9781787301801

Red Star Down

ALSO BY D. B. JOHN Fiction

Flight from Berlin Star of the North

n on-Fiction

The Girl with Seven Names, co-written with Hyeonseo Lee

RED STAR DOWN

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First published by Harvill in 2025

Copyright © D. B. John 2025

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For my grandfather, D. Maldwyn James

This is a historical novel loosely set in the tumultuous months between Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of the United States in 2017 and his bizarre summits with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin the following year.

Excerpt from Glossary of Intelligence Terms and Definitions

CLASSIFIED

CIA Directorate of Operations

SEED -BEARING PROGRAM:

1. Originally (1970s–90s): a long-term North Korean conspiracy to abduct hundreds of randomly selected foreign nationals, mostly from remote beaches in Japan and South Korea, and compel them to become covert overseas operatives for the North Korean state.

2. More recently (1990s–2011): a long-term North Korean conspiracy to train the abduction victims’ children, who were born and raised in North Korea, as covert overseas operatives for the North Korean state.

The Program was controlled by Section 915 of the Organization and Guidance Department of the North Korean Workers’ Party, reporting directly to Kim Jong-il until his death in 2011. Now considered terminated. [entry updated: 2012/05/04]

Prologue

Barrikadnaya Street

Moscow January 2017

The moment he’d learned he would be in the studio audience, sitting just meters from the president on live television, Lyosha had found concentration almost impossible. For the next two days he’d gone through the motions of showing up for his law lectures at university, had taken no notes, and had recalled nothing of them afterward. His dissertation work, so engrossing and urgent two days ago, now seemed trivial and irrelevant.

One minute he was feeling such exhilaration that he could hardly breathe. The next he was almost hysterical with fear. His hockey training helped. He could calm his nerves by staying behind for solo practice at the CSKA Arena, doing sets of two-hundred-meter ice sprints, and four-hundred-meter laps around the rink. This left him physically wrecked but so buzzing with adrenaline that he couldn’t sleep, so he’d get up and drink three shots of vodka in quick succession. That, too, helped. He wasn’t much of a drinker and felt the effect strongly.

The organizers of Direct Line with Vladimir Putin had called Lyosha within hours of him registering his interest on the show’s website. A woman from the production team named Polina had

wanted to know a few things about him, his background, his opinions, his plans for the future. He’d tried to sound sunny and eager and humble all at once and had told her that the question he’d really, really like to ask the president was this: “What can be done to encourage talented youths like myself to make our careers in Russia and not be lured abroad by the false promises and hypocrisy of the West?”

Lyosha had agonized over this question. On the one hand it was an easy patriotic softball; on the other it carried a whiff of subversion because it was asking the president to admit what most people knew: that any graduate with half a brain was tempted to leg it to the West. But the woman on the end of the line had brightened at once. “That’s a great question, Lyosha,” she’d said. “We’ll call you back.” He’d guessed that the FSB , the internal police, were running a check to make sure he wasn’t on a database as a dissident or an extremist, and he did worry that he’d been caught on camera at one of the massive student protests he’d attended where he’d chanted “PUTIN IS A THIEF !” along with thousands of others. But to his surprise Polina had called him back. She’d doublechecked his question by repeating it slowly back to him and asking him to confirm it. He knew they were making sure that nothing caught the show’s star by surprise, or, most terrifying for them, embarrassed him.

The next morning, he’d received the invitation by email.

Bozhe pomogi mne. God help me. This is it.

For a while he sat smoking in the window of his tiny shared apartment with its view onto twelve lanes of unmoving traffic. He watched the gilded spire of the Hotel Ukraina catch fire in the first rays of dawn, acutely aware of his good fortune in life. To have a privileged education, good health, loving parents . . . even if he was estranged from his father these days.

So why was he so dissatisfied? More than that. Why was he always feeling such outrage?

As if in answer to this last question, two traffic cops Lyosha recognized appeared in the street below— the goons who offered protection to the small businesses in the neighborhood. They’d emerged from the Azeri minimart with a bag of fresh pastries that Lyosha knew they’d been given for free, and they’d just ignored the Bentley coupé that was parked in the bus stop.

There it was again. His anger had kindled and flared, and he was instantly reminded of the final meeting with his father, Dmitry, last summer in that grotesque new dacha. They’d had such a violent row that they hadn’t spoken to each other since.

Lyosha was angry for so many reasons, but the core reason, he knew— the reactor fueling it all—was the disgust and disappointment he felt with his father. He wasn’t even sure anymore what Dmitry did for a career. Some kind of diplomat. One of those coveted state sinecures with a modest official salary and sweeping opportunities for graft. Lyosha felt hot with shame even thinking about him.

The sun’s rays fanned brightly for a moment from behind a bank of gray cloud, then dimmed, and the gleaming spire of the Hotel Ukraina turned to dull metal. His anger died down, and his mind filled with a cool singularity of purpose.

He’d fooled the organizers of Direct Line into sending him an invitation. He’d committed himself. No turning back now. This time next month, he would be sitting in a studio audience facing the president of the Russian Federation.

And he was going to ask the president a question— a real question.

CIA Headquarters Langley, Virginia

“Shall we talk about your sister?” the woman said softly.

Jenna sighed inwardly, even though she knew this was coming.

The origin story. The saga she was condemned to retell. She also knew very well that they were not here to discuss her sister.

“What was it like? Growing up with an identical twin?”

The woman’s hair was an ash white that matched the décor of her office, which was devoid of any files or personal clutter. She was regarding Jenna in the way an expert art historian might do when judging the authenticity of a painting—from a distance, but seeing beneath the brushstrokes, searching for neuroses, unconscious intent—madness, even—in order to assess her mental and emotional state.

Hanging in the air between them was the question of whether Jenna remained fit for active service. This annual assessment always set her nerves jangling. She was midway through a productive tour in Malaysia, tracking the secret procurement networks for missile parts that ended up in North Korea. But she was all too aware that some folks on the seventh floor thought she should never have been sent back into the field.

Hence the subatomic level of these questions today.

“It’s hard to describe to anyone who isn’t an identical twin,” Jenna said, patiently. “We thought the same thoughts, finished each other’s sentences; we read each other’s minds and moods, shared identical tastes in everything—food, music, boys, humor. We were two people but one person. If one of us stubbed a toe, both of us felt the pain. Until we were eighteen, there was nothing that me and Soo-min did apart. Everyone in our neighborhood knew us. We were the twins with an African American dad in the army and a Korean mom from Seoul . . .”

“Do you want to talk about the day she vanished?”

Jenna drew a long breath and cautioned herself to tell it straight, without emotion.

“It was just after our eighteenth birthday, in June 1998. Our gap year. First time in our lives that we’d been separated. I took a job on Capitol Hill. Soo-min went to Seoul, South Korea. She’d been there

about a month when it happened, and I kinda knew straight away, before the police had even called our parents. I felt it. Call it some genetic force if you like, some juju that binds identical twins. I just knew— and I knew it was bad. Soo-min had disappeared from a remote beach where she’d gone for a picnic with a new boyfriend. The local police found their possessions—return ferry tickets, library IDs, wallets, clothing— abandoned in the dunes. They figured that the two had drowned by accident while swimming, and their bodies had been lost to the currents.”

The woman nodded slowly and allowed a prudent pause.

“So, after Soo-min disappeared— and we’re talking about your twin, one half of your own self—it must have felt like a kind of death for you.”

“Yes. Some part of me did die,” Jenna said carefully. “It wasn’t a normal bereavement. More like a serious life- changing injury.”

The woman shook her head gently. “And you believed she was dead for, how long was it? Twelve years?”

“Twelve and a half years.”

“Must have been a heck of a shock for you when you learned that she was still alive.”

Had it been a shock? She had not known the truth, and yet, she’d had a gathering awareness of the truth, like floodwater slowly rising behind a crumbling dam.

“Soo-min wasn’t the only one,” Jenna said. “Over the years, hundreds of people had been snatched from beaches in Japan and South Korea. All vanished without trace. It was increasingly clear to me who was abducting them. And it so happened that I knew quite a lot about the culprit. It was the reason the Agency recruited me. The reason I joined.”

The woman continued to watch her, giving time for each answer to set and solidify.

“And the evening you extracted her. Tell me about that.”

Jenna knew that this woman was familiar with every detail in the

files— the debriefs, the polys, all the internal disagreements over whether to dismiss her or award her a medal. But she was getting Jenna to describe the events so that she could study her reaction for any signs of avoidance or deflection. Jenna felt like an actor reaching for the lines of a play she had performed many times.

“I found her on board a private train that had stopped near the border between northern China and North Korea. It all happened very quickly and in a situation of extreme confusion. I started a fire on board. I overpowered the guards. As the train started to move, I grabbed Soo-min’s hand and we jumped from the door. Then I drove like hell to the US consulate in Shenyang.”

Jenna’s memories of that evening were fragmentary. Even now, she had to concentrate all her effort into assembling the scattered, flashing scenes into some kind of chronology.

She described the luxurious interior of the train, the silver Kalashnikovs of the North Korean guards. She vividly remembered the moment she had set eyes on Soo-min, who was dressed in a shimmering pale-blue hanbok dress, as if she were some kind of courtesan, and the expression on her face, which was softly made up and stiff with terror . . . She remembered how the sunset had cast a crimson light over the frozen rocky landscape, the border region . . . And the blaze she had started on board, the way the flames had licked swiftly upward over walls of the compartment; the curtains combusting brightly; the white, toxic smoke. She remembered opening fire on the guards. She clearly remembered clutching Soo-min’s hand as they jumped together and landed in a snow drift . . . She retained a brief movie- clip memory of the train rolling onward, receding into the dusk, trailing smoke and flame . . . She remembered cupping her hands to Soo-min’s face and kissing her— her beloved twin, her sister who in twelve and a half years had undergone a transformation almost as extreme as her own . . .

“Someone died in that ‘confusing scene,’ as you call it.” In the

carpeted stillness of the room every consonant of the woman’s voice was flinchingly clear. “Are you avoiding talking about that?”

“Several guards died. I opened fire on them with an AKSU .”

“I’m talking about the seventy-year- old man who died.”

Jenna held the woman’s gaze. From somewhere outside the window, across the acres of parking lot, she could hear the insistent bleat of a car alarm.

“The person you’re referring to was a sick man,” she said evenly. “He’d recently had a stroke and was being treated for heart disease. Yes, the shock of the fire and the smoke may have stopped his heart or given him another stroke. We don’t know the precise cause of death.”

“And now, five years on, that evening comes back to you often? You relive that experience?”

Jenna saw the trap. Denying is lying.

“I think about it often. Naturally I do. It was one of the most significant events of my life.”

“And how do you feel about that man’s death?”

Jenna didn’t blink. “Utter indifference. No, that’s not true. I felt satisfaction at his death.”

The woman looked down at a pen on her desk and touched it with her finger, adjusting its position by a millimeter.

“Satisfaction and . . a feeling of vengeance? For what was done to your sister?”

Another trap, and she was alarmed to see how close she was to falling into it. “Not vengeance, ma’am. I serve my country, not my ego.”

The woman moved the pen another millimeter.

“It didn’t disturb you that you’d caused the death of that person, of all people?”

“No.”

“Are you going to say his name?”

Jenna’s face remained impassive, but anxiety fluttered briefly

in her belly like a trapped bird. She inhaled slowly through her nostrils.

“Kim Jong-il.”

Once again, the woman peered into her, through her.

“It doesn’t worry you at all? Tracking down North Korean agents in Malaysia? They know who you are, don’t they?”

“My dip cover is solid. It’s worked for me for three years without incident. The North Koreans don’t know I’m in Malaysia.”

The woman’s eyebrows arched wryly. And then, Jenna might have been mistaken, but her tone seemed to change. There was a trace of respect in it.

“Let’s hope it stays that way.”

Marshall’s Beach San Francisco

“Group photo!” the red-haired girl said suddenly. To Stephen’s horror her phone was out on a selfie stick. Her four friends squeezed in close for the picture, with Stephen wedged between them. It happened so fast that he stood rooted to the spot like a rabbit-in-the-headlights fool.

Now there’s a photo of me.

The red-haired girl examined the shot she’d just taken. Then the damned stick was out again. “One more.”

Stephen tore himself away from the group. “Good to meet you guys,” he said quickly, and walked across the sand without looking back, his eyes watering in the brightness glittering off the ocean. He felt destabilized, deranged by dread.

How did I let that happen?

In moments like that, he thought, moments of real danger for him, his reality seemed to fall apart. Panic and paralysis took over. Straight thinking became impossible.

Any second now that red-haired girl would post the photo to her feed.

My image . . . My location. Online for anyone to see.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and such a mild, sunny day for the time of year, almost too warm for coats, that he’d risked a solitary walk along the beach toward the Golden Gate Bridge, thinking himself anonymous among the crowds of strolling families. He’d been watching the small white clippers and catamarans out in the bay, noting how the ocean merged hazily into a sky marbled by contrails.

He hadn’t seen the group approaching until they were almost in front of him. They were five high-school students like himself, one of whom he knew, and in the moment of recognition he’d felt a sharp jolt of alarm. A split-second weakening of his spinal column. It was too late for him to turn away. They’d stopped to talk to him, curious to meet him. He’d found the red-haired girl pushy: You live in the Bay Area? Which school are you at? How do you know Kyle? And then: Group photo!

His personal safety: all gone up in pixels.

For two hours after that he wandered the grid of the city streets, aimless, starting to feel hungry and tired but unwilling, yet, to go home and report this fresh disaster to his guardians. Eventually, toward evening, he found himself sitting on a stone bench outside the park on Telegraph Hill.

The sky was darkening to a deep violet, the color of a bruise beneath a fingernail, and the lights of San Francisco Bay were starting to sparkle and dance. The air had become much cooler, making him shiver. He pulled up the hood of his shapeless old coat, hoping to dematerialize in the shadows and half-tones of the streetlamps.

Stephen was sixteen years old, turning seventeen next week. He’d arrived in San Francisco only six months ago. His previous home had been in Chicago, but he’d skipped town after someone in the small community of defectors had started asking questions

about him. Before Chicago he’d lived in Wisconsin, but from there, too, he’d fled in a hurry after a stranger had come looking for him at school.

It amazed him to think that there’d been a time when he hadn’t taken the danger seriously, not even after his great uncle had been murdered in horrific circumstances three years ago. But that, he now knew, had been the start of it, because soon afterward they came looking for him. Stephen didn’t know if he was next on the killers’ list, or next but one, or next but two. The hunt was on, and if they found him, he was dead.

He did not believe in the supernatural, but this felt supernatural, what was happening to him. Something malefic and ancestral, like a curse in a folktale. A nightmare he couldn’t hide from or outrun, and yet he’d only survived this long by hiding and running.

If they saw that photo of him taken today, they would pick up his trail. They would head straight here.

He crouched forward on the bench and lowered his face into his hands. Now he’d have to drop out of school again and lie low until he figured out what to do.

He felt a great isolation descend upon him.

His guardians no longer had the strength to keep running. They were good people, his foster parents. They’d protected him for long enough. He would be eighteen next year. A man. Wherever he went next, he would go alone. But where? The West Coast felt like the edge of the map for him, the end of the road.

Out in the bay, a vast oil tanker sounded its horn as it passed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. There was something festive about it, the way its deck was lit up like a carnival float.

If only he could slip aboard, cross the ocean, and hide beyond the sunset.

But nowhere in the world had a refuge for him. Besides, he had no valid passport, no money, no connections. He had nothing but his name, and it was a name he could never, ever use.

PART ONE Malaysia

I’m always moving. I’m moving in both directions.

Donald J. Trump 2017

Datai Beach

Langkawi, Malaysia

Wednesday evening, mid-February

Jenna had dressed more carefully than usual. She’d styled her hair in a chignon, which gave her a glamor she didn’t ordinarily possess. The pearls she’d chosen glowed luxuriously in the soft lights surrounding the mirror, and the black evening dress was of a silk so light it felt like a breeze against her skin. A glossy, plum-red lipstick completed the look. She tried adjusting the dress to make it a little more revealing but decided that was going too far. She wasn’t here to seduce the guy. A dab of perfume on her wrists and she was ready. She stood to take a final, appraising look at herself, and felt another ripple of nerves. PANDA had a weakness for women, and this evening, when PANDA walked into her trap, she would use everything in her power to get him to talk.

Behind her, reflected in the mirror, was a marble-topped dressing table on which she’d placed a compact Beretta 8000, her preferred firearm; a pepper spray concealed inside a mascara tube; four bricks of cash shrink-wrapped in plastic; and a burner phone.

It was the sight of the phone that released another wriggle of anxiety in her.

She stepped outside and started to focus her thoughts. A hardwood veranda surrounded the suite. The hotel’s guest rooms were in fact small, secluded villas that could only be reached by stone paths or wooden bridges. Each had a spacious modern living room and a private pool. Jenna’s looked down onto a narrow, sandy cove that opened into the calm waters of the Malacca Strait, with views on both sides of dense rainforest and green volcanic hills. The evening air, though still heavy with moisture, was much fresher. Towering, electric-lined clouds were turning purple as the sun dipped into the sea.

An hour ago, she’d gone through the ritual she practiced before each op: her core strength crunches, a sequence of yoga stretches, and her meditation, in which she’d tried to synchronize her breathing with the slow, hypnotic rhythm of the surf. The calm she was feeling now— deep, alert, operational calm— had almost eluded her. She’d had to use all her tricks for tidying away troubling thoughts.

Not for the first time, she’d noticed how her tension and her fear tended to manifest themselves in a sense of guilt. She would catch herself wondering what on earth she was doing with her life. She was thirty-six, turning thirty-seven. Why was she chasing lowlifes when her sister was in a psych ward on the other side of the world and her widowed mom was at home alone in Annandale? But then maturer thoughts, calmer and more rehearsed, would remind her that she could never simply quit and go home; that she was working to make a dangerous world safer, wasn’t she? That by doing her duty she was protecting those she loved, and everything else she held dear.

Hers was not a normal job. Its responsibilities were of a different order, and she took them seriously.

The last of the sun was bathing the veranda in a vermillion light. Dusk fell quickly in the islands. The trees were coming alive with the cries of nocturnal birds.

A small blue light lit up on her encrypted Motorola. The clunky

radio was more secure than a cellphone, especially if signal channels on the island were being monitored. The message told her that PANDA’s flight had landed. Her support team on the island was in place. In a minute or two they would have eyes on him.

She went back inside and slipped the cash and the mascara tube into her handbag, then checked the Beretta and racked the slide.

But as she reached for the burner phone, she again caught sight of herself in the mirror. And for one skull-tingling instant she saw not her own reflection in the glass, but that of her sister. Opaque, admonishing, partly in shadow. Suffering. Crazy.

Today was the anniversary of an event that only seemed to shine brighter with the passing of the years. They had been sixteen years old and competing in the Virginia junior league taekwondo championships. After a series of games that had electrified the crowd— tornados of lightning-fast spin kicks and hand-strikes— the twins had found themselves competing against each other in the final game. Their skills were equally matched, but only one of them could win the trophy and it went to Soo-min. The event had made the local TV news. For a brief period, they had been celebrities in Annandale. They were invited onto chat shows. Restaurants let them dine for free. People asked for their autographs in the street.

That day turned out to be the high-water mark of their lives, the meridian.

Many years later, after Soo-min had been found alive in North Korea and brought home, Jenna had made an effort to mark that day, to memorialize it. Wherever she was in the world, she’d call her sister on its anniversary, hoping to remind her how alive they’d both felt back then, when the world had been theirs for the taking, when they’d never been happier or more confident in themselves, when they’d been full of hopes for the future. But Soo-min had never given any sign that she even remembered it.

Virginia was twelve hours behind Malaysia . . . A call was not

impossible. She had already figured out a way to reach the hospital, discreetly, if she absolutely needed to, without anyone knowing it was her . . .

No— crazy even to entertain it. A private phone call was just the kind of flap that could blow the op apart.

The Motorola lit up again. The team now had eyes on PANDA . She breathed in and breathed out and counted slowly to ten. In this business, she could not be distracted. There were no mistakes. Make one, and you’re cooked.

Along the stone path, small, waist-high lamps illuminated spirals of flying insects. Lizards darted silently out of her way. After a few yards, the path forked to the right and she glimpsed her destination through the trees: another guest villa, its lights golden in the gathering night. The leaves of a colocasia plant cast umbrellasized shadows across the path. Jenna slowed her pace, then stopped and listened. She could hear the creaking of the coconut palms, the crepitation of bugs in the undergrowth, a scampering of longtailed macaques on the villa’s roof, and then: a car pulling in on the gravel lane.

PANDA had arrived.

The sound of a car’s trunk opening and closing. A driver being tipped. Luggage being wheeled to the villa’s door. Jenna couldn’t see him from where she was positioned, but she could picture him very well: wraparound shades, short of breath, desperate for some aircon and a cigarette, taking off his baseball cap to wipe the moisture from his head, which was almost completely bald. For a high-rolling gambler and playboy, he made a good job of looking like a bum. He was a pudgy, unshaven teddy bear of a man. CIA cryptonyms were generated at random by an algorithm, which on this rare occasion had produced one that was bang on the money.

The doorbell rang.

What state of mind was he in? Excited, nervous, perhaps, at the prospect of a night in an expensive resort with his new girlfriend,

but also edgy and on his guard because of his fear, which had grown acute in recent months, that he might be assassinated.

She heard the front door open and May Ling’s voice raised in a delighted shriek of welcome.

Jenna moved closer, finding a spot of deep shade beneath the veranda. Inside, PANDA was speaking in Korean, talking about his flight as May Ling helped him off with his jacket and shoes.

Moments later the veranda creaked, and she caught an aroma of cigar smoke, which was mellow and not unpleasant. A gentle wreath of it floated into the night air. PANDA was almost directly above her. Music played softly on the villa’s sound system, something lazy with double bass and solo trumpet.

“Sure you don’t want to go out?” he said.

“No, it’s beautiful here,” May Ling said from inside. “I’ve ordered dinner.” A cork popped.

PANDA went back inside, murmured something and chuckled. May Ling laughed again. Glasses clinked.

Months of work and patience had gone into bringing him to this moment, in this place, far from the watching eyes in Macau .

The doorbell rang again, and the catering staff entered with a rattling of wine coolers and plates. May Ling ushered them into the dining room while PANDA paced the veranda, puffing on his cigar, belching softly from the champagne bubbles. The catering staff left.

“Dinner in five minutes,” May Ling called.

That was the signal.

Jenna circled the villa to the dining-room side, taking care to avoid the crunch of fallen acacia leaves, and climbed the steps to the veranda where May Ling, wearing a slim-fitting blue satin cheongsam, was waiting for her. She slid open the glass doors. Jenna slipped off her heels, stepped inside without a sound, and together they lowered the blinds around the room.

Neither exchanged a word.

Jenna was struck by how lovely May Ling looked. It was no surprise that PANDA had fallen for her. It was she who had done the fieldwork for this op, getting herself noticed by him one evening at the Ritz- Carlton Bar in Macau and accepting a drink from him— no easy feat considering how suspicious he was of any new faces; it was she who had suggested a late bite at a place that just happened to be his favorite sushi joint. Their second date had been his suggestion, and so were the trips out of town, away from his wife and children. Over the three months May Ling had been dating him, taking care not to rush or force a thing, not to press or push or ask too many questions, she had gained PANDA’s confidence. For so young a case officer it was a remarkable achievement. But then, it was just as remarkable that an out- of-shape, forty-six-yearold family man had believed that a woman half his age was in love with him. Gradually, his desire for her had overcome his paranoia, which was careless. PANDA had good reasons to be paranoid.

May Ling nodded to her, then left the room to fetch her guest.

The room had a chill edge from the aircon. It was decorated in a rich-world version of the local style, with rattan chairs and dark hardwood walls, which made the lighting amber- colored and welcoming. Dinner was a sushi banquet for two, Jenna saw, exquisitely laid, with colorful dragon rolls and red sashimi, and a table display of tropical flowers. An array of crystal glasses for water and wine, and small, saucer-like cups for soju surrounded the plates.

“I hope you’re hungry,” May Ling said to him in the next room. The dining-room door opened. Jenna heard PANDA approach. “Hungry for you,” he murmured.

And into my net swims the fish.

He entered the room and saw Jenna standing behind a chair. His eyes bulged in surprise. “Who the fuck are you?”

15th Street, NW

Washington, DC

Wednesday morning

The rooftop bar-restaurant of the W Hotel was not Eric Rahn’s first choice of venue for a thirtieth birthday breakfast. However, he did need to stay close to the White House, plus it was expensive, and he would let the others pay. In the mirrored elevator he inspected his complexion, which was clear and looked excellent. His teeth were white and unstained. He was wearing a dark, single-breasted Brooks Brothers suit and handmade English shoes by Church’s— black, polished to a high shine, a detail the Boss liked.

“Looks, looks, it’s all about looks,” he murmured, brushing lint from his sleeve without taking his eyes from his reflection. How many staffers would still be with us if they’d respected that primary law! He was suited up and ready to MAGA .

Eric was a Korean American of average height. He worked out regularly (CrossFit, free weights, boxercise); he allowed twenty minutes each morning for his exfoliation and moisturizing routine, and longer in the evening for his charcoal mineral face mask; he was careful about diet and sleep so that his constitution was robust enough to indulge in the occasional all-nighter with vodka and cocaine. His hair was moussed and combed straight back, and

his cheeks dimpled when he smiled, an attribute that made him— he couldn’t deny it— quite extraordinarily handsome. Last month’s GQ magazine had featured his face on the cover with the banner “Trump’s New Korea Move.” He’d had it framed and mounted on the wall above his bed.

The maître d’ was performing an unctuous welcome when the elevator doors opened. “How are we this morning, Mr. Rahn?”

“We are in excellent health, Sidney.”

“Your guests are seated.”

Then, Eric was led across the top floor toward the restaurant. Mirrors, mirrors everywhere. He was noticing again how nicely his hair had been cut (two hundred dollars at Delaunay’s, plus tip), when his phone rang.

“Yes, professor. What is it?”

“Mr. Rahn, I received your talking points.”

“And?”

Professor Maclean was at a loss for words. “Well, I . . . I can’t say this on national TV!”

Eric screwed his eyes shut and tried to dredge up a few microparticles of patience. “Sure you can. Everything in those points is true . . . in a general sense. It needs to be said, and you’re going to say it.”

“None of it is true, Mr. Rahn. This gives a completely false picture of our strategic position, and that’s going to be very damaging to our relationship with South Korea, a key ally. I’m not doing this.”

Eric could see the restaurant ahead of him, sparkling and refulgent in the morning sun. His guests were turning in their seats to face him, smiling, waving. He hung back for a moment, turned his head away, and lowered his voice to a murderous whisper.

“Listen to me, you pompous crook. Stick to the damned script. Because if you don’t, professor, I’m sure the Princeton board of trustees will be very interested to know about those highly lucrative, highly fucking illegal consultant’s fees you’ve been paid by a

Chinese military tech firm. The president will be interested, too. He takes treason very personally.”

“Treason? Mr. Rahn, I reject that accusation. If you persist in—”

“You’re on air in ten minutes,” he said, and hung up.

He approached the table, beaming, his palms raised in a gesture of modesty and gratitude.

“Happy birthday!” they called in a tuneless unison, with a smatter of genteel clapping.

“Don’t get up,” he said, once they were all on their feet. The men shook his hand; the women air-kissed his cheek.

“Nice haircut,” Hunter said.

“I should hope so, Hunt. Cost four hundred bucks.”

He’d booked a corner table for 8 a.m. From here he could keep an eye on the TV behind the bar. He’d double- checked the lineups on Morning Joe, Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning to make sure there’d be sufficient adulation and praise to keep the Boss in the residence until about ten thirty, before he’d descend, mood simmering, his agenda for the day taking shape. (That was the moment it was important to catch him, before he started crowdsourcing opinions from bodyguards, catering staff, anyone who was nearby.)

A moment of panic had grabbed Eric in the taxi when he’d realized he’d slept through the Boss’s 3 a.m. tweeting hour, but a quick roll through his feed— Crooked Hillary . . . VERY low IQ person . . . Dumbest guy in Congress . . . Witch Hunt . . . Greatest Presidency ever!!!— had put his mind at ease. The Boss was riled up, touchy, irritable— fertile conditions for Eric’s scheme to succeed.

Fox & Friends was on the TV. He’d engineered an eight fifteen slot for Professor Maclean, his stooge. All that two-faced crapweasel needed to do was stick to the points Eric had given him. If all went to plan, the professor’s words would detonate the IED s Eric had been quietly planting in the Boss’s mind for weeks. A cheap trick,

but really effective. Trump would hear his innermost thoughts getting the thumbs-up from the morning talk show crowd, and BOOM ! Hours later he was signing executive orders in front of the cameras. But Eric knew the risks. The Boss’s moods were mercurial, protean, dangerous. Nothing was guaranteed.

“Your master’s in the Dark Tower this week, isn’t he?” Anne said, presenting him with a birthday card. “While the cat’s away . .”

“No, he’s here,” Eric said, glancing toward the White House, which from this vantage seemed a curiously modest building. Anne followed his gaze. When the Boss was out of town a calm descended on DC ’s political class, but when he was in residence they felt the gravity of his power, the strain of orbiting too close to the sun. Eric had a sudden image of the Boss right now: in a white bathrobe, his doll’s hands knocking out a tweet, pausing over which words to capitalize, hitting send, then marveling as TV screens changed in real time all around the globe. breaking news  . . .

All of them had ordered some ridiculous green smoothie, which was now arriving in tall glasses.

“Nobody joining me in a toast?” Eric said, taking a seat with his back to the epic panorama of the National Mall and the Washington Monument, the angle he figured would work best for his Instagram. “Glass of champagne?”

Eric called the waiter, a young guy who was catwalk handsome, and ordered a bottle of Dom Pérignon, the most expensive, even though he wasn’t intending to drink any of it. “And take this away? This is Evian, which is still. I’d like San Pellegrino, which is sparkling. And I specifically requested a waiter without tattoos.” A silence fell across the table. They were all staring at him, entertained. He turned his head to them. “What?”

“Are you going to order any food, sport?” Tim said. “I have a senate judiciary committee at ten.”

There were eight of them for breakfast. Eric wouldn’t call them friends— he had no friends— but they were fellow players, enablers,

in whom he recognized . . . a kindred inhumanity? A moral blindness? A belief in nothing at all?

Champagne flutes were set down, a cork popped. He leaned back in his seat, arched his fingers, and closed his eyes for a moment, letting the sweet venom of the chatter around the table wash pleasurably over him, soothe him, distract him from the dark, euphoric thoughts that were forming and expanding inside his head. He had no one he could really talk to, no one to appreciate his secret, hidden goddamn genius. It was enough to drive a man crazy.

“Oh, did I trigger your libtard anxieties, snowflake?”

“You can’t polish a turd.”

“Sure, Marcia, but we can sprinkle glitter on one, can’t we . . . ?”

“Don’t write it on a napkin, idiot. Anything in writing is discoverable . . .”

“Oh, shut up, Alex. It’s very clear the governor wants to introduce sharia law and full communism, and that’s what we’re telling the voters . . .”

“Reality is a heartless bitch . . .”

“. . . All the qualities we admire most in our president-for-life. Dignity, scholarship, humility, and a strong impulse control . . .”

Eric had joined in the snickering, though he didn’t find it funny. His fake reactions to everything came so naturally to him that no one ever seemed to notice. But he felt oddly affronted by the last remark.

“Actually, Tim, Trump can be a good listener, as long as you avoid his triggers.”

“Let me guess: migrants, golf, hookers, and Cheeina.”

The table erupted in laughter.

Eric twirled the stem of his glass, musing on why this had touched a nerve, made him defensive.

His breakfast was placed in front of him, and suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he saw Professor Maclean appear on screen behind the bar, a balding, soundless, talking head, mouth opening and closing with the scripted points Eric had fed him. A power- coiffed

female interviewer nodded gravely and asked the next question. Brief cut to a satellite shot of the Korean peninsula, then an aerial view of Camp Humphreys, the vast US Army base in Seoul, home to 28,500 US troops (33,000 if you included support staff).

A few hundred yards away in the White House, Eric pictured the Boss turning up the volume.

“So, you’re the president’s ideas guy now,” Alex said with his mouth full.

“Special Assistant for East Asia,” Eric said, with a conscious effort not to look at the screen.

“Great profile on you in GQ ,” Alex went on. “ ‘Trump’s New Korea Move.’ Eric, I knew he’d pick you.” Alex pursed his lips and mimicked the president’s voice. “Call Central Casting. I need a Korean dude who looks good on camera.” Alex put his fork down and started shaking with silent laughter at this pathetic slur. “Oh, come on, man.”

Eric stopped eating and smiled thinly, fantasizing about Alex’s head exploding, imagining the projection of cranial debris before it hit the windows and tablecloth, the lumps of gore and brain matter, the shattered fragments of hair- covered bone. The screams.

“I’m Korean American, Alex,” he said acidly. “I’ve lived here since I was eighteen.”

Marcia, who kept her iPhone on a very loud notification setting, was the first to be alerted. “Oh, my God,” she murmured, raising her hand to her mouth.

Marcia looked up at Eric with alarm in her eyes. The others instantly had their phones out, including Eric, who glanced first at his watch.

That didn’t take long . . .

They’d all read the tweets and were watching him in stunned silence now, waiting for his reaction. Eric continued to stare at his phone, taking extreme care not to move a single muscle in his face.

Donald J. Trump @realdonaldtrump

How much is South Korea paying the U.S. for protection against North Korea???? NOTHING !

Donald J. Trump @realdonaldtrump

I can’t believe we are not asking South Korea for anything. They make a fortune on us while we spend a fortune defending them—how stupid!

He breathed in and stood to face the window, his back to the others, as if deep in contemplation of a crisis.

The sun had risen, and the lightsaber of the Washington Monument was cutting its path into high blue skies. It was going to be a beautiful day. He was floating on clouds of unimagined power.

A birthday to remember.

He turned back to his guests, his face a study of resolution and concern, and took a moment to dab solemnly at his lips with his napkin.

“Thanks for breakfast. I gotta get to work.”

“Better hurry, sport,” Hunter called after him. “Sounds like he’s about to leave South Korea defenseless.”

Datai Beach

Langkawi, Malaysia

Jenna answered PANDA in Korean. “I’m a friend of May Ling’s.” She smiled, wanting to show she meant no harm. “Please don’t be alarmed.”

PANDA turned to May Ling. “What’s going on? Who’s she?”

“A friend.” May Ling’s grave tone must have sounded new to PANDA .

“This is a setup?”

May Ling leaned against the door, hands behind her back, barring his exit.

He was staring at Jenna now, trapped, and she saw in his face not just fear and alarm but hot, flushing humiliation. He had shaved and changed into a white linen jacket and a pressed pale-blue shirt. He’d lost weight. He’d dispensed with the gold chains and the bling. She felt sorry for him. For the effort he had made, for his being tricked.

“I’m here to make a proposal,” she said. “I assure you it will be of interest to you.”

“What fucking proposal?” He was almost shouting. “I don’t know who you are—” But the instant his words were out, a dawning remembrance spread across his face. His voice dropped. “Wait . . . I

remember you . . . The American lady who speaks Korean . . . I do know you. I never forget a face.”

“The Casino Lisboa, three months ago,” she said.

That had been the first time she’d observed him, laughing like a little boy as he’d raked in his chips in the glittering private members’ lounge. He’d even raised his glass to her. “Red or black?” he’d said. “Red, of course,” Jenna had said, to knowing laughter from the spectators. The wheel spun, and he’d won again.

He continued to stare, and then he let out an astonished huff, as if he’d been duped in a most extraordinary scam.

“You’re CIA ? Or South Korean Intelligence?”

A small silence ensued, as if to acknowledge that they were through to the next stage of a delicate game.

Jenna softened her voice further. “I work for the United States government in an intelligence capacity. I’d like a few minutes alone with you. Shall we sit down?”

PANDA’s eyes drifted to some spot outside the room. “How could I have been so stupid?”

Sweat was spreading through his shirt like areas of deep water on an ocean chart.

May Ling poured him a cup of soju and served it Korean style, with one hand on her heart. He accepted it in a trance. Then he knocked the spirit back and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face.

“I’m . . . going to leave now.” He made a fluttering motion with his hands. “I can’t talk to you.”

“You’ve been talking to us for months.”

He turned to May Ling, a terrible look of betrayal on his face, and May Ling, lowering her eyes, withdrew from the room and closed the door behind her, her role over.

Something inside PANDA seemed to crumple. His breathing became ragged and wheezy. He patted his jacket pockets and took out an asthma inhaler.

Jenna remained calm. “No one knows I’m here. No one knows we’re having this conversation.”

PANDA gave a mirthless laugh. “They will know.”

“I understand your fear. Sometimes it feels like our families can read our minds, doesn’t it? Family ties are so strong that we’ll do anything they ask, however badly they treat us.”

He peered at her then with a perplexed intensity, as if trying to empty the cupboards of his memory to recall the time and place he’d met her, as if it had been years ago. On that evening she’d seen him in Macau, betting big on roulette and ordering whiskey by the bottle, he’d been surrounded by women from the moneyed, international set. She was surprised he’d remembered her at all.

“You have a son in Macau,” she said gently. “You have his safety to think of. Yong-won is, what, twenty- one now? He must be thinking of a career . . .”

“Stop. I’m not giving you anything.” His voice held a weak note of defiance, but a condemned look had come over his face.

“Are you sure?” Jenna said, “Because I think I can offer what you desire most.”

“Oh.” A bitter cynicism, a weariness came over him. “And what’s that?”

“A way out.”

Outside, a breeze picked up, making the papaya trees rustle and sway. Further off, waves thundered in the cove.

Slowly he gave an incredulous shake of his head. “If you’re asking me to be a Yankee snitch . . .”

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but I don’t think you have much choice,” she said, not unkindly. “You’re in a bad corner. Help us, and we can arrange safe passage for you and your son, and asylum in the United States.”

“My son . . .” he whispered, as if seeing something precious slip from his grasp.

She spoke very carefully now. “Your firstborn and heir is in as much danger as you are. Do this for Yong-won, if not for yourself.”

PANDA said nothing as her words sank in. He just stared at the uneaten banquet for two.

“Perhaps this will help you decide . . .” She opened her handbag and took out the four bricks of cash containing thirty thousand dollars in each. “One hundred and twenty thousand dollars— just a first, small offering to mark the beginning of our collaboration . . . and in acknowledgment of the intelligence you have already given us.”

PANDA glared at the bricks of money, his eyes puckering.

“This is bullshit. I know how this works. You’ve got nothing.” He let out a jittery laugh. “Sorry, lady, I’m not playing. Fool me once . .” He glanced in the direction May Ling had gone. “Now, excuse me. Your meeting’s over.” He got up and moved toward the door.

“You’ve fallen out of favor,” Jenna said coolly. “Your younger halfbrother, whom you’ve never met, cut you off financially when he became the head of the Family. At best, he considers you an embarrassment. At worst, a dynastic threat to his rule.”

PANDA went very still. His back was toward her, his hand on the door handle.

“You remain alive only so long as your half-brother desires it, and we both know what he’s capable of. He had your uncle executed by anti-aircraft guns and his body fed to dogs. You fear your days are numbered. That’s why you’ve been dashing around trying to make yourself useful to him, laundering millions of dollars of his money through your online gambling sites in Macau, carrying cash and diamonds for him all over Asia, and setting up Family meetings with corrupt politicians and bank presidents. But the truth is that your half-brother doesn’t want you alive. And now that your uncle’s dead there’s no one left in the Family who can protect you. You have

a wife and children to support, and you’ve got no money left to pay for bodyguards. Correct so far?”

PANDA turned back to her, and she saw a face she’d seen many times in these situations: the desperate, hunted look of someone realizing that nowhere was safe, there was no one to trust, and no option left but to talk to her.

She kept her voice neutral, businesslike. “You carry an ancient Nokia that can’t be used to track your location. You’ve had your back tattooed with coiling dragons and koi carp, which you believe will protect you and ward off danger. The letter you wrote to your half-brother last month—Please don’t kill us. We have nowhere to hide was ignored.”

PANDA’s face had turned the off-white color of candlewax. “What do you want?”

Jenna put her hands on the table. “I want to know everything you’ve been doing for your half-brother. The money-laundering scams, the ransomware attacks, the secret procurement networks for the missiles that North Korea is aiming at America’s West Coast.”

The White House

Washington, DC

When Eric arrived at the White House the Boss’s tweets were on every network. The place seemed empty; so many staff positions remained unfilled. He was hurrying toward his tiny cubicle next to the Press Office, when he heard his name called in a stage whisper. From the half- open door of the Roosevelt Room the White House press secretary was beckoning him in with an urgent flick of his finger.

“In here.”

The man was porridge-pale and perspiring, and wearing, oh my God, a light- colored suit that can’t have cost more than two hundred dollars. He ushered Eric inside and closed the door.

“What’s this?” Eric said. “A conspiracy?”

“You saw the tweets?”

At the far end of the room, standing in front of the grand fireplace and its mantel clock, a huddle of men was speaking in hushed voices— the defense secretary in uniform, ribboned and decorated; the secretary of state, silver-haired and towering, struggling to keep his Texan tones below a whisper; the chief of staff, on tiptoes, whose diminutive stature— a butt of the Boss’s wonderful humor— surely meant that he wasn’t long for the job; and, the only

one of the men who turned to look as Eric approached, casting him a cool, appraising stare: the Son-in-Law, aloof, detached, entitled, like a Medici princess.

All of them had dark rings under their eyes, disoriented by their exposure to the president’s rages, humiliated by his name- calling and falsetto-voiced mimicry. Donald Trump had made insomniacs of everyone who worked here. Eric imagined them waking in a sweat in the small hours, wondering if the president had fired them by tweet at 3 a.m., or launched a thermonuclear strike against Iran, or Venezuela, or Belgium, or picked some playground spat that had redirected the global news cycle toward total nonsense.

“Kim Jong-un just tested another new ICBM,” the secretary of defense was saying, chin wattles shaking. “Now is not the time to pull our forces from that region.”

“Isn’t this exactly the time?” the chief of staff said, lamely. “I mean, to make a deal! Get the South Koreans to pay us for their protection?”

“We’re not running a fucking protection racket,” the secretary of state huffed. “The South Koreans give us ultrasensitive intelligence on the North. They’re our allies. We need them. Thirty- eight minutes!” He said, jabbing his finger at the chief of staff. “That’s how long it’ll take a North Korean missile to reach Los Angeles.”

“What do you think, Eric?” The Son-in-Law’s smile was faint and mocking, his face as smooth as a waxed fruit. “You’re the president’s new . . . pet.”

“Gentlemen,” Eric said, giving them a smile that he hoped conveyed reassurance. “Allow me to try, if you would. Give me a minute alone with the president. Let’s see if we can’t walk him back from this . . . terrible mistake.”

“If he won’t listen to me . . .” The secretary of defense turned his blue eyes on Eric like laser sights finding their mark. “. . . why would he listen to a goddamn intern?”

Eric absorbed the slight with a rueful nod, sensing the mood, and faltered delicately before rallying. “Perhaps, sir, he might listen

if it comes from a Korean,” he said with a note of hurt pride. “In my experience of him, he’ll agree to most things if he can call it a win.”

“He’s in a frenzy today,” the press secretary said, visibly shrinking into the cheap suit. “Batshit crazy. I mean, talking-to-portraits- onthe-walls crazy.”

“It’s good for him to vent some anger,” Eric said, reasonably. “It soothes him, helps him stabilize his emotions.” He looked at these men, seeing himself through their eyes. Reflective, resolute, modest. “I’ll make sure nothing’s drafted for him to sign.”

The secretary of state, exhausted, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He may have already dictated something . .”

Eric had anticipated everything. His patent sincerity was speaking for him. “If he has, sir, then, frankly, I’ll remove it. With nothing on his desk, it might be days, weeks, before he remembers it again.”

The tension in the room eased. Even the secretary of defense was regarding him thoughtfully.

Worms, mice, all of them, Eric thought. Pathetic. In the weeks since the inauguration, it had given him intense pleasure to see these men being stripped of their dignity and reputations by the president. Supporting cast, that’s all they were. And still they presumed to counsel him when their only role was to praise. They served the man, not the office. When would they see it?

The Son-in-Law’s princess lips had curled upward in an amused disdain.

“Nice suit, Eric,” he said.

Eric inclined his head at the compliment and imagined popping the Son-in-Law’s eye with a meat cleaver, seeing the ocular fluid spilling out like egg yolk.

“I’m at the end of my rope with the president.” The secretary of state was raising his voice to a treasonous volume. “He’s a fucking moron! Without our troops in South Korea, South Korea is exposed to a North Korean invasion. Why are we explaining this to

him again? This isn’t some lose-lose business gamble. He has the understanding of a fifth grader.”

“You’re right, sir.” Eric’s eyes shone with reason. “Our presence in the region keeps us safe. And South Korea is an ally we can’t afford to lose, a democracy in a region of the world where we really need one. Our troops are there to prevent World War Three.”

They fell silent for a moment, each wondering how on earth they’d got here.

“He may have cooled down by now,” the press secretary said gloomily.

“Good luck,” the Son-in-Law whispered.

Eric turned to leave, feeling cats’ claws on his back.

He headed quickly toward the Oval Office, past the landscapes of Yosemite, past the portrait of Reagan smiling his darned-if-I-know smile. In the personal secretary’s office, he asked for a few minutes alone with the president.

“Talk of the devil. He just asked for you.” She winked at him and picked up her desk phone. “Mr. President—Eric Rahn is here.” She replaced the handset. Eric shuddered with awe and apprehension.

“How’s the weather?” he asked. Code for the Boss’s mood.

“Changeable.” She gave him the heartening smile she bestowed on those entering the lions’ arena.

“Madeleine . .” Eric took out his phone and emailed her a document. “Would you run off a couple of copies of this letter and bring them in?”

Eric opened the door and found himself alone in the Oval Office. The Resolute desk was bare apart from the telephones. Light from the rose garden filled the room, casting a lustrous sheen onto the new gold-brocade curtains, the gilt- edged rosewood, the new carpet rug encircled by a giant imperial laurel wreath. The leonine glow of the Trump Era. He stood still, feeling his heart rate rise, his breath fluttering. Churchill’s bronze eyes scowled at him. George Washington peeped sideways at him from the wall. Eric shook his

head in silent wonder. He was in the room. What fusion of destiny, cunning, and sheer will had brought him to this moment, in the most powerful locus on earth?

From the adjoining dining room, he became aware of sports commentary and an aroma of hotdogs, and he guessed that the president was in there watching the golf tournament. Eric gave a discreet cough. The TV fell silent.

And suddenly he was in the great man’s presence. Trump was moving toward him, towering and dynamic, radiating the energy of a much younger man. His hand was outstretched. He clasped Eric’s hand warmly.

“Eric, help me out, will you?” Sunlight blazed from his golden mane, the rich croissant of his hair. It gilded and burnished his tan. His teeth were reality-TV white. “That bunch of losers ambush you out there?”

“Yes, sir, they did.”

Datai Beach

Langkawi, Malaysia

PANDA returned to the table and sat down very slowly, as if he’d aged thirty years. His hands were trembling as he poured himself another cup of soju. A good sign, Jenna decided. His breathing had become constricted again. He took another gasp from the inhaler. This man looks utterly defeated, she thought. And although she loathed the Family, and everything it had done, she had to admit that she found it hard to dislike PANDA . Unlike the others, he was all too human. He had grown up the anointed heir to a hereditary Marxist dynasty. The night he’d turned eight years old they’d dressed him in a miniature uniform and the sky had lit up with a massive display of fireworks spelling “Happy Birthday Comrade General!” As a teenage boy, he’d stood behind his father as he took the salute before thousands of troops parading in massed ranks. The palaces, the power, were all destined to be his. But his drinking and his womanizing had gotten him into trouble with his father, and his total lack of interest in the Family’s blood feuds had caused him to be sidelined. The final straw had been the Disneyland scandal in 2001. PANDA had been arrested at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport for traveling to Japan on a forged Dominican Republic passport using the Chinese alias Pang Xiong (“Fat Bear”).

He’d said he’d wanted to take his family to Tokyo Disneyland. The incident caused such a scorching embarrassment to the Family that his father canceled a state visit to China that year. PANDA was officially disinherited and banished in disgrace. His father’s third son, the youngest, was granted the title Great Successor.

PANDA was a lost prince, she thought. And his exile to Macau had come at a price. There were always strings, always powerful ties to the Family. No one ever truly escaped North Korea.

He pinched his eyes, looking exhausted suddenly. “You can ask, but I may not tell.”

Without taking her eyes off him, Jenna slid her hand into her handbag for the tablet issued to her by the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology, and touched record.

White House

Washington, DC

President Trump used both hands to smooth back the lacquered wings of his hair. A few long strands trailed loose, waving like solar flares in the sunlight. He began to pace the room.

“I’m getting punched. I gotta punch back. I’m getting a royal fuck job by my so- called team . . .”

He was restless, agitated, but Eric could see that the heat had gone out of him for now, calmed by the golf.

“We’re upside down on this South Korea thing. The generals don’t understand business. All they want to do is protect everybody— and we’re paying for it. Twenty- eight thousand troops. Three-point-five billion dollars a year to defend South Korea with our troops ? I don’t know why they’re there. Let’s bring ’em home.”

Eric did not need to feign his expression. His gaze was true, his voice pure of heart.

“I agree, sir. Let’s bring ’em home.”

“Three-point-five billion dollars a year! How’s that win-win? That’s win-lose. We’re losing!”

“The South Koreans are playing us for suckers, sir. It’s very unfair.”

“Very unfair,” The president paused behind the desk, taking note of Eric’s suit and shoes, his haircut. “You’d look good on TV.”

Eric smiled and looked down, the heat rising to his face in what might have been a blush. The knowledge that he lacked any ability to feel empathy or pity gave him a heightened awareness of those emotions he could feel. And here, in the presence of this man, he was conscious of something wholly new starting to stir. He felt . . . humbled, vulnerable; he felt a connection, in a deeply human sense. It wasn’t merely respect, which he always felt for those with power. This was something warmer, akin to adulation.

A squeak of leather sounded as the president lowered his backside into the executive seat.

“We’d be rich if we weren’t so stupid. These countries, they’ve been shaking us down for years . . .”

The president was in full-flow monologue, like a guy in a bar talking at the TV, and Eric was mesmerized by it. He had only to listen, only to please, because he had come to understand something very important about this man: no one could touch the Boss in a battle of wills, but the man’s grudges and vanity could put a clever operator in the driver’s seat. He could be led by hands unseen. And now that the moment had come, Eric hadn’t needed to say a thing.

“Okay, let’s do this. I wanna see a draft. I wanna sign.”

“Already done, sir.”

Right on cue, Madeleine glided into the room with the document Eric had prepared, a curt letter addressed to the South Korean president, informing him, in a mere four lines, that the continued presence of 28,500 US ground forces on the Korean peninsula was no longer in the United States’ national interest, and was incurring a cost it was no longer willing to shoulder. It was crude and magnificently undiplomatic.

“This is great,” Trump chuckled, reading it. “This is what I want.”

“It’s a bold move, sir . . .” Eric said, his voice becoming silky and

confiding. “And it frees you up to make a peace deal with North Korea.”

Eric was holding out a Sharpie pen. All the man had to do was sign.

“Peace deal, huh . . . one for the history books.” The president’s smile was pure pleasure. “Kim Jong-un, he’s a smart cookie.”

“He is smart, sir.”

The president took the Sharpie, uncapped it, and held it in his tiny white fist, which hovered for a moment over the document.

Eric wasn’t breathing now. Seconds ticked away and to his dismay he saw the germ of an idea take root in the president’s mind.

“You know what? Let’s get the press in here this afternoon. I wanna sign this in front of the cameras. It’ll send a strong message.”

Eric’s face clouded; his smile faltered. “Good idea, sir. Maximum impact.”

He knew at once that he’d lost. The moment had gone. There was nothing he could say. And he knew there was no way in hell that letter would survive on the president’s desk until the afternoon. One of the bottom-feeders would remove it.

The door opened. Madeleine’s head reappeared. “Sir, Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Kislyak are here.”

“Okay. Thank you, Eric. VERY good work. Really great.” He patted Eric’s shoulder and followed him out to the secretary’s office.

Waiting for the president were two large, heavy-set men in dark suits: the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, Vladimir Putin’s two most senior diplomats. Trump greeted them like old chums.

Standing behind the Russians was a photographer who was not from the White House press pool. The man raised his lens. Lavrov turned to him and muttered a few words in Russian.

A Russian photographer in the Oval Office?

Trump grinned for the camera and gave him both thumbs up, then led the men into the Oval Office.

“I’m facing great pressure because of Russia,” he was saying to them. “Great pressure. But I’m taking care of it . . .”

Following them into the meeting was the national security advisor, straight-backed, bald as an egg, face flushing hot with shame and embarrassment. He met Eric’s eyes, casting a seal of silence upon him.

And on the heels of the national security advisor came one more person Eric had not seen before. A slender woman with a striking, Hellenic profile. Her hair was dark and silken and tied back in a French braid, and she wore a somber navy skirt suit. There was something distinctly un-American about her style. She was European perhaps, or Persian. In the door to the Oval Office, the national security advisor turned to her.

“Wait outside, Sofia. I’ll call you in if I need you.”

She nodded, her face expressionless, took a seat next to Madeleine’s desk, and crossed her legs.

Eric continued to stare at her. She was pointedly not meeting his eye. She was young, in her mid-twenties, and carrying a briefing folder.

“I guess neither of us is important enough for that meeting, huh?” Eric said, his face all charm and dimples.

Her green eyes turned coolly in his direction. She did not smile.

“I’m Eric Rahn, special advisor to the president for East Asia.” He offered his hand.

Reluctantly, she dropped her fingers into his palm. “Sofia Ali. Assistant to the national security advisor.”

“First time in the White House?”

He could see she wanted to end this conversation. “Yes.”

She betrayed no hint of the reverence and excitement Eric himself had felt when he’d first entered these rooms. A chill, off-limits vibe was coming from her, a palpable disdain for him that he found very alluring. She wore no makeup or jewelry, and her attire was simple— a failed attempt at plainness, perhaps.

“Does the national security advisor often bring you to meetings at this level?”

She drew a slow breath to indicate that this was her final answer. “No.” She stared straight ahead. “Only when he needs a Russian speaker.”

Datai Beach

Langkawi, Malaysia

“Let’s start with your online gambling businesses in Macau,” Jenna said. “That’s a smart racket you’re running. High cash flow from across the globe. Makes it easy to spread illegal funds around and dilute suspicious activity. And they’re all fronts for your half-brother. You’re using the gambling sites to pay for things that the Kim regime can’t be seen paying for. The prizes you distribute are not all random— there’s a pattern to some of them, isn’t there? I’m interested in one in particular: a regular fixed- sum monthly payout to someone with the username ‘juche888.’ ”

PANDA looked sharply at her, suddenly alert. Then, conscious that she was reading his body language, he made an unconvincing show of ignorance.

“Thousands of gamblers use the site. I don’t know who they are. Why are you interested in that one?”

“Because juche888 is withdrawing his ‘prize money’ in the United States. That’s not a player on a winning streak. Who are they? What are they being paid for?”

PANDA peered at her again, his eyes narrowing. The mention of juche888 seemed to have shaken loose some related memory in

him. She could almost see it floating up through his mind, about to break the surface.

He said, “You’re speaking Korean in the dialect of the North . . .”

Years ago, when she had been a junior professor at Georgetown, Jenna had spent three months in Jilin Province, China, near the border of North Korea, perfecting her grasp of North Korean dialect.

“You say we met in the Casino Lisboa,” he said slowly, his mind working. “But I think I know you from before . . .”

“There was no ‘before.’ ”

His eyes opened wide as it came to him. “I know you from Pyongyang!” He snapped his fingers. “You were in the compound. My father used to take me there. That was, God, years ago. Half Korean. Half African American. You were one of the Section 915 girls.”

Jenna’s blood froze.

What the hell . . .

He sat back, his nostrils flaring triumphantly as if he’d laid down a winning hand at poker. “Told you. I never forget a face.”

PANDA had recognized Soo-min’s face in hers. PANDA had met her sister in that compound? Section 915 was the Seed-Bearing Program.

“What happened to you?” he said with a sour chuckle. “They just let you go or something? And then you joined the fucking CIA ?”

Jenna’s thoughts had scattered like frightened fish. “Wasn’t me,” she murmured.

Her reaction puzzled him. “Well, if it wasn’t you, it was someone who looked just like you.”

The synaptic shock of realizing that PANDA had mistaken her for her twin sister was in danger of allowing another, critically important, realization to slip from her grasp. She chased after it through the clouds of confusion in her brain until she’d caught it by its tail.

And suddenly the crude progression of PANDA’s thoughts was laid bare for her.

She said, “I asked you about a username called juche888, and next thing I know you’re mentioning Section 915: the Seed-Bearing Program. What made you think of that? Is juche888 connected to the Seed-Bearing Program?”

PANDA’s face slammed shut like a prison door. “Don’t know what you mean.”

Jenna’s thoughts, so clear a minute ago, were faltering and disappearing like a distant ship’s lantern in a storm.

“The Seed-Bearing Program ended . .” she said, almost in argument with herself. Her mind was still reeling. She had ended it, five years ago. Twenty-two North Korean operatives had been arrested in the US and deported.

“Well, who knows?” he said tetchily. His skin was starting to blotch from the alcohol. “Maybe one of them slipped through your CIA fingers.”

She had the sense of losing her composure, and she couldn’t hide it.

“Who is juche888?”

“I don’t know.” PANDA had a hint of satisfaction in his voice now, a sense that something had turned in his favor. “But why are you asking me? You were one of them, weren’t you? I don’t know what your game is, lady, but you spent years in that compound. What was it called? Paekhwawon?”

“Humor me, please. Give me something to identify—”

A sound at the door— a quick double knock—yanked her attention back into the room. May Ling had spotted movement outside. They had agreed that if she detected the smallest anomaly, even if it turned out to be nothing, they would abort, night over. Jenna stood.

She said, “Take the money. You’re my asset now.”

“But—”

She left by the sliding doors and walked quickly back toward her own villa. Her mind was a disaster area. Roof collapsing, fires blazing, voices screaming.

There’s an active Seed-Bearing Program operative in the US .

She had no secure comms on the island. She would have to alert Headquarters the moment she got back to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning.

Whoever juche888 was, he or she must have been in the States for years by now. Long enough to have graduated from college, possibly obtain citizenship, and started a career . . . where? Wall Street?

Big tech? Air traffic control? Capitol Hill?

They might already be in position to do massive damage . . .

And this person was receiving monthly funds via PANDA’s gambling app . . . an app that could also be used to transmit orders and receive reports. They would simply log on as a player, unnoticed among the thousands of daily gamblers on the site . . .

She slowed her pace as she considered this, the simple genius of it.

Then she stood still and stared at the stone path winding dimly ahead of her between the trees. All around her the orchestra of the night chirruped rhythmically. Bats squeaked and dipped between the palms.

She was suddenly wretched and overwhelmed by what had really upset her: the tremendous rush of grief she felt for her sister, for all that she had suffered, for everything they had done to her.

Years ago, neighbors in Annandale had gotten them mixed up all the time. “Which one are you?” they’d say. Being mistaken for Soo-min had been a regular part of Jenna’s growing up.

But no one had made that mistake in a very long time. To hear PANDA making it, of all people, had been horrible, astonishing, uncanny. PANDA had been disinherited in 2001 and exiled in 2003. It had never crossed her mind that he might once have been

privy to a state secret like the Seed-Bearing Program— that he may have met Soo-min in North Korea.

And she knew then, as surely as she knew anything, that she was about to risk the whole op and call her sister, just to hear her voice, just to tell her that she loved her, and because it was Trophy Day, the one day she always called, wherever she was.

The White House

Washington, DC

Eric walked back to his office deep in thought.

He’d come close, so close. The Boss had wanted to sign— the Boss loved signing things!— but when the moment came, vanity had distracted him.

I wanna sign this in front of the cameras . . .

Eric replayed the encounter in his head until he’d convinced himself that it had simply been bad luck. He cautioned himself to keep his nerve. Another chance would come soon. He’d make damn sure that letter found its way back to the Boss’s desk.

And yet, something about what had just happened was niggling Eric, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. The Boss had an almost supernatural feel for people’s secret motivations and vulnerabilities . . . had he sensed he was being played? Or was it something to do with those two senior Russians, breezing in there with their own photographer . . . ? That was weird. Or was it that strange ice queen, Sofia Ali, who was from everywhere and nowhere? Something off about her, too.

Eric made a right past the vice president’s office, and along the corridor of small offices occupied by the toadies, the schemers, and the leakers. An air of mania and desperation pervaded the place.

Every staffer he passed was yelling into their phones or whispering in groups, all of them pulling their hair out trying to navigate the extreme chaos field of the Trump White House.

“I did not hear that. For the record, I’m removing myself from this conversation . . . No, don’t you dare put it in an email . . .”

“Yeah, her— get rid of her. The president said she looks like a refrigerator in a wig . .”

“When you speak to him, open with positive feedback. Praise something he’s done . . .”

“You took fucking notes ? You’ve gotta shred ’em! . . . No, no— he’ll pardon you.”

Eric slipped into his office and closed the door.

Quickly, he swiped his phone and logged onto the gambling app.

Welcome back, juche888!

Then he proceeded gingerly through the long sequence of memorized passwords, with letters and symbols that had to be pressed simultaneously, until he’d accessed the encrypted secret messaging portal.

He typed out a brief contact report to Center describing his meeting in the Oval Office and expressing his confidence that another chance to present the letter for Trump’s signature would come again soon, possibly as early as tomorrow.

To his surprise he received a near-instant response that caught him just as he was about to log off. Not a word of praise or thanks or encouragement from Center. Just a blunt demand for confirmation that he would be meeting GINKGO today.

GINKGO ?

Eric threw back his head and bared his teeth in a silent scream of pent-up anger, exasperation, and hostility at the world. He wanted to smash his phone to tiny shards and smithereens with the heel of his shoe. Had they no appreciation for how fucking BUSY he was?

Didn’t they understand that people in this country were expected to do REAL WORK ! He had ZERO time to go chasing wild geese and lost causes. He had—

Then it came to him. Why they’d asked. He’d been so preoccupied with his plot this morning that the significance of today’s date had completely slipped his mind.

Trophy Day. A red-letter day in the Williams twins’ calendar.

The violence of his thoughts subsided with the suddenness of a tropical storm. He sent another message through the portal to confirm that he was heading out to visit GINKGO right now. Again, he received a response within seconds: Center was on standby to hack and disable the hospital’s CCTV for the duration of his visit.

Eric leapt from his chair and grabbed his coat. He rushed past the secretaries, telling them to hold his calls: he was heading to an urgent off-site meeting that had only just been scheduled. He would be back in two hours.

The chances of getting a result were low, he knew. He’d visited GINKGO several times over the last five years, and not once had she cooperated, not once had she given him so much as a clue. None of his lies had worked on her, except to keep her quiet.

Silent, crazy, disloyal bitch.

But today—“Trophy Day”—was the day GINKGO always received a call from Most Wanted Person Number One. Perhaps he’d even be there at her bedside when the call came through.

GINKGO , the name of a nut. Hard to crack.

No one from North Korea had ever spelled it out for Eric, but in his heart he knew. You’d think there was nothing more important in the world to the Family in Pyongyang than the withdrawal of all US troops from the Korean Peninsula. It would leave South Korea vulnerable, powerless to resist the Great Successor’s loving embrace. The reunification of Korea, through war if necessary, was the foundational creed of the regime Eric served. There was, however, one deeply classified and acutely sensitive matter that held

an even higher priority for the Family: the elimination of Most Wanted Person Number One, CIA operations officer Jenna Williams. Nothing mattered more to them than the avenging of the crime she had committed, a crime so unpardonable, so horrifying in its magnitude, that it disgusted Eric, outraged him, made his blood seethe and white spittle appear at the edges of his lips whenever he thought about it, even now, five years on.

“Well, Soo-min,” he murmured as he slammed the door of his Audi and fastened the safety belt. “Let’s see if you give us Jenna this time.”

Hay-Adams Hotel

Washington, DC

Wednesday morning

It was mid-morning by the time Dmitry Stepanovich Kuznetsov checked into his hotel. He hadn’t traveled far—just a short flight from LaGuardia— but he was already exhausted. He’d gone straight from the airport to the Russian embassy on Wisconsin Avenue, where Ambassador Kislyak and Foreign Minister Lavrov had wanted to discuss strategy with him prior to their meeting with Trump in the White House this morning. (It had been decided that they should encourage the president to bloviate freely and without interruption, because the last time he had done so in the company of Russian diplomats he had blithely scattered a debris field of rich intelligence nuggets for the Kremlin to follow up and analyze.)

“Mr. Kuznetsov, welcome back.” The desk manager gave Dmitry a smile that brightened to a very high watt. “Your reservation is for the presidential suite. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

The man’s familiar tone suggested that he knew who Dmitry was. Well, his name was no secret. And there were plenty of images of him online— attending diplomatic parties, trade fairs, gallery openings, black-tie galas at the Met. Photographers sometimes

singled him out. He was handsome in a bygone- era kind of way. In his late fifties, but in his prime— tall, dapper, with fine steelgray hair, side-parted, and eyes of an unusual gas-flame blue. To a casual observer he might have been an actor famous in France, or an architect of iconic buildings. If anyone googled him, they’d know that he was a diplomat attached to the Russian Federation’s UN mission on 67th Street, New York. Less well known, but much more significant, was the fact that he was also a colonel in the SVR , Russia’s foreign intelligence service, and the most senior SVR officer stationed in North America.

Once he was alone in his room, Dmitry put the chain on the door and, from long habit, inspected the lamps and electrical sockets for hidden cameras and mics, even though he knew that surveillance tech these days was virtually undetectable. They could hide a lens in a pinhead, a microphone in a business card just half a millimeter thick.

The suite, reserved for two nights, had too much velvet and gilt for his tastes. But the bed was luxuriously soft, and once he’d kicked off his shoes and lain down on it, he knew he’d have difficulty getting up again. Perhaps he had time for a nap.

Just thinking about his schedule for the next forty- eight hours gave him a feeling of deathly fatigue. Midday today: back to the embassy for a debrief with Lavrov and Kislyak following their Oval Office meeting. This afternoon: a defense seminar at the State Department with his American UN counterparts. This evening: a UNICEF concert at the John F. Kennedy Center with all the usual DC grandees and their spouses in attendance, which meant that he’d have to mingle and network at the cocktail reception afterward. Not until he got back to the hotel late tonight, by which time he’d be practically brain dead, would he have time to write up the intelligence report that Putin would be expecting after today’s Oval Office meeting. Putin.

He’d just remembered that tomorrow morning every network in Russia would be airing Direct Line with Vladimir Putin, the president’s live annual TV phone-in, a stage-managed extravaganza that went on for an epic four hours. He’d have to make time to watch at least some of it when he woke up in case the great man announced any surprise shifts in policy toward the United States which Dmitry might be called upon to explain to the US congressmen he was meeting tomorrow. (Five Russia-friendly good old boys, who seemed to parrot anything the Kremlin said, had invited him to lunch at the National Republican Club.)

He rubbed his eyes and groaned. He would have no time to himself until tomorrow night, and then, well. There’d be no chance of sleep, because he would be slipping out of the hotel at about midnight for a rendezvous in Rock Creek Park. And it would be dangerous, very dangerous. He would need all his wits about him, all his senses on hyperalert, because he was meeting secretly with the CIA and because Washington was crawling with Russian agents. They were already watching him, of course; they routinely kept an eye on their own, especially an SVR officer of his rank. They were probably watching him right now in this room. But if he could evade them for a few hours tomorrow night, and get to his meeting unseen, then the intel would be delivered. It would be out of his hands and his conscience clear . . He simply had to make it through the next forty- eight hours. Then Friday morning, back to New York.

He curled up on the bed and tried to nap. Only the restless thrumming of his heart was preventing the full onset of sleep. He had long learned what it meant never to relax, to be always alert. He knew the extremes of loneliness and self-pity, the sudden aching desire for his wife, for the company of his dear son, who was no longer talking to him, for anything to take away the stress in his life. Lately he’d been starting to feel his age. His nerves were shredded. He’d been passing secrets to the Americans for three years

and he didn’t think he could do it for much longer. The fear of being caught was now ever-present and inescapable, like a tumor, like a gathering darkness.

And Dmitry was under no illusion about his fate if he was caught.

Years ago, when he’d first joined the SVR , he’d been shown a short film. It had been compulsory viewing for all new SVR recruits. Even now, as he closed his eyes and tried to nap, that grainy black-and-white footage projected onto the walls of his mind like a nightmare. It had shown a man gagged and tied with wires to a steel stretcher. He was being wheeled toward what looked like a heavy, cast-iron hatch door. The man was frantic; his body was straining so hard that tendons in his arms and legs were tearing. But the wires didn’t give. The hatch opened to reveal a blazing furnace. The man screamed for his life. Then, with one quick shove . . . in he went.

An image that, once seen, was never forgotten. But that was the point.

This is the fate of an SVR officer who betrays our secrets. If he was caught, things would happen quickly. There’d be no trial.

Psychiatric Wing, Mount Vernon Hospital

Arlington, Virginia

The ward was quiet. Smells of coffee and institutional omelets lingered in the air. Most inmates were still dosed up and dozing. Muffled laughter from a morning talk show emanated from behind the closed doors of the patients’ lounge.

Eric paused to check his hair in the reflective glass of the security guard’s office, then composed his face into its most sympathetic expression.

The nurse behind the desk was a portly young man with a gold ear stud and a name tag that said adam .

“I’m here to visit Soo-min,” Eric said. “Is now a good time?”

Eric barely registered the man’s eyes melting from professional distance into something more adoring. It was a reaction he got on a regular basis.

“Uh, Soo-min’s only taking visits from her mom, sir.”

“She’ll want to see me, I’m sure. I’m an old, old friend.”

“Oh, you’re the gentleman who called the director’s office. You wanted to surprise her?”

Center had thought of everything. Eric turned on his GQ magazine smile. “How is she?”