Pike emitted a low growl. His lust for vengeance for his daughter’s death had been like a slow smoldering fire, and the flames seemed closer than ever to eruption.

“We just want to chat a few minutes, Kim,” Shan said, “then we can leave. Tell the truth and you can forget all about us.”

“For a starter, where are the maps you took from Sun?” Pike interjected. “In Huan’s office?”

Kim stared at both men in silence, then gestured toward the closet by the door. “No one cared about the maps, other than to keep them out of the hands of Metok and his foolish friends.”

Pike opened the door and pulled out a black plastic tube from the closet.

“Good,” Shan said, “an encouraging start. Now let’s chat about Hong Kong.”

She asked for a drink and laughed when Shan brought her a glass of water, then she stepped to a cabinet and retrieved a bottle of whiskey. She looked at them expectantly. Pike nodded, but Shan just took a sip of the water.

They spoke for nearly an hour, during which Kim warmed to her task. She seemed not to consider their questions a serious threat and was not shy about boasting about her undercover accomplishments, since she clearly expected that Pike would be deported soon and Shan would be arrested. She confirmed that she had gone to Hong Kong to suborn testimony about Metok. She laughed when Shan asked where the money was and, in a taunting tone, explained that she had stolen account records and forms from a bank clerk and created a false account document as supplemental evidence. “Right there, in the second drawer,” she said, nodding toward the desk. “I brought more forms back, just in case.”

After finishing her glass of whiskey, she enthusiastically declared her relief to be finished with the boring role of Metok’s wife, for which she had borrowed the daughter of a Public Security secretary, bribing her with a new computer in order to have her report to the apartment for two hours each day. Kim proudly recounted the details of her mission on the sky train, which she claimed to have executed flawlessly. “He might have saved himself if he had called for the doctor,” she added with a shrug, as if it assuaged her conscience.

Finally, she yawned and stood. “I’m tired. We’re done.”

“No,” Shan said, “sit at the desk. You have some writing to do. Just some supplemental evidence, as you say.”

Half an hour later she threw her pen down. “I’ve done what you want. Leave,” she snapped, and stepped toward her bedroom.

“One more thing,” Pike said with a grin, and before Shan could stop him he slapped the woman with the back of his hand, so hard the blow sent her sprawling back onto the sofa.

She glared at the American as she rubbed her cheek. “You have my gun,” she said through clenched teeth.