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rough shape.
    A voice sounded from somewhere above. “You’re early.”
    David recognized the French-accented English of the prince’s chief minion and said, “Sorry, Devon.” Looking up, he saw the prince’s assistant, Devon LeClair, and next to him, the prince’s ever-present Chinese bodyguard, Chung.
    Devon looked down at him with an irritated frown. “You’re going to have to wait, you know.”
    David started up the ladder, keeping his eye on Devon. Dressed in a suit and holding his leather encased Palm Pilot he looked more like a cruise director than quite possibly the highest paid executive assistant in the world.
    David smiled and said, “You’re looking well this morning, Devon.” He clapped the prince’s assistant on the shoulder and added, “I trust you didn’t take part in last night’s activities.”
    With a dramatic roll of the eyes, Devon replied, “Never. Someone has to stay sober enough to make sure this enterprise stays afloat.”
    â€œTrue enough.” David almost asked how the party went and then thought better of it. If he hung around long enough the prince would probably force him to sit through a private viewing of the debauchery that had most certainly been recorded for posterity.
    â€œWill you be staying with us long?” The prince’s assistant had his pen poised over his now open Palm Pilot, ready to go to work.
    â€œNo, I’m sorry.” David always treated Devon with great respect and care. As the gatekeeper to the prince, he was someone you wanted on your side.
    â€œWell, you’re going to have to wait quite a while for His Highness to awake. The sun was starting to come up when he finally called it a night.”
    David pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head and checked his Rolex. It was a quarter past nine. “Devon, I’m sorry, but I can’t wait. He ordered me to show up today, and to be truthful, I didn’t even have time for that.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “I really can’t afford to sit around all day and wait for him to sleep off last night’s hangover.”
    The thin Frenchman closed his Palm Pilot and looked at David pensively through his silver-rimmed oval spectacles. “He will not be happy.”
    â€œI know he won’t, and you can blame it all on me.” David could see Devon was on the fence. “If you would like, I will go wake him up, but I absolutely can’t afford to waste the day away waiting for him.” He watched as Devon’s eyes quickly scanned him from head to toe and then looked over at Chung, who shook his head. There was no way the man charged with keeping the prince alive was going to let this particular guest enter the prince’s inner sanctum unannounced, for David was a man with many talents.
    As he turned to go, the ever-efficient assistant said, “I will see what I can do. In the meantime, are you hungry?”
    â€œYes.”
    Pointing up he said, “I will have breakfast prepared for you on the aft sundeck.” With a curt nod the assistant turned and disappeared into the ship leaving David and Chung alone with one of their uncomfortable moments of silence; the assassin and the bodyguard.

4
    A small table lamp was the only illumination in the large corner office of the building. It was past ten in the evening and all but a few of the thousands of bureaucrats who toiled there had gone home. The black-clad security staff patrolled the hallways and the woods outside, as they did twenty-four hours a day every day of the year. There were no holidays in the business of protecting secrets.
    For the woman charged with protecting those secrets, and stealing those of her adversaries, it was a never-ending circle of suspicion. On this particular night an unshakable sense of foreboding enveloped her as she looked out over the dark landscape that surrounded the massive office complex.