Miles cleared his throat. “I thought we might discuss it after lunch.”
“I thought we might discuss it now, in case it makes me ill.”
“Ah, Lang, where is the charm, the gracious manner of our native Southern homeland?”
Lang couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “You have it all, Miles. You want something and you know I know it.”
“Never could slip one by you, Lang.” Miles leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. “In one word, Haiti.”
“Haiti?”
“You know, the western half of the island of Hispaniola. Voodoo, zombies, Papa Doc.”
“Poverty, disease, corruption. Not exactly a place Club Med would locate. I can’t imagine anything happening there that would interest anybody but hand wringers, missionaries and the other do-gooders.”
Miles was twisting the tip of his tie between his index and middle fingers, a nervous gesture Lang recalled from years ago. “Until about a month ago, we weren’t.”
“And then?”
“You recall the old SAMOS-F satellite?”
“Navy intelligence, low earth orbit. One of the first to send encrypted surveillance photos. Mostly phased out years ago.”
“That’s the one. We have a couple still functioning.”
“You’re not telling me this to demonstrate how the taxpayers’ money is being saved.”
Miles dropped the tip of his tie. “Hardly. The one I have in mind has an orbit that covered the Caribbean. Someone noticed a series of ships transiting the Panama Canal from east to west and heading from the canal to the north coast of Haiti.”
“So?”
“Since the company owned by the Chinese army has the operating contract for the canal, we monitor Panama fairly regularly. These same ships, the ones headed for Haiti, were Chinese freighters.”
“Maybe the Chinese have found a way to build a car cheap enough for the Haitians to afford it.”
“Cars aren’t crated for shipment. Whatever was unloaded was in containers.”
Lang leaned back in his chair, his hands intertwined across his stomach. “Miles, even back in the dark ages when I was still with the Agency, the resolution of the intel from satellites could distinguish a Ford from a Chevy from three hundred miles up. Whatever was in those containers should have been visible when they were unloaded.”
Miles shook his head. “Should have been. But the Haitians, or whoever was on the ground, dragged them up into the mountains. Those hills are high enough to be in the clouds. The SAMOS-F didn’t have the technology to photograph through cloud cover.”
“I’m sure it’s classified, but I’ll bet we do now.”
Miles was playing with his tie again. “Without saying we do or don’t, I can say that wherever the contents of those containers are now, they aren’t where we can see them.”
Lang pondered this a minute. “What about HUMINT, human intelligence? Surely you have someone on the ground.”
“Until now, Haiti didn’t rate more than a single full-time asset. He disappeared. We have a stringer or two but no idea how reliable they might be. So far, whatever was in those containers might as well have vanished.”
Lang stood, seeing where this was headed. “Miles, I am glad to see you, and Gurt is thrilled to join us for lunch. We’d be pleased if you could stay awhile, have you as our guest. That being said, I am not, repeat, not, going to Haiti.”
“But what makes you think-?”
Lang held up an index finger. “You make your first visit to the U.S. anyone can remember.” A second finger. “You aren’t telling me this story to pass away the time until Gurt joins us.” Third finger. “And you just got through telling me you are shit out of luck when it comes to assets already on the ground. I may have been out of the game for awhile but the rules never change: when you need assets, you get them wherever you can. Now, did I miss anything?”
Miles held up both hands, feigning surprise. “Did I say anything about you going to Haiti?”
Lang sat back down, smirking. “No, of course you didn’t. I suppose I got some exercise jumping to conclusions. I should never have thought it would have crossed your mind to try to employ a retired agent, someone with no publicly known ties to any U.S. intelligence agency, and therefore plausible deniability, to go snoop around to see what’s going on between the largest remaining communist state and one of the world’s craziest dictators, right on our Caribbean doorstep. I know that’s something you would never do.”
“Do what?”
Neither man had noticed Gurt step into the office.
“Gurt!” Miles embraced her-a little too enthusiastically, Lang thought. “You’re more beautiful than I remembered!”
“Beware of Miles bearing compliments,” Lang said dryly as Gurt disentangled herself. “Our friend here wants to send me on an all-expense-paid trip to sunny skies, summer temperatures, white beaches, the whole lot.”
Gurt looked from Lang to Miles and back again, aware she had missed something. “Only you? Why not us both?”
“That could be arranged,” Miles said.
Lang sat back down. “Go on, Miles, explain.”
Miles did, ending with, “However you two got tangled up with the Guoanbu and their man Jianfei, it may well be related to my problem.”
“Just how do you figure that?” Lang asked, leaning back in his chair, hands now clasped on top of his head. “Seems like a bit of a stretch.”
“Maybe so,” Miles replied. “But the Chinese have historically shown little or no interest in operating in the Western Hemisphere until they took over management of the canal some years ago. We have cracked Cuban, Soviet, even Israeli spy rings operating in the country, but never Chinese. Now, all of a sudden, one of their operatives is caught in your house only a few weeks after we find they have some sort of an interest in Haiti. I know how much you, Lang, believe in coincidence.”
“Not at all, but what you’re suggesting is still pretty lame.”
Miles held up both hands again, this time in submission. “You’re right, lame as a one-term politician. I’m probably grasping at straws.”
Lang narrowed his eyes. Miles wasn’t one to give up so easily. “But?”
Miles watched Gurt slide into the other chair, nylons whispering as she crossed her legs. “If there’s no connection between the Guoanbu’s sudden interest in you and what’s going on in Haiti, then you, Lang, or better yet, both of you, get a few days in the sun at Agency expense.”
“And on the off chance you’re right?”
“Then you’ll know.”
“Know what?” Gurt asked. “It is a… a… what do you say? A ‘stretch’ to think we will find out why Chinese state security broke into our house by going to Haiti.”
“And why us?” Lang wanted to know. “The Agency must have a dozen or so employees who’d love to spend a few winter days in the Caribbean.”
“Because you, both of you, can easily pass for Europeans on a holiday.” Lang started to protest but Miles dashed forward. “Look, you owe me a favor, remember? I’m the one who stuck out his neck to identify those people as Chinese intel. We, the Agency, can’t currently spare any Ops personnel who could pass for a German couple taking advantage of Haiti’s low hotel rates.”
“The rates are low,” Lang observed, “because few people want to go there. And you can’t spare any operatives because this is ninety-nine percent certain to come up empty.”
“I have never been to the Caribbean,” Gurt announced.
Lang was surprised. Not that Gurt had never been to the Caribbean but that she was showing interest in Miles’s suggestion. “If you want the Caribbean, believe me, Haiti is not the place to begin.”
Gurt gave him a quizzical look. “Is it not warm and sunny there this time of year? Do they not have beaches like I see in the magazines?”
Lang could see Miles was anticipating victory. “Yeah, but…”
