“Tea, how lovely,” said the man in Chinese. He was dressed in a nondescript suit, white shirt, gray repp tie; his face was as smooth and unlined as a bolt of silk; his eyes cool and empty, his movements graceful. Underneath the clothes, Marion could see he was a perfect specimen of lean athleticism.
“It must steep,” said Marion, revealing no surprise, although it astonished and confounded him that the man had been able to enter the apartment. “Allow me to bring another cup in for you.”
The man nodded and Marion turned, going back into the kitchen. As he took the cup down from the cupboard, he eased a small knife out of a block on the counter and slipped it behind his back.
Back in the living room, Marion placed the cup beside the pot.
“I prefer white tea to be steeped at least ten minutes,” said the man. “Which will allow us time to talk.”
Marion waited.
The man clasped his hands behind his back and began a slow perambulation of the room. “I’m looking for something,” he said. He stopped in front of the banner hanging on the wall, examined it.
Marion said nothing. He put together in his mind the most efficient set of moves necessary to put the knife in the man’s throat.
“Do you know where it is?” the man asked.
“You haven’t told me what you’re looking for.”
“You don’t know?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The man waved this comment off as if he were waving away a mosquito. “What were you going to do with it?”
Marion said nothing. All was prepared in his mind. “Tea?”
The man turned. “It hasn’t steeped long enough.”
“I prefer it on the more delicate side.”
“Help yourself, then. I’ll wait.”
Marion bent forward with an easy motion and picked up the iron pot by the handle. His mind was as clear and bright as a diamond. He tipped the pot up, filling the cup with hot liquid, placed the pot down, brought the cup up in an unhurried motion as if to his lips and then, with a quick flick of the wrist, sent the scalding contents into the man’s face while at the same time extracting the knife with a lightning motion, slashing it across the man’s throat.
But the man, and the throat, weren’t there, and the knife flashed harmlessly through the air. Briefly overbalanced by the motion, Marion’s weight went forward, and as he tried to recover, an arm with a clawed hand came shooting out of nowhere; Marion saw what looked like metal talons; he tried to duck but it was too late; he felt a savage tug on his throat and a sudden burning rush of air.
The last thing he saw was the man standing beside him, clutching what he realized was his own bloody, pulsing windpipe.
Nodding Crane took a few steps back from the twitching body as blood pumped out onto the carpet. He dropped the grisly part and waited until all was still, then he stepped around the obstruction and into the kitchen. He washed his hands three times in very hot water and carefully examined his suit. There were no flecks of the xiǎorén, the small person, on his clothing. All the force of the movement had been away from his body. There were just a few drops of blood on his left wing-tip shoe, which he meticulously cleaned with a damp rag, followed by a quick polish.
Back in the living room, the blood had ceased to flow. The carpet had absorbed a great deal of it, keeping the bloodstain from spreading. Stepping around it again, he poured himself a cup of tea and tasted it with pleasure. The steeping time had been perfect. He sipped it down and poured another, bringing to mind a particularly appropriate thought from his vast storehouse of Confucian philosophy: When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot.
38
Gideon Crew strolled around the baggage carousel, as if awaiting luggage. He had no luggage coming in, of course, but he wanted to check out who else was there. Mindy Jackson’s parting words rang in his ears. “Nodding Crane is remarkable only in that he is unremarkable. Except for flat eyes and a perfect physique.” There were, of course, many Asians at the carousel, including a number who fit Mindy’s rather unhelpful description.
Don’t get paranoid, he told himself. Focus on the next step.
He extracted his wallet, riffled through the money he had left. About a thousand. Not for the first time, he felt a stab of annoyance at how Glinn and company seemed to have abandoned him.
But when you return to the States, he’ll be waiting. I doubt you’ll survive.
His next step was obvious. If Wu hadn’t passed off the plans after exiting customs, and they weren’t on his person, he might have passed them off to someone before clearing customs. Conveniently, Gideon was now inside the customs security zone. Even as he pondered his approach, the endless looped warning rang out again on the PA system: Please report suspicious persons or unattended luggage to the appropriate authority.
Carpe diem.
He looked about, spied a TSA guard. “Excuse me,” he said, “I believe I’ve seen something suspicious and wish to report it to the appropriate authority.”
“I can take the report,” said the guard.
“No,” said Gideon primly. “I have to report it to appropriate authority. It’s very important.”
“As I said, I’ll take the report.”
“But the announcement said appropriate authority,” Gideon said, more loudly. “No offense intended, but you’re a guard. I want to speak to someone in authority—just as the announcement directs. There’s no time to waste. I’ve seen something very startling, and I need to report it immediately.” He compressed his lips and put on a truculent expression.
The guard’s eyes flickered. “All right, follow me.”
He led Gideon through a back door and past a warren of windowless cubicles and passageways to a shut door. The guard knocked, and a voice called them in.
“Thank you,” said Gideon, entering, turning, and shutting the door in the guard’s face.
He turned back and saw a soft, dough-like man seated behind a large desk completely covered with paper. “What’s this?”
The guard tried to enter but Gideon, standing at the door, blocked it with his foot. He tossed his passport on the desk and said, “CIA. Send the guard away.”
The man lifted the passport to examine it. The guard knocked again. “Open up.”
“Thank you,” the man called to the guard. “That will be all. Return to duty.”
He turned his attention back to the passport and scowled at the diplomatic stamps. “Doesn’t say anything about CIA. Got a badge?”
“Of course not!” Gideon said sharply. “We don’t carry ID when we work under diplomatic cover.”
The man put down the passport. “Okay, what’s up?”
Gideon gave the man a long, hostile stare. “Captain Longbaugh?”
“That’s what the badge says. Now you better tell me what’s on your mind, sir, because as you can see I’m pretty busy.” What he could see was that Longbaugh was used to dealing with petty bureaucrats and officials. He was going to be a tough nut to crack.
Gideon pulled a notebook from his pocket, consulted it. “On June seventh, at twelve twenty-three AM, a Japan Airlines flight arrived with a passenger on board, Mark Wu. He was followed as he left JFK, and his taxi was forced off the street in Spanish Harlem. Perhaps you read about that accident. Eight people were killed, including Mr. Wu.”
“I did.”
“We need a copy of the security tapes that captured his movements from the point of debarkation to where he hired the taxi.”
Longbaugh stared at him. “I’ll need to see some sort of paperwork on this.”
Gideon took a step forward. “We’ve got an ongoing terrorist situation here and you want to ‘see paperwork’? Is this where we still are, after 9/11 and two wars?”
“Sir, we have procedures in place…”
Gideon leaned in and screamed into Longbaugh’s face like a drill sergeant, hitting him with spittle. “Procedures? Paperwork?
When people’s lives are at stake?”
It was, he realized, a high-risk/high-reward approach. If it didn’t work, he was screwed.
But it did. “No need to scream,” said Longbaugh, leaning back, suddenly and thoroughly intimidated. “I’m sure we can work it out.”
“Then work it out! Now!”
The man was sweating bullets, clearly in a panic about making the wrong decision. Gideon suddenly took a much softer, kinder tone. “Look, Captain, I know you’re concerned about doing the right thing. I respect that. I’ll put in a good word up the line about you when this is over. But you’ve got to understand, paperwork takes time. And we just don’t have time.” He leaned in. “I’m going to share something with you. I’m not supposed to, but I can see you’re a trustworthy individual. We’ve got a flight midway across the Pacific with a known terrorist on board — they let the son of a bitch on in Lagos. We have reason to believe he is planning a terrorist action here.”
“Oh my God.”
“Oh my God is right. We’re way behind the curve on this one, trying to catch up. We’re flooding the terminal with undercover people as we speak, but I’ve got to see those tapes. There appears to be a vital link.”
“I understand.”
“Can we do this really, really quietly?” Gideon pleaded. “If we spook this guy or his accomplices…” He let his voice trail off.
Now he had Longbaugh one hundred percent on his side.
“I’m on it.” The man rose. “Come with me.”
The central security operations room lay in the bowels of the airport, and it was very impressive, walls of video screens and consoles with all the latest gear. The room was dim and hushed, dozens of people staring at monitors, not just of airport locations, but also feeds from bag scanners and X-ray machines and cams observing the taxiways and hangars.
Their efficiency was astounding. Twenty minutes later Gideon was exiting customs with a fresh, piping-hot DVD.
39
Got a movie for us tonight,” Gideon said, sliding into the white leather banquette in the Essex House lounge, bestowing a smile on Mindy Jackson. He turned to the waiter. “Bring me what she’s having, wet and dirty, two olives.”
“What movie?” asked Jackson.
“The Mark Wu show.” He laid down the DVD. “Shows him from the time he exited the plane to the taxi stand.”
She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ve already seen that show. It sucks — nothing on it. Nada.”
Gideon felt his face turn red. “You’ve seen it?”
“Are you kidding? That was the first thing we looked at. How’d you get it?”
The drink arrived, and Gideon took a swig to cover his disappointment. “I used those diplomatic embosses you put on my passport. And a little yelling.”
“One of these days you’re going to run into somebody who doesn’t fall for your bullshit.”
“So far, so good.”
She shook her head. “Not everyone in the world is stupider than you.”
“I haven’t seen it,” he said. “Will you watch it with me—upstairs in our room?”
“Our room?” Her smile turned a little cold. “What happened in Dubai stays in Dubai. We’ll watch it in my room. You find your own place to sleep. No more pooling, to use your charming phrase.”
Gideon made an effort to look as if he didn’t care.
She polished off her drink and rose. “You’re going to be disappointed.”
“I already am.”
Up in her room, he fired up the DVD player and slid in the disk. The first shot showed a wide angle of the gate, with a time, date, and location stamp running along the bottom. After a moment Wu appeared, looking much as Gideon remembered him: fringe of hair, domed forehead, mousey, somewhat wan. He walked through the frame, threading a group of passengers waiting for the next flight.
The DVD then cut through a series of rapid frames, one after another, showing Wu walking down the terminal, entering passport control, waiting in the interminable NON-US-CITIZEN line, going through passport control, breezing through customs, then walking out and down the escalators.
“Hey. There’s you!” said Jackson. “Like a deer in the headlights.”
“Very funny.”
The DVD ended outside, with the Escape driving off.
Gideon rubbed his eyes. He felt like a damn fool, taking such a risk at the airport — a risk that might well come back to haunt him — for nothing.
“I’m tired,” said Jackson. “I’m jet-lagged, I didn’t sleep a wink last night, thanks to you. Do you mind?”
Gideon was staring at the image of the car, frozen on the screen. “There’s just one thing I’d like to look at again—”
“Out.”
“No, really. Something I’d like to see again. Right at the beginning.”
“What?”
“When Wu walks through those waiting people. Did you see there was an Asian woman there with a boy?”
“There were a lot of Asians.”
“Yes, but — I want to see it again.”
She sighed, turned back to the screen. They watched it again.
“There!” said Gideon abruptly, causing her to jump.
“I didn’t see anything.”
“Watch again.” He retracked the video and went through it in slow motion.
“I still didn’t see anything. Trust me, our experts have examined this tape in detail.”
“Quiet and watch…There!” He froze the frame. “A classic sleight. A reverse palm-out manip.”
“A what?”
He felt himself blush. “I studied magic.” He didn’t go into the reasons why he had studied magic. “You learn how to manipulate smallish pieces of paper. Magicians call such moves ‘manips.’ Usually they’re for cards.” He backed up the DVD and went through it again, frame by frame. “Check it out. The boy drops the teddy bear as Wu approaches…she leans over to pick it up…anyone watching would be following her hand picking up the teddy bear. But look at her left hand…you see her left palm is facing out, wrist straight…Then Wu goes past, and afterward her left hand is closed and the wrist slightly bent.”
He ran it through it yet again, frame by frame.
“I think I saw it,” she said doubtfully. “He passed her something.”
“No, no! It’s a reverse — she passed him something. And she did it in a way to hide it from anybody watching from any angle.”
“Why would she pass him something?”
“No idea.” Stopping the replay and getting a small piece of hotel notepaper, he demonstrated the move.
“I’ll be damned. But if she passed him a piece of paper, where is it?”
“Who knows? I expect he destroyed it when he realized he was being pursued.”
“That woman,” said Jackson, “is key. We’ve got to find her.”
Gideon nodded.
She turned to him. “We’ll split up the job. You look for the boy, I’ll look for the woman.”
“How in the world could I find the boy—?” But then he stopped, having noticed something else in the video; something that she, and everyone else, had apparently overlooked.
Jackson was already putting on her coat, gathering her wallet. “Call me if you find anything. I’ll do likewise.”
40
Tom O’Brien’s stubbled face slipped away from his supporting palm, and he awoke with a jerk. He glanced blearily over at the clock: just past ten. He’d been asleep at his desk for several hours and both his legs were tingling. It had happened again: he’d gotten so engrossed in the Python data-handling extension he’d been coding that he’d “wrapped around” the previous night and totally forgotten to sleep.
He stood up with a groan and massaged his legs. Food: that would wake him up.
Sliding a Sacramentum CD into the player and cranking it up, he padded into the kitchen. Pushing away piles of dirty dishes to make a work space, he pulled a baguette from its pa
per sheath and cut it lengthwise. Quickly he assembled a sandwich: peanut butter, sliced banana, mini marshmallows. A few slices of deli pickle added the final touch. He pressed the two halves of the sandwich together, tucked it under one arm, plucked a liter bottle of Dr Pepper from the fridge, and headed back toward his office.
He neighed in surprise and dismay at the sight of a man in his living room. Bottle and sandwich fell to the floor in unison, marshmallows and pickles flying everywhere. Then he saw it was Gideon Crew.
“Stop doing that!” he yelled at his friend. “If I die of a heart attack, who’s going to solve your little problem?” He knelt down and began reassembling the sandwich, picking cat hairs off the pickles.
“Don’t tell me you’re still eating peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches,” Gideon said. “Not interested in living to enjoy your Social Security, I guess.”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’m not the one being chased by half the spooks in Langley.” He scowled. “I haven’t had time to do any more work on those numbers.”
“No? Why not?”
“Unlike some people, I have to work for a living.”
“Yeah. Assistant lecturer at Columbia. When are you going to stop being a perennial grad student and actually earn that degree?”
“And face the real world?” He took a bite of the sandwich and headed into his office, Gideon following. “Look, it’s not just my work. It’s the nature of your problem. I told you, it’s like having a recipe without the ingredients. Three tablespoons of X, two ounces of Y, and a pinch of Z. Without the ingredients, I can’t do squat!”
“There’s something else I need your help on.”
“Do I get another thousand?”
Gideon ignored this, reaching into his coat and pulling out a DVD. “There’s a video capture on this. I need you to blow up and enhance an image for me.”
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