by Alex Ryan
“Due to the severity of his injury,” Zhang said, “yesterday, Lankford requested medical attention. A heated debate ensued among my interagency peers on the matter. Some individuals felt that the best care for someone like Mr. Lankford would be rendered at the prison in Guangzhou. Others suggested a military hospital, where he could be kept under armed guard. A third contingent argued that he be sent to the closest civilian hospital in Xi’an for immediate care.”
“And what camp were you in?” he asked, meeting Zhang’s stare.
“None of these,” Zhang said, straight-faced. “I determined that the decision was one best made by the US Consulate, so under the cover of darkness last night, I arranged for his safe transport to Beijing and communicated the three options for his care. Apparently, your government thought of a fourth option, which involved placing Mr. Lankford on a red-eye flight to Germany. It seems they have excellent hospitals in Germany.”
Nick couldn’t help but grin to himself—Lankford, you slimy bastard, you never even bothered to say good-bye.
Zhang glanced at him in the rearview mirror.
“Thank you, Zhang,” Nick said, meeting his compeer’s gaze. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did,” Zhang said. “I owed him at least that. And it was the same offer I tried to extend to you at dinner last night, but you interrupted me three times, so I gave up. You’re a very stubborn man, Nick Foley.”
“The only way I’m leaving China is if they drag me out kicking and screaming,” Nick said, glancing sideways at Dash as Zhang pulled out of the parking lot.
“Depending on how this meeting goes with Agent Ling,” Zhang replied. “It very well might come to that.”
They rode in silence the rest of the drive. The macabre events on the “hospital” ship had deeply affected all of them, Dash most of all. Clearly she had been traumatized, but the depths of that trauma and the long-term psychological impact, only time would tell. He’d tried to talk to her about it last night, but she had said she was tired and had retired early to her room. When they had met again this morning, she had just smiled at him wordlessly.
As they walked from the rental car to the office park, Nick wondered if the Chinese symbols on the dark glass doors said Ministry of State Security or if they concealed their presence under the guise of “farm bureau” or some equally nebulous ruse, like some of the spookier US agencies with letters for names were prone to do.
“I recommend we show restraint and gratitude toward Agent Ling and her colleagues,” Zhang said sternly, his hand on the door handle. “After all, we could be having this interview in a federal detention center.”
Nick shrugged. He did not feel the same level of confidence about their situation as Zhang. He wondered if, after today, he would ever see Dash again. Perhaps they would escort him to a plane waiting to whisk him out of China forever. With Lankford gone, perhaps he would become both scapegoat and consolation prize, and Ling would order him straight to prison. Hell, this was the MSS . . . Perhaps the only way he’d leave this building was in an urn.
Zhang, still waiting for a response, kept his hand on the door handle and his eyes on Nick. The shrug, apparently, was not sufficient.
“I’ll be nice,” Nick grumbled.
“Thank you,” Zhang said and pulled open the door. As Nick passed, he whispered, “If not for yourself, then for Dr. Chen.”
They were made to wait on a sofa that looked pretty enough but did nothing good for his neck and back. No one spoke. Nick alternately shifted his gaze between the wall clock and Dash. Now and again, she would pull gently and absently on her silk blouse. He wondered if the incision on her abdomen was hurting her.
“Are you all right?” he whispered when he thought he saw her wince.
“I’m fine,” she said with a wan smile, but her mind seemed to be somewhere else.
Her answer sounded very “American,” the one language he knew how to read between the lines in. Physically, Dash was fine, but emotionally, how could she be? After the psychological and physical abuse she’d sustained strapped to that operating table, it was a wonder she wasn’t a basket case doped up on Valium and Xanax. Her presence here was a testament to her strength of character. But in Nick’s experience, even the toughest, most steely nerved, badass frogmen weren’t immune to the effects of post-traumatic stress. Trauma of the magnitude she’d survived wasn’t something that a mind could come to terms with overnight. The journey would be long and fraught with guilt, anger, and nightmares.
He knew this from personal experience.
“I’m sorry, Dash,” he said softly.
She looked up, coming back from wherever her mind had gone, and smiled. “What are you sorry for? Saving my life? Exacting justice on the psychopath who tried to harvest my organs without anesthesia? Or for taking care of me these last forty-eight hours?”
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”
“You didn’t drag me into this. I left Beijing first, remember?”
“Yeah, but if I hadn’t called you that morning in Hong Kong, Feng would have never targeted the task force.”
“That’s simply not true. Your call saved hundreds of lives, Nick—maybe thousands. You helped us fill in the pieces of the puzzle that led us to Nèiyè Biologic and Feng. We owe you. China owes you . . . again,” she added and looked at Zhang.
The Snow Leopard Commander nodded. “She’s right,” Zhang said, but his expression was statuesque—a mask concealing whatever real emotions the elite counterterrorism operator was battling inside at the moment.
“So what do you think will happen to us?” Nick asked.
Before Zhang could answer, the receptionist behind the counter called to them in Chinese.
“They’re ready for us,” Zhang said and stood. “You have my support, Nick,” the Snow Leopard added, clapping him on the shoulder.
“So you changed your mind,” Nick said with a sideways glance, “and you’re not arresting me?”
“Not if the MSS arrests you first,” Zhang replied with a hint of a smile.
The woman led them through frosted-glass doors and then down a short hallway that ended at a door of black glass. Nick peered inside the room as the woman held them at the threshold while she talked with a stern-looking fellow dressed in a black suit. A large, oval-shaped wooden conference table occupied the center of the room; it was inlaid with regularly spaced black leather writing surfaces, each with a microphone and a black rectangular speaker box. The table was like something out of a spy movie, and nothing like the field-erected plywood workstations he had come to know in the TOCs of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The receptionist stepped aside and gestured them in.
At the end of the table sat Agent Ling Ju, flanked on each side by powerful-looking men in dark suits who sat stiffly with their hands folded on the table. Ling looked just as angry as the last time Nick had seen her. Zhang walked into the room with casual confidence and selected a seat at the opposite head of the table from Ling. Nick noticed that her scowl seemed to deepen.
Nick elected to cross behind Zhang and take the seat to his immediate right. He expected Dash to take the seat on Zhang’s left, but instead she also passed behind Zhang and dropped into the empty seat beside Nick. To his surprise, she reached over and gave his leg a hopeful squeeze under the table before placing her hands in her lap.
Ling looked expectantly past Zhang into the hallway behind. After an uncomfortable pause, she said, “Where is Mr. Lankford?”
Zhang sniffed. “Who?”
“Chet Lankford,” Ling repeated. “The self-professed American CIA agent guilty of conducting espionage against China, whom you removed at gunpoint from my custody forty-eight hours ago.”
“Oh yes, that Chet Lankford,” Zhang said with a straight face. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Ling hissed.
“He accompanied us to Xi’an yesterday and was booked in the same hotel as the rest of
us. This morning, when it was time to leave for this meeting, he did not come down to the lobby. When we phoned his room, he did not answer. When I questioned reception, they said that Mr. Lankford had checked out of the hotel in the middle of the night. Where he went after that, I do not know. Hopefully, he will be along shortly. I assure you he was informed about this meeting.”
Ling narrowed her eyes at Zhang. “Do you think this is a joke, Commander Zhang?”
“No, far from it.”
“Then you must think me a fool,” she said.
“No, Agent Ling, not a fool.”
“Evasion is the hallmark of guilt, Commander Zhang. When we find Mr. Lankford, I can assure you that he will be treated accordingly.”
Zhang nodded. “I understand, but since Mr. Lankford is not present, I cannot speak for the man.”
“I think you already have,” she seethed and then opened a black leather folder on the desk in front of her before continuing in clipped, angry Chinese—her eyes on whatever was in the folder.
After only a few sentences, Zhang held up his hand, interrupting her. “Excuse me, I would ask that for clarity and transparency—and out of respect for Mr. Foley, who does not speak Chinese fluently—that we please return to conducting the meeting in English.”
Ling dropped her black pen on the papers in front of her. “If Mr. Foley was the valuable asset you claim him to be, would it not be imperative that he speak Chinese?”
“My apologies, ma’am,” Nick said, his voice cracking. Zhang reached over and squeezed his forearm, hushing him before he could continue.
Ling pursed her lips and nodded. “Very well,” she said, now staring at Nick. “Since the outcome of the meeting will determine his fate, as well as yours,” she added, eyeing Dash, “we will continue in English.” She picked up a piece of paper from her folder. “Now . . .”
“I’m sorry to interrupt again, Special Agent Ling—may I call you Ju?” Zhang said.
“You may not,” she answered, her face now red with irritation, a vein on her forehead pulsing.
“Very well,” Zhang continued, unfazed. “Agent Ling, I sincerely apologize for the incident in Xi’an. I know you had no way of knowing that you were inadvertently disrupting a joint task force counterterrorism operation. And while the task force forgives your ignorance and interference—”
“You forgive me?” Ling interrupted, rising from her chair. She leaned forward, placing her hands on the table and looking very much like an angry she-lion ready to pounce. “Are you insane?”
So much for restraint and gratitude, Nick thought. Perhaps Zhang really was nuts. Nick’s fate was in this woman’s hands, and here Zhang was, antagonizing her and trading jabs like this was some sort of lover’s spat. Should I intervene? he wondered. Throw myself on the mercy of the proverbial court? He looked over at Dash, who looked back at him with equally confused eyes.
Suddenly, Ling seemed to regain control of herself and sat back in her chair. “Perhaps it is you who were in the dark, Commander Zhang,” she said, forcing a maternal smile. “We were not out for a leisurely drive and happened upon your happy band of marauders. That is the correct word, is it not, Special Operator Second Class Foley—marauders?”
Nick met her gaze. “That’s not the word I would choose, but I understand the point you’re trying to make,” he said. There was only so much shit biscuit he was willing to eat.
“What word would you choose, Petty Officer Foley?”
“It’s Mr. Foley—I no longer serve in the Navy—and the word I would use is ‘team.’”
“Team?”
“Yes, team. We were operating as a team. Not unlike the type of interagency Special Operations teams you participate with in the course of doing your job here at the Ministry of State Security.”
“But you are not a Chinese citizen, Mr. Foley. You are not employed by the Snow Leopard Commandos, nor any agency of the Chinese government. In fact, your employer is the Central Intelligence Agency. The only ‘team’ you are aiding is one actively conducting espionage against the People’s Republic of China, which makes you an enemy of state.”
“That is where you are wrong, Agent Ling,” Nick said, his voice hardening. “I work for Water 4 Humanity. I am not, and never have been, an agent for the CIA. I offered to help look for a missing American expat in Xi’an. Period, end of story. I was not working under contract, nor was I, at any time, engaged in espionage against China.”
“If you don’t serve the CIA, who do you serve?” Ling said, leaning forward.
He thought carefully and then simply said, “Justice.”
“Justice?” Ling echoed with a contemptuous laugh.
“Who are you to mock him?” Dash said, raising her voice. “Must he remove his shirt so you can see the scars of his sacrifice?”
Ling glared at her but said nothing.
“Must I?” Dash shouted, her voice cracking as she stood to face the three MSS agents at the end of the table. With her jaw set in defiance, she raised her silk blouse to show the vertical incision—raw, pink, and angry—that stretched from her breastbone to her pubis. “And I was one of the lucky ones,” she said. She released her blouse, reached into the unzipped mouth of her purse sitting on the floor beside her chair, and then flung a stack of A4-sized, full-page, glossy photographs across the table. The imagery was both gruesome and haunting—a collage of eyeless corpses missing noses, fingers, genitalia, and organs.
“If you aren’t moved by Nick’s sacrifice, then maybe you care about hers, or his, or hers, or his,” Dash continued, flinging photograph after photograph across the table at Agent Ling. “This is the work of a madman. So when Nick says he served justice, maybe now you appreciate what he is talking about.”
Gooseflesh stood up on Nick’s arms and legs as he stared at Dash in wonderment. Despite the red rancor on her face, she was trembling uncontrollably. He had no words to express the emotions he felt for her in that moment. She was fearless . . . She was his champion.
He looked back at Agent Ling and saw in her face that she was beaten. She had lost. Even if she had the authority to prosecute Nick, she would have to do so with the knowledge that whatever punishment she meted, it was punishment meted without honor.
At this crescendo, at this turning of the tide, Zhang pulled a paper from his uniform pocket. He unfolded it and set it on the table in front of him. “I have a letter from the Central National Security Commission, signed by Deputy Chairman Hu Zedong, granting me full discretion and authority in this investigation. But before we discuss any more details of this case, I must ask your fellow agents to excuse themselves.”
“Excuse themselves? And why is that?” Ling gestured to the agent on her right, who rose, retrieved the letter from Zhang, and then carried it back to her.
“I’m afraid that they do not hold adequate security clearances for the conversation we’re about to have,” Zhang said softly and smiled.
Special Agent Ling scanned the letter. After a beat, she scowled and dismissed her subordinates with a wave of her hand. The two MSS agents stood and exited the room via a door behind their boss.
Zhang spoke before she could say anything.
“As you can see from this letter, Mr. Nick Foley was granted a temporary clearance to work with the SLCU as a special consultant.”
“This letter is from the Central National Security Commission?” Ling said, her voice resonating with surprise.
“Yes,” Zhang said. If he was relishing the moment, he made no sign of it.
Nick made a concerted effort to conceal his own shock. Was this for real? If so, when had Zhang reached out to the deputy chairman? Before or after Major Li’s death? If after, then he had taken an incredible risk for Nick.
“That letter confirms that Mr. Foley is, as he stated, a part of my team. Furthermore,” Zhang added, cutting Ling off before she could get a word in edgewise, “this is not the first time Mr. Foley has risked his life for China. A few months ago, he was instrumental i
n unmasking and preventing a bioterrorism plot that, had it unfolded, would have resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent Chinese lives. I would tell you more, but the incident has been classified above your pay grade.”
“You are referring to Beijing?” Ling asked, a flash of recognition in her eyes.
“I am not at liberty to discuss the details, but our government owes Mr. Foley a debt of gratitude,” Zhang said. Then, with a subtle sideways glance at Nick, he said, “Consider that debt repaid.”
Special Agent Ling looked down at the letter again as if trying to ascertain if it was a forgery.
“All this infighting and suspicion between us is distracting us from the real issue,” Dash said. “Our task force’s operation was compromised, and as much as you’d like to blame the Americans, they’re not the ones responsible. Our colleague, Major Li, was murdered because he started asking the right questions about the wrong people. Feng might be dead, but this investigation is far from over. There’s more going on here than meets the eye.”
Ling exhaled long and slow through her nose before saying, “I’m inclined to agree with you, Dr. Chen.” She picked up a remote control off the table and pointed it at a flat-screen television mounted on the far wall. The television flickered to life, and on the display was a video feed of a Chinese woman—attractive and in her midthirties—sitting alone at a small table in a small room. The woman was fidgeting in her seat and looked nervous. “This is Chow Mei, Mr. Feng’s executive assistant at Nèiyè Biologic. She and I had several lengthy and insightful discussions yesterday. As it turns out, Ms. Chow is quite a wellspring of information concerning both the personnel and the day-to-day operations at Nèiyè. You see, after Commander Zhang liberated Mr. Foley and Mr. Lankford from my custody at gunpoint and left my vehicle disabled on the side of the road, I had no choice but to collect my thoughts. As I watched the traffic, it occurred to me that the only reason a man with a service record as impeccable and distinguished as Commander Zhang would possibly behave so out of character was either because he was under duress or because the stakes were so high that he had no other option. Clearly, the former was out of the question because he had been the one pointing guns at my team, which left me with only one conclusion. So while all of you were on the hospital ship, I took a team to Nèiyè Biologic headquarters.”