The Patriot Attack by Kyle Mills

over,” she said under her breath as she straightened up and stepped into the dark condo.
    Her heart rate rose noticeably when she slid the silenced Glock from her purse and pushed the door quietly closed with her back.
    She’d run into Yoshima on a number of occasions but they’d never had any reason to go at it. He was a bit of an odd guy—a unique combination of intellectual, philosophical, and ridiculously dangerous. She imagined that it was the result of him being forced into the spy business as a child as opposed to choosing the profession himself. It was a background that could create personalities pretty far from the norm. She had a pretty good nose for people in her business and even she would have probably pegged him as a history professor or engineer if they happened to meet in a bar.
    There was no sound at all and the place had the smell of having been closed up for a while. After almost a minute of complete motionlessness, she felt along the wall for a light switch. A moment later the expansive room was illuminated in a subdued glow.
    The Chinese clearly compensated their covert operatives better than the Americans. The decor was a vague take on ancient Rome but managed to avoid kitsch. The art tended more toward the modern and looked original to her eye. Sofas were unblemished leather, and the crystal lined up on the bar looked like high-end Czech. The thing that jumped out, though, wasn’t what was there but what was missing. There wasn’t so much as a hint of anything Asian.
    She kept the gun in her hand as she crossed the living room, turning down a hallway and heading for a small study that she knew was there from his CIA file. It was a little messier and more personal than the rest of the space, and she leafed disinterestedly through the papers lying on the desk. There was a laptop too, but she didn’t bother to turn it on. There wouldn’t be anything of interest on it.
    Finally she turned her attention to a photograph of Yoshima and what she guessed was his mother. There was no denying that he was a good-looking guy. Beneath glasses his file said he didn’t need were eyes that always seemed to be looking at something he couldn’t quite fathom. A thin scar running along his left cheek gave his delicate features a certain ruggedness. If she recalled correctly, the man who gave it to him hadn’t lived long enough to see it bleed.
    Yoshima had an undergraduate degree in physics that he’d gotten by going to school between missions. No one at the CIA had ever figured out why he’d bothered, but having met him a few times Randi suspected it was out of simple interest in the subject.
    And that brought her to an interesting hypothesis: If China needed someone to mess with a Japanese nuclear plant, who could possibly be more perfect for the mission than Kaito Yoshima?
    She wandered out of the study and into his bedroom, giving it a cursory search before peeking into the bathroom to admire a travertine shower that could have fit ten people comfortably.
    The truth was that she felt a little sorry for Yoshima. He’d been torn from his family, brought up in a brutal government facility, and now regularly risked his life for a country where his Japanese features made him the target of racism, suspicion, and even hate. No wonder he liked Western blondes. They just saw Asian. Ninety-nine percent of them wouldn’t be able to tell Chinese from Japanese if you put a gun to their hair spray–encrusted heads.
    She wandered back out into the living room, finding another photo of him. In this one, he was with a group of laughing people outside a bar. His smile wasn’t entirely convincing, and the eyes seemed to look right through the camera.
    The agency’s analysts pegged him as clinically depressed, and based on her experience they were probably right. It was one of the things that made him such a dangerous opponent. He genuinely didn’t seem to care if he lived or died.
    Randi considered riffling though a few