The Chinese agents remained, pacing casually back and forth by the window. Jed glanced at his watch—ten more minutes and the principals for the meeting would begin to arrive. The door on the left of the screen opened again and two new Chinese men, both clad in black pants and vests, with bow ties at the necks of their starched white shirts, came in pushing a large silver cart.

“Those waiters are our boys,” John said, rubbing his hands in satisfaction.

Jed watched as the two men went to work, spreading out a buffet of fruit as well as meats and cheeses on the credenza, which looked weirdly bowed in the fish-eye image at the bottom of his screen, their heads getting impossibly big and their legs tiny as they came close to the camera. Then one peeled off and began to set up a station of coffee, tea, and sodas beside the door while the other set water glasses and several pitchers of water on the long table surrounded by high-back black leather chairs.

Despite not being in the room, Jed’s nerves were on edge. The plan was to drug the Chinese scientist and create a medical emergency and pretext for getting him out of the conference. Snatching him from his handlers and exfiltrating him in the aftermath was going to be the Mission: Impossible part of the job.

“Why not just put the compound in a prefilled water glass ahead of time?” Jed asked.

“Can’t be sure where our guy will sit,” John said. “Don’t want some dude from France dropping unconscious instead. Besides, it’s much harder to see or taste the compound in tea or coffee.”

“What if he doesn’t have tea coffee or tea?” Jed pressed.

“Then we’ll adapt and overcome,” Nisha said, her face a bit exasperated. “Jed, just relax. This is what we do—what I used to do. Our job is to make sure he drops. Your job is to catch him.”

“And that’s all set up?”

“Yes,” Nisha reassured him, smiling now. “Hyeon is standing by with two of John’s contractors and we have the ambulances ready to go, including Bex. Johnny and Carl are in position in the escort vehicles and we’ll fall in on them. It’s all good, Jed.”

He nodded.

In his experience, it was never “all good,” and surprises and failures were the rule, not the exception.

No good plan survives first contact with the enemy.

It seemed like absolute precision and predictability would be required to pull this off, but this was no movie and he was no Ethan Hunt.

“What if he doesn’t drop on the walk over? What if the drug works too fast or too slow and jacks up the timing?”