Conspiracy

by Stephen Coonts

  Cam Tre Luc had no idea who this Forester was, nor would he have helped a Westerner under any circumstances. But in this case—in this case he would have revenge for his humiliation.

  “Give me that gun,” he told Miss Madonna. “Then get my pants.”

  DEAN HAD REACHED the stairs by the time Rockman warned him that Cam Tre Luc’s guard was coming down the hallway. With his first step downward, Dean lost his footing. He shoved his hand in the direction of the railing and grabbed it for a moment, temporarily steadying himself. But the railing then gave way and Dean shot forward, pirouetting down six or seven steps to the landing on the second floor.

  It sounded as if everyone in the whorehouse was shouting. Rockman and the interpreter in the Art Room were both talking at once. A gunshot cracked in the far distance. Wood splintered near Dean’s head. Someone was shooting at him, the bullets flying just a few feet away. For some reason, the sound was different than bullets usually sounded, more brittle, less real.

  Dean started to crawl around the landing to the next run of steps. Suddenly the stairway exploded with a loud crash. A brutal flash of light blinded him. Dean began to choke. Then he felt himself fall or fly—he couldn’t tell the difference.

  A voice came out of the swirl below him.

  “Hang on, partner,” said Tommy Karr, who’d hoisted Dean to his shoulder. “One more flight to go.”

  AS KARR REACHED the alley behind Saigon Rouge he dropped the second small tear gas grenade he had in his hand, then turned toward the motorbikes they’d stashed earlier.

  “Let me down,” growled Dean from Karr’s shoulder.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” answered Karr, but he didn’t let go of Dean until they reached the bikes. There were shouts now all along the block, and Karr could hear the sounds of engines starting and people running. No one was in the alley, however; confusion was still on their side.

  Dean stood woozily, putting his hand against the wall for balance.

  “Get on my bike. Come on,” Karr told him, tilting it to the side.

  “I’ll take my own.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Karr, kick-starting his to life.

  Dean got on the other bike woozily.

  “You OK, Charlie?”

  “Yeah.” His bike purred to life.

  Someone appeared in the alley behind them, yelling at them to halt.

  “I’m going to throw a flash-bang,” said Karr, grabbing at his belt. “Go. I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

  As Dean thundered off, the person who’d yelled at them—one of Cam Tre Luc’s bodyguards—began shooting. A bullet bounced off the wall opposite Karr, spraying pieces of clay from the brick. Karr tossed the flash-bang grenade over his shoulder and then hit the gas, hunkering down as the grenade exploded behind him.

  The grenade was enough of a diversion to keep the bodyguard from following, but either one of his bullets or the shrapnel from them punctured Karr’s rear tire. He didn’t notice until he hit the main street and tried to turn; by then the air had run out completely and the rubber shell was so mangled that it whipped off with a screech a cat might make if its skin was pulled from its body. Karr felt the bike shifting abruptly to its side. He tried to let it fall beneath him, hoping to walk away from the wipeout just as he would have done as a teenager on his uncle’s farm a few years before. But Karr’s foot caught on the frame of the bike; knocked off balance, he spun around and landed on his back in the middle of the street.

  Karr jumped to his feet just in time to narrowly miss being run over by a bus. He tried chasing it down to hop on the back, but it was moving too fast and there were no good handholds besides.

  “Hey, Charlie,” he said, continuing down the block. “I need a lift.”

  “He’s circling back for you,” said Rockman. “Run to the north.”

  “Which way is north?” said Karr.

  “Take the next left. Bodyguards have gone back to the building,” added Rockman. “Cam Tre Luc is really angry.”

  “Guess he’s not the guy we’re looking for, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Mr. Karr,” said Rubens from the Art Room. “Let’s give it some time and see what develops. For now, please get as far away from the area as possible.”

  “Good idea, boss,” said Karr, hearing Dean’s bike approaching in the distance.

  61

  MARIE TELACH TURNED to Rubens.

  “We’ll have Cam Tre Luc’s voice patterns analyzed,” she said. “But I’d say his surprise seemed fairly genuine. I don’t think he was the one communicating with Forester.”

  “No,” said Rubens. He folded his arms.

  “Is it worth sending anyone north to check on the last possibility?” asked Telach. “Thao Duong looks like he’s got to be involved.”

  Thao Duong was involved in something, thought Rubens. That much was clear.

  “He’s positioned perfectly to funnel money from the government to the people in America,” continued Telach. “He speaks with people in different American cities.”

  “True,” admitted Rubens. “But how would Forester have found him? And why would he think he’d talk?”

  “Because a source here told him he would. Or he knew something about his background.”

  “Yes,” said Rubens vaguely. He wasn’t convinced. “What’s the third man’s name?”

  “Phuc Dinh. A minor government official in the area near Da Nang,” said Telach.

  “Have Charlie contact him. Mr. Karr can continue watching Thao Duong. Have him keep his distance. Let’s give the intercepts a few days and see what they turn up.”

  RUBENS WAS JUST picking up the phone to call Collins at the CIA and update her when National Security Advisor Donna Bing called wanting to know what the status of the “Vietnam thing” was. He gave her a brief rundown.

  “So this Thao Duong is in the middle of it,” said Bing, her excitement obvious. “Can you get him to talk?”

  “I’m not sure that he is in the middle of it,” said Rubens. “I’m not even sure there is anything for him to be in the middle of.”

  “No need to be so circumspect, Bill. You’re not talking to the Senate. I suggest we pick him up and talk to him.”

  “I believe I’d need a little more information before I went ahead and picked him up,” said Rubens. “We’ll require a finding.”

  A “finding” was an order based on specific intelligence, approved by the NSC and signed by the President directing Desk Three to take a certain action. Activities that had the potential of causing extreme international trouble—like forcibly kidnapping an official of a foreign government in his home country in a nonemergency situation—could only be carried out pursuant to a finding. It usually took at least two meetings of the NSC before one was prepared.

  “Don’t worry about the finding,” Bing told him. “I’ll arrange that. Are you in a position to bring him back?”

  “Certainly if he volunteers to come back, we can accommodate him,” said Rubens.

  “That’s not what we’re talking about.”

  “I can have a full team in place seventy-two hours after the finding,” said Rubens.

  “Get it in place now.”

  Rubens hung up. Was Bing being overly aggressive because she wanted to prove her theory about Vietnam and the Chinese? Or was he being more cautious than warranted?

  Rubens couldn’t be sure. The one thing he did know was this: for a man who prided himself on being logical and unemotional under pressure, he felt a great deal of foreboding every time he spoke to Donna Bing on the phone.

  62

  “LO IS COMPLAINING that you stiffed him,” Kelly Tang told Dean early the morning after the adventures at Saigon Rouge. They’d arranged to meet for breakfast at Saolo, a cafe near his hotel. “He wants five thousand U.S. from me.”

  “I would have paid if I saw him,” Dean told her. “And I only owe him five hundred, not five thousand.”

  “You should pay him. If you do
n’t, I’ll have to, just to shut him up.”

  “I will,” said Dean. “Eventually.”

  Tang folded her arms. “It’s not easy developing people, especially people like Lo. They’re a necessary evil.”

  Dean slipped his hand into his pocket and retrieved the envelope with Lo’s five hundred dollars. “So pay him.”

  Tang frowned. “It’s not counterfeit, I hope. He’ll know the difference.”

  “It’s not counterfeit.”

  Tang took the money and slipped it into the waistband of her pants.

  “I need another favor,” said Dean.

  “What?”

  “I need to get to Quang Nam,” Dean told her. “I need a driver I can trust.”

  “Quang Nam?”

  “It’s a province near the DMZ.”

  “I know where Quang Nam is,” said Tang curtly. “And there is no more DMZ. The war ended a long time ago.”

  “Sorry.”

  “A driver? Why don’t you fly to Da Nang?”

  “I prefer to drive.”

  The real reason was that the airports were always watched and Dean didn’t want to be seen traveling around any more than necessary. Besides, he’d need a vehicle once he was in Quang Nam.

  “You can come if you want,” added Dean. “I’m going to Tam Ky.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, I have too much to do here. I’ll find you a driver, though. Trustworthy. To a point.”

  Dean started to interrupt, but she continued, explaining what she meant.

  “We’re in Vietnam. No one is completely trustworthy. Not even yourself. Don’t worry. She’s nothing like Lo.”

  “She?”

  “You have a problem with women?”

  Dean shook his head.

  “You won’t be able to use your same cover,” Tang told him. “You’ll have to say you’re an aid worker. It will arouse less suspicion. With her. She doesn’t like conglomerates. It’ll be easier.”

  “OK.”

  “How soon do you want to leave?”

  “As soon as possible. Today would be good.”

  Tang frowned. “I’ll do the best I can. No guarantees.”

  Dean took a sip of tea, then nibbled on the sugared pastry he’d ordered blind off the menu. It was made of very thin layers of what he thought was phyllo dough and enough sugary syrup to send a dentist’s entire family to college. Karr would have loved it; Dean found it far too sweet but was too hungry not to eat.

  “I heard there was some excitement in District Four last night,” said Tang.

  “Oh?”

  “There were some explosions in a house of ill repute. The police were even called.”

  “Don’t know anything about it.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Tang smiled, then reached across the table and put her hand down on his.

  “You’ll be careful?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “I like you, Mr. Dean. You’re old-school.” Tang patted his hand, then got up. “Check your phone messages in about an hour.”

  Dean thought about the soft tap of Tang’s hand as he walked back to his hotel.

  “ARE YOU COMING for me, Charlie?”

  Dean blinked his eyes open. He’d dozed off.

  “Charlie?”

  It was Longbow, calling him. He was in the sniper nest, waiting for Phuc Dinh.

  A dream. It’s a dream.

  “Charlie? Are you coming? Charlie?”

  The air began popping with gunfire.

  Charlie?

  “YOUR DRIVER IS downstairs,” said Rockman, talking to Dean via the Deep Black com system. “Charlie—are you awake?”

  The phone rang. Dean jerked upright in the bed. He’d lain back to rest and drifted off.

  He’d seen Longbow in his dream. And Phuc Dinh. They were both alive.

  Nonsense.

  “Answer the phone, Charlie,” said Rockman. “Are you there?”

  “I’m here, Rockman.” Dean picked it up. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Dean?”

  “I’m Charles Dean.”

  “You need someone to take you to Quang Nam?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m in the lobby.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  63

  LIA PACED AROUND the hotel room, unable to sleep though it was going on 1:00 A.M. After meeting with Mandarin, she’d spent the day and much of the night with an FBI agent who was checking on three different disgruntled constituents of McSweeney’s, in and around New York City and Westchester. The only thing she’d learned was that FBI agents had a particularly poor sense of direction.

  More and more, the whole thing seemed like a wild-goose chase.

  Then again, what Deep Black assignment hadn’t?

  Maybe tomorrow would be better. Lia had an appointment with the doctor who’d examined Forester’s body the night he was found.

  She sank into the chair at the side of the room and flipped on the television. The volume blared, even though she had her finger on mute.

  The person in the next room banged on the wall.

  “Sorry,” Lia said, turning it down.

  Lia trolled through the channels. There was nothing on that interested her. She left it playing and went to the window, staring out at the stars, thinking of Charlie Dean.

  Vietnam was eleven hours ahead—it’d be around noon.

  “Hope you’re doing better than I am, Charlie,” she whispered to the night.

  64

  ORIGINALLY, JIMMY FINGERS thought of it the way he thought of any grand election strategy: a story for the voters. It had an arc and a hero. It also had a set end point, which they’d reached.

  But like all good campaign strategies, this one had been overtaken by events. It had succeeded incredibly. Yet there were also signs of problems. Not only were Secret Service people everywhere; now there were FBI agents and U.S. marshals and for all he knew CIA officers combing through the files and shaking the trees for suspects. With that many people involved, someone was bound to stumble onto something that would upset the overall campaign. They might begin focusing on the wrong things. He could easily lose control of the narrative.

  “Another Scotch?” asked the bartender, pointing at Jimmy’s glass.

  There was a shout and applause from the other room, where several hundred campaign workers had gathered to watch television coverage of the primary results. Senator McSweeney, upstairs taking a shower, would be down in an hour to declare an unprecedented victory in the Super Tuesday polls. With the exception of Arkansas, where he’d taken a close second to the state’s favorite-son candidate, McSweeney had swept.

  It was all due to the assassination attempt. Not so much because it had made McSweeney seem sympathetic as well as important, but because it had given people a chance to listen to his message. So maybe the senator had been right after all—maybe sticking with the issue spots at a time when there was plenty of “soft” news about his personality was the right thing to do.

  He’d mention that, Jimmy thought, glancing up at the television screen to see that the media had just put Florida in the McSweeney column. Jimmy Fingers lifted his Scotch in a toast to the state and its electoral votes.

  Jimmy Fingers’ phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket, knowing it was McSweeney.

  “So?” asked the senator. “What do you say?”

  “Have a quick drink and come on down,” said Jimmy Fingers. “I’d invite you to join me at the bar, but I’m not sure you’d make it through the crowd.”

  “I’m coming down right now,” said McSweeney. “Meet me backstage.”

  “You got it.” Jimmy Fingers snapped the phone closed and downed his drink before getting off the stool.

  Yes, the story definitely needed a new direction, just to keep it going.

  65

  QUI LAI CHU was not what Dean expected. For one thing, she was considerably older—his age, he guessed, though it showed mostly at the corners of her eye
s. She was also taller than most Vietnamese. It turned out that she had a French mother—a fact Rockman supplied as Dean followed her to her car, a two-year-old immaculately white Hyundai parked in front of the hotel.

  “Grandfather was in the French diplomatic corps. Mother married a Vietnamese—well, that’s obvious from the name, huh?”

  Dean grunted.

  Qui took two quick steps and opened the rear door of the car.

  It felt odd, having a woman open the door for him.

  “I thought I’d sit in the front with you,” said Dean. “If that’s OK.”

  “Your bag?”

  “I’ll just keep it with me. It’s not a problem.” Among other things, Dean had his Colt in it, and preferred to keep it close.

  Qui bent her head slightly, indicating that she understood, and went around to the other side of the car. She moved with a grace that seemed to take possession of the space around her.

  “Where in Quang Nam are we going?” she asked when she got behind the wheel.

  “The capital. Tam Ky.”

  “One thousand American. You pay for gas and meals,” she said. “And lodging. We won’t be able to go and come back in the same day, unless you have very little business.”

  “My business may take several days,” Dean told her.

  She bent her head again. “Two hundred for each additional day.”

  “Do you want to be paid in advance?” Dean asked.

  “I trust you for when we get back, or I wouldn’t be here. The weapon that you have in your bag—you won’t need it.”

  “I hope not,” said Dean.

  “Vietnam is safer than you think, Mr. Dean. I’m surprised that your superiors at the International Fund allow you to travel with a weapon.”

  “I don’t tell them everything.”

  Qui put her key in the ignition and started the car. She pulled out smoothly into the stream of motorbikes, blending with them as she wended toward the highway.

  “Saigon is very different from when you were here during the war, is it not, Mr. Dean?” she asked.

  “How do you know I was here during the war?”

  “A guess. You look at the city in a certain way. I have seen this before.”

  “I was here during the war,” said Dean. “In Saigon for a few days. Most of my time was in Quang Nam.”