“Thank you for coming,” said Steers to her visitor as he sat down, but she remained standing. She had on a milk-white tunic with Mandarin script running down one side of her top and done in a bright red, and black slacks.
“I had business in the vicinity, you see, such that it worked out,” replied the man. “I also understand that you had other visitors some time back. I trust that the meeting was successful?”
“Theybelieve that it was,” said Steers. “And I believe that it was as well. But I do not think our respective beliefs stem from the same reasons.”
“That is intriguing enough to justify my visit.” He glanced at her clothes and the Mandarin characters. “‘The spirit of one can walk through fire’?” he translated.
“I find it both inspirational and true, do you not?”
“I do not know, Ms. Steers. I have never walked through fire.”
“But I have, quite literally.”
He nodded. “And may I say that the skillful extraction of your mother from her accommodations in Myanmar was truly something to behold.”
“That is a compliment I will treasure. However, I would have hoped that her replacement would have been allowed to die a dignified death. She had no blame in this.”
“There is always blame to parcel out,” he countered. “But do not distress yourself in the least. She did die in peace and dignity. Her head was therefore of no more use to her. And its receipt by you, I thought, was also beneficial. To you and to me. It provided information that needed to be. . .received.”
“Your message was powerful. I trust it must have been a coincidence that it came about the same time that an attempt was made on my life. An attempt that would have succeeded except for the actions of the man who escorted you in here.”
“He looked capable enough. And your line of work does encourage such things, Ms. Steers. As it does to us all. We must always be on our guard.”
“Not all of us,” she said. “You come here with no security, but you know that you are perfectly safe with me.”
“As you say, I know that I am. . .perfectly safe with you.”
She sat, clasped her hands, and set them on the desk. To anyone who knew Steers well, and there were almost none who really fit that criteria, she appeared calm and in control. She was actually none of these things. The man across from her was far more dangerous than the most dangerous of her cartel partners. He was no mere global criminal. And while he, despite what she had intimated to her other business colleagues, was not the head of an entire country, he was perhaps something more than that. He had heads ofcountries—all of them powerful and ruthless—beholden to him.
That was why she knew that he had not ordered her death when Hao had attempted to end her life. If that had been the case, none of them would have been left alive.
Which means, of course, that I have a living traitor in the ranks.
“Our business arrangement has reached a crossroads, I think,” she said.
“Well, with your mother back to advise you, I trust you now speak from a position ofsuperiorstrength, Ms. Steers.”
“You do me a great honor. And one reason I asked you here today was to explain why I did what I did with my mother. During my visit I became aware of her frailty. I did not wish her to die alone there in such a state.”
“A most understandable reaction from a daughter,” said the man graciously, but with a blank expression that ratcheted Steers’s defenses even higher.
“I felt this was not something that you and I could come to terms on. The action I undertook was the only avenue I perceived that I possessed. My mother has received medical attention and is doing much better. I trust she has many more years left.”
“How wonderful. Now to be clear, I neither appreciate nor condone what you did. It is bad for business.Mybusiness. If one can think they can freely take what is mine?” He spread his hands and smiled, an expression that did not come close to reaching his eyes. “Then I have no business. You, as an exemplary businessperson yourself, must understand this.”
“I do.”
“So where does that leave. . .us?”
“With my mother back and my father long dead, it gives me great reason to reflect on the future. I have no children. I am the last of the Steerses.”
“And what have you concluded with yourreflections, Ms. Steers?”
“That I want to sell my business to you.”
The man hiked his eyes in some mild surprise. “All of it?”
“All of it.”