When the president stood up she was holding a pistol. “Jesus Christ,” Gastrell said.

The agents froze. In all their training, there was nothing about

the POTUS wielding a gun.

Morales walked calmly back to the podium. The gun was in her

hand. She looked out over the audience and at the world beyond and

said, “I don’t know why.”

Then as a chorus of screams echoed, she raised the gun to her

temple and squeezed the trigger.

Deng Shi had two jobs, one more profitable than the other. On the one hand, he was a shrimper. On the other hand he engaged in a little light smuggling—no drugs, just cigarettes, booze, a bit of tax avoidance really, no harm in it.

He had in his time seen a fair share of strange things in the waters of Victoria Harbor. But what he saw now beat anything.

He steered his boat a few degrees to starboard, veering toward the object—no, objects, there were two—in the water. He yelled down to one of his crew to get a grappling hook.

One man with a hook was not nearly enough. It took four strong men and a winch.

Ten minutes later Deng stood amazed and a little awestruck by what looked very much like two men melted together. There was also an elderly woman, but she was practically invisible standing beside the creature—he couldn’t yet quite think of them as humans.

It seemed one single life jacket and the small woman had managed to keep them afloat. Deng spoke no English, and neither the Twins nor Ling spoke any Cantonese. But one of Deng’s deckhands was Vietnamese.

It took an hour to work out the details, for Deng to lend his phone to Charles Armstrong, to wait while he contacted Jindal, and then to get confirmation that half a million U.S. dollars had appeared in Deng’s bank account. The other half of the money would be delivered in cash when Deng put the Twins ashore in Vietnam. There was an Armstrong factory facility there that paid many bribes: the Twins would not need to undergo too many formalities, and there would be no questions.

AFTER

“Thrum has taken the bait,” Stern said. “She is watching your accounts, and AFGC is following our search for Lear.”

Plath and Stern were both enjoying a stroll through Central Park. It was a lovely day. Frisbees skimmed, kites bobbed and weaved against a pale blue sky, and skaters clogged the paved paths.

“Okay,” Plath said. Then added, “Good,” because her father had always taught her the value of praising the people who worked for you. “Is there more?”

Stern didn’t answer at first, then he asked, “Do you want more?” Now it was her turn to hesitate. She knew what he was asking. Did she want to know more? Did she want or need to know more? “Tell me, and I’ll decide whether I want more.”

Stern sighed. “I’ve been contacted by a person in Lebanon, a hacker who, as you might expect, says his name is Anonymous.” Stern rolled his eyes slightly. “He’s following AFGC following us. He had some very interesting information on the terrorist incident in Hong Kong.”

“What does it have to do with us?”

“If this fellow is to be believed, the Armstrong Twins were aboard that LNG ship. In fact, they owned it, and used it as a sort of …as a …I don’t even know what to call it. Some sort of cross between a zoo and an insane asylum, I suppose. A floating chamber of horrors. According to our Lebanese friend, Swedish intelligence and the Royal Navy are involved. The Chinese are trying to put a lid on everything, and they’re damned good at cover-ups.”

“Were the Twins killed?”

Stern shook his head. “No one knows. There are rumors both ways.”

“And why would we believe this Lebanese guy?”

Stern smiled. “Because he gave us the keys to the kingdom. He showed us the way into the AFGC system.”

The possibilities made Plath’s head spin. Against all odds they had scored a victory. The FBI and Secret Service were frantically chasing down every rumor having to do with the president’s bizarre and shattering suicide. And intelligence services the world over were investigating the Hong Kong incident.

Soon they would find out about BZRK, too.

But they had taken Bug Man out of the game. Burnofsky had been released—a changed man. Vincent was perhaps on his way back…. They walked on in silence for a while.

“There’s an island,” Stern said. “It’s called Île Sainte-Marie and it’s