by Allan Topol
Xiang steeled himself to reply in a firm voice. “I am prepared to kill Jasper. That’s what’s required.”
“Are you certain? If not, I’ll have somebody else do it.”
“I am certain. This is my project.”
“Well, you had better mean it because your parents will pay the price if you don’t do it in a manner that avoids any possible responsibility falling upon you or the People’s Republic of China. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, sir. It will be done.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning at five.”
“You better not mess this up.”
Xiang staggered out of the ambassador’s office and left the embassy. He decided to leave his car and walk home. As he moved up Connecticut Avenue toward his apartment, he was in agony. He had always considered himself a good person, a super achiever in school, a respectful son, and loyal to his nation. At Carnegie Mellon as a student, he had been respected, a recipient of a number of top honors.
Even after he joined, and was in the intelligence service, he believed that he was serving his nation, not compromising his moral standards. He had been a fool to have believed that he wouldn’t have to do something like this while working for the MSS.
He had also been a fool to have left his village to go to Shanghai. One thing led to another and, blindly, he’d ridden the train up and up the mountain until now when he suddenly felt as if he were hurtling into a moral abyss. How could it have come to this? To his contemplating the murder of another human being?
To be sure, Jasper was a despicable person, a traitor, and an adulterer, but Xiang couldn’t rationalize killing him.
He had his own ineptitude to blame for being in this position. If only he had found the CD, it would never have come to this.
He passed shops and small restaurants filled with people talking and laughing.
He wasn’t Liu’s slave, he decided. He still had control over his destiny. He didn’t have to kill Jasper.
A plan was taking shape in his mind. As soon as he returned home, he would call his parents and tell them to leave immediately for the countryside where they’d lived before they moved to Beijing. They still had friends and relatives in the town. Most of the people hated the government in Beijing for arbitrarily dictating living conditions and favoring the cities at the expense of rural areas. They would provide his parents a place to hide from Liu’s agents.
As for Xiang, he knew the United States very well. It was a huge country. He could disappear into the American west somewhere in Oregon or California and become one more of the millions of illegals residing in the United States. He’d take on another name. Most Americans lumped all Chinese, even all Asians, together. No one would notice or care. Yes, that’s what he would do. He wouldn’t kill Jasper. He’d run away.
When he entered his apartment, he smelled the peppers and eggplants he had been cooking before the ambassador had summoned him to the Embassy. He couldn’t think about eating.
He sat down at his desk, grabbed his cell phone, and called his parents. The phone rang three times. Then, horrified, Xiang heard in Chinese, “This number has been disconnected.”
In his haste, he must have dialed incorrectly, Xiang thought. He ended the call and dialed again. Same message.
He felt as if he’d been hit in the gut with a two by four. He felt sick to his stomach as the realization of what had happened took hold.
While he was walking back to his apartment along Connecticut Avenue, Liu, one step ahead of Xiang, had concluded Xiang might want to disobey his order to kill Jasper. So Liu had moved quickly, cutting off his parents phone service, probably even arresting them, or at least having tight surveillance placed on them around the clock. There was no way Xiang could talk to them. There was no way they could escape.
Liu had thwarted his plans for disobedience. Xiang had no doubt that unless he murdered Jasper, Liu would kill his parents.
Sadly, he realized he was no match for Liu.
In grim resignation, he thought about how he would kill Jasper and avoid having the murder attributed to him. He also had to eradicate Jasper’s connection to him.
As Xiang picked up the special encrypted cell phone to call Jasper, he realized he would have to ask Jasper to bring his phone to their meeting tomorrow morning so he could take it before it was found by the FBI or police. He had an easy way to do that: he would tell Jasper he was upgrading their phones to a newer model.
Before the call, he went over the plan in his mind several more times. He couldn’t leave any loose ends in this operation. Not only his own life, but his parents’ were on the line.
Satisfied, he picked up the phone and called Jasper. “Tomorrow morning,” he said. Then anxious to make certain Jasper would come, he added, “Good news.” That way Jasper would think Xiang had the CD.
“I’ll be there,” the senator said, sounding elated.
“And bring your phone with you. I want to exchange it for a newer model. See you then.”
* * *
Xiang arrived at their meeting point in Rock Creek Park fifteen minutes before five.
Jasper always jogged toward the meeting point from a southerly direction. Xiang didn’t want it to look as if Jasper had stopped for a meeting. He wanted to kill the senator when he was still running. So Xiang found a spot fifty yards south of the meeting point with thick shrubs on one side of the trail.
He crouched down behind the shrubs and waited.
Xiang was wearing tight black leather gloves. He pulled out the gun with a long silencer. Then he put on a ski mask, showing only his eyes.
At five minutes to five, Xiang saw Jasper approaching.
Xiang waited until the senator, jogging, was almost even with the bush. Then he stood and raised his gun hand.
Before firing, Xiang saw surprise on Jasper’s face. Then recognition. He knew.
Xiang pumped a single bullet into Jasper’s chest. The senator dropped to his knees, then collapsed onto this back.
They had taught Xiang well in shooting school. He was confident a single shot was all it would take to kill Jasper.
Calmly, he walked over. The senator’s body shook in a spasm. Then stopped moving. Xiang checked Jasper’s pulse.
He was dead.
Swiftly, but methodically, he removed the senator’s wallet and cash to make it look like a robbery. He lifted the encrypted cell phone from Jasper’s pocket and put all those items in the pocket of his windbreaker along with the gun.
He raced away from the scene in the direction of his car. Then he drove home. Disgusted with himself, he peeled off his clothes and soaked under a hot shower as if that would purge his guilt for Jasper’s murder. Then he put the gun, two encrypted phones, and Jasper’s wallet and cash into a brown supermarket bag.
He drove to the Embassy where he placed the items in the bag into a box marked “CONFIDENTIAL EMBASSY PAPERS.”
He personally carried that box down to the basement of the embassy. There, he instructed the clerk on duty, a young woman, to lock it in the secure vault. The embassy, by international law, was Chinese government property and could not be searched by the Americans.
No one could ever tie Xiang or the Chinese government to Jasper’s murder.
To the world, it would look as if one more jogger had been robbed and killed in Rock Creek Park.
Xiang took the elevator back to his office. There he called Liu and reported. “It was done.”
“Okay,” Liu replied tersely and hung up the phone.
No praise from the spymaster.
Xiang went up to the ambassador’s office and reported to him Jasper’s murder. “This better not be traced to you,” the ambassador responded.
Not much support there, either.
Xiang returned to his office. All he thought about now was his parents. He hoped he’d saved their lives.
He waited a full hour before calling Beijing. This time his father answered immediately.
“How are you and Mother?” Xiang asked.
“Both fine.”
“Anything I can help you with?”
“We are both fine. Thanks to you.”
Relieved, Xiang put down the phone. Of course, Liu would take good care of them now that Xiang had killed Jasper. They were a valuable asset for Liu. As long as he had control over them, Liu could make Xiang do anything he wanted.
* * *
At six thirty in the morning Martin was on the treadmill in the exercise room in his house unsuccessfully trying to blot out thoughts about the CD, Allison, and Jasper, when the doorbell rang. He raced to the door to answer before it woke Frances, still sleeping upstairs.
Opening the door, Martin saw the grim-faced Chinese ambassador. “Can I come in?” he asked.
“Sure.”
Martin led him to the study.
“Sorry to bother you so early,” the ambassador said.
“What happened?”
“Senator Jasper’s dead. He was jogging in Rock Creek Park and was killed in a robbery. A soon as I heard about it on the news, I rushed right here.”
How convenient, Martin thought. He had no doubt one of the ambassador’s colleagues at the embassy working for MSS had killed Jasper. It was obvious to Martin from the discussion on the CD that Jasper had supplied information to Liu, but he was no longer of use to the spymaster. Indeed, after Vanessa’s death, Jasper was a liability to Liu, as he was to Martin.
The Washington lawyer could guess what the ambassador would say next.
“In view of Senator Jasper’s unfortunate death, I would like you to reconsider submitting the CD to the FBI and instead to destroy it.”
Martin had guessed right. “You’re asking quite a bit from me. That would be hard to justify.”
“We’re your client. Isn’t that justification?”
“I didn’t receive the CD from you in a lawyer client communication. I received it from Allison Boyd.”
“True. But with Jasper’s death, his espionage has ended and he can’t be punished.”
“That’s certainly correct.”
“Now let’s talk about the consequences of your turning it over. Minister Liu and his colleagues aren’t subject to American law. There will be no one to punish. All it will do is inflame and poison relations between our two great nations for a long period. That will hurt both of us. So it would be in your national interest, as well as ours, to destroy the CD.”
It was a clever argument, Martin thought. “There’s merit in what you say. But I’m a private citizen. That’s a decision to be made by the officials of the American government. They have to balance the issues that you raised.”
The ambassador smiled. “With all due respect, Andrew, you know much better than I that a critical decision like this will never be decided rationally. The press will get hold of it. Congressmen will call press conferences and Sinophobia will have a field day in the media. That public outcry will preclude your government from making the choice which is in your country’s best interest. Only you alone can make that choice now. You know I’m correct.”
As Martin thought about his response, the personal issue for him weighed heavily. Disclosing the CD was virtually certain to bring to the forefront Vanessa’s death and Martin’s role in covering up what had happened in Anguilla. His nomination as chief justice, a virtual certainty at this point, would go down the tubes.
Martin sighed. Once again, he was faced with a moral and ethical dilemma. And once again he would do whatever was necessary to preserve his chance to be chief justice. By acceding to the ambassador’s request and destroying the CD, would he be an accessory to murder? Of course not, he tried to rationalize. He had no real knowledge that the Chinese had murdered Jasper. Merely supposition. He also tried to tell himself that the ambassador’s argument had merit: what he would be doing was in the best interest of the United States. But Martin was too smart to accept any of those rationalizations for a moment.
“I’ll destroy the CD,” Martin said in a barely audible voice.
The slippery slope had now plunged him through the gates of hell.
When the ambassador left, Martin focused on Allison. He’d still have to deal with her. But he had a way to do that.
* * *
When Allison woke up at seven in the guest bedroom in Paul’s house, she immediately checked the online Washington Post on her iPhone.
“Oh my God,” she cried out as she saw Jasper’s body on the small screen and under it an article entitled, “Senator Jasper apparent victim of a robbery.”
In stunned disbelief, she read, “Senator Wesley Jasper from Colorado, who frequently jogged in Rock Creek Park in the early morning, was fatally shot at around 5:00 a.m. this morning in an apparent robbery.
“In view of Jasper’s status as a US senator, the FBI has assumed control of the case. Kelly Cameron, an FBI special agent on the scene, issued a statement: ‘At this point, we have no basis to believe this was anything other than a robbery. However, our investigation is still in its very early stages, and all possibilities will be considered.’
“Senator Jasper was 55 years old. The senator is survived by his wife, Linda, who was in Colorado at the time of his death, as well as two children.”
Allison’s cell phone rang. It was Paul. “Hi. I’m at Dulles I just got off the red-eye.”
“Have you seen the news?”
“Not this morning. Why?”
She told him about Jasper’s death. “Jasper was murdered!” Paul cried out. “He wasn’t one of my favorite people, but still. One thing it does is give finality to your investigation of Vanessa’s death.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s over now. Jasper’s dead.”
Paul couldn’t be more wrong, but she didn’t want to argue with him over the phone. She would do that in person.
“I’m on my way to the house,” he continued. “I’ll see you soon.”
Once she hung up the phone, Allison focused on what Paul was overlooking.
It wasn’t over.
She still had to find out whom Jasper called from Anguilla. The villain who arranged to move her sister’s dead body.
With Jasper now dead, she wondered if she had lost any chance of finding out who that was. There had to be another way.
Think, she told herself. Think.
Wait a minute. She had one slender ray of hope.
Jasper had told her at Bistro Francais that once he brought Vanessa’s body to the villa he grabbed a cell phone and called the owner of the villa.
Perhaps he had reached for the nearest cell and it was Vanessa’s. If that was the case, and Allison had the cell, she could check it for past numbers called. But Vanessa’s cell never came back with her from Anguilla. Jasper or someone else must have discarded it.
But there might be another way. The first evening at Vanessa’s, Allison had asked Verizon to send copies of phone bills with the most recent statements. She had done it hoping this would lead her to the man Vanessa had been with in Anguilla. Well, now she knew he was Jasper. But if the senator had grabbed Vanessa’s cell to make his call, then the number of the man he called, the owner of the villa who moved Vanessa’s body, would show up on Vanessa’s Verizon statement on the list of most recent calls made from that cell.
By now, the Verizon bills should be in the mailbox at Vanessa’s apartment.
Excited, Allison burst out of the house. In the street, she flagged a passing cab. She gave the driver Vanessa’s address and said, “I’ll only be a minute. If you want to wait and bring me back here, I’ll give you a generous tip.”
The cabbie willingly obliged.
As he navigated his way through heavy morning traffic, Allison thought this could be the break she needed. But she cautioned herself that it was a long shot.
The instant the cab stopped in front of Vanessa’s building, Allison was out of the door, practically flying into the building. The man at the desk pulled back with a start. She guess
ed he thought dead Vanessa’s apparition had just flown through the door. She was already past him to the mailboxes in back of the lobby.
She opened Vanessa’s box, saw a Verizon envelope, and yanked it out. Back in the cab, she ripped open the envelope.
Recent cell phone calls made from Vanessa’s cell since the last bill were arranged on one sheet. At the bottom was the last call made.
She checked the date and time. It was precisely when Jasper said he called the owner of the villa. So he must have used Vanessa’s cell. Her eyes ran over to the number called: a 202 area code. A Washington DC number.
The cabbie slammed on his brakes and shook his fist at a driver who ran a red light. Allison’s head almost hit the partition, blocking off the front of the cab. “Sorry Miss,” the driver said. “Some people shouldn’t drive.”
Allison turned back to the Verizon bill. Her eyes ran across the rest of the line to the number called. It seemed very familiar. She knew that number.
It was Andrew Martin’s cell! She had dialed it yesterday morning from the train. To confirm, she checked recent calls on her own cell. There it was.
That dirty bastard. He had not only helped Jasper cut and run in Anguilla, but he was responsible for moving Vanessa’s body. And then lying and manipulating Allison.
She was beyond livid. She was more angry than she’d ever been in her life. If she could get her hands on Martin, she’d strangle him.
She wanted to confront him. Immediately!
She’d go anywhere she could find him.
How could Paul have been taken in by him?
As the cab pulled up in front of Paul’s house, she looked at the meter which read $22, handed the driver $40, and said, “No change. But hold on a minute, we may be going somewhere else.”
Still in the cab, she tried Martin’s cell. Got voice mail.
Maybe he went to the office early. She tried that. A secretary answered in a crisp British accent, “Mr. Martin’s office.”
She tried to sound calm. “This is Allison Boyd. I’d like to speak with Mr. Martin. Please tell him, it’s urgent.”
“I’ll check to see if he’s available.”
After a pause, the secretary said, “He’s in a meeting. Can I take a message?”
