Wall of Night (17 page)

Clinton Correctional Facility,
New York

With his family tucked away in a safe house, Latham decided it was time to shake things up.

Armed with a little creative documentation from Oaken, he took the noon shuttle to New York, then drove north to Dannemora, where he was escorted to the interview room. Minutes later Hong Cho was escorted in.

As before, the diminutive Cho wore an orange jumpsuit and was manacled hand and foot. He shuffled forward, sat down, and stared impassively at Latham as the guard cuffed his hands to the table.

Once the guard was gone, Latham said, “Hong, have you ever wondered how we caught you?”

“You didn't catch me.”

“I'll rephrase: Didn't you ever find it curious that a beat cop just happened to be walking by the apartment of the people you were trying to murder? Lucky timing, wasn't it?”

Cho said nothing.

“Or how quickly backup was on the scene? Didn't that ever make you think?”

Cho's eyes narrowed for a moment, then went blank again. “No.”

“Sure it did,” Latham said. “Since I know you're too proud to ask, I'll tell you. We caught you because we knew who we were looking for. We'd had you under surveillance for weeks.”

“You're lying.”

“We knew who you were, and how to look for you. We had profiles of where you were likely to hide, how you'd react to given situations, how you were trained—everything.”

“That's impossible.”

Latham opened his briefcase, pulled out a piece of paper, and slid it across to Cho. “Do you recognize the letterhead?” Charlie asked. “It's from the
Guoanbu
—your former colleagues. They burned you. All your moonlighting for mobsters … You were an embarrassment.”

As if handling a snake, Cho studied the letter. Latham could see his jaw bunching. Cho lashed out, shoving the paper off the table. “This is a trick!” he shouted.

“It's called politics, Hong. Your government found out about your side profession and they knew we'd eventually catch you, so they decided to cut their losses. Instead of facing the humiliation of having an active
Guoanbu
agent on trial for murder, they sacrificed you.”

“They wouldn't do that.”

“Why not? Are you really that naive? You were a liability, plain and simple; they did what was necessary. Unfortunately for you, that means you get to spend the rest of your life here.”

With a growl, Cho tried to lunge to his feet, but the manacles jerked him back. “Get out!”

Latham collected the letter from the floor and walked to the door. “These are the people you're protecting, Hong. You're here because of them. Think about it.”

“Get out!”

Back in his car, Latham dialed his cell phone. When Randall picked up, he said, “It's done.”

“Did he buy it?”

“If he didn't, he's a hell of an actor. How's our girl?”

“She just got home from work. I'll let you know the minute she moves—if she moves, that is. Janet and Tommy are standing by if we need them.”

“Keep your fingers crossed. If Hong's as pissed as I think he is, we won't have long to wait.”

He spent the next ninety minutes parked in the prison parking lot listening to an oldies station before his cell phone trilled. “Latham.”

“Agent Latham, it's Warden Fenstrom. Cho just asked to make a telephone call.”

“Good. Put up a stink, tell him it's past telephone hours, then finally give in.”

“Gotcha. I'll call you back.” He called back fifteen minutes later: “You guessed it. His call went to the same woman. Mary—”

“Tsang.”

“Right. We're not allowed to tape or listen in, but I had a guard keep an eye on Cho. The guard says he didn't look too happy. What the hell did you say to him?”

“I told him he'd just run out of friends,” Latham replied. “Thanks, Warden, I appreciate it.”

“My pleasure.”

Latham hung up and called Randall. “He went for it. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“Will do. You're coming back?”

“I'll be on the next flight.”

Latham was sitting in the passenger lounge at Kennedy waiting for his boarding call when Randall called. “About an hour ago she went for a jog,” he reported. “She went about a mile, then stopped at a Seven-Eleven and used the payphone.”

“And?”

“I had Oaken get the dump from the phone. She called the
Post,
Charlie. The classifieds.”

The
Post
? Latham thought. Then it hit him: “She's making contact,” he said. “Have Walt start working on that ad. I want to see it.”

As Latham was landing in D.C., Oaken was placing his own call to the
Post.
He took out an innocuous ad—a lawn mower for sale—then jotted down the order number the clerk gave him, then hung up and nodded to Janet Paschel, who then placed her own call.

Posing as Tsang, she told the clerk she might have made a mistake in her ad and asked that it be read back to her. The clerk asked for her order number. Praying that only a few ads, if any, had been placed between Tsang's call and Oaken's, she recited a number a few digits lower than Oaken's.

“Sorry, but I'm not sure about the last couple digits,” Janet said. “Sometimes I can't read my own writing.”

“That's okay,” the clerk said. “Let's see … here it is: ‘Adrian, please accept my condolences on your loss. Thinking of you, Harmon.' Is that what you wanted?”

“It's perfect. How did you spell Harmon?” The clerk spelled it out. “Yeah, that's right. Thanks very much; I appreciate your help.”

Paschel hung up and handed Oaken the note: “Mean anything to you?”

“Nope. Maybe it will to Charlie.”

Jakarta

It took Arroya mere hours to probe his contacts and confirm that not only would Soong and his bodyguards be staying on Pulau Sekong, but that Trulau had loaned his yacht to the delegation for the week. “That didn't take long,” Tanner said.

“I have many friends,” Arroya replied and patted his belly. “Not to mention all the restaurateurs I keep in business.”

Tanner laughed. “Now, let's see about Pulau Sekong.” The man Arroya felt could help was a distant cousin named Segung. Segung, he said, was something of an adventurer—part smuggler, part charter captain, and part Robin Hoodesque pirate. “Can I trust him?” Briggs asked.

“Can you pay him?” Arroya countered.

“Yes.”

“Then yes, you can trust him. But,” he added, “you might want to put some fear into him. If he thinks he can take advantage of you, he will do so.”

They found Segung at his slip in the Kalepa, polishing the handrails of his sixty-six-foot cabin cruiser. The
Tija
was sleek and white, with a sharp bow and a swept-back pyramidal superstructure covered in charcoal tinted glass.

The Indonesian smuggling trade must be lucrative,
Tanner decided.

“Segung!” Arroya called.

Segung looked up. He was Arroya's complete opposite: tall and sinewy, with a full head of wavy black hair. “Ah, cousin, how are you! Come aboard!”

They stepped onto the afterdeck and Arroya introduced Tanner. “A good friend of mine, Segung. He'd like to hire you.”

Segung grinned, displaying a gold tooth. “At your service. As luck would have it, I'm free.”

“Glad to hear it. With a boat like this, I'm surprised you weren't hired by the Chinese.”

“Ah, well, Trulau has his own yacht, you see, and he is the delegation's unofficial host during their stay. I considered sabotage, but decided against it.”

Though he said it with a smile, Tanner got the impression he wasn't kidding. “Why's that?”

“Trulau is an unforgiving sort. If he found out I damaged that barge of his, my business might suffer. And business, my friend, is everything.”

“If Trulau's yacht weren't available, yours would be the next logical choice?”

“Oh, yes. Next to his there is no finer vessel in Java than the
Tija.
So, how can I be of service?”

“How much for the day?”

Segung frowned. “Oh, is that all you want? One day? Perhaps you might be more comfortable with a more modest vessel.”

“If I like what I see, I may want to hire you for the week.”

“You have cash?”

“Yes.”

“American?”

“If you prefer.”

“Five hundred for the afternoon.”

Tanner reached into his pocket, peeled off five one-hundred-dollar bills, and handed them across. “Since you're Arroya's cousin, I'll overlook the fact you're charging me double the going rate. If we continue to do business, I trust you'll rethink your fees.”

Segung locked eyes with him, then grinned. “Of course. Anything for a friend.”

Once they cleared the harbor's breakwater and were away from shore, the ocean became glassy and calm. The sky was an unblemished blue save for a few cotton ball clouds. After an hour's sailing, Segung called from the flying bridge, “Pulau Sekong dead off the starboard bow.”

From his spot on the foredeck, Tanner raised his binoculars. Five miles distant he could see Solon Trulau's island, two great spires of jagged rock joined together by a saddle of rain forest. Nestled between the spires was a cove surrounded by the churned white line of a coral reef. Arroya was right: If this wasn't the island from the Bond movie, it was a close match. The only thing missing was Herve Villachez trotting down the beach carrying a martini on a silver platter.

Arroya said, “Trulau's estate is halfway up the slope, near the spire.”

Briggs scanned up the mountainside until he spotted the white, plantation-style mansion. “That must have been quite a task to build,” he said.

“He has the money. There's a helicopter pad at the top of the access road.”

That could complicate things, Tanner thought. Timing and stealth were going to be vital. If he failed to grab Soong without being detected, their escape would be short-lived. Movie portrayals notwithstanding, trying to outrun a helicopter at sea was a losing proposition.

“Segung,” Tanner called, “how close can we get without attracting attention?”

“A mile, no closer. Throw out a couple fishing lines. We'll troll for mahi.”

They spent the next hour circling the shore as Tanner studied the terrain, picking out promising entry and exit points and working through scenarios until he had settled on a rough plan. Much would depend on what he saw when the delegation arrived, but he felt better now having a direction.

He ordered Segung to head for home.

Reeling in his line, Arroya asked, “What do you think? It can be done?”

It was feasible, Tanner knew, but as with most operations, the gap between feasibility and success was wide indeed. Everything can work flawlessly on paper, only to go to hell once you were on the ground.
Then again,
he thought,
there was something to be said for positive thinking.

“It can be done,” Tanner answered.

The first step was to get Segung hired. Trulau's yacht had to become unavailable.

As the afternoon began to wind down, Tanner sat on the dock beside Arroya's rowboat, dangling his feet in the water and brainstorming. By dusk he'd settled on a plan. He jotted down a list of what he heeded and gave it to Arroya, who looked it over. “I can have it within the hour.”

“Thanks. After you're done, pick up Segung and go out to dinner. Make sure you're noticed.”

“Why?”

“Alibi. Stay out until midnight, then meet me back here.”

Trulau's yacht was anchored a half mile south of the Sekunda Kalepa in the middle of the Ancol Marina. Tanner studied it through his binoculars until night had fully fallen and the marina's traffic tapered off. Light clouds had closed over Jakarta, partially obscuring the moon and dulling the reflection of the city's lights on the water.

He packed his materials into the watertight rucksack Arroya had purchased, donned the swim fins and mask, slipped into the water, and started stroking toward the marina.

When he was a hundred yards off the yacht's port side, he stopped. Under the glow of the amber deck lights he counted two guards, one stationed on the fantail, the second roving between the forecastle and afterdeck. He watched for another ten minutes until certain the rover wasn't varying his route or timing, then took a breath, ducked under, and stroked toward the bow.

The white keel slowly emerged from the gloom before him. He groped until his fingers found the anchor chain, then surfaced beneath the bow. He went still and listened.

A few seconds passed before he heard the click of footsteps on the deck above. The footsteps grew louder, then stopped. Feet shuffling. He smelled cigarette smoke. After a minute, the guard turned and walked off.

Moving fast now, he shed his mask and fins, hooked them to the anchor chain, then shimmied up the chain, chinned himself level with the deck, and crawled under the railing. The deck was empty. From the ruck he withdrew a towel, dried himself off and mopped up any telltale puddles from the deck.

He sprinted across the forecastle to the cabin, opened the sliding-glass door, and slipped inside.

He was in the main salon: Furnished with walnut captain's chairs, leather couches, and thick shag carpet, the space oozed luxury. Everything was dark and quiet except for the hiss of the air-conditioning. Briggs felt goose bumps on his skin.

Outside, a guard strolled past the cabin windows and disappeared onto the foredeck.

Tanner crossed the cabin and trotted down the aft companionway steps.

Ahead lay five doors, two on each side of the passageway and one at the end.
Engine spaces,
Tanner guessed. As he neared the door he could hear the hum of machinery. He eased it open. The hum was louder now. A set of metal stairs led downward. At the bottom he found a long catwalk bordered by a pair of diesel engines. Tucked into the corner beside the starboard engine he found what he'd come for: the main generator.

He knelt down, unzipped the rucksack, and withdrew a wax ball about the size of an apricot. Filled with a mixture of common household cleaners, the ball was not only the fruition of Arroya's shopping list, but also a crude “binary bomb” designed to detonate when the fuel in the generator's tank eroded the wax and reached the core.

While the explosion would not be enough to sink the yacht, it would certainly destroy the generator and perhaps the starboard engine as well. With no mechanical bomb components to be found in the wake of the explosion, the yacht's demise would hopefully be written off as an act of God.

Tanner dropped the ball into the tank, then retraced his steps into the main salon, where he waited until the guard had passed by and disappeared from view. Briggs opened the door, sprinted to the bow, lowered himself over the side and back into the water.

Arroya was sitting in his rowboat under the glow of a lantern when Tanner swam up. Startled, Arroya clicked on a flashlight and shined it in Tanner's face. “Oh, good lord, it's you.”

“Give me a hand.”

Arroya took his fins and mask then helped him aboard. “Everything went well?”

“So far. Now we find out how good my chemistry is. Where's Segung?”

“Out dancing. He met a woman. I doubt he'll be going home tonight.” Arroya opened a cooler at his feet. “I thought you might be hungry, so I brought you leftovers:
Capi cai udang.
”

“Pardon me?” Tanner said, accepting the carton.

“It's a mix of fried rice, vegetables, and shrimp. Very good. Cold beer, too.”

Tanner took a gulp of beer and sighed. “Thanks.”

They talked and ate until Tanner got drowsy. He settled back and drifted off to sleep.

Some time later they were jolted awake by what sounded like distant thunder echoing across the water. Tanner sat up and grabbed the binoculars and focused them on Trulau's yacht Smoke was pouring through a jagged tear in the starboard side.

“Good lord,” Arroya murmured. “Do you see the guards?”

“No, I—wait. There they are. They're okay.”

Arroya chuckled. “Goodness, Briggs, you put a hole in Trulau's boat.”

Tanner shrugged. “Too much pepper in the recipe.”

“Indeed. Now what?”

“Now we wait and pray Segung gets a job offer tomorrow.”