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  The thud of the big BMW sedan’s door caused Meiling to jump. Silence crept over the entry. No one breathed—which was good, because all the air seemed to have left the room.

  Meiling willed her employer to hurry. These inspections were worse than a mere annoyance; they kept her from doing her job. She was an accomplished chef, a graduate of the Culinary Institute in Hong Kong, but the foreign minister disliked the term chef. He was the only chief in any area of his home, and that included the kitchen. Meiling and her assistant, a young woman named Yubi, should have been prepping for the dinner party, but when the foreign minister arrived, all else was put on hold—the immutable laws of science and cooking notwithstanding.

  The front door flew open as if blown by an evil wind, and Foreign Minister Li strode in. He stepped out of his shoes so easily that Meiling wondered how he’d kept them on all day, and into a pair of slippers that were waiting directly in his path. Meiling had seen the minister on the television news, where he appeared to be so temperate and even-keeled. In his own home, even one step out of his desired routine to slip a toe into a slipper could send him into a spitting rage.

  Slippers slapping the tile floor, Li removed his suit jacket. He dropped it as he walked, certain that Mr. Fan would be there to catch it. The poor man was so sick he nearly toppled over in the process. If Li noticed his butler was ill, he made no mention of it. One of the two girls Li called hostesses handed him a Gibson martini with three cocktail onions, while the other exchanged his day glasses for a pair of less flattering readers and four evening newspapers.

  Meiling watched the way the minister looked at the two younger women. Had either of them been able to cook, she would have been sacked. Their skin was alabaster, while she was darker. A tiny mole above her upper lip stood out in stark contrast to their flawless oval faces. An American college student had once called the mole a beauty mark, but Foreign Minister Li looked as if his stomach was upset each time he saw her. Meiling dismissed it as the will of the gods. Minister Li doted on his wife, but everyone knew the hostesses had not been hired for their ability to mix a perfect Gibson martini.

  Minister Li paused at the bottom of the stairs, taking a sip of his drink. The staff, even the hostesses, who surely had his ear—and more—held their collective breath.

  Li peered directly at Meiling. “Add two more to the guest list. Minister Ip and is lovely wife will join us.”

  Meiling teetered in place. She grabbed at her assistant’s shoulder for support as soon as Li turned to continue up the stairs. Two more guests! That was impossible, the worst of all catastrophes. The chef wasn’t worried about the food. It was to be a British feast, and, as with all feasts, there would be far too much roast lamb and too many side dishes for anyone to eat. But Mrs. Ip was going to pose a problem.

  Yubi’s mouth hung half open, like she was about to be sick to her stomach. Meiling understood the feeling. “Do you have enough for Mrs. Ip?” the assistant chef asked.

  Meiling closed her eyes and took a series of calming breaths, attempting to steady herself. It did not work. “I do not,” she said.

  “The minister will kill you.”

  “He will not kill me,” Meiling said, doubting herself even as she said the words.

  “But he will say we should have been better prepared.” Yubi’s slight body shook with tension, causing her black bangs to shimmer in the light of the chandelier. “What if he blames me as well?”

  Meiling thought through her limited options. She found it difficult to breathe, let alone think. At length, she turned toward the kitchen. “First we will prepare the batter for the Yorkshire puddings. It will need time to chill.”

  The familiar act of breaking eggs and the comforting smell of sifted flour served to calm Meiling’s spirit. An idea began to rise in her mind like the bubbles in the whisked batter. “I will speak to Madame Li,” she said at length. If that didn’t work, there would be nothing to do but accept her fate. She would be fired, but the likelihood that the minister would actually kill her was remote.

  Wasn’t it?

  • • •

  The guests began to arrive three hours later. Meiling listened intently from her post in the kitchen, counting to herself as the butler, Mr. Fan, announced the names as each couple entered. Deng Wenyuan and Madame Deng, secretary of the Central Committee for Discipline Inspection and his wife; General Ma Xiannian and Madame Ma, vice chairman of Central Military Commission and his wife; Deputy Party Secretary Ip Keqiang of the State Council for Deepening Reforms and his wife, Madame Ip. Meiling’s heart sank with the arrival of Madame Xu and Lieutenant General Xu Jinlong, director of the Central Security Bureau. She wished the wives no ill will, but hoped one of them might somehow fall sick at the last minute. Even the odor of roast lamb, a smell she usually found intoxicating, did nothing for Meiling’s nerves. She stood by as if awaiting the gallows while the foreign minister and his guests inhaled her perfect bacon-and-leek quiche appetizer. She hardly heard Madame Li’s praise at the first expertly stacked bite of pink lamb, mint sauce, and delicate Yorkshire pudding. Table talk was light, with Madame Li deftly steering everyone away from politics. Meiling grew more anxious with every bite of food the guests ate, bringing them closer to the end of the meal—and she to her fate. Dessert service saw her hoping to be swallowed up by the draperies.

  Minister Li tapped on his crystal glass with his silver spoon, making certain he had everyone’s attention.

  “I have prepared a small surprise for our lovely wives,” he said, as if he had prepared the white ramekins himself. Each of the guests had their own crème brûlée, but the ramekins for the women were marked with a small flower of burnt sugar on the crust. It had taken Meiling an hour to prepare the delicate blossoms.

  Madame Ip, the birdlike woman who shouldn’t have even been there, tapped on the crust of her dessert, hitting it several times with the tiny spoon as if she didn’t quite have the strength to break through the caramelized sugar. She squealed when she finally cracked it, and, forgetting about the creamy custard, used the spoon to dig around in the dessert like it was a playground sandbox, until she found the diamond bracelet.

  It was a mystery where the foreign minister got his money, but each of the bracelets cost 11,000 yuan—more than $1,500 U.S. Meiling knew; she’d purchased them all at an expensive shop in Shunyi where Minister Li had an account. He took great pleasure in showing off to his friends at his frequent dinner parties by having her bake pieces of expensive jewelry into the desserts meant for each wife. The women would fawn over their husbands, proud of them for associating with such a powerful and generous man. The husbands, in turn, would scrape and bow to the minister for making them look so good in front of their wives.

  Minister Li would always smile benevolently and help his own wife put on her bracelet. She always received jewelry as well.

  Except tonight, that was not the case.

  Meiling had planned on only four guests and there were not enough bracelets to go around. Madame Li had graciously given her bracelet to Madame Ip, telling Meiling not to fret. But the minister’s eyes had gone positively black the moment he saw his wife had been left out. Madame Ip had only made it worse when she sucked the custard off her new trinket and then held it up to Madame Li, saying, “Such a shame you don’t get one, too, my dear.”

  Minister Li turned to give Meiling a saccharine smile. “We will retire to my study,” he said. “Please see to some brandied pears.”

  “Yes, Mr. Foreign Minister,” she said, backing away.

  “And Meiling,” he said, the smile fading from his lips. “Bring in the fruit yourself.”

  The Ips excused themselves shortly after dinner, citing a previous engagement, but Meiling suspected they’d been told it was time for them to leave. Only three men were ever invited into Minister Li’s private study.

  The crystal goblets of brandied pears rattled and clinked on
the lacquer tray in Meiling’s shaking hands. She took small breaths, afraid she’d cough from the pall of cigar smoke that filled the study.

  “Thank you,” the minister said. “Please leave at once.”

  “Of course, sir,” Meiling said. Perhaps he had forgiven her for not being prepared. “Will there be anything else?”

  Minister Li cocked his head, puffing on the awful cigar. “You misunderstand me, child,” he said. “I mean leave my house. Your services will no longer be needed.”

  Tears welled and then fell from Meiling’s eyes. “But sir, there was no—”

  Li held up his hand. “I have made it very clear that I value preparedness over excuses.” His eyes crept up and down. At length, he nodded, as if reaching a conclusion. He looked beside the door at a terrifying man with dark eyes and the bulge of a gun under his suit jacket—then back at the weeping Meiling. “Lieutenant General Xu’s driver will take you. If that is all right, General.”

  Xu gave the man an almost imperceptible nod. “Go ahead, Long Yun.”

  • • •

  General Ma Xiannian took a series of puffs from his Cuban cigar and held it to one side, studying the glowing coal. “Killing the young woman seems harsh, even for you. It seems a terrible waste of a good cook. To forget to include your wife’s bracelet is . . .”

  The foreign minister waved away the notion. “That was my fault,” he said. “But it was not the primary concern. She was not at all surprised that Ip and his bitch wife were not asked to stay after dinner. It would not have been long before she said something to someone about the meetings of our new Gang of Four.”

  They never uttered the phrase outside the security of their little group. The men had come to think of themselves as a faction that wanted only the best for China but who would surely be misunderstood if they were to be discovered. The original Gang of Four had been led by Chairman Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. After Mao’s death, and absent his protection, the former actress was accused with three others as counterrevolutionary and blamed by the government for virtually every evil of the Cultural Revolution.

  The foreign minister loosened his red silk tie. There was no reason to stand on ceremony now. He was among friends—friends who would stand beside him in front of a firing squad if they were ever discovered—even by members of the party who essentially agreed with them.

  Secretary Deng spoke next. “Public approval for Zhao is waning, as you predicted,” he said. “But his supporters in the politburo appear steadfast. I have even heard it said that he has the brains to hold the same progressive economic policies as disgraced President Wei, but the balls to implement them.”

  “That may be true,” General Ma said. “But I know more than a few in the party who find themselves gravely concerned with Zhao’s misguided corruption probes. It is as if he is completely blind to the origin of his support.”

  “Blindness is among the least of his disturbing qualities,” Deng said.

  “He is quite intelligent,” Li said. “We should not underestimate him. General Xu, I believe—”

  A metallic chime sounded at the study door, cutting him off. The foreign minister raised his hand to quiet everyone. A moment later, Madame Li appeared with her arm around the shoulders of a handsome boy in his early teens.

  “Qin’ai,” she said. The term was akin to “dear” or “darling.” “Our son has had a long day and would like to say good night to his father.”

  Li put the cigar in the ashtray beside his chair and took the boy’s hand, holding it in his. “Good night, my son. Rest well.”

  The other men in the room looked away, embarrassed by this uncustomary outpouring of emotion from the leader they’d respected for his cruelty and cunning.

  “I will leave you men to talk your treason,” Madame Li said, smiling as she escorted the boy out.

  Secretary Deng winced before the door was shut and they were alone. “Does she know?”

  Li took up his cigar again, then picked a fleck of tobacco off his lip. “Of course not. It is merely something she says. Women chatter about the household and men talk treason.”

  “Well,” Deng said, “it is a dangerous term.”

  Li’s eyes narrowed. “Any disrespectful talk of my wife would be dangerous. Of that you may be quite sure.”

  General Ma held up his hand. Had it really fallen to the military man to try and make peace? He decided to change the subject rather than appeal to either man’s decency. “It is such a shame that Chinese interests must be harmed in order to attain our goals.”

  Li snatched up his cigar, took a few puffs, then snubbed it out in the ashtray. The veins in the side of his neck bulged with tension.

  “Make no mistake,” he said. “Chinese interests are not our only targets. Before we are finished, President Ryan will be ready to fly Air Force One to Beijing and shoot the fool Zhao himself.”

  The foreign minister sat for a moment, composing himself before turning to General Xu. “Your man Huang, Zhao’s chief bodyguard. Will he bend?”

  “The colonel?” Xu shook his head. “From what I have seen, he is endowed with a set of iron principles that will prove quite troublesome.”

  “I assume you have considered a remedy,” the foreign minister said. “Principles are to be lauded, so long as they align with ours. One man with the wrong ideals . . . Do I need to spell it out?”

  Xu puffed on his cigar until the coal glowed red, illuminating his face.

  “I can assure you, Mr. Foreign Minister,” the general said. “Colonel Huang will not be a problem.”

  23

  Four hours after the call from Gavin Biery, Ding Chavez slouched in an uncomfortable fake-leather chair in the lounge of an FBO off Lemmon Avenue. He munched stale popcorn for breakfast and thumbed absentmindedly through an aviation magazine while he tried to stay awake enough to remain aware of his surroundings. He never understood why every fixed-base operator he’d ever seen had a popcorn machine, but they did, and he’d learned to take advantage of the fact when there was nothing else salty to eat.

  Chavez was dressed for travel in a pair of gray sweatpants and a pullover hoodie. The sweats made him look like Rocky Balboa getting ready for a training run, but they were comfortable—and he’d sleep better. Lord knew he needed sleep. He had plenty of training for lack of it, having been screamed at by drill sergeants in the Army, SAS operators in Hereford, instructors at Camp Peary—hell, even his own father-in-law. Sometimes you just had to suck it up and deal with it. He was pushing fifty years old, but he kept telling himself that if Clark could keep going, so could he. That wasn’t really a fair comparison, because Clark was a machine. Fortunately, Mr. C was getting older and now possessed only the grit and stamina of two normal men. But Chavez still worried about him. Clark had taken the idea of captive girls hard—and seemed to focus on it now even more than the mission at hand. Feng had said Matarife was connected to Chen—but they had Chen located now. There seemed little reason not to let Special Agent Callahan and her CAC Task Force handle the search for Matarife. They would sure be able to use Dom and John for the eventualities that would come up in Argentina. When Chavez had asked about it, Clark just raised a gray eyebrow and looked at him. Anyone who spoke the language of John Clark realized this unspoken action translated as “Step the hell back!”

  Chavez, being exhausted and generally absent a filter anyway, unwisely pressed the issue. This only served to earn him an earful of all the reasons why Clark did not have to explain himself to the likes of Domingo Chavez, someone who was still “shitting yellow” when Clark was up to his chin in brown water in the godforsaken jungles of Southeast Asia. Ding was no stranger to harsh language, even from his wife’s dad, but the rest of Clark’s tirade would have melted the ears off a lesser man. Still, Ding couldn’t help but love the guy. They’d been through too much together.

  Chavez pitched the magazine back on the
glass coffee table. There was nothing he could do about it, anyway.

  The whine of the approaching Hendley Associates Gulfstream was a welcome sound. It meant forward progress in this operation. More important in the near term at least, the flight to Argentina would give the team a few uninterrupted hours of much-needed rest.

  Chavez hadn’t gone to sleep, staying up instead to scour the Internet for possible events that might be important enough to take Vincent Chen to South America. A simple meeting could have occurred anywhere. No, Buenos Aires was a hell of a long way away. Something was happening there that required Chen to make the journey. Four cups of coffee and three hours deep into his search, Chavez stumbled over an obscure three-line post on the Liniers cattle auction website that mentioned a meeting between Argentina’s minister of agriculture and his counterparts from several other countries, including Thailand, Japan—and China. Beef exportation, among other things, would be discussed. According to the website, the Chinese foreign minister deemed the meeting important enough that he would also make an appearance.

  The connection was slim, but it was all Chavez could find.

  The team members would make it to Ministro Pistarini International Airport outside Buenos Aires proper, a full day ahead of Chen, giving them time to sort out customs and immigration details and get accustomed to their rental vehicles before setting up to follow Chen in the ungodly traffic. Their early arrival also allowed them to secure their weapons from the hidden bulkhead compartments aboard the Gulfstream. Argentina was an emerging country, but the extremely rich and the desperately poor lived literally across the street from each other in Buenos Aires, making the place sometimes feel like a powder keg set dangerously close to the campfire.