to like it.”
When Jon thought back over the past few years to how much his life had changed since the Hades virus had killed his fiancee and had been on the verge of a world pandemic, one of his few pleasant constants had been her sister, Randi Russell. Although he seldom saw Randi, since she was usually in the field, they sometimes found themselves in the Washington area at the same time. They had a standing arrangement to leave a message on the other’s answering machine. When they connected, they would have drinks, dinner, and dancing — but their dancing was almost entirely verbal, because neither could divulge their espionage activities.
Covert-One was such a highly secret organization that he could not mention its name, much less that it existed. At the same time, she usually could say nothing about her Langley missions, which took her around the world. Occasionally, they found themselves involved in similar assignments, such as when Jon had convinced her, Peter Howell, and Marty Zellerbach to help him stop the terrifying geopolitical threat caused by Emil Chambord’s futuristic DNA computer.
Instead of returning to the corridor where so much shooting had happened only moments before, Randi opened a side door in the office. They ran across a storage area to another door that opened into another corridor.
Their first priority was to get out before the police arrived. The sirens in the distance were growing louder, closer.
“Thanks for the diversion,” he told her. “They were closing in on me.”
“Always glad to help a pal.” Her American voice from the Chinese face was unnerving. The CIA had done a remarkable job of turning a citified blond Caucasian into a black-haired Chinese peasant.
“Where are we?” “Same building,” she told him, “but a different wing. It’s the old English style of office construction. It kept the ” and corridors from being too crowded.”
This wing was quiet after quitting time, too. They rushed into an elevator and headed down to the ground floor — and then down one more level toward the basement.
As the elevator clattered, Jon said, “Impressive how well you know this building.”
She glanced at him. “Research.”
“So my problem upstairs was impacting your assignment.” She said innocently, “Ralph Mcdermid not only likes acupuncture, he’s been panting after the girl who gives the shiatsu massage. This time, he seemed to have more than needles and flirtation in mind. You must’ve activated him somehow. Could there be something not on the up-and-up in the Altman Group’s China installation?”
“How do you know those gunmen were here for me? Maybe I bumbled into a trap set for you. The CIA doesn’t tail private American citizens for the fun of it. Langley must suspect Mcdermid’s up to something against our interests.”
The dance had begun. They looked away from each other as the elevator stopped and the door opened onto a storage basement, complete with the stink of dampness and the scurrying noises of rats.
“Why in the devil were you tailing Mcdermid?” Her voice was half aggravation, half resignation. The perfect Chinese mask of her face remained impassive.
To reveal his investigation into the Empress would encourage her suspicions about his Covert-One activities. He needed to tell her something plausible. She might not believe him, but she would be in no position to accuse him of lying. He decided the same story he had given Charles-Marie Cruyff would have to do.
As she led him through a dim maze of cellar rooms, he explained, “I was at a biomedical convention in Taiwan for Fort Detrick when I ran into a fellow from Donk & Lapierre’s field lab in China. What he described was intriguing, so I caught a flight to Hong Kong, hoping to get permission to take a look at his work. The lab’s honcho, Cruyff, sent me to Mcdermid, who I guess is his boss. Mcdermid’s been impossible to pin down, so I tailed him and stumbled into this hornet’s nest.”
“Right.” Randi shook her head. “And I’m here for the noodles.” He thought he heard her chuckle. He said, “Far be it for a humble scientist to inquire into a CIA field operation.”
“You always hang around office mezzanines in a Hawaiian shirt, straw hat, and running shoes, when you want a professional, scientific favor?
Probably for the same reason you carry a Beretta and extra ammo. Oh, gosh, wait a minute. I’ll bet you planned to put a gun on him to convince him to be nice.”
So she had either been watching him deliberately, or they had crossed paths because of the similarity of their missions. “In case you haven’t noticed,” he said blithely, “Hong Kong’s miserably hot. Of course I wear Hawaiian shirts. As for the Beretta … remember, my final destination was mainland China. I arranged with the Pentagon for permission to carry, because the field lab’s in a remote area — bandits and all.”
He had managed to turn her suspicions into an innocent story. In fact, all of it could be true. But he knew her well; she would not drop this.
She would find harder, more probing questions. It was time to distract her and to get out of the building.
He nodded at cement stairs ahead. “Those for us?”
“Clever of you.”
Again, she led the way, bending so her tall hat did not catch on the low ceiling as she climbed. At the top, she pushed open a slanting door and slid out. He followed, lowering it quietly behind. She was already moving away. He fell in beside her. They were in a narrow alley that smelled of urine and charcoal. Moonlight reflected off the grimy brick-and-stone walls.
Five minutes later, they were in a taxi heading back toward Central.
“Where do I drop you?” Randi asked. She pulled off the hat, shook out her black wig, and sat back.
“The Conrad International,” Jon said. “Listen, everything I told you was true, but there’s a little more?”
“What a surprise, dearie.”
He shot her a look. “USAMRIID thinks there’s something fishy going on at Donk & Lapierre’s Chinese lab. Maybe they’re conducting research, doing experiments that’d be illegal in the States, and putting government grant money intended for basic research into applied research to develop commercial pharmaceutical products.”
“I expected something like that. So you’re here investigating?”
Jon nodded. “I won’t ask exactly what the CIA’s interest in Mcdermid is, but maybe we could share anything we find not directly related to our own assignments.”
Randi turned away, looking out the window. She was smiling. Despite all the baggage between them since her sister’s death, she liked Jon. She enjoyed working with him. She turned back, still smiling. “Sounds like a good thing. Okay, soldier. Whatever I turn up that I can’t use, I’ll tell you. And vice versa.”
“Deal.”
The taxi stopped at his hotel on Queensway. As he got out, he turned back to ask, “Where do I contact you?”
“You don’t. I know where you are. If anything changes, leave a message at your hotel’s front desk addressed to Joyce Ray.”
Despite the proposition he had offered her, he wanted very much to know what the CIA’s connection to Mcdermid and the Altman Group was. He would ask Klein to check into what Langley was up to, which meant he would have to let Randi go her own way for now.
“Fine,” he said. “Keep in touch.”
She was still smiling as the taxi pulled away into traffic.
Chapter Twenty-Four
In his bedroom, the president was still buttoning his shirt when Jeremy knocked and spoke through the door, “Director Debo, sir. She says it’s urgent. Would you like to take the call?”
One more emergency was not what he needed. “Of course. Put her through.”
