“Not bad for a cornered rat,” she murmured. “I wonder who the customer is.”
She had no idea how long she’d been there, but she’d obviously been drugged and treated while under. There was only one way to find out. She got dressed, not really surprised that everything fit. The boots were a trial, but even those had been selected one size too large to accommodate her swollen, socked feet.
She picked up her passport and cell, and smoothed her red dress in the mirror. She smirked at herself—a cross between a beer garden waitress and a Viennese escort. She flipped the brass door handle down and went out.
She took a few shaky steps in her boots and stopped. She was looking down the length of a long, straight stairway of glossy white wood, with a plush red runner and a thick chestnut balustrade on the left. She gripped the rail with her left hand and moved down slowly, clutching her passport and cell to her chest. At the bottom was a lead-framed stained-glass door. Her stomach murmured in hunger. She pushed the door open and saw flowers.
Hundreds of them. Roses and tulips of all colors—some arranged in half-cut wine barrels, some jutting from small fenced gardens, and many more popping from balcony boxes. The scent was almost too much.
Just below her was another short staircase of blue slate, and at the bottom of that, facing away from her, stood a woman in a throwback white nurse’s uniform, including the nun-like hat. The nurse heard Lily’s boots on the stones and turned. The front of her hat had a red cross on it, but her features were Asian. She smiled, walked up to Lily, and took her elbow to help her down.
“Wo sind wir?”—Where are we?—Lily asked in German as she realized there was no one else around. Not another soul, and the air was weirdly devoid of sound—no cars, footsteps, laughter, or music. But at least she heard some birds outside, or else she’d be sure she was dead.
“Hallstatt,” the nurse said.
Lily nodded as they negotiated the last stair, wobbling a bit on the polished cobblestones. Hallstatt, she recalled, was that famous quaint village somewhere in upper Austria on the shores of the Hallstätter See. She’d seen it in travel brochures.
“Not the original,” said a basso male voice. “But close enough.”
Lily turned to her right. He was tall, in his sixties, and wearing a gray pin-striped suit with a cobalt tie and matching pocket leaf that was so expensive it didn’t look expensive. But she knew it was costly because it looked like it had been tailored directly on to him. He had thick, swept-back, steel-gray hair, an angular face, and, incongruously, tortoiseshell sunglasses.
Lily looked him over and blinked. “Where’d you leave your DeLorean?” she asked because he looked exactly like John DeLorean, a famous playboy car designer, although he’d died in 2005. He also seemed to have appeared out of nowhere as if by magic.
The tall man smiled. “The comparison’s often mentioned,” he said. “But I don’t drive.”
Lily resisted for a second but had to ask. The situation was just too bizarre. “Are you God? Or the other guy?”
He laughed and nodded at the nurse, who stepped aside. He took Lily’s elbow and began guiding her slowly along the lovely main avenue of the beautiful, empty town.
“It’s Smith, actually,” he said.
She looked up at him and her eyes went wide. “Not the Smith.”
He nodded with a small oh-well shrug.
“But you’re not...” Lily sputtered. “I mean I’ve seen you twice on the boardroom monitor. You’re always in silhouette, but you were a bit tubby and bald.”
“That’s a stand-in,” he admitted. “Always liked the Wizard of Oz.”
Lily felt dizzy again, only this time from relief. “Well, at least that makes sense.” She unhooked her elbow from his hand and switched, gripping the crook of his arm instead. “Since I’m dressed rather like a slutty Dorothy.”
Smith laughed again and pointed down the lane, where a young woman dressed exactly like Lily was walking into a shop. “I’m afraid the only couture they had was the standard employee uniform.”
Lily’s brow furrowed at the sight of her doppelganger. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“And look there,” Smith said. “That’s not right.” He was pointing at a chunky red phone booth with glass windows and the word TELEPHONE stamped on its cap. “If they’re going to pirate everyone’s architecture, then dropping a London phone booth in Hallstatt is an additional crime.”
“If who’s going to. . .” Lily stopped walking and looked up at him. “Mr. Smith, I’m totally lost.”
He smiled down at her. “You’re not lost, Lily. You’re in China.”
She swallowed. “Excuse me?”
“Yes. In Guangdong Province, to be precise. There are actually nine such copycat cities in China, essentially Disneyworld versions of Paris, Milan, and so forth. The intent was to attract the wealthy strata of Chinese society, sell them all highbrow real estate and residences, and then lure in the tourists as well. Alas, so far they’ve all been failures and remain mostly empty. Therefore, perfect for clandestine, private meetings that could be considered socially sensitive.”
Lily gaped as she gazed at their surroundings. That’s why no one sat at the outdoor cafés and why the only people she saw in the distance were all dressed like her—the employees.
“This one was financed by Minmetal Holdings to the tune of nine hundred sixty million dollars,” Smith went on. “It’s an exact copy of Austria’s well-known village of Hallstatt.” He pointed off between a row of flats, past which a wide, empty square led down to a waterside quay and a wide body of rippling gray water. “That’s not the quaint lake in the mountains of upper Austria. It’s the South China Sea.”
Lily felt dizzy. She was still in China; her dream was a nightmare. She hadn’t escaped or been rescued at all. But Smith himself was here, which made absolutely no sense. She curled her fingernails into her palm and dug in.
Wake up, damn you!
Then she felt Smith’s long strong arm enveloping her waist as he pulled her closer to steady her.
“I realize it’s a bit much to take in,” he said. “But you must be starving. So let’s eat.”
It took them awhile to descend to the quay. Lily’s body still ached from her neck to her ankles, and she’d had no real nourishment for days. As she walked arm in arm with Smith, she noticed the bruise of an infusion needle on the back of her wrist. She’d been given something while she slept, perhaps simply sucrose or something else, so she still wasn’t convinced that what she was seeing was real. At any rate, she felt unsteady on her feet but not faint.
At the bottom of a half-circle of marble stairs was a wide portico of cobblestones, which led to the right, and a winding road that circled “Hallsatt’s” beautiful, empty, private town homes. Lily squinted past that to a strange vision across the flat oval bay—modern skyscrapers looming in the mist.
Smith guided her gently to the left, where a portico entrance of a typical Gasthaus awaited, complete with heavy wood-framed windows, inner sills lined with beer steins from the Middle Ages, and, just beside the thick double doors, a menu in German held by a smiling, plaster mountain elf. They walked inside, and Lily swallowed another gasp.
The restaurant’s only customer was General Deng Tao Kung. He sat at a large, round wooden table, with two of his young adjutants standing behind him. The table was arranged with a typical Austrian repast—juices and mélange coffee, fresh eggs, strudels, and cheese of all kinds.
Kung rose from his chair, a white napkin tucked in his uniform collar, smiled his kindly uncle expression, and opened his hands in silent offering. If Smith hadn’t been there, Lily might have run screaming.
But Smith was there, and he walked Lily over, pulled out a chair for her, and bookended her between him and Kung.
“How are you feeling, Miss Stone?” the general asked.
Lily g
lanced at Smith, who smiled and nodded. “Stone” it would remain then.
“Intact, General,” she said. “Thanks to you, I expect.”
A waitress hurried over to pour their coffees. She was dressed, of course, exactly like Lily, but she had “strudel” braids cupping her comely Asian face.
“I confess that your condition alarmed me,” Kung sang as he spooned some steaming scrambled eggs onto Lily’s white plate. “But, sadly, didn’t surprise me. I must apologize for that once more...”
“There’s no need, General,” Smith said. “Lily’s chosen profession engenders such risks.”
“No, sir.” Kung waved his hand, and Lily was surprised by his deferential tone. “I feel that I must.” He dropped his fingers on Lily’s arm as a father might do with his daughter. “You see, Miss Stone, I had no idea who you were, and I made a poor judgment. Once Mr. Smith explained to me your true target and intentions, I was very embarrassed.”
“Please, Deng,” Smith said before sipping his mélange. “It’s all in the past.”
Lily looked from one man to the other as she forked up some eggs while gulping some juice. Considering what she had been through, she was sure her slight bending of decorum would be forgiven.
General Kung was calling Smith sir, and Smith was calling the general by his first name. The latter smiled and leaned into Lily. “The general is a consummate gentleman,” he said. “I only had to elucidate Colonel Hyo’s ill manners, and he was aghast.”
“Yes.” Kung nodded. “Chaoxian have an unfortunate tendency for dissembling and flattery that masks their base intent. They do not yet seem to truly understand how this world of ours works.”
As the general spoke, Lily saw that he seemed to start suffering a bout of growing discomfort, perhaps indigestion. Smith, who apparently sensed it as well, interjected. “But where are my manners? The breakfast table is no place for such talk. Please eat, drink, enjoy.”
So they did. It wasn’t until afterward, when the general made his gracious good-bye and Smith began to chaperone Lily away from the restaurant, that any sort of recognizable reality resumed.
“What the hell just happened?” Lily all but blurted.
The Smith who replied was not exactly the same Smith who had met her at the bedroom, led her here, and joined her for breakfast. This Smith was calm but free of any artifice.
“My friendship with the general,” he told her, “and your freedom, rests with the nature of our modern world. It supersedes all politics. Certain considerations, mostly financial, but also existential, outweigh political winds, which the pragmatic always expect to change. And the Chinese are nothing if not pragmatic.” He nearly chortled. “Poor Kung. He was becoming ill from all our blunt talk. Pragmatic they are. Candid and direct they are not.”
Although well fed, with her body regaining its strength, Lily found her mind still reeling. “Well,” she managed. “They say that politics is the cake that’s fed to the masses, while the real powers rule the world.” She was trying to be clever, but then she saw the look in Smith’s eyes. He seemed to be studying the way he would a prize pupil...or a pinned butterfly. “Oh,” she realized. “Is that you? The real power?”
Smith lowered his head. Whether it was with false or real modesty, Lily couldn’t decide.
“Oh, I’m not sure about power,” he said. “But, yes, if I, and others like me and the general, left the world’s matters to politico egos, we’d all wind up as singed ashes in a wasteland.” He looked up with calm, sad eyes. “Even with us, we may still.”
“So,” Lily continued, emboldened by her rescue and the food. “You’re actually Aegis?”
Smith’s placid demeanor remained unchanged, but he did look up to survey the incongruous city. “What do you know of Aegis?”
“I actually haven’t heard much,” Lily said. “I’m merely a pawn.”
“No, no.” Smith smiled. “A knight, at the very least. Certainly no damsel in distress.”
“Thank you,” Lily said. “But at the moment I’m feeling as deadly effective as a rag doll.”
“You’ll be fine,” Smith assured. “Your efforts unearthed a rat from his hole. This Colonel Hyo has evil intentions, but we’re onto him and his friends now, thanks to you.” Smith became serious. “However, his top operative and agents are still in play. You’ll have to go back and help out.”
Lily stopped and looked at Smith. “Enver Lukacs,” she whispered.
Smith stopped beside her, but his manner returned to one of diffidence “Yes, and others of his ilk. Some we might call traitors. However, their betrayal of the peoples’ trust is not of my concern.” He removed his sunglasses and looked fully at her with a pair of ice-blue eyes. “I am not a government man, Lily. I am not a politician of any stripe or a spy or warrior like you.”
“Then what are you?”
“A man of means who associates with other such men and women and patriots such as General Kung. We all love our countries, and wish for the world to remain inhabitable, nothing more. This is the task of Zeta and our most talented and trusted operators, such as yourself.”
“I understand, I think,” Lily said. “Sort of a power consortium.”
“Correct,” Smith said. “And given the trial you’ve been through, I thought you deserving of an explanation, which might also provide you further incentive to stay in our game.” He raised a finger. “However, I do expect your discretion.”
“Cross my heart,” Lily said without the slightest bit of humor, and she did.
“Very good,” Smith said. “You are a strong and admirable young woman.”
Lily smiled her thanks in return. Suddenly she found herself standing by a gleaming black Hongqi limousine. Smith turned and looked at it too.
“And speaking of my associates, I believe this is your ride.”
The limousine’s uniformed driver got out and opened the rear passenger door. A tall man dressed in casual clothes emerged from the back and pushed his sunglasses up into his messy blond hair.
Lily’s mouth fell open.
It was Scott Renard.
Her mouth remained open until she was seated beside her boyfriend in the back seat. But before she could leap into his arms, or inundate him with endless questions, Smith pinioned her green eyes with his icy blues a final time.
“Good luck, Ms. Randall. Do me proud.” That should have been it, but Lily heard one more thing before Smith closed the door. “By the way, of your organization, only Ms. Bloch has my confidence. Only Ms. Bloch. Remember that.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Zeta headquarters had its own medical clinic.
It was a small affair, just an infirmary really—designed with the thought that wounded operatives might have to avoid a bona fide hospital and all the ensuing questions. A Boston-based surgeon and a registered nurse, both veterans of Special Forces, were contracted to be on call twenty-four-seven. But Zeta also had its own in-house medic, so, to date, their services hadn’t been used.
The clinic was square in shape, and white from ceiling to walls—with a morgue-style, smooth, tiled floor, complete with drains for spilled fluids. To the left and right were two Stryker hospital beds with standing EKG, blood pressure equipment, and pulse rate monitors, along with defibrillators and other lifesaving accouterments, plus a pair of low steel cabinets on casters, containing every imaginable scalpel, syringe, and surgical probe.
And, last, in the open space between the two beds, sat a Steelcase table stretched left to right, and a matching chair on the far side—convenient for any doctor’s administrative tasks. However, both were bolted to the floor because the clinic also doubled as Zeta’s interrogation room.
“No sense in wasting good real estate” as Paul Kirby often said.
Morgan sat in the chair, his wrists behind him at the base of his spine, cuffed to the thick metal uprights. All of his p
rofessional possessions—pistol, cell, ear comm, and boot knife—had been removed and locked up somewhere. He wore only his T-shirt, black jeans, and gym shoes, and the tattoo serpent slithering over his bicep seemed to recoil from the fury of his expression.
The door to the clinic was positioned to the left, but Morgan faced forward, across the table toward the clinic’s fourth wall, which was a top-to-bottom two-way mirror. Behind that was an anteroom, half again the infirmary’s size, with two rows of chairs, and a single, slim, table mounted with recording devices and two-way audio.
Zeta personnel had dubbed the clinic “the Cage,” but they called the anteroom “the Zoo.”
It was crowded tonight. Lincoln Shepard manned the controls, wearing a pair of large earphones. He was perched before a microphone, like a World War II radio operator from Rangoon or a disc jockey in Vietnam. Behind him, in the back row, sat Bishop, Spartan, and Diesel—all looking vaguely uncomfortable. Karen O’Neal held the end of that row, alone, taking notes on her laptop, while Peter Conley stood off in one dark corner, arms folded, and more than mildly pissed.
Diana Bloch and Paul Kirby occupied the command row just behind Shepard. But they sat with two empty chairs between them, and the whole thing resembled divorce proceedings that weren’t going to go well.
“I am absolutely against this, Paul.” Diana Bloch slapped her knees and got up, leaned her palms on the control table, and stared through the glass at the image of Morgan.
“I’d expect you to be, Diana,” Kirby replied, fully aware of his audience. “But this isn’t a personal matter.”
“Are you sure?” she posed, then turned her head and looked at the rest of them. “Were all of you driven to this by nothing more than professional convictions?”
“Yes ma’am,” Spartan said from her chair.
“Ditto,” Diesel said.
“Frickin’ A,” Bishop said as he smoothed his gleaming bald skull.
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