He says, “How did your meet go today?”
Jiang sits in a cool leather chair before Li’s desk, steeling himself for what his boss may say next. “The man was crumbling. I decided to push him.”
“How?”
“I took a gamble. I told him that we would give him the money to pay for his embezzlement, and in return, he’d give us information on that new software program, MOGUL.”
Li slowly blinks behind his glasses. “That’s not what you were supposed to do.”
Jiang stares at him, thinking, One of these days, I will have your job because you’re too fat to be out in the field and doing what has to be done to protect the Middle Kingdom.
Jiang says, “There was an opportunity. I took it. It will pay off for us.”
“But what if he goes to the FBI and confesses all?”
“The jackass thinks I’m working for the tái bāzi, and if he confesses—which I entirely doubt, sir—any blowback will be against Taipei. Not us.”
Li says, “That was dangerous.”
“The odds are in our favor.”
“Perhaps,” Li says. “You are certainly one for bào dàtuǐ, I will give you that.”
Bào dàtuǐ, Jiang thinks, to cling to someone’s lap. In other words, to curry favor.
But Li is wrong.
Jiang is not currying favor with his boss.
He’s setting him up to be replaced at the right time.
Li says, “Any other place, comrade, I’d be reprimanding you for exceeding your authority, but I don’t have the time. Something has broken in the news today that will involve you. The daughter of the president has been kidnapped.”
Jiang says, “I thought the old bitch was barren.”
Li shakes his head. “No, not her. The previous president. Keating. His teen girl was kidnapped.”
Jiang is confused, a feeling he hates. “How does this involve me?”
“The thug taking credit for kidnapping the girl is Asim Al-Asheed,” Li says, peering down at a sheet of paper on his desk next to a secure computer terminal. “He was an asset of ours for a period of time in Libya, correct? And controlled by you?”
Asim, Jiang thinks. A capable warrior who gladly accepted assistance from foreigners, but who was a devil to control. There are several achievements in his life that Jiang is proud of, and getting out of Libya and not having to meet face-to-face again with that barbarian is one of them.
Asim is only a tool, that is it. Also, definitely not fully human.
“Yes, of course,” Jiang says. “He helped us settle differences among various tribes for a number of our pipeline projects and drilling expeditions. Where there was competition and chaos, Asim brought peace in the district so our work would not be interrupted.”
His superior purses his fat lips. “‘Settle differences.’ Fine choice of words. Well, he has a difference with President Keating and kidnapped his daughter this morning, somewhere in their province of New Hampshire, near that college. Dartmouth.”
Jiang stays silent. He has nothing to offer, so there is no chance he will say anything troubling.
Bùzuō bú huì sǐ. You will not get into trouble if you do not seek trouble.
Li sighs. “Do you have means of contacting this Asim Al-Asheed?”
Jiang thinks furiously. The easy answer would be to say no, for he dreads the thought of once again entering that barbarian’s world, where a slight or a difference in religious thought could result in a slit throat, but Jiang hasn’t gotten this far by doing the easy things.
Avenging Father and hurting the nation that killed him means taking risks, and this is only the newest risk to face.
“Yes,” he says. “I do.”
Li nods, turns over a sheet of paper. “Then do so. Negotiations and other talks with the Americans over trade, technology, and military relations are frozen. Beijing is seeking any chance or opportunity to break this jam with the Americans and gain an advantage. Every bit of pressure and counteraction against them hasn’t produced the results Beijing wants. Working to secure the former president’s daughter’s safe return will do just that. It will make us heroes in the eyes of the world and, most importantly, to their simple people.”
Jiang says, “I see. I am to contact Asim Al-Asheed and do what I can to get the daughter released.”
Li’s fat face flushes. “No, you will not. You will meet personally with this Asim creature, and convince him one way or another to release that girl. Understood? Beijing demands it. And so do I.”
With years of practice, Jiang keeps his face emotionless and bland. He is thinking of these orders but is also remembering something else. Being on that windswept runway as a child back in May 1999 with his mourning mother, receiving the formal box containing the ashes of Father, killed by American bombs, and vowing then and there to dedicate his life to opposing the Americans.
Even if it means disobeying a direct order like this, and not lifting a finger to prevent the death of the former president’s kidnapped daughter. Anything to hurt and embarrass this nation.
“I do understand,” Jiang smoothly lies, getting up from his seat. “I’ll get right to work.”
Chapter
43
The Oval Office
The White House
After the curved door to the Oval Office closes, leaving the four of them alone, Samantha Keating looks at the angry faces of President Barnes and Barnes’s husband, the chief of staff, and says, “Well? Anybody want to answer my question? Do Matt and I have anything to fear?”
With anger in his voice, Richard Barnes says, “Mrs. Keating, with all due respect, I can’t believe you’ve just said that!”
“Richard,” she says, feeling her face warm, “you and I and everyone else in this room have gone through the fires, the double-talk, the betrayals, to get here. We all have a lot more in common than we like to admit. There are no innocents here. What I asked was a legitimate question. Can you answer it?”
She takes a breath. The memories of her time in this horrid place, the compromises, the arguments, the betrayals, are coming up to the surface. She tried so very hard to bury it all when she walked out of here two Januarys ago. Before her are the man and woman who years back chose to betray the trust of her husband, and to force him out of office.
It all comes back.
Samantha continues, “For the past year and a half, I’ve been back in the real world, working with students who worry about their loans, their grades, and how they’ll get a job after they graduate. It’s been refreshing as hell, being among people who don’t care about polls, focus groups, and who’s up over someone else. I can trust them. Can Matt and I trust you?”
President Barnes leans forward and, with a soft voice, says, “Samantha, please believe me when I say this: the entire force of the federal government is going to work as one to find Mel and bring her back safely.”
Matt squeezes Samantha’s hand but stays quiet.
Samantha says, “All right, then.” She keeps her voice controlled. “Despite my detours into politics, at heart I’m just a college professor. I don’t deal with speculation. Only facts. And I wanted it out here, in this room, that, despite the efforts of that son of a bitch Asim Al-Asheed, Matt and I have nothing to fear from this administration.”
The president’s husband and chief of staff says, “No bullshit, Mrs. Keating. You and your husband should have no concerns. We have this. We won’t let you down. I give you my word.”
She nearly has to bite her tongue, and then shakes her head. “Your word.” She looks up at him. “All right, Richard. Your word it is.”
Something in his eyes tells her she’s struck home, and a memory from more than two years ago comes to her, like an old nightmare that just won’t die, even in the middle of a sunlit day.
At that time, she was working late in her offices in the East Wing when an unexpected visitor came by, ushered in by her chief of staff, June Walters, whom Samantha knows was secretly rooting for Matt
’s vice president to defeat him at the upcoming convention. Her visitor had made himself known at a Secret Service kiosk at the northeast gate, and once his name had been passed along to Samantha, she made the necessary arrangements.
She smiled at seeing the familiar young man come in, dressed casually in jeans, dark green T-shirt, and short leather jacket. Samantha got up from behind her disorganized desk—she had been trying to juggle her own schedule and the ravenous needs of the Committee to Reelect Matthew Keating—and offered a hand.
“Carl,” she said. “What a nice surprise.”
“Thanks, professor,” Carl Sanchez said, taking a chair after giving her hand a brief shake. When she was teaching at Stanford, he had been one of her smartest and most capable grad students, and she had written one of her best letters of recommendation for him when he graduated.
Samantha waved a hand and went back to her desk and said, “Not a professor at the moment, Carl. I’m the First Lady of the nation…and most days, I wish I was back in California. And you? Please tell me you’re at some school, teaching freshmen and overseeing a dig somewhere.”
Carl shook his head. “Didn’t work out, professor…er, Mrs. Keating.”
“Please,” she said. “Enough time has passed. It’s Samantha.”
A knowing shrug. “You know how it is. Too many applicants, too few openings, colleges cutting back on salaries, pouring money into administrators and fancy dining halls. Taught a few semesters as an adjunct, and at my last job, I was living in the back of my car and taking showers at the gym. Decided then to make a career change and started working for my uncle. He runs a security firm. Good pay, nice bennies, some travel.”
Samantha recalled the great papers and projects Carl had produced back at Stanford, focusing on the forgotten history of overlooked Native American tribes from Siskiyou County, and she thought, What a shame.
“And now?”
He said, “I won’t waste your time, profess…er, Samantha. It’s like this. A few months ago, I was in Macau, overseeing the update of a security system my uncle’s company had installed at a new hotel and casino there, the Golden Palace Macau. Very high priced, designed for what they call whales, high rollers.”
Samantha saw a nervous flicker in Carl’s eyes, but like a good teacher who knew her student was about to say something important, she kept her mouth closed. “Go on,” was all she said.
Carl rubbed both hands on his legs, drew a deep breath. “I was working in the security ops center at two in the morning, drinking lousy coffee, trying to debug a system, and keeping an eye on some of the CCTV feeds. I mean, those whales and others that can afford portable jamming systems don’t know their systems don’t work with what the Chinese have in their back pockets.”
Samantha said, “What did you see?”
“Someone I shouldn’t have seen.”
“Who?”
He glanced around her cluttered office, as if he couldn’t look her in the eye.
“The vice president’s husband. That cowboy from Florida. The one who sold some of his farmland a while back for a casino.”
“Richard Barnes?”
Carl looked down at the carpet. “Yeah. But he wasn’t alone…it was, uh, well, okay, I don’t want to say it aloud. He wasn’t by himself. Do you see what I mean? Something…that’s illegal in most countries.”
Samantha felt as though all the coffee she’d drunk to keep her awake was about to crawl out of her churning stomach.
Carl stood up. “He’s…I don’t like him. And I don’t like his wife. And I don’t like what they’re both doing to your husband. That’s not right.”
He reached into his pocket, took out a small rectangular piece of black plastic, gently put it on top of a pile of papers. “This is for you.”
Samantha stared at it as if it were a scorpion or some other stinging insect.
“What’s that, Carl?”
He started to leave her office. “That’s a thumb drive, with a recording of the vice president’s hubby over in Macau, thousands of miles away from his wife and his country, thinking he can’t possibly get caught…and Professor Keating, use that video at the right time, and your husband can’t lose. I erased the source recording, so the Chinese don’t have it. Only you.”
He slipped out of her office and she didn’t say a word, just stared at that little piece of metal and plastic.
Outside the Oval Office, she’s walking with Matt down one of the historic and well-furnished hallways in this place that was once their home, and she says, “Matt, I’m sorry I lost it back there.”
Matt takes her hand, holds it tight. Around them are Secret Service agents, staff members to this administration, and as she stiffly walks down this familiar corridor, she whispers, “Oh, Matt…where is she?”
One thing she learned a long time ago is to never, ever let them—including your own staff—see you sweat or lose your cool in public because gossip and leaks can get out there to the media and the ravenous blogs. Nevertheless, she wipes at her eyes with her free hand and the tears just erupt.
Within a second, Matt is hugging her hard, and she buries her face in his shoulder, and the tears really flow as she’s thinking that her daughter—their girl!—is being held by a monster who can kill with such ease and pleasure.
Matt whispers, “Thousands of people across the country, Sam, are looking for Mel right now. We’re not alone. We’re going to get her back. I promise. We’re going to get her back.”
And she slips and whispers, “Oh, Matt, it’s my fault…my fault.”
He gently breaks free, strokes her hair, kisses her forehead, and says, “Sam, it’s not your fault. How can you say that? It’s not your fault.”
She bites her lower lip and peers over his shoulder, noticing the staff and Secret Service doing their best not to look at them, and thinks, But it is my fault, Matt. I had the key to your reelection win in my hand, the thumb drive with Richard Barnes’s perversions recorded, and I didn’t use it.
I couldn’t use it.
And I wouldn’t use it.
Samantha wipes at her eyes, tries to smile at her strong and troubled husband.
“I know, it’s just…so much.”
But she’s thinking, No, back then, Matt, I didn’t want you to win. I wanted to leave this horrible town and build a new life for us, and it’s my fault you didn’t win reelection. If you had won, we’d still be here in the White House with all the protection, and Mel would be safe.
“All right?” Matt asks with concern.
She nods, tears still in her eyes. “Enough. Let’s get back to the hotel.”
Chapter
44
Northwestern New Hampshire
Mel Keating is sitting on the edge of her well-made bed in her concrete cell, ready to escape, ready to humiliate her kidnappers.
Her first meal of the day was some sort of chicken and rice dish, served on a paper plate with a spoon and a red plastic cup of water.
But when she sipped the water, she found that her kidnappers had accidentally given her two plastic cups, one nestled in the other.
She slipped out the spare cup and hid it under her bedding and was sitting politely and quietly when the younger man—called Faraj—came in to pick up the dishes.
A mistake.
They gave her something extra, and she is going to use that to her advantage.
She remembers again the briefing she received from Agent Stahl during those weird busy few weeks when she and Mom and Dad moved into the White House.
Secret Service agent David Stahl was sitting in a plain wooden chair in her new bedroom at the White House and said with a quiet yet firm voice, “And another thing, Mel. If you’re kidnapped, the first hours are the most important.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, still trying to grasp that this was all real, that she was no longer living at the Naval Observatory with Mom and Dad, that Dad was really the president, and now she was living in the White House.
Unbelievable!
Agent Stahl said, “The first few minutes, the first few hours—it’s a time of flux. Your captors will be nervous, high-strung, trying to adjust to what they’ve just done. That’s when you should grab any chance to escape. A day or two later, they’ve settled into a routine, they’ve set up the watch schedule, you’re their prisoner. It’ll be too late by then. The first few hours…that’s your gift. Use it.”
She nodded, scared by what he was saying but still trying to take it all in.
She was now the president’s daughter.
“Mel,” Agent Stahl said. “Any questions?”
“No,” she said. “Not now.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry. The chances of this happening are infinitesimally small. But it’s good to be prepared.”
She wanted to laugh or joke at the thought of being kidnapped, but the hard look in that Secret Service agent’s eyes—so much like Dad’s!—kept her mouth shut.
Mel hears the door being unlocked, takes a breath, takes her glasses off with one hand and again rubs her eyes hard, pinches at her cheeks, gets the tears rolling.
The glasses go back on with her free hand.
Be prepared, she remembers.
The first few hours…that’s your gift. Use it.
The door swings open and it’s the younger of the two again, Faraj. He steps in, holding a yellow plastic tray with a covered dish and another red plastic cup. He’s dressed in jeans and a checked flannel shirt, and a holstered pistol is at his right side.
He steps toward her, and Mel coughs, chokes, and does her best to start crying, saying, “Please…I’m so scared…Won’t you let me free? Please? I’ll make sure my daddy gives you a reward!”
Faraj sneers at her, and Mel thinks, Just two more steps, two more steps, and I’ll wipe that damn sneer off your face, jerk.
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