As Knight pounded the Ciprofloxacin he always carried with him in case he contracted traveler’s diarrhea, he was suddenly keenly aware of moisture gathering at the base of his nostrils. He took a tissue and dabbed his upper lip, afraid to look at it. If it was blood, it meant his ailment was not a bacterial infection from his wounded arm, which could be treated with antibiotics. It would mean he had contracted the feline leukemia virus and would likely be dead within twenty-four hours. Knight took a deep breath and closed his eyes before mustering the courage to look. Clear—just a sniffle.

Knight checked his watch as he finished buckling his pants. He couldn’t be late for the meeting he was no longer certain he wanted to attend.

Knight emerged from the subway at Admiralty Station, a lone white face bobbing in a sea of Chinese commuters. As he walked downtown past the vaulting tower of the Bank of China, he conferred on the phone with his mentor, who was just having his morning toast in his London solarium.

“How’d it go at the farms?” Perkins asked as he chewed.

“They’re worse than anything I’ve ever seen,” Knight replied, instinctively checking over his shoulder for triad eyes and ears.

“Are they insurable?”

Ever since Knight gave him the hard sell on insuring farmed wildlife, Perkins had been sold. Now he seemed to sense it was Knight who needed to be resold.

“We’ll cut you in on ten percent of everything you bring in,” he added.

Knight considered, his heart hurting more than his wounded arm. The deal with the devil was turning out to be uglier than expected. And he was walking quite a tightrope legally. Although the special economic zones in the Golden Triangle, where the farms were located, operated effectively beyond the reach of international law, on paper they were still part of nations where tiger farming would be legal once Lee got his new legislation pushed through. So in that regard, they were technically insurable. But the conditions of the farms were another, more troubling matter, from both a moral and an underwriting perspective.

“I’m about to meet with the prospect. I’ll get back to you later today.”

Knight boarded the funicular tram at the base of Victoria Peak. As he swayed in his seat, climbing up the mountain, he was filled with anger at the abuses he had seen in Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. He began litigating his arguments against Lee’s business in his head, working himself up and growing more incensed as he approached the terminus atop the peak.

He stepped out onto the observation deck, where he found Lee standing at the glass railing, looking out over the harbor as if surveying his dominion. Knight joined him, taking in the sight of Kowloon and Hong Kong stretched out before them, divided by the harbor.

“So are we partners, then?” Lee asked.