Jed had been thinking the same thing. They’d succeeded in slipping the drug into Zhao’s tea, but the man had not finished the cup. How could they be certain to what extent, and more importantly when, the drug would take effect? In just a couple of minutes, they would be at the stairs, descending to the convention center, and then it would be too late. Jed stepped in tighter next to his charge, the German scientist—or fake German scientist—Dr. Weider.

“Any second now,” John said with his trademark, gratingly calm tone.

But Jed decided they couldn’t take that chance. He needed to do something to buy them more time. Zhao had to drop during the walk over or the plan would fail. Thinking quickly, he stumbled into Grayson, who was walking with his charge just ahead. Grayson for his part stumbled and created a bigger commotion, causing the entire party to halt—looking every bit  like the Keystone Cops, bumping into one another.

“What is this?” Jed called out tersely, aware he’d dropped the German accent. Crap! “Why are we stopping?” he asked, this time with an impressively authentic accent in place.

He put a hand on the arm of Dr. Weider and pulled him left, out of the crowd, as Grayson did the same with his own principal.

“All right, all right, guys, that’s not necessary,” John said in his ear, and he could picture him rubbing his hands together. “Zhao’s going down.”

“Someone is ill,” a voice called from the crowd ahead.

The contingent fractured into smaller groups of two and three as security professionals pulled their principals clear. The uniformed Chinese soldiers were clustered around Zhao, who lay on his back in the grass, clutching his chest and moaning.

“He’s having a heart attack,” someone called out in heavily accented English. “We need an ambulance.”

There was a burst of chatter and shouting in Chinese, which Jed couldn’t understand.

Jed grabbed Dr. Weider by the arm, tugging him away from the group toward the west, but Weider jerked his arm free.

“Was ist los?” Weider shrieked, panic in his voice. “Was machen sie? They’ve poisoned him—they’ve killed Dr. Zhao!”

“Kommen Sie mit uns,” Jed demanded, telling Weider to come with him using the German phrase he’d memorized. “Wir gehen. Jetzt!” He tried again to reposition Weider, but the German scientist resisted him in a panic.

“I’m having heart attack,” Weider screamed in broken English, pale-faced and clutching his chest. “They’ve poisoned us all.”

And with that, Weider collapsed at Jed’s feet.