But it was too late to change gears now. The driver’s door opened, and the officer climbed into the seat.
“Well,” he said, glancing back once at Winter. “This will be a first for me, driving a celebrity. Can I trouble you for an autograph when we arrive?”
Winter gave him his practiced smile, full of all his charisma, and he saw the officer’s face brighten. “You don’t have to ask, sir,” Winter said. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Ah! Thank you, then.” The man laughed and began reversing the car out of the barricade. “My daughter is a big fan of yours. She has your posters all over her wall. She’s going to faint from excitement when she hears about this.”
Winter laughed along and chatted with him, but his mind was on the barricade, on the police that were closing in on Tems, who was now on his own. It was on Sydney, curled in the SUV’s trunk space and rendered helpless for the ride. Every muscle in his body felt poised to jump, ready to run.
But there was nowhere to go. So Winter leaned back and went along as if nothing had happened.
25A Well of Secrets
Winter slouched down in the car seat and pulled his hat lower. Through the narrow slit between the hat’s rim and his mask, he could see glimpses of the city outside slowly awakening. Street vendors bustled around their stalls, setting up wares and firing up grills. Giant shallow skillets gave off clouds of smoke and steam as cooks turned fluffy meat buns on their surfaces. Clothes, bags, and jewelry hung from the sides of stalls, glittering in the strengthening dawn.
“You sure got unlucky with your tour stop’s timing,” the police officer said, his gruff voice breaking the silence in the car.
Winter snorted and looked at him gloomily. “I’ve gotten stuck before,” he replied, “but this kind of lockdown is definitely a first.”
The officer nodded. “I’m sorry about your president.”
The reminder sent another ribbon of nausea through Winter. He shook his head grimly. “I don’t know what this is going to mean,” he said.
“Well, the rest of us know what it means when you poke the American bear.” The officer let out a laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “If tanks and soldiers from your military start showing up next week, I won’t be surprised.”
“Singapore didn’t sanction this,” Winter said with a shrug. “Even if the suspect is from their ranks.”
“The Americans won’t care,” the officer replied. “Even if they do, they’ll assume someone else forced our hand.”
“China?”
The officer nodded. “I guarantee your government’s huddled in a war room right now, discussing sanctions against China for paying a Singaporean official to assassinate your president. Wondering if they can handle a war.”
It aligned with the briefing that he and Sydney had gotten. Tems had said the same. But hearing it from the officer made his heart constrict.War.
Winter held his hands up. “I hope it all gets sorted out soon,” he said.
“You and me both,” the officer said with a sigh. “Maybe then the CIA will leave us alone.”
The CIA.
Something about the man’s words hooked in Winter’s mind.The CIA.
Tems and Niall had been working with the CIA for weeks now, but Tems had been unable to reach the CIA ever since the assassination. Yet it sounded like the CIA had no trouble staying in close contact with the police here. Why were they ghosting Tems?
“The CIA?” Winter asked curiously, careful to make his voice sound awed, and leaned forward. “You got to talk to a real CIA agent?”
The officer nodded, and Winter noticed him sit straighter in his seat, obviously pleased to have impressed him. “They’re not as scary as they sound.”
Winter nodded and murmured his admiration, but his mind was spinning. Multiple CIA agents meant that they had sent a task force, that there was another team working on the same case here without telling them. Why hadn’t they reached out to Tems? Why hadn’t they included Panacea on this? Unless they had gotten fed up with working with an outside agency.
Unless Tems had been cut unceremoniously from their communications. The thought sent a shiver down Winter’s spine. He felt like he was trapped in a well of secrets, the water turning murkier the further he sank.
They traveled in silence for a while, until they neared the border. The car had started to feel claustrophobic, and Winter’s feet bumped restlessly against each other, aching to get out. Up ahead, he could see concrete barriers on either side of the lanes, as well as a few guards standing at a station far at the end of the road.
As a soldier began walking toward their slowing vehicle, the officer asked, “How did you find yourself in Little India, anyway?”
The question was casual enough, asked with near indifference. But when he met the officer’s gaze through the mirror, Winter could sense an ever-present suspicion behind the man’s friendly nature.
