Jake Maroc - Shan Part 22

"Monica."

"No soft soap, Tony. This is getting creepy. I agreed to let you in here. It's strictly against the rules of the house."

"Max knows all about it."

"Really? Well, he's said nothing to me about it."

"Do you want to find out who had Peter Curran killed?"

Monica gave a little shudder. "I already know that. The diqui."

"Possibly."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I want to know what the h.e.l.l the diqui is doing in Encarnacion a a place where they have no right to be."

"Because of the n.a.z.is?"

"Because of the n.a.z.is."

There was silence for a time. The twilit offices were still around them. The air was off and it was stuffy.

"What do you think happened to Peter?" Monica said after a time.

"He ran afoul of someone," Simbal said. "But I'm not convinced that it was the diqui."

"Who then?"

"Would you let me find out?"

Monica hesitated for just a moment. Then she said, "Which agency?"

Drew blank with the FBI and the CIA both. But the CIA's Strategic Narcotics Teamthe people Simbal called SNITshad their own computer network.

"I think I'd better take over," Monica said, displacing him in the console chair. "The SNIT files are like minefields. They're so paranoid over there the calling up of certain files triggers an internal alert."

"Any way to get around it?"

"What are we looking for?"

"Same thing," Simbal said. "a.s.signments, vacations."

Monica's fingers flew over the keyboard, calling up and putting back files. "Nothing that fits," she said, "in either category."

"So I see," Simbal said morosely.

She was just about to pull out of the SNIT files entirely when she caught an electronic asterisk.

"What's that?"

"I don't know," she said. "Let's follow it." A moment later the answer swam up onto the screen.

"A leave of absence," Simbal said. "Jesus Christ."

"The dates are right," Monica said. *The leave began two days after Peter left for Paraguay."

"And he's not back yet. You know this guy Edward Martin Bennett?"

"Zip."

"Personnel."

Monica complied, switching files. "Ooops," she said. "This one's mined, all right. I'll have to find a way around it." And did, in twelve minutes. "Okay," she announced, "here's their scoop on Bennett." The screen began the scroll of data.

BENNETT, EDWARD MARTIN, BORN 3/13/36, DULUTH, MINNESOTA. PARENTS.

"Skip that," Simbal said.

EDUCATED SINDON GRAMMAR SCHOOL, FITZSIMMONS HIGH SCHOOL. TRANSFERRED TO VARLEY PREP IN VALLEY FORGE, PENNSYLVANIA 1/4/50. B.A., M.S., FROM YALE UNIVERSITY, CLa.s.s OF 1956. MEMBER OF SWIM, LACROSSE, SOCCER TEAMS. PHI BETA KAPPA. VARSITY SOCCER CAPTAIN, 1956. MEMBER h.e.l.lFIRE CLUB.

"Stop it right there," Simbal said, feeling excitement growing in him. "This guy and Peter were at Yale together."

"Coincidence?"

"Also the h.e.l.lfire Club."

"Is that significant?"

"Yeah," Simbal said, remembering the signet ring Threnody said had been found. "It just may be."

Monica withdrew from the SNIT files and they switched over to the airline schedules.

"Pick it up two days after Peter left." Monica reviewed the carriers. "This could take some time."

"Nope," Simbal said, his forefinger stabbing at the screen. "Here it is!"

PAN AM FLIGHT 107, DEPARTING 11 A.M., JFK, ARRIVING 7 P.M. BENNETT, EDWARD MARTIN.

"Mexico City," Simbal said.

Monica's fingers continued to work the keyboard. "There's no connecting flight to Paraguay but there is a flight to Buenos Aires." She hummed a little. "His name's not on the pa.s.senger manifest."

"I'm not surprised. I wouldn't advertise if I was going that way, either."

"Found his name again," Monica said. Simbal's excitement was becoming contagious. "Here's the flight plan: Mexico Cityhe left there a week after we were notified of Peter's death. He flew to San Francisco. After a day's layover, he flew out to Miami."

"He still there?"

Monica hit the keyboard. "Well," she said, "he hasn't flown out."

After they had shut down and left the offices, she said, "I wish you could come back with me tonight," He helped her on with her coat.

"Your family comes first," he said. In truth, he was thinking about other things: like Edward Martin Bennett in Miami. "You haven't seen your cousin in, what? a year?"

"Just about." Monica hesitated at the doorway. Her eyes when they looked into his shadowed face were luminous. "You're going to Miami, aren't you?"

He said nothing and she followed him out, locking up behind them. The night was unseasonably warm. From where they stood, they could see the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument lit up, cool, white, majestic.

"Don't lie to me, Tony. Not again."

He nodded. "I'm going."

"Is Bennett the one?"

"I won't know until I get there."

"Why don't you let someone else do it this time?" Simbal was quiet and Monica nodded. Then she quickly turned away and went down the marble steps and got into her Mazda. She took off.

Simbal watched her go, a little sadly; he would have liked to spend his last night in Was.h.i.+ngton wrapped in her warmth. Then he remembered that she had forgotten to supply him with the new entry code for the DEA computer. He'd need that to run deep background on Edward Martin Bennett on his own.

He ran down the steps, shouting for her, but she was too far away. He ran to his Saab, turned the ignition and set off after her.

Through nighttime Was.h.i.+ngton they went, a glittery world filled with public monuments, parks, pools, ponds, fountains.

Into Georgetown, and suddenly Simbal felt a chill seeping into him. Monica lived in Alexandria, which lay in the opposite direction. She had made a point of telling him that her cousin, Jill, was flying in from San Diego that evening and would be spending a couple of nights at Monica's. Yet she turned into R Street. And Simbal, continuing after her with his headlights doused, thought, What the h.e.l.l?

He stopped the Saab down the block and across the street. Watched with mounting dread as she went up the steps and rang the bell. Watched his old friend Max Threnody come to the door and usher her in.

Tony Simbal, sitting in darkness, listening to the Saab's cooling fan quiet the powerful turbocharged engine, felt an odd queasy sensation, a knowledge of being betrayed. A sense that home was no longer secure.

Bluestone was a tall, angular man with ruddy cheeks, a decidedly Roman nose, a wide straight brow beneath which blue eyes peered out at the world with a great deal of inquisitiveness. He wore Savile Row suits, spurning the efforts of even the best of the Hong Kong tailors. His s.h.i.+rts were handmade by Turnbull and a.s.ser, his shoes handlasted by Church of England. It was Sir John's opinion that one could not pay too much to be dressed smartly and, above all, correctly.

"And how is my little flower?" Bluestone said.

"I have something for you."

"I know," he said and smiled. "It is why I derive so much pleasure from having lunch with you."

"Lunch was my idea," she said, correcting him.

He frowned. "And an odd one, too, I might add." He spread his hands. "This is a very public place." They were sitting in the Central District branch of Princess Garden, high up overlooking the pedestrian walkway above Chater Road.

"Oh, yes," she agreed, "very, very public."

"There is, I expect, a good reason for this." She looked smas.h.i.+ng, every inch a model or television star. All heads turnedmale and femalewhen she came into the restaurant. She wore a black shantung silk skirt and jacket beneath which peeped out an oyster white camisole edged with delicate open embroidery. Her only jewelry was a ma.s.sive emerald ring. He knew where that came from. She had the ability to use Western makeup to bring out the exoticism of her Eastern face. How many women he knew would kill to possess that talent?

"Prosit," he said, lifting his gla.s.s.

"Das vidanya," she said in a ludicrous Russian accent.

He scowled. "Don't be idiotic."

"Idiotic?" Neon Chow said. "I am not idiotic. Three Oaths Tsun knows who you are. They all know: Jake, Sawyer, all of them."

Bluestone put his gla.s.s down very carefully. "What, precisely, do you mean, they know who I am?"

"They know that you are the KGB's top Asian operative," Neon Chow said. She was openly enjoying his consternation. "Don't look so sour," she said, sipping at her drink. "They want me to spy on you for them. That's why I asked you to lunch when you came by the governor's office yesterday."

Bluestone watched her face, his mind working furiously, and in a moment he had worked it out. Perhaps this wasn't the disaster it had at first seemed to be.

"Christ," he said, "Three Oaths Tsun wants you to keep tabs on me?"

"That's right," Neon Chow said., The waiter arrived and they ordered. When he had departed, Bluestone said, "This may be better than ever. Obviously they want to keep me in place. A known enemy is far better than an unknown one. And I have already deceived them concerning the Southasia scheme."

"Oh, yes," Neon Chow agreed. "As I reported to you, they suspect that you are behind Teck Yau's embezzlement."

"That's all right," he said, still working out the refinements of his plan. And because of that suspicion, he thought gleefully, they also believe that the scheme to embezzle funds from Southasia is the full extent of my plan to defeat them. He thought a moment. "Listen to me. I have a way to overcome their discovery of my ident.i.ty. If I can deceive them by running you back at them, I may have everything I need to destroy InterAsia Trading and all who back her."

"But there's more," Neon Chow said.

"Have you found out who's behind s.h.i.+ Zilin's murder?"

"Forget about that," she said quickly. "The old man was killed by a bunch of Yakuza. Rivals of Jake's Yakuza friend, I forget his name." She put her empty gla.s.s aside. "What I have for you is far more important. When Three Oaths took me out for my birthday, I got him talking about the yuhn-hyun. Their purpose is somehow to link certain tai pan here with interests in Mainland China."

Bluestone seemed stunned. "What are you saying? Hong Kong and Beijing would be in some kind of collusion?"

"Yes."

"Impossible! Even when China takes full control of Hong Kong in 2047 the business interests here will fight the changeover to Communism with every breath,"

"According to my information," Neon Chow said, "there won't be a changeover to Communism. There will, instead, be one China. One political system. One economic system. And that system will most a.s.suredly not be Communism."

Bluestone already knew that. But one was always safest confirming one source with another, totally independent one. This was a lesson Daniella Vorkuta had taught him and it had proved invaluable more than once.

Espionage, Bluestone thought, staring hard at Neon Chow, was not a game for amateurs. Only the seasoned professionals survived.

Taken completely out of time, Qi Lin floated. Colonel Hu had learned his trade well.

He had been warned by Jin Kanzhe how tough this subject's mind would be. Her mind and her will. There was no doubt that she had exceptional qi. One neededto be successful at this peculiar and twisted trade of mind sculptingto be fully aware of the subject's qi before one employed any technique. Qi could change everything.

Colonel Hu had observed this during his time in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge, whom he had aided, had been rather crude in their mind-sculpting techniques. One had difficulty dealing with them, and early on Colonel Hu had ceased to give them advice. One could not have a dialogue with fanatics; one merely spoke at them. Either they listened or they didn't.

During his time in Cambodia, Colonel Hu had learned to despise the Khmer Rouge. Learn from them he did, for sometimes their techniques were wholly effective. But he hated every minute in that blood-filled land.

If the truth be known (and Colonel Hu only dwelt on this loathsome fact deep in the night while in solitary separation he drank) he had been terrified of the Khmer Rouge. They were as unthinking as robots. They had been programmed as effectively as their pitiable subjects. Colonel Hu had, of course, confronted many fanatics in his time China itself was well known for its ideological fanaticism. But none was on a level with those he found in Cambodia.

In his mind, their animalistic barbarism was forever linked with the stench of burning flesh and scorched hair. There was not an hour he spent in Cambodia when his nostrils were not clogged with the smell. After a time, he learned to live with it as he had learned to live among the vicious primitives.