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There was some shuffling, muttering, and then, as clear as day, I heard some loud squawking noises.

“I told you there was a parrot,” Manny whispered.

“Shh,” the prime minister and I said at the same time as we all huddled around the table. I held out my hand for Manny to give me my phone, and he quickly turned it over. I pressed the record button just as we heard people start speaking Chinese. I could make out at least three different voices, but it was frustrating that we had no idea what they were saying.

Then suddenly that changed when we heard the bang of a door and voice speaking in English. “What’s going on here? What happened?”

“That’s Maivia,” Henry hissed. “I recognize his voice. That son of a gun is in the compound.”

“We had an intruder at the compound,” someone responded in accented English. “But it’s under control.”

“What kind of intruder?” Maivia asked. “What was he doing here?”

“We’re not sure. He was caught in here, looking around the office. We ran a sweep for bugs in this room and on the entire first floor but found nothing. Nothing appears to be missing, either. We don’t know what he was after, and he’s not talking.”

“Who is he?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. He didn’t have any identification on him. He speaks English and says he wandered into the compound by accident, but he’s lying, and he won’t give us a name. It’s hard to tell if English is his native language. We’re not sure what’s he’s doing here, whether he’s working for the prime minister or someone else. He’s locked up for now until we determine our next steps.”

“This is intolerable,” Maivia fumed. “I don’t like this. Not one bloody bit.” We could hear the clomp of his footsteps as he presumably paced the office. “I’m worried. We need to get the boss here immediately. Where is he? I was assured he’d be here today in case there were any problems. And we have problems. What do I do now? The prime minister is still missing and now this. What if we can’t find her? She shouldn’t even be alive, and now we have this incident.”

“Please calm down, my friend,” a voice said soothingly. “He’s already on the way, and he’s been briefed on the situation. He should be here within the hour. His personal plane lands from Kiribati in about half an hour. Trust me, things are going as planned. In China we say, ‘All things are difficult before they are easy.’ So, just be patient and keep your activity focused on finding the prime minister. She hasn’t left and the island is small. It is just a matter of time before you capture her.”

We could hear Maivia’s heavy sigh. “I’m just worried things are not going as planned.”

“Of course, we understand your concern. We’ll let you know when the boss has arrived.”

“What about the intruder?”

“We’ll take care of him. You have enough to deal with, so go find the prime minister and any who still support her.”

There was a pause before a door slammed, followed by a murmur of voices in Chinese. After another minute, the door squeaked open and then shut.

The room went silent.

THIRTY

Lexi

Ilet out a breath of relief so sharp, it almost caused me to double over. Calming myself, I hit the stop button on the recording function. While the conversation was alarming, it had also just confirmed Slash was still alive. If he was alive, I could function. I could figure out how to save him.

“Maiviaisworking with the Chinese,” Petra said in outrage, jumping to her feet. “I knew it. He just said so himself.”

“He said somethinglikethat,” I warned. “That conversation could be twisted or rephrased to mean anything. It’s not enough to directly link him to Chinese in this coup. It’s a start, but we need more.”

Petra scowled, clearly furious. “He’ll pay for this. That traitorous bastard.”

I didn’t respond, because my first audio file was finally ready, so I queued it up and sent it off to Angel and Frankie, asking them to prioritize the translation and telling them another, shorter audio file would follow shortly.

“Well, the good news is they apparently didn’t find the recording devices,” Manny said. “Slash was right. It was safer to use the recorders than it would have been to use the bugs.”

“Well, it’s not like you had any choice,” I responded. “That was all you had, but it was a lucky break, and we’ve had far too few of those lately.”

“But you said Slash hid his phone in the office where he was captured,” Henry pointed out. “Why didn’t they find it? Doesn’t a bug sweeper look for transmissions? A phone would emit that, right?”

“Everyone has a phone,” I explained. “They would have just assumed the sweeper was picking up the transmissions from the phones in their pockets. Obviously, they didn’t find the recording device in the office or his phone.”

“Right. Thank God for that,” Henry said.