Dance with the Dragon (23 page)

The van was just pulling into a parking spot twenty yards away when McGarvey got out of his car and walked up to the visitors’ center. A corridor went straight through the building, past the vending machines and the restrooms, and out the back way to a paved path that meandered through the trees to several unoccupied picnic areas with concrete tables and barbecue grills.

McGarvey slipped out the back door and stepped to one side. Less than a minute later two men emerged from the building, obviously in a big hurry. They were young, probably in their early twenties, and they were Hispanic, probably Mexicans, which for an instant was a surprise. He’d figured they would be Chinese. But Liu had made a mistake; he’d just shown one of his hole cards.

“You’ve followed me this far, so what do you want?” McGarvey asked. He leaned nonchalantly up against the building.

The two Mexicans pulled up short and turned. The shorter of them reached inside his leather jacket, but the taller kid motioned him off. Both were neatly groomed, clean-shaven, and well dressed. They looked like professionals, unlike the ones McGarvey had encountered at Liu’s compound and again at the sidewalk café near the Chinese embassy. Possibly ex-cops or military; they had the bearing.

“What makes you think that we were following you?” the tall kid asked. He spoke with a heavy Mexican accent.

“Just a guess,” McGarvey said.

“Well, you’re right, you stupid bastard,” the kid said. “You should have kept your nose out of other people’s business.” He glanced down toward the picnic areas and the thick woods just beyond. “Down there,” he said.

“The general must be getting nervous if he sent you guys after me,” McGarvey said pleasantly, without moving away from where he was leaning.

“Move,” the Mexican said.

“Or what?”

“You don’t want a shoot-out up here, an innocent bystander might get hurt.”

“Anyway, old man, don’t you want to have a chance to take us down?” the short one asked. He was built like a fireplug, but his expression was bland, as if he had little interest in whatever would happen next.

“Okay,” McGarvey agreed. He pushed away from the building and started down the path toward the last picnic area before the woods.

The two Mexicans were right behind him, and so far no one else had come out the back door. “Are you carrying?” the tall one asked.

“What do you think?”

“I think I’m going to enjoy seeing you beg for your life before I put a bullet in the back of your head.”

“Like you guys did to Louis up in Chihuahua?”

“At least he was man enough in the end to try for his gun.”

They reached the last picnic table, and McGarvey suddenly stopped and turned back to them. “Can you at least tell me what Louis was doing up there? He was a friend of mine, and I’d like to know what happened, before this goes too far.” The short Mexican had taken out his pistol. It was a Glock with a silencer threaded to the end of the barrel.

“Keep going,” the tall one ordered.

They were only a few yards from the woods, and no one else had come back here so far, but McGarvey didn’t think it would last. “Okay,” he said, and he turned and walked the rest of the way to the woods. “The next time I see the general, I’m going to recommend that he use Chinese intel officers,” he said conversationally. “Not some stupid wetbacks like you guys.”

“Fuck you,” the short one said angrily.

McGarvey stepped down off the grass into the woods and suddenly slid to the left as he turned around. The short Mexican was pissed off and not thinking straight. He was shoving his partner aside so that he could bring his pistol to bear, but McGarvey was faster, grabbing the front of the tall Mexican’s jacket and manhandling him into the muzzle.

The short Mexican fired on reflex, the 9 mm Parabellum round smashing into his partner’s spine between his shoulder blades, dropping the man where he stood.

McGarvey stepped back, this time to the right, pulled out his pistol, and jammed it into the side of the short Mexican’s head. “Move and I’ll kill you.”

For an instant it seemed as if the man would comply, but he suddenly lurched back and brought his pistol up. McGarvey fired one shot, hitting the Mexican in the forehead just above his right eye, and he crumpled in a heap, dead by the time he hit the ground.

“Goddamn it,” McGarvey muttered. He’d wanted at least one of them alive to answer some questions. He shoved the pistol into his belt and glanced up at the visitors’ center. Still no one had come out the back.

He dragged both bodies a few yards deeper into the woods so that they could not easily be spotted from the building or any of the picnic areas, then went through their pockets. Besides spare magazines for their pistols, they carried Mexican passports, a couple of credit cards and driver’s licenses in the same names as the passports, and a few hundred dollars in American currency and about the same in pesos.

Unless the documents were fakes, the men had come into the U.S. quite openly, and possibly for just the one operation. But their wallets also contained photos of young smiling women, either sweethearts or wives, Mexican health system cards, car insurance IDs, and other bits and pieces, which made it likely the IDs were legitimate. Which also meant they probably weren’t on any U.S. red lists.

Checking again to make sure that no one had come back to one of the picnic areas, McGarvey walked back up to the visitors’ center and went to his car, where he used his cell phone to call Rencke.

“I have a job for housekeeping,” McGarvey said, and he explained where he was and what had happened.

“Do you think Liu sent them?” Rencke asked.

“If he didn’t, I don’t know who else would have or why. But if it was him, he’s made a mistake.”

“Oh, boy, has he ever,” Rencke agreed. “I’ll get someone down there right away. But what about you?”

“I’m catching a flight to New York, see if I can get anything from that French woman the Bureau interviewed a couple years ago. In the meantime you might want to send someone down to Longboat Key to give Toni a hand. If Liu is sending people after me, it’s possible he’ll try to find Shahrzad.”

“And anyone else connected with you,” Rencke said. “I’ve got a couple of good people hanging around Casey Key, and they’ll stay there for the duration.”

“Thanks,” McGarvey said.

“Oh, and I came up with some information on the French woman you’re going to see. She was married when she first started working for Liu at the UN, but evidently her hubby didn’t take kindly to her extracurricular activities so he dumped her and decamped to California. I can find him if you want, but I don’t think he’d be much help.”

“Don’t bother,” McGarvey said. “Does she still work at the UN?”

“No. She’s translating novels for St. Martin’s and a couple other publishers. Not much money. I’ll send your phone a download of what I found out about her.”

THIRTY-FIVE

NEW YORK

The cabbie dropped McGarvey on Broadway near West Eightieth, a couple blocks from the address Rencke had given him for the French woman. It was a warm early afternoon and the neighborhood just a couple of blocks up from the Hudson River was busy, though the pace was nowhere near as frenetic as it was in Midtown. Here were mostly apartments and co-ops for families, and the small grocery stores and businesses that served them.

He headed up to Eighty-third on foot, taking his time, stopping every now and then to look into a shop window while studying the reflections in the glass of what was coming up behind him. Twice he crossed to the east side of the avenue, walked back a block, and crossed again.

In twenty minutes he was reasonably certain that he wasn’t being followed. The number Rencke had come up with was a shabby entrance next to a dry cleaner in a three-story building. Four buzzers for the apartments on the second and third floors were marked with the names of tenants, Monique Thibault on the third floor rear.

Born on a farm outside Lyon, Monique, whose maiden name had been Forcier, had attended the Sorbonne, specializing in languages. After graduation she worked for a number of French firms, including Michelin, where she met her husband, Pierre. After they were married he was transferred to Michelin’s New York office, and within a few months of their arrival she went to work as a translator for the UN. According to what Rencke had been able to dig up, which was quite a bit more than what had found its way into the FBI’s report, the Thibaults led very hectic, and most likely separate, lives. He traveled a lot, and her job entailed many night and weekend assignments.

McGarvey pressed the buzzer beside her name, then stepped back and glanced over his shoulder at the passersby. No one paid him the slightest attention.

He was about to ring again when a woman answered, her voice badly distorted in the tiny speaker. “Yes, who is there?”

“C’est moi, Monique.”

“Qui?”

“Pierre, naturellement. Ouvrez la porte.”

The door lock buzzed and McGarvey went inside to a dimly lit narrow hallway. Trash was piled in a corner, a narrow flight of steps was to the left, and a short dark corridor led to a door at the rear. The place stank of mold, dry rot, and plaster dust.

The FBI’s file had identified Monique as thirty-one, which would make her thirty-three now. But the woman waiting for McGarvey at the third-floor landing looked twenty years older. Her narrow shoulders were hunched; her face, which had probably been pretty at one time, was bloated and splotched with red; and her long dark hair, shot through with gray, had obviously not been washed or brushed for at least a week. She was dressed in a dirty pair of painter’s bib overalls and a T-shirt, her feet bare. A pair of reading glasses was perched on the end of her nose.

When she saw McGarvey, she stepped back into her apartment and started to close the door.

“No, please wait,” McGarvey said, holding up a few steps from the top. “I’m a friend, Ms. Thibault. I don’t mean you any harm.”

“You’re not Pierre,” she shot back sharply. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

“My name is Kirk McGarvey. I work for the Central Intelligence Agency, and I’m here to talk to you about General Liu Hung.”

The woman was physically staggered and had to catch the door frame to stop from crumpling to her knees.
“Mon Dieu,”
she whispered. She was gone for several moments, but when she focused again on McGarvey she shook her head. “Please go away. I don’t know anything that can help you. It’s been a very long time.”

“We think he might be getting ready to kill another girl, this one fairly soon. I’d like your help to stop him.”

She shook her head, her eyes vacant. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “He can’t be stopped. He’s too smart. He has too many connections.”

“I’m going to stop him, if you’ll help me.”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“All I want to do is talk to you, Ms. Thibault. Monique. Nothing more. I promise you.” He raised his right hand.
“C’est vrai.”

“You’ve already lied to me to gain entrance,” she replied sharply.

“I couldn’t think of any other way to convince you to open the door for me,” McGarvey admitted. “It was a lousy trick to play on you, but here we are. I just need an hour of your time.” He gave her a little smile. “I understand that you’re translating books, so I would be cutting into your work. I could pay you.”

“Merde,”
she said, and she disappeared back into her apartment, but she didn’t close the door.

McGarvey waited for just a moment, then went the rest of the way up, crossed the landing, and stepped inside her apartment. The place was a mess. Books and magazines and newspapers competed for floor and table space in the tiny sitting room with piles of manuscripts that she was apparently translating. The sink and counter in the kitchenette were piled with dirty dishes and a frying pan. And through an open door he could see that the bed was unmade, and clothing was piled everywhere, along with more manuscripts, books, magazines, and newspapers. The tiny apartment stank of garbage.

Two windows looked down on Broadway, but both were covered with heavy brocaded red cloth that looked as if it might have been cut from stage curtains. The rooms were very dark; the only light other than what leaked from the windows and came through the open door came from a small floor lamp next to a broken-down easy chair in one corner.

Everything was old, shabby, neglected. It was the living space of someone who hadn’t cared for a long time.

Monique stood beside the chair, beside which were piled a couple of manuscripts and a couple of French dictionaries. “Close the door, please,” she said, gesturing. “And make sure the safety lock is in place.”

McGarvey did as he was told, wondering for just a moment if coming here had been the right thing to do. The woman was so fragile, she was on the verge of completely disappearing in a puff of smoke. He hoped that she hadn’t turned out like this because of her encounter with Liu, but he suspected that was the case. Just as he suspected that if he could get her to open up and tell her story, she very well might confirm Shahrzad’s.

She brushed at her hair self-consciously. “It was a terrible
truc
you played on me,” she said. Her heavily accented voice was small.

“Je suis désolé.”

“Do you know my husband?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

She looked away momentarily. “He was a fine man. But the circumstances were
très mal
almost from the beginning. I’m sorry, but I have no tea just at the moment to offer you.”

“It’s all right,” McGarvey said. “Why don’t we sit down and talk? As soon as we’re finished I’ll leave and never bother you again.”

An odd look came over her features. She smiled sadly. “It’s already too late, didn’t you know?”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’ll know that you came here to see me,” she said.

“He’s in Mexico City.”

“Yes, he’s been there before, with me one time. But always he had his people everywhere, watching and listening.” She glanced toward the covered windows, but made no move toward them. “Sometimes I think that there is a man watching me from across the street. All hours of the day and night, even in the rain or snow, he is always there.” She turned back. “But that’s impossible, isn’t it? It would have to be a team of men. A relay surveillance, I think Liu called such things.”