“You did.” Botha shook his head and laughed. “Yes, you did.” He laughed some more as he laid newspapers on the table. “Ncube called in your ambassador for a full dressing-down. Fucking international incident you’ve caused.”

It was all a game for Botha.

“What do you want?” Klay asked.

Botha pointed at the newspapers. “Take a look.”

It had been ten days. Klay skimmed the articles, all front page. Hungry had issued a press release before disappearing: “Intruders as yet unidentified raided the field office of the Wild Dogs Anti-Corruption Task Force, Office of the Special Prosecutor, Office of the Public Protector, killing Advocates Edna Sebati and Minenhle Mthembu and Chief Investigator Mr. Julius Sehlalo, formerly of the Hawks. A visiting American journalist, David Tenchant of The Sovereign magazine, was also killed during the raid. The Wild Dogs Task Force was formed under a mandate by . . .”

“Then there’s these . . .” Botha withdrew more newspapers and web page printouts. These were pro-government tabloids with racy headlines: “I, Spy!” . . . “Hungry’s Last Supper!” . . . “A Very Spe-CIA-l Prosecutor.”

An op-ed in one of them began, “Advocate Hungry Khoza, a pawn of White Monopoly Capital, has been doing the bidding of her CIA masters, attempting to undermine the office of the presidency and incite unlawful regime change . . .”

None of the stories mentioned Tom Klay. Someone had fed the tabloids their CIA angle. He went through the papers again to be sure. “She did you a favor,” Botha confirmed. “Lord knows why, but she kept your name out.”

Klay looked more closely at the printouts of the online stories, focusing on publication dates and times. A Perseus Group tabloid in Johannesburg had been first out with the story. PGM coverage then spread around the world, mutually triggering news and social media algorithms, feeding the beast.

•   •   •

Klay was confident he had pieced together most of the puzzle. He had been the CIA’s Trojan horse, sent to carry Tenchant into Hungry’s office to destroy her files, not copy them. The Agency, Krieger, and Ncube had all won.

The puzzle piece that didn’t fit was sitting across the table from him. Ras Botha seemed to know everything. But he didn’t seem to want anything. And Klay needed Botha to want something from him because Klay very much needed something from Botha. Botha was his only way out.

Desire is opportunity. It creates leverage. It was a basic rule of tradecraft. But Botha didn’t seem in need of anything at all now. A man without desire was invisible. Botha was a ghost.