anyway. Less chance of anyone noticing who you are that way.”
Tombstone nodded again. This amateur 007 stuff drove him crazy. It fed into his mounting conviction that he was on a snipe hunt, while the real action was happening out at sea, with the carrier group.
But orders were orders. In his wallet he carried a piece of paper with Martin Lee’s telephone number and address written on it in both English and Chinese, courtesy of someone at the Pentagon. Not that Lee had agreed to speak with Tombstone, or anyone else. Evidently he had even stopped answering his telephone.
Joe checked his watch. “We’ll have someone drive you to the airport, Admiral. Your flight leaves at thirteen hundred. Commander Flynn, we’ve got a Tomcat on the deck waiting to get you out to
After he left, Tombstone turned to Tomboy. “Decent of him. Give me a kiss. It might be a while before we have another chance.”
“Why, Admiral… what if someone were to walk in?”
“I’d accuse you of attacking me.”
“And you’d be right.”
Still, they kept the kiss short.
It had been a hectic day in Washington, an endless string of meetings with various cabinet members and think tank groups, and Ambassador Wexler was about to slide into a hot bath when the phone rang.
She scowled at it, debating letting the hotel’s answering service pick it up. Any really critical calls would have come in on her cell phone.
But in the end, she went and grabbed up the receiver anyway. Sometimes she lamented her own compulsiveness.
The first thing she heard was the unmistakable background cacophony of a kitchen in full swing.
A clipped, formal voice said, “Madame Ambassador, this is Ambassador T’ing from the People’s Republic of China.”
“Right, and I’m Little Orphan Annie from the planet Zondar.” She was about to hang up when the voice said, “Please.”
Something about the tone of that word… well, it wasn’t a word you often heard expressed with sincerity in her line of work… something about it made her bring the receiver back to her ear. “What is this?”
“Please, Madame Ambassador. It is very difficult for me to make this call at all. I ask you not to make it any more difficult.”
By God, the voice
“Not in my country.” That did it. The voice was so dry, the words so ambiguous, their source
“You mean —
“Just so. There are certain things I must discuss with you. Things for your ears only, you understand.”
“Not entirely. There are channels for this. And how did you find out where I was staying, anyway?”
He didn’t answer her question. “It is crucial for the futures of both our nations that we have this conversation, Ambassador. And that only you and I are involved at this point. Could you meet with me? Shall we say, at the Lincoln Memorial?”
She blinked. He
She surprised herself by saying, “When?”
“Bit bumpy, ma’am,” the COD pilot said over ICS. “Sorry about that.”
“I’m used to it,” Tomboy said from the backseat. She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. He was right about the turbulence, though. Serious-looking storm clouds crowded against one another all over the water surrounding
This particular Tomcat was on its way to the carrier to replace the one shot down during the previous day’s air battle. There was something grim in hitching a ride on this particular bird… still, she found few places more comfortable than the backseat of an F-14. The sounds, the smells, the vibrations… they were all a part of her.
As the jet banked onto final, she felt the usual mixture of exhilaration and fear leap up in her gut. It was a sensation familiar to all RIOs. After all, short of opting to punch out, backseaters had absolutely no control over what the Tomcat did with them in the air other than the ultimate veto option — the ejection seat handle. On the other hand, RIOs also didn’t have to worry about actually landing the big bird on the deck of a pitching aircraft carrier… so they could, at some fatalistic level, simply relax and enjoy the ride.
After the jolt and the stomach-compressing deceleration that told her the wire had been successfully snagged, she let out a long breath and grinned. “Nice trap,” she said over ICS.
“Thank you, ma’am,” the pilot replied.
Batman was waiting for her when she climbed out of the plane. As always, she had to suppress the urge to hug him. His smile, tired but genuine, told her he was thinking the same thing. “Good to see you, Tomboy,” he said.
“You too, Admiral.”
“How’s Stoney?”
“I’ll fill you in on him real soon, Batman,” she said as they ducked in out of the wind and noise of the flight deck. “But first, let me go talk to our witness.”
“You bet,” he said. “Just do me one favor: Don’t mention all these thunderheads, okay?”
The boy scurried past the rows of illegal dentist offices and into the Walled City. Immediately, he left behind the light and clamor of Kowloon for an older, darker city.
The Walled City had been a curiosity, an embarrassment, and a dangerous pain for every ruler of the region ever since the British expanded their control from Hong Kong proper onto the mainland. At that time, due to a bureaucratic snafu, a section of Kowloon had remained, strictly speaking, an unleased section of the People’s Republic. The British dealt with this anomaly by pretending it wasn’t there. Squatters immediately moved into this lawless section of the city, erecting a shantytown devoid of electricity, fresh water or sanitation. Here was where criminals and drug runners fled and hid, knowing their foreign landlords would never dare pursue. The British responded by constructing a stone wall around the sector.
During World War Two the Japanese occupation government tore down the wall itself to supply raw materials for extending the runway of Kai Tak Airport, but the Walled City remained there in spirit. And it remained there still, demarcating the line between bright Kowloon and an intricate warren composed of narrow alleys and staircases descending to deathtraps. Even now, under PRC control, the Walled City remained a land apart, a shadow city where lived those who wished to avoid the attention of the authorities. Any authorities.
The boy ran down an alley barely a meter wide, his rubber sandals slapping through puddles of water that never went away. He glanced over his shoulder. No one behind him. Immediately he turned and darted down a steep set of steps. At the bottom he rapped on a door, then pushed through. “I have a message,” he said in Cantonese to the hard-faced man standing there. The man, who appeared to be Japanese or Korean or some other foreign race, merely nodded.
