Dragonfly

by Dean R. Koontz

  “No, no. He asked me to call and give you an explanation. And you deserve one. Besides, the truth of it will let me off the hook, at least somewhat.” He took another macaroon from the bag in his desk drawer and turned it over and over in his fingers as he spoke. “Fredericks at Justice was supposed to send me a list of marshals in the D.C. area, and he took his time about it. His messenger didn't get to my office until nearly six o'clock.”

  “I see.”

  “Then, of course, I wanted to get some background material on each of the marshals so we could be damned sure that none of them had past connections with the CIA. By the time I had twelve men I was sure I could trust, most of the evening had disappeared. If Fredericks had gotten that list to me earlier… Well, I should have been on the phone to him every fifteen minutes, pushing and prodding. I wasn't, so part of the blame is mine.”

  McAlister said, “Now I'm doubly sorry that I mentioned this to the chief.”

  “As I said, you deserved an explanation.” He waved the macaroon under his nose. “Any new developments?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” McAlister said.

  “Your man should reach Peking shortly.”

  “Then the fireworks start.”

  “Let's hope not,” Rice said, meaning something much different than McAlister would think he meant. “Sorry again about any problems I may have caused you.”

  “Sure. Be seeing you.”

  “Goodbye, Bob.”

  The moment he hung up he popped the macaroon into his mouth and instantly ground it to a sweet paste.

  He felt pretty good today. For one thing he had worked off most of his nervous tension with that whore last night. She was his first woman in four months and the first he had ever picked up in Washington. He had always felt that he would be risking too much by taking his satisfaction here in the capital. In Washington D.C., where the juiciest gossip and the main topic of conversation was nearly always about politicians, even a prostitute was likely to be somewhat politically aware; there was always the chance that even a seldom-photographed Presidential aide would be recognized on the street. But his need had been too great to delay, and he'd had no time or excuse for a trip to New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore. And after all, the affair had gone well: she had been attractive; she hadn't recognized him; and she'd helped him to get rid of the awful pressure that had been building within him. Now, this morning, the news about Dragonfly had suddenly taken a turn for the better, and Rice felt as well as a five-foot-ten, two-hundred-eighty-pound man could ever feel.

  “Mr. Rice?”

  He swallowed another macaroon, pressed an intercom button, and said, “Yes?”

  “Mr. Yu is here.”

  “Send him right hi.”

  Mr. Yu Miao-sheng, Formosa's ambassador to the United States, was a short, wiry man who wore excellent Hong Kong suits and thick wire-framed glasses. He smiled quite a bit; and his teeth were very sharp, almost canine.

  Rice greeted him at the door, and they shook hands. “Please have a seat, Mr. Yu.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Rice.”

  “Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Yu?”

  “Would you possibly have any dry sherry, Mr. Rice?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Dry Sack, perhaps?”

  “I believe it is.”

  “Could I possibly have some of that over ice?”

  Rice got the drink, put it on the coffee table, and sat in the armchair opposite the ambassador. When Mr. Yu had taken a sip of his drink and smiled approval, Rice said, “How was your meeting with the President?”

  “Very strained,” Mr. Yu said. He was quite amused by this; he laughed softly. “The President insisted that I knew something about a CIA plan to overthrow the government of the People's Republic of China. And I insisted that I knew nothing. We were both adamant, but we managed to behave like statesmen.”

  Rice smiled. “I am happy to hear that.”

  Frowning, Mr. Yu said, “However, the President made one point which causes me great concern.”

  “Oh?”

  “According to intelligence reports from which he quoted, the Russians are now aware of Taiwan's preparations for war.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the Soviet army is making preparations of its own.”

  “That's true enough; however, there is really nothing to worry about, Mr. Yu.”

  “But might not the Russians sweep in from the west and take a substantial part of the homeland before we can secure and defend it? The Russians are far better armed, far better prepared for war than are the Communist Chinese. You must know that if the Russians decided to take such risks — even if they were to forsake nuclear weapons — they would be too powerful an adversary for our Taiwanese forces.”

  “Yes, of course. But remember that mainland China is a vast country. The Russians will need weeks if not months to consolidate their gains in the west. Before they can get near Peking or the other eastern cities you will seize in the invasion — well, we will have taken care of the Russians.”

  Mr. Yu blinked stupidly for a long moment. Then: “There is a Dragonfly for Russia too?”

  “Something of that sort,” Rice said. “We hadn't planned to launch that operation for a few years. But if the Russians take advantage of the confusion in China to acquire some new territory, we'll have to advance our schedule.”

  “I am amazed.”

  Rice smiled tolerantly. “Now, tell me, how are things coming along in Taipei?”

  “I received a coded message from the capital just this morning,” Mr. Yu said. “We are virtually one hundred percent prepared.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Two thousand paratroopers will be in the air within three hours of your go-ahead signal. Within nine to twelve hours they will have seized every one of Communist China's nuclear weapons.”

  “The seaborne troops?”

  Pausing only to take an occasional sip of sherry, Mr. Yu spent the next ten minutes discussing the preparations which had been made for the invasion. When he had nothing more to report, he said, “As you can see, we need no advantage except the confusion caused by the plague in Peking.”

  Rice said, “I too, have received a coded message.”

  “From Taipei?”

  “From Peking.”

  “Sir?”

  “Dragonfly is on the move at last,” Rice said. “He will arrive in Peking around nine o'clock Saturday night, their time.”

  Mr. Yu was delighted. He slid to the edge of his chair. “And when will he be triggered?”

  “As soon as possible,” Rice said. “Within twenty-four hours of his arrival in the capital.”

  “I will alert my people.” Mr. Yu finished his sherry and got to his feet. “This is a momentous occasion, Mr. Rice.”

  “Momentous,” Rice agreed as he struggled out of his chair.

  They shook hands.

  At the door, Rice said, “How are your wife and daughters, Mr. Yu?”

  “Quite well, thank you, Mr. Rice.”

  “Will you give them my best, Mr. Yu?”

  “I certainly will, Mr. Rice.”

  “Good day, Mr. Yu.”

  “Good luck, Mr. Rice.”

  WASHINGTON: FRIDAY, 6:00 P.M.

  After giving the President a progress report by telephone at five o'clock, McAlister had gone straight to dinner. He was not at all hungry, but dinner gave him an excuse for drinks. By six he was at his favorite corner table in an expensive Italian restaurant that was popular with Cabinet officials, White House aides, senators, congressmen, and reporters. This early in the evening, there were very few customers. McAlister sat alone with his back to the wall, the Washington Post in front of him and a glass of iced bourbon ready at his right hand.

  As it had been for more years than he liked to think about, the news was sprinkled liberally with insanity, with signs of a society enduring a prolonged attack of schizophrenia. In Detroit three men had been killed when a group of young Marxist fact
ory workers, all of whom earned salaries that provided them with a Cadillac-standard of living, planted a bomb under a production-line conveyor belt. In Boston, an organization calling itself The True Sons of America was taking credit for a bomb explosion in the offices of a liberal newspaper, where a secretary and bookkeeper were killed. And in California the left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army had surfaced once again. Eight SLA “soldiers” had crashed a birthday party in a wealthy San Francisco suburb and murdered two adults and five small children. They had kidnapped three other children, leaving behind a tape recording which explained that after much consideration and discussion among themselves about what would be best for the People, they had decided to stop the capitalist machine by either murdering or “reeducating” its children. Therefore, they had kidnapped three children for reeducation and had slaughtered those for whom they had no available SLA foster parents.

  McAlister picked up his bourbon and finished nearly half of it in one long swallow.

  In the past he had read this sort of news and had been appalled; now he was outraged. His hands were shaking. His face felt hot, and his throat was tight with anger. These SLA bastards were no different from the crackpots who were behind the Dragonfly project. One group was Marxist and one fascist, but their methods and their insensitivity and their self-righteousness and even their totalitarian goals were substantially the same. Was it possible for even the most single-minded liberal to support fair trial, mercy, and parole for these bastards? Was it possible for anyone to try to explain their behavior as having its source in poverty and injustice? Was it possible, even now, for anyone to express equal sympathy for killers and victims alike? He wished it were possible to execute these people without trial… But that would be playing right into the hands of men like A. W. West — who, of course, deserved the same treatment, the same quick and brutal punishment, but who would probably wind up administering it to the left-wingers. None of these people, revolutionaries or reactionaries, deserved to live among men of reason. They were all animals, throwbacks, forces for chaos who had none but a disruptive function in a civilized world. They should be sought, apprehended, and destroyed—

  Yes, but how in the hell did that sort of thinking mesh with his well-known liberalism? How could he believe in the reasonable world his Boston family and teachers had told him about — and still believe in meeting violence with violence?

  He quickly finished the last of his bourbon.

  “Bad day, was it?”

  McAlister looked up and saw Fredericks, an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, standing in front of his table.

  “I thought you were pretty much a teetotaler,” Bill Fredericks said.

  “Used to be.”

  “You ought to get out of the CIA.”

  “And come over to Justice?”

  “Sure. We whittle away hours on anti-trust suits. And even when we've got a hot case, we aren't rushed. The wheels of justice grind slowly. One martini a night eases the tension.”

  Smiling, McAlister shook his head and said, “Well, if you've got it so damned easy over there, I wish you'd make an effort to help take the pressure off me when you get the chance.”

  Fredericks blinked. “What'd I do?”

  “It's what you didn't do.”

  “What didn't I do?'

  McAlister reminded him of how long he'd taken to send that list of federal marshals to Andrew Rice.

  “But that's not true,” Fredericks said. “Rice's secretary called and asked for the list. No explanations. Very snotty. Wanted to have it sooner than immediately. National security. Fate of the nation at stake. Future of the free world in the balance. Danger to the republic. That sort of thing. I couldn't get hold of a messenger fast enough, so I sent my own secretary to deliver it. She left it with Rice's secretary.” He stopped and thought for a moment. “I know she was back in my office no later than four o'clock.”

  McAlister frowned. “But why would Rice lie to me?”

  “You'll have to ask him.”

  “I guess I will.”

  “If you're dining alone,” Fredericks said, “why don't you join us?” He motioned to a table where two other lawyers from Justice were ordering drinks.

  “Bernie Kirkwood is supposed to join me before long,” McAlister said. “Besides, I wouldn't be very good company tonight.”

  “In that case, maybe I better join you, Bill,” Kirk-wood said as he arrived at McAlister's table.

  Kirkwood was in his early thirties, a thin, bushy-headed, narrow-faced man who looked as if he'd just been struck by lightning and was still crackling with a residue of electricity. His large eyes were made even larger by thick gold-framed glasses. His smile revealed a lot of crooked white teeth.

  “Well,” Fredericks said, “I can't let any newsmen see me with both of you crusaders. That would start all sorts of rumors about big new investigations, prosecutions, heads rolling in high places. My telephone would never stop ringing. How could I ever find the time I need to nail some poor bastard to the wall for income-tax evasion?”

  Kirkwood said, “I didn't know that you guys at Justice ever nailed anyone for anything.”

  “Oh, sure. It happens.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “Six years ago this December, I think. Or was it seven years last June?”

  “Income-tax evader?”

  “No, I think it was some heinous bastard who was carrying a placard back and forth in front of the White House, protesting the war. Or something.”

  “But you got him,” Kirkwood said.

  “Put him away for life.”

  “We can sleep nights.”

  “Oh, yes! The streets are safe!” Grinning, Fredericks turned to McAlister and said, “You'll check that out — about the list? I'm not lying to you.”

  “I'll check it out,” McAlister said. “And I believe you, Bill.”

  Fredericks returned to his own table; as he was leaving, the waiter brought menus for McAlister and Kirkwood, took their orders for drinks, fetched one bourbon and one Scotch, and said how nice it was to see them.

  When they were alone again, Kirkwood said, “We found Dr. Hunter's car in a supermarket parking lot a little over a mile from his home in Bethesda.”

  Dr. Leroy Hunter, McAlister knew, was another biochemist who had connections with the late Dr. Olin Wilson. He had also been on friendly terms with Potter Cofield, their only other lead, the man who had been stabbed to death in his own home yesterday. He said, “No sign of Hunter, I suppose.”

  Kirkwood shook his woolly head: no. “A neighbor says she saw him putting two suitcases in the trunk of the car before he drove away yesterday afternoon. They're still there, both of them, full of toilet articles and clean clothes.”

  Sipping bourbon, leaning back in his chair, McAlister said, “Know what I think?”

  “Sure,” Kirkwood said, folding his bony hands around his glass of Scotch. “Dr. Hunter has joined Dr. Wilson and Dr. Cofield in that great research laboratory in the sky.”

  “That's about it.”

  “Sooner or later we'll find the good doctor floating face-down in the Potomac River — a faulty electric toaster clasped in both hands and a burglar's knife stuck in his throat.” Kirkwood grinned humorlessly.

  “Anything on those two dead men we found in David Canning's apartment?”

  “They were each other's best friend. We can't tie either of them to anyone else in the agency.”

  “Then we're right back to square one.”

  Kirkwood said, “I called the office at six o'clock. They'd just received a telephone call from Tokyo. Canning and Tanaka took off in that Frenchman's jet at five p.m. Friday, Washington time — which is nine o'clock tomorrow morning in Tokyo.”

  McAlister handed him a section of the Washington Post. “Let's make a pact: no more talk about Dragonfly until after dinner. The world's full of other interesting crises and tragedies. I would advise, however, that you skip all that negative stuff and l
ook for the harmless human-interest stories.”

  Nodding, Kirkwood said, “You mean like 'Hundred-Year-Old Man Tells Secret of Long Life.'”

  “That's exactly it.”

  “Or maybe, 'Iowa Man Grows World's Largest Potato.' ”

  “Even better.”

  The waiter returned, interrupting their reading long enough to take two orders for hearts of artichokes in vinaigrette, cheese-filled ravioli, and a half-bottle of good red wine.

  Just before the artichokes arrived, McAlister was reading about a famous Christian evangelist's ideas for the rehabilitation of the thousands of men in American prisons. The evangelist wanted to surgically implant a transponder in each prisoner's brain so that the man could be monitored by a computer. The computer would not only keep track of the ex-prisoner but it would listen in to his conversations wherever he might be — and give him an electric shock if he used obscene language or tried to break the terms of his parole. The minister thought that, indeed, such a device could benefit a great many Americans who had never been to prison but who had engaged in hundreds of minor violations of the law all their lives. The evangelist also felt — and said that he was certain God agreed with him — that the punishment for various crimes should be brought into line with the nature of the original transgression. For example, a rapist should be castrated. A thief should have some of his fingers chopped off. A pornographer should have one eye poked out because it had offended God. A prostitute—

  “What in the hell?” Kirkwood's voice was uncharacteristically breathless, quiet.

  McAlister looked up from his section of the newspaper. “It can't be as bad as what I'm reading.”

  After he'd taken a moment to reread a paragraph, Kirkwood said, “Last night, right near here, a prostitute was badly beaten by one of her Johns.”

  “Don't read about prostitutes,” McAlister said. “Read something uplifting. I'm reading about this evangelist—”

  “She couldn't talk very well because her mouth was swollen,” Kirkwood said. “But she was plucky. While they worked on her at the hospital, she insisted on trying to tell the cops a few things about her assailant. Do you know what this John kept saying, over and over, while he beat up on her?”