Tahoe’s tires screeched and the vehicle bolted quickly away from the scene, which had descended into chaos.

8

OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT

OLD EXECUTIVE OFFICE BUILDING

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Judith Brown put the phone down and sat back in her large leather chair. Callahan had been brutally blunt. Her son had flown to Mexico with a friend after ditching the Secret Service agent who was supposed to be with him.

A storm cloud of emotions hit her. She was, above all, angry at Toby. On some level, she found it adorable that he would ditch his Secret Service detail. It was typical of him. She never let him see it, but he knew. That side of her son was her favorite thing. He was a rule breaker.

“It’ll be okay,” she said aloud, to herself.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a call on one of her cell phones.

NO CALLER ID

She answered it.

“Madame Vice President,” came the voice. It was a woman with a slightly British accent. “We have your son.”

“How do I know—” she started to say just as a text appeared. It was a video. She hit Play and watched her son and his best friend, Dave Willoughby. They were on a floor. Each had silver duct tape wrapped around their mouths.

“We will kill him,” said the woman. “Unless you pay us five hundred million dollars.”

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” said Brown.

“I’m not a terrorist,” said the woman. “I’m an entrepreneur. Watch the video until the end. There’s a series of numbers on a piece of paper. That is a bank account. Wire the money and your son and his friend live. You have until midnight. If we don’t have the money we kill them both and disappear.”

The phone went dead.

Brown stared at the phone. She was, suddenly, lost. Completely lost.

As governor of New York, Brown had made several wide-ranging policy speeches about foreign policy and America’s military and intelligence capabilities. She had called for a complete reorganization of the FBI and CIA. She was Langley’s biggest critic and was a hero in the conservative ranks of the Republican party for her willingness to criticize her party’s sitting president. It was the main reason Dellenbaugh had selected Brown. By doing so, he hoped to unite the party.

Yet, as she watched the video for the second time and tears streamed down her cheeks, she didn’t call the president, or her chief of staff. She dialed a different number.

“Hello?” came the gruff voice of Hector Calibrisi, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency—a man she had publicly suggested was too old for his job.

“Hector, it’s Judy Brown.”

“Madame Vice President,” said Calibrisi.

There was a long silence, eventually filled by the soft, uncontrollable weeping of a mother.

“It’s going to be okay,” said Calibrisi.

“My—” she stammered.

“Judith,” said Calibrisi, interrupting. “You need to speak with the president. We’ve paid ransoms before.”

“Do they let them go?” she asked, sobbing. “After you paid them?”

There was pregnant pause.

“No,” said Calibrisi. “Usually they just kill them.”

“Can you do anything, Hector?”

“I’ll try.”

9

CARLYLE HOTEL

NEW YORK CITY

Igor was lying on his bed, legs crossed. He had on a set of blue silk Derek Rose pajamas. A candle was lit on the mantel, above the fireplace. His right arm was beneath his head. In his left hand was a glass of red wine: Vega Sicilia Unico Gran Reserva, 1992.

Soft music was playing, a sonata by Shostakovich.

Igor stared, transfixed, at the wall across from the bed. Hanging on it was the magnificent Damien Hirst piece that he’d bought at Sotheby’s that day: a ten-foot-tall object that looked like stained glass but was, in fact, dried butterflies, arranged in perfect symmetry, beneath glass.

Igor was considered by those who mattered to be the greatest computer hacker in the world. Yet for someone who had made hundreds of millions by staring at computer screens for days on end, Igor much preferred real life—and those objects of beauty that his vast wealth allowed him to acquire.

“Vam nravitsya?” he said as a woman with short black hair entered from the bathroom, wearing a see-through black teddy.

“Do you like it?”

“Da.”

Igor’s phone beeped and he reached for it. He wasn’t going to answer, but then eyed the screen.

CALIBRISI HECTOR

Igor sat up and put the phone to his ear.

“Hector,” said Igor, his Russian accent thick. “How are you?”

“Fine,” said Calibrisi.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”

“We have a situation,” said Calibrisi. “We need you to find someone.”

“Who?”

“Can you look at a phone call that’s been heavily sanitized and determine where it was actually made from?”

“Yes,” said Igor, standing up. “Provision me into the trunk and send me the keychain to the call.”

Igor sat down on a white leather Eames chair in front of his desk and started typing.

“How long will you need?” said Calibrisi.

“Not long,” said Igor. “Five, six minutes at most.”

“The person you’re looking for kidnapped the vice president’s son on vacation in Mexico,” said Calibrisi. “Katie is in-theater. When you find something, run it through her.”

“Got it. Shouldn’t be long.”

10

ACAPULCO

By the time Dewey, Tacoma, Rachel, and Erin stepped out of the steakhouse, it was midnight. Acapulco was teeming. Sports cars lined up along the drive: Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches, Bentleys. A big white BMW 750i stood out like a double-wide in Beverly Hills. Tacoma walked ahead with the brown-haired woman, as Dewey and the blonde followed behind. After a few blocks, they came to the entrance of a place with a large doorman in front of a red rope. A sign said, FELTO above the door. A neon light shone in the window in the shape of a pair of pool cues. A long line stretched down the block, people waiting to get in.

At the sight of the two gorgeous women, the bouncer unlocked the rope and let them in.

It was dark inside the pool hall. It wasn’t crowded. There were at least two dozen pool tables in a big room with a large, long bar, behind which was arrayed a wall of TVs, all broadcasting sports: baseball, soccer, football, golf, even a hockey game.

The air had the faintest hint of marijuana, a sweet, pleasant smell. The women inside the club were almost uniformly stunning. Most were blond. Dewey scanned the room as he followed Tacoma, looking, out of curiosity, for anything other than a blonde. He saw two black woman, both jaw-dropping gorgeous. Nearly every woman was dressed in a skimpy outfit; several wore nothing more than bikinis.

The men were, in their own way, equally flamboyant. Many dark-skinned Mexicans with lots of chains dangling around thick, muscled necks, black shiny shirts unbuttoned to the waist. A few with sunglasses on, even though they were inside, it was dark, and it was nighttime.

Of the two dozen or so pool tables, less than half were in use. At those, small groups hovered around playing, drinking, laughing. A few tables had couples playing with other couples. At two adjacent tables, what looked like a bachelor party, with a small horde of sunburned twenty-somethings laughing, having a great time, trays of shots on tables near them.

They found a pool table and ordered drinks. The blonde came over and stood near Dewey.

“So, I guess we’re on the same team,” she said.

“Yeah. Are you good at pool? I’m not.”

“I’m okay,” she said.

“Well, we have to beat them,” said Dewey, looking over at Tacoma, who was racking up balls as the other woman watched, talking to him.

“I will do my best,” she said.

Dewey took a swig of beer.

“So, Dewey? Is that your real name?”

He knew the look she was now giving him, as she stared at his stubble-coated face. She may have seen the slight bulge at the left side of his torso, the gun which clung tight to his chest, concealed. He couldn’t tell. Dewey certainly wasn’t every woman’s cup of tea, but those ones who didn’t want him were few and far between. Though his physical assets were impressive, that wasn’t what did it for most. For most, it was the silence, his unreachability.

Dewey had no interest in her. She was beautiful, and clearly smart. Moreover, Dewey knew the best way to get rid of her was to be nice, to be talkative, to ask her about her job, her cat, her dog, where she grew up, her astrological sign, whatever; to make her think he was interested, that was how you repelled a woman. But he didn’t have the energy. He was too drunk to even put the sentences together now. He wanted one more drink, just one more, then he wanted to go back to the Ritz and pass out.

“Yeah, Dewey.”

“Nickname?”

“No.”

“Okay, Dewey. So what brings you here?”

“Just want to play some pool.”

She laughed.

“You’ve had a few, huh?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“I meant, why Acapulco?”

Dewey shrugged.

“How about you?” he asked.

“I’m a model,” she said.

“Oh,” said Dewey. “I thought he was bullshitting me.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No, I mean you look like a model. I don’t know any models, but you certainly are, um, beautiful enough. More than beautiful enough.”

She grinned.

“Okay, rewind,” said Dewey. “You’re … Rachel?”

“Erin.”

“Erin. Got it.”

Their drinks came.

“So, do you want to shoot some pool?” Erin asked, smiling. “I think it’s our turn. I promise I won’t ask you any more questions.”

Dewey looked into her brown eyes, eyes like warm maple syrup. He didn’t want to get to know her, yet, on some level, Dewey knew that she understood that he just wanted to be left alone, but that he could also use a little warmth, friendship, and kindness, and that she was kind enough to persist, over his obvious hints, because her instinct told her he could use a little companionship.

“Sure,” he said.

They joined Tacoma and the brown-haired girl at the table. The pool table was against the back wall. Dewey and Erin teamed up against Tacoma and Rachel, though they spent half the time kissing each other. Dewey was a terrible pool player when he was sober, and being drunk made it even worse, but Erin was lights out, and they kept winning. A few times, they made eye contact over the laughter and clacking of pool balls.

At some point, a group of four men joined them. Both Erin and Rachel went over and hugged them, politely.

They were younger, in their twenties, and wired; cocaine, Dewey guessed. They all wore jeans, two had on tank tops, the others T-shirts. All of them wore gold chains around their necks. Rachel introduced them to Dewey and Tacoma.

“Antonio is one of the photographers,” she said.

One of them, a good-looking man with a shit-eating grin, took Rachel’s pool cue out of her hands, without asking, then leaned over and took a shot, even though they were in the middle of the game.

As he watched the scene unfold, Dewey’s mind sharpened. There was an edge to the group.

Dewey moved around the table, over to the wall, near Erin.

“We don’t know them very well,” she said to him. “He’s the photographer tomorrow. We heard he’s a creep. Don’t leave. They’ll be gone soon.”

Dewey said nothing. He glanced over at Tacoma.

It’s about to get ugly.

11

CARLYLE HOTEL

NEW YORK CITY

It took longer than Igor expected.

The call to the vice president had been run through two separate anonyzing switches, one in Germany, the other in Kiev. He thus had to hack into both networks and then build an algorithm designed to isolate the call by sifting through massive amounts of metadata. When, finally, his screen started flashing, he picked up his phone and dialed.

“Hi, Igor,” came the voice of Katie.

“Katie,” said Igor. “I want you to know I was only able to muster the brilliance needed to find the individual who made this call because of the memory of your beauty and sexiness. What are you wearing, by the way?”

“Ewww,” said Katie. “Just tell me who he is and where he is.”

“It’s a she, and she is in Guadalajara. Texting you details.”

“Thanks, Igor.”

“The pleasure, my beautiful flower, was all mine.”

“Does anyone ever fall for that stuff?”

“Sometimes,” said Igor. “You will someday, trust me.”

“If I ever go out on a date with you again,” said Katie, “it will be out of pity, Igor.”

“Pity is the first rung on the ladder to true passion,” said Igor.

“Hanging up now.”

12

ACAPULCO

Dewey scanned the four men. They were all young, good-looking, but in a sleazy way; with jewelry and pinky rings. Other than the photographer, they looked rough-weight lifters with tans. One looked ex-military. The other three looked vaguely criminal, peripherally or directly involved in the Acapulco drug trade. The Sports Illustrated photographer, who’d taken the pool cue from Rachel, wore an aqua tank top and had large muscles; penitentiary muscles.

As much as Dewey suddenly perceived danger, he couldn’t get his mind to quite focus. He felt dizzy, weaving slightly. The room was spinning. He wasn’t prepared for a confrontation, and even if he was, this four on two didn’t look like it would be very much fun. These were the kind of people who carried weapons and who knew how to use them.

“Rob and I are going to go,” said Dewey. “You guys can come with us, or hang out. But we’re going.”

Dewey looked at Tacoma, who’d heard what Dewey said. He nodded in agreement as he took a sip of beer and scanned the four goons.

Erin took Dewey’s hand. She held it tightly.

“Don’t go,” she said. “It’s early. I’m having fun.”

“Me too,” said Dewey. “But I think I had a little too much to drink.”

“So let me walk you home,” she said, smiling.

Dewey nodded to Tacoma.

“Okay.”

Dewey smiled, then turned to walk to the door, putting his hand to Erin’s hip and gently pushing her.

“Erin, don’t leave,” said the photographer. He pointed at Dewey. “Stay, man, it’s four on four. We can play some games, have some fun.”

Dewey kept walking.

The ex-military–looking one had gone to buy a round of tequila shots. He was returning from the bar as Dewey and Erin—trailed by Tacoma and Rachel—walked by the end of the table. He stood in front of Dewey, a shit-eating grin on his face. When Dewey went to move around him, he shifted, continuing to block his exit.

“Are we cock blocking you, man?” he said, laughing.

“Fuck off,” said Dewey. He stepped forward, between the man and the wall, trying to slip out. The goon shifted left, blocking him.

He was almost as tall as Dewey. His neck fell straight away from his head; a football neck, like Dewey’s.

That was when everything went to hell.

Dewey swung his right fist in a grade uppercut, targeting the goon’s neck. Despite the fact that he’d challenged Dewey, he hadn’t expected Dewey to come at him so soon—and so hard. Dewey’s strike was dead accurate. His fist slammed the man’s neck at the larynx. He grunted as Dewey’s fist struck, then tumbled backwards to the ground, the tray of drinks falling with him, a dozen glasses filled with tequila hitting the floor, all of them shattering.

Erin screamed.

Dewey squared off as Tacoma stepped to his right, facing the trio.

The pool tables nearby cleared out as people ran for the front of the bar and the exit.

If Dewey’s punch was meant to take the man down, to break his larynx and sideline him from the coming fight, Dewey underestimated the strength of the thug’s neck. The goon clutched his neck and rolled over, slowly and angrily climbing to his feet.

Tacoma turned just in time to see the thick end of a pool cue swinging like a bat through the air, hitting him across the ribs. It knocked the wind out of him. But he knew the drill; he knew how to fight. Even as the wood crushed into him he reached out his hand and grabbed the cue in the split second after it hit, preventing the attacker from pulling it back to take another swing. Every instinct, every part of him, wanted to double over and fall to the ground in pain, but his training kicked in, and he swallowed the pain now roiling his stomach. Tacoma could taste blood in his mouth.

One of the four—a bearded man—ran at Dewey as, behind him, the tank-topped goon with prison muscles charged, a pool cue in his hand.

Rachel screamed, then tried to stop the fourth man, the photographer, from moving in, but he threw her aside with his arm, blood lust in his eyes.

Dewey swung at the bearded man with everything he had, slamming his fist into his nose, snapping it. Blood shot from his nostrils and he stepped back, holding his face, moaning.

Tacoma—holding a pool cue—saw one of the men to his right, charging, waist-high. Tacoma swung the pool cue at him, hitting him in the head. The cue broke in half and he kept charging, throwing himself at Tacoma—tackling him mid-torso just as another pool cue—swung by one of the other two thugs—hit Dewey hard in the head, below his ear, snapping the cue. The pool cue tore a gash across Dewey’s cheek and he heard a loud ringing in his head. Whatever dizziness he’d felt from the alcohol was replaced by a sudden torpor, vertigo-like, as his brain tried to process the blow, but he didn’t have time. He hit the ground and one of the goons started punching at him, hitting him furiously in the stomach.

He glanced at Tacoma, who was still standing—fighting off two men.

There were more screams, and Dewey could only think that he wished, at that point in time, for the police to arrive.

Dewey knew that he and Tacoma were in trouble. He was on the ground, dizzy, possibly a concussion. Tacoma was fighting off the scrum but then he saw the glint flash of a weapon—handgun—come from the photographer.

Dewey fought to get to his feet as the ex-soldier came toward him, kicking his foot toward Dewey’s head. From the floor, Dewey caught the front of the man’s boot and wrapped it beneath his elbow, then twisted. The man fell to the floor in pain, and Dewey crabbed across the mêlée—putting two knuckles out—hatchet style—slamming, hard-punching the ex-soldier’s right eye, crushing it.

Dewey looked up just as a skinny Mexican in an Adidas T-shirt lifted a pool cue above his head and chopped it viciously down, through the air, aiming at Dewey’s head. Dewey lurched away just in time to avoid having his head struck yet again, but the ferocious axe chop struck his shoulder and he groaned.

Dewey looked up just as the man with the gun brought the muzzle to Tacoma’s chest. Dewey could not catch his breath. He registered the pool cue about to be swung down upon him—but couldn’t take his eyes off the skinny Mexican as he brought Tacoma into the crosshairs of his gun.

The Mexican lifted the pool cue again, raising it high.

But before he could swing, someone came at the Mexican from behind. Whoever it was had two cues, held tight together. Just as the Mexican was about to swing again at Dewey, the person swung the pair of cues at his neck, from behind, the speed of the strike making a whistling sound, like a whip. The cues struck the man’s cortex. He tumbled sideways, unconscious, maybe dead; if he lived, he would be paralyzed.

From the ground, all Dewey could make out was a blur now. He saw a slight figure, with blond hair. It was a woman. Blood trickled from his mouth, from the first hit to his ribs. He threw up again as he tried to understand what was happening. In a brief moment of focus, he saw the woman’s feet. She wore high heels.

Oh shit, Dewey thought. I’m being saved by someone wearing high heels.

The woman stepped forward, toward Dewey, who lay beneath the ex-soldier, who continued to punch at his torso. Now he could see her. It was Katie. She swung both pool cues like golf clubs, down then up, hitting the soldier in the neck, this time doing the job Dewey’s first punch had failed to do. The cartilage in the man’s larynx cracked, and he grabbed at his neck, desperate for air.

Dewey pointed behind Katie, suddenly noticing the bearded one, who’d gotten back up and was charging.

She turned, wheeled the cues, but the bearded one was on her, swinging for her head. Katie stepped nimbly aside, grabbing the thug’s right arm, swinging it down and behind the man’s back. The thug’s own momentum caused the arm to bend in an impossible position, then snap at the elbow. He screamed as he fell.

The Mexican with the tank top was the last one standing. He was cornered. His eyes darted around nervously. He didn’t know where to aim the gun. He looked confused and desperate, a combination that they all knew could lead to gunfire.

A waitress in the bar area screamed at the sight of the weapon. What was pandemonium turned into outright hysteria at the sight of the firearm and the Mexican swinging it back and forth between Dewey and Tacoma.

Then there was the loud, unmuted crack of gunshot. The explosion echoed loudly across the pool hall. The Mexican thug abruptly jerked as a bullet struck his right shoulder. He was kicked backwards and down, falling to the floor, screaming in pain as the gun tumbled from his hand.

Dewey looked up at Katie, who clutched a P226 out in front of her. She stepped to the gunman’s weapon and grabbed it.

“Get up,” said Katie, looking at Tacoma. “You too,” she added, glancing at Dewey as she held the Mexican—now on the ground—in the crosshairs.

Dewey climbed slowly to his feet. He and Tacoma walked past Katie as she continued to aim her pistol at the Mexican while her eyes scanned the other goons, who were all on the ground.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you two go out by yourselves,” said Katie. She had a slightly amused, slightly pissed off look on her face.

“We had it under control, didn’t we Rob?” said Dewey.

Tacoma looked dazed.

“Yeah, we had it, Katie.”

Outside the bar, a dark sedan was idling. Katie stepped quickly to the back door.

“Good call,” said Tacoma as he climbed in. “The last thing I feel like doing is walking all the way back to that hotel right now.”

“We’re not going back to the hotel,” said Katie.

“Why not?” said Dewey.

“The vice president’s son was kidnapped a few hours ago,” she said, “along with one of his friends. Whoever did it murdered an FBI agent.”

“Forgive me,” said Tacoma, rubbing his jaw, “but what does that have to do with us?”

“It happened in Guadalajara. We don’t know where they’re holding them, but it’s somewhere close.”

“I didn’t sign up for this,” said Dewey. “I’ve also had a few drinks. By the way, isn’t the vice president the one who’s trying to fire Hector?”

“Yeah,” said Tacoma.

Katie looked at them with an angry stare.

“Hector is the one she wants to fire and he’s the one who asked for our help,” she said. “You know what?” she continued, shaking her head. “I’ll do it myself.”

She opened the door and nodded at Dewey and Tacoma.

“Get out.”

Dewey and Tacoma exchanged a look.

“Fine,” said Dewey. “Since you asked so nicely.”

13

WESTIN HOTEL

GUADALAJARA, MEXICO

Dewey stood in the elevator, back left corner, staring straight ahead. There were four other people in the elevator, two women and two men. They all got off the elevator on the penthouse floor, which opened into a rooftop pool and lounge overlooking Guadalajara. The pool’s blue lights cast a decadent glow. The two women from the elevator not only didn’t stand out, but they looked pedestrian against some of the other women gathered around the pool.

Dewey wore a navy blue silk shirt with long sleeves, and jeans. He went to the poolside bar and ordered a bourbon, then sat down at the bar. He took a sip and scanned the crowd.

The intelligence was less than two hours old. Igor had tracked the phone.

In the corner of the rooftop lounge, a large group was seated in a big red leather booth. There was a small crowd at the table, partying. He counted three women and six men, all of whom were dressed in suits and not very subtly were packing weapons; security. A woman in the middle of the group was the center of conversation.

Dewey felt the underside of his left arm. Strapped to the forearm was a concealed mini-gun: a small, retractable device with a short barrel that could, with a specific whip-like motion, pop forward, then fire with the pull of a small trigger located at the wrist. The weapon was locked to Dewey’s forearm by two metal bands around his elbow and wrist. The magazine held two 9mm slugs. It was an ingenious, almost mythical device, designed by an Israeli inventor named Steinman in 1966, and still as effective today for the sort of discreet, very public killing Dewey intended to inflict on the Mexican.

As much as Dewey wanted to walk around the pool and kill the woman, he knew he would be turned into a piece of Swiss cheese within seconds of firing the first round.

He spent an hour alternating between bourbon and beer. Then she stood up. She was short, with pale skin and black hair, and wore glasses. The entire table moved toward the elevators, two gunmen in front, two alongside, two in back; in the middle, the woman. She walked with a brisk pace.

Dewey trailed the group and took the next elevator. Outside the Westin, he climbed into an idling silver Ferrari, Tacoma at the wheel. Two traffic lights later, he found the two Escalades.

The nightclub was called Bar Américas. From the street down the block, Dewey watched as the group walked to the front of a long line at the club’s bodyguarded rope-cordoned entrance. The woman was let in immediately, along with her group.

Dewey handed the doorman a stack of hundreds and entered just behind them.

The club was a cavern, an old warehouse retrofitted for a dance club. The place was packed with people. The music was deafening; loud dance music that made the floor vibrate. The floor, walls, and ceilings were lit up, and lights strobed the smoke-crossed air. It was hot, packed with people, and total chaos.

Dewey meandered along the fringes, looking at the leather booths along the dimly lit outer edge of the dance floor. Across the floor, the woman was dancing with one of the men from her party.

Dewey moved through the chaos of dancers, pushing through sweat-soaked bodies, like a hunter. People were everywhere, dancing. A woman suddenly grabbed Dewey’s arm, pulling him, and he turned. She had a faraway, drugged-out look, her eyes bloodshot, and she was dancing. She wanted Dewey with her, and she moved closer, rubbing against his chest. The music pounded—so loud it would’ve been hard to hear a bomb go off.

Dewey moved in rhythm with the woman for several minutes, letting the motion, the tide of people slowly push him to the woman.

Suddenly, Dewey swung his left arm out, whipping it in a downward motion. The muzzle of the mini-gun popped from his sleeve, into his hand. Dewey moved his right hand to his left wrist and snapped the trigger back, firing. The slug ripped the woman in the neck. Blood splattered on the man she’d been dancing with. She was pummeled backwards, to the ground, onto her back, clutching her neck where the bullet had entered. He fired the second bullet into the forehead of the one she’d been dancing with. He fell to the ground.

Dewey stepped over her. The music continued. Most people hadn’t even noticed. Someone screamed but it blended into everything. The woman looked up at him, blood gurgling from her mouth in dark red puddles. Dewey stepped over her, his legs on either side of her.

“Where are they?” Dewey yelled, a vicious look on his sweat-covered face. He put his boot against her neck, pressing the bullet hole as she weakly tried to push his leg away. “Where are they? Tell me and I walk away. You might survive.”

“Sayulita,” she coughed. “But it doesn’t matter. I work for someone. If the money isn’t there in the next hour, they both die.”

14

GUADALAJARA

On the street in front of the hotel, Dewey ran to an idling black Ferrari 488 and climbed into the passenger seat.

“What’s up?” said Tacoma.

“Sayulita, on the coast.”

“I know where it is. That’s a four-hour drive.”

“We have an hour,” said Dewey.

Dewey took out his phone and brought up a map.

“Do you know how to fly an airplane?” said Dewey.

“My dad had a plane. I watched him. I think I could.”

“Do you have a pilot’s license?”

“No.”

“Have you ever flown a plane?”

“Technically, no. But I think I can. I’m not sure. I might crash it. Why?”

“Because you need to fly me to Sayulita. There’s no other way.”

“Dewey, even if I could do it, it’s fucking night! I’m not rated for night. Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have a plane.”

“Drive to the airport,” said Dewey.

Tacoma slammed the gas on the Ferrari and ripped into traffic, the throaty roar of the black sports car thundering between the concrete caverns of the Guadalajara night.

*   *   *

The private lot at Guadalajara International Airport was dark and shuttered for the night. Tacoma parked the Ferrari and left the keys in it.

The planes ranged in size. There were jets, including several Gulfstreams, as well as small, single-engine turboprops. All were locked, the tires clamped to pre-set steel loops in the tarmac. Dewey removed a small device from his pocket—a pick gun—and stuck it against a padlock. A few seconds later, the lock popped open.

Tacoma climbed into the cockpit and turned the plane on. It was an ancient tan-and-orange Cessna 177. It made a sudden low coughing noise, then a growl, then a loud, smoke-clogged roar as the plane’s propeller sputtered and kicked into action.

Tacoma steered the plane forward, tires bouncing on the tarmac. Dewey climbed into the open passenger door.

As Dewey strapped himself into the cockpit, Tacoma blew a hard exhale at the controls, creating a cloud of dust.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Tacoma asked.

“Yeah,” said Dewey.

“Because we’re about to risk our fucking lives. I don’t even know if I can get it off the ground. I used to shut my eyes whenever my dad was taking off.”

“Great,” said Dewey. “Well, give it a try, will ya?”

Tacoma glanced at Dewey.

“Fuck, yeah I’ll do it. Just don’t get mad if we crash.”

Tacoma steered the Cessna to the end of the line of locked-down planes and then turned into the runway. Black tarmac was spread out in front of them.

“Shouldn’t you pull up?” said Dewey as the Cessna charged down the runway.

“Yeah,” said Tacoma. “That was the part I wasn’t paying attention to.”

15

SAYULITA

MEXICO

Toby Brown and Dave Willoughby sat awkwardly on the wood floor, their backs against a wall. The room was empty. They could hear the ocean.

They were shackled with nylon flex-cuffs at their ankles, knees, and wrists. Duct tape was wrapped tightly across their mouths.

Willoughby had broken down several times, and Toby Brown did his best to attempt to comfort him by looking over, trying to say with his eyes, we’ll get out of this. But even he knew it didn’t look good.

Brown thought of what an idiot he’d been, what an idiot he was—the fact that he’d already cost a man his life. Part of him hoped they would kill him, for he didn’t think he could face his mother, nor Dave. Above all, he didn’t think he could face the widow of the FBI agent who they shot at the airport.

One of the guards stepped into the room and approached. He was Mexican—middle-aged, a little overweight, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. He inspected the flex-cuffs on each of them. Then he looked at Brown and smiled.

“Spring break!” he said enthusiastically, with a Spanish accent. “Is it as much fun as you thought it would be?”

16

GUADALAJARA

Tacoma revved the plane’s engine and let it surge. He stared out through the windshield, sweat dripping from the end of his nose. He glanced one last time at Dewey.

“Hold on,” he said, pulling back.

As the plane’s wheels bounced as it tried to get airborne, Dewey looked at Tacoma.

“Is there a parachute on here?”

Tacoma turned back to the yoke. Then he released the brakes, added full throttle and surged forward. The Cessna bounced mightily, at one point tipping so far left the wing almost touched the ground. Halfway down the tarmac, they were speeding fast, gaining momentum, and preparing to lift off into the air. But the end of the runway was coming at them faster and faster, a wall of buildings just beyond the airport perimeter.

“We’re not gonna make it up,” yelled Tacoma, turning to Dewey. “I need to brake it.”

“We’ll make it,” said Dewey, looking through the windshield at the oncoming buildings. “Hit the fucking gas!”

They came to the end of the runway, screaming past the final red marker. The plane was still bouncing along the ground.

“Any possibility of you maybe not hitting those buildings?” yelled Dewey as the plane moved closer and closer to the concrete-and-glass office buildings.

Suddenly, the Cessna’s right wing kicked up slightly, along with the right tire, then the plane lifted off, aiming directly for the buildings. Glass and concrete were now imminent. There was nothing Tacoma could do to avoid them, so he looked for a gap between the buildings.

“Hold on,” he yelled, then cranked the yoke left and stepped on the left rudder. The Cessna flipped vertical, its wings now spread in a straight line up and down. The plane climbed higher, cutting between the office buildings. They were so close to hitting it looked as if they could reach out and touch the buildings. Then, like stepping through a doorway, they emerged into the brilliant moonlight, clear of it all.

They flew over Guadalajara to the coast, Tacoma using a cell phone to guide him and the lights of the towns and villages below to keep him in the air. After forty-five minutes of flying, they hit the black water of the Pacific Ocean. Beneath a bright half moon, the coastline was a mesmerizing sight. The water was a canopy of black, the beaches dotted with yellow lights at houses, hotels, and resorts.

As they came closer to Sayulita, Dewey called Katie.

“Were getting closer,” he said. “What’s the status?”

“The president wants to pay the ransom, but you and I both know, Dewey, both of them are dead, whether they pay it or not.”

“How much time do we have?”

“The deadline was fifteen minutes ago,” said Katie. “Bill is handling the negotiations and trying to buy time. Hold on, I’m patching in Igor.”

A moment later, the phone clicked.

“Igor?” said Katie.

“Yeah. Is Dewey on?”

“I’m here.”

“Dewey, I think I have the location,” said Igor. “You’re coming up on it in about two miles. There will be some cliffs, then an empty stretch of beach followed by some villas. It’s one of the villas. It’s up on the rocks.”

“How many people?”

“I don’t know?”

Dewey hung up, unbuckled, and moved to the cabin.

“What are you doing?” said Tacoma.

“Getting ready.”

“You’re going to jump?” said Tacoma.

“Take it lower,” said Dewey. “Look for cliffs, then a beach.”

“It’s fucking dark as shit,” said Tacoma.

“Give me your two-two-six,” said Dewey. “There’s the cliffs. Get it lower.”

Tacoma pulled his pistol from beneath his armpit and handed it to Dewey. He reached into his pocket and handed him a suppressor.

“As low to the water as you can,” said Dewey. “Make it look like you’re a crappy weekend pilot who’s about to crash.”

“I’ll try,” said Tacoma.

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” said Dewey, pulling open the cabin door and getting ready to jump. He smiled at Tacoma.

“Where the hell am I going to land this thing?” said Tacoma.

“You’ll figure it out,” said Dewey as he looked down at the black water skipping beneath the plane. “Lower!” shouted Dewey. “Get the tires wet!”

His eyes returned to the cliff. He counted a dozen houses, visible in the ambient light, most with a few lights on.

Dewey felt spray, looked one last time at Tacoma, and jumped. He dropped quickly down and forward, propelled by the plane’s momentum, then slammed, feet first, into the water just behind the wave break, continuing down beneath the surface until his feet struck sand. He pushed back up. His arms moved fluidly through the water as he swam toward the rocky cliffs. A wave grabbed him and helped bring him in. When he could stand above water, he started a sprint towards the rocks and started climbing, moving up the rocky face, scaling the cliffs until he reached a wooden set of stairs. He grabbed a breath, looked up to make sure no one was looking for him, and charged up the stairs three steps at a time, his pants and shirt soaking wet.

At the top of the wooden stairs was a dirt road. Dewey charged onto the road and went right. He came to a gray-and-black villa and could see a woman through the window, standing at a refrigerator, and he kept moving. At the next villa, a modern glass-and-concrete rectangle, Dewey could see a group of adults all sitting around a large dining room table.

He kept running and came to a yellow-and-green villa, its lights extinguished. He raced to the front door, which was unlocked, then moved through an empty kitchen. The rest of the home was also empty as Dewey ran through it, to the deck. He sprinted from the porch, running back to the dirt road. Then he saw it, just an orange flash in the distance ahead. Someone was smoking a cigarette.

Dewey screwed the suppressor into the muzzle of the P226 as he skulked along the edge of the dirt road. At fifty feet out, the man suddenly noticed something. He turned, looking in Dewey’s direction.

Dewey didn’t know if he was part of the group who’d taken the boys hostage—until the man pulled a gun from a shoulder holster. Dewey stopped, knelt, then fired—two quick blasts. A pair of dull metallic thwack thwack were barely audible as bullets spat from the gun. The bullets struck the gunman in the chest. He fell backwards, barely making a groan, and Dewey began a fast sprint.

An inclining tar driveway began just past where the dead man lay. The house was a hundred feet beyond, and Dewey moved at a sprint toward it.

It was a modern-looking house of glass and steel, perched higher than the others, like an aerie.

He opened the front door in and stepped into a large room. His eyes shot immediately to the two hostages, who were sitting on the floor, bound and gagged. At the sight of Dewey, one of them tried to struggle and make noise.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dewey whispered.

The other hostage arced his head to the right. There, Dewey saw a door leading to a deck.

The sound of the ocean was loud and constant.

Dewey moved silently to the door that led to the deck. Next to the door was a large window. Dewey inched to the edge of the window and spied out. On the porch, he made out the silhouette of a man. He wore a baseball hat, with dark sunglasses. He was standing alone, clutching a submachine gun.

Dewey glanced to the black water in the distance as he raised the P226. He trained the pistol on the man—then triggered the gun. The big glass window shattered in the same moment the slug ripped into the man’s neck, knocking him sideways and down.

Dewey went through the door as the thug crawled across the puddle of his own blood, coughing, trying to get to his submachine gun. Dewey fired again. The slug hit him in the arm, pushing him sideways. The man screamed in pain. Dewey approached and flipped him over with his foot, keeping the gun aimed at his head at all times. The man had on jeans and a polo shirt. His sunglasses were still over his eyes. A round hole marred the center of his neck. Blood coursed from it in rhythm with his breathing.

Dewey stepped closer, straddling him, dripping salt water and perspiration on him. He leaned over and pulled the man’s sunglasses from his head and threw them. He swept the end of the suppressor to the man’s skull. The thug looked away, refusing to look into Dewey’s eyes. Dewey waited. A few seconds became ten, but Dewey didn’t move. He waited. Finally, the gunman looked up at him.

“Adios,” said Dewey as, in the same moment, he pulled the trigger back. The bullet finished the job—puncturing a dime-sized hole in the man’s chest.

Dewey stepped back inside the house. He took out his cell phone and dialed.

“Hi,” said Katie. “Are you okay?”

“I have the two students,” said Dewey as he entered the large living room and looked at Brown and Willoughby, still bound and gagged. He walked toward them, his eyes scanning for any more possible hostage takers. Seeing that there was no one, he holstered the gun and leaned over, lifting his wet pant leg and finding his knife—an eight-inch Gerber double-serrated fixed blade—sheathed above his left ankle. He moved to Willoughby and leaned down as he continued to talk on the phone.

“I’m patching in the vice president,” said Katie.

A moment later, after a dull monotone, she started talking.

“Dewey,” she said. “This is is Judith Brown.”

Her voice was emotional.

“Are they alive?”

“Yes,” said Dewey.

Dewey leaned down and put the tip of his knife between Willoughby’s cheek and the duct tape. He ripped up, cutting the tape like a surgeon. He moved to Toby Brown and did the same, cutting a slash in the tape. He then cut the flex-cuffs from the boys’ ankles, knees, and wrists. He stood back and spoke.

“Do you want to speak to your son?”

“Yes. Thank you, Dewey. Yes.”

He handed the phone to Brown, who was bright red, disheveled, in a state of mild shock.

“Mom.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m … I’m sorry. It was—”

”Let’s not talk about that, Toby. I love you.”

“Okay.”

“Can I speak to David?” she said.

He handed the phone to Willoughby.

“Hi, Mrs. Brown.”

“David, are you okay?” she said.

“Yes. I want you to know—” Willoughby began.

“David,” said the vice president. “I know who caused this.”

“It was both of us.”

“Right,” she said, laughing. “Let’s not talk about that now. I’ve spoken to your parents several times. I’ll call them right now. Don’t feel bad. The only thing that matters is that you two are okay.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Brown.”

Willoughby handed the phone back to Dewey.

“This is Dewey again.”

“Dewey, thank you,” said Vice President Brown.

There was a long silence.

“You’re welcome.”

“Dewey, it’s Katie. We’re getting a chopper down there to pick you guys up. We’ll fly them back on the RISCON jet. I’ll see you in Guadalajara.”

17

CIA HEADQUARTERS

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Calibrisi was loading up his briefcase for the night. It was nine-forty P.M. Lindsay, his assistant, and most everyone else, was gone for the evening. He heard a knock on his door.

“Come in,” said Calibrisi without looking up.

The door opened and Judith Brown stepped inside.

As governor of New York, she’d called for Calibrisi’s ouster and for a complete reorganization of both the FBI and CIA.

“May I come in?”

“Sure.”

The vice president walked to Calibrisi’s desk and placed a paper bag on it. She pushed it toward him.

“My husband saved this,” she said. “He wanted to open it the day Toby got married.”

Calibrisi reached into the bag and pulled out a bottle. It was bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle, twenty-three years old.

Calibrisi smiled. He gestured toward the seating area on the other side of his office, where two white leather Chesterfield sofas faced one another. He retrieved two glasses from a cabinet behind his desk, removed the casing and uncorked the bottle. He poured two small glasses of bourbon and sat down across from the vice president, handing her one of the glasses.

She lifted her glass and clinked it against Calibrisi’s.

“I called Senator Furr and withdrew my support for the reorganization of the CIA,” said Brown. “In addition, I called … your wife. I apologized. I like to think I did these things because I saw the CIA—because I saw you—in action. Your effectiveness in a time of crisis. But the real reason I did it is because I’m a mom.”

Tears were slowly falling down her cheeks.

“Thank you, Hector.”

Read on for an excerpt of Bloody Sunday coming July 2018

PROLOGUE

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA

ONE MONTH AGO

The plane was long, shiny, and black: a Bombardier Global 7000, owned by the Gustave Roussy Institute, one of the most advanced cancer research and treatment centers in the world. Part of the hospital’s variety of offerings was a dramatic and very expensive accouterment: remote, on-site, fully staffed, complete diagnostic biological protocols and analysis and, in turn, determination as to whether a patient has cancer—and if so, what course of action should be taken. This gave them the ability to assess any individual, anywhere in the world—provided they had the wherewithal to foot the bill.

Seven hours before, another plane from the Institute had flown the same course: Paris to Pyongyang, North Korea. That plane was a cargo plane, loaded with a variety of advanced diagnostic medical equipment, including state-of-the-art MRI, CT scan, blood, oxygen, and cellular analytic hardware, and cutting-edge radiologic equipment. All of the equipment was now in position at the Pyongyang Medical College Hospital.

The Bombardier carried a team of cancer specialists, all under the leadership of Dr. Marc de Saint-Phalle. De Saint-Phalle was widely considered to be the top cancer specialist in the world. A total of ten people from the Institute were with him, among them doctors, radiologists, and nurses skilled in field work and known for their proficiency and operational precision. De Saint-Phalle had handpicked every one of them.

The first six seats were occupied by a different group. Each man was young—midtwenties—and stocky. Two were bald and clean-shaven. The others had longish hair and thick beards. All of them were ex-Israeli military—Sayeret Metkal to be exact, which was, along with Shayetet 13, Israel’s most elite group of Special Forces operators. They were all highly trained, skilled at counterterrorism operations, anti-guerrilla warfare, and all manner of tight-sight envelope protection and penetration, firearms and explosives, cold weapons, surveillance, face-to-face combat, and extended field work in network-dark locations. They were from a private, London-based company called Four Winds LP, known for their military skills and discretion. The Institute was an important client. What country the Institute was going to—who they were going to see—these were state secrets and the Institute had learned to trust that the soldiers of Four Winds would not leak the secrets of the world leaders they were sometimes paid to try and heal.

The trip to North Korea had taken a month to negotiate. The North Koreans didn’t balk at the Institute’s price: $57.2 million for two days’ work—but they resisted when the Institute insisted on bringing their own security. Finally, when it was clear the Institute would not relent, Pyongyang agreed to allow a full-on security squad, armed to the teeth. Kim Jong-un had a reputation. If tests showed he had something wrong with him, he was the sort to order the execution of those giving the diagnosis. He might still do the same—but now Pyongyang understood that many people would die if Kim attempted to harm De Saint-Phalle or one of his team. De Saint-Phalle knew the drill. It was not the first time he’d traveled to hostile territory in order to examine a dictator.

Without de Saint-Phalle, Kim would have no choice but to bring in an inferior team from China—or else rely on North Korea’s own team of cancer specialists, whose knowledge and abilities were decades behind the Institute’s.

De Saint-Phalle looked across the aisle. A woman, Dr. Megan Licameli, with short, jet-black hair, was reading the same set of documents he was: Kim’s health records going back to his childhood.

“It’s in the genetics,” said de Saint-Phalle.

“What is?”

“Declination of the pancreatic mechanism. Whether it’s the trypsinogen gene or ataxia telangiectasia we won’t know until later.”

“I read it differently,” said Megan. “The primary DNA structure is decaying. Hydrolysis, oxidation, or nonenzymatic methylation. The DNA is unstable. If you look at the sequences of his parents as compared to his grandparents, there is material genetic crossover. His grandmother was related to his grandfather before they married. Then his father married his first cousin. His basic indices is falling apart. Of course he has cancer. Not to mention, he’s probably completely insane. Explain to me again, Marc, why are we going?”

De Saint-Phalle paused.

“If I had a dollar for every time I think I know what I’m going to find before I find something completely different—or nothing at all—I’d be a very rich man.”

“You are a very rich man,” said Megan. “What if you had a dollar for every time what you predicted came true? Would that pile be bigger?”

De Saint-Phalle grinned.

“Maybe,” he said.

*   *   *

The streets in Pyongyang were closed. All citizens not at work had been ordered inside for the four-hour period of time, in the middle of the day, that Kim would be traveling to the hospital.

The motorcade began at the Ryongsong Residence. Five vehicles in all: four black Range Rovers and, in the middle, a long, dark red Mercedes limousine, bulletproof, steel-plated undercarriage, a driver with a small pile of submachine guns on the side seat, despite the many layers of protection along the route and within flanking range of the limousine.

Inside the hospital, the mood was hushed as Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s supreme leader, waddled down the quiet, brightly lit sixth-floor hallway.

Other than a three-man security detail, the only individual accompanying Kim was General Pak Yong-sik.

Yong-sik was the head of the North Korean armed forces, the Korean People’s Army, or KPA. By number of soldiers, KPA was the largest military force in the world. But this was not why Yong-sik was here. Yong-sik was Kim’s most trusted confidante, the only other man in North Korea who knew something was very wrong with the thirty-five-year-old Kim. Yong-sik had served under Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il. Back then, Yong-sik had become Kim Jong-il’s closest ally and friend. Yong-sik had been appointed head of the KPA at age thirty, leapfrogging over more than a hundred more senior officers. General Yong-sik was older now but remained the second-most-powerful man in North Korea. If he’d been like a brother to Kim Jong-il, he was like a father to Kim Jong-un, who, at age thirty-five, was not only infected with cancer, but was also a chain-smoking alcoholic who snorted cocaine throughout the day and could not sleep unless he passed out.

Kim was his own worst enemy. He started smoking at age nine and drinking by eleven. He lost his virginity at age twelve to a stunning prostitute flown into Pyongyang from New York City. He attended a highly exclusive, highly secretive boarding school in Switzerland and returned home during his last year there, expelled after attempting to rape the fourteen-year-old daughter of one of the instructors at the school. Kim Jong-il’s gift to the school—to keep the story of his aberrant son out of the press—was a $50-million check.

Kim’s life had been one of moneyed debauchery mixed with the sudden acquisition of power in a country trained like dogs to believe their supreme leader was a demigod.

At the end of the long hallway, a set of double doors was closed. Outside, two of the Israeli gunmen stood at attention, each man clutching a submachine gun, trained at the ground.

Kim approached. Rather than being angry at the sight of the armed foreigners, he smiled and extended his hand.

“Welcome to North Korea,” he said in nearly flawless English, a soft accent the only giveaway that it wasn’t his first language.

“Thank you, sir,” said one of the Israelis, nodding politely and scanning Yong-sik and the three-man security detail.

The other Israeli reached for the door handle and opened it for Kim and the others in his entourage. One of the North Korean guards remained outside the doors with the Israelis while the others trailed Kim and Yong-sik inside.

The examination room was cavernous. For the purposes of the examination, the Institute’s team of medical engineers had appropriated the hospital’s largest operating room. The Institute’s equipment was set up in a horseshoe around a central operating table. The room was two stories high. A second floor opened up to a balcony filled with seats, now empty. Beeping and pinging from various machines provided a steady din.

Two more Israeli gunmen stood on opposite sides of the examination room. A third man was in the balcony amphitheater, standing and watching from above, a high-powered rifle across his chest.

The French medical team stood in the room, motionless and silent as Kim entered. They all wore uniforms that were light blue. Everyone had on surgical hats, except for the man in the middle of the group, de Saint-Phalle, who stood before the large stainless steel examination table.

De Saint-Phalle stepped toward Kim and bowed slightly, then extended his hand.

“Mr. President,” said de Saint-Phalle. “I am Marc de Saint-Phalle from Gustave Roussy. It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Kim shook de Saint-Phalle’s hand but though he wanted to smile, a nervous, distressed, even vulnerable look appeared on his face. He said nothing. He couldn’t speak. For a moment, it appeared he might break down.

“Does it hurt right now?” said de Saint-Phalle, trying to ease Kim’s fears by engaging him in a simple question.

Kim nodded, placing his right hand on the side of his torso.

“On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst pain you’ve ever felt, and one being no pain at all, how would you rate the pain?”

“Six,” said Kim. “It never goes away, except with the painkillers. Can you help me?”

“We’re here to determine what is wrong, Mr. President,” said de Saint-Phalle. “We’re doctors and researchers who’ve devoted our lives to understanding and treating all forms of cancer. At this point, we don’t even know what it is.”

“You saw the results of the blood test.”

“Yes, I did,” said de Saint-Phalle. “You have elevated platelets and white blood cells, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s cancer, sir.”

“Can you save me if it is?” whispered Kim.

De Saint-Phalle cast a glance to Yong-sik.

“If you can be saved, yes, we will save you,” said de Saint-Phalle. “But first, let’s determine what’s causing the pain in your side. Your doctors were not allowed to run the sort of tests that will be needed to diagnose what is going on. We’re going to run those tests.”

“What if it’s cancer?”

“Let’s cross that bridge if and when we get to it.”

“I want to know.”

De Saint-Phalle looked at Megan for a moment, then back to Kim.

“One of four outcomes will come from our two days of tests,” said de Saint-Phalle. “One, you don’t have cancer. We find out what the pain is and recommend a course of action. Then we fly home. Two, you have cancer and it’s treatable with various strategies and treatments available right here in Pyongyang, with our guidance from Villejuif. Three, you have cancer and it cannot be treated locally, in which case we would advise you to come to Villejuif, where we can treat it properly.”

Kim nodded.

“And what is the fourth?” said Kim.

“The last scenario is some sort of advanced inoperable cancer,” said de Saint-Phalle evenly. “But again, we don’t know anything yet, and the fact that you walked in here and are not displaying signs that would normally signal terminal cancer is a promising beginning. Now, if you will, please sit down on the examination table and point to where it hurts.”

*   *   *

By the end of the first day of tests, de Saint-Phalle and his team knew what was wrong. It didn’t take long. With each set of test results, like a sculpture forming out of a mass of rock, they honed in on a precise picture of what was wrong. They would not need a second day of tests. The results of the four biopsies were conclusive.

That it was advanced cancer of the pancreas was immediately apparent, but the biopsies performed on Kim’s liver, kidneys, and stomach showed an even more frightening discovery. The cancer was an extremely aggressive, rapidly metastasizing type of the disease that rendered any more tests unnecessary and any potential cures impossible. The team from the Institute all agreed that it was inoperable. The only thing they couldn’t agree on was how long Kim had to live. De Saint-Phalle believed Kim had, at most, a month, Megan Licameli predicted that North Korea’s leader would be dead within a week.

What de Saint-Phalle told no one was that he’d known the moment he looked into Kim’s eyes. He didn’t know what exact form the cancer would take, but he’d learned to recognize the look. He’d seen it so many times he could tell the difference; the difference between the normal, horrible worry that all patients emoted before knowing whether or not they were sick, and the spectral, indescribable chill of those poor souls who already knew they were dying, that they were almost dead.

De Saint-Phalle called Yong-sik at just after ten o’clock that evening.

“I think you should come to the hospital,” said de Saint-Phalle.

“I’ll leave right now.”

Forty-five minutes later, Yong-sik entered the operating room. De Saint-Phalle was alone. The medical equipment, brought in by the Institute, was gone, already on the plane. The rest of the medical team was back at the airport. Even the Israelis were back on board the waiting Bombardier, something Saint-Phalle insisted upon. He wanted to handle this alone.

Yong-sik was still dressed in military uniform, his chest emblazoned with colored insignia and medals. De Saint-Phalle looked at Yong-sik with a steady, emotionless stare.

“Where’s the rest of your team?” said Yong-sik.

“On the plane, General. A second day of tests won’t be necessary.”

Yong-sik paused. His hand reached for the table to steady himself.

“Tell me.”

“President Kim has inoperable cancer,” said Saint-Phalle. “It started in his pancreas and spread. It’s now in virtually every part of his body, including his bones, which is likely the reason he’s having breakthrough pain. But it’s everywhere.”

“Metastasized?” said Yong-sik.

“Correct. A very aggressive form of cancer.”

“What about radiation?” asked Yong-sik. “Chemotherapy? What about operating on him? Right now. Tonight.”

De Saint-Phalle shook his head.

“It’s too late, sir. At this point, to kill the cancer we’d have to kill Kim. No amount of radiation, drugs, or surgical procedures would be adequate. It would simply be a waste of President Kim’s final days. A painful waste, I might add. Because at the end of the day it wouldn’t work. There’s simply no way to halt the progression. I’m very sorry.”

Yong-sik looked at de Saint-Phalle for several moments. His eyes became red with emotion. He sidled up to the examination table and pulled himself onto it, sitting down.

“I’d like to inform President Kim as soon as possible,” said de Saint-Phalle.

“I will tell him.”

“It’s my responsibility as his doctor,” said de Saint-Phalle. “He’ll have questions you can’t answer.”

Yong-sik shook his head.

“Thank you for coming,” said Yong-sik, wiping his eyes and standing. He reached out and shook hands with de Saint-Phalle. “You are a good doctor, an honest man. There is only one person who can inform the supreme leader. I’ll have you driven to your plane. When you’re in the air, I will go see him. You might have armed men protecting you, but he is unpredictable. If he’s going to kill someone, it should be me.”

*   *   *

An hour later, Yong-sik stepped inside President Kim’s massive, palatial bedroom. Kim was seated in bed, beneath the covers, dressed in maroon silk pajamas. He was smoking a cigarette; the ashtray was on the duvet in the middle of the bed. A lone light was on in the room, a large glass lamp on the bedside table, and it cast a gold hue across the room. A glass of red wine was on the bedside table.

Behind Kim, on the wall, was an oil painting. It showed his father, Kim Jong-il, and Kim. In the painting, Kim was a child. He was seated on his father’s lap, a big smile on his face. His father was holding Kim’s hand in his own, a tender look on his face as he held his young son.

Yong-sik walked across the soft Oriental carpet and came to Kim’s bedside. He bowed before Kim for a few seconds, then raised his head and looked at him. Kim took a drag from his cigarette, then exhaled.

“How bad is it?” said Kim.

Yong-sik started to talk, but then became choked up.

“Come now, General, certainly it cannot be that bad?”

Yong-sik nodded. “I’m afraid it is, my leader,” he said.

Over the next few minutes, Yong-sik relayed the medical findings by the team from Gustave Roussy. Kim calmly sipped from his wineglass as he listened, then lit another cigarette. His face was blank as stone, though it was not a look of resignation or fear. It was a frightening look, a look Yong-sik recognized, when Kim wanted—needed—someone to blame, a scapegoat, a release valve for the deep, unquenchable anger that coursed through him like boiling metal. When Yong-sik was finished, he looked up at Kim. He couldn’t hide his own emotion. It wasn’t fear, but rather something only he knew, something he could never say to anyone, not even Kim. It was the sorrow of a father who suddenly understands his son is going to die.

“How dare you!” said Kim, seething. “I’m the one dying, not you!”

Yong-sik nodded.

“I … I’m sorry,” said Yong-sik quietly.

Kim took another sip of wine.

“You wanted me to go see these doctors two years ago,” said Kim, staring off into space, thinking aloud. “You were right. You’re always right, General. You were the one who told me my father died. I would never harm you. You’re the only family I have ever known. Did you know I can’t even remember what my father was like? It is only through your stories of him that I have any idea.”

“He would be very proud of you,” said Yong-sik.

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes.”

Kim put the empty wineglass down and leaned back into a big pillow. He stared again off into the darkness of the room, lost in his thoughts. His eyes abruptly cut to Yong-sik. The look had returned, as Yong-sik knew it would—the anger and resentment, the fury of a man dying, a man who believed he was immortal. His black eyes flashed slashes of hatred and rage.

“No, he wouldn’t be proud of me,” said Kim, his voice inflecting with emotion. “But he will be. If I am going to die, I will bring others with me like nobody else has. I always knew the sign would come, the reason my father built the nuclear weapons. Finally, the sign is upon me. Don’t you see?”

Yong-sik nodded, though he wasn’t sure what Kim was talking about.

“I will join my father and grandfather now,” said Kim. “If I am to die, it will not be in vain. It is time. It is time to show our enemy that death comes to us all. I will leave this earth an inferno. I will light the world on fire! I will light America in flames from the North Korean sun!”

1

LA VILLA BLEUE

SIDI BOU SAÏD

TUNISIA

NORTH AFRICA

On a small terrace outside of a hotel room on the coast of North Africa, a man stood. It was nighttime and he’d been standing in the same place for two hours. In his hand was a pair of large stainless steel, high-powered binoculars. He kept them aimed at the ocean and a large yacht moored offshore, its lights still blazing yellow despite the late hour. He could see people inside the main cabin of the $190-million yacht.

The man slid a small switch on the side of the binoculars and all colors disappeared. He’d activated the binoculars’ thermal imaging system and was now able to look at the yacht’s heat patterns. The yacht, and everything around it, went black. Near the front, a cloud of white showed the large boat’s motor as it idled. Inside the cabin, fuzzy white silhouettes appeared as if in a photo negative, as the occupants of the yacht were revealed, their bodies emitting enough heat to enable the binoculars to relay the fuzzy white carapaces. He counted eleven people on board. Several people were asleep. Some were still moving. He studied the decks of the two-hundred-foot yacht. He counted two men on the stern of the boat, a man at the bow, and one other man who was walking along the near side—the port side of the yacht.

This was the security cordon, there to guard the occupants of the yacht. It was a serious crew, all ex-military and armed to the teeth.

The man’s hair was down to his shoulders and messed up, even a little oily, as if he hadn’t bathed in a few days. In fact, it’d been more than a week since soap or shampoo touched him, though he’d swum in the ocean many times. A mess of mustache and beard covered his face, which was tanned a deep brown. He wore jeans and nothing else. His shoulders and chest were brown. He had thick shoulders and arms, ripped with muscles. On his left shoulder was a jagged, wide, thick scar. On his right bicep was a small tattoo, cut in black ink, no bigger than a dime: a lightning bolt,

Beneath the man’s left armpit was a worn, custom-made leather holster. Inside was a gun: Colt 1911. A long black polymer suppressor was threaded into the muzzle of the gun.

It was one thirty in the morning local time.

He stared for a few more moments, then put the binoculars down on a table. He picked up a glass from the table. It was half filled with bourbon.

The temperature was in the eighties, yet a stiff wind chopped from the ocean across the small town on Tunisia’s coast and it was pleasant.

He’d been in Africa for a week now, in Tunisia for three days, in Sidi Bou Saïd for eighteen hours.

He took a large sip of bourbon and stared out at the black ocean. Despite the late hour, the sky to the east held an ambient bluish black, and it made the horizon visible in eerie purple.

Below the hotel, the small tourist town of Sidi Bou Saïd spread in a meandering crosshatch of white stucco, cobblestone streets, and blue trim, inclining steeply toward the ocean’s shore. He could hear music from an outdoor café somewhere nearby, a light drumbeat mixed with sitar and a soft female voice singing in Arabic. It was a sleepy beach town, peaceful, off the beaten track, out of the way. Everything about the little town was idyllic.

Except on this particular terrace. For here, quiet was juxtaposed to the anger in the man’s eyes—two eyes of steel blue that looked cold, alert, and vicious. They were eyes that hinted at violence.

Operational.

Then he saw her. Was it the alcohol? She was on the terrace, to his right. Her brown hair was being blown by the wind. She was looking at him, pleading with him, reaching her hand out. …

Holly.

He shook his head, trying to push her away, clutching the glass and taking another sip, a sip he didn’t want. But as hard as he fought, he couldn’t stop looking back at her—at the mirage, the memory, of his wife, taken from him more than a decade before by a bullet.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as tears coursed down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. You have to believe me.…” His whisper trailed off as a gust from the Mediterranean sent his hair awry, tousling it in a sudden breeze.

Dewey Andreas took another large sip of bourbon, draining the glass. He leaned over and poured more bourbon into the glass, then lifted it to his lips and took another big sip. He removed a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket and lit one.

It had been two months now since Dewey learned the truth.

The truth.

That his wife hadn’t killed herself. That they’d killed her and made it look like a suicide. A military unit where spouses were forbidden, an elite, highly secret squad of operators culled exclusively from Delta and Navy SEALs, brainchild of the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who wanted a covert kill team deployable on American soil, outside the bounds of the law. But nothing had gone as planned. He’d been charged with Holly’s murder and by the time the jury acquitted him, the unit’s recruiters had moved on, leaving Dewey to pick up the pieces of his shattered life without the woman he loved. He was kicked out of the military a day after his acquittal. A military, a country, he’d risked his life for. Like Holly, gone with the wind, gone forever.

All of it was visited on him like a ferocious lightning strike from a clear sky, the bolt hitting with such force it should have killed him. But it didn’t. Instead, it hardened him, hardened what was already the hardest of American tough. Dewey had learned to accept his fate. Had learned to accept Holly’s suicide. He fled America for the U.K., taking a job on an offshore oil platform in the North Sea, delivered by helicopter to the rig in the middle of a brutal winter storm. It was there—on that rig, then another, and still others, off the coast of Africa, Europe, and South America—that Dewey had healed. Or, perhaps more accurately, where Dewey had sealed off and destroyed every part of him capable of feeling. Working as a roughneck had not just provided an escape—it had hardened him, even beyond what the American military was capable of, for it was offshore where the only law that mattered was the law of the jungle. It was offshore where Dewey Andreas learned what an animal he could be, what an animal he was.

And then, Dewey had returned to the fold. He’d been reeled back into the government that betrayed him. A cell of Islamic terrorists had targeted America—their first target the massive oil platform Dewey was gang chief on. Despite the way he’d been treated, Dewey risked his life to fight them. As much as he hated the government that kicked him out, that falsely accused him of murdering the woman he loved, he still loved the United States of America. He was American. Nothing could strip the red, white, and blue from his heart.

After returning, Dewey found people inside the government he trusted. The U.S. government, in turn, found Dewey to be its most formidable weapon. Since returning to stop the attack on America, Dewey had led a coup in Pakistan, and stolen Iran’s only nuclear device hours before it was to be detonated in Tel Aviv. He’d stopped a cell of ISIS terrorists who’d taken over a dormitory at Columbia University. He stopped an assassination attempt on the president of the United States.

But it was that last act—stopping Charles Bruner from killing President Dellenbaugh—that changed everything, for it was Bruner who wanted to recruit him a decade before. It was Bruner who’d ordered Holly’s murder.

Murder.

He shut his eyes, holding back tears. He clenched his fist and slammed it into the railing at the side of the terrace. Too hard. He looked down, unclenching his fist. He hadn’t broken anything, but blood coursed from the knuckle.

He took another sip.

Everything Dewey thought he knew was an illusion. The death he’d spent a decade getting over was an illusion. They’d come for him and murdered her. Murdered her just so he could serve in their secretive unit unencumbered by family.

“Why the hell do you think I would’ve gone with you? Fuck you,” he whispered.

It was the same question he’d been asking himself for weeks, for months.

I’d never join you. I would never have joined you, you arrogant son of a bitch.

Dewey had killed the man behind it all, Charles Bruner, but it did little to assuage his anger, his hatred, and his guilt. He’d gotten Holly murdered. Not intentionally, but he was the one they wanted and he was the reason the unit’s henchman had jammed his service pistol into Holly’s mouth and blown off the back of her head. Now all he could feel was anger—a dark, cruel, hate-filled anger that was growing by the hour.

In four months, Dewey had done little except look for the one man remaining. It had become his singular obsession. To the exclusion of friends, job, family, Daisy. A year ago, he imagined marrying Daisy. Now, he couldn’t talk to her, so deep was the guilt that occupied his troubled mind. Someday he’d explain to her why he never returned her calls, why he didn’t answer the door when she came looking. But not this day. This day was for Holly.

He took another sip of bourbon, then took a deep drag on the cigarette, casually scanning the cobblestone streets that ran below the slightly dilapidated hotel, then the ocean, once again eyeing the yacht moored at the far edge of the small harbor.

“I’m coming for you,” he whispered as he stared out at the yellow dot.

He took one last puff of the cigarette then flicked it from the terrace. He pushed his hand back through his hair. He watched as a young couple walked in a slightly inebriated zigzag down the cobblestones, the woman laughing at something the man said. He looked back at the yacht. Suddenly, the lights disappeared. He picked up the binoculars and scanned the boat again. Except for a low glow from the running lights along the gunnels of the boat, all other lights were off. He flipped on thermal. Again, he counted the bodies of people inside the boat, all apparently at rest. He counted two gunmen who remained on the deck of the boat, standing guard despite the darkness.

It’s time.

Dewey slammed down the rest of the bourbon then turned and entered the darkened hotel room. His eyes caught the visitor seated on the sofa in the same moment he flipped on the lights. Dewey ripped the gun from beneath his left armpit and swept it toward the figure.

“Don’t shoot,” said Tacoma, raising his hands and staring calmly at Dewey.

Tacoma was leaning back, both feet on the table. He wore a pair of bright white slides. He held a beer in his hand. He looked casually up at Dewey.

Dewey held Tacoma in the firing line of the suppressor for an extra second, then stuffed the gun back inside the holster.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said Tacoma, taking a sip of beer. “It was in the fridge. I had another one too.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” said Dewey as he moved to the credenza and placed his glass down.

“I’m here to stop you before you do something stupid,” said Tacoma.

“It’s too late,” said Dewey. “Who sent you? Hector?”

“I came on my own,” said Tacoma. “But they know you’re here.”

“Who?”

“Langley. I … well, I sort of read something on Hector’s desk.”

Dewey shot Tacoma a look.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“There’s a RECON team coming to get you,” said Tacoma. “There’s three of them in the lobby. They’re waiting for you to walk out. Probably dart you up with some tizanidine and fly you home.”

Dewey found the bottle of bourbon on the counter and poured half a glass.

“I thought you said you came alone?”

“I did. I knew they were sending in a team. I beat them here,” said Tacoma, grinning.

“What do you want, a medal? Why should I believe you?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” said Tacoma. “Even though you’re an un-grateful asshole.”

Dewey ignored the taunt. He looked at Tacoma.

“Do they know you’re here?” said Dewey.

“I don’t think so,” said Tacoma. “I have a car a few blocks away and a plane waiting at the airport. We should probably get going—we’ll need to go out through the service entrance.”

Dewey put the glass down and looked at Tacoma with a perplexed expression.

“Rob,” said Dewey sharply. “I’m not leaving.”

Dewey walked to the closet and removed a large duffel bag.

“If Langley can find you, so can whoever you came here to kill,” said Tacoma, pointing to the ocean. “Whoever’s on that fucking yacht. Have you considered that?”

Dewey carried the duffel to the middle of the room and set it down on the coffee table in front of Tacoma, pushing his feet off to accommodate the bag.

“How did Langley know I was here?” he asked, unzipping the bag.

“You set off a tracker a week ago,” said Tacoma, “when you walked into Dulles. Then you popped the grid at Heathrow, but the tracker didn’t go blue, so they know you connected. They pushed every known alias against the X6 framework. You popped the grid again in Tangiers under the name Dane Walker. Three days ago you flashed again when you entered Tunisia.”

“Impressive,” said Dewey casually as he rifled through his duffel bag and removed several items and placed them on the credenza: explosives; a set of advanced, waterproof night optics called “four-quads”; a SIG P221 with a suppressor already threaded into the muzzle; extra magazines; and a white nylon shoulder holster. He took the .45 from beneath his armpit and set it down, not looking at Tacoma, who sat down.

“Who are you here for, Dewey?”

Dewey removed a tactical wet suit from the duffel bag—short-sleeved, mid-thigh, with several airtight pockets.

“Unless you want to see my ass, you might want to look away,” said Dewey.

He took off his clothing and quickly pulled the wet suit on. He started stuffing the airtight pockets with guns, ammo, and explosives. Finally, he walked to the credenza and bolted down the remaining quarter glass of bourbon.

Dewey continued to stare blankly at Tacoma, picking up one of the guns and sticking it into an airtight pocket on his right thigh.

“What do you want me to tell you, Rob? How I found out my wife didn’t commit suicide and someone in fact murdered her? How I’m going to go put a bullet in one of the motherfuckers behind it? Is that what you’re wondering? Because that’s what I’m doing. And anyone who stands in my way is going to die.”

Tacoma leaned back. He was silent for several moments.

“So that’s what this is about?” Tacoma said.

“Yeah, that’s what this is about. I’m going to install some air-conditioning in Peter Flaherty’s skull.”

“It won’t bring Holly back.”

“No shit,” said Dewey, continuing to prepare.

“So you found Flaherty?”

Dewey shot him a look.

“There’s a Tier One kill order on him,” said Tacoma. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to kill him. This is the wrong way.”

“There’s no wrong way,” said Dewey. “Flaherty killed my wife. He staged her suicide then put my gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.”

“Do you know the operating environment?” said Tacoma. “How many men he has? Electronic surveillance, trip wires? Let JSOC send in a team of SEALs.”

“No way. JSOC was who let Flaherty escape from Guantánamo in the first place. I’ll take my chances.”

Dewey reached into the duffel and removed two small cubes, one orange-colored, the other gray, each the size of a pack of cigarettes, along with a black object the size and shape of a AA battery. He put them in a third airtight pocket on the side of his left thigh then zipped it tight.

“You need sanction before you go out and just put a bullet in someone, otherwise you lose any sort of protection they can provide,” said Tacoma.

“Bullets,” said Dewey.

“What?”

“Bullets, plural. You said before I put a bullet in someone. I’m putting bullets in someone, plural, as many as I can.”

He stuck the other gun in the airtight pocket and zipped it up.

“I’m going to stick a gun in his mouth and blow the back of his fucking head off.”

Quickly, Dewey pulled on his jeans and a windbreaker. He pulled a thin backpack over his shoulders.

Dewey moved toward the door, but Tacoma intercepted him, standing in the way.

“Excuse me,” Dewey said. But Tacoma didn’t budge.

“Five minutes,” said Tacoma.

“Why?”

“You’re not right right now,” said Tacoma. “You know it and I know it. You’re pissed off. I don’t blame you. I’d be pissed off too. But this isn’t the way to deal with it. You’re going to get killed. For chrissakes, you smell like a bourbon factory.”

“It’s the way I deal with it,” said Dewey.

“It won’t bring Holly back.”

“I’m not doing this to bring her back. I’m doing it because there’s a man on a boat who was one of the ones who killed her and he doesn’t deserve to live. It’s about justice. I’d rather die than live with myself if I didn’t do this. If they kill me, I went out doing what I wanted to do.”

“I get it,” said Tacoma, pausing. “At least let me come with you.”

“No,” said Dewey. “I need to do this myself.”

Dewey stepped to the duffel bag. He took out a large coil of rope. He went out to the terrace and tied the end of the rope around the railing.

“Don’t wait up.”

He climbed onto the railing—then disappeared.

2

SIDI BOU SAÏD

TUNISIA

Dewey rappelled down the side of the hotel in silence, dropping onto a cobblestone lane that was well lit but empty. He walked quickly away from the hotel, favoring the shadows near the low-flung homes and shops closed for the night, a thin backpack over his shoulder.

He cut right, down a thin alley only a few feet wide, passing blue shutters that were latched shut, always moving downhill in the direction of the water. After several more turns, he came to the end of a small street and was across from the water.

He came to the end of a small alley. He was across from the ocean.

A long, sandy beach ran across the waterfront. It was deserted, empty, and dark, with tall wooden lifeguard stations every hundred feet. The area just in front of the beach was cordoned off for swimmers. Beyond, the waters were dotted with small fishing scows, motorboats, and a few sailboats. Looming behind them were a half-dozen larger yachts, moored off the beautiful coastal village. One in particular stood out: a long white yacht at least two hundred feet in length, beyond the rest of the boats.

A pair of jetties stuck out from the shore to the left.

Dewey moved past shops and restaurants, skulking in the shadows until he came to the beach. In darkness, Dewey removed the backpack, windbreaker, and then his shoes and pants. Beneath, he had on a short-sleeved tactical wet suit that came down to the middle of his thighs. He pulled on a set of waterproof four-quads, night-vision optics, pulling them down over his head and leaving them dangling around his neck. He retrieved a pair of flippers from the backpack and walked to water’s edge, pulling them on, then dived silently into the water.

Dewey swam sidestroke to his right, keeping his head above water, weaving through the various boats that were moored close to shore. His quiet swim took twenty minutes until finally he passed the last line of moorings. He kept going, paddling quietly out into the dark waters way beyond all the boats.

In front of him, several hundred feet away, he could see the transom of the massive yacht. A few dim lights were visible, shining a wan yellow onto the façade of the yacht where its name was painted in fanciful script. He was too far away to read it. He pulled the four-quads up over his eyes and flipped them on so he could see better.

ЗАКОН ДЖУНΓЛЕЙ was painted on the back of the boat. Roughly translated, it meant “law of the jungle.”

Dewey scanned the yacht with the four-quads in normal mode, the same as a set of high-powered binoculars. He saw no one. He flipped the four-quads into thermal mode. Where before he’d seen only blackness, he now saw two white skeletons on deck, moving in military-like fashion along the port side of the yacht, looking for intruders.

Dewey kept swimming until he was several hundred feet out beyond the yacht. Then he turned, cutting left, aiming for an area far past the yacht on its starboard side, the furthest and thus darkest side of the boat. He needed to be out beyond the watchful eyes of whatever guards were patrolling the deck.

After ten minutes of silent swimming, he arrived at a point approximately a hundred feet out beyond the large yacht. He reached to a pocket on the chest of the wet suit and removed a small silver canister the size of a cigar. This was a ditch pipe, designed to give its user a few blasts of oxygen beneath the water.

Dewey dived down and swam beneath the water toward the yacht, kicking his feet furiously. He moved beneath the water until he was able to see the white of the hull. Instead of surfacing for air, he kept swimming, putting the ditch pipe in his mouth and pressing the end. A large burst of oxygen filled his mouth and lungs. He kept moving until he was directly below the boat. He let himself float up toward the hull, taking one last kick of oxygen then letting the device drop and sink as his hands found the fiberglass of the hull. He brought himself slowly up the curve of the hull along the starboard side of the boat until finally he breached the surface, quietly catching his breath.

Dewey treaded water a few inches out from the hull. He pulled the four-quads up from his neck and left them wrapped across his forehead.

The yacht’s gunnel ran a few feet above the waterline. Small red lights dotted the gunnel every ten feet or so. Above that was a shiny brass railing. A long line of porthole windows reflected above the waterline, each one dark except one to the far right, near the bow, which glowed a dull yellow.

Reaching up and grabbing the railing was out of the question—it would make too much noise.

Dewey pulled the optics down over his eyes and scanned along the railing, looking for gunmen. He didn’t see anyone. He treaded gently back to the hull, placing his hands against the smooth fiber-glass, cloaking himself beneath it, then inched his way toward the stern of the yacht. Suddenly, he heard a voice. It was a man’s voice—deep and staccato, the words Russian. He sounded as if he was just above him. A muted response came from the far side of the boat. The other gunman, also speaking Russian.

Dewey took a deep breath and slipped silently beneath the water. He pushed his hands against the hull to create leverage, enabling him to move lower and lower beneath the boat. When he was deep enough to kick, he pushed one last time and aimed toward the sea floor, swimming underneath the hull of the boat, which loomed a spectral white above him. When he came to the stern, he stopped kicking and let himself drift up to the surface. He reached his hand out as he arose, grabbing the corner of the yacht. A stainless steel ladder for swimming jutted down beneath the waterline. He held it for a few moments and then moved around to the front of the ladder. He held himself below the waterline, trying to look up through the water. But as he was about to surface he saw a dark figure—one of the gunmen—moving slowly along the stern of the boat. Dewey waited, still holding his breath, watching as the man moved lackadaisically back and forth. He could make out the outline of a rifle in his hands, black steel catching a glint of what little light emanated from the yacht’s running lights. The gunman seemed to pause for a few moments. Dewey felt his lungs tighten. When, finally, the gunman didn’t move, Dewey had no choice. He clutched the ladder and let his nose and mouth surface for the briefest of moments, exhaling quietly, taking a breath, then submerging again.

For the next fifteen minutes, the pattern repeated itself as the gunman remained poised along the stern of the ship. Had the man heard something? Finally, Dewey watched as he moved to the left and walked along the port deck away from the stern.

Dewey climbed silently up the ladder and crawled onto a low, flat teak swimming platform. He removed his fins and scanned quickly, seeing no one. Dewey unzipped one of the airtight pockets on the wet suit, removing the pistol. He chambered a round then pushed the safety off. He screwed in the suppressor. He remained on one knee, crouching on the swim platform.

The yacht was two stories high, not to mention whatever lay below the waterline. On the roof, the spiny outline of a helicopter could be seen.

A short set of stairs led from the swimming platform to the deck, where lounge chairs and tables were neatly arrayed beneath a white sailcloth canopy. Beyond was a door.

He heard footsteps and then saw the light to the left suddenly shift as one of the gunmen approached. Still kneeling, Dewey swept the gun left just as the gunman came into view. The man’s eyes registered Dewey just as Dewey pumped the trigger. A dull thud mixed with the sound of the ocean. The bullet struck the gunman in the left eye, kicking him backwards. He grunted as he fell to the deck. Dewey charged up the stairs to the deck and cut right, along the starboard side of the boat, running barefoot along the thin wood gunnel. He heard a shout from the back of the yacht just as he reached an opening beneath the sailcloth canopy and cut left, charging across the deck to the port side of the boat, hoping to take the other thug by surprise. But just as he came to the far edge of the yacht he caught the faint sound of a boot hitting against a hard surface behind him. Dewey stopped, pivoted, and dropped to his chest just as the second gunman emerged from the opening Dewey had just come through. Dewey fired, two silenced bullets, a dull, metallic thwack thwack followed by a heaving groan as the bullets struck the man in the chest, cutting him down and dropping him over the side of the boat, where he made a dull splash.

Dewey moved to the door and stepped inside the yacht. All the lights were extinguished except for a lamp in the corner. Dewey went to it and turned it off. He pulled the four-quads down over his eyes and flipped them on, flaming the night optics. Suddenly, the yacht’s interior was illuminated in eerie, apocalyptic orange.

He stepped through the room, a dining room with a massive round table in the middle. He clutched his weapon in his right hand as he stepped around the table, dripping water as he made his way deeper into the yacht.

Beyond the dining room was a large kitchen. A stairwell in the corner led to the second floor. He ascended quietly and stepped into a long, darkened hallway, guided only by the four-quads.

He counted seven stateroom doors in all, three on each side and one at the end of the hallway.

Dewey unzipped the pocket on his left thigh, removing the two cubes of SEMTEX.

He took out the detonator-small and black. Each side of it was adorned with a button—one orange, one gray.

Dewey took one of the explosives and peeled off the adhesive covering the back, then knelt and stuck it against the wall just a few feet into the hallway. He moved down the hallway to the last door on the right. Dewey paused outside the door. Gently, he jiggled the door handle. It was locked. He unzipped a pocket on the right thigh of his wet suit and removed a pick gun, then stuck it against the small keyhole and pressed the trigger. The device, designed to pick all manner of locks, made a low humming noise. He watched impatiently for several seconds, precious moments, expecting to hear the lock turn. Instead, the pick gun continued a low grinding hum and then abruptly stopped.

Dewey heard a voice coming from somewhere outside, and then another. Someone was yelling out on the deck.

Someone had discovered the first guard’s body.

Quickly, Dewey took the other explosive and peeled off the plastic covering the back. He reached out and stuck the device on the door.

A second later, a shrill alarm pierced the corridor. Bright red strobe lights started flashing, flooding the corridor with light.

Dewey walked back toward the entrance to the hallway, not too fast. He removed the four-quads and dropped them on the ground, then unzipped a pocket beneath his right armpit. He removed a second handgun—SIG P226. He spread his arms, training the gun in his left hand on the entrance to the hallway and the weapon in his right hand in the opposite direction—back down the hallway toward the two bedroom doors. The detonator was in his right hand, along with the butt of the P226.

He heard footsteps on the staircase to his left just as the door at the end of the hall to his right opened and a large, bald man emerged, a pistol in his hand. He aimed at Dewey, even as Dewey held him in the firing line of the P226.

A second later, a frantic gunman entered the hallway, clutching a submachine gun and training it on Dewey. He was joined by a second man, who also held a submachine gun. The two men flanked the entrance to the hallway.

Dewey was hemmed in.

Dewey stood approximately halfway down the hallway, arms spread, one gun aimed at the Russian, the other at the gunmen.

“Turn off the fucking alarm!” barked the Russian.

A moment later, the hallway went silent. The red strobes continued to flash. No one moved.

“I’m not here for you,” said Dewey, turning and glancing at the oligarch. “I’m here for Flaherty.”

“Do you have any idea who the fuck I am–”

“No, and I don’t care,” said Dewey. “I’m here for Flaherty. Tell your men to lower their guns.”

“Fuck you!”

Dewey triggered both guns, one after the other, the one in his left hand twice. Three dull metallic thuds—spit spit spit—echoed in the corridor. Both gunmen at the head of the hallway were hit by bullets, the man on the right in the forehead, the other in the mouth, both falling backwards. In the same moment, the oligarch let out a pained grunt, the lone bullet fired in his direction striking him in the right shoulder. He dropped to the ground, his handgun falling from his grip.

Dewey checked to make sure the guards weren’t moving, then glanced at the Russian.

“I didn’t kill you,” said Dewey, “and I won’t kill you if you cooperate. Where’s the key to Flaherty’s room?”

The oligarch’s face was beet red. He clutched his right shoulder. Blood seeped out over his fingers.

“What did he do?”

“He killed my wife. Now where’s the key?”

Dewey heard the metallic friction from behind him—the slat action of someone chambering a round.

“Drop the gun,” came a voice from behind him.

It was an American, a voice Dewey recognized. Dewey didn’t know Flaherty’s voice, but he knew this man’s. A voice from his past. Nasally and vicious.

“I said drop it,” the man repeated.

Dewey turned his head. The man was thin, dressed in a silk bath-robe, glasses on. He held a handgun which was aimed at Dewey’s back.

“Gant,” said Dewey.

Josh Gant, the former CIA deputy director, a traitor who’d tried but failed to have Hector Calibrisi—and Dewey—murdered.

“Very good,” said Gant. “Now drop the guns, both of them.”

Dewey lowered both his arms and placed the weapons on the ground. The oligarch grabbed his own weapon from the ground with his left hand.

“Your timing is impeccable, Josh,” said the Russian, who stood and aimed the gun at Dewey.

“With your permission, Constantin,” said Gant, “I’d like to be the one to kill him.”

Dewey watched the oligarch’s face. He nodded, staring hatefully at Dewey as blood poured down from his shoulder.

“By all means,” said the oligarch. “You just saved my life.”

Dewey turned to face Gant. In his hand, Dewey still held the detonator, and he cupped his hand, shielding it from view. Gant trained the gun on Dewey. Gant looked nervous. His eyes fixated on one of the submachine guns. A maniacal smile crept across his lips. He kept the pistol aimed at Dewey as he slowly knelt down and picked up the MP7. He left the handgun on the ground and slowly stood up.

Dewey knew Peter Flaherty had taken refuge in the employ of the oligarch, but Josh Gant was a surprise. Gant had once been the CIA’s youngest deputy director in history. But like Flaherty, Gant had chosen a treacherous path, attempting to kill Hector Calibrisi, the director of the CIA, and take over the Agency. Dewey had traveled half a world away to hunt down Flaherty. Before tonight, he wouldn’t have traveled a hundred yards to kill Gant—but now that he had the chance, well, why not?

“Any last words, Dewey?” said Gant as he aimed the submachine gun at Dewey’s head.

“Yes,” said Dewey, his eyes pivoting between Gant, the muzzle of the submachine gun, and the Russian behind him. “I want to apologize, Josh.”

Gant laughed—a humorless cackle.

“For getting me removed from Langley?” said Gant angrily. “Exiled? Arrest warrants issued by twenty-seven different countries? Is that why you want to apologize to me, Dewey?”

“No,” said Dewey. “For this.”

He clenched his fist, depressing both buttons on the detonator—and the air was abruptly pulverized. The explosions ripped the air at both ends of the corridor in a fiery burst of dust and fire. The ground shook. The noise was deafening.

Gant was just a few feet from the device when the bomb behind him detonated. He was blown hard and sideways, the bomb eviscerating his legs, tearing one off at the knee, along with part of his torso and arm. He flew into the wall and down. He screamed in agony, a bloodcurdling cry.

Dewey picked up the Colt from the ground. He walked toward the end of the hallway. The Russian oligarch was facedown against the wall, dead, part of his back cratered away by the explosion. Blood was everywhere. The door to the suite next to the oligarch’s was off its hinges, kicked inward. Dewey came to the opening and waited a brief moment, then—with the weapon extended in front of him—entered, firing. A loud scream followed one of the shots. Dewey stopped firing. He saw Flaherty on the ground. His neck was bleeding badly. The bullet had struck him dead center in the larynx.

Dewey stepped over Flaherty, a leg on each side of him. He trained his gun on Flaherty’s head. A light by the bed cast a low yellow hue in the room.

Flaherty struggled to breathe. Both of his hands clutched his throat, as if he could prevent what was happening.

“That was for killing my wife,” said Dewey.

“I didn’t kill her,” he coughed. “Kyrie did.”

“Anyone who had anything to do with that program killed her.”

“We were taking orders.”

“Oh,” said Dewey. “I didn’t know. In that case, let me get a doctor.”

Dewey lowered the gun away from Flaherty’s head, then triggered it. The bullet ripped into Flaherty’s thigh. Flaherty’s eyes went wide in the same moment he let out a horrific scream.

“You know, if you had just said I’m sorry I might’ve let you live,” said Dewey. He fired again, sending a bullet into Flaherty’s chest, killing him. “Actually, that’s not true.”

Dewey walked down the hallway, finding the P226 and sticking it back in one of the watertight pockets on the wet suit. He came to Gant, who was on the ground, his eyes open, dead. Dewey triggered the gun once, twice, three times, three point-blank shots in the center of Gant’s chest.

He moved quickly down the hallway, charging down the stairs and through the kitchen and dining room. He found his fins on the swim platform and pulled them on, then put the other gun in one of the airtight pockets. He glanced one last time at the massive yacht, then dived silently into the warm water.

3

PUNGGYE-RI, NORTH KOREA

The town of Punggye-ri spread out over more than fifty square miles. Despite its vast size, Punggye-ri had precisely zero inhabitants.

A long, winding dirt road cut through an area at Punggye-ri’s eastern border. The land in this part of the town was barren and flat. What little vegetation there was consisted of a few patches of scraggly looking scrub brush. Because of this, the small building at the end of the winding dirt road could be seen—on a clear day—from miles away. This was no accident.

The building was the control tower.

It was a simple, windowless structure, constructed of corrugated steel. It stood ten and a half feet tall and had a flat roof, on top of which were several large antennas. Other than a small parking area, which was empty, the control tower was the only man-made object in any direction for several miles—at least, the only man-made object aboveground. Exactly four hundred feet from the control tower was a small mound of dirt that arose a few inches in the air. This mound of dirt marked what had been the opening to a tunnel that was now plugged with sand, gypsum, and gravel. The tunnel was 772 meters deep. About halfway down the tunnel, a lead-lined canister held diagnostic equipment.

At the bottom of the tunnel sat a thirteen-kiloton nuclear bomb.

The control tower was surrounded by four massive but shallow craters in the ground, each several hundred feet in diameter. The craters memorialized the locations of North Korea’s four previous nuclear tests.

Six kilometers away stood another building. This was the surface control bunker. Like the control tower, it was off on its own, at the end of a dirt road. The surface control bunker was made of concrete and had three large windows that faced the control tower in the distance. Inside, there was one room—a large observation and management area filled with tables, computers, diagnostic equipment, and more than a dozen high-powered cameras. Several dozen people stood behind the window, each with a set of binoculars, watching the control tower in the distance.

Dr. Yung Phann-il, the man responsible for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, removed the binoculars from his eyes. He looked at a young engineer who was seated before a control screen. Phann-il nodded to the man.

“You have my permission to proceed,” said Phann-il.

“Yes, sir,” said the engineer.

The young man reached forward and lifted a small metal compartment. Beneath was a red switch. He waited one extra moment, glanced at a digital clock on the screen in front of him, then flipped the switch.

“Ground zero in five, four, three, two, one…”

Boom.

It was less of a sound than a bump beneath them, followed by a weak tremor that grew stronger and stronger. In the distance, the air near the control tower went dust-filled and wavy. Everything inside the bunker shook and rattled. After just more than twenty seconds, everything stopped.

The entire room full of scientists, engineers, and military officials looked at Phann-il. His face was as blank as stone—and then it flashed into a wide smile.

“Success!” he yelled … and the room broke into a chorus of cheers.

4

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

RESTON, VIRGINIA

Less than ten seconds later, half a world away, Martha Cohen was taking a sip of coffee when she suddenly heard the soft, high-pitched sound of beeping coming from one of her computers. With her free hand, she hit her keyboard, entering into one of the applications she used to monitor geologic activity. Brown, an analyst at the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia, stared at her screen as it flashed red. Earthquake. Another few keystrokes revealed a map. In seconds, Brown’s view zoomed in to a place she’d seen before, a place that, according to her equipment, had just had an earthquake. But like the previous four, Brown knew it wasn’t an earthquake.

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

She lunged for her phone and hit number 4 on her speed dial. There were a few clicks but no ring, then a stern female voice.

“Office of the national security advisor,” came the voice.

“This is Dr. Martha Cohen at USGS. I need Mr. Brubaker immediately. This is an emergency priority.”

“He’ll ask—”

“North Korea just conducted another nuclear test,” interrupted Brown. “It’s early, but I assess between twenty and twenty-three kilotons.”

“How long ago?”

“Less than a minute.”

5

OVAL OFFICE

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

President J. P. Dellenbaugh sat behind his desk inside the Oval Office. The meeting had been going on for thirty minutes.

In addition to Dellenbaugh, there were ten people in the room. They included the president’s national security advisor, Josh Brubaker; Secretary of Defense Dale Arnold; chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Phil Tralies; the NSA director, Piper Redgrave; Secretary of Energy Marshall Terry; Secretary of State Mila Mijailovic; and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Hector Calibrisi. Several other White House, CIA, and Pentagon staffers were also present.

Dellenbaugh had already spoken with the president of South Korea, the president of Japan, and the premier of the People’s Republic of China.

Dellenbaugh’s sleeves were rolled up, his tie loosened. He was looking at Brubaker, who was briefing the group on the explosion.

“USGS has it at twenty point four kilotons,” said Brubaker. “That’s more than twice as powerful as North Korea’s last test.”

“What are they after?” said Dellenbaugh.

“Money,” said Mijailovic, the secretary of state. “They conduct a test whenever they’re running low.”

“It’s more than that,” said Brubaker. “Kim is insane,” he added, referring to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. “Analysis of Pyongyang cash flows through various currency markets indicates nothing at a critical point. Yes, the country is destitute—but they have cash.”

Dellenbaugh looked at Calibrisi.

“This has gone on far too long, Hector,” said Dellenbaugh. “They have nuclear weapons. It’s only a matter of time until they figure out how to build an ICBM.” He looked at Brubaker. “Josh, if you’re right, if Kim is motivated not by greed but by insanity, then God help us.”

“So let’s do some nuclear testing of our own,” said King, the hotheaded Irish chief of staff. “We can start with downtown Pyongyang.”

Dellenbaugh cast a hard set of eyes on King. “That’s not productive.”

“It wasn’t meant to be, sir. Until now, Kim Jong-un has been all talk. But no more. We can’t allow that to happen. A preemptive strike has to be on the table.”

“You heard the Chinese premier,” said the secretary of defense. “If we attack North Korea, Xi will consider it a declaration of war on China. Trust me, that’s a war we don’t want to fight right now. Attacking is not an option.”

“Everything is an option,” said Dellenbaugh brutally.

Brubaker looked at Calibrisi.

“Why the hell haven’t you guys done anything?” seethed Brubaker.

“You think we haven’t tried?” said Calibrisi. “We have three agents rotting away in North Korean prisons and seven dead. Read your briefs, Josh.”

There was a long silence. It was Dellenbaugh who spoke. He looked at the secretary of defense.

“I want three military options,” said Dellenbaugh. “I want one of them to include tactical nuclear weapons. Coordinate with the secretary of state. Any military action will need to be heavily preempted in Beijing and Tokyo.”

“And Moscow,” said Mijailovic, the secretary of state.

Dellenbaugh looked at Calibrisi.

“You have a week, Hector.”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know,” said Dellenbaugh. “Something that hurts. Something that gets us closer to stopping Kim.”

6

MI6 HEADQUARTERS

THE RIVER HOUSE

LONDON

Jenna Hartford was leaning back in her chair. On her desk were several pieces of paper, laid out in a row. They contained the details of an operation she had designed.

Different intelligence services are good at different things. MI6 was the world standard-bearer in terms of covert operation design.

A middle-aged woman named Veronica Smythson was MI6’s director general of operations design, but it was Jenna who was the small department’s star. In three years at MI6, she had risen on the strength of her bold, often theatrical operations. Jenna had designed the complicated, brilliant operation to kill Fao Bhang, head of Chinese intelligence. She was also the chief architect of an operation to expose a pair of moles inside MI6 who’d been selling secrets to the Russian government.

The operation in front of her was a simpler affair. MI6 was attempting to recruit a Saudi attorney who acted as a courier between Hezbollah and ISIS. The agent handling the recruitment believed the Saudi was now having second thoughts. Jenna’s operation was originally supposed to be a simple snatch-and-grab. It wasn’t that simple after all. Jenna had spent the night before analyzing various electronic data surrounding the Saudi. She was convinced he’d long since abandoned the idea of running to England. He was escaping—and somehow knew MI6 was coming.

Despite spending all night designing the now somewhat complicated operation, Jenna wasn’t reviewing it. Instead, she was reading, for the hundredth time, the forensic analysis of her husband’s murder. Each time, the report made her heart ache as she thought of Charles in the very moment the bomb went off. It was as if she needed the pain to make her feel less guilty. Of all the professions she could have chosen, why did she choose intelligence work? And why had she let Charles borrow her car that morning? For six long months now, the questions kept occurring and reoccurring in her head as she thought about the sight of the flames and fire on the street below the window of their flat—and her husband incinerated within.

She studied the summary:

TOP SECRET

MI6 CODE

77.c.5Tx

WITH MI5 SPECIAL UNIT

AFTER ACTION INVESTIGATION AND ANALYSIS:

CHELTENHAM BOMBING—4-APRIL

[NOTE: INVESTIGATION IS ACTIVE]

SUMMARY: Until further evidence is developed, the preliminary conclusion of the committee to investigate the events of April 4 at Cheltenham Mews is inconclusive. The explosive used was SEMTEX. Analysis of residue implicates a Philippines manufacturer whose product is widely available throughout the world. Analysis of CCT video is also inconclusive. The investigation is, per order of DG Chalmers, to be kept active and focused on individual motives related to F6-2 Hartford, whose previous actions may have motivated the event.

*   *   *

Why me? she thought to herself as she stared at the top sheet. Fucking, why? She put her hand to her eyes and rubbed them, slowly shaking her head back and forth.

The door to Jenna’s office suddenly opened. A young black man in a dark sweater put his head inside. It was her assistant, Jonas.

“Jenna, the briefing?” he said. He said it scoldingly, but with a tender smile on his face.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. She glanced at the clock on her desk. She stood up, placing the file down.

She had on a pair of tan linen pants and a sleeveless Burberry blouse. Both were wrinkled. The blouse was untucked.

Jonas scanned her up and down and shook his head. He stepped inside and shut the door. He walked toward her.

“Your hair is a mess,” he said. “Did you sleep here again?”

“No,” she said, lying.

“You’re a bad liar. You were wearing that same outfit yesterday. Where’s your brush?”

“I don’t have a fucking brush,” she said, her British accent sharp and precise. “Who cares anyway?”

“I do,” he said.

Jonas stood in front of Jenna and reached forward with both hands, running them through her hair from front to back several times, trying to straighten it out.

“There,” he said.

He pulled his sweater off and handed it to her.

“Put this on. We’re the same size. It’s Paul and Shark. It’s unisex.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Jenna. She pulled the sweater down over the blouse. It fit well.

“Brilliant,” said Jonas. “Now get going.”

Jenna started to walk to the door.

“Wait,” he said. He reached to her desk and grabbed the operation design. “Might be a good idea to bring this.”

Jenna took it from him and looked briefly in his eyes, saying nothing. She walked to the door and stepped out.

*   *   *

Inside the operations briefing room, half a dozen individuals were already seated, including her immediate supervisor, Smythson, and Derek Chalmers, the head of MI6. When she stepped inside, the conversation stopped. Jenna said nothing. Instead, she took a seat at the end of the table and looked with a blank expression at those seated around it. All eyes were on her.

“What?” she asked. “I’m sorry I’m late. I … I lost track of time.”

Smythson stood up and walked around the table, coming up behind her. She reached forward and, without asking, took the operation briefing from Jenna. Standing behind her, she read it over. After a minute, she handed it back.

“Needlessly complicated,” said Smythson. “This is an exfiltration. We have assets in-theater. We know he’s going to be at the train station at sometime between twenty and twenty-two hundred. The car is positioned outside. Airport, flight to London. Frankly, we didn’t even need an architect on this one.”

Smythson dropped the paper down on the table.

Again, there was a period of quiet as all eyes went back to Jenna.

“Why was I asked to bloody well do it then?” said Jenna, staring hard at Smythson.

“Because it was a straightforward snatch-and-grab you could’ve penned in thirty minutes,” said Smythson. “I was trying to be kind.”

“Maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” said Jenna.

“Oh, for Christ sake, have thicker skin, Jenna,” said Smythson, sitting back down.

“Thick skin?” said Jenna.

“Yes. Don’t take it so personally.”

Jenna paused.

“Fine, I agree we should all have thick skin,” said Jenna. “So I hope you won’t take it the wrong way if I tell you you have no bloody fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

Smythson’s eyes grew icy.

Chalmers cleared his throat.

“Veronica, Jenna—” he said.

“Let her finish,” said Smythson, leaning back. “This should be good.”

“If I had written the design as you instructed, the target would have escaped and we’d be out one courier, a man we’ve spent two years and millions of dollars recruiting,” said Jenna.

“Oh, bullshit. How do you know?”

“Because I ordered up two years of Echelons on the man and I spent more than an hour poring through bloody cell taps and emails. Your courier won’t be at the train station. He bought a plane ticket to Cairo. He’s not going to be there! He lied to you. So if we want to take him, my operation is the only way to do it. He needs to be taken at lunch—today. Otherwise we can all forget it. He’ll be gone.”

Jenna paused and stared at Veronica.

“I know how thick your skin is, Veronica,” Jenna said, “so don’t be upset by the fact that your operation would have resulted in the loss of a key MI6 courier.”

Smythson was silent, as was everyone else in the room. It was Chalmers who finally spoke up.

“Give us the room,” he said, looking at Jenna.

Everyone stood up from their chairs and started to leave except for Chalmers, Smythson, and Jenna. Chalmers glanced at Smythson. “You too,” he said. “And run the operation as Jenna designed it.”

Chalmers and Jenna were alone, at opposite ends of the long glass table. After several pregnant moments, Chalmers smiled.

“You pretty well put her in her place, didn’t you?” said Chalmers.

“She deserved it.”

“Does anybody deserve anything, really, when it comes right down to it?” said Chalmers.

“What do you want, Derek?” said Jenna.

“Did you know I was the one who recruited you?” said Chalmers.

“I thought it was Burrows.”

Chalmers shook his head.

“There’s a professor at the university,” said Chalmers, “a man who occasionally marks a promising individual. Anyway, he’d spotted someone, Nicholas something or other. I took him to coffee. Afterwards, he was in the finals of the student union debating competition. There was a large crowd. I went into the back of the auditorium and took a seat to watch our man, Nicholas, in the debate. I figured he would destroy whoever he faced.”

Jenna said nothing.

“Anyway, I watched a young, pretty, brown-haired girl come out onto the stage. She didn’t have any notes. She was a first year at Oxford. Nicholas what’s-his-name was president of the student union. I think everyone expected him to stomp on this young girl.”

“Woman,” said Jenna, barely above a whisper.

Chalmers smiled. “Woman,” he agreed. “But you weren’t having any of it, were you, Jenna Bradstreet Hartford?”

A small smile, the first in weeks, came to her lips.

“I’ve often wondered if I should have just left you alone,” said Chalmers. “After all, you’d be an MP by now. A young Margaret Thatcher, but with beauty.”

Jenna stared at Chalmers for several seconds.

“Are you firing me?” she asked.

Chalmers said nothing. He held her eyes in his gaze.

“No,” he said, finally. “But I’m assigning you.”

“What?” she barked. “Why? I’m the … well, let’s be honest: I’m the bloody well fucking best at what I do.”

“You’re talented, Jenna, no question,” said Chalmers. “But you need a different platform than what MI6 is willing to provide. A broader platform.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’ve spoken with Hector Calibrisi and Bill Polk,” he said. “They’re both familiar with your work. You’ll join the Directorate of Operations. They need an architect, badly. Frankly, it’s in MI6’s interest for Langley to have someone with your skills there.”

“And am I obligated to tell you everything? I’m not going to be a rat of yours inside the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“I agree. You work for them and your loyalties are to America, and, hopefully, Britain always.”

“What makes you think I would even consider going to the CIA?” Jenna yelled. “Fuck them. Americans? Fuck all, Derek.”

“You’ll go,” said Chalmers, looking her in the eyes and picking up his water glass. He took a sip. “We’ve leased a flat for you in Kalorama. You’ll be on triple pay. Two years. That should clear your head.”

“And if I don’t want to go?”

Chalmers grinned.

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” he said. “I’m giving you a license to kill. At least show a modicum of appreciation, will you?”

7

TONGHAE SATELLITE LAUNCHING GROUND

MUSUDAN-RI

NORTH HAMGYONG PROVINCE

NORTH KOREA

A long line of vehicles moved quickly through the remote hills north of Chongjin, a desolate, impoverished city on the coast of North Korea. There were seven sedans and one black limousine in all. The vehicles were guarded by two extended-cab, dark-green-colored troop carriers, one in front and the other in back. Each specialized vehicle was filled with half a dozen armed soldiers from the Special Guard Unit, an elite division of the Korean People’s Army.

The limousine’s windows were tinted dark. Small North Korean flags stuck up from the front and back corners of the vehicle.

The motorcade sped along the thin, pot hole–strewn roads of the rural coast, the dark, whitecapped waters of the Sea of Japan visible in the distance. The hills and valleys alongside the road intercut between empty land, covered in dirt and rocks and the occasional shrub or tree, and shacks, small huts, and houses made of scrap metal, wood, or concrete.

Inside the limousine, North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, lit a cigarette and took a deep puff as he looked out his window. It gave Kim no pleasure seeing the thin, emaciated figures milling about ramshackle homes without electricity and barely any food, staring at his limousine as it passed by. Yet, he also didn’t feel at all guilty or responsible for the terrible conditions of his country. The truth is, he felt nothing at all.

Kim was dressed in a black suit with a black trench coat. His hair was short except on top, like a little tuft. He was morbidly obese and needed help getting out of the limousine. Kim had the body of a sixty-year-old, but the face of a child. He looked at the man seated across from him, Pak Yong-sik, the highest-ranking officer in the Korean People’s Army.

Suddenly, Kim’s eyes shot to the window. A skeletal dog was traipsing along the roadside, searching for food.

“Stop!” barked Kim.

The limousine came to a halt. Kim pushed a button, lowering the window. He took another puff as he stared at the dog. Kim had a smile on his chubby face, like a young child. The dog stopped moving, staring at Kim with a nervous mixture of curiosity and fear. The dog had gray-and-black fur, with patches of bare pink skin in places. Kim flicked the cigarette out onto the road. He reached into his coat and pulled a handgun from the holster beneath his left armpit. He flipped the safety off, chambered a round, then swept the gun so that it was aimed at the dog. The dog stared back at Kim without moving. Slowly, he seemed to bow his head and then took a step closer to the limousine. Kim fired. The sound of unmuted gunfire was shocking and loud. The bullet missed.

“Dammit!” he yelled. “Lousy gun!”

The dog started to move away but Kim fired again, then a third time. A bullet struck the dog in the side, knocking him to the ground, where he spasmed and writhed in pain as a low series of yelps came from his mouth. Kim fired again, hitting the dog in the head. The dog went quiet and still.

Kim stared at the creature for a few seconds and turned to Yongsik. He tossed the handgun at Yong-sik.

“Terrible pistol,” he seethed. “See to it we no longer buy any by this manufacturer!”

“Yes,” said Yong-sik.

Kim slapped the leather seat next to him.

“Go!” he barked to the driver.

*   *   *

A half hour later, they came to a security fence. It was twelve feet high and fringed with circular razor wire. Small red signs indicated that it was electrified. A guard station stood before a set of gates. Two soldiers emerged as the limousine approached. One of the soldiers, seeing the long limo, turned abruptly and charged inside. The gates started moving aside, opening for the motorcade just in time to let the vehicles pass through.

The two armed soldiers at the entrance hut stood and saluted as the vehicles passed through.

Just inside the gates, a black-and-white sign read:

Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground

The motorcade rumbled in through the gates, where the road turned wider and smoother, as if it had been recently paved. The steel fence ran in both directions for as far the eye could see, disappearing behind sloping hills in the distance.

Tonghae was one of two missile test launch facilities in North Korea. Tonghae was the oldest, originally constructed in 1981 and consisting of little more than a circular concrete launch pad. Sohae, North Korea’s second missile test and launch facility, was located to the west and was larger and more modern—at least, until now. For Tonghae had just completed a substantial renovation, including the addition of a state-of-the-art launchpad, with a massive flame bucket beneath the pad, four-stage gantry tower and crane, rocket assembly building, and engine test stand.

Yet, even after the renovations and new construction, it was difficult to believe that the small collection of buildings, spread out over several hundred acres of barren land, was, in point of fact, a central flash point in a growing conflict that threatened to spark nuclear war. North Korea continued to stick its finger in the eye of Japan, South Korea, the United Nations, and, most importantly, the United States of America, by launching test missile after test missile into the China Sea, testing and retesting, working to improve North Korea’s ability to send a missile anywhere in the world.

North Korea already possessed nuclear weapons. One of the many ironies of the backwards country was that it was somehow able to manage the much more difficult technological achievement of nuclear fission and yet couldn’t figure out how to fire a missile more than a few thousand kilometers.

But they were learning.

With each successive launch, the North Koreans were gaining knowledge as to what worked and what didn’t. It was only a matter of time before the country possessed the ability to launch a missile that could strike anywhere in the world.

All Kim Jong-un cared about was being able to hit the United States.

Kim Jong-un’s hatred for America started when he was just a young boy, traveling with his father to towns that remained half destroyed by bombs that had been dropped almost half a century before by America. He recalled seeing his father cry on two different occasions, both times while visiting places his government could barely afford to feed, much less rebuild. His father, Kim Jong-il, had lived through the great war but, ironically, he was not embittered toward the United States or the South Koreans. Instead, the war gave the elder Kim a deeper sympathy for not only his people, but for his opponents as well. “To see war,” he once told the young Kim, “is to know there are no winners.” But Kim Jong-il only saw the reckoning the war left behind. A divided Korean Peninsula. An impoverished people without enough food to eat. Elderly farmers still scarred by napalm. Kim believed it was the guilt and sadness over not being able to provide for his country that killed his beloved papa. Through the distorted eyes of a child, Kim Jong-un developed the kind of pure hatred that only a child is capable of, and never had reason to abandon it. Now, this hatred guided his every move.

The three-vehicle motorcade came to a large rectangle of gray concrete, elevated into the sky by at least ten feet. This was the new missile launchpad. There were several stairwells leading up to the surface of the pad. Below the concrete, a hollowed-out area—the blast bucket—was designed to create an outlet for the heat and flames from the missiles as they initially ignited.

Standing on the launchpad were hundreds of uniformed soldiers. The soldiers stood in neat lines, as still as if they were statues, each man’s right hand raised in a salute to Kim as the limousine approached.

In the middle of the gathering of soldiers, at the center of the launchpad, stood a shiny white missile that jutted seventy feet into the sky, clutched on two sides by the gantry tower.

The limousine came to a stop and Kim climbed out.

General Yong-sik emerged from the opposite side of the limo. He joined Kim at his side and walked toward the crowded launch platform. Kim and Yong-sik walked to one of the stairwells and climbed slowly up. It took Kim several minutes to climb the twenty or so steps. When he arrived at the top of the platform, his face was red, though a smile appeared. He stood and caught his breath, then raised his hand, saluting the soldiers who’d gathered for him.

A loud, cacophonous cheer suddenly came from the brigade of soldiers:

“Kim! Kim! Kim!”

One of the soldiers approached Kim and handed him a wireless microphone.

“Good morning, soldiers of the Korean People’s Army,” bellowed Kim. “Today, we launch the first test missile of the Taedongo-3! It is with the Taedongo-3 that North Korea will at long last be able to attack our mortal enemy, the United States of America!”

The soldiers began cheering. They shouted, “Long live Kim!” again and again as Kim handed the microphone back to one of the soldiers and turned to walk down the stairs, followed by Yong-sik.

“Long live Kim! Long live Kim! Long live Kim!”

Kim and Yong-sik climbed back inside the limousine, which moved slowly away from the launchpad and along a winding uphill road, passing several armed gunmen. The limousine stopped at a small, two-story glass-and-concrete building that sat atop the highest point of land for several miles. Kim and Yong-sik climbed out and walked to the building. This was the control tower, where all controls and communication for the missile launch were managed. An armed soldier opened the door for Kim and Yong-sik, who stepped inside.

The room looked like a control tower at an airport, with various workstations arrayed with radar screens, computers, and other devices. A large window covered the front wall and offered a panoramic view of the Tonghae facility. The launchpad was below them, down a steep hill. Soldiers were moving in lockstep away from the launchpad. Beyond, the Sea of Japan appeared through a haze of thin fog and gray clouds.

Three individuals were inside the control tower. Two engineers sat at tables before a wall of controls, dials, and screens, wearing headsets. A third man was standing at the large window, looking down at the launchpad. He had on thick glasses, a white lab coat, and was speaking in a low voice to someone over his headset. He was holding a clipboard.

“Dr. Cojin,” said Yong-sik.

The man turned. He suddenly caught sight of Yong-sik and then Kim. After a surprised moment, he immediately dropped to his knees and bowed.

“Your Excellency,” said Dr. Cojin. “It is a tremendous honor to have you here today.”

Kim removed a pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, and lit it.

“Are we ready, Cojin?” said Kim. “After almost one hundred million dollars and three and a half years, I trust the answer is yes.”

Cojin stood up. He nodded.

“Yes, it is all ready, Your Excellency.”

Kim took a deep puff, exhaling, filling the small control room with smoke.

“Yes, yes, get on with it. I don’t have all day.”

“If everything goes correctly, as it should,” said Cojin, “I would like to introduce you to the individuals who made today’s launch possible.”

Kim dropped the cigarette onto the floor and stepped on it.

“The state is not a place of individual achievement,” said Kim loudly. “We build weapons of glory not because we want to celebrate the men who built them, but because we want to advance the great cause of the North Korean people and to be able to strike the evil enemy, the United States of America!”

Cojin bowed. “Yes, of course, Your Excellency. Of course.”

“Tell us about Tadondo-3,” said Yong-sik.

Cojin pointed out the window to the launch platform. The final row of soldiers was moving down the steps and away from the platform.

“Taedondo-3 is a multiple-stage, solid-fueled hydro rocket, capable of reaching distances of up to ten thousand kilometers. Today, we launch Taedondo-3 with an expected flight path over the Sea of Japan. It will, if all goes according to plan, land in the Pacific Ocean approximately one thousand miles from the coast of Mexico. It would represent the greatest length achieved in flight by a North Korean missile, Your Excellency.”

Kim nodded and smiled. A moment of childlike glee hit his face. He clapped once.

“Excellent, Cojin!” said Kim. “Now let’s do it, shall we?”

Dr. Cojin turned. He looked at one of the engineers seated at the control station.

“Kawau,” said Colin. “Commence firing sequence.”

Without turning around, the young engineer nodded and began typing.

“Commencing firing sequence,” said Kawau.

A low, soft boom echoed from down the hill. Kim, Yong-sik, and Cojin stepped to the window and looked down at the launch platform. It appeared as if nothing had occurred, and then a few puffs of smoke ebbed out from the base of the missile. A louder explosion followed, then came a high-pitched sizzling noise, followed by a cacophonous boom, and all hell broke loose. Flames and smoke shot out from the missile as it started to rise in the air. The gantry tower fell back and away as the missile slowly lifted into the air, a trail of smoke and orange flames behind it, the noise deafening. The missile climbed into the air, its velocity increasing with every passing second until, at some point, a massive boom again rocked the air and the missile’s speed went from fast to supersonic and it shot up into the sky.

Kim and Yong-sik started clapping, and Kim even yelled “Hooray” as the missile climbed higher and higher in the sky …

… and then something went horribly wrong.…

“Oh my God,” groaned Cojin.

The missile abruptly exploded. Violent clouds of red and orange flames shot in every direction as the sky filled with flames and smoke and falling debris, chunks of missile caught in burning, fuel-soaked flames, raining down from the sky into the ocean in the distance.

Cojin stepped behind one of the engineers, leaning forward, trying to read the instruments, trying to understand what had happened.

Yong-sik looked at Kim, who stood motionless in front of the window. Finally, Kim met Yong-sik’s stare. He had a dumbfounded, angry look on his face. Kim turned and walked past Dr. Cojin and the two engineers, almost stumbling in shock as he made his way to the door. When he reached the door he paused. He reached inside his coat to remove his gun from his shoulder holster, but it wasn’t there. He looked at Yong-sik. Yong-sik unbuckled a holster at his waist and lifted his handgun and handed it to Kim. Kim raised the gun and aimed it at the young man on the right, whose back was to him. He fired, striking the man in the back of the head. Cojin and the other engineer turned. Kim fired at the other engineer. The bullet ripped into the young man’s forehead.

Cojin held both of his arms up in resignation.

“I am sorry, Your Excellency—”

The third bullet struck Cojin in the chest, kicking him sideways and down to the ground.

Yong-sik stood at the window. He had a blank expression on his face. He stared at Kim as Kim watched Cojin fall to the ground. When Kim’s eyes met Yong-sik’s, they stared at each other for several moments. Kim moved his arm to the right and trained the gun on Yong-sik. His hand was shaking as he held him in the firing line. Finally, Kim lowered the gun.

“It’s not your fault,” said Kim. “But now we do it the way I said. You will call the Iranians and we’ll do what we should’ve done years ago.”

“Yes, my leader,” said Yong-sik.

Also by Ben Coes

Power Down

Coup d’État

The Last Refuge

Eye for an Eye

Independence Day

First Strike

Trap the Devil

Bloody Sunday

About the Author

Ben Coes is the New York Times bestselling author of international espionage thrillers, including Eye for an Eye, First Strike, and Trap the Devil. Before writing his first novel, Power Down, he worked at the White House under two presidents and was a Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He lives with his wife and four children in Wellesley, Massachusetts. You can sign up for email updates here.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

SHOOTING GALLERY. Copyright © 2018 by Ben Coes. All rights reserved. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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Cover photographs: man © Realstock/Shutterstock.com; cross hair © EgudinKa/Shutterstock.com; map © iStock/KeithBinns; paper © iStock/LoveTheWind; texture © iStock/duncan1890

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e-ISBN 9781250203335

First Edition: June 2018

First eBook edition: June 2018

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Excerpt: Bloody Sunday

Also by Ben Coes

About the Author

Copyright