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man.
    Hands went into the air. “Please, signor . That is not necessary. Not at all.”
    “The keys to the boat.”
    “They are on board. In the ignition.”
    “I need you to go back to wherever you stay and call for help. Tell them about the crash. Right now, do it.”
    The unarmed guard did not need to be told twice. As the man hustled off, Malone made his way down to the dock and onto the boat.
    The keys were indeed in the ignition.
    He powered up the engines.
    *   *   *
    Kim removed the needle from Larks’ arm. The old fool had proven to benothing but trouble. They’d spoken on the phone and communicated by email many times. He’d listened with patience to all the rants. Larks was angry with his government for a multitude of lies. Eventually Kim had revealed to Larks that he was Korean, not realizing that might be a problem. After all, Howell had bought them together, all of them supposedly kindred souls bound by the same interest. Larks himself was a widower who’d alienated his bosses—forced to retire after thirty-plus years of government service. He had no children and little other family. He was, for all intents and purposes, forgotten. Now he was dead. But two vital things had first been learned. Larks had passed his cache of documents on to a woman named Jelena and Howell would be in Venice tomorrow.
    His cell phone vibrated again.
    “We watched with night-vision glasses,” the voice reported in North Korean. “A man definitely jumped onto the chopper and hung from its strut. The pilot tried to lose him, but couldn’t. He dropped off, onto a small island, then we heard shots, and an explosion. That same man, still holding a gun, just left the island in a boat.”
    With the chopper down, its occupants killed, and all of the men at the cash transfer, he assumed, dead too, the loose ends were certainly tied—except for whoever was in that boat.
    True, the idea had been to steal the money.
    But with it gone—
    “I recommend you kill him,” he said.
    “I agree.”

 
    FIVE
    A TLANTA
    Stephanie sized up her assailant. He was government, of that she was sure. Career man. Nearing retirement. And confident. Too much so, actually, since they were now sitting in a mall food court.
    “I love Chick-fil-A’s,” he said, gesturing with the sandwich he held. “When I was a kid my mother would buy them as a treat for me and my brothers.”
    He seemed pleased by the memory. The other man—the one with the gun—sat at a nearby table. Though it was dinnertime, the tables were nearly empty.
    “Is there a reason you’ve assaulted the head of an American intelligence unit? Your man over there threatened me and one of my people.”
    He kept eating his sandwich. “The two pickles are the key. Just the right amount of dill flavor to spice up the chicken.”
    She realized he was trying to get under her skin, so she asked, “What are you? DEA? FBI?”
    “That hurts.”
    But she knew. “Treasury?”
    He quit chewing. “I was told you’re a smart lady.”
    Any other time she’d tell this moron to go to hell. But that was the thing about fishing. If you dangled the right bait at the right time, what you were after just might swim by and sneak a nibble. And this fish had done just that. “Why does Treasury think it can threaten a fellow federal agent and hold her against her will?”
    He shrugged. “You can leave whenever you want.”
    “You must have friends in high places.”
    He grinned. “Best kind of job security.”
    That meant the secretary of Treasury. “All this sounds like a conspiracy to me.”
    “Only in the best of terms. Done to get your attention. And see how well it worked? Here we are, sharing dinner.”
    “You’re the only one eating.”
    “I offered and you said no, so don’t blame me that you aren’t having any of this good ol’ American food.”
    He sucked a swallow of Coke through a straw, then returned to his sandwich. His cockiness was weighing on her, as if she and the