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A callow military aide in his late twenties fidgeted in the seat to the general’s left. Obviously accustomed to a uniform, he wore an ill-fitting suit, probably purchased just for the occasion. The only reason for him to be here was to provide an extra set of eyes and ears for General Bai. Yao could see it in the poor kid’s eyes. The misgivings of being ordered to spy on the man he worked for and the fear of discovery, or worse, discovering something he did not want to know.

Tsai Zhan sat across from the general, between him and the door, a gray cotton golf jacket draped across his lap. His knee bounced slightly. His eyes flicked back and forth, checking every exit, as if he feared Song might try to make a run for it. He held a gardening magazine but didn’t read it. Jet lag alone was enough to make most people feel somewhat queasy, like they were coming down with a touch of something. Tsai needed only a little nudge.

All Yao had to do was walk by with a cart of coffee for the nurses’ station for Tsai to demand some tea. The political minder was accustomed to getting his way.

The nurse standing at an open laptop on the reception counter shot Yao a side-eye and nodded toward Tsai, as if to say, You’d better take care of this.

“Of course, sir,” Yao said. He gave a slight bow, awkward, like Tsai would expect an uncouth American to be — absent even the most basic etiquette. Yao looked at Song and his aide in turn. “I have tea or coffee.”

“I do not care for anything,” the general said.

The aide, terrified at being spoken to in English, gave a twitchy shake of his head.

“I would prefer tea,” Tsai snapped. He might as well have been pounding his fist on the table.

Yao pumped a cup full of hot water from the urn, and then passed it to Tsai with two sachets of tea that looked as though they had never been opened.

Now it was only a matter of time — and how much of this tea Tsai decided to drink.

* * *

The operating room was smaller than Mo had been led to believe, or, rather, crowded with more instruments that took up much of the available floor space than she’d realized. Both Dr. Ryan and Dr. Berryhill had taken off their shoes. Ryan explained that eye surgery was often compared to flying a helicopter, as the surgeon had to utilize each hand and each foot independently — focusing the microscope, manipulating the eye itself, suturing, operating the laser, the cameras — or any of the equipment necessary for such a delicate surgery. By the time both surgeons, an anesthesiologist, and two nurses crowded around the table, there was little space left in the room for Mo. The general and his wife were not offered spots in the viewing theater, leaving that room for the two armed agents who were in contact with the detail posted outside and at the nurses’ station.

Adam Yao was out there, too. By now he would have tried to give Tsai Zhan the special tea. If that hadn’t worked — if he simply hadn’t wanted tea — Yao had a couple of other plans that he’d not seen fit to share with Mo Richardson, reminding her that she was a law enforcement officer and he was, well, not.

That part of this gig was his problem. She focused on her charge, the First Lady, appropriately code-named SURGEON by the Secret Service.

Mo had never had kids, but the sight of the little girl conked out on the table, with tubes in her arm and mouth, plucked at her heartstrings. Dr. Ryan and the other surgeon used a lot of words Mo would not have normally understood, but she’d done a fair amount of reading on retinoblastoma. She was, after all, dressed to play the part of a staff member at the clinic and didn’t want to look like a complete idiot if anyone in Song’s group asked her a question. The docs threw around terms like enucleation—removing the entire eye — and photocoagulation—using lasers to blast the blood vessels that fed the tumor. There was a large monitor above, displaying the work. Half the child’s face was covered with a surgical drape. Tape affixed the breathing tube to her cheek. A thin piece of spring-wire claw held the affected eye open, unblinking, fishlike.

Standing in the corner, Mo didn’t study the monitor long enough to figure out exactly what they were up to. She hadn’t seen them cut anything, but the gaping eye itself — looking, but not seeing — was enough to give her shivers. She’d gladly take a grisly murder scene or motor vehicle accident any day over an injured child. There’d been plenty of all those before she came on board with the Service — but it was the sight of helpless kids that stuck with her, that scarred the back of her eye.