“Very well,” said Li.
“One more thing,” Ben said. “After our announcement, I am taking you to dinner at a restaurant with the most spectacular view in New York—upstairs here at the Metropolitan Club. And I have a second surprise for you there. Bernadette will be there, and she has used her considerable skills to arrange for Baozhai to join us.”
Xue looked shocked. “I have always wanted to meet the very famous Mrs. Coleman. She is legendary in China.”
“For the sake of peace in my house, please don’t tell her that,” Ben said. After they laughed, he continued, rising from his chair. “Come on, Xue. Let’s go downstairs and change the world.”
Together they descended the stairs to video lights, camera flashes, and a chorus of questions from the gathered gaggle of reporters.
* * *
She wanted to crush his nose. All those nerve endings and pain receptors, it would have blinded him with tears. But he had seen the swing coming and started to duck.
Still, the tire iron caught him in the side of the head and spun it to one side. He fell back into the car but quickly stood, his right arm reaching down and behind him.
That’s where the gun is, she realized.
Now grabbing the iron with both hands, Bernadette brought it down hard on his right collarbone and felt it give when she connected. He smacked her with his left hand and her face caught fire. She took a step back. He tried to raise the gun in his right hand but he shouted in pain. His arm dropped and the gun clattered to the asphalt.
Bernadette came in with another two-handed swing and he caught the iron with his left hand and wrenched it from her grip. But he couldn’t keep a grip on it and it bounced off the road and into the scrub. She balled her fist and aimed a punch at his broken collarbone, but his left hand came up for a block and then clamped around her throat.
She twisted and aimed her heel at the base of his foot but he pushed her away, fingers tightening on her neck. Both her hands came up to tear it away but it wouldn’t budge. Tried kicking backwards but he matched her movement, keeping his balance.
Phosphors of light began dancing in the center of her vision. She twisted at his arm, tried to sink her nails into his skin, but her strength was fading. Tried to blink some vision back into her eyes but now her head was spinning, her strength fading. Then she was falling backwards.
It felt like she was gone for a million years, but when her vision returned, she was lying on the ground, the man standing above her, digging in his pocket with his left hand. She pushed with her hands to sit up but couldn’t rise.
The hand came out of the pocket with something long. He flicked it and a long blade leapt out, glinting in the sunlight. The man’s torn and bloodied face managed a smile, and he took a halting step toward her.
An explosion.
Bernadette winced, her ears ringing.
The man took another step.
Another explosion, this one seeming far away against the noise in her ears.
A burst of red appeared on the man’s left thigh and the leg went out from under him. He fell backwards onto the asphalt and was still.
Bernadette managed to sit up and look around. The officer was laying on her side aiming a pistol, the muzzle trembling.
Adrenalin surged through her and she crawled over to the man. His left hand moved across on the asphalt, groping for the knife. A finger touched the blade and she knocked it out of the way.
“Who are you?” she shouted, traces of her long-suppressed Irish accent coming to the surface. “Who are you, you piece of shite?”
The man laughed. “You’ll never know. I’m done.”
“Like hell you are.”
She grabbed his belt and undid it, him groaning pain as she pulled it from his waist. She wrapped it around his left thigh above the wound and cinched it tight, causing him to scream. When she finished, she could hear sirens in the distance.
“You lay there and suffer until they get here.”
She rose, and in a wobbling gait, walked to the fallen officer, who was now lying on her back. A silver nameplate below the right shoulder said EVANS.
“Officer Evans,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Deputy,” she said, managing a smile. “I called in. They’re coming.”
“That was a perfect shot,” Bernadette said. “I needed that bastard alive.”
The deputy tried to smile. “Wasn’t aiming for his leg.” She started to gasp for air, and Bernadette put a hand on the woman’s chest. It came away bloody.
“They’re near. What do you need?”
“I’m okay. Vest saved me.”
“You’re bleeding.”
Deputy Evans shook her head. “Can’t be.”
Bernadette looked down at her hands. They were covered in blood, as was her blouse.
“Oh, my,” she said.
And then the adrenaline was gone and the shock of it all caught up with her, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed.
* * *
Ben had little use for the media once the work was done. It was part of the job. He and Li were heroes, but they could not act as such. He gave all credit to President Turner and Li. Li applauded the wisdom of the Politburo with thanks to his good friend Ben. The mob of reporters pressed forward, wanting their own opportunity for a moment of fame by asking a question up close.
Ben peered through the crowd of reporters searching for Bernadette. Her skill at being invisible was what made her cover as a wedding planner credible. More important was one of her MI6 skills—extraction. She would know how to get him the hell out of here.
Guess she’s running late. I’ll have to give Lopez a hard time. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“George,” he said, turning. “What are you doing here? Come to confer with the rabble?”
“We have to talk,” said Steinway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“SO HOW ARE THOSE UNUSED muscles of yours?”
Bernadette looked up when she saw Ben walk through the door, a shopping bag in his hand. A smile came across her face. “They still work, but my body aches from head to toe. Shouldn’t you be somewhere, darling? You know, saving the world….”
“As far as I’m concerned the world isn’t worth saving without you in it.” Ben leaned into the hospital bed and kissed Bernadette on the cheek. She responded by moving her lips to greet his.
“If that’s the case then a peck on the cheek simply won’t do. But don’t get too frisky.”
“That wasn’t even on my agenda,” Ben said. “They told me you were a bloody mess when they found you.”
She raised her arms to reveal bandages on both wrists. “I got cut up when I broke out of the zip ties. Didn’t do it quite right. No big shakes.”
“And passing out in the deputy’s lap?”
“My goodness, you seem to know more about what shape I was in than I do. How did you find out?”
“Steinway told me as I was leaving the meeting with Li. Lopez was keeping him updated.”
“Should have known my fellow spooks would be involved. But I was okay, really. Just the stress of everything, and I hadn’t realized what a mess I was until it was all over.”
“Still, I was worried sick. The President had sent Steinway up on Marine One and I hitched a ride back.”
“Well, I got a helicopter ride too,” she said with just a touch of sarcasm.
“And you wouldn’t get in until they had the sheriff’s deputy on board with you. I heard that too.”
“I couldn’t just leave her there. She saved my life. Getting hit with a bullet close up even with a vest on is rough stuff—can break a rib or do damage to internal organs. We were in the middle of nowhere a good hour from Charles Town. Haven’t you ever heard of not leaving your wounded behind?”
Ben grimaced and reminded himself never to bring up that subject again, even in jest as had been his intent. Bernadette caught the look and decided she had gone too far. “Besides, wha
t good is being married to the man who had just saved the world if you can’t throw your weight around?”
Glad to be let off the hook, Ben took the olive branch and ran with it. “It seems I am the one who should be saying that about you. Marine One was sent because of you, not me. The President would have had me take the Acela if not for you. And when I took his call on the chopper his first words weren’t, ‘Thank you.’ They were, ‘How is Bernadette? Tell her Cynthia will be over tomorrow to check on her.’ Then I got, ‘Oh, by the way, nice job.’ ”
Bernadette propped herself up as best she could and motioned for another kiss. This one was much longer with more than a touch of passion in it. “Ben, you are my knight in shining armor who went out and slayed the dragon and saved the world in the process. Never forget that.”
“Well, you’re not so bad at slaying dragons yourself. That bastard who kidnapped you has a broken collarbone, a cracked femur, and a good array of bruises. His left eye is completely swollen shut. Nice work. Remind me not to piss you off ever again.”
She glared at him. “Ben, as you well know when you piss me off, I use my training in psychological torture, not my martial arts skills. But I have you housebroken so you needn’t worry. So what do they know about the bastard?”
“They did get a fake ID from him. So they used retinal scans to identify him. An arms runner out of Ireland. Here illegally, of course. Fake passport, too, a ton of priors under a variety of fake names. Just a very accomplished scumbag. He’s not talking, but they’ve rounded up a number of his known associates and Lopez is pretty confident that the FBI will break one of them.”
Bernadette had her doubts. As Britain had learned over three decades, IRA loyalists were almost impossible to break. Moreover, like any good operation, information was highly compartmentalized. Even if one of the underlings broke, he likely wouldn’t know much. “Does this bastard have a name?”
“Sean O’Malley.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That would make sense in the motive department. Back in Ireland, Father had dealings with a Patrick O’Malley and I was involved a bit. He’d brought his favorite grandson, Sean, into the business. It could be him. O’Malley is a common name, and this Sean was just a kid at the time. Patrick had him driving lorries and acting as a bag man. We took Patrick down, so this could be Sean’s revenge. But he waited long enough. And why now? Unless there’s something bigger at play—”
“Enough,” Ben said. “You’re making me exhausted just listening to you. We’ll have plenty of time later for the postmortem.”
“Well,” Bernadette said, “there is one more thing. Something I feel I should keep from you, but I can’t. Not really.”
He gave her a concerned look. “Yes?”
“Edith Spensley called me a few minutes ago.”
“Nice trick, since your cell is still at the house.”
“She called on the land line.” She gestured toward the phone on the bedside tray.
“How in hell did she find out you were here?” Ben said. “I barely knew myself.”
“The woman is a legend,” Bernadette said. “We forget how resourceful she is.”
“So,” Ben said, “she was calling with wishes for a speedy recovery?”
“Ostensibly. With a bit of gossip from that side of the pond. You remember Doris Billingsley?”
“The head of MI6?” Ben scowled. “I wish I didn’t.”
“Me too. Edith told me, ‘that old bag’—her words, not mine—‘is on her last legs.’ Apparently she has alienated most of the cabinet involved in national security matters as well as many in the opposition. If the current government wins the next general election, and polling is showing it going that way, she will be out, and the job will open up.
“Well, you know how Edith likes to keep her fingers in different pies.”
“The master arranger,” Ben said.
Bernadette nodded. “Her latest arrangement is spreading a new mantra with her friends in MI6. ‘We had the best, so why not get the best back?’ ”
Ben sat on the side of her bed. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“She wants to arrange for my return to Britain.”
“As the head of MI6?” He smiled. “Your dream job. Too soon for congratulations?”
Bernadette sighed. “I don’t know. You’ve got so damn much on your plate, and this is the last thing in the world you need to think about right now.”
“Things will ease up once the coins launch.”
“I just don’t know.”
Ben shifted close and took her in his arms. “You want this, Bernadette. I can tell.”
“It goes beyond want. It’s like my father raised me to step into that position.”
“You know I’m not going to say no to you if they make the offer.”
“That’s going to complicate things even more.”
“Well,” Ben said, “that’s why God made transatlantic flights between New York and London.”
Bernadette shrugged. “I’m not sure I’d be up for a long-distance marriage and frankly, I’m not sure you would be either.”
“You’re forgetting one thing, darling. I’m not going to be Chairman of the Fed forever. I was happy living in London once, and I’ll thrive with you there.”
She squeezed him, not saying anything.
“Look,” he said. “There’s an old saying in Washington—never turn down a job you haven’t been offered. And there’s a corollary. Never plan on how to take a job you haven’t been offered. So much has yet to happen. You never know what the internal politics of the next cabinet is going to look like.
“This worry about something that may never come to pass is not going to help you recover at all. My advice is to let it go. Your recovery is priority one. I’m sure if it comes up, it will happen at the right time. And the right time certainly isn’t now.”
She held him tighter. “Thank you. You always seem to know what to say.”
“Most of the time,” Ben said. He loosened his hold on her and sat up, putting the shopping bag in Bernadette’s lap. “You need to change for the trip home.”
“This is perfect,” she said, pulling clothes from the bag. “How did you know?” She smiled, then gave Ben a suspicious look. “Since when do you voluntarily set foot in Nordstrom?”
“I didn’t. Peggy figured your old clothes wouldn’t be fit to wear, so she called them with your sizes and color preferences and had an aide waiting to meet me when I got here.”
“Since when does Peggy know my sizes and preferences?”
Ben grinned. “Since I told her part of her job was to make me look good. Now come on, get dressed. It’s time to go home.”
* * *
Li Xue landed in Beijing fifteen hours later with two letters in hand and Deng Fei, who wore an orange jumpsuit and irons on his hands and legs. Though Fei would be turned over to Chinese security upon landing, the extreme dress was in deference to Chairman Coleman. The Chairman of the American Fed was now well thought of in China, and it wouldn’t have done to let Deng Fei board the plane without looking like the criminal he was in the U.S.
Besides, the American president had hinted that he wanted to “make that son-of-a-bitch as uncomfortable as possible for as long as possible.” He had wanted to hold him until Chairman Coleman came to China for the launch of the new coinage. So orange and irons it was, though Fei would keep some face—they would allow him to change into his street clothes before deplaning in Beijing.
Li ordered his driver to take him straight to Deng Wenxi’s office and presented the letters to him. Li had briefed Deng already about the proposed monetary policy arrangements from the plane as well as his nephew’s status. To his surprise, Deng dismissed the news of his nephew as if it were of secondary importance.
He uncharacteristically rose from his desk and walked over to shake Li’s hand as soon as he walked in the door. It was a two-fisted handshake indicating extreme warmth and friendship. Li knew that Deng was in
capable of either emotion, so something was up.
“Comrade Li. Let me congratulate you on your triumphant trip to the United States. We have scheduled a live interview with China Broadcasting for you for tomorrow. The stories of your brilliant negotiation have been leading the news for the last twenty-four hours. You are a national hero.
“You, who demanded and got a personal letter from the president of the United States assuring us of their goodwill. You have produced a plan to guarantee People’s Money is safe in the Chinese banking system. And you got the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to come here personally and attest to the safety of our banks. You were the one who single-handedly demanded that the Americans purchase $100 billion of our new gold coins.”
Even in the surreal world of politics in a one-party dictatorship, the turnaround in his status seemed more than a little bizarre to Li. “Does this mean that the Politburo has approved the plan I described?”
Deng’s look changed. “That involves a related matter of some delicacy that we must discuss, Comrade.”
“General Deng, we are past the stage of negotiation with the United States. Our new currency is written in stone.”
“Not the currency,” said Deng. “The Politburo itself. With the new changes to our economy that the new currency will bring, it has surfaced that there has been widespread corruption among high-ranking Party officials in the Politburo. Those of us still loyal to China are making plans to have them all arrested, but it was important to have you here before we did.”
Li felt his stomach plunge. Even with what he currently knew about the General, if he were to be arrested—
“Do not look so concerned, Comrade Li. Two days ago the Politburo decided to make you its twenty-fifth member in light of your service. You have the gratitude of our nation.
“As to the arrests to be made, the Politburo will be dropped in size from twenty-five to nine. We need to install people of vision who are loyal to China, and not the corrupting influences of the West.” Deng proceeded to rattle off the names of those who would be joining. Among them was a fellow technocrat, a longtime friend of Li’s. Two were close associates of Deng in the military and the other four were senior military officers who had been among those opposing escalation in relations with America. “Do you expect any problems getting your plan through this new Politburo, Comrade?”
Currency War Page 39