The Eye of God: A Sigma Force Novel

1

Panic had already begun to set in.

From the observation deck above the control room, Painter Crowe read the distress in the sudden cessation of idle chatter among the technicians in the room. Nervous glances spread up the chain of command and across the floor of the Space and Missile Systems Center. Only the base’s top brass were in attendance at this early hour, along with a few heads of the Defense Department’s research divisions.

The floor below them looked like a scaled-down version of NASA’s flight control room. Rows of computer consoles and satellite control desks spread outward from a trio of giant LCD screens affixed to the back wall. The centermost screen showed a map of the world, traced with glowing lines that tracked the trajectories of a pair of military satellites and the path of the neighboring comet.

The two flanking screens showed live feed from the satellites’ cameras. To the left, a curve of the earth slowly churned against the backdrop of space. To the right, the glowing blaze of the comet’s tail filled the screen, casting a veil over the stars beyond it.

“Something’s gone wrong,” Painter whispered.

“What do you mean?” His boss stood beside him atop the observation deck.

General Gregory Metcalf was the head of DARPA, the Defense Department’s research-and-development agency. Dressed in full uniform, Metcalf was in his fifties, African-American, and a West Point grad.

In contrast, Painter simply sported a black suit, made more casual with a pair of cowboy boots. They were a gift from Lisa, who was on a research trip in New Mexico. Half Native American, he probably should have balked at wearing the boots, but he liked them, especially as they reminded him of his fiancée, gone now a full month.

“Something’s got the OSO spooked,” Painter explained, pointing to the operations support officer in the second row of consoles down below.

The lead mission specialist moved over to join his colleague at that station.

Metcalf waved dismissively. “They’ll handle it. It’s their job. They know what they’re doing.”

The general promptly returned to his conversation with the commander of the 50th Space Wing out of Colorado Springs.

Still concerned, Painter kept a keen eye on the growing anxiety below. He had been invited here to observe this code-black military mission not only because he was the director of Sigma, which operated under the aegis of DARPA, but also because he had personally engineered a piece of hardware aboard one of the two military satellites.

The pair of satellites—IoG-1 and IoG-2—had been sent into space four months ago. The acronym for the satellites—IoG—stood for Interpolation of the Geodetic Effect, a name originally coined by the military physicist who had engineered this project for a gravitational study. He had intended to do a complete analysis of the space-time curvature around the earth to aid in satellite and missile trajectory.

While already an ambitious undertaking, the discovery of the comet by a pair of amateur astronomers two years ago quickly shifted the project’s focus — especially after an anomalous energy signature had been detected out there.

Painter glanced sidelong to his neighbor on his left, noting the lithe form of the researcher from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

Only twenty-three, Dr. Jada Shaw was tall, with a runner’s lean physique. Her skin was a flawless dark mocha, her black hair trimmed short, highlighting the long curve of her neck. She stood in a white lab coat and jeans, with her arms crossed, nervously chewing the edge of her thumbnail.

The young astrophysicist had been whisked from Harvard seventeen months ago and ensconced in this code-black military venture. Clearly she still felt out of her league, though she was doing her best to hide it.

It was unfortunate. She had no reason to be so nervous. She had already won international recognition for her work. Using quantum equations — calculations well above Painter’s intellectual pay grade — she had crafted an unusual theory concerning dark energy, the mysterious force that made up three-quarters of the universe and was responsible for its accelerating cosmic expansion.

Further proving her prowess, she had been the only physicist to note the small anomalies in the approach of this celestial visitor blazing in the night sky — a comet designated as IKON.

A year and a half ago, Dr. Shaw had tapped into the digital feed of the new Dark Energy Camera, a 570-megapixel array engineered by the Fermilab here in the States and installed at a mountaintop observatory in Chile. Using that camera, Dr. Shaw had tracked the comet’s passage. It was there that she had discovered anomalies that she believed might be proof that the comet was shedding or disturbing dark energy in its wake.

Her work quickly became cloaked under the guise of national security. A new energy source such as this had vast and untapped potential — both economically and militarily.

From that moment forward, the ultrasecret IoG project was repurposed for one goal only: to study the potential dark energy of the comet. The plan was to fly IoG-2 across the comet’s blazing tail, where it would attempt to absorb that anomalous energy detected by Dr. Shaw and transmit it back to its sister craft orbiting the earth.

Luckily, to accomplish this task, engineers had to only slightly modify the earlier mission satellite. A part of its original design included a perfect sphere of quartz buried in its heart. The plan had been to set that sphere to spinning once the satellite was in orbit, creating a gyroscopic effect that could be used to map the curve of space-time around the mass of Earth. If the experiment was successful, the beam of dark energy from one spacecraft to the other should cause a minute disturbance in that curve of space-time.

It was a bold experiment. Even the acronym IoG was now jokingly referred to as the Eye of God. Painter appreciated the new nickname, picturing that whirling perfect sphere as it waited to peer into the mysteries of the universe.

The lead specialist called out. “Spacecraft will be entering the tail in ten!”

As the final countdown began, Dr. Shaw’s eyes remained fixed to the flow of data on the giant screen.

“I hope you were mistaken earlier, Director Crowe,” she said. “About something going wrong here. Now is not the time for mistakes, not when we’re tapping into energy connected to the birth of our universe.”

Either way, Painter thought, there was no turning back now.

Over the course of six painstaking minutes, the flight path of IoG-2 slowly vanished deeper into the ionizing stream of gas and dust. The screen to the right — running live feed from the satellite’s camera — was a complete whiteout. They were now flying blind, entirely reliant on telemetry data.

Painter tried taking in everything at once, catching the room’s excitement, sensing the historical significance of this moment.

“I’m registering an energy spike in IoG-2!” the EECOM tech called from his station.

A smatter of small cheers broke out, but the pressure of the moment quickly quashed them. The reading could be an error.

All eyes swung to another console, to the aerospace engineer monitoring IoG-1. He shook his head. There seemed to be no evidence that the energy picked up by the first satellite had been transmitted to its Earth-orbiting twin — then suddenly the engineer jerked to his feet.

“Got something!” he yelled.

The SMC control officer hurried over to his side.

As everyone waited for confirmation, Dr. Shaw pointed to the world map, to the scroll of telemetry data. “So far it looks promising.”

If you say so…

The crawl of incoming data was incomprehensible to him. And it only continued to flow faster. After another tense minute, the flood of data grew to a blur.

The EECOM tech popped to his feet. Warnings and error messages flashed on his screens as he continued to monitor IoG-2’s passage through the comet’s tail. “Sir, energy levels here are off the map now, redlining across the board! What do you want me to do?”

“Shut it down!” the control officer commanded.

Still standing, the EECOM tech typed rapidly. “No can do, sir! Satellite navigation and control are not responding.”

To the right, the giant screen suddenly went black.

“Lost camera feed now, too,” the tech added.

Painter pictured IoG-2 sailing from here out into space, a cold and dark chunk of space debris.

“Sir!” The engineer assigned to IoG-1 waved the control officer to his side. “I’ve got new readings here. You’d better see this.”

Dr. Shaw shifted to the rail of the observation deck, plainly wanting to catch a glimpse. Painter joined her, along with most of the brass gathered on the deck.

“The geodetic effect is altering,” the engineer explained, pointing to a monitor. “A point two percent deviation.”

“That shouldn’t be possible,” Dr. Shaw mumbled at Painter’s side. “Not unless space-time around the earth is starting to ripple.”

“And look!” the engineer continued. “The Eye’s gyroscopic momentum is growing stronger, far stronger than prelaunch estimates. I’m even getting a propulsive signature!”

Dr. Shaw gripped the rail harder, looking ready to leap below. “That can’t happen without an external source powering the Eye.”

Painter could tell she wanted to declare it dark energy, but she restrained herself from jumping to premature conclusions.

Another voice called out — this time from a station marked CONTROL. “We’re losing orbital stability of IoG-1!”

Painter turned to the big board in the center, the one showing the world map and the flight paths of the satellites. The sine wave of IoG-1’s trajectory was visibly flattening.

“The gyroscopic forces inside the satellite must be pushing it out of orbit,” Dr. Shaw explained, sounding both panicked and thrilled.

The screen to the left showed the profile of the earth growing larger, filling up the monitor, eclipsing the dark void of space. The satellite was falling out of orbit, starting its slow crash back into the gravity well from which it came.

The transmitted image quickly lost clarity as the satellite entered the upper atmosphere, showing streaks of data artifacts and ghost shadows, drunkenly doubling and tripling the picture.

Continents flashed by, swirls of clouds, bright blue expanses of ocean.

A moment later, the screen went dark like the other.

Silence settled heavily over the room.

On the world map, the satellite’s path split into a frayed end as the mission computer attempted to extrapolate various crash trajectories, taking into account a slew of variables: the roil of Earth’s upper atmosphere, the angle of entry, the rate at which the craft broke apart.

“Looks like debris will strike along the eastern border of Mongolia!” the telemetry specialist said. “Maybe even spilling into China.”

The commander of the 50th Space Wing groused under his breath. “You can bet Beijing will pick this up.”

Painter agreed. China would not miss a flaming piece of space garbage hurling toward them.

General Metcalf glanced hard at Painter. He understood that look. The advanced military technology aboard that satellite was classified. It couldn’t fall into foreign hands.

For a fraction of a second, the screen to the left flickered, then died again — a last hiccup of the dying satellite.

“Bird is gone!” the control officer finally declared. “All transmissions ceased. It’s a falling rock now.”

The telemetry data slowed to a crawl across the world map — then finally stopped.

Dr. Shaw’s hand suddenly clutched Painter’s forearm. “They need to bring up that last image,” she said. “The one before the satellite died.”

She must have noted something anomalous in the data, something that clearly had her scared.

Metcalf heard her, too.

Painter stared hard at his boss. “Do it. Make it happen.”

The order passed along the chain of command to the floor. Engineers and technicians worked their magic. After several long minutes to redigitize, sharpen, and clean up that brief flicker, that final image bloomed again on the large screen.

Gasps spread across the room.

Metcalf leaned to Painter’s ear. “If even a sliver of that satellite survived, it must be found. It must never reach our enemies.”

Painter didn’t argue, fully understanding. “I’ve got field operatives already in the region.”

Metcalf gave him a quizzical stare, silently asking how that could be.

Just dumb luck.

Still, he would take that bit of good fortune and mobilize a recovery team immediately. But for the moment, he gaped at the screen, unable to look away.

It displayed a satellite view of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, the photo taken as the satellite blazed a trail across the sky. It was detailed enough to make out the major coastal metropolises.

Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C.

Every city lay in smoldering ruin.

2

They had crossed half the world to hunt a ghost.

Commander Gray Pierce followed the midnight crowd off the boat and into the ferry terminal. The high-speed catamaran had made the passage from Hong Kong to the peninsula of Macau in a little over an hour. He stretched a kink from his back as he waited to clear passport control in the crowded terminal building.

People were pouring into the peninsula to celebrate a special Water Lantern Festival in honor of the comet in the sky. A large party was under way this night, where floating lanterns were set adrift in the lakes and rivers as offerings to the spirits of the deceased. Hundreds of lights even bobbed in the waters around the terminal, like a scatter of luminous flowers.

Ahead of him in line, a wizened old man cradled a reed cage with a live goose inside. Both looked equally sullen, matching Gray’s mood after the seventeen-hour journey here.

“Why does that duck keep looking at me?” Kowalski asked.

“I don’t think it’s just the duck,” Gray said.

The big man, wearing jeans and a long duster, stood a head taller than Gray, which meant he towered over everyone in the terminal. Several people took pictures of the American giant, as if some craggy-faced Godzilla with a crew cut had wandered into their midst.

Gray turned to his other traveling companion. “It’s a long shot that we’ll learn anything from our contact here. You understand that, right?”

Seichan shrugged, seemingly unperturbed, but he read the tension in the single crease between her eyebrows. They had traveled this far to question this man in person. The meeting was Seichan’s last hope to discover the fate of her mother, a woman who had vanished twenty-two years ago, ripped from her home in Vietnam by armed men, leaving behind a nine-year-old daughter. Seichan had believed her mother was long dead — until new information had come to light four months ago, suggesting she might still be alive. It had taken all of Sigma’s resources and connections in the intelligence communities to get them this far.

It was likely a dead end, but they had to pursue it.

Ahead, the line finally cleared, and Seichan stepped forward to the bored customs officer. She wore black jeans, hiking boots, and a loose emerald silk blouse that matched her eyes, along with a cashmere vest to hold back the night’s chill.

At least she fit in here, where ninety-nine percent of the patronage was of Asian descent. In her case, with her mix of European blood, she struck a slightly more exotic pose. Her slim face and high cheekbones looked carved out of pale marble. Her almond-shaped eyes glinted like polished jade. The only softness to her was the loose cascade of her hair, the color of a raven’s wing.

All this was not missed by the border agent.

The round man, his belly straining the buttons of his uniform, sat straighter as she stepped forward. She matched eyes with him, moving with a leonine grace that was equal parts power and threat. She handed over her passport. Her documents were false, as were Gray’s and Kowalski’s, but the papers had already passed muster at the stricter entry point back in Hong Kong after their flight from D.C.

None of them wanted their real identities known by the Chinese government. Gray and Kowalski were field operatives for Sigma Force, a covert wing of DARPA, made up of former Special Forces soldiers who had been retrained in various scientific disciplines to protect against global threats. Seichan was a former assassin for an international criminal organization, until recruited by force of circumstance to ally with Sigma. Though she wasn’t officially part of Sigma, she remained its dark shadow.

At least for now.

After Gray and Kowalski also cleared customs, they hailed a taxi outside. As they waited for it to pull to the curb amid the milling crowds, Gray stared across the breadth of the Macau peninsula and its connected islands. A sea of neon beckoned, along with the blare of music and the echoing muffle of humanity.

Macau, a former Portuguese colony, had become the Sin City of the South China coast, a gambling mecca that had already surpassed Las Vegas in gaming revenues. Only steps away from the ferry terminal rose the gold tower of one of the city’s largest casinos, the Sands Macau. It was said that the three-hundred-million-dollar complex had recouped its costs of construction in less than a year. Other gaming powerhouses continued to pour in, with new casinos popping up regularly. The total count stood at thirty-three, all in a city one-sixth the size of D.C.

But the appeal of Macau did not stop at gambling. The hedonistic pleasures of the city — some legal, most not — went well beyond slot machines and poker tables. The old adage of Vegas applied equally here.

What happens in Macau, stays in Macau.

Gray intended to keep it that way. He maintained a close watch on the crowd as their taxi pulled up. Someone tried to shoulder past him to steal their ride, but Gray stiff-armed him away. Kowalski bowed his way into the front seat, while Gray and Seichan ducked into the backseat of the cab.

Leaning forward, she spoke to the driver in rapid-fire Cantonese.

Moments later, they were quickly headed toward their destination.

Seichan settled back in her seat and handed Gray back his wallet.

He stared down at the billfold in surprise. “Where did you—?”

“You were targeted by a pickpocket. You have to watch yourself out here.”

Kowalski barked out a sharp laugh from the front seat.

Gray craned around, remembering the man who tried to shove past him. It had been a ruse to distract him, while another relieved him of his wallet, apparently stealing his dignity also. Luckily, Seichan had skills of her own, learned on streets not unlike these.

After her mother had vanished, Seichan spent her childhood in a series of squalid orphanages across Southeast Asia, until eventually she was recruited off the streets and trained to kill. In fact, the first time the two had met, she had shot Gray in the chest, not exactly the warmest of meetings. Now, after the destruction of her previous employer’s cartel, she found herself orphaned once again, left adrift, still unsure of her footing in the new world.

She was a trained killer with no roots.

Even Gray expected her to vanish at any moment and never be seen again. While they had grown closer over these past four months, working side by side to hunt for clues to her mother’s fate, she still kept a wall between them, accepting his companionship, his support, and once even his bed. Not that anything had happened that night. They had simply been working late, and it was a matter of convenience, nothing more. Still, he had gotten no sleep, lying next to her, listening to her breathe, noting small twitches as she dreamed.

She was like some wild beast, skittish, feral, wary.

If he moved too fast, she would likely spook and bolt.

Even now she sat stiffly in the taxi, wound as tightly as the strings of a cello. He reached over to her, slid a palm along her back, and pulled her closer. He felt the steel in her slowly soften. She allowed herself to sag against him. One hand fiddled with the small pendant at her neck, in the shape of a tiny silver dragon. Her other hand found his, one finger tracing a scar across the back of his thumb.

Until she found her place in this new world, this was the best he could hope for. He also sensed what fueled the intensity of this four-month-long search for her mother. It was a chance for her to rediscover herself, to reconnect to the one person who had loved and sheltered her, to rebuild the family she had lost. Only then, he suspected, could she turn from the past and look to the future.

Gray shared that goal with her, wanted that for her, and would do anything to make that happen.

“If this guy knows anything,” he promised aloud, “we’ll get it out of him.”

“They’re en route,” the caller said. “They should reach their destination in another few minutes.”

“And you’ve confirmed their identity, Tomaz?”

Ju-long Delgado paced the length of his desk, constructed of solid Ceylon satinwood. The wood was as rare as it was expensive, which defined his interests. The remainder of his office was shelved with antiques, a mix of Portuguese and Chinese, like himself.

“We attempted to steal the smaller man’s papers,” Tomaz said, “but the woman intervened. She somehow got his wallet back from us.”

She was certainly skilled.

Ju-long stopped and touched one of a trio of photos on his desk. The woman was Eurasian, a mix of cultures like him, but in her case, she appeared to be French Vietnamese.

He caught his own reflection in the dark computer monitor. He carried his father’s surname, marking their family’s Portuguese presence in Macau going back to the opium wars of the early nineteenth century. His given name came from his mother’s side of the family. Likewise, he also shared his father’s round eyes and heavy facial hair, trimmed tight to his face, and his mother’s refined features and smooth skin. Though he was in his forties, most considered him much younger. Others made the mistake of assuming him inexperienced from his youthful demeanor — and made the worst mistake of trying to take advantage of that.

It was an error that was never repeated.

He returned his attention to the woman in the photo. As an assassin of some distinction, she had a steep price on her head. The Israeli Mossad had placed the highest bounty so far, for some past crime of hers, with the promise that she would be killed, silenced before anyone learned of his involvement.

That was Ju-long’s best talent: to move unseen, to manipulate from afar, to find profit in opportunity.

He stared at the picture of the soldier, a former army ranger. His face was deeply tanned, his gray-blue eyes sun-crinkled at the corners, his strong jaw shadowed with dark stubble. The bidding for this one still continued to grow, especially over the past twelve hours. It seemed this man had made many enemies — or knew secrets of considerable value. It was of no matter. Ju-long dealt merely in commodity. So far, the anonymous buyer from Syria held the highest bid for him.

The third man — with a face like a gorilla — seemed to be nothing more than a bodyguard. Someone to sweep out of the way to reach the true prizes here.

But first Ju-long had to secure them.

It would have been easy enough to grab them both from the ferry building, but such a kidnapping in the open would have drawn too much attention. After the Chinese took over control of Macau in 1999, he had to operate with more stealth. On the positive side, though, the crackdown by the new government had rid the peninsula of most of the warring Chinese Triad gangs, eliminating his competition and allowing him to assume greater control of his organization. Now, as the Boss of Macau, as some called him, he had a thumb in everything, and the Chinese government turned mostly a blind eye as long as he kept a firm rein on matters, and the officials here got their weekly cut.

As Macau grew richer, so did he.

“Your men are in position at Casino Lisboa?” Ju-long asked Tomaz, wanting no mistakes. “They are ready to receive them?”

“Sim, senhor.”

“Good. And what resistance do you expect?”

“They carry no firearms. Yet we suspect they all have knives on their persons. But that should not matter.”

He nodded, satisfied.

As he ended the call, he glanced over to a plasma screen resting atop an antique Portuguese naval chest. Earlier, he’d had Tomaz bribe one of the security guards at Casino Lisboa to gain access to their internal video surveillance, specifically the feed into one of their VIP rooms off the main gaming floor. Such rooms were plentiful throughout Macau, servicing high-stakes gamblers who wanted a private table or some exclusive time with one of Macau’s elite prostitutes.

This room held a lone occupant, seated on a red-silk sofa, awaiting his guests. The man had been too loose with his tongue over the past few days, telling of this midnight rendezvous, sharing the story of his upcoming good fortune. And when it came to reports of newfound money of this size, especially windfalls from foreign lands, word eventually reached Ju-long Delgado. He quickly learned the identity of the newcomers.

Where money flowed, there was always a way to turn a profit.

Ju-long stepped behind his desk. His family’s mansion overlooked Leal Senado Square, the historic colonial heart of Macau, where for centuries Portuguese troops had paraded in force and where now Chinese dragons danced during holidays. Even this night, lanterns hung in the neighboring trees, amid cages holding songbirds. Across the plaza, small shrines to the dead held floating candles in small earthenware bowls, all to light the way for the departed spirits.

But the biggest flame of them all hung in the sky, shimmering and bright: the silvery fire of a comet.

Content, he settled into his seat and swung his attention to the plasma screen, ready to enjoy the night’s entertainment from Casino Lisboa.

This was not the Macau she remembered.

Seichan climbed out of the cab and stared around. It had been over fifteen years since she had last set foot here. On the dark ride from the harbor, she could barely pick out the sleepier Portuguese town of the past, a place of narrow alleys, colonial mansions, and baroque plazas.

It was now hidden behind towering walls of neon and glitz. Back then, even Casino Lisboa had been a seedier affair, nothing like the remodeled neon birthday cake of today, not to mention its newest edition, the Grand Lisboa, a thousand-foot-tall golden tower in the shape of a lotus flower.

Definitely not the Macau she remembered.

The only semblance of those sleepier times was the thousands of glowing lanterns floating in the neighboring Nam Van Lake. Incense burned on the shores, too, and perfumed the gentle sea breeze with the scents of cloves, star anise, and sandalwood. It was a tradition that went back millennia to honor the dead.

Over the years, Seichan had cast afloat many such lanterns in memory of her mother.

But maybe no longer.

Gray checked his watch and urged her onward. “We’ve only got five minutes. We’re going to be late.”

He led the way with Kowalski, while she trailed back a step behind — not like some subservient wife, but to watch their backs. Macau may have hidden its face behind the glare of neon and flashing lights, but she knew that whenever so much wealth flowed into such a small space, especially a region of the world not known for such riches, crime and corruption took deep root. She knew old Macau — a place of gangland wars, human trafficking, and murder — still thrived in its shadows.

She spotted a clutch of Thai prostitutes idling near the entrance, an example of the web of corruption stretching from Macau across the entire region. One of them moved toward Gray, likely drawn by his rugged handsomeness and the promise of American wealth — but Seichan caught her painted eyes, and she retreated quickly.

Unmolested, they crossed under the flashing neon ribbons of Casino Lisboa and through its front doors. The overpowering reek of cigarette smoke struck her immediately, stinging her eyes and throat. A pall hung in the air, adding to the dark, sinister quality of the main casino floor ahead.

She continued to follow Gray into that heart of darkness.

Here was none of the over-the-top dazzle of a big Las Vegas casino. This was old-school gaming, a throwback to the Rat Pack era. The ceilings were low, the lighting dim. Slots rang and flashed, but the machines were restricted to a neighboring separate hall. Only tables occupied the central floor: baccarat, pai gow, sic bo, fan tan. Crowds of pockmarked men and sullen-looking women filled the tables, chain-smoking, rubbing talismans of good luck, trapped here as much by addiction as hope. Twelve stylized dragons hung overhead, clutching glowing balls of changing colors. Sadly, two globes had gone dark, speaking to the lack of maintenance.

Still, Seichan found herself relaxing, enjoying the cutthroat nature of the place, appreciating the lack of pretense. She felt a black camaraderie with this space.

“The elevators are over there,” Gray said and pointed to a bank of cages along the wall to the left.

Their destination lay above this floor, deeper into the shadowy fringes of the complex, into its maze of VIP rooms, where the true wealth flowed through Macau. The quantity of tables hidden away in those private spaces outnumbered those on the main floor.

Inside the elevator cage, Gray hit the button for the fourth floor. The upper-level VIP rooms were run exclusively by junket operators, private companies who would fly in high rollers from mainland China or elsewhere and lavish their customers with every extravagance, meeting any desire. Even the basement shopping arcade of the casino doubled as a prostitutes’ mall, where a young woman could be ordered on a whim.

Twenty different companies did business among those rooms, including several run by organized crime syndicates, where money laundering was commonplace. Such anonymity and discretion suited Gray and Seichan’s objective. They had come here posing as two high-stakes gamblers. The payment to their informant would be washed away by the junket operator, keeping their hands clean. Their goal was a simple one: get the information, pay the man, and leave.

The elevator cage opened into a hallway decorated in a faded attempt at opulence, all in reds and golds. Doors lined the halls, many with burly men standing guard.

Kowalski eyed them like a testy bull.

“This way,” Seichan said, taking the lead.

With the end in sight, she hurried now. This was her last chance to discover her mother’s fate; all other leads — one after the other — had dried up. Seichan struggled to keep her anxiety at bay. For the past four months, she had leaned on her training, staying hypervigilant, keeping her focus away from that knot in her gut, that tangle of hope, despair, and fear. It was why she had held Gray off at arm’s length, despite his plain desire to explore something deeper with her.

She dared not lose control.

Their VIP room lay at the end of the hall. A pair of large men with bulges under their jackets flanked its door, bodyguards supplied by the company who had booked this space.

Reaching them, she showed her false I.D.

Gray and Kowalski did the same.

Only then did one of the guards knock on the door and open it for them. Seichan stepped through first and quickly sized up the space. The walls had been painted gold, and the carpet was woven in a pattern of crimson and black. A lone green baize baccarat table stood to her left, a nest of red-silk chairs and lounges to her right. The room was empty, except for a single occupant.

Dr. Hwan Pak.

His presence was the reason for so much precaution and subterfuge. He served as the lead scientist at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center in North Korea — a facility known for enriching uranium used by the country’s atomic program. He also had a severe gambling addiction, though that was known only to a few intelligence agencies.

Stubbing out a cigarette, Hwan Pak rose from a couch, standing only a few inches over five feet and thin as a cane. He bowed slightly in greeting, his eyes on Gray, as if sensing the one in charge, already dismissing her, a mere woman.

“You are late,” he said politely but firmly, his accent barely evident. He reached to a pocket and removed a cell phone. “You have purchased one hour of my time. For eight hundred thousand as agreed.”

Seichan folded her arms, letting Gray type in the transfer code arranged by the junket organizer.

“Four hundred thousand now,” Gray said. “The rest only if I’m satisfied with your information.”

The price was in Hong Kong dollars, which exchanged to about eighty thousand in U.S. currency. Seichan would have gladly paid ten times that amount if the man truly had any knowledge of her mother. And from the tinge of desperation in Pak’s eyes, the scientist would likely have settled for far less than they’d offered. He had large debts to settle with unsavory sorts, debts that even this transaction would not settle completely.

“You will not be disappointed,” Pak said.

From his offices halfway across Macau, Ju-long Delgado smiled as he watched Hwan Pak wave his new guests to the nest of red-silk lounges. The brutish one hung back, moving instead to the baccarat table, leaning his rear against it, absently picking at the felt surface.

The two high-value targets — the assassin and the former soldier — followed Pak and sat down.

Ju-long wished he could have eavesdropped on their conversation, but the security feed from the Lisboa was video only.

A shame.

But it was a minor quibble compared to the rewards to come.

And as he well knew: All good things come to those who wait.

Seichan let Gray take the lead on the interrogation of Hwan Pak, sensing the North Korean scientist would respond more fully to another man.

Chauvinist bastard…

“So you know the woman we seek?” Gray started.

“Ye,” Pak answered with a swift nod. He had lit a fresh cigarette and puffed out a stream of smoke, plainly nervous. “Her name is Guan-yin. Though I doubt that is her real name.”

It isn’t, Seichan thought. Or at least it wasn’t.

Her mother’s real name had been Mai Phuong Ly.

A flash of memory suddenly struck her, unbidden, unwelcome at the moment. As a girl, Seichan had been on her belly beside a small garden pond, tracing a finger in the water, trying to lure up a golden carp — then her mother’s face reflected next to her, wavering in the rippled surface, surrounded by a floating scatter of fallen cherry blossoms.

They were her mother’s namesake.

Cherry blossoms.

Seichan blinked, drawing herself fully back to the moment at hand. She was not surprised that her mother had adopted a new name. She had been on the run, needing to keep hidden. And a new name allowed a new life.

Utilizing all of Sigma’s resources, Seichan had discovered the identity of the armed men who had taken her mother. They had been members of the Vietnamese secret police, euphemistically called the Ministry of Public Security. They had learned of her mother’s dalliance with an American diplomat, her father, and of the love that grew from there. They had sought to pry U.S. secrets out of her.

Her mother had been held at a prison outside Ho Chi Minh City — until she escaped during a prison riot a year later. For a short period of time, due to a clerical error, she had been declared dead, killed during that uprising. It was that lucky mistake that gave her enough of a head start to flee Vietnam and vanish into the world.

Had she looked for me? Seichan wondered. Or did she think I was already dead?

Seichan had a thousand unanswered questions.

“Guan-yin,” Pak continued. A faint smile traced his lips, mocking and bitter. “Such a beautiful name certainly did not fit her… certainly not when I met her eight years ago.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked.

“Guan-yin means goddess of mercy.” Pak lifted his left hand, revealing only four fingers. “This is the quality of her mercy.”

Seichan shifted closer, speaking for the first time. “How did you know her?” she asked coldly.

Pak initially looked ready to ignore her, but then his eyes slightly crinkled. He stared harder at Seichan, possibly truly seeing her for the first time. Suspicion trickled into his gaze.

“You sound…” he stammered. “Just then… but that’s not possible.”

Gray leaned forward, catching the man’s eye. “This is an expensive hour, Dr. Pak. Like the lady asked… how did you know Guan-yin? In what capacity?”

He flattened the lapels of his suit coat, visibly collecting himself. Only then did he speak. “She once ran this very room,” he said with a small nod to indicate the VIP lounge. “As the dragonhead of a gang out of Kowloon, the Duàn zhī Triad.”

Seichan flinched at that name, unable to stop herself.

Gray made a scoffing noise. “So you’re saying Guan-yin was a boss of this Chinese Triad?”

“Ye,” he said sharply. “She is the only woman to ever become a dragonhead. To accomplish this, she had to be extremely ruthless. I should have known better than to take a loan from her.”

Pak rubbed the stump of his missing finger.

Gray noted the motion. “She had your finger cut off?”

“Aniyo,” he disagreed. “She did it herself. She came from Kowloon with a hammer and a chisel. The name of her Triad means Broken Twig. It is also her signature means of encouraging the prompt payment of a debt.”

Gray grimaced, clearly picturing that brutal handiwork.

Seichan was having no easier time of it. Her breathing grew harder, trying to balance this act with the mother who had once nursed a broken-winged dove back to health. But she knew the man wasn’t lying.

Gray was less convinced. “And how are we to know that this Triad boss is the woman we came looking for? What proof do you offer? Do you have a photograph of you with her?”

Inside the intelligence inquiry sent out broadly, Sigma had included a picture of her mother, one taken from the records of the Vietnamese prison where she had been incarcerated. They’d also posted possible locations, which unfortunately covered a large swath of Southeast Asia, along with a computer-enhanced image of how she might look now, twenty years later.

Dr. Pak had been the only promising fish to bite on that line.

“A photograph?” The North Korean scientist shook his head. He lit another cigarette, plainly a chain-smoker. “She keeps herself covered in public. Only those high in her Triad have seen her face. If anyone else sees her, they don’t live long enough to speak of it.”

“Then how do you—?”

Pak touched his throat. “The dragon. I saw it when she wielded the hammer… dangling from her neck, the silver shining, as merciless as its owner.”

“Like this?” Seichan slipped a finger to her collar and pulled out her own coiled dragon pendant. The intelligence dossier had included a picture of it. Seichan’s charm was a copy of another. The memory of the original remained etched in her bones, often rising up in dreams

… of being curled in her mother’s arms on the small cot under an open window, night birds singing, moonlight reflecting off the silver dragon resting at her mother’s throat, shimmering like water with each breath…

Hwan Pak had a different memory. He cringed back from her pendant, as if trying to escape the sight.

“There must be many dragon pendants of a similar design,” Gray said. “What you offer is no proof. Only your word about a piece of jewelry you saw eight years ago.”

“If you want real proof—”

Seichan cut him off, standing and tucking the silver dragon away. She motioned for Gray to move aside for a private conversation.

Once they retreated to beyond the baccarat table, she spoke in his ear. Kowalski’s bulk helped shield them further.

“He’s telling the truth,” Seichan said. “We must move beyond this line of questioning and find out where my mother is in Kowloon.”

“Seichan, I know you want to believe him, but let me—”

She gripped his bicep to shut him up. “The name of the Triad. Duàn zhī.”

He went silent, letting her speak, plainly seeing something in her face.

She felt tears rising, coming from a place of happiness and grief, a place where night birds still sang in the jungle.

“The name… Broken Twig,” she said. Even speaking it, she felt something break inside her.

He waited, not understanding, but he allowed her the space to explain at her own pace.

“My name,” she said haltingly, feeling suddenly exposed, “the one given to me by my mother… the one I abandoned, a necessity to bury my childhood behind me… it was Chi.”

A new name allowed a new life.

Gray’s eyes widened. “Your real name is Chi.”

“Was,” she still insisted.

That girl had died long ago.

Seichan took a steadying breath. “In Vietnamese, Chi means twig.”

She read the understanding in Gray’s face.

Her mother had named the Triad after her lost daughter.

Before Gray could respond, a sharp coughing sounded from beyond the door — but the noise came from no human throat. Bodies thudded out in the hallway, felled by the barrage of noise-suppressed gunfire.

Gray was already swinging to face that threat, drawing Kowalski with him.

Pak called from across the room. “You asked for proof!” He pointed his smoldering cigarette at the door. “Here it comes!”

Seichan immediately realized what Pak had done. She should have suspected it sooner, considering what they had just learned. She cursed herself. In the past, she never would have been blindsided like this. Her time with Sigma had softened her.

Pak backed away from the door, but he did not look scared. This was his play, a path to a far bigger payoff than Gray had offered, a possible way to clear all his debts. In a clever act of betrayal, the bastard had turned the tables on them, sold them out to her mother’s Triad, passing on a warning to a woman who had gone to great lengths to keep her face hidden from the world.

Such a woman would destroy anyone who got too close to the truth.

Seichan understood that.

She would have done the same.

You did what you must to survive.

Ju-long Delgado was not as understanding about the sudden turn of events at Casino Lisboa. He stood up and grabbed his cell phone.

On the plasma screen, he watched the three foreigners react to some commotion beyond the VIP room door. The two men flipped the baccarat table on its side, placing it between them and the door to act as a shield. On the other side of the room, the North Korean scientist seemed less perturbed, but even he retreated into a far corner, placing himself out of harm’s way.

With one thumb, Ju-long speed-dialed Tomaz out at the Lisboa. Earlier, Ju-long had specifically ordered his team not to pursue the targets until Dr. Pak left. He didn’t want any trouble with the North Koreans. He had many lucrative ties with their government, helping shuttle prominent members, like Hwan Pak, to and from Macau. In fact, he had visited Pyongyang himself, grooming and securing those connections.

As soon as the line was picked up, Tomaz reported in, panting heavily as if running. “We saw it, too, on the security feed, senhor. A firefight. I’m heading up there now. Someone is assaulting the same VIP room.”

A lance of righteous indignation stabbed through Ju-long. Was someone trying to steal his merchandise? Had a disgruntled bidder decided to circumvent the auction and take a direct approach?

Tomaz corrected him. “We believe it’s one of the Triads.”

He balled a fist.

Damned Chinese dogs…

His plan must have leaked to the wrong ears.

“How do you wish us to proceed, senhor? Back off or continue as planned?”

Ju-long had no choice. If he didn’t retaliate in full force, the Triads would take it as a sign of weakness, and he’d be fighting turf wars for years. The cost to his organization, along with the weakening of his position in the eyes of the Chinese officials who ran Macau, could not be tolerated.

Extreme measures were needed.

“Lock down the Lisboa,” he ordered, intending to make an example of the trespassers. “Bring in more men. Any known Triad on the property, whether involved or not, I want killed on sight. Any suspected ally, anyone who might have helped facilitate or knew about this strike, I want dead.”

“And the targets?”

He weighed the advantages and disadvantages. While the profits to be gained by the pair were considerable, their deaths could also serve as an important lesson. It would demonstrate Ju-long’s willingness to sacrifice profit in order to maintain his authority and position. Among the Chinese, honor and saving face were as important as breathing.

He allowed the anger to drain out of him, reconciling himself to the reality of the situation. What’s done is done.

Besides, in the end, their bodies could still fetch a tidy sum.

And a little profit was better than none.

“Kill them,” he ordered. “Kill them all.”

3

Chaos still ruled the floor of the Space and Missile Systems Center.

It had been almost two hours since the satellite image of the smoldering Eastern Seaboard had glowed on its giant monitor. Base personnel had immediately confirmed that New York, Boston, and D.C. were all safe and unharmed. Life continued on out there without mishap.

The relief in the room had been palpable. Painter’s reaction was no exception. He had friends and colleagues across the Northeast. Still, he was glad his fiancée was in New Mexico. He pictured Lisa’s face, framed in a fall of blond hair, grinning at him with a trace of mischief that always set his heart pounding harder. If anything had happened to her…

But in the end, nothing was amiss out east.

So what the hell had the satellite transmitted as it crashed?

That had been the critical question of the past two hours. Theories had flashed across the floor of the control room. Was the picture some extrapolation? Some computer simulation of a nuclear strike? But all the engineers claimed such calculations were beyond the scope of the spacecraft’s original programming.

So what had happened?

Painter stood with Dr. Jada Shaw in front of the giant screens, along with a handful of engineers and military brass.

A satellite image of the island of Manhattan glowed before them. A young technician stood with a laser pointer in hand. He passed its glowing red dot across the breadth of the island.

“This is an image obtained from an NRO satellite at the exact same time that IoG-1 burned past the Eastern Seaboard. Here you can make out the grid of streets, the lakes dotting Central Park. Now here is the same fractional picture taken by IoG-1.”

He clicked a handheld button, and another image appeared beside the first. The new picture was a blown-up section of the photo snapped by the satellite as it crashed, featuring the identical chunk of Manhattan.

“If we overlay, one atop the other…”

The technician worked his magic to superimpose the second over the first. Through the smoke and the flames, the grid of streets lined up perfectly. Even the lakes of Central Park matched in every dimension.

Murmurs spread through the crowd.

Dr. Shaw took a step forward to look more closely. She wore a frown of distaste.

“As you can see,” the tech continued, “this is New York City, not some facsimile. The destruction depicted is not some digital noise that inadvertently looks like the East Coast is burning. Not at this level of detail.”

To prove his point, the tech zoomed upon key locations of the island. Though the resolution became grainy, it appeared Manhattan was correct down to its tiniest details. Except now, the Empire State Building was a blazing torch, the financial district a cratered ruin, and the Queensboro Bridge a shattered twist of steel girders. It looked like some exquisite digital matte painting for a disaster film.

Boston and D.C. fared no better.

Questions flared among the audience, but Dr. Shaw simply moved closer, resting a hand on her chin, staring between the two images as they were split apart again.

General Metcalf called to Painter from a few yards away, irritation piquing in his voice. “Director Crowe, a moment of your time.”

Painter moved to join his boss in front of the world map.

“This is the latest and most refined telemetry data,” Metcalf said, pointing to the crash path of the falling satellite on the map. “The impact site is likely here, in a remote region of northern Mongolia. As you can see, it’s not far from the borders of both Russia and China. So far, there have been no rumblings from either country about this crash.”

“What about eyes on the ground out there?”

Metcalf shook his head. “This region of Mongolia is mountainous and remote. Populated only by nomadic tribesmen.”

Painter understood. “In that case, we’ve got a small window to get out there and find that burned piece of military space hardware before either Russia or China catches wind of it.”

“Precisely.”

Painter glanced over to the other screen. No one understood what had happened to generate that disturbing image, but they all knew any answers lay amid the crashed ruins of the Eye of God. Secondarily, it was vital that the satellite’s advanced technology not be lost to a foreign nation.

“I’ve already got Captain Kat Bryant over at Sigma command working on the logistics for a search team.”

“Very good. I want you on the first plane back to D.C. There’s a jet being fueled for you. That’s your top priority. Find and secure that wreckage.”

Metcalf turned his back, dismissing him.

Off to the side, Dr. Shaw had her head bowed next to the technician. The man kept nodding his head, glancing at the screen, then finished with a scared look on his face.

What’s that all about?

The technician stepped away from Dr. Shaw and crossed to an engineering station, waving others to join him.

Curious, Painter stepped to the young astrophysicist’s side as she continued to study the screen.

She noted his attention. “I still say it’s the comet.”

Painter had heard her earlier theories. “Dr. Shaw, you still believe all this is a consequence of dark energy?”

“Call me Jada. And, yes, from the last spool of data from the satellite, the geodetic effect registered a misalignment of 5.4 degrees.”

From the ardent look in her eyes as she glanced at him, he saw she expected this to strike him as significant.

It didn’t.

“That means precisely what?” he asked.

She sighed with frustration. She had spent the last two hours arguing with the brass at the base, trying to get them to listen to her, and clearly she was losing patience with them all.

“Picture a bowling ball resting on a thin stretch of trampoline,” she said. “The mass of the ball would create a depression in the surface. That’s what the earth does to the geography around it. It curves space and time. This is proven by both theory and experiment, and the geodetic effect is a measuring rod for that curvature. So when the data reports a misalignment, it’s registering a wrinkle in that space-time. Something my theory posited could happen if IoG-1 collected an influx of dark energy. But I never expected such a deep wrinkle.”

A worried crinkle of her own formed between her brows.

“So what has you looking so concerned?” he asked.

“At best, I had hoped to see merely a twitch in the geodetic effect. Something less than 0.1 percent, and something brief, on the nano-scale level of time. A twist of alignment of over five percent and sustained for almost a full minute…” She gave her head a slight shake.

“Earlier, you theorized that the massive burst of dark energy might have torn a small hole in space-time, possibly opening a brief window into an alternate universe, one parallel to our own, one where the Eastern Seaboard was destroyed.”

She studied the screen. “Or it may be a peek into our own future.”

That was a disturbing possibility she hadn’t previously voiced.

“Time is not a linear function,” she continued, almost as if she were working something out in her head. “Time is just another dimension. Like up-down or left-right. The flow of time can also be affected by gravity or by velocity. So when space-time got ripped or wrinkled, it could have made time skip a beat, like the needle of a record player hitting a scratch in the vinyl.”

The fear in her eyes brightened.

Painter tried to stave off that panic. “Since when do you kids still listen to vinyl?”

She turned to him, the anxiety pushed back by indignation. “I’ll have you know I have a vintage jazz collection that rivals the best in the world. B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis, Hans Koller.”

“Okay.” He held up a placating palm.

“Nothing compares to old vinyl,” she finished with a righteous huff.

He didn’t disagree with her.

He was saved from any further diatribe by the return of the technician.

“You were right,” he said to her, looking even more scared.

“Right about what?” Painter asked.

“Show me,” she said, ignoring him.

The technician crossed back to the giant screen and once again brought up the NRO satellite image and superimposed it over the photo taken by IoG-1. He flickered them back and forth, one atop the other.

“The shadows don’t match, like you thought. Not just here, but we tested some spots in Boston, with the same anomaly registering.” He pointed to the clutch of engineers and techs by his workstation. “We’re zeroing in on different points along the Eastern Seaboard and calculating the degree of variance.”

She nodded. “We need the time differential calculated.”

“We’re on it.”

Painter didn’t follow. “What’s wrong?”

She pointed to the giant screen. “The shadows don’t match between the two images. They are fractionally off from one another.”

“Which means what?”

“The two images were taken at the same time, so the shadows should match. Like two pictures of the same sundial taken at the same moment.” She stared hard at them. “But they don’t. The shadows don’t line up, which means—”

“The sun’s position in the sky is different between the two photos.”

A sense of dread drew his spine straighter.

She took a worried breath. “The Eye of God snapped a picture of Manhattan at a different time, not the one registered by our clocks as it crashed.”

Painter pictured that needle skipping over a scratch in a vinyl record.

Jada continued, “The technicians are trying to figure out what date and time correspond to the position of the sun captured in the satellite image. They’re triangulating spots up and down the Eastern Seaboard to pinpoint that exact time.”

By now the growing commotion at the engineering console had drawn others.

The lead tech straightened and stared at Jada.

“The variance is eighty-eight…!” Someone tugged his sleeve. He ducked to the screen, then back up again. “Make that ninety hours from now.”

That was less than four days.

General Metcalf joined him. “What’s this all about?”

Painter’s gaze fell upon Jada’s face, where he found certainty shining.

“That image.” Painter nodded to the destruction. “That’s not a glitch. That’s how the world will look in four days.”

Rachel Verona woke out of a dream of drowning to the ringing of the phone. She struggled up, gasping a breath, taking a moment to realize she was not in her bed, but on the overstuffed sofa in Uncle Vigor’s office. She had dozed off while reading a text about St. Thomas.

The smell of garlic and pesto still hung in the air from the take-out meal she had fetched earlier for them both. The cartons still rested on her uncle’s desk, by his elbow.

“Can you get the phone?” Vigor asked.

With his reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, he was bent studiously over the old skull. He held a measuring compass open and poised across the length of the nasal bone. He scribbled a note on a sheet of graph paper.

As the phone rang loudly, Rachel rolled to her feet and stepped to his desk. She stared at the sliver of moon through the arrow-slit of a window accented by the arc of the comet’s long tail.

“It’s getting late, Uncle. We can finish this in the morning.”

He waved the compass dismissively. “I only sleep a few hours. And when it’s quiet like this, I get my best work done.”

She picked up the ringing phone on his desk. “Pronto?”

A tired masculine voice answered, “Sono Bruno Conti, dottore di recerco da Centro Studi Microcitemia.”

Rachel covered the receiver. “Uncle, it’s Dr. Conti from the DNA lab.”

He waved for the phone. “Took them long enough.”

Rachel stared over at the skull as Vigor spoke rapidly with the research geneticist. She recognized the source of her uncle’s impatience, noting the faint writing on the crown of the skull, marking a fateful date. She felt no misgivings at the prediction etched in bone. People had been predicting the end of the world since the beginning of time — from the ancient Maya with their prophetic calendar to the turn-of-the-millennial doomsayers back in 2000.

How is this any different?

Vigor’s conversation became more heated — then he promptly hung up.

Rachel noted the dark circles under her uncle’s eyes. “What’s the news from the lab?” she asked.

“They’ve confirmed my estimates of the age of the skull and the book.”

He gestured to the copy of the Gospel of Thomas bound in human skin. For the hundredth time, she wondered why anyone would do that. Yes, the book was considered heretical during its time. It dismissed religious orthodoxy as the only way to salvation, claiming instead that the path to God lay inside anyone, if they’d only open their eyes and follow it.

Seek and you shall find.

Still, heresy or not, why bind such a copy in human skin?

“So how old are the book and skull?” she asked.

“The lab has dated them to the thirteenth century.”

“So not the third century as the Aramaic writing suggested? That means it can’t be an authentic Jewish magical talisman, like those found by archaeologists in the past.”

“No. It’s just as I surmised. It’s likely a copy of an original. In fact, the skull itself is not even Jewish.”

“How do you know that?”

He motioned for her to join him. “While you were napping, I was studying the cranial structures and conformational anatomy. First of all, this skull is mesocranic.”

“Which means?”

“That the skull is broad and of intermediate height. Additionally note how these cheekbones are thick, the eye sockets rounded, and the nasal bones are flat and wide.” He picked up the skull and flipped it over. “And look at the teeth. The incisors are shovel shaped, very different from Mediterranean stock.”

“Then where did this skull come from?”

He turned to her, tapping his measuring compass on his notepad. “From my calculations of the various cranial dimensions — eye width, the depth of the prenasal fossa, the degree of prognathism — I’d say this skull is East Asian in origin, what used to be called Mongoloid.”

A measure of respect flashed through her as she was reminded yet again that her uncle was far more than a man of the cloth. “So the skull came from somewhere out in the Far East?”

“As did the book,” he added.

“The book?”

He looked over the edge of his reading glasses at her. “I thought you heard, when I was speaking to Dr. Conti.”

She shook her head.

He hovered a palm over the wrinkled leather binding with the macabre eye sewn on the cover. “According to Dr. Conti’s analysis, the skin of the book and the skull share identical DNA. They’re from the same source.”

As the implication struck her, Rachel swallowed back bile.

Whoever had made these talismans, they’d crafted them from a single body. They used some man’s skin to bind the book, then his skull to make this relic.

Vigor continued, “I’m having the lab continue to build a racial profile using both autosomal and mitochondrial DNA to see if we can narrow down the origin of these relics. When Father Josip sent them to me, he must have done so for a reason. Time was running out. He knew I could help and that I had access to resources he didn’t.”

“Like the DNA lab.”

He nodded.

“So why didn’t Father Josip simply write you a note?”

Vigor offered a coy wink. “Who says he didn’t?”

Rachel scowled at this revelation. “Then why didn’t you tell—?”

“I only discovered it a quarter hour ago. While I was examining the skull. I wanted to finish my measurements, and you needed your sleep. Then the phone rang, and I got distracted with the news from the DNA lab.”

Rachel stared at the skull. “Show me.”

Vigor flipped the relic over and pointed to the hole where the spinal cord enters the skull. He lifted a penlight and shone it inside. “Where else would someone hide secret knowledge?”

Rachel leaned closer and peered into the cranium’s interior. A dollop of crimson wax had been affixed to the inner surface of the skull, like the seal on a papal letter. Tiny letters, written in Latin, had been meticulously carved into the wax. She pictured Josip inscribing each letter with some sharp, long-handled instrument through the skull’s narrow fossa.

Why such a degree of secrecy? How paranoid was this man?

She stared at the message.

She translated the Latin aloud. “Help. Come to the Aral Sea.”

She frowned. The Aral Sea straddled the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. It was a desolate area. She also remembered her uncle’s morphological determination of the skull’s origin as East Asian. Had Father Josip determined the same? Had the racial heritage of the relic drawn him from Hungary out east to continue his search? But if so, what was he searching for and why such secrecy?

Squinting, she also made out a faint series of Arabic numbers inscribed under the Latin inscription.

Vigor guessed what had drawn her attention. “Longitude and latitude markings.”

“To a key specific location.” Rachel could not hold back the distrust in her voice. “That’s where Father Josip wants you to meet him?”

“So it would appear.”

Rachel frowned. She didn’t want her uncle traipsing to parts unknown based on some cryptic note of an errant priest who had vanished nearly a decade ago.

Vigor set the skull back down. “I’m going to set out at daybreak. Catch the earliest flight out to Kazakhstan.”

Rachel balked at this, but she knew from long experience that she’d never convince him otherwise. She settled on a compromise. “Not without me, you’re not. And I’ve got plenty of vacation time accrued. So you have no excuse.”

He smiled. “I had hoped you’d say that. In fact, I wonder if we shouldn’t contact Director Crowe to see if he could offer us additional field support.”

“You want to involve Sigma Force? All because of something written on a skull back in the thirteenth century, some ancient prophecy of doom.”

She rolled her eyes at such a thought. She and her uncle had dealings in the past with Sigma, and she certainly would not object to an excuse to see Commander Gray Pierce again. The two had an off-again, on-again relationship over the years that had settled into a mutual friendship. Sometimes with benefits. But both knew such a long-distance relationship would never last. Still… she gave it a moment’s more thought, then dismissed it. Sigma’s team of scientific and military experts didn’t need to be bothered with a minor matter such as this.

“I think we could benefit from their expertise,” Vigor pressed. “Besides, I sense we’re running short on time.”

As if proving this, a shatter of glass sounded. Glass cascaded into the office. An object ricocheted off the stone edge of the narrow window and rebounded to the room’s far side.

Vigor flinched from the sudden noise. Rachel’s training had her already moving. She scooped her uncle around the waist and rolled him away from the window, toward the opposite side of the room.

She drove her uncle to the floor, sheltering him behind the desk with her body — as the grenade exploded with a concussive blast of fire and smoke.

The sprawl of Los Angeles vanished below the wings of the jet as it began its cross-country flight to D.C. Painter had asked the pilot to spare no fuel, to push the Bombardier Global 5000 to its severe limits. The luxury of the richly appointed interior, with its full bar and leather seating groups, belied the jet’s state-of-the-art engines, which could reach an upper speed of 590 mph.

Painter intended to test the manufacturer’s claims during this flight, especially with the Eastern Seaboard set to burn in less than four days.

Whether true or not, General Metcalf had requested he set aside such mysteries for now and tasked him with a more practical concern: the crashed IoG-1 satellite. Those orders still rang in his ears.

Find the wreckage of the satellite. That remains your primary objective. The technicians will deal with the image taken by the satellite. And as a precaution, I’ll begin a risk assessment in regards to pending threats to the East Coast.

They each had their roles to play.

The plane banked as it headed out of Los Angeles airspace. The comet shone in the blue sky, luminous enough to see during the day. At night, the tail stretched far across the stars, so bright that one could discern the wavering scintillation of its tail, making it appear a living thing. It was expected to blaze up there for almost a month as the comet made a slow pass by the earth.

Slipping into the leather seat next to him, she noted his attention. The only other passenger aboard the jet, she tinkled a glass of cola in one hand.

Jada had shared with Metcalf her theories of time skipping a beat due to a wrinkle in space-time. Her theory offered an explanation for the errant shadows discovered in the photo, shadows that suggested the image might be a glimpse of ninety hours into the future.

“I don’t think we convinced the general,” Painter said, turning to her.

“And I’m not sure I’m convinced either,” Jada added.

This surprised him — and it must have shown on his face.

“There are so many variables in play here,” she explained, shifting uncomfortably in the seat. “As I mentioned before, the image could be a peek into an alternate future, not necessarily ours. I refuse to believe that the future is written in stone. In fact, quantum physics defies such linear paths to time. Just the act of observation can change fate, like with Schrödinger’s cat.”

“And that applies how?”

“Well, take that cat. It’s a classic example of the spookiness of quantum mechanics. In that thought experiment, a cat is put in a box with a poison pellet, one that has an equal chance of killing the cat or not. While the box is closed, the cat is considered to be in a suspended state — both alive and dead. It’s only after you open the box and check on the cat that its fate is truly settled one way or the other. Some theorize that when the box is opened, the universe splits into two. In one universe, the cat’s alive. In the other, he’s dead.”

“Okay.”

“And the same situation may be involved with the photo taken by the satellite as space-time wrinkled around it. In one universe, the world burns. In the other, it doesn’t.”

“So we have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. For some reason, with the fate of mankind hanging in the balance, I’m not particularly happy with those odds.”

“Yet the flow of time gets even murkier from there. Just the fact that the satellite took the picture and we all saw it is an act of observation. What we do from here can change fate — but we don’t know if our actions will make that doomsday more likely to happen or less.”

“It sounds as if — for the next four days — we’re all like Schrödinger’s cat in the box, trapped in that suspended state between survival and death.”

She nodded, not looking any happier than he did.

“So we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

She shrugged. “That pretty much sums up quantum physics.”

“So then what do you suggest we do?”

“We find that satellite. That’s the most important agenda.”

“You sound like General Metcalf.”

“He’s right. All my theories are just conjecture. But by analyzing the wreckage, I may have something more concrete to offer.” She shifted in her seat to more fully face him. “I know you were not keen on me joining the team headed to Mongolia to search for the wreckage, but no one knows more about that satellite than I do. Without someone intimately knowledgeable on hand, valuable data could be lost — or worse.”

“What do you mean by worse?”

She sighed heavily. “I told you how that influx of dark energy likely wrinkled space-time, a wrinkle much deeper than any estimates projected. But my preliminary calculations warn of a larger danger.”

“What danger?”

“There is a slim possibility that we might’ve created a kink in space-time, something semipermanent, capable of lasting for a period of time — and that the kink could still be entangled at the quantum level with the remains of that satellite.”

“Entangled?”

“Such an event occurs when two objects interact for a period of time, come to share quantum states, then become separated. In certain instances, their quantum states can remain linked, where a change in the quantum status in one changes in the other instantly. Even over vast distances.”

“That seems to defy logic.”

“And violates the speed of light. In fact, it kind of freaked Einstein out. He called this effect spukhafte Fernwirkung, or spooky action at a distance. Yet, not only has this phenomenon been demonstrated in labs at the subatomic level, but a group of Chinese researchers recently accomplished the same with a pair of diamonds visible to the naked eye. All it takes is enough energy.”

“Something like a blast of dark energy.”

“Exactly. If there is a kink in the curvature of space-time around the earth, and if its quantum state became entangled with the satellite, any mishandling of the crash debris could result in that kink ripping a hole from space to the ground.”

“And that would not be good.”

“Not if you like life on this planet.”

“You make a compelling case, Dr. Shaw.”

Before he could make a final comment, his satellite phone rang. Checking the screen, he saw the incoming call was from Sigma command in D.C. It was Captain Kathryn Bryant, his second-in-command. Kat’s specialty was in intelligence-gathering services for Sigma, but he had tasked her with the preliminary logistics in putting a search team together.

Painter had spoken to her briefly earlier. The tentative plan had been to have Commander Pierce’s group proceed directly from China to Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia, where his group would rendezvous with a two-man team sent from Washington.

Kat had suggested keeping the expedition small, as the region where the satellite crashed was in Mongolia’s Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area, a region of the country where access was highly restricted, especially to foreigners, due to preservation efforts — both natural and historical. The region was also considered to be sacred to the people of Mongolia. Any misstep and the team could be booted out of there.

As a consequence, logistical details were still being worked out.

Painter hoped for better news from Kat as he answered the phone.

Her first words quickly quashed that hope.

“Director, we have another problem.”

Of course, we do…

Kat continued, “I just heard word through the intelligence channels of an attack in Italy. Details are still sketchy, but apparently someone shot a rocket-propelled grenade into the university offices of Monsignor Verona.”

“Vigor? Is he okay?”

“He is. In fact, I’ve got him queued up on the line for a conference call with you. He’s still a little shaken up, but his niece was present during the attack and got them both out safely. He insisted on talking to you — and I think you might want to hear him out.”

Painter had plenty on his plate, but he owed the monsignor this courtesy. “Put him on.”

Kat made the connections and the familiar tenor voice of Monsignor Verona came onto the line.

“Director Crowe, grazie.” Vigor sounded surprisingly calm considering what had just transpired, but he was a resilient old bird. “I know you are busy, but I have a grave concern that I wanted to bring to your attention.”

“What’s wrong?”

“To be blunt, I believe the world is coming to a major crisis point.”

Painter felt an icy chill begin to develop. “Why do you say that?”

The monsignor went on to explain about a mysterious package from a dead archaeological colleague: a skull and a book bound in human skin. Vigor talked about Hungarian witches, Talmudic magical relics, and an inscription begging for salvation.

As the story continued, the chill slowly seeped away. Relief set in. This had nothing to do with what Painter had witnessed at the space center.

Vigor continued, “After the attack, I suspect now why my colleague, Father Josip, went into hiding. Whatever he is pursuing has clearly drawn the attention of a violent group, someone who seeks to keep his knowledge from reaching the world. He has asked for me to join him in Central Asia, near the Aral Sea. I was hoping you’d be able to offer some field support — especially as time is running short.”

Painter wished he had the resources to help, but considering what he faced, he couldn’t justify such a diversion of manpower. “I’m sorry—”

Kat interrupted, still on the conference call. “Monsignor Vigor, I think you should tell Director Crowe why you believe time is running short.”

“Mi dispiace,” he apologized. “I thought I already had, but I realize now I only told you, Captain Bryant, not the director.”

“Tell me what?” Painter asked.

“The inscription on the skull, the one asking for salvation… it was a plea against the world ending.”

“You mentioned that already.”

“Yes, but I failed to mention when the world was prophesied to end.”

Painter felt that chill creep back up his spine. “Let me guess,” he said. “In four days.”

“Sì,” Vigor replied, surprised. “But how did you know that?”

For the moment, Painter refrained from explaining. He had Kat put Vigor back on hold, while he and his second-in-command talked in private.

“What do you think?” he asked Kat.

“I find it intriguing that such a relic should match the doomsday time frame reported by the Space and Missile Systems Center.”

Apparently Kat had already learned about that strange bit of news from out west. He shouldn’t have been surprised. That was her field of expertise, gathering intelligence. Nothing escaped her notice.

“But is it a mere coincidence?” Painter asked. “Do we divert resources toward what may be just an archaeological wild-goose chase?”

“In this case, I’m interested enough to say yes. First, it wouldn’t necessarily be that much of a diversion. The coordinates supplied by Monsignor Verona are in Central Asia and happen to be along the route from D.C. to Mongolia. It would be easy enough for our U.S.-based team to make a short stop at the Aral Sea to investigate this mystery. It wouldn’t set the timetable back significantly. Besides, I still need to get resources air-dropped out to Mongolia. In the meantime, we can send a second team, one that’s already closer, in advance for an initial reconnaissance of the area.”

“You mean Gray, Kowalski, and Seichan.”

She nodded. “It’s only a few hours from Hong Kong to Ulan Bator, the capital city of Mongolia.”

“It sounds like you’ve thought this all out. But I should let you know, there may be a third member of the U.S. team.” He glanced over to Jada. “A civilian who has convinced me her expertise may be needed.”

“Not a problem. I value Dr. Shaw’s help.”

He smiled. As usual, Kat had read his mind.

“Also,” she said, “there is another advantage in making this detour. By working with the monsignor and his mysterious colleague, it offers us the perfect cover story for our search into the restricted Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area.”

“Of course,” Painter said, nodding, pleased at her resourcefulness. “They can pose as an archaeological team.”

“Exactly. Especially if the monsignor would be willing to venture to Mongolia with us — as it seems we have a common goal.”

Saving the world…

“Then let’s get things rolling,” Painter said. “Put a call in to Gray and get his team moving.”

Kat sighed, her irritation plain. “I would if I could reach him…”

4

The Casino Lisboa had become ground zero for World War III. Or at least it sounded that way to Gray from inside the barricaded VIP room. The initial spats of suppressed gunfire had escalated into a full-out firefight in the hallway.

More blasts echoed in the distance.

Inside the room, Gray crouched behind their makeshift barricade in front of the door. With Kowalski’s help, he’d manhandled the upended baccarat table and blocked the only way inside. Seichan had slid one of the red-silk sofas to further brace their fortification. The only other way out was the narrow window, but it was a straight four-story drop through the dark to the asphalt pavement below.

Across the room, Dr. Hwan Pak huddled in the far corner. His self-satisfied elation at his betrayal had turned to terror. Plainly something had gone wrong with his plan. The Duàn zhī Triad’s attempted ambush had run into a snag. Gray had initially hoped it was hotel security thwarting the attack, but as the fighting grew in volume and severity, including spats of assault rifles and the chugging rattle of machine guns, he suspected this was a gangland turf war.

And apparently we’re the prize.

Gray knew their barricade would not last forever. Someone would get the upper hand. Proving this assumption, a shotgun blast tore a fist-sized hole through the door.

“Now or never, Kowalski!” Gray yelled.

“You try doing this when your pants keep falling down!”

The large man crouched on his knees in the middle of the floor as Gray and Seichan kept their backs to the sofa, using its bulk as shelter.

Kowalski had stripped off his belt and positioned it in a circle on the floor, cinching the buckle in place and affixing a radio receiver to it. Kowalski was Sigma’s demolitions expert. While they couldn’t risk bringing weapons to China, Kowalski had traveled with an ace up his sleeve. Or in this case, laced through his belt.

The high-yield detonation cord had been developed by DARPA. It was sealed in a tube of carbon graphene, making the explosive inside undetectable to airport screening processes.

“All set,” Kowalski said and rolled back to join them, dragging a chair behind him.

“What are you doing?” Pak called over to them.

The three of them crowded behind the chair.

“Fire in the hole!” the big man yelled and pressed the transmitter in his hand.

The blast rocked the room, ringing Gray’s head like a struck bell. Smoke billowed. For a moment, the firefight outside halted as all parties froze at the sudden explosion.

“Go!” Gray yelled, shoving the chair aside.

He prayed the detonation cord had done its job. Otherwise, they were out of luck, as they’d blown Kowalski’s only supply of explosives.

Ahead, the fiery smoldering of burned carpeting glowed through the smoke. A crater had been blasted in the floor — or rather, through the floor. The larger steel trusses were intact, but the explosion had ripped a hole between them.

Gray stared down through the wreckage. He knew the third floor below had an almost identical layout as the fourth. Luckily the VIP room under them was empty.

As the gunfire resumed out in the hallway, sounding even more furious, Gray waved Seichan through first. She slipped between the trusses and smoothly leaped to the floor below.

Gray and Kowalski started to follow, but Hwan Pak tried to interfere, begging for them to take him with them. Kowalski punched out with a fist, as if swatting at a fly. Bone crunched, and Pak flew backward, landing on his backside, blood pouring from his nose.

A moment later, Gray stood next to Seichan by the third-floor door. Kowalski landed heavily behind them.

“Sounds clear out there,” Seichan said, her ear to the door. “But we’ll have to move fast. That ruse won’t last long.”

“We need a way out of this war zone,” Gray warned. “But all the exits from the hotel will be guarded.”

“I may know a way.”

Seichan opened the door, stuck her head out, then bolted into the hallway.

“So how about telling us,” Kowalski groused as he and Gray followed.

Seichan ran for the fire stairs and pounded through the door — only to be faced with a gunman running down from above, leaping steps.

Seichan ducked and hit him low, flipping the assailant over her back.

Gray, a few steps behind, spun on one toe and snap-kicked out with his other leg, catching the flying man in the jaw, cracking his head back. He landed in a crumpled pile.

“Remind me never to get on your bad sides,” Kowalski said.

Gray relieved the Triad member of his weapon, an AK-47 assault rifle. A search quickly revealed a holstered Chinese army Red Star pistol. He tossed the handgun to Kowalski.

“It’s Christmas already?” he mumbled, efficiently checking it over.

“Let’s go!” Seichan urged, poised at the steps leading down, checking the stairwell below.

Gray joined her with the rifle, and they hurried together down the steps, leaping from landing to landing. The firefight above faded slightly. But when they reached the first floor, the exit door began to swing open ahead of them. Whether it was someone seeking refuge or new reinforcements, Gray didn’t care. He fired a spat of rounds, peppering the door.

It quickly closed.

A pistol cracked behind him as Kowalski angled a shot up the stairwell, discouraging anyone from following.

Seichan ignored the first-floor door and continued down toward the basement level. From Gray’s study of the Lisboa, he knew an extensive shopping market tunneled beneath the casino floor. The place was also notorious for its parade of prostitutes, earning the level its nickname, Hooker Mall.

Seichan reached the basement door and cracked it open enough to peek through. It was eerily quiet out there compared to the ruckus above.

She spoke softly. “As I thought, all the shops are barricaded closed.”

Likely the owners had locked down their gates as the firefight began, battening down their hatches.

Gray began to get an inkling of Seichan’s plan. While the public entrances were surely under armed guard, no one was likely to be watching the market’s warehouse ramps and doors. Like Seichan, the Triads knew the shops would bottle themselves up to protect their wares from looting.

So how did she expect—?

Seichan wiggled out of her sweater vest and tossed it aside. She then ripped open her silk blouse, popping buttons across the floor, exposing a black bra, revealing the flat curve of her stomach. She pulled a tail of her shirt out of her jeans and disheveled her hair.

“How do I look?” she asked.

Gray was speechless — and for once, so was Kowalski.

She rolled her eyes at them, turned, and slipped out the door. “Hang back until I get someone to unlock a security gate.”

Gray took her place at the door.

Kowalski clapped him on the shoulder. “You are one lucky bastard, Pierce.”

He wasn’t about to argue.

Ju-long Delgado cursed his bad luck.

He stood before the plasma screen in his office, staring at the smoking hole blasted through the floor of the VIP room. He wanted to blame such misfortunes on the comet in the sky, but he was not a clinger to such superstitions. He knew the true source of his grief.

He had simply underestimated his quarry.

That would not happen twice.

A few moments ago, he had watched the larger of the two men detonate the explosive device — then he could only stand idly by as the trio made their escape, like rats down a hole.

The room’s only remaining occupant huddled in a corner.

Dr. Hwan Pak.

As he stared at the North Korean scientist, Ju-long tapped a finger on the edge of the Portuguese naval chest under the television, running various scenarios through his head, weighing each option for its best advantage.

He settled upon one course.

Earlier, Ju-long had tried to raise Tomaz at the Lisboa, to warn of their targets’ pending flight, but he had failed to reach anyone. He pictured the firefight being waged across the floors of the casino. It was a war being fought at his own behest, so he could not fault that it demanded Tomaz’s full attention at the moment.

So be it.

He pressed a button on his phone. As it was answered, he passed on a terse order. “Bring my car around.”

As he waited, someone knocked softly on his door. He turned to see it open, and a small figure slipped inside wearing a short silk robe and slippers. She was a vision in tanned skin, draped with a flow of honey-colored hair. As she crossed toward him, she cradled her swollen belly with one hand.

“Natalia, my sweet, you should be in bed.”

“Your son won’t let me,” she said with a tender smile, her eyes glancing invitingly toward him. “Perhaps if his father were lying beside me…”

“How I wish I could, but first I must attend to some business.”

She pouted.

He crossed to her, dropped to his knees, and kissed her belly where his son slumbered. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised them both, adding a kiss to her cheek as he ushered her out.

He truly wished he could join her — but at his father’s knee, he had learned that whether in war or business, sometimes one simply had to get one’s hands dirty.

Seichan sensed the walls closing in on her.

The longer they remained trapped inside Casino Lisboa, the slimmer were their chances of escaping.

She drew upon that desperation as she rushed from the stairwell door and out into the open of the basement shopping mall. Feigning a slight limp, she put on a great show of distress, pretending to be one of the mall’s prostitutes caught amid the firefight.

She spun around in a circle, pulling at her hair, crying for help in Cantonese. Tears streamed down her face as she ran from one gate to another, pounding to be let inside, for someone to rescue her.

As with many such places, she understood there was an unspoken relationship between the storeowners and the prostitutes who prowled this lower level, defined by the mutually beneficial flow of commerce.

The shops drew prospective clients, while the prostitutes lured potential shoppers.

The great circle of life.

She counted on that relationship extending to the two sides protecting each other. When she reached a farmers’ market, she sank to her knees against its steel fence. She rocked and moaned, looking lost and frightened.

As she had hoped, her plaintive cries finally drew someone out of hiding. A tiny white-haired man with a dirty apron came timidly to the gate. He made a motion to shoo her away, scolding her.

Instead, she clung to his gate, hanging from it in an operatic display of despair and fear, pleading with him.

Realizing she wasn’t going to leave, he dropped to a knee. He searched over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, and only then did he risk unlocking the gate.

As soon as he began to lift the steel fence, Seichan secretly motioned to Gray and Kowalski.

The stairwell door creaked open behind her, accompanied by the pounding of boots coming toward her.

The proprietor’s eyes grew huge. He tried to push the gate back down. Before he could, Seichan skirted under it and elbowed him back with one arm and yanked the fence higher with the other.

Gray ran up and skidded on his knees under the gate.

Kowalski barrel-rolled after him, slamming into a stand of oranges.

Gray pointed his rifle at the man.

“Lock it,” Seichan ordered, straightening her back and shedding her act like a snakeskin.

The storeowner obeyed in a rush, resecuring his gate.

“Tell him we mean him no harm,” Gray said.

Seichan translated, but from the cold look in her eyes and her stony countenance, he did not seem soothed. She questioned him briefly, then turned to Gray.

“The warehouse exit is back this way,” she said and led them in that direction.

Moving deeper into the market, they passed along a long counter supporting boxes of locally grown fruits and vegetables. On the other side, rows of watery tanks held live fish, turtles, frogs, and shellfish.

Upon reaching the far side, she found a concrete ramp headed up, ending at a large roll-up door used by delivery trucks. A smaller service entrance beckoned to the left.

Glad to be rid of them, the proprietor keyed the side door open and angrily waved them out into the night.

Gray led the way with his rifle.

Seichan followed, pushing into a narrow service alley.

Sirens echoed from all directions as emergency vehicles closed in on the Lisboa, but the press of the festival’s crowds around Nam Van Lake and its surrounding streets continued to stymie a fast response.

In fact, out here, most of the drunken revelers seemed unaware of the neighboring turf war. Fireworks rang out from the crowd around the lake, exploding over the waters, reflecting among the thousands of candlelit lanterns floating on the lake. Closer at hand, the neighboring Wynn casino danced with flumes of water, rising from an acre-sized fountain, the jets set to the tunes of the Beatles.

“What now?” Kowalski asked, having to yell somewhat.

“We need a fast way out of here,” Gray said, heading down the alley toward the crowds around the lake. “But it’ll be hard to hail a cab, and it’s not like we can blend into the crowd.”

“I can,” Seichan said.

She closed her ripped blouse by crossing one side over the other like a sarong and tucking the ends into her jeans to hold everything in place.

“You stay here,” she ordered. “Stick to the shadows until I return.”

Gray kept to the mouth of the alley, his eyes never leaving the festival crowd. Kowalski hung back deeper in the alley, making sure no one snuck up behind them.

A moment ago, he had traded weapons with Kowalski. The big man’s long duster made it easier to hide the length of the AK-47 rifle. Gray kept the pistol at his thigh, turning his body to keep it out of direct sight.

Sirens grew louder and louder.

To his right, the grounds around the neighboring lake were still packed with revelers, but to his left, the throngs on the streets were already beginning to stream away, heading to bed or into one of the many casinos or bars.

As he stared down the street, the flow of pedestrians began to scatter, like startled pigeons.

The sharper timbre of a two-stroke engine cut through the cacophony of music and voices. A motorcycle burst into view, carrying a familiar rider. Seichan artlessly plowed through the straggling crowd, trusting them to jump out of her way.

As the people cleared, Gray saw it wasn’t a cycle but more of a rickshaw. The front end was a motorbike, the back end a small-wheeled buggy. Such vehicles were called trishaws. He had seen them whizzing about the streets on their way here. In Macau, a city with one of the densest populations, trishaws were much more practical than cars.

But maybe not when one was being hunted by warring Triads.

Seichan skidded to a stop next to them. “Get in! Stay low!”

With no choice, Gray and Kowalski climbed into the buggy in back. Gray felt exposed in the open like this, especially as one of the rare white faces amid a sea of Asian countenances.

Kowalski tried to sink into the depths of his long coat, clearly mindful of his conspicuous bulk. “This is a bad idea.”

Once they were seated, Seichan sped the vehicle around and headed away from Casino Lisboa, skirting the edge of Nam Van Lake.

“It’s the best I could commandeer,” she yelled back to them. “Roads are blocked all over the city. No way I could get something larger through in time.”

She continued around the lake.

Gray realized they were heading away from the Macau ferry terminal.

“Where are you going?”

“Over the causeway.” She pointed across to the neighboring island of Taipa. A brightly lit bridge crossed to it from here. “A smaller ferry terminal lies on that side, not far from the Venetian hotel. It’s less likely anyone will be looking for us over there. I learned the last boat of the night leaves in twenty minutes.”

And we need to be on it.

With targets painted on their backs, Macau had become too hot.

Gray hunkered low in the buggy seat as Seichan hit the main drag and raced toward the causeway. She wound in and out of traffic, even flying through slower-moving bicycles and pedestrians when necessary.

As they hit the bridge, it was a straight three-kilometer shot to the other island. Congestion bottlenecked on the bridge, but it barely slowed Seichan. They whisked along at a heady pace, weaving and dodging their way across. To either side, the moonlit waters of the Pearl River Delta glowed with thousands upon thousands of floating lanterns, spreading far out to sea, mirroring the stars in the sky.

Ahead, Taipa Island blazed with neon, a cheap spectacle to the quieter beauty found here.

In less than ten minutes, they had cleared the causeway and turned for the narrow streets that fronted the Taipa ferry terminal.

Before they had gone twenty yards, the massive grill of a Cadillac Escalade careened out of an alley to the right and T-boned their trishaw, sending it spinning and slamming it hard into a waist-high beach wall.

Gray got tossed, flying, tangled with Kowalski.

They hit the rocky sand and rolled. Gray managed to keep hold of his pistol as he came to a skidding stop. Still on his back, he swung the weapon up toward the road, where the Cadillac sat askew, blocking traffic.

Men — a mix of Chinese and Portuguese — burst out of its doors, but they kept low, the wall blocking a clear shot. They swarmed to the left as a group.

Only then did Gray realize Seichan wasn’t there.

With his heart pounding in his throat, he rolled to his knees for a better vantage and began firing. He struck one assailant in the arm; the next three shots went wide. Then he saw Seichan hauled up among them. She was dragged toward the Cadillac, dazed, her face half covered in blood.

Cursing, Gray lowered his pistol, fearful of shooting into the cluster of men who held Seichan.

The enemy was not so reticent.

Sand blasted around Gray’s knees.

Steps away, Kowalski finally freed his AK-47. Holding it with one arm, he strafed the wall, driving back the pair of shooters. His other arm pointed toward the shelter of the causeway.

They were open targets on the beach.

With no other choice, they sprinted for its shelter. Gray fired a few potshots back toward the Cadillac. A tall, bearded man stood beside the SUV, unfazed by the rounds ricocheting off its bulletproof windows. The figure scooped Seichan’s limp form from the men and rolled her into the back.

Doors slammed, and with a squeal of tires, the Cadillac careened away. A few gunmen remained, shooting toward them, but Gray reached the causeway and ducked under the bridge, Kowalski at his heels.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Kowalski said.

“Keep moving.”

Ducking his head, Gray passed beneath the causeway. He needed to shake the gunmen left behind. Reaching the far side, he crossed back to the beach wall next to the bridge and clambered over it. The snarl of traffic was slowly clearing.

Taking advantage of the bedlam of honking horns and bumper-to-bumper vehicles, Gray kept low and maneuvered across the street. To his left, a gunman searched the beach. Another one hopped over the wall to get an angle of fire under the bridge.

Gray rushed across the road and into the densely packed maze of streets and alleyways. Kowalski followed, huffing heavily next to him.

“Seichan?” Kowalski asked.

“They didn’t immediately shoot her,” he answered.

Thank God for that.

They continued for another quarter mile, mostly paralleling the beachfront, heading away from the causeway. The streets were still crowded, but not as thickly as earlier in the night. Still, in a sea of Asian faces, the two Americans stuck out too prominently. It would not be hard for the hunters to track them.

Knowing that, they dared not stop moving.

“What’s the plan?” Kowalski asked.

Until now, Gray had been running on pure adrenaline, but Kowalski was right. They needed to think strategically.

Whoever had staged this attack had cleverly assumed they might make a break for the other ferry terminal. With the causeway being the closest access to the other island, it was easy enough to set up the ambush at this choke point and wait for their targets to come to them.

“They’ll certainly be watching the ferry terminal,” Gray said, planning aloud. “That means we’ll have to find another means to reach Hong Kong.”

“What about Seichan? Are we just going to leave her?”

“We have no choice. If the gangs have her, we don’t have the firepower to go after her, even if we knew where she was being taken. And it’s not as if we can move about Macau inconspicuously.”

“So we run?”

For now.

Gray had slowly sidled back toward the waterfront. He nodded to a marina a few blocks away. “We need a boat.”

He shifted into the flow of carousing partiers still cruising along the beachfront, Kowalski in tow. Once they reached the marina, he turned into it. Lanterns decorated the waters around the moored yachts and motorboats. They marched along the docks until they found a sleek midnight-blue speedboat being prepped by a middle-aged couple, who from their accents appeared to be British expats, a husband and wife, likely on their way home after the festival.

Gray stepped over to them. “Excuse me.”

The two stopped in midargument.

Gray grinned sheepishly as they looked over. He ran fingers through his hair as if his next words pained him to admit.

“I was wondering if you were heading back to Hong Kong and might be willing to help out a pair of guys who lost their shirts playing pai gow. We don’t even have enough left over for a ferry ticket back to Kowloon.”

The man straightened, clearly suspicious, but also a little drunk. “You’re Yanks,” he said, with no less surprise than if they’d been Lilliputians. “Normally I would say yes, my good chaps, but you see—”

Gray showed them his pistol, while Kowalski parted his duster to reveal his AK-47.

“How about now?” Gray asked.

The man sagged as if the air had been let out of him. “You know my wife will never let me live this down.”

She crossed her arms. “I told you we should have left sooner.”

The husband shrugged.

After tying and gagging them aboard a neighboring dark yacht, Gray chugged their craft out of the marina. Once clear, he opened the throttle and set off across the dark waters toward Hong Kong.

As the lights of Macau receded behind them, Gray stepped away from the helm. “Take the wheel.”

Kowalski, a former seaman, gladly took his place, rubbing his palms in anticipation. “Let’s see what this baby can do.”

That normally would have worried Gray, but he had greater concerns.

With this brief respite, he unbuttoned his satellite phone from his jacket pocket. He saw he had multiple voice mails from Sigma command. Earlier, he had turned the ringer off before taking that meeting back at the Lisboa. Since then he’d never had a safe moment to turn it back on.

Rather than listening to the recordings, he simply called up Sigma command in D.C. The phone had DARPA’s latest encryption software to discourage unwanted eavesdropping.

Kat Bryant immediately picked up. “About time you checked in.”

“Been a little busy.”

From the tone of his voice, she picked out something was wrong. “What happened?”

He gave her a thumbnail version of the night’s events.

Kat asked a few probing questions, quickly assessing the depth of the quicksand. “Gray, I can’t get you help. Certainly not in time to do any good, not with her already in their hands.”

“Understood. That’s not why I was calling. I just wanted to give Sigma a situation report.”

In case things went south from here.

“We’re having our own crisis out here,” Kat said. “That’s why I was trying to reach you. Director Crowe wanted you and your team to travel to Mongolia.”

Mongolia?

She told him a sketchy story of a downed satellite and a last image that showed the East Coast burning.

“I can’t head there,” he said as she finished. “At least not now.”

“Of course. The circumstances have changed.” Her next words were laced with worry. “But what are you going to do out there, Gray? You have no resources. And the criminal organizations in Macau are notoriously ruthless and well funded.”

“I have a plan.”

“To do what?”

Gray stared across the waters ahead toward the distant glow on the horizon.

“To fight fire with fire.”

5

Jada held her breath.

What am I doing here?

It felt like she had fallen through Alice’s looking glass.

To her side, Painter Crowe placed his hand on a security pad inside the elevator. A blue line scanned his palm, and the elevator cage began to drop into the earth.

Their jet had made the cross-country trip in less than five hours. After landing, they had been whisked by private car to the National Mall, stopping at the majestic Smithsonian Castle, a flag waving from its highest tower. As she had stepped out of the car, she had looked with new eyes at the historic building with its jumble of redbrick parapets, turrets, and spires. Completed in 1855, the structure was considered one of the finest examples of Gothic Revival in the United States and now served as the heart of the many museums that made up the nation’s Smithsonian Institution.

Having grown up in Congress Heights, a poorer area southeast of D.C., she had visited the Castle countless times as a girl. Admission to the museums had been free, and her mother, a single parent, encouraged her daughter’s education in every way she could.

“I never knew this was under here,” Jada said in a hushed voice as the elevator dropped into the subterranean world beneath the Castle.

“These levels were once bunkers and fallout shelters. Back in World War II, it even served as home to a scientific think tank. After that, it was abandoned and forgotten.”

“Such a prime piece of Washington real estate as this?” She offered Painter a crooked grin.

He smiled back. For someone two decades older than her, he was a fine-looking man, with his dark hair laced by a single snowy lock and those blue eyes. After their long conversation during the flight here, she also found him remarkably smart, with a wide swath of knowledge on many subjects — with the exception of the history of jazz. But she could forgive him that lapse, especially when those blue eyes danced in sunlight.

“Once I discovered these dusty levels,” he said, “it struck me as a perfect haunt for Sigma to set up shop, what with its easy access both to the labs of the Smithsonian and to the halls of power in D.C.”

She heard the flicker of fatherly pride in his voice; he was plainly happy to show it off to newcomers, which she suspected must be a rare event.

The elevator doors whooshed open into a long central hallway.

“This is the command level,” he said, leading the way. “Ahead is our central communications nest, the nerve center of Sigma.”

As they approached, a slim woman in the dress blues of the navy stepped out of the room to greet them. She was handsome in a hard way, perhaps made more severe by the short bob of her auburn hair. Jada also thought she noted a trace of faint scars across her cheeks, but she refrained from staring.

“Director Crowe,” the woman said. “Good to have you back, sir.”

“This is Captain Kathryn Bryant,” Painter introduced. “My second-in-command.”

“Kat is fine.” She shook Jada’s hand with an overly firm grip, but the warmth of her small smile softened the greeting. “Welcome, Dr. Shaw.”

Jada licked her lips, anxious to see more of this world, but she knew their timetable was short.

“How are preparations going?” Painter asked. “I’d like to have this team moving in less than an hour.”

“You heard about Commander Pierce?” she asked and led them into the communications room. The oval space was small, dominated by a curved bank of monitors and computer interfaces.

“I did. We’ll work around him if need be. I assume you’re offering him whatever support he needs.”

Kat cast him a withering glance, suggesting she’d do nothing less. She settled into a chair before the monitors, like a pilot taking the helm. “As to the itinerary for this mission, Monsignor Verona and his niece will be taking the first morning flight out of Rome headed to Kazakhstan. It’s a five-hour flight for them. If we stay on schedule here and get wheels up in an hour, our team should touch down about the same time as the Veronas… midafternoon local Kazakhstan time.”

Jada frowned. This was one part of the expedition that made no sense to her. “So as I understand it,” she said, wanting clarification, “we’ll be collecting these others to substantiate our claims that our search of Mongolia’s remote mountains is archaeological in origin.”

“That’s right,” Kat said. “But we’ll also be using the remainder of that day in Kazakhstan to investigate a mystery that may or may not be connected to the current threat. If nothing pans out, you move on.”

Painter had briefly explained about a skull and book. But she had hardly listened, not giving his story much credence. But this wasn’t her call.

“And who else will be on this expedition?” Jada asked.

The answer came from behind her. “That would be me, for one.”

She turned to find a man standing a few inches shorter than her, but beefy as a pit bull. He wore sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a Washington Redskins baseball cap that did little to hide his perfectly smooth head. Her first instinct was to dismiss the man, but she noted the sharp glint of intelligence in his dark eyes — and amusement.

Though she couldn’t put a finger on why, she felt an instant fondness for him, like for a goofy older brother.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one.

Kat Bryant leaned back in her chair. The stranger crossed over and kissed the woman on the lips.

Okay, maybe not a brother.

As the man straightened, Kat glanced back to Jada. “He’ll take good care of you.”

“She has to say that because she’s my wife.” He kept one hand lovingly on her shoulder.

Jada finally noted the other hand was prosthetic, attached at his wrist by a thicker cuff of electronics. It was so real she almost missed it.

Painter nodded to him. “Monk Kokkalis is one of Sigma’s best.”

“One of?” he asked, looking wounded.

Painter ignored him. “You’ll also be accompanied by another, one of our newest members. His specialty is electrical engineering and physics. He also knows a fair amount about astronomy and has some, shall we say, unique talents. I think you’ll find him a great asset.”

“That would be Duncan Wren,” Kat explained.

“Speaking of which, where is he?” Painter asked. “I thought I asked everyone to attend this mission briefing.”

Kat shared a glance with her husband, then swung around to face her monitors. She mumbled under her breath. “I’ve already briefed him. He had a medical matter he had to attend to before leaving.”

Painter frowned. “What medical matter?”

“Don’t move,” he was warned.

Duncan balanced his six-foot-two bulk on a tiny folding chair with a wobbly leg. “It would be easier, Clyde, if you took into account that not all your clients are emaciated meth addicts.”

Across from him, his friend wore a surgical mask and a set of magnifying eyeglasses affixed to his face. Clyde looked like he might break ninety pounds when wet, most of which was hair, which trailed in a long ponytail down his back.

Clyde grasped Duncan’s large hand atop the table, as if about to read his palm. Instead, he reached with a scalpel and nicked the edge of Duncan’s left index finger near its tip. Fire lanced up his wrist, but he kept his hand steady on the metal table.

Clyde plunked the scalpel down. “This next part may hurt.”

Ya think…

Picking up a sterilized pair of tweezers, his friend probed the new wound. As steel scraped nerves, pain set Duncan’s teeth to grinding. He closed his eyes, controlling his breathing.

“Got it!” his torturer said.

Duncan opened his eyes to see a tiny black pellet, the size of a grain of rice, extracted from the cut, clutched in the jaws of the tweezing forceps.

It was a sliver of rare-earth magnet.

“Now to replace this old worn one with a new one…”

Using the same tweezers, Clyde lifted a fresh magnet from the cache Duncan had supplied. The magnets were courtesy of a DARPA lab in New Brunswick, though their current use was definitely off-label.

The rice-sized pellet — coated by Duncan in Parylene C to prevent infection — was slipped through the wound. Once in place, a few drops of surgical glue closed the cut, sealing the magnet beneath his skin, where it rested beside the somatosensory nerves responsible for a fingertip’s perception of pressure, temperature, and pain.

This last sensation was certainly responding strongly.

“Thanks, Clyde.”

Duncan opened and closed his fist, squeezing away the worst of the postsurgical throbbing. This wasn’t his first time to the rodeo. Each of his ten fingers had similar slivers of magnet in place, and every now and then, they had to be replaced.

“How does it feel?” Clyde yanked down his mask, revealing a nasal stud through his septum and a thick steel ring through his lower lip.

Not your typical doctor.

In fact, the man had been a dental hygienist in a former life. In his new profession, operating out of a warehouse near the Ronald Reagan airport, he was the local biohacking community’s best grinder, someone who designed and installed body enhancements.

Clyde preferred the term evolutionary artist.

Myriad other professions shared the industrial space, each separated by opaque plastic curtains: a tattoo artist who had developed a luminescent ink, a piercer who inserted tiny bits of jewelry into the whites of a client’s eye, another who implanted RFID chips into bodies as wearable storage devices.

Although most patrons came here for the novelty or the thrill, a handful had turned biohacking into a new religion, and this was their church. For Duncan, it was simply a matter of professional need. As an electrical engineer, he found this particular biohack a useful tool, a new way of perceiving the world.

“Want to take the new magnet out for a spin?” Clyde asked.

“Probably too sore, but let me see what you’ve sculpted.”

He knew that’s what Clyde really wanted to show him.

His surgeon waved him over to a neighboring table wired with circuit boards, spools of exposed wires, and stacked series of hard drives of varying heights.

“I’m still fine-tuning my latest bit of art.”

“Power it up.”

Clyde flipped the toggle. “It’ll take a few seconds to fully generate the field I created.”

“I think I can wait that long.”

Despite misconceptions, the magnets at his fingertips couldn’t pick up coins or even demagnetize credit cards. Even airport screening machines failed to pick them up. But what they did do was vibrate in the presence of an electromagnetic field. The minuscule oscillations were enough to excite the nerve endings in his fingertips to create a unique sensation very distinct from touch, almost a sixth sense.

With practice, he had discovered that EM fields triggered a variety of sensations, each uniquely different in size, shape, and strength. Palpable bubbles surrounded power transformers. Microwave ovens cast off rhythmic waves that pushed against his hands. High-tension wires pulsated with a silky energy, as if running his fingertips over the smooth skin of an undulating snake.

He also used the magnets for more practical purposes as an electrical engineer. His sixth sense could discern the level of power running along cables or judge if a hard drive was spinning properly inside a laptop. He’d even once used it to diagnose a problem with the distributor cap in his 1995 Mustang Cobra R.

After discovering the rich complexity of this hidden electromagnetic world, he never wanted to go back. He’d be blind without his magnets.

“Should be ready,” Clyde said, waving his arm over the table of carefully manipulated electrical appliances.

Duncan lifted his hands over the table. The energy generated by Clyde’s assembly seemed to push back against his fingers, giving a haptic sensation of form. He ran his magnetic fingers over that surface, discovering the unique shape artfully sculpted by Clyde through the judicious placement of hardware and flow of current.

He felt upswept wings of energy spreading wide to either side. Beneath the wings, his fingertips grew warmer the deeper he probed, even turning hot as he neared the table’s surface.

As he probed, his fingertips gave form and substance to the invisible. An image grew in his mind’s eye, as real as any sculpture.

“Incredible,” Duncan said.

“I call this piece Phoenix Rising from the Ashes of the Digital Age.”

“Ever the poet, Clyde.”

“Thanks, Dunk.”

He paid the man for his services, checked his watch, and headed across the warehouse floor.

He could have had someone at Sigma perform this for him. Monk Kokkalis, with his background in medical forensics, was certainly skilled enough. But he’d known Clyde and his friends from his prior life, back when he thought he was going to rule the world as a college basketball star with La Salle. His muscular arms still bore sleeves of tattoos from the elbow up — and he still wore a silver stud through his upper left ear, in the shape of a tiny eagle, a memorial to friends lost in Afghanistan during a firefight in Takur. He’d ended up in the U.S. Marines after his rising basketball career imploded following a series of injuries that sidelined him, forcing him to forfeit his scholarship.

By the time he was twenty-four, he had served six tours of duty in Afghanistan, the last two with Marine Force Recon, but after Takur, after he failed to reenlist, Painter Crowe ended up at his doorstep. In his prior life, he had been studying engineering in college and must have shown enough aptitude to be approached by Sigma. Now, after a fast-tracked education, he had a dual degree in both physics and electrical engineering — and was about to go on his first official mission with Sigma.

To find a crashed satellite.

Wanting to be fully prepared, he had come here.

He opened and closed his fist. The pain was already receding.

As he stepped through the warehouse door, he noted a pair of shadowy figures crouched by his parked Mustang. The black Cobra R was family, a muscular piece of his past, as much a memorial as the stud through his ear. He had originally bought the used car for his kid brother, back when Duncan believed his future was a spinning orange ball. Cancer finally caught up with Billy at eighteen, taking away forever that shit-eating grin. But the car remained, full of happy memories of two brothers ruling the world, along with grimmer recollections of loss, pain, and good-byes said too soon.

He stalked toward the men by the Mustang, anger building inside of him. Up on his toes, keeping to deeper shadows, he crept until he stood behind them, both clearly stymied by the locking mechanism he had specially engineered for the car.

They remained unaware of his presence — until he cleared his throat.

Surprised, one swung around with a tire iron.

Really?

A moment later, the two were fleeing, bloodied and limping.

Duncan reached to the door’s handle. It unlocked before he touched it, triggered by the tiny glass-encased RFID chip implanted in his upper arm, another bodily addition like his magnets.

While he chalked up all these modifications to professional need, he knew down deep it was something more basic. Even before being approached by Sigma, he had already begun altering his body with tattoos. He knew these changes had more to do with Billy, with the way he died, his body ravaged by cells gone mad. These modifications were Duncan’s way of taking control, of defying cancer. It was his armor against the vagaries of fate, where a body could suddenly turn against itself.

His first tattoo had been a copy of Billy’s palm print. He inked it over his heart and later added the date of his brother’s death. Duncan often found his own hand covering that mark, wondering what twist of genetic fate had allowed him to live while his brother had to die.

The same could be said of his friends who had never returned from Afghanistan, those few who had caught a stray bullet or who were the first to step on a hidden IED.

I lived. They died.

It defined a fundamental constant of the universe.

Fate was a cruel, heartless bitch.

Fired by equal parts adrenaline and guilt, he yanked open the car door, hopped in, and took off. He raced through the outskirts of D.C., zipping through gears, punching past stop signs.

Still, he could not outrun the ghosts of his past — of his fellow teammates, of a kid brother who had laughed in the face of death.

Having survived, he must now live for all of them.

That truth, that burden of responsibility, grew heavier with every passing mile, every passing year. It was becoming too much to bear.

Still, he did the only thing he could.

He pressed harder on the gas.

“You look a bit overwhelmed,” Painter said.

And why wouldn’t I?

Jada stared down at the thick mission dossier on her lap. She sat in Director Crowe’s subterranean office. She felt suddenly claustrophobic, not so much because of the mass of the Smithsonian Castle above her head, but because of the weight of the packet resting on her knee.

And all it signified.

She was about to travel halfway around the world, to search for a crashed military satellite that might hold the fate of the world, or at the very least make or break her career as an astrophysicist.

So, yeah, as the once nappy-headed girl out of Congress Heights who ran home from school every day to keep from being beaten up because she was an honor student and liked books… I’m feeling a little pressure.

“You’ll have a good team with you,” Painter promised her. “It’s not all on your shoulders — nor should you let it be. Trust your team.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

She took a deep steadying breath. Painter’s office was spartan, limited to a desk, a filing cabinet, and a computer, but the space as a whole had a worn-around-the-edges warmth to it, like a comfortable pair of tattered sneakers. She noted the personal touches. On the cabinet rose a swirling chunk of black glass that looked like a sculpture but was more likely a memento. On the wall, suspended in a shadow box, was a curved fang from some jungle beast, but it seemed impossibly long. And on his desk stood a cluster of framed photos of a woman.

Must be his fiancée.

He had mentioned her often on the flight here and clearly loved her.

Lucky lady.

The room also plainly served as the hub for Sigma command. Three large video monitors had been mounted on the walls around his desk, like windows upon the world. Or in this case, the universe.

On one screen was a real-time view of Comet IKON; on another, the final image taken by the falling satellite; the last showed a live feed from the Space and Missile Systems Center out west.

The scuff of shoes and low voices drew her attention to the door. Kat Bryant appeared with someone in tow.

“Look who I found,” Kat said.

Painter stood and shook the tall man’s hand. “About time, Sergeant Wren.”

Jada found herself also on her feet.

This had to be her other teammate. Duncan Wren. He was surprisingly young, likely only a couple years older than her. She sized him up. His physique was bulky and hard, filling out his marine T-shirt, with tattoos peeking down from the sleeves. But he didn’t seem muscle-bound, far from it. She imagined he could match her stride for stride in a sprint — and she was fast.

She shook his hand, noting the scraped knuckles. “Jada Shaw.”

“The astrophysicist?” he asked.

Surprise sparked in his green eyes, irking her somewhat. Over her short career, she had seen that look plenty of times. Physics was still a man’s world.

As if to look her over better, he brushed back a few stray locks of dark blond hair, laced with lighter streaks that didn’t come out of any bottle.

“Great,” he said with no hint of condescending sarcasm. He placed his fists on his hips. “So then let’s go find us a satellite.”

“Jet is fueled and waiting,” Kat said. “I’ll take you there.”

Jada’s heart climbed higher in her throat. This was all happening so fast.

Duncan touched her elbow, as if sensing her growing panic.

She remembered Painter’s earlier advice.

Trust your team.

But what about trusting herself?

Duncan leaned toward her, his eyes crinkling with concern but also shining with damnable enthusiasm. “You ready?”

“I guess I’d better be.”

“That’s all anyone can ask.”

Before they left, Kat stepped around them and placed a folder on Painter’s desk, keeping a finger on top of it. “The latest report on Gray’s plan of operation in Hong Kong.”

He nodded, sighing a bit. “I skimmed it earlier on the computer. That’s a dangerous path he’s about to tread.”

“It seems he’s willing to walk it for Seichan.”

6

Gray prepared to enter the lion’s den.

Or lioness, in this particular case.

He stood on the street amid the crush of the morning rush hour in the Mong Kok district of the Kowloon peninsula. People raced through the morning drizzle, heads low, some with umbrellas, others with wide bamboo hats. Everywhere his eye settled, there was movement. Cars crept down the narrow streets between towering skyscrapers. Laundry flapped from balconies like the flags of a thousand nationalities. Crowds milled and flowed.

Even the smells changed with every breeze: the sizzle of pork fat, the burn of Thai spices, the pungent stink rising from the overflowing trash bins, the stale whiff of perfume from a woman passing close by. Calls echoed all around him, mostly the pleas of commerce, drawn by his white face.

Hey, boss, guess how much for a suit…

You want copy watch, yes…

Food is very good, very fresh… you try…

The cacophony of Kowloon deafened the senses. New York City considered itself crowded, but it was a ghost town compared to the squash of humanity found here. The Kowloon peninsula was half of what was considered Hong Kong. The other half across Victoria Harbor — Hong Kong Island — was a place of mansions, glittering skyscrapers, and green parks, all surrounding the majesty of Victoria Peak.

Earlier this morning, with the sun not yet up, Gray and Kowalski had chugged into the local waters aboard their stolen speedboat. The skyline of Hong Kong Island beckoned, looking like a modern-day Oz, an Emerald City that promised magic, where every wish could be granted for the right price — which, in fact, might be true of the decadent place.

Instead, Gray had directed Kowalski to pull into a derelict dock on the darker, urban side of Hong Kong, here in Kowloon. They took a short two-hour nap in a nondescript hotel as they waited for intel from D.C. Once the information came through, Gray led Kowalski to the red-light district of Mong Kok with its chaotic array of karaoke bars, brothels, saunas, and restaurants.

“This way,” Gray said after checking a map.

He headed away from the clamor of the main drag and down a maze of tight alleys. The earlier pleas for attention dwindled with every new twist, the invitations transforming into sullen glares of suspicion at their pale faces.

“I think that’s the building up ahead,” Gray said.

Passing a final turn in the narrow street, he reached a trio of seventeen-story apartment complexes, all connected by bridges and ramshackle construction into a single massive structure. It looked like a rusted mountain held together by the accretion of corrugated tin, patches of wood, and refuse. Even the balconies, unlike those on the nearby buildings, had been sealed shut behind gates. But even here, laundry hung from the bars or streamed on strung ropes, flapping in the wind.

“Looks like a prison,” Kowalski said.

In many ways, it probably was. Gray imagined the inhabitants here were trapped as much by economic reality as by iron bars — with the exception of those rumored to be occupying its highest floors, those levels closest to the sun and fresh breezes. According to Sigma’s intelligence report, it was home to the Duàn zhī Triad.

Gray had traveled here to meet the Triad’s infamous dragonhead.

Back in Macau, Dr. Hwan Pak had sold Gray’s group out to the Triad, luring them into that ambush. Their leader, who wished her face never to be seen, plainly did not take kindly to anyone looking too closely in her direction. It was a gamble for him to come to her doorstep.

But he had no choice.

Seichan had been nabbed by some criminal element. He doubted it was the Duàn zhī Triad. He had spotted European faces — likely local Portuguese — among those who hauled her into the black Cadillac, and the Chinese Triads notoriously disdained Westerners.

So who took her… and where?

He had to assume she was still alive. They could have shot her in the streets of Macau, but they hadn’t. It was a slim hope, but he grasped it with both hands.

Gray could think of only one option for information on her kidnappers. In the past, the Duàn zhī Triad had operated out of Macau, so its leader likely knew the major players and still had contacts out there. More important, she also had the manpower and resources Gray would need to mount a rescue — a rescue to save her own daughter.

But can I get her to listen before she kills us?

Gray turned to Kowalski. “Last chance to back out. I can go in alone. Might even be better.”

Gray had made the same offer back at the hotel.

He got the same response.

“Fuck you.” Kowalski headed for the closest door.

Gray joined him, matching him stride for stride. Together, they entered through a set of steel security gates that were open during the day but sealed at night. Faces watched their every step: some with suspicion, others with hatred, most with disinterest.

The gates led to a central courtyard between the three original apartment complexes. The bridges and rickety erections blocked most of the meager daylight overhead, though the steady drizzle found its way down, weeping off every surface. Makeshift shops lined the lower level of the courtyard, including a butcher with plucked geese hanging from hooks, a liquor and tobacco store, even a candy shop full of goods too bright and cheerful for this dreary place.

“Stairs are over there,” Kowalski said.

The only way up appeared to be the open staircases that climbed the sides of each of the buildings. Gray had no idea which of the original towers housed the Duàn zhī Triad, or if it even mattered.

So they set off for the closest and began climbing. The plan was to keep scaling the complex until someone tried to stop them — preferably not someone prone to shooting first and asking questions later.

As they crossed landing after landing, leaving the commercial district below for the residential levels, Gray glanced through several open doors. Inside the apartments was a strange sight. Large wire-mesh cages were stacked floor to ceiling, like rabbit hutches. Men lounged or slept inside them. Clearly it was all they could afford as housing, but the residents did their best to make them tiny homes, decorating them with bamboo liners or privacy screens made of tarpaulin. Even a few televisions glowed. From all of them, cigarette smoke wafted in thick clouds, but it only faintly blocked the smell of human waste.

A fat, brown rat ran down the steps between them.

“Smart rat,” Kowalski said.

Crossing the tenth floor, Gray began to note the glass eyes of closed-circuit television cameras pointed at the stairs.

The handiwork of the Triad.

“This is probably high enough,” Gray finally said. “They’re clearly already watching us.”

Reaching the next landing, Gray moved off the stairs and into the open-air hallway that overlooked the courtyard. He positioned himself in front of one of the CCTV cameras. He carefully and slowly reached to his belt. Using two fingers, he slipped out his Red Star pistol and placed it at his feet. Kowalski performed the same ritual with his AK-47 rifle.

“I wish to speak to Guan-yin, the dragonhead of Duàn zhī!” he called out to the camera and anyone listening nearby.

The response was immediate.

Doors slammed open in front and behind. Four men came at them with bats and machetes.

So much for conversation.

Gray dropped low and kicked the closest man in the knee. As the attacker fell forward, Gray punched him hard in the throat, leaving him writhing and gasping. He retrieved his pistol, while ducking under the swing of a machete as it shaved through his hair. Inside the man’s guard now, Gray trapped the assailant’s arm, swung him around, and got his own arm around the man’s neck.

He placed the muzzle of the pistol into his captive’s ear.

Behind Gray, Kowalski had coldcocked the first of his two assailants, snatching the steel bat out of the man’s limp fingers as he fell. In a roundhouse swing, he struck the second in the shoulder. His machete clattered to the ground.

Kowalski kept his bat pointed, warning, as the man stumbled back in pain, cradling his bruised arm.

Gray turned his attention to the camera.

“I only wish to talk!” he called out.

Proving this, he let his captive go and pushed him away. Again, Gray bent down and placed his pistol on the floor. He lifted his hands high, showing his palms to the camera.

He hoped this sudden attack had been a test.

He waited, feeling a trickle of sweat run down his back. A hush seemed to have fallen over the entire complex. Even the chatter of televisions and echoing music was subdued.

Suddenly Kowalski bellowed behind him. “Don’t any of you speak goddamned English?”

A door opened at the end of the hall.

“I do.”

A figure stepped out of the shadows and into the hallway. He was a tall man, with his white hair pulled back in a knot of a ponytail. Though in his sixties, he moved with a silky power in each step. He carried a long, curved sword in one hand, an ancient Chinese Dao saber. His other palm rested on the butt of a holstered SIG Sauer.

“What do you wish to tell our esteemed dragonhead?” he asked.

Gray knew the wrong answer would get them killed.

“Tell her I carry a message concerning Mai Phuong Ly’s daughter.”

From the swordsman’s blank expression, the name meant nothing to him. As answer, he simply turned and walked calmly back into the shadows.

Again they were left to wait. One of the guards barked in Cantonese and forced Gray and Kowalski to retreat a few steps, so another could grab their weapons.

“This gets better and better,” Kowalski said.

The tension stretched to the tautness of a piano wire.

Finally, the swordsman returned, stepping again out of the shadowy doorway to confront them.

“With graciousness, she has agreed to see you,” he said.

Gray let the knot between his shoulders relax slightly.

“But if she doesn’t like what she hears,” the swordsman warned, “her face will be the last thing you ever see.”

Gray didn’t doubt that.

Seichan woke to darkness.

She remained motionless, a survival instinct going back to her feral years on the streets of Bangkok and Phnom Penh. She waited for her muzzy-headedness to clear. Memory slowly seeped out of a black well. She’d been grabbed, drugged, and blindfolded. From the bite of restraints, her wrists and ankles must also be bound. She still wore the blindfold, but enough light seeped through the edges to tell it was day.

But was it the same day she’d been grabbed?

She pictured the crash, Gray and Kowalski flying.

Had they survived?

She didn’t want to think otherwise.

Despair weakened one’s resolve — and she would need every bit of tenacity to survive.

She cast out her addled senses to gain her bearing. She lay on something hard, metal, smelling of motor oil. Vibrations and the occasional jarring bump revealed she was in some sort of vehicle.

Perhaps a van, maybe a truck.

But where were they taking her?

Why not just kill me?

She could guess the answer to that easily enough. Someone must have learned about the bounties placed on her head, someone who aimed to sell her.

“You may now stop pretending to sleep.” The voice came from a foot or two away.

She inwardly cringed. Her senses had been honed sharp by the coarse streets and back alleys of her youth. Still, she’d been totally unaware that someone sat so close. It unnerved her. It wasn’t just his silence, but his complete blankness. Like he didn’t exist.

“First, you may relax,” the man continued, his Cantonese formal and flawless but tinged with a European patois. Considering it was Macau, the accent was likely Portuguese. “We do not intend to kill you, or even harm you. At least, not me personally. It’s merely a business transaction.”

So she had been correct about someone selling her for profit. But it was little consolation.

“Second, in regard to your friends…”

This time she did flinch, imagining Gray’s face, Kowalski’s bluster. Were they still alive?

A soft scolding chuckle rose from the man.

“They are alive,” he said, reading her like a book. “But simply for the moment, I’m afraid. It took us a while to track them down — only to discover they had turned up in a most unexpected place, the home of a competitor. Which left me baffled, wondering why? Then I realized it didn’t matter. There is the old Chinese saying: yi jian shuang diao. I think it applies to this circumstance.”

Seichan translated in her head.

One arrow, double vultures.

She went cold at the implication. The Chinese phrase was the equivalent of a more common idiom.

Killing two birds with one stone.

The elevators opened, delivering them from hell to heaven.

Gray followed the swordsman into what must have once been the apartment building’s penthouse. Here there was none of the stifling cramp and grime of the lower complex. The entire space was open, decorated in white furniture with simple, clean lines. The floor was polished bamboo. Potted orchids of every shade and shape dotted the room. A fish tank curved in the shape of a standing wave held myriad snow-white fish. It acted as a divider from a kitchen of stainless European appliances.

But the biggest difference from the hellish landscape below was the amount of light. Even the drizzling overcast day did little to dampen the brightness. Huge windows looked out over Kowloon, high enough to view the shining towers of Hong Kong City. In the center of the penthouse stood a glass-walled atrium open to the sky above, holding a fountain, along with a riotous spread of plants and flowers, all surrounding a fishpond with floating lilies.

A single lantern also gently rocked atop the water.

A slim shape in a belted robe bent over it. With a long taper in hand, she lit a fresh candle in the lotus-shaped lantern.

Gray pictured the festival at Macau, with its thousands of lights, each glow marking the memory of a past loved one.

Gray was marched out of the elevator and toward the atrium.

Kowalski looked darkly back at the elevator. “So why did we climb fourteen flights when they have a frickin’ elevator?”

Its use was likely restricted to the Triad, but Gray didn’t bother explaining, keeping his full attention on the figure behind the glass.

The swordsman led them to a few yards from the atrium door. “Remain standing.”

The woman — and it was plain from her petite bare feet and the curve of her hip that this was a woman—remained bowed before the lantern, hands now folded around the burning incense taper.

For a full two minutes, no one spoke. Kowalski fidgeted, but he had the good sense for once to keep his mouth shut.

Finally the woman gave a deeper bow toward the pond, straightened, and turned. Her robe was hooded against the drizzle, its edges long, folding around her face as she stood. She crossed to the atrium door and slowly slid it open.

With great grace, she stepped into the penthouse.

“Guan-yin,” the swordsman intoned, bowing his head.

“M`h’ gōi, Zhuang.” A pale hand slipped from a sleeve and touched the swordsman’s forearm, an oddly intimate gesture.

The dragonhead of the Duàn zhī turned next to Gray.

“You speak of Mai Phuong Ly,” she said, her voice low and calm but laced with the steel edge of a threat. “You come speaking of someone long dead.”

“Not in the memories of her daughter.”

The woman showed no reaction, a demonstration of her degree of control. After a long pause, her voice came back quieter.

“Again you speak of the dead.”

“She was not hours ago when she came to Macau looking for her mother.”

The only reaction was the slight lowering of her chin, perhaps realizing how close she had come to killing her own daughter. Now she was likely wondering if he spoke the truth.

“It was you at the Casino Lisboa.”

Gray motioned to Kowalski. “The three of us. Dr. Hwan Pak recognized your dragon pendant, said he knew you. So we came to Macau to discover the truth.”

A small sniff of derision. “But what is the truth?” she asked.

Doubt and disbelief rang in her voice.

“If I may…” Gray pointed to the pocket of his jacket, where they’d left his phone after the Triad members below had frisked him.

“With care,” Zhuang warned.

Gray removed his phone and pulled up the photo log. He scrolled until he reached a folder labeled SEICHAN. He flipped through photos until he came to one that showed a clear picture of her face. Seeing her now, an ache of fear for her safety struck him deeply, but he kept his arm steady as he held out the phone as proof.

Guan-yin leaned forward, her features still shadowed, making it impossible to read her expression. But in the stumble of her step as she moved closer, Gray read the recognition, the barely restrained hope. Even after twenty years, a mother would know her daughter.

Gray motioned for her to take the phone. “There are other pictures. You can swipe to view them.”

Guan-yin reached out, but her fingers hesitated as if a part of her feared the truth. If her daughter was still alive, what did that say about a mother who failed her?

Finally, fingers slipped the phone from his hand. She turned her back to Gray as she searched the folder. A long stretch of silence — then the woman trembled and slipped to her knees on the bamboo floor.

Zhuang moved so swiftly Gray hardly noted it. One moment the swordsman was at his side… the next, he was on one knee beside his mistress, with his Dao saber pointed back at them, cautioning them to remain where they were.

“It is her,” Guan-yin whispered. “How could this be?”

Gray could not imagine the emotions that must be warring inside her: guilt, shame, hope, joy, fear, anger.

The last two won out as the woman quickly composed herself, standing and turning to them. Zhuang joined her, protective — but from the depth of concern in his eyes, it was clear his need to shield her went beyond professional duty.

Guan-yin shook back her hood, revealing a long cascade of black hair with a single streak of gray along one edge of her face, the same edge that bore the curve of a deep purplish scar. It curled from her cheek to across her left brow, sparing her eye. It was too purposefully twisted to be a wound received in a knife fight. Someone had intently and painfully carved into her face, a memento of old torture. But as if to turn such a scar into a badge of honor — to perhaps wrest control from that old pain — she had her face tattooed, incorporating the scar, transforming it into the tail of the dragon now inked across cheek and brow.

It was an uncanny match to the silver serpent at her throat.

“Where is she now?” Guan-yin asked, her voice rising in volume, showing again that steel. “Where is my daughter?”

Gray swallowed back the awe at the sight of her face and quickly explained about the attack, its aftermath, and the abduction on the street.

“Tell me about the man you saw standing beside the car,” Guan-yin demanded.

Gray described the tall powerful-looking man with the trimmed beard. “He looked Portuguese, with maybe some Chinese blood.”

She nodded. “I know him well. Ju-long Delgado, the boss of all Macau.”

A shadow of concern swept her features.

If this hard woman was worried, that was a bad sign.

With a complaint of brakes, the vehicle came to a stop.

Seichan heard the stranger speak in low tones to the driver in Portuguese, but she didn’t understand the language. Doors opened and slammed.

A hand reached to her face. She thrashed back, but fingers merely removed her blindfold. She blinked against the sudden glare.

“Calm yourself,” her captor said. “We still have a long way to go.”

The man was dressed meticulously in a finely tailored silk suit and jacket. His dark brown eyes matched his shaggy hair and manicured beard, the latter shorn tight to his cheeks and square chin. His eyes, pinched slightly at the corners, revealed his mixed-blood heritage.

A glance around revealed she was on the floor of a panel van.

The rear door popped open, stabbing her eyes again with brighter light. Another man stood outside: he was younger, a smooth-faced brute with cropped black hair and massive shoulders that strained his suit jacket. He had striking ice-blue eyes.

“Tomaz,” her captor said. “Are we ready for the flight?”

A nod. “Sim, Senhor Delgado. The plane is ready.”

The man called Delgado turned to her. “I’ll be accompanying you on this flight,” he said. “To ensure I receive full compensation, but also I believe it would be a good time for me not to be in Macau. Not after what is about to transpire in Hong Kong. The aftermath will be bloody for some time.”

“Where are you taking me?”

Ignoring her, he scrambled out of the van and stretched his back. “It looks to be a beautiful day.”

His underling, Tomaz, grabbed her bound ankles and yanked her into the morning sunlight. A dagger appeared in his hands and sliced the plastic ties. Her wrists remained bound behind her back.

Placed roughly on her feet, she realized she was on the tarmac of some remote airstrip. A sleek jet waited thirty yards away. Its stairs were down, ready to receive its passengers. A figure appeared in the open doorway and stepped into the light.

A large splinted bandage covered his broken nose.

Dr. Hwan Pak.

“Ah, our benefactor.” Delgado headed toward the jet, checking the Rolex on his wrist. “Come. We don’t want to be anywhere near Hong Kong after the next few minutes.”

“That’s all you know?”

A mother’s love for her daughter ached in Guan-yin’s voice. She had questioned Gray intently for the past several minutes, probing Seichan’s past, trying to understand how she could still be alive.

They had retreated to one of the sofas.

Zhuang stood guard beside her. Kowalski had wandered over to the fish tank, tapping at the glass, his nose close to its surface.

Gray wished he could fill in more blanks for Guan-yin, but even he did not know the full extent of Seichan’s history, only fragments: a series of orphanages, a rough time on the streets, a recruitment into a criminal organization. As Gray recounted this past, Guan-yin seemed to understand. In some ways, both mother and daughter had taken parallel paths, hardened by circumstances but still able to rise above it, to survive and flourish.

In the end, Gray could not paint a full enough picture to satisfy a mother who missed so much of her daughter’s life. He doubted any number of words could fill that void.

“I will find her,” Guan-yin swore to herself.

She had already passed down a command through her organization to discover where Ju-long Delgado might have taken her daughter. They still awaited word.

“In the past, I failed her,” Guan-yin said, as one finger rose to wipe a tear from the edge of her dragon scar. “My Vietnamese interrogators were cruel, crueler than I suspected even back then. They told me my daughter was dead.”

“To make you despair. To make it easier to break you.”

“It only made me angry, more determined than ever to escape and get vengeance, which eventually I did.” A glint of fire burned through her haunted look. “Still, I did not give up. I searched for her, but it was made difficult in those early years, as I dared not set foot again in Vietnam after escaping. Eventually I had to give up.”

“It hurt too much to keep looking,” he said.

“Hope is sometimes its own curse.” Guan-yin looked to her folded hands in her lap. “It was easier to bury her in my heart.”

Several long moments of silence stretched, marked by the tinkling of the fountain in the atrium.

“And you?” Guan-yin asked, her voice faint. “You have risked much to bring her here, to come to me now.”

Gray did not need to acknowledge that aloud.

She lifted her face to stare him in the eye. “Is it because you love her?”

Gray met those eyes, knew he could not lie — when the first explosion shook the complex.

The blast rocked the entire apartment tower. Water sloshed in the fish tank. The long-stemmed orchids swayed.

“What the hell!” Kowalski yelled.

Guan-yin was on her feet.

Her shadow, Zhuang, already had a phone at his ear, talking swiftly, moving to the wall of windows. Smoke rose up through the rain from below.

Another explosion erupted, sounding farther away.

Guan-yin followed her lieutenant to the window, towing Gray and Kowalski with her. She translated what she overheard from Zhuang.

“Cement trucks have pulled up to all the entrances, coming from all directions at once.”

Gray pictured the large vehicles squeezing down the narrow canyons surrounding this mountain, converging here in a coordinated assault. But they were not cement trucks…

Another blast from another direction.

… but bombs on wheels.

Someone intended to bring this entire place down around their ears. Gray could guess who: Ju-long Delgado. He must have discovered Gray and Kowalski had come here. The passage of their pale faces through here would be hard to miss.

“We need to get out!” Gray warned. “Now!”

Zhuang heard him and agreed, turning to his mistress. “We must get you to safety.”

Guan-yin stood her ground, back straight, the dragon shining more prominently on her angry face. “Mobilize the Triad,” she ordered. “Get as many residents to safety as possible.”

Gray pictured the mass of humanity below.

“Use our underground tunnels,” she said.

Of course, the Triad would have secret ways into and out of their stronghold.

“You must first go yourself,” Zhuang pressed.

“After you pass on that order.”

It seemed this captain was willing to go down with her ship — and it was coming down. Loud splintering crashes echoed as parts of the complex collapsed. The pall of black smoke now covered the entire wall of windows, as if driven upward by the muffled screams from below.

Zhuang returned to his phone, shouting now to be heard. Moments later, loudspeakers blared throughout the complex, echoing across its many levels, as the command of the dragonhead was spread to all.

Only then did Guan-yin relent.

Zhuang wisely led her away from the elevators. He ushered her through a double set of doors to the same stairs they had climbed earlier.

“Hurry now! We must reach the tunnels!”

As they descended at a run, pandemonium overtook the central courtyard. Multiple fires glowed below. Several floors down, a section of bridge that had spanned the space suddenly broke, spilling a handful of flailing people into the fiery depths. The apartment building across from them began to fold in on itself, imploding floor by floor, falling crookedly away, slowly ripping itself free from the other towers.

Gray ran faster now, leaping from landing to landing. Guan-yin kept pace with him, Zhuang at her side, Kowalski trailing.

A thunderous crack shook the stairs, sending them all to their knees.

The entire stairwell began to peel from the side of the tower.

“This way!” Gray hollered.

He leaped from the stairs, across the growing gap, and reached the tower’s exterior hallway that faced the courtyard. The others followed. Guan-yin tripped, slipping out of her lieutenant’s arms as he jumped. Left behind, she teetered at the edge — but Kowalski scooped her up and vaulted with a bellow to join Gray.

“Thank you,” Guan-yin said as he set her down.

“We’ll never make it to the tunnels,” Gray said.

No one argued, accepting his grim assessment. Fires raged fiercely below, roiling with smoke, continually fueled by whatever tumbled into them from above.

“Then where do we go?” Kowalski asked. “We’re still a good ten stories up, and I forgot my wings.”

Gray clapped him on the shoulder, appreciating the suggestion. “Then we’ll have to make our own.” He faced Zhuang. “Take us to the closest corner apartment.”

Ever the lieutenant, the swordsman obeyed without question. He rushed them into the inner labyrinth of the tower. In a few short turns, he reached a door and pointed.

Gray tested and found it locked. He backed a step and kicked his heel into the deadbolt. The aged wood frame offered little resistance, and the door ripped open.

“Inside!” he yelled. “I need bedsheets, clothing, laundry, anything we can tie together to make a rope.”

He left this chore to Kowalski and Guan-yin.

With Zhuang in tow, he hurried through the sliding doors to the outside. Like all the other balconies he had spotted from the street, this one had been turned into a steel cage, sealed from the outside with chain-link fencing.

“Help me,” Gray said and set about freeing a section from the balcony rails.

As they worked furiously, the tower rumbled and shook, slowly coming apart as it was eaten below by fire.

At last, Gray kicked a piece of fencing loose and sent it tumbling through the smoke to the street below.

“How’s it going with the rope?” he yelled into the apartment.

“We’ll never make something long enough to reach the ground!” Kowalski called back.

That wasn’t the plan.

Gray moved inside to check on their handiwork. He found the two had managed to knot together a length of about twenty yards. The tower gave a massive shake, helping him make his final decision.

“Good enough!”

Gray hauled one end outside and tied it to the balcony’s top rail. He tossed the rest of its length over the edge.

“What are you doing?” Kowalski asked.

Gray pointed to the open balconies of the building across the narrow street.

“You are stupid mad,” Kowalski said.

No one argued.

Looking down, Gray again wondered how the cement trucks had made it through such a tight squeeze of alleys to reach here. But at the moment, he silently thanked the Hong Kong city planners who allowed such dense construction in Kowloon.

Gray mounted the balcony rail and grabbed their makeshift rope. Holding his breath, he lowered himself down hand by hand. A few slips made his heart pound harder, but as he climbed, he silently eyeballed the distance to the neighboring building, judging the length of free rope he would need.

Once satisfied, he began to shift his weight, setting the rope to swinging. He ran his boots along the caged balconies, passing through thick smoke, burning his eyes. Within a few passes back and forth, his arc began to swing clear of the building, stretching toward its neighbor.

Not far enough.

Needing more distance, he ran faster across the balconies, extending the arc of each swing wider and wider. Smoke continued to choke his throat, growing ever thicker, making it harder to catch his breath.

But he dared not stop.

Finally, sweeping out over the street, the tips of his toes struck the far balcony. It was not enough to gain purchase, but the contact fired his determination. Swinging back again into the smoke, his feet sped across the rain-slick balconies.

C’mon…

“Pierce!” Kowalski yelled from the balcony. “Look below you!”

Gray searched under his legs as he ran. The end of his rope must have brushed through a hot patch at some point and caught fire. Flames chased up the rope toward him, trailing fiery cinders of cloth.

Oh, no…

This time, when he felt his momentum ebbing, he kicked hard off the last rail he could touch, trying to eke out a few more yards of swing, knowing this was his last chance.

Then back he fell.

Gravity dragged him across the surface of the fiery tower and out over the street. Bending at the waist, he kicked his legs up and stared through them. The balcony swooped toward him. Timing it as well as he could, he lifted his feet to clear the rail — then clamped his knees down and successfully hooked the top bar.

Relief swept through him.

In that moment of inattentiveness, he slipped and lost his hold. His legs slid along the bar until only his heels remained hooked to the rail. He hung there, knowing it couldn’t last.

Under him, flames swept up the rope.

Then hands suddenly grabbed his ankles.

He stared past his toes to see a man and woman, husband and wife, the owners of the apartment, gripping him, coming to his aid. They pulled him over the balcony’s rail to safety. Back on his feet, he stamped and slapped out the flames from the rope and tied its end to the top bar. All the while, the pair chattered to him in Cantonese, clearly scolding him at such a rash action, as if he had done it on some lark.

Once the rope bridge was secure — or as secure as he could make it — he called over to the others.

“One at a time! Hands and legs! Climb over!”

Guan-yin came first, moving swiftly like a gymnast, barely disturbing the bridge. She bowed her thanks to the couple, as Zhuang came next, his sword slung over his chest and hanging under him.

Kowalski followed last, fueled by a string of curses.

Apparently the gods were not happy with his profanity. Halfway across, the far end of the bridge frayed away and snapped, sending him plummeting toward the street.

Gray gulped, his belly pressed hard against the rail, not knowing what to do.

Luckily, Kowalski kept his massive meat hooks on the rope. As the slack ran out, the rope flung his bulk toward the façade below. He crashed headlong into a balcony three stories down, bowling into a group of onlookers gathered there.

Cries of shock echoed up.

“Are you okay?” Gray hollered, bending over the rail.

“Next time, you go last!” Kowalski bellowed back.

Gray turned to find Zhuang gently wrapping his mistress’s face in a crimson silk scarf, hiding her again from the world.

Once covered, she turned to Gray. “I owe you my life.”

“But many others lost theirs.”

She nodded at this, and they both soberly observed the aftermath of the attack. Across the way, the rusted mountain slowly succumbed to the fires, crumbling and crashing to ruin.

Behind them, Zhuang conversed rapidly on his phone, likely assessing the damage.

After a minute, he returned to his mistress’s side. They spoke with their heads bowed. Once her lieutenant stepped back, Guan-yin faced Gray.

“Zhuang has heard news from Macau,” she said.

Gray tensed for the worst.

“My daughter still lives.”

Thank God.

“But Ju-long has whisked her off the peninsula, out of China.”

“Where—?”

Her scarf failed to muffle the dread in her voice. “To North Korea.”

Gray pictured that reclusive country, an isolated no-man’s-land of macabre desolation and dictatorial madness, a place of strict control and impenetrable borders.

“It’ll take an army to get her out,” he mumbled to the smoke and fire.

Guan-yin clearly heard him, but instead said, “You never answered my earlier question.”

He faced her, finding only a terrified mother staring back.

“Do you love my daughter?”

Gray could not lie, but fear choked him silent. Still, she read the answer in his eyes and turned away.

“Then I will give you that army.”