Murquin al-Kazaz sat in a private room in the back of Marcel’s restaurant in Washington Circle. In front of him was a seventy-dollar filet mignon, and just beyond that were three members of a visiting Chinese trade delegation, here in D.C. for a meeting with American energy officials.

Kaz had wanted to cancel tonight’s meet but these three were potential intelligence sources. China was a nation where Saudi needed a better intelligence presence, and these men were only in town for a day. He decided to go ahead, although he pushed the meeting from the reasonable dining time of eight p.m. to six, which meant the restaurant was mostly empty.

But not totally. He was surrounded by security here, ten men in all, with two more drivers in the lot outside with the vehicles. The three Chinese men had asked about the entourage of obvious security officers, but Kaz had passed it off as his standard operating procedure here in America, where crime was, unfortunately, so much worse than it was in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia or the People’s Republic of China, two places where governments knew what to do with their criminals.

That won him some agreement from his potential sources.

During dinner the Saudi’s mind bounced back and forth between the past week’s hunt here in the area and the conversation with the Chinese businessmen, but just when he’d managed to push most of his worries away about all the compromises in Carmichael’s campaign to kill his ex-assassin, Kaz’s phone rang with a distinctive ring.

He excused himself, stood up and walked towards the back wall of the restaurant, and held the phone to his ear.

“Yes?”

“We are under attack!”

Kaz walked all the way into the corner of the room now and leaned into the phone. It was Cha, the team leader of the assets, and his voice echoed as if he was in a stairwell.

“What?”

“Kimal and Hani are dead, Mohammed and the others are not reporting. I think they are—”

“Where are you?”

Kaz heard the man scream. “Jawad! Jawad! Cover—”

“Listen to me, Cha. Listen carefully. Do you have anything on you that relates back to the embassy? Anything at all?”

“What? I . . . I don’t know. You have to send another team.”

“It’s up to you, Cha.”

“Jawad? Jawad, are you still with me? Jawad is not answering! I have to—”

Kaz heard the soft pop of a suppressed gunshot, then he heard the phone fall to the ground, bouncing several times. The line stayed open, and the Saudi Arabian standing in the restaurant dining room just pressed the phone tighter to his ear.

Sweat covered his brow and trickled down the back of his neck. He looked up to his dinner guests, halfway across the room. They spoke among themselves a little, but they looked back at Kaz as they did so.