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death strip between the East and West sectors of the city. When President John F. Kennedy had visited the city in 1963, the Soviets had hung long red banners from the monument, symbolically preventing him from looking into East Berlin.
But the Berlin Wall had come down in 1989 as cheering crowds filled the Unter den Linden on both sides and met at the top. The Brandenburg Gate had reopened on December 22 of that year, when West German chancellor Helmut Kohl had walked through to be greeted by East German prime minister Hans Modrow. The reunification of Germany, die Wende , or the turning point, had swiftly followed.
Today, the Brandenburg Gate was a symbol not merely of Germany but of Deutsche Einheit , German unity. In a very real sense, the long and bitter Cold War between East and West had ended here .
Lia’s meeting this afternoon was a tangible symbol of the capitalist West’s victory over the communist East. There, at the southwest corner of an office building overlooking the Pariser Platz, well within the boundaries of what had once been communist East Berlin, was a Starbucks coffeehouse.
Her contact, she saw, was already there, waiting for her beneath an umbrella at a sidewalk table.
The Cold War was over, but now a new and far deadlier war had begun—and the enemy, at least in this battle, was a certain sexist pig named Feng Jiu Zhu.
She took a deep breath. Lia was not looking forward to this.

3
     
    NSA HEADQUARTERS
FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
WEDNESDAY, 0821 HOURS EDT
     
William Rubens walked past Desk Three’s innermost security checkpoint and back into the Art Room. The huge high-definition monitor covering much of one wall of the chamber above the ranks of workstations and NSA personnel showed a live image blown up to movie-screen proportions, a cluster of sidewalk tables in front of a Starbucks Kaffeehaus —a cluster of white tables under gaudily striped, open umbrellas. The scene swooped and jerked with Lia’s movements. The image was being transmitted real-time from a tiny camera imbedded in a clump of feathers attached to the front of her stylish broad-brimmed hat. It shifted wildly with each step she took and swung dizzyingly each time she turned her head.
A heavyset Chinese man sat at the nearest table, studying Lia with obvious pleasure. There was nothing inscrutable about that stare as he looked her up and down.
“Is her backup in place?” Rubens asked.
Marie Telach gestured toward a second monitor, a smaller one hanging from a different wall. It showed a still photograph of the Pariser Platz from directly overhead, with each street and building labeled.
“Alabaster is there, on the street,” she said, indicating a red flag on the plaza perhaps thirty yards from Lia’s position. “Onyx One and Onyx Two are here—northwest corner of the Aldon Hotel, fifth floor. All three are keyed in and online.”
“Good.” Alabaster, Rubens knew, was CJ Howorth, currently in training as a field operator with Desk Three. Until recently, she’d been an employee of GCHQ, the British Government Communications Headquarters, and working out of the station at Menwith Hill, in North Yorkshire. GCHQ was closely linked with the American NSA, and with the far-flung Echelon SIGINT system. She was a linguist, a good one, but her sharp thinking and quick action during the Atlantis Queen hijacking the previous year had earned her a shot at Desk Three.
Onyx One was James Castelano, former Navy SEAL and an expert marksman. He was on the seventh floor of the Adlon with an M-110 SASS, or semiautomatic sniper system. One of the Art Room wall monitors was showing the image being transmitted live from Castelano’s electronic sight—a close-up of Feng’s leering face, the crosshairs centered on his forehead. Onyx Two was Harry Daimler, Castelano’s spotter.
“Ah! Miss Lau,” Feng said, standing awkwardly, bowing slightly and extending his hand. The camera peering down over the brim of her hat showed Lia’s hand reach out