sand, shaking the helicopter like a terrier with a rat. Gurt, indifferent to the turbulence, was dozing, leaning against the leather restraints that kept her from being thrown from the canvas seat. Dow, securely handcuffed, glared at Lang and Miles, who were seated across from each other.
“Those pictures you sent me along with your GPS position indicators, you have any idea what they were?” Miles asked through Lang’s headset.
“Packing containers of some sort. I figured someone might be able to read the Chinese characters.”
Miles bobbed his head. “The containers themselves told us all we needed to know.”
“Which was?”
“Warheads, most likely for DF-15, Dong Feng, or East Wind missiles.”
“Like, guided missiles?”
“Like. Chemical, nuclear or conventional, solid propellant, and MARV.”
Lang’s eyebrows rose in an unasked question.
“Maneuverable reentry vehicle. The warheads themselves can be guided as to speed and alter course to evade defensive weapons.”
Lang had almost forgotten the Agency’s love of technical jargon. “All of which means what?”
“Which means, once installed on a launch base, usually an eight-wheeled truck, anything within three hundred and seventy miles is a potential target.”
Lang mentally called up a map of the Caribbean. “We, the U.S., is out of range, then.”
“The Chinese are in the process of modifying a lot of their hardware. Wouldn’t surprise me if south Florida was within range in the not-too-distant future.”
“And Puerto Rico, where we still have a few military installations.”
Lang thought for a moment. “You think the Chinese are preparing to attack, what, a naval refueling base and former gunnery range?”
“Not my call. The higher-ups will make that decision.” He nodded toward Dow. “Along with the help of your friend there.”
Lang snorted. “Over tea and crumpets with his lawyer at his side? I doubt the Agency’ll get more than an ass reaming by some congressional oversight committee after a presidential apology for inconveniencing the peace- loving People’s Republic of China by interrupting a perfectly innocent trade mission. Hell, if you yell at him and make him cry, you’ll be regarded as a criminal.”
Miles smirked, the self- satisfied grin of a man who has been dealt the fourth ace in the hole. “Were he going to be turned over to the Agency, the newer, kinder, warm and fuzzy Agency, which is obligated to share its secrets with notoriously loose-lipped politicians, what you say would be true. As it is, I am merely a private citizen doing my civic duty for one of my country’s firmest allies.”
Lang leaned forward in his seat. “This I got to hear.”
“Very simple: I am vacationing in the Dominican Republic like hundreds of thousands of sun-loving Americans do every year. An official who happens to be a golf-playing and fishing buddy of mine mentions that Haiti, a country less than friendly to the DR, is harboring a fugitive…”
“But this guy, this Chinese, is no fugitive from the Dominicans,” Lang protested. “He’s probably never even been there.”
Miles held up a hand, dismissing an irrelevant point. “So, the DR has made a terrible mistake. You know how these Caribbean bureaucracies can be. Now, this friend also knows I have another friend, one who was kind enough to place a helicopter at my disposal, saving me the time of driving from one golf resort to the next fishing charter. This Dominican official friend of mine asks if I would have any objection to his government using said helicopter during the three or four hours I will be on the golf course.
“What am I to do, spoil the relationship between his country and mine? Of course not. I lend him the chopper.”
“But he”-Lang pointed at Dow-“is not a fugitive. He is an officer in the fucking Chinese army.”
“I’m sure a full apology will be forthcoming.”
“So…” Lang took up where he knew Miles had left off. “The Dominican security forces or army or whoever treat the man to the old-fashioned third degree until they get what they want, by which time the proverbial horse has departed the barn. In the meantime, you continue your golfing-fishing vacation unaware of what has happened.”
“Wasn’t it Thomas Gray who observed, ‘Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise’?”
“How do you guys keep your noses from growing so long you can’t get through a door?”
Beijing Olympic Tower
Two days later
Wan Ng watched the chubby general of the People’s Liberation Army use a thick thumb to turn the pages of the file. In a silence loud enough to have an echo, he wondered which was worse: the disapproval of Undersecretary Diem or somehow falling under the jurisdiction of this porcine military man. Either way, his sudden recall from the States and the state of affairs with this man Reilly had less than optimistic overtones.
One thing he did know: the disaster in Haiti was somehow going to become his fault. That was the Party way, having shit run downhill. The higher ups, such as the undersecretary, blamed the fiasco on the military. Since the officer in charge of the garrison in Haiti, a Colonel Dow, was conveniently unavailable to accept blame-no one was certain where he was at the moment-the army brass had turned to the Guoanbu, state security. That made the problem Ng’s. His position was not high enough to pass the blame farther down the line.
The nameless general looked up, his eyes hooded by heavy lids. “This American, Reilly, why has he not been disposed of?”
“My orders, Comrade General, were from the undersecretary himself. I was to observe him and the woman.”
The general sniffed unappreciatively. “It says here you were to eliminate them should you determine they worked for the American intelligence services.”
“I have not so determined, Comrade General.”
The corpulent officer sighed, the intake and expulsion of breath shaking multiple chins. “After what took place in Venice and in Haiti, you still believe they are ordinary American citizens instead of threats to the policy of the People’s Republic?”
Ng could have explained that his orders did not authorize terminal action upon supposition or guess.
He could have, but he didn’t.
The orders would say whatever the general chose to remake them to say.
Few government workers in the People’s Republic were punished for failure to properly carry out directives from above. Clerks misfiled things on computers, tasks went undone or were done poorly. That was expected in a massive bureaucracy. Problems occurred when someone of rank in the government, say, this general, felt their position threatened, whether by incompetence or just plain rotten luck.
The culprit, almost always with no one below him onto whom to pass the failure, would be accused of some heinous crime, harboring unpatriotic sentiments, stealing from the state or bribery (both of which went unnoticed without some additional offense), or the ever-popular but rarely clearly defined “counterrevolutionary activities.” The accused could receive, at the whim of a revolutionary tribunal (usually influenced by the official instigating the action), anything from a term in a labor camp up to a large-bore bullet into the back of the head and an unmarked grave where his family would be unable to honor his spirit, the spirit officially disavowed by the state but very real to the people of Ng’s province nonetheless.
Ng was more than painfully aware of how the justice system in the People’s Republic functioned.
“How may I atone for my failure, Comrade General?”
The beefy officer took his time replying, no doubt aware of Ng’s thoughts. “You will return to the United States just as you departed, by way of the Mexico-California border, so there will be no record of your entry. You will keep watch on this man, Reilly, and his family until you have the opportunity to eliminate them both, the man and the woman.”
Ng nodded. “And if they leave the country again as they did when they went to Haiti?”
The general leaned back in his chair, the casters groaning under his weight. “Like most Americans, the man has a cell phone, a BlackBerry. We have ascertained that as well as the number. It is amazing what puny security measures American companies take with their information. When you return, there will be a handheld tracking
