She bit her lip.
“You can have a new life, a new name, an apartment in any city, anywhere. You’ll be free,” said Faith.
Gong Dao turned her head. She had a puzzled look on her face.
A flash of light filled the room, forcing hot air into lungs and eyes and ears.
The force of the explosion ripped the Jefferson library room apart. Masonry, plaster, and wood turned into flying weapons in a split second.
The noise echoed for long seconds and then a rumbling started as joists settled and pale fragments of wall and floor fell for another a half minute.
The explosive compound identified later was Russian, but it could have been used by any number of actors.
The Chinese Embassy had a security team at the site within ten minutes. It was claimed that they were preparing for a security test nearby. It was likely they were tracking Gong Dao.
Jim Stein, who’d been the Central Intelligence Agency’s liaison for Faith’s meeting monitoring team, was the first US official to enter the library. He coughed from the thick clouds of plaster dust and could barely see. He’d raced into the room without even putting on a face mask.
He found Faith after Gong Dao, who was clearly dead, a piece of wood in her chest, her eyes wide, unmoving.
And Faith wasn’t dead.
He carried her out of the library, stumbling on debris, but he didn’t drop her. There were risks carrying a wounded person, but there were also the risks of falling debris and her breathing being compromised by the dust.
A hotel worker was screaming at the top of her voice in the corridor. The man didn’t stop as Jim carried Faith past him to the reception area, where dust was drifting and outside into the CIA minivan he had arrived in twenty minutes before.
“George Washington Hospital, fast,” he shouted at the driver.
Faith’s head was in his lap. He put his lips to hers and forced air into her mouth. There was no response. She wasn’t breathing.
His heart pounded. He remembered a tour he’d been on in Iraq, when one of his team had died in his arms. He wasn’t going to let Faith go.
“You got any water?” he shouted at the driver.
A bottle was handed to him. He opened it, poured a lot of it across Faith’s dust smeared face.
He slapped her cheek.
“Come on, come back, come back,” he shouted. There was no response.
The driver swerved around a corner.
He moved Faith so she was more on her side. He had to make sure she could breathe. He slapped her back. Once, then a second time.
“You know what you’re doing?” shouted the driver.
Faith coughed.
Jim held her hand tight.
“You’re going to make it,” he whispered. “Hang in there.”
80
Washington DC, June 7th, 2020
Jim Stein shrugged. “Anyone would have done the same,” he said.
Dr. Bishop, the lead CIA officer inside TOTALVACS, shook his head.
“The doctors told me she’d probably have died if she’d been left to bleed out in that library.”
Jim adjusted the angle on his laptop. The secure video conferencing system he was using had a tendency to darken your face if you didn’t have good light in the room.
“We think the Chinese did it, right?” said Bishop.
“They claim we did it.”
“Yeah, and we almost killed one of our own. That’s just bull crap.”
“They say we killed Wang Hu as well,” said Jim. “They claim we’ve been trying to get their officials to defect.”
“That’s as good as an admission,” said Bishop. “They had to make sure she wouldn’t spill the beans about them deliberately spreading the virus.”
“What’s our story for the media?”
“A gas leak,” said Bishop. “Very unfortunate.”
“Gong Dao was going to defect, wasn’t she?” said Jim.
“That fake message we sent to her phone would have pushed her over the edge.”
“What about McNeil? How long is he going to get?” said Jim.
“If TOTALVACS appoints him a good trial lawyer, he should be out by Christmas,” said Bishop.
“I know someone who can probably get him out before that,” said Jim.
“What do we know about this yellow dragon society Faith spoke about during the meeting with Gong Dao?” asked Bishop.
“Not a lot. Wang Hu mentioned them in his initial debrief. Faith used the information. She was bluffing, hoping to get a reaction.”
“We’ll have to keep digging,” said Bishop.
Jim smiled, briefly. “Remember what Confucius said.”
“What’s that?” said Bishop.
“It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.”
Before You Go – Two Things
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The Conspiracy II Page 21
