Dance with the Dragon (44 page)

With any luck word would get back to Liu, and perhaps the ambassador might ask some embarrassing questions of the general.

It wouldn’t do much, but it might add just a little extra pressure.

He drove toward the U.S. embassy, taking a roundabout route to make it difficult but not impossible for someone to tail him. A few blocks out, he suddenly sped through an orange light just as it changed to red. Traffic with the green surged through the intersection, making it impossible for anyone to follow him. But if he had picked up a tail, they would report to their handlers that McGarvey had apparently gone directly over to his embassy.

His attempt at misdirection was purposely crude, but if it was noticed and word got back to Liu, it might give the general a small measure of false confidence that he was dealing with an amateur, or at least with a man whose tradecraft was rusty.

*   *   *

McGarvey got back to Lomas Altas a little before noon. He found a parking spot and walked two blocks back to a sidewalk café in the shopping plaza that faced the Paseo de la Reforma. He was between the Iranian embassy and the street up to Gloria’s apartment. From where he was seated under a bright green market umbrella he could see both ways up the street. When the girls left the apartment to go shopping he couldn’t miss them, nor would he miss seeing if they’d picked up a tail.

He ordered a Dos Equis, an enchilada, and rice and beans and settled down to watch and wait.

It didn’t take long before Gloria’s bright yellow Mini Cooper flashed around the corner at the end of the block. Instead of heading away, it came straight past where McGarvey was seated. Gloria was behind the wheel, intent on her driving, but he got the distinct impression that Shahrzad had spotted him but then had looked away at the last second as if she didn’t want to be made.

If he hadn’t known better he would have suspected the woman of practicing a bit of tradecraft just then.

He waited until they were out of sight, lost in the traffic, before he paid for his lunch and headed back to where he had parked his car. So far as he’d been able to tell, no one had followed them.

That situation, he expected, would change after tonight.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

THE DOLL HOUSE

McGarvey had gone back to his hotel for a few hours’ sleep, something he thought was going to be in short supply over the next couple of days. It was dark outside when the sat phone buzzed softly, but he was awake instantly, even though he’d been deep into an erotic dream.

He was back at the club and Gloria was all over him, as she’d been last night, and he was responding even though he knew that something very bad was going to happen. Suddenly Gloria’s image morphed into that of Marta Fredricks, the Swiss federal cop he’d lived with during his self-imposed exile in Switzerland. He kept trying to push her way, but she wouldn’t let go of him. She was clinging around his neck, kissing him, rubbing her body against his, telling him that she loved him, that she would never leave.

When he was finally able to pull free, he was standing at the end of a runway watching a commercial jet take off. He could see her face in one of the windows, and he tried to wave good-bye. He wanted to tell her that leaving was for the best. But before he could raise his hand the airplane exploded in midair, and someone was calling to give him the bad news.

He got out of bed and reached the phone on the second ring. “Yes.”

“Are you okay?” Rencke asked. He sounded worried.

“I was catching a few hours’ sleep,” McGarvey told him. “It could be a long night.” He looked at his watch. It was a few minutes before ten. He’d slept nearly eight hours. For the first time in years he wanted a cigarette, and he realized how jumpy he’d become. “What did you find out?”

“Plenty,” Rencke said. “But I’m telling ya, Mac, it beats the shit out of me what’s going on.”

“Tell me.”

“You were right about Shahrzad. She’s lying through her teeth. There’s apparently no reason for her to be in Mexico City trying to raise money to come to the States. Her father’s dead, that part she told the truth about. But her mother is still alive. She’s in a mental institution outside of Versailles, and has been there for eight years, ever since she and her four sons moved to Paris to live with her parents. Her father was a pioneer in the French computer industry and is worth something in the low billions. He’s sorta the Bill Gates of France, only with hardware, and on a much smaller scale.”

“Did Shahrzad move to France with them?”

“Apparently she did, seventeen years ago. But five years ago she quit her job with her grandfather’s company and moved to London, where she lived in an expat neighborhood of mostly Muslims off Queen Street near the river.”

“What’d she do there?”

“Worked as a secretary for a small insurance company.”

“Iranian intel?”

“That was my first guess,” Rencke said. “But if it was a front it was damned good. I haven’t turned it. Thing is, they could have learned a lesson from Mossad. Remember during the Eichmann operation? The Israelis set up a series of travel agencies across Europe to funnel their agents into Argentina for the kidnapping. Afterward they kept the agencies open because they were making a profit. Some of them are still up and running. Could be that the Iranians have done the same thing. Could be the MOIS has set up insurance agencies in Muslim communities, wherever.”

“Which would make Shahrzad an Iranian intelligence agent.”

“Yeah. But what the hell was she doing in Mexico screwing around with one of our guys so that she could get to Liu?” Rencke asked.

“Unless Liu was working some sort of a deal with the Iranians, and they didn’t trust him,” McGarvey suggested.

“They might have sent one of their people to check on him,” Rencke finished it. “What the hell is he up to?”

“It’s worth risking some assets to find out,” McGarvey said. “But her being here in Mexico City could be for something entirely innocent.”

“Poor little rich girl out to prove herself?” Rencke asked.

“Something like that.”

“Mac, do you really believe it?”

McGarvey walked over to the window and pulled the curtains aside. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

“If that’s all it is, she’s got herself in over her head and she’s lying her ass off to try to figure a way out,” Rencke said. “And it’s definitely going to get worse for her.”

“So why doesn’t she just run?” McGarvey asked.

“The sixty-four-dollar question.”

A short, slender man stood in the shadows of a doorway across the street. McGarvey pushed the curtain farther aside, and the figure suddenly stepped out of the doorway and headed down the street.

A mistake? he wondered. Or had he just been sent a message?

“We need to start eliminating the variables,” McGarvey said. “Let’s start with Gil Perry. I want him recalled to Washington to give Dick an update on the situation down here. Have Howard sit in on it. And have Dick put some pressure on both of them.”

“How long do you want him held up here?”

“Forty-eight hours,” McGarvey said. No matter what happened, he didn’t think the situation would remain stable much longer than that.

“Will it be that fast?”

“I hope so,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime I want a cleanup crew down here asap. But under cover. I don’t want to raise any flags.”

“What have you got in mind?” Rencke asked.

“I think Perry is blackmailing Liu over the murdered girls in New York and Washington, and I think Updegraf was in on the deal. The pictures Shahrzad took for him in Liu’s compound, and maybe up in Chihuahua, might have ended up on Perry’s desk. I want his office and his apartment tossed, and I don’t care if they leave any traces.”

“I’ll send them down first thing in the morning,” Rencke said. “Soon as Perry clears out, they’ll move in.”

“Send them down tonight,” McGarvey said. “And have the jet standing by. Could be that Liu will take the girls up to Chihuahua. I just don’t know how this is going to play out. But I want to keep my options open.”

“I’m on it,” Rencke said. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Call Katy and tell her that you heard from me. I’ll be home in two days tops.”

Rencke laughed. “Oh, boy, that’s one call I’m going to enjoy making.”

SEVENTY-NINE

THE APARTMENT

McGarvey left the hotel a few minutes after eleven and headed over to Gloria’s apartment in Lomas Altas. He took care with his tradecraft to make sure that he didn’t pick up a tail. Traffic was steady downtown, and it was relatively easy for him to make a number of last-minute turns, and switchbacks to see if he was clear.

Twenty minutes later he pulled into the driveway of the complex and parked next to Gloria’s Mini Cooper. She and Shahrzad were flawed women. Whether it was because of their troubled childhoods, or simply the luck of the genetic draw, they had chosen a world that was destroying them.

Yet if they had been normal women, with nothing more than the garden variety of weaknesses and self-indulgences, they would be of no use against Liu. Gloria was in love with him, and Shahrzad wanted a ticket to the States. But that was just on the surface. What either woman really wanted was still a mystery to him. It was enough at the moment that they had agreed to cooperate with something that had every reason to fail.

Whatever their reasons, both of them had been doing their little dances, Gloria around Gil Perry, and Shahrzad around Updegraf. Now they would have to dance with Liu, and McGarvey would try to make sure he didn’t get them killed.

Gloria answered the door. She was barefoot, but her hair had been done up, and she wore some light makeup, a revealing red dress slit up the side almost to her hip, and a small gold chain around her neck.

“You look nice,” he said, following her into the apartment.

She smiled with pleasure. “Give us a minute. We’re just about ready. You know where the drinks are,” she said, and she disappeared into the bedroom.

McGarvey went to the window and carefully pulled the blinds aside just far enough to see out to the driveway and parking area. Nothing moved for the moment, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was there.

When he turned away, the women had come out of the bedroom. Shahrzad was in a short strapless dress made of some satin material in gold that was crumpled. Her hair had been piled up in back, and she wore a stunning diamond pendant around her long, slender neck. Both of them wore open-backed spike heels.

“You’re going to turn some heads,” McGarvey said. “Both of you.”

Shahrzad smiled and looked away for a moment. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Gloria brought a bottle of white wine and three glasses from the kitchen. She poured for them, and offered up a toast. “Success,” she said. Her eyes were bright, her moves animated. She’d taken a hit.

Shahrzad had calmed down from this morning, and she no longer seemed angry or frightened. It was likely, McGarvey thought, that she’d taken a line of coke, too.

He raised his glass, and they all drank.

“How are we going to play this?” Gloria asked.

“Like I said this morning, you’re not going in there armed,” McGarvey started. “Liu’s people would never let you get close to him. And if it came to a situation where you needed deadly force, you’d probably be outgunned.”

“I don’t like it, but I understand,” Gloria said.

“I’m taking Shahrzad over to Roaz’s club first. We’ll have a couple of drinks, and make a show on the dance floor.”

“I used to work there, you know,” Shahrzad pointed out. “Everybody knows me. And Miguel knows that I walked out on Liu. Could be they won’t even let me in the place.”

“I think they will,” McGarvey said. “Liu’s curiosity is going to be his downfall. He’ll want to know how this is all going to play out. He has no idea what I’m up to. So he’ll figure on using you and Gloria to get to me. And we’re going to make it easy for him.”

“How long before you want me to unexpectedly show up?” Gloria asked.

“Fifteen or twenty minutes,” McGarvey said. “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting in. They’ve seen us together twice now.”

“Okay, I’m with you so far, Kirk. Then what?”

“You and I are going to make a big scene. I’m a son of a bitch, a bastard, a typical man interested only in a piece of ass.”

Gloria was grinning.

“I’m going to tell you to go to hell. You’re going to slap me in the face and I’m going to knock you to the floor.”

“You’ll have to make it convincing,” Gloria said.

“Bite your lip on the way down,” McGarvey told her. “I’m going to try to kick you, but Shahrzad is going to be all over me, screaming, scratching.”

“I can do that,” Shahrzad agreed.

“At that point I’m hoping that Roaz will kick me out of the place.”

“It’s more likely he’ll tell us to take our fight outside,” Shahrzad said. “I’ve seen it before.”

“Then I’ll tell you two to go to hell and I’ll walk out,” McGarvey said. “I’m hoping that either Roaz or Liu will send someone after me, and this time I’m going to lean on them to see what they think is going on.”

“What about us?” Gloria asked.

“None of this will be worth anything unless Liu is there,” McGarvey said. “After I’m gone I want you two to be all over each other on the dance floor. I don’t think it’ll take long before he invites you to his table.”

“If it gets that far he’ll want us to come down to his house,” Shahrzad said. “Especially if I come across as hard to get. I walked out on him once. He might want me back to prove something to himself.”

“Either that or he’ll fly you up to the compound in Chihuahua,” McGarvey said. “Tomorrow’s Friday. He might have something planned for the weekend.”

“He usually does,” Shahrzad said.

“I assume that you’re going to be lurking in the shadows somewhere,” Gloria said. “What happens after we get down and dirty at one of his parties?”

“Does he ever do drugs?” McGarvey asked Shahrzad.

“I’ve never seen it,” she said. “Everything with him is all about control.”

“It’ll be up to you two to get him alone someplace, after the party’s over and the guests have left. He’s going to want to talk about me, and you’re going to tell him everything you know. No lies, only the truth.”