Hostile Contact

by Gordon Kent

  Lao was mortified. He had had a scenario prepared for Craik—a review of the unfortunate incident in Jakarta, leading up to questions about what really had happened in the Orchid House, which would lead in turn to a mention of George Shreed and then the real question: Where was Chen? For an answer to which Lao was willing to trade away his Jakarta asset, Bobby Li—once he found him. The question of Chen was everything. Lao believed now that Chen was in Tajikistan, and that it had been to see Chen that Craik had flown there from Bahrain. Doing so just before the meeting had looked to Lao like preparation, perhaps, for the meeting itself—perhaps Craik had been bringing a message from Chen? Perhaps, having had Chen for a month, they were ready to trade? Perhaps Chen himself had something to propose? He was about to speak when the waiter put the American’s beer down between them, then a plate of pakoras, a plate of samosas, and a gleaming tray with pickles and sauces in small dishes. Leaning forward again to speak, Lao was almost struck by a plate of papadums that was making its way to join the other food. “Enough!” he said in the voice that Jiang would have recognized.

  “You got tea coming,” the waiter said, stubborn as, in Lao’s experience, only Africans can be. “Coming right away.”

  Lao’s momentum was lost again. Had the waiter been bribed by the American to distract him? Lao hadn’t entirely thought through the problems of meeting in the restaurant—oh, yes, he’d thought of exits and approaches, watchers, security—but he hadn’t thought of the waiter. Intrusive. Embarrassing.

  “You said that I might have something you want,” the American coached him. “In your first message.”

  “The message was not to you.”

  “As good as.”

  “I was communicating with Lieutenant-Commander Craik.”

  “What you see is what you get. American TV joke. Think of me as Alan Craik, if that makes you feel better.” The American poured beer from the big Kingfisher bottle. “What d’you want, Colonel?” he said again before he drank.

  “I want to know what happened in Jakarta. The unfortunate incident at the Orchid House.”

  “Your man got shot.” The American put down his glass, wiped his lips. He looked around at the dim, handsome room, which was much more like a room in Bombay than one in Nairobi. On the far side, a party of African businessmen and two Germans were laughing; in a corner, a lone black man in a safari suit ate his dinner; nearer, three Indians in English suits were spooning tiny puddles of sauces next to each serving on their plates. “Not our doing,” the American said.

  “My embassy—my government—was very angry.”

  “Tell them to be angry with themselves. It was one of your guys who did it.” The American leaned forward. Despite himself, Lao was impressed by the power of the eyes. “What d’you want, Colonel?”

  “I think it is for you to tell me what you want, Mister Michaels. You, after all, have led me along this trail of messages.” Lao was determined to control the conversation, to work his way slowly and artfully to the question of Chen.

  The American gave him a lopsided half-smile. He put a fingernail under the edge of the Kingfisher label. “Isn’t that a little like telling the rape victim that she led the rapist along?” He turned his head back to look at Lao again, and again Lao felt the power of the eyes and, for the first time, the intelligence behind them. “What d’you want, Colonel? You want Chen?”

  Lao’s face remained bland, but again he was stunned. He managed to say, “Who is Chen?” but he sounded unconvincing.

  “Aw, come on! Chen, as in the Chinese half of the comm plan we’re executing here! How many times do you think Chen and Shreed met in this same room? Maybe they sat at this table—maybe they got to know it well enough that they called a day ahead of time so they could enjoy the lamb curry! Come on, Colonel, we’re wasting time. We didn’t walk through this lousy city for blocks so we could play Chinese Checkers.”

  The waiter put Lao’s tea beside his right hand. He groped for the handle without looking away from the American, who, though a barbarian, was taking on more and more the look of an extremely clever and experienced man. I underestimated them, Lao told himself. I made a beginner’s mistake. He felt the ground starting to slide from under him. “Yes,” he said, “I want to know about Chen.”

  “Chen’s dead. He’s buried in a field in Tajikistan. I assume it was your guys who tried to burn my guy up there.” The American shook his head. “Not smart.” He reached inside his coat where, Lao thought, he would be carrying a weapon, but of course there was no reason for him to use a weapon in the restaurant. Still, Lao tensed and moved his own hand toward his coat. But the American extracted a sealed, padded envelope from his jacket, not a gun. “The contents are a little gross, but we’re not really here to eat.” He tossed the envelope on the table. “Chen,” he said.

  Lao looked at the envelope. He looked up at the intelligent eyes. “I confess, you are ahead of me, Mister Michaels.”

  “Open it.”

  Lao reached across and picked up the envelope. It was light, yet bumpy with hard contents. Lao put a forefinger under the flap but found that it was sealed with some sort of super-cement that wouldn’t separate. He then tried to tear it and succeeded only in making a hole in the outer skin, through which some gray stuffing fell on his plate.

  “Pull the string,” the American said. “At the bottom, where it says ‘Pull Tab.’ ”

  It was unfair to make him go through this in public, Lao thought. The envelope was unfamiliar; the light was low; it was unfair! He pulled the tab, and a string cut through the length of the envelope and allowed him to look inside.

  “What we call in the States ‘giving somebody the finger,’ ” the American said.

  Lao tipped the contents into his plate. A button came first; then three inch-square plastic cubes; then a small plastic bag; and last, a larger plastic bag with three inches of brown, lumpy stick inside. Lao looked at it more closely and recognized that it was, indeed, a human finger, partly mummified. The plastic boxes held pieces of what looked like leather; the other envelope, hair.

  “Tissue samples?” he said.

  “I thought you’d like to do a DNA check.”

  Lao studied the button. It was Chinese, current military but of high quality, probably an officer’s, possibly from a uniform of the military intelligence service.

  “These could be from anyone,” Lao said.

  “DNA will show they’re Chen’s. What else do you want?”

  Lao knew that the man had to be telling the truth. It would take only three days to a week to have a DNA test of this importance done in Beijing; there was no point in his trying to lie about such a thing. If Chen was dead, Lao wondered, had he therefore failed? Would the samples satisfy the people who had given him this mission? Or would only the live Chen have satisfied them?

  “We got Shreed,” the American said. “He’s dead, too—buried in the U.S. You’ve lost your top American spy and his control. We also, by the way, have Bobby Li—the double who did the killing in the Orchid House. He was your agent, wasn’t he, Colonel? Didn’t you inherit him from Chen?” The American sipped his beer, then nibbled on a pakora. “Looks to me like you’re up shit crick without a paddle. That’s an American way of saying you’re in trouble.”

  “I am hardly in trouble!” Lao snapped. He began to put the remains back into the envelope.

  “Try this, then.” The American pulled out a piece of paper and pushed it across the table. It had been folded into four and, unfolded, it sat on the apex of its folds and spun slowly. Lao looked at it, looked at the barbarian, touched the paper.

  “Is this computer code?” he said. He knew very little about computer programming, but he thought he knew enough to recognize it.

  “From George Shreed’s computer. It shows a quantity of money leaving an account in the Maldives. The money.”

  “I do not understand the money, Mister Michaels.”

  The American had his forearms across his chest now, resting them
on the table. It occurred to Lao that the American had something wrong with his arms; certain movements seemed to cause him trouble. Not relevant, but perhaps useful sometime. The American looked almost amused. “The money. I make it to be at least twenty billion dollars, of which that piece of code shows only a little bit. Very little bit. Twenty billion dollars is a lot of money, Colonel Lao. Not the kind of money that most of us collect in a thousand or so bank accounts. So much money, in fact, that I’d have to conclude that it was put there by something pretty big—like the Communist Party of China, for example.” The dark, intelligent eyes held his own. “Or the Intelligence Service of the People’s Army.”

  The ground cascaded away under Lao’s feet. He felt as if he were falling in a dream. At once, he knew that he had been made a pawn by the General and the man from the Party: that it had not been Chen that he was supposed to find, but money. Money had been all the buzz when he had been in Beijing; heads had rolled, careers had been ended. Something about money had been in everybody’s mouth.

  And now he knew.

  “I know nothing about such money,” he said.

  And the American gave a flicker—a slight movement of a facial muscle, barely a tic—and Lao saw that the American had thought that he, Lao, knew what “the money” meant, and now he knew that Lao had known nothing about the money. And now Lao was in his fist.

  “The money is gone,” the American said. “I think Shreed did it for revenge. What the code shows is that the money was pulled out of the bank account and was sent into cyberspace. Made not to exist. Twenty billion dollars.” He hunched forward. “Chen is dead. The money is gone. What are you going to tell your government?”

  Lao tried to rally himself. “That is, of course, not your business.”

  “Chen is dead; Shreed is dead; the money is dead. You’re empty, Colonel. You’re going to go back to them empty. You came for something and you’ve got nothing. What are you going to do?”

  Lao grabbed the envelope and the paper. “I am going to end this meeting!”

  “Before you do—” The American hadn’t moved; now he put one hand on the envelope, as if by doing so he could hold Lao. “I think it would be wise to meet me again.”

  It was impossible for Lao not to meet his eyes. He knew. Lao knew and the American knew: He couldn’t go back empty from this meeting and survive for long. Still, Lao said, “We have nothing to talk about now.”

  “I think we’ll have something to talk about.” The American lifted his hand from the envelope; Lao put it inside his coat. He folded the slip of paper and put it with the envelope. The American put his hands flat on the table. “You know Lake Magadi and Lake Natron, Colonel? Magadi’s in Kenya; Natron’s in Tanzania. A river runs down a flatland between them, and the border runs right through there. There’s a hill called Shompole. I’ll meet you on the border by Shompole at eight o’clock. Day after tomorrow morning.”

  Lao stood. “I have no reason to meet you again.”

  “I think you will when you’ve thought about it.” The American stood, too. He held out his hand. “Sorry we didn’t get to try the lamb curry. Maybe next time.”

  “There will be no next time!”

  But almost unconsciously, his hand reached out and took the American’s hand. He could see his own fate reflected in the American’s eyes.

  Lao fled.

  Across the room, Triffler spoke into his microphone. “Out.”

  Nairobi.

  There was a knock at the door, and the wind pounded on the glass of the hotel windows. Alan thought he might have dozed, moved the muscles on his face, and opened the door. Margo slipped through, followed immediately by Brian.

  “Good to see you guys.”

  They were both wired, on edge.

  “What happened at the meeting?”

  Margo shook her head. “He never called Christmas, that’s all I know. Dick called the rabbit out and I saw him get in his car.”

  “Cat one got in a taxi. I let him go. Mike said to take them to their transport.”

  Alan nodded. “I got a photo of cat two and maybe something on another. I didn’t try to follow them.”

  “Yeah. Too right. I hope they didn’t make me, though. Gawd, it gave me the willies, knowing that there was a guy right above me with a camera.” She smiled at Alan. “Great that you called him, though. Better to know than not to know.”

  For a moment, they all were talking at once, and then there was another knock at the door. Alan looked through the spy hole. Bob and Frank.

  “Hey!”

  “Where were you—”

  “What happened when—”

  “—never called Christmas—”

  “—I’m watching this guy sweep the pavement and—”

  “—looked around the damn restaurant, I was so freaked—”

  “—Everybody does that—”

  More knocks, this time not so gentle. Alan looked again. Triffler.

  “Hey, Dick.”

  Triffler was smiling. He cut the babble with a raised hand.

  “Wait for Mike.”

  “You see him?” asked Margo. She was pacing the room, sitting for a moment on the bed, then up and moving again. They all were. Alan had never seen this part of the spy game before—the teamwork, the postoperational locker room. Yet it was familiar to him, like a good aircrew after a great flight. They were on.

  “I passed him in the lobby. He’ll be up.” Triffler was relaxed, a little detached, but his smile was fixed to his face. He might have just had a really good cup of coffee. “I saw you on the street, Margo. I looked right past you. Good cover.”

  “Thanks, man.” She took the compliment with poise, but it clearly pleased her. They were all doing it in a moment, praising one another. Alan kept his eye on the corridor and let Dukas in without a knock. He was smiling.

  “Okay, people, settle down. Sit on something. Margo, stop bouncing.”

  They sat, or leaned against things, unconsciously finding their positions from the evening before.

  “Well?”

  “We met. We talked. He took some of the bait. I think I got to him. He took the second meeting.”

  A mutual breath, and they all looked around. It had to take the place of a cheer.

  “I want everybody to get to bed. Tomorrow we do the prep for Magadi. Alan, you and Triffler prep the plane and go look at the site. The rest of you get there by car.”

  “I like a man with a plan,” said Margo.

  “Anybody get his people?”

  A chorus of responses, gradually petering out into individual reports.

  “Write it up, just rough notes, before you sleep. We’ll drop a report on the embassy after this is over. Go to bed.”

  It took fifteen minutes, several rehashes of the important moments of the evening. Dukas didn’t discuss what he had done, simply insisted that they were a go for Shompole. Finally he was authoritative. One by one, he drove them from his room. He kept Alan back to the end.

  “Alan, I need you to contact the boat and give them a timeline. The meeting is for eight A.M. day after tomorrow morning—”

  Alan looked at the map on the bed.

  “If we get him, that’s a two-hour flight to the coast. Maybe three. How long will the meeting take?”

  “No idea. It could take forever. It shouldn’t take long. He might have backup that has to be dealt with, or he might be followed without wanting it.” Dukas rubbed his chin. He looked worn, still running on the energy from his meeting, but tired. “I expect I’ll have to sell him on the spot, even though by coming he’s made a statement. It could take some time. He’ll want to talk about his family.” Dukas rubbed his eyes. “Give me a second.”

  He walked into the bathroom and Alan heard the sound of running water. Dukas emerged rubbing his face.

  Alan was buzzing with questions. “Can we bring an S-3 down on a Kenyan field in broad daylight? Where do you see us bringing the Navy plane in?”

  Mike reached over hi
m and pointed to the coast road that joined Kenya and Tanzania. “There’s a field built into the road right here. Straight stretch of road, with grassy savanna on both sides. Easy.”

  “Easy without a crosswind, Mike. You seen the weather out there? Do you see us doing this in daylight?”

  “Yeah. It’s right on the coast. By the time the Kenyans complain, we’re gone.”

  Alan gnawed his thumb and wished for a smoke. “I need to know if the Kenyans have any radar coverage down there. They used to worry about narcotics coming ashore in that area. Okay, we bring a plane in late afternoon. I land; we call him from a rally point off the coast, maybe here.”

  “Rally point?”

  “S-3s carry a lot of fuel, Mike. We can have him turning and burning a hundred miles off the coast waiting for our call. We bring him in; he’s on the ground for a minute.”

  “I like that.”

  Alan wrote himself a note.

  “What if it’s dark?” he asked suddenly.

  “Why would it be dark?”

  “What if Lao’s late? Or he wants to talk? Or we’re late, or the plane breaks down. I don’t know.”

  “Can’t you land in the dark?”

  “On a dark stretch of road? In Africa? Just for starters, what if we hit a civilian? I don’t like it. I’ll talk to Rafe, but Jesus, Mike, this landing is thin. We have to get there first. That’s easy. But if it’s getting dark, we’ll have to illuminate the strip. That will take time, too, while Lao sits in the plane. Will his friends come after us?”

  “If they know where we are.”

  “Are you sure it isn’t better to just fly him back to Hunter Field and give him to the embassy?”

  Dukas rubbed the back of his neck, then his chin. He was wasted. The fatigue was setting in. “Fuck it, Alan. I’m not sure. This is the fucking wilderness of mirrors, isn’t it? If Shreed left anybody behind, then Lao would be dead in the embassy. That’s as far as I can think it through. I want him for the Navy, Al. So does the CNO.”

  “I better call the boat.”

  “You do that. I’ll be the one asleep on the bed.”