Sinha rambled on, meandering from topic to topic as they slowly approached the centre of the city and Linyao felt herself finally surrendering to sleep.
8
Agent Thomas ‘Cobb’ Dooley did not walk to the front lobby office of the Shanghai Grand Theatre. He surged, tsunami-like, his personality filling the full volume of the corridor the way a subway train fills a tunnel. Even in the widest corridors, people would flatten themselves against the side walls as if he were four or five people rather than one. This quality was so pronounced that he almost needed to be thought of as a plural entity. Here come Dooley, Dooley are arriving, Dooley are here and are surrounding us. Get a bus: Dooley need transporting. It was not because of his physical size. Indeed, he was below average for an American male, topping out at a fraction under five feet nine inches, which qualifies you for the nickname Hobbit in the US military or similarly macho, hierarchical bodies.
Not that he was puny. Hours spent in the gym meant that he had a stocky body which made his shaven head seem two sizes too small. But the muscle was a bonus, and not the key part of his character. He always tried to use his personal presence alone to fill any enclosed space he entered. He attempted never to smile, he worked at keeping his posture aggressive (head down, upper body poised for action, fists clenched), and he kept permanently attached to his face an expression which warned people that they were talking to someone with the shortest fuse in human history. During high-stress, climactic days (such as the next forty-eight hours, which were the culmination of three months’ planning) there would be something about his eyes and forehead which said that he had just lived through the worst hour of his life and if one more thing annoyed him, it would be the very last straw of all the final straws that had ever existed since the dawn of straws.
The first time a person encountered Tom Dooley, they would wonder what terrible thing had happened that day. Some people would actually ask a member of his staff what had put Agent Dooley into such a bad mood, and would be shocked to hear that this state of rabid, bitter ferociousness was normal. If he had the ability to be in moods other than bad ones, no one was aware of it. There was a rumour that he had been caught smiling last week, when a secretary entered his office without knocking on the day he had laid off three staff.
‘Git Carloni. An’ Felznik,’ he growled to the officer following behind him (given the size of his ego, there was no room to walk alongside him).
‘Yes, sir,’ barked GS-9 Special Agent Simon Lasse, his nervous voice nasal and high. He started squeaking rapidly into his walkie-talkie.
Dooley smiled inwardly at the man’s terrified obsequiousness, working hard to keep the downturned set of his lips firmly in place. For the truth of the matter was that the entire tough guy personality was a bit of an act. Well, to be honest, more than a bit. It was entirely contrived. Dooley had been as soft as margarine left in the sun for most of his life, but had spent the past four years perfecting a persona in which he appeared to have the warmth of a glacier. He had been an undersized, bullied wimp during an unhappy childhood in south St Louis and had overcompensated for it every day since he joined the most prestigious department of the United States Secret Service.
He had made his major move four years earlier, transmuting from a smiling wimp to a grim-faced tyrant. His epiphany followed an assignment in which he had been so impressed with the power of the personality of a previous SecTreas (no one in the USSS used full titles for anyone) that he had copied the man’s characteristics with the care of a professional impersonator. Every detail of the way the man expressed himself, from the threatening manner in which he walked, to the shortness and gravelly nature of his utterances, to the hostility of his smile, to the way he seemed to be in a permanent foul temper, had been minutely studied and recreated. Dooley had painstakingly conjured up the SecTreas, complete and unabridged, late at night in front of his bedroom mirror, and eventually rolled his stolen persona out for public consumption when he got a major promotion to number two of the USSS’s highest-profile department.
Only when he had comfortably slipped into the SecTreas’s personality did he make a shocking discovery. He had been suffering from a serious psycho-physiological ailment all his life without realising it: he had been born without a personality. He was a void, just like all the other voids in his department, in his office, in his college, in his school, in his street. He had no passions. He had no interests. His opinions were held lightly and could be swayed from one extreme to the other merely by the reading of a newspaper opinion column. He realised that that was why he had slipped into the older man’s personality so easily—he was like a naked man who had been given a coat for the first time. He made himself comfortable inside it, and he had never looked back. And now, after four years, the coat had bonded to his skin.
The new, revised edition of Tom Dooley suited his present position perfectly. He had achieved high rank, and he was determined to be superlatively good at it. Since his job was to inspire his team to achieve the impossible, he had to scare them into devoting more hours and more energy to the job than was good for their health. That was what good bosses did, wasn’t it? It was the secret of capitalism, that you quietly destroyed other people’s family lives in order to get a good result for your company, aka your paymaster, and ultimately yourself. And once you got to management level, you delegated every part of your job to others, reserving for yourself only the problems that no one else could deal with. And then you made sure things were so tightly organised that there wasn’t anything in that category. Which was the situation he had achieved.
Or had he? One of his staff had dared to call him with a problem they couldn’t handle, that they thought warranted his attention. One of the most important aspects of Dooley’s carefully cultivated image was to regularly demonstrate that he did not suffer fools gladly; that he did not suffer fools at all; that he did not suffer anyone in any way; that the only thing to do was to do one’s job so well that he never had to notice one. This might be another opportunity to demonstrate that, he thought.
Yet somehow, as he reached the end of the corridor and saw his staff with two women, a Western teenager and a Chinese woman, there was a sinking feeling in his gut. These didn’t fit the usual profile of fools to be suffered, of cranks, troublemakers, time-wasters. He could be looking at the birth of a headache, less than seventy minutes before POTUS, the President of the United States, was due to arrive. This could not be allowed to happen. Chaos had been exiled from every cubic millimetre of the Shanghai Grand Theatre and not the slightest fragment could be allowed to re-enter.
Ten minutes later, he was struggling to keep his composure. ‘Ladies, ma men’ve checked ever’ inch of this building. Ever’ inch,’ he growled. ‘If there was a bomb the size of a goddam pea in this building, we would have found it—not once, but six times over.’
Dooley narrowed his eyes and beamed an unspoken message to McQuinnie and Lu: If you are implying that I don’t know my job you better realise that people have died for less. He was wondering how the hell the two women’s vague allegation got all the way to his level. The kid was clearly high on something. There was an unfocused look in her eyes that unmistakably said drugs.
‘Yes, yes, look, sorry about this and all that,’ Joyce blurted, blinking and rubbing her eyes. ‘But I just, well, really think there’s a bomb in here, and I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I had to tell somebody.’
‘You think there’s a bomb in here? Well, we think there ain’t. Want some hard facts, kid? Some numbers?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know how long we bin here? You know how many times we bin through this building? You know how many staff we got here, checking things out?’
‘No, I didn’t—’
‘Well, I’ll tell you.’ Dooley liked interrupting people. With him, it wasn’t just an obnoxious habit. It was policy. Riding roughshod over people trying to converse with you or each other when they should be silently, respectfully lis
tening to you—that had always been a key technique of the SecTreas that he had admired. ‘Ma team have been studying these venues for three months. We bin here, physically, on the ground, for six weeks. You know how many people are here with the President of the United States? Do you know, li’l lady?’
‘I don’t know, but—’ ‘I’ll tell you. Seven hundred and twelve. Normally we have a couple a hundred. Sometimes we go up to four or five hundred. But on this trip we are being really careful. And when I say really careful, I mean it—that’s why there are seven hundred and twelve American souls here, advising, running around, checking and rechecking ever’ inch of ever’ building that the President of the United States will place his dainty little toes into.’
‘Yeah, look, you don’t have to listen, but we just thought we should tell you because—’
‘So where is it? Where is this bomb that you have a feeling jes’ may be in here?’
A pause. And then: ‘I don’t know.’
His much-practised look of being irritated beyond endurance became even more pronounced. His next statement was little more than a low, rumbling whisper. ‘Okay. What sort a bomb is it?’ His staff, hearing his voice drop to dangerously bass level, sidled a step backwards in formation, worried that he might go off at any moment. They already knew that there was a dangerous bomb in the building, and its name was Thomas Dooley. They prayed that Joyce had an at least half-reasonable answer to the question.
She didn’t. ‘Um. I’m not sure,’ she said, and bit her lip.
Dooley wondered whether to continue the conversation or just explode now. And what sort of explosion should it be? A quiet one in front of the civilians and, after they had left, a loud one to the staff who had disturbed him to talk to these crazy women? Or a massive one to shut everyone up at once? And should he use foul language? He normally didn’t in front of civilians—you never knew what could get into the media, and they were all wary of the media these days. He decided that he would try one more question, which he also delivered with menacing quietness. ‘What ’zackly makes you think there’s a bomb in here? You have a dream about it or somethin’? A vision, mebbe?’
Joyce had no immediate answer to this. The only thing to do would be to explain in detail about the strange group who had kidnapped them yesterday, and what they had overheard. It was a long story, but there was no other option. She opened her mouth to speak, but Linyao got in ahead of her.
‘Because I put it here,’ the mother-of-one declared.
Dooley took a step back and raised his right arm. Four officers standing behind him pulled out guns and levelled them at the Chinese woman.
The Secret Service agent’s eyebrows rose. What in hell was all this about? A drug-crazed Western backpacker kid talking vaguely about a bomb threat carried zero weight—but an actual confession from a calm, obviously intelligent, bilingual Chinese woman in her thirties: this sounded like something they might just need to take seriously.
‘Now this is gettin’ serious,’ he said. ‘I want you ladies to know somethin’. Of course putting a bomb somewhere is a major crime. But jest telling me that you put a bomb somewhere is also a serious offence in my book, whether you did or not. Capisce? You gone beyond the pale. Now, ma’am, you gonna tell us about this bomb that you say you put in here?’
Linyao nodded.
Her self-assurance made Dooley begin to feel uncomfortable. He could feel his cheeks fall, so that his face no longer registered Powerful and Irascible but merely Unhappy and Ill-At-Ease. This was not good. There was only an hour or so to go before POTUS walked in and he did not want to be pulled out of his comfort zone. Normally, he knew what to do about situations that threatened to drift out of control. You bully people around you into working so hard that they rebuild the walls of your comfort zone. He had done it before, and would do it again. That was the nature of the job. But if an Actual Crisis arose at such a late stage—anything that could be classified as a Potentially Serious Incident just before POTUS arrived—this would be a major development. It could not be allowed to happen. After all, he was the ASAIC. His official title was Assistant Special Agent in Charge. But for the past twenty-four hours he was actually Acting Special Agent in Charge, his supervisor having been infiltrated by a dangerous enemy agent—a stomach bug. By taking prime responsibility for security during this meeting, Dooley had taken on a degree of responsibility that could make or break his career. Nothing could be allowed to spoil it. Dooley turned away and looked out of the window. He could feel the tension rise in his neck and shoulder muscles, his deltoids and trapezius tendons becoming stiff.
People in normal jobs could never understand just how intolerant of failure the Secret Service had become in recent years—especially at this level. When he had first been assigned to the Secret Service Presidential Protection Detail, he felt like a princely suitor in a fairytale who is given a list of Three Impossible Things To Accomplish By Noon—only in his case, he had a couple of months to do them (which was good) but the list had stretched to several thousand impossible things (which was bad). Yet the punishment for failure was similar to that suffered by princes in fairytales—off with his head. In most cases the word ‘head’ in this context referred to the boss, who would have to resign to take responsibility for the shortcomings of his staff. And now he, Thomas ‘Cobb’ Dooley, was the boss. The buck stopped with him. And this buck could stop his meteoric rise dead.
His voice lost a little bit of its subterranean resonance: ‘So where did you put it? And how did you get in? We don’t remember seeing you in here before and, believe me, lady, we see ever’one who comes in here.’
Linyao moved towards the chair.
Four guns were cocked to fire.
‘No sudden movements,’ scolded Dooley.
‘I was just going to sit down,’ she said. ‘I’ve been up all night.’
The Acting Special Agent in Charge gestured at her to take the seat. ‘Talk. Fast. If this is some sort of joke, your ass is grass, which is an American phrase you probably won’t find in your English language textbook in this goddam country.’
Linyao took a deep breath before speaking, wondering whether to add that she was Canadian. Probably best not to. Didn’t Americans have an even lower opinion of Canadians than Axis of Evil residents? ‘I didn’t personally put a bomb in here. But I am indirectly responsible, I believe, for a bomb of some sort being here. I’ll give you the facts, and you make up your own minds whether this is a serious issue or not. Does that sound reasonable?’
‘Yes, but make it quick. We got no time for time-wasters. You got two minutes, and then you’re out of here—both of you.’
Linyao painfully told the story of how her daughter Jia Lin had disappeared on her way home from school the previous night. She explained that she was a government veterinarian working for the Shanghai municipal authorities, and how an access card to the stable block north of Suzhou Creek was the only thing the kidnappers wanted in advance. And she told them that several animals from that block had been transferred a few hours ago to the back stage of this very building. She believed the kidnappers were somehow involved with a bomb plot because of some information that Joyce had. She explained that her young friend—who had also been temporarily kidnapped, they believed by a separate branch of the same group—had overheard that a large explosive device had been sneaked into the premises and was due to go off at six eighteen precisely. It might have been smuggled in with the animals.
During her recitation, Dooley’s heart speeded up. There was something just a little bit plausible about the woman’s wild story. And six eighteen was exactly halfway through the performance that both presidents would be watching—which did involve animals from somewhere, God knew where, perhaps from this woman’s stable block. Like all law enforcement agents, teachers, reporters and mothers, Dooley had a lie-detector built into his eardrums. It had not beeped once during Linyao’s tale. She was telling the truth, or thought she was. Of course there was no bomb in here—t
hat was impossible, with all the security measures in place. But something weird had occurred, and it involved space for which he was responsible. He had to check it out. He had a mission to keep the World’s Most Important Man safer than safe and that meant that in a very real sense he, Dooley, was the World’s Most Important Man at this moment. And he could not fail. He could not fail.
‘Come,’ he barked, his basso profundo voice scooting up to a nervous mid-baritone. ‘We needta go for a walk.’
They marched at almost running pace to the main auditorium, and then through a staff-only door that led them to the wings at the back of the stage where human and animal performers would wait for their entrance. Thomas Dooley’s brain raced as they strode. Even though his legs were relatively short, he had learned to stride in such a way that normal people had to scurry or half run to keep up. The anxiety made him move even faster than usual. A little nodule at the back of his mind was saying that it was just possible that the make-or-break moment of his career had arrived. The possibility that real trouble was afoot was still low, but it was there. And if something bad was happening, he was going to be on top of it.
Dooley had come from an embarrassingly working class background (his father was a low-ranking operative in a factory which made American Standard toilets), and so had always been hungrily ambitious. As a youngster, he had always thought that secret agents were hired through a furtive approach made in a bar late at night. But he had actually joined the Secret Service by the most mundane route imaginable: he had wandered past their stand at a jobs fair in St Louis. He signed up on the spot, soon started doing cop-like duties in his local office, and then moved to the Uniformed Division at the White House before shifting to credit-card fraud and counterfeiting. He did a short stint on a team looking after Bill Clinton, and then rapidly rose to almost the very top of the Presidential Protection Detail—and today was number one, with the help of the enterovirus bug which had temporarily promoted him.
The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics Page 16