Power and Empire

38

Ryan and Midas sat in the Peugeot half a block up Libertad from the apartment building while Adara and Chavez met Lisanne to grab the little Clio she and the pilots had been driving. With Chen turning up with so many confederates, the team needed a fresh set of wheels.

When they returned with the Renault, Ryan and Midas went to check out the neoclassical French mansion that was now the Palacio Duhau — Park Hyatt hotel on Avenida Alvear. The hotel also happened to be located in the swank neighborhood of Recoleta — less than eight blocks from the Parrilla Aires Criollos restaurant, where Argentina’s minister of agriculture was hosting tonight’s dinner. Several U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and National Security Agency, kept tabs on traveling members of foreign governments via both open-source and intercepted signals intelligence — and Gavin Biery’s team at Hendley Associates kept tabs on the tabs-keepers. A quick check with the IT guru told the Campus operators the Chinese foreign minister had chosen the Hyatt for his stay in Buenos Aires.

The team was still unsure as to the purpose of Vincent Chen’s visit, other than being reasonably certain it had something to do with the Chinese foreign minister. And even that didn’t narrow things down very much. They knew someone had bombed a subway tunnel outside of Beijing. Eddie Feng obviously thought Chen was behind the attack. He was Taiwanese and he had a code name, so it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. They booted around the idea of sending up a warning through the State Department to contact the Chinese delegation regarding a possible threat to the foreign minister — but decided against it for a number of reasons.

First, the halls of the government in the People’s Republic of China were even more byzantine than those of the United States. Given the fact that President Ryan had dropped a bomb on a Chinese office building that housed a group of hackers destroying American defense computers, trust between the two nations was less than nil. PRC bureaucrats would see treachery in any U.S. action. They would hold the information while its credibility was verified, ensuring that this was not some ploy to make them lose face — or worse. Any pertinent intelligence regarding a plot against the foreign minister would take days to climb to the top of an actual decision maker’s desk and then trickle back down to his security detail — who now formed a phalanx of armed men in dark suits around Foreign Minister Li, half a block from the spot where Jack Ryan, Jr., stood on the sidewalk.

Beyond the simple believability of the information, the team also ran the risk that someone from the foreign minister’s delegation was an ROC spy and Chen, being Taiwanese, was his handler, there to collect information.

Ryan stood out of sight of the Hyatt on Rodríguez Peña street, around the corner from the concrete-and-red-brick building that housed the Argentine Ministry of Culture. Midas was farther east down Avenida Alvear, window-shopping at a small art gallery across from the hotel. His vantage point gave him an eye on the Hyatt’s porte cochère and a direct line of sight to the arriving detail.

Ryan spoke into the mic on his neck loop. “See anyone we should recognize?”

“Negative,” Midas said.

Chavez and Adara were too far across town to be in contact via the radio intercom, but Chavez had just confirmed by cell phone that there had been no sign of movement from Chen or his people. Both the HiLux and the Chevy were still parked at the apartments in Acassuso.

Ryan and Midas settled into what seemed would be a couple hours of lurking, without looking like lurkers.

The Palacio Duhau — Park Hyatt was located in an architecturally rich area of Buenos Aires that reminded Jack of Paris. But as nice as the area was, the Ministry of Culture, in front of which he now stood, was covered in graffiti. Ryan couldn’t understand the Spanish, but he could tell from the sheer volume that the writing didn’t tout confidence and trust in the Argentine government. Even the street around the building was covered in graffiti — though this was made with a stencil and more precise than the spray-painted scrawl on the building’s walls. Ryan scuffed at the white paint with the toe of his Rockport.

“You speak Spanish, right?” he asked over the radio.

“A fair amount,” Midas said, knowing the question was meant for him, since the others were too far away.

“What does ‘Esto huele mal’ mean?”

Midas chuckled. “Where’d you see that?”

“Painted all over the street in front of the culture ministry.”

“Escrache,” Midas said. “I read about that. Argentines are big on shaming elected officials that they feel have done wrong — graffiti, signage, even screaming at them on airplanes or in public places with megaphones.”

Ryan laughed. “My dad gets a lot of that.”

“I voted for him,” Midas said. “Anyway, ‘Esto huele mal’ means ‘This smells bad’ or ‘This stinks.’ Not sure what—”

Ryan cut him off. “Hold on,” he said. The urgency in his voice caused Midas to fall silent.

Walking up Avenida Alvear, past the Hyatt and almost even with Ryan, was a tall brunette. He turned quickly, looking away before she had a chance to see his face. Jack had seen this woman the evening before, at the restaurant with Adara. It dawned on him that the blonde who met Chen had been with this one. Ryan hadn’t been able to see more than her profile from his vantage point, but the brunette had been facing him. The two women had definitely been together. He saw no headphones or Bluetooth earpiece, but the brunette spoke to someone as she walked, perhaps, Ryan thought, utilizing the same sort of hidden microphone and neck loop he wore.

He started to follow but caught sight of an Asian woman from the corner of his eye. She was about the same age as the brunette, early thirties, with high cheekbones framed by shoulder-length hair. She stepped out of a side door of a building connected to the Hyatt, waited a beat while the brunette walked past, and then fell in behind her. She was dressed nicely in snug jeans and a loose designer T-shirt, but she bore angry pink scratches from jaw to forehead, as if she’d slid into home plate on her face. Ryan couldn’t tell if her dark eyes were beautiful or terrifying, but he decided he would find out soon enough.

He gave Midas a quick brief over the radio.

“Good catch,” Midas said. “I don’t know about the Asian, but the brunette has to be in comms with Chen. She’s probably letting him know the foreign minister had arrived.”

“That’s my guess.” Ryan looked over his shoulder at traffic before crossing the street after the Asian, who seemed to be locked on to the brunette. “I’m going to stick with them and see where they go.”

“Stay in range for comms,” Midas said. “I’ll reach out to Ding and bring him up to speed.”

The Asian woman took a right at the first block while the brunette went straight. Ryan knew it was stupid, but he was more than a little disappointed. Maybe she wasn’t involved at all. The leggy brunette continued walking against traffic on Alvear for several blocks, past the popping flags of the Palace Hotel and two sets of arbolitos, touting their money exchange outside high-end shops selling Montblanc and Rolex. Any preconceived notions Jack had on this surveillance were quickly dashed. The Asian woman was nowhere in sight, and now the brunette wasn’t going to her car as he’d first assumed. She turned right, as if to head back to the Retiro train station. A block later she turned left again.

“Northwest on Libertador,” Jack said, as much to make sure he still had a clear signal with Midas as to update him on the location.

“Copy that,” Midas said.

“This is weird,” Jack said, “Asian girl has broken off. Doesn’t look to be a factor. I can’t tell if this one is doing a really basic SDR or just zigzagging her way to wherever she’s going. So far she hasn’t even checked behind her.”

“Watch your ass,” Midas said. “Maybe she’s not alone. Your Asian woman could turn up again soon and stick a knife in your fourth point of contact.”

“That’s a nice thought,” Ryan said, watching the woman trot across Avenida del Libertador. Risking one’s life against ten lanes of aggressive Argentine drivers made for the perfect method to shed a tail.

Ryan tried to keep the woman in his peripheral vision as he continued up the street toward the crosswalk, willing himself to remain at a normal pace. The signal turned green just as the brunette disappeared into the trees.

No one would think twice about someone running to beat the crossing signal on such a wide street, so Ryan made up some time sprinting toward the park. He slowed when he reached the grass, staying parallel to what the brunette’s route would be if she went straight after entering the trees.

The park was a fairly narrow one, and a railway yard with numerous tracks, switches, and uncoupled train cars lay directly on the other side, spilling out of Retiro Station to the south. This yard formed a natural line of demarcation between the upscale Recoleta neighborhood and the shantytown of broken brick dwellings in a warren of narrow streets known as Villa 31—one of many such slums in Buenos Aires collectively, and appropriately, called villas miseria. Nearly fifteen city blocks long and more than five blocks wide at is widest point, the Villa — Argentines pronounced it “vizha”—was a gray swath of nothingness next to the tracks on most maps. Tourists might think it was just part of the train yard. Close enough that its residents could smell meat cooking from Recoleta restaurants if the wind was right, Villa 31 was home to many of the hardest-working people in Buenos Aires — as well as some of the city’s most violent criminals.

Maids and service workers who lacked the proper references to rent an apartment in the city often paid half as much to rent a room with a communal bath and pirated electricity in a crumbling departamento from one of the neighborhood bosses who ran everything from rent collection to dispute enforcement inside the Villa. Villa 31 was a city within a city, but few people admitted to living there. Police braved the streets only in well-armed squads, and then only during daylight hours. If someone needed an ambulance at night, as Ding Chavez put it, “forget about it.”

Ryan caught sight of the brunette a moment later, a hundred feet away and walking in his direction. He sat down on a bench across from a weathered older man who was throwing pistachios to a chattering flock of bright green parrots about the size of small pigeons. Ryan put his back to a gum tree but used the man’s eyes and expressions to help guard his six o’clock. It wasn’t an optimum setup, but human beings usually reacted in some way to danger, and Jack couldn’t very well keep looking over his shoulder all the time. The birds and the man ignored him.

The brunette worked her way through the waist-high grass and weeds along the railyard fence until she found what she was looking for, a gap in the chain-link. Jack imagined the same makeshift gate was used by commuters from Villa 31 each morning and evening to and from their jobs so they didn’t have to walk all the way to the other side of Retiro Station to get over the tracks. If the brunette had seen Ryan, she showed no sign of it. Instead, she turned sideways to slip through the gap, and then, checking both ways for oncoming trains, trotted across multiple sets of railroad tracks. Ryan couldn’t help but think she looked like pictures he’d seen of East German refugees fleeing the no-man’s-land to get over the Wall. Reaching the far side, she ducked through a second gap in the railway fence to enter the slums.

If it was difficult to follow her through the park, it would be impossible for Jack to follow her into the shantytown. Aside from the prospect that she might see him, venturing into Villa 31 without knowing someone on the inside was a good way to get yourself dead in a hurry.

Ryan gave a nod to the man feeding the parrots and headed back toward Midas. He bought a choripán—chorizo sausage on a bun — from a guy in the park, because he didn’t know when he’d get to eat again. He’d give Midas a break when he got there.

“Lost her,” he said, eating as he walked. “I’ll explain when I…”

“Say again,” Midas said. “You cut out.”

Ryan lowered his voice and dropped the barely eaten choripán into a trash can along the path. “It’s her,” he said. “The Asian woman. Looks like she’s picking the lock on some kind of tool shed or utility building in the park.”

“Copy,” Midas said.

Ryan swung wide, keeping to the trees and keeping the small stone building in view. He came around in time to catch a glimpse of the Asian woman’s back as she pulled the door shut behind her. The building was maybe eight by eight and had no windows. It didn’t look like she’d been running from anyone. Jack scratched his beard, thinking through his options. One of them, probably the smartest one, was to walk away. He’d been never been very good at that.

He listened outside the building for a half a minute. Nothing. The lock fell quickly to his granddad knife. There was nobody inside, though there was only one door, so the Asian woman had to have gone somewhere. Ryan took a small flashlight from his pocket and played it around the small space. There was a lingering smell that he couldn’t put his finger on — but it wasn’t good. The building looked to be storage for the lawn maintenance department, with a couple Weed Eaters and assorted rakes and shovels. A row of plastic trash cans lined a platform along the back wall. One lay on its side, presumably tipped over by the woman. Ryan entertained the idea that she could be hiding in one of the cans. But that was stupid. To what end? She hadn’t even known he was following her. He peeked over the edge of each one anyway, at once relieved and disappointed to find them empty. The platform was about six inches high and made of weathered wood timbers. It was old, probably older than the building, making Ryan wonder if the place had been used as something other than storage in the past. Closer inspection revealed grass clippings sticking from under the edge of the wood, and, when Jack gave it a shove, it moved.

He pulled the overturned trash can out of the way, revealing four freshly disturbed timbers that formed a three-foot square.

“I’ll be damned…” he muttered, pushing what was essentially a trapdoor out to one side. “She’s gone underground.”

“Underground?” Midas said. “Speak to me, brother. What’s going on?”

“I’m going after her,” Ryan said. “Don’t be pissed, but I’m pretty sure we’re about to lose comms.” He coughed at the rank wind that hit him in the face when he moved the boards.

“Es huelte something something?” he said.

Midas came across the net, confused. “What?”

“That phrase from the graffiti I asked you about earlier,” Ryan said. “It means ‘This stinks,’ right?”

“Huele,” Midas corrected. “Esto huele mal.”

Ryan peered down into the blackness below, pausing for a moment in hopes of picking up any sound of the Asian woman. He heard nothing but the moan of the sickening breeze as it blew upward out of the inky hole.

“It sure as hell does,” he muttered, half to himself.