Choke Point wi-9

by Ian Slater

  Freeman glanced at his watch. “Thirty minutes?”

  “Thirty minutes,” confirmed Lewis, and set off.

  The last he saw of the general, the legend was busy, one hand on his hip, the other directing a steaming thin stream into the kelp.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Charles Riser awoke from his Zopiclone-induced sleep to the nerve-slicing screams of children, the Boeing Jumbo having plunged two hundred feet in the worst turbulence the airline’s pilots had experienced in a decade of carrying passengers over the Pacific. Riser felt faintly queasy, but in his semisomnolent state he truly didn’t care whether the aircraft crashed. Death would be virtually instantaneous, and a shutter would slam down on the window of his grief- and hate-filled life. He knew he never used to hate like this, and he despised himself for it. He’d had always taken the high road, the one supposedly traveled by the cultured, educated elite who disdained the vulgarity and eschewed the banalities of the masses, for whom an eye for an eye was the guiding principle of justice, for whom rehabilitation of criminals was despised as the philosophy of effete academics who worked in tenured castles and lived on the safer side of town. It was a shock for Charles to discover that he was at one with the masses in the matter of murder.

  The seat belt signs stayed on for the remainder of the flight to Seattle, some parents complaining that the CNN newscasts of the terrible situation in the U.S. Northwest should not be shown.

  “We can’t censor the news,” the plane’s purser told one of the angry mothers. “We just bring in the signals.”

  “Then send them back.”

  “Ma’am, some of the other passengers want to see it. They have loved ones in the Northwest. Besides, all you have to do is change channels or turn it off.”

  “It’s no good turning it off,” retorted the woman. “The children can see it on all the other screens in the plane.”

  “There’s a cartoon channel.”

  “Cartoons!” snorted the mother. “Have you seen the cartoons? They’re not funny. They’re full of violence.”

  “Have they got Li Kuan?” Charles asked the man next to him.

  “No. They say he’s left that Kazak—”

  “Kazakhstan,” said Charles.

  “Whatever. Some guy on PBS reckons that seeing as how Beijing couldn’t beat the terrorists in that Kazak place that Beijing’s done a deal with that bastard.”

  “They’re gonna split the oil,” put in the man across the aisle.

  “I want to speak to the captain,” the woman demanded.

  “Ah, ma’am, he’s kind of busy right now. We’re approaching SeaTac.” Then the purser said something he knew he should not have, but it had been a long, rough trip from Beijing, with long, hot stopovers at Shanghai, Narita, and Honolulu. “Ma’am, the cockpit’s on total alert during approach. You know terrorists have been firing hand-held SAMs at U.S. carriers?”

  “What’s a SAM?” blurted out one of the kids. “Are the terrorists gonna kill us, Mom? Are the—”

  “See,” snapped the woman. “See what you’ve done?”

  “I’m sorry,” the purser said, and excused himself, the woman threatening massive lawsuits against the airline.

  “Y’hear that?” Riser’s companion asked. “Guy says the cockpit’s on total alert during approach. What the hell they doin’ the rest of the time? On half alert?”

  “Too many damn computers,” said another passenger. “That’s the problem. Meanwhile, one of those Arab bastards can shoot and scoot. What’s Homeland Defense’s computers gonna do about that? We need men on the ground.”

  “We’ve got men on the ground,” said Charlie Riser, surprising himself with his vehemence.

  “Yeah, well, what the hell are they doin’?” the other passenger pressed.

  Riser didn’t answer. He knew what they were doing. Bill at the embassy had kept him up to date about that, had even told him that the unconventional General Freeman had been called in to see what he could do. And the first thing Riser intended to do was contact the general — even see him if he could — tell him about Chang’s imprisonment, explain that Chang, as well as being blamed for the Chinese military defeat against the terrorists, had probably heard about a deal with Li Kuan, and now Beijing wanted to keep him quiet. He mused about what kind of oil split Beijing might have offered the Muslim fundamentalists who were fighting the PLA, who were no doubt urgently needed for an invasion of Taiwan.

  Riser sat back and closed his eyes again, not in repose — these days he was never naturally relaxed, only artificially with the Zopiclone at night and the antidepressant Celexa during the day. He’d closed his eyes to shut out any distraction, milking his memory for anything the distraught Wu Ling had told him at the airport. Nothing more came to mind. He hoped he might get a postcard from her, indicating where the general had been taken. All he needed was a single word, a phrase, so he could tell Washington where Chang was, so a SpecOps team could execute what Bill Heinz dryly called a “snatch and grab over the fence”—a blatant violation of another country’s sovereign territory. It would be a snatch to either rescue the general and find out if he knew where Li Kuan was, or a snatch and grab to kill Li Kuan on the spot. Better yet, a snatch and grab to capture Li Kuan, unlike the botched Afghanistan attempt led by that Medal of Honor winner David Drentwood … or was it Brentwood? Charles couldn’t remember. A snatch and grab to get Li Kuan and then torture him, put his feet to a fire, cut off his penis — Mandy had been raped — see if the seventy-two virgins in Islamic heaven would want him then. And do it slowly — make the scumbag scream. Take hours and hours and then lock him up with starving rats and—

  “You okay?” the other passenger asked. “You’re shaking.”

  Riser wasn’t actually shaking, but he was grasping his armrests so tightly his hands were white, his hatred having drained the life out of them. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Thank you.”

  “Ah, don’t sweat it. We’ll be down in a few minutes. Listen, I used to be a white-knuckle flier. Then I took this course called ’Who Am I?’ “ The man was fishing in his wallet for a card for the New Age guru who had a Ph.D. in Wellness from a California institute and who’d studied in India for two years at Canada’s Peace and Wellness University. “Yoga guru and exposure therapy. Worked great. You oughta try it.”

  “Uh-huh,” replied Charles.

  As the stream of tired passengers entered SeaTac Customs and Immigration, Riser walked toward the quick-exit consular gate and was met by a junior State Department official, her greeting polite rather than warm. She told him that the information he had requested through his e-mail from Beijing — namely, Freeman’s private cell number — was not available.

  Riser smiled wearily at the tall, gangly young woman who wore a gray suit and printed scarf. Buttoned down. State Department intern, he thought, full of nervous enthusiasm and willing to lie for Foggy Bottom, as she’d just done about Freeman’s cell number. How could State not know his number? He wasn’t important enough to be on the “not listed” disk.

  “I heard Li Kuan’s organization might have penetrated the States,” he said.

  “Ah — yes, I’ve heard that rumor too.”

  “The department doesn’t want me to contact General Freeman,” he said bluntly. “Correct?”

  “We don’t have his number, sir.”

  “Did you try information?”

  She laughed awkwardly.

  “I don’t need to see him personally,” Charles told her, and could see the relief in her face, her shoulders visibly dropping.

  “Well, of course we wouldn’t know exactly where he is at this moment.”

  “How ’bout somewhere at this moment — like the Northwest?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Ah, do you have much luggage?”

  “No.”

  “We have you booked in at the Four Seasons.”

  “Fine.”

  The situation at the hotel shocked him. It was so foreign, so choked with refugees p
ouring in from the Olympic peninsula, that for several moments he expected to hear some movie person instructing the mass of extras on how to prepare for the next shot. Only this was no film rehearsal, but the reality of frightened begging and pleading people, some waving wads of cash. Good Lord, it was like the airport at Nanjing — better dressed, but reeking of body odor. And fear.

  Charles and the intern managed to get the attention of the harried, sweating concierge by holding up their State Department badges, which Charles hated to do among fellow Americans. But he’d been too long in China, where push, shove, and VIP status always won the day. By way of atonement for pulling rank, he offered to share his room with three of the refugees, his assigned room having one queen-size bed and a pull-out.

  “That’s very nice of you,” the intern commented. It was the first genuine thing she’d said.

  Charles shrugged nonchalantly. “Another point with the man upstairs!” It’s what Amanda used to say. The intern was nonplused, not knowing who “the man upstairs” was.

  A grateful young family of three accepted Charles’s offer, and while they were getting settled, he excused himself, went to the bathroom, overloaded the toilet with toilet paper and depressed the flush button, immediately clogging the drain. He called the front desk, reported that his toilet was backed up and he’d need another room. Right now. This was unacceptable, he told them. No, he couldn’t wait, he was exhausted — in the air for twenty hours.

  A desk clerk, looking as harassed as the concierge, and miffed into the bargain, told Mr. Riser they had a single room, without a view, single bed only, by the elevator. “Best we can do, sir.”

  “Fine,” said Charles, and when he got to the new room, immediately dialed CNN Atlanta. The toilet-stuffing ploy for a new room had been an old China hand’s trick to escape the electronic bug that the authorities — in this case from either Homeland Defense and/or Ashcroft-trained FBI agents — had no doubt planted to listen in on phone calls.

  The friendly young woman’s voice in Atlanta told him that Marte Price was on assignment. Would he like to leave a voice mail? No, he wouldn’t. “Tell her I have a good story vis-à-vis the PLA’s General Chang, that Chang may have stumbled upon a deal between Beijing and Li Kuan.”

  “What was that about a visa, sir?”

  “Visa?” asked Riser.

  “Yes, sir. You said you had a good story—” Riser could hear the shuffling of paper on the other end, then the voice came on again. “Yes, something about a visa. You mean a travel document, sir, or a credit card? A credit card scam?”

  Riser rubbed his forehead in frustration. “No, that was vis-à-vis—it means with regard to — a story about General Chang being important because he found out about — Look, would you please call her, give her this number.” He read it out slowly, adding, “It’s urgent. If I don’t hear from her in an hour I’ll call Fox. Point is, if she hears later that I called and it’s been on another network she’ll be totally freaked!”

  “I understand, sir.”

  Riser hoped so.

  “Mr. Riser?”

  “Yes.”

  “Charles Riser, cultural attaché?”

  “Yes. Is this Marte Price?”

  “It is. Returning your call. I’m actually not that far away — in Port Townsend covering, or rather trying to—”

  “Can we meet?”

  “Ah, can you tell me on the phone? E-mail?”

  Riser laughed, uncharacteristically rude. “Are you serious?”

  “It’s difficult for me at the moment to drive down to Seattle. The roads are clogged with people, traffic jams. No flights either. The fog is — well, very bad.”

  “Then how am I supposed to tell you? Beam myself up there?”

  Marte Price was a tough veteran of the media, but she was taken aback by the man’s aggressiveness. Her assistant at CNN had said he’d been “pleasant enough,” actually a rather timid-sounding man. Not this guy. “Mr. Riser, there are no civilian helo charters up here, but in a city the size of Seattle I’m sure you could get some local pilot who knows the terrain well enough for the right price.” She paused. “How about this: CNN’ll pay half the charter, and if the story’s as important as you say it is, we’ll spring for the whole lot?”

  Charles was gazing at the plum-colored brick wall opposite his hotel, the wall festooned with spiderwebs, moths trapped in many of them, some still alive. He turned away, looking instead at his “single” room’s flickering TV, its ribbon report giving details of an American battle group, its carrier, McCain, having been attacked. Typically, the first reports of the carrier having been bombed or attacked by missiles were being corrected by updates. It seemed that only one plane had been involved. “Extensive damage,” CNN reported, but no pictures as yet.

  “Mr. Riser,” came Marte Price’s voice. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m not worried about the money,” Charles told her. “I’ll find a local and come up.”

  “Good.” They arranged to meet at a Port Townsend hotel.

  “One thing more, Mr. Riser. Why did you insist on seeing me—why not call the local CNN affiliate or—”

  “Everyone watches you.”

  “Well, thank you. I look forward to seeing—” But all she could hear now was a dial tone.

  “What a rude bastard!” she announced to her cameraman, slamming down her phone.

  Riser’s truculence had come out of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Used to neither spirits in general nor forty-proof whiskey in particular, and given Mandy’s murder, the terrible state his homeland was in, and being recalled — like a “loser,” as he’d heard an embassy colleague refer to him in the final days — had all proven too much. He’d begun drinking heavily, which, to his surprise, had not relieved his acute anxiety and depression. Instead, it had brought out the worst in him, behavior he was thoroughly ashamed of a few hours later at SeaTac as he strapped himself into the chartered helo, then put his head back, staring at the surly gray fog outside.

  “Don’t worry,” said the hefty, bearded pilot cheerily. “I’ve been instrument-flying in this soup. Hell, in ’Nam—”

  “Excuse me,” said Charles, gently massaging his throbbing temple with an ice pack he’d gotten from the hotel. “I don’t mean to be rude, but would you mind not talking? I’m feeling kind of—”

  “Tie one on, did you?” replied the pilot, grinning. “Know how it feels, buddy.”

  “Yes,” said Charles, whose senses were suddenly assaulted by a blast of rap noise.

  “Do you, can you — please turn that off!”

  The pilot’s face was close to shock. “Don’t like music?”

  Charles’s eyes closed.

  “Okay, you’re payin’ for it.”

  “Have you any water?” Charles asked.

  “You betcha!” the pilot said, though the frown of mystification remained on his face.

  Charles took two more aspirin.

  It turned out to be a surprisingly smooth ride, compared to the violent last leg of the flight from China, the pilot yelling only twice, first to tell Charles that he was following the line of Puget Sound—“God’s country! ’Course, can’t see a friggin’ thing today”—and later to announce, “Be down in about fifteen.”

  Charles merely nodded, the aspirin he’d taken causing the headache to abate but now making him feel nauseated. His hands were shaking.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Aussie’s Special Forces training had instilled in him a love of climbing up things but a fervent dislike of going down them, finding the restraint his muscles had to exert during descent often was more taxing than when he was ascending.

  “I like going down,” Sal had once quipped, “if she’s good looking.”

  Aussie had affected such an air of propriety and shock that even David Brentwood, who ignored sexual ribaldry, had joined in the team’s laughter at Aussie’s performance. But now there was no humor in Aussie as he ran back down the precarious S-shaped path on the side o
f the cliff, his Vibram boots gripping and braking hard in the damp, loamy soil. His gloved hands did their part as he slid on his backside here and there and grabbed, released, and grabbed again at the thick vegetation to brake his rapid descent. Freeman, seeing Aussie’s fast, controlled descent, wondered if he could have done it as speedily. In the final segment of the S curve, Aussie came off the cliff as if from a short, steep waterslide, his boots sending warm ash from the edge of the fires into the air like gray talc.

  “Fog and more fog, correct?” said Freeman, handing Aussie his canteen.

  “No,” answered Aussie, his macho streak trying but failing to contain his excitement. “You were right, General. Fog’s layered — tip of a high radio mast spiking through it. Not all the time, but I spotted it twice.”

  “You get a GPS?”

  Aussie took off his left glove, having written the latitude and longitude on his hand.

  Sal and Choir could tell something was up as Freeman and Aussie ran toward them. “We go!” the general called out. With that, the two, grateful for the relief from the outrage and helplessness they’d been feeling since discovering Dixon’s mutilated body in the cave, quickly pushed the aluminum boat on the wobbly trailer to the kelp line. Choir pulled the Mercury’s cord rather than use up the starter motor’s juice as he and his three comrades-at-arms got aboard, heading out to the mast’s position. Was it the Skate or the Petrel? The position of the mast that Aussie had pinpointed by the GPS was 2.3 miles due north — well and truly out in the strait.

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” Freeman told them.

  “We’re not gonna miss her, General,” Sal assured him.

  “I know that,” Freeman replied, “but keep your eyes on the water as well — see if that sub jettisoned anything. Remember we hit her quite a few times. Nothing substantial other than buckling the prop basket, I agree, but we sure as hell chipped her paint and tiles — stuff that’d float.”

  Aussie shook his head, smiling to himself in sheer admiration of the general’s attention to tactical detail, which he’d fused to his philosophy of audacious strategy.