Lowen cringed as her picture was splashed across screens all over the planet for two whole news cycles, the second news cycle prompted when she received a call from the president, who thanked her for her service to the nation. Lowen thanked the president for the call and made a note to yell at her father, who had undoubtedly set up the media op for his boss, who had to contend with midterm elections and could use a spot of positive public relations.

Lowen didn’t want to deal with any more interviews or congratulatory calls or messages or even the offer by the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism to come for a visit. What she really wanted was to get her hands on the file concerning Luiza Carvalho. She pestered both Prescott and her father until it showed up, along with a State Department functionary whose job it was to not let the file out of her sight. Lowen gave her a soda and let her sit down with her at the kitchen table while she read.

After a few minutes, she looked over to the State Department courier. “Seriously, this is it?” she said.

“I didn’t read the file, ma’am,” the courier said.

The file had nothing of note about Luiza Carvalho. She was born in Belo Horizonte; her parents were both physicians; no brothers or sisters. She attended Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, earning degrees in economics and law before joining the Brazilian diplomatic corps. Postings in Vietnam, the Siberian States, Ecuador and Mexico before being called up to be part of Brazil’s United Nations mission, which was where she had been serving for six years before she took on the Clarke mission, where she murdered Liu Cong.

Like all Brazilian foreign service workers, Carvalho was questioned annually by her superiors about her associations and activities and also consented to be randomly “examined” (that is, followed and bugged) by the Brazilian intelligence services to make sure she wasn’t doing anything untoward. Aside from some questionable sexual liaisons—“questionable” in terms of taste in partners, not in terms of national security—there was nothing out of the usual.

Carvalho had no associations or friends outside of the foreign service community. The only trips she took were Christmastime visits to Belo Horizonte to spend the holidays with her parents. She took almost no time off except for two years prior to her death, when she was hospitalized for a case of viral meningitis; she spent four days in the hospital and then another two weeks at home recovering. And then it was back to work for her.

No pets.

“This woman is boring,” Lowen said, out loud but to herself. The courier coughed noncommittally.