“Nah,” said Broome as they walked out to the waiting marshal car. “Just Wall Street guys. Worried about kidnapping. The usual stuff.”
“Oh,” said Josh, clearly disappointed.
21
He got hardly any sleep. He could feel his enemy nearby, but the sensation was one of frustration and failure, of worthlessness. He knew the scientist must be close to him, almost in the next room. Yet he was very far away.
A story in the morning newspaper, this time the
Or the paper said that the president had to offer proof to be taken seriously. Jing Yo wasn’t sure which. But the scientist would be plenty of proof.
Where was he? Jing Yo walked uptown and then east to the UN. The crowds were gone, or hadn’t gathered yet, but there were fresh barriers, this time several blocks away. The police turned back everyone a block away unless they could prove they either lived in the neighborhood or worked at the UN. Jing Yo tried three different approaches, mentally recording everything that happened. Coming from the north would be the easiest, he decided, but it would be better to have a worker’s ID than a resident’s. Workers were questioned less.
There were plenty of work trucks on the surrounding blocks. He could grab a driver, take his license. Though it would be better to have his own license.
Jing Yo continued his survey of the area, growing more and more restless. He began to doubt his instinct, and the inexplicable feeling that his foe was nearby. Logic dictated that the scientist would be in Washington, at the CIA, being debriefed by government officials. He might already have made a video statement. It might be too late to prevent him from doing harm.
Of course it was too late for that. And to Jing Yo, it was irrelevant. He cared only about killing the scientist. That was his mission. Everything else was irrelevant.
Wrath was all he was after. Revenge.
And yet, that was the greatest temptation, the sin of ego, a turning away from the path. He was motivated by anger, not by his allegiance to the one true Way. And what good came of that?
Jing Yo had heard nothing from Mr. Wong by noon. He moved westward on the island, deciding to seek out a place where he might obtain a false ID, and perhaps a weapon, in case he had to act on his own. He had two important handicaps: his difficulty with the language, and his lack of knowledge about the city.
It would be foolish to go up to a person on the street and ask where he could get a phony license. And even worse would come from asking where to buy a gun in a city where owning one was against the law.
He thought of making himself a target for a thief and then taking his weapon from him. But perhaps he looked too little like a victim: for all the stories and rumors of crime run rampant in the city, no one approached Jing Yo or even menaced him with a stare. He found a store to stay in while it rained, leaving as the shower began to diminish a half hour later. By 2:45, even the mist had cleared, though the sky remained overcast.
At 3 p.m., with still no word from Mr. Wong, Jing Yo went to Central Park, he found a large rock outcropping with no one nearby and sat to make a phone call.
Someone picked up before the second ring.
“What has happened?” asked Jing Yo in Chinese.
“What?” said a voice. It answered in Chinese, but was different from the one that had answered the phone the night before.
“Have you found him?” asked Jing Yo.
“We are working. You will wait for your instructions.”
“Perhaps he is in Washington. Let me go there.”
“When we have an assignment, we will tell you.”
“It may already be too late,” said Jing Yo.
“Time is not your concern. You will do as you are told. No longer call this number unless it is a true emergency.”
The line clicked dead. Jing Yo put the phone in his pocket, slid down the rock, and began walking once more. He found himself at the entrance to the zoo. He paid the separate admission — surprised to receive change — then wandered through the exhibits.
The rain forest made him long for Vietnam, and for Hyuen Bo.
Jing Yo left the park and walked in the direction of his hotel. He was a block away when a black Hyundai Genesis L pulled up to the curb next to where he was walking. The rear window rolled down.
“You will join me please,” said Mr. Wong from the backseat.
The backseat of the stretch sedan had three flat-screen displays embedded in the false seat back below the glass separating the driver and passengers. Each one was tuned to a different television news station, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, from right to left. The volume was off, but a Chinese translation of each show’s sound track ran across the bottom of the screen.
“Would you like some tea?” Mr. Wong asked as the car pulled from the curb.
“No, thank you.”
“How have you spent your day?”
“I have walked around the city.”
“Thinking about your assignment?”
“My mind was not quiet,” answered Jing Yo. It was an answer the monks would give.
“Then it was productive,” said Mr. Wong. “Problems must be attacked from many directions.”
That answer was also one a monk might give.
Jing Yo looked at the screen on the left. An analyst was talking about the price of oil, which had risen fifteen dollars a barrel during the day. The change was considered minor.
“Your theory about the UN is an interesting one, and has perhaps borne fruit,” said Mr. Wong. “We have obtained the senator’s schedule from a friend. It has several stops in the area, tonight and tomorrow, before he goes to the UN.”
“I understand.”
“If you follow him, your scientist will perhaps meet him. But it is possible he will not.”
“If he meets him, I will be there.”
The edge of Mr. Wong’s mouth turned up slightly.
“You are said to be a most capable man, Jing Yo. Worthy of great trust. But there were problems in Vietnam.”
“There were difficulties.”
“You were on the wrong side of the people there?”
“I did nothing to offend them, except my job.”
“Their attitude toward you was a mystery?”
“Yes,” said Jing Yo.
“And your commander: he may feel you a great warrior, but he is not your friend.”
“I need only orders from him, not friendship.”
“What would you do if you were ordered home?”
Jing Yo considered the question. It was an obvious test, but what did Mr. Wong really want? A lie, so that he could satisfy himself that Jing Yo would do what he was told — or more likely, so he could report back that Jing Yo was still a faithful soldier? Or the truth, so that he could properly judge his character?
Jing Yo decided that he could not tell, and because of that, he admitted that he would disobey the
