by Fritz Galt
She tested the water with a toe. It didn’t burn, so she slipped in beside her friend. Her skin seized up in response to the temperature change. “What was your question again?”
“Brad’s call?”
“Oh yes.” She sighed. “He doesn’t know any more than we do. I think he just misses me.”
Jade turned to her with her penetrating brown eyes. “And do you miss him?”
Two young men were working out on treadmills. Their sweat formed perfect V-shapes on their backs and gym shorts.
“Yeah, I guess I miss him.”
“You guess you miss him? That doesn’t sound very convincing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, either you love him or you don’t.”
“I’m in love with him when I see him.”
“And when you’re apart?”
May twisted her lips and felt the fine mist against them.
Jade followed her gaze toward the pair of men and smiled knowingly. “When you’re not with him, you still want somebody.”
In the meantime, the men had finished and were stepping off their treadmills.
“Why are we here at a ski resort?” Jade said out of the blue. “I just can’t picture your father staying at a place like this.”
May turned to her. For the first time all day, she had taken her mind off their mission to find her father.
“I can’t even picture your father in America,” Jade said. “Why do you suppose Liang brought him here?”
May shrugged. “Perhaps it has something to do with his research.”
“Exactly what is his research?”
May let the underwater jets work their magic on her lower back. “He’s into religion these days. Something about spirits. I guess early religion consisted of communication with spirits, and he has developed a theory that all modern religions are essentially built on ancient forms of religion.”
Somehow, discussing theology seemed out of place in a hot tub in a modern workout room.
Jade must have been having the same thought. “Maybe Liang is still after you. You saw his apartment. He absolutely worships you.”
“Then why did he come to America?”
Jade shrugged. “He had to escape to somewhere.”
“Then why bring my father?”
“Maybe to force you to marry him.”
It was too horrible a thought to imagine, her father being held hostage on her account. “Look at this from my father’s point of view. Why would he come with Liang? Surely he doesn’t want anything to do with Liang, considering all that Liang has attempted to do in the past, including ruining my father’s research, torturing him and trying to kill him.”
“Can we safely assume that Liang has forced your father to come here with him? If so, what is his purpose? Ski lessons?”
May smiled. But she couldn’t imagine what Liang’s purpose might be. For the past year, her father had worked independently on his new field of inquiry, having published internationally in various scientific journals. Yu wasn’t involved with biotech companies, much less mixed up with Liang, whom everyone had assumed was dead. Hadn’t she and her father recently walked down the streets of Beijing without fear, as if a terrible burden had been lifted off their shoulders with Liang’s passing?
Discussing her father had taken her far away from the hot tub in Breckenridge. And it wasn’t helping to relieve the stress. “Why would they be here?” she wondered aloud.
Pin lights reflected off the soft paleness of her friend’s chest. In the distance, warm lights of ski chalets dotted the mountainside. Then two shadows fell over them.
She closed her eyes and knew without looking who was there. She tried to imagine that one was Brad and the other was Jade’s friend Earl. They were nice enough boys. And Brad seemed peculiarly exotic, a bronzed, muscular American with light-colored hair and similarly colored fuzz on his arms and legs.
“Can we join you ladies?” a voice said with a gentlemanly tone.
She felt her insides turn to rice gruel. Their boyfriends weren’t there, and two equally attractive men had slipped into their roles. She parted her eyelids slightly and made out the reflections in the window.
One slipped into the water beside her. She looked over at him. It was one of the cowboys who had helped her dust the snow off her outfit while she was talking to Brad.
“Are you chilling after that totally wicked day on the moguls?”
She didn’t have the vaguest idea what he was talking about. That afternoon, she had heard Brad’s voice, but she had felt other men’s hands, those sure, strong fingers exploring the crevices of her body, slapping the snow away and bringing feeling back to her icy skin.
An embarrassed smile slipped from the corners of her mouth. “Every muscle in my anatomy aches.”
“I know the feeling.” An arm brushed up against her and remained there.
The other young guy had plunged into the water beside Jade, then pulled himself out. Now, only his calves dangled in the water. The split flaps of his swimsuit floated next to Jade’s cheek.
May appraised her friend’s serene expression. Her face was clearly a mask. But masking what? Disapproval or desire?
May’s shoulders felt more tense than ever. How much longer could she and Jade resist?
Clad in a black silk shirt and tight trousers, Liang could not wait to display his manliness to the females in town. Beside him in the Ford Escort, Dr. Yu rode with grim consternation, his gloved hands clutching his door handle.
“Don’t jump out,” Liang warned.
He ignored a blind entrance that converged from a wooded side street. American drivers were far too timid to plow into the street without looking. He steered smoothly to the bottom of the mountain and directly into the town of Breckenridge. There, things got a little more confusing.
The air was choked with exhaust vapors billowing from slow-moving traffic. Tired snowboarders and skiers were eager to pull out of short-term parking. Other drivers came to scout out après-ski entertainment. He needed advice.
He rolled his window down. “Come over here,” he said to a policeman who was directing traffic. “Where is the best nightclub in town?”
The officer gave him and Yu a curious look. Perhaps they didn’t fit the mold. “Just stay away from the Liquid Lounge. It’s inches from the police station, and the noise tends to aggravate the force.”
“Where else is there?”
The officer halted oncoming traffic to let several cars turn onto the road in front of Liang. “Do you want to hear a band or just dance?”
“What kind of band?”
“Well, Cabaret Diosa is performing at Sherpa & Yeti’s, so that’s already sold out.”
Liang realized that he didn’t know any of the bar bands in America. “I’ll go for dancing.”
“Go straight and turn left at the first street, drive a few blocks, and you’ll find Cecilia’s in La Cima Mall.” He directed Liang to proceed.
Liang gunned the engine and began following the policeman’s directions. Breckenridge was a one-street town in true Wild West tradition. The architecture was decidedly Victorian. Businesses ranged from art galleries to taverns. Shop windows displayed colorful sweaters, Navajo tapestries and antique furniture.
La Cima Mall was a beehive of activity, and he had to drive slowly around the block to find a parking spot. Along the way, the younger crowd avoided going near his vehicle. He began to regret renting the cheapest car available. The result was that it made him more conspicuous, not less. At last he found a free space up the street.
He dragged Dr. Yu with him back down to the mall. There was a wide variety of restaurants and shops. If he wanted sushi, they had it. If the altitude was getting to him, he could try an oxygen lounge. If he wanted a massage, people were ready to rub him down.
But what he really wanted was a way to ditch the old guy in order to score with those rosy-cheeked cowgirls that came in from the cold. Then he saw the “Tadasana Yoga Ce
nter,” open for business.
“Old man, this looks like the place for you. I’ll pick you up in a few hours.”
“What if I’m not here when you return?”
Liang leered down at him. “Then I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
Yu bowed and entered the center, where a class was already in session.
A crowd had gathered at the entrance to the Liquid Lounge. It was a mixture of local kids and tourists, many with punk haircuts, died hair and leather jackets. From the pulsating beat that vibrated the floor, he could see why the police objected. He needed something more sedate that catered to the sensual rather than the trendy.
In the end, the place called Cecelia’s turned out to be just right for him. The DJ’s choice of Latin salsa was inviting. The place had a humidor where he could purchase a cigar and a lounge to sip a drink while watching the stylish clientele work it out on the dance floor.
He found a seat at the bar, asked for the drinks list and ordered a blue martini. By the time his drink arrived, he had already made eye contact with a group of college girls there on spring break.
He had finally found the sweet spot, and he was feeling lucky.
Chapter 16
The weekend paper might be full of news and in-depth articles, but Igor Sullivan couldn’t wait that long for it to arrive at his home. He turned off the basketball playoff game and headed out for the garage. He couldn’t wait for news to come to him, not with the volume and depth of data he could access at the CIA.
He coaxed his old Taurus back to life. No, he wasn’t obsessed or off his rocker spending Saturday night at work. He would just do a quick check on things. Not only was the Agency connected to foreign sources of news, but embassy and CIA station cables came in 24 hours a day. With the data-mining tools available to all government intelligence agencies, he could quickly find what he was looking for.
His headlights sliced through the gloom of the parkway and he considered what approach to take. The Central Intelligence Agency had it all. Not only did the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence evaluate information flowing in from and between other countries, they were linked to all the domestic databases: federal, state and local.
He pulled up to the security gate at Langley and let the guard play his flashlight on his face and identity card.
The CIA’s data analysis tools were proprietary programs and routines developed strictly for their internal use. And analyze figures, they did. Although all the important indicators were reported regularly to his directorate, the Directorate of Operations, and significant new findings flooded his inbox every day, he had authority to request any kind of report he wanted.
So he drove through the campus-like grounds of the Agency to the Directorate of Intelligence. There, he could generate a report on whatever statistic he wanted or search for whatever nugget of information or anomaly the data might yield.
Several minutes later, he stood dumbfounded with an internal report in hand. It forecast the economic collapse that the recently erected trade barriers would create. Virtually every sector of the American economy would come to a standstill: manufacturing, services, and retail alike.
Within a month, forty percent of Americans would lose their jobs. The country would enter a severe depression.
Within a year, unemployment figures would reach eighty-five percent, and the Great Depression would have looked positively prosperous.
Not only were the computer models frightening, the political climate was turning contentious, with states defying the federal government and fear mongers like Reverend Smith taking advantage of the situation. The breakup of American voters into more than two parties would fragment policy-making and unsettle financial institutions.
He shuddered to think of how Wall Street would react on Monday. Maybe they should suspend trading for a few days before hundreds of billions of dollars were lost. And if Wall Street fell, so too would the European burses and Asian exchanges.
All the analyses were adding up in his mind to something that might be far beyond the reach of computers. His instincts were directing him to Liang. He had only to rely on past experience to know how Liang might exploit the situation. But beyond that, he had a sneaking suspicion that Liang might even be behind it.
And if that were the case, no amount of number crunching could prove it.
He shuddered to think of all the power that Liang commanded in such a situation. Even with a new identity, he was still the grandson of China’s president, he still commanded loyalty within government circles, and he had the military background and contacts to move their nation to war.
He went searching for a phone. It was time to call on the CIA’s secret weapon. His son.
He reached for the nearest phone and dialed Brad’s cell phone. An automated voice came on the line first in Chinese then in English saying that the number was no longer in service. That was strange. Why would Brad have cancelled his cell phone service?
So he tried Brad’s apartment in Beijing. No answer.
Where might the lad be? Perhaps he was already in the air and headed for the States. Should he worry?
Should he worry! He wasn’t a father concerned about a teenager breaking curfew. He was responsible for throwing an agent at the wildest criminal China had ever produced.
Yes, he should be worried.
And it didn’t help to look at the unemployment projections and other cataclysmic economic failures predicted by the computer. He feared for his nation.
He needed Brad to put all the pieces together.
The only way to fight the next generation of warfare was to call upon the skills of the next generation.
But where was he?
Brad awoke in the middle of a deep sleep that involved images of a chairlift and running on top of a train. There was a voice pestering him in his left ear.
1-678-863-2157.
Where was he? The room had a stench whose source he couldn’t place. It registered somewhere between rotten eggs and Romano cheese. He turned the bedside light on and looked around. Slowly it came to him. He was staying in a room at the Zhao Long Hotel, a high-rise adjacent to the shopping mall where he had bought the cell phone.
1-678-863-2157.
That number sounded familiar. Oh, yes, it was his father’s phone number.
You’d better call it before you forget it.
What time was it? He checked the curtains. It was still dark outside. His father might still be at work in Virginia, twelve time zones away. He grabbed the hotel phone and dialed. The call went through as easily as if he were calling room service.
“Hi, Dad. It’s me.”
“Brad! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you.”
Brad groaned and tried to fend off his memories like pesky flies. He had been suspended high over the Chinese mountains grabbed by a soldier on a chairlift. Later, the soldier had fired a rifle at Earl and him on the train. But now the brute lay strewn across the tracks. Earl was at a hospital clinic. And Brad had vacated his apartment.
His life was a mess.
Then there was the May issue. She had sounded so distracted on his last phone call. Several tries later, she hadn’t even bothered to pick up the phone.
But he didn’t need to tell his father all that.
And what was that awful smell? He checked under his bed. Perhaps there was a forgotten food tray or dead rodent. But he found nothing.
“Listen,” Sullivan said, all business. “I want you to make your way over to the American Embassy. There, you will see a man named Mick Pierce. I’ll have him get you a plane ticket back here.”
“I’m not so sure I want to go anywhere.”
“You sound pretty down. What’s the problem?”
“It’s May,” he finally admitted. “She’s starting to slip away from me. First she leaves the country. Now she doesn’t return my calls.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I see. And you think I had the Company whisk her away i
n order to draw you into another extended chase across continents?”
“No, actually I was beginning to wonder if she’s just another one of my phantasms, like the spirit guide in my head.”
I could use the company.
Another long pause. “Son, we’ve been through all that. The guide is part of our plan.”
“I feel like some sort of Manchurian Candidate following orders embedded in my brain.”
“I think those orders are embedded mostly in your glands,” Sullivan said.
“That might be, but I’ve gotta find her. She’s all I’ve got. She’s all I live for.”
“Then, my son, go forth and conquer.”
“Just be honest with me for a second. Admit that you’re behind all this.”
“Don’t flatter me. I’m not that devious.”
“I guess I’ll have to accept that for now.”
“Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up. Now that I have you on the phone…”
Brad stood up and sniffed the corners of the room as Sullivan began to dump all sorts of information about stock markets and imports on him. Frankly, none of it sounded all that relevant or upsetting to him. After all, he was living in a country where the government manipulated the currency and stock market and people were just grateful to have the basics of life, like clean underwear.
His eyes landed on a stack of clothes that he had worn in the mountains. May had given him the leather belt, and he had worn it. Normally, he was a non-belt kind of guy. Then his mind got stuck on May. In a way, he’d hoped that Sullivan was behind her disappearance and playing hard to get. That would explain her ambivalence toward him and the fact that she wasn’t picking up the phone.
“You’re sure you haven’t told May to give me the cold shoulder?”
Sullivan broke off midway through his laundry list of world crises. “No, I haven’t. But if May’s the problem, I suggest you come over here and ask her yourself. It’ll also help you get a handle on the catastrophe about to beset our nation.”
