I chose to ignore the vessel’s Klaxon for several minutes, but it was quickly joined by the sound of firm knocking on my compartment door. I dragged myself to my feet and soon found myself looking into Julien Fouché’s broad, bearded features. He was fully outfitted in his suit of innocuous-looking body armor and had a sidearm strapped to his waist.

"It’s time, Doctor," he said, handing me my own coveralls and one of the stun pistols that I’d seen in the arsenal. "The Americans will launch their raid soon, and apparently our Muslim friends are not entirely cooperating. The situation is delicate–Malcolm feels your assistance on the ground will be of great value."

"Mine?" I said, trying to get into the coveralls. "But why?"

"Their leader is a particularly neurotic and unpredictable fellow who seems genuinely prepared to make a martyr of himself, which would be perfectly acceptable to all of us, if only he had not persuaded his wives and children to remain with him by offering assurances of favored places in Paradise. Malcolm seems to think that you may be able to persuade him to change his mind." Watching me struggle half-wittedly with the coveralls, Fouché began impatiently to help me into them. "Tonnerre, Gideon, one would think you had never dressed yourself!"

I made more of a concerted effort to focus, and as I did so, a question occurred to me: "Say, Julien, there’s one thing I don’t understand. It was the Chinese, not the Afghans, who killed President Forrester, right? And that’s why we’re here. But what made the Chinese do it?"

"Your Madame President had something resembling scruples," Fouché answered, "though they were well hidden. When shown pictures of the final massacre of the Falun Gong cult in 2018, she told her Cabinet that she intended to bring Beijing’s trade status up for official review."

"Her Cabinet? So how’d the Chinese security forces find out?"

"Gideon," Fouché scolded, hustling me down the corridor, "are you really so naive? Since the turn of the century the Chinese have made a point of having at least one American Cabinet minister in their pockets. No amount of money, however, would have prevented a crisis if the truth about the assassination had become known. And war between America and China would be …"

"Catastrophic," I said with a nod. "So that’s why Malcolm doctored the footage."

Fouché smiled. "Righteous mischief is irresistible to him."

We’d arrived amidships, and Fouché reached up next to one of the golden-framed paintings that hung on the corridor wall to touch a concealed control panel. "The others have gone on ahead to clear a path, and Larissa will cover us all from the turret." Suddenly a section of the deck below me began to rise, revealing a hatchway that contained a retractable flight of steps extending down to a few feet above the ground. Echoing up through the hatchway, I could hear voices shouting and the sounds of helicopter and diesel-automotive engines.

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