Chinese Burn

by Mark Chisnell

  Jobert looked at her. "Ok... if you feel you can smooth things along like last time, but go along with the line I'm taking. This isn't a church, it's not a public place, it's a private establishment and we have no right to search or even enter. I don't want to waste time having Rice get a warrant, so we're going to use a different approach."

  "You're going to lie to them."

  "Something like that." Jobert pressed the buzzer again. It took almost another minute of awkward silence before anyone responded. Finally, the door opened to reveal a comfortably middle-aged lady with a dark brown bun and a weary expression.

  "Can I help you?" she said.

  "Sure, my daughter is thinking of coming here next year and I wondered if it would be possible to have a very quick look around?"

  The woman frowned. "I'm just here doing some paperwork, there's no one else about. This is quite irregular, we don't open for another couple of weeks, and then only for this year's intake."

  "A very quick look, her mother came here, we're trying to convince her to apply... rather than one of those fancy east coast places," Jobert smiled as he spoke.

  The woman hesitated a moment longer, "Oh, well, all right, I suppose it can't hurt. Come on in." She opened the door wide and they both stepped into the hallway.

  Sam saw the noticeboard beside a rack of pigeon holes for mail as soon as she was through the door. If it was anywhere, surely the letter was here. She nudged Jobert, but he had already seen it, and was pushing her towards it as he started to speak.

  "Can we see the communal areas first, please?" He strode towards some double doors.

  Sam was at the 'R' section in three paces, just two letters, she was about to reach for them...

  "Excuse me, young lady, it's this way," said the voice behind her.

  Sam dropped her hand and turned back. "Sorry, I was just looking at the noticeboard to see what type of things were going on here." She waved at it and the pigeonholes. "And wondering why you still bother with this, isn't it all like, on Facebook these days?"

  Jobert was standing a couple of paces behind the woman, and he started to smile.

  "Sometimes there are deliveries, from Amazon, you know."

  "Oh yes, of course. Sorry, actually — do you have a bathroom that I could use?"

  The woman stared at her for a good couple of seconds, and Sam thought that she had rumbled them. Or recognized her from all the TV coverage with her picture. That was going to take some explaining.

  "In there." The woman pointed to a door off the hallway.

  "So this is like a lounge area, through here?" Jobert said, loudly.

  The woman jumped slightly, and snapped out of it. She looked at him, then through the door. "Yes, yes, please do go through."

  Sam listened to the footsteps recede from inside the bathroom, Jobert's voice booming out as he tried to distract her. She crept straight back out and up to the pigeon holes. Two letters for 'R'. She had them in a moment and neither was for Madeline. "Holy crap," she muttered.

  On a whim, she pulled out the single letter sitting in the 'M' box. A slim envelope of creamy paper. It was addressed to 'Maddy Ravert'. She folded it and put it in her pocket, a flush of triumph running through her. Somehow she resisted opening it immediately. It was enough to know that she had it. She hurried after Jobert's voice and heavy footsteps, and joined what seemed like an hour long tour of the house. The letter burning a hole in her pocket, the woman's voice droning on... it's called a fraternity house because the word sorority hadn't been invented back them, we have a long history...

  Finally, they were back outside, the woman shutting the door behind them.

  "Did you get it?" Jobert asked as they trotted down the steps.

  "Oh yes, but let's get in the car."

  "Let's get away from here. I got fifty bucks says she's on the phone reporting you to the PD right now. Hopefully the report will go straight to Rice, but just in case, it'll make life simpler if we're away from here before any uniforms arrive."

  Sam had the letter opened before Jobert had started the engine.

  "Read it to me," he said as he pulled out.

  "Ok;

  My Darling, Wonderful Wife,

  If this letter has reached you then I fear that the worst has already happened. I just want you to know how much I love you, and how sorry I am that it has ended like this, so soon, with the boys so young. I'm sure you are wondering why you have this letter from beyond the grave, and I'm afraid it's because I no longer trust Terry to do the right thing. The company is going bust, and this letter is part of what I have to do to protect you from what I believe to be Terry's plans.

  I won't pretend that the company going down isn't partly my fault. We didn't put enough away when the business was booming before the crash in 2008, and now we can't afford to pay our tax bill. I have done what I can to protect you. When the business fails, whether I am alive or dead, they won't be able to touch the house, or the savings.

  Things are worse though, because I think that Terry is defrauding us. A couple of months ago, he moved the production of all our hardware. I think he's moved it offshore, probably to China. I think it's being made cheaply and probably badly - but we are paying the same price that we always have and I suspect that Terry is skimming the difference. He's putting away money against the day when the business goes bust.

  We don't use components manufactured outside the US. It's partly because the people we are selling this stuff to are more comfortable in the knowledge that all the technology resides within these borders. In some cases, they insist on it and they are going to be mighty pissed off if they find out we are making their stuff in China. And since those people also control the legal system then things could get pretty ugly. I doubt you will personally be in the firing line, but if you take this letter to the Feds, then it can only help if or when the shit does hit the fan.

  It's been hard to prove anything because Terry controls the computers and all the information. So I'm going to China to try and find out what the hell is going on. When I get back I'm going to blow the lid off Terry's little scam. And if I don't get back, then you must do it for me, in case he comes after you. Don't trust him, Maddy, don't trust him an inch. Take this letter to the FBI - don't mess with the local guys, it has to be Federal.

  Love you darling, will love you forever.

  Roger

  That's it," said Sam.

  "Goddam," breathed Jobert, pushing down on the accelerator. "This is some way sub-optimum, in fact, this is a frickin' disaster."

  Chapter 13

  "So..." Sam braced as Jobert took a corner too quickly. "I thought he was spying—"

  "Hold on. I just want to get parked up here so I can concentrate." Jobert turned into a little strip mall with a handful of stores as he spoke, the car bumping down hard on its suspension as it turned in. He squealed to a halt in the first space he came to, slammed it into park and turned the engine off.

  "Let me have a look." He held out his hand.

  Sam gave him the letter, and unbuckled her seat belt so she could be comfortable while she watched him read.

  Jobert scanned the letter quickly, and then looked up. "I need to make a call; I'll get us some coffee while I'm at it. Sit tight for a couple of minutes."

  Sam nodded, and watched him get out and walk over to a coffee shop, the phone already in his hand. Inside, she was screaming, outside, she was just about calm and only just patient. He'd better be calling the cavalry so they could sort this out and she could go and see Pete.

  Jobert was back with donuts and coffee inside five minutes. He handed her the hot cup, and opened the box on the seat between them. She realized that despite it all, she was thirsty and starving. She almost burned her tongue on the coffee and tackled a donut while it cooled.

  Jobert ate his in silence before he finally looked at her directly and said, "Can I trust you, Sam Blackett?"

  She returned his gaze steadily, but said nothing. The best strategy seemed to be
to commit to as little as possible in the hope that eventually all her options would be clear.

  "My problem is that you and to a lesser extent, your friends are at the centre of this mess. What's worse is that in an ideal world, I need your help. Suddenly, I've got a whole load of civilians in the middle of what's brewing up to be a major intelligence operation. And one of them is a New York Times journalist. I can't afford this to be all over the papers. It will cause a major international incident. Can you promise me that you won't write about this?"

  "Not right now, why should I?"

  "What do you want most of all Sam?"

  "Other than a really good hot chocolate, rather than this lame coffee?"

  Jobert smiled, turning to watch an old lady making slow progress along the sidewalk. "Apart from a hot chocolate, what do you want out of life, what would make life better for you? Do you want to know what happened to your Dad?"

  "Of course."

  "What else? You want to be a writer? An author? Or is it a journalist for you? Some sort of crusading righter of wrongs?"

  "I don't know about a crusading righter of wrongs, but an investigative journalist, yes."

  "All right, well I can help you like you wouldn't believe."

  Sam raised her eyebrows. "You're the bad guys."

  "No, Sam, not always, sometimes, yes, we do some bad shit, and sometimes we even get caught. But other times we're just doing what needs to be done. And other times we're even righting the wrongs that people like you get so bent out of shape over. So here's the deal. And this is off the record, you and me only. I am stringing my neck out in a very long noose by even suggesting it. I can help you, Sam. I see a lot of stuff that civilians don't see, and I can point you in the direction of some front page stories."

  She sipped her coffee for a moment. "Isn't that going to get both of us into some trouble?"

  "I'm not going to provide you with anything confidential or privileged from inside the Agency. Often the information exists outside of it; it's just a question of knowing who to ask or where to look. I'll tell you which dark corner to look in; the rest will be up to you. I'm not going to take any chances, I have a couple of kids to get through college and I need my salary and my pension."

  Jobert was still staring through the windscreen and Sam followed his gaze. The old lady had reached the door of a 7-Eleven. "There has to be some level of risk involved in doing this," she said, finally.

  "Everyone starts a job like this with some pretty high ideals. I grew up watching Second World War movies, and everything was black and white. Despite all the obvious evidence to the contrary from Vietnam, I started this job thinking it was still like that, I thought I was going to be protecting the country, doing the right thing." He turned back to her. "The necessary compromises started almost immediately after I joined and they've never stopped. A lot of it I live with, and a fair bit of it I live with happily, but every now and again there's something that sticks in my craw. Some of those things are too dangerous to do anything about, but some of them are wrongs that you can put right."

  "Ok... let's say I agree. What do I need to do in exchange?"

  "Leave this story alone. And there may be other favors."

  "Will they be compulsory, these favors?"

  "We will negotiate the quid pro quo as we go along, but to start with you leave this story alone."

  Sam sighed.

  "There's a wrong to be righted here, Sam, but you're going to have to settle for helping me to make it good rather than splashing it all over the papers. And we will make it right."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yes — two people got killed because you walked into the wrong bar in the wrong town and talked to the wrong guy, and now I need your help to put it right. To make their deaths less meaningless and to protect this country against some bad ass people that mean it harm."

  "They killed Roger because he was talking to me—"

  "Yes, and then Madeline died to set you up for the fall. I'm sorry, but you must have realized that."

  She nodded. Her mouth had gone dry. She'd been avoiding thinking about it. "What do those parts that were being made in China for DeChip do?"

  "They go into our drones."

  "Shit." It was every bit as bad as he said.

  "Anything that comes in from China already has to be extensively checked for spyware. Telecoms is a good example, they sell us the stuff cheaply, but then add components that divert copies of all traffic to their own servers. In this case, if they've got access to hardware that's on board our drones then at the very minimum they'll know the drone's position, and so they'll know about every single US intelligence action worldwide. And if they've somehow managed to intercept the drone's camera signal then it's the frickin' motherlode. There's nothing they don't know about our intelligence activities."

  "And they'd do anything to protect an operation like that."

  "If you really had no idea who you were talking to in that hotel, then you've nothing to feel guilty about, Sam."

  "Why the hell do I feel so damn guilty then?"

  "It's natural, but other people did the killing — you just thought he was some guy in a restaurant trying to hit on you."

  "But if I'd just picked another hotel..." She stared out of the window for a long while. Finally, she turned back to Jobert. "Do you think this guy Terry New knows about the Chinese intelligence operation?"

  “I doubt it, but if he does, I'm going to have him swinging by his balls from a tree outside Langley." Jobert shifted in his seat before he went on. "Sam, this is absolutely the most sensitive intelligence operation since Snowden spilled the crown jewels all over the papers. I need to be able to trust you. And you need my help. The Chinese are probably still after you, and if they know about the connection to Pete and Lucy, they may take them out too."

  It's a pact with the devil. He was offering her everything she needed and wanted. But then, that was always the devil's temptation, wasn't it? She didn't see how she could say no; without Jobert's help she had no idea how she was going to get out from under the trouble she was in, or protect the others. And then there was her father. She would give anything to find out what had happened to him. "Ok, I'm in," she said.

  Jobert nodded. "Good, but understand this: if you screw me, I will make your life hell. Nothing will ever work properly or easily for you again. Important emails will not get delivered. The IRS will be all over your tax return. Your credit cards will stop working at the most awkward moments. Your cable bill will quadruple for no apparent reason. Everything and anything that's shitty about modern life will descend on your head. Do you understand me?"

  "You can do all that?"

  "You'd better believe me."

  "Huh." She bit her lip. "So what do we do?"

  "I don't think Terry New knows about what's going on inside the hardware that's coming from China. We know that DeChip has a huge problem with a tax bill that they can't pay, and I think that Roger is probably right, New is just trying to put some money away before the IRS catches up with him, and the business goes down. So we need to use the money as a lever to get him to convict himself."

  "How are we going to do that?"

  Jobert outlined his plan.

  "But... what if New is involved with the Chinese, you'll just be putting me out there on a plate for them."

  "As I say, I don't think he is — and even if I'm wrong, I'll have you covered by a full surveillance and protection team, a couple of snipers, top people. They're on their way here now. They're the very best, you won't even know they're there, and neither will New. But if anything happens, they'll just drop him."

  Sam took in a long slow breath, and then let it out. The guilt of Roger and Madeline's deaths hung over her. "Ok, but I want something extra in return."

  "Like what?" It was Jobert's turn to frown.

  "I want the tax case against DeChip dropped, or at least I want the company bought by one of your pet arms manufacturers. I want it bought for a lot of money, and
I want all of that money to be put into trust for the Ravert's kids. If it's my fault that they're growing up orphans, then that's the least I can do. The least we can all do."

  "I don't think that will be a problem."

  "All right, then let's do it."

  "Use your own phone. Here's the number."

  Jobert jotted it down and handed her the piece of paper. "There's a cemetery not far from here, we can do the meet there. It'll be quiet, and there will be plenty of cover for my team—"

  "I know the place. And if he won't meet at the cemetery?"

  "Deals off, tell him to watch the newspapers for the news about him."

  "Really?"

  "Take that position for now; we can always call him back."

  "What time?"

  "My team will be in place inside the hour."

  She nodded and pulled out her phone.

  "Ready?" said Jobert.

  "Born ready," said Sam.

  She dialed. She had counted to five by the time he picked up.

  "Hello, Terry New."

  "Hi, Terry. My name's Sam Blackett, I'm sure that if you've been following the news you can't fail to have heard of me."

  There were several seconds of silence.

  "You're the one who killed Roger, and Madeline," came the reply, finally.

  "No, not quite, but I was there. I saw Roger die. He drew his last breath right in front of me. But before he did that he told me about your business together, and what you've been up to recently."

  "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

  "And I'm equally sure that you do, but I don't expect you to admit it on an open phone line. So why don't we meet, I have a business proposal for you."

  "A business proposal? From a double-murderer? Why would I meet you, why don't I just put this phone down right now and call the cops?"

  "We both know, Mr New, that you have a lot more to fear from the police than I do - you're not going to call the cops. But I might. In fact I will, and I will tell them everything I know unless you're at the gate of the Forest Hill Cemetery at midday. That's Forest Hill cemetery at midday, the gate on Geddes and Observatory." She said the last part quite slowly and deliberately, and then hung up.