Dance with the Dragon (15 page)

Although the night was cool, he was sweating lightly by the time he reached a spot directly above the compound where he could conceal himself in some low brush and yet have a clear sight line into Liu’s stronghold.

The party below was still going strong. From his vantage point about eighty feet above the compound walls, and maybe two hundred feet out, McGarvey had a three-quarters view of the back of the house and a very large patio area complete with a huge pool. In a corner, a jazz combo with a baby grand piano played American big band favorites of the forties. Buffet tables and a couple of bars were set up here and there. Thirty or forty people were down there, some of them dancing to the music, others gathered in knots at the bars and buffet tables, and still others in the pool.

McGarvey took out the ESMs detector, powered it up, and pointed the receiving end of the device toward the compound. Immediately three small indicator lights began flashing: one warned that the area where he crouched was being scanned by a motion detector, the second had picked up the signal from an infrared receiver, and the third light indicated a low-power electronic signal in an ultrahigh frequency, the purpose of which the device could not identify.

Liu’s security people would know that something was up here and would probably be sending someone to check it out. He figured he had another five minutes at the most before he would have company.

He pulled out the binoculars, powered them up, and slowly scanned the entire compound from left to right. Closed-circuit television cameras were trained on the perimeter outside the walls at intervals of fifty feet or so, so somebody inside the main house was also watching the approaches, as he had expected.

At least half the guests were young women, most of them naked or nearly naked, while the rest appeared to be older men, a couple of them in Mexican Army uniforms, their jackets open, their ties loose. Everyone seemed to be having a good time.

No armed men were in sight anywhere, nor had he been able to spot General Liu or anyone else who didn’t appear to be Hispanic, except for the girls, most of whom seemed to be Oriental or white, and all of them very young.

In addition to the main two-story house with red-tiled roof and large sliding doors open to the patio, a line of open-front cabanas faced the back of the pool, and McGarvey could make out a man and woman having sex on a couch or daybed in one of them. Around the other side of the house he could just make out the corner of what probably was a garage, and possibly where the compound’s electrical generator was located. He was also able to see a number of cars parked at the front of the house, all of them late-model Cadillacs or Land Rover SUVs.

Besides Liu’s absence, McGarvey also found it curious that none of the guests had parked
outside
the compound’s wall. They were locked inside, their freedom presumably at the general’s discretion, though McGarvey was reasonably certain that none of them would see it that way. It was an interesting trait. Men in Liu’s position, and perhaps
especially
him, almost always had a need to be in control of everything and everyone around them. Shahrzad had said as much, although by the time she’d gotten to the general she’d had stars in her eyes for no one other than Updegraf.

The general taking control of her would have been child’s play. So easy, in fact, that Liu had gotten tired of her almost from the start. It was something that could be useful when the time came.

McGarvey took out the video camera and began shooting the entire compound, again scanning left to right as he had with the binoculars so as not to miss anything. He lingered on each face for a few seconds to make certain he’d recorded the features well enough for a positive identification. The women were like the combo and the buffet and bars, there for entertainment. But he had a feeling that finding out who the men were would provide a big clue as to what Liu was doing in Mexico.

When he was finished he pocketed the camera and, keeping low, started back down the path to where he’d left his car. He stopped every few yards to listen for the sounds of someone coming up from the compound, but except for the music from below and the insects and the hoot of a far-off owl, the night was quiet. There was an off chance that Liu’s security people might believe that it was a deer or other animal on the path, and might not even come out to take a look.

Fifteen minutes later he came to the spot above the road where he’d parked, and he pulled up short. He smelled cigarette smoke. Someone said something and someone else replied, the voices too low to make out any words. He edged a little farther down the path until he could see his car. Two men were leaning against the hood, one of them smoking a cigarette. They were dressed in khakis and armed with what looked like Uzis casually slung over their shoulders. They didn’t seem particularly worried that there would be trouble they couldn’t easily handle.

McGarvey took out his Walther and screwed the silencer onto the end of the barrel. Switching the safety lever to the off position, he started directly down the hill to the car, stopping at the bottom when he came out of the brush onto the road.

The two men pushed away from the car and had started to unsling their weapons when McGarvey raised his pistol. “It wouldn’t be to your advantage to try something stupid.”

The man with the cigarette tossed it aside. He was tall and lean, just the opposite of his partner. But they were both olive-skinned and looked Mexican or Hispanic. “We don’t like spies,” he said. He moved a few feet to the left, his eyes never leaving McGarvey’s.

“I thought my girlfriend was in there. From the Wild Stallion.”

“Sí,”
the tall guard said. “Why don’t you come back to the compound with us, and you can find out. No need for all this sneaking around in the dark.”

“Maybe the general’s killed her, like the others,” McGarvey said. “I’ll call the cops.”

The tall one laughed. “I think that’s a good idea.” He moved a little farther to the left.

“But first you’re going to drop your guns on the ground, and then you’re going to walk back to the compound,” McGarvey told them pleasantly. “And if you behave yourselves, I may not shoot you in the back.”

“Not very sportsmanlike, is he, Miguel?” the shorter one by the car suggested.

“No,” the tall one replied. He was smiling. “The trouble is, there are two of us. One of us is bound to get lucky.” He edged even farther from his partner.

“You’re right, of course,” McGarvey agreed. He lowered his pistol and strode directly toward the man.

For just a moment neither man knew what was happening, and they were too late reacting, fumbling with their weapons, trying to bring them to bear.

McGarvey got directly in front of the tall guard, raised his pistol, and put one round in the man’s left kneecap at point-blank range, dropping him where he stood.

The second guard had his Uzi nearly up and ready to fire when McGarvey switched aim. “Don’t,” he ordered.

The guard hesitated, his eyes flitting to his partner writhing in pain on the road.

“Drop your weapon and I’ll let both of you live to go back to the compound,” McGarvey said.

“You bastard,” the man on the ground cried, but he made no move to reach for his weapon.

“How do I know that I can trust you?” the other one asked.

“You can’t,” McGarvey said. “But I want you to take a message back to the general. Tell him that I don’t like him screwing around with my girlfriend. If I ever see them together I’ll kill them both.”

The guard was obviously weighing his odds. The muzzle of his Uzi was pointing vaguely but not exactly at McGarvey.

McGarvey took a step closer, his aim at the guard’s head never wavering. “Your choice.”

Slowly the guard lowered the Uzi, then slipped the strap off his shoulder and let the weapon slide to the ground. “What is the name of your girlfriend?”

“Shahrzad,” McGarvey said. “I haven’t seen her in two weeks. I want her back.”

The guard started to say something, but then he nodded. “I will pass the message.”

TWENTY-FOUR

HOTEL FOUR SEASONS

It was after two in the morning before McGarvey changed out of his black jumpsuit, cleaned his face, and got back to his suite with the aluminum case. This time he didn’t care if anyone spotted him. He’d thrown the gauntlet at General Liu’s feet. There was no longer any need for stealth.

“I was waiting for your call,” Rencke said when the sat phone connection was made. “Did you run into any trouble?”

“Some,” McGarvey said. “Liu is serious about his security. A couple of his people were waiting for me at my car.”

“The ESMs detector worked okay?”

“Like a charm. Gave me the heads-up so that I didn’t walk into a trap.”

“Send me that download first. I want to see what kind of shit they’ve got out there.”

“Hold on,” McGarvey said. He powered up the detector and plugged it into the sat phone’s data port.

“Okay, I see it,” Rencke said. The transfer of information took only a split second. “Wow,” Rencke said softly. “They
are
serious.”

“They must have picked up my body heat with their infrared detectors,” McGarvey said.

“Yeah, they probably did, but they also nailed the ESMs detector. I’m showing absorption lines on several bands. Cool.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They’ve got some state-of-the-art shit down there, kemosabe. Their equipment sent out surveillance signals that your ESMs detector picked up and identified. But in order to do the job the device had to absorb some of the signal strength. And their stuff detected it. Like I said, that’s definitely some cool shit. I’ll get this over to Jared soon as he comes in.”

“Is there any way of telling the nationality of the equipment?”

“If it was radar or sonar, sure, but with this kind of stuff…” Rencke drifted off for a second. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try to figure something out. What are you thinking?”

“If it’s Chinese gear, then Liu probably has the backing of Beijing for whatever he’s doing here. But if it’s something he bought off the shelf, Swiss, Japanese, German, maybe even Taiwanese, it could mean that he’s pulling an independent op.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Rencke promised. He was the kind of person who when challenged with a problem wouldn’t rest until he’d solved it. “Did you have time to get some pictures?”

“I got shots of just about everybody at the party, except for the general. He was nowhere in sight, although I didn’t have much time to hang around. The ESMs detector picked up on the surveillance signals soon as I turned it on. I figured I wouldn’t have a lot of time.”

“Okay, send them to me.”

McGarvey powered up the video camera and plugged it into the sat phone’s data port. “I want the names and backgrounds on everyone at the party, including the girls.”

“Some of them might not have tracks, especially the women,” Rencke said. “I’m getting the pictures now. Good stuff, Mac. Give me a minute.”

“Be right back,” McGarvey said. He put the phone down on the bed and went into the sitting room, where there were still a couple of beers in the bucket of melted ice. He opened one, but before he went back to the phone he looked out the tall windows at the lights of the vast city. The futures of Mexico and the U.S. were firmly tied together not merely because of a shared border, but because a significant percentage of the U.S. population was Mexican immigrants—legal and illegal. It made what Liu was doing here of extreme interest to Washington.

“Looks like a meeting of the UN General Assembly,” Rencke said when McGarvey went back into the bedroom and picked up the sat phone. “Chinese, Hispanics, most of them Mexican, but at least two guys probably Colombian, and at least four of them Anglos, plus a couple I can’t be sure of right now. The girls are Oriental, their features too long and delicate to be Chinese or Korean; I’d say Japanese. A few Mexicans, and the rest probably Americans. But most of them are just kids. Probably teenagers.”

“Any familiar faces?”

“None yet, but I’ve just started,” Rencke said. “It’s the Anglos I’m worried about. Could be American.”

“Or European?” McGarvey suggested.

“Nope, clothes and haircuts are wrong. Two of them are either American or Canadian. Anyway, I’ll have to get back to you later today.”

“Do what you can.”

“I’m on it,” Rencke said. “In the meantime, Adkins wants to know if you’re going to help out. Perry is pressuring him from the bottom, and Berndt calls every few hours.” Dennis Berndt was the president’s national security adviser.

“Stall him,” McGarvey said tersely. “Has anyone taken an interest in Shahrzad? I assume she’s still at Doyle’s house.”

“She’s still there, and when I talked to Toni around ten last night, everything was quiet.”

“Send some muscle down there. Go to the Bureau if you have to, but keep it quiet.”

“McCann’s not going to like it when he finds out.”

“We’ll deal with that when it happens. But this hasn’t got a chance in hell of working unless we keep the need-to-know list to an absolute minimum.”

“What do I tell the Bureau?” Rencke asked.

“Tell them she’s in our witness-protection program. We’re short staffed. They love it when they’re asked to help us out. Makes them feel superior.”

Rencke chuckled. “Do you want me to say anything to Mrs. M.?”

“Has she called?”

“No.”

“Leave it for now. I may be coming back to the States in a day or two. Give Dick the heads-up. Tell him I’ll have made my decision by then.”

TWENTY-FIVE

CIA HEADQUARTERS

By four in the morning Rencke had isolated forty-three separate people from the photos McGarvey had taken at Liu’s house. In many cases he managed to come up with multiple images, some full facials, others body shots from various angles.

Combining the best for each individual he started cross-matching them with the CIA’s database of persons of interest, which contained more than one hundred thousand separate photographs of thirty thousand people.

It was a long process of first matching sex, probable ethnic background, probable age, and gross physical characteristics including height, weight, and body type against the data on file to eliminate obvious nonmatches.