Hostile Contact

by Gordon Kent

  And his telephone rang.

  “Dukas,” he growled into it in his early-morning voice.

  “It’s Alan.”

  “Hey, man!” Dukas sounded to himself like a jerk—happy-happy, oh boy, life is great! Trying to cheer up Al Craik because he sounded like shit. “How’s it going, Al?”

  “Get me something to do, Mike. Anything!”

  “That’s a job for your detailer, Al.”

  “My detailer can’t do anything; I’m on medical leave and some genius at Walter Reade wants to disability-discharge me. I’m going nuts, Mike.”

  “Yeah, well—you sleeping?”

  “Sleeping—what’s that? No, I’m not sleeping. I fought with Rose; I shouted at my kid—” His voice got hoarse. “Mike—I’ll do anything to get my mind off myself. Scut work, I don’t care.”

  This was Dukas’s best friend. They had almost died together. They had been wounded together. Dukas’s own helplessness made him somber. “I’m doing scut work myself, kid. Writing reports on what happened in Pakistan, closing the Shreed file.” He sighed. On the other end, Craik made a sound as if he were being wounded all over again, and Dukas, relenting, said, “Come down to the office, what the hell. We can talk, anyway. Okay? Hey, you talk to Harry lately?”

  Alan Craik was slow to answer. He muttered, “I don’t like begging, Mike. But I’m going nuts. Last night, I— Rose and I had a fight, and I—almost—” He didn’t say what he had done. He didn’t have to; the tone of his voice said it all.

  Then Alan snapped back from wherever he was. Mike heard the change.

  “What about Harry?”

  “Tell you later.”

  In the Virginia Horse Country.

  A dark Ford Explorer turned into a gap in a wooden fence where a paved drive led away from the two-lane road. There was a line of oaks and more wooden fence along the lane, and up ahead a colonial revival house that needed paint. The wooden fence wanted attention, too, and the pasture beyond it was scraggy with tufts of long grass, and a horseman would have known that no animals were being pastured there.

  The Explorer pulled up next to the house and a tall man got out. He waved at somebody by the stable block and trotted up the front steps, nodded at the hefty young man at the front door, and said, “Everything okay?”

  “Bor-ing,” the young man said. “He’s upstairs.”

  “I’ll talk to him in the music room.” Balkowitz always talked to Ray Suter in the music room, which had no music but did hold an out-of-tune baby grand that had been pushed against a wall to make room for recording equipment. Balkowitz was a lawyer for the Central Intelligence Agency; the bulky young man was named Hurley and worked for Agency security; the man out at the stable block was a local who took care of the place but wasn’t allowed in the house. And Ray Suter, the man upstairs, had been George Shreed’s assistant and was wanted by various people for murder, conspiracy to commit a felony, espionage, and perhaps corrupting the morals of a minor. The CIA, however, had him stashed away here, and what they wanted him for was information.

  Balkowitz sat on a faded armchair that smelled of its age. He was dressed in jeans and a polo shirt and looked more like a Little League dad than a lawyer. When Suter came in—tall, pale, pinched—Balkowitz got up and waited for Suter to sit. Balkowitz’s manner reflected his Agency’s own ambivalence—polite and stern, unsure and patriarchal. Suter, to judge from his sour smile, knew all about it and rather enjoyed the situation. “You keep trying,” Suter said. “A for effort.”

  “Mister Suter—”

  “Ray.” Suter spread his hands. “We know each other well enough. Call me Ray.”

  “I just want to apprise you of your situation here. Really, you know, if you’d get yourself a lawyer—”

  Suter shook his head. “I don’t need a lawyer.”

  “Your situation is serious.”

  Suter raised his eyebrows. “The food’s good. Hurley plays pretty good tennis. Except for the lack of females, it isn’t bad.”

  “Mister Suter, you’ve been charged in Virginia and Maryland, and we’re holding off federal charges until, until—”

  “Until I talk?” Suter laughed. “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “I just want to impress on you the legal seriousness of—”

  “You say that every time you come. I’ve told you, I think three times now, I’ve got nothing to say. You guys are holding me here without a charge; well, okay, I’m suspended from work, anyway. I assume that you want me to get a lawyer because you think a lawyer would tell me to bargain. But for what? With what?”

  “If we file charges, you face twenty years to life on the federal issues alone.”

  “If you do. Right.” Suter grinned. “Maybe you should file.”

  Balkowitz sniffed and reached into his pocket for a tissue. He was allergic to something in the room. “Mister Suter, we’re holding off the local jurisdictions with some difficulty.” He blew his nose. “Your relations with the young man, Nickie, um, Groski—if you’d be willing to tell us anything there—”

  Nickie Groski was a computer hacker whom Suter had hired to hack into George Shreed’s computers, but Suter hadn’t admitted to a word of that. Instead, he said now, “What would you like to hear?”

  “You were in the boy’s apartment when the police broke in.”

  “I was, yes.” Suter seemed pensive, as if what Balkowitz was saying was a little surprising.

  “You paid the rent on that apartment.”

  “Maybe I felt sorry for him. Or maybe I’m gay. Is he gay?”

  Balkowitz stopped with the tissue at his nose. “Mister Suter, we know you chased women all over the place.”

  Suter nodded almost sadly. “Maybe I’m bisexual. What is it you think I did with this boy?”

  “That’s what we want to know.” Balkowitz got out a document, which he kept tapping as he talked. “If you agree to tell us about Nickie Groski and certain other things, then we’re willing to—but you really should have a lawyer to help with this—”

  Suter didn’t even look at the document. “You’d like me to have a lawyer because then I’d be admitting I was ready to deal. But I’m not. No deal, Balkowitz.”

  They went around for another ten minutes, Suter seeming to enjoy it all the more as Balkowitz’s nose ran and the lawyer’s face got red. At the end, the man’s patience ran out and he pointed a finger and said, “This is my last visit! You come partway to us or the shit will hit the fan out there!”

  Suter gave his thin, acid smile. “I love the majesty of the law.” He patted Balkowitz’s shoulder. “Have you tried Allegra-D?”

  Suter went back upstairs and changed into shorts and took the time to scribble a note on a very small piece of paper, which he signed “Firebird” and stuffed into a chartreuse tennis ball in which he’d already made a slit. When he went downstairs, he told Hurley he was going to practice some serves, and he went out the back door and, passing the stable block, threw the slitted tennis ball for an old golden retriever to catch. The dog lumbered after it, caught up with it, held it down with a paw until he could get his old teeth around it, and then, tail wagging, carried it to his owner, the maintenance man.

  Beijing.

  Colonel Lao tse-Ku touched the place where the two sides of his collar joined at his throat. The gesture was unconscious, not quite nervous but certainly atypical—a last check of self before opening a door through which you can pass only once.

  The door itself was quite mundane—gray, metal, the surface broken only by a small nameplate, INFORMATION DIRECTORATE. The man who held the door’s handle, ready to open it, was inconsequential, too, a captain, balding, smelling of cigarettes, but seeming to share the muted panic that Lao felt in Beijing, where heads were rolling and careers were crashing to an end. Now, when the captain opened the door and stood aside, the slice of room that Colonel Lao could see beyond was no more impressive than the outside—yet, again, he checked his collar, wondering if his own head was the nex
t to roll.

  And went in.

  The General was sitting at a desk of sleek, pale wood, certainly not government issue, the edges of its top slightly rounded, its proportions balanced and delicate. The door closed behind Lao; he braced, his eyes on the bent, bald head of the man behind the desk. Still, Lao’s first glance had registered an elegant bookcase, a scroll painting that was either old or well-faked, a silk carpet. All where they were not seen from outside the door.

  And, to the right of the desk and slightly behind it, a pale second man in civilian clothes who was smoking.

  The General looked up.

  “Colonel Lao tse-Ku, sir,” Lao managed to say.

  The old man smiled. “I know,” he said softly. He raised the fingers of one hand off the desk. “Sit.” The fingers seemed to indicate a chair to his left. Lao sat. The General looked at him for several seconds and then looked down at an open file on his desk, which he seemed to find more interesting than Lao. After several seconds more, the General glanced over his shoulder at the third man, but he made no move to introduce him.

  “You have been called very suddenly from Africa,” the General said to Lao.

  Lao was confused, uncertain whether he should say something banal about the soldier’s life or something enthusiastic about serving the nation, or—by that time, it was too late to say anything, and the General was going on. “You were ordered to Africa only a year ago.”

  This time, saying “Yes, sir,” seemed best.

  “You like it?”

  What on earth could he mean? The old fox knew perfectly well that at his age and rank, a senior figure in intelligence, Lao wanted to be in a major capital or Beijing, not an African backwater. “The post has interesting aspects,” he managed to say.

  The General glanced at his file and then at the third man and then said, “You were sent there because you lost a battle with your rival, Colonel Chen. Isn’t that so?”

  This plain speaking caught him off guard. Although, when he thought about it, the General must know all about the savage struggles for supremacy within the service. He and Chen were on the same course toward the top, two of six or seven who might one day run all of Chinese military intelligence. And, yes, Chen had bested him this time and arranged to have him sent into darkness. Still, Lao said, “I did not question my orders, sir.”

  He heard the third man flick a cigarette lighter and in his peripheral vision saw a new plume of smoke from that direction. He didn’t want to look directly at the man. Clear enough what he was.

  The General had a round face made puffy with fat, so that his eyes seemed to have difficulty keeping from being squeezed shut by cheeks and brows. When he chuckled, as he did now, a thousand wrinkles came to life. Smiling, he said to Lao, “Chicks that pecked their way out of the same egg will fight for the dunghill when they have combs and spurs. Rivalry between you and Chen is quite natural. Necessary, in fact. Working together is often required; going where you are ordered is required; rivalry, too, has its uses. You lost the last battle. Now it is your turn.” He leaned forward. “Colonel Chen has disappeared.”

  Lao made his face, he hoped, impassive; in fact, it looked wooden.

  “Chen has disappeared,” the General said again. “I want you to find him.” Lao sensed the third man’s movement, perhaps a gesture of a hand. The General frowned bitterly. “Finding him is of the highest priority.”

  The air of tension, then, the stories of rolling heads and ended careers, might have the loss of a senior intelligence officer as its cause. Even before he had received the orders to come to Beijing, Lao had got ripples of it in Dar es Salaam—somebody’s inability to make a decision, the absence of a senior official from his office.

  The civilian moved into the space by the General’s desk and began to speak in a low, guttural voice.

  “Three weeks ago, Colonel Chen went to northern Pakistan to meet with an American agent. He has not been seen since.”

  The man was tall, rather European in face—from one of the western provinces, Lao thought, feeling the dislike he couldn’t avoid for those people, not “real” Chinese. He had rather long and unkempt hair, sallow skin; there was something uncouth about his rapid gestures and his rumpled clothes. His voice was hoarse and heavily accented. An odd type to be a power in military intelligence. Lao thought he must be a party hack.

  “The meeting place was a peasant village,” he went on. “At night. Chen took twelve special forces soldiers. Nine were killed outright; two have died since; one is not expected to live. We interviewed the people of the village. Typically narrow-minded and fearful, hard to get anything out of.” He blew out smoke, made a chopping motion with the hand that held the cigarette. “Still. A few talked. There was shooting, they said. Then an aircraft came in and landed on the road below the village, then took off again.” He took two strides toward the door, his big feet making thudding sounds right through the carpet, spun and started back, waving out of his path the smoke that hung there. “One fellow who runs some sort of hostel said he had a ‘Western’ customer, who rented a bed and then disappeared. Caucasian, he said, didn’t speak the language but had a computer that gave him some phrases. We found cartridge cases from Spanish and Pakistani ammunition, plus our own, of course.” He blew out smoke and stood by the window, staring out. “Seven local civilians killed—we think by a shaped charge that Chen had brought with him. He blew a hole in an old tower, no idea why. Enemy inside, maybe. Doesn’t matter.” He turned back to the room and said, seeing some look on Lao’s face, “No, hold your questions until I’m done.

  “The aircraft. Karachi had had an emergency declared by an American naval aircraft the day before, but the aircraft never appeared. Went into the sea, maybe, they thought. Then, several hours later, an aircraft landed and took off from the village where Chen had been, and then an American naval aircraft exited Pakistani airspace while two American F-18s flew cover. Two of ours tried to engage and were shot down. The American carrier USS Thomas Jefferson was within recovery distance in the Indian Ocean.

  “Probable scenario: The Americans flew a combat team in under Pakistani radar, using the fake emergency for cover if they were caught, landed the aircraft somewhere up near the village, and later picked up the combat team after they had killed Chen’s men—and either killed or captured Chen and the American agent he had gone to meet.

  “That is one scenario. Knowing American military doctrine, we did not find evidence of American special forces in the village. Ammunition casings were relatively few for so many men, and limited to shotgun, 9 mm, .41 Magnum, and—peculiar—.38 special. The .41 Magnum came from a Desert Eagle that was left behind. Scenario: The American agent brought his own shooters, either as a backup team because the zone was hot or because he feared Chen.

  “The agent—now I am telling you facts so tightly held that you will be only the fourteenth person in China to know them—the agent was an American CIA official named George Shreed. He had been giving Chen good material for years. Vetted, checked, proven. He was supposed to have met Chen in Belgrade a day earlier, but he canceled that meeting and set up the one in Pakistan. Which fell apart into a lot of shooting. Only today are we beginning to learn that this Shreed had apparently fled the U.S. two days before, not using the escape plan we had given him, not using our considerable resources, not informing Chen. And he may have offered his services to the Israelis before he finally did contact Chen.

  “Scenario: Shreed faked flight from the U.S., with the connivance of his CIA superiors, lured Chen to a meeting, and captured him with the help of a CIA team; they were then picked up by a U.S. Navy aircraft and flown to the Thomas Jefferson.

  “Or: Shreed, who has shown signs of instability and whose wife recently died, had a mental seizure and set out to destroy his Chinese control.”

  He took out a wrinkled package of Pear Blossoms and tapped one out. “Or: We have no idea.” He flicked the lighter, a cheap plastic one in bright peacock-blue, and lit the cigarette.
He stared at Lao. “If the Americans have Chen, we will have been badly hurt. That is not your problem. If the Americans do not have Chen, then your problem is to find him and to bring him back. To fail to bring him back will be to fail the nation and its leaders. Unh?” He smoked, staring at Lao. “All right, ask your questions.”

  “Can I investigate this village in Pakistan?”

  “Yes. I warn you, it is still a hot zone; Pakistan and India are shooting over Kashmir. We will give you everything we found in the village.”

  “Forensics?”

  “Get it done. Our country team didn’t have the time or the skill for forensics.”

  “What about the American, Shreed?”

  The man took another turn to the window and stood there with his back to Lao. The General, still smiling, sat looking at Lao. Finally the civilian turned and said, “Shreed is a brilliant man. He has been a productive agent for twelve years. Still, like any agent, he could be a double. Scenario: The shooting in the village was a cover; Shreed and Chen were pulled out, and now both are in America.”

  “Do you know that?”

  “I don’t know anything!” A hank of the man’s coarse hair fell over his face, and he pushed it back with his free hand, hitting himself in the forehead as he did so, as if punishing himself. “The Americans are saying that Shreed is dead. They are having a funeral, trumpeting the death rites. Is that natural?”

  “Do you think Shreed is dead?”

  “Don’t ask me! What do you think we want you for?”

  Lao could see that the General was leaning his elbows on a file. The characters on the outside of the file were from an old code word. American Go. Lao had heard the name whispered before. High-level material from Washington, sometimes political, sometimes espionage-related. So American Go was George Shreed. Lao wanted to laugh aloud. Chen had been running a penetration of the Operational Directorate in the CIA. No wonder he won every fight in Beijing.

  The Westerner and the General talked about details for some minutes—Shreed, Chen, the reason why Chen himself had gone to Pakistan to meet with Shreed. Neither the General nor the civilian was being quite forthright, Lao thought. He wondered if he was simply being set up so that they would have a scapegoat. They talked almost as if he weren’t there. He wanted to smoke, felt too junior to light up, although both older men were smoking hard.