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sign.”
    Then he moved away, without another word. Jane stared after him. What’s he after? she heard a voice in her mind ask.
    And she replied to herself silently, Jane Scanwell, you’ve been in politics too damned long if you’re automatically suspicious of some good-looking young Italian making a pass at you!
    Trying to force Gaetano’s suggestion to the back of her mind, Jane busied herself attending to her guests. Malik had showed up without his wife, as usual. And, as usual, he was the center of a cluster of admiring women of all ages. Jane made polite conversation, saw that the robots weaving through the crowd with trays of drinks were functioning properly, and tried to avoid whichever part of the big, high-ceilinged room Gaetano happened to be in. Eventually, inevitably, she slipped out of the crowded
    living room and strode swiftly down the hall to her cubbyhole of an office. Closing the door firmly behind her, she leaned across her desk and swiveled the phone screen around. She touched a couple of keys and her messages scrolled silently across the screen.
    There! Dan’s reply to her invitation:
    ON MY WAY. YOU-KNOW-WHO.
    Jane crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at the screen. Damn you, Dan Randolph. Just like him. “On my way.” Doesn’t say when he’ll arrive. Doesn’t even say where he’s going, although it’s bound to be Tetiaroa. The big oaf wouldn’t even sign his name. What’s he afraid of?
    But then she realized that Dan Randolph had much to be afraid of. She was luring him into a trap, not a romantic rendezvous. She was going to defeat him, crush him, once and for all.
    She fought back the tears that were welling in her eyes.
    An earthquake shook the Tokyo airport just as Dan was being greeted by the head of the Yamagata security team, a bone-thin man of about fifty, dressed in a severe suit of dead black, who bowed to him and asked:
    “Mr. Rutherford-san?”
    Dan started to return the bow when the floor beneath him rippled. The crowd streaming past, coming off the plane from Sydney , seemed to freeze and draw in its breath as if preparing to scream. A deep rumble filled the air, like the drawn-out thunder of a dragon lurking beneath the ground. The long decorative streamers hanging from the ceiling high overhead swayed back and forth. Beyond the heads of the people facing him, Dan could see through the big windows on the other side of the terminal that the planes out there seemed to bob up and down, like ships on a choppy sea. Then it was over. The rumble died away. Before anyone could scream. Before Dan had fully registered that an earthquake was happening. It was over. The floor became solid again. The planes outside were still, as if they had never moved at all. The streamers fluttered only slightly, as if a passing breeze had briefly disturbed them. The crowd flowed back into motion, babbling and chattering. “Mr. Rutherford-san,” the security man repeated, his immobile face showing neither anxiety nor relief, “your transportation is waiting for you.”
    “Dorno arigato,” Dan replied. He had not spoken Japanese in years, but he had spent his time on the spacecraft and hypersonic transport from Sydney listening to newscasts from Tokyo to revive his ear for the language.
    “You have luggage, sir?” the man asked, switching to Japanese. “Only this.” Dan hefted his soft-sided travel bag. Originally dead black, it looked gray and threadbare from much use.
    “This way, please.” The security man did not offer to take Dan’s bag. He’s not a porter and he wants to have both his hands free at all times, Dan told himself.
    Glad that he had kept up his daily regimen of exercises while on the Moon, Dan followed after the security man on legs that felt only slightly rubbery in the heavy gravity of Earth. He looked around for the rest of the team. The terminal was crowded, abuzz with hundreds of conversations in a score of different languages. People scurrying everywhere: