Klay laughed. “You want to take Botha and Ncube down using South Africa’s courts? Are you out of your minds? The South African judicial system is a joke. Ncube owns it,” Klay said. “You take a solid case to one of their prosecutors, and chances are he’ll sell it to the defendant. Hell, you can hire a prosecutor to bring charges if you want. To take down the president of South Africa, you don’t need a prosecutor, you need a superhe—” Klay felt his pulse accelerate. He sat up and narrowed his eyes. “Who’s the prosecutor?”

Eady smiled. “Hungry Khoza.”

“Hungry . . .” Klay let out a breath. “Hungry is going after Ncube?”

“She’s been appointed special prosecutor in the Office of Public Protector,” Eady said. “She is therefore—”

“—constitutionally protected,” Klay said.

“Yes. Fully insulated from politics. Ncube can’t stop her. And as you well know, the NPA can’t corrupt her. If she’s got the goods, she’s untouchable. But she’s also got Botha’s case. Now that she’s got him, she can’t let go of him. Her task force is under tremendous international pressure to prosecute Botha. You haven’t heard of it?”

Klay shook his head. His mind raced, appreciating the significance of Hungry’s appointment. Constitutionally protected or not, if she was prosecuting the president of South Africa, she was in very real danger.

“Ncube is using Botha’s case to delay Hungry,” Eady said. “He’s demanding, ‘as a South African rhinoceros lover,’ that she prosecute Botha fully and immediately.”

The old man patted Klay’s knee. “Help her, Tom. Behind the scenes. Free her up to pursue Ncube full bore.” Eady’s blue eyes twinkled ever so slightly. “Embed with her.”

Klay glanced at Eady sharply. Just because he was thinking of that possibility didn’t mean Eady could. Barrow remained silent. Barrow knew of his relationship with Hungry, of course. They wouldn’t be bringing this to him otherwise.

Eady shrugged. “Your goals, ultimately, will be consistent.”

Klay’s eyes returned to the Monet. The dark rock in the painting was shaped like a beckoning finger.

“Botha . . .” Klay said, considering Eady’s proposal.

“This is a real chance to bring him down, Tom. Consider it my last act as your handler.” Eady’s smile closed. “A gift.”

Klay looked hard, holding Eady’s eyes, seeing before him the mist and the rock. “Cache of secret documents,” he echoed skeptically. He turned to Barrow. “Any chance it was the Agency that happened to leak these secret files to Hungry?”

Barrow crossed his arms. “In a perfect world, can’t say I wouldn’t mind. But no, sir. I expect if we had those files ourselves, we wouldn’t need you. She got them on her own.”

“We don’t know what she has, Tom,” Eady said, shifting in his chair and folding his hands. “That’s your second objective. We need to know.”