“When was what?”

“When did they kill Rademeyer?”

“It was November. They put his death at November 12.”

His meeting with Eady and Barrow at the Confession Club had taken place a week later.

“I need to get you out of here, Hungry.”

She gave a short laugh.

“What’s funny?”

She pressed her thumbs to her temples. “It’s not funny, it’s just . . . When I told Julius The Sovereign was offering us two journalists to help with our investigation, he said, ‘That’s it! That’s the CIA’s plan!’”

Klay’s mind reeled. If Eady was part of this, he surely would have anticipated Klay would find out what Hungry knew about Krieger. But if the Agency, Krieger, and Ncube were in bed together, why send him to help her? In his mind, Klay heard the voice of his father’s defense attorney, Saul Kane, the famous Philadelphia mafia attorney who dispensed advice from behind a desk in his moldy cubbyhole office on South Broad Street. “When a client tells me his story, I ask myself, What is the opposite of this? And even though I am that one-in-a-million lawyer blessed with clients who never lie to him—so that I know they are all innocent, and the government is always a gang of jackbooted thugs—when I receive my answer, I say to myself, Now, Saul, what is the opposite of this opposite? And I ask myself this question again and again, Jack, until I see the fucking truth.”

Klay applied the old lawyer’s technique to the facts as he knew them. His assignment had been to help Hungry prosecute Ras Botha and to get her files on Ncube.

“I’m not here to help you,” Klay said.

“I understand that, Tom.”

“Get up.” He seized her arm. “We have to go.”

“Wait.” She pulled her arm away from him. A text had arrived on her phone. She read it, and Klay watched the blood drain from her face. She looked up at him. “Tenchant is hacking into our computers.”

He felt a cold spike shoot up the back of his neck.

There was a knock at the door.

Hungry looked down at her phone a second time, then at Klay. “What have you done?”

THERE’S ALWAYS A WHO

Pretoria, South Africa

The hotel room door burst open. Three black men wearing tactical gear rushed Klay, driving him backwards onto the bed.

They spun him around, pushed him facedown, and flex-cuffed him. Then they jerked him to his feet. A skinny white photographer began snapping photographs. Click. Click. The photographer shouted from behind his lens, “Are you Tom Klay?” Click. Click. “Are you Tom Klay, the CIA agent?”

Hungry drew herself up and declared, “I am Advocate Hungry Khoza, special prosecutor empowered by the Office of the Public Protector—”

One of the men seized her by the arm, turned her around, and began to cuff her.

“You have no authority here,” Hungry barked.