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She watched the man’s chin slump to his bloody chest, then wiped the fillet knife on his overcoat before sliding it back into the sheath at her waist. She stood and admired her masterpiece of duality, the yin of taking his life while pleasing him with the yang.

With a shove, she toppled Xi Jian’s body into the cold, dark waters of the Pacific Ocean and watched it bob like a cork next to the blacked-out RHIB. She drew the knife again, then bent over the side tube and plunged it into his chest to pierce his inflated lungs. There was no hatred or malice in the blows, just the calloused efficiency of a professional. Each time, the slender blade slid between his ribs and withdrew with a gurgling hiss.

Three, four, five times she stabbed him; each time, his body sagged lower in the water. At last, it slipped beneath the surface and disappeared from view. She stood and looked up at the cargo ships anchored around her. She was still a ghost on the water, a fantasy and myth, and nobody had witnessed her rescuing the Chinese spy from certain capture by the US Coast Guard. Or sentencing him to death.

A deafening explosion echoed across the inky water, and she spun back to see fire erupt from a container on the Yonggan De’s deck.

“Fucking idiot!”

She lunged for the console and turned the key to crank the Honda motor. The engine caught with a quiet cough, and she advanced the throttle, steering away from the inferno’s flickering glow for the jetty east of the breakwater. Wu Tian was supposed to have waited until well after she was gone to destroy the container, but now his recklessness had put her at risk. First, Xi Jian. Now, Wu Tian. Even her asset had disappointed her by not warning her of the operation’s failure.

She knew other vessels would respond to the fire, and she turned up her peacoat’s collar to guard against the stinging spray as she sped for the shore. A mile from the breakwater, she flipped a switch to turn on her navigation lights, guiding the RHIB between the boats racing in the opposite direction, bound for the burning merchant vessel.

Rounding the breakwater, she reached inside the waterproof glove box and removed her cell phone. Powering it on, she waited for it to connect to the nearest cellular tower, then opened the application disguised as a calculator. A notification banner indicated she had a waiting message, and she entered 9413, followed by the minus sign and 4059, then concluded the passkey by tapping on the equals sign. Instead of returning an answer, the calculator opened a partition that allowed her to send and receive encrypted messages over a satellite network.

Much like the modified Nintendo Switch she had given the hapless, lovesick Marine, the application offered her two options. She tapped on “Receive” and waited for her phone to query the orbiting satellites. After several seconds, the progress bar had reached one hundred percent, and she looked down at the screen.

Without fear or hesitation, she tapped on the icon and waited for the message to download, dividing her focus between the phone on the console and the dark waters in front of her. When another window opened on the screen, she glanced down and read the message.

2. SEND INSTRUCTIONS.

She glowered at the screen, at first relieved the Marine had taken risks to inform her of the mission’s failure but annoyed by his presumption. He had proven useful in providing her with detailed maintenance logs for his squadron’s fleet of F-35C Joint Strike Fighters but hadn’t quite grasped the nature of their relationship. He thought he was her partner, at least a bishop or knight on the board instead of the pawn she played him for. She needed to consider how to rectify the situation before responding.

She closed the application and navigated to her phone’s native internet browser. The information she had just recovered was time sensitive, and she couldn’t afford to rely on her normal method of delivery via the consulate’s diplomatic channels. Mantis would want it delivered in person. She navigated to the website hosting a vacation rental forum and searched for the post she had made when first arriving in the United States a year earlier.

Selecting it, she scrolled past half a dozen comments from legitimate users asking for more information, which she had provided to keep the post active while giving credence to her cover. When she reached the bottom, she saw that the last comment was hers.

She had posted it before leaving the marina earlier that evening, signaling to Mantis that she was commencing the operation’s first phase. She clicked on the icon below to post a reply and tapped out a simple message, indicating the mission had been a failure.