Dragonfly

by Dean Koontz

  Amazed, Canning said, "That's quite reasonable of you." His opinion of the general rose considerably.

  "I do not wish to waste time in pointless arguments," Lin said. "I will only warn you that if this Dragonfly should be used, the People's Republic would have no recourse but to declare war against your country."

  Canning nodded.

  "We are not frightened of your nuclear weapons," the general continued. "You have surely heard of the network of tunnels that honeycomb all of Peking. Because of much practice and regular drills, the entire populace can be underground in seven minutes."

  Canning had, indeed, read of this fabulous creation. It was an entire underground city: fuel depots, power plants, kitchens, stores of food and clothing, medical stations, living quarters . . . Every thirty or forty feet, along every major street and most of the minor ones as well, there were steps leading down into this vast undercity. Every apartment house, store, theater, restaurant, and office building had one, two, or even three entrances to the system of nuclear-proof tunnels. The concrete warrens reached out more than twenty miles beyond the city limits, into the green countryside, a perfect escape route constructed by the People's Liberation Army back in the 1960s. Although they both knew that the tunnels would not be much good when the city was attacked by chemical-biological weapons, Canning said, "I believe we understand each other, General Lin."

  WASHINGTON: FRIDAY, 10:50 P.M.

  Her name was Heather Nichols, and she was in bad shape. Her long hair was pinned back from her face, damp with perspiration. Her left ear was swollen and bruised. She had a long cut on her left jaw. Her lips were split, swollen into thick purple ridges. Tubes disappeared into her nostrils, which were thoroughly braced with wooden splints and bloody gauze. Her right eye was swollen completely shut. Her left eye was open, although barely; and she watched him with suspicion and perhaps hatred.

  The intern said, "She can't talk at all. She lost several teeth. Her gums are badly lacerated, and her tongue's cut. Her mouth is swollen inside as well as out. I really don't think—"

  "Can she write?" Kirkwood asked.

  "What?"

  "Can she write?"

  "Well, of course she can write," the intern said.

  "Good."

  "Though not at the moment, of course." His voice gained a note of sarcasm. "As you can see, the fingers of the poor girl's left hand have been well broken. Her right arm is taped to that board, and she's got an I.V. needle stuck in there."

  "But the fingers of her right hand are free," Kirk-wood said.

  "Yes, but we don't want to pull the needle loose," the intern said obstinately.

  "Give me your clipboard."

  Heather's one good eye darted quickly from one to the other, hating both of them.

  "I think you're exciting her too much," the intern said. "This is all highly irregular to begin with and—"

  Kirkwood snatched the clipboard out of his hand, ignoring his protests. There was a pen attached to the clipboard. He put the board at Heather's side and closed her fingers around the pen.

  She dropped it.

  "She's been feeding intravenously for two hours now," the intern said. "She hasn't been able to move that arm, and of course her fingers are numb."

  Kirkwood leaned close to the girl and said, "Miss Nichols, you must listen to me. I've got a photograph in this envelope. It might be of the man who did this to you. I need to find out for sure. If it is him, we'll be able to get other evidence, and we'll put him behind bars."

  She continued to glare at him.

  "Do you understand me?"

  She said nothing.

  He put the pen in her hand.

  This time she held on to it.

  He fumbled with the manila envelope for a moment, extracted the eight-by-ten glossy of Andrew Rice. He held it up in front of her; his hand was shaking.

  She stared at it.

  "Is this the man?"

  She just kept staring.

  "Miss Nichols?"

  The intern said, "I must object. This is all too much for her. She's isn't up to—"

  "Heather," Kirkwood said forcefully, "is this the man who beat up on you?"

  Her hand moved. The pen skipped uselessly across the sheet of paper. Then she got control of it, scribbled for a moment, and at last wrote one word:

  yes

  THE WHITE HOUSE: FRIDAY, 11:05 P.M.

  McAlister and the President were sitting at opposite ends of a crushed-velvet couch in a small office off the chief executive's bedroom. The only light came from the desk lamp and one small table lamp; the room was heavy with shadows.

  The President was wearing pajamas and a dressing gown. He was cracking his knuckles, one at a time, being very methodical about it. He smiled every time one of them popped with especially good volume. "Bob, if what you tell me is even half true—"

  The telephone which stood in the middle of the glass-and-chrome coffee table rang twice.

  "It'll be your man," the President said.

  McAlister picked up the receiver.

  The White House operator said, "Mr. President?"

  "Bob McAlister."

  "I have a call for you, Mr. McAlister. It's a Mr. Bernard Kirkwood."

  "Put him through, please."

  Bernie said, "Are you there?"

  "Did you see her?" McAlister asked.

  "Yes. She says it was Rice."

  "She's positive?"

  "Absolutely. Now what?"

  "You want to go home to bed—or do you want to be in on the end of it?" McAlister asked.

  "Who could sleep tonight?"

  "Then get over here to the White House. I'll leave word at the gate that you're to be let through."

  "I'll be there in ten minutes."

  McAlister hung up and turned to the President, who had thrust his left hand under his pajama shirt and was scratching his right armpit. "That was Kirk-wood, sir. The girl has positively identified Rice as the man who assaulted her."

  The President took his left hand out of his pajamas. Then he thrust his right hand into them and furiously scratched his left armpit. His handsome face was bloodless. "Well. Well, well!" He stopped scratching his armpit and stood up. "Then I guess we have no choice but to proceed according to the plan you outlined a few minutes ago."

  "I see no alternative, sir."

  "What a sewer."

  "Yes, sir."

  "They've brought us down to their level."

  McAlister said nothing.

  The President scratched his nose, then the back of his neck. "Where do you want Rice? Here?"

  "The Pentagon would be better," McAlister said. "It's nice and quiet at this hour. There's a security-cleared doctor already on duty there, so we won't have to rout some other poor bastard out of bed."

  "The Pentagon it is," the President said, one hand poised before him as if he were trying to think of one more place to scratch.

  McAlister glanced at the wall clock: 11:15. "As soon as I leave, would you call Pentagon Security and tell them that I'm to have their full cooperation?"

  "Certainly, Bob."

  "Then wait half an hour before you call Rice. That'll give me time to reach the Pentagon and get ready for him. Tell him to come to the Mall Entrance and that he'll be met there."

  "No problem."

  Bending over, McAlister began to gather up the copies of Prescott Hennings' magazines, which were strewn over the coffee table.

  "Could you let those here?" the President asked. "I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight. I might as well find out what Andy Rice is really like."

  "I'd like to have one issue to throw at him for psychological effect," McAlister said. "I'll leave the rest."

  They went out of the office and across the President's private bedroom.

  At the door, the chief executive stopped and turned to McAlister. "Bob, it appears you're right about Rice beating up that girl. And it looks like he's behind this Dragonfly business. I hate to admit I've been made a
fool of, but I've got to face facts. But one thing . . ."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "It seems to me that the rest of your theory is a bit too far-fetched. How could these Committeemen seize the government?"

  "Assassination," McAlister said without hesitation.

  "But the Vice-President isn't a Committeeman, surely."

  "Then they'll assassinate him, too," McAlister said.

  The President raised his eyebrows.

  "They'll assassinate however many they have to— until they get to that man in the line of succession who is one of theirs."

  The President shook his head no, vigorously. "It's too much killing, Bob. They could never get away with all of it. It's too bizarre."

  "I don't know whether it's population pressures, future shock, the end product of a permissive society, or what," McAlister said morosely. "But there are pressures working within this country, pressures that are producing madmen of a sort we've never known before. I think they're capable of anything, no matter how bizarre it seems."

  "No," the President said. "I can't go along with that."

  McAlister sighed and shrugged. "You're probably right, sir," he said, although he didn't think the President was right at all.

  "You're right about Rice and Dragonfly, but you're altogether wrong about the rest of it." He opened the bedroom door, escorted McAlister into the hall, and turned him over to the Secret Service agent who was on duty there. "Get back to me the minute he cracks, Bob."

  McAlister nodded, turned, and followed the Secret Service man down the long hall toward the elevator.

  PEKING: SATURDAY, 4:00 P.M.

  The first CIA deep-cover agent was a sixty-eight-year-old man named Yuan Yat-sen. He had been thirty-nine years old when Mao Tse-tung's soldiers had driven Chiang Kai-shek and his corrupt army from China's mainland, back in 1949. An advocate of Chiang's policies, a successful landlord and prosperous banker, Yuan had lost everything in the revolution. Perhaps he could have rebuilt his fortune on Taiwan. But money was not all that he lost. A band of Maoist guerillas had slain Yuan's wife and three children. His business was half his life—and his family was the other half. Although he fled to Taiwan, he could not manage to pick up the broken pieces of his life and start anew. He loathed Maoists, dreamed of slaughtering them by the tens of thousands; and a thirst for revenge was all that kept him going. He had been perfect for the CIA. In 1950, while he was growing ever more bitter in Taipei, he was approached by agency operatives and signed up for deep-cover work. Near the end of that year he was dropped back onto the mainland, where he assumed a new name and a past that was not linked to Chiang Kai-shek. In the confusion that followed the war, he was able to pass without much trouble. Indeed, he had gradually gained recognition as an educator and a revolutionary theorist. Today he was the third man in the prestigious Bureau of Education Planning.

  They had found him in a park near his office, taking an afternoon break with an associate. He had surrendered without resistance.

  They were all back in the embassy drawing room. Ambassador Webster sat in an easy chair, smoking one of his long Cuban cigars and watching the proceedings with interest. General Lin paced impatiently and kept looking at his watch. Lee Ann was sitting on a cushioned cane chair in the center of the room, and Yuan Yat-sen was facing her from another chair only three feet away. Electrodes were pasted to Yuan's temples; a sphygmomanometer was wrapped tightly around his right arm, controlled by an automatic device that was part of the computer; brightly colored wires trailed back to the sophisticated polygraph which Canning had taken from its steel security case.

  The three-foot-square portable computer monitored Yuan's pulse, blood pressure, skin temperature, rate of perspiration, and brain waves. Furthermore, it listened to his voice and analyzed the stress patterns which were beyond his conscious control. Instantly assimilating these indices, the computer translated them into a purple line that glowed across the center of a small read-out screen. If the line was comparatively still, the subject's answers were close to the truth. If the line began to dance and jiggle, the subject was most likely lying. It was a very complicated yet simple machine; Canning had seen it used, had taken a course in its use, and he trusted it.

  Because Yuan Yat-sen spoke no English, Lee Ann would ask all the questions.

  Canning turned to her now. "We'll start off with questions we know the answers to. The first one is —'What is your name?' "

  She relayed the question to Yuan.

  "Yuan Yat-sen," he said.

  The purple line vibrated for a moment.

  Smiling, Canning said, "Very good. Now ask him to tell you his real name, the name he was born with and not the one he adopted when he became a deep-cover agent."

  Lee Ann asked the question.

  Yuan said, "Liu Chao-chi."

  The purple line did not move.

  The questioning led to the Dragonfly project, but for the next ten minutes the purple line rarely moved.

  At last Canning switched off the polygraph and said, "Yuan is not the man we want. He doesn't know anything at all about Dragonfly or trigger men."

  General Lin said, "You are certain? The machine could be wrong."

  "That's not likely."

  "He seems like a crafty old man," the general said doubtfully.

  "Not crafty enough to deceive a computer," Canning said. "Printed circuitry and microtransistors aren't susceptible to guile."

  The general nodded. "Very well. What is the name of your second agent? We are wasting time here."

  "I agree that we ought not to waste time," Canning said. "This is a very grave matter. On the other hand, Dragonfly has been ready for activation for months and hasn't yet been used. I don't understand your great impatience, General."

  General Lin frowned. "I do not understand it either. But I feel—something very wrong. I have nightmares, and recently they have grown worse. I know time is running out. I sense it. So ... The second name, please?"

  WASHINGTON: FRIDAY, 11:45 P.M.

  Andrew Rice was surprised to hear the President's voice on the other end of the line. "Is something wrong, sir?"

  "Yes, Andy, I'm afraid that something is very wrong. The Soviet ambassador paid me a visit a few minutes ago. He outlined their reaction to the Dragonfly project if it should be carried out."

  His heart suddenly racing, Rice said, "I see."

  "I'm sending a limousine around for you."

  "Yes, sir."

  "It'll bring you to the Pentagon."

  "Yes, sir."

  Why not the White House? Rice wondered. But he did, not ask, for he knew they had said all that could be said on an open phone line.

  "See you within the hour, Andy."

  "Yes, Mr. President."

  Rice hung up, cursing the goddamned Russians. He expected that they would invade China from the west once the plague had struck in Peking. That was acceptable. That could be dealt with in due time. But this sounded like something much more ominous. Had the Russians given Washington some ultimatum? Were those crazy goddamned Bolsheviks siding with the Chinese? They hated the Chinese! Why would they line up with them? It was craziness!

  He dressed hurriedly and was standing in front of his town house, crunching LifeSavers two at a time, when the limousine arrived.

  PEKING: SATURDAY, 5:45 P.M.

  The second CIA deep-cover agent was a sixty-four-year-old man named Ku K'ai Chih. Like Yuan, he had been a follower of Chiang, and he had lost his entire family and his business in the revolution. Another natural for the CIA. He had returned to the mainland in the spring of 1951, and he had rapidly established himself as an ardent Maoist, organizing a Party unit among the dock workers and seamen in the great eastern ports like Foochow, Shanghai, and Tsingtao. Today he was one of the twelve members of the board of managers of China's merchant marine.

  The interrogation went as it had with Yuan: Canning asked the questions in English; Lee Ann rephrased them in Chinese, the subject replied, and the computer a
nalyzed the responses. The purple line seldom wavered.

  At the end of fifteen minutes of intense questioning, Canning said, "This one's clean too."

  Lee Ann explained to Ku that he would remain at the embassy, would later be flown to the United States for debriefing in full, and then would be returned to Taiwan.

  "We are left with the conclusion that the trigger man for Dragonfly must be your third agent," General Lin said.

  "It certainly looks that way," Canning said.

  "His name?"

  Canning hesitated for an instant, then said, "He is Sung Chu'ung-chen. As you may know, Sung is in charge of a branch of your Internal Security Force."

  General Lin's yellow-brown face darkened perceptibly. He was extremely mortified by the news that one of his own subordinates was a CIA deep-cover agent. "I know Mr. Sung all too well."

  "Shall we go find him?" Canning asked.

  "I shall go find him," the general said. "I will not require your assistance this time, Mr. Canning. Since Sung is obviously the trigger agent for Dragonfly, the crisis is past. We can arrest him and get to the truth in our own fashion, without your marvelous computerized polygraph." He smiled coldly. "And later, of course, he might also wish to tell us what misguided citizens of the People's Republic cooperated with him in the passing of secret information."

  Getting swiftly to his feet, Webster said, "General Lin, may I say that this is a most uncooperative—"

  "You may say what you wish," Lin assured him. "But I have no time to stand here and listen." He turned and strode out of the drawing room.

  Webster was nonplused. He sputtered helplessly for a moment and finally said, "Well, I told you he was a cunning little man. In spite of all your precautions, your network is blown."

  Lee Ann began to laugh.

  Canning smiled.

  Amazed, Webster said, "I fail to grasp the comic element."

  Stifling her laughter, Lee Ann said, "David foresaw just this situation as he was drifting off to sleep last night in Tokyo—that neither of the first two agents we interrogated would be the trigger for Dragonfly. He got up and put through a call to Bob McAlister and asked him to dig up a good fourth name."