Edge of War - [Red Dragon Rising 02]

by Larry Bond

  He did, by nearly 8 percent—huge at the time.

  “You have to butter him up,” said Jablonski finally.

  “I thought you said sex wouldn’t work.”

  Jablonski’s laugh sounded like a bull snorting. “What might work,” he said, “is to have our scientist meet him, tell him the story personally. Give him the Lincoln Room treatment. Take him up to New York on your plane, make a big thing out of him getting the information beforehand, the whole deal.”

  “That’s only going to encourage him. He already thinks he’s more important than he is.”

  “He controls Armed Services. You need him.”

  “Hmmmph.”

  “He’s probably heard something about this by now anyway.”

  He’d better not have, thought Greene. He had the biggest mouth in the Senate. It had gotten him kicked off the Intelligence Committee two years before. And not a second too soon.

  “He’s in Syracuse or wherever the hell it is he claims to live,” said Greene. “If he goes to the UN, it’ll only be to oppose me. He’s already threatened to do that.”

  “So make the move. Turn on the charm. Hold your friends close. Hold your enemies closer.”

  “Don’t quote Machiavelli to me.”

  “That was Jablonski 101, not Machiavelli.”

  “Oh all right. I’ll try. Set it up, Billy. Make it work.” Greene dropped the phone onto the receiver.

  ~ * ~

  17

  New York City

  Broome was replaced when they got back to the hotel by John Malaki, half African-American, half Asian-American. There was no polite way to get him to disappear when Mara invited him to eat with them.

  Which bugged Josh. He wanted to be alone with her.

  A driver working for the Marshals Service took them to a small French place uptown, where they were seated alone in a back room. Josh spotted steak and fries on the menu and quickly made his choice. Mara and Malaki bonded over the menu, talking about terrines and pates and sauces that Josh had never heard of. He ordered a bottle of wine— Malaki recommended a Rhone—but ended up drinking alone, as Mara didn’t want any and Malaki wouldn’t drink while working.

  Jablonski was waiting for them in the hotel lobby when they got back.

  “We’re looking a little refreshed,” he told them. “Josh, did you get the suit?”

  “It’ll be delivered in the morning.”

  “Did you get a shirt and a tie? Couple of shirts?”

  “Just one.”

  “You may need a few. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I don’t need any charity.”

  “It’s not charity. Relax.” Jablonski pointed to the elevator. “Why don’t we go upstairs and talk?”

  They went to Mara’s room. Malaki stayed outside, which was fine with Josh. He would have preferred that Jablonski stay there as well.

  Mara propped herself up at the head of the bed. Josh and Jablonski took the chairs.

  “The president needs you to do a favor for him, Josh,” said Jablonski. “The senator who heads the Armed Services Committee needs to know what’s going on. The president would like you to brief him.”

  “Uh, okay. How?”

  “The speech is Friday afternoon. The senator is flying into New York City tomorrow. I spoke to his staff and we’re getting something arranged for either tomorrow or maybe Friday morning.”

  “Kind of nebulous,” said Josh.

  “That’s how these things go,” said Jablonski. “Especially with this senator.”

  “Did you talk to the president about me?” asked Mara.

  “Yes. All taken care of.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He held up his hand. “It’s all good.”

  “I don’t have to talk to the senator?” she asked.

  “No, but you might be—it would be useful to have you along as an aide,” said Jablonski. “We can be vague about your background.”

  “You’re not going to testify at the UN?” asked Josh.

  “If I go public, I lose my job.”

  Josh suddenly worried about the career implications for himself. Was he going to come off here as a political hack, working for the government?

  “Something wrong, Josh?” asked Jablonski.

  He had to do it. It was his duty. The dead people needed someone to talk for them.

  “Nothing.”

  “There’ll be some video,” said Jablonski. “Some of the material you brought back. You can explain—the fewer words really the better. The hardest thing will be the questions, because they’re impossible to predict. I’d like to go over some of them tomorrow, okay? There’ll be media questions, and then later, speaking with some of the dignitaries. All right?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “What about Mạ?” asked Mara.

  “The little girl?” asked Jablonski. “She’s going to come up with the president. There’ll be a translator. She won’t be on too long.”

  “You think it’s a good idea?” asked Josh.

  “Which?”

  “For her to talk?”

  “Her story is pretty overwhelming, from what you’ve said.”

  Josh looked at Mara, but she didn’t say anything. She was clearly relieved about not having to go before the UN.

  Jablonski repeated some things that he had said earlier about how to make his presentation. Josh didn’t pay much attention. He mostly watched Mara.

  “I know you guys are still tired, so I’ll see you all tomorrow,” said Jablonski, finally getting up. “For breakfast?”

  “What time?” asked Mara.

  “I get up at five.”

  “That’s too early,” said Josh.

  “Eight?”

  “What are we going to do that we need that much time?” asked Josh.

  “We want to go over this so you’re prepared for the questions,” said Jablonski. “It’s pretty important, Josh.”

  “I already know what I’m going to say.” Josh looked at Mara. “I’m just going to tell the truth.”

  “That’s all we ask,” said Jablonski. “Believe me, it’s better that you’re sick of me than unprepared.”

  “Eight’s good,” said Mara.

  Josh stayed in his seat as Jablonski got up and Mara showed him to the door.

  “What’s up?” she asked, coming back inside the room.

  “Do you think we’re lying?” he said.

  “I don’t think you should lie at all.” She seemed surprised. “He’s just trying to make sure you get all the details.”

  “He keeps suggesting how I phrase things.”

  “Well, don’t lie.”

  “I’m not going to.” He folded his arms. “What about the soldiers we killed?”

  “Where?”

  “The ones in the train car.”

  Her brow knitted. “What about them?”

  “I shouldn’t mention them, right?”

  “That wouldn’t be useful.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it confuses things.”

  “Leaving them out is not a lie?”

  “Josh, right now, the world is on the brink of war. People don’t understand what’s going on. You can help. More people will be massacred,” Mara added.

  “They’ll get killed no matter what I do or say.”

  Mara didn’t answer. Josh looked at her, wanting to say something else—wanting not to talk, but to go over and take her into his arms.

  Why didn’t he?

  “You’re worried about Mạ?” Mara said.

  “Yeah, (hat too.”

  “I think she’ll be fine. They’ll get really good people for her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen, I’m a little beat right now. We can talk better in the morning.”

  I should go over there right now, right next to her, and kiss her, thought Josh.

  But he didn’t. Even as he got up, even as he left the room, he asked himself why not.

  ~ * ~
>
  He kept asking the question, over and over, when he got back to his room. He stared at the ceiling while a Knicks-Lakers game played on the television.

  What was the worst thing that could have happened? After everything he’d been through, he was afraid of her telling him no.

  Why?

  Just am.

  I shouldn’t be.

  But I am. Just am.

  ~ * ~

  18

  New York City

  Jing Yo’s new hotel wasn’t nearly as nice as the first. There weren’t any doormen, let alone armed guards; the clerk had to be summoned from the back office by ringing a tarnished bell on the battered desk at the side of the entry vestibule. The bedsheets, though clean, shaded toward gray rather than white.

  Jing Yo wasn’t here for the amenities. Once more, he acted as if he were under surveillance, though now it was more likely that he was being watched by Mr. Wong than by the CIA.

  It was all the same in a way. He slept well, certainly better than he had at any time since parachuting into Hanoi, and with the exception of the time with Hyuen Bo, probably the best he had slept over the past six months.

  Rest restored his equilibrium. Equilibrium made him confident that he would succeed. And confidence filled him with energy.

  Jing Yo rose at four, did his exercises, and meditated. Then he went out for breakfast.

  There were bums on the street, homeless people sleeping against the buildings. Many of them—he stopped counting at a dozen. America was a far richer country than China, but in China, these people would be with their families, or at least kept from sight.

  They were an inferior, mongrel race.

  Jing Yo ordered tea and an egg at a small coffeeshop two blocks from the hotel. The waitress asked if he’d seen the paper. He said no, not realizing that it was an invitation to read one—she handed him the Post-News.

  The first few pages were given over to accounts of crimes—murders and robberies. Then there were four pages of stories on movie stars and actresses. The lead was a two-page spread on a singer who’d been hospitalized for drug abuse. The picture showed her nearly naked.

  Jing Yo scanned the other headlines inside. It was slow going. He could speak English better than he could read it, and he had to sound most of the words out first in his head, then translate them, as if someone were speaking inside his skull.

  But he recognized the word “China” easily enough.

  Senator Phillip Grasso has become a key player in the administration’s campaign to drum up support against China.

  Grasso is rumored to be coming to New York today or tomorrow to meet with advisers for the President. He is said to be unconvinced.

  The story was on the opinion page. Unconvinced about what? Jing Yo wondered.

  But he was meeting with advisers. Jing Yo guessed that the scientist would be one of them.

  “I wish to buy this newspaper,” Jing Yo told the waitress, stopping her as she passed.

  “The Post? That rag’s been free since it combined with the Daily News two years ago,” she said. “Help yourself, hon. More tea?”

  ~ * ~

  The man who answered the preprogrammed number on the cell phone greeted him in Mandarin Chinese.

  “I need to speak to Mr. Wong,” Jing Yo told him.

  “You will speak to me, and I will relay the message.”

  “There is a news item on page O-2 in the newspaper.”

  “Which newspaper?”

  “The Post-News,” said Jing Yo, flipping the paper to the front. “I believe it is important. I think it will tell us where to find our man.”

  “We will be in touch.”

  ~ * ~

  19

  Hainan Island, China

  The boats rocked gently against the wharf, sheltered from the tide by a long sandbar and an elbow of trees that jutted from the land. The storm was well past by now, and light from the stars shimmered in the space between the waves and hulls. There were seven boats; they needed only two.

  “Which ones, do you think?” Zeus asked Quach.

  “The largest.”

  They all seemed the same size, not much more than thirty feet long, the sort of craft used to take small amounts of merchandise to local markets. More critical than their size were the engines, but simply starting them would not be much of a test.

  “We’ll take three,” said Zeus. “This way, if one fails, we can get rid of it.”

  “As you wish.”

  Zeus pointed to the first three vessels, and the marines moved in to take them.

  The three he’d singled out had enclosed wheelhouses, small structures barely big enough for two people to stand in. Two had forward cabins as well. The engines on all three craft started right up, and within a few minutes Zeus’s small flotilla rendezvoused with the Zodiacs just beyond the sandbar. They transferred the flotsam bags and other gear, tied the extra Zodiacs to the boats, and continued south.

  So far, so good—if you didn’t count the loss of the Zodiac and two men.

  Solt Thi Jan had a large bruise on her forehead. Zeus suspected that she had hurt her arm and maybe some ribs as well, but she wouldn’t let him or any of the marines look at her. She wouldn’t even cough for him. He asked Quach to tell her to try, but Quach just shook his head.

  “A big girl,” the Vietnamese spy told Zeus. “She takes care herself.”

  “Maybe her lungs are hurt,” said Zeus.

  “And how would you change that? You have a hospital?”

  Zeus let it go.

  Quach guided them to a small cove south of the fisheries so expertly that it was clear he had used it before. When Zeus suggested that Solt and two marines stay with them, Quach refused to even discuss it with her.

  “Why would she stay?”

  “She’s hurt,” said Zeus.

  “She is fine.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She is fine.”

  The spy said this without any animosity, just a gentle insistence that for some reason Zeus found more difficult to deal with than hostility. The girl watched him talk, saying nothing. Finally he decided it was useless to argue, and had her brought on the boat with him. Christian and Quach took the second. They left two men on the third fishing boat, dividing the rest of the marines between them. The men pulled clothes from the sacks, changing so that they looked like Chinese fishermen. Solt put on jeans and an oversized sweatshirt, and pulled a cap over her head. She looked like a teenage boy, small for his age.

  The boats they’d taken were solid, but their motors were considerably slower than the outboards the Zodiacs had used, and by 4 a.m. they had not yet reached the southern tip of Hainan. Zeus therefore modified the plan—rather than going ashore near their target area, they’d stay at sea, pretending to be fishing.

  An hour later, they saw the outline of a Chinese destroyer in the distance, its silhouette framed against the gray twilight of the false dawn. Zeus recognized it from the silhouettes he’d studied as a Type 051 Luda-class destroyer: a long, lean vessel with two widely spread smokestacks and a pair of old-style missile launchers mounted amidships. Fairly old—the existing boats dated to the 1970s—the ship was still potent against other surface vessels and would be able to sink Zeus’s small fleet with a few shells from its 130 mm guns.

  The few Luda-class ships remaining in the Chinese inventory were used for home defense. If Zeus remembered correctly from the war games, they would normally have been deployed much farther north, generally working in low-threat areas. The ships had limited surface-to-air capability, and their antisubmarine systems were antiquated. But their 130s made them good for naval gunfire support during an amphibious assault.

  Which was great. The Chinese would not be surprised that the minisubs had gotten past the defenses, or that the helicopters supposedly carrying the antiship missiles were able to get close enough to fire their weapons.

  The destroyer stayed on the horizon as they passed. Zeus stood on the bow in fron
t of the forward cabin, watching the water ahead. The first fishing boats were just starting out from shore, heading toward their favorite trolling grounds. They passed quickly, leaving the three strangers to themselves. They steered their boats a little farther from shore, keeping the island’s gray-brown mass to the left.