Riduan took a deep breath as everything that still mattered to him in the world hung in the balance in this very moment. He touched the paper.

“What are you going to do with that?” he muttered weakly.

“I can give it to the Treasury Department, who will seize everything. Your family will be penniless and will do whatever people living on the streets of Jakarta do to scrape by. Beg. Steal. Maybe sex work. Or we can forget I ever found this.”

Riduan looked up, and Davis could see the desperation in his eyes.

“What do you want?” The man’s voice was barely a whisper now.

“I already know your organization is financed by drugs and kidnappings,” Davis said. “What about animals?”

Riduan’s eyes drifted as he began to formulate his answer.

CHAPTER 4
AUDREY LAM

hong kong

The Camry came around a bend on the mountain, offering Audrey Lam a panoramic view of Repulse Bay with its jade waters lapping at the amber sand. A thin white rope suspended on buoys formed a crescent a hundred meters out to sea, cordoning off the swimming area on the beach. It seemed a light-year from the frenzy of downtown Hong Kong, though it was only a twenty-minute hop away.

“Do you ever come here on the weekends?”

“Not since I was a boy,” Stephen Hui replied, accelerating out of the curve. “Before they put in the shark net. You?”

“The last time I came here was when my son was eight. I brought him here to tell him his father wouldn’t be coming home. I thought it would be good to give him a nice day before telling him the news.” Audrey trailed off, reliving the painful day in her mind.

“Let me guess: he hasn’t wanted to come back since.”

She answered with a doleful look that said he was spot-on.

Stephen turned off into a row of condominiums at the edge of the beach. “Parenting is an impassable minefield. If you try to avoid one, you’ll only step on another.”

They arrived at their destination, a narrow metal-and-glass cube flanked by a row of identical boxes. Audrey stepped out of the car in her androgynous corporate attire and rang the doorbell. As they waited, she rubbed her eyes and squeezed them shut.

“Another long night?”

Audrey nodded.

Stephen cast her a concerned look. “You need to take care of yourself.”

Before she could respond, the door opened. An American woman in her midforties peered at the credentials clipped on their jackets. “Are you following up on the noise complaint?” Before Audrey and Stephen could respond, she added, “The police already came and said the matter was resolved.”

“May we come in?” Stephen asked.

The woman led them into her small two-bedroom unit, rambling nervously. “I told him and his friends to keep the video games down.”

“Where is he?” Audrey asked.

“In his bedroom,” the American replied. “I’ll go get him.”

Audrey stopped her. “We’ll handle it from here. Which room is it?”