elements of government. Even so, there would have been no reason for the Guoanbu director to go there personally.
“I had been preparing to leave for the launch, Mr. Prime Minister, but I want to be here for the investigation,” Tam Li went on.
“I understand,” Le replied. “Let me know what you discover.”
“At once,” the general assured him.
“And General?”
“Sir?”
“Has Taiwan begun its traditional coastal exercises?”
“They have,” Tam Li replied.
“Then tell your bureau of information to inform the Defense Ministry that a government jet has crashed on the runway, nothing more,” Le said. “Until your white team finds the director’s remains and has confirmed his death, I do not want that information released.”
“Yes, sir. May I ask why?”
“Taipei may see the death of our military intelligence chief as an invitation to expand their mischief,” the prime minister replied.
“Of course.”
“I will speak with you after the launch.”
Le Kwan Po hung up. He turned to his left. Paul Hood was wearing a perplexed look. Anita regarded her father with open concern. Obviously, that was what had caused Hood’s expression.
“What has happened?” Anita asked.
“Chou Shin has been killed in an explosion,” he told her.
“One of his own design? An accident?”
“I do not know,” Le said.
“Are you going to tell the gentleman?” she asked, indicating Hood with her eyes. She obviously did not want to say his name, which he would pick from the unfamiliar dialogue.
“American satellites will surely have seen the explosion,” her father said. “I will have to tell him something.” He could see that Anita wanted to suggest something. “Do you have any thoughts?”
“Tell him the truth,” she said.
“Why?”
“He is an intelligence officer,” she said. “He might be able to give us insight into the actions of another intelligence officer.”
Le managed a small smile. “That is true. But that is not the insight we might need at this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Chou Shin and Tam Li were bitter rivals,” the prime minister said. “It is the insight of a thwarted military officer we might need.”
“I believe our guest may know someone like that as well,” Anita said.
Le had to think for a moment. “The man whose company built the satellite?” he asked, once again avoiding any names.
Anita nodded.
“All right,” her father said. “Let’s have a chat with Mr. Hood. As quietly as possible, so the others do not hear.
Anita turned to Hood and said that her father wished to speak with him. Le took a moment to gather his thoughts.
He needed to find out why Chou Shin had gone to the base when he should have been flying to Xichang. It was unlikely that anyone at the Guoanbu knew. Chou Shin was a man who guarded his own activities as jealously as he kept secrets of state. Perhaps the intelligence director had contacted someone before leaving or while en route. The prime minister would have his assistant look into that.
Of more immediate concern, Le did not know whether Tam Li had simply decided to carry their feud to a new level. That was certainly a possibility. It was also the one that concerned him the most. Because if it were true, there was no telling where — or how — it might stop.
FORTY-EIGHT
Hood was not surprised by what Anita told him. He would not miss Chou Shin. The man was a hard-line ideologue who kept China anchored to its backward, isolationist past. Whose agents had helped to endanger his Op-Center field team in Botswana when they tracked a kidnapped priest.
But assassination, if that’s what had happened, was not a policy that Paul Hood endorsed. It was the last and ultimately least effective resort of desperate megalomaniacs. If they did not have the support to accomplish what they wanted through legitimate means, murder was a short-term solution.
“Do you need help with something?” Hood asked the prime minister through his daughter.
“I am concerned about Tam Li,” Le Kwan Po replied. “Your own friend the general might have some thoughts. Perhaps you have your own sources.”
Ordinarily, Hood would be suspicious of a Chinese leader who asked for help from American intelligence. Though the presidential envoy did not entirely trust the man, he believed in him. Le Kwan Po had been caught between two strong polar forces. One of them had just been eliminated. He was clearly looking to restabilize himself and perhaps his nation.
“I will call him when we land,” Hood promised. He did not want to contact him while they were in flight. Rodgers was probably with the marines. The pilots might be able to track his call using the sophisticated electronics of the aircraft. He did not want to give them that opportunity. “In the interim there is someone else who might have some insights,” he said.
Hood called Liz Gordon. The Op-Center psychologist had just gotten home and was feeding her cat.
“Paul Hood,” she said flatly. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again.”
“Frankly, I didn’t expect to be calling,” he fired back.
As a rule, Hood had not been a booster of psychiatry or profiling. He still was not sure it deserved the validity and effort law enforcement gave it. Occasionally, however, it offered useful insights.
Gordon snickered. “Touche. What can I do for you?”
“Has Bob kept you abreast of the situation in China?”
“I read his summary before leaving,” she said.
“There’s been a new development,” Hood said. “The nonmilitary individual was eliminated, apparently by his rival.”
“The man who was hit in Charleston and Taipei struck back,” she said.
“Right.”
Hood knew that Liz would understand his shorthand. There were English-speakers on board the aircraft. The engines were loud but not that loud. Some of them might overhear.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said.
“Why?”
“Soldiers are not diplomats. They run out of words and patience faster than other people,” Liz told him. “Where did this happen?”
“At a base in the east.”
“Isn’t this his rocket being launched?” Liz asked.
“Yes.”
“Why isn’t he there?”
“The big man says he is staying at home to oversee the investigation,” Hood told her. “Perhaps he is concerned that the deceased succeeded in his alleged plot to boobytrap the mission.”
