Now the American security agent sat down on his sofa, his eyes distant. “Does Ken know this?”

“No, and you’re not going to tell him.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll look bad. And if you make me look bad, I’ve got more than enough on you to make you look very bad.”

Hall just stared up at the bald South African.

Verdoorn continued, “You accused me of using the Director as bait over in Italy. Maybe I’m guilty of that, but it was a reasoned calculation that you could protect him while I killed off Gentry. My boys didn’t get the job done there, so now we’re here. This time, Maja is the bait. I’ve got my men at the ranch, surrounding her. I’m going there myself, and we’ll be lying in wait. When Gentry comes . . . we’ll be ready.”

Hall looked down at the rug between his feet.

“Why not tell Cage to stay away until that happens?”

“Because I’ll have to tell him why. If Cage finds out Maja’s radioactive, he’ll have me kill her, and then who knows if the Gray Man will continue the hunt? No, she has to stay alive, for now.”

“And after?”

“After? After, I’ll tell Cage myself that she was the one who caused all this shit. Make it look like I just found out. Don’t worry about anyone else comin’ lookin’ for that little whore. When Gentry is dead, when she’s dead, then this little problem will be sorted.”

Hall put the lid back on the bottle, then he nodded slowly. This was Verdoorn’s operation, Verdoorn’s mess.

He shook away the cobwebs the vodka was laying in his brain and stood up. “Fucking kill this guy, Jaco.”

Verdoorn nodded curtly, turned, and left the pool house.

FORTY-SEVEN

   Roxana Vaduva sat on a small love seat in her room as the light faded outside, and she stared down at her hands. She was alone now, but an hour before an Asian woman who either spoke no English or else pretended like she didn’t arrived without warning and painted Roxana’s fingernails and toenails in fire-engine red. This came after evening wear had been selected for her, after she’d been told to bathe thoroughly, and after a stylist had arrived to straighten her brown hair.

This was Roxana’s second day at the ranch. The evening before she’d remained in her room because Dr. Claudia had told her that while she was free to roam the interior of the house during the day, she would not have any duties herself on her first night, so she should stay away from the guests.

Duties and guests. Roxana had thought at the time the words to be sickeningly euphemistic. Duties and guests.

Tonight’s attention, the nails and the makeup and the clothing and the hairstylist, she took to be a very bad sign. Last night Roxana had taken her dinner in her room, but still she heard men arrive, usually in groups of two to four, for hours and hours. She pictured the other women and girls on the property, imagined they were all dressed up like she herself was now, and she had no doubts at all about what had happened on the other side of her closed door.

There were no clocks in the building that she had seen during the early afternoon today when she’d spent a half hour walking around, looking out the windows, trying desperately to figure out where, exactly, she was. She’d made some light conversation with a few of the girls, as well as a woman Claudia had introduced who called herself Patty. Claudia said Patty was the coordinator, and Roxana took this to mean she was the madam, here to make sure the men who arrived to be serviced by the girls got what they came for.

The guards around the building were mostly Latino, and while they eyed the girls up and down, they did not speak to them directly. There were also several well-dressed Caucasian men she took for South African here, and one or two of them she remembered from the night she was transported to the yacht that took her to Venice. She had yet to see the man called Jaco since she’d gotten off the Gulfstream the day before, but she could feel his ominous presence in the other men, all of whom had hard edges to them.

Dr. Claudia entered Roxana’s room just after eight in the evening. She was dressed in a business suit, not like the gown Roxana was wearing or those she’d seen on the other women.

She spoke in a calm voice, the words coming out through her practiced smile. “Tonight is the night, Maja.”

“Meaning?”

“The Director is coming up this evening, just to see you. You should feel very honored.”

The twenty-three-year-old Romanian nodded absently.

“Remember,” Claudia said, “Jaco is watching you very carefully. Don’t cross the Director, and don’t cross Jaco, and all the good things that I’ve been promising you for the last several days will be yours.”

The doctor left the room.

Roxana’s heart began to pound in fear, but she also saw this as an opportunity. If the Director was coming here, into her room, then there was a good chance his phone would be with him. And even if she didn’t know where she was, she could call her sister, make some sort of contact, and describe everything she knew about this property and the people around her. She could describe the little part of the airport property she saw and the drive north and the ocean and the landscape and maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to help.

She knew Tom’s arrival would present an opportunity, but that wasn’t the chief emotion she was feeling right now. No, it was fear. Abject, unadulterated terror. She knew she was going to be raped. She could fight it, but she’d seen over a dozen armed men in the house so far, and she had no doubt they all worked for the Director. If he attacked her tonight, he would have all the reinforcements he needed to exert his will.

And how could she sneak his phone if she was in hand-to-hand combat with him around the room?

The thought of killing herself returned for a brief moment, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Part of her preferred death to what she knew was soon to occur, but another part of her wanted the pipeline exposed, no matter the personal cost. She wanted the Director and Claudia and Jaco stopped, and she knew that she, her sister, and the killer working with her sister were the best chances to make this happen.

The makeup artist entered the room and put her cases on the vanity next to her.

Roxana did not speak to the woman; she did her best to hold in her fear, to concentrate on her task, and to try to get herself mentally prepared for the hell, and for the opportunity, that were both sure to come.

* * *

• • •

I spend part of the day running simulated room-clearing drills with Rodney and Kareem, the two men who will hit the house with me. Then the entire team, Carl included, sits with me in the little house in Bakersfield and pores over online overhead imagery of the property. We work out a myriad of different issues, and by midafternoon we have a plan detailing everyone’s duties and responsibilities.