“Who are we looking for?”
Xenos shrugged. He’d slept a little on the trip over and was now experiencing his fifth wind of the day. “Just stay alert. They said we’d be met.”
He gave her the last of his money—he didn’t even have the fare for the tickets he would need to get off the boat—and sent her to the tiny snack bar to buy some coffee. Eventually they settled at one of the incongruous-looking picnic tables with the thin, rickety plastic chairs that groaned their objection to any weight.
Children ran around, people opened some of the large windows allowing cold winds from Long Island Sound to race through the relatively bare deck; some bought snacks and perched on ledges to watch the water go by or the other passengers. Some wandered into or out of the bar or up and down from the car decks. The usual mix for a late afternoon ferry ride.
But to Valerie, they all looked like threats, all sinister, deadly. Each man and woman waiting to catch them up and throw them overboard. Each child a smiling accusation of her failed maternity.
So she wasn’t surprised when Xenos tensed, staring across the wide enclosed deck, and tapped on her tightly clasped hands.
“We have a problem.”
Valerie shook her head. “Has it ever been otherwise?” She followed his gaze, sadly recognizing one of the guards from the building. “You think he’s alone?”
“I doubt it,” Xenos said as his gaze shifted to another man in his forties in an elegantly expensive suit who was smiling as he casually walked over to their table.
“Judging by what’s left of your face, you have to be the man I’m supposed to be meeting.” He pulled over a chair and sat down, as Valerie edged away from him.
“If I told you that I had a gun under this table,” Xenos said conversationally, “you’d talk to me, right?”
The man seemed unfazed. “That’s why I’m here.”
“So convince me.” Xenos’s eyes never wavered from the casual man’s.
“Okay,” the man began after a moment of thought. “Let’s see. What would be the best way to break the ice?” He suddenly brightened. “Franco says don’t worry about transportation. He never walks.”
Xenos slid his gun back into his boot. “He’s okay.”
Valerie exhaled deeply, then leaned in to hear the whispered conversation.
“How bad are things?” the man asked.
“Worse than you can imagine,” Xenos answered. “We’re hot, targeted, with no money and fewer options. We need to get out of the country.”
“Not a problem.”
The man’s casual manner, confidence, almost carefree attitude, struck Valerie as just the latest lunacy in her lunatic day. “You do realize,” she said urgently, “that people are trying to kill us?”
“Congresswoman Alvarez, he beamed, “I’m an admirer. Even thought about voting for you once or twice. He paused. “Does that make me a stupid man or a smart one?”
Valerie relaxed for a brief instant and smiled. “Can I let you know in a couple of hours?”
He turned back to Xenos, handing him two ferry tickets. “Call me Gary.” It’ll do for the moment.
He began nibbling on the corn chips Valerie had bought. “First things first. Do either of you have any contraband, any drugs, guns, documents, or anything else that could get you in trouble with the legitimate authorities?”
They shook their heads.
“Mr. Filotimo, before we leave this table, you’re going to have to give me that gun you mentioned. I have a carry permit, so there won’t be any trouble if I have it.”
Xenos raised his swollen eyebrows. “And what about our friends over there?”
“How many do you make?”
Xenos never moved his head, but his eyes took in everything. “One stone pro,” maybe two punks working with him.
Gary nodded. “Local hire,” brought over from Hartford and Queens. And we make it one slick and four pussies.
He began to casually look around the deck. “Pro’s moved over to the snack bar to try and hear what we’re talking about. Local number one by the starboard staircase to the car deck. Number two’s by the port one. Number three’s in the bar behind us. Number four on the upper car deck.”
Xenos easily spotted the men within view. “And you want me to give up the gun.” It was a sad statement, not a question.
Gary shrugged. “Mr. Filotimo, Congresswoman Alvarez, I’ve been in this business for a long time and I’ve done hundreds of deals like this one. You have to trust me. I’m a straight shooter who’s only looking out for your best interest.”
He smiled again. “Listen, I live on repeat business. Let me impress you on this one and maybe you’ll throw some other deals my way in the future. Right? We’ll all have some fun, maybe make a couple of bucks.”
Valerie looked questioningly at Xenos, who continued to study the man across from him. Slowly he pulled the gun from his boot and handed it—under the table—to him.
“Okay,” Gary said comfortably as he tossed the gun into his open briefcase, “now watch how I look after your best interests.” He brushed some hair out of his eyes.
They watched incredulously as men began to casually move next to each of the identified threats. Reading newspapers, carrying sweaters or gym bags, they each settled next to the armed men—who almost immediately stiffened with surprised looks on their paling faces.
“Step one,” Gary said calmly. “Now if you’d come with me, we’ll adjourn to my office.”
He led them past one of the fuming but frozen gunmen, down the staircase to the car deck; to a large cargo van parked in the very front of the boat. He knocked twice, then opened the door.
“We don’t have as much time as I’d like,” he said as he climbed in behind them, “so if you’d save your questions for later, I’ll answer them all, I promise. Ms. Alvarez, if you’ll join me in the front, I think the doctor will have more room to work.”
Valerie moved into the front passenger seat, leaving Xenos in the back being stripped and tended to by an older man and an assistant. “Who are you?” she asked out of genuine curiosity.
Gary pulled a laptop over to him as he settled behind the wheel. “Most of the time?” A real estate attorney. Pretty good one too.
“And the rest of the time?”
He continued to type as he talked. “Whatever my clients require. My partners and I run a full-service firm.” He took a sheet of paper from the dashboard printer. “Would you sign this, please?”
Valerie read the paper, a routine attorney/client agreement combined with a power of attorney granting Smith, Walker, Corson, and Bruno—a legal corporation—full authority to act on behalf of Congresswoman Valerie Alvarez on any and all matters other than financial transactions.
Valerie signed quickly but looked concerned. “There may be a problem.”
“Okay,” Gary said calmly.
“There’s this letter I sent to one of my staff that might—”
“You send it to their office or home?”
“Home.”
Gary handed her a pad. “Write down the address.” He seemed lost in thought as she complied. “When and where’d you mail it?”
“East Manhattan, late last night.”
He thought some more and checked his watch. “Wouldn’t have been picked up until this morning at the earliest.” After another silence the smile returned. “Not a problem. We’ll interdict it at the home.”
They both felt the ship seem to shudder and begin a turn.
“How’s it going back there?” Gary called.
“Best we can do without X rays,” the doctor replied.
The lawyer spoke loud enough for both Xenos and Valerie to hear. “We’re coming into Port Jeff now. Probably another reception committee on the dock. Everybody just stay low, in the back, and after we clear the village, we’ll talk about where we go next, okay?”
He helped Valerie back, then joined her as the doctor and his assistant moved into the front.
> Xenos’s chest had been wrapped with a tight bandage and brace. A butterfly bandage held the wound above one eye closed, and the swelling was noticeably down in both. He also looked half asleep, but relieved of pain.
“You run a nice operation,” he said in a drugged voice.
Gary just smiled back professionally. “Grazie. Il fratello si prende il suo.”
The great mouth of the boat opened and they disappeared into the traffic nightmare of a Port Jefferson Village sunset.
The busy night had worn into a hectic day for Xi. The Crisis Management Corps had analyzed everything that they knew. Conclusions had shifted, changed, been abandoned or embraced as more information was received throughout the day. Psychologists had been consulted for profiles on the new player, Xenos Filotimo; to update and factor in the recent actions of the unexpectedly unpredictable congresswoman.
Finally they were done.
In classic Chinese fashion the corps had reached three mutually exclusive conclusions on what to do.
Now, as Xi sat in his office, watching a large tank of tropical fish, he reviewed them carefully.
The LRSO was not set up to deal with short-term, immediate solutions to long-range operations. Quite the opposite. And Xi personally detested hasty decisions.
But this time he knew one had to be made, and in the next few hours at the latest.
He allowed his mind to drift with the fish as he rolled the options around his mind.
The easiest solution—endorsed by eight of the fifteen corps members—was to do nothing. Allow Canvas the freedom to run his operation his way and not jeopardize thirty-one years of work and a near victory by unconsidered reflexive actions.
Four of the fifteen had voted for a slightly more activist response.
They advocated the execution of one of Valerie’s children as an object lesson. Although the woman was on the run, they were confident that news coverage of a horrible traffic accident would bring her out and bring her in. Once more the compliant eyes and ears needed to plug the holes the traitor Pei had created.
A small minority of the corps—three of the fifteen—had held out for the most radical of the possible solutions.
Their reasoning had the feel of correctness to the patient veteran of all of China’s covert wars. But its audacity and speed frightened him to the core. To say nothing of the implications of even the slightest error in the plan’s implementation.
But it felt right, and Xi couldn’t ignore that.
“We selected Apple Blossom from a cluster of seventy-five possible,” the three planners had argued. “Of this group, twenty-six remain active in the Apple Blossom chain in various critical positions in and out of the American government.”
“While Apple Blossom himself was selected as the best possible carriage, several of the others are of nearly equal qualification and pliability. Any of whom could be elevated to a position equal to Apple Blossom’s within five to ten years. This allows us a certain degree of flexibility in the boldness we may use in the current dilemma,” they’d argued.
In effect: take a calculatedly bold risk. If it fails, or begins to fail, simply remove Apple Blossom from the chain and start fresh with one of the other twenty-six. It would add time and expense to the operation, but the LRSO was designed to spend both freely. And to win the prize they were playing for, what were ten more years?
There were complications, Xi thought. Short-term, intense, potentially disastrous if things spun out faster than Canvas could control them. But four assassinations—their planning already in place as a possible contingency—would remove all evidence of any LRSO involvement in the affair.
And the Americans would never react meaningfully without evidence.
Calmly Xi rose and began feeding his fish. Precise amounts of food carefully crushed between his thumb and index finger. He watched as they rose to the top of the tank, conditioned to the time and placement of the food, by their own natural instincts.
As he stared into the tank, even deeper into his own heart, he knew that he, too, was equally conditioned. To distrust speed, rapidly arrived-at decisions, actions that entailed more than minimal risks. It was both his strength and his weakness, and the hallmark of his administration of the Long-Range Study Organization.
He reached into his pocket for the bottle of medication he kept for a troublesome heart. Skimming up some of the residue of the tablets on one finger, he brushed a very few grains into the water. A brilliantly colored angelfish rapidly rose to the three grains that floated downward and swallowed them instantly.
Less than ten seconds later the fish convulsed and died.
Instinct, he thought as he scooped the fish out of the tank and walked back to his desk. He put the dead fish on the desk as he pressed the call button for his aide.
A moment later the man stood before him.
“On Apple Blossom,” he said softly as he stared at the fish whose instinct had caused its death. “Inform the German that he is to expedite the operation. Fruition in one month, please.”
“Sir!” The man hurried from the room to issue the order.
Xi stared at the dead fish for ten minutes before finally burying it in a nearby planter—typically taking advantage of the death to further something else… the fish’s decaying form would add strength and resiliency to the plant.
As Xi’s death from a disaster wrought by his casting instinct aside would strengthen the LRSO. They would never again risk such a precipitous act.
In either event—grand failure or spectacular success—the LRSO (and the People’s Republic beyond) would benefit from his decision.
And that was all that mattered.
Seven
It looked like it wanted to die, but kept on out of habit.
Happy’s Burgers and Playland sat alone in a brown weedy field, odd spindly-looking green things having consumed 80 percent of its former parking lot, wooden boards sealing every door and window as permanently as pennies on the eyes. But due to oddities and discrepancies in the land’s title, it was never allowed to be euthanized. Just forced to remain in annually greater decay; a frozen monument to a time that must have been better since it was in the past.
But the life within the hollow building was far from frozen.
Tables were set up in the former Nerf Pit, on which were spread maps, photographs, a telephone. Cots and trays were in the cold kitchen; including a microwave oven powered by a car battery, several ice chests, and a neat pile of cans.
But it was the dining room that was the most jarring incongruity in the place.
High-powered lamps surrounded a glistening coroner’s table that was draped with hospital-green sheets. Bloodstains browned on the floor around it, carts with surgical instruments were alongside, oxygen cylinders stood by IV stands, all connected—one way or another—to the man that lay on the table, watched over by a blue-jeaned nurse reading Forbes.
For two days the fugitives had rested at this improvised way station. Two days of sleep and alternating worry, panic, and relief for Valerie.
Two days of surgeries, follow-ups, and blissful unconsciousness for Xenos.
An armed man sat by the seemingly boarded front door, another sat at the rear; and Gary—constantly on the phone or checking on his charges—was everywhere. He would come and go, no explanations asked or offered. And he would return with fresh clothes, newspapers, and this morning … information.
“Valerie,” he said as they talked in the improvised operations center, “this thing is spiraling out of control, and fast.”
But she was taking such news better now, almost as though it had become the norm and nothing special to react to.
“What now?” she asked as she read a Washington Post article about the crisis of the week—Taiwanese nationalists had allegedly boarded a U.S. merchant vessel, robbing it, raping a female officer. The Taiwan government denied any involvement, but the evidence seemed otherwise.
As the world paid rapt attention, moving the disappeara
nce of a congresswoman from Spanish Harlem to the back of the paper.
“Someone’s ratcheted up the pressure.” Gary referred to his hurried notes. “New York cops have received an advisory from the Secret Service to locate and detain our sleeping friend over there.” He nodded at Xenos. “They list him as a possible terrorist out to kill the president.”
He shook his head. “No one seems to know what set the Feds off on him, but everybody’s giving it a very low-key but very high priority.”
Valerie tossed the paper aside. “It just keeps getting better, she said as if she’d just tasted something unpleasant.”
Gary handed her a fax. “You have no idea.”
FBI DCHQ Nat’l Sec Desk Highest Priority
To: All Field Offices, Subdistricts, Branches, Divisions
From: The Office of the Director
Status: Extremely Urgent/Confidential—Maintain InfoSec on Need to Know strictly
Message Follows
A highly placed DEFECTOR from the Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China has informed USG that he has been in regular receipt of HIGHLY CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS and briefings re: USG policy and intelligence efforts directed at his country.
DEFECTOR further states that primary source for this information has been CONGRESSWOMAN VALERIE ALVAREZ of New York City.
CONGRESSWOMAN ALVAREZ and her family have been missing from home and office since news of the defection reached USG D.C.
Make every effort to locate and detain ALVAREZ and any others in her presence and hold incommunicado until resources from DCHQ and Central Intelligence can arrive.
Valerie turned ghostly white, her hand began to tremble, sweat poured from her forehead. “My God,” she whispered over and over again. “My God.”
Gary took the stolen telex from her unresisting hands and poured her a shot of something from a flask in his pocket.
“Like I said, someone’s getting very serious about this.” He returned to his notes. “We’ve got heavy surveillance on all ports of exit in the city and on the island. Cops, Feds, Coast Guard covertly checking pleasure craft under the guise of safety inspections. All with our friends from Connecticut still sniffing around.”
The 4 Phase Man Page 12
