Dance with the Dragon (35 page)

She studied the picture for a second and looked up. “I don’t know who she is, but I’ve seen her once or twice.”

McGarvey held himself from showing any reaction.

“Who is she?” Shahrzad asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I want you to tell me. Where did you see her?”

Shahrzad shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m telling the truth. Her face is familiar, I remember seeing her somewhere, but I don’t know where.”

“At Liu’s house?” McGarvey prompted.

“Maybe.”

“At the compound in Chihuahua?”

“It’s possible, I just don’t know.” She looked at the photograph again. “She’s not Mexican. Part
negra.
Does she work in your embassy? I think I might have seen her there.”

It was not likely that Gloria had met Shahrzad at the embassy. Perry would have mentioned it. According to him, he’d kept the woman isolated until he could hustle her out of the country.

“You wouldn’t have seen her at the embassy,” McGarvey said.

Shahrzad handed the photograph back. “Then it was at one of the clubs, or at Liu’s house. I never went anywhere else.”

FIFTY-EIGHT

WASHINGTON

McGarvey flew commercial Delta to Atlanta and then on to Dulles, arriving just before seven in the evening. He left the details of getting Shahrzad to Washington and set up in a safe house to Toni and Karen, knowing that word would get to McCann and Gil Perry. He felt like a Vegas act, balancing a half dozen spinning plates on long, slender rods. Disaster was a single misstep away. And when one plate spun out of control it would cause a chain reaction, bringing the entire act crashing to the ground.

Rencke was waiting for him at the terminal and led the way to his car in the short-term parking garage. “Dick Adkins is expecting you in his office at eight.”

“Good.”

“I think he’s asked Carleton Patterson to sit in.”

Patterson was the Company’s general counsel. He was called into these sorts of meetings only when legal troubles seemed possible.

“Has Perry called yet?”

“No,” Rencke said as they reached his battered old Mercedes diesel. He was tight-lipped. Something was bothering him.

“What’s happened?” McGarvey asked.

“Plenty,” Rencke said, but he didn’t elaborate until after he’d paid the parking fee at the gate and they were on their way back into the city.

Traffic was steady despite a light rain that made the highway slick.

“There’s no order in any of this,” Rencke said. “No one-two-three, but my lavender has never been deeper. Heading toward violet unless we do something.” Rencke glanced over at McGarvey. “I shit you not, Mac. I’m scared.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know what’s going down. I can usually figure this shit out, but not this time, ya know?”

“Tell me,” McGarvey said.

“Gloria’s dad, General Marti, is dead. Supposedly a suicide. His body was found early this morning in his bed, a pistol in his hand, a gunshot wound to the head. Dave Whittaker is making sure that the Miami cops are cooperating with us to keep this quiet for as long as possible. Things might get crazy in Little Havana because everyone will suspect it was a DGI hit, not suicide.”

“It was a hit,” McGarvey said. “But not DGI. Has Gloria been told?”

“I don’t know,” Rencke said. “But it’s going to hit her right between the eyes when she finds out. And I don’t know how you’re going to be able to use her.”

“Liu had him killed because he talked to me,” McGarvey said. “And it’s possible that she’s somehow involved with him.”

“Oh, Christ,” Rencke said softly. “I’m starting not to believe any of this shit. It’s just gotten so goddamned weird.”

“It’s going to get worse.”

“Don’t I know it,” Rencke said.

“Where were Marti’s bodyguards?”

“They said they left the apartment just before dawn because something was going on down in the street. A fight. When they got back Marti was dead.”

“I’ll bet just about anything that at least one of them is on someone’s payroll. See what you can find out.”

“Will do,” Rencke promised. “In the meantime, we’ve got two other problems: Newell and Perry.”

“Let me guess: the good congressman is on the take,” McGarvey said. He’d expected something like that to surface sooner or later.

“Yeah, but he’s been slick about it. He’s been taking soft money from several political action committees for the past few years. Nothing new in that. There’s any number of congressmen who’ve got their hands out. But in Newell’s case at least two of the PACs have ties with a couple of dummy corporations in Hong Kong, supposedly with business interests in the States. His wife’s yacht, the
Ocean Mistress,
is almost never chartered by anyone except a few guys from the dummy corporations.”

“Any connection to Liu?”

“None that I’ve been able to come up with so far, but I’m still working on it. At the very least Newell is raking in the money working some sort of a private deal with the Chinese.”

They got on Interstate 66 in Arlington and headed toward the Roosevelt Bridge over the river into the city. The rain got a little stronger.

“What other good news do you have for me?” McGarvey asked. None of what Rencke had come up with was very surprising just now, but it did complicate the issue.

“Gil Perry is almost certainly dirty.”

McGarvey watched the streaks left by the windshield wipers for a moment or two. “Who isn’t?” he asked rhetorically. He turned back to Rencke. “What did you come up with?”

“As of nine months ago Perry was in debt up to his ass—credit cards mostly. His wife likes to shop, and they both like the good life. His monthly bills just at the wine shop he uses were a couple of grand until they cut off his credit. But two months ago he and his wife moved into a new luxury condo right downtown. Seven weeks ago he bought a new Mercedes AMG55. That was about the same time the wine shop started delivering again, and he began buying his suits from Armani.”

“Fits fairly well to when Liu showed up in Mexico City,” McGarvey said.

“Something’s going on down there that’s got Newell’s and Perry’s hands dirty, got Updegraf’s head cut off, scared the shit out of a belly dancer, and has my programs going crazy.”

*   *   *

The Building was fairly quiet at this hour of the evening. Most of the activity was in Operations, where a watch was kept on what was going on worldwide, 24/7.

Adkins and Patterson were waiting for him in the DCI’s office on the seventh floor, while Rencke went down to his own office.

“Welcome back, Mr. Director,” the seventh-floor security officer said. “Are you carrying, sir?”

“Yes,” McGarvey said. He surrendered his pistol and walked back to the director’s expansive office.

Patterson, his tie knotted correctly and his suit coat properly buttoned, was seated on the couch, across from Adkins, whose tie was off and jacket was loose. Before coming to work for the CIA, Patterson had been a senior partner in a prestigious New York law firm. His stint at the CIA was to have been temporary. That had been nearly ten years ago. Although he never professed to being a spy, he liked working in the Building for much the same reason a lot of people enjoyed working for the CIA: he liked knowing what was going on in the world, having an inside track.

“Good evening, Mr. Director,” Patterson said. “Nice seeing you again. Mrs. McGarvey is well?”

“She’s just fine,” McGarvey said. “I’ll tell her you asked.” They shook hands. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“I thought that we could use a little advice, especially since this might concern Congressman Newell,” Adkins said.

“He’s up to his ears in it,” McGarvey said. He took a seat in one of the leather easy chairs between them.

“Tell us,” Adkins prompted.

McGarvey quickly summarized almost everything he’d done and learned, from when Rencke had taken him to meet Shahrzad to right now, leaving out only the possibility that Gloria was involved somehow, and the mystery man at Liu’s compound.

“Jesus,” Adkins said. “What the hell kind of a mess is this?”

“From what you’re saying, it would appear that a U.S. congressman and a CIA chief of station are in collusion with the Chinese,” Patterson said.

“That’s what it looks like,” McGarvey said.

“Our entire operation in Mexico is compromised,” Adkins said. “Their intel guys must be laughing their asses off at us.”

“I don’t think it’s Chinese intelligence,” McGarvey said. “Or at least this may be an operation not of their design. It’s General Liu’s. Something he’s apparently been developing over the past ten years. Here and in Mexico.”

“Since you’ve started poking around, he’s been tidying up,” Patterson said.

“Something like that.”

Adkins was shaking his head. “I still don’t understand what the hell is going on.”

“Could be that Updegraf somehow found out about Perry’s involvement with Liu, so he went after the general. He’d probably come up with the proof in Chihuahua and was assassinated before he could get back to Mexico City. Either that or Shahrzad was lying about seeing Updegraf there so that we would protect her until we nailed Liu.”

“But he was there, after all,” Adkins said.

“Yes, but it could have been information she had been fed.”

“By whom?” Adkins asked.

“Perry,” Patterson answered. “But that would mean—or could mean—that Perry has more than one agenda.” He spread his hands. “A falling-out among thieves?”

“That’s another possibility,” McGarvey agreed.

“Nailed Liu for what, exactly?” Adkins asked.

McGarvey had been asking himself the same question at every juncture for the past week. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But whatever Liu and the Chinese are doing in Mexico has nothing to do with a U.S. partnership to pump oil.”

“What do we do next?” Adkins asked.

“I’m going back to Mexico to ask Liu just that,” McGarvey said. “I suggest that in the meantime you brief the president. Otto’s programs are starting to go off the scale.”

“A word of caution,” Patterson interjected. “I’m assuming it’s why I have been included this evening. Going up against an elected official is a risky business, especially now, since Newell sees himself running for president. And from where I sit he’s got a credible chance of at least getting his party’s nomination. Which puts him in a very powerful position.”

“I’m going after Liu,” McGarvey said. “I’ll leave Newell to Haynes.”

“What about Ms. Ibenez?” Adkins asked. “Perry fired her, but she’s still one of ours, and she deserves to know that her father was shot to death.”

“He was assassinated on Liu’s orders.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know yet. It’s something else I’m going to ask Liu when he and I have our little chat.”

FIFTY-NINE

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE

In the car out to Andrews, McGarvey told Rencke everything he intended to try. It wasn’t going to be pretty, and when it was over a lot of people would probably end up damaged and most likely even killed.

“It always ends up this way, doesn’t it,” Rencke said. He’d called to arrange for a CIA Gulfstream jet to Mexico City, no questions asked.

Although the flight would be listed as IFR with a destination of San Antonio, it would cancel its flight plan somewhere over the Midwest and switch to VFR, sneaking under the border radar into Mexican airspace. It was a little trick of putting an agent into place in secret that CIA pilots were well familiar with.

“We didn’t invent the game,” McGarvey said. “But since they want to play it, I’ll change the rules.” He grinned humorlessly. “They think Americans are bound by some code of ethics. Innocent until proven guilty. Bring the bad guys in for trial. Give them their rights.”

“That’s what separates us from them,” Rencke said.

“Not this time.”

McGarvey had left the files on Gloria and her father and all the other material he’d carried around back at the Building. He was stripped for fieldwork. He was bringing only his go-to-hell kit, including a diplomatic passport and some cash, and his weapon. The aluminum case Rencke had sent down to the Hotel Four Seasons was still there, checked with the bellman, and McGarvey meant to leave it there, where he could get to it in a hurry if need be.

“Mrs. M. calls me nearly every day,” Rencke said, breaking into McGarvey’s thoughts.

“Do we have people keeping an eye on her?”

“Yes, but she’s already spotted them,” Rencke said. “What am I supposed to tell her?”

“Nothing,” McGarvey said.

“But—”

“Keep her out of it, Otto.”

SIXTY

CIA HEADQUARTERS

It was late, but Adkins was still in his office. His wife had died of cancer a few years ago, and his daughters had gone to college and moved on with their lives, leaving him alone in a house that was vastly too large for one man.

He had nothing or no one to go home to, and he could do his thinking just as well here as in an empty house.

Adkins was a frightened man. When he had risen to deputy director under McGarvey he’d thought that he wanted to sit behind this desk someday. But the moment he’d gotten his wish, he’d realized that he’d never really wanted it in the first place. He was an administrator, not a field officer, not a spy. And the job of DCI had for too long been the sole property of the politician, unlike almost every other secret intelligence organization in the world, which professional spies headed.

Ever since 9/11 a new world order had emerged. It was the same holy war between Islam and Hindus, between Islam and Jews, and between Islam and Christians that had been going on for fifteen centuries. Only this time the soldiers were Muslim radicals, jihadists who were filled with such holy zeal that they were willing to sacrifice their own lives for a cause that most of them could not name, let alone understand.

Education was often all but forbidden for girls. And for boys, who were taught mostly religion, the situation wasn’t much better. Islamic fundamentalists were sliding into the abyss of ignorance and, like wild, unreasoning animals that hunted in packs, struck wherever the group leaders told them to strike.

The division between right and wrong, innocence and guilt, and especially between male combatants and women and children no longer held any meaning. The jihadist’s only mission was to kill and keep killing until he, and in some cases she, lost his or her own life.