Power and Empire

Clark wrote “pool boy” beside Rattail’s name in the notebook. When he looked up, Zambrano had attached a short leash from a metal deck chair to the taller girl’s ankle. There was a similar leash on another chair, probably meant for Magdalena, but she was busy rubbing sunscreen on Lily Chen’s shoulders. The Chinese woman said something to Zambrano, who shrugged, and then dragged the deck chair, along with the attached girl, to the edge of the deep end. He pointed in again, as if telling her there was still more glass at the bottom from her accident, and then he kicked the chair over the edge.

The heavy chair jerked her under mid-scream.

Clark’s heart leapt into his throat. His hands clawed at the dirt beside him. There was no way he’d be able to cover the distance from his hide to the pool in time to save her — even if he wouldn’t have been cut down by gunfire. He could start shooting, but at nearly a hundred meters away, he’d be hard-pressed to make pistol shots effective. Shots would only send everyone running for cover, leaving the girl to drown. No, his only hope was to bank on the fact that Zambrano had likely bid a great deal of money on both girls — and would not want to kill off his investment.

Half a minute in, Zambrano gave Magdalena a nod. The skinny little Costa Rican sprang forward at once, diving in to save her friend. Zambrano stood on the edge with Mini Fridge, watching in amusement. When the chair proved too heavy even for Magdalena to keep afloat, Zambrano begrudgingly hooked his thumb at the water and the short Chinese man handed off his SMG to dive in. The taller girl gagged when Zambrano dragged her out, vomiting on the concrete pool deck.

Lily Chen could not be bothered to look up from her magazine during the entire ordeal.

Clark focused on his breathing, having to work hard to relax his jaw. His original plan had been to wait until sundown, but he wasn’t about to stand by and watch something like that again. He took one last scan with the binoculars. The Sun Yee On guys had just rotated posts, so he could count on them being in roughly the same position for the next half-hour.

He carried both pistols and all his magazines on his belt, keeping the Glock mags from nine o’clock over his left hip and forward. The Wilson .45 mags he kept from nine o’clock rearward toward the small of his back, but still within reach. The Presidio was in his left pocket.

He could have solved this whole problem with a rifle. Any warfighter worth his salt knew that if you ever had to pull a handgun during a fight, you were in deep shit. But pistols were better than fists and feet. Clark had always been breakable — everyone was — though he hadn’t admitted it as a younger man. He just didn’t heal quite as quickly anymore. That, along with the lack of a long gun, couldn’t be helped. And anyway, he’d decided to play the hand he was dealt early on in this game. He ran through the plan again in his head, drawing a circle around his sketch of the docks.

“Well, Muffin Top,” he whispered. “Looks like you get to be first.”

• • •

It was not at all uncommon for President Ryan to work through lunch and dinner when he was focused on something. The G20 was looming and there were dozens of topics, economic and otherwise, that he needed to bone up on before he left for Japan the next morning. With Cathy out of town and no one from the scheduling office ramrodding him through endless appointments, he was able to get through half the stack. It was almost six by the time he came up for air.

“I apologize,” he said after he’d stepped out of the Oval and across the corridor into the Roosevelt Room. “I didn’t mean to abandon you.”

Dr. Miller stood again. “Al from Communications brought me a chicken wrap.”

“Good,” Ryan said, eyeing the open notebooks beside Miller’s laptop. “Anything interesting?”

“I think I’m about done,” she said.

Ryan shook his head. “I don’t want you to feel as though you have a deadline, Dr. Miller. This is important, and I fully realize it takes time.”

“Frankly,” Miller said, “I wish I could say I needed more time. This place is amazing compared to my office. Anyway, I found the initial financial ties between China and the bank in Africa the old-fashioned way — by analyzing computer data. I figured I could broaden my focus after you pointed me in the right direction. Once I had an idea of what to look for… I was sure all the blobs I told you about would become crystal clear as long as I did enough snooping.”

“And what did you find out?”

“Well,” Miller said, “entities that appear to represent the government of China, and even President Zhao Chengzhi himself, have assets in Africa, Bali, and Paraguay. There’s a Balinese company which appears to be a shell business for Zhao with ties to Jemaah Islamiyah. They’re tenuous, but they are there.”