Dance with the Dragon (46 page)

The doorman, a big guy in a white blazer, came over. “Mr. McGarvey, we don’t want any more trouble here tonight. I can’t let you back inside. Mr. Roaz’s orders.”

“I came back for my car,” McGarvey said.

The doorman motioned for one of the valets to get it. “Would you like us to drive you back to your hotel?”

“It’s all right,” McGarvey said. He shrugged. “Just give Mr. Roaz my apologies. Won’t happen again.”

“Yes, sir,” the doorman said. He was just as surprised to see McGarvey as the valet parkers were, but he managed to hide it a little better.

“I didn’t expect both bitches to be here on the same night.”

“I know how that goes, sir.”

The valet brought up the Jetta, and McGarvey got behind the wheel and lurched off down the street, nearly hitting a parked car before he rounded the corner at the end of the block.

Looking in the rearview mirror as he drove away he’d seen the doorman walk back to the front door, a cell phone to his ear. He expected that a reception committee would be waiting for him if he ever showed up at his hotel.

McGarvey circled around the block, finding a parking spot in the service area behind a large apartment building. Anyone passing on the street would have no chance of spotting the car unless he drove down the delivery alley.

In ten minutes McGarvey was back, standing in the shadows of a doorway to an office complex. A tall free-form aluminum sculpture loomed overhead, and in the middle of the entry plaza a fountain that could have come directly from Madrid splashed softly. The contrast between the modern and the ancient was typical of Mexico City.

He hunched up his coat collar against the late-evening chill and leaned a shoulder against the wall, prepared for a long wait.

By now the cops had found the body, but unless McGarvey missed his guess the other man had taken his suggestion and removed all traces of identification from his partner. Sooner or later the dead man would be identified from his fingerprints, and it was a fair bet he was a former GAFE operator. His killing would raise a few eyebrows, but not many. Mexico had been a land of death from its beginning.

The crowd in front of the club was finally beginning to thin out when two of the valet parkers brought up Liu’s Mercedes Maybach and the AMG55 and opened the doors.

First out of the club were two of Roaz’s bouncers, along with Liu’s two bodyguards and his driver. They fanned out, scrutinizing the crowd, watching the traffic, which had finally died down, and scanning the opposite side of the street.

McGarvey moved a little farther back into the shadows.

Minutes later Roaz and Liu emerged from the club. They stopped at the curb and said something to each other. Gloria and Shahrzad came out, arm in arm, laughing loudly and weaving all over the place. They were drunk, high, or pretending to be both.

Roaz and the doorman helped the women into the rear of the Maybach. Liu said something else to Roaz, they shook hands, and he climbed into the backseat.

Keeping in the shadows, McGarvey hurried to the end of the block, then sprinted to where he had parked his car. They were either going down to Liu’s house outside Xochimilco, in which case they would take the route through the park, or they were going to the airport, in which case they would head downtown past the U.S. embassy on the Paseo de la Reforma.

McGarvey reached his car and raced down to the intersection of the Paseo and the park road, weaving in and out of traffic, just making a couple of red lights, and crowding a delivery van halfway onto the sidewalk.

He pulled over to the side of the boulevard and doused his lights, watching in his rearview mirror for the Maybach and AMG55.

Two minutes later both cars showed up and headed directly into the park on the Chivatito Causeway.

They were going to Liu’s house in Xochimilco.

“Gotcha,” McGarvey said to himself.

He switched on the headlights and headed over to the Hotel Four Seasons, where he’d left the aluminum case, as he speed-dialed Rencke’s number in the Building.

His friend answered on the first ring. “I’ve been waiting.”

“The girls are with Liu and they’re going down to Xochimilco.”

“That was quick,” Rencke said.

“I’ll tell you about it someday, but the way they were operating, I don’t think he had a chance,” McGarvey said. “I found out that Liu’s drug-money connection, Thomas Alvarez, was assassinated. Find out what you can.”

“That’s number two on my list of things for you. His head was found last night up in Chihuahua outside the same hospital where Updegraf’s head was dumped. They haven’t found his body yet, but the Mexican Drug Enforcement Agency called our DEA guys with the news. Scratch one on our most-wanted list.”

“They’re trying to tell us that Updegraf was involved in the drug trade.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“What’s number one on your list?” McGarvey asked.

“Perry has disappeared.”

“Did he get the recall?”

“Yeah. Apparently after he hung up from talking with Dick, he got his coat and walked out the door. No one’s seen him since. Embassy security is on it, and so is the assistant COS, Tom Chauncy. But so far there’s been no word.”

“He was dirty after all.”

“Looks like it. Unless you think Liu had him taken out.”

“I don’t think he’d bother at this point. Not until he knows what I’m up to,” McGarvey said. “Find out if Perry has any bolt-holes. Anyplace where he’d likely go to ground. And have Dick send someone senior from the Mexican desk to act as temporay COS.”

“What about Chauncy?”

“I don’t know, Otto,” McGarvey admitted. “It’s possible the entire station has been compromised. Perry and Updegraf were working their own agendas with Chauncy in the middle. He must have known or suspected something, but he didn’t do anything.”

“I’m on it,” Rencke said.

“I’m going down to Xochimilco to have my chat with the general. Maybe tonight we’ll find out what the hell is going on that has your computers going lavender.”

“Violet,” Rencke corrected. “Take care.”

EIGHTY-TWO

EN ROUTE TO XOCHIMILCO

Gloria had overdone it with the shit McGarvey had brought in the silver compact. Strange things were starting to happen inside her head, and she found that her feelings were flipping back and forth between euphoria and deep depression.

She smiled at Liu. “It’s good to be back.”

“It’s good to see you again,” Liu said. “Though I’m not so sure about the circumstances.”

Shahrzad had taken several hits at the club and she too was flying, and it was obvious that she was confused about what was happening now. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice small.

Gloria patted her knee. “The general and I are old friends.” Her tongue was thick and it was a little difficult for her to form words properly.

“McGarvey sent you?” Liu asked.

“Yes,” Gloria said dreamily. She laid her head back for just a moment. She could feel him in her arms, feel his body against hers, feel him making love to her. He was a man unlike any other man she’d ever known. Better than her father, who had been nothing more than another Cuban dissident after all; better than her husband, Raul, who’d never known the real Cuba. Giving him up to Cuban intelligence so that she could get back to the States had been surprisingly easier than she’d thought it would be. He was just a boy, filled with Cuban male machismo, but with no sophistication to soften his hard edges. He’d been anything but worldly, nothing like the kind of men she found attractive.

Especially not Kirk.

“Why?” Liu was saying in her ear.

She opened her eyes.

“What does he want you to find out?”

“What you’re doing here in Mexico. He knows about the drug money, but he thinks there’s more.”

“Just like that stupid Updegraf,” Liu said angrily. “He got in over his head, even though I’d warned him.”

“Kirk knows that Perry was blackmailing you,” Gloria said. “And he knows that you’ve run out of money.”

“I can’t be touched here in Mexico.”

Gloria laughed. “Do you know what his real job for the CIA has always been?” she asked. She wanted to taunt the bastard, hold McGarvey up for him so that he could know what a real man was supposed to be.

Liu was becoming irritated. “He started out as a field officer, just like you.”

Gloria laughed. “He’s an assassin, and he’s come here to kill you. What do you think about that?”

“I think that he probably won’t see his home again.”

“You’re right,” Gloria said. “I’m keeping him here with me.”

Liu caressed her cheek with his fingertips. “You’re going to kill him for me,” he said. “If not tonight, then very soon.”

Gloria started to laugh, and after a little while she realized that she couldn’t stop. She nodded. “Sure,” she managed to promise, the lie easy for her. Kirk had instructed her and Shahrzad to tell Liu the truth, but she had lied all of her life. Sometimes she thought that she was even able to lie to herself and believe it.

When she’d been stationed in Paris she had earned perfect fitreps even though she was spying on the CIA for French intelligence. It was only after her father had come to visit and and seen in her eyes something of what she’d been doing that she’d gotten spooked. She’d run away to be alone so that she could get her head on straight, but after that confrontation nothing had seemed right any longer. Nothing had seemed worth the effort.

Here in Mexico she had stumbled across what Perry and Updegraf were up to, and she’d driven down to the compound in Xochimilco one morning, and rung the bell at the front gate, for the first of her little chats.

No sex. Liu didn’t interest her, nor was she interested in the money, or the parties, or the power.

“What is it that you do want, my dear?” Liu had asked her that morning. She could still see the amused look on the prick’s face.

“China,” she’d said.

“Nothing modest about you,” he’d said. “In exchange for what?”

“Perry and Updegraf, and protection for whatever else it is that you’re doing here,” she’d replied. “Sooner or later you’re going to attract the wrong sort of notice, and Langley will send someone who actually knows what he’s doing. When that happens I’ll run interference for you.”

“What if they send a woman?”

Gloria had shrugged. “Won’t make any difference to me.”

“How can I be sure this isn’t just another scam?” he’d asked.

“Because I’m not asking for anything right now,” she’d told him. “Sooner or later you’ll finish and you’ll return to Beijing. I’ll get reassigned as soon as possible, and then you and I will do great work.”

“To what end?” he’d asked. “You must want something for yourself.”

“I want to be the first woman to sit on the seventh floor in the Building.”

His eyes had widened momentarily. “You want to become the first woman director of Central Intelligence?”

“Why not?”

“Why not indeed.”

That had been then. Now what she really wanted was within her grasp. Becoming DCI had never been anything more than a pipe dream. In fact, until she’d met McGarvey she’d never known what she actually wanted. It would be a trade, but not Liu’s safety for China. It would be Liu’s head on a platter for McGarvey, the only man she’d ever loved.

Shahrzad had been mostly quiet on the ride out of the city, staring out the window, but as the driver turned onto the dirt road that led back to Liu’s compound she turned to Gloria. “I thought I’d seen you out here once,” she said.

“That was a mistake on my part,” Gloria admitted. “Why didn’t you say something to Kirk?”

“I want to go to the States, and I don’t want to screw it up.”

“Fair enough,” Gloria said. Her head was beginning to clear again. Each time she took a hit from the doctored coke Kirk had given her, it took longer to come back to reality. And that was with the antidote.

What effect it was going to have on Liu was anyone’s guess. But none of this was going to work unless she could induce him to take a hit.

XOCHIMILCO

The compound seemed deserted and strangely quiet when they arrived. The house staff and bodyguards buttoned up the place and then discreetly disappeared.

“We won’t be disturbed,” Liu said. “We have the entire night ahead of us.”

“Champagne,” Gloria said as they walked out onto the pool deck.

“Of course,” Liu said pleasantly. He went across to the bar, where he set up three crystal flutes and opened a bottle of Krug.

Liu’s private suite was open to the left, gauze curtains in the sliding glass doors billowing in the soft evening breeze. It was chilly, but several electric heaters sprouting like overgrown toadstools around the pool had been switched on, and the air on the patio was almost balmy.

Gloria took a hit from the compact, then cut a line on the mirror for Shahrzad. She laid the works on a chaise longue as the drug hit her brain in a rush, and she was floating again, dreamy, out of focus, as if she had jumped from an airplane and was flying weightlessly through the fantastic clouds.

Shahrzad had a stupid grin on her face, her eyes glassy, as Gloria kissed her deeply on the lips. “Ever do it with a girl?”

“No,” Shahrzad answered huskily.

Gloria undid the zipper on the back of Shahrzad’s dress and helped her step out of it. She kissed the woman’s erect nipples and caressed her ass, before she slipped off her own dress.

“Nice,” Liu said.

Gloria led Shahrzad across the patio and into Liu’s bedroom, where they lay down together on the big bed.

Shahrzad was mostly out of it, in her own world, just barely responsive to Gloria’s touches.

Liu had followed them into the bedroom, and he stood at the open doorway, a smirk on his lips.

“Why don’t you join us?” Gloria said, looking up. “But first bring me my stuff.”

Liu hadn’t bothered with the champagne. He went outside and brought the compact back. “What happened to your gold one?”

“This is some new shit. A lot better.”

Liu raised the open compact to his nose and delicately sniffed. “Where’d you get it?”

“I have my own sources. Be my guest.”