He looked up.
“Your reputation made me believe you might help. If you won’t, then please, go to hell, fast.”
She stood, pushed her chair back.
He stood too.
“Come to my room,” he said. “I have an idea how we can help each other.”
She put her head to one side.
“How?” she said.
“I will show you.”
Twenty minutes later they were in his room. He’d already poured her a large shot of vodka.
“What’s the plan?” she said, sitting on the bed.
“I have leverage,” he said. “Watch.” He took out his phone and tapped at the screen.
55
Manhattan, June 5th, 2020
Rob looked at his screen. Your wife is waiting for your reply, was the message.
He looked at Gong Dao. She had her phone in her hand.
“My friend has arrived,” she said. “Perhaps you will explain to him why you showed me that picture.”
“Who’s arrived?”
“You will find out.”
A knock echoed. Gong Dao checked herself quickly in the mirror, pushed her hair back behind her ear, then went and opened the door.
“Senator Harmforth, this is Dr. Rob McNeil. He came to see me about his wife, who he thinks died in London.”
The senator put his elbow out. He wasn’t wearing a mask. Rob was, as was Gong Dao.
“What’s going on?” said the senator, a wary look on his face.
“Dr. McNeil wants me to defect,” said Gong Dao. “He showed me pictures of my mother.”
“Who’s making the offer?” said the senator.
“I’m simply passing a message,” said Rob.
“Well, you can tell whoever you’re working for to back off,” said the senator. “Back off now or risk some real powerful players coming down on top of you all.”
Rob looked from the senator to Gong Dao. “You two are good friends?” he said.
“I don’t care for what you’re implying, son. But let’s go back to first base. What happened to your wife?”
“I saw her coffin going in to be cremated in London last month, and now I’m being told she’s still alive.”
“Who told you that?”
“Your friend here, for one.”
“What do you know about his wife?” said the senator, looking at Gong Dao.
“Russian State Security services kidnapped her, so they claim. Dr. McNeil is a prominent vaccine researcher. I assume that’s why they did it,” she said.
The senator went to the antique French-style couch and sat down. He spread his arms and legs wide.
“There you have it, McNeil. What vaccine company do you work for?”
“I work for a research lab in England. Recently we partnered with TOTALVACS.”
The senator put his head back. “You’re one of Bishop’s boys.”
Rob didn’t answer.
“Well, you better relay a message to your Dr. Bishop that he should call me directly if he wants some background on all this and . . .” he pointed at Rob. “Ask yourself, do you really think the Russians would lie about this?”
Gong Dao shook her head.
Rob’s phone buzzed again.
He looked at it. The call ID came up. Jackie. It felt as if his heart was trying to get out through his windpipe.
He tried to answer the call. He missed the button. His fingers wouldn’t work. The room grew small around him. He stabbed at the answer button again and put his phone to his ear. He didn’t speak.
“Rob, is that you?” It was Jackie’s voice.
He took a step back, put a hand out to hold the nearby wall. Thudding beat in his ears.
“Do what they say, Rob,” said Jackie. Her voice shook. She was in danger. His heart responded, beating like a caged animal’s.
“Where are you?” said Rob, his voice tense.
“They will release me if you follow their instructions, Rob.” She was reading from a script.
“Just tell me where you are.”
“I have to go,” she said. The call ended.
He tried to call the number back. It didn’t connect.
“Who was that?” said the senator.
“My wife, I think,” said Rob. He stared at his phone, as if he was seeing it for the first time.
“Be careful, Russians very clever with phone things,” said Gong Dao. “But your wife is alive, that is what we heard from two sources, though she may not be the one calling you. They can record her voice and use just what they want, in case she gives anything away.”
“What did she say?” said the senator.
“That I’m to follow instructions.”
“You’ve been suckered, son,” said the senator.
A knock came from the door. Gong Dao and the senator exchanged glances. She went to the door, looked through the spyhole, and gasped.
She put her hands up and across her chest and stepped back once and then again, and then her head shook from side to side, as if she’d seen something she didn’t believe.
She opened her mouth. Her eyes closed and she fell, slumping down, her head missing the coffee table by inches. Rob stepped forward, his hands out to help her.
Gong Dao’s arms, body, and legs shook violently.
“I got this,” said the senator. He leaned over Gong Dao, pushed her gently on her side, grabbed a cushion from the sofa, and put it under her head.
“Epilepsy?” said Rob.
A loud knock sounded from the door.
“See who it is,” said the senator.
Rob went to the door. He looked through the spy hole. Wang Hu was outside. He stepped back. His skin crawled. The expression on Wang’s face was not a happy one.
The senator was kneeling beside Gong Dao, who was still convulsing, but not so violently. He stroked her back.
“It’s a Chinese Ministry of State Security guy,” said Rob, softly.
“Don’t open it,” said the senator. “It’s those bastards have her like this.”
“Is she epileptic?” said Rob, bending down.
“Yes.”
“Should I call a doctor?”
“I am a doctor. I know what I’m doing,” said the senator.
A thud sounded from the door, as if it was being kicked in.
“Call security,” said the senator. “The doors are good here, but we need help. Tell them to get up fast, that someone’s trying to break into our room.” He nodded at the phone on the side table near the window.
Rob went to it, dialed the number for security from the row of numbers on the top of the phone, then asked for someone to come to the room. The thudding at the door continued, getting louder; the door shuddered on its hinges.
“We’ll be there in two minutes,” came the reply on the phone.
Gong Dao’s convulsions had almost stopped. A giant thud from the door made the windows creak. Rob looked around for a weapon. And then there was silence. The only thing he could hear now was the sound of the senator talking in a soothing voice in Chinese.
Gong Dao coughed. She leaned up, came slowly to her feet, and headed for one of the bedrooms with the senator following her.
Rob looked at his phone. It was near seven-thirty. They were supposed to be going back to Washington soon.
It was time to call Faith.
“What’s going on?” she asked. He told her about the epileptic fit and about Wang trying to get in.
“It could be a trick,” she said.
“It looked real to me. She also claims Jackie’s alive.” He rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I can’t go back to Washington tonight.”
There was silence at the other end of the line.
Then Faith spoke. “You’re not going to get your wife back,” she said. “They’re stringing you along. The Chinese are in on it.”
“I got a call from Jackie. She sounded alive,” said Rob. He’d had his doubts while Jackie had been speaking, but he’d bee
n so happy to hear her voice, so excited, they’d gone away quickly. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. It had come to him that maybe he should distance himself from Faith if he wanted to get Jackie back. All she ever did was tell him Jackie was dead. She didn’t even want to explore the possibility that she was alive. What did he have to lose if he did explore it?
The senator had come back into the room. “Gong Dao will be back with us in a few minutes,” he said. He pointed at Rob’s phone. “Was that your TOTALVACS friends?”
Rob nodded.
“They’re a bunch of fantasists, you know that, right?” said the senator. “They see conspiracies under every fig leaf. You should get a second opinion on everything they tell you.”
“I’m not stupid,” said Rob.
“Never said you were,” said the senator. “But if they really want to help you, they would have told you I’m on a special White House team tasked with helping end this virus BS.”
“You are?” said Rob. How come Faith hadn’t told him? TOTALVACS had to know this.
A shout and then a loud knocking started up from the door. The senator went to open it. He checked the spyhole first, then swung the door open. The two security guards from the front entrance to the hotel came into the room. One had a taser in his hand, point down.
The senator pointed at Rob. “This man is an intruder. He tried to force himself on the lady staying in this room. We cannot get him to leave,” he said.
The security guard raised his taser. It had a yellow nozzle on it.
“Leave this room,” said the guard to Rob.
“This is crazy shit,” said Rob. He raised his hands high. A blue light flickered at the corner of his eye and an electric pulse, like the kick of a mule, jolted into him, making his jaw open. He fell to the carpet. It was his turn to shake and roll. The pain in his skull and in his bones felt like a blazing fire had been lit inside him.
He saw Gong Dao standing in the doorway to the bedroom. She was smiling. One of the hotel security guards was bending down beside him.
“We take sexual harassment charges at this hotel very seriously,” he said. “We will have this man out of your room at once.”
56
Washington DC, June 5th, 2020
Vladimir filled their vodka glasses again, this time to the brim. “Katerina, my pussycat, the time for pretense is over.” He put a hand on her arm, squeezed it.
“Uncle Vladimir,” Katerina smiled, her head to one side. She gripped his hand and twisted it away.
Vladimir replied by placing his other hand on hers and pressing it back onto her other arm.
“I am not your pussycat,” hissed Katerina, pulling away.
Vladimir released his hold on her. “Your generation are all bloody snowflakes,” he said. “You melt at the slightest provocation.”
“Your generation thinks women should be in the bedroom or the kitchen, nowhere else.”
He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and downed his vodka shot instead. He raised his empty glass in the air.
“Za zda-ró-vye,” he said.
She downed her shot, clinked her empty glass against his.
“Za zda-ró-vye,” she said.
“Now that we are both breaking the foreign ministry regulations, I hope we go all the way,” said Vladimir.
“All the way to what, Uncle?” said Katerina, her eyes wide and innocent.
Vladimir stood, went to the bed, bent down and looked under it.
“Where is your cameraman boyfriend?” he said.
“Not here,” she said.
Vladimir checked the wardrobe and the bathroom. He turned on the taps in the sink and in the shower and motioned for her to join him through the doorway.
When she came in, he whispered in her ear.
“I know your game,” he said.
She whispered back. “Do you?”
He looked her in the eyes. They were ice blue, the type that could swallow you whole and eat you before breakfast.
“I work for the motherland,” he said. “I can have ten girls like you lined up on their knees every night back in Moscow.”
She shook her head as if she didn’t care. “Can your mission help mine, Uncle Vladimir? That’s all I care about.”
“What help do you need?”
“Distractions. Make them think we’re focused on the old school stuff.”
Vladimir raised a fist high, shook it. “Old school is what I do best. My mission is to bring down the enemies of the motherland.” Every word was heartfelt. “Our revenge will be sweet when both our missions succeed. Does that help?”
She reached her hand up to curl it around his neck.
His phone buzzed. He rocked back on his heels and leaned against the tiled wall as he pulled the phone out of his pocket.
57
Manhattan, June 5th, 2020
Wang had his hand to his mouth. Had he gone too far? He’d walked back to the room of the young man who’d brought him into the hotel. He’d let Wang in without a smile and had put his earphones back in his ear and returned to his desk to study.
Wang’s mind raced. If he couldn’t break Gong Dao’s door down, another way to make progress might be to find something out about what she was doing here in Manhattan. He knew he was risking everything, but he couldn’t let all chance of winning her go. His doggedness had helped him rise. Now it was threatening to break him.
He couldn’t turn away. No chance.
He texted the driver who had been sent for him to wait another two hours.
Then he called the number of the woman from the Eye of the Ocean in Beijing. After five rings, the call was answered.
“Mr. Wang Hu, is everything OK with your room?”
“Yes,” said Wang.
He went to the bathroom, locked the door. “I need to know what mission a Ms. Gong Dao, working for our embassy in Washington DC, is engaged in.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line.
“We will expect full support from you, when we ask, is that understood?”
“Yes, you will have my full support.”
“Please wait for the information. It will arrive on your phone in our app. Check it out,” said the voice.
Wang closed the call, found the app, downloaded it, and waited. He tapped at the wall as he did, like a woodpecker.
58
Manhattan, June 5th, 2020
“And don’t come back,” said one of the security guards, as he pushed Rob out into the street.
“I was invited into that room,” shouted Rob, despair in his voice.
He’d been manhandled into the corridor. They’d held him under the arms as he shook, still recovering from the taser, and had half walked him, half dragged him into the elevator. Then they held him tight while they descended and force-marched out into the street.
The security guard had asked his name in the elevator and if he was staying in the hotel. He’d given his name but had denied he had a room. He didn’t want Faith thrown out too.
“Don’t come back,” said the guard, as he stood at the main door, shaking his head, his arms folded.
His brain was still recovering from the shock of the taser. His body was mostly back under his control, but his teeth felt weird, as if they’d been loosened and his breath was still coming fast.
“You just took her word over mine?” he shouted to the security guards.
“You’re lucky we don’t call the cops and have you arrested for harassment and trespassing,” said the guard. “You’re lucky the woman upstairs doesn’t want to press charges, so just get the hell out of here.” He pointed at Rob. “It’s our experience that when a woman accuses a man of forcing his way into her room, she’s telling the truth. Why would she lie?” The guards backed up and the automatic glass doors of the hotel closed.
Rob turned in a circle. The plaza was almost empty. What would he do now? The plan to get Gong Dao to defect had failed
, but did that really matter? She was already working with the White House. And none of that was important, compared to the call he’d received from Jackie. He took his phone out and replied to the text he’d received earlier from Jackie.
I will do whatever you want. But I need to meet you. No more videos. No more calls.
He sent the message and called Faith.
“I’ve been thrown out of the hotel,” he said. “But I gave Gong Dao your message.”
“Where are you?”
“Outside the hotel.”
“We’ll be there in five. Our driver came early,” she said.
The Chevy pulled up at the intersection about two minutes later. Rob got in the back. Faith was in the other seat.
“What happened about Gong Dao?” she asked.
“She’s working with the senator. He said he’s on a special task force from the White House. But you know that, right? You know everything about him.”
“That senator is on half a dozen task forces, Rob. And he claims to be on others no one has ever heard of.”
Rob shook his head. “Well, Gong Dao is epileptic, and she’s avoiding our friend Wang and she’s working with the senator who said we should back off,” he said.
“Wow,” said Faith.
“And it looks like Wang really wanted to get into her room, like he’s obsessed with her, and she didn’t want to see him.”
“That won’t help his career,” said Faith.
“I also got a call from Jackie.” He told Faith what had happened.
“This is all driving me crazy, Faith.” He held his stomach. It felt weird, almost as if he might vomit.
“Don’t believe any of it,” she said.
His phone buzzed. A message had come in.
You are invited to the Russian Embassy in Washington DC at 9 a.m. tomorrow. The Russian Embassy is committed to helping families in distress find their loved ones.
He let his breath out, held the phone out for Faith to read the message.
“I have to get back to Washington,” he said.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Rob. The Russians are not straight players.”
“What can they do to me in their embassy?”
“They can play games with your head. Demand to see her somewhere else.”
The Conspiracy II Page 16