Slaton quickly recovered from the recoil and worked the bolt to charge a second round. He took in the scene using his scope. Yao was down, splayed motionless on the ground, a splotch of red centered on the back of his crisp yellow shirt. He’d fallen forward onto his putter, which had somehow impaled into the turf. It stood beside him like a country club headstone.
The reactions of his playing partners were mixed. One of them rushed to Yao’s side and kneeled, trying to help a man who was beyond help. Another pulled out his phone, presumably to call for emergency services. The third was running for cover, his head on a swivel. He knew instinctively what had just happened, which Slaton took as evidence of either military service or a life in crime.
He’d seen enough.
He quickly sent a text to Thomas to initiate the extraction plan. Next, he retrieved the lone casing from the leaf-covered forest bed and placed it in his pocket. After gathering his gear, he took one last look around. The police would find this spot, sooner or later, and he intended to leave behind as little as possible. Seeing nothing else, he set out toward the exfil point.
He moved as quickly as the terrain allowed, trotting along a creek bed before veering toward the saddle of a minor hill. He emerged from the woods to find Thomas waiting.
Slaton slid into the back, and without a word the van shot off. Thomas drove quickly but with control, and there was little traffic on the route he’d suggested. Slaton heard the first sirens in the distance.
Minutes later they were crossing the Pearl River. Slaton fired off a quick message to Sorensen. She responded by confirming the details of his outbound flight. He then turned to the luggage area and put everything back as it had been the previous day. The weapon went into the bag Thomas had provided, along with his tactical clothing and gear. He put on his pilot uniform as they were transiting the long tunnel, and repacked his personal clothing in First Officer Raymond’s bag.
No sooner had he finished when they reached the airport.
As they neared the drop-off point, Thomas said, “I take it all went well?”
The two hadn’t exchanged a word since the pickup. Once again, Slaton met his eyes in the rearview mirror, saw them full of interest.
“Well enough,” he said.
Slaton sensed another question brewing, but it never came. “Thanks for the help,” he added.
The van came to a stop at the curb, and soon they were going through the drill at the rear bumper.
As Slaton entered the cargo terminal, he tried to put on the fresh face of a well-rested flight crew member. The security checkpoint was quicker than any passenger terminal, and after a short ride on the aircrew shuttle, he reached the same B-747 that had brought him here. Slaton went straight up the airstairs to the cabin, as any pilot would, and was slightly out of breath when he reached the flight deck.
Two familiar faces were waiting.
“We good?” Lyle asked, her hands flying over switches.
“All good. Let’s get out of here.”
Slaton buckled into the flight deck jump seat, and within minutes the airplane began its push back. Raymond started the first of the big jet’s four engines.
Slaton referenced his watch.
Fifty-two minutes after Yao Jing had dropped on a tightly manicured green, and as the first detectives were likely arriving at the Macau Golf and Country Club, the airplane carrying his assassin was pushing back on the cargo ramp at Chek Lap Kok Airport.
Twelve minutes later, Logic Air Flight 410 was airborne, en route to Manila.
The big jet’s departure track arced southeast from the airport, and through the right-side cockpit window Slaton looked down over Macau. Working from big to small, he easily picked out the country club, and from there the fifth hole—an aerial view he had committed to memory. It was presently surrounded by flashing lights and uniformed police.
Well, he thought to himself, his breathing returning to something near normal, that was easy.
Word of Yao Jing’s demise spread quickly through the corridors of Washington, where it was late evening.
Anna Sorensen, waiting and watching at the CIA’s operations center, was among the first to hear the news. Minutes after receiving Slaton’s message about the successful op, confirmation began arriving from other sources: an agency asset in Hong Kong, one special-request electro-optic satellite feed, and NSA intercepts of police communications.
The distribution list for the relay of this information was acutely short. It first went to CIA director Eraclides, who in turn forwarded the good news to the White House. Matt Gross, working late in his West Wing office, was the first in line to see it. He read the message twice, smiled once, and sent it up the final rung of the ladder.
Vice president Quarrels received the news as he was retiring in the Lincoln Bedroom. He had taken up temporary residence there, not wanting to leave the White House for Number One Observatory Circle every night, but also knowing that, at least for the time being, optics prevented any notion of taking over Elayne Cleveland’s quarters. Quarrels read the message carefully, then set the secure handset on the nightstand.
One down, two to go, he said to no one.