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Maricruz laughed. “I think that’s what I like most about you Chinese—your incredibly high opinion of yourselves.” She laughed again. “The Middle Kingdom.”
Ouyang took another sip of tea, savoring it much as he savored these intellectual boxing matches with his wife. No one else had the guts to talk to him in this blunt ma
“And loving every minute of it.”
Ouyang crossed to a narrow niche and took up a small jade box, exquisitely engraved with rampant dragons on a field of stylized clouds. He held this box in his two hands.
“The Middle Kingdom has always been a rich source of mythology. I think you know this, Maricruz. Your own civilization is steeped in myth and legend.” Ouyang’s obsidian eyes glittered. “However, our history is so long and twisted that we have had several setbacks, all of them egregious. The first one occurred many centuries ago, in two thirteen bc, when Emperor Shi Huangdi of the Qin dynasty ordered the burning of all books on subjects other than medicine, prophecy, and farming. Thus were lost many of the Middle Kingdom’s root mythological sources.
“As often happens here, Shi Huangdi’s order was reversed in one ninety-one bc, and much of the literature was reconstructed. However, it was rewritten to support ideas popular with the then current emperor. Mythological history was rewritten, as it is over and over again, by the victor. Valuable information was lost forever.”
He came toward her with the box held like an object of infinite value. “Rarely, however, a piece of the precious past is somehow discovered, either by fate or by the desire to find it.”
Standing in front of her, he held out the box.
Maricruz eyed the jade warily. “What is this?”
“Please,” Ouyang said, bending down to her.
Maricruz took the box, which weighed far more than she had expected. It was cool to the touch, smooth as glass. With one hand, she opened the top. Her fingers trembled. Inside was a folded square of paper. She looked up at Ouyang.
“The name of your mother, Maricruz.”
Her mouth opened but no sound emerged.
“Should you wish to find her.”
“She’s alive?” Maricruz breathed.
Ouyang watched her, eyes alight. “She is.”
Very slowly, she closed the box and set it down on the settee beside her. She uncoiled with a lithe strength he found intoxicating. She reminded him of the American movie stars of the 1940s. As she rose, her robe parted. How did she manage that magician’s sleight of hand?he wondered. The i
“Thank you, Ouyang,” she said formally.
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I want to know. I don’t want to know.”
“You have the chance to undo the revision of your own personal history.”
“It means defying my father.” She rubbed her forehead against his shoulder. “What if my mother doesn’t want to see me? Why didn’t she try—?”
“You know your father,” Ouyang said softly, “better than anyone.”
“There must be a reason,” she said. “Do you know what it is?”
“I have reached the limits of my knowledge in this affair.” But, of course, Ouyang knew the reason, just as Maricruz would the moment she saw the name of her mother, married to a powerful drug lord, a friend, a business partner, who Maceo Encarnación cuckolded without a scintilla of remorse. He had desired Constanza Camargo. That was Maceo Encarnación in a nutshell.
“I need time,” Maricruz said now. “I need to concentrate on what is about to transpire.”
Even as Ouyang felt his body respond to hers, his mind returned to what she had said. “You are correct, Maricruz. I have the perfect partners. Nothing is going to go wrong.”
She smiled at him, her arms wrapped around him.
“This plan would not have been possible without you,” he said, nuzzling her ear. “Without the participation of your father and brother.”
Maricruz’s laugh was a gurgle deep in her throat. “My poor brother, Juanito, saddled with the name Nicodemo, with the sobriquet the Dji
“Your father moves in a circle of light in his legitimate business dealings as CEO of SteelTrap. He moves in a circle of shadow with his illegitimate dealings with the cream of the drug lords and arms dealers.”
His fingertips caressed her bare shoulders beneath the slithery robe.
“But I know a different Maceo Encarnación, the one who moves in darkness, the one who makes plans like a master chess player, the one who brings disparate elements together, often without their knowledge or consent, the one who is invaluable to me.”
Maricruz, breathing softly and evenly, lowered her head into the crook of his neck. “There is no end to his cleverness, to his ruthlessness, to his ability to use anyone and everyone when it suits his purpose.”
Ouyang smiled. “Your father and I have no illusions about our relationship. We use each other. It’s symbiotic. We accomplish so much more that way.”
“And Colonel Ben David?”
“A means to an end.”
“You will make a lifelong enemy.”
Ouyang smiled as his hand encircled her breast. “This is not an issue. He won’t survive.”
She drew back with a tiny indrawn breath. “Ben David is a colonel in the Mossad. Do you really think you can get an assassin close enough to him?”
“I have already done my part,” Ouyang said, drawing her back to him. “Your father has arranged everything else.”
He smiled. “It will be Jason Bourne who terminates Colonel Ben David with extreme prejudice.”
Sam Anderson was in a foul mood when he got off the phone with Secretary Hendricks. He felt that he had let Peter down. He was angry at himself for not being able to be in two places at once, for not delegating, for not ordering one of his subordinates to keep an eye on Dick Richards.
As he climbed into his car along with an agent named James, he cursed the evil gods that raged over Treadstone. The organization had been ill-fated ever since it had first come into existence. Sometimes, as now, it seemed to him that the current Treadstone staff was paying for the missteps and sins of its founders. There was no other interpretation of both co-directors being down at the same time.
As he raced through the Washington traffic, he nodded to James. “Do it now.”
James dialed a number on his mobile, then put the call on speakerphone. When a female voice, smoothly efficient as a robot’s, answered, he asked for Tom Brick.
“May I ask who is calling?” the female voice asked.
James turned to Anderson, who nodded.
“Herb Davidoff, editor in chief of Politics As Usual.”
“Just a moment, please.”
There was a pause during which Anderson slewed the car around a lumbering truck. Half on the sidewalk, he hit the horn, scattering nearby pedestrians.
Take it easy, boss, James mouthed at him.
“Mr. Davidoff?” The female voice had returned.
“Here.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Brick is currently unavailable.”
“Please tell him that I need a quote from him for a front-page story,” James hurried over her. “Time is of the essence.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, Mr. Davidoff. I’ll switch you to his voicemail. I assure you Mr. Brick accesses it several times a day.”
“Thanks very much,” James said, terminating the co
“Deploy our best COVSIC,” Anderson said as he put his foot to the accelerator. He meant a covert forensic team. James nodded and got on it.
Just then a call came in to Anderson’s mobile.