Danielle looked at the young boy, slurping up the soup broth. "Does he even understand what Kang is asking?"

"I think so," Petrov said. "He just doesn't respond."

Suddenly the boy looked up. His eyes darted toward the elevator door. Nothing happened, no sound could be heard, but seconds later the car slid into place at the bottom of the shaft and the doors opened.

The guards stepped out with their Tasers in hand.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Petrov," he said. "Alexander Petrov."

He went into another coughing fit, his body racked with spasms for twenty long seconds, and this time when he pulled the rag from his face, it was covered in blood.

CHAPTER 13.

When Hawker didn't respond to the man who questioned him, one of the thugs raised a gun and aimed it at his eye.

"You really won't get much out of me if I'm dead," he told them.

The thug was unmoved but the man behind him laughed. "Bring him with us," he said.

Hawker was blindfolded and dragged into a waiting van. From there it was a short trip to the waterfront and a forced walk onto a waiting vessel, a diesel-powered junk.

As they rumbled out into the harbor, Hawker tried to guess their direction or speed.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked after a minute or two.

"I'll gladly answer that, once you tell me what you're doing here," the Russian voice said back to him.

Hawker gave no answer. He was still trying to figure out the dynamics of the situation. Why should he, an American, have to explain to a Russian what he was doing in Hong Kong?

The motor beneath the deck cut back to idle and then died away. Soon the boat's momentum ceased and the vessel began to rock back and forth in the chop of the waves.

"Stand up," the man said.

Hawker stood, holding the rail, as one of the man's guards pulled the blindfold away. He began to turn.

"Eyes forward!"

A rifle jabbed him in the back.

Hawker did as he was ordered. They were a mile out into Victoria Harbour, looking back at the skyscrapers of Hong Kong.

"You are a man without a home, or so I hear. A man with debts to pay, who is wanted even by his own country."

Hawker did not respond.

"You go by the name Hawker," the Russian said. "An interesting metaphor this word. Where I come from, it means a seller in the marketplace, a shill, offering goods or services."

The name had come to him as a code, one he'd kept for his own reasons. He didn't try to explain.

"At any rate, you are here plying your trades, both gross and fine, only in this case, it is at the behest of your own nation's security apparatus. Care to tell us why?"

Hawker held the rail. He guessed that the man already knew the answer, or some version of it. He remained quiet.

"Come now," the Russian said. "You're among friends here. To prove it, I'll answer for you. You're here to do something that might infuriate the Chinese. Something the people who hired you don't want to be known for. Murder?"

"I'm not a killer," Hawker said.

"You are a killer," the man replied, emphatically. "But not a murderer, perhaps. What then?"

Hawker thought of leaping over the rail, but guessed he'd be riddled with bullets before he hit the water.

"It's not so complicated," the man said. "In fact, the answer is right in front of you."

Hawker looked across the water, staring straight ahead. The boat had been lined up with Kang's Tower Pinnacle, its white marble facade gleaming in the morning sun.

"They have something your people want back," the man added.

Hawker's eyes followed the contours of the tower down to the bedrock at its base. Whatever cover he'd once thought he had was nonexistent at this point.

He turned around slowly, and this time no one stopped him.

Ten feet away, hidden in the shade of the boat's pilothouse, stood a short, gaunt figure of a man. He wore a black peacoat and leather gloves. No more than five foot six, his round face was marked by sunken cheeks and whitish stubble the same length as the buzzed gray hair on his head.

Hawker guessed the man's age was close to seventy. His face was pale, his eyes almost gray. Apparently his host was a confident man. His henchmen had vanished and no gun or weapon could be seen.

"Who are you?" Hawker asked.

"My name is Ivan Saravich," the man said.

"Are you my contact?"

"No," Saravich said.

"What happened to him?"

Saravich waved a hand in a manner of swatting away an insect. "Don't worry about him. He chose a bribe over a job. I treasure men like that."

"What do you want from me?" Hawker asked.

Saravich explained. "I want to help you get at Kang, to help you recover your missing person."

"And in return?"

Saravich stepped into the light, shielding his eyes from the sun. He walked to the rail, looking toward the Tower Pinnacle in the distance.

"Kang is not a very discriminating man," he said. "In addition to your missing friend, he has taken one of our citizens, a child, whose mother is a prominent member of our Science Directorate."

That sounded like a legitimate possibility from what Hawker had been told, but there had to be a reason. "Why would he do that?"

"She's an expert in high-energy physics," Saravich said. "What Kang cannot buy he steals; what he cannot steal, he extorts. He wants information from her."

Information on high-energy physics. Hawker wondered if it were related to what Danielle and McCarter had been working on.

"For weapons?" Hawker asked.

Saravich shrugged. "No one knows," he said. "Kang is rumored to be very strange, obsessed with exotic areas of science and compulsive in regard to other things like medical oddities and genetic deformation. It is said he has a zoo of humans born defective."

"Charming," Hawker said. "Why do you need me to deal with him? Why not take him out yourself?"

Saravich exhaled. "I would prefer it," he said. "But certain niceties must be observed. You, on the other hand ... well, a man with no home does what he does. There can be no proof of whom he works for or why." He shrugged. "There can be suspicions, yes. Whispers and rumors. Of course. These things will always fly, but in the end it will never be clear, and that is what we prefer. Just as your people do."

"Of course," Hawker said. "Everyone's afraid of the dragon these days."

"Don't want to wake it," Saravich said.

"You want me to get the kid back?"

Saravich nodded. "You can get them both at the same time."

Hawker might have asked what the alternative was, but it was fairly clear to him that there was none. He was now working for Moore and the Russians. He smiled at the irony, wondering what Moore would think, footing the bill personally with his cold war enemies riding along for free.

Perhaps it was for the better not to try this act alone. He turned back toward Kang's fortress of a tower. "You think they're inside?"

Ivan nodded. "We have surveillance video showing them entering the building and no indication of their departure."

It had been eight days since Danielle's capture in Mexico. "That's not exactly conclusive."

"We know Kang." Saravich was insistent. "We know his ways. If your friend is alive, then she's there. And he wouldn't have brought her here if he planned to kill her quickly."

He studied the building. "Well, that narrows it down to a hundred floors or so."

"Actually," the Russian said, "we have only one floor to worry about." He handed Hawker a spotting scope. "Look at the foundation."

Hawker trained the scope on the black bedrock from which the tower seemed to sprout. He saw the remnants of fortifications and old stone walls, even a broken set of stairs leading down to the water.

"Kang built his tower on the ruins of Fort Victoria," Saravich explained. "A fort those hardworking Brits carved out of solid rock in 1845, before building Fort Stanley a few years later. Kang uses the old brig as his private gulag. Down there he keeps those who owe him what they cannot pay or those who cross him and survive. A very rare few have even been ransomed out."

Hawker studied the jagged black stone, wet from the spray of the waves.

"He has both of our people," Saravich said. "I promise you, he has them there."

CHAPTER 14.

Byron Stecker, current director of operations for the CIA, had a phone to his ear. On the desk in front of him lay an internal report, one that was highly critical of a fellow organization. An organization that had been a thorn in Stecker's side for years: the NRI.

Since the NRI's creation, there had been those at Langley who disapproved of what they considered a competing agency. Few were more vocal than Stecker, and for the past two years he'd fought to bring the NRI under the Agency's control. So far it had been a losing battle.

In hindsight, Stecker assigned the bulk of that failure to a situation beyond his control: the president's friendship with Arnold Moore. But after two years of running into that particular wall, Stecker had come up with a new plan, one that would turn that personal connection between the two men from a roadblock into an advantage.

The president may have been Moore's friend but he was a politician first. And like all politicians he feared the appearance of impropriety. In fact, if he was like most of them, he feared the appearance of impropriety more than the actual act of impropriety itself.

With this in mind, Stecker realized what he needed: a scandal at the NRI. If such an event could be managed correctly it would shine a harsh light on Arnold Moore. And the president, ever mindful of how their friendship looked, would be forced to act more harshly than another man. Even if just to prove that he played no favorites.

Stecker would get everything he wanted and this time he wouldn't even have to ask.

A click on the phone line told Stecker he'd been transferred into the Oval Office. The president came on the line.

"Afternoon, Byron," he said politely. "What have you got for me?"

Stecker looked down at the report; there were several disturbing rumors to choose from, including one that suggested the NRI was conducting some type of dangerous nuclear experiment at its headquarters in the suburbs of Virginia. He doubted that could be true, but the other information his people had dug up would be damning enough.

"Mr. President," Stecker said, speaking with a melodious southern drawl and at this moment an exaggerated sense of concern in his voice. "I have a warning flag to run up the pole for you. Have you checked on your good friend over there at the NRI lately? Because he seems to be turning up the heat on a few people whom you might want him to leave alone."

"What are you talking about, Stecker?" the president asked.

"I'm afraid Moore's gone off half-cocked," Stecker said. "Hired some mercenary ex-agent of ours to start himself a private little war over there in China."

"What gives you that idea?" the president said wearily.

"I have confirmed sources reporting from Kinshasa and Hong Kong," Stecker said. "I'm afraid the NRI has overstepped its bounds yet again."

Stecker knew he was laying it on a little thick, but what the hell, he had Moore dead to rights this time. Might as well enjoy it.

The president didn't reply, but the ringing silence had an edge to it and if Stecker knew anything, he knew this dart had hit the bull's-eye.

"You bring me those sources," the president said eventually. It sounded to Stecker as if he were talking through a clenched jaw. "And you bury this story. Understand? If it comes out before we can deal with it, I'll know who to burn."

Though leaking the information would have been personally satisfying, Stecker would not let it happen. Better to show the president who had control of their organization and who didn't.

"Of course, Mr. President," he said. "Honestly, if Moore has gone off the rails, I would consider it my duty to keep it quiet if at all possible."

"Cut the crap, Stecker," the president said. "You're not the one running for office here. Be at the West Wing foyer tomorrow morning, seven a.m., sharp. Drive your own car and don't bring any assistants."

The president hung up, the snap of the phone ringing Stecker's ear. He felt he'd made his point, but there was more to it than that. The president was angry, but he didn't actually sound surprised. No, it was more like disgusted, like a man hearing of an accident he thought he'd already avoided.