“You got something!” she said. “Another threatening e-mail to McSweeney.”
“No shit?”
Gallo pulled out his seat and hunkered in front of the computer. Angela put her hand on his shoulder.
Not bad, he thought.
“Can you track it?” she asked.
“Maybe.” He stared at the screen. “Probably,” he said.
His fingers started to fly around the keyboard.
Five minutes later, Gallo looked up from the computer and realized that Angela had left. He cursed silently to himself, then went back to work.
74
Driving back to her hotel after speaking to the doctor, Lia wondered why she was so convinced that Forester hadn’t killed himself. Was it the kid? Amanda Rauci? Or the fact that a Secret Service agent was supposed to be tough enough to stand up to standard strains and stresses, like a marriage gone bad?
Maybe Lia just didn’t like the idea that someone could feel so bad he would want to kill himself. She’d fought so hard to live that she couldn’t imagine the other side of things.
Her sat phone rang. It was Chris Farlekas, the relief Art Room supervisor. Lia, as she often did, had “forgotten” to turn her com system back on after lunch.
But he wasn’t calling to scold her.
“We have something,” Farlekas told her. “It’s another e-mailed threat. We know where it came from. Ambassador Jackson is informing the Secret Service and FBI liaisons, but you may want to tell Mandarin about it yourself.” Farlekas explained the circumstances. The house was just north of Poughkeepsie, not far from the Taconic State Parkway or Pine Plains — but not close enough, Lia thought, to be the target of Forester’s investigation.
“Go with them when they investigate,” Farlekas added.
“We can analyze the computer a lot quicker than their people can.”
75
At eight stories high, Tam Ky’s municipal building not only towered over the town but also dominated the jungle beyond, its white body standing like a ghost before a dark castle.
From the distance, the building made the city seem larger than it truly was, the eye and brain adding bulk to the blocks around it out of a sense of proportion.
“I don’t want you to get insulted,” Dean told Qui as they parked. “But when we go in, I’m going to talk to him alone.”
“I’m not insulted.” Qui took the key from the ignition and opened her door.
There were more bicycles and motorbikes here than there were in Saigon, and many fewer cars. A large open square paved with pinkish brown stones sat before the municipal building at the center of town. Dean couldn’t remember being in Tam Ky during the war, but he was sure it wouldn’t have looked like this — bright and shining in the sun, the facades of the nearby buildings showing off new paint, the tree leaves so green they almost looked fake.
There were no guards, and no receptionist in the lobby as they entered. The floors and walls were polished stone.
“Second floor,” Rockman told Dean. “Near the back.” Dean passed the information on to his interpreter, who simply assumed that Dean knew where the person was he’d come to meet. They walked up a wide flight of stairs at the side of the lobby, passing a large mural of Uncle Ho Chi Minh.
The office corridors were much less elaborate than the public area below. The carpet was well-worn and the hallways narrow. The doors to many of the offices were open, revealing mazelike interior passages and tiny cubicles separated by carpet-faced partitions. Dean didn’t see more than two or three people as he passed.
Dean and Qui entered the second door from the end, turning until they found a woman sitting at a small desk.
“I’m here to see Phuc Dinh,” Dean said in English. Qui translated.
“You have an appointment?” The young woman, who looked barely out of her teens, used English.
“No. But we have a mutual friend.”
Dean meant Forester, but he thought of Longbow instead.
“Mr. Dinh is out this morning. We expect him back after lunch.”
“Our friend’s name is Forester,” said Dean. “I’ll be back after lunch.”
He leaned against her desk, slipping an audio bug into place.
Dean bought Qui lunch at a cafe a few blocks away. While the translator went to the restroom, Dean took out his satellite phone and pretended to be talking on it as he talked to the Art Room. He’d left a booster unit in the car, but it was a little out of range; the two bugs he’d planted at the office building were sending garbled signals.
“You’re going to have to leave a booster much closer,” said Rockman.
“All right, I’ll do it as soon as I get rid of Qui.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to tap the building phone network?” Rockman asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Dean. “There were no guards in the lobby. There looked like there was a door at the other side of the staircase. But anyone could come right down and see me.”
“You could say you were lost.”
Dean looked up and saw Qui returning.
“Yeah, well, I’ll make sure to update you to night,” Dean said into the phone. “Take it easy.” Qui gave him a soft smile as she sat. “Reporting in?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you know Phuc Dinh during the war, Mr. Dean?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I know you’re not here for your job, Mr. Dean. Not for the International Fund, at any rate.”
“What would I be here for, if not that?”
“Your conscience would be my bet.”
A waiter approached. Dean let Qui order two large bottles of water, and then meals.
“Do you remember the people you killed?” she asked when the waiter retreated.
“Some I remember,” Dean told Qui honestly. “Every one of them wanted to kill me.”
“I’m sure.”
“What side were you on during the war?” The waiter appeared with their water before Qui could answer. She waited until he was gone.
“The proper answer today in Vietnam, Mr. Dean, is that we were all on the same side. The proper answer is that we all fought for liberation in our own way.”
“And what was your answer during the war?” Qui sipped her water. She was a beautiful woman, Dean realized, too old to be pretty, but age had given her a presence that a younger woman could never emulate. She looked up at him and caught him staring; something flashed in her eyes — anger, maybe, or resentment — and then she looked down.
Dean, too, changed the direction of his gaze, turning his head and looking across the street. Two girls were jumping rope in front of a small shop across from the cafe. One wore a matched top and pants in pink; the other had Western-style jeans, complete with sequins down the side. They were laughing and singing a counting song as they skipped over the rope.
