Nakamura stared at her. Loyalty. He was loyal to his friends. He was loyal to his family, what little there was of it. He was loyal to his country.

Yes. He was loyal to his country. He’d always been that.

“The things they’ll do with it, Kevin,” Sam was saying.

She was right. His country didn’t need that. America wouldn’t benefit from putting that kind of power in anyone’s hands. And most especially not the hands of someone trying to hide that power from everyone else.

McFadden, Nakamura thought. What did you think you were going to do with it?

It didn’t matter now. Nakamura wouldn’t allow it.

He thought back to his time with Lane. Not a monster. Not a killer. Not an evil man. Just a kid, really. A kid in way over his head.

A kid with dangerous knowledge in his head.

Nakamura took a deep breath. That knowledge was the problem. That knowledge was the threat to the United States.

He exhaled slowly. What he had to do left a bad taste in his mouth. A taste of betrayal. A taste of compromise.

But his duty was clear. He’d sworn an oath to protect the American people. That trumped CIA, trumped ERD, trumped his own qualms. There was only one way he could think of to really, truly protect the American people against this threat.

Kade’s face flashed through Nakamura’s mind, a memory of the weeks he’d spent training the boy in San Francisco. The kid that couldn’t lie to save his life. Something twisted inside Nakamura. But there was no other way he could see.

“OK,” he said, and nodded to Sam. “You’re right.”

“You won’t give them Kade?” she asked.

“I’ll tell them he died,” Nakamura replied.

And that was true enough.

They took the more useful of Sam’s supplies from her boat, scattered palm fronds over the parts of it where the chameleonware had failed, then rowed back out in Nakamura’s little inflatable, talking all the way. They had the bones of a plan. A weak plan, to be sure. But it would have to do.

It was well after midnight when the wing-shaped sub rose out of the depths before them. Sam whistled softly. Then the hatch was opening, and they were climbing in.

“Nakamura!” Feng yelled. He was seated in the cramped interior, his arms chained above his head and his feet manacled to the floor. A display surface before him showed infrared action from somewhere. Then his eyes took in Sam, and they widened.

“What’re you doing here?” the Confucian Fist asked.

Sam laughed, then she was climbing into the small interior herself, keys in hand, and the manacles fell from around Feng’s wrists.

“What’s going on?” Feng demanded, as Sam placed the keys in one of his hands.