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Maria-Elena?”
    “Murdered, it would seem. Poisoned.”
    These people , Maricruz thought. The last vestige of civilization has been ground into Mexico’s bloodstained earth . “And her daughter?” she said. “She did have a daughter?”
    “Yes. The girl seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.”
    “No one can do that these days.”
    “Nevertheless…” Marsh spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
    “Have you spent any time or resources in looking for her?”
    He gestured at the papers spread out on the table. “I’ve had more important matters to attend to.”
    Maricruz nodded absently, at last glanced down at the sheaf she was holding. “Shall we begin?” She shuffled some pages, then paused to look up at Marsh, who waited patiently for, it seemed to her, the objections she was sure to voice.
    “Who the hell is Gavin Royce?”
    “He’s the new CEO of SteelTrap.”
    “Not until I give my approval.”
    “He’s your father’s handpicked successor.”
    “I don’t know him. I’ve never even met him.”
    “For the last eight years, he’s been running SteelTrap’s highly lucrative European operations. He knows the business inside and out, and he’s successful.”
    “Even so, he’s been based in London. Europeans do business differently than my father did.”
    “As I said, Gavin had your father’s trust.”
    “Am I or am I not the executrix of Maceo Encarnación’s estate?”
    “Indeed you are,” Marsh acknowledged. “But you’ve been in China for some time. In this, as in many matters of the estate, you must trust me, Maricruz.”
    She stared at Marsh—his open face, his thick body, his immaculately tailored suit. “You had my father’s trust,” she said at length. “Now you must earn mine.”
    Something hard entered Marsh’s amiable expression; his eyes grew dark. “What would you have me do?” These words seemed forced out of him, as if by a punch to the solar plexus.
    “I’ll talk to Royce myself. If I think he’s right for the job, offer him an eighteen-month contract.”
    For a moment Marsh seemed bewildered. “Eighteen months? He’ll never go for that.”
    “He will,” she said, “if he wants the job.”
    “But he’s—For God’s sake, Maricruz, be reasonable, the man is doing mammoth—He’s been working twenty-hour days ever since your father’s death.”
    “Then offer him incremental overrides tied to the success of the business. Use your powers of persuasion. Incentivize him, Wendell.”
    “I’ll do my best.”
    “I trust you’ll do better than that.” She frowned. “I assume Royce doesn’t know about the other part of my father’s affairs.”
    “God, no. Your father was meticulous in keeping SteelTrap separate.”
    “Good enough.” Her eyes flicked down to the next document, scanning the dense paragraphs of legalese. “Now, what about these SteelTrap annual reports? Tell me what they’re really saying.”

6
    A s he crossed the arrivals hall, after passing through immigration as Lawrence Davidoff, Bourne paused at a kiosk to buy a pack of gum. It was a Chinese brand, a mix of obscure herbs that, according to the print on the pack, was guaranteed to clear the liver of impurities. Taking out a stick, Bourne began to chew, the bitter, acrid taste like burnt peat moss. When he threw away the wrapper, he also tossed out Davidoff’s passport.
    Outside in the heat and humidity, he joined a queue of people waiting for taxis. As he passed close to one, he dropped his pack of gum. Bending down to retrieve it, he removed the wad of gum from his mouth, pressed the Mossad tracking device into it, then affixed the wad to the undercarriage of the taxi.
    Rising, he resumed his spot in the queue and, soon enough, was on his way into the city.
      
    B ourne remembered Shanghai as if from a dream. Walking its streets, packed and teeming with riotous color and exotic smells, he could feel amnesiac memories shifting like frightening unseen beasts sunk