Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (162 page)

Outside, Julia squinted as her eyes struggled to adjust to the sunlight after so much time indoors. The air was pleasantly warm and a stiff wind flapped her skirt. The air smelled like sage brush.

Nephi, Utah, was a small town about an hour from Provo and two hours from Salt Lake on the I-15 corridor. The Wasatch Mountains loomed to the east of the town. An early snowstorm had coated their crowns with white.

As per Markov’s instructions, she had taken a small road east of Nephi into the foothills. There, concealed from the road and disguised as unmarked warehouses, sat the government run asylum. She now followed this same road back toward the freeway.

So what was that all about? Markov had told Julia to keep quiet, and it was clear from the way that Sarah abruptly cut her work short that Markov hadn’t bothered to clear Julia’s plans with his superior. Sarah had shown Julia enough of her claws for Julia to guess that Markov must be holed up somewhere, licking his wounds.

But how did Sarah find out?

Julia had told nobody, not even Terrance. He thought she was in Denver for a medical conference. But if not her husband, then who? He wasn’t the sort to check up on her, but if he had, he could have discovered that she wasn’t registered for the conference. If so, he could have tipped off Sarah Redd, who could have tracked her to Utah or else leaned on Markov until he confessed.

Only one problem with that theory. Sarah had threatened Terrance’s career, too. That didn’t make sense if Terrance had been the one to tell his boss. So it couldn’t be him, she thought with relief.

Still, he deserved to know, before Sarah called him into her office and ripped him a new one. Julia phoned as soon as she was on I-15, headed north.

“Hi, honey, how is the conference?”

“Actually, that’s why I was calling.” For some reason she felt hesitant now that he was on the phone. Maybe it would be better if she waited until she got home when she could explain in person. He’d be angry and those conversations never went well over the phone.

“Oh, something wrong?” He waited on the line, while she didn’t answer. “Julia?”

“Sorry, I was thinking about something else for a second. No, the conference is fine. It’s just that I’ve got a bunch of new stuff about the next phase of my project and I can’t concentrate on the speakers. No point in staying, so I called the airline and changed my flight to this afternoon.”

“Okay, no problem, if that’s what you want to do. What time will you be home?”

“Probably late,” she said, “since I lose a couple hours flying east, but I don’t have my itinerary with me. I’ll call when I know more.”

“Direct flight from Salt Lake or do you have a layover?”

“Layover. Oops, I’m at the airport. I’ll give you a call as soon as I know more.”

“Okay, have a good flight.”

Julia hung up and immediately pulled to the side of the freeway where she sat for several minutes with her emergency blinkers flashing.

Terrance knew.
He knew where she was and he’d screwed up and now she knew that he knew.

The conference wasn’t in Salt Lake, it was in Denver. She’d told him that, and so maybe he’d forgotten. Sometimes he didn’t listen carefully. But what were the odds that he’d substitute Salt Lake City by pure chance? No way. He knew she was in Utah and he’d flubbed up as they’d gone back and forth, each playing their role.

How could he have told Sarah? Couldn’t he see how much this mattered?

“Fine, if that’s the way it’s going to be,” she said, talking only to herself now. “You don’t care about my career, why should I care about yours?”

And as for Sarah’s threat that she’d never work again, Julia didn’t believe it. Maybe the government could lean on private institutions or threaten to pull grants, but could they stop her from working in a university? From going abroad to do research for a few years until things quieted down?

Sarah said she’d send a plane to Provo, but that would take time. And she had apparently not spoken to anyone at the facility. Not the head of security, at least. Julia still had clearance.

Julia pulled back onto the road. At the next exit, she got off and turned around, headed south to Nephi again. Time to do what she’d come for. She would download the entire data set from Ian’s implant. Find out for herself exactly what happened in Namibia.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Charles Ikanbo sat passively while the director for ChinaOne chewed him out. The man ranted about Africa, about the lazy Namibians, about Americans and French and British, and even about the high price of rice in Namibia.

Better to let him burn out his anger and then do what he could to soothe the man, who could in turn calm the Chinese ambassador and the angry noises from Beijing itself.

Li Hao had summoned Charles north, to Henties Bay on the Skeleton Coast. Charles had no choice but to obey. The Chinese were pouring so much money into the country, in jobs, in roads, in schools and clinics—bribery was a lesson they’d learned from Western role models—that the entire government had become beholden to their whims and tantrums.

“This place is a hellhole,” Li said. He spoke English with a British, Oxford-sounding accent. “An absolute stinky pit of a country. And the entire government are lapdogs for Americans and their imperialist friends. And your security forces are absolutely worthless. You have done nothing, you continue to do nothing. Six men killed, gunned down by this enemy agent. And you do nothing.”

“Forty-two dead, actually,” Charles said. He could no longer be quiet. “Six
Chinese,
plus eighteen of your mercenaries, sixteen Namibian laborers and two of my security officers.”

“I want the man who did this. I want answers. I know the Americans were behind this. They are jealous of China’s rise, and anxious to preserve their hegemony. This is all just a CIA plot.”

“Come now, Mr. Li,” Charles said. “You are a reasonable man. You know that not everything that happens in the world is a CIA plot. We are a sovereign nation, and the Americans have many legitimate interests here. Why would they jeopardize those interests by acts of aggression against the Namibian state and its business partners?”

It was the one thing that continued to puzzle Charles, his disingenuous protests to the contrary. That the CIA was behind this, he had little doubt. Rogue agent or not, as the supposed diplomat, Anton Markov had claimed, the Americans had been eager to retrieve their man before he could reveal any secrets.

“Come with me,” Li said. “I want to show you something.”

He seemed to be calming down, so quickly, in fact, that Charles wondered if it had been an act to intimidate him. If so, it hadn’t worked.

They walked through the villa, toward the back terrace that overlooked the ocean. The villa itself was tastefully appointed, with traditional baskets and pottery on niches, alternating with rooms decorated with Chinese landscapes. A pair of Namibian women were sweeping the back deck, but picked up their brooms and departed hastily as soon as Charles and Li Hao stepped outside.

The cold water of the Atlantic met the hot air of southwest Africa off the Skeleton Coast and frequently formed heavy fogs that would roll fifty kilometers inland. Today, however, was cool and clear. A steady breeze sent long, cresting waves to crash against the beach. Two boys, barefoot and shirtless, fished in the surf.

Li made his way to a telescope mounted on a tripod. He fiddled with the telescope for a few minutes. “There, look.” He stepped back.

Charles looked. In the distance, a gray warship on the horizon. The image was unclear, hazy with the distance, so he supposed it could have been South African. They had a navy that patrolled this far north. He doubted it, though. Probably the Americans.

“Spying,” Li said. “There are probably men watching us right now, taking note of the fact that I’m talking on the deck with a Namibian, probably an official of the government.”

Charles stepped back from the telescope. “Why would the Americans need to spy with a warship? They have satellites. And they have bases all over Africa. They can fly a plane overhead at seventy thousand feet, so high you would never see or hear it.”

“Yes, of course,” Li said in an impatient tone. “It’s all about intimidating me. They know our countries are forging an important alliance, and they want to stop it. Take Namibia for themselves.”

Charles bristled. “Namibia is not for the taking. By the Americans or anyone else.”

Li had been staring over the horizon, as if trying to spot the American ship with the naked eye, but now he blinked, and said, “Of course not. The Chinese would never want that. We are partners, only. We wish to help Namibia develop her land, people, resources. Not take them. That is not the Chinese way.”

A year ago, when Charles had first met the Chinese delegation, he had thought them worse than the Americans or Europeans. They spread money, made demands, cultivated friends and sabotaged enemies. Most African countries were all too willing to play the game, like a prostitute who thinks she is taking advantage of her customers by taking their money, even as she slips into a sleazy lifestyle that she can’t escape. The thing about prostitutes is that sure, they got diseases from their clients, but they gave them back, too.

Namibia was a quiet, stable part of the continent. Charles never thought those tactics would work here. But after the way that his brother, William, acquiesced to the Americans’ demand to release the prisoner, and the way the Chinese threw a tantrum in its aftermath, he was no longer sure.

“You have to understand,” Charles said, “there’s nothing I can do about the American agent now.”

“So you’re admitting that he was a spy?”

“I don’t know. I will probably never know.”

“That’s not good enough,” Li said. “We’ve already invested three billion dollars, U.S. What is that, almost twenty-five billion Namibian dollars? How can you guarantee this won’t happen again?”

“I suppose you could walk away now.” Charles permitted himself an inward smile. Li had overplayed his hand. “Maybe that’s what the Americans are hoping, that you’ll decide the effort is not worth the rewards. You want my advice? Rebuild your camp, set up a tighter perimeter and cultivate more contacts within the Namibian government. By cultivate, I don’t mean bribe, by the way. But you have to offset the Americans and the Europeans, and that means you need friends.”

“Actually, what I was hoping is that we could deepen our partnership with the Namibian government. More specifically, with your security forces.”

“Get rid of the mercenaries, you mean, and rely on Namibian troops to protect your camps?”

“No, we must stick with our contractors. This recent disaster notwithstanding, they are absolutely indispensable. They have modern weaponry. They have experience in Africa.” Li looked distressed and again Charles thought about his earlier rant and how he’d taken a much more realistic turn. “Here is the problem. When you see a white man in Namibia, who is he? He could be Namibian, or maybe South African or a Zimbabwean expatriate. He could be a foreign executive, or a tourist, a mercenary, or a spy. Anything.”

Charles said nothing, angry at himself. Forget the excuses, he should have caught the two Americans at the airport. At the time, he thought it better to watch them, see what the two CIA agents were up to. And then they had started their own war and killed forty-two men.

“But when you see a Chinese, what do you think?” Li asked. “Right. You know exactly who he is. He’s either a diplomat or he works with ChinaOne.”

“You need more time. The Europeans and Americans have been meddling in Africa for generations. The Chinese have only just started.”

“Which is why we need Blackwing,” Li said, apparently missing the irony. “They can go where we can’t, hear things that we never will. But I need protection from your government. The Americans would never dare attack the Namibians directly.”

Below, on the beach, one of the boys shouted and reeled in his line, pole bent as something struggled on the other end. Charles wished suddenly he were down there with them, barefoot and shirtless. Wading in the waves to pull in a fish, wet and slippery and alive, from the water. Instead of all this work, constrained by offices and suits, arguing with foreigners.

“Unfortunately,” Charles said, “I cannot help you.”

“Because of the contractors?”