The Washington Lawyer (34 page)

She handed him the CD. “I guess you're right. How soon will you be able to get the CD to the FBI?”

Martin asked for her cell number and said, “Stay in Washington. The FBI doesn't move real fast, particularly with something like this where a member of Congress is involved. They may want to talk to you. Meantime, keep out of sight so you're not arrested.”

When Allison left Martin's building, the sun was shining. She decided to walk to Paul's house. It would take her about an hour, but she hadn't exercised in days and she needed it.

As she walked, she felt very pleased with herself. This was all turning out so much better than she expected. Rather than simply disclosing Jasper's weekend trip with Vanessa in the media and destroying his marriage and his political career, she would be responsible for Jasper going to jail for treason for a very long time. She would gain her revenge over Jasper for what he had done to Vanessa in Anguilla.

* * *

After Allison left, for a full two minutes Martin sat dumbstruck at his desk. He asked his secretary to hold all his calls. He had to think this through.

He played out in his mind what would happen if he took the CD to Forester. The FBI would initially schedule an interview with Jasper. Since he was a US senator, they wouldn't immediately arrest him. Jasper might try to argue that the CD was a phony, fabricated by his lover to force Jasper to marry her. But the FBI technical people would cut through that. They'd establish the CD was authentic. Jasper was going down. No doubt about it.

Martin recalled Jasper's harsh words at Camelot. “If I go down, I'm pulling you with me.”

He had no doubt that Jasper meant it. He would trumpet Martin's involvement in Vanessa's death. The chief justice nomination was practically his. Arthur had told him that. He couldn't let that snake Jasper, an adulterer and a traitor, disrupt what he had worked for all these years.

As Martin rehashed the Anguilla events in his mind, he wondered if Jasper was responsible for Vanessa's drowning. The man was a superb swimmer. He could have found a way to kill her, which would make him a murderer as well. And if that was the case, Martin thought, he would have, unwittingly, been an accessory after the fact. My God. He'd never thought of his possible involvement in a murder until now. But this CD was so explosive that Jasper could have killed Vanessa because of it.

Since Allison's visit, the stakes for Martin had increased exponentially. He had to act to save not only his chief justice nomination, but his career—indeed his life.

He had to find a way out of this quagmire.

One possibility was to hold up turning the CD over to Forester for a brief period of time—long enough to disclose the CD to the Chinese ambassador and determine whether it was a forgery or something else was happening. Perhaps this CD wasn't what it seemed.

Martin realized doing that would be a dangerous move. He was a private citizen, not part of the United States law enforcement. He had already intervened for the Chinese in misleading the secretary of state in connection with the Metro death. People could argue that Martin's talking to the ambassador about the CD would make him complicit in Chinese espionage. That would be far more serious than moving the body of a dead woman.

How could he possibly justify that?

“Well, Mr. Prosecutor, I wanted to make certain the CD was authentic.”

“That wasn't your responsibility. Was it, Mr. Martin?”

“No, sir. It wasn't.”

That rationalization just wouldn't fly.

But on the other hand, if the CD was a forgery or if something else was involved, Martin had to know before he turned it over to Forester. Martin had so much riding on what happened with this CD. He had to remain in charge for as long as he could. To control his own destiny.

What should he do?

Call the Chinese ambassador or not?

Martin honed in on the tough decision.

I can go either way
.

That's bullshit
.

Having come so far down the slippery slope, you know damn well what you're going to do
.

Martin thought about his schedule for this evening. Francis would be at the Kennedy Center for dinner and a concert with a colleague. He would be alone in the house.

He called the Chinese ambassador.

“I would like to meet with you this evening at eight at my house. Can you do that?”

“I'll be there,” the ambassador replied.

* * *

Martin knew the ambassador liked good scotch. He had a bottle of aged Glenlivit on the tea wagon in the den.

“I think you will need this,” Martin said as he fixed them each a drink. “And you had better sit down.”

When they were both seated, Martin said, “You have a very big problem.” He didn't say “we” because the ambassador would have no idea Martin was involved in Vanessa's death.

The ambassador took a gulp, then said, “More about the Metro matter?”

“That would be easy. I want to play a CD for you.”

As it played, Martin watched the ambassador. His face turned pale. He was trembling. Martin thought he might have a heart attack.

At the end, after Martin hit the stop button, the ambassador said, “Is this a privileged conversation?”

“Absolutely. I am the lawyer for your embassy and country.”

“Then I want to ask you how you got the CD?”

“Allison Boyd, the woman who pushed your man onto the Metro tracks, gave it to me.”

“Are there any copies?”

“She told me, ‘no.' I believe her.”

“What do you intend to do with this?”

“Take it to Jim Forester, the FBI director.”

“I see.”

“In view of my long relationship with your government, I am willing to wait until ten o'clock tomorrow morning to take it to Forester. Perhaps, before then, you can persuade me that the CD is a forgery or give me some other reason not to turn it over.”

* * *

Xiang was in his apartment cooking dinner when he received a call from the ambassador, “Come back to the embassy now. Meet me in my office as soon as you can.”

The frantic tone in the ambassador's voice informed Xiang that something serious and terrible had occurred. He immediately guessed: someone had found the CD, which he had told Liu didn't exist. His heart was pounding.

Xiang drove at breakneck speed to the embassy and immediately went to the ambassador's office.

The grim-faced ambassador told Xiang, “Vanessa's CD has been located, exposing Operation Trojan Horse.”

“No … how could that be?”

“The girl Allison found it.”

“Where?”

“I wasn't told.”

“You heard the CD?”

The ambassador nodded. “Unfortunately, it's exactly as Vanessa represented to Jasper in Anguilla. It exposes operation Trojan Horse and Minister Liu's recruitment of Jasper. It's a disaster.”

Xiang was thinking about what he could do now. The ambassador interrupted him. “We'll call Minister Liu in Beijing on the secure phone. The three of us have to be on the call.”

“Of course,” Xiang said weakly.

Moments later, with the call on speaker, the ambassador reported on his meeting with Martin and what he had heard on the CD. As he spoke, Xiang heard Liu curse from time to time. At the end, Liu asked the ambassador to leave the office and close the door, “So I can talk to Xiang alone.”

When the ambassador was gone, Liu told Xiang, “Pick up the phone and get it off speaker.”

“Yes sir.”

His hand was shaking so badly he could barely hold the phone.

“Now listen, Xiang. You assured me on your life and that of your parents' that the CD did not exist. You said it was all a bluff by Vanessa to induce Jasper to marry her. Correct?”

“Yes, sir. I'm prepared to come home and accept my punishment.”

“I would enjoy that, but I have an alternative. A way for you to redeem yourself.”

“I'll do anything you ask.”

“Good. I want you to meet Jasper tomorrow morning and kill him.”

Liu said it coldly, in a voice devoid of emotion, as if he were asking Xiang to close the door.

Xiang was stunned. He wanted to serve his country, but this wasn't what he had signed on to do. He realized he was being stupid and naive. Though it was risky for him, he decided to make a pass at persuading Liu to change Jasper's death sentence.

“But tomorrow evening Jasper will have the five year plan. Wednesday morning, he'll give it to me.”

“Perhaps he will, or perhaps he's just stringing you along as you are with him and the CD.”

That stopped Xiang for an instant. He reddened and said, “I've spent enough time with Jasper to know when he's telling the truth.”

“I doubt that. But don't be such a fool. Even if what you are saying is correct, that he expects to have the five year plan tomorrow evening and to give it to you Wednesday morning, that will never happen now. If Jasper is alive tomorrow morning, he'll be arrested before noon. He'll never even get his hands on the five year plan. Jasper can't possibly help us anymore. The only chance we have of persuading Martin not to turn over the CD to the FBI is if Jasper is dead. Do you understand?”

Reluctantly, Xiang now agreed with Liu. “Yes sir. That's correct.”

“Let me ask you, Xiang, have you ever killed a man?”

“No, sir.”

“And you don't want to kill Jasper. Do you?”

Xiang steeled himself to reply in a firm voice. “I am prepared to kill Jasper. That's what's required.”

“Are you certain? If not, I'll have somebody else do it.”

“I am certain. This is my project.”

“Well, you had better mean it because your parents will pay the price if you don't do it in a manner that avoids any possible responsibility falling upon you or the People's Republic of China. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, sir. It will be done.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning at five.”

“You better not mess this up.”

Xiang staggered out of the ambassador's office and left the embassy. He decided to leave his car and walk home. As he moved up Connecticut Avenue toward his apartment, he was in agony. He had always considered himself a good person, a super achiever in school, a respectful son, and loyal to his nation. At Carnegie Mellon as a student, he had been respected, a recipient of a number of top honors.

Even after he joined, and was in the intelligence service, he believed that he was serving his nation, not compromising his moral standards. He had been a fool to have believed that he wouldn't have to do something like this while working for the MSS.

He had also been a fool to have left his village to go to Shanghai. One thing led to another and, blindly, he'd ridden the train up and up the mountain until now when he suddenly felt as if he were hurtling into a moral abyss. How could it have come to this? To his contemplating the murder of another human being?

To be sure, Jasper was a despicable person, a traitor, and an adulterer, but Xiang couldn't rationalize killing him.

He had his own ineptitude to blame for being in this position. If only he had found the CD, it would never have come to this.

He passed shops and small restaurants filled with people talking and laughing.

He wasn't Liu's slave, he decided. He still had control over his destiny. He didn't have to kill Jasper.

A plan was taking shape in his mind. As soon as he returned home, he would call his parents and tell them to leave immediately for the countryside where they'd lived before they moved to Beijing. They still had friends and relatives in the town. Most of the people hated the government in Beijing for arbitrarily dictating living conditions and favoring the cities at the expense of rural areas. They would provide his parents a place to hide from Liu's agents.

As for Xiang, he knew the United States very well. It was a huge country. He could disappear into the American west somewhere in Oregon or California and become one more of the millions of illegals residing in the United States. He'd take on another name. Most Americans lumped all Chinese, even all Asians, together. No one would notice or care. Yes, that's what he would do. He wouldn't kill Jasper. He'd run away.

When he entered his apartment, he smelled the peppers and eggplants he had been cooking before the ambassador had summoned him to the Embassy. He couldn't think about eating.

He sat down at his desk, grabbed his cell phone, and called his parents. The phone rang three times. Then, horrified, Xiang heard in Chinese, “This number has been disconnected.”

In his haste, he must have dialed incorrectly, Xiang thought. He ended the call and dialed again. Same message.

He felt as if he'd been hit in the gut with a two by four. He felt sick to his stomach as the realization of what had happened took hold.

While he was walking back to his apartment along Connecticut Avenue, Liu, one step ahead of Xiang, had concluded Xiang might want to disobey his order to kill Jasper. So Liu had moved quickly, cutting off his parents phone service, probably even arresting them, or at least having tight surveillance placed on them around the clock. There was no way Xiang could talk to them. There was no way they could escape.

Liu had thwarted his plans for disobedience. Xiang had no doubt that unless he murdered Jasper, Liu would kill his parents.

Sadly, he realized he was no match for Liu.

In grim resignation, he thought about how he would kill Jasper and avoid having the murder attributed to him. He also had to eradicate Jasper's connection to him.

As Xiang picked up the special encrypted cell phone to call Jasper, he realized he would have to ask Jasper to bring his phone to their meeting tomorrow morning so he could take it before it was found by the FBI or police. He had an easy way to do that: he would tell Jasper he was upgrading their phones to a newer model.