by Marc Cameron
“Even kebukai yabanjin?” Jack said.
“Especially the hairy barbarians,” Yuki said.
Sirens yelped and a motorcade of fifteen cars turned off Uchibori and into the security tent half a block down.
The black Toyota sedan behind the police lead vehicles bore the red flags of the People’s Republic of China.
“Zhao,” Ryan mused.
The motorcade proceeded under the hotel portico, out of the rain. Men in dark suits sprang from the two follow-up sedans, facing outbound as they surrounded the limousine. Some of them would be Japanese SPs—Security Police—but like the United States, China preferred to bring a relatively large contingent of her own personnel.
Ryan took a half-step forward in order to get a better look. It was hard to be certain in the rain from so far away.
“Do those two guys look familiar?”
Yuki moved up beside him. “I . . . think so.”
President Zhao exited his limo, purposely shielded from clear view by the vehicle and the pillars in front of the hotel entry. He and several members of his security detail disappeared into the hotel. The motorcade pulled forward and then stopped again. More security men got out and surrounded a second protectee.
“Foreign Minister Li,” Yuki said. “I know who those men were.”
“Me too,” Ryan said into the microphone on his neck loop.
“Hey, guys . . . We got a problem.”
61
Jack looked up at the twenty-three-story hotel. His father was somewhere up there right now. He fought the urge to pace back and forth. “Everyone going in has to be credentialed, right?”
“Correct,” Yuki said. “We can check the photo database.”
She took out her cell phone but a barked command from one of the policemen sent her and Jack to the end of the block.
Ryan held her umbrella while she worked.
“Are you sure they were Li’s guys?” Midas asked over the radio.
“Pretty sure,” Ryan said. “At least two of them were with him at the restaurant bombing in Argentina.”
Chavez weighed in. “All the ChiCom bigwigs get protection from the CSB. It’s like our Secret Service and Diplomatic Security Service combined.”
“True,” Ryan said. “But the change at this point is too big a coincidence. Chen’s getting paid to whack people, maybe even by Li, and then Li’s protective detail moves over to Zhao—on the same day he’s meeting with my dad. Yuki’s right. This place is completely buttoned up—from everyone except the close-protection agents. It’s impossible to guard against the guards.”
“You’re right,” Chavez said. “We need to alert the Secret Service.”
“Wait!” Ryan said. “Let’s think this through a second. Yuki might be able to get us upstairs.”
She shook her head. “I am not credentialed to go in. I could get approval, but it would take time.”
“That’s a no-go, then,” Ryan said. “But if it is an assassination plot, these guys smell an alarm and they’ll just open fire. The Secret Service won’t know what’s going on. No matter who the target is, everybody in the room will be sitting ducks.”
Yuki held up her phone. “You are correct,” she said. “Three new officers from the Central Security Bureau were credentialed for President Zhao’s protective detail, including a man named Long Yun, the former agent in charge of Foreign Minister Li’s security team.”
“Bear with me here, guys.” Jack passed the umbrella to Yuki and began thumb-typing feverishly into his cell phone. He copied the text, then hit send. Pasted the text, hit send again. Pasted the text once more, then sent it a third time. “Okay,” he said, heaving a tense sigh once he’d sent the last text. “When I was a kid, my dad missed one of my baseball games because he had to work. It really tore him up. He made this deal with all of us that if he was physically able, it wouldn’t matter if he was with the Queen of England herself, he’d answer a call after three hang-ups in quick succession.” He blew out a heavy breath, nerves wound tight. “Trust the guy on the ground, right, Midas?”
“Roger that,” Midas said.
“Well,” Jack said, “Dad’s the guy on the ground.”
“What did you send him?” Adara asked.
“‘Three bad guys new to Zhao’s detail. Violence likely.’ He’ll know what to do . . . I hope.”
• • •
The two presidents had elected to conduct the short bilateral meeting alone, but for a single Security man each. Gary Montgomery had forty pounds and five inches on Zhao’s man, but the Chinese Security agent appeared to vibrate with intensity. Neither were about to let anything—even a slight—happen to their respective charges.
The two other members of each protection detail waited in the slightly larger anteroom beyond a set of double doors. Ryan was seated in one of two chairs to the right of the Chinese leader. They were close, less than three feet apart, quartering away from a floor-to-ceiling window. A washroom was to Ryan’s immediate right in the corner of the small, ten-by-ten-foot room.
Interpreters and other staff would assist them later, but for now, each saw the necessity of sitting down face-to-face and speaking candidly. Advance staff from both delegations had agreed to a small room off the back of one of the larger ballrooms. Politicians from around the world met in this hotel often, and there were several such private spaces, small enough for quiet conversation, and with a slightly larger, private antechamber beyond double doors that could be opened to form a room large enough for interpreters, additional staff, and photographers requisite for such a meeting.
Zhao had spent a year at Dartmouth and spoke excellent English. Ryan found him to be quiet, with the almost impenetrable façade common to people who must always guard their words. The best way to break through something like that was a direct approach—something Ryan had always preferred to pussyfooting around.
“Your assistance with our research vessel was appreciated, Mr. President,” Ryan said.
Zhao gave a polite smile and started to say something, but Ryan kept talking. “I was, however, extremely concerned with Admiral Qian’s disregard for your orders.”
Zhao took a deep breath through his nose. There was no easy reply. “Admiral Qian is in custody,” Zhao said. “Surely even the United States has endured rogue commanders from time to time. There is no house of cards in China. The party is in complete control.”
“True enough,” Ryan said, sensing Zhao wanted to say more, and giving him time to do so. Silence, he’d learned, was often the least used and most needed ingredient in good statesmanship.
Zhao folded his hands in his lap. “The container ship Orion—”
Ryan’s cell phone began to hum in the pocket of his coat. At least he’d remembered to put the damn thing on vibrate. He ignored it, and it stopped. Then it buzzed again a second later. Stopped. And buzzed a third time. Ryan closed his eyes. His kids were grown—all of them old enough to know the importance of what he did—the delicate nature of his meetings. Damn it. That was the point. Of course, they knew. None of them would use the family code to bypass normal protocols if it weren’t important.
Ryan reached into his pocket and held up the offending cell phone. “I apologize, Mr. President,” he said, scanning the message.
It was from Jack.
Ryan kept his face passive, motioning Montgomery over with a slight flick of his hand. Colonel Huang came off the wall a half-step at the movement, but a look from Zhao kept him in place.
Ryan said, “Gary, I’m going to show you something, and you have to promise to hear me out before you do anything.”
Everyone in the room was surprised to hear the President speak to his security agent so informally.
“Mr. President—”
“This is crucial,” Ryan said.
“Yes, sir,” Montgomery said, sounding extremely unc
onvinced.
Ryan read the text, whispering in the event anyone in the anteroom happened to be listening. Both agents immediately put themselves between their protectees and the double doors, pistols in hand, making themselves as large a target as possible.
“New additions to your detail?” Ryan asked.
“Mr. President,” Montgomery interrupted. “I need you to step into the bathroom.”
There was no way out but the double doors.
Colonel Huang nodded. “Such a move would be prudent, Zhao Zhuxi.”
The two presidents complied with their experts.
Once they were in the small washroom, Zhao said, “Three new officers were transferred to my team.”
Colonel Huang said something in Chinese, presumably a curse. “Long Yun is outside now.”
“And the other two new ones?” Montgomery asked.
“Downstairs,” Huang said. “But Long Yun is extremely fast and accurate with his sidearm. I do not care for him, but honestly, he would be a very dangerous opponent.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. “Members of my intelligence community believe your foreign minister may be in the process of launching a coup against you, or an assassination attempt against me. In either instance, unless you are personally involved, we will both be killed.”
“I assure you—”
Huang interrupted his boss, ready to protect his person and his reputation. “Long Yun is from Foreign Minister Li’s protective detail.”
“I believe you,” Ryan said. “There is evidence to implicate you in this—far too much evidence, in fact. Piles of it. Too easy to find. I disagree with you and your government on most things, President Zhao, but I would imagine a stupid man would not rise to your office. You are many things, but inept is not one of them.”
Zhao pushed back his glasses but said nothing.
“Someone,” Ryan said, “has been attempting to convince me that you are a very bad man.”
“They want you to invoke your Ryan Doctrine,” Zhao mused, saying the words as if they tasted bad. “To punish me personally for actions against your nation.”
“Precisely,” Ryan said.
Montgomery spoke next. In any other circumstance of threat to the principal, protocol would be to sound off, cover, and evacuate immediately. So far, he’d done none of the above. “Mr. President—”
Ryan raised his hand, cutting him off. “We’re good for a moment, Gary. The attack won’t happen until we walk outside. Here’s what I propose . . .”
Colonel Huang was seething by the time President Ryan finished explaining his plan. He could not leave the paramount leader in the care of the Americans. That was insane.
“I’d go,” the burly Secret Service agent said. “But your guy would sense a trap and start shooting as soon as I went through the door by myself.”
“Perhaps we could summon the agent I do trust,” Zhao offered. “Isolating Long Yun among your Secret Service agents.”
“There is no lock on those double doors,” Ryan pointed out. “If Long smells a rat—”
Montgomery was already briefing his three agents outside via their earpieces. They were surely having a difficult time controlling their emotions. Huang knew he would have to move quickly. Reinforcements would flood the room at any moment, and more than a few innocents would die in the ensuing gun battle.
The two Secret Service agents—one woman and one man—regarded Colonel Huang warily as he slipped through the double doors and nodded to Major Ts’ai, the only agent he trusted completely, asking for a break. Colonel Long stepped forward to volunteer, but the female American agent casually body-blocked him.
Ryan’s plan had been for Huang to arrest Long Yun, but Huang had seen the other man shoot. Reaction being slower than action, Colonel Huang Ju decided on his own plan, one that would ensure the survival of the paramount leader. Smiling, he swept the hem of his jacket and drew the Taurus. His finger found the trigger as he rocked the muzzle toward Long Yun, firing two rounds from less than four feet away. Long took a half-step back, going for his own pistol. He wore a ballistic vest, but the nine-millimeter rounds stunned him enough to stagger him, slowing him down for the fraction of a second it took for Huang to rock the Taurus upward and fire two more rounds on the heels of the first volley, catching Long in the throat and above his right eye.
Colonel Huang dropped his pistol immediately, raising his hands high above his head to show he was no threat to the armed Japanese officers that poured through the door at the sound of gunfire.
• • •
Three Secret Service agents, including Gary Montgomery, formed a protective phalanx around Ryan and hustled him through the anteroom and past Long Yun’s body to meet another half-dozen of their cohort and escort him straight to the roof and a waiting Marine One.
The President had wanted to wait and see to Zhao, or even scoop him up in the protective bubble—but at some point, those decisions stopped being up to the President. He would understand that. Probably. Maybe.
• • •
Ryan sent a text to Jack Junior as soon as they were airborne letting him know he was safe. He’d call later, catching up as much as he could. He wondered if he’d ever know exactly how Jack had figured out about Zhao’s detail—and what had led him to look into it in the first place. Some things, Ryan decided, were probably best left unsaid, for the time being, at least.
He called Cathy, in case she happened to be watching the news. She wasn’t, but it was good to talk to her anyway.
Arnie and Mary Pat met him at the Akasaka State Guesthouse and they drafted a press release that named an unidentified gunman and extolled the fast work of Japanese authorities. If Zhao decided he wanted his name involved, that was up to him.
“So,” Mary Pat said, “it sounds like Foreign Minister Li had some sort of relationship with a provocateur named Vincent Chen. He along with three others in the party were involved in a coup to oust Zhao and have Li installed as the new president.”
“I’m surprised Zhao would let it get this far,” van Damm said. “He’s steady, but from the outside looking in, he seems to rule with an iron hand.”
Ryan rubbed a hand across his face, feeling the effects of jet lag and the ebb of adrenaline. “While we were lying on the floor, waiting for them to take care of Long Yun, he confided that he had suspected the foreign minister for some time. He considered the plot was intended to get me to invoke the Ryan Doctrine, but he admits he didn’t believe Li would attempt to have him killed directly.”
“Just how was it supposed to work?” Mary Pat asked.
Ryan shrugged, holding out his hand, watching it tremble slightly. “Long Yun shoots Zhao and Colonel Huang and my security detail—and me. The guy was apparently an impressive shooter. Five or six head shots. It would have been over in a heartbeat—especially if no one was suspecting it. He’d just blame the assassination on us.”
“Still,” Arnie said, “I find it odd that a man who’s risen to Zhao’s level could be duped like that.”
Ryan said, “I wouldn’t move Zhao out of the sneaky-bastard category just yet. He admitted to me that he did not expect the attack to happen so quickly after arrival in Japan. He intended to meet with Li later in the day and let him know his wife and son had been in ‘protective custody’ since early this morning.”
“I’m sure the foreign minister and his cronies will all be granted fair trials and speedy executions,” Arnie said.
Mary Pat gave a smug nod. “Sounds legit.”
Ryan turned to Montgomery, who stood against the wall, unwilling to let the President out of his sight.
“So, Gary,” Ryan said, “you told Colonel Huang you would have gone to handle it yourself if that were possible?”
“Backing your play, sir,” Montgomery said.
“So you wouldn’t have?” Ryan mused. “Left me with the
Chinese, I mean, while you took care of it.”
“No, Mr. President,” Montgomery said. “Not in a million years.”
62
Magdalena Rojas insisted on going to the hospital to see Eddie Feng and thank him for his kindness that night at Parrot’s party. Callahan could hardly say no to the request, considering all the poor kid had been through. She and Caruso stood with her beside Feng’s bed.
The whites of his eyes were still red with pronounced petechiae from the attempted dead-leg hanging, but his ridiculous fauxhawk was combed down and he wasn’t quite so twitchy, since he’d been off energy drinks for the better part of a week.
“I’m sorry I stole your thumb drive,” the child said.
Feng scoffed. “I’m not,” he said. “Not if it got you out.”
Magdalena leaned over and gave him a hug. He squirmed and looked up at Callahan and Caruso, not knowing what to do.
“I want to thank that other man, too,” Magdalena said. “Is he still in the hospital?”
Callahan shot a narrow look at Caruso. “He should be,” she said. “But someone checked him out.”
“He saved me, you know,” she said. “And I heard he saved Jo, too. She was one of Parrot’s girls. And Paula and Leticia at Matarife’s place.” She shivered at the mention of the name. “He saved us all. I would like him to know we are grateful. What is his name?”
“His name is John.” Caruso smiled. “I’m sure he knows.”
A guardian from Child Protective Services put her arm around Magdalena and led her into the hall.
“What happens to her now?” Eddie Feng asked, genuinely concerned.
Callahan sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you. Lots of counseling, rehab for any drug habits, treatment for STDs, and foster care.”
“As long as you don’t send her back to her mom,” Feng said. “From what she told me, that lady is evil.”
“Oh, no,” Callahan said. “I’m already working on a way to pinch that awful woman for international human trafficking.” She removed the leg irons that kept him chained to the bed. “Get some rest, Eddie. You’re a weirdo, but you’re apparently not a pedophile.”