refuge at the mosque.
Suddenly, something about it troubled him.
He reenvisioned it, and the same troubling feeling lingered, but he could not discover its source.
Switching paradigms, he envisioned the scenario as the Go board, set his black stones down, and played the game. It had its expected challenges, but nothing more. If, Nicholai thought, Voroshenin knows my real identity and recalls his treatment of the Countess Alexandra Ivanovna, then I might well be moving into a trap, but I already know that and am prepared.
There is something else.
He switched mental models again and decided to play the white stones against his own black.
It was a revelation.
Oddly, he found that he counted among the white stones not only the Russians and the “Red” Chinese, but the Americans as well. His mind lined them up as white stones and, examining the board as he would if he were playing that side, he saw it.
57
NINETY MINUTES from operational status.
Unable to contain his nervous energy, Haverford paced the situation room. In thirty minutes they would go “dark,” all substantive cable and telephonic traffic would cease. Some “flak” would be thrown up – run-of-the-mill crap to let the Soviets and Chinese think that it was just business as usual, but there would be no communication between Langley and the situation room.
Singleton would go off to some affair at the White House. Diamond was going hunting with his buddies.
If this went south, it would all be on the Tokyo station.
“Do a final status check.”
“We just did -”
“Did I ask you what you just did?”
They ran another check.
Alpha Tiger: In place.
Bravo Team: In place.
The Monk: In place.
Go Player: In place.
Papa Bear…
Papa Bear.
“Papa Bear’s off the radar.”
“What?”
“Papa Bear,” the nervous young agent said. “He’s off the radar.”
“Run it down.”
Frantic phone calls to Hong Kong turned up nothing. Emile Guibert wasn’t at his house on Victoria Peak, not at his office downtown, his club in Western. Not at his mistress’s pad. Off the radar.
They were thin on the ground in HK because of British hypersensitivity. In fact, Haverford briefly considered reaching out to Wooten for help. The MI-6 man had the Hong Kong police on his payroll and could scour the island quicker than the small American contingent.
But he decided that he couldn’t answer the questions that Wooten would ask, and that the payback would be too ferocious, so he had to leave it to Benton’s people.
The search took twenty-eight endless minutes.
Haverford jumped on the cable.
P-BEAR OFF GRID. ABORT? ADVISE.
John Singleton took his wool overcoat off the coat rack and put it on. His left shoulder suffered from bursitis, so it took a few seconds. He wrapped his scarf tightly around his neck, put on his hat, and headed out the door of his office.
For most people, going to the White House was a thrill; for Singleton, it was a chore. He was halfway down the hall when his assistant scurried up behind him.
“Yes?”
“An urgent cable from Tokyo.”
He glanced at it and said, “Not now.”
“You don’t want to res -”
“I can’t very well respond to something that you didn’t give to me, can I?” he said. “I had already left the building. I’ll look at it when I come back.”
The elevator doors slid open.
“We’re dark,” the young agent said.
That is
Singleton had hung him out to dry. The old spymaster would take credit for the success, but dump blame for the failure on Haverford.
“It’s your call.”
“Just find Emile Guibert,” Haverford snapped, “and spare me your observations of the obvious.”
“Sorry.”
Fifty-nine minutes out.
Once operational, Haverford had the authority to abort the mission at his discretion. He could flip the “kill switch,” which would trigger an alert that Hel knew to look for. In that case, Hel would simply walk out of his hotel, a preplanned diversion would occupy his surveillance, and he would go straight to the Niujie Mosque.
“Keep trying on Papa Bear.”
“Yes, sir.”
Assume the worst-case scenario, Haverford told himself.
Assume that Voroshenin has Guibert and is sweating him.
Assume that Guibert has given it up.
Given that scenario, Voroshenin knows that Guibert is a cover, but Guibert couldn’t have given him Hel’s real identity. All Voroshenin knows is that “Michel Guibert” is a cover under British control, which is what Guibert believes. Voroshenin will take the next logical mental step, though – he’ll believe that the British were subbing in for us. He’ll know it’s an American operation.
So what does he do?
He gives it to the Chinese, to his buddy Kang.
What does Kang do?
Either he lets Hel stay operational to see where it leads him, or he picks Hel up and tortures the truth out of him. Everything they knew about Kang indicated the latter course of action.
“You confirmed that Go Player is in place?” Haverford asked.
“He signaled.”
Their watchers outside the hotel had seen Hel go in but not come out, and they observed the correct arrangement of the window curtains. Only ten minutes ago, Hel had called room service to request a fresh thermos of water for his tea, so there was every reason to believe that he was safely in his room and not in Kang’s hands.
But for how long? Haverford wondered.
Abort, he told himself.
Get a signal to the Monk, hit the kill switch now.
