Gambit

by Karna Small Bodman

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  NORTH OF GUANGZHOU, CHINA

  “Have you seen this message from Wai Yongping?” the colonel said, waving a piece of paper at his aide.

  “From our San Francisco contact?”

  “Yes. He reports that he needs extra money to pay off his agents in Washington.”

  “For the last plane?” the younger man asked.

  “Yes, for that and also for the new recruit who is watching that scientist.”

  “Ah yes, the one we failed to eliminate in Cambridge when she was working with the traitor.”

  “Yes, that one. He says that they are just waiting for the right moment.”

  “She is but a gnat on our screen here, I believe.”

  “Quite so, but an irritant nevertheless.” Colonel Tsao folded the report and shoved it in the pocket of his uniform. “Right now I am more concerned with the military exercises and the general’s grand plan.”

  “In all of our meetings, General Li keeps talking about the problems in the countryside, the nine-hundred protests so far this year, the polluted drinking water, the bad air.”

  “Of course there’s bad air when over a thousand cars are bought every single day.”

  “But not by the farmers,” the younger man countered. “And all the general seems to think about are the farmers.”

  “Perhaps you would think about them too if you had come from the countryside,” Colonel Tsao suggested. “After all, his parents died of starvation before any aid arrived in their village. All of his people work in the fields while the children of the Central Committee go to rock concerts in the Great Hall of the People.”

  “Yes, it is quite ironic that back in the 70’s, if you even listened to rock and roll, you could end up in jail. Now you listen and you just end up deaf. The trouble is, I don’t see how the general’s grand plan is going to change the difference between rich and poor in our country. When just one percent of our people control sixty percent of our country’s wealth, they’re not going to use it to help the farmers, they’re going to spend it at Saks, Louis Vuitton or Prada in the Bund District of Shanghai.”

  The colonel shrugged. “True. However, I believe that the general’s plan does have an upside when it comes to economics.”

  “What do you mean?

  “When we finally take over Taiwan, think of all the assets we will then control.”

  “That is if we control them and not the Central Committee.”

  “Ah yes, another challenge for another day.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BETHESDA, MARYLAND

  Cammy checked the meager contents of her refrigerator and pulled out some lettuce, a tomato and what was left of a small roast chicken. She sliced off a few pieces and put them in a salad bowl with the other ingredients, added a little crumbled blue cheese, some oil and vinegar and tossed it all together.

  Maybe she should have taken Melanie up on her invitation to have dinner at her apartment when they got back from their foray to that shelter, but Cammy had decided she should get home, check her email and try to do some more work in the few hours she had left that evening.

  She was glad she and Mel lived in the same apartment building. It was nice to have a good friend so near by. And with Mel’s parents being French and her innate talent in the kitchen, it made for some nice dinner parties, when she had the time to enjoy them.

  She thought about the little sign in Melanie’s kitchen. It was a quote from some Duchess that read, “If you accept an invitation to dinner, you have an obligation to at least be amusing.” The trouble was, Cammy hadn’t felt amused by much of anything lately, what with the threats facing the country, her problems at the office and her continuing melancholy over Hunt Daniels. The man who never called.

  Cammy glanced at the telephone on the side table next to the beige chenille couches in her living room. An oriental rug covered the hardwood floor. A few antiques, a painting of the Golden Gate Bridge over her fireplace and a pair of ficus trees in large moss green pots in the corners completed the scene. As she stared at the phone, she willed it to ring and then felt foolish. I’m acting like a teenager wishing the football star would call to invite me to the junior prom, she thought. Grow up!

  Her kitchen was usually light and airy, but as Cammy sat down at the round breakfast table by the window she could see the storm still raging outside. She was used to living alone although tonight, with the wind and rain beating against her building, she suddenly felt rather lonely so she reached for the remote, flicked on the small kitchen TV set and tuned it to Fox News just to keep her company.

  She saw one of their regular commentators analyzing the appointment of the vice president to the additional post of national security advisor. She was momentarily taken aback when they flashed a rather attractive photo of Jayson Keller on the screen.

  She had heard about the crash at Dulles that had killed Austin Gage. She had been horrified at the news. She had met with the NSC advisor several times and really liked the man. He was generally an all business, no nonsense type, and yet he had a very personable side to him that warmed to people on his staff. He wasn’t one of those martinets who sucks up to his superiors and degrades those at lower levels. She would truly miss the man. She made a mental note to be sure to attend his funeral, whenever it was.

  She stared at the TV. While everyone knew about today’s crash, this was the first she’d heard about the emergency cabinet meeting and the president’s announcement.

  “Is it your judgment that Vice President Keller will do a better job locating the terrorists than Austin Gage?” the newscaster asked.

  “It’s hard to tell at this point. The White House isn’t saying much,” replied the analyst.

  “Yes, their press secretary is trying to paint this as just a logical transition, but how logical is it to put so much on Keller’s plate right now?”

  “Exactly right. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, Senator Winters is calling hearings on the airline crash situation. And with his presidential ambitions out there for all to see, this could be quite a noisy forum.”

  Her cell rang. She picked it up while putting the TV on mute. At first she wondered whether Hunt had finally decided to get in touch. “Cameron Talbot,” she said.

  “Cammy? This is Jayson.”

  She hesitated and then realized that it was the vice president of the United States calling himself. No staff putting through his calls. How unique. “Yes, sir. How are you? I was just watching a program about your new appointment. Congratulations … I guess. I was so sorry to hear about Austin Gage. I mean, to lose him and all of those other passengers. It’s just so awful. Do you have any details on this one?”

  “Not yet. I’m afraid it’s a repeat of the other attacks. Nothing on radar, just a sudden attack. The pilot only had a few moments to shout a Mayday.”

  “My God! But what does this mean for you, if I may ask?”

  “You can ask me anything you want. And by the way, I’m sorry to bother you at home. After everything that’s happened today, I just wanted to check in.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. I’m just finishing a late dinner.”

  “Been working late too, huh?”

  “Sort of. But what can I do for you, sir?”

  He chuckled. “You can stop calling me ‘sir’ for one thing,” Jayson said.

  “All right.”

  “Look, I’m sure you’re swamped with your work and all, but I just wanted to see if there might be anything new on your project. Anything at all?” he asked, sounding hopeful.

  Cammy paused and thought about all the simulations that weren’t working in her lab and all the trouble Bollinger was giving her at the office. Here she was talking to the second most powerful man in the nation, maybe in the world, a man who had so much to worry about as he was searching for terrorists, she didn’t want to bother him with her own issues. Then again, she had to be honest with the man. “Right now we’ve got a few glitches,” she admitted
, “but I’m trying to fix them.”

  “Glitches?”

  “Let me put it this way. You know how sometimes you’re looking for the magic bullet and all you come up with is blanks?”

  The vice president gave a short laugh. “Yes, I seem to be doing that a lot these days.” He certainly enjoyed talking to this bright woman, even if it was about a deadly subject. He wanted to keep the conversation going, but it was getting late, and he still had a stack of briefing papers to go through.

  “Say, Cammy, since I’m sure we both have pretty busy schedules, do you think there might be an evening when we could continue our discussions? Maybe over dinner?”

  He was asking her for a date? Cammy wound the telephone cord around her finger and tried to think of a good response. Sure it would be interesting to have dinner with him. Who wouldn’t want to have dinner with the vice president of the United States? But after she had danced with him at that charity dinner, she had been hounded with questions.

  Reporters had tried to get through to her to find out if she and the VP were “an item,” but all the calls had been routed to Melanie’s office, and Mel hadn’t said a word. Not to the press anyway.

  Did she want this kind of attention? Did she need it? Then again, if they could do it discretely, why not have dinner and talk about her work? After all, she was trying desperately to come up with a system that could neutralize these deadly missiles. And he certainly had been acting like a champion for her cause.

  “Uh, I guess we could do that some time. It’s just that with your …”

  “You mean the secret service protection, the press scrutiny, and the general live-life-in-the-spotlight-routine I have going here?” he said with a laugh.

  “Well, yes. It’s just that after the other night, I was kind of inundated …”

  “Figures. Look, I’m sorry about that. I just saw you there and wanted to,” he hesitated, “to touch base.”

  “I understand. When the press came after me, I didn’t answer the phone or any of the emails or texts.”

  “That’s about all you can do. Now about dinner. What say we pick an evening, you can drive over to the Naval Observatory and we’ll get the steward to rustle up something casual. You know where my place is, right?”

  “Who doesn’t?” she said.

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “That soon? I don’t know if I’ll have …”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll just talk through the work you’ve done so far and see if I can offer any help. I have a rather long day, so say around eight?”

  “Sure, eight’s good. See you then.”

  She hung clicked off and stared at the cell for a full minute. Dinner with the vice president, and at his home? Now that was a unique invitation. She bet that any other single woman in town would trade her soul for a date like that.

  Was it a date? No, of course not. It was business. All business. And as for trading her soul, she hadn’t done that since she’d fallen madly in love with Hunt Daniels, and look where that got her. Not exactly a pact with the devil, although there were times she really did feel like Mephistopheles. On the other hand, Jayson Keller wasn’t asking for any Faustian bargain. It was only dinner.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CAPITOL HILL

  “The meeting will please come to order,” Senator Derek Winters intoned as he banged his gavel, trying to gain some semblance of order in the noisy hearing room. Banks of television cameras crowded the back and sides of the room while reporters jostled for a clear view in the cramped space they had been allotted.

  The members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were seated on either side of the chairman. They continued to compare notes with staff who juggled papers, whispered suggested questions and kept watch from a row of chairs right behind them.

  The senator from Vermont sat several inches taller than his colleagues. His six foot four inch frame was clad in a gray suit, light blue shirt and blue and red Hermes tie. Perfect shades for television. He never wore ties with small stripes because he didn’t want to create his own test pattern. His press secretary had even patted some clear powder on his nose and forehead before he walked in to ensure that his time on camera wouldn’t be marred by a reflective shine.

  The senator tapped his gavel another three times and the conversations finally dwindled down. He made his opening statement, looking directly into the cameras where he emphasized the gravity of the situation facing the nation’s airline industry. He reminded the audience that they would be hearing from the heads of the FAA, the NTSB, DOT, DHS and DOD in an effort to learn why the administration had been so lax in their efforts to protect air travel throughout the United States, why the president and his staff had not yet figured out who was shooting down our planes, if in fact someone was, and why we should have any faith in the investigations underway or the technology under development to solve the problem.

  “But first, I would like to introduce a special witness we have with us today,” the senator said. “Mrs. Lorri Pucell is the widow of Captain Doug Purcell, the brave pilot of Enterprise Air Flight One-fifty-five which went down just outside of Logan Airport in Boston.”

  Senator Winters looked down at the witness table where an attractive woman dressed in a black suit with a single strand of pearls at her neck, sat quietly. Her long brown hair the color of the mahogany framed her lovely, but sad face.

  “Oh boy, leave it to Winters to lead with a heart-breaker,” the correspondent for MSNBC whispered to his cameraman, who had snagged a position at the side of the room to get a good angle on the witnesses.

  “Got a two-fer there. She’s not only sympathetic, she’s striking!”

  “Yeah, zoom in.”

  “And so,” the chairman continued, “I want to welcome you, Mrs. Purcell. Please tell us what you’ve been told about the crash that killed your husband and so many other innocent Americans.”

  The widow read an opening statement prepared in advance by Winter’s legislative aide. He had met with Lorri Purcell the previous day to work out the language since the senator didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

  She told the story about how she had received the dreadful phone call from the president of Enterprise Air and how, much later, she had been contacted by a representative of the NTSB when they had raised the wreckage of the plane. That man had told her that they had analyzed the recordings in the black box and Doug’s last words were “Lorri, I love you.”

  When she uttered the phrase, her eyes glistened and a single tear fell down her cheek. There was utter silence in the room as the senator let the impact of the statement echo in the large paneled chamber.

  Melanie continued to watch the proceedings on her office TV set while trying to write a press release at the same time about Bandaq’s latest research for Sikorsky Sea King Helicopters. She saw that Derek Winters looked elegant in his gray suit and blue shirt. She had suggested the color combination, and she was glad he had taken her advice. The trouble was, his appearance was the only thing that pleased her that morning.

  She almost yelled at the set when he started raking Secretary Ignatius over the coals about the possibility of military exercises being conducted too near our commercial aircraft and insinuating that perhaps the Air Force had shot off missiles that had downed our planes by mistake.

  Then she was outraged when she saw her lover take on the entire FBI for not finding the terrorists yet, if that’s who was shooting down the planes. It had only been a few weeks, so how was the administration supposed to figure out where a missile came from when it had no return address?

  When Franklin Thorne testified about the DHS contracts, she had to admit that he didn’t make a very good case for the two defense contractors who had yet to test their defensive systems for airplanes and airports. And yet, he kept hammering away about how they needed more money. She hoped the senators wouldn’t cave in to that one because she sensed that Cammy would come up with something better. At least she fervently hoped so.
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  When they finally broke for lunch, Melanie switched off the set, grabbed her purse and went down the hall to Cammy’s lab. “Hey there, got time for a break?”

  Cammy looked up from her computer simulations and pushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes. She glanced at her watch and replied, “Why not. I’ve been working on all of this since seven this morning. May as well get some lunch.”

  As they took the elevator down to the company cafeteria, Mel asked, “Did you catch any of the hearings?”

  “Oh, that’s right, they started today. No, I was concentrating on my computer screen, not the TV screen. I’m going crazy trying to enhance the pulse feature. I’m also trying to research an idea that Wen Hu had about how the missiles could have been guided.”

  “Really? You haven’t mentioned that. Do you really think you’ve figured it out?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute.”

  They walked into the cafeteria where Melanie handed Cammy a tray and pushed her own along the metal track. She picked up a tuna sandwich, a small bowl of fruit and a glass of iced tea as Cammy reached for her favorite salad and yogurt. After paying the cashier, they took a table off to the side of the large dining hall.

  “Now, about a new missile,” Cammy said, putting her plate on the table and setting her tray aside. “Wen had been corresponding with a guy back in Beijing who told him about some new kind of high resolution camera they’re developing, and we talked about the possibility that they could put something like that on a missile. It takes certain kinds of photos, gets a bead on the plane so to speak, and then is able to follow it and take it down.”

  “Wow! Could that really work?”

  “I’ve been scouring all sorts of sources. I think I’ve finally got a line on it. Yes.”

  “But China? Why would they want to shoot down our planes? I mean, what’s the point?”