“You’d give them two million?” Feng sounded almost impressed.
Mcdermid nodded. “We won’t fool Li Kuonyi without it. Besides, two million is nothing compared to what I’ll gain from success.”
“Aren’t you worried the cash will tempt me or my men?”
“Should I be?” Mcdermid studied him. “You’ll get a substantial bonus when this is over.”
“Your generosity is well known.” Feng’s soft voice was almost ghostly.
“I’ll prepare my team and arrange for your passage, Taipan.”
Mcdermid watched him leave the office. He had again heard the contempt in the use of the old honorific taipan.
Dennis Chiavelli sweated in the unseasonal heat of the early September afternoon as he chopped green heads of bok choy from their roots and tossed them into wheelbarrows that were being pushed up and down the long rows of vegetable fields by older inmates. The work was exhausting but mindless, and it gave him time to reflect on how fortunate he was to be a soldier behind enemy lines instead of a field hand breaking his back.
The light whisper seemed to carry on the breeze. Except there was no breeze. “They’re transferring the old man.”
“When?” “Tomorrow,” the guard said as he passed along the rows. “Early.”
“Where to?”
“Didn’t hear,” the guard said and was out of earshot, walking ahead, his old Type 56 assault rifle slung muzzle down from his shoulder.
What had happened? Had he made a mistake? Chiavelli chopped angrily at a bok choy. Had one of the guards betrayed Thayer? No, if that were the case, the old man would be gone already, and he, Chiavelli, would have been interrogated or killed. He remembered what Thayer had said: They’ve held me too long to admit they ever held me at all. With the human-rights accord actually possible, someone might have realized they still had at least one American prisoner. They were probably moving to isolate Thayer once more, storing him where he would never be found.
He must alert Klein. When the lunch signal sounded, the prisoners fell into line, and the guards marched the ranks to the dirt road where a pickup truck waited to feed them. Chiavelli stalled and fussed until he was able to drop in beside one of the Uigher political prisoners.
“I need to get word out,” he whispered. The Uigher nodded without looking at him.
“Tell your contact they’re moving Thayer tomorrow morning. Ask for instructions.”
Without acknowledging the request, the Uigher got his food and joined the other Uighers at the side of the road. Chiavelli took his meal to the shade of a stubby oak tree. As one of only two Westerners in the prison complex, no one wanted to eat with him. The risk of suspected contamination by outside political ideas was too great. His mind in a turmoil of rotten possibilities, he forced himself to eat. He doubted Klein would have time to set a rescue operation in motion, which left him with no choice but to bust Thayer out before morning himself.
At which point, he and Thayer would have to take their chances in the open country with the Chinese army after them and everyone else too frightened to help. He did not like those odds.
Hong Kong Alone in a back room of the CIA safe house, Jon called Fred Klein on a borrowed cell phone.
“Jesus, Jon! Is that you?” The relief in the Covert-One chief’s voice was palpable.
“Yes, alive, with quite a bit to report.”
“I’ll bet.” There was something different about Klein’s breathing. It was slightly uneven, ragged, as if emotion were interfering with the spymaster’s ability to talk. And then the moment was gone. He demanded with his usual brusqueness, “Tell me everything, from the beginning.”
Jon reported finding the arrogant note from “RM” at Donk & Lapierre, Feng’s capture of him, and Randi’s arrival in Feng’s interrogation chamber. “Ralph Mcdermid was there with Feng. Our escape was more flamboyant than I liked.” He described Randi’s investigation of the White House leaks, which was why she had been following Mcdermid, and the conversation between Mcdermid and Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu that all of them had heard over the CIA phone bug.
Klein bellowed, “They’re alive?”
“And with Flying Dragon’s original invoice manifest.”
Excitement pulsed in the Covert-One chief’s voice. “Dawn two days from now in Dazu?”
“Yes. Mcdermid pushed the meet back a day. I think he hopes Feng Dun can locate Li and Yu before then and grab the manifest.”
“Remind me to thank Mcdermid when we lock him up in Leavenworth. His time’s coming, believe me,” Klein vowed in his lowest growl.
“Can you get me to Dazu by then?”
“I’ll get you there. As for Ralph Mcdermid and the leaks, I was just recently informed about his role. Disgusting and apparently true.”
“How do you figure to get me back into China?”
“When was the last time you made a parachute jump?”
Jon was not sure he liked that question. “Four or five years.”
“What about a high-altitude jump?”
“Depends on how high.”
“As high as I can get you.”
“You’re going to whistle up a nice big plane for me?”
“If I can land it somewhere and not draw attention. Meanwhile, since Mcdermid’s there in Hong Kong, see whether you can turn up anything about him and the leaks and why he’s involved in a smuggling deal like the Empress. On your own and from the CIA. Might as well use them if we can.”
“You’re all cooperation.”
That earned a hoarse chuckle. “Glad to have you back, Jon. I missed our amusing repartee.” Klein broke the connection.
Jon went looking for Randi. Now that Mcdermid and Feng Dun were focused on retrieving the last invoice manifest, their interest in Randi and him would plummet. After all, what could he do without it? If he were careful, that meant he could return to his hotel, change his appearance, and pick up Mcdermid’s trail again until he had to head off to a refresher course in jumping.
He found Randi sitting in an office with Tommie Parker. “I have to leave now,” he told them.
“What about Feng Dun and his crew?”
“My bet is they’re gone.”
“Gone?” Tommie frowned.
Randi said, “He means to Dazu. They won’t care about us all that much now. Whatever the leaks were all about, whatever Jon is really working on, is in Dazu. Right, soldier?”
Jon refused to dance. “Close enough. I owe all of you, and Randi three times over. It isn’t the first time, probably won’t be the last, and I wish I could reveal more. But orders is orders.” Randi smiled reluctantly. “If there’s anything we can do to help, give us a jingle, and to hell with the DCI.” She looked him straight in the eyes. “Take care of yourself. I know you think you feel fine, but you look like you connected with a Mack truck.”
“Nice image.” Jon made his thick lips smile. “You, on the other hand, are untouched.”
She sat there in an office chair, lounging back, long legs crossed, blond hair a wild wreath around her sculpted face. He saw questions in her eyes, but worry for him, too.
“My job,” she said dryly. “Gotta keep the face malleable and primed to be disguised.”
“That’s the CIA for you. Ready to rock. Where’s this side exit?”
Tommie, who had been watching the exchange with amusement, said, “You won’t need it. You were right. They’re gone.”
“I’ll use it anyway. No sense pushing my luck.”
Fred Klein’s eyes snapped open. Instantly awake, he lay on the hidden Murphy bed in his dark office. The night in the marina outside was deathly still, the last boat, a battered seagoing trawler that had arrived at eleven p.m. from Bermuda, was snugged down, and its crew gone home.
The jangle of the phone sounded again. That was what had awakened him.
