by Ben Coes
Perhaps he’d never know. But until he was out of the country, he couldn’t trust anyone.
He stepped out onto the terrace. He crossed it, then walked diagonally out, across the expansive lawn, then beyond, into the knee-high grass. He knew the general direction, and soon enough he picked up the trampled-down grass from the night before.
If they were looking at him, they would think he was either a member of the search party or, if it was Marti or Couture, a mourning man, taking one last walk, grieving at the death of his fiancée.
A few minutes later, he came upon the dead man.
Under the hot glare of the morning sun, the man’s destroyed skull was even more grotesque. Flies hovered.
Dewey knelt. He pulled his knife from the sheath. He grabbed the man’s hand and cut off the right index finger. He slipped it into his pocket, turned, and headed back to the ranch house.
He stared at the ground as he walked, deep in thought. Whoever killed Jessica was out there. He would find him. If it took him the rest of his life, he would find him. And when he did, he would pay.
Fight. It’s all you can do. It’s all you could ever do.
“I’m coming,” he whispered, eyes scanning the horizon.
26
MINISTRY OF STATE SECURITY
BEIJING
Ming-húa was waiting inside Bhang’s office when he returned. A cigarette dangled from Bhang’s mouth, unlit. Out the window, the Beijing afternoon was a bland mixture of clouds and gray sky. Not that either man noticed the weather. It was just a sideshow to the main event, which was running the largest intelligence agency in the world.
One could say Bhang lived, ate, and breathed the ministry. In point of fact, he smoked it. From the start of the day until the wee hours, Bhang, along with nearly every other top official at MSS, chain-smoked. The result was that headquarters had a rank, stale permeation of smoke, despite constant cleaning.
“Minister—”
“Be quiet,” said Bhang sharply as he grabbed a silver lighter from his desk and lit his cigarette.
“I am deeply apologetic,” continued Ming-húa, seated on one of three leather chairs arrayed in an orderly line before Bhang’s desk. “May I ask—”
“I want silence,” said Bhang. “This has been a failure of epic proportions. I knew it was a mistake to elevate you, Ming-húa. You belong in the field, taking orders, not giving them. It was your responsibility to terminate Andreas. Instead, we now have a situation that could become very uncomfortable, very quickly. A situation you likely do not fully understand. So you will keep your mouth firmly shut and you will listen and you will do exactly as I say.”
Ming-húa nodded.
“If the Americans ascertain that China was behind the assassination of Jessica Tanzer, it’s not unrealistic to think there could be war,” said Bhang, puffing his cigarette, staring at Ming-húa. “At the very least, they will be extremely upset. The United Nations will be brought in. The international community will be outraged.”
Bhang lit another cigarette with the ember from the first.
“And the blame for all of this will fall on the ministry,” continued Bhang, “and, more specifically, on me. Lest you have any illusions as to your own personal safety, Ming-húa, trust me: you will be dangling from the rafters long before they wrap the noose around my neck.”
“Minister Bhang, may I say something?”
“No,” said Bhang. “Shut up and listen. Your top priority at this moment is to follow my orders. I want you to retrieve the body of our agent. Whatever assets we have in Argentina must be utilized to retrieve Hu-Shao or destroy any evidence of his identity. If Hu-Shao is identified, we will be finished. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
“Yes, sir, you do. Most perfectly.”
Bhang stared for several silent moments at Ming-húa, scorn on his face. He finished his cigarette, then opened the top drawer of his desk. He removed a yellow folder, put it on the desk, then flipped it open. He removed a small stack of photos, all of Dewey Andreas. He picked one up. It showed Andreas in a crisp white uniform, a military hat on his head, shaking someone’s hand as he was formally sworn in as a member of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta.
Bhang stared at the photo, then handed it toward Ming-húa. Bhang’s hand appeared to be trembling slightly as he attempted to control his anger.
“Second, I want Andreas dead. Issue a worldwide termination order. Immediately. I want our top paramilitary project team on this. Their sole responsibility is finding and killing Andreas. I will oversee the group personally, not you. It will be run out of the conference room next to my office.”
Ming-húa remained silent. He didn’t react, but he was listening.
“Am I perfectly clear, Ming-húa? I want to hear you state that I’ve been clear.”
“Perfectly clear, Minister.”
Bhang walked to the door.
“Where are you going, Minister?”
“Where am I going?” answered Bhang, calmly, turning, a vicious sneer on his face. “Your highly paid marksman just assassinated the American national security advisor. I’m going to clean up your mess.”
27
PEOPLE’S BANK OF CHINA
BEIJING
Bhang stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor of a modern, low-slung office building, its curvilinear glass wrapped in a half-moon around a squat round granite centerpiece. This was the People’s Bank of China. Bhang was accompanied by two security guards. He was here to see Ji-tao Zhu, governor of the People’s Bank.
The bank’s modest-sized building belied its vast global reach and influence. It was the People’s Bank that controlled all monetary policy for the country, the world’s second-largest and fastest growing economy. The People’s Bank had the most financial assets of any single public financial institution ever, including the Federal Reserve. This small building and the men and women walking through its hushed corridors were sitting on more than $3.5 trillion of liquid reserves and tens of trillions of dollars in other nonliquid assets, such as foreign debt. The bank’s tentacles were everywhere, both inside the country and across the globe.
If China’s long-term vision was to be the most powerful nation on earth, it was through the bank that such a vision was being slowly but inevitably implemented. Beginning in 1948, when the bank was formed, the People’s Bank of China had woven its way into economies large and small, across the world, democracies and dictatorships alike, creating an interlocking grid of influence and dependence in virtually every country on every continent. The bank was owed money by virtually every government of consequence in the world.
The bank rarely if ever used its financial influence, especially in matters of foreign policy. Those who were naïve thought it was because the Chinese government was, deep down, a moral institution, which would never dare use its power to harm others, to exert pressure, or to exact revenge. Those who were smart knew that it was just the opposite. Like a poisonous snake, the bank chose to lurk in the tall grass and the shadows, as it grew stronger and stronger with each passing day, until it was ready and willing to show its fangs and, if necessary, to attack.
Bhang entered through another set of metal detectors into the suite of offices that were the purview of Zhu and his small executive staff. The walls along the corridor were thick, opaque glass, tinted in gold. In a large conference room, he saw Zhu, seated at the end of the table, a half dozen functionaries seated around the table before him. Zhu saw Bhang approaching. He stood up and walked to the door, then stepped into the hallway.
With his hand, Bhang flicked at the security detail, telling them to move away so that he and Zhu could speak.
“I assume you’re not here to open a savings account, Minister Bhang?” asked Zhu, smiling.
“We might need your help, Governor,” said Bhang, a serious expression on his face.
“How can I be of assistance?”
“We could be in a situation,” said Bhang.
�
��A ‘situation’?” asked Zhu, blinking rapidly.
“A situation that requires some of the bank’s legendary powers of persuasion, Governor Zhu.”
28
IN THE AIR
Dewey sat on a plush, black leather captain’s chair in the cabin of a CIA-owned Citation X jet, heading north, toward America. Except for the two copilots, he was alone. Out the window, the snow-capped peaks of the Andes passed beneath.
He removed the framed photograph from Jessica’s suitcase. He stared at it for more than a minute. It showed him giving Jessica a piggyback ride. It had been taken in Castine, during the early summer, along the path that ran near Wadsworth Cove. The photo was lopsided because they couldn’t find a flat place to set the camera before putting the timer on and getting into place. They were both laughing. Jessica’s hair was in pigtails. He had a big smile. That was why she’d framed it, he guessed. She always said he looked too serious in photographs. On some level, that, more than anything, affected him profoundly. That this was how she saw them. That was the moment that captured, for her, their love.
Fumbling inside his bag, he unzipped a pocket along the liner. He removed another frame, this one made of silver. It was a black-and-white photo, old and faded. It had been a sunny day in Southern California. He was fresh out of college, his hair short, a military uniform on, the Ranger tab visible on his shoulder, before he’d been asked to try out for Delta. When he was still innocent to it all, to the misery of loss, the finality of it, to the feeling of fighting for a country you loved alongside men who were closer than brothers, then watching them die by your side, in your arms. To the feeling of losing a son.
On his lap, Robbie ate a chocolate ice cream cone, his cheeks and the tip of his nose messed with chocolate. His arm was around a beautiful dark-haired woman, who seemed more and more, with time’s passage, an ember, barely a memory: Holly, so beautiful, his high school sweetheart, the first person to make him understand what love was, the second person, after Robbie, to teach Dewey what it meant to lose.
He fought to push the thoughts away. He stacked the frames together. He put them in the pocket of the bag and zipped it up.
Leave it behind. Walk away. It’s dust now, memories, broken thoughts, and it will only cause you pain.
There’s only one thing you can do. It’s all you could ever do.
Fight.
Dewey knew what he had to do. He’d been trained to do it, and he was the best at it. He wanted revenge, and he alone, he uniquely, could exact it. But a more-powerful urge swept over him then, an even darker force than revenge or the desire to kill.
He stood and walked to the front of the cabin. He opened one storage compartment after another until he found what he thought might be there. A line of liquor bottles crowded a low shelf. He scanned it then lifted a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He unscrewed the cap, then raised the bottle to his lips, taking a tremendous gulp before removing the bottle from his lips.
“Sir,” said one of the copilots, poking his head out from the cabin after hearing the opening and closing of cabinet doors. “Mr. Calibrisi wants to talk to you.”
Dewey put the bottle back to his lips and took a smaller, more-refined slug this time, perhaps self-conscious about what he looked like in front of the Special Operations Group pilot, though, of course precisely the opposite phenomenon occurred; the image of Dewey was already engraved in the man’s mind by the swaying, by the large bottle gripped in his hands, by the look of madness on Dewey’s face.
“Tell him I’m busy,” said Dewey.
“He wants us to take you up to Andrews.”
“No,” Dewey said, shaking his head. “Like I told you, first airport after you get into the U.S.”
29
IN THE AIR
The U.S. Treasury Department–owned Boeing 757 was Wood Uhlrich’s favorite perk that came with being secretary of the treasury.
Inside the private stateroom there were three adjoining rooms; a small but comfortable sitting area with a pair of leather couches and two chairs along with a flat-screen plasma television; a large bedroom with a king-size bed that sat beneath a line of windows; and a bathroom, inside of which was a marble-tiled shower. The suite looked like something out of the St. Regis Hotel.
As the plane cruised high above the Atlantic Ocean, Uhlrich sat on the bed, reading The Wall Street Journal. After an hour or so, he got up, put his shoes on, walked through the living room, then opened the door and glanced around.
He walked to a conference table at the front of the cabin. He glanced toward the galley kitchen and made eye contact with a woman in a white uniform.
“Coffee,” he said, “and two Advils. Thanks, Margaret.”
“Yes, Mr. Secretary.”
Uhlrich sat down at the table.
“What do we have, guys?”
“I’m not a guy,” said one of the two people seated at the table, a pretty woman who smiled as she said it. Beatrix Packard was deputy secretary of the treasury.
Uhlrich laughed as he took a seat next to Packard, across from the only other treasury official on the trip, Lance Rapala, undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs.
Rapala, a former member of Congress, was a seasoned treasury official. Rapala was in his early seventies but still had a thick mane of black hair, aided no doubt by some product of American chemical innovation.
Packard was even higher on the treasury totem than Rapala. Packard, a former managing director at the legendary Boston private equity firm Mustang, was charged with managing the roughly one-trillion-dollar annual treasury-bond-sale effort, a linchpin in the creation of liquidity not only for the U.S. government but the American economy. It was Packard’s job to make sure money kept floating within the multilayered channels and back alleyways of the official U.S. economy, a feat that was accomplished via a tricky, mediated dance involving bond sales to foreign governments and corporations and a near-constant arm-wrestling match with the Federal Reserve.
If Packard had one of the most stressful jobs in government, she didn’t show it.
“You’re starting to sound like my daughter, Trix.”
“You’re starting to sound like my dad, Wood.”
“I wish I was your dad,” said Uhlrich. “Retired … living in Florida.”
“Eating soft food, bored out of your mind.”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t like twisting arms, Wood?” asked Rapala.
“No,” said Uhlrich. “I’m getting tired of it. So who am I meeting in Hong Kong?”
“Zhu,” said Rapala. “I set up a one-on-one meeting. He knows the subject matter.”
“What do we want?”
“England and Germany have each agreed to pick up fifty billion,” said Packard. “That means we need China to take the other four hundred billion.”
“That’s it?”
“No,” said Packard. “By year’s end, we’ll need to put another trillion out there. You should probably mention that to Mr. Zhu.”
Uhlrich watched as the attendant delivered his coffee and Advils. He popped the Advils into his mouth and followed it with a swig of coffee.
“Eight months ago, it was difficult to place a quarter billion dollars worth of bonds,” said Uhlrich. “Since that time, debt levels across the EU have shot up. Everyone is asking Germany for help; same with Britain. The entire continent is in a recession. So where is this money going to come from, Trix?”
“That’s why we’re flying to Hong Kong, Mr. Secretary. China is our only option.”
Uhlrich leaned back.
“Have you spoken to Zhu?” asked Rapala.
“No,” said Packard, looking at Rapala, then Uhlrich. “I don’t need to. China will buy the bonds. I’m not worried.”
“You better hope so,” said Uhlrich. “What’s the backup plan?”
Packard shifted in her chair.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“China’s always been the backup plan,” sai
d Uhlrich. “Now, they are the plan. Which means we don’t have a backup plan, do we?”
“No, sir, we don’t,” said Packard. “We need China to buy the bonds. America’s dirty little secret, sir.”
30
BIRCH HILL
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA
Calibrisi was eating dinner at his home in McLean when his cell rang. He glanced at his wife, Vivian, who smiled understandingly.
“Yeah,” he said, putting the phone to his ear.
“CIA Control, sir. I’ve got Steve Owen patched in from CIA one-two-alpha.”
Calibrisi looked at Vivian.
“Do you want me to leave?” she mouthed.
Calibrisi shook his head no.
“Hi, Steve.”
“He’s refusing to talk, Hector. He’s also drinking.”
“Where does he want to be dropped?
“First airport inside U.S. territory. I thought I’d give you a chance to influence that decision. Where do you want us to leave him?”
Calibrisi was silent, thinking quickly about what assets he had in the southeastern United States. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to have any. But the last thing he wanted to do was drag in the FBI. This one was personal. He knew Dewey was likely headed for a tailspin, and he wanted to be there to catch him when he fell. He could have simply ordered Owen to fly him back to Andrews, but that would’ve been even worse. Dewey would resent him for a long, long time if he pulled a stunt like that.
“Miami,” said Calibrisi. “Drop him in Miami. Thanks, Steve.”
“No problem, sir.”
Calibrisi waited for Owen to drop off, then spoke to the CIA switchboard.
“Control,” said Calibrisi into the phone. “Get me Katie Foxx.”