Dragonfly

by Dean R. Koontz

  McAlister rose, picked up the ashtray and carried it to the wastecan, where he emptied it. “The spansule won't show up in an X-ray. The petro-plastic lets the rays pass through. There are no metal parts. We've been through this before. There are no inorganic materials other than the petro-plastic. There's nothing implanted with it to puncture it on a given signal. So how does Mr. Chan break it and infect himself once he's been triggered?”

  Canning smiled. “Easy. Deep in his subconscious mind he'll know exactly where the spansule has been sewn into him. He'll feel for it and find it in a few seconds; it's less than an inch beneath the skin. He'll take a pin or a needle and prick himself, stab down far enough to pierce the wall of the spansule. Repeatedly.”

  Leaning against the counter, McAlister said, “You're good.”

  “Every man's good at something.” He went back to the table and sat down.

  “But there's something that hasn't occurred to you,” McAlister said softly.

  He met the blue eyes. He frowned. Then he scowled. “I must be rustier than I thought. They set this thing up back in January or February. It's now September twenty-ninth. Charlie Chan went home a long time ago. So what is The Committee waiting for?”

  McAlister shrugged.

  “Is it possible Charlie did realize what was done to him and turned himself in to the authorities the moment he was back in Peking?”

  “It's possible.”

  “Or maybe he was triggered — and it didn't work.”

  “Maybe. But we can't risk it. Now that the Committeemen know I'm on to them, they aren't going to wait much longer. If Charlie is still a viable weapon, he'll be used within the next few days.”

  “Which brings us to the last question,” Canning said.

  “That is?”

  “What do you want me to do about it?”

  THREE

  Stafford, Virginia

  The driver, Roy Dodson, shifted his gaze from the busy superhighway to the nine-inch screen of the electronic scanner that was mounted on the console between the halves of the front seat. A blip of green light, winking like a star, had been at the center of the screen but was now moving rapidly toward the right-hand edge. Every time the light pulsed, the monitor produced a beeping signal. When the light first began to move to the right, the tone of the signal had changed; and it was this new sound that had caused the driver to take a look at the screen. “He's on an exit ramp,” Dodson said.

  They were heading south on rain-washed Interstate 95, more than thirty miles from Washington and forty miles from the point at which they had begun to follow Robert McAlister. Traffic was moderately heavy. Hundreds of big trucks were working down toward Richmond and Norfolk. McAlister's white Mercedes was one mile ahead of them, as it had been ever since they'd begun to tail it. They couldn't see it at this distance, of course. But thanks to the electronic gear, there was no need for them to keep the other car in sight.

  “Close in on him,” the passenger said. He was a heavy-set man with a dour face and a hard, no-nonsense voice.

  Dodson depressed the accelerator, swung the Thunderbird into the passing lane, and swept around a chemical tank truck.

  The light was nearly to the edge of the screen.

  “Faster,” said the fat man.

  Dodson jammed the accelerator all the way to the floor. The speedometer needle rose from sixty to seventy to eighty and hovered just below the ninety mark. Wind screamed along the car's streamlined flanks, and raindrops like gelatinous bullets snapped against the windshield. They passed another truck, two cars, and a motor home. The Thunderbird began to shimmy and float on the film of rain that covered the pavement. Dodson pulled out of the passing lane, then left the highway altogether, braking just as they shot into the exit ramp. The single lane curved farther to the right; the blip of green light eased back toward the center of the screen — then continued away to the left. At the foot of the ramp, not even pausing for the stop sign, Dodson turned left on the secondary road and stepped on the accelerator again. The green signal returned to the center of the monitor: the Mercedes was now directly in front of them, still out of sight beyond a low hill.

  “Slow down,” the fat man said.

  Dodson did as he was told. Malloy, the fat man's previous aide, had been a twenty-eight-year-old veteran of the CIA's West German office, and Malloy had not always done as he was told. Poor Malloy had not been able to understand why the fat man, who had never worked for the agency, should be in charge of the extremely important and extremely secret Committee. Malloy could see why there was a need to cooperate with wealthy and powerful civilians who were in sympathy with their goals. But having a civilian in charge of the operations was more than Malloy could stand. To become the top man's aide, he had been required to resign from the agency himself, so that no government investigation of the CIA would ever zero in on him and then move from him to his boss and to the core of the apple. Before he became the fat man's aide, Malloy had not known who was in charge, but he had thought that it was a man high in the agency or at least a former agency executive. When he learned the truth he was sullen, brusque, and rude to the very man who had brought him into the center circle of the organization. Eventually, the fat man saw that Malloy's dissatisfaction with his boss might metamorphose into total disaffection with The Committee's, program itself; therefore, Malloy was killed in an accident when his car apparently skidded on a perfectly dry roadbed and collided with a telephone pole outside of Alexandria, Virginia. Roy Dod-son knew precisely what had happened to his predecessor and why; his boss had told him all about it the first day that Dodson had come to work. No matter what he might think of the fat man, Dodson did as he was told, always had and always would.

  Just before they reached the crest of the hill, the green blip moved sharply to the right on the monitor. Then it disappeared past the edge, although the dark screen continued to produce a faint beep-beep-beep.

  Topping the hill they saw a large truck stop — twenty gasoline pumps on five widely spaced concrete islands, a service garage, three automatic truck-washing bays, a truckers' motel, and restaurant — on the right side of the road. The huge parking lot contained sixty or seventy tractor-trailer rigs.

  “No Mercedes,” Dodson said.

  “He might have driven behind the buildings or in among all those trucks.”

  They drove through the nearest entrance and past the fueling stations where a dozen pump jockeys in bright yellow hooded rain slickers were tending to half a dozen trucks. Following the chain-link fence that encircled the property, they went around to the rear of the restaurant and the small, rather shabby motel. The beep-beep-beep, in counterpoint to the thumping windshield wipers, grew somewhat louder, and the light returned to the edge of the monitor — but there was no Mercedes here. On the south side of the complex, they cruised slowly down an aisle between the two rows of parked trucks — dull gray tailgates on both sides — which loomed like parading elephants. The signal was getting stronger by the second; the light edged back into the center of the screen. The beeping became so loud that it hurt their ears. Halfway down the aisle Dodson stopped the car and said, “We're almost on top of it.”

  There was nothing around them except trucks.

  Barely able to control his anger, the fat man said, “Which one is it?”

  Putting the car in gear and letting it drift forward, Dodson studied the monitor on the console. Then he slipped the car into reverse and let it roll backward while he watched the green blip. At last he stopped again and pointed at a tractor-trailer that had sea-train painted on the rear door. “McAlister must have found the gimmick on his Mercedes and switched it to this truck. We've been following a decoy.”

  Suddenly, without warning, the fat man raised his arms and leaned slightly forward and slammed both heavy fists into the top of the padded dashboard. Inside the closed car the blow reverberated like a note from a bass drum: and then a whole rhythm, a series of solid thumps. The fat man had gone berserk. His arms were lik
e windmill blades. He hammered, hammered, cursed, hammered, growled wordlessly, his voice like an animal's snarl, and hammered some more. His face was an apoplectic red, and hundreds of beads of sweat popped out on his brow. His eyes bulged as if they were being pushed out of him by some incredible inner pressure. The blood vessels at his temples stood up like ropes. He pounded the dashboard again and again, harder and harder… Beneath the padding the thin sheet metal began to bend. The fat man had tremendous strength in his thick arms. The dash sagged under the furious blows. Then, as suddenly as he had begun, he quit. He leaned back in his seat, breathing heavily, and stared out at the gray rain and the gray trucks and the wet black macadam.

  Stunned, Dodson said, “Sir?”

  “Get us the hell out of here.”

  Dodson hesitated.

  “Now, damn you!”

  Most of the way back to Washington, the fat man said nothing. He wasn't embarrassed, and he wasn't angry with Dodson. He was angry with himself. He'd had these rages before. Quite a few times, in fact. This was the first time, however, that anyone had seen him lose control. Always before, when he had felt that overpowering need to smash something with his fists, he had been able to wait until he was alone. Or with some whore. Over the last several days he had been under unbearable pressure. He never knew what that damned McAlister might do next. Keeping one step ahead of the bastard had been horribly difficult. And now he seemed to be one step behind. So this time he hadn't been able to go off by himself and work off his frustrations unobserved. He'd exploded, much to his own surprise, in front of Dodson. It was frightening. He simply could not let go like that when anyone was around, not again, not even for an instant.

  As they entered the Washington suburbs, the fat man said, “Well, we know he's got someone he trusts to send to Peking.”

  Dodson glanced nervously at his boss. “We do?”

  “Yes. We can deduce that much from his switching the transmitter to the truck. If he hadn't been rendezvousing with an agent, he'd have let us waste time and manpower following him.”

  “That makes sense, I guess.”

  “I'll find out who his man is. Before the day's over. One way or another, I'll find out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It's just that if we could have learned his name now, this morning, we'd have more time to — eliminate him.”

  Dodson licked his lips. Hesitantly, he said, “If we can't find out who he's sending to China — what then?”

  “Then, somehow we've got to activate Dragonfly immediately.”

  The rain had let up. Dodson put the windshield wipers on the lowest speed. “I've never been told what Dragonfly is.”

  “I know,” the fat man said.

  FOUR

  Washington, D.C.

  When McAlister first arrived at the G Street apartment, David Canning was like a patch of barren earth: gray soil, ashes, broken twigs, cinders, and pebbles. The gray soil was his current uneventful career at the White House. The ashes were of his marriage. And the rest of it was the detritus of a day-to-day existence which held little excitement and no meaning. When he realized that McAlister had a new job for him, it was as if a green shoot had appeared in the barren earth. And now, a short while later, as McAlister began to explain the nature of the assignment, the shoot soared up and opened with leaves and budded and blossomed. Canning suddenly felt alive for the first time in years. “We've already alerted Peking,” McAlister said. He came back to the kitchen table and sat down across from Canning. “General Lin Shen Yang, head of their Internal Security Force, has ordered a thorough physical examination for every one of the five hundred and nine Chinese citizens who visited North America during January and February. We've told them that's the wrong approach. No physical examination is going to unmask Dragonfly. If it were that easy to defuse the operation, Olin Wilson wouldn't have bothered with it.”

  “Have you given General Lin the names of the three agents we have in China?” Canning asked.

  “Good Lord, no!” His blue eyes were big and round, like a pair of robin eggs. “Whether or not they're Committeemen, we can't let our men be grilled by Chinese intelligence experts. They'd find out who Dragonfly is — but they'd also learn everything worth knowing about our operations within their borders. No matter how tough an agent is, he can be broken if the interrogator uses a combination of extreme torture and drugs.”

  “Of course.”

  “Our entire Chinese network would be blown to pieces.”

  Canning nodded agreement. “And any Chinese citizens who have been cooperating with our agents would be rounded up and imprisoned. 'Reeducated' to better serve the People's Republic.”

  “Exactly. And we'd probably suffer damage to our primary networks in most of Asia. Furthermore, if one of these three men is a Committeeman, and if he knows about some of these other things I've alluded to… Well, just imagine what the Chinese could do with that sort of information.”

  Rubbing one hand over his long and bony jaw, fingering the vague dimple in his chin, Canning thought for a moment and then said, “So you have to send a man to Peking to help General Lin find the Committeeman and, through him, Dragonfly.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I'm the man.”

  “As I've said, you're the only one I can trust.”

  “The Chinese are expecting me?”

  “They're expecting someone. Right now, I'm the only one who knows it'll be you. They won't get your name until they absolutely have to have it. The longer I can play this close to my vest, the longer it will take The Committee to find out just how much I know and what I'm going to do about it.”

  “What happens when I get to Peking? How close to the vest do I play it?”

  McAlister took his pipe out of his pocket again. He didn't fill and light it this time. He just kept turning it over and over in his hands. “You'll know the names of the three agents we have in China, but you won't reveal them all at once to General Lin. Instead, you'll provide him with one name at a tune.”

  “So he'll still need me.”

  “Yes.”

  “After I've given him a name?”

  “You will accompany him when he takes the operative into custody. You will see that he brings that man directly to the United States consulate. There, with General Lin participating only as an observer, you will question our operative, using a sophisticated polygraph which is already security-sealed and on a plane en route to our consul in Peking. If the agent is not a Committeeman, if the polygraph shows that he knows nothing whatsoever about Dragonfly, then you will see that he is held under armed guard within the diplomatic compound until he can be flown back to Washington. Under no circumstances must the Chinese get their hands on him. Then you will move on to the next agent on the list. In each case, even when you discover the Committeeman, you will not permit Lin to be alone with our man, and you will see that the agent is whisked out of China on the first available flight of any United States government aircraft. If the first agent you interrogate happens to be the Committeeman, the trigger man for Dragonfly, you will not reveal any more names to General Lin, of course.”

  File drawers opened and dozens of phantom secretaries moved busily back and forth across the ethereal office in Canning's mind. “The Chinese are going to go along with this? They aren't going to seize the opportunity to discover which of their own people have been passing information to us?”

  “They have no choice but to handle it our way.”

  “I'll be on their turf.”

  “Yes, but we could always just leave them to find Dragonfly on their own — which they simply cannot do.”

  “That's a bluff.”

  “It is,” McAlister admitted.

  “And they'll know it's a bluff.”

  McAlister shook his head no. “Regardless of what the newspapers may print about it, the great détente between the United States and the People's Republic of China is quite fragile. Oh, sure, most of the Chinese people want peace. They really are
n't all that imperialistic. They want open trade with us. But the great majority of the Party leaders don't trust us. Not the least bit. God knows, they have good reason. But with most government officials, the distrust has grown into paranoia. They wouldn't find it hard to believe that we'd let Dragonfly strike, because they're certain that we'd like to split their country between ourselves and the Russians.”

  “They actually think we're all wild-eyed reactionaries?”

  “They suspect that we are. And for most of them, suspicion is as good as proof. If he believes you're capable of committing the most despicable acts against China, General Lin won't push you too far. He'll believe your threats if you have to make them.”

  “But don't threaten him lightly?”

  “Yes. Diplomacy is always best.”

  Canning's eyes were a crystalline shade of gray. Ordinarily they contained a sharp cold edge that most men could not meet directly. At the moment, however, his eyes were like pools of molten metal: warm, glistening, mercurial. “When do I leave?”

  “Four o'clock this afternoon.”

  “Straight to Peking?”

  “No. You'll catch a domestic flight to Los Angeles.” McAlister took a folder of airplane tickets from an inner jacket pocket and laid it on the table. “From L.A. you'll take another flight to Tokyo. There's only a one-hour layover in Los Angeles. It's an exhausting trip. But tomorrow night you'll rest up in Tokyo. Friday morning you'll board a jet belonging to a French corporation, and that'll take you secretly to Peking.”

  Canning shook his head as if he were having trouble with his hearing. “I don't understand. Why not a government plane direct to Peking?”

  “For one thing, I'd have to go through the usual channels to get you a seat. Or the President could go through them for me, with no need to explain anything to anyone. But either way, The Committee would learn about it. And if they knew… Well, I'm not so sure you would ever get to Peking.”