by Ben Coes
Thus armed with more than twenty-two terabytes of data, Minh and his team designed an algorithm that was capable of analyzing an individual’s various physiological attributes, determine if he is lying or telling the truth, and, if lying, could place them in one of the categories, then administer the most effective way to compel the subject to tell the truth.
The dragon automated the entire process.
Each probe had a different role. Five of the stainless-steel needles, for example, monitored heart activity. Two injected synthetic opiates, heroin derivatives, while four injected different types of neurotoxins designed to cause pain. Ten probes could send electric jolts, and six produced small flames barely visible to the eye but hot enough to char the skin.
Perhaps most important, all probes moved inward, pressing against the subject, sandwiching him in tiny increments, every time a lie was told. This was what Minh referred to as the “dragon teeth.” A subject could feel the immediate effect of his own lies. Eventually, if enough lies were told, the individual being interrogated could be punctured straight on through, in forty-six different places. So far, that had yet to occur, as the algorithm had proven incredibly effective at getting the truth before that occurred.
On this day, in Santiago, Chile, it didn’t matter to anyone except the algorithm what specific type of liar Chang was. But he was lying.
Chang was alone in the lab. A camera was attached to the ceiling, hanging ominously down like a spider from the rafters, aimed at him, filming him, then delivering the live feed to Beijing. Speakers in the wall delivered the questions.
Chang was drenched in perspiration and his skin was ashen, a product of more than sixteen micro injections of heroin and three injections of a synthetic neurotoxin made from a derivative of household bleach. In addition, he had three large pink marks—one on his neck, another on his testicles, and still another on his left ankle—where the dragon had sent a series of white-hot flames.
Most conspicuous, however, was the wallpaper of reddish dimples, like the outside of a golf ball, that was arrayed across his front and back, as the device moved ineluctably inward, slowly crushing Chang as he attempted in vain to spin his magic tales.
His capture at Valparaiso Airport had been routine. They were waiting for him when the jet landed. Chang would never know how Bhang had found him out so quickly. During the trip to Santiago, the ministry agents hadn’t said a word. As he was driven to the ministry laboratory, bound and gagged in the back of a van, he’d asked himself if there was something he could have done differently. Perhaps he should’ve remained in Argentina and gone into hiding. But even that would’ve been futile. They would’ve found him, sooner than later.
“Why did you run?” came the voice from the wall.
Was it Fao Bhang’s voice? He’d never actually heard Bhang speak. He sounded polite, like a schoolteacher.
“Answer, please.”
“I don’t know,” said Chang.
A small needle injected something into his neck. Burning pain erupted at the point of injection and flamed out. Chang screamed.
“What happened to Hu-Shao?”
Chang said nothing.
“Where is Hu-Shao?”
“I don’t know.”
The probes moved in, just slightly, while at his ankle a small torch flared. Chang screamed.
“Why didn’t you make contact?”
“I did. I made contact—”
A flame shot out from a different probe, at the lower part of Chang’s back. He screamed.
“You were escaping. You’re lying.”
“I was going to call from Valparaiso.”
The probes moved in, pressing a little harder against his skin.
“Stop lying. Where is Hu-Shao?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
He felt and heard one of the probes puncture skin above his stomach. Blood oozed out from the puncture wound.
“Where is Hu-Shao?” asked the voice, calmly.
Chang looked up at the camera, resigned.
“He’s dead. Raul killed him.”
“How?”
“He shot him in the head.”
“Where?”
“In the field. He knew Hu-Shao was going to kill him.”
Chang’s eyes drifted to the camera.
“It was your fault,” he added. “All of you. If you’d just left it alone, it would all have been done, as we were trained to do. Instead you told Hu-Shao to kill the mercenary. Why? Why did you do this? Just kill me.”
The probes tightened, sandwiching him, while a shot of something cold entered through a probe at his neck. Suddenly, a burning pain riveted him as the neurotoxin entered his bloodstream.
“Where is Hu-Shao’s body?”
“At the ranch. On the ground. His head is destroyed. We were going to carry him out.”
“Did I hear you correctly?” asked the interrogator, anger and shock in his voice. “Hu-Shao’s body is—”
“On the ground,” said Chang. “The American was shooting at us.”
“Andreas?”
“Yes.”
Chang felt warmth, as a tiny dose of heroin was administered, a reward for telling the truth. He shut his eyes and tried to forget where he was. Somehow, he knew it was to be the last moment of pleasure in his life.
“He shot Raul in the stomach. We had to leave the body on the ground and run.”
“Is Andreas still alive?”
Chang remembered the sight of Andreas, firing his weapon at the Gulfstream as they took off. But he could be dead now. That was what he told himself.
“I don’t know.”
“Was Andreas alive when you last saw him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you fire at him?”
“Yes.”
“Was he hit?”
“I don’t know.”
The probes moved in slightly, pinching.
“Was he hit?”
“No.”
“Was he with someone?”
“Yes. A woman.”
“Did Raul shoot the woman?”
“Yes.”
* * *
In a small windowless room deep in the bowels of the ministry, which looked like the control room on a nuclear submarine, Bhang stood with his arms crossed, a cigarette dangling in his right hand. With him was Quan, who directed the ministry’s intelligence-gathering unit, and Bo Minh, his half brother, the inventor of the lie detector, who was managing the controls of the device.
All three men stared at the small plasma screen on the wall, which displayed a live feed of Chang.
At Chang’s last words, Bhang leaned forward and hit the mute button.
“Did he just say what I think he said?” asked Bhang, shock and anger in his voice.
On the screen, Chang’s bloodshot, nearly lifeless eyes stared into the camera.
Quan shrugged his shoulders.
Bhang lifted his finger from the mute button.
“Please repeat what you just said.”
“Fuck you,” moaned Chang, delirious.
Bhang nodded to Minh, who grabbed a dial beneath the screen and turned. Blood burst at different points on Chang’s body as the probes, with Minh’s assistance, pressed in tighter, crushing him.
“Please, Mr. Chang, repeat what you said,” ordered Bhang.
“Raul shot her. He killed her. He hit her in the back.”
Bhang looked at Minh.
“End the feed, if you would, Bo,” he said. “Cut him down. Get rid of him.”
Bhang walked to the door. At the door, he turned.
“Please find Ming-húa,” he said to Quan. “Tell him to be in my office in exactly thirty seconds. Then take care of Raul’s body, the pilots, the plane, everything. Erase all evidence.”
25
PROVINCIAL POLICE DEPARTMENT
CÓRDOBA
Two men walked briskly into the provincial police department headquarters. One of the men was in his fifties, tall, with dark
skin and a thick head of black hair. This was Colonel Arman Marti, director general of Argentina Federal Police, the country’s top law-enforcement agency, Argentina’s equivalent to the FBI. The other man was much younger, in his early thirties, had curly brown hair, and was shorter. This was Charlie Couture, Argentina chief of station for the CIA.
It was five in the morning.
Marti and Couture walked past the front desk without slowing. They entered a hallway that ran along the cellblock. At the last cell, Marti swiped a small steel card in front of a scanner. There was a loud click as the dead bolt popped open.
The two men stepped inside. The cell was dimly lit, humid, and smelled of body odor.
Seated on the ground was a shirtless man. He had on jeans and boots. His brown hair was disheveled, and he had several days’ worth of stubble on his face. Marti’s head jerked back as he looked at the man, an involuntary gesture as he realized the man was not only awake, but waiting, with a blank, hateful look.
The man was seated against the wall, staring at the two men as they entered the cell.
Couture spoke first.
“Hi, Dewey,” he said. “I’m Charlie Couture from Langley. This is Colonel Marti, who runs AFP. First things first: How are you?”
Couture and Marti waited for Dewey to respond, but he remained silent.
“We have the ranch cordoned off,” said Marti. “Is there any information you can provide to us? Did you see anything?”
Dewey stared impassively at Marti.
“I can have someone get your stuff,” said Couture. “You don’t need to go back there if you don’t feel like it.”
Dewey stared past the two men. He had a distant look, like he was staring at something a thousand miles away.
“We have a jet over at the airport that’ll fly you back to the U.S.”
Dewey still didn’t move or say anything.
Marti glanced at Couture, who returned the look.
Couture pulled a phone from his pocket and hit a button.
“It’s me,” Couture said into the phone. A moment later, he handed the phone to Dewey. “It’s Hector.”
Dewey hesitated, then took the phone.
“Dewey,” said Calibrisi.
Dewey took a deep breath but remained quiet.
“I’ve got a forensics team heading down there,” continued Calibrisi. “Six of my best guys. Jim Bruckheimer at NSA has a group charging hard as well. We’re going to find out who did this.”
There was a long moment of silence as Calibrisi paused, waiting for Dewey to talk.
“You there?”
“Yeah.”
“I know it’s tough, but right now, we need your help.”
“I know.”
“Did you see anyone? Do you think it was Iran?”
Dewey looked up at Couture, then at Marti. Both men were staring down at him. Couture nodded at Dewey, understanding that he wanted some privacy. He took Marti gently by the elbow and pushed him toward the cell door.
“It was a kill team,” said Dewey.
“How do you know?” asked Calibrisi.
“It was a three-man team. I found the sniper nest, five or six hundred yards out. I found someone in the field beyond the nest. He was already dead. The body was cold. Most of his head was shot off. But he looked Asian.”
“Did you tell Marti?”
“No. I don’t trust anyone down here. They knew we were here.”
“There are a ton of ways to track someone. We need to find that body and look at it.”
“Hector, I’m asking you, don’t tell AFP yet. Let me go look at the body in the daylight.”
“Fine.”
“Who runs the autopsy?” asked Dewey.
“AFP has jurisdiction,” said Calibrisi. “We’ll get access to the findings and we’ll sit in on the autopsy. The president of Argentina waived protocol and is letting us take Jess home this morning.”
“Why would someone…?”
“It could mean anything,” said Calibrisi. “You know that. There are a million possible explanations, with Iran being right there at the top of the list. Let’s get the body and look at it.”
“I have to go.”
“Were you in the room when Jessica was shot?” asked Calibrisi.
The question caused a pained expression to shoot across Dewey’s face, as he thought of that last sight of Jessica, standing in the French doors.
“Yeah. I watched it happen. They shot her in the back.”
“I think you should come back up here. Let us do our job down there.”
Dewey tasted salt as tears ran down his cheek into his mouth.
“Her body’s at the airport,” added Calibrisi. “We’ll bring her back to Andrews. Her parents are devastated.”
Dewey held the phone against his ear, staring at Couture and Marti, who stood, patiently, outside the cell, out of earshot.
“How will it be announced?”
Calibrisi exhaled deeply.
“I don’t know. I’m headed over to the White House in a few minutes to talk about that. It’ll happen today.”
Dewey felt a sudden wave of nausea.
“I have to go,” said Dewey.
“Hold on,” said Calibrisi. “I want to say something. I know you want to hit back. I want revenge too. I loved her like a daughter. Heads are going to fucking roll over this.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, let’s find out who the hell did this then design a proper retaliation, together.”
“There’s no amount of people we could kill to get even,” said Dewey. “There’s no way to bring Jessica back.”
“I know we can’t bring her back. But we can make anyone and everyone who was involved pay dearly.”
Dewey didn’t say anything more. He hung up the phone.
* * *
Behind police headquarters, Dewey climbed into the back of a dark green AFP Chevy Suburban. They drove in silence back to Estancia el Colibri. Dewey tried to focus on the road ahead, tried to avoid the dark thoughts that kept recurring.
He reached down and felt for his knife. The sheath was gone. Then he remembered being tackled on the tarmac. Hitting the ground as the two police officers strong-armed him down. Watching the Gulfstream lift off.
“I want my knife back, and my sidearm.”
In the front seat, Colonel Marti turned. He looked at Couture.
“The knife was given to me. It was a gift.”
“I’ll give it to you,” said Marti, “but you’re going to have to wait on the gun.”
Marti reached into a steel briefcase in front of the seat. He removed Dewey’s combat blade, still sheathed, and handed it back to him.
Dewey looked out the window. He saw her eyes again.
* * *
Thanksgiving that year was cold, crisp, and cloudless. They bought a turkey from a farm in Virginia. They drove out to get it that morning, the top of her 911 down, freezing cold but tempered by the sun. It was just the two of them. Jessica cooked it to perfection, the skin a crispy mahogany brown, stuffing with sausage in it, sweet potatoes with browned marshmallows on top, her grandmother’s recipe. They ate by candlelight then watched football. Dewey made a fire and they sat on the chair, Jessica on his lap, sharing a glass of wine. Silver Oak. He loved that memory. They drank from the same glass. Something so small, so insignificant and trivial, but the memory of sharing that glass warmed him.
“Will you marry me, Jessica?”
The words he vowed long ago never to say again, but when they arrived on his lips he felt the weight fall from his shoulders. He was giving up his freedom with those few words, and yet he’d never felt more free.
“Yes, I will.”
Walk away. She’s gone. It’s all gone. Leave it behind now, Dewey.
There’s only one thing you can do now. The thing you were meant to do.
* * *
A few minutes later, they reached Colibri.
A long cordon of patrol
cars lined the main road, their red and blue lights flashing, creating a security perimeter at the entrance to the ranch. Dewey heard the distant churning of chopper blades, then glanced out the window and counted two helicopters in the sky.
The Suburban moved through the cordon. Several soldiers and various agents saluted as Marti looked blankly ahead through the front window. A mile on, another small swarm of AFP agents was gathered, along with a medical examiner’s van.
Dewey glanced at Couture.
“I’m going to pack up my stuff and take a shower.”
“Take your time.”
Dewey emerged from the back of the SUV. Every AFP agent, police officer, and med tech stared at him. He cut through the middle of the group. At the front door, an armed AFP agent held up his hand.
“Alto,” said the agent.
Dewey ignored him, brushing past, and as the agent was about to say something else, Marti whistled from the driveway. He waved his head, indicating to let Dewey by and, by the harsh look of reproach on his face, telling the young Argentinian in no uncertain terms to leave Dewey the hell alone.
The ranch house was empty and quiet. The terrace to the dining room was marked off in yellow police tape. The blood had already been cleaned from the bluestone terrace.
To his left, from down the hallway, he heard voices. He walked to the bedroom. Two forensics techs in white smocks were in the room, snapping photographs. They looked up when Dewey entered. They said nothing.
Dewey went into the bathroom and took a shower. He left his bloody jeans on the floor of the bathroom, put on another pair of jeans and a white Lacoste shirt. He packed his belongings into his duffel bag. Then, he packed Jessica’s things into her Louis Vuitton suitcase: shirts, shoes, skirts, a couple of bathing suits. Beneath her clothing, he found a simple wooden frame. In was a photo of the two of them. He tucked it into her bag.
Dewey stepped to the doors that led to the terrace. He scanned the horizon, looking for the sniper nest he knew was out there. They hadn’t found it yet.
There were maybe a dozen people who knew where he and Jessica were going. He didn’t know how they’d found him, but there was no question, they’d been tracked or followed. There was no way it was one of the Americans. Dellenbaugh, Calibrisi, Jessica’s chief of staff Josh Brubaker, Morty and the other Secret Service agent, the head of the Secret Service, a handful of others—that was it. It hadn’t come from within.