59
THE SECOND-TO-LAST THING Michael’s father taught him was how to deceive. He said it was different from lying. The way a symphony is different from a single instrument. To be able to lie was a useful skill. To be able to deceive was a brilliant one. He told Michael right off that the business of deception was just as serious as handling a gun. If you were going to deceive you had to do it for the right reasons. And you had to be ready to bear the consequences of failure. Hopefully you wouldn’t fail. But if you did, you had to man up and take it. The difference between deception and a gun was that the tools were more ethereal. Any idiot could buy a gun. Most could lie. But to deceive, to meticulously concoct a web of lies, that was an art.
His dad wasn’t content with theory though. He wanted Michael to understand how it worked in the real world. So he brought Michael to a fishing lodge. He told him that they were going to tell all the other fishermen that they were brothers on vacation from their assembly jobs at the auto plant. Their goal was to gain one of the other fishermen’s trust so that they could borrow some equipment from the medical lab he worked in. Their excuse was that they needed to test a car component — to make sure that what the company was selling was safe. The set up sounded preposterous to Michael. Nobody would believe they were brothers. Nobody would give them access to their employer’s expensive equipment. But the fisherman did. And it was easier than Michael thought. All they had to do was appeal to the fisherman’s sense of justice. People wanted to believe, his father said. They’re trained to believe what they’re told from a very young age. You just needed to give them what they want.
MICHAEL THOUGHT HE heard an engine start, most likely a two-stroke, probably a motorcycle, but with the onslaught of vehicles cutting though the night he couldn’t be sure. What he was sure of was the fact that Kate was not going to be happy when she found out about him. But that wasn’t his problem. Not anymore. Within seconds of Kate’s departure, Michael was flanked by two Mercedes SUVs. A pair of men dove out of each. Two of the men laid down cover fire in the direction of the burning helicopter while the other two pulled Michael into the cab of the tractor trailer. That the men were Triad was evidenced by the tattooed tigers wresting snakes on their thick necks. The taller of the two men took the wheel and seconds later Michael found himself leaving the reservoir as quickly as he had come. Five minutes after that they were headed south, hell bound down the Guanxi Expressway for Vietnam.
• • •
HUANG WAS REELING. Not only had he lost the Horten, but his own helicopter had gone up in a ball of flame. He had no transportation, he had no radio, and what looked like a terrorist attack at the Jiuquan South Launch Center had taken his satellite phone offline. His men, as far as he could tell, had escaped the inferno, but the lack of casualties was of little consolation to him. Put simply, he had lost the war. His mission objective had been seized from him not once, but twice in one evening. He would not be granted a third reprieve. In his heart of hearts Huang understood that only one man was to blame for the debacle his mission had become and that man was the American spy. In that moment Huang decided that the American would pay. He would pay if it was the last act Huang committed in the service of his country. He would pay personally. And he would pay regardless of the cost.
• • •
MOBI, MEANWHILE, SIMPLY stared at the overhead screen and waited. There was nothing to keep the Chinese satellite up, which meant that it had to come done. But after several minutes it didn’t. Mobi watched as the seconds ticked by, sure that his calculations were off. Maybe he’d misassigned the entry angle or perhaps the velocity data had been compromised. Then something occurred that Mobi thought he’d only see in a dream. The satellite moved into a new orbit entirely. And that could only mean one thing — the bird had power. Somehow, somewhere, someone had sent the clear-code. The bird’s systems had rebooted. It was going to be a good day.
Alvarez entered Mission Control, a pair of scissors in hand. “You see that?”
“Yup.”
“You ever see anything so beautiful in all your life?”
“Nope.”
“Are you going to talk to me?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Quiann.”
“I can’t really talk about it. Let’s just say our government asked me to contact him and I did.”
“Did they ask you to deliver the clear-code too?”
“Yes.”
Mobi looked straight at her. “Are you a traitor?”
“No.”
“Then who is?”
“Watch.”
Alvarez indicated the open door to Secondary Ops, where Rand stood with his two security men. It didn’t take long before a group of uniformed military police approached. Rand raised his hands in protest, but he didn’t run. Perhaps he knew that that there was nowhere to go. Within moments he was cuffed and led out of the room.
“Hainan island?”
Alvarez nodded. “They think that’s where he was recruited. He’s been trading secrets for money for years. Worried about his retirement, I guess. NSA wasn’t sure until they tapped the transmissions coming out of this facility.”
“Are you sure you’re not an enemy agent?”
“I’m sure.”
“Totally sure?”
“Hundred percent.”
“My bad.”
“No, Mobi. You did good. Really good.” Alvarez snipped Mobi’s plastic cuffs with the scissors. “Listen,” she said. “You want to get some chicken or something?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Some chicken would definitely be nice.”
• • •
MICHAEL SHIFTED UNCOMFORTABLY in his seat. Compared with the evening’s earlier events, the border crossing had been uneventful. Prior to crossing, the Horten had been tarped over like any one of a dozen wide loads leaving the country that evening. Michael had then slipped into a specially designed compartment below the rear bunk in the cab of the truck. It was a tight fit, but compared to the tool chest, it felt like a protective cocoon. A few minutes later they were waved through the Friendship Pass and into Vietnam. With that, China was behind them. The driver had signaled Michael with a knock and he had slipped back out of his hiding place to find that they had just passed through the Vietnamese border town of Dong Dang. Now, less than ten minutes later, they had reached their rendezvous.
The driver pulled over beside a paddy field at a fork in the road. Before they even reached a full stop the doors on either side of the cab were opened from outside. Michael and the two Triad gangsters shuffled out and two new men, each of them wearing a coiled earpiece, took their places in the truck. They smiled and nodded coolly and Michael nodded back. Then, they closed their doors behind them and drove off in the truck, headed east this time, toward the Gulf of Tonkin.
Michael watched as the truck’s red lights disappeared in the darkness, but he knew that he too had to go. There were two cars idling on opposite sides of the road a hundred yards up. Walking at a brisk pace alongside the truck driver and his companion, Michael approached the nearest vehicle, a midnight blue BMW 7 Series sedan. Michael stopped outside the rear passenger door, staring down the tinted rear window in the moonlight. He considered knocking on the glass, but thought better of it when the window descended of its own accord.
Li Tung sat there, obviously fatigued, but relaxed, the makings of a smile on his thin lips. His normally perfectly coifed gray hair was slightly askew, but the dishevelment was more than made up for by the vibrant color in his cheeks. Michael thought that he looked years younger than he had that night outside Chungking Mansion.
Li looked Michael in the eye and said, “It is now I who owe you the favor, Mr. Chase.”
He then raised his window and the BMW quietly drove out of sight. The purr of the car’s engine still hung in the air as Michael heard his name called out in the darkness.
“Chase?”
“Yeah?”
“Time.”
Michael crossed the road toward the man’s voice and got into the rear seat of the second vehicle, a black Volkswagen Jetta. His work for the evening was done.
60
KATE DIDN’T GET as far as she had planned. Not because the motorcycle that was hidden in the hills near the reservoir didn’t start easily. Not because her route out wasn’t well planned. Not even because the trail had been blocked at one juncture and she’d been forced to detour en route to the airfield. No, Kate didn’t get as far as she had planned because she’d miscalculated. When she’d reached the airfield, the Bombardier Global Express jet waiting to transport her per her deal with her employer was parked cold, dustcovers still protecting the engines.
At first, Kate considered the jet’s lack of readiness a small matter. She got off the motorcycle and entered the compact cinderblock control building proceeding with caution, but not alarm. True, the exchange of the Horten had not gone as planned, but upon consideration she didn’t believe that this in and of itself was enough to derail the deal. The Society, after all, had a reputation to maintain. Bad news traveled quickly in the Intelligence community. If the Society wanted to continue to use independent contractors it would need to honor its bargains. This, coupled with the fact that Kate had already proven her trustworthiness by delivering Michael’s father seven months earlier, shored up her resolve. The Green Dragon Society might not like it, but it was in their best interest to follow through with the promised fee and transport her safely out of the country per their agreement. It was as simple as that. But what Kate failed to consider was that her problem tonight might not rest with the Green Dragons. Because she had other enemies, enemies who were closer than she had thought. Kate heard the high pitched whistle of the dart a millisecond before feeling its insect-like sting. It was only when she regained consciousness, however, that she realized the trouble she was in.
“HELLO, KATE,” A male voice said.
Kate heard the words before opening her eyes. When she finally managed to lift her heavy eyelids, her head throbbing in pain, she found herself cuffed to a metal chair. Though she couldn’t yet see her interrogator, one thing was clear: the job had the Company written all over it. From the abrupt take down to the barracks style interrogation room she now found herself in, Kate saw the CIA’s signature everywhere. Though she realized that by this point she could be anywhere in the world, her location was irrelevant, at least for now. The important thing was to make herself useful to them. She was after all in form, if not in spirit, still an MI6 Agent. The Americans, she calculated, would have to work though the logistics of that set of loyalties before pressing her too hard. And that thought gave Kate poise. But from the moment her interrogator revealed himself to her, she knew she had calculated wrong.
“I’m pleased to see you,” the man said.
The man was middle aged with a finely lined face and a fashionably short hair cut. Kate immediately had the unsettling feeling that she knew him, but she couldn’t quite place him. Then, he spoke again, this time in a high pitched squeal and Kate knew exactly who she was dealing with. The hair was different, and the nose, but the voice was the same. It belonged to Larry Wu. Shanghai Larry.
“Surprised to see me again so soon?” Larry asked.
This was the man who had died in a pool of blood in Michael’s arms, the man who had given him the cell phone message, the man who had solidified her interest in Michael as an asset. He was absent the prosthesis, but there was no doubt about it. It was him.
Larry’s voice dropped a full octave and he said, “I know I’m glad to see you.”
Kate felt a pull in the pit of her stomach. If Larry wasn’t dead, then his death had been faked. And in the spy game there were only a couple of reasons to fake death. One was of course to enable a subject to disappear, but another was to foster credibility in a mark. And if this had been a case of the latter, then one more thing was clear. She had been set up. Kate forced herself to remain calm. What mattered now was not the duplicity, but the extent of it. What they wanted was for her to panic. If she could retain a cool head she might still find a way out.
Then the battered metal door opened. And Kate felt the pull in her stomach drop into a freefall because this time her old backpacker pal Crust entered the room. True, he was clean shaven in a crisp suit, his dreadlocks neatly tied back, but it was Crust, there was no question about that. He carried a Beretta semi-automatic in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. He tossed Kate the phone. It landed in her lap, a video clip already playing.
Kate looked down. She recognized the clip. It was the message from Michael’s father. Only this time she noticed something that she couldn’t possibly have recognized before. The interrogation room. She glanced around the bare space in which she sat. The concrete walls were the same as the walls in the video clip. The battered metal door was the same. The lone incandescent bulb, the gray metal table, the very chair she sat in, it was all the same. There was no doubt about it, the video had been recorded here, in this room. This was bad news. About as bad of news as she could get. It occurred to Kate that things had not been as they appeared for some time. Michael had not been as he had appeared.
She thought about his naïve blue eyes. About the way he arrived in Hong Kong, earnest, but eager for answers. She thought about how she had extricated him from the bloody scene in Chungking. How she had wanted to help him, but more to the point, how she had seen how he could help her. How what his father might have told him could be a potential asset in her work. But what she hadn’t considered at the time were the inconsistencies. They were subtle, but they were there. Like the fact that Michael seemed reasonably comfortable under pressure; the kind of comfort that comes only with training. Or the fact that he never fully relaxed, not even when they made love, not really. Or even the fact that after what she had done to him, after what she had done to his father, he had simply allowed her to walk away. No one could do that, no one could be that forgiving. Unless he knew she was walking into a trap; unless he had set the trap himself.
Kate flashed to the temple cellar where she had first interrogated Michael. “I’m a spy,” he had said. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time. It was just bravado, a civilian coping mechanism to deal with an impossible situation. But then when Huang had held them at gunpoint in the cave, he had said it again. “I’m a slacker-boy spy come to kick your sorry ass.” Again, it had to be bravado, or was it? When he wasn’t talking about Mata Hari being his prom date he was kidding about espionage being a 24-7 game. Was it that obvious? Could she really have missed it? Kate felt an involuntary shiver run through the length of her body. Then she felt the bile rise from the back of her throat. It tasted bitter on her tongue. It was the taste of deception.
“Where is he?”
“That’s what you’re going to tell us,” Crust said.
“Not the father,” Kate said. “Chase. Where is Michael Chase?”
61
CIA SAFEHOUSE, HANOI, VIETNAM
MICHAEL’S FATHER’S FINAL lesson to him was no test. It was an act. He sent Michael a message. It was on a radio frequency that Michael had never heard of, encoded in an algorithm that Michael couldn’t possibly break. And it had come through Ted. But that didn’t diminish it in any way. Because the message said that his dad needed his help. And Michael did what he had to do. He went to find his father. That’s when Michael learned what his dad had been teaching him all along. From being brave, to reading strangers, to the art of deception and everything in between, his father had been teaching him one thing. The family business. Michael now knew that from his earliest memory, his father had been teaching him how to be a spy.
HE AWOKE TO the rhythmic sweeping of a straw broom outside his window. Slowly opening his eyes Michael watched as the morning sunlight danced on his pillow. It had been a hell of a night. Now it was time to see if it had all been worth it. The safe house was a simple two-story affair, just far enough outside the city center of Hanoi as to be unobtrusive. From the
outside it was merely a well-maintained compound amidst a series of similar compounds; a neighborhood for the city’s well-heeled. Inside, however, it was a sanctuary, and within its walls Michael felt the simple luxury of letting his guard down without the fear that someone might discover that he was more than he pretended to be. It might not seem like much, but to Michael, who had been diligently maintaining his cover since before his arrival in Hong Kong, it was the world. Allowing his eyes to wander to the bedside clock, he was surprised to see that it was nearly nine a.m. He’d gotten less than four hours of sleep, but they’d been good hours. Debriefing had been scheduled for 0900 sharp. He noticed that a fresh pair of jeans and a short-sleeved shirt had been left neatly folded on the edge of his bed. It was time to meet the man.
A quick shower and change of clothes later and Michael ambled down the stairwell to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. The first doorway on his right revealed a bright kitchen off of which sat a garden view breakfast room. Inside he was greeted by the Hanoi Station Chief, Sam Grolling. A tall man with a long chin and deep worry lines etching his face, Michael had briefly met Grolling back at Camp Peary in Virginia. His presence felt noteworthy to Michael because in some small way it signified completion, at least of this leg of the journey.
“Good to see you safe and sound, Agent Chase.”
Michael pulled up a chair. There were three others at the table: a dark haired petite woman whom Michael had never seen before, Song, the bubbly Australian who palled around with Crust, and Ted, his gray ponytail knotted in a clean bandanna for the occasion.
Lethal Circuit (Michael Chase 1) Page 24
