Dance with the Dragon (12 page)

D. F., COLONIA CUAUHTÉMOC

The D.F. was divided into sixteen areas called
delegaciones,
and four hundred neighborhoods called
colonias.
The U.S. embassy was on Paseo de la Reforma in the Colonia Cuauhtémoc, which was in the heart of the modern skyscraper and business district downtown.

McGarvey had spent the day arranging for a rental Toyota SUV and finding his way around the huge city, going to the Wild Stallion and some of the other clubs Shahrzad had mentioned, including the Doll House, where she had danced for General Liu.

Driving, especially downtown, was mostly a matter of nerves. Mexican drivers didn’t understand or respect the notion of right of way, and most of them apparently believed they were immortal.

He was parked across the street from the chancellery at a quarter till five in the afternoon, as the first of the day-shift cars emerged from the embassy grounds through the tall iron gate manned 24/7 by armed security guards in black uniforms with bloused boots. But it wasn’t until nearly seven thirty that Gloria Ibenez, driving a bright yellow Mini Cooper, roared through the gate, tossed a cheery wave at the guards, darted across three lanes of traffic, and flew up toward the Zona Rosa.

McGarvey managed to keep up with her, while staying two or three cars back, as she threaded through traffic, sometimes slowing down so that she would just make a light before it changed red, other times turning off the main boulevard for a few blocks before returning to it.

She was obviously trying to shake a tail, although McGarvey was pretty sure that she hadn’t spotted him; there was just too much after-work traffic, and every other car seemed to be a gunmetal gray SUV of one Japanese make or another. But she was using tradecraft, which meant she was concerned that someone might be following her.

Gloria’s apartment was in Lomas Altas, not far from downtown, but instead of going directly home, she pulled in to a small shopping center and parked in front of a supermarket.

McGarvey pulled in a few rows back, but left the engine running as he waited. The shopping center could have been in any city in the U.S. The Sumesa supermarket was flanked by a dry cleaners, a Postal Mart, a florist, a liquor store, a pharmacy, a martial arts studio, and a Hallmark card shop. On the corner, but detached from the mall itself, was a McDonald’s. The shops were busy at this hour, men and women in business attire stopping after work.

The hill rose steeply behind the mall, and perched above were several modern-looking three-story garden apartment buildings that were surrounded by a riot of flowers and trees and vines. The balconies all faced back toward the city center, and McGarvey suspected the view was very good.

Gloria came back to her car fifteen minutes later with two bags of groceries. She was dressed in a very short khaki skirt with a white, scoop-necked T-shirt and sandals, her dark hair up in a bun at the back. She looked very fit: lithe, like an athlete or a dancer, with long, shapely muscular legs and well-defined arms from working out. She wore some sort of a heavy gold chain around her long neck that contrasted well with her dark skin.

She was a Cuban-born American who’d defected with her father and mother from Havana when she was only thirteen. Her mother had been killed in the escape and she’d been raised by her father, a former Cuban Air Force general, and then by an aunt and uncle in Miami. Her father had gone to work as a consultant for the CIA, the FBI, and several other governmental agencies, and after Gloria had graduated from law school and done a stint with the Navy’s Judge Advocate’s Office, she’d been recruited by the CIA.

Two years later, she met and married another Cuban-born American CIA officer, and they’d been stationed under deep cover in Havana. Six months into their assignment, her husband had been captured by Cuban intelligence and tortured to death. She’d managed to escape, but at thirty-three she still had not remarried.

She put her groceries in her car, and when she got behind the wheel McGarvey caught a lingering glimpse of her thigh under the lights, and it came to him that she was posing for someone. Deliberately using her sex as a distraction. But so far as he could tell no one else had followed her here, so he wondered whom she was posing for, unless it was just a habit she’d gotten herself into.

Out of the parking lot she merged with traffic, and one block later she passed a large house situated behind a tall stucco wall, its driveway guarded by heavy iron gates. The writing on a brass plaque beside the gates was in Arabic and Roman script. The place was the Iranian embassy, and at the next corner Gloria turned to the right on a narrow road that wound its way up into the hill above the embassy and the shopping center to the garden apartments. She parked in one of the carports and took her groceries down a steep path to one of the first-floor apartments with an entry on an open walkway, and went inside as McGarvey pulled into the visitors’ parking lot and shut off the engine.

By all accounts Gloria had stopped playing by the rules the day her husband had been killed. She was branded a troublemaker, who did not know how to work as a team player, but her father, General Marti, still had some influence in Washington, and she was good at her job. She’d been back to Cuba twice, at great personal risk, and last year she’d helped McGarvey find and kill Osama bin Laden. The Company owed her some slack, though Perry couldn’t agree.

It was one of the reasons McGarvey had come here. He needed someone who was grounded in the D.F. He instinctively distrusted Perry, who, if there was any justice, wouldn’t rise any further in the CIA, and he didn’t think he could go to Chauncy, who had his own agenda—which left Gloria, the odd duck out.

But there was a darker reason he’d come seeking her help, one that he had skirted in his mind as Shahrzad was telling her story. But the thought had coalesced the moment Otto had told him that Gloria was here in the D.F.

He was startled out of his dark thoughts when a jet-black Porsche Carrera roared up the driveway and pulled into the carport. A handsome young man and attractive woman got out and went hand in hand to one of the second-floor apartments, their laughter trailing behind them. They were obviously very happy.

A deep sadness came over McGarvey all of a sudden, and he almost started the car and drove back to the hotel. He could get a flight to Tampa first thing in the morning and Katy could come up from Sarasota to get him, and he could return to being a retired sometime college instructor, sometime sailor, and full-time husband. He didn’t belong here, because in order to unravel the mess Updegraf had left them, he was going to have to seriously meddle in some people’s lives. When he was finished nothing would ever be the same for them again. They might never be happy again.

But there were too many things that weren’t adding up in his mind, and the list kept growing. Like right now. Shahrzad was an Iranian, and Gloria’s apartment was perched above the Iranian embassy. Coincidence? He didn’t believe in them. Never had.

He got out of the car and took the path down to Gloria’s apartment. But still he hesitated for just a moment before he rang the bell. He had a dozen questions in his mind, none of which he could ask her.

She came to the door barefoot but still in her khaki skirt and blouse, something in her hand behind her back. A host of emotions crossed her face in the space of an eye blink: total surprise, happiness, and for just the briefest of instants, perhaps fear.

“Hello,” McGarvey said.

“My God, was it you in the gray Toyota?”

McGarvey was a little surprised. “You spotted me.” He said it as a statement not a question.

She nodded, this time in plain wonderment. “Don’t just stand there. Come inside.” She stepped back to let him pass and reached up with her free hand to touch his shoulder.

Her apartment was open and very modern, with floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors opening to a long veranda that looked down toward the city. Some good Picasso reproductions were hung on the wall, and several bookcases were filled with what looked like a mixture of Spanish novels and law books. The furniture was Danish modern teak, with thick faux fur rugs in white. A large flat-panel television was perched on a low stand that held several pieces of electronic equipment including a satellite receiver, DVD player, and surround sound.

“I saw you when I came out of the embassy.” She smiled. “I thought I had lost you a couple of times, so I stopped at the mall to see who you were and what you’d do. But the windows were tinted so I couldn’t make out your face.”

“That was damned good work in that traffic. Were you expecting somebody?”

She nodded. She took her hand away from the small of her back to reveal a 9 mm Beretta. “We’ve all been on edge since Louis bought it. We still don’t know why he was killed, or if one of us will be next.”

“That’s why I’m here,” McGarvey told her.

“Thank God,” Gloria said. She laid the pistol on the counter separating the kitchen from the main room. “Does Perry know you’re here?”

“No, and we’re going to keep it that way for now.”

“Thank you for small favors. The man’s a complete idiot, and Tom Chauncy has got his nose so far up Perry’s ass it’s a wonder he ever comes up for air. Louis was the only halfway decent officer we had down here.”

She suddenly stopped talking and threw her arms around him, holding him very tightly, her face buried in his chest.

For just a second McGarvey felt an almost overwhelming sense of disgust with himself for what he was going to ask her to do, but then he put his arms around her and held her.

“My God, it’s so good to see you again,” looking up at him. “Will you please kiss me?”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

She smiled. “I guess not. Just hold me for now. It’s enough.”

NINETEEN

COLONIA LOMAS ALTAS

McGarvey sat at the kitchen counter while Gloria opened a bottle of Don Julio Anejo tequila and made them margaritas with a lot of ice in tall salt-rimmed glasses. “While in Rome do as the Romans do,” she said, looking at him from across the counter as she raised her glass.

“Good,” McGarvey said, taking a drink.

“So, exactly what are you doing here?” she asked.

“Updegraf was working someone in the Chinese embassy that probably got him killed. We want to know why.”

Gloria shrugged. “He was just a code clerk. The Chinese connection probably doesn’t mean a thing,” she said. “But what I want to know is what are you doing here at my apartment?”

“I need your help.”

Her face lit up, but there was a hint of wariness in her eyes. “Okay,” she said carefully. “But no one else at the embassy is supposed to know about it. Right?”

“That’s right.”

“But you’re not here on your own. You’re supposed to be retired, which means they sent Otto to ask you to come back, and he had a good reason. Who was it, Mr. Adkins?”

“You don’t need to know that yet,” McGarvey said. “In fact, you might never need to know. I want your help, no questions asked.”

“Dangerous?”

“It got Updegraf killed.”

She nodded without hesitation, her eyes bright, a half smile on her full lips. “But you knew I’d say yes before you asked me,” she said, half teasing. “And what do I get out of it?”

McGarvey waited. Using a mark’s fantasies against him or her was one of the oldest bits of tradecraft in the field officer’s handbook. The shrinks called it transference, when the mark’s fear of being discovered as a traitor turned into love for her handler. He became the savior.

Gloria had studied the book, but her knowledge was no defense. Her smile faded and she nodded again. “Okay.”

“What did Updegraf tell you about the code clerk he was trying to burn?”

“I didn’t know anything about it until Gil handed me the file with Louis’s encounter sheets. But the guy wasn’t worth any real effort. It’s still bothering me. Louis shouldn’t have been going after some small fry like that.”

“He never said anything to you about it, about going to the clubs?”

Gloria’s brow knitted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What clubs?”

“The sex clubs. Did he ever mention a place called the Wild Stallion?”

Gloria stifled a small laugh. “No,” she said. “But I know about them, of course. Half the guys in the embassy, especially the married ones, hang out downtown. Usually in the Zona Rosa or Polanco.”

“You’ve never been?”

She laughed out loud. “Of course not.”

“What do you do for entertainment?”

“I certainly don’t hang out at those kinds of places,” she shot back. “The symphony orchestra here is world-class, and the ballet and theaters are first-rate. All in Spanish, of course.”

“Dates?”

“Sometimes,” she replied warily. “But if you’re asking if I’m seeing anyone special, the answer is no.” She started to say something else, but bit it off.

McGarvey looked away for just a moment, unable to take the next step with her. But if the notion he’d come up with had any chance of working, Gloria would have to become one leg of a dicey triangle that would be as disgusting as it was delicate.

“The code clerk is the key,” he said, turning back to her.

“I told you that he’s a small fry.”

“You’re probably right, but I think Updegraf wanted to burn him in order to get to a much bigger prize.”

“Did you come up with something already?”

“He was meeting the guy at the Wild Stallion, probably buying him women.”

“None of that was in the encounter file that Gil gave to me,” Gloria said. “I’m supposed to be looking down Louis’s track here in the D.F., but there isn’t much to go on. According to his file he was meeting the clerk at a wireless coffee shop a block and a half from the Chinese embassy, but I haven’t been able to confirm that. And Louis’s wife went back to the States, so I got to toss his apartment, but I came up empty there too.”

“The club is the next step.”

“You want me to go to that place?”

“We’ll go together. Tonight.”

“And look for what?”

“I don’t know,” McGarvey admitted. “Maybe a reaction?”