“He’ll see you now,” the huge man said in Thai, and then he opened the door to show her in.

Lo Prang’s office was an opulent space larger than her apartment back in DC. Thick shag carpet like red gold covered the floor. Designer couches lined the room. A dozen overly pretty, well-dressed boys and provocatively dressed young women lounged on them. Sensations of pleasure and delirium oozed into the air. Precious paintings hung everywhere, on walls that extended up twelve feet to the gold leaf ceiling. One full wall was given over to floor-to-ceiling screens showing the action throughout the club, rotating through zoomed-in full-color scenes of men and women dancing, drinking, gambling, fucking. The wall was voyeurism, not security.

Lo Prang himself sat squarely in the middle. Lean, hard, his black hair cut to a buzz. He’d been a champion muay Thai fighter in his youth. Now, in his fifties, he still looked formidable. In the midst of the decadence of his office, he came across as totally focused, untouched by drugs or delirium or debauchery. A business man above all else.

Lo Prang sat behind a massive desk seemingly made of a single piece of lab-grown onyx. Atop the desk was nothing but a slate, a tumbler of water, and a single large pistol. He wore a black silk suit. A single heavy ring was on the finger of one hand. His eyes were dark. Once, when Sam had been closer, she’d seen the distinctive gleam of tactical contacts worn on those eyes, feeding who-knows-what data to the mob boss.

Behind Lo Prang was the giant wall spying on the events happening in his club, switching from scene to scene. Standing with their backs to it were two more of the hugely muscled men in black suits. If they had any fear of her – if anyone in this room did – Sam couldn’t see it.

“Jade,” Lo Prang said in Thai. “Or should I call you Sunee? It’s good to have you back.”

“Lo Prang.” She nodded to him. She could feel some of the Nexus transmissions of the club piped in here, an amalgamation of all the sex and drunkenness and partying out there. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“To what do we owe this pleasure?”

Two of the women were kissing now, touching each other’s breasts through their low cut dresses. One of the men was snorting a line of some powder off a woman’s thigh. Arousal and stimulation echoed out from them.

Battles are won in the mind, Nakamura had taught her. Throw your enemy off, and he’s yours.

Yes, Sam thought. That was Lo Prang’s game. Distraction. All just distraction. All to throw her off balance.

“I need to get into Burma,” she told him. “With weapons, transport, infiltration gear.”