by Brett Baker
The messiness of the way his encounter with Li unfolded is what bothered him most, perhaps even more than the way he resolved it. Although he had learned to adapt to changing conditions, he always preferred to game plan every scenario so he’d never be surprised. But he hadn’t anticipated Li’s betrayal, so he didn’t know how to react. The intensity of the moment got the best of him, and drove him to something of which he hadn’t known he was capable.
Before he talked to Sun and Gao the possibilities of the next step in the Li affair seemed endless, but talking to them helped make things clearer so he could anticipate the next moves. The array of notes on the whiteboard represented every outcome he could anticipate, and after reviewing every option, he came up with a clear game plan.
He dialed Driscoll’s number in New York, half-expecting him not to answer if he knew who was on the other end of the line. As the two men most involved with the scheme from the beginning, Buster and Driscoll had butted heads numerous times, but always came to a resolution based on mutual respect, and a realization that each brought unique talents to the operation, and that they needed each other to succeed. Buster didn’t care for Driscoll on a personal level, but his business capabilities, and his vision impressed Buster.
When Driscoll answered the phone Buster felt more confident in his actions than he had since before Li arrived at Chinchew all those days ago. Driscoll answered with a friendliness that implied to Buster that he didn’t know who was calling.
“This is Neil.”
“Buster Dodge here, Neil. How are things?”
“Buster. Quiet. I’ve heard nothing. Do you have news?”
“A couple of detectives paid me a visit today, asking about Li.”
“What about him?”
“They wanted to know whether I’d seen him or heard from him. Apparently his wife reported him missing.”
“So it’s official now?” Driscoll asked.
“Yes. The police are investigating.”
“Why did they come to you? Did Li do something stupid that connected you to him?”
“We have a past together,” Buster said. “We’ve worked together on things. But they also found his car in the building.”
“In your building? Did you know he was there? How long’s it been there?”
“His wife reported him missing, but the police waited a few days to investigate because he’s got a history of disappearing. He’ll leave for a few days and then return as if nothing’s unusual. But she thinks this time is different.”
“Do the police think this time is different?” Driscoll asked.
“Yes. They think that because his car’s parked at my building that he might have met some unfortunate end. It doesn’t make sense to me. Thinking that a guy might be dead just because his car’s deserted seems like a broad assumption to make. Especially when that guy has a history of leaving town without telling anyone. They tried to get me to talk, but I made clear that I’ve got nothing to say to them. There’s nothing to connect Li to me since we completed work on my building. They can try, but anything they come up with will be a stretch.”
“Unless they know about this,” Driscoll said. “Then they’ve got the connection they’re looking for.”
“If they know about this I doubt they’d spend any time investigating Li’s disappearance. The lucky sonofabitch who uncovers this is going to have his hands full. He won’t be wasting time on the disappearance of some fly-by-night shyster.”
“I’d like to think that no one will uncover this,” Driscoll said. “We’ve been working very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen on this side of the Pacific. I hope you’re doing the same thing on your side of the ocean.”
“Of course,” Buster said. “I’m speaking in hypotheticals.”
“I’d prefer to keep this discussion based in the real world. I’ve got enough problems here without adding in problems from some other world.”
“Whatever. Bottom line is they’ve got nothing to go on. They came to me because it’s my building and I was the only guy in the building when he parked his car. Or so they think. They’re relying on after-hours security logs, which show no one else in the building, but it’s rather presumptuous to think that everyone completes those logs as intended. Definitely not something that would hold up under scrutiny.”
“Yes, but if they’re convinced that Li went there to see you then they’re going to examine you even closer. The last thing we need is anyone taking a close look at what you’re doing, or what your associates are doing. This thing succeeds if we remain in the shadows, but if they shine a light on it we’re fucked.”
“Don’t worry too much about that. I put them off for now. I raised some serious questions about why they’d believe he was missing when he always goes missing. The guy’s car is parked in my garage, but that doesn’t mean he came to see me, and it doesn’t explain what’s different about him going missing this time than all of the times before. But that brings me to why I’m calling you.”
“You have a specific reason?” Driscoll asked.
“I asked the cops why they believed this time was different, and they said that his wife thinks it’s different because he made plans to meet a friend and never showed up. It must be unusual for him to ditch his friends, I guess. Anyway, it turns out that this friend he stood up lives in Singapore.”
“Oh fuck,” Driscoll said.
“You’re goddamn right, ‘Oh fuck,’” Buster said. “Singapore. They’re checking to see if he boarded the plane, or traded the ticket or something, but regardless of what he ended up doing, at some point he planned to go to Singapore.”
“And you think this is related to those documents you saw?” Driscoll asked.
“It has to be. He’s working on some deal in Singapore. I thought so before, but I know so now. I think he’s hanging us out to dry.”
“But where is he now?”
“It doesn’t matter where he is now,” Buster said. “His location isn’t what should concern us. It’s the fact that he planned to disappear in the first place that’s fucking with us. You said before that he can’t do this without us, but I’m not convinced. However, I am convinced that we can’t do it without him. He’s done all of the logistics work here.”
“Can’t we just replace him?” Driscoll asked, already knowing the answer.
“That would take months. Much longer than we have until we get started. Timing is everything on this operation, and if we have to start over on the China part of it then we might as well call the whole thing off because it won’t work right.”
“So you want to pull out? Is that what you’re saying, Buster?”
“No. I don’t want to pull out. I want to find Yuzhan Li. But if we can’t find him then we don’t have a choice but to pull out. We’ll miss the market, and the risk versus reward calculation is different if we miss our window of opportunity. We find Li, or we pull out. There’s no other alternative.”
“And if Li’s in Singapore working another angle?” Driscoll asked.
“Then it’s up to you to make sure that doesn’t work. You control operations on that side of the Pacific. If this side of the Pacific is beyond my control, then you’re the only safety net.” Buster paused to give Driscoll a chance to respond, but he remained silent. Buster continued, “Unless you’ve already agreed to work with him on another angle.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Buster,” Driscoll said. “This thing has been planned too well to change horses in the middle of the stream. Like it or not, we’re stuck together on this one. Either we both make it across, or we both drown. There’s no alternative.”
“That’s good to hear,” Buster said. “I worried that I was about to become the odd man out on this, but if I have your word then I won’t worry about it. So, Neil, have you made plans to squeeze me out of this?”
“No, I have not,” Driscoll said.
Buster wanted to reach through the phone and punch him in the face. He wanted to scream into the receiver
that he knew all about their plan to go forward without him, and that he knew he’d already been squeezed out. He wanted to find another bottle of Changyu brandy and introduce it to Driscoll’s throat. Since he’d killed Li, Buster had convinced himself that he’d had to do so out of self-defense. He didn’t murder Li out of rage. He’d been frustrated with Li. Angry with him, even. But not so full of rage that he wanted to kill him. At least that’s the story he’d told himself. So as he rose out of his seat upon hearing Driscoll deny making plans to eliminate him from the very operation he had planned, the rage that consumed him also surprised him. He wished that murder by phone existed and he could dispose of Driscoll from half a world away.
Instead, he said, “Mm-hmm,” as if to relay his understanding, and then let silence hang for fifteen seconds. When it became clear that Driscoll would say nothing in response, Buster said, “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“Of course,” Driscoll said.
“I’ll keep asking around and see if I can find out anything about Li. I’ll let you know if I do, or if I hear anything else from the detectives. I’d appreciate if you could keep me in the loop as well. I suspect he’s not going to show up out of the blue, but if he does, let me know. We need to convince him to come back into the fold.”
“How are you going to do that?” Driscoll asked.
“I can be very persuasive,” Buster said. “Li underestimates me at his own peril.”
Driscoll thought that Buster sounded more menacing than necessary, but assumed the frustration of looking for Li had begun to wear on him. As they hung up, neither man could be certain that the entire conversation had been bullshit, but they both expected as much.
Knowing that Driscoll had conspired with Li to push him out of the deal, Buster’s plan to mislead Driscoll on Li’s fate served a dual purpose: to help protect himself, and also to cause enough havoc in Driscoll’s plan to provide a certain amount of satisfaction for Buster. With the gold stored in the Under in New York City, Driscoll controlled the situation, but without Li, or another contact in China, he couldn’t carry out the plan. By perpetuating the uncertainty around Li’s fate, Buster made certain that Driscoll couldn’t act because he didn’t know if Li would return from wherever he’d gone.
And even though Driscoll didn’t know that Li had told Buster they were acting on the plan without him, Buster knew something that Driscoll didn’t: that Li was never coming back.
23
Chapter 23
After a good night’s sleep, and a decent meal, but no shower or change of clothes because he had an illusion to maintain, Randy boarded the same helicopter that had rescued him. He sat in the same seat, this time without Mia, Krasner or Brown. Oglesby provided him a headset through which they communicated on the flight back to the trawler from which Randy hoped someone would rescue him with little delay.
As they approached the general area of the trawler’s last location, Randy scanned the water below in all directions to ensure that no other ships were in the area. He expected some difficulty in explaining events upon his rescue, but the explanation would be even more complicated if someone in the distance saw a helicopter hovering in the general area of the trawler, followed by Randy descending a rope to the deck. He’d discussed with Oglesby and Mia the remote possibility that someone had discovered the trawler while he was away, and the three of them agreed not to worry about it. If it came up after Randy’s rescued, he’d just have to figure out a way to explain it, or dismiss it out of hand.
The operation concluded without incident or complication. Randy slid down the rope from the helicopter, onto the deck of the trawler. He carried a backpack with seven days of water, and five days of food, although Oglesby assured him that if no one rescued him after four days he’d return. When his rescue appeared imminent, Randy would throw overboard all but a negligible amount of food and water to give the appearance to his rescuers that while he didn’t run out of either—which explained his generally healthy appearance—he’d been close.
Oglesby returned to the ship, refueled, and then flew Mia back to Hawaii, where she planned to take local transportation to Honolulu, before boarding a flight back to Los Angeles.
By the time she landed in Los Angeles late in the morning the following day, Randy had been rescued. A small fleet of fisherman from Hawaii received the distress report and altered their course to rescue him. They asked no unexpected questions during the rescue, other than whether he preferred to continue the fishing expedition with them or return to shore, as if a man who’d already spent days stranded at sea wanted anything other than to return to dry land.
Randy told his story to the Coast Guard, who seemed almost disinterested. He’d worried that the whole affair might be sensationalized and attract the attention of local press, which would then feed into the bloodstream of information that circulates around the globe in an instant, leaving his story open for skeptics, but after briefing the Coast Guard and a final check by doctors, he was free to go. He returned to San Diego, where he caught a connecting flight to D.C. He expected his debriefing by officials with Secret Service to be more intense than what he faced from the Coast Guard, but at least he could be open about why he was in the middle of the ocean, and what had happened with Graham and Fitz.
But Mia Mathis and The Summit he’d keep to himself.
24
Chapter 24
Polestar acted as the intelligence arm of The Summit. It compiled reports from agents, informants around the globe, and other intelligence agencies, which were unaware of The Summit’s existence, and also unaware of how much Polestar mined from intelligence collected by the agencies. With a longer history and deeper roots than the CIA, and unrestrained by even the small amount of oversight that tied the hands of the CIA, Polestar had developed itself into the world’s preeminent intelligence operation.
Every agent relied on information supplied by Polestar, and understood that next to carrying out the actual on-the-ground work around the world, reporting to Polestar was their most important responsibility to ensure the achievement of operational objectives. Since every agent of The Summit acted independently from every other agent, they all relied on Polestar to compile and report information. Analysts at Polestar had access to information, but didn’t have the operational training or skills to apply that information on the ground.
So even though Mia understood the importance of reporting to Polestar, both to provide information and also to collect it, she often put off her communication with it. The inability to apply intelligence to real world situations meant that Polestar sometimes provided more information that required, and Mia had seen instances in which Polestar’s information had persuaded agents to doubt something they knew was true, or to affirm something they knew was false. Mia knew she couldn’t do her work for The Summit without Polestar, but she also understood she didn’t do her work for Polestar.
And since Oglesby had assured her that he’d contact Polestar and relay the events of the previous days, Mia refrained from finding the Roost in L.A. The Summit had Roosts all around the world, in cities and towns large and small, urban and rural, mountains and valleys. They acted as safehouses for agents, always unattended, but somehow always sufficient for an agent to get away. Agents treated the secrecy of every Roost’s location with the utmost care, understanding the important need they fulfilled. Every communication with Polestar took place from a Roost on a special secure phone, the technology for which Polestar developed and guarded. Because she perceived going to a Roost to communicate with Polestar as a hassle most of the time, Mia avoided doing so as much as possible. So when Oglesby offered to take care of it, she thanked him and didn’t try to persuade him otherwise.
Without having to find a Roost, Mia decided to visit the warehouse near LAX in which Secret Service had come upon the gold that Randy hoped to track. Although she didn’t anticipate finding more gold at the warehouse—Secret Service attention will ensure that criminals change their tactics—Mia hoped
to find something of use. In her many years in The Summit she learned that despite Polestar’s intelligence competency, she often acquired the most critical information by digging for it.
She took a cab to the Hilton at LAX on Century Boulevard, in the shadow of the airport. With the lack of pedestrian traffic, and the lateness of the post-midnight hour, Mia would have stuck out to anyone who paid attention. But the occupants of passing vehicles on their way to or from LAX were too wrapped up in their own existence to worry about a woman dressed in jeans and an old band t-shirt who looked equal parts tourist and drug addict. Mia assumed nothing though, so as she walked west on Century, she remained aware of her surroundings, sure to keep an eye on every car that passed until they traveled a safe distance away from her, while at the same time peeking behind her in case any foot traffic appeared out of nowhere.
Mia crossed the street at The Westin, passing between the hotel and a car rental facility toward the warehouse district to the south. Among the blocks of freight companies, flower wholesalers, cold storage facilities, and syndication companies, sat a warehouse that backed up to Aviation Boulevard, adjacent to LAX. A sign reading PacAir Warehouse hung from the side of the building, the Pac illuminated in red letters, the Air illuminated in yellow, and Warehouse in white. A non-sensical arrow pointed down toward the building, in case passersby missed the enormous structure, and looked up to find it.
The PacAir Warehouse was raided by Secret Service weeks before without warning. They didn’t’ find the boxes of counterfeit money they expected to find, and the pallets of gold with which they were disinterested has disappeared since. Mia expected to find an empty warehouse.
Like always, Mia tried the main entrance to gain access but found it locked. Quite often when she approached a building she’d find the main entrance unlocked, which made her job easier. She considered trying the large cargo doors on the other side of the building, but large floodlights illuminated the entire area, which faced Aviation Boulevard and would have left her too exposed.