After several days of acclimating in Milan, Berman, Jimmy, and two more of the senior Chinese bureaucrats, together with a translator, had visited their investments as they were training. The cycle team was doing sprints around the track in an indoor velodrome, cycling impossibly fast and close together, it had seemed to Berman. The last thing he wanted at that stage was a serious crash. The five visitors had stood at the back of the arena, trying not to stand out too much. The main coach from the team had expected them and walked over when it was appropriate.

“Welcome to Milan. I am Victor Klaastens, team coach. Nice to meet you all.” The man had a heavy Dutch accent.

“Ah, Mr. Klaastens, I’m glad you’re here,” Berman had said.

“Where else would I be but with my team?”

“Indeed. So how is everything going? I’m sure our visitors would like to hear from you.”

The translator had struggled to keep up, and that was okay with Berman. He’d wished he could have talked to the coach in private before the meeting with the Chinese delegation, but it had not been possible. Klaastens was stocky, in his mid-fifties, and definitely had been around the block a few times, with a protuberant beer gut that proclaimed as much. The team’s bright blue, red, and green warm-up suit looked decidedly out of place on him.

“Everything is good,” Klaastens had responded. “Though I’m not happy to have to talk through a translator. And there’s no need to translate that.” He looked at the young woman who interrupted her translation to bow her head hurriedly.

Berman had looked at Jimmy but gave no indication that he was perturbed at what Klaastens had said. Berman wanted everything to go smoothly. Jimmy had seemed to be taking it all in stride. The English of the two other men was iffy.

“This is how sport is these days,” the coach continued. “I’m a Dutch coach on a cycling team from Azerbaijan who these Chinese gentlemen show up to watch, and they have a well-off American with them whose name I don’t know. Ignore that, too, miss.”

“‘Well-off American.’ I’ve been called many things. . . . I’m merely an observer,” said Berman.