Dark Ambition

by Allan Topol

She smiled. "Ah, Master Chen. Now I understand. My brother always had to prove things to our father, too. With fathers and sons it's always the same."

  Relieved that he had allayed her suspicions, he went down to the factory floor and watched the assembling of computers. It was truly an incredible operation. The raw materials cost nickels and dimes. The labor was dirt-cheap. Assembly was simple. And at the end of the day some of the world's giant computer companies would stamp their names on these little black boxes and charge thousands of dollars for them. It was no wonder the world's economy went into a nosedive when people held on to their old computers and delayed spending money on newer, marginally improved models. The whole high-tech business was one giant money-recycling machine, Chen decided.

  At noon he left the factory, heading for a luncheon meeting of a computer manufacturers group. Shanghai, the pearl of the Orient, was the commercial heart of modern China, a city of sixteen million people, where the pace was frantic. Yet as Chen walked into the hotel ballroom where the luncheon was taking place, he found a subdued crowd.

  Rumors were rife that Chinese troops were on the move toward the Strait of Taiwan. Something was happening with Taiwan. Nobody at the luncheon knew precisely what it was, but everyone was convinced it would be bad for business.

  Chen listened to the worried patter, but he wasn't thinking about business. The war talk reminded him of that damned package. He used the emergency number Donovan had given him to call Roger Sherman, his contact in Shanghai. With Sherman's cover as the representative of a high-tech venture capitalist, a meeting between the two men wouldn't look suspicious. Sherman offered to come to Chen's hotel, the Pudong Shangri-La, for dinner at the hotel's Cantonese restaurant.

  When Chen arrived, he found Sherman in a booth in a corner that ensured privacy, far from the security men at the door. Anticipating Chen's concern about Operation Matchstick, Sherman said, "The package was shipped this afternoon from Osaka. You'll have it day after next."

  "What about assembly?"

  "There are directions inside. Very simple for someone like you with an engineering degree. Make sure you're at least a hundred yards away when you press the detonator. It's a delayed action. You'll have plenty of time to get out of the area."

  "Understood."

  A waitress approached with heaping plates of scallops and shrimp. Sherman signaled to Chen to stop talking until she was gone.

  Chen moved some food around with his chopsticks, not sure how to broach the reason he had called Sherman for the meeting. Finally, he dove in. "I've heard today," Chen said nervously, "that Chinese troops are heading toward the Strait of Taiwan. What's happening?"

  Sherman was uncertain how much to tell Chen. He had been following the Chinese troop movements for the last couple of days. This morning he sent a coded message to San Francisco, where his phony venture capital firm had its headquarters. From there, the message would be sent to Langley. The situation was serious. More than serious. It was grim. He put the chances at seventy-five percent that China would attack Taiwan.

  "Just another flap between Washington and Beijing over arms for Taiwan," Sherman said. "They happen every couple of years. Lots of saber rattling on both sides. Nothing will come of it."

  Chen wasn't fully satisfied. His eyes were blinking involuntarily, and his hand was shaking. "What about the army unit I'm supposed to meet?"

  "Their location hasn't changed. If anything, this should help you. There are so many troop movements these days, nobody can keep track of them. Operation Matchstick is even more important now."

  "Why so?"

  "It'll send a message to Beijing that they don't have free play in this part of the world. It'll make them pull back from their war threats."

  "Or encourage them to attack," Chen said soberly.

  Chapter 12

  Gwen didn't like jogging in a warm-up suit. She preferred the feeling of perspiring freely, her bare skin against the natural elements. Even on a raw, blustery cold morning like today, she left the Shoreham dressed only in black runner's shorts and a white T-shirt with the Washington Wizards logo that she had purchased yesterday in the hotel gift shop. As always, she was braless, and as soon as she hit the chilly air, her nipples hardened and protruded against the tight cotton shirt. She knew that she made a sensual picture, that someone who didn't know her would say that she was asking for trouble alone on a jogging path through the woods. That didn't concern Gwen. Once a creep had tried to attack her. She could have easily eluded him by running away, but instead she broke his right arm at the elbow. She left him crumpled by the path, screaming in pain.

  From the hotel she ran downhill into Rock Creek Park, running hard, pushing herself for a full thirty minutes. A glimmer of a bright red sun was starting to appear in the eastern sky as she ran along the Potomac toward the Lincoln Memorial. The reflecting pool was nearly deserted at this hour. Gwen slowed to a trot as she climbed the steps, following the path of thousands of tourists who came each year to pay a visit to Honest Abe. Gwen had insisted they meet at the Lincoln Memorial. There was absolutely no way anyone could set a trap for her there.

  A figure in a long black coat was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, facing away from Gwen, standing at the base of the massive marble feet. When Gwen's sneakers tapped against the stairs, the figure wheeled around quickly and stared at Gwen, the wet T-shirt plastered against her body.

  "The gardener hasn't confessed yet."

  "I didn't think he would."

  "What now?"

  "You don't have to know the details. You hired me. It's my job to get the result you wanted. I'll decide on what happens next. Do you have what I asked for?"

  By way of reply, a white envelope was extracted from a pocket in the long black coat and handed over to Gwen. Quickly, she tore open the flap and looked at the single picture.

  "It's Clyde Gillis's wife, Lucinda, and their four children. Address and telephone number on the back."

  "And the money?" Gwen asked.

  "Five million U.S. will be deposited in Credit Suisse on the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich within the hour. The contact there is Heinrich Winkler."

  From the other pocket of the long black coat came a small piece of paper with an account number, W32A27LGR42, which Gwen looked at and returned.

  "That's for you."

  "I don't need it," Gwen said. "The number's committed to memory."

  As Gwen knew it would, her words produced admiration and fear.

  "What about the other materials I wanted?" Gwen demanded.

  "Are you sure that you need them?"

  Gwen was irritated. "I told you when you hired me. If you want me to do a job, I do it my way. If that doesn't suit you, then get someone else."

  "I didn't mean—"

  "Then give me the stuff." Gwen mentally counted to ten, and when there was no response, she moved up quickly and slammed her contact hard up against the marble base of Lincoln's statue.

  "Look here," she said. "My ass is on the line as well as yours. The stuff I asked you for is what I need to save both of us."

  Her actions produced the desired result. This time a brown envelope came out of the coat pocket. Inside were two photographs. One was a man around forty, Gwen guessed. He wasn't bad-looking, but what struck her most about him was the intensity in his dark brown eyes. She knew that look. Like her, he was driven and purposeful. He couldn't be underestimated. It was a small bonus for her that he was a lawyer. She hated lawyers.

  Gwen looked at the second photograph. It depicted a girl about four years old with curly brown hair and crooked baby teeth. She was sitting on a swing and waving at the camera. Gwen glanced down at the stairs, making sure that the area was still deserted. It was too early for tourists. The sun was beginning its slow ascent. The water of the reflecting pool was beginning to sparkle.

  "The man's name is Ben Hartwell. His daughter is Amy. There's a piece of paper in the envelope with his home address and telephone number. Also the address of Amy's presc
hool group."

  Gwen nodded, then stuffed the contents of the two envelopes into a pocket in the back of her shorts. "Don't worry. You'll get the result you want. And unless something goes wrong, which it shouldn't, this is our last meeting."

  * * *

  They were back in the conference room at the FBI. Bill Traynor, a piece of chalk in his hand, was standing in front of a blackboard. Ben, Ed Fulton, and Director Murtaugh were watching him carefully.

  On the board was a list of six George Nesbitts, each with a number of identifying facts. The last six possibles. Lines had been drawn through four of the six George Nesbitts.

  "Last night at ten-thirty, Pacific time," Traynor said, "we took Jeb Hines to the town of Montecito, outside of Santa Barbara, where he confronted the fifth George Nesbitt at his home. Jeb's convinced he's not the man."

  With a flourish, Traynor drew a line through number five. He was playing it up for Murtaugh, emphasizing what a thorough manhunt he had directed.

  Ben said, "Number six is our San Jose computer VP, right?"

  Traynor nodded.

  "The guy we haven't been able to find?"

  "We found him."

  Ben looked up. "Well?" he said anxiously.

  "He called his home late last night, and we traced the call. It was made from the Trade Winds Hotel along Mission Bay in San Diego. Yesterday around six in the evening Nesbitt checked into the hotel."

  "Alone?"

  "Accompanied by another man. They took one room with a king-size bed. Room 807."

  "Has Hines seen the man?"

  "Not yet."

  Fulton jumped in, "What do you mean, not yet?"

  With Director Murtaugh now personally involved, Traynor was determined to play it by the book. "They showed the room clerk the artist's sketch of Nesbitt. He says the guy in 807 could very well be our man, but we're not going in without a warrant. The magistrate should have signed it at seven o'clock Pacific time this morning." Traynor glanced at his watch. "Ten minutes ago."

  Ed added, "And suppose Nesbitt got away while your guys were fucking around with the magistrate?"

  Ben smiled. At least this guy was consistent.

  "There's no chance of that," Traynor said, proud of how he'd handled it. "Once we established that they were in the room, we've had someone outside in the corridor all night. No one came in. No one went out."

  "What happens now?"

  Traynor eyed the phone. "They'll call us here in a few minutes with a report."

  * * *

  Jeb Hines, accompanied by two members of the FBI's San Diego office, raced with guns drawn into the lobby of the Trade Winds Hotel along Mission Bay. Chuck Connor, the head of the local FBI office, flashed his badge at the startled desk clerk. Half a dozen hotel guests immediately scattered.

  "We're going up to eight-oh-seven," Connor said to the desk clerk.

  In the elevator he reached into his pocket and extracted a pair of metal cutters. "I can get through a chain in twenty seconds," he boasted to Hines. Then he reached into another jacket pocket and waved the search warrant he had gotten minutes earlier. "I was told to play it by the book," he said, and laughed.

  On the eighth floor, Connor nodded to the agents at each end of the corridor. With Hines in tow, Connor walked up to room 807. "You stay here and cover me," Connor said, handing the warrant to Hines. "Christ, I hate faggots."

  Connor never gave a warning. With a gun in his right hand and metal cutters in his left, he smashed his shoulder, driven with all the force that his two-hundred-forty-five-pound body could muster, against the door to room 807, directly above the doorknob. The thin wooden door shattered as the chain ripped out of the frame. Connor dropped the metal cutters and ran into the room.

  Startled out of a deep sleep, two naked men bolted upright to a sitting position in the king-size bed.

  "What the fuck is this?" one of them screamed angrily.

  Connor flashed his badge. "FBI. We're looking for George Nesbitt."

  "Yeah, well, I'm George Nesbitt," the other man said defiantly. He wrapped the sheet around his lower body and stood up. That left his partner, naked and exposed, grabbing a pillow to cover his privates.

  "Just stop right there," Connor said, pointing the gun threateningly at Nesbitt. "Jeb, get in here," he called over his shoulder.

  Hines ran into the room carrying his own gun.

  "What do you think?" Connor asked him.

  Hines looked carefully at the man and then at his friend, still sitting in bed. "Negative," he said, not concealing his disappointment.

  "Sorry, guys," Connor said. "The wrong George Nesbitt."

  He turned and started to leave.

  "Are you out of your fucking mind?" Nesbitt screamed at him. "Breaking in like this? You ever heard of the Constitution? I'll sue you and the FBI for so much money that you'll be cleaning out toilets the rest of your life."

  Connor wheeled around. "We had a search warrant. Besides," he said, pointing at the sheet, "I doubt that your wife and kids would enjoy a lawsuit like that."

  * * *

  Dejectedly, Bill Traynor listened on the phone to Connor's report. The others in the room quickly deduced what had occurred.

  "What do we do now?" Traynor asked Ben when he hung up the phone.

  Before he could respond, Fulton chimed in, "We've got our marching orders. We file charges against Clyde Gillis."

  "We?" Ben said. "Don't forget, hotshot, I'm the only one here who can file that case. I haven't decided what I'm going to do."

  "Then I guess you need your ears checked, because I sure as hell heard Mr. Slater order you to file those charges by four today, regardless of what happened with George Nesbitt."

  Ben's face turned stony. "You may not believe this, but Jim Slater can't order me to do squat."

  "Now, that's a novel view of the executive branch of the government."

  "Stick around. You'll learn all sorts of new things."

  Ben felt better yanking Fulton's chain. In reality he knew Fulton was right. Ben had the grand jury primed and ready to rubber-stamp an indictment charging Clyde Gillis with first-degree murder. From the evidence, he thought he had no choice, apart from his own nagging doubts. Al Hennessey would be able to announce to the world at four o'clock today that charges had been filed. Ben knew damn well that if he refused to sign the indictment, any of the other assistant U.S. Attorneys would be eager to add their names. The ball was rolling.

  Chapter 13

  Jennifer shut the door of her office and told her secretary to hold all of her calls. She needed time to think about the Clyde Gillis case.

  How could she represent a client who wouldn't talk to her?

  She kept asking herself, Did Gillis kill Winthrop? Is that why he wouldn't talk to me?

  She refused to believe that. Earlier this morning she had met with Gillis's wife, Lucinda, who affirmed her husband's innocence in the strongest terms. "You've got to help my Clyde," she had pleaded. "The Lord knows he didn't kill anybody."

  So like any good criminal lawyer, Jennifer pushed aside any doubts about what her client did or didn't do, pressing ahead to prepare a defense. Her objective was to build a solid enough case that the Chinese government had hired George Nesbitt to kill Winthrop, and that the administration, to avoid a foreign policy brouhaha, was engaged in a massive cover-up, with Clyde Gillis taking the fall. Once she had her case built, she intended to present it to Ben. He'd realize how well it would play before a D.C. jury. She was also confident that her position would work its way up to Sarah Van Buren, the AG, and maybe even the President, because of the foreign policy and political implications of her going forward with this explosive story. Of course, if it was White House intervention she was looking for, she could pick up the phone and call Jim Slater. She considered and rejected that possibility in a nanosecond. Her relationship with Jim was already too complicated.

  Jennifer realized that while her plan made sense in theory, she was missing a major ingredient. Her case
against the Chinese government was anything but solid. The idea of George Nesbitt as a hired assassin lost credibility when she thought about what Detective Campbell had told her at Ann's house on Saturday. If Campbell was right that the stain on the front of Winthrop's pants was precoital fluid, that suggested Nesbitt had come for a sexual encounter. Was Robert Winthrop bisexual? If he was, then had Nesbitt tried to exploit that fact to blackmail him? Or had they planned a homosexual encounter that produced an argument, which led to Nesbitt's shooting Winthrop? Suppose Nesbitt wouldn't do it with Winthrop for some reason. Winthrop got angry. Winthrop threatened Nesbitt to get him to change his mind. He refused. Winthrop kept pressing. Finally Nesbitt killed Winthrop. Leaving the house, he tossed some money and the gun into Clyde Gillis's truck when the guards weren't looking. It seemed plausible.

  Or maybe Clyde Gillis really did kill Winthrop.

  So how could she build her case?

  "Facts," she remembered her criminal law professor had taught her. "You always start with facts."

  The fluid Campbell had observed in front of Winthrop's pants was a fact. The file folder stuffed with condoms downstairs in Winthrop's house was a fact. Winthrop's liaisons with prostitutes had given the Chinese ambassador the ammunition to blackmail the secretary of state. That was a fact. The common ingredient in all of these was Winthrop's sexual behavior. Somewhere in that behavior was the key to unlocking the puzzle of his death. She had to find that key.

  Jennifer hit the intercom button on her telephone. "Kathy," she said to her secretary, "please get me Dr. Grace Hargadon at NIMH."

  "A messenger just arrived with something for you, Miss Moore."

  "Will you bring it in?"

  Kathy entered a moment later carrying the largest floral arrangement Jennifer had ever seen. She put the flowers down on a credenza and handed Jennifer a small envelope. Inside, the note read, I enjoyed being with you at dinner last evening—Jim.

  Kathy looked at her expectantly. "A new boyfriend. Miss Moore?"

  Jennifer blushed. "Nothing of the sort. Now get me Dr. Hargadon on the phone."