Читать книгу Hostile Contact - Gordon Kent, Gordon Kent - Страница 10

Jakarta.

Alan lay in his dark hotel room and watched Jakarta through the window. It was cool in the room, almost cold. Outside, Jakarta was hot and busy, and Alan watched it for a while, the constant bustle of taxicabs, rickshaws, and vast limousines pulling up to the front of his great hotel, twenty stories below. NCIS seemed to have paid for a really good room in a really good hotel, and it was all wasted; Alan felt as if the huge windows were force fields walling him off from the reality of Jakarta. He wanted to go out and explore, but his instructions were explicit. So he repeated today’s operation until he had it to his satisfaction and then reviewed tomorrow’s until it bored him.

Buy a copy of The Economist. Go to the theme park and go to Anjungan Bali. Sit in the dance kiosk and watch the dancers. When they finish, walk across the Anjungan Sumatra to the Orchid House, carrying The Economist. When you are inside, walk along the path. If a man approaches you with a copy of The Economist and asks if he met you at the AGIP Christmas party, respond that you were there with a Dutch girl. It won’t happen, cowboy. It’s a fake. There won’t be anybody there. Just go and fill the bill, okay?

He got up and headed toward the door. He needed to walk.

Just stay in your room, Al. Just sit tight and don’t get robbed, don’t leave your briefcase, don’t have any adventures, okay?

Alan walked back and forth in front of the window for the thirtieth time, bored, angry, all keyed up and wanting to discuss the problems of the morning, talk about the tactics for tomorrow, anything. He had been a spy for about thirty hours; so far, it was really dull.

It beat the crap out of flying a Microsoft product in his living room and having rages at his wife, though.

He paced back again. He wanted to go down to the giant lobby; there had to be a kiosk there to buy a paper. Triffler wouldn’t mind if he just went and bought a copy of The Economist.

He got as far as the door with his electronic key in his hand before his conscience stopped him.

Just stay in your room, Al. Just sit tight and don’t get robbed, don’t leave your briefcase, don’t have any adventures, okay?

Triffler wasn’t Mike Dukas; he was a thorough, professional man who seemed unimpressed with Alan’s reputation and impatience. He hadn’t grinned when he spoke about any adventures, either. He meant what he said. Alan walked back to his enormous bed and threw himself on it, the expensive pillow-top mattress swallowing him whole.

Too damn soft.

Lying sideways on the bed, Alan stretched out an arm to rifle his belongings in the carry-on on the floor. Underwear; a linen jacket that Rose had given him a year ago and thought would be perfect in Jakarta; probably would, at that. She’d ordered him to hang it up as soon as he got to a room, and he smiled at the pang of guilt and unfolded it from the bottom of the case.

Something heavy slipped out from its folds and fell on the bed. Alan leaped back for a moment, and laughed aloud. A book. The cover said Blue at the Mizzen. Inside, a feminine hand had written: All I want you to take to bed while you’re away. Love, R.

His grin threatened to crack his face, and he kissed her writing. Deep inside him, more ice cracked.

And he started reading.

In the air, Beijing–Jakarta.

Qiu was very young, as his code name—“young dragon with new horns”—announced. The name irritated him, as it indicated a lack of respect from his superiors. He had, after all, graduated from all the schools; he knew exactly how to perform his tasks. Why such a disrespectful code name?

He knew what he was about to do to perfection: he would meet with the Jakarta embassy black team in a warehouse near the Jakarta waterfront only two hours before the meeting was to take place, and he would outline to them his surveillance plan as based on a map of the Fantasy Island Park that he had downloaded from the Internet. If, as he anticipated, the local chief watcher was rude, Qiu would step on him hard to make sure that the fellow knew his place. In fact, he planned to step on everybody hard.

This was his first independent assignment.

The local station had reported a certain signal placed on a certain old cannon. They had no idea what the signal meant. Qiu, however, knew, because he had been told in Beijing: it was an old signal from an old comm plan between his service and an American double agent. Qiu was to follow the comm plan and meet whoever had left the mark. No reason had been given for doing so: there was no context, no background, no time for analysis or research. His head swam with questions, but no answers came. He knew enough to do only one thing: follow orders. And, by implication, a second thing: be ruthless, meaning that he wanted an armed team, as if for a hostile meeting, and he wanted absolute discipline.

He went over and over it, and any idea he had had of sleeping on the flight proved foolish. He was awake all the way—awake when the sun rose and still awake when the plane banked and began its final approach into Jakarta.

The local man seemed relieved to be able to push the responsibility for the hasty operation off on him. He was even apologetic, in fact. “But there’s been a change,” he said.

Qiu bristled. “I will decide that!” he said. They weren’t even in the embassy car yet.

“It was decided at a higher level.” He handed Qiu a message.

Qiu read it, his fatigue suddenly heavy and depressing. He gave an exasperated groan. “Where is this Loyalty Man now?” he said.

The embassy man jerked his head at the car. They walked toward it; the driver, standing by the passenger door, braced and swung it open. A middle-aged man was sitting inside, a burning cigarette in his fingers. He looked at Qiu without expression, making it clear that he was a veteran who would go along with this stripling because he had been ordered to. Qiu settled himself next to him. “Well?” he said. He made it sound like a challenge.

“You are to add one of my agents to your team. He is to be with you at the meeting.”

“That is ridiculous!”

“That is the order.” Loyalty Man didn’t even bother to look at him.

The embassy man got in and sat on a jump seat. The driver got in behind the wheel. Everybody sat there until at last Qiu realized that they were waiting for him to give an order.

“Well, get him!” he shouted.

Suburban Virginia.

Sally Baranowski was healthier-looking than Dukas remembered, but vulnerable, obviously glad that Rose was there with them. She was a fairly big woman, better eyes and color now she had dried out, good black dress that maybe showed too much of pretty hefty legs. But who was he to notice?

“Did you ever run into a case code-named Sleeping Dog?” he said to her.

“If I did, I wouldn’t talk about it, would I?”

“Well, you were Shreed’s assistant for a while there, I thought you knew what was going on.”

“I knew some things.” She was picking at her food, not looking at him. She’d been kicked sideways from her job at the Agency, because when the dying Shreed was brought back as a traitor, there had been a lot of vengeance within the Agency. Some people had been punished for being too loyal to Shreed. She had been punished for being too disloyal. Now, fresh out of rehab, she was working in a nothing job in Inter-Agency Liaison after having been a rising star in Operations Planning.

Dukas wanted to pick her brains—and to take her to bed—so he tried to explain the case as he understood it. The burst transmissions, the case’s being kicked around among NSA, the Bureau, and the CIA.

“Now does it sound familiar?”

“Not even remotely. Sorry.” She smiled at him. “Why?”

“Because I’ve got the case, and it seems to me to have a kind of tang. What the Brits call a pong. A hint of fish.”

“Like what?”

He was thinking of how to propose that they start over, go to his place, get in the sack—“Like I need your help,” he said.

Jakarta.

Bobby Li was awake. He was a nervous man, easily kept awake by the tensions of the family or his business. Now he was awake because of the operation. Nothing would go wrong, but—

The telephone rang twice and stopped. He felt his wife tense beside him; he realized that he had tensed, too. The telephone rang again—twice. And stopped.

Bobby sighed.

“You have to go?” she said.

“Only a few streets.”

He dressed quickly, not even bothering with socks, and went out into the warm, wet night. Three streets away was a public telephone. He leaned into its plastic shelter to escape a sudden patter of rain and dialed. He knew the voice at the other end at once: Loyalty Man, his Chinese control. He flinched.

“The southeast corner of Suharto and Nyam Pareng. Now.”

He knew better than to object or ask a question. He hung up, found he was trembling, lit a cigarette in the shelter of the phone and then splashed off into the night. His sockless shoes rasped on his feet and he shivered as if the warm rain had given him a chill. He was at the proper corner in six minutes, but there was already a dark car there waiting. He saw from thirty feet away that there were three men as well as the driver, and he knew what sort of car it was and what sort of people were inside.

“Get in.” A man he didn’t know, sitting with his knees drawn up on a jump seat, had opened the door from inside and was holding it open. Loyalty Man was against the far window, a young, foolish-looking stranger closer to Bobby.

“Get in!” the young one screamed.

The air inside was bitter with cigarette smoke. The car pulled away but went slowly, so that he knew they were not really going anywhere yet. Whatever it was, they were going to talk first. Did they know about Andy? Did they know he was helping on an operation he hadn’t told them about? He began to think up excuses—

“I am Qiu,” the foolish one said. “I am your superior, and you will do precisely what I tell you.”

Bobby tried to look at Loyalty Man, through whom this insane youth should have been speaking, but Loyalty Man was looking out the window, as much as to say to Bobby, I have nothing to do with this.

“Yes, sir.”

“I have orders directly from Beijing. I am from Beijing. Flown in expressly for this.” Bobby knew he was from Beijing from his accent.

“Yes, sir.”

“You have been added to my team. I have a strict plan. You will conform to it. Well?”

“Yes, sir.” This didn’t seem so bad as he had feared. Nothing about Andy, at any rate. Merely some stupid, extra work. Bobby kept himself from sighing.

“In—” Qiu looked at his watch, which he had to hold up in the light of a street lamp to read—“precisely one hour and forty-three minutes, my team will report to a site for an operation. You will be there.” The young man paused, perhaps debating how much to tell Bobby, then, if he was at all wise, seeing that time was so short that he had no choice. “I am making a hostile contact in a place called the Orchid House, in a park called Fantasy Island. My arrangements are none of your affair; however, I have been ordered to allow you to observe the meeting. Therefore, you will make yourself available at the Fantasy Island Park at—” He looked at his watch again. “From precisely ten minutes before nine, local time, until completion of the operation. You will do precisely as I say. At six minutes after nine, I will enter a certain entrance of the Orchid House and will proceed to a certain place. You will go in another entrance and find a place from which to observe. If you get in the way or cause any trouble, you will be dealt with. That is all you need to know. Understood?”

Bobby felt nauseated. Surely it couldn’t be happening. Surely—were they testing him? Did they know all about Andy, after all?

“Well?”

Bobby forced himself to mumble, “Yes, sir,” and Qiu spoke to the driver and the car rolled to a stop. Again, the man in the jump seat opened the curbside door.

“Get out,” Qiu said. “You will be at the Fantasy Island Park in precisely—” pausing to study his watch—“one hour and forty-two minutes. Meet me at the main gate. Now get out.”

Bobby Li stepped into a puddle. The car pulled away, sending slow waves over the tops of his shoes. He watched it go, unable even to step up on the curb. At ten minutes after nine, he was supposed to meet an unknown American in the Orchid House for Andy, but at the same moment he was also supposed to watch Qiu meet the same unknown American in the same place. His life had turned into a contradiction. And a mystery: nobody had told him why Qiu was doing this to him!

He walked home. Passing the telephone, he thought of calling Andy and telling him—what? That he was too sick to go? No, you were never too sick for an operation, not when it was Andy, and not when it was for George. Tell him that his Chinese masters also had a job for him? But Andy didn’t know about the Chinese masters, and, because Bobby loved Andy, he couldn’t let him know. It would make Andy hate him, and he couldn’t bear that.

Loyalty, Andy said. It’s about loyalty.

He let himself into his house and sat in the little front room. His wife came in and stared into the dark where he sat, then went away.

Bobby thought it through. He had to do what Qiu said. He knew what the punishment would be if he did not—Loyalty Man’s attitude had told him that the thing was serious and out of his hands. To disobey was to end his life here, his family’s life. Maybe to see his children shipped to China, to disappear there. Therefore, he would have to do as Qiu ordered. How, then, would he keep Andy from knowing what he was doing? If he stayed far enough back, maybe Andy wouldn’t see him through the greenery—was that possible? But even then, there were the photos—Ho was supposed to get photos. Andy would see the photos.

And, of course, Andy would see Qiu meet with the American.

I never saw him before, Andy; he stole The Economist from me and his guys held me and he went into the meeting—

Andy wouldn’t believe it. Andy didn’t believe in unmotivated acts.

Well, the photos. Maybe he could just not hand over the film. No, Andy wouldn’t believe it if he said he lost it or Ho kept it. Or he could expose the film—pull it out of the canister. No, Andy didn’t believe in accidents, either.

But if the photos were simply bad photos—out of focus, for example—

Bobby went to the bedroom and turned on a light without warning his wife and without apologizing. He took his own camera from his drawer, hesitated, and then burrowed deep under his four shirts and took the gun that was concealed there. In the bathroom, he opened the camera—his pride, a good Nikon, 3X zoom, internal motor drive—and smeared Vaseline on the inside of the lens. He put in a roll of film.

Back in the living room, he sat with the gun and the camera in his lap. The gun had lost most of the bluing at the end of the barrel and a lot along the edges of the slide. It was a thirty-year-old Walther PP .32, an old police pistol from somewhere in Europe in the days when policemen could enforce the law with little guns that were now thought too weak for even ladies to carry. He put on a light. He took out the clip. Seven cartridges, their ends open—hollowpoints, segmented for expansion. Like looking into the heart of a flower. Well, you could kill with those.

It had been so good for the first day with Andy. Now it was all awful. He went back to the bedroom and began to change his clothes.

“Is it bad?” his wife said.

“Don’t take the kids to school today. Take them to the place in Tangerang.” He had a shack out there under a different name. Sometimes he went there to be alone. He had a garden out there, like his father. “Park the car in the trees, where it can’t be seen from the road.”

“How bad is it?” she said.

He finished dressing. Out of deference to her, he hadn’t brought the gun back into the bedroom. “It will be all right,” he said. He kissed her and went into the living room and put the gun inside his waistband just by his right kidney, and he picked up his camera and went out. It was daylight.

USSThomas Jefferson.

Cyclic air ops went on, creating thunder that went pretty much unnoticed in the corridors of the O3 level. In the ready rooms, crews preparing to fly were gathered around the TAMPS; others stood or sprawled to watch ongoing landings on the Plat camera. For the air group commander, a walk past the ready rooms was a mixture of envy, nostalgia, and irritation, the last because every squadron had its own problems, its own flaws, which he was supposed to solve and correct. To Rafehausen, who wasn’t flying that day and who could hardly find time to fly enough to stay qualified, the ready rooms were also a nagging reminder of what he had given up.

“Approval came through for Craik’s orders to Miramar,” a voice said at Rafehausen’s shoulder.

“Say again?” Both men flattened themselves against the bulkhead as a cluster of aviators hurried past. “Sorry, Deak, I was wool-gathering.”

“Not important. I just saw a message that Al Craik’s orders to Miramar to advise a second MARI det will be cut in a couple days.”

It took an instant for Rafehausen to switch focus. Then: “Oh, sure. Right, I wanted to find something for Craik. That’s great!” He detached himself from the bulkhead and started toward his office. “What’s being done about the parking problem behind cat three? They were supposed to have the mess there cleaned up by 0600 and now I learn that—”

Overhead, the engines screamed and the colored jerseys moved and spun, and aircraft blasted into the sky, and Alan Craik was forgotten.