He was shocked at how much Cobus knew about Lee, given how deliberately the business mogul had walled himself off from the Sun Yee On’s operation. Knight dug deeper through photos of Wan and Broken Tooth and other triads he had been lucky never to cross paths with. He suddenly felt very exposed by the extent of Cobus’s investigation.

“Do you have anything on me?” Knight asked.

“Why would I have anything on you? You said we’re on the same side.”

Knight turned to Cobus, hoping he was telling the truth, then went back to studying the documents.

“Are you going to help me stop them?” Cobus asked.

CHAPTER 39 BUSINESS

CHAPTER 39
BUSINESS

Knight’s hands shook as he buttoned his shirt. He needed to look polished for his three o’clock meeting, and physically and mentally he felt trampled. His fever still hadn’t dropped, and he was having trouble thinking, his mind pinballing from one half-formed thought to the next. The only upshot to his ailment was that he had already shed five pounds of the bourbon and rib eyes that had accumulated at his waistline.

As he dressed, he watched a breaking news story on television with the headline “outbreak in laos.” He had first seen the news alert pop on his phone and had immediately surfed the channels in his hotel room until he found live coverage on Al Jazeera. Knight wasn’t surprised to see that the authorities had stumbled across the facility in Thakhek, since he was the one who called in the anonymous tip about the outbreak as soon as he had gotten the hell out of Laos.

Knight had reported the outbreak less out of a sense of duty than out of self-preservation. It was under similar circumstances, in similar regions, that swine and bird flus had mutated and jumped to humans before spreading like wildfire through airports around the globe. These were the same international airports Knight frequented almost daily.

On screen, aid workers in biohazard suits could be seen hauling out the wrapped carcasses of tigers and humans. “The World Health Organization is currently responding to an outbreak of feline leukemia virus in Thakhek, Laos,” the reporter announced. “The virus, previously occurring only in cats, made the jump to humans at what authorities say was a captive tiger breeding program.”

Captive breeding program—that was one way of putting it.