“This is a crisis. Surely, the prime minister will be able to help.” She craned her neck. Her gaze darted between Ashford and the Chinese leader who was moving with his entourage deeper into the vast room. Her head buzzed. “Was this part of your deal? To spirit Lulu away like this?”

“Of course not. I would do nothing of the sort. The double mystery of this baby’s appearance and disappearance baffles us. It has nothing to do with my talks with my Chinese counterparts.”

“Then bring the CIA into the case. Her life is in danger. I’m certain of it.”

“It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Wade interjected, “except that it’s a billion times worse.”

“My baby’s been kidnapped,” she called out. “Why? Who would take her?”

“Your baby?” The wattles under Ashford’s chin trembled. “Be careful—very careful—how you talk about this matter—” He put his hand on hers. “Listen to me carefully. I’m on your side. Mrs. Ashford and I should have adopted years ago. I feel your pain.” His back was to the hall and its dignitaries, and his face close to hers. His breath reeked of pipe smoke. “But I beg of you—please don’t forget your role as goodwill ambassador. You are not a free agent. President Corwith himself selected you, when he could have chosen Barbra Streisand.”

“Barbra? She hates performing.” Nola sensed Wade gloating over the comparison. “And none of that is relevant to finding a baby before she’s killed because of some esoteric political considerations.”

“You keep assuming that the Chinese government is behind this. I wouldn’t make that accusation in the absence of facts.” His words seemed to crawl out of his fleshy lips and drop around Nola. “But even if that were the case, look at this incident from their perspective: it’s a Chinese baby on Chinese soil, and it’s up to them to decide if you can keep it or not. Hey, we have the same policy back home. A Native American tribe has a right to babies born to its women—even if the mothers don’t live on the reservations. The tribe’s rights transcend the rights of adoptive parents.”

The red, gold and green dragons supporting the vaulted ceiling mocked her. The monkeys and lions on the columns grimaced in the light of hundreds of lanterns.

“President Corwith himself told me our government aggressively pursues a pro-human-rights policy in China,” she said. “Isn’t the murdering of a baby a human-rights violation?”

“We can’t just burst in and dictate—and to a totalitarian government at that—how to handle its internal affairs. We can cajole, suggest, criticize, even protest at times, but it must be done in the right amounts, at the right times, the bee sting delivered with a dash of honey.”

“Very well. I’ll do it with honey.” She started to walk around him.