All in all, not bad for his first full day back in the real world.
CHAPTER NINE
On New Year’s Eve, Gibson worked the morning rush at the diner before taking the metro into DC. He changed trains at Gallery Place and rode the Red Line uptown. At Van Ness–UDC, he exited and climbed the long, broken escalator up to Connecticut Avenue. A wave of vertigo hit him as he emerged into the open air. He put his hands on his knees and squeezed his eyes closed to keep from panicking. Bear counted slowly backward from twenty, which helped settle him down. He stood upright and took a deep breath. She smiled at him, and, when he felt steady, they walked up the hill to the Chinese embassy to see the Fisherman.
Finding Damon Washburn had proven complex.
An intensive two-day search had confirmed what Gibson had suspected eighteen months ago—Damon Washburn didn’t exist. Whomever Gibson had rescued on the fifth floor of the Wolstenholme Hotel in Niobe, West Virginia, his name wasn’t Damon Washburn. Gibson wished he’d stopped to get some answers from Charles Merrick in the snow. He’d briefly considered tracking Merrick down again, but he didn’t relish the thought of their meeting again. Nor did he care to imagine what it would take to compel Merrick’s cooperation or how much he would enjoy compelling it. Still, it was a better option than launching a penetration attack on the CIA’s employment records. He might be crazy, but not even he thought that a good idea.
“There might be another option,” Duke had pointed out.
Hence today’s trip to the Chinese embassy.
Damon Washburn hadn’t been the only spook in Niobe. Gibson had also crossed paths with a Chinese operative who’d wanted Charles Merrick for his own reasons. In retrospect, perhaps Gibson should have suspected that he was with the Ministry of State Security. But the man in the fisherman’s vest had offered information that Gibson had badly needed, and Gibson hadn’t asked why. He still didn’t know the Fisherman’s name but bet that if the Fisherman knew Charles Merrick, then he also knew Damon Washburn.
“Why are you here?” Gibson asked Bear.
He knew she didn’t think much of Duke’s plan. She thought he should devote himself to finding a way back to Ellie. In her opinion, his vendetta against the man calling himself Damon Washburn would only make things worse. But when Gibson had challenged her to describe what worse might look like, she couldn’t come up with an answer. Since then, she’d held her peace on the subject, still clearly disapproving but not abandoning him. Gibson didn’t understand why.
“Because you’re going to need me,” she said.
“I can do this without you.”
“I know,” Bear agreed sadly. “That’s when you’ll need me.”
The limestone walls of the Chinese embassy rose into sight. The old embassy had been located in a pair of dilapidated apartment buildings at the top of Kalorama near the Taft Bridge. A look unbefitting of the new China. In 2006, a new embassy had been commissioned, modern and sleek. Designed by renowned architect I. M. Pei, it reflected China’s twenty-first-century ambitions. Bear refused to go inside but said she would wait for him by the curb.
The front doors opened into a grand entrance hall large enough to feel deserted despite the heavy traffic. Security was intense, but a scrupulous job had been done concealing the dozens of cameras blanketing the entrance. Gibson walked to the center of the hall and stood there. He waited patiently, chin up so that the cameras could get a good, clean look. He made no hostile moves, knowing that simply standing in an embassy with no apparent business would draw attention. It took security only a minute or so to approach him.
“Do you have business at the embassy?” a guard asked.
“No,” Gibson replied, keeping his eyes up toward the cameras.
“Then I must ask you to leave.”
“Poisonfeather.”
The guard looked at him blankly. The man had no idea what that meant, but it wasn’t intended for him anyway. Gibson said it again to make sure he heard.
“Tell him I want to make a deal.”
“Please leave, sir, or we will call the authorities.”
“Tell him I will be back tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.”
To the guards’ credit, they didn’t lay a hand on Gibson and ushered him courteously off embassy grounds. Bear stood across the street, waiting for him. She still wasn’t dressed for the weather but didn’t look bothered by the cold wind that whipped her dress around her knees.
“How did that go?” she asked.
“I guess we’ll see.”
They walked back down the hill and turned south on Connecticut Avenue past a series of stately apartment buildings. They entered a small commercial district. On the left, he saw a service station and a small strip mall that seem out of place in such tony surroundings. To his right, Gibson looked up at the marquee to see what was playing at the grand Uptown Theater—the last of the old DC movie houses. His father had taken him there to see the twentieth-anniversary rerelease of Star Wars. They’d sat in the first row of the balcony with their feet up. It had been awesome.
Across the street were restaurants, bars, and a few stray shops. Gibson went down the stairs into a cramped basement pool hall with a retro fifties vibe. The Christmas decorations were still up, and the bartenders hurried around setting up for an influx of New Year’s revelers. Gibson found a seat at the bar, ordered a beer, and waited.
After a few hours, the bar began to fill up, and a waiting list grew for one of the six pool tables. The bar stocked board games, and Bear pestered him to play Settlers of Catan, but Gibson knew he’d get himself thrown out playing games by himself. She groaned and spun on her stool, kicking her legs aimlessly until someone took her seat. After that, Gibson kept himself company. An hour before midnight, he paid his tab and made the long train ride back to Virginia. He rang in the New Year on an empty platform at Metro Center.
“Happy New Year, son.”
“You too, Dad.”
“Ought to be a better one.”
“That’s a pretty low bar,” Gibson said, trying to make himself comfortable on one of the concrete benches.
“Exactly,” Duke said, once again immune to sarcasm. He walked to the edge of the platform and sang an old Pogues song in a clear, rising voice.
Gibson pulled his coat tight around him, rested his chin on his chest, and listened to the ghost sing.
It was only nine p.m. on the West Coast. Maybe Nicole was getting ready to go out for the evening. Ellie might still be awake, sitting on the edge of the bed, helping her mother pick an outfit. Maybe Nicole had a date. He hoped she did, even as the thought made his heart ache. He still hadn’t replied to her e-mail and was no closer to knowing what to say.
“Happy new year, Nicole,” he said to himself.
Good to his word, Gibson returned to the embassy each day to stand in the lobby until escorted outside. Then he retreated to the pool hall to nurse his beers. On the fourth day, embassy security met Gibson at the door and barred his entrance. He repeated his message to them and then stood on the sidewalk outside the embassy under their watchful gaze. The temperature had dropped all week, dipping into the twenties at night, and by the time Gibson sat down at the bar, he was cold straight down to the bone. He ordered an Irish coffee and it tasted so good that he ordered a second. Then he settled in to wait, passing the time trying to come up with a plan B.
A little after nine o’clock, a group of Chinese came down the steps—three men and two women, all in their twenties. The men wore suits and the women, dresses: one red and one green. Overdressed amid the T-shirts and jeans of the regular clientele. They took a tray of balls from the bartender and racked them on a table in the back corner. Two of the men began rolling cues back and forth across the table, looking for the least warped one. The third man and the two women returned to the bar and ordered a round of drinks. They leaned against the bar beside Gibson and talked animatedly in Mandarin while the bartender made their drinks. The man told the women a
joke, or what Gibson assumed to be a joke based on their laughter. Gibson glanced at the group, hoping to make eye contact, to see some spark of recognition, but they took their drinks back to their pool table, paying him no mind.
Gibson exhaled in disappointment, asked for his tab, and went to use the restroom. When he returned, one of the Chinese women was sitting in his seat and, in an embarrassed, almost childlike voice, was asking the bartender for a new drink. She crinkled her nose to convey that it was too strong. While the bartender remade her drink, Gibson stood to the side and counted out bills to pay his tab, then lifted his glass to finish the dregs of his beer. He waited until she stood to reclaim his coat from the back of the stool. He zipped it up and went up the stairs and into the night.
He rode the long escalator to the bottom of the Cleveland Park metro. Down on the platform, he walked away from the few passengers waiting on a northbound train to Shady Grove and sat on one of the concrete benches. The digital sign said the next train was twenty minutes away. Gibson crossed his legs at the ankles and thrust his hand into his jacket pockets, trying to get comfortable. His fingers closed around a scrap of paper that hadn’t been there before. He glanced up and down the platform before unfolding it. In small type, it listed an address in Columbia Heights. Beneath that, it instructed him to take the metro to Woodley Park and walk from there. Gibson grinned to himself as he tore the paper into shreds; he’d gotten someone’s attention after all.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Duke said. “We’re on a roll now.”
Gibson rode the metro one stop, disembarked, and walked east along Calvert Street toward Adams Morgan. No doubt he was being followed, but he didn’t have much skill at spotting tails. Gavin Swonger had proved that on more than one occasion, and if that dopey hillbilly could follow him undetected, Gibson didn’t like his chances of spotting trained agents of the Ministry of State Security. Anyway, what did it matter? If they wanted to confirm that he was alone, then he was fine with that.
On Columbia Road, two Chinese men came out of nowhere and muscled him into an alley. One of them pinned him against a wall while the second patted him down. They took his phone and wallet and swept an electronic baton over him, looking for a wire. They discussed him in Mandarin and, satisfied, shoved him back out onto the street before disappearing up the alley.
“Not even waiting for you to get to the meet,” Duke said. “It’s a good sign.”
“How is it a good sign? I just got mugged.”
“Well, it wasn’t one of those muggings where they shoot you.”
Gibson shook his head at his father. “One time, I’d like the good news to be better than I didn’t get shot.”
Duke shrugged. “Maybe start small and work up to it.”
The address led Gibson to a row house on Thirteenth Street. A real estate agent’s “For Sale” sign stuck out of the small dirt patch that qualified as a front yard in this neighborhood. The house was pitch-black, but Gibson went up the stairs and tried the front door. Unlocked. He went into the foyer. The old hardwood floors creaked under his feet. He wasn’t sneaking up on anyone, so he called out a greeting. No response. He walked through the unfurnished house.
He found the Fisherman sitting patiently at a folding card table in the kitchen. Gibson’s phone and wallet were on the table. At the back door, a bodyguard trained his gun on Gibson. Another bodyguard materialized behind Gibson and searched him a second time. When he finished, the bodyguard spoke in Mandarin to the Fisherman.
The Fisherman gave his men curt instructions and offered Gibson a seat at the card table. Gibson sat. The two men regarded each other, not long-lost friends by any stretch but each curious about the other. The fisherman looked fitter, jawline sharper. His fishing vest had given way to a tailored suit.
“My men do not speak English,” the Fisherman said to Gibson. “Do not worry about them.”
Thoughtful, but Gibson didn’t worry about them for their English fluency, rather the guns in their hands and the cold, expectant way they watched him—like a pair of herons watching a meal swim around their feet.
“Is that a new scar?” the fisherman asked, gesturing to his throat. “You had a beard last I saw you.”
“There’s no such thing as a new scar.”
“Profound. Fresh wounds, old scars . . . is that the idea?”
“Something like that.”
“It was foolish. Coming to the embassy.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you,” Gibson said.
“Not for me. For you. Did you not consider that my embassy is under constant surveillance by your government?”
Gibson hadn’t and knew that he should have. It underlined how occluded and sloppy his thinking had become. Not that he would have acted differently, but it worried him that it hadn’t even crossed his mind. He would need to be more careful.
“Are you so anxious to be sent back?” the Fisherman asked. “Do you miss it?”
“Sometimes.” It slipped out, his honesty surprising them both. “Do you know where I was?”
The Fisherman shook his head. “Not specifically, no.”
“I never told you how good your English was.”
“Or I yours,” the Fisherman said. “What is it you want?”
“I want the man who sent me to that hellhole. I want his name, where he lives. I want him.”
“Well, after your performance this week, he may want you too.”
“I don’t want to wait that long,” Gibson said.
“Describe him to me.”
“Tall. Thin but muscular. African American. He’d taken a hell of a beating so I can’t really say much about his face. He called himself Damon Washburn, but that’s not his real name.”
“No, it is not.”
“So you know who he is?”
“I do. What do you intend to do when you have him?”
“Help him understand what he did to me.”
“And so what . . . ?” The Fisherman sat back and crossed his arms. “What makes you think I will furnish you with that information?”
Gibson took a breath, keenly aware of the line he was preparing to cross but even more aware that he no longer cared. “Because I know the identity of Poisonfeather.”
The Fisherman’s eyes narrowed, but Gibson couldn’t tell why. One more example of his diluted instincts. Poisonfeather was a prized American intelligence asset inside the Chinese politburo. The Fisherman had risked everything to pry the name of the mole from Charles Merrick in Niobe. Gibson had stopped him then. He figured it ought to be worth Damon Washburn’s real name to the Fisherman now.
“Merrick told you?” the Fisherman asked.
Yelled it at him was closer to the truth. Gibson had spent eighteen months in a cell for hearing it.
“That’s right,” Gibson said.
“You want this man so badly that you are ready to betray your country?”
“Just returning the favor.”
The Fisherman ran a thumbnail back and forth beneath his bottom lip. “And all you want in exchange is the real name of this ‘Damon Washburn’?”
“So we have a deal?” Gibson asked.
“I’m afraid that we do not.”
“Why? You were willing to kill for it back in Niobe.”
“I was, yes. Circumstances, however, have changed.”
“How have they changed?” Gibson heard his voice rising but couldn’t control it.
“Poisonfeather is dead. He was executed for crimes against the People. Why do you think you were released?”
Gibson slumped back in his chair. He’d been so overwhelmed since his release that he’d never stopped to ask to stop the most basic of questions: Why had he and Merrick been freed in the first place? The answer was obvious. Because they no longer represented a threat to the United States. The Fisherman had neutralized Poisonfeather.
“How?” Gibson asked. “Merrick didn’t get a chance to tell you.”
“True. It would have been simpler had Merr
ick told me, but with the data points I acquired in Niobe, I was able to reconstruct and track the traitor through Merrick’s financial dealings. It simply took more time.”
“That must have been quite a feather in your cap.”
“Clever,” the Fisherman said.
Gibson hadn’t intended to be clever, and it took him a moment to discover his unintended pun. He played it off with a tight smile.
The Fisherman said, “In actuality, it was a feather in my superior’s cap.”
“You gave him the credit?” Gibson asked.
“That is how it works in my country. But when he was elevated, I was elevated along with him. Had I hoarded the credit, then I would have made an enemy instead of an ally.”
“Congratulations.”
“You know, in a way, you owe me your freedom.”
“Well, thank you for that,” Gibson said. “So if you already have Poisonfeather, why are you here?”
“Because as much as we enjoy your charming visits to the embassy, I need them to stop.”
The Fisherman shifted to Mandarin and spoke to his men, who listened attentively. One bowed his head sharply and went out the back door. After a moment, Gibson heard a car start. The second bodyguard raised his gun. Gibson tensed, imagining the real estate agent’s reaction to discovering his body in the morning. The Fisherman stood and gave Gibson a hard look.
“So, our business concluded, I will not be seeing you at the embassy again.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.”
The Fisherman shifted to Mandarin, and the bodyguard holstered his gun. The bodyguard helped the Fisherman on with his coat and held the back door open for him. The Fisherman paused, half in, half out of the door, and looked back at Gibson. “Damon Ogden,” he said, pronouncing the name carefully. “You had it half right. The man you want is named Damon Ogden.”
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