Chinese Burn

by Mark Chisnell

  "What about my dad?"

  "I can't make any promises without going back to Washington and looking at the files, I have no idea what the reasons were for you not being told. I'm afraid that you are going to have to take that one on good faith."

  "And what about Pete and Lucy?"

  "The sooner we sort this mess out, the sooner you see Pete. Lucy will have to stay with the cops, without charge, while we find your evidence. Just in case you are thinking about skipping on me. Once it's all sorted they walk free when you do, and I'll make sure no charges are brought against anyone — but she will have to give up the gun."

  She sighed.

  "Did the Chinese ask you about the Shibde story?" he asked.

  "Uh-huh."

  "So they knew that you wrote it?"

  "Uh-huh."

  Jobert was silent for a moment. He needed to start thinking about protecting her. He needed to start thinking about protecting them all. If Ravert had been spying, and China's Ministry of State Security had already killed two people to keep the operation a secret — including one in the US — then there was no reason why they wouldn't do it again. What the hell had Ravert given up that was so important?

  "And what did you tell the Chinese?" he said.

  "I told them that I was trekking up near the border with Shibde, and I'd met one of the rebels. He'd had contact with the CIA, and he'd told me what was happening in his country."

  "And he believed that?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "I don't."

  Sam just gazed at him.

  "The Shibdese are famously reluctant to have anything to do with the outside world. He wouldn't have just told all this to a complete stranger."

  "I told them he was unhappy about the rebellion, thought it was a terrible idea and that by publicizing it, he might get the CIA to stop."

  "And what happened to this fantasy rebel?"

  "He was killed in an accident."

  "What was his name?"

  "I told them it was Dromo, but they didn't believe me."

  "And neither do I."

  "The feeling is mutual, since I don't believe you either — the CIA were operating a covert action in Shibde and a lot of people were going to die."

  Jobert was silent for a moment. "Something else happened out there, Sam, and I really need to know what. Tell me, Sam, help me. And I can help you."

  Sam stared at him.

  "Have you considered that if China's Ministry of State Security is behind all this? If they wanted to protect whatever was going on so badly that they killed Madeline and Roger do you really think that they would stop there? I can protect you and help you Sam. It's your choice. I just need to know what really happened in Shibde."

  She hesitated for just a moment longer. "Their names were Jortse and Tashi. They were exiles, both had been living abroad, and they had returned to Shibde to start the rebellion. That's all you're getting for now."

  "Do you know what happened to them?"

  "Yes."

  "Where are they?"

  "I will tell you that when you keep your side of the deal."

  Jobert nodded, and allowed himself a grim smile. So she had met his men. She did know, and soon, so would he.

  When she had finished her story, Jobert simply nodded, explained what was going to happen next, and told her to get out of the car. She followed the instruction without complaint, and he walked around and joined her. Then he led her over to the cops.

  "Sam's coming with me," he said to Detective Rice. "I'll explain why in a moment, but first just give her a few minutes with Lucy to explain what's going on. Your boys can pull back and let them talk. Ok?"

  "Really?" Rice said.

  "Really," Jobert said. "And take all the cuffs off, please."

  Rice didn't look too happy about the idea, but he gave the instructions, and within a couple of minutes they were being directed to the steps of the church, rubbing their wrists.

  "Just give this young lady a couple of minutes to talk to her friends," Rice said to his men. "Give them some space."

  Sam watched as the cops withdrew ten yards, Jobert taking the detective off by the elbow. He probably had some explaining to do.

  "What the hell's going on, Sam? Did you find out about Pete?"

  Sam told her.

  "Thank the maker."

  "He's not there yet."

  "He'll be fine, I know it. So, what the hell?"

  "All of this, everything we've seen and heard so far, everything I'm going to tell you now goes no further, ok?"

  Lucy nodded.

  "The guy I was talking to is called Jobert, he's CIA. I've more or less got him to believe our story. He's going to help me look for Ravert's stash."

  "Whoa!"

  "But you have to go with the cops."

  "I want to stay with you."

  Sam shook her head. "I'm afraid you and Pete are his insurance. Just in case I'm lying and try to skip on him. We find this thing, and then we come back to you and sort this whole mess out."

  "We can just walk up these steps right now and take a look in that church. What are they going to do, shoot us?"

  "This is the way I've agreed to play it. There will be no charges for the pistol or anything. Just stay with them for a bit, hopefully it won't take long and then we'll be out of here. I didn't make all the rules and my negotiating position wasn't that strong. He could just have the cops lock us up, tell them our story is baloney and leave us to it. The longer this thing is just sitting there, wherever it is, the greater the chance someone else will pick it up, throw it away—"

  "I don't like it, you can't trust those pigs."

  Sam folded her arms. "I appreciate everything you've done, and tried to do. But this is really my problem now, and I need to deal with it in my way. I need you to go with the cops, and do what they tell you."

  Lucy was silent for several moments, and then she nodded. "All right."

  Jobert took Rice's elbow and stepped away from the others, watching Sam as she talked to Lucy.

  "Look, Rice, this is turning out to be even bigger and messier than I thought. Who else knows they were picked up this morning?"

  "No one, just these two — they called me on my mobile like they were instructed."

  "Good, excellent, now I want the three of you to look after Lucy Rendall for a couple of hours or so. Have you got somewhere that you can take her where she will be safe?"

  "Safe from what?"

  "I think we have some opposition here, people who won't want them talking to us, I can't tell you more yet, I wish I could. I don't think this is going to take long, but I need to know that they are safe."

  Rice stared at him for a while; Jobert could see the wheels turning.

  "I'm going to get a protection team here from Langley, but I need you to buy me some time."

  "The way I understand it, you guys aren't supposed to be operational here at home."

  "I can move on this because there's a foreign power operating on US soil. I can't explain any more yet, you're just going to have to trust me. We have to keep this really tight, believe me. This is frickin' huge and if we screw it up there's going to be major international consequences. Just take the woman and keep her and Halland safe. Please." It was almost like it was the magic word. The great and the good of the CIA asking nicely. Rice appeared to relax.

  "All right, my wife's parents have a little place they rent to students. It's not far from here and it's empty right now for the summer vacations, I could take her there."

  "Good, perfect, all right. Jot the address down for me. I'll call you when I'm on my way, do not open the door to anyone else. Keep them in a downstairs room away from the windows."

  Rice nodded.

  "One last thing, I want you to pull Ravert's house apart. He's left something for his wife, it might be a letter, and it might be a USB stick, some kind of information stash. If you find anything like that then call me immediately. Do not read it or open it."

 
; "Ok."

  "Now brief your guys, I need to call the office." Jobert turned and walked away towards the road, already dialing.

  "Wallace, it's me, I got her, she gave me the names and knew their backstories, and she knows what happened in Shibde, no question. And Ravert has left something for his wife to explain what the hell he was up to — I'm going with Blackett to look for it. I'm sure we are facing a Chinese operation on US soil and she's pivotal. I need you and a squad up here, good guys with some protection experience and full surveillance tech."

  "Can you prove all this?"

  "Not yet, but—"

  "Then it's not going to fly, Paul."

  "What do you mean?"

  "A Detective Rice called Langley this morning and asked to talk to the superior of Phil Lawrence about a shooting in Ann Arbor — that's your alias up there, right?"

  "Goddamn."

  "They didn't give him anything, but as soon as they establish there are no legit operations in Detroit that are using that alias then they will be after you. I can't help you any more, Paul. I've got myself to consider, this has been out of order for a while—"

  "Shit, Wallace, I have it all, I just need some help to find whatever it is that Ravert's stashed—"

  "It's too late, Rice is probably being told to arrest you right now. You need to come in and hand this over and accept the consequences, or it's going to get a hell of a lot worse."

  Jobert hesitated for a couple of seconds, and then he ended the call. He switched the phone off and walked a couple of paces to get behind his car where the cops couldn't see him. He dropped it on the floor and stamped on it a couple of times, then bent down and popped out the battery and the SIM card before he tossed the rest into the hedge. He popped the trunk and pulled a new phone out of the laptop case. He wouldn't fire it up till he had moved location, that was exactly the sort of thing they would be looking for. Then he turned back to where Sam was standing with the others, and walked over.

  "Are you ready?" he said.

  Chapter 12

  Sam watched as Lucy got into the back of Rice's car.

  "Stay safe, Sam," Lucy said.

  She nodded, expression tight, her mind already racing ahead to what they might find in the church. Baldwin shut the door. He got in the front with Rice and the car drove off, tailed by Richardson in the cruiser. She watched it disappear out of the drive, and suddenly felt very alone. She turned around to look for Jobert, and realized that he was in his car. She walked towards him and he jumped out.

  "We need to hustle, so how did you figure out the places to look?" asked Jobert.

  "Facebook, we went through all her posts to find the places that were significant to their life together."

  "Clever girl," said Jobert. "So we start here, then where?"

  "Her sorority house — it's on Hill Street, not far. He asked her out on their first date with a card in her pigeon hole, and then he proposed in the same way."

  "That sounds more likely than the church, what else?"

  "A cinema and some restaurants in town, but we didn't think they were that likely."

  "Ok, let's make it a quick look here and then we'll get over to the house. I like the sound of that one. And if anyone asks what we're doing, let me do the talking." He led up the short flight of steps, and pushed on the big wooden door. It creaked open and they stepped inside. The air immediately cooled and the buzz of the city street dropped away from them. There was no one around.

  "So, where would you leave a message from beyond the grave for your partner?" Jobert said.

  "I thought maybe the register, or a noticeboard? Maybe they had a particular seat; it could be tucked under that? And we should talk to the pastor."

  "I'll take the right-hand side, you take the left to check the seats, we'll work our way to the front and then go and look for the rest." Jobert was already moving to check the back row of pews.

  It took just a couple of minutes to establish that if Roger Ravert had left a message for his wife in this church, it wasn't hidden under the seats. Sam straightened and stretched her back.

  "So, now we need to find a noticeboard," Jobert said.

  "Perhaps I can help," a sonorous voice from the door said.

  Sam looked around to see a thin, dark-haired woman walking towards them.

  "Ah, yes, Reverend, I most certainly hope you can. I believe Roger and Madeline Ravert were both members of your congregation?" Jobert said.

  "We saw them occasionally. And I married them a few years ago. It's a great tragedy, those poor children; we have said many prayers for them all. May I ask who you are?"

  "I work for the Government and we're looking for a message that Roger may have left here for his wife."

  "The Government? A message? What kind of message?" Her eyes flicked between them.

  "Roger knew that he was in some kind of trouble, and he left an explanation in a safe place for his wife, somewhere that only she would know to look," Sam said.

  Jobert threw her an exasperated glance. "We can't tell you much more than that at this stage, we just need to find this message as quickly as we can."

  The pastor folded her arms. "Oh, really?" she frowned.

  Sam saw Jobert tighten and cut in quickly. He seemed much more on edge than during their earlier conversation. "I'm really sorry, but it's just not possible to explain at this stage. Mainly because the children might be at risk, and we have to keep this information to the minimum number of people." She put every shred of sincerity that she had into it. "We don't know if the letter is important or not," she continued as sweetly as she could, "but Roger's death in China has raised some concerns that we can't talk about because it might also prejudice a trial. We just want to find it so we can cross it off the list or proceed accordingly. It's not a big deal, and we'd really appreciate your help. Had he spoken to you at all? Is there a noticeboard, or anywhere that Roger might naturally have left a message, particularly if it had some kind of significance for their wedding day?"

  The woman's eyes flicked back and forth between them one more time.

  "I'm Sam by the way."

  "And I'm Phil Lawrence." Jobert pulled out his ID. "CIA."

  The woman's eyes were dragged down magnetically. Jobert held it there just long enough for her to register the embossed logo. And then snapped it shut.

  She looked back up. "I'm Reverend Phillips, I er—"

  "Perhaps you saw Roger recently?" Sam asked.

  "No..." she started, and shook her head. "I hadn't seen either of the Raverts for some months before this happened. They were never particularly regular, so that wasn't something that worried me — but we do have a noticeboard."

  "Thank you, Ma'am, please lead the way," Jobert said.

  She took them back outside, shutting the door behind her. They followed her down the sidewalk beside the church, towards a modern building on the far end. No one spoke. Sam tried to keep her anxiety internal. Reverend Phillips let them in through a glass door, and indicated a noticeboard in the lobby area.

  "That's it," she said.

  Sam was already half-way towards it. A very typical noticeboard, filled with news of the Church picnic, a trip to a Tigers ball game and Bible School. There was news of international missions in Nicaragua and Haiti, a list of services, a church calendar and lots more like it. Nothing looked like a message, and nothing had Madeline's name on it. Sam felt the disappointment rise through her again. She took a moment to compose herself, and then turned back to Jobert and Reverend Phillips.

  "It's not here. Is there anywhere else?"

  Reverend Phillips stared past Sam at the noticeboard while she thought about the question. "There's not really anywhere else that's public where Roger might just have dropped a message off, but there are other people who work here that he could have talked to," she glanced at her watch. "Not everyone is in this morning, perhaps I could ask around as they get here, make some calls. If you came back at lunchtime, I'm sure I could have a definitive answer for
you."

  Sam glanced at Jobert.

  "We have some other places to look, can I call you?" Jobert said.

  Reverend Phillips nodded and recited a number that Jobert jotted down on a pad.

  "Thank you," Sam said, they both shook hands with her, and left the way they had come in.

  "It's a long shot anyway." Jobert walked quickly back towards the car. He already had the engine on and his seatbelt fastened by the time she had got in. He accelerated out of the driveway. "Let's check the sorority house."

  Sam could feel her stomach churn with a mix of anxiety and hope. There were so many more places they could look now that she had his help, so this wasn't the end of it, as it might have been if she had been looking with Lucy. But she still couldn't help but hope that they would find the letter at the house.

  "Phil Lawrence?" Sam said, as they turned right onto the main road.

  "Never use a real name in the field."

  "She's a pastor in a church in Ann Arbor."

  "The rules are there to keep us alive, so I don't break them. And by the way, nice job back there, I was letting my impatience get the better of me." He took the first left into a beautifully wooded lane, with big houses set back from the street behind hedges and trees. Jobert drove slowly, until Sam pointed out the place. They pulled up outside a big, red brick house.

  "It should be quiet at this time of year," Jobert said.

  "I was hoping it might just be in the pigeon holes for their mail."

  "Let's go look." Jobert unbuckled his seat belt.

  The approach was up some black-railed steps to a canopied main entrance. When they got to the door it was locked. "Same deal, let me do the talking," Jobert said, as he pressed the buzzer.

  "Sure about that?"