33
Singapore
October 5, 10:00 p.m. SGT
A block away from the park, Charlie Han sat in a black Toyota Harrier and listened as the two women talked.
The miniature microphones Dai had planted in the park when they’d first recruited Emily Tan had done their job exactly as expected. Dai had placed mics in the park, in Emily’s apartment building, in the tea shop she favored. The mics required regular replacement, but the risk had been worth it.
Charlie had been confident Nadia would visit Emily—the Brenner girl did not like loose ends, and Emily’s sudden firing made her just that.
Charlie also knew that Emily would take Nadia to a place where she thought the women would be safe to speak openly.
After tonight, Emily would no longer be safe anywhere.
He had thought that the general arrangement plan was his ticket. It was all set up. The layout revealed a hidden room, connected to the master stateroom, so that Mèng could sleep with his wife and play with his children whenever he wished. With that information, Han had devised a plan to find and capture them at sea. He had men and boats at the Guóānbù’s false-front company in the Philippines, a company created long ago to monitor events in the South China Sea and to use for exactly this kind of operation. All it would take was a single phone call to activate them. He would fly to Manila and be able to board Red Dragon with an armed force and go straight to where Li-Mei and her brats were hiding. Brilliantly, he would open the secret door and reveal the truth.
It would be an unquestionable coup, tidy and swift. And it would shame the Second Department when Charlie’s actions revealed they were letting a traitor escape.
But now that the Brenner woman knew the plans were in his hands, she would go to Mèng. And Mèng would lose his courage. All the princelings were—in their faux-red hearts—cowards, which meant that Han would lose his chance for revenge.
A heavy fury ground through him with the slow weight of a glacier pulverizing stones. Charlie’s anger was ice—cold and contained. A steel blade, a biting edge.
He would not lose. Not this close to the finish. He must make Mèng believe he was safe from the Guóānbù. Safe to take his family and sail away on Red Dragon .
Many times Charlie had thought that life was like the ancient Chinese game of weiqi , which the English and Japanese called Go. You won by taking over your opponent’s territory. George Mèng had been born with every advantage on life’s board: huge swaths of territory, both literal and metaphorical.
Charlie had been born with nothing but his own intelligence.
That, and a little luck, should be enough.