“I was thinking it goes with your suit,” Klay said, taking a step forward.

Sehlalo opened his jacket and drew his weapon, slowly but confidently, and placed it on the corner of his desk. He gestured for Klay to take a look. Klay picked it up. Klay preferred a Glock—short trigger pull, super reliable. But as appearances went the sharp-edged Glock looked and felt like it had been designed by Lego.

Tenchant joined them. “Wow. Looks like something Batman would use. What is that?”

“Vektor CP1,” Sehlalo said. “Nine mil.”

“The pride of South Africa,” Klay said, handing it back to Sehlalo. “Don’t drop it, right?”

Sehlalo accepted his gun and holstered it. “They fixed that over here.”

“Glad you trust them,” Klay said. The two men glared at each other. Klay said, “Tench, you good?”

Tenchant went back to his desk. “I’m good, boss.”

“Okay.” His team stuck together too.

Minnie dropped a stack of documents on Tenchant’s desk. “Our Botha case files.” Tenchant opened the top file and got to work.

•   •   •

Klay didn’t see him again for two days. On the third day, Tenchant knocked on Klay’s hotel room door. Klay was dressed in old gym shorts and a T-shirt. Tenchant was wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a Sovereign T-shirt with the silver globe on the chest. He was holding his laptop.

He let Tenchant in and went back to doing some sit-ups on a bath towel beside the bed. “Did you know every computer in the South African government, every single one, is compromised?” Tenchant asked, taking a seat at Klay’s desk.

“Be done in a minute, Tench.” Klay grunted.

Tenchant opened his laptop. “They used pirated software to save money, and now the entire country is Swiss cheese.”

“Hungry’s office, too?” Klay asked.

Exercise wasn’t pleasant for him anymore. He’d thickened in the years since his time as an amateur boxer. He was less wiry now, he liked to say, more kitchen appliance. Even in his thirties, exercise had been easier. He was pretty sure he used to bend at a different part of his stomach, and he knew push-ups didn’t used to sound like old barn doors on rusted hinges. He remained a powerful man, but his shape varied. Fitness ebbed and flowed from him, improving when he was home, declining in the field. He’d spent most of his professional life abroad.