Eye for an Eye (22 page)

Of course, Dewey trusted Borchardt about as far as he could throw him. Borchardt was unscrupulous, amoral, and self-interested. Yet the moment the true identity of the Chinese sniper had appeared on the plasma screen back in Middleburg, Dewey knew he needed Borchardt’s knowledge and connections to Beijing. He needed information on the man behind Jessica’s death, Fao Bhang. And, he needed to start planning his infiltration of China and, ultimately, Fao Bhang’s world.

Dewey knew full well that Borchardt might betray him to the Chinese. As a matter of fact, he was counting on it.

Dewey climbed the wide marble steps up to the mansion’s entrance. A few people stared at him but said nothing. Violins could be heard from somewhere inside the mansion, along with the sounds of laughter and conversation. He saw Borchardt, dressed in coat and tails, greeting guests as they came in. They made eye contact. Borchardt finished speaking with a young blond woman in a black dress, excused himself, and made a beeline for Dewey.

“I see you got the invitation,” said Borchardt, smiling as he shook Dewey’s hand.

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Rolf,” said Dewey.

“Did you rent that tux,” asked Borchardt, pointing at Dewey’s orange T-shirt, “or do you own it?”

“Rented it,” said Dewey. “I need to have it back by midnight.”

Borchardt grinned.

“Let’s get a drink,” he said.

Dewey followed Borchardt into a room off the entrance foyer. Borchardt shut the door. It was a large library with vaulted ceilings of dark wood, a huge crystal chandelier, fireplace, walls lined with books, several big couches, a bar in the corner. Borchardt poured two drinks.

“Whiskey, as I recall?”

“Yes, thanks. What’s the party for?”

“Some board I’m on.”

“Do you need to get back to it?”

“They don’t come to see me,” said Borchardt. “They come to eat my food, drink my wine, and see my house. Frankly, I know very few of them, and those I do know don’t like me.”

“Then why are you on the board?”

“I get to look legitimate because I’m on the board of some museum, and they get my money. It’s like an arms deal.”

Borchardt finished pouring and turned back to Dewey.

“What happened to your hand?”

Dewey didn’t answer. Borchardt handed him a glass and clinked his against it. Dewey downed it in one gulp.

“You can tell me later, I guess,” said Borchardt. “What do you need?”

“It’s complicated,” said Dewey.

“Let’s start with a country.”

“China.”

Borchardt tipped his glass back and took a large sip.

“Is this about Jessica Tanzer?”

Dewey stared at him. He was silent for a few moments.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“She was my fiancée. They sent a kill team to Argentina. They were after me, but they shot her.”

Borchardt nodded.

“I’m sorry, Dewey.”

Dewey was silent.

Borchardt drained the rest of his glass.

“So you want vengeance?” asked Borchardt.

“Yes.”

“Against who?”

“Two days ago, I would have wiped out the entire country if I could’ve. But I don’t want that. I want to kill the ones who were responsible for her death. Fao Bhang. Anyone close to him. If I could make it hurt, that would be an added bonus.”

“A well-planned infiltration into the PRC could take months. There’s getting in. There’s the design of the operation itself. There’s getting back safely. In addition, there’s the simple challenge of accessing Bhang. He’s going to be extremely well guarded. Look, they were after you. They sent a wet crew to Argentina? That means if you set foot in PRC and they capture you, you’re toast. They’ll simply kill you.”

“Yeah,” said Dewey. “I’ve thought about it. I’m not looking for a nice, clean round-trip ticket here.”

“I need to tell you something,” said Borchardt. “I have very deep ties to the PRC. I helped them modernize their military infrastructure, probably more than anyone. I’ve dined with Premier Li on at least half a dozen occasions. The Chinese ambassador to Britain is here tonight with his wife.”

“I’m putting you in a difficult position,” said Dewey. “I don’t know where else to turn.”

Dewey walked to the bar and poured himself another glass of Jack Daniel’s and another scotch for Borchardt. He walked to one of the sofas and sat down.

“That’s not what I meant,” said Borchardt. “I’m used to being in difficult positions. I’ll help you. But I don’t want to be exposed. That means you can’t tell anyone, not Calibrisi, no one. I cannot afford to get in the crosshairs of Fao Bhang.”

“Not a problem,” said Dewey. “I don’t want anything elaborate. But it needs to happen soon. It needs to be loud and obnoxious. A big fuck you.”

“I have to tell you, Bhang is a dangerous man,” said Borchardt. “So is Ming-húa, his deputy, who runs the kill squads. A couple of evil bastards. China is one large booby trap. You never know who you can trust. The old man working at the shoe factory is just as likely to be an informant as the cashier at the hotel or the anchorman on the evening news. Your little foray into Iran was a cakewalk compared to this. They could very well already know you’re here. The ministry’s use of technology would blow your mind. They are far more aggressive than Langley or NSA.”

“I take it you don’t want to come with me?”

“The problem is,” said Borchardt, ignoring Dewey, “even if you had a very clean set of documents, with an INTERPOL back pull—a so-called ‘clean insertion’—the problem is, PRC has altered the entire architecture of its entrance protocols.”

“I’m only fluent in English and Spanish, Rolf,” said Dewey, taking a sip of whiskey.

“Your photograph, in other words, now exists in a highly sophisticated database inside China that is fed, in real time, by border security. Photos are ported from all border crossings, whether it’s the airport or the one-room train depot in Erenhot.”

“Erenhot?”

“The only border crossing between Mongolia and China. It’s a facial-recognition appliance that cost PRC more than two billion dollars and six years to design and implement. It’s causing plenty of headaches for people trying to get into PRC with false papers. Bhang’s brother, Bo Minh, designed it.”

“He has a brother?”

“Yes. Bo Minh. A genius. He’s the one who designed the new border security system. It’s extremely sophisticated. Every visitor to PRC, whether it’s by plane, boat, train, or vehicle, by foot, or by bicycle, is going to have their photo snapped and scanned against a massive database. If you attempt to enter China with a fake ID, it might work, but if it doesn’t—you tell me—what do you think Fao Bhang will do? I can tell you what he won’t do: he won’t let you ever see the light of day again.”

“How do you know they have my photograph? Don’t tell me you sold it to them too?”

Borchardt grinned. “Were you in the U.S. military?”

“Yes, you know that.”

“Then they have your photograph.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not kidding. The Chinese are serious. They’re not fucking around. America has spent hundreds of billions, trillions even, to try and wipe out radical jihad, while the Chinese pose a capability, and thus a threat, that is several quanta more dangerous than terrorism and radical Islam.”

“What do they want?”

“I have no idea. No one does. I’m not sure even they do.”

“So why do you deal with them?”

“They have lots of money. They like weapons. They love information. And most important, they wire their money seven days after I send the bill.”

Dewey sat back on the deep leather sofa.

“I’ll have Karina put you in one of the suites,” said Borchardt. “In the meantime, don’t venture out into the party. If Bhang is after you, I can guarantee that every embassy official in the world has already memorized your photo. Also, no phone calls; I know what Bhang and his minions are capable of. The lines were swept before the party, but for all I know, one of the caterers works for him and already stuck a bug on the switch.”

Dewey nodded.

“Pour a whiskey. Pick out a book. Karina will set you up. You look like you could use a good night’s sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

43

PRIVATE RESIDENCE
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, D.C.

King stepped off the elevator into the private residence of the president.

Amy Dellenbaugh greeted him.

“Hello, Mrs. Dellenbaugh.”

“For the hundredth time, call me Amy. Come in; he’s in the kitchen.”

She led King through the luxurious, intimate living quarters of the first family, to the kitchen, where J.P. Dellenbaugh was standing at the counter, sleeves rolled up, making a sandwich.

“You hungry?” asked Dellenbaugh. “I made you a sandwich. I hope you like roast beef.”

“Thank you. I do like roast beef.”

King walked to the counter, where a sandwich was piled on a plate.

“You really made that?” asked King. “There are people who are paid to do that for you, Mr. President.”

“I like doing it myself. If the Secret Service would let me, I’d mow the lawn too.”

Dellenbaugh picked up the two plates and carried them to a long table in the center of the kitchen, where they sat down. King picked up the sandwich and took a bite.

“Not bad, sir.”

“Not bad?” asked Dellenbaugh, grinning. “How about, ‘Great sandwich, Mr. President’?”

“It’s a little heavy on the mustard, sir.”

“You can’t have too much mustard,” said Dellenbaugh, taking a large bite of his sandwich. “What do we got?”

“It was China.”

“You’re sure?”

“The evidence is indisputable. We found the body of one of the men sent to Argentina. He was a high-ranking agent in the Ministry of State Security. Hector believes they were after Dewey.”

Dellenbaugh took another bite, then chewed in silence as he thought. His face went from calm to disgusted, followed by irate.

“Motherfuckers,” the president said, finally. He put the sandwich down.

“I believe, Hector and Tim believe, we need to confront them. Fao Bhang and whoever else was involved in this need to be held accountable.”

“I’ll call Li,” said Dellenbaugh, standing up.

“Not yet, sir. Tim is going to call him. Let’s see what their response is. Let’s keep some dry powder, in case we need it later.”

44

UPPER PHILLIMORE GARDENS
KENSINGTON
LONDON

Borchardt walked with his eyes on the ground, through the party, ignoring those guests who called to him. In the central ballroom, beneath a Rembrandt painting of a young girl in a meadow, he saw S
ū
n M
ă
, the Chinese ambassador to England, speaking with a woman. Borchardt walked close enough to M
ă
to make eye contact. When the smiling M
ă
looked up from his conversation, Borchardt nodded to him.

M
ă
followed Borchardt into a hallway off the kitchen, then down the stairs into the basement. M
ă
trailed in silence. Both men walked quickly. At the end of the hallway, a large guard in an ill-fitting suit stood. In his hands, aimed at the ground, was a close-quarters combat machine gun.

Borchardt and M
ă
passed the guard in silence and entered a windowless, brightly lit room. Inside, two men were seated, monitoring a wall of plasma screens, all displaying different views of the mansion, both inside and out.

“Go to the Equinox Suite,” said Borchardt.

One of the men punched a few keys. The screen cut to a large, empty bedroom suite.

“Would you mind telling me why we’re in your basement, Rolf?” asked the ambassador.

Borchardt turned to M
ă
.

“You’ll see,” said Borchardt. “Make it fast and don’t make a mess. I don’t want to know what you’re going to do, or how you’re going to do it. I want no part of it.”

“Of what?” asked M
ă
.

There was movement on the video screen. A woman walked through the door, followed by a large man in an orange T-shirt, carrying a duffel bag.

M
ă
moved closer to the screen to get a better look. His smile slowly dissipated and shock overtook his face. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

“Get me Minister Bhang,” barked M
ă
, in Mandarin. “Now!”

45

CIA HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY

Calibrisi was asleep in his chair when loud knocking on his glass door woke him up. It was two in the afternoon. After staying up all night and working through the morning, Calibrisi had finally succumbed to exhaustion a few hours before.

“We found Dewey.”

It was Bill Polk, deputy head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service and director of Special Operations Group, the CIA’s paramilitary outfit. It hadn’t taken long for Polk’s team to figure out where Dewey went.

They started with a fast scan of the three airports within reach of Middleburg by car: Dulles International, Reagan National, and Baltimore/Washington International. They also dispatched three on-the-ground teams to look for Tacoma’s BMW M5, which happened to be, in typical Tacoma flamboyance, orange.

At first, the team thought they’d gotten lucky early. There weren’t a ton of flights to look at in the immediate hours after Dewey left the farm, but a 2:00
A.M.
Dulles-to-Frankfurt flight popped up Dewey’s name on the Lufthansa manifest. The CIA team, however, couldn’t find Tacoma’s M5 at Dulles, though that could have been easily explained away. Perhaps he’d parked it at a local motel, then taken a taxicab. A back-scan of the manifest against customs data, however, showed that Dewey had bought the ticket, gotten his boarding pass, but hadn’t been aboard the plane when it took off. Then, sometime in the wee hours of the night, Tacoma’s M5 was found at Reagan National, parked in the employee lot. Dewey had flown the Delta shuttle to JFK. At 7:00
A.M.
, he’d been in seat 4A of a British Airways flight to Heathrow.

“What time did he land?” asked Calibrisi, sitting up.

“An hour ago.”

Calibrisi looked at his watch.

“Get a plane ready for takeoff,” said Calibrisi. “I want to be airborne in exactly thirty minutes.”