1

Joint Base Pearl Harbor—Hickam
Adjacent to Honolulu, Hawaii

Ten minutes after the Embraer Legacy 650 touched down at Hickam Field on the island of Oahu, Paul Janson stepped onto the warm tarmac and was immediately greeted by Lawrence Hammond, the senator’s chief of staff.

“Thank you for coming,” Hammond said.

As the men shook hands, Janson breathed deeply of the fresh tropical air and savored the gentle touch of the Hawaiian sun on his face. After six months under Shanghai’s polluted sky, smog as thick as tissue paper had become Janson’s new normal. Only now, as he inhaled freely, did he fully realize the extent to which he’d spent the past half-year breathing poison.

Behind his Wayfarers, Janson closed his eyes for a moment and listened. Although Hickam buzzed with the typical sounds of an operational airfield, Janson instantly relished the relative tranquility. Vividly, he imagined the coastal white sand beaches and azure blue waters awaiting him and Jessie just beyond the confines of the U.S. Air Force base.

Hammond, a tall man with slicked-back hair the color of straw, directed Janson to an idling olive-green Jeep driven by a private first class who couldn’t possibly have been old enough to legally drink. As Janson belted himself into the passenger seat, Hammond leaned forward and said, “Air Force One landed on this runway not too long ago.”

“Is that right?” Janson said as the Jeep pulled away from the jet.

Hammond mistook Janson’s politeness for genuine interest. “This past Christmas, as a matter of fact. The First Family vacations on the windward side of the island, in the small beach town of Kailua.”

The three remained silent for the rest of the ten-minute drive. Janson’s original plan upon leaving Shanghai had been to land at nearby Honolulu International, where he’d meet Jessie and be driven to Waikiki for an evening of dinner and drinks and a steamy night at the iconic Pink Palace before boarding a puddle jumper to Maui the next day. But a phone call Janson received thirty thousand miles above the Pacific changed all that.

Janson had been resting in his cabin, on the verge of sleep, when his lone flight attendant, Kayla, buzzed him over the intercom and announced that he had a call from the mainland.

“It’s a U.S. senator,” Kayla said. “I thought you might want to take it.”

“Which senator?” Janson asked groggily. He knew only a handful personally and liked even fewer.

“Senator James Wyckoff,” she said. “Of North Carolina.”

Wyckoff was neither one of the handful Janson knew personally nor one of the few that he liked. But before Janson could ask her to take a call-back number, Kayla told him that Wyckoff had been referred by his current client, Jeremy Beck, CEO of Edgerton-Gertz.

Grudgingly, Janson decided to take the call.

  

As the Jeep pulled into the parking lot of a small administrative building, Janson turned to Hammond and said, “The senator beat me here?”

The flight from Shanghai was just over nine hours and Janson had already been in the air two hours when Wyckoff phoned. From D.C., even under the best conditions, it was nearly a ten-hour flight to Honolulu, and Janson was fairly sure there was snow and ice on the ground in Washington this time of year.

“The senator actually called you from California,” Hammond said. “He’d been holding a fund-raiser at Exchange in downtown Los Angeles when he received the news about his son.”

Janson didn’t say anything else. He stepped out of the Jeep and followed Hammond and the private first class to the building. The baby-faced PFC used a key to open the door then stepped aside as Janson and Hammond entered. The dissonant rumble of an ancient air conditioner emanated from overhead vents, and the sun’s natural light was instantly replaced by the harsh glow of buzzing fluorescent bulbs.

Hammond ushered Janson down a bleak hallway of marred linoleum into a spacious yet utilitarian office in the rear of the building, then quietly excused himself, saying, “Senator Wyckoff will be right with you.”

Two minutes later a toilet flushed and the senator himself stepped out of a back room with his hand already extended.

“Paul Janson, I presume.”

“A pleasure, Senator.”

Janson removed his Wayfarers and took the proffered seat in front of the room’s lone streaked and dented metal desk, while Senator Wyckoff situated himself on the opposite side, crossing his right leg over his left before taking a deep breath and launching into the facts.

“As I said over the phone, Mr. Janson, the details of my son’s disappearance are still sketchy. What we do know is that Gregory’s girlfriend of three years, a beautiful young lady named Lynell Yi, was found murdered in the hanok she and Gregory were staying at in central Seoul yesterday morning. She’d evidently been strangled.”

The senator appeared roughly fifty years old, well groomed, and dressed in an expensive, tailored suit, but the bags under his eyes told the story of someone who’d lived through hell over the past twenty-four hours.

“The Seoul Metropolitan Police,” Wyckoff continued, “have named Gregory their primary suspect in Lynell’s death, which, if you knew my son, you’d know is preposterous. But of course my wife and I are concerned. Gregory’s just a teenager. We don’t know whether he’s been kidnapped or is on the run because he’s frightened. Being falsely accused of murder in a foreign country must be terrifying. Even though South Korea is our ally, it’ll take time to get things sorted out through the proper channels.” The senator leaned forward, planting his elbows on the desk. “I’d like for you to travel to Seoul and find him. That’s our first priority. Second, and nearly as important, I’d like you to conduct an independent investigation into Lynell’s murder. Now may be our only opportunity. I’m a former trial lawyer, and I can tell you from experience that evidence disappears fast. Witnesses vanish. Memories become fuzzy. If we don’t clear Gregory’s name in the next ninety-six hours, we may never be able to do so.”

Janson held up his hand. “Let me stop you right there, Senator. I sympathize with you, I do. I’m very sorry that your family is going through this. And I hope that your son turns up unharmed sooner rather than later. I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure he’s being wrongly accused, and I’m sincerely hopeful that you can prove it and bring him home to grieve for his girlfriend. But I’m afraid that I can’t help you with this. I’m not a private investigator.”

“I’m not suggesting you are. But this is no ordinary investigation.”

“Please, Senator, let me continue. I’m here as a courtesy to my client Jeremy Beck. But as I attempted to tell you over the phone, this simply isn’t something I can take on.” Janson reached into his jacket pocket and unfolded a piece of paper. “While I was in the air, I took the liberty of contacting a few old friends, and I have the names and telephone numbers of a handful of top-notch private investigators in Seoul. They know the city inside and out, and they can obtain information directly from the police without having to navigate through miles of red tape. According to my contacts, these men and women are the best investigators in all of South Korea.”

Wyckoff accepted the piece of paper and set it down on the desk without looking at it. He narrowed his eyes, confirming Janson’s initial impression that the senator wasn’t a man who was told no very often. And that he seldom accepted the word for an answer.

“Mr. Janson, do you have children?”

As Wyckoff said it there was a firm knock on the door. The senator pushed himself out of his chair and trudged toward the sound.

Meanwhile, Janson frowned. He didn’t like to be asked personal questions. Not by clients and not by prospective clients. Certainly not after he’d already declined to take the job. And this was no innocuous question. It was a subject that burned Janson deep in his stomach. No, he did not have children. He did not have a family—only the memory of one. Only the stabbing recollection of a pregnant wife and the dashed dreams of their unborn child, their future obliterated by a terrorist’s bomb. They’d perished almost a decade ago, yet it still felt like yesterday.

From behind, Janson heard Hammond’s sonorous voice followed by a far softer one and the unmistakable sound of a woman’s sobs.

“Mr. Janson,” the senator said, “I’d like you to meet my wife, Alicia. Gregory’s mother.”

Janson stood and turned toward the couple as Hammond stepped out, closing the door gently behind him.

Alicia Wyckoff stood before Janson visibly trembling, her eyes wet with mascara tears. She appeared to be a few years younger than her husband, but her handling of the present crisis threatened to make her look his age in no time flat.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she said, ignoring Janson’s hand and instead gripping him in an awkward hug. He felt the warmth of her tears through his shirt, her long nails burrowing into his upper back.

If Janson were slightly more cynical, he’d have thought her entry had been meticulously timed in advance.

Wyckoff brushed some papers aside and sat on the front edge of the desk. “I know your professional history,” he said to Janson. “As soon as Jeremy gave me your name I contacted State and obtained a complete dossier. While a good many parts of the document were redacted, what I was able to read was very impressive. You are uniquely qualified for this job, Mr. Janson.” He paused for effect. “Please, don’t turn us away.”

“Turn us away?” Alicia Wyckoff interjected. “What are you talking about?” She turned to Janson. “Are you seriously considering refusing to help us?”

Janson remained standing. “As I told your husband a few moments ago, I’m simply not the person you need.”

“But you are.” She spun toward her husband. “Haven’t you told him?”

Wyckoff shook his head.

“Told me what?”

Janson couldn’t imagine a scenario that might possibly change his mind. He’d just left Asia behind. He needed some downtime. Jessica needed some downtime. In the past couple years they’d taken on one mission after another, almost without pause. Following two successive missions off the coast of Africa, Janson and Kincaid had promised themselves a break. But when Jeremy Beck called about the perpetual cyber espionage being perpetrated by the Chinese government, Janson became intrigued. This was what his post–Cons Ops life was all about: changing the world, one mission at a time.

Wyckoff pushed off the desk and sighed deeply, as though he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to divulge what he was about to. At least not until after Janson had accepted the case.

“We don’t think Lynell’s murder was a crime of passion or a random killing,” Wyckoff said. “And we don’t think the Seoul Metropolitan Police came to suspect our son by themselves; we think they were deliberately led there.”

Janson watched the senator’s eyes and said, “By whom?”

Wyckoff pursed his lips. He looked as if he were about to sign a deal for his soul. Or something of even greater importance to a successful U.S. politician. “What I say next stays between us, Mr. Janson.”

“Of course.”

The senator placed his hands on his hips and exhaled. “We think Gregory was framed by your former employer.”

Janson hesitated. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“The victim, Lynell Yi, my son’s girlfriend, is—was, I should say—a Korean-English translator. She’d been working on sensitive talks in the Korean demilitarized zone. Talks between the North and the South and other interested parties, namely the United States and China. We think she overheard something she shouldn’t have. We think she shared it with our son, and that they were both subsequently targeted by someone in the U.S. government. Or to be more specific, someone in the U.S. State Department.”

“And you think this murder was carried out by Consular Operations?” Janson said.

Wyckoff bowed his head. “The murder and the subsequent frame—all of it is just too neat. Our son is not stupid. If he were somehow involved in Lynell’s murder—an utter impossibility in and of itself—he would not have left behind a glaring trail of evidence pointing directly at him.”

“In a crime of passion,” Janson said, “by definition, the killer isn’t thinking or acting rationally. His intellect would have little to do with what occurred during or immediately after the event.”

“Granted,” Wyckoff said. “But according to the information released by the Seoul police, this killer would have had plenty of time to clean up after himself.”

“Or time to get a running head start,” Janson countered.

Wyckoff ignored him. “Lynell’s body wasn’t found until morning. She was discovered by a maid. There wasn’t even a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. Whoever killed Lynell wanted her body to be found quickly. Wanted it to look like a crime of passion.”

Janson said nothing. He knew Wyckoff’s alternative theory was based solely on a parent’s wishful thinking. But what else could a father do under the circumstances? What would Janson himself be doing if the accused was his teenage son?

“Tell me, Paul,” Wyckoff said, dispensing with the formalities, “do you honestly believe that powers within the U.S. government aren’t capable of something like this?”

Janson could say no such thing. He knew what his government was capable of. He’d carried out operations not so different from the one Wyckoff was describing. And he would be spending the rest of his life atoning for them.

“Before I became a U.S. senator,” Wyckoff continued, “I was a Charlotte trial lawyer. I specialized in mass torts. Made my fortune suing pharmaceutical companies for manufacturing and selling dangerous drugs that had been pre-approved by the FDA. I made tens of millions of dollars, and I would be willing to part with all of it if you would agree to take this case. Name your fee, Paul, and it’s yours.”

For something as involved as this, Janson could easily ask for seven or eight million dollars. And it would all go to the Phoenix Foundation. A payday this size could help dozens of former covert government operators take their lives back.

And Janson had to admit, he liked the idea of looking closely at his former employer.

And if by some stretch of the imagination the U.S. State Department was indeed involved in framing the son of a prominent U.S. senator for murder, the government’s ultimate objective would likely have widespread repercussions for the entire region, if not the world.

“I have one condition,” Janson finally said.

“Name it.”

“If I find your son and uncover the truth, you’ll have to promise to accept it, regardless of what that truth is. Even if it ultimately leads to your son’s conviction for murder.”

Wyckoff glanced at his wife, who bowed her head. He turned back to Janson and said, “You have our word.”