by John Farris
She'd always had a smile for him, even before he bought a couple of her works—an impressionistic view of Grant Avenue; three grinning effigies, Chinese household gods. The assassin thought she had talent. Her name was Lu Ping, and during the day she studied to be an architect. He didn't know much else about her. They talked mostly about art. On his fourth or fifth visit she recommended, because he appeared to be very interested in Chinese objets, that he not miss a new collection in the Chinese gallery of the Asian Art Museum.
Then she looked him in the eyes for one of the few times since he'd taken to dropping around her sidewalk place of business, and suggested when. Four-thirty on Saturday, half an hour before the museum closed and the crowd would be thinning out. She turned to smile at a potential new customer, who had a question about the subject of one of her watercolors.
The assassin reacted with a slight nod following Lu Ping's suggestion. He didn't linger. He walked down the alley and turned right on Clay Street. There was a restaurant near Stockton he favored. On his way up to the second floor in an atmosphere heavy with wok oil and sizzling rice, he encountered a blind old man with a cane making his way down the rubber-treaded stairs. The assassin moved aside to let the old man pass, not taking his eyes off him. The assassin carefully watched everyone, blind or not, he encountered in close quarters.
The Chinese man, sensing his presence, paused and nodded, a smile adding new creases to the fragile paper lantern of his face.
"Chinese music developed from a five-note scale," he said, speaking slowly.
The assassin didn't reply and resumed climbing the stairs. He heard the old man's cane lightly tapping the wall on his way down.
Sometimes it happened that way. A young woman selling watercolors in a Chinatown alley. A blind man with a cane. He had been contacted. Impact Sector was putting him back to work. Afterward he couldn't remember what he'd eaten for dinner, but he slept deeply in his aerie on the barge above Poppa Too Sweets', oblivious of the bistro's hull-rocking tempos that lasted until three A.M.
Lu Ping drank from a second cup of the Shu Mal White Ebony tea prepared by Chien-Chi in the antique-filled apartment her uncle maintained on Jackson Square. Then she rubbed her temples and said, "What an ordeal. I hope he couldn't tell I was shaking inside."
"You did good," Danny Cheng assured her.
"I couldn't begin to tell you what it's like peeping that mind. I have been like weirded-out for days. If rattlesnakes had memories—"
"It's over now. For you, kiddo. But I want you to stay away from the Alleys for a week or so. Until we know he's out of the Bay Area." He peeled off fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills from the inch-thick billfold in his pants and handed them across the table to Lu Ping. "Buy yourself something pretty." He added a one-ounce gold panda coin. "This is for luck on your exams."
"That is so sweet of you, Uncle! Did I tell you he's carrying a gun? I can't think of anything else that might help. What do you want with this turdball? A cross-dressing government hit man? I mean, like I already told you. He is totally insane."
"That's what makes him so wonderful," Danny said, glancing at the screen of his ever-present laptop. Fingering the keys. Adding to his storehouse of knowledge. Danny Cheng, the information man. "Even madmen have their motives."
"Chinese music developed from a five-note scale," Chien-Chi said, chuckling softly to himself.
At 4:34 Saturday afternoon Danny, wearing one of his gray shantung suits that swarmed with flash like an aquarium tank, walked into the hall of the Chinese gallery that housed the latest exhibit, a donated collection of old Chinese musical instruments from the estate of a San Francisco lawyer with Mob ties. Danny was studying the catalogue through glasses as black as the enameled ornamentation on a T'ang dynasty guitar. There were a dozen other browsers in the gallery, including a thirtyish young man whose thatch of brown hair, brown mustache that hung over his upper lip, and brown eyebrows seemed too perfectly toned to be natural. He also wore glasses, a heavy horn frame resting on a high-bridged nose.
The assassin glanced at Danny Cheng, and didn't look at him again. Danny kept his nose down to his catalogue as he circled the display cases on the floor. A fifteen-minute warning was sounded. Only four other visitors and the guards remained.
Danny glanced up at the reflection of the assassin on a thick sheet of glass protecting fragile gongs and drums. He didn't look around at him.
"Chinese music developed from a five-note scale," the assassin said in a conversational tone.
"Without semitones," Danny added, giving a slight nod of approval. Then he folded his program, put it under one arm, glanced at the blue face of his Breitling wristwatch and said, "Tan limousine on Tea Garden Drive. Five minutes."
He walked briskly out of the gallery while the assassin remained in contemplation of the tall case containing gongs and drums.
Five minutes later he emerged into the sunshine and breezy chill of Golden Gate Park. Temperature in the mid-sixties. The limousine was where he had been told to expect it. A chauffeured driver stood beside a rear door, looking at him.
The assassin had never been contacted in this manner before, by someone obviously of rank in the Bureau's Impact Sector. Perhaps The Man himself. He was both excited and wary. This change in routine could be about his approval rating. Or else he was wanted for something extremely important, unprecedented in his career.
He walked to the limo. The door was opened for him.
Danny Cheng waved the assassin to a jump seat. Danny watched him for a few moments behind the impenetrable dark glasses. Then he held out a hand, palm up, a request.
"Current identification."
The assassin handed over his wallet without hesitation. Danny looked at a driver's license, credit and business cards, put them back, and returned the wallet.
"Those will be okay, Mr. D. But we'll need photos for additional documentation that may be useful. Hold still, please, keep your chin up, and continue to look this way."
There was a bright flash, from a concealed camera in the back of the limo. The assassin blinked afterward. When he could see again, Danny Cheng was holding out a letter-sized envelope, sealed with tape.
"Five thousand in cash," he said.
The assassin nodded, took the envelope, and put it away. He smiled slightly, at ease now, his pulse rate down. He waited.
"Anxious to get back into show business?" Danny Cheng asked. He pressed a button on a console under his left hand. The door of a cabinet beside his knee slid back, revealing a small television screen. The assassin turned slightly on the jump seat to see it better. "Here's the show," Danny said. "And here's our star."
The tape ran for only a couple of minutes. More than enough time. The assassin was stunned as the tape began; then he experienced a cold wave of exhilaration. The audacity. He stopped watching before it was over. He was already thinking, not about what They were asking him to do, but how it might be done. He could refuse, of course. Step out of the beige limousine without another word. The limo would drive away. He was in Golden Gate Park. The sniper might be anywhere—on a roof of the museum or atop the California Academy of Sciences Building on the other side of the Music Concourse. On a wooded knoll nearby. He would be killed before he took a dozen steps.
Either way he was a dead man. Even if he completed his assignment. But if he made good, his approval rating would reflect that final triumph. One that would be whispered about for a very long time. They could be cruel; it was the nature of Impact Sector's business. But They had not written him off after his failure. He had been given the opportunity to redeem himself, to leave this life justified. On his terms. On a stage of his choosing.
Face would appreciate that.
CHAPTER 21
PLENTY COUPS, MONTANA • JUNE 7 • 4:38 A.M. MDT
Wake up, dammit!
Eden Waring's doppelganger stirred in the hammock in which she had been blissfully asleep and tried to ignore the pestering sound, now sharp in her mind, then receding
like an echo in a dark-walled dream as she willfully pushed the voice toward oblivion without yielding to its demand. There. For a few moments, silence.
Don't go back to sleep!
The hammock began to sway and then to rock. "Stop!" she cried, but she couldn't hold on and was thrown to the mat-covered floor of her bure at the Muronga Reef Club. She sat up groggily, rubbing a bruised buttock, and tried to climb back into the low-slung hammock, resume her rest. Shut the intruder out of her mind.
Instead she found herself on her feet as if yanked upright by the power of an ancient god she had unwittingly offended during her stay in Fiji. She trembled superstitiously, looking around in bewilderment, hearing the familiar, distant booming of surf on the reef that surrounded—
Snap out of it! You're not in a tropical paradise. They've drugged you. And it's been hell for me too, I haven't slept in forty hours.
"Go away."
Immediately the dpg went lurching helplessly across the bure to the bathroom. She tried to dig in and resist, spraddle-legged, head down like a donkey's, bare feet skidding over the woven grass mats. She clung to the door frame and was jerked loose; momentum caused her to sprawl into the bathtub. An elbow rang against porcelain.
"Owww!"
That hurt me too, my elbow's numb. Stop fighting me, you asshole!
"Why can't you leave me alone? I was h-having so much fun! And I d-don't need you anymore!"
What you need is a cold shower.
The dpg tried to huddle in the tub with her hands in her armpits. One hand was pulled loose. Her arm shot up. She gritted her teeth and made a fist, refusing to grasp the shower lever.
"No . . . I . . . won't."
Yes . . . you . . . will.
Her hand flew open, then closed on the handle. Water gushed from the showerhead, soaking the shorty pajamas she wore. The shower turned to a needle spray. She couldn't get away from it, or her tormentor.
Call me anything you like, but you're going to sober up before I let you out of there.
"I'm not drunk!"
You're worse than that. But it's not your fault.
Fifteen minutes later Eden Waring's doppelganger was sitting on the bathroom floor wearing a towel and nothing else, her head sagging.
Okay, one more time. Where are you?
Sobbing. "I ... I don't know anymore."
You're in MORG's underground facility at Plenty Coups, Montana.
"But ..."
Fiji is some kind of hallucination they designed for you. To keep you in a happy frame of mind so you'd cooperate with them.
"Who? Are you talking about Victor and Mark?"
Victor? Maybe that's Victor Wilding. What has he asked you to do for him?
"Nothing! He's just a friend! We have lunch together every day."
What do you talk about?
"I don't know. I don't remember."
Think!
"Stop! You're hurting my head. It hurts enough already."
Drink more water. Flush the drugs they've given you out of your system.
"All that water has me peeing like a pig!"
Good. Now what is it Victor Wilding asked you to do?
"Nothing! He's so nice. He's been nicer to me than you've ever been." Eden's doppelganger obeyed a stern nudge in her mind by picking up the liter bottle of spring water. She had a few more swallows, even though she felt bloated. She choked, and some of the water spilled down her chin. "I went with him to see Robin," the dpg said drearily. She took her time focusing on that visit. "I remember that Mark was there too."
Robin? Robin Sandza?
"No, his name is Wilding. He's Victor's twin brother. He was hurt in a fall and he's been unconscious since ... oh, it's a long time, Victor said. Twenty years."
Twenty years in a coma. I had a vision of Robin a week ago. And I've been told everything that was done to him. Victor Wilding isn't his brother. I believe Wilding was a doppelganger. Maybe he still is, that's why he's anxious to keep Robin alive.
Eden's dpg shuddered. "A doppelganger? Couldn't be. It t-takes one to k-know one."
If you were in your right mind, sweetie. You saw Robin, but did you make contact with him?
"Of course I did. I called him, and he came. We went walking ... on the reef together. The reef that's been half destroyed by the crown of thorns."
I don't know what you mean.
"I held his hand. He's a sweet boy. But he was ... too far gone to talk to me while we were together. He told me what he wanted, though. He touched his forehead, then ... pointed to the sky. He wants them to let him go."
Did you tell that to Victor Wilding?
"No. I just couldn't. He loves his bro—he loves Robin so much."
It's his own existence he's concerned about. What did you say to Wilding?
"I told him I'd have to spend more time with Robin before I knew anything. Can I get up now? It's almost dawn. I want to put some clothes on. And I'm hungry."
I don't want you to get dressed. If you're not wearing anything, they can't see you.
"But they're my fr—"
Get this straight, okay? They think you're me, the one and only original Eden Waring. They took me—you—to Plenty Coups hoping you can heal Robin's damaged brain. Give him back his life. But Robin wants to die.
"Yes."
Can you find him? Go there without anyone knowing?
"I think so. He was just down the road about half a mile from the Reef Club."
Oh, shit. You've got to stop hallucinating.
"I'm trying! You can be such a bitch. If I had my own name, I would never be anyone remotely like—"
Shut up and listen. I'm tired. In a day or two, maybe just a few hours, a couple of hundred thousand people will die if I don't do something to prevent it. I don't know if you can help. Maybe. First I want you to find Robin again. He's somewhere in that hole in the ground. Find him, and pull the plug.
"Kill him?"
Release him. It's what he wants from you. Us. Me.
"Yes," the dpg conceded. "Poor guy. But ... what about Victor?"
Sorry I can't be there to see his face when he hears the news.
CHAPTER 22
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE • JUNE 7
The Citation X jet bringing Eden, Tom Sherard, and Bertie Nkambe from the upper Midwest touched down at Nashville's International Airport at 9:18 A.M., flying low over Old Hickory Lake in order to make the approach to a north-south runway.
Bertie had spent most of the flight talking on the phone, to her mother who was at home in Kenya, and to her brother Kieti in Paris. Tom Sherard used the other, encrypted phone aboard the jet to keep Buck Hannafin and Wanda Chevrille up-to-date. Eden, after the lengthy skull-splitting session with her doppelganger, conducted in secret, was at last able to go get some sleep in a deep soft glove-leather seat with an ice pack at the back of her neck.
On the glittering lake they had flown over at two thousand feet, Randy and Herb were relaxing on the lower deck of the houseboat reading the sports pages of the Sunday Tennessean after an early two hours of fishing the nearby coves. They'd cleaned their catch, iced down the filets, and cooked their own breakfasts. Microwaved sausage and scrambled eggs, black coffee. The bodies of Cheryl and Sandi, individually wrapped in blue tarps, were long gone from the houseboat, courtesy of a Homefolks CD (casualty dispersal) team. Forensic investigators could not have found evidence that the women had ever been aboard.
Randy and Herb still had most of the day to take it easy.
A limousine picked up Eden, Bertie, and Tom Sherard and drove them to a hotel on West End opposite the Vanderbilt University campus. On the way to midtown Nashville Eden kept her eyes open long enough to take in a billboard with Garth Brooks's face on it. In concert Sunday, June 7, at seven-thirty P.M. His first Nashville appearance, according to the grandmotherly limo driver, in many years, not counting a visit to Fan Fare during which he had signed autographs for twenty-three hours straight. Trisha Yearwood also was appearing with Brooks, an
d the venue was huge: Adelphia Coliseum.
Eden yawned. She never listened to country music.
"I need a workout," she said, "or I can't function. Does this hotel have a gym?"
They had a terraced suite on the top floor of the hotel. Nashville was jammed with Brooks fans, but Sherard had encountered no difficulty booking the suite on short notice. One of Katharine Bellaver's trusts owned a fourteen percent interest in the chain.
No one was hungry except Bertie, who was hungry all the time. She ate a couple of high-energy granola bars from her traveling stash of health foods and accompanied Eden to the gym.
Sherard rode the elevator down three floors to another, smaller suite he had reserved.
The two men who were still unpacking after a hasty trip from Washington aboard a Department of Energy jet were Russian-born, former colonels from the Twelfth Department of the Russian General Staff. They were nuclear weapons specialists, trained at NPO Impulse in Stalingrad before the end of the Cold War. Now they were part of an international crisis team devoted to tracking down nuclear warheads, artillery shells, and bombs that had been in the Soviet Republic's arsenal and were now unaccounted for. They were dressed in Banana Republic casual wear and carried DE credentials, Threat Assessment Intel. Mikhail, who said call me Mike, had gruff features and black hair thick as a garden hedge. Alyosha, who said call me Alex, had high color, a lazy habitual smile, and quick-temper blue eyes.
They had with them a twin of what they hoped was the device that MORG had purchased in a terrorists' bazaar on the bleak steppes thousands of kilometers from Krasnoyarsk 26 and now planned to detonate in Tennessee. Their device was exact in every detail except for the plutonium package, which when included was about the size of a softball and weighed seventy-two pounds. Alex told Sherard this with the hostile smirk an expert in mass destruction might be expected to have for the uninitiated.