Clear Skies

by A. M. Murray

  Their cab pulled up in front of the hotel.

  “Let’s continue this discussion over drinks,” Slade said, his voice softening.

  Five minutes later, they strolled into the half-empty bar, settled into the last available seats facing the entrance, and ordered the house red wine.

  “Would you have left if the only vacant seats faced the wall?” Isa asked, smiling.

  “Yes. And so would you. Survival training and field work ingrain lasting habits,” he said.

  “We have that in common. We’re both trained spies. And don’t forget spies strategize all the time as part of the job. It’s basic spycraft—everything we say is a mixture of lies and half-truths.”

  “I’m attracted to you, Isa. More than attracted. To be honest, I’ve thought about what it might be like to spend the rest of my life with you. But I picked up a lot of baggage in my youth. My parents’ marriage failed because of lies and frequent periods apart. I can’t tolerate deception in a personal relationship.”

  “It’s important to find balance in life,” Isa said. “You have to know what makes you happy, and when you find an opportunity, you take it. Now we are at the bottom line—we know exactly who the other person is and what each of us does for a living. And we have a remarkable emotional connection. We’re just at the start of a relationship, so give us a chance. I don’t want to walk away from here and never see you again.”

  Slade’s pulse quickened, and he wrapped his arms around her for a moment before opting again for caution. He shifted back in his seat, hands behind his head.

  “To be frank,” Isa continued, “when we first met, Carol Palmer lay dead in the next room. You made it clear that you worked as a detective for Tokyo’s CIB, and you’re also an FBI operative. I didn’t know how you’d react to learning about my level of training and mission. When I let myself into the apartment and found her dead, I recognized the work of a trained killer. If you’d known my background, police bias would have kicked in, and you’d have molded the investigation to fit me as the prime suspect: a perfect case of tunnel vision. And that would have been awkward.”

  “You’re right. Your skills would have matched the unknown killer’s profile perfectly. We’d probably have arrested you.”

  Slade nursed his drink for a few minutes before speaking again.

  “Look, this afternoon, I handed in my resignation to Deacon. It takes effect one month from now when I complete my term at the Tokyo CIB,” he said, clinging to a studied reserve. “I plan to set up my own consultancy in Tokyo and employ intelligence operatives with real skills and integrity. It will be a kind of rent-a-spy agency, operating at the opposite end of the ethical spectrum from the likes of Aculeus. Deacon accepted my resignation on the proviso we pen a contract giving the FBI priority over other clients. I’ll sign, of course.” He inhaled. “I leave for Tokyo tomorrow, and when I finish up at the CIB in three weeks, I’ll be busy setting this up. Alex and Ben have agreed to join me as partners in the venture.”

  “What brought on this decision?”

  “The same impulses that drew me into the Bureau to begin with. But this time, I want to run my own outfit and control working hours to get a degree of normality into my life.”

  “At least you’ll be free from Detective-Inspector Makino. He seemed like a piece of cactus stuck in your shoe.”

  “Maybe not. I plan to ask him to join me too. He has the Japanese law enforcement contacts I’m going to need, and he’s thorough—painfully slow, but he’s good with the grunt work. I don’t know if I can lure him away from the web of bureaucracy he seems to enjoy, but he’s jaded, and he knows it, so there’s a chance.”

  “I’m going back to Tokyo too,” Isa said. “I’ll leave here in three or four days when I finish the paperwork on the Ashton assignment. I plan to hand in my resignation from the CIA tomorrow. They know and have agreed for me to take on contract work in Asia for them if I think there’s a good fit and have time. What I passionately want to do is develop my fashion career—I was honest with you about that part of my life.”

  “You have talent. You shouldn’t waste it.”

  “Ono offered me a contract to supply forty percent of her designs in Tokyo. It will keep me busy, but leave enough time for undercover work. Fashion is a perfect front. I could work for your consultancy on a project basis, and we’d save a lot on rent by living together. You have to move out of your CIB apartment and find a new place to live, and I don’t want to live in the apartment where my sister died.”

  Slade leaned in toward Isa and gave her a brotherly kiss, though his emotions were far from fraternal. Apart from her looks and intelligence, he couldn’t pinpoint the reason for his magnetic attraction to Isa. Perhaps he saw so much of himself in her—self-confident, curious, calm yet quick to react, and highly trained in covert operations.

  She stared at him, and he could see the question in her eyes.

  “I promise to think about it and let you know when I get back to Tokyo,” he said.

  Slade hoped that distance and separation would strengthen his fragmenting resolve to protect his emotions and avoid making a commitment he might not be able to keep. But if he were honest, he wasn’t sure whether his hesitation was an attempt to forestall the inevitable or prolong the pleasurable anticipation of its arrival.

  “That’s better than nothing, at least.”

  “But I warn you: if I do say yes, I expect to see every one of your hundreds of facets at any given time, with zero subterfuge.”

  “Agreed.”

  # # #

  The sun was setting with finality, and the orange twilight signaled the coming of another seductive fall day.

  Slade strode across the arrivals hall at Narita airport, ten days after he’d left there for London with Roche and Isa. He picked up his Toyota from the car park and drove the sixty-kilometer distance into Tokyo, the megacity’s unsparing, insensate character an unexpected comfort. The sounds of Tokyo—relentless public announcements, screamed warnings from private security personnel supervising the abundant parking and construction sites, disembodied recorded voices from trucks announcing their intended direction of movement, the roar of traffic on overcrowded roads, the noise of the city’s unremitting engines of progress—inured him to the rigors of his journey’s last stage, fraught with an unfamiliar inability to switch off his attraction to a woman.

  Now as he approached the city center, the sun finally slipped below the horizon, and Tokyo’s streets lit up with ubiquitous neon signs on every building and tens of thousands of illuminated offices filled with workers putting in unpaid overtime.

  He entered his apartment building. It did not feel like home, but his roiling emotions would stabilize there with the distractions of the outside world stripped away, allowing him to toss around Isa’s proposition overnight. Coming to a decision would be like diving into murky waters, and the sooner he surfaced, the faster he could breathe and move on.

  His brain told him one thing, but his feelings spun a different story, and he knew that navigating a prudent course between these forces would lead to a sleepless night. But if he were honest with himself, he’d admit to having taken a momentous, albeit precarious, step forward. He was no longer saddled with the idée fixe that a permanent relationship was off-limits.

  He unlocked the door and stepped inside. If he were a betting man, right now he’d put money on his emotions winning the debate by morning, even though it made no sense—an ex-CIA black ops agent with top-level sniper skills sent solo by the White House to resolve a potential international crisis and a former FBI operative with clandestine experience and detective work in the Tokyo CIB thrown into the mix.

  Hardly the basis for a congenial household, but what the hell, it’s worth a try.

  He dumped his bags on the floor and punched Isa’s number into his cell phone.

  When she picked up, he said, “Let’s start fresh together and see where we end up.” He managed to keep the pounding of his heart from cre
eping into his voice. “Can you leave tomorrow and get back before I change my mind? Although I warn you again, the fundamental precept of our relationship will be that secrets are forbidden. The first lie of omission and you’re out of here. Agreed?”

  “You’re on. See you back in Tokyo.”

  CHAPTER 55

  (Monday Morning— Shenyang, China)

  Shortly after Slade called Isa from his Tokyo apartment, Max Henderson and his younger brother Sam arrived at Shenyang Taoxian International Airport on an Air China flight from London. They were given priority disembarkation. A delegation of four men, two from China’s Guófángbù and two from China’s largest military aircraft manufacturer, waited for them at the junction of the air bridge with the open door of the plane. One of the men opened a side door in the air bridge and gestured toward a set of metal steps leading down to the tarmac.

  The men from the ministry had influence. The Henderson brothers skirted the usual immigration procedures and walked directly to an SUV with Defense Ministry markings on the side waiting beside the plane. The driver stacked their luggage in the back before the ground staff had even unloaded the bags of the other passengers.

  In less than ten minutes from touchdown, they were en route to a hotel to share a suite for the next few months with an English-speaking Chinese minder from the Defense Ministry. Their excitement reflected the significance of this life-changing event.

  Professional employment had evaded Max, an aeronautics engineer, after British Fighter Industries had fired him two years earlier because an epoch-changing fighter design he’d offered the company had failed. His autistic, savant brother had created the design as part of a computer game. Max had recognized its far greater value, and it had never reached the game industry.

  The blueprints of the revolutionary fighter had stunned Max’s company and its US partner, American Aeronautics Corporation. They had championed the design, garnered government support, and invested heavily in a development program, only to end up having to scrap their prototypes and drop the project.

  They had lost billions of dollars over a design flaw that defied resolution by all except Sam, who’d engineered control over the project and refused to cooperate.

  His brother had offered the design to BFI free of charge out of loyalty to both his employer and country. When the companies and their government backers failed to deliver a functional plane, they’d kicked Max out, canceled his retirement benefits, blacklisted his name in the industry, and forced him to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Sam had been mad at BFI and kept the solution to himself.

  Max had worked as a night-shift cleaner after his savings ran out. Several months later, a knock on their front door had changed everything. Their early morning Chinese visitors had explained how they’d paid a premium price to BFI’s president for the fighter design even though their military intelligence operatives had a heads-up on the fatal flaw. They’d already traced the design to Sam, learned of his extraordinary intelligence, and believed he could find a solution.

  If Sam and Max complied with their request, the Chinese would make a handsome offer. They had promised to pay fifty times more than Max would have earned in a lifetime of employment at BFI and provide a luxury lifestyle for them in China in return for supporting the fighter’s manufacturing program.

  Now, six months after their arrival in China, the Henderson brothers lived in a modern house and had a Ferrari, a full-time housekeeper, and young female companions from the local community attracted to their wealth and local VIP status.

  The authorities still withheld their passports, keeping both men virtual prisoners within the country, but the brothers didn’t care. Life was good, and they harbored no wish to leave. Sam now spoke in fluent, self-taught Chinese and interpreted for Max. As a safeguard, he’d built another flaw into the design. It would show up in three-year-old aircraft, and he could resolve the problem in a flash if he and his brother wanted to stay or fix it as a condition for leaving the country.

  China’s prototype nailed test flights of many hours’ duration under all imaginable conditions, and now the Chinese Air Force had an operational fleet of Sam’s new-age fighters ready for flight. And more were on the production line.

  # # #

  The US ambassador to China eased back in the chair behind her office desk to watch a much-anticipated press conference by the Chairman of the Zhōngyāng Jūnshì Wěiyuánhuì, China’s Central Military Commission.

  When he announced details of China’s new-age fleet of invincible fighters and claimed the world’s skies now belonged to China, the ambassador shot to the edge of her chair. She picked up the phone connecting her to the oval office of the White House.

  “Mr. President, I have bad news.”

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, I want to thank everyone at Koehler Books who has worked to make publication of this story possible. Special thanks go to John Koehler, who embraced the book with enthusiasm and sincerity, and to T Campbell, whose editorial magic made my writing so much better.

  For her continued support, love, and belief in my efforts throughout the writing of this book, I owe enormous gratitude to my daughter, Victoria Fang. Equally appreciated is my husband, Kenneth Fang, who endures my writing projects and frequent trips to the world of make-believe with stoic support.

  Last, but not least, thanks are due to my three canine companions Benny, Bobby, and Billy, who curled at my feet, provided comfort through so many long nights of writing.