The war council assembled at midnight in the back room of the Salt & Vice, gathered around the same scarred table where Una had served coffee to a dead journalist three weeks ago. The room was crowded now in a way it had never been—bodies filling the narrow space between the shelves of canned goods, shoulders brushing in the dim light of the single bulb that hung from the ceiling. Outside, the black SUV was still parked at the curb, its occupants patient and unseen. Inside, the last remnants of a broken network were preparing to strike back.
Vance Okonkwo had arrived an hour earlier, his briefcase heavy with nine years of cold-case files and the letter from David Chen that had shattered his world. He sat at the head of the table, his large frame folded into a chair that was too small for
