by Dean Koontz
Kirkwood's glasses had slid so far down his nose that they were in danger of falling off. He looked startled as McAlister pushed them in place for him. "Well . . . I guess he was trying to find a man—or men—he could buy. It took six hours."
Nolan found a telephone booth at the corner of a shopping-center parking lot, and Kirkwood went in to look through the book. While he was out of the car, McAlister said, "Burt, I hope you remember that you've taken the agency's secrecy oath."
"I haven't heard a thing," Nolan said.
When Kirkwood came back a minute later, he said, "Altmüller is listed." He gave Nolan the address. To McAlister he said, "Isn't it dangerous for us to walk in on him all by ourselves?"
"He won't be expecting anything," McAlister said. "And Burt here has a gun of his own."
"Begging your pardon, sir," Nolan said, keeping his eyes on the busy highway, "but I think that you might be getting me in over my head. I'm not a public law officer. That secrecy oath didn't give me any police powers. I've been hired to protect you, but I can't go looking for trouble."
"Then," McAlister said, "I'll borrow your gun. Bernie and I can go it alone."
Burt took a long moment to consider all the angles of that. He accelerated around a panel truck and pulled back into the right-hand lane. His broad face was expressionless in the lights of the oncoming cars. Finally: "I'd have to take the gun out of my holster and lay it on the seat. Why would I do that?"
"Maybe while we were parked at the telephone booth, you saw someone approaching the car, someone who looked suspicious," McAlister suggested.
"That's a possibility. I wanted to be ready for him. But maybe after this person proved to be no threat, I left the gun on the seat where it would be handy. And then you picked it up without my seeing."
Smiling, McAlister said, "I suppose you could make a mistake like that."
"Everyone makes mistakes," Burt agreed.
Kirkwood didn't like the sound of it. He shifted nervously and said, "I think we should get some help."
Turning around to look at the younger man once more, McAlister said, "I'd like nothing better, Bernie. But who in the hell could we trust?"
Kirkwood licked his lips and said nothing.
PEKING: SATURDAY, 1:00 P.M.
The air terminal in Peking was a hulking neo-Stalinist building with cold marble walls and floors and altogether too much gilt trim around the ceilings. Ranks of fluorescent lights cast stark shadows; but there was not a speck of dust or a smear of grease to be seen in any corner. Even on Saturday afternoon there were no more than sixty or seventy travelers using the facilities. Of these, the most eye-catching were three beautiful North Vietnamese women who were dressed in white silk trousers and brightly colored, flowered silk odais. North Vietnamese and Cambodian women, Canning thought, were among the most beautiful in the world: petite, extremely delicate and yet shapely, with very fine-boned faces, enormous dark eyes, and thick black hair. These three—as they stood waiting for cups of tea at one of the carts that dispensed free refreshments—contrasted pleasantly with the inhuman architecture and with the generally drab clothing of the Chinese around them.
A smiling, pretty Chinese woman of about thirty-five met Lee Ann and Canning when they got off the Frenchman's jet. Her long hair hung in a single braid behind her. She wore baggy blue pants, a baggy white shirt, and shapeless khaki jacket. She was all crisp efficiency as she escorted Canning and Lee Ann through customs, gave their luggage to a baggage handler, and led them out into the terminal's great hall, where Alexander Webster, the United States' first fully accredited ambassador to the People's Republic of China, was waiting for them.
Webster-was an imposing figure. At six foot three, he was two iniches taller than Canning. He was conscious of his posture; he stood stiff and straight to emphasize his height. His neck was thick, not with fat but with muscle. His shoulders and chest were unusually broad; and although he was a bit heavy in the stomach, he managed to hold it in well. His face was like the marble bust of some famous Roman centurion: square chin, bulging jaws, firm mouth, straight nose, eyes set back like ornaments on a deep shelf, and a formidable brow. Only two things kept him from looking like a roughneck: his expensive and stylish New York suit, which he wore as if he were a model; and his wavy silver hair, which softened the sharp angles of his rather brutal face. All in all, he appeared to be a former football star who, when he had lost his physical edge, had left the game and set out upon a brand-new career as a banker.
"Welcome to Peking," Webster said, bowing slightly to Lee Ann and shaking hands with Canning. His voice was not hard and gravelly, as Canning had expected, but soft and easy and deep and spiced with a trace of what had once been a lush Louisiana accent. "Miss Tanaka, if all CIA operatives were as lovely as you, we'd have won the espionage war decades ago. Who on earth would want to fight with you?"
"And if all our ambassadors were as gracious as you," Lee Ann said, "we'd have no enemies."
Outside, there was no limousine waiting for them. Webster explained that the use of "decadent forms of transportation" within the People's Republic had recently been denounced and forbidden by Party edict —although Chinese diplomats in Washington and at the UN in New York relied increasingly upon custom-ordered black Cadillacs. "Western governments don't have an exclusive right to hypocrisy," Webster observed.
Instead of a Cadillac, there was a Chinese-made vehicle that resembled a Volkswagen microbus. Inside, behind the driver's seat, there were two benches, one along each wall. Lee Ann and Canning sat on the right and faced Webster across the narrow aisle. The seats were uncomfortable: thinly padded and upholstered in canvas. But there were windows on both sides, and they would at least be able to see the city as they passed through it.
The driver, a State Department career man whom Webster introduced as James Obin of St. Louis, finished loading their luggage aboard. Then he got behind the wheel and started the tinny engine.
As the microbus began to move, Webster said, "Security was so tight on your flight that I didn't even learn what plane you were on until it was airborne."
"Sorry if you were inconvenienced," Canning said. "But it was necessary."
"There were several attempts on his life before he even got to Tokyo," Lee Ann said.
"Well then, I can understand the tight security," Webster said. "But what I can't understand is why you had to come all the way out from the States in the first place. McAlister could have wired me the names of these three deep-cover agents of ours. I could have worked with General Lin to locate and interrogate them."
"I'm sure you could have handled it," Canning said. "But if we had wired the names, General Lin's Internal Security Force would have intercepted them. No matter how complicated the code, they would have broken it—and fast."
"But they're going to learn the names anyway, sooner or later," Webster said.
"Perhaps they won't have to be told all of them. If we find the trigger man the first time out, we can withhold the other two names from Lin." He quickly outlined the procedure he would insist upon for the pickup and the interrogation of the three agents.
Webster grimaced and shifted uncomfortably on the bench. "The general won't like that."
"If he doesn't accept it, then he doesn't get any of the names. He has absolutely no choice in the matter —and I'll make that plain to him. I'm not a diplomat, so I don't have to waste time being diplomatic. It'll be your job to smooth his feathers."
"He's not an easy man to deal with."
Canning said, "Yes, but since he's in the counter-intelligence business himself, he ought to be able to understand my position even if he doesn't much like it. Although my primary concern is to find the trigger man and learn from him who Dragonfly is, I've a second duty nearly as important as the first. I have to keep the ISF from cracking open the agency's entire network in the People's Republic."
"I'll do what I can to help."
"Did the polygraph arrive safely?"
"Yest
erday morning."
"Good."
"It's quite large."
"It's not a traditional lie detector. It's actually a portable computer that monitors and analyzes all of the subject's major reactions to the questions he's asked. The newest thing."
"It's locked in a tamper-proof steel case," Webster said. "I suppose you have the key?"
"Yes." It had been in the packet of Theodore Otley identification and expense money that McAlister had given him in Washington. "When do we meet General Lin?"
"An ISF car is following us right now," Webster said, pointing through the rear windows of the micro-bus. A jeeplike station wagon trailed them by a hundred yards. "By this time they'll have radioed the news of your arrival to the general's office. Knowing how polite and thoughtful the Chinese are, I'd say Lin will give you fifteen or twenty minutes at the embassy to freshen up before he comes knocking."
They were now cruising along an avenue at least three times as wide as Fifth Avenue in New York. There were no automobiles and only a few trucks, vans, and buses. But there were thousands of bicycles whizzing silently in both directions. Many of the cyclists smiled and waved at Canning, Lee Ann, and the ambassador.
"Are all the streets this wide?" Lee Ann asked.
"Many but not most," Webster said. "These ultra-wide thoroughfares are the newest streets in Peking. They were built after the revolution. Once they were completed and opened, the Party was able to classify the old main streets—which were often very broad— as lanes and alleyways. Today, most domestic and all foreign traffic moves on these new arteries."
"But why did they build new and bigger streets when they didn't have cars enough for the old ones?" Lee Ann asked. "Two-thirds of this avenue is empty."
"The old streets were dotted with religious shrines and literally hundreds of magnificently ornate temples," Webster said, enjoying his role as guide. "Some of these were destroyed in the revolution and some later, by Party edict. But the Communists realized that the temples—although they were shameful reminders of a decadent past full of excess and injustice—were priceless works of art and history. Cooler heads prevailed, thank God, and the destruction ceased. They opted for an alternate program. They built these thoroughfares, restructuring the city away from the temples. As a result, many of the old landmarks are tucked away behind fences in quiet pockets of the city where they can't have a corruptive influence on the masses." Webster was amused by all of this, and he winked at Lee Ann as if they were adults tolerating the eccentricities of slow-witted but pleasant children.
"Incredible," Lee Ann said.
Canning said, "Not really. We do the same thing."
Webster frowned. "What do you mean?"
"We build and redesign our cities to hide the ghettos from ourselves, rather than the churches."
"You know, you're right!" Lee Ann said.
"Well," Webster said stiffly, "I don't see even the most remote similarity. And if I were you, I wouldn't express that sort of an opinion in front of someone like General Lin. He would be delighted to spread your thoughts far and wide, to the detriment of the United States' image in Asia." He turned away from them and stared out at the hordes of cyclists.
Lee Ann glanced at Canning and raised her eyebrows.
He just shrugged.
Peking was a city of eight or nine million, capital of the largest nation on earth—yet it was more like a small town than like a metropolis that was four thousand years old. There were no neon signs. There were no skyscrapers. There was nothing that looked like a department store or theater or restaurant—although there were surely all of these things in the city, tucked away in squat and official-looking brick buildings. Beyond the broad avenues and occasionally glimpsed spires of the forbidden temples, there were tens of thousands of gray houses with gray and yellow rooftops; they stretched like a carpet of densely grown weeds over all the city's hills, encircling countless small gardens of trees and shrubbery.
The United States Embassy was in one of the city's three diplomatic compounds that were reserved for foreign missions in order that they might be kept apart from the Chinese people. The compound contained a large seven-story office building which was shared by the seven foreign delegations quartered there. The compound also contained seven spacious, boxy four-story pink-brick houses were the diplomats and their staffs lived. The United States Embassy was no larger, no smaller, no different at all from the other six, except that the Stars and Stripes flew from a low flagpole beside the front door.
"Here we are," Webster said jovially, apparently no longer miffed at Canning. "Home sweet home."
The higher you went in the house, the more important you were in the diplomatic scheme of things. The first floor contained the drawing room, dining rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms for the servants who had been imported from Washington. Four secretaries also had quarters on this first level. The second floor contained the bedrooms for the ambassador's staff. The third floor was where Webster's chief aide and private secretary had rooms—and it was here as well that important visitors from the States were put up. The top level, of course, was Webster's private domain—except when the President, Vice-President, or Secretary of State came to China, in which case Webster opened a separate three-room suite for his guests. Lee Ann and Canning did not rate the suite—or a room behind the kitchen. They were given separate bedchambers on the third floor.
Canning's room might have been in a house in Washington, New York, or Boston. No concession had been made to the Orient. The furniture, all shipped in from the States, was heavy, dark pine, Colonial. The walls were white and hung with oil paintings of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. There was a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence hanging just to the right of the door.
The bathroom, however, was decidedly Chinese-modern. The tub, sink, and toilet were all made from a dark-brown, glossless ceramic material that resembled mud. The fixtures were not stainless-steel or even chrome-plated; instead, they were cast-iron, dull and pitted and spotted with incipient rust—except for the water faucets, which were all rough-cut copper pipe. There was no place for him to plug in his electric razor near the mirror; however, the embassy staff had thoughtfully provided an extension cord which was plugged into and dangled from the socket that for some inscrutable reason had been let into the wall three feet above the tank of the commode.
He shaved lightly, washed his face and hands, put on a clean shut, strapped his shoulder holster back in place, and put on his suit jacket. He took the pistol from the holster and switched off both safeties; then he dropped it back into the leather pocket.
The telephone rang. It was Webster. "General Lin arrived a few minutes ago. He's extremely anxious to get moving."
"We'll be right down," Canning said.
The end of the assignment was in sight.
He was suddenly depressed.
What would he do when this was finished? Go back to Washington? Back to the White House assignment? Back to the lonely apartment on G Street? Back to his son's scorn and his daughter's indifference?
Maybe he would ask Lee Ann to stay with him in Washington. She was what he needed. In a short time she had not only patched up his lover's ego, but she had also made him feel decent and clean again. She had given him back the self-respect that he had allowed Mike to bleed from him. Would she stay with him? Would she say yes? She had insecurities of her own, problems to work out; and she needed help with them. Maybe he was precisely what she needed too. Maybe . . .
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to clear his head, and he told himself that he was not to worry about any of these things. He must stick to the moment, stick to the problem at hand, approach it single-mindedly. If he didn't find the trigger man, if Dragonfly was detonated while he was in Peking, then he would not be going back to anywhere or anything. And neither would Lee Ann. They would either be victims of the plague—whatever it turned out to be— or they would be inmates of a Chinese political prison.
>
TAIYUAN, CHINA: SATURDAY, 2:00 P.M.
Just outside the city of Taiyüan, in the Province of Shansi, two hundred and ten rail-miles from Peking, the train clattered onto a lay-by. The brakes squealed; the passenger car trembled. The steel wheels shot sparks into the clouds of steam that rushed back from the locomotive's vents and pressed, briefly, against the coach window next to Chai Po-han's face.
Chong Shao-chi, the man in the seat beside Chai, was the manager of a large grain-storage facility near Anshun. He was en route to the capital, where he was to speak before a gathering of agricultural specialists who were interested in his novel and successful ideas about rodent control. He was quite excited—not because of the speech so much as because his aged parents lived in Peking. This was his first homecoming in seven years. Tonight his family was holding a great feast in his honor: cold gizzard and liver, hundred-year eggs, green-bean noodles, fried noodles, buns with silver threads, wheat-packet soup, sesame cakes, fried bread, fried hot peppers, mushrooms, sweet and sour fish, fried eel, three-glass chicken, beef in oyster sauce, and much more—a feast indeed! Therefore, the moment the train came to a full stop, Chong said anxiously, "What is the trouble? Can you see? Have we broken down?"
"I can't see anything," Chai said.
"We can't have broken down. I must get to Peking no later than nine. My family has planned a feast! They—"
"You've told me," Chai said, not unkindly.
"Maybe we have just stopped to refuel."
"I don't see any fuel tanks," Chai said.
"Please, no breakdown. I have lived well. I am a loyal Maoist. I don't deserve this!"
A minute later the toothless man in charge of this coach and the two sleeping cars behind it entered at the front and clapped his hands for attention. "We will be delayed here for half an hour. There is a long train outbound from Peking on these tracks. Once it has passed, we can continue."