Power and Empire

Chavez was grouchy about it, but he told Midas to break away from Foreign Minister Li’s hotel and grab Jack a pair of sweats and his Brooks runners from his room at the Panamericano, along with a half-dozen bottles of water and the biggest container of hand sanitizer Midas could find — which turned out to be not nearly as big as Jack had hoped for.

Ryan rinsed off the best he could inside the stone building while Midas stood guard outside. Beyond salvation, everything from his skin out, including the Rockports, went into a dumpster. The fresh clothes and relatively disinfected feet allowed Ryan to make it back to the hotel without drawing too much attention. People who passed him smelled something amiss, but Jack looked clean and tidy. Such an awful stench couldn’t be coming from him. Midas led the way and called the elevator while Jack waited by himself in a deserted corner beyond the baby-grand piano in the Panamericano’s lobby until he was sure they would have the elevator to themselves.

He cleaned his gun and other equipment first. Some scrubbing and a few minutes under the blow dryer took care of the Thunderwear holster. It was made of textile, but thankfully it had been semiprotected by his slacks. The radio equipment was waterproof, so it was a fairly straightforward process to get it clean. His watchband, on the other hand, was toast. His cell phone had survived unscathed but for a cracked screen. Twenty minutes in a near scalding shower and two more bottles of hand sanitizer later, Ryan finally felt almost clean again.

He briefly considered calling his mother to see if there was some kind of prophylactic medication he should take, but there was no good way to explain his situation to her. “Hey, Mom, I was just tromping around in some South American sewers today. Wondering if I should be worried…”

He decided he’d ask Adara if he got the chance.

Ryan had to will himself to take it easy on the aftershave, knowing too much would draw as much attention as the phantom odor he hoped to conceal. Finally scrubbed and wearing a pressed button-down shirt, fresh khaki slacks, and a pair of Crockett & Jones dark brown oxfords he’d be able to run in if the need arose, he headed to meet Midas in the lobby.

The former Delta commander’s nose curled as soon as Ryan walked up.

“Like my granny used to say, you got something Bab-O won’t wash off!”

“Damn it!” Jack grimaced and started to turn around and head back to his hotel room. “Seriously? You can still smell it?”

Midas’s wide shoulders bounced as he chuckled, already walking toward the valet with the keys. “You’re fine,” he said. “I think my nose hairs are still melted from when I picked you up.”

40

Midas didn’t mind navigating, so Ryan slid in behind the wheel of the Peugeot. He enjoyed driving a stick. It made him feel alive, even in the stop-and-go Buenos Aires traffic. He nearly ran over an older female pedestrian at a four-way intersection — which meant he was getting the hang of driving like an Argentine. She gave him an energetic “Up yours” gesture and called him “¡Pelotudo!” which appeared to be the go-to word for angry people in this country.

Ryan turned left on Avenida Santa Fe, working through what little they did know about the situation while he drove. The team had been over it until they were blue in the face, and there were a dozen plausible scenarios — but some vital piece of evidence that would make everything fall into place still eluded them.

Eddie Feng was a Taiwanese national. Vincent Chen was also from Taiwan, but living in the United States with a cover identity selling imported greeting cards from the People’s Republic of China. So far, the only thing linking the two men was their propensity to frequent Tres Equis/Sun Yee On triad strip clubs that exploited underage girls — a trait that should have earned them both a spot in a very dark hole but didn’t explain Chen’s connection to the PRC and whether he was friend or foe. The meetings between the Chinese and the other delegations had definitely brought him to Argentina.