by Gordon Kent
Ho walked away. He was eating an Indian sweet, slender coils of orange jelly. The smell of it made Bobby sick.
In the men’s room, he stood next to Ho and tried to piss. Ho was making water like a fire hose. Bobby strained; nothing came out. The vise was squeezing even his piss.
He put his own camera, the one with the grease on the lens, on the metal urinal. Below it was a wall of metal over which water ran, splashing their shoes. “Take this camera. Put yours there so I can take it.”
“Why?”
“It’s a better camera.”
They switched. Bobby said, “Take the pictures, and the moment the meeting is over, get out. Get your people out. You meet me by the east door and hand me the camera, and we’re done.”
“Not until you hand me the rest of the money.” Ho zipped up as if he was tightening a garrote.
“Right. You hand me the camera and I hand you the money.”
“Wrong. You hand me the money, and I hand you the camera.”
Bobby went out and walked up and down, keeping an eye out for Chinese men, glancing every half-minute at his watch, looking for Qiu. One of Ho’s team found him and gave him a Walkabout, which he had altogether forgotten. It seemed like one more terrible thing, one more burden—if the Chinese saw him with the handheld radio, they’d kill him. Or drag him off to the embassy, which would in the long run be much worse. He walked around the back of the toilets and smashed the radio under his foot and threw it into a tangle of weeds, then threw Ho’s camera after it. The less baggage, the better.
Washington.
Dukas and Sally Baranowski sat in Rose’s living room. It was going to be a long night.
A woman with a young voice and a thick Asian accent at Alan’s hotel had assured Dukas that she had tried the room three times, and, yes, she had the right room, and, no, Mist’ Cra-ik not answer. Dukas had looked at his watch for the tenth time since Sally had told him; it was by then eight-thirty-five in Jakarta, and Al Craik was already out of his hotel room. No, no, no, Dukas was saying. Don’t go this early—! He had left a message for Craik to call him at once; then he had tried Triffler, but Triffler still hadn’t checked in. The duty officer at NCIS told him that the last word they had was that Triffler was still in Manila.
Sally Baranowski now understood exactly what was going on. “How bad is it?” she said.
“Maybe pretty bad. I don’t know.”
She was an experienced operations officer. “If you don’t know,” she said, “then it’s pretty bad.”
“If you’re right about Chinese Checkers—”
She was contemptuous. “There is no ‘if.’ I’m right. So what is part of Chinese Checkers doing in a file about radio intercepts in Seattle?”
Dukas shook his head. Sally had his attaché open on her lap, and she took a sheet of memo paper from the Jakarta folder, smoothing the creases. It looked like the other papers, a little old, a little weary. It had a yellow fold-down FBI tab. “This is an FBI cover sheet,” she said.
“Yeah.” His voice was empty. “It’s supposed to date from the time when the Bureau had the case.”
“No way. The Bureau never had Chinese Checkers.”
She held it up to the light. There were columns for dates and times and signatures—a record of who had seen the pages and when. “Not much,” she said. “Only three names. Seven years ago, supposedly.” She brought her arm down. “Bullshit.”
“Check the document history.”
“ ‘Acquired 24/9/94 via Long Shot from E75P3211. Unverified. Authenticity 3, Reliability 3.’ ” She looked at Dukas. “What the hell is this shit?”
“What’s Long Shot?”
“Long Shot was a big buy from some very questionable sources after the Soviet Union went belly-up. Mostly in the ‘Stans,’ mostly KGB stuff, but there was some Chinese and Indian material in there, too. We never trusted it, never were able to use most of it. But no way is this comm plan from Long Shot.”
Dukas simply looked at the pale wall, waiting. She was sitting there now with her eyes slitted, staring at someplace he wasn’t allowed to go. “George Shreed would never have knowingly given Chinese Checkers to anybody,” she said. “The only way it could have shown up in the Long Shot buy was if the other side had got it somehow, and then after the end of communism, they sold it back to us.” She shook her head. “But it won’t wash. George would never have let it get out of his hands.”
“Yeah, but if he secretly used Chinese Checkers to meet his Chinese control, then the control had to have a copy, too. It could have got into the Long Shot buy that way.” Dukas was eager to authenticate the Jakarta comm plan, to tell himself that, after all, Al Craik was safe.
“You know that’s not the way intelligence works! It’s not the way George worked. If China had a top spy in the Agency—as they did, in him—then, by God, they wouldn’t have his comm plan someplace where it could be sold off to the highest bidder.”
Dukas stared at a rain-spotted window. “So how did it get into this file?”
She had no answer.
“If you’re right,” he said, “then the cover sheet and the document history and all that about Long Shot are forgeries.” He rubbed his eyes. “Somebody’s planted this stuff on me. And I’ve sent my best friend off to check it out.”
Fantasy Island Park, Jakarta.
To Alan, the park seemed empty. The night’s rain had left a faint gleam over the stones in the early morning light, but the only people in the park with him were the ground crew and a few Chinese tourists and a school group of local girls in white shirts and ties and plaid skirts. Alan smiled, thin-lipped and tense, and moved on, heading for the first performance of the park’s Javanese dancers.
The dancers performed in a kiosk across from the looming concrete and glass of the Orchid House. Alan tried to see inside, but the fog of condensation on the walls of the greenhouse was impenetrable. It was hot already, with the heavy air of full humidity complicated by massive smog, but the lithe girls danced smoothly despite the early hour. The performance didn’t last long, and Alan was one of five members of the audience. All the rest were Asian, and Alan wondered if any of them was his target.
Bobby Li lingered where he could watch the front entrance to the Orchid House, knowing the American would go in there. Andy had said so. He was trying to cut down the variables in this horror, even though seeing the man, being able to recognize him, wouldn’t help matters much unless Bobby could get inside and get to him before Qiu did. It wouldn’t work. Nothing would work. He leaned back in the shadow of a pillar and gave a murmured whimper. A hand closed over his arm.
“Aaah—!” He spun, eyes wide, found himself inches from the face of Loyalty Man.
“Very nervous,” Loyalty Man said. “No reason to be.”
“Th-this Qiu makes me n-nervous.”
Loyalty Man spat and lit a fresh cigarette. “Your job here has nothing to do with Qiu. Qiu knows nothing. Qiu is like the wooden duck you put on the water to bring in the real ducks.” He pulled something from his lower lip, spat tobacco flakes. “You are to find if the person who makes the meeting with Qiu is either the American Shreed or Colonel Chen. You know both. That is all.” He inhaled smoke and looked at Bobby. “Orders from very high up.”
“But—” He started to say But Shreed is dead, and remembered in time that he had learned that only from Andy and so wasn’t supposed to know it. “But,” he said instead, “it has been so long since I saw either.”
“I am told you knew both well. Do your job. Call me to report.” He walked away.
Bobby’s face screwed up as if he was going to weep.
Jerry had brought a piece of nylon parachute cord, which he tied across the rickety stairs to Treetops. He didn’t want any early tourists stumbling over him. Up on the viewing platform, he drew on a pair of gloves and located the gun and dragged it out, unrolling the mat to lie on. It was nice up there, a feeling of airiness and light, that tantalizing mixture of greenhouse odors
in the nostrils. He looked through the scope of the SKS, unloaded it, checked the trigger pull, decided that it would do well enough. He reloaded it and laid the weapon next to him and looked down into the green and flowery target area.
“Report,” he said into his handheld. “One here. Report.” Bobby was Two. He should have said “Two,” but he didn’t. “Two?” Jerry said. After a silence, he said, “Three?” Three reported—that was the big ox, Ho—then Four, Five, and Six. “Two?” Jerry said again. Was Bobby out of range somehow?
It was eight-forty-eight. Dukas should be in the park. “Anybody see our target?” He said it again in dialect, or as much dialect as he knew. An answer came, too fast, too local. “Say again?”
“Got a white man at the dancing thing. Not same as the photo.”
Shit. Maybe he wasn’t going to make the morning time. Maybe he was waiting until later in the day—overslept or got the trots or got laid. Or maybe he wasn’t coming. Or maybe he’d sent somebody else.
“Two?” he said. “Two, answer up. Two?”
Bobby could see only one white in the dance kiosk, and he was young; his hair was dark and he had his left hand in bandages, none of which matched Andy’s description of the man he called Dukas. It suddenly struck him that perhaps the target wasn’t going to come, and his heart leaped. It was eight-fifty-three.
Qiu watched the American enter the Orchid House from twenty meters away, leaning over the railing of one of the reconstructed Sumatran houses, the long eaves shading the sun above him so that he could snap his first picture of him. He didn’t trust local people to do such things. And the American was carrying The Economist, so he was the man. Qiu checked his watch and saw that the man was four minutes ahead of schedule. Most unprofessional.
Bobby saw the American cross to the Orchid House, and he saw the copy of The Economist under his arm. And he was going in early!
Alan saw one of the Asian men on the platform to his right raise his camera, and his heartbeat rose to a quick march in his chest. This wasn’t a fake, Mike. That guy works for somebody else and he knows who I am. He just took my photo. Suddenly, Alan’s world changed, and the beautiful morning, the lithe dancers, the good coffee, were all erased. He was in a foreign place, and he was alone.
Jerry settled himself on the platform. He had plenty of time to arrange the matting and lie flat so that only a foot of the barrel protruded over the edge, and two small dead shrubs served to camouflage his body. The mat smelled of rice and curry and sweat and dog shit.
Dukas would appear there, and he worried about how little time he would have to shoot. Plus, now he would have to identify the guy. Then the main door opened, and he saw a furtive movement. Then the west door opened, and he saw another movement. Jerry brought the rifle around slowly and settled it on a half-hidden figure. The head was turned as if the man was speaking to someone just outside the door, but Jerry knew him before the face turned, clear in the crosshairs, and Jerry’s lips moved.
Jesus.
Jerry Piat had worked Jakarta long enough to know most of the Chinese embassy watchers by sight, and he certainly knew the team leader when he saw him.
What the fuck were the Chinese embassy goons doing here?
Alan entered the Orchid House too fast, minutes early, and forced himself to slow down. He realized that he had not really expected this meeting to happen at all. Now it was real because of the man with the camera he had seen outside, and he felt exposed. He felt a wave of vertigo. He slowed his pace still further and forced a smile to his face. He began to smell the orchids, and he forced himself to stop and read the cards, admire the rich colors and marvelous shapes. He was so early that he would have to smell every flower on the path to get to his appointed spot at the right time. He dawdled, nervous and bored at the same time.
It was a nightmare.
Qiu had a hand around his left biceps. Qiu had a copy of The Economist in his other hand, also the side on which he wore his watch, which he now raised to read. He held Bobby in place, watching the seconds tick off. Bobby wanted to scream at him—he was wasting time that Bobby could use to find the American inside the Orchid House!
“I will go inside in precisely two minutes and twenty seconds,” Qiu said to the watcher by the door. He gave Bobby a shove and let go of his arm. “You stay out of my way!”
Bobby ran for the south entrance, all the way around the building.
Now he was in for it.
Jerry saw the man with the bandaged hand, framed in the bright sunlight of the east door.
Jesus, this thing is fucked.
Jerry’s mind was racing through the ramifications of a Chinese surveillance team. Now he had to think who the man with the bandaged hand was. Not your typical NCIS special agent. Military. Fairly recent wound—from the dustup when they’d brought down Shreed? It must be Craik. He checked the face against his memory of the old squadron photo. Where was Dukas? Why were the fucking Chinese here?
They could have followed Bobby Li, but his tradecraft made that unlikely. They could be here for another reason entirely. Or one of his own could have brought them. Like Ho. Or—he hated the idea, but he had to consider the possibilities—Bobby Li.
What didn’t occur to him, nonetheless, was that it was his own signal, which he had used to draw Craik and Dukas to Jakarta, that might also have drawn the Chinese. It didn’t occur to him then, because, if it had, he would have had to consider that George Shreed had actually been a traitor.
Qiu entered on the second and hurried down the path, wondering where his team was, why none of them was supporting him. He stopped to photograph an orchid, allowing himself twenty seconds of the three minutes’ time he had scheduled for the approach to the site. The other man would be doing the same. He was suddenly scared. These tough CIA Americans were legendary—beautifully organized, skilled, always dangerous. Where was his team, now that he thought of it?
He looked around. Leaves and flowers were everywhere, like a nightmarish wallpaper; then, glimpsed through them, he saw faces, a hand, an ear. One of his own people? The other side’s? He moved more slowly.
Jerry saw somebody flash in and out of his chosen killing ground, and he hesitated. His crosshairs registered on the back of Craik’s neck and his finger took up the slack of the trigger, but he hadn’t decided.
Somebody seemed to step toward Craik—a dark shape, hanging back on the left side of the bench. Jerry saw black hair. Bobby.
Alan got to the edge of the clearing in the center of the maze. A man in a windbreaker was there just ahead of him, panting as if he had been running. He had The Economist. Alan shifted his own copy to make sure it would show.
The other man’s eyes were wide, almost crazed. His first meeting, Alan thought.
“You ever go AGIP party?” the man croaked at him.
That was not quite the code. AGIP Christmas party was the code.
Oh, shit.
Bobby Li had reached the edge where panic becomes madness. Qiu was inside by now, and the American was standing across the space that Bobby knew was Andy’s window on the meeting. If Bobby took another step, he would be visible to Andy. Shoot, he thought. Shoot the American! His life, his family, his future, hung on a gunshot. All because of—not because of Andy. Not because of George. Because of these two outsiders in this Orchid House in this foreign place—these interlopers, these meddlers, these oppressors—
“Did I see you at AGIP Christmas party?” he cried, realizing he had said the code words wrong.
The American across the open space looked relieved. He, too, was carrying The Economist. He gave the reply signal: “I was with a Dutch girl.”
Shoot! Bobby screamed inside his head. Did he say it aloud? No. And then he saw Qiu coming up behind the American. Bobby had the envelope full of newspaper in his hand and he stuck it out, shaking so hard the paper inside rustled and crackled. “Take it!” he cried. “Gift—for you—take it!”
The American put out a hand, but didn’t take it.
Bobby went over the edge.
It was Qiu. It was all Qiu’s fault.
Bobby flipped the safety on the Walther and began to shoot.
The Chinese man made a little O of surprise, and the American dove over a table of orchids.
Bobby just went on shooting. Three into Qiu, two down the path, one where the American had disappeared, one into Qiu again, and the slide locked open because the clip was empty.
Jerry heard the first shot and had a dizzy moment when he thought he had pulled his own trigger, and then he recognized the smaller, sharper report of a handgun. Shot after shot. Jesus! Then the Orchid House erupted in shooting, at least three guns on the north, west, and northeast. Glass began to break overhead and shower down.
It was a bust.
He rolled the gun in the mat and threw junk over it and swung himself off the platform.
Alan landed on his maimed hand and fire raced up his arm, but he rolled clear of a tangle of flowers and raced down the maze. The bastard had a gun, had fired at him. But how could he have missed?
Alan could hear at least three guns firing then, not all together, but two of them were close. He pressed past a toolshed and grabbed a pair of wicked-looking scissors from a table. Any port in a storm. Another shot was fired, so close that he saw the muzzle flash through the flowers and realized that he was separated by only a screen of plants from the main trail. He couldn’t tell whether the shot had been fired at him or not, but he flung himself around the next corner.