Edge of War - [Red Dragon Rising 02]

by Larry Bond

  Another sign explained that the charge was due to the city’s “ongoing fiscal crisis.” The mayor hoped to rescind it soon.

  It was midmorning, but it was already sixty-two degrees. Mara took off her light sweater and tied it around her hips. The trees had started to bud. It seemed closer to April or May than February. Josh started talking about the trees, identifying different species and talking about how they were doing.

  The main effect of the rapid climate change had been to increase the amount of rainfall. The wetter growing season had encouraged more disease, Josh said, and he pointed out different kinds of blight as they walked down a path from the entrance. In theory, the longer growing season would also strain the nutrients in the soil, though this wouldn’t be obvious for some time. Meanwhile, bushes and the grass were doing better than ever, thanks to the wet weather.

  “And weeds. All sorts of weeds,” said Josh. “It’s a great time to be a dandelion.”

  “Damn things are all over my lawn,” said Broome.

  “What do you do with them?” asked Josh.

  “Pull them the hell out.”

  “You ought to think about eating them. They’re supposed to make a great salad.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “The climate change isn’t all bad,” said Josh. “It has a lot of different effects. We just have to adapt to them.”

  “Yeah, like buy a lot of umbrellas,” said Broome. “I can deal with the warmer weather. That’s good.”

  “I wouldn’t get too used to it,” said Josh. “This hot right now might just be a temporary aberration. Using the averages—it’s very misleading. The actual programs that model climate change have a vast amount of variables, but even then they’re really just sophisticated guesses. Hell, if you put the right formulas in, you see that the world will cool down.”

  “So what’s the point, doc?” said Broome. “We just tough it out?”

  “Maybe. We can slow it down—-”

  “It’s that old saying, Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

  They stopped at a hot dog vendor for lunch, then walked in the direction of the Metropolitan Museum, passing behind the large white building and continuing toward the lake at the center of the park. At the north side, Mara saw a large area of what looked like old ruins, with boards and metal scattered in heaps, and small mounds of dirt and debris in low piles like pimples dotting the barren ground. She thought it was a temporary dumping area, a place appropriated by a city tight on space. But that wasn’t the case.

  “Squatter’s field,” explained Broome. “People lived here last winter. A lot of people, when the prices started shooting up. They didn’t want that happening again. That was the real reason behind the fee. So they could kick people out.”

  “Where’d they go?” asked Josh.

  “There’s plenty of shelters and stuff. It was just temporary for most of them anyway,” said Broome. “We should start heading back. This isn’t the best area anyway. Even in daytime.”

  They turned around and headed across the park in the direction of Columbus Circle. The skyline loomed in the distance. Sleek high-rises peered over the older buildings close to the park’s edge. The clouds had thickened, and the tops of the towers were festooned with gray and black wreaths.

  They were nearly at the southeastern corner of the park when the first drops of rain started to fall. The rain felt different here than in Asia, Mara thought. A little sparser, more welcome in a way. It didn’t have the acidic smell or taste it had in Malaysia.

  “We should get out of this, because it’s going to be a downpour,” said Josh.

  “How can you tell?” asked Broome.

  “Look at those clouds.” He pointed to a series of dark black clouds on the horizon.

  “The subway’s over there,” said Mara, pointing.

  Broome wasn’t sure about the subway, but as the rain began to pound heavier, he relented, ushering them toward the entrance. A flood of people had the same idea, and there was a long line for the fare cards. Only one machine was working.

  “Twenty dollars for a single fare?” said Mara, reading the sign.

  Someone nearby snickered. “Frickin’ mayor,” he said. “Like all the rich bastards, stick it to the little guy.”

  Broome just shrugged. He bought two cards because rules prevented more than two swipes at a station.

  “It’s kind of a rip-off,” said Broome. “And they expire pretty quick, too. But the city needs money.”

  Broome suggested they go down to Little Italy and Chinatown. Mara thought of vetoing Chinatown, expecting trouble, but when they emerged there were no protests or any other outward signs of the trouble in Asia, just tourists walking along Canal and the side streets, gaping at the stylized storefronts. The stores had about as much connection with China as with the King of England, and a good portion of the employees looked to have come from Central and South America, not Asia.

  They had an early dinner, finding an Italian restaurant—Mara insisted on Italian—in the small stretch on Mott Street that remained of Little Italy. By now, Josh had become extremely quiet, and Mara wondered if he was brooding over what he was supposed to say tomorrow at the UN, or worried about Mạ.

  Jablonski had called twice to say that he was still working on finding a good time to hook up with the senator, but Mara was starting to doubt that the meeting was going to come off. Just as well, she thought. What Josh really needed was a long break, a vacation somewhere safe— somewhere cold, maybe, far away from anything that would remind him of Vietnam. What he’d been through must surely be taking a toll. He needed to decompress.

  She wouldn’t mind a break herself. Though there was undoubtedly a lot more to do back in Asia.

  Broome’s evening replacement, John Malaki, met them at the restaurant just in time to order. It was amusing watching the two marshals talk— they were nearly polar opposites, though clearly they liked each other.

  “Great spaghetti, huh?” asked Broome as they ate. “Best place down here. If you really want Italian, though, ya gotta go up to Arthur Avenue in da Bronx. Or over in Brooklyn. There’s a million places there. Or Staten Island. Nobody knows about Staten Island. But there’s good Italian there. And Jersey.”

  The two marshals began debating the likelihood that the Mets would make the playoffs thanks to the addition of Albert Pujols, and whether the adoption of the designated-hitter rule would improve or harm the National League.

  Mara tried to get Josh talking about his scientific work, but he gave mostly one-word answers to her questions, and after a while she, too, fell silent.

  He came to life, briefly, when they were leaving. A pair of men in suits came inside the dining room, looking around carefully before holding their sleeves to their mouths and whispering into microphones hidden there. A few seconds later, a pair of men in suits walked in swiftly, trailed by a waiter and two more members of a security team, wearing suits identical to the advance men.

  “Look at that,” said Josh. “Gotta be mobsters, huh?”

  “Nah,” said Broome as they walked out to the waiting marshal car. “Just Wall Street guys. Worried about kidnapping. The usual stuff.”

  “Oh,” said Josh, clearly disappointed.

  ~ * ~

  21

  New York City

  Jing Yo spent the day mostly in wait.

  He got hardly any sleep. He could feel his enemy nearby, but the sensation was one of frustration and failure, of worthlessness. He knew the scientist must be close to him, almost in the next room. Yet he was very far away.

  A story in the morning newspaper, this time the Wall Street Journal, confirmed his hunches. The story declared that there were rumors of atrocities in the China-Vietnam border conflict, and these rumors were likely to be brought up at the UN when the president spoke on Friday. The paper speculated that the president would offer proof that they were real.

  Or the paper said that the president had to offer pro
of to be taken seriously. Jing Yo wasn’t sure which. But the scientist would be plenty of proof.

  Where was he? Jing Yo walked uptown and then east to the UN. The crowds were gone, or hadn’t gathered yet, but there were fresh barriers, this time several blocks away. The police turned back everyone a block away unless they could prove they either lived in the neighborhood or worked at the UN. Jing Yo tried three different approaches, mentally recording everything that happened. Coming from the north would be the easiest, he decided, but it would be better to have a worker’s ID than a resident’s. Workers were questioned less.

  There were plenty of work trucks on the surrounding blocks. He could grab a driver, take his license. Though it would be better to have his own license.

  Jing Yo continued his survey of the area, growing more and more restless. He began to doubt his instinct, and the inexplicable feeling that his foe was nearby. Logic dictated that the scientist would be in Washington, at the CIA, being debriefed by government officials. He might already have made a video statement. It might be too late to prevent him from doing harm.

  Of course it was too late for that. And to Jing Yo, it was irrelevant. He cared only about killing the scientist. That was his mission. Everything else was irrelevant.

  Wrath was all he was after. Revenge.

  And yet, that was the greatest temptation, the sin of ego, a turning away from the path. He was motivated by anger, not by his allegiance to the one true Way. And what good came of that?

  Jing Yo had heard nothing from Mr. Wong by noon. He moved westward on the island, deciding to seek out a place where he might obtain a false ID, and perhaps a weapon, in case he had to act on his own. He had two important handicaps: his difficulty with the language, and his lack of knowledge about the city.

  It would be foolish to go up to a person on the street and ask where he could get a phony license. And even worse would come from asking where to buy a gun in a city where owning one was against the law.

  He thought of making himself a target for a thief and then taking his weapon from him. But perhaps he looked too little like a victim: for all the stories and rumors of crime run rampant in the city, no one approached Jing Yo or even menaced him with a stare. He found a store to stay in while it rained, leaving as the shower began to diminish a half hour later. By 2:45, even the mist had cleared, though the sky remained overcast.

  At 3 p.m., with still no word from Mr. Wong, Jing Yo went to Central Park, he found a large rock outcropping with no one nearby and sat to make a phone call.

  Someone picked up before the second ring.

  “What has happened?” asked Jing Yo in Chinese.

  “What?” said a voice. It answered in Chinese, but was different from the one that had answered the phone the night before.

  “Have you found him?” asked Jing Yo.

  “We are working. You will wait for your instructions.”

  “Perhaps he is in Washington. Let me go there.”

  “When we have an assignment, we will tell you.”

  “It may already be too late,” said Jing Yo.

  “Time is not your concern. You will do as you are told. No longer call this number unless it is a true emergency.”

  The line clicked dead. Jing Yo put the phone in his pocket, slid down the rock, and began walking once more. He found himself at the entrance to the zoo. He paid the separate admission—surprised to receive change—then wandered through the exhibits.

  The rain forest made him long for Vietnam, and for Hyuen Bo.

  Jing Yo left the park and walked in the direction of his hotel. He was a block away when a black Hyundai Genesis L pulled up to the curb next to where he was walking. The rear window rolled down.

  “You will join me please,” said Mr. Wong from the backseat.

  The backseat of the stretch sedan had three flat-screen displays embedded in the false seat back below the glass separating the driver and passengers. Each one was tuned to a different television news station, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, from right to left. The volume was off, but a Chinese translation of each show’s sound track ran across the bottom of the screen.

  “Would you like some tea?” Mr. Wong asked as the car pulled from the curb.

  “No, thank you.”

  “How have you spent your day?”

  “I have walked around the city.”

  “Thinking about your assignment?”

  “My mind was not quiet,” answered Jing Yo. It was an answer the monks would give.

  “Then it was productive,” said Mr. Wong. “Problems must be attacked from many directions.”

  That answer was also one a monk might give.

  Jing Yo looked at the screen on the left. An analyst was talking about the price of oil, which had risen fifteen dollars a barrel during the day. The change was considered minor.

  “Your theory about the UN is an interesting one, and has perhaps borne fruit,” said Mr. Wong. “We have obtained the senator’s schedule from a friend. It has several stops in the area, tonight and tomorrow, before he goes to the UN.”

  “I understand.”

  “If you follow him, your scientist will perhaps meet him. But it is possible he will not.”

  “If he meets him, I will be there.”

  The edge of Mr. Wong’s mouth turned up slightly.

  “You are said to be a most capable man, Jing Yo. Worthy of great trust. But there were problems in Vietnam.”

  “There were difficulties.”

  “You were on the wrong side of the people there?”

  “I did nothing to offend them, except my job.”

  “Their attitude toward you was a mystery?”

  “Yes,” said Jing Yo.

  “And your commander: he may feel you a great warrior, but he is not your friend.”

  “I need only orders from him, not friendship.”

  “What would you do if you were ordered home?”

  Jing Yo considered the question. It was an obvious test, but what did Mr. Wong really want? A lie, so that he could satisfy himself that Jing Yo would do what he was told—or more likely, so he could report back that Jing Yo was still a faithful soldier? Or the truth, so that he could properly judge his character?

  Jing Yo decided that he could not tell, and because of that, he admitted that he would disobey the order.

  “Why is the matter personal?” Mr. Wong asked.

  “The scientist murdered a companion.”

  “You speak of murder in war?”

  Jing Yo did not explain the circumstances. Finally, Mr. Wong continued.

  “In this matter, your interests and your country’s interests lie in parallel,” he said. “But you must be careful. Putting yourself ahead of your country is not desirable. You know that from your apprenticeship.”

  Jing Yo finally realized that Mr. Wong had himself trained in Shaolin. It should have been obvious, he realized now—but the most obvious things were always the last to be learned.

  “I am a prisoner of my ego,” Jing Yo admitted, lowering his head in shame as he would have at the temple.

  “We are all, in one way or another,” said Mr. Wong softly.

  ~ * ~

  Mr. Wong had the car drive him to Queens. They turned onto local roads immediately after the bridge, threading their way onto a residential block midway between Astoria and Long Island City.

  “This opens both doors,” said Mr. Wong, handing Jing Yo a small silver-colored key. “You will find everything you need inside. One last thing—your phone. You no longer require it.”

  Jing Yo handed over the phone, then got out of the car. Mr. Wong lowered the window.

  “Thank you,” Jing Yo told Mr. Wong.

  “Remember your training,” said Wong. “And be true.”

  The building was a small two-family row house. The key was to the apartment downstairs; there appeared to be no one living upstairs. It was sparsely furnished with generic furniture; it would have been difficult to guess the ethnic background of the p
erson who lived here.

  A satellite phone sat on the kitchen table. Jing Yo turned it on, then put it in his pocket.

  At first, Jing Yo thought that the place was simply “clean”—an empty shell where he would wait for orders. But as he began to examine it more closely, he realized that it was in fact outfitted specifically for him. The closet in the rear bedroom had a variety of clothes in his size, from casual to formal suits. The ones that had been made for him by the tailor had been transferred here, and supplemented with others. Underwear and socks in his size were in the dresser drawers. Two pairs of shoes, one dress, the other casual, sat in the closet. There was a wallet in the small box in front of the bureau. Inside the wallet was a set of identification cards, business cards for several professions, credit cards, and a thousand dollars in bills ranging from fives to a hundred. Beneath the wallet were magnetic card IDs, including one that showed he was a temporary translator at the UN, specializing in different varieties of Mandarin Chinese, and another that indicated he was an aide to the Malaysian ambassador.