A Conspiracy of Ravens

by Terrence McCauley

  He heard Demerest muffle the phone, as if he was talking to someone nearby.

  The Trustee said, “You ever work in China?”

  “No,” Hicks admitted.

  “Well, I have,” she said. “Xinjiang’s been a hotbed of separatist activity for years. It’s close to Mongolia, so it’s a region that has a little bit of everything. Muslim extremists, underground enterprises, the works. The Chinese government usually gives them just enough rope to hang themselves, allowing these various deeds to go unpunished while keeping an eye on whatever comes out of the region. Given what Carl’s people found on the laptop you gave them, I would have expected the Vanguard to be based in Hong Kong since that’s where most of their money is. But Xinjiang makes sense. If you want to be far away from prying eyes, then that’s the place to be.”

  Demerest came back on the line. “My China desk is putting together a report for me now. You can read it on the plane.”

  Hicks had heard a lot of strange things that day and thought this might be one of them. “Plane? What plane? I’ve got a prisoner to interrogate. I just can’t drop everything and get on a plane to China.”

  “To Beijing, to be more precise,” Demerest said. “There’s an international humanitarian delegation leaving out of Berlin for Beijing in three hours. You’re going to be travelling with them. Our Berlin office is scrambling to get you all the necessary papers as we speak. You’ll be a public relations officer assigned to go along with the rest of the crew. Upon arrival, one of our people will meet you and take you to speak to the army colonel in charge of the country’s anti-terrorist unit.”

  Hicks knew he was disoriented, but none of this was making any sense. “I’ve never worked in China, but even I know they don’t just let foreigners walk around without a shadow. There’s no way they’ll just let me wander off on my own.”

  “There is when they want to get rid of the Vanguard as much as we do,” Demerest said. “One of the colonels in charge of their anti-terrorist unit is a wannabe defector. He’s been on our payroll for years. Seems he’s become disenchanted with the politics in his homeland and wants a new life in the West when he retires from the army. We’re reaching out to him now and getting him to arrange for some doors to be left open, so to speak.”

  Every instinct Hicks had was telling him not to go. He was exhausted and in no shape to get on a plane. And nothing about this plan felt right. “An operation like this needs time to set up properly. Hell, I don’t even speak Chinese.”

  “You won’t have to,” Demerest said. “All you need to do is keep your mouth shut and play along. All my people already in Beijing have someone eyeballing them whenever they leave the embassy. And this information is too big for me to send in an email to my colonel. Ending a threat in Xinjiang would be great for his career, and even better for us.”

  “We’re not talking about your ass here,” Hicks said. “We’re talking about mine.”

  “I know, but the colonel will know how to handle it. No one from the Chinese Army is going to show up with an official car to greet you at the airport, but they’ll allow you into the country just this once because it benefits them. If this was just a normal intelligence matter, I could just pick up the phone and call my counterpart in China. But since this is off the books, I need someone to do this personally and quietly. The laptop you captured showed the Vanguard hasn’t only infiltrated the CIA. They’ve infiltrated the Chinese government, too.”

  Hicks realized going to Beijing might not be a bad idea after all. “I’ll need a second set of papers for one of my men. Rahul Patel. Jason will give you his particulars. He speaks Mandarin.”

  The Trustee added, “Xinjiang is a big place with plenty of caves and valleys to hide. Unless we get something more specific, the Chinese could waste a lot of time and weaponry blowing up empty caves while the Vanguard sneaks out the back. We can’t afford another Tora Bora here. Let’s hope Roger can get something out of him before you land in Beijing.”

  He looked at the monitor and saw Roger sitting in a chair next to Tessmer’s bed. Roger was checking the patient’s body, then wrote furiously in a notebook. Whatever he was writing, it wasn’t about how to make the Vanguard’s co-leader more comfortable.

  “Don’t worry,” Hicks said. “I think we’ll have something soon.”

  WERNER VON HAYEK was aware of the pain before he realized he was actually awake. Muscles in places he didn’t know he had burned hotter than any fire he had ever known. He thought he could feel every crease in his brain, and each of them pulsed and pounded with a new agony.

  He would have cried out if he thought he had the strength. The pain was so encompassing that the simple act of giving voice to his agony was beyond his comprehension.

  And then, just as suddenly as the agony had begun, it evaporated, replaced by something he could only describe as peace. Past and present lost all meaning, if they ever had any meaning at all. Only now mattered. This very second. Any inkling of memory or identity vanished, and he was completely present within himself, too afraid to even give the state much thought in fear that he may lose this bliss.

  That bliss was ruined by a single name.

  “Werner von Hayek,” declared a voice that sounded neither like God nor the devil, but of man. A voice that belonged very much to this world.

  “I know you are conscious and I know you can hear me.” It was an American voice, speaking passable German. “Open your eyes and say hello.”

  Against his own wishes, Werner felt his eyes flutter open. A man was looking at him. A fair-skinned man with blondish hair and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. A face that would have looked almost feminine had it not been for those eyes, harsh in their clarity and certainty.

  Werner realized he could not feel much, but what little feeling he had ran cold, though he couldn’t explain why.

  “There you are,” he said in English. “I knew you could hear me.”

  On reflex, Werner said, “You know nothing, little man.”

  “Ah, but I do. I know everything about you, Werner. Everything you were, everything you are, and everything you are about to become.” The face moved closer. “What you are about to become is far more important.”

  Werner tried to move his head but realized he could not. He could tell he was sitting at an incline, as if in a hospital bed. He was in a room of complete whiteness, but not an ephemeral white. His mind cleared a bit more and he saw the walls and ceiling were padded. He saw something in the far corner of the room, something covered by another white sheet. Was it a chair? A lamp? A piece of machinery?

  He realized he was not in a hospital room at all.

  He was in a cell.

  His hearing began to return and he heard a cacophony of beeps and machines coming from somewhere behind him. He looked down and saw a white sheet covered him from the neck down. He tried to turn his head again, but this time felt the restraint across his forehead. “Where am I?”

  “You’re with me and I’m with you, and we’re going to have a wonderful time together.” The man cleared his throat before saying, “Werner von Hayek. Former colonel in the KGB. An impressive career, I must say. You were Putin’s commanding officer once upon a time. My, that must have been something.”

  Against his will, the man’s words made his mind begin to work again. He spoke without thinking, without control. “Putin was a puppy. So desperate for power, he’d do anything I told him to do.”

  “As will you, in time,” the man told him. “Guess that’s why he booted you from the service when he rose to power after the Wall fell. You had quite the nasty reputation. ‘The Butcher of Bavaria’ was what they used to call you back in the Kremlin. That must have stung. You’d worked so hard to be a good party member, a worthy Russian, only to have your high-borne title thrown back in your face. Poor Werner. You got them back, though, didn’t you? The Vanguard gave you that much. Supporting the enemies of your enemies. Arming the Ukrainians and all the other separatists who rebelled against a go
vernment you never believed to be legal or valid.”

  Werner wanted to respond, but he remembered now. Werner wasn’t his name and hadn’t been his name for a long time. It was something else now, though so many memories flooded his mind he couldn’t recall the name he used now. “Who are you? How do you know so much about me?”

  He could not pull away when the man caressed his cheek. “How cute. Your memory is coming back. That’s good. It will make our time together that much more productive. And we can reach our destination that much quicker.”

  The hand eased away from his face. “You remember what happened to you, yes? At the cemetery? Your family’s crypt?”

  Amidst the flood of memories, Werner saw a series of images rush to the fore. A forgettable man with dark hair, standing with him at his family’s crypt. Another German? What was his name? Bumgarner, yes? But that wasn’t the name he was using now. It was something else, something shorter. Hicks, wasn’t it?

  Memories of the pain came, too, and the gunshot and the screaming and the…

  “Good,” said the man. “Your vital signs show full cognitive ability is being restored. Now we can begin.”

  The man pulled the white sheet away. Werner realized he was completely naked and saw remains of his left leg, missing completely from the knee down. The bandages white and clean as if they had always been there, but he knew they hadn’t. He remembered the gunshot and the agony, and began to scream again. The sounds from the machines behind him rose in quickening beeps and whirs.

  But the blond man didn’t try to quiet him. He simply sat in a chair at his bedside and observed him, much like he himself remembered looking at other people in rooms like this in Kiev and Moscow and other places.

  This man was as indifferent to his screams, his suffering, and pain as he had once been when the roles had been reversed.

  But this was different. Werner could see this man was absorbing his fear, and for the first time since he was a boy, Werner von Hayek felt fear.

  He stopped screaming and decided to do something. He tried to move but realized he was strapped down to the bed. He could feel the straps across his chest and on his wrists. He struggled against them, but found no purchase and stopped.

  He began to gather himself, for along with the memories, his training returned. He had been prepared for this. He had been trained by the best counter-intelligence people in the world. Now that he knew what this was, he could fight it the way he had been taught.

  He managed to imitate a laugh, though it came out hoarse and raspy. “You are wasting your time, little man. You will never get anything out of me.”

  “Ah, but I already have. Xinjiang, remember? You mentioned it when you spoke to my friend in the cemetery. You said that’s where your Chinese counterparts are based.”

  Werner stopped laughing. He had forgotten that until now.

  “But, as you know,” his captor went on, “Xinjiang is a large place, chock full of nooks and crannies where an operation like yours can easily hide.”

  “And that’s all I will ever tell you,” Werner spat. “And if you do happen to get me to tell you more, it will be too late. They’re probably already gone by now, and anything you do to me will be a waste of time. So why don’t you save yourself a lot of bother and put a bullet in my brain and get it over with now?”

  “Perish the thought,” the man said. “Don’t sell yourself short. Or me, either, by the way. Yes, you’ve had training, but that was a long time ago. You were a whole man then and much younger. You’re in good shape for seventy, but you’re still seventy, and I have a whole host of ways to get a man of your stature to cooperate.”

  Werner clenched his jaw, fighting the panic that began to settle in. “Never.”

  “Never is a long time, and we have all the time in the world. More than you know.”

  Werner did not see the man move, but felt intense pain spike in his left leg, intense enough to make his eyes roll back in his head as he strained against his bindings.

  His captor’s voice cut through the agony. “That pain you felt when you first woke up was induced by me. The peace you felt was courtesy of a tiny bit of morphine I introduced to your system. The pain you’re feeling now is thanks to a special concoction of mine that enhances the tenderness of your wound. I’d like to tell you that the pain will go away, but what you’re feeling right now is the least amount of pain you’ll feel in our time together. That is, if you choose to be difficult.”

  Werner heard the man move, and as quickly as the pain came, it went. The man said, “This is who you are now, my friend. Peace, then excruciating agony that will last for as long as I allow it. Each time will get worse, more intense. Don’t worry about your heart giving out, because I won’t allow it. I’ve given you a stimulant so that you won’t pass out, either. You are entirely under my control and resistance is pointless. Yes, you have been trained to resist, but, my dear Werner, no one ever trained you for me.”

  The man came back into view and Werner tried to spit at him, but he didn’t have enough saliva. He didn’t realize how dry he was. How cold!

  His captor clasped his hands behind his back. “Now, I know all of this is a lot to take in all at once, so I’m going to give you a little time to rest before we begin talking about Xinjiang. I want to hear all about exact locations, defensive measures in place, how many people are stationed there, and what goes on there. And while you’re thinking about ways to lie to me, consider the amount of pain you’ve felt so far and realize it is but a sample of the pain I’m prepared to inflict on you if you decide to be difficult. Ask yourself if your partners are worth the agony or if the truth is worth the peace you feel when you cooperate.”

  His captor looked away. “I’ve got to admit there’s a part of me that hopes you hold out for a bit. You hurt a lot of people I love and there’s a certain price to be paid for that, don’t you think?” He bent closer to Werner and smiled. “I know I think so.” He patted Werner’s right leg and said, “But there’ll be time for that. Rest so we can begin our journey toward the truth together.”

  Werner watched the monster move toward the door, only to pause before the covered thing in the corner. What is that?

  His tormentor said, “I almost forgot. I know how terribly lonely interrogation can be. Locked up in a cell, all alone with only your thoughts to plague you, wondering what will happen next. I want your stay with us to be as pleasant as possible, so I’ve asked a friendly face to join us.”

  The man pulled off the sheet and revealed his man Henrik sitting in a chair. His eyes vacant, his chest barely rising and falling. A thin line of drool overflowing his bottom lip onto his bare chest.

  The man reacted to the look on Werner’s face. “Why so sad? We promised to keep him alive and we have. Hicks didn’t lie to you then. And I’m not lying to you now.”

  He folded the sheet across his arm. “I’d suggest you two get reacquainted, but I’m afraid it’ll be a bit of a one-sided conversation. Lobotomy patients aren’t known to be conversant.” That smile again. “See you in a bit.”

  Werner was screaming again when Roger Cobb closed the door behind him.

  Beijing, China

  HICKS FELT a familiar rush when the lock slid open. He hadn’t picked a lock in a while and was glad he hadn’t lost his touch. “We’re in.”

  Rahul went in first while Hicks replaced the lock pick in its nylon pouch and put it away. He went inside and shut the door behind him, quietly relocking it once he was inside the apartment.

  Patel stood in the middle of the living room, looking the place over. “Christ, what a dump.”

  Hicks couldn’t argue with him. It was almost noon, but the smog in Beijing made it look closer to evening. Better lighting would not have improved the surroundings. The living room had a threadbare couch, a flimsy wooden bookcase filled with all the right tomes the Party would expect a high-ranking military officer to have. Demerest had told him Colonel Li Jie Tian had been wise enough to keep his contrab
and reading buried on his family’s farm in the south, where the Party had searched on a regular basis, but never found.

  The colonel may have been a traitor, but he wasn’t incompetent.

  “Check the place for bugs, but don’t disturb anything,” Hicks said as he went into the bedroom. “We already know as much about this guy as we need to. Sniffing around his stuff will only piss him off and we need him on our side.”

  In the bedroom, Hicks found the bed unmade and articles of clothing cast on the floor. All of it was on the left side of the bed and all of it was male clothing. He would have felt better about Colonel Tian if they had something to hang over his head. A gay lover or a married woman. A porn fetish or syringe full of heroin on the nightstand. Hell, even a sex toy or empty liquor bottles would have been enough ammunition to force him to cooperate. But Demerest had warned him that Colonel Tian was simply a run-of-the-mill civil servant who had grown discontent with the Communist ideology and wanted a better life in the West. The first step toward securing that life would start today when he came home at the end of his shift.

  Hicks opened the drawer of the nightstand and removed the NP-28 semi-automatic pistol he was told would be there. It may have been a Chinese knock-off of the Colt M-1911 A1 .45 caliber pistol, but it fired real bullets and was therefore a threat. He didn’t want the colonel getting his hands on it when he found two strangers in his apartment.

  Hicks checked the chamber and the magazine and found them both full. Flying commercial meant he’d had to leave his Ruger in Berlin, but the NP-28 would fit the bill. He found two extra clips deeper in the drawer and pocketed those, too. Better to be safe than sorry.

  Back in the living room, he found Patel working his handheld. “I’m not picking up any signals coming from the apartment, but with the smog as bad as it is today our connection to the satellite is spotty.”