Dean took the faxed pages from his pocket and slid them across the table to her. “If he bothers you, show him a copy of this.”
Qui left the papers untouched on the table. Neither she nor Dean said anything for a full minute. Finally Dean rose to go.
“Thank you, Charlie Dean. I see what my future might have been. Now, I no longer have to mourn for it.”
111
“What the
Bing was sitting next to the President. Her gaze was directed at the floor.
“I’m not sure, Mr. President,” said Rubens. He braced himself. The entire trip down — he’d decided he better use the helicopter — he’d gone over different scenarios, different plans for what to say and do depending on what the President and, more important, Bing said. But they fled in the face of Marcke’s anger.
Marcke’s desk was littered with twisted paper clips — not a good sign.
“Are the Vietnamese involved in this, or what?” demanded the President.
“No, sir,” answered Rubens. “There’s no evidence of it at all.”
“Who is?”
“I’m not sure. To this point, the investigation—” Rubens stopped speaking as Marcke dropped the paper clip he’d been twisting in his fingers and rose. Rubens had often watched the President pace in his office before, but never like this. He nearly speed walked from side to side.
“McSweeney called me, you know,” he told Rubens. “We were senators together. I always thought the man was a jerk, though we did manage to work together when necessary. We actually got a few good bills passed into law. But regardless.” The President stopped his pacing and glanced over at Bing. “You can go, Donna.”
The President’s glare made it clear there was no point in protesting.
“Yes, Mr. President,” she said, her voice barely a whisper as she made her escape.
Marcke waited for Bing to leave.
“Who shot at McSweeney?”
“I only know for certain that the Vietnamese government was not involved,” said Rubens.
“I want this figured out,” said Marcke, cutting him off.
“Do you understand?”
“The Secret Service and FBI—”
“Aren’t getting squat done. That was a U.S. senator who was shot at, Bill. A presidential candidate,” said Marcke.
“I’m working on it, Mr. President.”
“Good. You can go.”
“There’s one thing that you should be aware of,” said Rubens, deciding he’d better tell Marcke everything he knew about the situation. “We’re still working on this, but there’s a possibility that the attempt was connected with the theft of money in Vietnam during the war there. Senator McSweeney was an officer there at the time.” Rubens explained what they had found, carefully noting that there was no proof that McSweeney had taken the money, or that any American had.
“When did you find this out?” asked the President.
“Within the last twenty-four hours.”
“Why
haven’t you been briefing me on this yourself, Bill?” Rather than angry, the President seemed almost hurt — or, more accurately, disappointed.
“You told me to report to you through Ms. Bing.” Marcke furled his arms in front of his chest. “Get to the bottom of this. I don’t want any elected officials assassinated — even if they’re running against me. Especially then.”
“Yes, sir.” Rubens waited a half second, then turned to leave.
“And Billy — you talk to me directly from now on when the matter concerns Deep Black. Everything else can go through channels, up the ladder with Admiral Brown when he gets back, Ms. Bing, and so on. But not Desk Three. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Rubens.
112
Even though Cam Tre Luc had reversed the order directing that Dean be apprehended, the Art Room arranged another pickup for them. A speedboat picked them up at the harbor just before dawn; a half hour later they were climbing into the belly of a he li cop ter whose own er made good money transporting roustabouts to the oil derricks off the South Vietnamese shore. The chopper took them to an airstrip, where they’d caught a plane to Thailand and then boarded a commercial airliner for home.
On the flight from Bangkok to LA — first class, arranged by Rubens despite his earlier comment — Dean thought of Qui.
He remembered her face and voice, the easy way she had, how even when addressing him very formally and keeping him at a distance, she seemed intimate, more than a friend.
He tried but could not explain to himself what the attraction was. It wasn’t physical, he didn’t think; Qui was past the age where she might be called pretty, and in any event he hadn’t felt sexually aroused by her. If he had represented an alternate future to her — what she must have meant when they said good-bye in the bar — she must have represented something different to him. But what exactly that was wouldn’t fit into a neat equation.
Dean thought back to the mountain lion, to his shot then, and to the mission with Longbow. Every moment held a fork or a bridge in the road — a different direction based on a decision you made, often without knowing it. Some of the possibilities lived on, like ghosts haunting a future they couldn’t have, or a past they’d come to regret.
Then Dean thought of Lia, longed to hold her, and drifted off to sleep.
113
“The senator is in LA, not Albany,” the secretary told Chief Ball. “I’m sorry.”
“Give me that number then.”
“I’m afraid—”
“Just give me the general number for the campaign there.
No, wait,” said Ball. “Give me Jimmy Fingers’ cell phone.”
“Mr. Fahey does not give out his cell phone number.”
“Baloney. Every stinkin’ politician on the East Coast has it.”
“Sir, if you care to leave a number, I’m sure that Mr. Fahey will call you back when they return east.”
“That’s too long to wait.” Ball turned around from the phone, glancing down the long, narrow barroom. He was being paranoid, he knew, but he was afraid someone was tracing the call and would send the police here any moment.
