Rob and I met up with Mr. Garraty at a restaurant just off I-95 north of Savannah. Mr. Garraty handed over our phones and the keys to Rob’s truck. As far as any electronic surveillance was concerned, Rob and I had left Tennessee in the morning and headed straight for Savannah, never coming within a hundred miles of Jekyll Island. Rob tossed him the keys to our truck.
We headed back south, finishing our well-documented trip straight from Tennessee to Savannah. “Remember, they’ll be on their guard,” Rob cautioned me as he dropped me off at the hotel on Bay Street in old town Savannah. “No communication. Assume you’re under surveillance at all times, and don’t break cover.”
“I know,” I smiled. He was trying to reassure himself as much as me. “If the plan works, I’ll have nothing to do but sit back, enjoy the show, and wait for all hell to break loose.”
“Trust the plan,” he returned my smile. “The storm is coming.” We shook hands. Then he drove off.
Backpack slung over my shoulder, I tried to walk into the hotel where the Civic Youth contingent was supposed to stay. Security refused to let me in. I had to hike another several blocks to the Johnson Business Center on East Bryan Street to check in and get credentials. For a while, I thought they were going to send me across the river to the International Media Center, but they made a few phone calls and squared away my status.
By the time I made the trek back to the hotel to check in, I was wilting from the August heat. I dropped my bag off in my room, took a quick shower, and went down to the main lobby to hang out.
A couple hours later, the main Civic Youth contingent arrived. I looked at their sun-tanned faces back from their week on Pleasure Island. Some appeared relaxed. I saw Kirin in the crowd. I couldn’t read her. I was relieved to see Amit. He glanced my way and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head – no – as he headed to the elevators and up to his room.
No. As in no contact? I decided to let him make the first move. As the group assembled for dinner an hour later, Amit stood on the far side of the lobby ignoring me. Did he know he was under suspicion? He must have some idea, given the interrogation he’d apparently passed while on Pleasure Island.
We walked as a group to dinner, as National Guard Humvees and Georgia State Patrol vehicles rumbled by on the streets.
Dinner seating was assigned, and again I had no opportunity to speak with Amit. I did find myself across the table from Jessica and Kirin. Jessica looked like she’d had a great time – much better now that she’d put the underwear and orange jumpsuit look behind her. Kirin on the other hand appeared… haunted.
“How was Pleasure Island?” I whispered to Kirin.
“The first rule of Pleasure Island,” Jessica replied softly, cutting off Kirin’s reply, “is one does not speak of Pleasure Island.”
“Ah,” I acknowledged. “I drove back to Huntsville with Johnny,” I told Kirin. “I’m sure he sends his regards.”
She nodded in acknowledgement, but would say no more.
* * *
We were up early Monday morning to board the bus to Sea Island. First, we met a State Department Protocol Officer for a tutorial on how to address and interact with world leaders, and we rehearsed how to stand around and form a backdrop for various photo opportunities. All day long. The organizers were taking no chances. Every last detail was planned out.
The highlight of the day was a ten-minute meeting with President Lieberman. “You young people will play a crucial role in shaping the future of our country,” the President told us. A staff photographer snapped a picture of us with him.
Tuesday was more of the same. Our job was to be the background scenery as the Leaders of the World arrived in something called reverse protocol order for a Tuesday evening social gathering. It was interesting seeing such luminaries as Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Stephen Harper, and Vladimir Putin, but we did not interact with them. We merely formed a backdrop so the photographers and reporters on the other side of the corridor would be able to show smiling young faces welcoming the Leaders of the World to the United States.
Despite being at ground zero for the biggest news events of the day, we were completely isolated from any outside news. If the plan was on track, the first disclosures would already be popping up on the media sometime that morning. Would reporters sit on the incriminating material? Surely at least some would be eager to score the scoop of being the first to disclose the secrets. Out of contact all day Tuesday, there was nothing I could do but wait and trust the plan.
The storm hit Wednesday. ‘Shocking Disclosures!’ read the headline. ‘Senators, congressmen, judges, and high administration figures implicated in criminal human trafficking ring!’ The scroll bars on the early morning news programs couldn’t keep up with all the names. The media techs must have been kept busy overnight strategically blurring the most salacious portions of the blackmail pictures and videos. I grabbed a paper to read on the long early morning ride to Sea Island. The stories they reported were incredible, but I knew it was only the tip of the iceberg.
Amit looked up from his own newspaper and looked back at me, a questioning look on his face. I gave him a subtle nod – yes. I saw him nod slightly in return. He got the message – these disclosures were our handiwork.
We got to play backdrop again in the morning at the plenary session, and again in the afternoon at the Spouses’ Program led by First Lady Hadassah Lieberman. By mid-afternoon, the tension was thick in the air as the revelations continued to pour forth. Angry confrontations were taking place all over. “Can’t you stop these vicious people saying all these vicious things?” the First Lady was asked.
Whatever we were supposed to be doing that evening was cancelled amid the chaos and the emergency damage control sessions. We were all shuttled back to Savannah late Wednesday afternoon. We drove past bedraggled protestors who’d made the trek under the hot August sun all the way along the causeway to Sea Island. Their destination was a corral manned by National Guard soldiers, where the exhausted protestors sipped from bottles of cold water as they waited to be formally arrested and driven back in air conditioned vans for processing.
The Civic Circle’s usual efficiency was breaking down. We were all on our own for dinner. I was waiting in the lobby hoping to catch Amit and go somewhere private where we might talk at long last. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman sit down behind me.
“Come,” a sultry voice spoke softly. “We have to talk. You must follow me.”
She rose and headed slowly past the front desk.
It was Ding Li.
This was a risk. No one would know where I was. True, we were in a hotel swarming with security, but I didn't doubt that “accidents” could be arranged. Better to face the danger head-on.
I trailed her casually, a couple dozen feet behind her, as if looking for a restroom. She ducked into a door marked “Staff.” I followed. She led me out of the hotel through a side exit that somehow bypassed security, and then down Bay Street. I maintained my distance, walking about thirty seconds behind her. We turned down an alley and went in the service entrance to a different hotel. She waited for me at the end of a service corridor. Two thugs moved to block my way.
“He is with me,” Ding Li advised them. They stood down, but eyed me menacingly as I passed. Ding Li led me through a back door into what looked like one of the hotel meeting rooms, decorated in the same red Chinese-themed motif of the Red Flower Pavilions in Atlanta and on Jekyll Island. I recognized who was waiting for us.
“Honorable Shan Zhu,” I gave a modest but respectful bow, and he nodded his head in recognition. “Mr. Hung,” I acknowledged the man who was probably the regional leader of their organization. “I do not have the honor of knowing your colleagues, however.”
“Mr. Burdell,” Mr. Hung stood and returned my bow. “These...” I interrupted him with an outstretched hand. He shook my hand and continued. “These are my Brothers. Please be seated.”
Brothers? Peers to Mr. Hung? Fellow regional lea
ders? “Gentlemen,” I nodded in their general direction as I took my seat. Ding Li sat beside Honorable Shan Zhu.
Another stunningly beautiful waitress set four cups of tea on the table. I wondered if she harbored secret and dangerous talents, like Ding Li. Mr. Hung interrupted my train of thought, pouring tea into two of the cups, leaving two cups empty.
I took one of the cups, and poured the tea into another. I offered Mr. Hung the cup of tea and lifted the remaining cup to my mouth. We both sipped.
“What a remarkable week this has been,” Mr. Hung began, “filled with revelations and exposure of corruption. It is as if someone turned on the lights and the cockroaches are too busy scurrying for shelter to remember what they had planned to accomplish.”
Ding Li whispered softly into Honorable Shan Zhu's ear, translating, I presumed.
“Yes," I agreed neutrally, “Truly remarkable.”
“Every action bears the chop of the actor,” Mr. Hung continued, “his intent, his purpose, his means. Every action tells a story about the actor responsible.”
“Chop?”
“The sign, the signature, the fingerprint,” he clarified.
“Oh, I see.” They were suspicious. I felt the weight of more than a dozen eyes seeking out any hint or reaction. “What does this chop tell you about the actor responsible for these disclosures?”
“There are many actors on the world stage,” Mr. Hung explained. “They are cautious. They work in the shadows with modest means for modest ends. They seek incremental advantage, and improved leverage, to enhance their position and those of their patrons. They horde their secrets greedily, using them as currency and as tools against their opponents. They have learned through hard experience that small moves are the wisest, because if they forget this lesson they are soon no more.”
That sounded ominous.
Just then the waitress returned, accompanied by men carrying platters of food. The placed steaming platters of food on the rotating platform at the center of the table.
“Please, serve yourself,” Mr. Hung invited me. “The duck is very good.”
I helped myself to platters my hosts had already sampled and nibbled modestly at my food as he continued.
“The Ordo Alberti are as ancient as our own organization. They know these lessons as well as we do. Yet, they take a crazy chance. They move directly against Xueshu Quan, himself. True, the Albertians landed a mighty blow, even killing most of the Thirteen, but Xueshu Quan himself took the field against them, killing their elite Fidei Defensor warriors to a man. Xueshu Quan immediately moved to the north end of Jekyll Island and repelled a secondary attack.”
He looked coldly at me. “Just then, you chose to impose on our hospitality and invite your friends to dinner under our roof, one of whom may have ties to the Ordo Alberti.”
He paused. The silence grew longer.
This was no casual social gathering. The leadership of the Red Flower Tong had gathered to discuss last week’s attack on the Civic Circle. They probably suspected my involvement what with my showing up on the doorstep of the Beijing Bistro and asking them to arrange an alibi. If they suspected I had the Civic Circle’s secret blackmail files…
“My actions are my own,” I explained, “but, I may not betray my own secrets or the secrets of others I have agreed to keep, just as I would not betray your secrets you have entrusted with me.” Did they suspect my involvement? Or did they think I was a minor player in an Albertian plot?
“Rome itself shudders under the weight of this reckless behavior,” Mr. Hung explained. “Xueshu Quan has refrained from moving directly in the past, but with John Paul II gone, his successor may be unequal to the task. It is clear this novice Pontiff endorsed the rash actions of the Ordo Alberti. Xueshu Quan will move against him. Pope Benedict will resign, or be killed.”
“I thought being Pope was a lifetime position,” I countered. “A Pope can't simply resign, can he?”
“That’s what John Paul I thought as well,” Mr. Hung answered dryly. “A remarkable amount of doctrinal flexibility is possible when the alternative is death, however. In any event, Xueshu Quan will ensure that a more compliant Pontiff will soon sit on the throne of Saint Peter. We were amazed at the uncharacteristic rashness of the Ordo Alberti. Then, some trusted agent of the Civic Circle leaked secrets that were publicized with incredible speed, defying the usual gatekeepers and controls the Civic Circle imposes on the flow of information. Now, the revelations of the past couple of days made us wonder if the prime mover behind all these events was within the Order or without.
“On Jekyll Island just three days ago, one of the most diligent and feared assassins of the Civic Circle, a man named Wilson, was found murdered just as he claimed to have uncovered those responsible for the attack. The full resources of the Civic Circle swept in to investigate who killed Wilson. Wilson’s partner, a Special Agent Jack Gardner, vanished as suspicion fell upon him. They discovered Wilson had been investigating balloons. As they were investigating, local police, acting on an anonymous tip, found a half dozen partially dissolved victims and a used helium cylinder in a storage area underneath the Berkshire Inn. The Civic Circle is now convinced that Wilson shot himself, and used a balloon to carry the gun away, in a desperate attempt to incriminate your friend, Amit Patel and the faction within the Council of 33 opposed to Gomulka.”
Mr. Hung took a sip from his water glass.
“Wilson is also… apparently… responsible for the shocking disclosures of the last few days. The Civic Circle’s agents found the evidence in a server room near where they found the helium. As near as the agents can tell, Wilson released the entire collection of Civic Circle kompromat to the world in one reckless action. Whether his partner, Agent Gardner, was involved they do not know, for he cannot be found.”
I resisted the urge to celebrate.
This was very good news.
Our plan had worked.
The Civic Circle accepted our staged suicide at face value and blamed Wilson for our disclosures. His partner – this Special Agent Jack Gardner – vanished rather than face the usual consequences of a Civic Circle investigation.
“The local police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are now also convinced that Wilson was part of a ring responsible for a series of disappearances of local youth over the years,” Mr. Hung added. “They are resisting attempts by Federal officials to sweep it all under the carpet.”
Mr. Hung waited, expecting an answer.
“Perhaps Wilson grew remorseful for the many lives he’s taken over the years,” I speculated. “He took his own life and released blackmail material he’d had access to over the years in an act of repentance for his crimes.”
Mr. Hung didn’t seem convinced.
He stared at me.
The silence grew heavier.
I resisted the temptation to jabber further.
Finally, Mr. Hung broke the silence.
“There is a new actor on the world stage, Mr. Burdell, and these actions bear his chop. This new actor is brutally direct, and ill-disciplined. He manipulates ancient powers and dangerous operatives with frightening ease, drawing them into ill-considered actions. He acts extravagantly, emotionally, expending in a moment secrets that could take many lifetimes to secure. These are not the actions of the Albertians. These are not the actions of any established power. These are the actions of someone new, an agent of chaos, someone dangerous, not only to Xueshu Quan and the Civic Circle, but to the Ordo Alberti and the Brotherhood as well. We wondered what new power was rising, moving in secret, leaving so much chaos in its wake.
“Then Ding Li told us a most improbable tale: a tale of an impetuous youxia who refused to accept the inevitable course of events and rashly vowed to bend the very powers of the Earth to his liking.
“And, of course, all that the youxia rashly vowed to do came to pass, and the murderer of the youxia’s parents lies dead – blamed for the disclosures.”
Mr. Hung paused, staring at
me. They had me. We’d been so busy trying to hide our tracks from the Civic Circle, we hadn’t thought how obvious it would appear to the Tong. Better to ‘fess up than try to hide behind an evasion or an obvious lie.
“And we all lived happily ever after?” I offered a glib conclusion to his story.
No one seemed amused by my flippancy.
I continued in a more serious vein. “Ding Li told me she was authorized to speak to me with the voice of the Red Flower Tong. She told me the Brotherhood would not stand in my way. I have heard that when a Brother speaks, it is a vow. Everything a Brother says is a promise. If a Brother says he will do something, then it will be done. Have I heard falsely?”
“You heard correctly, slippery one,” Mr. Hung confirmed, “but Ding Li is not truly a Brother. Moreover, she committed the Brotherhood only to stand aside and not interfere. Ding Li's words pledged us to neutrality. Some might argue that you broke that neutrality by seeking refuge under our roof. You risked dragging us into your conflict, risked bringing Xueshu Quan himself to our very doorstep. You tricked us into aiding you when our only obligation was to stand aside. We are no longer bound by a vow to you that you have broken to us. You have unbalanced the scales.”
This did not sound good. People who unbalanced the Tong’s scales ended up dead. I had to think fast.
“When you agreed to help me discredit our mutual enemy, Professor Gomulka, I told you I expected a shipment of illicit drugs, and I told you I expected that the outcome would be the discrediting of the Civic Circle and the disruption of their plans to trigger a Middle East war. You agreed to work with me, knowing that you would use our agreement to further your own ends by smuggling in... workers for your organization. You further knew my expectations that war could be avoided were unrealistic. Yet, you said nothing.
“Who are the slippery ones? Who unbalanced the scales? All I asked of you was a meal and an alibi for me and my friends in a time of need, and I even paid for the privilege. I did not set out to deliberately mislead or take advantage of you. I only sought your minor assistance in an emergency. I have done much more for you and yours in your time of need, saving your nephew, Professor Chen. You, on the other hand, deliberately set out to mislead me by failing to correct my... misunderstandings regarding the nature and consequences of our collaboration.
The Brave and the Bold Page 36