Choke Point

“I’ll file it,” promised Cuso. “Consider it later.”

“Yes, sir.”

When the CPO left, Cuso balled the complaint in his fist and chucked it into his wastebasket. “Filed.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Marte Price didn’t like the CNN makeup studio in Port Angeles. She said it reeked of fish. Everything reeked of fish, her producer told her, the smell coming from the thousands of dead fish in the strait.

When Charles Riser arrived in the cab, the odor of Jack Daniel’s was still on his breath, though he’d vigorously brushed his teeth. He knew he would have to begin with an apology. It wasn’t only good manners, but a tactical necessity, if she was to believe what Wu Ling had told him: that General Chang must have discovered the rumored deal between Beijing and Li Kuan’s fanatically American-hating terrorists.

What surprised Charles was Marte Price’s immediate and good-natured acceptance of his contrition. A woman who clearly didn’t hold petty grudges, he thought. He told her the story about how Mandy was murdered by Li Kuan’s thugs in Suzhou.

“And this General Chang tried to help you find out where Li Kuan was?”

“Yes. Then he disappeared. His girlfriend—”

“Wu Ling, right?”

“Yes.” Charles was impressed by her attentiveness and memory.

“You told me you told State,” she said, “but that they don’t believe you, or rather, they think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill — not of Amanda’s death, but that your bereavement has made you paranoid.”

“Something like that.” She was remarkable, insightful and quick. She paused and patted the pockets of her jeans. Her top, “on-camera” half was captive in a no-nonsense, gender-equality black business jacket and a high- collared, almost prudish, white blouse which was mocked by her lower, more casual attire. He liked her — a lot. He could tell she believed him about Chang’s discovery of a Beijing-Kazakhstan deal, which, if it could be proved, would result in crippling trade sanctions against China — the removal of its highly coveted U.S. “preferred-nation” status.

“Mr. Riser, I have contacts — good contacts — at State,” she said. “They’ve suspected China of making such a deal with Li Kuan for months and—”

“They have?” cut in Charles. “Then why on earth—”

“Charles — may I call you Charles?”

“Of course.”

Charles Riser, she saw, was a decent man, a genuine cultural attache, not a spy using the “cultural” cover. But he obviously didn’t understand the enormous economic war between the U.S. and China that was going to be one of the defining U.S. strategies of the twenty-first century, as the battle between Japan and the U.S. had been in the latter half of the twentieth.

“The problem, Charles, is that State, the administration, needs concrete proof of such a deal before they can act.”

Riser fell silent for several moments, and she saw there were tears in his eyes. “They always get away with it,” he said. “They should have got that bastard Kuan in Afghanistan.”

Marte didn’t respond at once. There was no need. She knew what he meant. Why did the Li Kuans of the world, who murdered, raped, his child, so often evade punishment? Six Americans, the best of the best, led by David Brentwood, had died inside some damn cave in Afghanistan, and still Li Kuan was at large.

Marte touched Riser’s hand. “I’m sorry I can’t do any more. You understand — rumor, speculation, is one thing. It’s concrete evidence we need.”

He felt selfish, and after a long pause, nodded. He understood. He turned attention away from himself. “How are things up here?”

“Not good. Jensen is dispatching two new state-of-the-art sub-hunter hydrofoils from San Francisco, in a couple of those monster Globemasters. But all our ships that were sunk, including the Utah, were supposed to have state-of-the-art antisub stuff aboard.”

“This Jensen,” Charles asked. “He’s the sub admiral, right?” He didn’t really care; he just wanted to hear her talk. The last woman who’d touched him like that had been his wife, Elizabeth. It seemed a thousand years ago. He felt utterly exhausted, unable even to will himself to move.

“Jensen is—was—COMSUBPAC Group 9,” replied Marte. “He sent a Coast Guard ship, the Skate, in to help. In horrible search conditions. Everything socked in by fog.” There was a pause. “Look—” she began.

Her producer was anxious and gestured at her. In three minutes she was to give a report on the sea of refugees still moving south into Oregon and California.

“Have you got a picture of Amanda?” she asked Charles. “Anything we might use if something breaks?” It was a question she’d asked scores of bereaved parents during her reporter’s career.

He had a lot of pictures of Mandy, one with Wu Ling.

“ ’Course,” said Charles, “you’ve got one of this—” He paused. “—animal.” It was the same computer- enhanced photo of Li Kuan that the CIA and other agencies had, the terrorist’s pockmarked bald scalp and hazel European eyes in stark contrast to his otherwise distinctly Chinese features. The pockmarked scalp gave Kuan what Charles told Marte was a particularly sinister appearance, even for a terrorist.

In her twenty years as a correspondent, Marte had seen terrorists and other cold-blooded killers, such as Ted Bundy, who looked almost angelic, so Li Kuan’s appearance did not unduly affect her. “Yes,” she said, handing the photo back to Charles, “we already have this on file. Everyone has, Charles. It’s the only one, and as you can see, not a particularly useful one.”

She was trying to explain to him that you just can’t stick someone’s photo on TV, even that of a terrorist, and say they’re linked to Beijing — that they’re in cahoots — without proof. And there had been absolutely no evidence from any of the media feed she was getting that the Muslim terrorists had anything to do with China’s push against Taiwan.

“But,” Charlie Riser countered, “Muslim terrorists everywhere hate Americans.”

“Yes,” she conceded, “they do,” but she knew it was a non sequitur, Charlie Riser understandably fixated on the terrorists because of his daughter’s murder. Marte empathized. She remembered the terrible murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who’d been captured by the Taliban in 2002, horribly tortured and then executed, his grisly death videotaped by the terrorists. Pearl left a grieving wife and an unborn son behind. Even the hard-bitten types amongst the international media had been shocked.

Charlie Riser looked over at her and said, “I have a gut feeling that Li Kuan is behind these sub attacks. You know,” he told Marte, “he tells Beijing, ’You help us hit the Great Satan and we’ll be no trouble in Kazakhstan.’ “

Marte Price’s producer gave up on his earlier polite tone. “Marte! Ten seconds!” he shouted.

She put her hand on Charles’s. “I’ll do what I can, talk to Freeman — see what he has.” With that, she rose quickly and got back in front of the universal eye.

“Five seconds, Marte.”

“Proof,” she said to Riser. “Concrete proof. If your friend Chang manages to smuggle out any concrete proof to Wu Ling — call me.”

Then she was back on air.

State had been looking for Charles everywhere, and when he got back to Seattle, the tall girl was waiting, trying to be very stern. “Washington expected you in D.C. today.”

“Did they?”

“Yes, and I’ve been told you’re to leave on this evening’s flight from SeaTac.”