Dance with the Dragon (17 page)

The facilities were to be used to hide the presence of nuclear weapons in silos.

The plan had failed in part because Yarnell, although he had been a self-serving son of a bitch, had turned out to be more of a playboy than a spy working for the Russians, and in part because of McGarvey’s interference.

But the cold war was over now. The Russians, and presumably the Chinese, were no longer interested in threatening us with nuclear destruction. In this new era the battlefields were more up close and personal. The war was between us and the terrorists, mostly Islamic fanatics who were willing to bring the battles to our shores, and increasingly between us and China over natural resources and trade.

China wanted a lock on the world’s supplies of oil and copper, with which to power its own nation’s expansion, and the Chinese were well on their way to having a lock on world trade. Raw materials flowed into Chinese ports, and inexpensive manufactured goods flowed out to the world—but mostly to the United States.

It was something that the U.S. couldn’t afford to let happen. The trade imbalance was pushing us toward bankruptcy. Our survival was at stake. Yet every administration that had tried to go up against the Chinese juggernaut had failed.

That would explain why Liu was hosting a party for the Mexican generals and ranking government people, and it might even explain Thomas Alvarez’s presence if Liu was looking to finance an operation on his own. Beijing could very well want plausible deniability in case Liu was caught out. It would explain why Liu hadn’t been brought to heel for his escapades in New York and Washington.

The Chinese government
wanted
Liu to develop the reputation as an out-of-control rogue agent. The entire past few years could have been an elaborate setup for whatever he was up to now in Mexico.

In McGarvey’s mind, that went a long way toward explaining Liu’s relationship with Alvarez and the Mexican officials. But he was still at a total loss as to why a U.S. congressman and a possible Middle Eastern intelligence officer had been down there last night.

The pieces weren’t fitting together.

After breakfast, McGarvey drove the Saturn over to the downtown Hertz office in Colonia Juárez and exchanged it for a smoked gray Ford Taurus. The wagon was too big a car for city traffic, he explained, and after the Saturn was carefully inspected for damage he was given the smaller car. It was just an extra layer of tradecraft after last night outside Liu’s compound.

He got out to San Angel around nine thirty, in plenty of time for the news conference, but it took another twenty minutes of circling before he was able to find a place to park. The Avenue Rio Magdalena on which the Chinese embassy was located was a mass of television trucks and print media people. The block had been cordoned off, and a podium bristling with microphones had been set up just outside the main gate.

A number of curious onlookers jostled for position, and as McGarvey approached on foot he got the impression that the newspeople were for real but most of the spectators were shills; too many of them appeared to be Chinese.

He took up a position just at the edge of the crowd directly across the street from the podium. At ten sharp the gate opened. A Chinese man dressed in a light suit and a young woman dressed in a dark skirt and white blouse came out to the podium, followed a moment later by three men, one of them much taller than the others.

McGarvey thought that by now in his life he had just about lost the capacity for surprise, yet seeing Congressman Newell emerging from the Chinese embassy, flanked by a short Chinese man dressed in a dark Western-cut suit, and another man, obviously Mexican, dressed similarly, he was taken aback for just a moment. And yet there was a symmetry between what he’d seen last night down in Xochimilco and what he was witnessing here this morning, and he knew that he shouldn’t be surprised.

“Good morning,” the first man said into the microphones, in English, his voice amplified.

“Buenos días,”
the young woman using a hand microphone translated into Spanish.

McGarvey glanced up and caught a glimpse of someone in one of the third-floor windows of the embassy building behind the tall wall. He got the impression of sunlight glinting off something, perhaps binocular lenses.

“Thank you for coming here,” the man continued. “Permit me to introduce our deputy ambassador, Mr. Lee Chingkuo, who will make an important joint announcement this morning along with Mexico’s director of economic development, Señor Juan Caro Fuentes, and United States congressman the Honorable Walter Newell of Arizona. There will be a very brief period of questions afterward; however, a media package will be made available for those with proper credentials.”

The young woman translated.

The man who was probably the embassy’s press secretary moved aside, and Deputy Ambassador Lee stepped up to the microphones. He was a short, slightly built man with round glasses, dark hair combed straight back, and a serious manner. This was to be all business.

“My statement this morning will be brief,” he said. “The People’s Republic of China, in cooperation with the United States, has agreed in principle to create a joint exploration and utilization project to be called ChiMexAm Company, for the purpose of finding oil beneath the Sonoran Desert.”

He paused for a moment as if he was expecting someone to challenge him, but the crowd was silent. The announcement had apparently come as a complete surprise to everybody.

McGarvey watched Newell for a reaction, but the congressman’s expression was set in stone. It was rumored that he wanted the White House in three years, and if he had been looking to throw his hat into the ring with a splash, this morning was going to do it for him. Getting something like this through Congress, however, would probably be all but impossible. Right now most Americans didn’t trust the Chinese.

“Many hurdles must be overcome before such a joint project can begin,” Lee continued. “But of paramount importance is China’s desire to share equally with its partners in the quest for oil. China cannot be viewed as seeking a world monopoly.”

The young woman quickly translated Lee’s comments into Spanish.

Fuentes came to the microphone, all smiles. He had come from one of the southeastern states, and was only one or two generations away from his mestizo heritage. It showed on his broad, weathered face. “I too will be brief, amigos,” he said in English. “This is a great day for Mexico. In terms of economic development it will be a very good project for my country. In terms of cementing the bonds of friendship between the two great superpowers—China and our neighbor the United States—Mexico is proud to be the ambassador. And in terms of helping to alleviate the growing worldwide oil crises we stand ready to do our part.”

His smile widened and he clasped his hands over his head.
“Gracias,”
he cried.
“Muchas gracias, amigos.”

He moved away from the podium, and the big, rawboned Arizona congressman stepped up to the microphones. He wore a western-cut suit, and his signature string tie and Stetson hat, which made him look like a young Lyndon Johnson.

“This morning’s announcement is only the first step in what I believe will prove to be one of the most significant, far-reaching projects on the North American continent—good not only for our partners China and Mexico, but good for the world economy.” He flashed his famous grin directly at the television cameras. “Forty-dollar-a-barrel oil,” he shouted. “How does that strike you?”

McGarvey listened to the translation, and when the first of the questions was shouted from the media, he started back through the crowd toward his car in the next block in the parking lot of a small shopping mall. Almost immediately he knew that he was being followed.

Two of them had broken away from the media people and were jostling their way across the crowded street. They were Mexicans, and the first time he’d spotted them they’d had cameras slung around their necks, but they were not taking pictures. Now they had ditched the cameras, and seemed intent on keeping up.

McGarvey took his time so that they would not lose him. At the corner he glanced over his shoulder and made sure that they understood he’d spotted them, then hurried the rest of the way to the busy shopping center. Traffic here was normal, ordinary people going about their business on a pleasant weekday morning.

He crossed the parking lot, bought
Mexico News,
an English-language newspaper, from a kiosk, and sat down at a sidewalk café. The waiter came for his order at the same time the two men showed up around the corner.

They stopped to look around, spotted him almost immediately at the table, and headed directly across toward him.

“A coffee, please,” McGarvey told the waiter.

“Sí,”
the waiter said, and left.

The two men, both of them short and husky, with broad faces and narrow eyes, walked over to where McGarvey was seated. They were dressed in jeans and short-sleeved white shirts, untucked. He figured they were probably carrying.

“Okay, get on your feet,” the taller of the two said, his English fairly good. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

McGarvey smiled pleasantly. “I’d be happy to speak with the general, but first I’m going to have a coffee.”

The waiter came back and glanced nervously at the two men.

“Would you gentlemen care for something?” McGarvey asked.

The waiter set McGarvey’s coffee down and hurried back inside as a black Mercedes SUV pulled up at the curb a few feet away.

“Now,” the taller one said, and he reached for something under his shirt at the waistband of his jeans.

“If you pull out a gun, I’ll break your wrist,” McGarvey said politely. “Then someone will probably call the cops, and you’ll have to answer some questions. I don’t think your boss will be very pleased.”

“Bastardo!”
the man said, and he started to pull something from under his shirt.

McGarvey tossed the hot coffee at the man’s face, jumped up, slammed the knuckles of his right fist into the second man’s Adam’s apple, then shouldered the first man back against the Mercedes’ passenger door.

“Your friends will need a doctor,” McGarvey told the gape-mouthed driver through the open window.

He slammed the gunman’s arm against the car’s window frame, the wrist breaking with an audible pop. The pistol, which McGarvey identified as a Glock, fell inside the car, and the man uttered a sharp scream of pain.

McGarvey pulled him close. “The next time I’ll kill whoever he sends against me.”

“You won’t live through the day,” the man said through clenched teeth.

McGarvey stepped away. “All I want is my girlfriend back, and then I’ll leave Mexico. Tell that to the general.”

He glanced at the driver, who was looking at him with a touch of fear, then at the second man, who had fallen to one knee and was trying to catch his breath through his badly bruised windpipe. He tossed a few pesos on the table, and walked away. Before he reached his car the two battered Mexicans had climbed into the Mercedes, and the driver peeled rubber getting out of the parking lot. They were pissed off, but he hadn’t thought they would try to run him down or shoot him in the back. Liu would be getting nervous about who he was and what he was really doing in Mexico City. The general wanted to talk first.

TWENTY-SEVEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Dick Adkins lived in a pleasant three-story brick house that had been built on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory shortly after the Civil War. It was in the woods not too far from the vice president’s residence, and the only access was by a narrow blacktopped lane that was monitored 24/7.

Driving up from the main entrance off Wisconsin Avenue, McGarvey was reminded of other times he’d made this same sort of trip; in secret, with a sense of urgency, to tell a director of the CIA that bad things were coming our way, and that some tough choices would have to be made.

Not all DCIs had used this CIA-owned house back here, but several had during McGarvey’s more than a quarter of a century with the Company, and he knew the way from long habit.

It was a Saturday morning and he passed two busloads of children on a field trip to the observatory before the driveway branched left into the woods. A man in a blue windbreaker and baseball cap marked
SECURITY
in gold letters stepped out of the guard box and motioned for McGarvey to pull up. He was armed with a Heckler & Koch M8 carbine.

McGarvey powered down the Ford 500’s driver window and handed out his ID. He spotted a second security officer a few feet off the road in the woods.

“Good morning, Mr. Director,” the security officer said. He handed McGarvey’s ID back. “If you’ll just head up to the house and park in front, they’re expecting you. Are you carrying?”

“Yes, I am,” McGarvey said.

“Thank you, sir,” the security officer said, and as he stepped away he said something into his lapel mike.

Fifty yards farther the driveway opened to a broad lawn at the center of which was the house. The roof bristled with six redbrick chimneys, several radio masts, and three satellite dishes. A gunmetal gray Hummer was parked ahead of Rencke’s battered old Mercedes diesel sedan in the driveway. As McGarvey pulled up behind Rencke’s car an armed security officer came around the corner of the house and said something into his lapel mike. Another security officer, this one in a white shirt and tie but no jacket, was at the front door when McGarvey came up the walk. He wore a 9 mm SIG-Sauer P226 pistol high on his right hip.

“Good morning, sir,” he said. “They’re waiting for you in the study. If you’ll just surrender your piece first.”

“Fair enough,” McGarvey said. He pulled his Walther PPK out, removed the magazine, cycled the live round out of the chamber, and handed everything over to the officer.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Are we facing a security issue here?” McGarvey asked.

“No, sir. And we’d like to keep it that way.”

“Good,” McGarvey said. He crossed the stair hall to the left, knocked once on the double doors, and let himself into the study of the director of Central Intelligence.