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just before Sutherland entered the room.
    “Still not ready?” Sutherland quipped, opening his brown leather bomber jacket to reveal his own holstered Sig Sauer, spare magazines and ASP baton. “I guess the old pros are always showing the young pups how it’s done! You take about the same amount of time to get ready as most women I know.”
    “Old is right. Forty next birthday, yeah? You’ll be in a walking frame before you know it,” replied Morgan, relieved that his comrade didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual in his appearance or behavior. “Anyway, how would you know how long it takes a woman to get ready for anything? What woman, besides your mum, would have any time for you?”
    “Screw you. How was Africa?”
    “The usual – hot.” Morgan finished buttoning the shirt and flicked his head to a pot of coffee that had just arrived via room service. “So, how are things here, Dave?”
    “We’ll get to that.” Sutherland threw a small, tightly rolled bundle onto the table beside Morgan’s gear, walked over, poured them both coffee and handed a cup to Morgan. “Wear that under your jacket until we get to the car; there’s a black ski-mask in the pocket. If everything goes pear-shaped and we need to do anything outside the vehicle, then at least we’ll only get shot at by the bad guys. I’ve got one for Reigns, too.”
    “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” asked Morgan, unrolling the bundle. It was a lightweight, black, zip-front vest of the type common to most law-enforcement agencies, only this one had POLICE written in English and Chinese in large yellow letters across the back and a small HK Police Force crest on the left breast. “So, tell me about Reigns. She’s some Interpol analyst, right, or am I missing something?”
    “She
was
an analyst but that’s not the half of it. She’s a graduate of Johns Hopkins University – international studies, specializing in human trafficking. After college she joined the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, deployed to all of their key centers out here – China, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam; you name it. After that she was with the Rapid Response Unit for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. From OHCHR she got snapped up by Interpol and worked as a criminal analyst in the Washington office. All that time she’s been involved with Johns Hopkins in a thing called the Protection Project – it’s not-for-profit, human rights, that kind of stuff. She’s no dummy and, so far, she’s doing well on this job.”
    Sutherland was obviously impressed by her. Morgan wasn’t convinced.
    “She sounds like an academic, not an operator,” he said. “One of those typical UN types – deploy to the Third World, earn a packet, but never set foot outside your fucking air conditioning. How did the boss find her?”
    “He attended a human rights conference that this Protection Project was hosting. Reigns made a presentation and impressed the hell out of him. Before you know it, here she is – our latest recruit in the field on her first solo job.”
    “Sounds like tokenism if you ask me. The old man’s getting soft and we end up babysitting,” Morgan replied sourly. After some final adjustments to his tactical equipment, he picked up his coffee cup and dropped into a chair within the room’s large bay window. Victoria Harbour and the Hong Kong skyline stretched out behind him, with the CMA CGM
Jules Verne
, one of the largest container ships in the world, in view.
    “Jesus! What’s got into you, bud? Sounds like you’ve got an issue with this girl and you haven’t even met her yet.”
    “Don’t worry about me, Dave,” Morgan replied, annoyed. He drank some coffee. “I just want to get through this one and take some down time. That’s all. The sooner it’s done the better.”
    “OK, well, trust me when I tell you, you’ve got nothing to worry about with Reigns. She’s good.”
    “If you say so.