Her smile was weak; her lips trembled.
He put one hand on her firm breasts.
She said, “Must you return today?”
“Within the hour. I should never have left Peking in the middle of such a crisis. But I had to see you once more and be sure that you were provided for. If I get back tonight, I will not have been too derelict in my duties.”
Without another word she slid down in the bed until her face was in his lap. She began to kiss him there. A few minutes later she said, “Do you desire me again?”
“Would you have me say no when the proof of the lie is in your hand?” he asked.
“Indisputable proof,” she said, squeezing his erect member.
“Come to me.”
Soon after they had finished, he got out of bed and began to dress. When she started to get up too, he said, “No. Lie down. I want to look at you while I dress. I want to take away with me the picture of you naked on my bed.”
She smiled for him.
“At the end of a year,” he said, “consider yourself free. Wait twelve months, but no longer.”
She said nothing.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” she said all but inaudibly.
“I will most likely return in a month.”
She nodded.
He hugged her to him once more before he left. Outside, as he walked away along the pine-shrouded alley toward the lower slopes of Seoul, he felt as if some creature with razored talons had torn him open and scooped out the contents of his chest.
In the house, in the bedroom, Yin-hsi felt even more miserable than her Tai-Pan. She sat on the edge of her bed, her slender brown shoulders hunched, her face in her hands. She wept and shuddered and cursed herself. She knew that she would never see him again. She wished that she had told him what awful things she had done, and she could almost hear the conversation that might have been:
— Tai-Pan, you do know that no other woman could love you as well and deeply as I love you?
— You're a good woman, Yin-hsi.
— Try not to hate me.
— Why should I hate you?
— I am a wretch. I have betrayed you to your enemies.
— What game is this?
— It is true.
— What enemies?
— They came here to see me.
— When?
— Months ago. In the winter.
— Who were they?
— A South Korean and an American. They wanted me to help them destroy you… somehow. I don't know how. I never learned how it was to be done. I refused. They said they would kill my mother and my father. They said they would rape and kill my sister, murder and mutilate my brothers. At first I didn't believe them. But they convinced me that they were the kind of men who would do anything. They raped me and hurt me badly in other ways. Very badly. They frightened me, Tai-Pan. And in the end, awful wretch that 1 am, I cooperated with them. I betrayed you.
But it was pointless to imagine a confession that had not been made. She had not spoken to him about these things, not even when she suspected that, somehow, this crisis in Peking was connected with the men who had first come to see her last winter. It was in this current crisis that Shen-yang was to be destroyed. Somehow. Some way. She was certain of it, yet she had kept her silence. Fear was stronger than affection. Terror drove out love. After he had given her so much pleasure, while his warm semen was still oozing from her, she had let him walk out the door to his fate without giving him one word of warning.
She loathed herself.
She wished that she had the courage to commit suicide. But she knew that she was too much of a coward to even prick her skin. She would collapse at the sight of blood.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her feet on the cool brick floor, and she wept.
And she prayed that however her master was to be destroyed, he would go quickly, with dignity, and without pain.
WASHINGTON: THURSDAY, MIDNIGHT
In the book-lined first-floor study of his elegant town-house in the Georgetown section of the capital city, Robert McAlister poured himself a third bourbon on the rocks and returned with it to his desk. He sat down and had time for one sip before the telephone rang. It was the call that he had been waiting for since ten o'clock. He said, “Hello, Mr. President.”
“I'm sorry to be late, Bob.”
“That's all right, sir.”
“It's this flare-up in the Mideast.”
“Certainly.”
“Ever since they discovered those new Israeli oil deposits, it's been a nightmare.”
“Yes, sir.”
The President sighed and clicked his tongue. “Any progress on your end of the Dragonfly mess?”
“Not much,” McAlister said. “It's been a bad day right from the start — thanks in part to your Mr. Rice.”
The President clicked his tongue against his teeth again. “Andy? What did Andy do?”
McAlister closed his eyes and held the glass of bourbon against his forehead. “I'm sorry, sir. It's a small thing. Inconsequential, really. I shouldn't even have mentioned it. But I'm so tensed up—”
“I want to know.” He clicked his tongue.
“Well, he was supposed to round up a dozen federal marshals—”
“He didn't?”
“He did. But he didn't call them until around ten o'clock last night. Now, some of them weren't scheduled for duty, and they'd made plans for an extra-long weekend. They went home yesterday and packed suitcases and loaded up campers… and then had to unload and unpack when Rice called them late last night. They weren't happy this morning, and the apologies were mine to make.” He lowered the glass of bourbon to the desk. “Oh, what the hell, it's really nothing. I'm just frustrated by all of this, and I'm trying to find a convenient punching bag.”
“No, you're right, Bob. There was no reason he couldn't have called the marshals before five yesterday. I'm going to mention this to Andy in the morning.” Click! went his tongue.
“Well, it really is petty of me. After everything that has happened today, the murder and all—”
“Murder?” the President asked.
“You don't know about that?”
“I've been tied up on this Mideast thing.”
McAlister swallowed some bourbon. “The best investigative lawyer I have is a man named Bernie Kirk-wood.”
“I've met him. He's done a great job for you these last six months,” the President said. He didn't click his tongue.
What was he doing instead? McAlister wondered. Boring at his ears? Drumming his fingers on the desk? Or perhaps he was picking his nose—
“Bob? Are you there?”
“Sorry, sir. Wool gathering.”
“Bernie Kirkwood.”
“Yes, sir. Early this afternoon Bernie came up with what we thought was a damned good lead. He was working on a list of names — scientists with experience in biological-weapons research. And he discovered that a man named Potter Cofield had once worked for Dr. Olin Wilson. Furthermore, Cofield had received a promotion at the Pentagon almost entirely on the recommendation of Wilson.”
“Ah,” the President said.
“Next, Bernie learned that Dr. Cofield had retired from his job at the Pentagon two years ago.”
“How old was he?”
“Fifty.”
“It's possible to retire from government service that young.”
“Yes, sir. But Cofield wasn't the kind of man to pack it up and lie in the Caribbean sun. Bernie studied his record and talked to a few of Cofield's friends. The man lived for his research.”
“I see.”
“So Bernie, two other lawyers, and the federal marshal who's protecting them, went to talk to Cofield. He was dead.”
“How?”
“Stabbed repeatedly in the chest and throat.”
“My God!”
McAlister swallowed some bourbon. He felt lousy. “His house had been torn up a bit. As if a burglar had been going th
rough the drawers looking for cash and valuables.”
“But you don't think it was a burglar?”
“The place hadn't been torn up enough. It was a very hasty job, a cover, nothing more. Besides, Co-field still had his wallet, and there was seventy dollars in it.”
“Any clues?”
“We brought in the FBI,” McAlister said. “They've got some of the best forensic men combing the house. But I don't have much hope that anything'll come from that. For one thing, we can't trust everyone in the FBI. And for another, these killers are professionals. They don't leave fingerprints.”
“What about the police?”
“We didn't inform them,” McAlister said. “If we had, the press would have been crawling all over the house. And sure as hell, someone from the Times or the Post would pick up on the whole Dragonfly mess by tomorrow morning.”
“They're good reporters,” the President said.
“One other thing about Cofield.”
“What's that?”
“He was killed no more than half an hour before we got to him.”
The President clicked his tongue: he had come full circle. “So it isn't just a case of The Committee routinely killing off the men who worked with Wilson.”
“That's right. Cofield was killed because the other side knew we wanted to talk to him. And the only way they could know that is if they've got somebody inside my organization.”
“Who?”
“I haven't any idea.” He rattled the ice cubes in his glass and wished he could put the phone down to go get another drink. He was ordinarily a light drinker, but these last several months had given him a taste for Wild Turkey.
After clicking his tongue twice, the President said, “What are you going to do?”
“Just be careful, watch everyone closely, and hope the damned son of a bitch will trip himself up sooner or later.” Ordinarily, he was no more of a curser than a drinker. But that had changed too.
“It's not likely that he will,” the President said after a few seconds of thought. “Trip himself up, I mean.”
“I know. But I don't see how else I can handle it.”
“What about the agent that Berlinson killed out there in Carpinteria? Anything on him yet?”
“No leads at the moment. Not on him or his partner. We're verifying the whereabouts of every current and ex-agent, but this is going to take a good deal of time.”
“Have you heard from Canning?”
“His cover is blown.”
“But how is that possible?”
“I don't know,” McAlister said wearily. “The only people who knew about him were me, you, and Rice.”
“Where is he now?”
“Tokyo.”
“Then it's about time for us to send his name along to the Chairman.”
“No, sir. Canning just arrived in Tokyo. He's a full day behind schedule, thanks to some trouble he ran into in Los Angeles.” He quickly explained about that.
“Yes, Bob, but now that his cover has been blown, I don't see any reason for us to keep his identity a secret from the Chairman until the very last minute.”
“Well, sir, the Chairman's going to want to know how Canning will be arriving in Peking. You can tell him our man will be aboard one of the two dozen authorized flights from Tokyo to Peking. But I'd like to keep that a secret until the plane is in the air.”
“Okay,” the President said. “We'll send all the data except the name of the flight — and we'll stat that by satellite as soon as it takes off from Tokyo. Which flight is it?”
“For now,” McAlister said, “I'd like to keep it a secret from you as well as the Chairman, sir.”
The President hesitated, sighed, and said, “Very well. Is there anything else?”
Once more the President had stopped clicking his tongue. McAlister was happier when he could hear that sound, for then he didn't have to wonder what the man was doing. He longed for another series of clicks. He thought; I'm going mad. And he said, “Sir, there's something I believe we have to do, but it's beyond my jurisdiction. Are you open for a suggestion?”
“I'm always open for suggestions.”
“Arrest A. W. West.”
There was a long silence on the line.
“Sir,” McAlister said, “we strongly suspect that he's one of the men behind The Committee, behind Dragonfly. Arresting him might throw the organization into confusion. That might buy us time. And they might panic, start making mistakes.”
“We have no proof against him,” the President said sternly. “We may suspect that West is behind it, but we have nothing that would convince a judge.”
“Then arrest him for the Kennedy assassinations. We know that he was one of the people who financed all of that.”
“We have circumstantial proof. Only circumstantial proof. We may know that he was part of a conspiracy, but again we have nothing to show a judge, nothing concrete. Furthermore, I thought we had all made a policy decision not to open that can of worms and throw the country into a turmoil.”
McAlister sagged in his chair.
“Do you agree, Bob?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, exhausted. The bourbon was getting to him. His mind was clouded.
“I'll leave instructions with my secretary to put you through to me at any hour. If something comes up, call me at once.”
“Yes, sir. And, Mr. President?”
“Yes?”
“If you have any speaking engagements over the next few days — cancel them.”
“I have none,” the President said soberly.
“Don't even go for walks on the White House grounds.”
“And stay away from windows too?”
“Sir, if you were assassinated now, we'd be thrown into such turmoil that we'd never be able to stop Dragonfly — if it's stoppable under any conditions.”
“You're right, of course. And I've had the same thoughts myself. Did you take my advice about a bodyguard?”
“Yes, sir,” McAlister said. “There are five men stationed in my house tonight.”
“FBI?”
“No, sir. I don't trust the FBI. These are Pinkerton men. I hired them out of my own pocket”
“I suppose that's wise.”
McAlister sipped some of the melted ice in his glass. “We sound like true psychotics, thoroughbred paranoids. I wonder if we're ready for an institution?”
“Someone once said that if you think everyone is out to get you, and everyone is out to get you, then you're not a paranoid but merely a realist.”
Sighing, McAlister said, “Yes, but what are we coming to? What are we coming to when wealthy men can hire the assassination of the President — and get away with it? What are we coming to when private citizens and crackpot elements of the CIA can find the means to wage biological warfare against a foreign country? What are we coming to when all this can be happening — and you and I are so relatively calm about it, reasonable about it?”
“Bob, the world isn't going to hell in a handbasket — if that's what you're saying. It got pretty bad there for a while. But we're straightening it up, cleaning it up. That's what my administration is all about.”
And how many times have I heard that before? McAlister wondered.
The President said, “Bit by bit we're putting it all back together, and don't you forget that.”
“I wonder,” McAlister said. He was seldom this morose, and he realized that Dragonfly was the final catalyst necessary to start major changes in him. He didn't know what those changes might be; they were still developing. “Sometimes I think the world just gets crazier and crazier. It certainly isn't the world that I was taught about when I was a young man in Boston.”
“You're just tired.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you want me to relieve you? Would you like someone else to take over the agency?”
McAlister sat up straight. “Oh, Christ, no! No, sir.” He wiped one hand across his face. “I can't think of any other poor
son of a bitch" — and here he was cursing again—"who could have stood up to these last six months as well as I have. That's not egomania — it's just fact.”
“I have faith in you.”
“Thank you.”
“We'll get through this.”
“I hope you're right.”
“I want to be informed the moment there are any major developments. And if you don't call me, if nothing comes up, I'll still give you a ring around five o'clock tomorrow afternoon.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get some rest.”
“I'll try.”
“Goodnight, Bob.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
The President clicked his tongue and hung up.
While McAlister was on the telephone with the President, Andrew Rice was in his car, cruising around one of the unofficial red-light districts of Washington. He drove slowly past a couple of blocks of cocktail lounges, cheap bars, adult movie theaters and bookstores, boutiques, pawnshops, and shuttered delicatessens. Young and generally attractive girls, alone and in groups of two or three, stood at the curb near the bus stops. Although they were dressed and posed provocatively, many of them were trying to look — for the benefit of the police, who were not deceived but pretended to be — as if they were waiting for a bus or a cab or their boyfriends. They were all prostitutes; and Rice had already driven through the area once before in order to study and compare the merchandise. Finally, he turned a corner, pulled his Thunderbird to the curb, stopped near two flashily dressed young girls, and put down the automatic window on the passenger's side.
A tall blonde in a tight white pantsuit and a short red vinyl jacket leaned in at the open window. She smiled at him and said, “Hello there.”
“Hi.”
“Nice night, after all that rain.”
“Yes, it is.”
She looked him over, studied the leather-upholstered interior of the car. She said nothing more.
“Ah…” His hands were slippery with sweat. He was gripping the wheel so hard that his knuckles were bloodless; they poked up sharp and hard in his fat fingers. “I'm looking for someone.”
“What's his name? Maybe I know him.”
You rotten bitch, he thought. He took his wallet from his inside jacket pocket. “How much?”
She pretended to be confused. “For what?”
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