The second perimeter

by Mike Lawson

  “I’m re…”

  Li Mei stepped back and opened the door and called out, “Loc! Bao! Come here.” A large Chinese man entered the room followed by a smaller Chinese man. The small one was the one who had injected Emma as she sat in her car; the big one had driven the Range Rover.

  “The big one’s Bao,” Li Mei said to Emma. “Loc is the mean one.”

  Bao was about six four, balding, with a round face, a round gut, big arms, and heavy shoulders. His eyes were almost round, too. It was hard to read the expression on his face but he seemed uncomfortable, as if he didn’t want to be where he was.

  Loc, on the other hand, looked eager. He was two inches shorter than both Li Mei and Emma, skinny, his face pockmarked from old acne scars. His eyes were narrow and hooded and when he smiled at Emma, she could see that almost all of his teeth had silver fillings.

  “I considered just turning Loc loose on you,” Li Mei said. “Letting him pull out nails and gouge out eyes and connect wires to your tits. I think I would have enjoyed that, but that sort of interrogation takes too long. And it’s messy. All that blood and shit and piss all over the place. So we’re going to do to you what you did to me, Emma. We’re going to do this the CIA way. No sleep and lots of drugs. We’re going to pump you full of drugs, and drugs have changed a lot in twenty years. The drugs we’ve given you so far were designed to keep you awake but docile. Now we’re going to give you something to make you, ah, what’s the word? Manic, that’s it. You’re going to be coming out of your skin in fifteen minutes.”

  Li Mei said something in Chinese and both men moved toward Emma. Bao took hold of her shoulders while Loc opened a small case he’d been holding in his right hand and took out a hypodermic needle. Emma tried to pull loose from the grip Bao had on her shoulders but her limbs wouldn’t respond to the signals she was sending from her brain. Loc grasped Emma’s left arm at the wrist and began to move the hypodermic toward a vein in her forearm. Emma tried to pull her arm away, and when Loc couldn’t keep her arm still, he cursed then slapped her with the back of his hand. Emma’s head snapped back and her nose began to bleed. Loc started to hit her a second time but Li Mei said something in Chinese and Bao put his right arm around Emma’s throat, increased the pressure until she began to have difficulty breathing, then used his left hand to hold her arm still. Bao was strong and his grip on her arm was like a vise biting into her flesh. Her arm immobilized, Loc injected the drugs into a vein. He pushed the hypodermic’s plunger down fast and hard, and the drugs burned like liquid fire as they flowed into her bloodstream. Loc smiled as Emma grimaced in agony, his face close to hers, looking into her eyes. He seemed to be feeding off the pain he was causing her.

  “We’ll give that stuff some time to work,” Li Mei said, “then we’ll begin.” She started to leave the room then spun around and said, “You have no idea how I suffered because of you.” There were tears in her bright, black eyes when she said the words.

  At least Emma thought the tears were in Li Mei’s eyes— they could have been in her own.

  43

  Smith had told DeMarco that the Chinese government wasn’t involved in Emma’s disappearance but he needed to confirm this— and deliver a message to the Chinese. He was sitting in a bistro on Granville Street three blocks from the Chinese embassy, waiting to meet with the Chinese chief of intelligence in Vancouver, a man named Chan.

  Smith had never met Chan but he knew from surveillance photos what he looked like. From Smith’s window seat in the bistro he saw Chan now, across the street. He was a heavyset, bald man with an affable expression on his face. He was wearing a well-made tan-colored suit with jogging shoes. He started across the street to the bistro but then stopped abruptly, turned around, and walked into a store. The store had skinny mannequins in the window and the mannequins wore black-and-red underwear— the type of underwear that only twenty-year-old models can wear. It was called La Vie en Rose, which seemed to be Canada’s version of Victoria’s Secret.

  Chan spent ten minutes in the store and came out holding a plastic bag. Cross-dresser or a gift for his mistress? Smith wondered.

  Chan entered the bistro and went up to the counter and ordered a latte. As he was waiting for his drink he looked around, spotted Smith, and nodded pleasantly to him. There were four other customers in the restaurant but Smith was the only one wearing a suit— and apparently the only one who looked like a spy.

  The Chinaman walked toward Smith’s table, blowing on his latte to cool it, when he stopped suddenly and stared at Smith. He laughed loudly— more loudly than he had probably intended— and the other customers in the coffee shop looked at him. When he sat down at Smith’s table he said in accented English, “Can you hear me now? Good!” and started laughing again.

  Smith felt like shooting the bastard.

  Smith began the meeting by saying, “Chan, what in the hell do you guys think you’re doing?”

  The meeting went exactly the way Smith had expected it to go: the Chinese spy denied everything. He denied that they were running operations in Bremerton and particularly denied that they were involved in the shoot-out on East Pender Street and the kidnapping of Emma.

  Smith found Chan’s English interesting. Most times it was heavily accented, like a fry cook in a takeout place, but at other times he’d slip and Smith would hear perfect English with a hint of upper-class British accent. Whenever Chan needed time to think, he’d pretend he didn’t understand, but Smith wouldn’t have been surprised if the guy had a degree from Oxford or Cambridge. He was confident the guy’s English was more than adequate when he used the word “hypothetically.”

  Hypothetically, Chan said, they might run these operations in Bremerton that Smith had mentioned. Chan gave a little shrug which meant: Hey, that’s the game we’re all in. What do you expect? But he said that if they were running such operations they sure as hell wouldn’t go around kidnapping American agents.

  “We got your gal on tape,” Smith said.

  “Tape?” the Chinese agent said. “What you mean ‘tape’?”

  Smith told Chan how Emma’s phone had been on when Li Mei had kidnapped her. Chan winced at the mention of Li Mei’s name.

  “That’s right,” Smith said, “we know who she is and we know she’s one of yours.”

  “I not understand,” Chan said.

  “You understand perfectly,” Smith said. “And you better understand something else. If we don’t get Emma back we’re gonna make your lives miserable here in Canada and in every Chinese embassy in the United States. You guys aren’t gonna be able to go for a walk without having our people all over you. We’re gonna tow your damn cars away every time you park. We’re gonna take pictures of you every time you enter a strip joint or visit a hooker— or go shopping in a place that sells slinky underwear.” Chan frowned at the last comment, but when Smith said, “We might even deport a few of you clowns,” the frown was replaced with a broad smile. They both knew that for every Chinese agent the Americans deported, an American agent would be deported from China.

  Seeing that his threats were having little effect, Smith added, “And just maybe the American government’s attitude toward your country will change dramatically. I’m talking embargoes and trade sanctions and tariffs, you understand?”

  “Oh, bollocks,” Chan said, and there was no accent at all when he said the word. Smith didn’t know what “bollocks” meant but he suspected it was limey for bullshit— and Smith was bullshitting. International relations with the Chinese were too important to let one little spy operation rock the boat. Oh, the diplomats would make some noises, but that’s all they’d do, and Chan knew it.

  Communication between spies is as easy to interpret as whale songs, and only whales can sing the lyrics. Smith and Chan were old humpbacks with scars on their fins. By the time Chan had finished his latte, Smith was pretty sure the Chinese were not behind Emma’s kidnapping. He couldn’t be certain, of course, because Chan talked in circles, never admitting anyt
hing specifically. Smith’s conclusion was based on experience and body language. In the end, he was convinced the Chinese government wanted to get their hands on Li Mei as much as the Americans did, and when the Chinese got her, her spying days would be finished. The meeting ended with Chan saying— or implying— that if by chance they found Emma they’d certainly return her to the Americans. Chan somehow managed to say this while simultaneously saying he had no idea who Emma was.

  44

  There were four big cranes on the pier on Burrard Inlet. The cranes were painted a rusty red and stood on steel legs fifty feet high, their booms reaching out over the water. To DeMarco, they looked like the erect skeletons of some species of red-boned dinosaur.

  Only one of the cranes was currently in service. A train had driven directly underneath the crane, between its steel legs, and about every ten minutes a cargo container would be transferred from the railcar to the deck of the Indonesian ship moored at the pier. Whoever was running the crane, someone invisible in the cab high above the ground, was good at his job. He was fast and never seemed to have to make any adjustments to place the container exactly where he wanted. Containers were stacked on the ship seven high and a dozen across.

  There were hundreds of containers visible on the deck of the ship.

  DeMarco was in a section of Vancouver called Gastown and he stood in a parking lot on a bluff above the waterfront watching the loading operation through binoculars. He’d occasionally see men in uniform, men he assumed were customs agents, looking at clipboards that he guessed held bills of lading. He never saw anyone actually open an outbound container and inspect its cargo. He figured all the security and inspections were focused on the stuff people were bringing into Canada and not the stuff they were sending out.

  As he watched, he questioned once again the wisdom of coming to Vancouver. It sounded as if Smith was doing everything that could be done, and he had lots of people helping him. There really didn’t seem to be anything for DeMarco to do. He tried not to think about the fact that he’d lost his job and had no idea what he was going to do for employment after this was all over.

  After two hours of watching port operations DeMarco gave up. The container ship terminal he was watching was one of several around Vancouver, and a brochure he’d read said thousands of tons of cargo were shipped daily from the Canadian port. If Emma was in a cargo container and she had been loaded onto a ship bound for a Chinese-friendly country, there was no way in hell they were going to be able to save her. He didn’t even allow himself to think that Emma was someplace being tortured.

  He trudged back to his rental car and went in search of a place to stay for the next few days. As Uncle Sugar was no longer paying his per diem, he had only one criterion for lodging: cheap. He finally settled on a Best Western on the outskirts of Vancouver that charged about eighty bucks a night. Eighty bucks Canadian.

  He unpacked his suitcase, hung up his clothes, and put his shaving kit in the bathroom. He then stood in the middle of the small room trying to think what to do next. It was almost six p.m. He was tired and hungry, and the only thing he could think to do was go to dinner. Hell of an investigator he was.

  He walked to the door, put his hand on the doorknob, but as he did, he happened to glance down at the small desk located near the door. There was a phone on the desk and next to the phone was a little sign telling you how to make a phone call and how much it cost. The little sign also had a few words about using the phone line to make an Internet connection.

  He took his hand off the doorknob, picked up the phone, and dialed a number in Washington, D.C. The phone rang ten times before someone finally answered.

  45

  Emma was talking about a man named Jin Zhang. She’d been talking about him for almost an hour. She liked Jin. He was an engineer who had worked for the Chinese space agency. He had a wife and a son and kept pigeons. Emma was telling Li Mei how Jin had used his pigeons to send her information.

  Li Mei. Emma had been astounded by how little Li Mei’s appearance had changed since Hawaii. She was still beautiful, maybe even more beautiful than she’d been as a young woman, but there was a hardness in her face, a wintry coldness in her eyes, that hadn’t been there twenty years ago. The vibrant China doll was gone. Emma wanted to ask Li Mei what had happened since Hawaii but then the fog came again, the fog that wrapped around her mind.

  Emma was so tired. She wondered when she’d slept last. And her eyes hurt because the light in the room was so bright. She’d asked the big man to turn off the light but he’d just shaken his head. She wasn’t afraid of the big man, Bao. The little one though…What was his name? Whatever it was, there was something about the little one that frightened her. She scratched her forearm then looked down at the place that itched. My god, what were all those marks? On her other arm, too. She needed to see a doctor. And she stank. She hadn’t bathed since her capture. She lifted her arm to smell her armpit, but then she realized that Li Mei was still there, watching her. She laughed, embarrassed, thinking of the sight she must have made sniffing herself.

  “Stop that and concentrate! Put your arm down!” Li Mei said. “Did Jin talk to you about the rocket that blew up in Xichang in ’96?” Li Mei asked.

  “What?” Emma said.

  “Pay attention!” Li Mei screamed. “The space center in Xichang. Szechuan Province. Nineteen ninety-six. Fifty-six people were killed. Did Jin Zhang cause the explosion?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Emma said. “There was something…something about the fuel mixture. I didn’t understand it, but I passed on what Jin said to our technical guys. The technical guys said…”

  Emma didn’t know how long she’d been talking but she just kept talking and talking and talking. She was a real magpie, as her mother used to say. Was her mom still alive? She couldn’t remember.

  “Can I have a drink of water?” Emma said.

  “No,” Li Mei said. Then she said, “Yes. We’re through for now.”

  “Oh, don’t leave,” Emma said. She didn’t know why, she’d never been a particularly talkative person, but she could talk to Li Mei forever. When she was by herself she went kind of crazy. She’d talk to herself and sometimes she’d see people she knew were dead, and she’d talk to them. She was a real magpie.

  “When I come back we’re going to talk about submarines. Do you understand?”

  “I’ve been on submarines before,” Emma said.

  “No, not your submarines. Our submarines. Chinese submarines. I want to know who you know that works on them.”

  “Oh, I know…”

  “I’ll be back in half an hour,” Li Mei said.

  “Wait, don’t go.”

  46

  Fat Neil did a slow turn— an elephant doing a pirouette— as he inspected DeMarco’s motel room. “Jesus, Joe, this place is a dump,” he said. “Tell me we don’t have adjoining rooms.”

  Neil was in his fifties, short, maybe five seven, and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. He was the guy you didn’t want to see walking down the aisle of an airplane when the seat next to you was empty. His head was balding on top but he allowed his remaining hair to grow long at the back and tied it into a grayish-blond ponytail that reached between his shoulder blades. The only attire DeMarco had ever seen him wear was Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and sandals, and that’s what he was wearing today.

  “It was the best I could afford,” DeMarco said, responding to Neil’s comment about the motel room.

  “Is Uncle trying to reduce the deficit by lowering your per diem?”

  “Something like that,” DeMarco muttered. There was nothing to be gained by telling Neil that he was unemployed.

  “Good,” Neil said. “Someday I’ll be eligible for Social Security, and it’d be nice if there was something still in the kitty when the time comes.”

  This was Neil’s idea of a joke. If he ever needed Social Security he’d hack into a server and the government would began to spit out the largest retirement check
s it had ever printed.

  Neil was an old associate of Emma’s, a man who made his living by collecting and selling information. He slithered— electronically— through firewalls and hacked into encrypted systems. He tapped phones and bugged boardrooms and bedrooms. DeMarco suspected that a portion of Neil’s income came from government agencies and another portion came from people trying to get a leg up on the competition. Whatever the case, Emma had once saved Neil’s life so when DeMarco called him and asked for help, Neil got on the first plane to Vancouver, arriving just in time for breakfast.

  “Where’s your gear?” DeMarco asked.

  Neil didn’t answer; he was still inspecting the motel room. He stuck his head into the small bathroom. “No Jacuzzi,” he said. He turned toward DeMarco and raised his arms like the crucified, suffering Christ. “And my God, Joe, this place doesn’t have room service.”