Red Swan

by P. T. Deutermann

  Then Allender caught sight of one older man, clacking along as fast as he could go, his walking stick swinging awkwardly as he brought up the rear some fifty feet behind the group. He was white-haired, with a heavily seamed, hatchet-shaped face and veined hands. He was wearing a padded jacket straight out of the Cultural Revolution days over baggy black pants and elaborately strapped sandals. There were even some red flag pins on the lapels of his coat to complete the picture of absolute Party loyalty.

  As he came abreast of Allender he stopped in midstride, exhaled a loud breath, and then fixed Allender with a beady eye. “Walk with me, Dragon Eyes,” he said in high-class Mandarin. “If you please.”

  The old man turned off onto one of the Mall’s many cross paths and Allender, intrigued, obligingly followed him while looking discreetly for minders. They were right below the Washington Monument, which loomed some 550 feet above them. The old man found a bench he liked, sat down, and patted the spot next to him. Allender joined him, having already spotted three likely minders wandering aimlessly out on the grassy expanse of the Mall, but all within pistol range.

  “As I’m sure you have surmised, I am not a tourist,” the old man said, looking thoughtfully across the grass at the distant White House.

  “Your Mandarin gives you away, I’m afraid,” Allender said.

  “And someone has stripped the zhuyin from yours,” the old man said admiringly. Allender was well aware that mainland Chinese thought the Taiwanese version of standard Mandarin was, at best, amusing. He’d just been complimented. The banal chitchat went on for a few minutes. In the meantime Allender had spotted more minders. Six in all, so this old man was definitely somebody. Allender waited patiently, knowing that sooner or later he would get to the point. Eventually he did.

  “Do you know the fable about marking the boat for the sword?” he asked.

  Allender knew better than to say yes, even though, yes, he did. When he’d been a student of Mandarin and Chinese ways in Taiwan, Chinese fables were often used to illustrate a point, but never directly. Keeping the explanation murky imputed superior knowledge to the one telling the fable. Educated Chinese kids figured that out at about age fourteen and learned to just shut up and listen, which in itself was a useful lesson.

  “Well,” the old man began. “A man from the state of Chu was crossing a river. Suddenly, his sword fell into the water while he was sitting in the boat. He immediately made a mark on the side of the boat. ‘This is where my sword fell off,’ he announced. When the boat finally stopped moving, he went into the water to look for his sword at the place where he had marked the boat. But, of course the boat had moved, not the sword. The moral being that that was a foolish way to look for something.”

  “I would have to agree,” Allender said. “And what does that story have to do with me?”

  The old man turned to face him. His right eye stared right at him; the left eye seemed to be slightly out of alignment. “You are looking for something,” the old man said. “In a foolish way.”

  Allender considered the message. “May I know who you are?” he asked, finally.

  “I am Yang Yi. I am visiting your lovely city from Beijing, where I am the deputy minister for state security in the current government of Xi Jinping.”

  Allender turned to study this man. Up close, he wasn’t as old as he’d looked coming up the sidewalk. Maybe early seventies, with a very stern face, whose skin stretched across his cheekbones like a mosaic. If he was who he was claiming to be, he was a powerful official indeed. In China, the Ministry of State Security combined the functions of the American CIA, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security. What in the world was someone that high up in the Chinese government doing walking around the Mall and wanting to speak to him, he wondered.

  “Do not be alarmed, Dragon Eyes,” the old man said. “Those people out there are here to protect me, not harm you.”

  “I understand that, Minister,” Allender said. “But why do you call me that?”

  “Because that is your file name, Doctor Allender. We are interested in you, even though you are supposed to be retired.”

  “I am retired. For just over a year now.”

  “And yet you rode off to the headquarters of your Federal Bureau of Investigation just this morning.”

  “You have me under surveillance?” Allender protested. “What on earth for?”

  “As you were undoubtedly taught in your fancy American school in Taipei, we Chinese operate on a different time scale than you Americans do. Americans want everything now. We are willing to be patient, to wait and watch, sometimes for years, in order to reach our objectives, even when exercising such patience creates temporary loss.”

  Allender made a sound of exasperation. “I am not the Orphan of Zhao, Minister.”

  “Quite so,” Yang said, recognizing yet another ancient tale. “But perhaps I am. The disappearance of your deputy minister is not what you think. Probe your shoulders. See if there are not some invisible strings there.” He stood up with a small groan. “It has been a pleasure to meet you. Hopefully not for the last time.”

  A nondescript sedan had appeared on the access road nearest their bench. Yang Yi clacked his way to the car, where three serious-looking individuals in loose suit coats opened the door, handed him in, and then got in themselves before speeding away into Washington’s evening traffic.

  Allender sighed, got up, and started walking up the Mall to the Metro station to begin the trip back to Dupont Circle. This “chance” encounter on the Mall with a very senior MSS official was disturbing to say the least. Allender’s reference to The Orphan of Zhao, about a wronged son’s long wait for revenge, had been deliberate. He’d used that story to probe whether or not this encounter had anything to do with the black swan. Apparently, it did.

  Back at his town house he changed into his usual evening wear of slacks and a smoking jacket and went to the tower study for his Scotch. Now he had a problem. Two, actually. Tell McGill about his encounter or not? Normally he would have been on the phone already, but that one comment, elliptical as it had been, was stopping him. “You are looking for something in a foolish way.” Throughout his upbringing in Taipei, he had been exposed to the art of the indirect message. Rarely did educated Chinese come right out and say something, especially if it involved criticism. They would reminisce about something that had happened in the past, or, like Yang Yi, resort to fables. You were supposed to pay attention and, sometimes, only later, get the point. That way no one lost face if you didn’t understand it right away.

  What was it he was looking for? In theory, he was helping the Bureau team look for the answer to Hank’s mysterious death. In practice, he’d been directed by McGill to stall the Bureau’s efforts, while the Agency looked for the answers to Hank’s mysterious death. That way, if something embarrassing emerged, the Agency could presumably bury it and generate a story that would satisfy everyone and no one. Basically, it was yet another way to save face.

  His second problem was that the Chinese intelligence apparatus here in Washington, or what was left of it after the Chiang affair, was keeping eyes on him. If that was true, for the past year they must have spent a fortune in travel funds, as he’d gone far and wide around the world in his newly reenergized hobby/enterprise. The always slightly paranoid Chinese would certainly have interpreted his ex-im business as a cover for something covert, and yet, if they’d pulsed their sources in faraway places such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brazil, and even southern Africa, there would have been nothing to find. Yes, he would check in with the station chief in each embassy, explain why he was there, and then check out just before he left. The various officers were always polite but distant, having heard that this man, who’d scared the bejesus out of so many people, had been forced out. Their relief when he’d announce that he was leaving had been almost comical. The Chinese weren’t the only ones who were a bit paranoid when it came to Preston Allender.

  So why the hell would the Chi
nese security services care about him, unless someone was assembling some payback for the Chiang debacle? Perhaps that’s what the little lecture on time scales had been about. We know that was your idea, and one fine day you will pay for it, but at a time and place that we will choose, and, as you know, we Chinese take our time, don’t we.

  What was it McGill had said? Hank Wallace might have been running something against Martine Greer? Then he remembered that McGill himself had mused about doing the same thing. He also remembered discouraging that idea in the strongest terms. Maybe the thing to do was to pulse the putative target, Martine Greer. If Hank had indeed been cranking up some kind of out-there scheme to embarrass or destroy the chairwoman, maybe she could, wittingly or not, shed some light. Whether or not she would tell him was a different question, but if he phrased the question in terms of something being rotten in Langley, she just might.

  He stared out the window into the twilight as he finished his Scotch. He was sitting in an armchair that gave him a view up the avenue through the venetian blinds. Traffic was lightening up as the rush hour subsided. Then he saw something that got his attention. Parked about twelve cars up on his side of the avenue and facing in his direction was an older-model sedan with two white faces visible through the windshield.

  Well, now, he thought. Maybe he’d better make that phone call after all. Those weren’t Chinese. Those just about had to be McGill’s people, or possibly even Bureau people. If they were up on his house, then they’d been out there on the Mall, too. He got up and went to the secure telephone console.

  McGill called him back in fifteen minutes, and Allender told him what had transpired out on the Mall. He did not mention the car parked up the avenue near his house.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” McGill said. “I need to see if we knew that Yang Yi, himself, was in town. We’d better have.”

  “I’m a wee bit concerned here, Carson,” Allender said. “The MSS is keeping book on me? And eyes? Only one reason for that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know,” McGill said. “Goddamn Chiang. Tell me exactly what Yang said, again.”

  Allender did.

  “Jesus, I wish they would just come out and say what they mean instead of talking in freaking riddles like damned diplomats.”

  “America’s two hundred fifty years old,” Allender said. “The Chinese have been practicing the diplomatic and intelligence arts for five thousand years. Maybe they know something we don’t.”

  “I forget, don’t I,” McGill said. “You were brought up in China.”

  “In Taiwan,” Allender said. “Big difference.”

  McGill sniffed but did not reply. “You want eyes on you?” he asked finally.

  Allender realized he had to be careful here. Not asking for protective surveillance might tell McGill that he already knew there was surveillance. What he didn’t know was whether or not those two guys in that car were protective surveillance—or simply surveillance. There shouldn’t be a distinction, but after Yang Yi, he was beginning to wonder. “No,” he said. “I’m not doing anything that bears reporting. Let them watch. By the way, where’s that list of names?”

  “On your new computer, Preston. Time to open it and read your e-mail.”

  Allender groaned. “Best thing about retirement, Carson,” he said. “You don’t have to read your e-mail.”

  “Now you do,” McGill said. “Frequently. We’ll look into the Chinese watcher thing. Maybe roust a couple. Although, upon reflection, maybe not. What could it matter? As you say, you’re not doing anything but going to work each day. You just keep going through the motions over there in the Hoover Building. Confusion to the Bureau, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Allender said, and then the line broke synch.

  Upon reflection? Allender thought. Not much of it. He did, however, agree. Let them watch. He had to have been the most boring surveillance subject they’d ever handled.

  * * *

  The following morning he made a call to the congressional liaison office at the Agency and asked them to get him an appointment with Martine Greer. They asked for a topic for the office call. He told them Henry Wallace. Half an hour later they called back and told him that Greer’s AA, a Mr. Wyancowski, could see him at eleven thirty. Then he called Rebecca Lansing at Bureau headquarters and told her he was going up to the Hill to see someone and thus would not be in until later. She asked who he was seeing. He told her he’d fill her in if it turned out to be a productive meeting. She started to say something but then just said okay. He needed to keep reminding her that he didn’t work for her or the Bureau.

  Wyancowski turned out to be a sixtyish man who looked as if he’d been on the Hill for his entire life, which was just about true. Allender was relieved. Longtime Capitol Hill staffers were adept at getting to the heart of the matter, which saved a lot of time. The title Administrative Assistant fooled the uninitiated. The AA was the senior staffer on a congressman’s Capitol Hill staff and basically the second-in-command in a congressman’s office. Looking at Wyancowski, Allender remembered the line from Shakespeare about Cassius’ lean and hungry look.

  “Doctor Allender,” the AA began after they were seated in his office. Wyancowski kept a large, black chess clock that ticked backward from five minutes to zero perched upright on his desk and facing whomever was sitting in one of the chairs. “What can I do for you?” he said, as he started the clock.

  “I’m here on the matter of Hank Wallace’s unexplained death.” Allender said. “I’ve been retired from the Agency for over a year. They’ve recalled me to work with the Bureau as a liaison officer to Langley on this matter.”

  “I’ve been briefed on who you are, Doctor. Or ‘were,’ perhaps, is more accurate.” He glanced at the clock. “So why are you here, please?”

  “I’m curious why Congresswoman Greer asked the Bureau to get into this investigation.”

  “Surely you jest, Doctor Allender,” the AA said. “Given the chairwoman’s long and affectionate relationship with Langley, nest of snakes that it is, she probably saw it as a wonderful opportunity to poke someone in the eye with a sharp stick. I don’t know this, of course, as she doesn’t always explain why she does things. Is this news, Doctor Allender?”

  “Under ordinary circumstances, no, Mister Wyancowski,” Allender replied. “Her long-standing antipathy is neither helpful nor news. But right now the feeling at Langley and the Bureau is that Hank Wallace may have been murdered, possibly even by a foreign intelligence service. If that’s true, this is not the time for bureaucratic bullshit.”

  The AA sat back in his chair. “I wouldn’t advise using that particular term with the chairwoman. Hank Wallace was an institution at Langley. If someone did take him out, then the Agency’s counterintelligence directorate has a lot to answer for. I suspect she wanted to have some outside eyes looking into this matter so that Langley couldn’t cover up their own incompetence. Again. No offense—that’s just my opinion.”

  There was an old-fashioned intercom console sitting on Wyancowski’s desk. Allender had noted that one of the little red lights was on. “Congresswoman Greer,” he said in a loud voice. “Care to comment?”

  There was a strained moment of silence as the AA tried not to glance over at that little red light. Then a door disguised as part of the paneling at the back of the AA’s office opened, revealing the chairwoman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She was a large woman, with a round, double-chinned face, short gray hair, and somewhat beady eyes. She had fatty biceps the size of small hams and wore a set of eyeglasses connected to a lanyard around her neck. Lovely you are not, Allender thought.

  “I’ll take it from here, Tommy,” she announced, and then gestured with her head for Allender to follow her into her private office. Once there she pointed at a chair, sat down behind her desk, and flipped her own intercom button to the off position.

  “Okay, Doctor, what’s this all about, comma, no shit?”

  “I would like to
know if you felt that Hank Wallace was cooking up some kind of plot or scheme to embarrass you, personally.”

  Her face settled into a blank mask. Allender wondered if she played poker; she’d be damn good at it with that face. “What a question,” she said, finally. “Refresh my memory: What was your role at the Agency, Doctor?”

  “I’m a psychiatrist. I was in the training directorate. I trained our senior interrogators in advanced psychological modalities. Sometimes I even did interrogations, myself. I also conducted annual interviews with senior training and operational staff to make sure they were still emotionally and psychologically fit to do their jobs. I was not operational in the Agency sense.”

  “Ah, yes,” she said, nodding to herself. “I have heard of you. You’re the one they called Dragon Eyes, aren’t you.”

  “Mostly, they called me Doctor Allender,” he replied, quietly.

  “To your face, no doubt,” she said. “Why’d you retire—you seem a little young to be retired, especially from the SES.”

  “I was forced out,” he said. “An operation that I consulted on succeeded too well and caused the White House some problems. Someone had to walk the plank, and it wasn’t going to be Carson McGill, Hank Wallace, or the director.”

  “The black swan,” she said, admiringly. “That was you?”

  “It was my idea, and I selected the woman who actually did it. The target was taken back to Beijing and executed, or so I was told.”

  “So you were told?”

  “I was in the training department, Madam Chairwoman. The Clandestine Service handled the operational details and all subsequent reporting. We live in boxes over there in Langley, and one box is discouraged from talking to other boxes. I assume that it’s true, however.”