The Ghost War

18

THE STEWPOT BUBBLED AND BURPED ABOVE A LOW FIRE, filling the hut with the rich aroma of chicken and carrots and potatoes melting together. Jordan reached for the pot, but his mother swiped his arm away. No, she said. First your father eats. She sat above him on a wooden throne, reaching an impossibly long arm down to stir the pot. Saliva filled Jordan’s mouth and the hole in his stomach swelled to the size of a basketball. He looked around but didn’t see his father.

A scoop, its thin aluminum handle twisted from years of use, lay by the pot. Jordan grabbed it. Wait, his mother said. He’s come back. He’s right behind you. Jordan turned and saw his father, a blush of purple tumors crawling across his face. The old man reached out with a skeletal hand. And though he knew he shouldn‘t, Jordan wanted to keep this wrecked, dying man from dirtying the stew. He blocked his father from the pot and reached in with the scoop. But the pot was empty, aside from a tiny chicken wing. As Jordan watched, the wing fluttered out of the pot, a final insult.

“No,” he said aloud.

Jordan opened his eyes and looked around. The stew — along with his poor dead parents — vanished as he woke. Nothing had changed. On the concrete highway above him, trucks rumbled. The morning air was hot and humid. Song and Yu slept under a thin woolen blanket, Yu clutching an empty bottle of Red Star.

The stew was gone, but Jordan’s hunger stayed with him as he pushed himself to his feet. Nothing metaphorical about this feeling. Jordan didn’t want love or hugs or a pony. He wanted food. All day, every day, his stomach ached.

In the mornings, if he managed to earn a half-loaf of stale bread and a cup of tea sweeping the sidewalk for a friendly storekeeper, his cravings faded to a low growl, background noise. But in the afternoons, the emptiness in his belly overwhelmed him. He drank water then, ate vegetables that were more brown than green, anything to fill his stomach. The cigarettes helped too, though he knew he couldn’t afford them. A pack of cigarettes cost as much as a bag of potatoes.

Worst of all were the hours before bed. Then his belly ached so badly that he wanted to cry, though he never did. To keep him smiling, Song and Yu told tales about girls they’d known, peasant girls who sneaked off in the dark to lie with them.

“Once this missus and I, you know, we were ready to—” Song leered, his mouth opening in a gap-toothed smile. “I pulled up her dress and put her on the ground and she yelped.” Song moaned, a passable imitation of a teenage girl. “Turned out her bum had ended up in a chunk of horse dung. I would have gone ahead straightaway — she was none too clean even before that — but she made me take her home. Silly girl. We could have had a bit of pleasure, and that’s too rare in this world.”

Song and Yu howled with laughter and even Jordan found himself smiling. He didn’t know if the stories were true, and he didn’t care. The words distracted him. Song and Yu gave him food too, when they had any. If not for them he didn’t know what he would have done. Yet he wasn’t even sure why they liked him. Maybe because neither had a son, or even a daughter, and they saw him as a substitute.

Each morning, Jordan fought through his daily routine of a hundred sit-ups and push-ups. Even with his belly empty, he never skipped his workout — and it never failed to amuse Song and Yu. “Arnud Schwarz enga,” they called him. More seriously, they told him to conserve his strength, that the exercises wasted energy he couldn’t spare.

He knew they were right, but he refused to quit. He had once heard his hero Michael Jordan say that he worked out even if he could hardly move. “Every day,” Michael had said, with that famous grin. So Jordan stuck to his exercises. Despite his troubles, he had somehow managed to stay optimistic. He never stopped to think about why. Unlike most sixteen-year-olds in America or Europe, he had seen enough death to know that just being alive was a privilege, one everyone lost eventually. While he had it, he would do his best to honor his father and mother.

“Ninety-nine… a hundred.” Jordan finished his last push-up and stood.

“Arnud… Arnud…” Song smirked. “One day you have big muscles too, Jiang.” They didn’t call him Jordan. He’d kept that name to himself, for himself.

“Come on, Master Song,” Jordan said. “Let’s go.”

Song dragged himself up and pulled the blanket off Yu. “Up, fatty. No work means no Red Star tonight.”

Yu grumbled and tossed the blanket aside. He was filthy, his sweatshirt stained and his pants frayed. Jordan tried not to imagine what his mother would think of the way he lived. Poor as they’d been, she’d always kept their home clean. She swept every day and made him wash himself every morning, even in the winter when the cold water stung him and made his privates shrivel so he could hardly see them. Jordan brushed the dirt off his clothes as best he could. If he found work today, he would buy soap, even a little bottle of shampoo. He couldn’t believe he wanted anything more than food, but he did. He wanted to be clean.

In the meantime he pulled his lucky Bulls hat over his greasy black hair and away they went. Song had heard of a new job site, an apartment building being demolished downtown, with plenty of work.

THE SUN WAS JUST VISIBLE when they reached the entrance to the Guangzhou subway. With no money for the fare, they skipped over the electronic turnstiles instead of buying a ticket. In theory the cops could arrest them, but in reality they’d just be shoved off the train at the next stop if they were caught; the police didn’t want anything to do with them.

Fifteen minutes later they reached their stop. Jordan felt himself sag as he walked up the steps to the street. The world went gray and he stumbled backward. Song wrapped an arm around him and gently set him down.

“Jiang?”

“I just need a cigarette.”

“A roast pig too, by the looks of it,” Yu said. He dug into his pocket for a coin. “Come on, Song, let’s get the boy some bread at least.”

They found a vendor and bought Jordan a small ripe orange. He wanted to force the whole sphere into his mouth at once. Instead he peeled it slowly, offering slices to Song and Yu. Though he knew he ought to share — they’d bought it for him, after all — he felt a pang with each piece he gave up. The vendor watched him eat and when he was finished handed him another orange and a pear too. He waved aside Song’s fumbling effort to pay. Usually Jordan didn’t like taking charity, but today he didn’t mind. The fruit filled his belly and gave him a jolt of energy.

“Feeling better?”

Jordan nodded.

“Now let’s win this job.” They cut through a narrow pedestrian mall hemmed in on both sides by concrete apartment buildings. Some stores were already open. Inside a butcher shop, men in dirty aprons shooed flies away from slabs of meat strung from ceiling hooks. Next door, in a store filled with glass jars that brimmed with crumbly green tea, two old men haggled over a plastic bag of leaves. Farther down, the aroma of honey-filled dumplings wafted from a pastry store. Jordan forced himself to look away from the pastries before he spent the last of his money, the emergency money in his Bulls hat.

Two blocks down, they turned left onto a crowded avenue. Song looked at the signs. “This way,” he said. A dozen or so equally dirty men were walking in the same direction. They made a right, and after a short block, turned onto a street blocked by police sawhorses.

“Dammit,” Song said. Scores of men, a hundred or more in all, milled around. So much for finding easy work.

“You woke me for this?” Yu spat onto the pavement. On their right, the steel skeleton of a half-finished sky-scraper rose, the construction site blocked by barbed wire, its gates locked. The other side of the street held the apartment building slated for demolition. Two giant cranes stood beside it, wrecking balls poised to tuck into the eight-story brick building like hungry men slicing up a steak.

But the building wasn’t empty, Jordan saw. On the fifth floor an old woman leaned out, shouting to the street. “Don’t do the capitalist roader’s work! We poor people must stay together!”

Yu laughed. “Capitalist roader? That old missus probably thinks Mao’s still alive. Didn’t anyone tell her we’re all on our own these days?”

“See, Jiang?” Song asked. “They want us to clean everyone out so the cranes can knock down the building. It’s dirty work, but we’ll eat tonight.”

“Dirty work,” Yu said. “Yes, it is.”

A Mercedes sedan and two police cars rolled past the sawhorses and onto the street, forcing the men to make way. A stocky young man in a black T-shirt and slacks stepped out of the Mercedes and raised a bullhorn.

“Ten yuan”—hardly more than a dollar—“for every man who rids the building of these squatters,” he yelled.

“Ten yuan?” Song said. “He must think we’re desperate.”

“He’s right,” Yu said.

“You snake!” the old woman yelled down. “We’re not squatters. I’ve lived here longer than you’ve been alive.”

“And now it’s time for you to go.”

The woman disappeared. When she came back, she held a metal pot.

“Swine!” she yelled. She lobbed the pot at the Mercedes. The men scattered as the pot shattered the sedan’s windshield.

“Crazy old bitch!” the man yelled. Another pot flew out of the window and smacked the hood of the Mercedes, denting the shiny black metal. Two police officers stepped out of their cars and ran into the building.

A low rumble passed through the crowd. “Dirty work,” a couple of men said. “Dirty work.” More faces appeared in the building’s windows. “You can’t throw us out,” voices shouted. Sirens screeched, at first distantly, but growing louder.

“Twenty yuan!” the man in the black T-shirt yelled. “I’ll pay twenty!”

“It’s blood money,” Song said. Jordan felt light-headed at his words. Blood money. His father had died for blood money. “Don’t be afraid,” his father’s spirit said to him, not in his head but for real on the street. He looked around, but the spirit was gone.

“Are you all right?” Song said to him.

“Fine, Master Song.”

“You should leave. You don’t need to be involved in this.”

“Not unless you come too.”

“Then let’s all stay and see what happens. We’ve been pushed around too long.” Song’s eyes were hard and shiny as pebbles. “Dirty work!” he yelled at the Mercedes.

“It’s honest work,” the man yelled back. “If you don’t like it, starve.”

FOR A FEW MINUTES, not much happened. The man in the black T-shirt raised his offer to thirty yuan, and a couple of the laborers stepped toward the building. But the other men on the street blocked them from going inside and they gave up. Then three more police cars appeared, sirens screaming. A dozen cops stepped out, tapping nightsticks against their thighs. A paddy wagon blocked off the street from the other direction. More migrants had shown up, and the street was thick with men now, milling around the police cars.

From the fifth floor the old woman yelled, “Leave me! Leave me!” as a policeman dragged her from the window.

“Leave her!” a laborer yelled.

Holding bricks and rebar rods, trash from the construction site, the migrants surged toward the police. A police officer grabbed the bullhorn from the man in the black T-shirt.

“Get out now or we’ll arrest all of you roaches.”

Song stepped forward. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Not another word from you.” The officer raised his truncheon.

“Let him alone,” Jordan said.

The officer smirked. “And who are you? Skinny little migrant.” The cop shoved Jordan and grabbed his Bulls cap. AllI have,Jordan thought. The hat was everything, his money, his luck, his connection to his father—

“Officer—” Song put a hand on the cop’s shoulder. Without a word, the cop swung his nightstick, catching Song in the ribs. As Song doubled over, the cop brought the stick down on Song’s skull. Song’s eyes rolled up and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

“Murderer!” an old man shouted from the apartment building. “You killed him!” A clay pot flew out of the building and smashed on the roof of a police car.

“Murderers! Murderers!” The chant rumbled through the crowd, wavering like a fire trying to catch. For five seconds, then ten, the police and the migrants stared at each other, no one quite ready for more violence.

“Order!” the officer with the bullhorn said, and the crowd took a half-step back. “Go on now.” On the ground, Song groaned.

Jordan reached down and at his feet, as if his father had put it there, he found a beer bottle, a big one, broken in half, its glass edges sharp as a steak knife. In one motion, he picked it up and stepped forward and swung at the cop’s neck.

Even before the blood began to spurt, the cops were on Jordan. He fought as hard as he could, though after the first dozen blows he stopped caring. Yu stepped up and the police jumped him too. “Murderers!” the laborers shouted. “Murderers!”

And then nothing could stop the riot.

SWINGING CROWBARS AND BRICKS, the migrants overwhelmed the police and smashed stores and cars across Guangzhou’s city center. Someone — the police never discovered who — set fire to the apartment building that had been the flash point for the riot. With firefighters unable to get to the building, twenty-four people inside died.

By mid- afternoon, the fighting had spread to the giant factories on the outskirts of Guangzhou, where migrants worked for wages that barely covered their meals and rent. More riots broke out in Shenzen, a city of 8 million between Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and Shaoguan, to the north. In all, 142 rioters, 139 civilians, and twenty-three police officers died during two days of fighting, which ended only after the People’s Liberation Army rolled through Guangdong to enforce a province-wide curfew.

The government tried to impose a news blackout on Guangdong, arresting reporters who wrote about the riot. But word spread quickly, carried by cell-phone cameras and Internet postings that popped up as quickly as the censors could pull them down. Beijing downplayed the violence, but the videos were ugly: factories burning, police firing tear gas and rubber bullets, tanks rumbling through Guangzhou’s crowded streets.

As news of the violence spread, China’s other metropolises saw scattered riots. The police in Shanghai arrested 125 people. In Beijing, the party declared a nighttime curfew and closed Tiananmen Square for a week. China hadn’t seen such widespread unrest since the Tiananmen shootings in 1989.

Jordan never knew what he and Song and Yu had begun. He died the first day, his body battered beyond recognition by nightstick blows, not that he had anyone to claim him anyway. He was cremated in the city morgue, and the wind carried his ashes to the ocean.

AS THE RIOTS ENTERED their second day, the Standing Committee called an emergency meeting in Beijing. Li expected that the liberals on the committee would at least be willing to discuss whether their economic policies had fueled the violence. He was wrong.

“These troublemakers, can the Army deal with them?” Zhang asked him.

“Of course the PLA can overcome the rioters,” Li said. “But shouldn’t we consider the reasons for the violence? The economic slowdown?”

“The slowdown is over, Minister Li. Our economy is growing again.” Indeed, Zhang had just presented new statistics that seemed to say that the economy had finally begun to turn. Li didn’t know what to make of the numbers. If the economy was getting better, why was Guangzhou burning?

“Don’t the protests concern you?”

“There are always troublemakers. That’s why we have your men. As long as you do your job, I haven’t any concerns.” Zhang shuffled through his papers. “Do you remember when the Americans had their riots? In California?”

“Of course, Minister.”

“Then you remember that the Americans didn’t change their policies after those criminals tried to burn down Los Angeles. They sent in their army, and in a few weeks everyone had forgotten.”

Whatever doubts Li had about his plan disappeared that day. Zhang and the liberals would never see reason. He needed to take control, and soon, whatever the risks.

Fortunately, his next step was already in place.

19

ON THE BIG FLAT-PANEL TELEVISION, the man rubbed his short black hair. His face showed no emotion but his hands betrayed his nervousness, moving constantly, drumming aimless patterns on the table in front of him. A cigarette smoldered in an ashtray before him. He picked it up and dragged deeply, then looked up as an unseen door opened.

“I’m sorry for the delay. We’re ready to begin if you are.”

“I’m ready.”

“The questions may seem obvious, but please answer all of them.”

“Of course.”

“Let’s begin with your name.” The woman asking the questions had a smooth English accent, a voice that reminded Exley of a life she would never have, with hunting dogs, and high tea on a silver caddy. Of course, in reality the woman probably had a farting husband and screaming twins. She probably lived in an undersized two-bedroom apartment in the wrong part of London and rode the Tube to work. Still, she had that voice.

“My name is Wen Shubai,” the man said.

“Age and nationality!”

“Fifty-two.” The man stubbed out his cigarette. The butt joined a half-dozen others in the ashtray. “I’m Chinese. Born in Hubei Province. The People’s Republic.”

“Where do you live now, Mr. Wen?”

“London.” He spoke English carefully, the words proper but heavily accented, the voice of a concierge at a five-star Beijing hotel.

“And where do you work?”

“Until today, the Chinese embassy.”

“What’s your title?”

“Officially, director for trade between China and the United Kingdom.”

“What did you actually do at the embassy?”

“Head of Chinese intelligence service for Western Europe.”

“You were a spy.”

The man extracted a fresh cigarette from a flat red Dunhill box. A manicured woman’s hand, as elegant as the voice asking the questions, held out a silver lighter.

“Senior officer. I oversaw operations all over Europe.”

TYSON PAUSED THE INTERVIEW THERE, catching Wen with a Dunhill between his lips. “This was filmed about thirty-six hours ago at a safe house just west of London. And yes, Mr. Wen Shubai is who he says he is. He shucked his bodyguards late Saturday night at a rest stop on the M1. The Brits were happy to have him.”

“A rest stop on the M1?” This from Shafer.

“Defecting during a state dinner at Buckingham Palace would have been more elegant, but so be it. Anyway, he has a lot to tell us, which is why I’ve asked you to my happy home. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s worth your while.”

Exley, Shafer, and Tyson were in a windowless conference room on the seventh floor of the New Headquarters Building at Langley, next to Tyson’s office and just a few doors down from Duto’s. Wells — who’d gotten back from Afghanistan a few days before, his shoulder banged up but otherwise basically intact — had begged off Tyson’s invitiation, telling Exley only that the mission had been a success, that they’d caught a Russian commando, and that he had to go to New York to “take care of something.” Exley found his coyness irritating, but she was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was used to operating alone, after all.

“So this guy Wen came over the day before yesterday?” Shafer said.

“Correct. The Brits have been debriefing him more or less nonstop ever since. You know the drill, check what he says against the available evidence. Treat him with respect but not too much, make sure he knows we’re doing him a favor and not the other way around. Get everything out of him while he’s still fresh off the boat, so to speak.”

“We have anyone in the room?”

“Not yet. Wen’s been making noise about wanting to talk to us, but the Brits say he’s on their soil. Their country, their case. Et cetera. We’ll get a crack at him eventually, under their watchful eyes, of course. But I’ve asked Duto not to press the Brits too hard on this. It may actually be to our advantage to leave Shubai with them.”

“Why?” Exley said.

“I promise all will become clear. Let’s get to more of Mr. Wen’s greatest hits.”

Tyson fast-forwarded the DVD. Exley watched, fascinated, as cigarettes magically appeared in Wen’s hands, shrank to nothing, and then reappeared fresh. She hadn’t wanted to smoke this much in months.

“Ahh — here.”

“WHY DID YOU DEFECT?” the interviewer was saying.

For the first time, Wen appeared flummoxed. “When I came from Beijing two weeks ago, I decided.” He took a drag on his cigarette and said nothing more.

“But why now? After all these many years.”

“I wanted to speak freely. In China, that’s impossible.”

“Come now, Mr. Wen. We’re not making a publicity video for Taiwan. You don’t expect us to believe that you defected so you could hold up placards in the streets. You’re a fifty-two-year-old man, not a college student. How much freedom do you need?”

Wen squeezed his hands together. “You already know, so must I answer?”

“Please.”

“I am due to return to China. I don’t want to go. I love a lady here. And now I find out my wife, who lives in Beijing, has relations with my superior officer there.”

“Relations?”

Wen shook his head tiredly. “Sexual relations.”

TYSON PAUSED THE DVD AGAIN. “‘How much freedom do you need?’ I love that. The Brits.”

“Best friends to your Confederate forebears,” Shafer said.

“True enough. Neither we nor the Brits can confirm the bit about his wife. But he has been sleeping with a woman here, a lawyer at a British export-import company. Monica Cheng’s her name. He met her a few months back at a trade show to promote Chinese exporters. The Brits found her yesterday, asked her, and she confirmed. She’s under twenty-four-hour watch.” Tyson passed around pictures of the woman. She was Chinese, in her early thirties and pretty.

“Is it possible she’s fake?”

“Possible, sure. But she was born in London. She looks genuine and she says they were serious. He was, at least. And there’s something else.”

Tyson pressed play and the DVD spun.

“ARE THERE ANY OTHER REASONS you decided to defect?”

Wen reached for another Dunhill. Only after accepting a light did he speak.

“There are no penalties to me for what I say?”

“Mr. Wen. You are a guest of the British government. An invited guest. How you treated your former employer is of no concern to us. Honesty is the best policy.”

“May I speak to a solicitor?”

A pause. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t be practical at this time.”

Wen appeared unsurprised. “Let me say, then, that the PLA checks—” Wen broke off. Looking left, off-screen, he said a word in Chinese. “Audits,” a voice replied in English. Wen nodded. “The Army audits my spending. One of the people, the auditors, raised a question.”

“You were accused of theft?”

“There was a certain account in my name. For operational purposes.”

TYSON STOPPED THE DVD AGAIN.

“This part he absolutely refused to put on camera. Mr. Wen Shubai seems to have been stealing from the PLA with both hands. He’s got an account with two million dollars at UBS. Says it was to fund covert operations inside Europe.”

“Sounds like it was funding Operation Move My Girlfriend Monica to Barcelona,” Shafer said.

“He says the PLA’s auditors refused to accept his perfectly legitimate answers about the account. So he did what any of us would do.”

“He fled into the arms of a foreign power.”

“Precisely, Mr. Shafer.”

“Did you two practice this routine?” Exley said. “You could take it on the road. Big bucks. Shafer and Tyson, CIA vaudeville.”

Shafer and Tyson looked at each other in mock be fuddlement. “I don’t know what she’s talking about, Ellis,” Tyson said. “Anyway, it would have to be Tyson and Shafer.”

“So do we believe Mr. Wen?”

Tyson folded his hands together, raised his index fingers to his lips. “Well. Here’s the thing. We do.”

“We think he’s the genuine article, not a fish thrown our way by the Chinese to confuse us, as our old friends at the KGB used to do.”

“We and the Brits both. Reasons—” Tyson counted them out on his fingers.

“One: If he’s a fish, he’s a very big fish. He’s extremely senior. That’s a lot to give up, and we don’t know why they would. Two: Monica’s real. Three: The money in his UBS account is real and he’s been putting it there for a while. Four: The Chinese government is conducting, shall we say, urgent inquiries as to his whereabouts. And five: The Chinese have never liked those KGB-style counterespionage ops.”

“They love to spy.”

“Not the chess match kind of spying. The simple kind. The pay-the-engineer-get-the-blueprints-for-the-fighter-jet kind.”

“The kind that works,” Shafer said.

Again Tyson fast-forwarded through the DVD. “And then there’s this,” Tyson said. “You can watch the whole tape if you like, of course, but I promise these are the highlights.” He clicked the DVD.

“DOES CHINA HAVE AGENTS WITHIN the Central Intelligence Agency?”

“Yes. Until last year, two. Then one was dismissed.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know precisely. He hardly showed up on my”—again Wen said something in Chinese and the unseen voice translated—“on my radar screen. He was in what the Americans call the division of intelligence.”

“The Directorate of Intelligence.”

“Yes. The analysts. He translated Chinese newspapers and similar things. He was not very senior.”

“What about the other agent?”

“He was in the other division — directorate. Operations.”

“Was he also low-level?”

“Not at all.” Wen sat up in his chair as he said this, Exley noticed. Though he was now betraying China, he was still unconsciously proud that his service had infiltrated Langley. “He had access to many operations. Not just in China. All over Asia.”

“How long did he work for you?”

“Several years.”

“And did you recruit him?”

“I never met him.”

“Let me ask it another way. Did the Second Directorate recruit him or did he approach you?”

“Ahh. No, he approached us. He was white. We prefer ethnic Chinese.”

Exley was transfixed. Soon there’d be arrests, a criminal case, an accounting of the secrets this mole had betrayed, the lives he’d destroyed. But for now there was only this video, the first flake in the blizzard. History unspooling in this office.

“Do you know how he approached you?”

“Unfortunately, no. But I am sure we didn’t trust him at first.”

“Because he was white?”

“Also because he had come to us. We didn’t understand that.”

“But you learned?”

Wen smiled. “He wanted money. Lots of money.”

“And you gave it to him.”

“His information was valuable.”

“Very valuable?”

“He could have asked for ten times as much.”

AGAIN TYSON PAUSED THE DVD.

“Based on what Wen says next, it seems safe to say that our entire China network is blown. Has been for years. We’ve lost five agents there since 2004. This explains why. The ones who are left have probably been doubled by the Chinese and are feeding us disinformation.”

“It’s as bad as Ames,” Exley said.

“Worse,” Shafer said. “The Soviets were on the way out when Ames betrayed us. He got some people killed, but he didn’t change the Cold War. But this—”

Shafer broke off. He didn’t need to say anything more, Exley thought. The struggle for dominance between the United States and China had only just begun. Now this CIA mole, whoever he was, had given China an enormous advantage. His treachery had opened a window on America’s most secret intelligence programs and military capabilities while giving China the chance to conceal its own.

“How many agents do we have in China?” Exley said.

“Even before this, we were incredibly thin over there. A half-dozen PLA officers, a couple of mid-level politicians. But no one really senior. With one exception. Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Shafer said. “Mind if I ask what you’re talking about?”

Tyson looked at Shafer. He seemed to consider his next words carefully, though perhaps the hesitation was as much an act as everything else he did, Exley thought.

“I’ve said too much already. The ramblings of an old man.”

Exley saw the pit bull hiding in Tyson’s basset hound face and decided to drop the subject. Still, what he’d said didn’t make much sense. Why would one agent have escaped if the mole had given up everyone else?

“George,” Shafer said, “I have to ask again. How do we know that this fine gentleman isn’t just messing with us?”

“Watch and learn, Ellis.” Tyson clicked the DVD one more time.

“HOW MUCH DID YOU PAY THIS SPY?” the English woman said.

“I don’t know exactly, but millions.”

“What did he give you?”

“Everything the Americans did in China. If they recruited someone, planned an operation, everything.”

“Were you worried that the CIA had planted him? That he was a source of disinformation?”

“Disinformation?” The off-screen translator said something in Chinese. Wen nodded vigorously, almost angrily. “Yes. Of course, we considered he might be trying to fool us. You think we don’t understand these situations?”

“Of course, of course,” the woman said soothingly.

“At first we test him, use him only to check information we already know. But everything he gives us is correct. Very specific, and always correct. So we know he must be real.”

“Mr. Wen, what was the most valuable information this agent provided?”

“Easy,” Wen said. “He told us the Americans had an agent in North Korea. A nuclear scientist. The Americans called him Drafter.”

Exley heard a gasp. She needed a moment to realize she’d made the sound. The Chinese had given the Drafter to the North Koreans?

“When was that?”

“Two years ago, maybe.”

“When did you tell the North Koreans what you’d learned?”

“Not until this year. A few weeks ago.”

“Why did you wait?”

“I don’t know. How do the Americans say it? ‘Above my pay grade.’”

“Do you have any idea?”

“I think some people think China should stand up to America. United States has many problems right now. Time for China to show its power. If America doesn’t answer, then China knows it is winning.”

“People in Zhongnanhai, you mean?”

“Yes. Ministers. The Standing Committee. But not everyone.”

“We’ll return to that later. Let’s focus on this scientist — the Drafter, as you call him. What did you tell the North Koreans about him? His name?”

“We didn’t know his real name. But enough so that they could identify him.”

“And how did you find out about this? It wasn’t to do with Europe.”

“Of course I find out.” Wen looked irritated. “I was home in Beijing when the North Koreans sank the boat that the Americans sent to rescue him. I am eighth-ranking officer in the Second Directorate. Of course I hear.”

Tyson paused the DVD.

“NOT THE SEVENTH-RANKING, and not the ninth-ranking. The eighth-ranking. Ellis, you believe him now?”

Shafer nodded. “Obviously he’s telling the truth. The Chinese have somebody inside. Otherwise they wouldn’t have known the Drafter’s code name.”

“And Chinese wouldn’t give up the mole,” Tyson said. “He’s too valuable. So Wen’s defection is real. He did it on his own, not on orders from Beijing. Maybe for Ms. Monica Cheng. Maybe because of those pesky audits.”

Shafer looked at Exley. “You agree?”

Exley considered. “I’m not sure. We already knew we had a mole. Even if we haven’t made much progress finding him.” The traffic and property records they’d searched hadn’t offered any clues, and they were still waiting for new polygraph results. “The real test is whether he helps us find the mole.”

Tyson grinned. “Ms. Exley. You are the brains of the operation, I see now.”

Exley was tired of playing the good student to the two masters. “And you’re a smug, patronizing jerk.”

Tyson’s smile didn’t disappear. “You sound just like my wife. The strange part is that I really was trying to pay you a compliment. You’re two hundred proof spot-on.”

He clicked the DVD.

“CAN WE STOP FOR TONIGHT?” Wen’s suit jacket was off, sweat stains widening under his arms.

“A few more questions. And then I promise you can rest. Now. This mole within the CIA. Did you know his name?”

“No.”

“Department?”

“Told you already, he was in the Division of Operations.”

“Where in the Directorate of Operations? On the China desk?”

“Not sure. Asia, but maybe not China. Also he spent time in what the Americans call counterintelligence. Don’t know where he is now.”

“Can you tell us anything else about him?”

Wen closed his eyes. “Something happened to him. Something bad. Personal. A few years ago.”

“Like he was in an accident?”

Wen shook his head. “Not exactly. Something else. A big problem. He didn’t tell us. We found it ourselves when we were checking him.”

“Anything else? I promise, this is the last question tonight.”

“He served in Asia. A long time ago.”

“Do you know where?”

“No. And you said last question.” At that Wen stubbed out his cigarette, folded his hands on the table, and closed his eyes.

TYSON CLICKED OFF THE DVD, leaving the screen black.

“So, Ms. Exley, you see I wasn’t trying to be smug and patronizing, though perhaps I can’t help myself. You asked the right question.”

“And the answer is yes,” Exley said. She felt slightly mollified. “Wen gave us enough to find our mole. He’s spent most of his career on the Asia desk. He’s worked in counterintelligence. He was in Asia briefly and had ‘a family problem.”’

“I’m guessing it wasn’t an argument with his mother-in-law,” Shafer said. “There can’t be too many case officers who match all those criteria. If we check that against your seventy names, we should get him, or get very close.”

“Soon, please,” Tyson said. “Because the Brits told our China desk about Wen’s defection yesterday. The mole will be wondering if Wen has tipped us to him already.”

“That’s why you’d rather have the Brits hold on to Wen?”

“Exactly. Until we know who the mole is, we’re better off with Wen as far from Langley as possible. Meanwhile, based on what he said about the mole having some connection to counterintel, I have to assume that we don’t have much time before he runs. If this guy’s been around as long as Wen says, he’ll know he’s in trouble.”

“Not just from us,” Shafer said. “The Chinese might try to clean this up themselves.”

Exley needed a second to understand what Shafer meant. Would the Chinese be cold-blooded enough to kill their own mole if they believed the agency was about to arrest him?

“Doubtful,” Tyson said. “It wouldn’t help their recruiting any.”

“I agree,” Exley said.

“You two have an optimistic view of human nature,” Shafer said. He stood to go. “Anyway, we have some work to do.”

20

THE GLINT OF EXLEY’S WEDDING BAND CAUGHT HER by surprise as she drove. She’d pulled it out of storage for today’s job.

After meeting with Tyson, Exley and Shafer had spent the rest of the day going over the list of agency employees who’d known enough about the Drafter to betray him. Of the eighty-two names on the final list, twelve matched at least the broad outlines that Wen had given for the mole’s career history, or had suffered a serious accident or illness five to ten years ago. Unfortunately, none of the twelve men fit in both categories. That would have been too easy, Exley thought.

“The dirty dozen,” Shafer said. Separately, thirteen men now matched the soft criteria that she and Shafer had devised earlier. Five employees were on both lists.

“So now what? Do we talk to them?” Exley said.

“Not yet, I think. Tyson will have his people looking for hard evidence on the twelve who meet the criteria that Wen mentioned. Suspicious travel patterns, hidden accounts, the usual. Let’s be a little less formal. I’m going to poke around Langley, play doctor, see what I can pick up.”

“And me?”

“Why don’t you talk to the wives?”

AND SO THIS MORNING EXLEY had pulled on her wedding band and prepared to make a tour of suburban Virginia and Maryland. She was aiming first at the five names on both lists. She didn’t know how many wives would be home, but she figured at least a couple. And she knew claiming she was on a house-hunt would get her inside their houses. Amazing how freely bored women would talk to a friendly stranger.

No one had been home at her first stop, in Fairfax. But this time she’d scored, if the Jetta in the driveway was any indication. She parked her green Caravan by the edge of the road and hopped out.

A flagstone path cut through the neatly manicured lawn. Rosebushes added a touch of color to the front of the yellow house. She stepped over a battered Big Wheel and pressed the doorbell. Inside the house she heard a toddler crying.

“Coming.” A woman opened the door a notch and peeked out. She was pretty, late thirties, carrying a baby on her hip. “Mom mom mom!” a boy squalled from upstairs.

“Hi,” she said, friendly but wary, the classic suburban combination, trying to figure out if Exley was a Jehovah’s Witness or an Avon saleswoman or just a neighbor. People moved to Vienna so they wouldn’t have to worry about strangers knocking on their doors.

“Sorry to bother you,” Exley said. “My name’s Joanne.” She was going with an alias, in case the woman mentioned this visit to her husband. “I was looking at the Colonial up the block and I’m hoping to find out about the neighborhood and I saw your car in the driveway.”

The woman looked uncertain. “I thought they’d accepted an offer.”

“They’re still showing it.”

“Mommy, come here!” the invisible boy yelled.

“Well… if you don’t mind watching me change a diaper, I’ll give you the rundown. My name’s Kellie, by the way.” She extended a hand. She was glad to have some company, Exley thought.

“Nice to meet you.”

“HE’S BEAUTIFUL,” EXLEY said of the blue-eyed, red-faced little boy holding on to the safety gate that blocked the stairs.

“Isn’t he? Name’s Jonah. But he’s got a temper.” She picked him up. “Come on, J. No more crying. We’ll get you fixed up.”

“They all cry at that age,” Exley said. “I’ve got two of my own. Trust me, they grow out of it.”

In Jonah’s bedroom, Exley watched as Kellie changed the diaper with one hand while soothing the baby with the other. Already, Exley knew that this woman had mastered the chores of parenting in a way Exley never had. She couldn’t explain why she needed ten minutes to change a diaper, but she did. She never doubted that she would take a bullet for her kids. But she had to admit that she hadn’t been cut out for the daily grind of chasing them around, wiping up their snot, making them paper bag lunches for school.

Lots of women loved that part of being moms, or at least said they did. Maybe they were right. Maybe those chores were essential to building a lifelong relationship with kids. But Exley couldn’t lie to herself. She’d been desperate to get back to work after four months of maternity leave.

Now as she watched Kellie wipe off Jonah’s butt and pull on a clean diaper, she wondered: If she had another chance, could she be different? She and Wells? She didn’t know if she could imagine Wells as a father, though of course he was one already. He’d had a son with Heather, his ex-wife, just before he went to Afghanistan to infiltrate al Qaeda. But Wells saw the boy — Evan — only a couple of times a year. Not that he had much say in the matter. Heather, who had sole custody of Evan, was remarried and lived in Montana. She said that Evan had accepted his stepfather as his real dad and she didn’t want to confuse the boy by giving him too much time with Wells.

Maybe having another child would settle Wells, Exley thought. Or maybe not. He had so many days when he didn’t get along with the world, when he reminded Exley of a barely domesticated guard dog, half German shepherd, half wolf. But even at his an griest, Wells was sweet to her kids, sweet to kids in general. And kids loved him for his size and strength. What kind of father would he be with a boy of his own? Somehow Exley knew that she and Wells would have a boy. Though the truth was that the odds were against her getting pregnant at all.

Kellie finished putting on Jonah’s clean white diaper and ran a soothing hand over his face. “Pretty soon you’ll be a big boy and no more diapers.”

“No diapers!” Jonah yelled happily.

Kellie looked sidelong at Exley. “So what do you do, Joanne?”

“Me? I’m a consultant.” The word consultant was vague enough to mean anything, and boring enough that no one cared anyway.

“I used to be a lawyer,” Kellie said. “Then one day I woke up and I was this.”

“You’re great at it, though.”

“When the little one gets to preschool, I’m going back to work. Of course, Eddie — that’s my husband — wants one more, but I told him unless he figures out a way to get himself pregnant, that’s not happening. Come on downstairs and let’s have coffee.”

“I wish I could have stayed at home for a while,” Exley lied. “We couldn’t figure out a way to afford it, though. Is your husband a lawyer too?”

“No. He works for the government. But we saved up when I was working and we’re pretty careful. How about yours?”

“My husband? He works for the government too. Not too far from here. Maybe they’re in the same business.”

“Sounds that way.” CIA wives liked to hint that their husbands worked at Langley. Proof that the agency hadn’t completely lost its mystique, Exley supposed.

Kellie pulled up Jonah’s pants. Now that he didn’t have a full diaper, he was pretty well behaved, Exley thought. Cute too. “You sweetie,” she said to him. “What’s your favorite thing to do in the world?”

“Hockey! Play hockey!” Jonah grabbed a miniature hockey stick and swiped the floor. “Play hockey.”

“Eddie’s got him on skates already.”

“He can skate?” Exley’s surprise was genuine.

“Play hockey play hockey—”

“You’d be amazed.” Kellie grabbed the boy’s hand. “Jonah, come on downstairs to the kitchen with us. You can play down there.”

“Can I have juice?”

“Of course, sweetie.”

They walked back to the downstairs, which was festooned with pictures of Kellie and Edmund on their honeymoon in Hawaii, Kellie and Edmund and Jonah at the rink, the kid cute as anything with his helmet and stick and skates… Edmund Cerys wasn’t the mole, Exley thought. Not even an Oscar-winning actor could fake the way he looked at his wife in these pictures. He’d gotten drunk at a Redskins game and picked up a misdemeanor for pissing in the parking lot, but he wasn’t spying for the Chinese or anyone else. Zero for one.

SHE SETTLED INTO THE KITCHEN and prepared to let Kellie tell her about the neighborhood. Then her cell phone trilled in her purse. Wells.

“Hi,” he said. “I have a favor to ask. Can you come up to New York? Today?”

21

EVEN AT 2:50 A.M. ON A WEDNESDAY MORNING, East Hampton glowed with wealth. Wall Street skyscrapers, Hollywood back lots, Siberian oil fields — wherever the money came from, it ended up here, waves of cash crashing in like the Atlantic Ocean’s low breakers. Under the streetlamps, the town’s long main street shined empty and clean. The mannequins in the Polo store cradled their tennis racquets, poised to play in their $300 nylon windbreakers. To the north, toward the bay, the houses cost a mere seven figures. South, in the golden half-mile strip between the main street and the ocean, the mansions ran $10 million and up.

Wells and Exley were heading south.

Wells cruised at twenty-five miles an hour on his big black bike, its engine running smooth and quiet. Before him, the traffic light at the corner of Main Street and Newtown Lane turned red. He eased to a stop and patted the CB1000’s metal flank. The bike was his, but the license plate wasn’t. He’d liberated it from a Vespa scooter a few hours earlier. He’d also removed all the identifying decals on the bike, making it as anonymous as a motorcycle could be.

Exley stopped beside him at the wheel of a gray Toyota Sienna minivan that Wells had hot-wired from a parking lot at a bar in Southampton ninety minutes before. The minivan’s owner — the “World’s Hottest Single Aunt,” at least according to the sticker on the van’s back bumper — was presumably still getting liquored up inside. By the time she discovered the Sienna was gone, it would have served its purpose. Wells hoped she had insurance.

The light dropped green. Wells eased past the forty-foot-high wooden windmill that marked the end of the town center. A half-mile later, he turned off Route 27 and onto Amity Lane. Besides his standard riding gear of black leather jacket, black helmet, black gloves, and black boots, Wells had on black jeans and a black long-sleeve cotton shirt. He wished he had a pair of black skivvies to complete the package. Tucked in a shoulder holster, he carried a pistol, a Glock this time instead of the Makarov. It was black, naturally, with a silencer threaded to the barrel. He hoped he wouldn’t even have to draw it. His black backpack held two other weapons, the ones he planned to use.

THE AFTERNOON BEFORE, Wells had for the first time found a way to take advantage of the fame he didn’t want. He walked into the East Hampton village police station, an unassuming brick building on Cedar Street, just behind the center of town.

“Can I help you?” the cop behind the counter said.

“I’d like to speak to the chief.”

“He’s busy. What can I do for you?”

Wells extracted his CIA identification card, the one with his real name, and passed it across the counter.

“Hold on.” The officer disappeared behind a steel door, popping out a minute later to wave Wells in.

The chief was a trim man in his early fifties with tight no-nonsense eyes. Even in East Hampton the cops looked like cops. “Ed Graften,” he said, extending his hand. “It’s an honor, Mr. Wells. Please sit.”

“Please call me John.” Wells was beginning to feel foolish. Did he really expect this man to help him?

“What can I do you for? Don’t suppose you locked your keys in your Ferrari or the brats in the mansion next door are making too much noise. The usual nonsense.”

“Chief — I have a favor to ask. The name Pierre Kowalski ring a bell?”

“Course. His daughter Anna set a record this year for a summer rental. If the papers were right, it was a million and a half bucks for the house.” Wells had seen the same stories. Anna had spent $1.5 million on a seven-bedroom mansion on Two Mile Hollow Road, just off the ocean. Not to buy the place. To rent it. For three months.

“Nice to have the world’s biggest arms dealer for your dad,” Wells said. “I have it on good authority ”—in fact, Wells had seen the report in two gossip columns—“ that he is in town this week. I’d like to talk to him. Alone.”

Graften was no longer smiling. “Mr. Wells. Are you sure you are who you say you are? If not, now would be a good time to leave.”

“I am, and I can prove it.”

“Then… I guess I could put a patrol car out front of his gate. I’m sure his driver speeds. They all do. We could stop him, bring him in here. But his lawyers would be on us in two minutes and we’d have to cut him loose—”

“I don’t want to get you in trouble. All I need is—” Wells paused, then plunged on. “If you pick up an alarm from his house tonight, take your time getting there. I won’t hurt him, I promise. Or take anything.” Except information, Wells didn’t say.

“What about his guards?”

“I can take care of them. But I’d rather keep your men out of it.” Wells didn’t mention Exley’s role in his plan.

“Don’t suppose you can tell me what you want from him.”

“Let’s just say I don’t expect him to file a complaint with you about my visit.”

“You can’t do this officially, Mr. Wells?”

“I wish I could.” The CIA couldn’t legally operate in the United States. Wells would have to ask the FBI to try to get a warrant for Kowalski. And Wells doubted that any federal judge would sign a warrant based on the secret testimony of a single Russian special forces commando now in prison in Afghanistan. Even if they could find a friendly judge, Kowalski’s lawyers would fight them for months. They’d never even get him in for an interview.

Trying to move against Kowalski in Monte Carlo or Zurich, where he spent most of his time, would be equally impossible. His homes there were fortresses, much better protected than this vacation house, and the local police would hardly look kindly on a request like this from Wells. No, tonight was his best shot. Maybe his only shot. In any case, Wells didn’t care about arresting Kowalski. He just wanted to know where the trail led.

Graften sighed. “How long do you need?”

“Half an hour maybe.”

“You won’t hurt him.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Graften looked at the ceiling. “All right. If you can prove you are who you say you are, I’ll get you a half-hour. No more. At three A.M., let’s say.”

“Then let me do that.”

IT WAS 2:55 A.M. Wells rolled down Further Lane, Exley following. Heavy green hedges hemmed in the road on both sides. The hedges weren’t ornamental. Twenty feet tall and too thick for anyone to see past, much less walk through, they served as walls protecting the mansions behind them. Every couple of hundred feet, the hedges parted for gated driveways. The homes behind the gates were lit up in the night like cathedrals in the Church of Wealth.

Wells had reconnoitered the Kowalski house four times, once the previous night on his motorcycle and three times during the day on a mountain bike he’d bought at a garage sale in Sag Harbor. He had also examined town maps and satellite photos, so he knew the mansion’s exterior layout and the land around it. Beyond that he would have to rely on instinct.

He hadn’t wanted to involve Exley. But unlike most of his neighbors, Kowalski had his property protected with more than hedges and alarms. Instead of a gate, his driveway was permanently blocked by a black Cadillac Escalade, lights on and engine running. Two unsmiling men watched the road from its front seats. When Anna or her friends came or went, the men rolled the Escalade back to unblock the entrance to the property. As soon as the driveway was clear, they moved back into place. They couldn’t be avoided.

The good news was that Wells hadn’t seen closed-circuit cameras around the property. Cameras were rare in the Hamptons. Billionaires didn’t like being watched, even by their own guards. But cameras or not, unless Wells could get the men out of the Escalade, he’d have to shoot them where they sat. He wanted to avoid killing anyone, for both practical and personal reasons. Kowalski was a powerful man with powerful friends. Shooting his men would cause inquiries that Wells would rather avoid. And though Kowalski was in a worse-than-ugly business, Wells didn’t want to play judge, jury, and executioner tonight.

Wells figured if he could solve the problem of the front gate he’d be okay. This late in the night, only a couple of guards would be awake inside the mansion. They’d be bored, drinking coffee, trying to keep their eyes open. No matter how much they tried to stay alert, they would hardly be able to avoid slacking off. East Hampton wasn’t exactly Baghdad. And if anything really went wrong, they could normally expect backup from the village police. But Wells had taken the cops out of the picture.

JUST BEFORE THE CORNER of Further Lane and Two Mile Hollow, Wells pulled over and dropped the CB1000’s kickstand, placing a flattened Coke can under the base so the stand wouldn’t sink into the earth and tip the Honda over.

From the minivan, he pulled out the mountain bike he’d bought two days before. Next to the CB1000, the bicycle looked almost toylike. But the bike had one great advantage over the motorcycle. It was silent. Wells took off his helmet and pulled a black mask over his face.

“You still want to do this?” he said. “Because we don’t have to—”

“Please. It’s easy for the world’s hottest single aunt to get lost in East Hampton after she’s had a few.”

Exley popped open a peach wine cooler and took a swallow, then poured a couple drops onto her blouse, which was open two buttons, enough to reveal a black lace bra that left little about her breasts to the imagination.

“That ought to distract them,” she said. “Just another overaged drunk chick looking for love.”

“Jennifer. Be careful. If something goes wrong, I want you to go, ditch me—”

But she’d already rolled off.

He didn’t fully understand Exley. He supposed he never would. She loved her kids terribly, he was sure. Yet here she was again, risking her life to help him. Was she doing this for him? For the adventure? Both? Wells wished he could ask.

EXLEY TURNED RIGHT, down Two Mile Hollow, toward the ocean. On the train from Washington the afternoon before, she’d wondered if she should have said no to Wells. Then she remembered the day Wells had attacked the Taliban camp. The afternoon came and went with no word. She felt sure that something terrible had happened, a sniper’s bullet, a helicopter crash. Then she started to believe that her premonition had actually caused Wells’s death, that he would have been fine if only she’d shown more faith.

That night she’d found herself at the multiplex at Union Station, sneaking between theaters, not even pretending to watch the movies, willing the minutes to pass, waiting for her cell to ring. Finally, at 2:00 A.M., it did. She expected the caller would be Shafer, asking her to come down to Langley so he could give her the news in person.

Instead the voice on the other end belonged to Wells, cool as ever, telling her that she’d been right about the foreign fighters and that he’d be back soon. After they hung up, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t doubt him again. So when he’d asked for her help for this mission, she couldn’t say no. She knew her thinking was illogical, but so be it. Everyone was entitled to a bit of magical thinking.

She approached Kowalski’s mansion, swerving a bit from side to side. In her rearview mirror, she saw Wells at the corner, a couple of hundred feet behind her. Then he was gone and she was alone.

AS HE WAITED, Wells unzipped his backpack and pulled out the gun he’d picked up at Langley, a Telinject Vario air pistol. The Telinject was loaded with a syringe filled with ketamine — the drug that club kids and other fun-seekers called Special K — and Versed, a liquid sedative closely related to Valium. Veterinarians and ranchers used these guns to sedate unruly animals. The CIA kept a handful for its own purposes. Wells had borrowed two, after getting an afternoon’s training from a specialist in nonlethal weapons in the agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology, the unit that handled fake passports, wiretaps, special weapons, and the rest of the trickery that accounted for one percent of the agency’s work but ninety-nine percent of its mystique.

“Planning to break into the D.C. Zoo, liberate the chimps?” the specialist — an attractive forty-something redhead with the thoroughly Irish name of Winnie O‘Kelly — asked him. “You know they bite.” Wells merely smiled. She handed over the pistols. “Try not to lose them. They’re not particularly traceable, but you never know.”

Clubgoers took ketamine because at low doses the drug produced what doctors called a “dissociative reaction,” almost an out-of-body experience, giving users the feeling they were in two places at once, watching themselves from a distance. At higher doses, ketamine caused unconsciousness in seconds. Further, ketamine wasn’t an opiate derivative, so it wouldn’t suffocate the guards if Wells accidentally overdosed them. At worst they would wake up stiff and headachy. The Versed in the mix would put the guards to sleep even faster.

Of course, the syringes couldn’t work their magic unless Exley got the guards out of the Escalade.

EXLEY DROVE PAST the mansion’s driveway. The Escalade was on the left, three tons of steel deliberately designed to be ugly. Its hood stared out at the street, a gas-guzzling fake tank driven by rich men who liked acting tough while knowing that other, poorer men would do the real fighting for them. Exley passed by slowly, making sure the men in the Escalade saw she was alone.

A hundred yards farther on, the road dead-ended at the empty parking lot for Two Mile Hollow Beach. Signs warned that any car without a town beach pass would be towed. “So much for free public beach access,” Exley said to herself. But of course anyone paying ten million bucks for a house didn’t want to share the sand.

She turned the Sienna around, double-checked the syringe in her purse. The reality of what she was about to do filled her. Then she turned the radio up, loud, and drove back down Two Mile Road toward the Escalade, now on her right. Just outside the driveway of the mansion, she stopped and parked in the road, making sure the Sienna was angled toward the Escalade. She stumbled out of the van and walked to the open gate.

The Escalade’s windows stayed shut as she approached. She rapped hard on the driver‘s-side window. In the background the van’s radio blared.

Finally the window slid down. “Can I help you?” The man inside sounded distinctly unhelpful. He was big and muscular, and his T-shirt didn’t hide the holster on his hip. Exley noticed a dog in the back seat, a big German shepherd that looked up eagerly at her, its red tongue lapping its teeth.

“I’m so lost. This guy I met, he told me about this party in Amagansett. This is Amagansett, right?”

“Lady. If you’re looking for Amagansett, go back to that road up there and make a right. Good luck. This is private property.”

Exley turned away. “Drunk skank,” one of the men in the Escalade said, deliberately loud enough for her to hear, and the other laughed. “Headed for the drunk tank.” The window slid up.

Exley got back in the Sienna, buckled her seat belt. Don’t think too much,she told herself. She put the van in gear, floored the gas, and—

The crash with the Escalade whipped her toward the steering wheel. Her belt tightened and the exploding air bag caught her, knocking her back. Even though she’d known the collision was coming, its force surprised her, and she heard herself scream.

She gathered herself. She’d wrenched her neck and had a cut on her arm, but she hadn’t broken any bones. The Sienna had taken the brunt of the impact, its hood crumpled, radiator leaking, windshield starred. The Escalade, taller and heavier, had little visible damage, though Exley saw its air bags had inflated. The bottle of wine cooler had broken and the minivan stank of peach. She reached into her bag and grabbed the syringe.

She unbuckled herself as the doors of the Escalade opened and the men inside stepped out. They didn’t look happy.

FROM HIS SPOT ON THE CORNER, Wells watched Exley park. When she stepped out of the van to talk to the men, he began to pedal the mountain bike beside the hedge on the east side of the road, the same side the Escalade was on. He stayed hidden in the shadow of the hedge. Unless the men looked directly his way, they wouldn’t see him.

Wells took his time, not wanting to get close too soon. The grass under his wheels was wet with dew, and this close to the ocean Wells could smell the clean salt air. Under other circumstances, Two Mile Hollow would make a perfect lovers’ lane.

Now Exley turned around, walked back to the Sienna, her shoulders slumped, her little ass wobbling slightly as she walked. She surely had the undivided attention of the men in the Escalade, Wells thought. Which was exactly what he needed. He was about fifty yards away, close enough that the men would see him if they looked his way.

They didn’t.

Bang! The Sienna smashed into the Escalade so hard that the bigger vehicle rocked back and its front end lifted before thunking back down. Wells took advantage of the distraction to throw himself and the bike onto the grass. He was less than twenty-five yards from the Escalade now, on its passenger side. Exley had rammed the Sienna into the left front of the SUV, the driver’s side.

The Escalade’s doors opened and the men stepped out. Inside the Cadillac, a dog barked madly, its rapid-fire woofing echoing through the night.

“My door won’t open,” Exley yelled through the night. “Help me.”

“Dumb cootch,” the Escalade’s driver said. “Fred, radio Hank, tell him what happened.” He yelled to the minivan. “You know whose car you just hit?”

Fred the guard turned back to the Escalade. Wells aimed the air pistol, bracing it in both hands. He squeezed the trigger. Propelled by compressed carbon dioxide, the inch-long dart took off with a soft hiss and hit the guard in the center of his back. He yelped, then sighed dully as the syringe pumped anesthetic into him. He raised a hand to the sill of the Escalade to steady himself and slumped into the front passenger seat.

“YOU ARE ONE DUMB DRUNK SLUT,” the driver of the Escalade said as he reached into it for Exley. She slumped across the passenger seat.

“I’m sorry, I’m so stupid, please help me,” she said. He grabbed her harshly and tugged her out, making sure to grope her breasts. As he pulled at her, she jabbed the syringe hidden in her hand through his khakis and into his thigh.

“Goddamn,” he said. “Wha—” But even as he cursed, Exley felt his grip loosen. He crumpled, the deadweight of his arms dragging her down. She freed herself and looked at him, fighting the urge to kick him in the balls. His breathing was slow, but he seemed fine otherwise.

“Sweet dreams,” she said.

“You all right?” Wells said from across the Escalade.

“Never better. Do what you have to do.”

22

IT WAS 3:05 A.M. WEDNESDAY. The radio’s bright green LCD lights told the mole what he already knew. He was awake.

For the last few weeks, he’d found sleep harder and harder to come by. He lay in bed, eyes blinking slowly as a toad‘s, twisting the thin cotton sheets Janice liked. Two bottles of wine at dinner and a hefty snort of whiskey afterward hadn’t been enough to knock him out. Worse, he didn’t seem to sleep even when he was asleep. He had the odd sensation of his mind nudging itself toward consciousness. Sometimes he couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep, if his eyes were open or closed, until he tapped on the radio and heard a late-night commercial: “We need truckers. Best rates per mile!”

So he made his way to the spare bedroom to watch reruns of Road Rules and Laguna Beachas Janice snored away obliviously in their bedroom. The mole had a weakness for the bikinied bodies that filled MTV’s version of reality, though he had to mute the sound to spare himself the nonsense that poured from the mouths of the kids on screen.

Something was wrong. They were after him. Not the indefinable impossible they who plagued the suckers who heard voices in their heads. Not aliens or Jesus. A very real they, probably in the form of a joint agency-FBI task force. He couldn’t say how he knew, but he did. He’d never been nervous like this before. And he was damn sure he wasn’t having an attack of conscience over what had happened to the Drafter. He’d traded in his conscience when his baby boy died. As far as the mole was concerned, God had no conscience, and if God didn’t need one, he didn’t either. No, this churning in his stomach wasn’t guilt. It was fear, fear that he might be caught.

Yet when the mole stopped to consider the facts, as he did a hundred times a day, he had no evidence to support his fears. Almost no evidence. Except for the polygraph. A couple weeks before the North Koreans blew up the Phantom, he’d failed a poly. Not even failed, really. He hadn’t muffed the big questions, the ones that he knew were coming. They were no secret, part of a routine as established as the Lord’s Prayer. Haveyou ever been approached,by a foreign intelligence service? Have you ever accepted money from a foreign intelligence service?And the granddaddy of ‘em all, the Rose Bowl of polygraph questions: Have you ever committed an act of espionage against the United States?

The mole’s exam had been scheduled months in advance, standard operating procedure. He’d hardly worried about it. In his basement lair, he practiced his answers until they bored him. When he walked into the musty offices in the basement of the Old Headquarters Building where the polygraph examiners worked their magic, he’d been relaxed and confident. In retrospect, maybe too confident.

The session was supposed to last an hour. For forty-five minutes, he breezed through. When the trouble hit, he was already looking forward to being done. Maybe he’d cut out of work early, head over to the Gold Club, celebrate getting this chore out of the way for the next five years. They had two-for-one drink specials before 7:00 P.M, and sometimes the girls went two-for-one on dances too, just to stay loose.

Then, apropos of nothing, the damned examiner had asked him if he had any hidden bank accounts. For some reason, the question had surprised him. He tensed up, actually felt his heart skip, and knew he was in trouble.

“Of course not,” he said. “I have a brokerage account where I day-trade sometimes. Blow my retirement money. At Fidelity. That kind of thing, you mean?”

The tester, a chubby middle-aged man with a heavy English accent, looked curiously at the computer screen where the mole’s blood pressure, heart and breathing rate, and perspiration levels were displayed in real time.

“I mean accounts you haven’t reported to the Internal Revenue Service or on your financial disclosure forms. Might you have any accounts like that?” For the first time all session, the examiner looked directly at the mole while asking his question.

“Of course not.”

“What about offshore accounts?”

The mole pretended to consider. “Can’t say I do.”

“How about other valuable assets?”

“I don’t get what you’re going on about.”

“Cars, boats, houses? Collectible automobiles, for example. A second home?”

Collectible automobiles? Was that a shot in the dark or did this guy somehow know about the M5? “Nothing like that.”

The tester looked at the computer screen, then at the mole.

“Are you certain? Because I’m showing evidence of deception in your last several answers. I don’t mean to imply you’re doing anything illegal. People have many reasons to keep offshore bank accounts, as an example.”

This prissy English asshole with his singsong voice. As an example. The mole wanted to gouge out his eyes, as an example.

“I don’t know what you think you’re seeing, but I don’t have any hidden assets. I wish.”

“All right. Let us move on, then.”

AND THEY HAD MOVED ON. But three weeks later, not long after the North Koreans sank the Drafter, the mole had gotten a call from Gleeson, his boss, asking him to schedule a second polygraph.

“Nothing serious. They have a few questions. Seem to think you have a bank account in the Caymans or something.” Gleeson had snickered a bit, as if nothing could be more ludicrous. “Do me a favor and call them.”

The same day he’d received the official request in his in-box, sounding considerably less friendly. Failure to comply with this notice may result in loss of security clearance, termination from the Central Intelligence Agency, and other penalties, including criminal prosecution….

By the time the mole finished reading the letter, his hand was trembling. Until this moment he had never truly considered what would happen if the agency caught him. Of course, he’d known before he started spying that he could go to prison. But jail had always seemed like a vague abstraction. He was a white guy from Michigan. He didn’t know anyone in prison. Prison was a building he drove by on the interstate with razor-wire fences and signs warning “Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers.”

Now he found himself thinking about prison as something more than theoretical. The vision was not comforting. At best, he would spend decades locked up. More likely the rest of his life, at someplace like the Supermax Penitentiary in Colorado, where the government housed Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

He’d be held in solitary confinement, caged twenty-three hours a day in a concrete cell with a window too narrow to see the sun. He’d get an hour of exercise in a steel mesh box, watched by guards who would never talk, no matter how much he begged them for the simple kindness of conversation. And he would beg. He was sure of it. Maybe the Unabomber liked his privacy. But the mole knew he couldn’t spend that much time alone, without a computer or a television or even a radio for company. He would go insane, cut himself just for something to do. His mind would gnaw itself up until nothing was left. Even the thought of being locked up that way made his heart flutter like he’d just run a marathon, made him want to go down to his basement and put his.357 in his mouth with a round in every chamber, so that no matter how many times he spun the cylinder the result would be the same—

He breathed deep and pulled himself together. He was freaking out, and over what? Over a form letter. The agency didn’t think he was spying for the Chinese or anybody else. They thought maybe he had a bank account he hadn’t told them about. This letter was the Langley bureaucracy in action, nothing more. He’d call them back, practice harder for the poly, and be done with it. One day, when he was writing his memoirs, he’d be sure to include this incident, letter and all. That way everyone would see that the agency had muffed its big chance to stop him.

Sure enough, when he called the polygraph office, a tired-sounding secretary told him that the examiners were backed up and that they couldn’t schedule him for a month at the earliest. She sounded like she thought she was doing him a favor, like she handled reservations for some fancy restaurant in New York. “So Thursday the seventeenth at noon?”

“That’s the earliest availability. Do you want it or not?”

“Sure.”

“See you then.” Click.

WITH THAT HE’D PUT the incident out of his mind, or at least to the side, a fly buzzing in another room. Even after the Drafter died, the mole figured he was safe. Then the rumors started.

“Did you hear?” Gleeson asked him one morning. “They’re running a full-scale review of how the DPRK”—North Korea—“discovered the Drafter. Looking for leaks.”

“I thought the working theory was that it had nothing to do with us.”

“Maybe,” Gleeson said. “Or maybe we have another Ames. Anyway, I need that report on my desk by two.”

“No problem,” the mole said as Gleeson walked off.

For a week, he heard nothing more. Then he got a call from the same secretary in the polygraph office who had been so blase earlier. “We need to move up your appointment. Are you free next Friday?”

The mole’s heart twisted. “Friday? I don’t know, lemme check—”

“Well, get back to me as soon as possible, please. If not Friday, it can’t be any later than the following week.”

“What’s the rush? I mean, I’m very busy—”

“You’ll have to take that up with the examiner. I’m just a scheduler.” Click.

The mole stared blankly at the receiver in his hand, wondering what he’d done to deserve this treatment. He wanted badly to know if they actively suspected him. But asking too many questions about a leak investigation was a very good way to attract the attention of the people running it.

MEANWHILE, THE TEMPO in the East Asia unit was picking up. Since September 11, Langley and the White House had paid relatively little attention to China. The agency had focused first on Afghanistan, then Iraq, and now Iran. Along the way, China and the United States had reached a quiet understanding. As long as Beijing helped the United States on terrorism, the White House would stay quiet on economic issues, such as China’s trade surplus.

Even China’s rapid military buildup, its new submarines and fighter jets and satellites, had gone un-challenged. Some analysts within the agency thought that the United States should confront China aggressively now, while America still had a clear upper hand. But those discussions were largely theoretical. Langley knew that the White House had no appetite for a fight with Beijing at the moment, not with Iraq collapsing.

But in the last few weeks, the unspoken bargain had broken down, and not because of anything Washington had done. Both publicly and privately, the Chinese seemed to want to force America’s hand. The Chinese had moved submarines into the Taiwan Strait, the narrow sea that separated Taiwan from mainland China, and declared that U.S. carriers there would not be welcome without Chinese approval. Washington had simply ignored this provocation, saying that American carriers would travel in any international waters they wanted.

Beijing had also announced the successful test of a missile capable of destroying satellites and said that it didn’t intend to allow any nation to have “hegemony over space.” The words were clearly intended for the United States. Then, a week before, the French intelligence agency had passed along a rumor that China and Iran had struck some kind of grand bargain. No details. Langley had told the White House and State Department, and now the U.S. ambassador to China was trying to get an answer from the Chinese foreign ministry. But the ministry so far had stayed quiet.

An alliance between China and Iran would present the United States with a huge problem. Even if America wanted to avoid quarreling with China, it would have to respond to a deal between Beijing and its sworn enemies in Tehran. What no one understood was why the Chinese had picked this moment to take on Washington.

The mole could see now how effectively he’d betrayed the agency. Over the last five years, his spying had cost the CIA all its top Chinese operatives. As a result, the agency had no access to what was happening at the top levels of the Chinese government. The mole had left the agency blind and deaf. Still, the mole didn’t think that either side would push this confrontation too far. Both the United States and China had too much to lose.

IT WAS 3:06 A.M. As Janice sighed softly beside him, the mole felt his mind speeding like a truck whose brakes had failed. He remembered Insomnia, an old Stephen King novel. Halfway through, the hero was greeted by demons and devils crawling out of the wall. The mole was expecting to see something similar soon enough. The worst part was that he would actually be relieved to know the monsters were real.

At least now the mole had a good excuse for his inability to sleep. Two mornings before, he’d gotten yet another dose of bad news. He was sitting in his office, wondering if he could find an excuse to push off the poly, when Gleeson called.

“Come by,” Gleeson said. “Big news.”

When he arrived, Gleeson told him that a Chinese agent had defected in Britain. Wen Shubai. The mole had never met him, but he knew the name. He would bet that Wen knew him too, or at least of him. The mole couldn’t imagine what had happened. No senior officer had ever defected from the Second Directorate. The Chinese weren’t like Russians or Americans. They stuck together. They always had before, anyway.

“That’s fantastic,” he said. “When did it happen?” How much time do I have?

“Don’t know,” Joe said. “I think a couple days ago. But they’re keeping it close to the vest.”

“We’re sure it’s real, it’s not bait?”

“He’s given up some very solid leads.”

“On what?”

“Wish I could say,” Gleeson said breezily. The mole wondered if Gleeson actually knew what Wen had said. Could Wen have given them enough to find him? Could the agency be tracking his offshore accounts right now? The mole felt his whole body dissolve, as if Gleeson could see through him. He looked down at his hands to be sure he was still real.

“I need you to pull together a report, everything we know about Mr. Wen,” Gleeson said. “End of day at the latest.”

“Sure. I was thinking the same thing.” The mole wondered if George Tyson and his counterintel boys were trying to set a trap. This assignment might be intended to provoke him into running, betraying himself.

Well, if that was their goal, they’d failed. The mole went back to his office and called up the thin dossier the agency had on Shubai, putting together the report for Gleeson. On his way home that night, he searched out a pay phone and punched in a Virginia cell-phone number. The call went straight to voicemail.

“You’ve reached George,” the message said. “The car is still for sale. If you’d like to buy, please leave your number and the best time to reach you.” All the English lessons that the colonel had taken over the years had paid off, the mole thought. He hardly even sounded Chinese.

“George,” he said, “that yellow Pinto of yours is just what I’ve been looking for. I’d like to pick it up as soon as possible. Call me before six A.M.”

The code was simple. Yellow meant he needed an urgent meeting. Pinto meant Wakefield Park, at 6:00 A.M.

While he waited for George to respond, the mole found a TGI Friday’s where he could have a beer and watch the idiots on ESPN jaw at each other. He didn’t even feel like drinking, but he ordered a beer anyway. When he looked down at his mug, it was empty. He signaled the bartender for another.

“No problem, buddy.”

“What kind of word is ‘sportscaster,’ anyway?” the mole said, eyeing the screen. “I mean, ‘newscaster’ is bad enough, but ’sportscaster’ makes no sense at all.”

“Got me. That was a Bud Light, right?”

An hour crawled by before the mole slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and walked out. A half-mile down, he found another pay phone. Again the call went to voicemail. “You’ve reached George,” the message said. “Thanks for your inquiry. The yellow Pinto will be ready for pickup on Thursday.”

The mole had to restrain himself from tearing the receiver off the pay phone. Thursday?This was Monday. Why were they making him wait two and a half days? He should have demanded a meeting immediately. But now it was too late. Asking for something sooner would make George wonder if he was panicking, and he didn’t want to seem panicked. He’d just have to wait.

SO HE WAITED, as hatefully as a prisoner counting the days to his execution. But the meeting was still more than a day away. Now, as his clock turned to 3:07 A.M., the mole shuffled out of bed and made his way to the spare bedroom, the room that he had once hoped would become a nursery. He settled in before an episode of The Hills, watching the bubbleheads on screen struggle to make it in the high-pressure world of Teen Vogue. He’d seen this episode before, but even if he hadn‘t, nothing in it would have surprised him. These shows were all exactly the same, whispered confidences, manufactured emotion, the tiniest of struggles.

As he watched, the mole wondered what he would do if George warned him that the agency was on him. The sad truth was that he didn’t even like China all that much. He certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of his life there. And what about Janice? Would George let her come? Would she want to go? He could tell her this was the big foreign adventure she’d always wanted.

Maybe he should just disappear, head for Mexico and points south, with or without Janice. He had enough money hidden away to make a go of it, especially if he wound up someplace like Thailand, where twenty bucks got you a blow job instead of a three-minute dance. But he didn’t speak Thai. And wherever he went, he’d spend the rest of his life waiting for the knock on his door that meant the agency — or maybe the Chinese — had found him. He wasn’t sure which side scared him more.

Anyway, aside from the polygraph he had no reason to worry. He needed to relax. He’d never even met Wen Shubai. The mole reached into his briefs and massaged himself, watching the lithe California goddesses on MTV, knowing that the whiskey and the wine would keep him from what the Thai bar girls called full release, but feeling halfway decent for the first time in a month. Soon enough, he’d know where he stood. And finally he felt his eyes droop closed.

23

“YOU ALL RIGHT?” Wells said across the Escalade to Exley.

“Fine. Just do what you have to do.”

“Pull the van forward so it’s less visible. Then wipe it down. Anything you’ve touched. The wine cooler bottle too. No DNA.”

“I got it. Now go.”

Now the next step. Wells looked at his watch: 3:07 A.M. Twenty-three minutes left. He would need every one. He dumped Fred the guard onto the driveway and stepped into the Escalade. The German shepherd lay dead in the back, the dog’s skull torn in half by two rounds from Wells’s Glock, his blood pooling over the floor mats. Wells hadn’t wanted to kill the dog, but he had had no choice.

Wells tucked himself in the driver’s seat, slipped the Escalade into reverse, eased down on the gas. The big SUV tugged apart from the Sienna with the groan of metal scraping metal. A piece of the Toyota’s hood hung from the Cadillac’s grille like a battered Christmas ornament. Wells wheeled around, swung up the curving gravel driveway toward the mansion. The Escalade’s tinted glass would work in his favor now.

The mansion, a gargantuan version of a rustic Cape Cod beach house, complete with weathered shingles, stood two hundred feet from the gate. As Wells drove toward it, a man ran at the Escalade.

“Jimmy — what—”

Wells twisted the Escalade toward the guard and gunned the gas. The guard’s mouth dropped open. He reached into his waistband for his pistol, then gave up on the gun and dove awkwardly out of the way. He landed face-first on the lawn as Wells skidded the Escalade to a stop beside him and jumped out, pistol in hand.

“Down,” Wells said, not too loud. “Hands behind your back.”

The guard hesitated. Wells fired the silenced Glock, aiming a couple of feet left of the man’s head. The round dug into the turf and the guard clasped his hands behind his back. Wells cuffed the man and dragged him up, standing behind him. “What’s your name?”

“Ty.”

“Who else is awake?”

“Nobody.”

Wells jabbed the Glock in his back. “You already got your warning shot, Ty. Where’s Hank?”

Ty hesitated, then: “Second floor, watching the bedrooms.”

“Any others?”

“They’re out with Anna. Takes five guys to watch her.”

A Nextel push-to-talk phone on Ty’s waist buzzed. “Ty?” a man said.

Wells grabbed it. “Tell him a drunk driver hit the Escalade but nobody got hurt, cops are coming, you’ll be right in. Yes?”

Ty nodded. Wells held the Nextel to Ty’s mouth and pushed the talk button.

“Hank. Some drunk hit Jimmy, but everyone’s okay. Cops are on the way. I’ll be back in five.”

“Got it. Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

Wells tossed the phone away. “Good boy. One more question. Where’s he sleep? Kowalski?”

Ty hesitated. “Anna’s got the master bedroom. He’s second floor, left side, in the front.”

Wells pulled a syringe from his pocket and jabbed it in the guard’s neck. His eyes widened and he pulled against his cuffs, twisting toward Wells. Then his breathing slackened and he fell like a penitent at Wells’s feet.

One to go, Wells thought. He looked at his watch: 3:11.

WELLS JOGGED TOWARD THE BACK of the house, the direction Ty had come from, past an Olympic-sized slate-tiled pool with three diving boards — low, medium, and high. He took the granite back steps of the house two at a time. The patio doors were open. He stepped in and found himself in a gleaming kitchen. Burnished copper pots hung from the ceiling; a Viking stove stood beside a pizza oven. The house was silent. Wells stepped through a corridor lined with hundreds of bottles of wine and up the long back staircase.

Halfway up Wells slowed, pulled the second air pistol from his backpack. He’d brought two, both loaded, so he wouldn’t waste precious time on reloading the syringes. He stopped just shy of the top step. The stairs formed the stem of a T with a long corridor that ran left and right along the spine of the mansion. Wells poked his head above the top step. Sure enough, twenty feet down the hall, a man stood before a closed door, a pistol in his waistband.

“Ty,” he said urgently into his phone. “Come in, Ty… Jimmy? Dammit.” He strode toward the staircase. Wells shifted to get a clear shot with the air pistol and fired at the man, ten feet away. Psst. The dart smacked into his stomach. The man sighed softly. The phone slipped from his hand as his knees buckled. Wells jumped to catch him before he hit the carpet and laid him down softly.

Wells stepped over him to the white wooden door at the end of the corridor. Locked. He pulled his pistol and took aim at the lock. He fired twice, hearing the grunt of metal as the rounds smashed the lock, and popped the door with his shoulder.

Wells stepped through and down the hall. To his left an open door revealed an empty bedroom. On the other side, a closed door. Wells put an ear to it. Silence. At the end of the hall, another door. Wells heard a steady, heavy snore as he approached.

He opened the door and flipped on the lights. An antique silk rug, its yellows and blues dazzling, reached to the corners of the oversized bedroom. Kowalski, a fat man with little pig eyes, slept alone in the oversized four-poster bed, white silk sheets draped around him like icing on a lumpy cake. He grumbled in his sleep at the lights.

“Pierre,” Wells said.

The snoring stopped mid-breath. Kowalski jerked up his head. His eyes snapped open. With surprising quickness, he rolled toward a little nightstand—

But Wells, even quicker, stepped toward the bed and covered him with the pistol. Kowalski looked at the gun and stopped.

“Hands up,” Wells said. Kowalski raised his hands tentatively. “Reach out your arms, grab the posts with each hand.” The fat man hesitated. “Now.” Wells squeezed the Glock’s trigger, put a round in the wall beside the bed.

“Please stay calm,” Kowalski said. He lifted his arms. Wells cuffed him to the bed, one wrist to each post. The sheets sagged off Kowalski, exposing his flabby belly and oversized silk boxers. Still, his face showed no tension. He seemed vaguely bemused, as if he couldn’t believe anyone had the audacity to break into his house.

“You must know you’re making a terrible mistake.” Kowalski spoke flawless English, with a vaguely British accent. He’d learned it in a Swiss boarding school, according to his dossier. He was half French, half Polish. He’d followed his father into the arms business. “You must know who I am.”

“Too bad you can’t say the same about me,” Wells said. “For a million and a half, you should have splurged for some security cameras. Answer me five questions and I’ll leave.”

“Is this a joke?”

Wells put a hand over Kowalski’s mouth, pulled a stun gun from his pack, and jabbed it into Kowalski’s neck. The fat man’s head jerked sideways and his tongue shuddered obscenely against Wells’s gloved palm. Wells counted five before he pulled the gun away. “Why did you send Spetsnaz to Afghanistan?”

Kowalski didn’t hesitate. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Wrong answer.” This time Wells counted ten before he pulled the stun gun from Kowalski’s neck. He didn’t have time to be subtle and he knew Kowalski was lying.

IN THE END, Sergei, the Russian special forces officer, had told Wells his story without much prompting. He had been working security in Moscow for Gazprom, the Russian natural gas company, when the call came. The colonel who had commanded his unit in Chechnya told him he could get $500,000 for six months’ work with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“I said this money seemed to be too good to be true. He promised me it was real, that they needed a hundred of us to go, the best Spetsnaz, and they would pay. He said it was coming from Pierre Kowalski. And then I knew it must be true.”

“You trusted your commander!”

“In Chechnya he saved my life many times. He wouldn’t lie about this.” They arranged for special precautions so the money couldn’t be traced, he said. Each man got a hundred thousand dollars in cash as a signing bonus. Every month, fifty thousand was wired to a bank account of a family member, with a final hundred-thousand-dollar bonus to be paid at the end of the six months.

“We knew the risks going in,” Sergei said. “But the money was too good. Everyone agreed.”

“What if the Afghans turned on you?”

“We talked about that. But we knew we’d be here together. We could protect one another. Anyway, we made them better fighters, so they had no reason to hurt us. We were worried about your side.”

“Did you know who Kowalski was working for?”

“No. That was part of the arrangement. When we arrived, the Talibs told us that it wasn’t their money. No surprise.”

“Could Kowalski have been doing it himself?”

“Our commander said no, that he was working for someone else. And taking a rich fee.” Sergei spat. “That was all we knew. All we wanted to know.”

“And where is your commander? How can I find him?”

“You found him already. In there.” He pointed at the cave.

“WRONG ANSWER,” WELLS SAID NOW, in the bedroom in the Hamptons. “Try again. Why were you helping the Talibs?”

“What business is it of yours?”

Wells again covered Kowalski’s mouth. Kowalski twisted his head helplessly. “No one’s coming for you, Pierre. It’s you and me now.”

Kowalski’s pig eyes squinted at Wells. “Yes. I hired them. The Spetsnaz.”

“To fight the United States?”

“Of course.” His voice betrayed no emotion. “A man called me. A North Korean I’d worked with. He asked me to arrange it. He knew I had contacts with the Talibs and the Russians. He wanted the best fighters, ones who would make a difference.”

“How much did he pay?”

“Five million. No big deal.”

Wells punched Kowalski in the stomach, twice, a quick left-right combination, his fists disappearing into the big man’s belly. “You spent fifty million just on the men.”

Kowalski’s mouth flopped open as he struggled for breath.

“How much?” Wells said again.

“Calm, my friend.” Kowalski’s cultured voice had turned into a thin wheeze. “It was twenty million a month for six months. For the men and some weapons, SA-7s, RPGs. A good deal, lots of profit. My contact said his side might extend the offer when the six months was over.” A hundred twenty million, Wells thought. No wonder Kowalski had been able to pay $500,000 a man.

“Where was the money from?”

“I didn’t ask. My contact was North Korean. I don’t know who was behind him. Perhaps the North Koreans, but I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Too expensive for them. Anyway, what do they care about Afghanistan?”

“The Saudis? The Iranians?”

Kowalski looked at the stun gun. “I don’t know. Really.”

“You never asked? Considering the risks?”

“I’m paid not to ask. I make the arrangements and I don’t ask. Like you.”

“It was safer not to know.”

Kowalski didn’t try to hide his contempt. “What have I been saying?”

“Where did the money come from?”

“Wire transfers from a Macao bank account.”

“Macao? Why there?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Which bank?”

“Banco Delta Asia.”

Wells recognized the name. The bank had gotten into trouble before, accused of laundering dirty money for the North Korean government. “Account number.”

“I don’t have it here. Come to Zurich and I’ll look it up for you. I promise the same hospitality you’re showing me.” This time Wells didn’t bother with the stun gun but simply locked a hand around Kowalski’s neck and squeezed through the fat. To Kowalski’s credit, he didn’t beg, even as his face grew red and his arms shook against the wooden bedposts. “I tell you I don’t have it here,” he repeated.

Wells choked him long enough to be sure he was telling the truth and then let him go. Kowalski coughed — short, dry puffs.

“Where can I find your contact?”

“His name was Moon. But he won’t be talking to you. He died last month. Nothing to do with this. He had a sideline in the heroin business. He ran across some very bad men.”

“But you’re still getting paid.”

“Of course.” Kowalski’s face was dark pink, the color of medium-rare steak, and his arms hung heavily from the posts, but still he sounded confident. “Let me tell you something. Whoever you are. Even if you’re U.S. government, CIA, Special Forces, whatever. You’ll pay for this, what you’ve done tonight. Even if you think you’re safe. I’ll break the rules for you.”

More than anyone he’d ever come across, even Omar Khadri, Wells wished he could kill this man. But he couldn’t take the chance. And anyway he didn’t kill prisoners. He grabbed a roll of duct tape from his backpack and plastered a piece over Kowalski’s mouth.

Then, for no reason he could name, Wells began wrapping the silver tape around Kowalski’s skull. The fat man tried to twist away, but Wells held him steady. He draped the tape over Kowalski’s eyes, over his forehead and his cheeks, loop after loop, until the big man looked like a modern-day mummy, Tuten-Duct, the Egyptian god of electrical tape. He made sure to leave Kowalski’s nostrils open so he wouldn’t suffocate. Then Wells clapped a hand over Kowalski’s nostrils and squeezed them shut. He counted aloud to ten, nice and slow, before letting go.

“Don’t forget to breathe.” And with that, Wells ran.

IT WAS 3:29. Exley was sitting in the minivan. “Got your helmet?”

Exley grabbed her motorcycle helmet from the van and they ran for the bike. Three minutes later, they were at the corner of Newton Lane and Main Street, the Honda purring smoothly beneath them. A police car turned past, its emergency lights flashing, but no siren and not speeding. The chief had kept his word, even given Wells a couple of extra minutes.

Route 27 was empty and quiet, and once he’d picked through the traffic lights of the Hamptons and reached the highway, Wells wound down the throttle of the CB1000 and watched the speedometer creep up and the highway unspool before him. Exley wrapped her arms around him and gripped him tight, from fear or joy or both, and he was as happy as he knew how to be. Everythingdies, baby, that’s a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back, he sang as loudly as he could, knowing that no one, not even Exley, could hear him.

Only when he saw the red-and-blue lights of a police cruiser ahead in the distance did he slow. An hour later, they were on the outskirts of Queens, the traffic on the Long Island Expressway just starting to pick up with the morning’s earliest commuters. Wells pulled the Honda off the highway and they found the Paris Hotel, not particularly clean but happy to take cash.

ROOM 223 OF THE PARIS had a faded gray carpet and a soft moist smell.

“Nice,” Exley said. She poked at the rabbit ears atop the television. “I haven’t seen these in a while.”

“We’ll always have Paris,” Wells said.

“We did it. Am I allowed to say it was fun, John? Because it was.”

“Sure it was.”

Exley settled onto the mattress, ignoring the spring poking at her butt. “I can’t believe we’re already back in New York City.”

“Told you the moto comes in handy sometimes.”

“You have to slow down, John. Didn’t you feel me hitting you?”

“Thought you wanted me to go faster.”

Exley couldn’t believe they were fighting about this, after what they’d just pulled off, but they were. “Such a child. If you’re gonna get us killed, do it for a halfway decent reason. You don’t have to prove to me you have a big dick.”

“Well, that’s comforting.” Wells lay next to Exley, his face almost touching hers. The bed sank under him. “Think this is one mattress or a bunch stitched together?”

Exley had to laugh. Wells could be impossible, and more than once lately she’d thought that he planned to push his luck until he wound up in a wooden box. But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t love him. “So what did he say? Kowalski?”

“Not much.” Wells recounted the conversation. “But there was one thing. He said he was getting paid out of a bank in Macao. Which doesn’t really make sense. Of course, the money could have been coming into that bank from anywhere.”

“Think he was telling the truth?”

Wells propped himself up on an elbow and stroked Exley’s hair. Finally, he nodded. “Yeah. He didn’t know who I was, but he knew no matter what, I couldn’t use it in court. He wanted me out of there and he didn’t know how much I knew. Honesty was his best bet.”

“He’s going to come after you. Us. In a way, he was flaunting what he’d done.”

“If he’s smart, he’ll let it go, be happy I didn’t shoot him. He can’t track us anyway. And if he does figure out it was us…”

Exley understood. They were untouchable. Or so Wells thought.

“Why did you tape him up that way at the end, John? He was angry already.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

She waited, but Wells was silent, his breathing steady, and she knew he wouldn’t say anything more. “Roll over,” she said.

He turned his big body and Exley snuggled up and ran her hands around him. She pushed up his shirt and touched the raised red scar high on his back. He sighed softly, happily, and reached back for her. She closed her eyes and kissed his back.

“So who do you think was paying for those guys?” he said.

She lifted her mouth from his skin. “Don’t know. And that’s real money. A hundred and twenty million.”

“But think on it. We spend a couple billion bucks a month in Afghanistan. For a fraction of that, somebody’s making it a lot harder for us. Not a bad investment.”

“Syria. Libya.”

“Iran?”

“Maybe.”

Wells sat up and leaned against the bed’s battered headboard. Exley traced her hand over his chest, the muscles solid as iron.

“You close on the mole?” he said.

“We’d be closer if I hadn’t come up here. But we’ll get him soon. Shubai gave us enough. In a way it doesn’t matter, though. He’s already done the damage. We don’t have one Chinese agent we can trust.”

“Not a good time for it either,” Wells said.

“No. Any day now, China and Iran are about to announce something big. They aren’t even denying it. There’s all this trouble in Taiwan. And Shubai says there’s a power struggle in Beijing. Says the hard-liners want to prove how tough they are, that we have to stand up to them, that showing any weakness will just make them push us harder.” Exley closed her eyes and felt weariness overtake her.

“You think Beijing might have been supporting the Talibs through Kowalski?”

“I wondered too when you said Macao. But why risk a war with us?”

“None of it makes sense,” Wells said. “The Chinese make this deal with Iran. They betray the Drafter. It’s like they want a fight.”

“Yes and no. They’re coming at us sideways. They’re hoping we overreact.”

“But that’s not what Shubai says, right? He says they want us to back down so that the whole world will see how much more powerful they’re getting.”

“What would you do, John? If you were running the show? Push back hard on the Chinese or let things simmer?”

He considered. “I don’t know. We can’t let them push us around, and it sounds like this guy Shubai knows what he’s talking about. But there’s something we can’t see. Hate to go to war by accident.”

Wells didn’t bother to ask what she thought. Without another word, he rolled onto her, his size surprising her, as it always did. He enveloped her, his mouth on hers, wet open-mouthed kisses. He never asked permission, she thought. He never needed to. His big hands gripped her waist, then one was unbuttoning her jeans, the other pulling them off her hips. And as quickly as that, she forgot she was tired.

24

LARRY YOUNG, THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY, felt the buzz in the press-room as he strode to the podium. These afternoon briefings were usually inside baseball, watched by a few thousand political junkies. Not today. Today Young would be live from Los Angeles to Boston, Tokyo to Moscow. The Chinese and the Iranians had certainly gotten the world’s attention that morning.

Young waited for the cameras to stop clicking before he read the statement, approved forty-five minutes before by the president himself.

“The United States denounces the action by the People’s Republic of China in the strongest possible terms. If China wants the world’s respect, it should condemn Iran’s nuclear program, not support it. Most important, China must understand that the United States will hold it accountable if Iran deploys a nuclear weapon.”

The statement was short and to the point, as Young had recommended. “That’s all. I’m sure you have questions.” A dozen hands went up. “Jackson? My hometown favorite.”

Jackson Smith, from The Washington Post, stood. “Any sanctions planned against China? A trade embargo? Will we be recalling our ambassador?”

An easy one, Young thought. Smith was smart but predictable. “That’s three questions, but they all have the same answer. At this time, we’re reviewing our options, both economic and diplomatic.”

“But nothing planned at this time?”

“We’re not going to be hasty, Jackson. Next.” He pointed to Lia Michaels, from NBC. They’d had a brief fling a few years back, when he was a congressional aide and she was at CNN. They were both married now and never mentioned their history, but he always made sure to call on her and she always smiled at him when he did.

“The Pentagon has announced that the United States is deploying three aircraft carriers to the South China Sea. Why? Do we plan any military action?”

Young took a moment to get the answer exactly right. He’d worked this phrasing out with the president’s chief of staff and he didn’t want to miss a word. “The announcement today is only the most recent in a series of provocative actions by the People’s Republic. China must be aware that its actions have consequences. Next?”

But Lia wasn’t finished yet. “You said the United States will hold China accountable if Iran uses a nuclear weapon. Does that threat include a nuclear strike against China?”

“It’s not a threat. And we never discuss military contingencies. Next?”

Anne Ryuchi, the new CNN correspondent, caught his eye. “There have been rumors about this agreement for a couple of weeks. Did you try to warn China off?”

“We did attempt to express our concerns. Obviously the Chinese weren’t interested in hearing them. Next.”

Dan Spiegel, from The New York Times, practically jumped out of his seat. Young didn’t much like him. A typical Times reporter, smart but not as smart as he thought. “Mr. Spiegel.”

“You mentioned a series of provocative actions. Does the United States have a theory as to why China is being so aggressive?”

“You’d better ask them.” Young enjoyed snapping Spiegel off.

“To follow up. Aside from their deal with Iran, what other actions have the Chinese taken that the United States classifies as provocative?”

“Their recent missile tests, and their saber-rattling toward Taiwan. Taiwan is a democracy and an ally of the United States.”

“But didn’t the Taiwanese start this controversy with their discussion of a possible independence vote? ”

Spiegel loved to hear his own voice. Like so many reporters, he believed mistakenly that he was as important as the people he wrote about.

“The people of Taiwan must be allowed to express their opinions without fear of Chinese reprisal,” Young said. Time to give them something new to chew on. “Also, while I can’t provide specifics, we have learned that the Chinese government has damaged a classified program critical to the national security of the United States.”

“Can you tell us more?”

“Unfortunately not.”

THE CONFERENCE WENT ON forty-five minutes more, until almost 3:00 P.M. Eastern. In Beijing, twelve hours ahead, Li Ping watched in his office, sipping tea as a colonel on his staff translated. Cao Se watched alongside him, filling a pad with notes. When the conference ended, Li flicked off the television and dismissed the colonel.

“What did you think?”

Cao flipped through his pad. “They’re very angry, General.”

Li wasn’t disturbed. “Furious words, but no action. As I expected.”

Cao clasped his hands together. He seemed uncomfortable, Li thought. “I respect you greatly, Li. You’re a great leader.”

Li found himself unexpectedly irritated. He was used to having junior officers suck up this way, but he expected more from Cao.

“General,” Li said, emphasizing the word, reminding Cao of his seniority, “don’t waste your breath flattering me. It’s very late. Now go on.”

“Sir—” Cao stopped, twisted his hands. “Fate is a strange beast. Even the most perfect plan can fail.”

Now Li understood. Cao feared the United States. “The Americans won’t fight us, Cao.” Li had studied the flash points of the Cold War — the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Blockade, the Soviet destruction of KAL 007, a Korean passenger jet that strayed over Russian territory in 1983. Each time, after threats of war, the two sides found a way to defuse the crisis. Nuclear-armed powers didn’t fight each other. China and the United States would find a way out too — but only after Li had taken power.

“But what if the Americans miscalculate?”

“There’s no reason to worry. We control the situation.” Even Cao didn’t know all the levers Li had at his disposal. He hadn’t only negotiated the agreement with Iran and given up the Drafter. He was behind the independence crisis in Taiwan as well.

Over the years, the People’s Liberation Army had built a huge network of agents in Taiwan, including one of its most senior politicians, Herbert Sen. Now, on Li’s orders, Sen had called for the island to declare its independence from China. In doing so, Sen had put the United States in a miserable position. Since 1949, when the Nationalists fled Mainland China and established their new headquarters on Taiwan, the People’s Republic had viewed Taiwan as a renegade province. In fact, the island was effectively independent from China, with its own government, currency, and military. America helped guarantee that security. In turn, Taiwan wasn’t supposed to rattle China’s cage by officially declaring its independence. A Taiwanese move to break that bargain would give China an excuse to invade — and leave the United States with two bad options. Let China attack Taiwan, its democratic ally, or go to war over a crisis that the Taiwanese themselves had started.

Of course, Li didn’t want to invade Taiwan. An attack would be worse than messy, even if the United States didn’t get involved. Taiwan was extremely well defended. But Li knew better than anyone else that the independence movement wouldn’t get far. Soon enough — on his orders — Herbert Sen would have a change of heart. In the meantime, Sen’s demand had increased the pressure on the Americans.

“Think of it this way, Cao. We’ve created a storm the Americans didn’t expect. Now they’ll try to frighten us. They’ll bring up their navy. They’ll reach too far. Then all of China will unite against them”—behind me, Li thought—“and they’ll see they have no choice but to ask for peace. When they do, we’ll give them what they want. The skies will clear. And America will have a new respect for China.”

“And with your new power, you’ll make sure that the peasants are treated fairly.”

“No more riots like the one in Guangzhou. No more stealing at the top of the Party. A new China, where everyone shares in the blessings of the economy. The people have waited too long for honest rulers.”

Li had never before spoken his plan aloud, not even when he was alone. His heart quickened. In a few weeks, the world would see him as he was, Mao’s rightful heir.

“The people will thank us, Cao,” he said. “I’m certain of it.”

THE MEETING OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE began precisely at 2:00 P.M. the next afternoon. The foreign minister discussed the world’s reaction to the deal with Iran. Aside from the United States, most countries had hardly blinked. Some had even quietly told Beijing that they supported the Chinese and Iranian efforts to counter American power.

Then Li reviewed America’s military maneuvers. As it had promised, the United States was moving three carrier battle groups toward the Chinese coast — a formidable fleet, with hundreds of jets and several dozen ships. In response, China had moved forward its newest submarines and had increased fighter patrols. Already the Chinese pilots were reporting increased contacts with American and Taiwanese jets.

“Our pilots are aware of the delicacy of the situation,” Li said. “We don’t expect any offensive contact, but if the Americans attack we’ll respond. Does anyone have questions?”

For a moment, the room was silent. Then Zhang spoke. “Defense Minister, the American reaction to our announcement concerns me. Didn’t you promise that the United States wouldn’t act against us?”

“So far they’ve done nothing but talk,” Li said, as he had that morning to Cao.

“But what if that changes? The Americans have discovered that we betrayed them to North Korea. They said so at their meeting with the reporters.” Zhang was almost shouting across the table at Li, a bit of theater to show his anger. “You told us they wouldn’t find out about that. Obviously they have, thanks to that traitor Wen Shubai. One of your men, Minister Li.”

In turn, Li spoke quietly, without raising his voice. Let Zhang yell, he thought.

“Minister Zhang, I fear you’re correct. I curse Wen. He’s a treacherous snake. But the Americans can’t prove anything. Anyway, they aren’t children. They know we’ve used North Korea against them for many years. They won’t go to war over this.”

“Not this alone, but in combination with what we’ve announced with Iran—”

Li turned to Xu, the committee’s nominal leader, subtly cutting Zhang out of the discussion. “General Secretary, what do you think?”

Li knew that in asking Xu, he was taking a chance. Xu might cut him down, say that he too was worried by the American response. But Xu had smiled and nodded throughout his presentation. Li thought the old man wanted a little excitement. And maybe Xu was tired of having Zhang order him around.

Now Xu nodded. “I think… Comrade Li is correct. So far the American hegemonists have done nothing but talk. And I think it’s time we taught the Americans a lesson. It’s no longer up to them to control who has the special weapons.”

“Are you certain, General Secretary?” Zhang said. “At our breakfast this morning, you expressed concerns about whether a fight with the Americans might hurt our economy.”

Zhang had just blundered, Li thought. Like all old lions, Xu hated to be embarrassed publicly. Sure enough, Xu swiped Zhang down.

“I’ve expressed my opinion. Comrade Li has done a fine job. And trade isn’t the only measure of national pride, Comrade Zhang.”

“Thank you, General Secretary,” Li said. “Now, there’s something else. Besides help with the special weapons, the Iranians have asked us to provide delivery systems.”

“Missiles? No.” Zhang sat up in his chair. “This is madness. We have too many problems at home to invite more anger from America. Our economy is too uncertain.”

“How strange, Minister Zhang,” Li said. “All these months you’ve told us our economy is a glorious and strong wall. Did the wall fall down while none of us were looking?”

“Of course not. But—” Zhang stopped, trying to figure out how to explain the contradiction in a way that wouldn’t sound foolish.

“We don’t have to do anything. It’s enough that the Americans know that we’re considering the request, that they haven’t frightened us.”

Xu stepped in. “Minister Li, please continue your discussions with the Iranians. Let’s make sure the American hegemonists know that their ships won’t stop us from acting in the interest of the Chinese people.”

“Thank you, General Secretary.” Li smiled. Across the table, Zhang’s black eyes flashed with anger, and something else. He knew he was losing control, Li thought. Of course, desperation could make Zhang more dangerous. But it might also lead him to make mistakes, like his effort to browbeat Xu. Either way, the fear in Zhang’s eyes told Li that he was on the verge of success.

25

THE MOLE SET HIS ALARM FOR 5:15, wanting to be sure he’d make his meeting with George in plenty of time. But when he opened his eyes in the blackness, Janice snoring lightly beside him, the radio’s display told him it was 3:47 A.M. Insomnia had its advantages. Tonight he’d woken like a spring uncoiling, immediately clear-headed, though he’d been asleep three hours at most.

He ran his hand down Janice’s back, resting his fingers on her soft, fleshy ass. She turned sideways, shifted one leg forward and the other back, an unconscious invitation. Before he could wake her, he pulled his hand away. His marital duties would have to wait. She grumbled softly but didn’t wake.

In the basement he collected his Smith & Wesson, slipping the revolver into a little shoulder holster. Fortunately the morning was cool, so he could wear a windbreaker without attracting attention. He’d never fully trusted the Chinese, and part of him worried that they would shuck him now that the heat was on.

He shaved in the basement bathroom, nicking himself under his chin. The cut didn’t hurt, but blood covered his neck, matching his bloodshot eyes. He dabbed at the cut with toilet paper until finally the blood stopped flowing. Then he lifted the bathroom mirror off the wall and spun the dials on the black safe behind it until the heavy steel door clicked open.

For the last couple of weeks, he’d pulled cash out of his bank accounts, $2,000 or so a day. Now he had $45,000 in the safe, neatly organized into blocks of hundreds and twenties, along with two Rolex watches and loose diamonds in a little Tupperware box. He riffed through the cash, then stacked it in two plastic Priority Mail envelopes.

In another envelope were two passports, one American, one Canadian, both very good quality. He’d picked them up in Panama a couple of years ago. Ten thousand dollars went a long way down there. Now he flipped through them carefully, checking the laminated photographs, examining the tiny hexagonal holographs on the American passport. For the Canadian, he’d dyed his hair black and worn glasses. The dye and glasses were in the safe too.

Real as they looked, the passports wouldn’t get him into the United States, not anymore, not with the new scanners that the Department of Homeland Security was using. But they’d be good enough to get him out, to Mexico or Jamaica or some other third-world hothouse with soft borders and no visa rules. And getting out was what counted. If he left, he wouldn’t be back anytime soon.

THE MOON WAS STILL GLOWING in the sky when the mole reached Wakefield Park. As far as he could tell, he was the only creature moving. Even the deer and the raccoons were asleep. It was 4:45 A.M. The sun wouldn’t rise for another hour. Under his windbreaker, his.357 itched in its holster and he had a mad urge to pop off a couple of rounds in the dark.

He sat on a stump by the granite outcropping where he would meet George. Then he reconsidered and walked up the hill behind the rock to a stand of beech trees. He pushed between the trees and settled himself behind a low hummock of dirt. From here he could glimpse the outcropping without being seen by anyone below. If everything looked fine when George showed up, he would brush himself off, stroll down the hill, and say hi. If not… well, they’d have to find him.

As he waited, his consciousness drifted. Suddenly he was in the Washington Hilton with Evie, the stripper. She smirked at him as she propped herself upside down against the hotel room’s door, naked, spreading her legs—

He bit his lip to stay awake. 5:25. Dammit. He’d been snoozing for half an hour. Ironic that after these months of insomnia he was overwhelmingly tired, just when he most needed to be awake. He heard birds waking, the first faint chirps of the morning.

Then something else. Footsteps moving north from the park’s main entrance. He waited. The footsteps crackled closer. Then he spotted the men. Two, both Chinese. He’d never seen either one. The first was small, wearing binoculars around his neck, like some kind of birdwatcher. The second man was tall and thick, a body-guard type, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. The mole was suddenly conscious of his pulse thumping through his head, whoosh-whoosh,whoosh-whoosh.Who were these men? Where was George?

The men reached the big granite outcropping. The first man raised his hands to his eyes — the park was still too dark for the binoculars to be useful — and slowly scanned the hill where the mole was hidden. He seemed to be talking to the other man, though from this distance the mole couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then he pointed up the hill.

Step by step, the big Chinese closed in on the beech stand where the mole was hiding. The mole wished he could burrow into the dirt. Then the big man turned right, cutting over the hill, disappearing. The mole waited to be sure he was gone, then reached across his body to draw his S&W out of his shoulder holster. With the gun free, he lay down again and waited.

The man below leaned against a rock, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, and lit one up. He smoked quietly, the tip of his cigarette glowing in the darkness. When he was done, he stubbed the cigarette onto the sole of his shoe and dropped the burned-out butt back into the pack he carried. Trying not to leave evidence of his presence, the mole thought.

The minutes ticked by. As 6:00 A.M. approached, the man stood up. “Mr. T?” he said. He whistled into the darkness. “Mr. T?”

From his spot in the trees, the mole wondered if the Chinese planned to shoot him this morning. They had to know that if they killed him they would never be able to recruit anyone else. The CIA would broadcast this story to the world, so that any potential agent would know how the Chinese treated their spies. But then where was George this morning? And why bring two men? Nothing made sense.

At 6:10, the temperature was rising, the black sky turning blue. The mole covered the S&W with his hand so its metal glint wouldn’t give him away. In a few minutes more the sun would be fully up, exposing his position. Still he waited. At this point he had no choice. Under his windbreaker, sweat pricked down his back.

Crunch-crunch-crunch.The mole held his head steady but twisted his eyes right. The big Chink was coming back over the hill, looking toward the beeches where the mole lay. The mole’s fingers tightened around his gun. Then the man’s narrow eyes slid past and he walked down the hill. When he reached the granite outcropping, he said something the mole couldn’t hear. The little guy shook his head. He tapped out two cigarettes. The men stood there silently until they were finished smoking. Then the little guy tapped his watch and they walked back to the main entrance. The mole waited ten minutes more, tucked his S&W away, and headed home on shaky legs.

THREE HOURS LATER HE SAT in his Acura in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven, fumbling with the clamshell packaging that surrounded a disposable cell phone he’d bought at a Radio Shack. The thick plastic cut his fingers, and as his frustration grew he felt like throwing the phone into the traffic. Finally he managed to rip the phone from its packaging. He breathed deep, tried to relax, powered up the phone, and punched in a 718 number, to be used only in absolute emergencies. He let the phone ring three times and hung up. He stared at his watch, allowing three minutes to pass, then repeated the drill. Three minutes later, he called for a third time. This time the phone was answered on the first ring.

“Washington Zoo. George here.”

“Do you still have the giant pandas?” An idiotic but necessary code.

Pause. “Has something happened? Where were you today?”

“Where were you? Who were those guys?”

“It was for security. They would have brought you to me.” Pause. “Since what happened in England, we are concerned.”

“You’re concerned? Worst case, they give you a one-way ticket home.”

“It isn’t smart to talk anymore on this phone.”

“Okay. Let’s meet in person. Somewhere nice and public, George.”

“Public?”

“Like Union Station. I’ll figure it out, let you know.”

“Please don’t panic. We’ve worked together a long time. I’m your partner.”

“Then you should have come this morning.” Click.

TWIN FLOWER BEDS LINED the driveway, an explosion of daffodils and tulips in red and yellow. The house itself was brick, big but nondescript. A two-car garage and white painted shutters. Exley walked up the driveway without much hope. It was the last of the five on her original list. Of the others she’d visited, one had been empty when she arrived, which proved only that both parents worked. The other three had been typical suburban homes, with typical suburban moms. Exley worried that she was wasting her time. What had she expected to find? A Post-it on the refrigerator that said, “Meeting w/Chinese handler Tuesday night — don’t be late!” On the other hand, Tyson’s team hadn’t nailed anything down either. Even with only a few suspects to check, this kind of work was seriously time-intensive.

This place looked like another bust. The driveway was empty and the curtains shut. Exley mounted the front steps, and to her surprise heard a soap opera blaring from a television inside. A dog barked madly as Exley pushed the bell. She’d heard a couch creak as she rang. Then nothing. Whoever it was seemed to be hoping she’d go away. She rang again, feeling vaguely nauseated and headachy. Too much coffee and too little sleep.

“Coming,” a woman said irritably. Janice Robinson, wife of Keith, according to the agency’s dossier. Janice pulled open the door and peered heavy-lidded into the afternoon Virginia sun. The house behind her was dark, though a television flickered in a room off the front hall. A fat golden retriever poked its snout at the door, barking angrily while wagging its tail to prove it wasn’t serious.

“Can I help you?” Janice said, in a solid southern drawl. She wore a faded red T-shirt with “Roll Tide” printed in white across the chest. Her face was pretty but chubby, her hair a dirty-blond mess, her eyeliner thick and sloppy. The scent of white wine radiated off her, decaying and sweet as a bouquet of week-old flowers.

“I’m looking at that ranch on the corner and I was hoping you maybe could tell me about the neighborhood,” Exley said. “My husband and I have an apartment in the District, but we’re looking to move. My name’s Joanne, by the way.”

Confusion flicked across Janice’s face, as if Exley had tried to explain the theory of relativity and not her house-buying plans. “You want to hear about the neighborhood?”

“Nobody knows it like the neighbors, right?” Exley smiled.

“Hard to argue with that,” Janice said. Exley couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic. Maybe she wasn’t as ditzy as she seemed. “I have to take my car into the shop, but I guess I can spare a minute.” Janice opened the door and waved Exley inside.

“Do you do those?” Exley indicated the flower bed. “They’re so beautiful.”

“My babies.” She patted the retriever’s head. “Lenny tries to eat them, but I don’t let him. My name’s Janice. Come in.”

Janice led Exley through the dark house to the kitchen, where more flowers awaited, fresh-cut this time. A ceiling fan mopped the air. Exley couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a room so stifling. Probably twenty years ago, some airless fraternity basement in college, getting drunk and looking for what she thought was a good time.

“I don’t like air-conditioning,” Janice said. “It breeds colds.” Lenny plopped down heavily, his tongue flopping out. Even with the flowers and dog, the house seemed sterile to Exley. The darkness. The television blaring. The bottles lined up by the sink. If this were a movie, a serial killer would be hiding in the basement. Or Janice would have her grandmother chained to a bed upstairs.

“Would you like a glass of water? You seem peaked.”

“That’d be great,” Exley said.

“Maybe some wine. I find a glass in the afternoon keeps away the colds.”

“Just water, thanks.” Exley worried she seemed snappish. “I’d love a drink, but I have to get back to the office.”

“Of course.” Janice poured a glass of water from a pitcher in the refrigerator and set it on the table. Exley had a brief paranoid fantasy that the water was laced with something. She’d take a sip. The world would go black. When she came to, she’d be locked in the basement next to a fat guy in a leather mask. No. That was Pulp Fiction. She ought to stop this nonsense. She, not Janice, was the one in here under false pretenses. She did feel light-headed, though. She dabbed a few drops of water on her face. Janice sipped from her wine.

“Your place is nice,” Exley said.

“So you wanted to hear about the neighborhood? It’s all right, I guess.”

“Have you lived here awhile?”

Janice paused. “Seven years or so, I guess. We’re thinking about moving.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s nothing to do with the neighbors. My husband might be getting moved overseas. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a while.”

Keith Robinson was in line for an overseas assignment? Exley hadn’t seen that possibility in his file. But then, he wouldn’t be the first man to fib to his wife about his job prospects.

“Seems like a real nice place, though.”

“The neighbors are friendly enough. We kind of keep to ourselves.” She indicated a flyer stuck to the refrigerator. “There’s a block barbecue next week.”

“How about the schools? We’ve got two little ones.”

Janice flinched and Exley saw that she’d touched the source of the strange melancholy in the house.

“Can’t help you there. We don’t have kids.”

“Oh.” Exley never knew how to respond when a woman said she was childless, especially in the tone that Janice had used, equal parts anger and disbelief. “Sorry?” “There’s always adoption?” “They’re overrated?” Every answer sounded patronizing and futile. “My mistake,” she finally said.

Janice ostentatiously looked at her watch. “Sorry to rush you, but I have to get to the dealership. I’m probably not the right person to talk to anyway. What with having no kids.” She pulled back her lips in an ugly smile, like a viper about to unleash a mouthful of venom.

“No problem. Thanks for your time.” Exley sipped her water and stood.

“By the way, what did you say you did, Jill?”

“Joanne. I’m a consultant. Market research. Guess that’s why I’m always trying to find out about neighborhoods and stuff.”

“Do you have a card?”

“Sure.” Exley poked into her purse for a card as Janice finished off her wine.

“Never understood what you consultants do anyway.” Janice looked at Exley’s card fishily.

Exley hadn’t felt so disliked in a long time. “Thanks for all your help, Mrs.—”

“Robinson.”

“Robinson. I’m embarrassed to ask, but can I use your toilet?” Exley was hoping for an excuse to get a quick look around the first floor.

“Right through the living room. I’ll show you.”

The bathroom and the living room were unexceptional, though both hinted at hidden wealth — an expensive Persian rug in the living room and fancy granite fixtures in the bath. In five minutes, Exley was back in her car. Maybe Keith Robinson wasn’t the mole, but he was something,Exley thought, as she put the Caravan in gear and drove off, mopping sweat from her forehead. His house stank of secrets.

EXLEY WENT BACK TO THE OFFICE in Tysons Corner and spent the rest of the afternoon poring over Robinson’s work history. She already knew that his biographical details fit what Wen Shubai had given them. She was looking for smaller, subtler signs. Sure enough, she found one. Beginning eight years earlier — the time when the mole had approached the Chinese, according to Wen — Robinson’s performance evaluations had steadily improved. After being lazy and unmotivated for years, he’d shown new interest in his work, his bosses said. As a result, he’d wound up with new responsibilities — and new access to information.

When she was sure she’d seen every scrap of information they had on Robinson, she poked her head into Shafer’s office. He’d spent the last several days casting a wide net, asking vague questions about possible suspects to officers in and around the East Asia Division. Exley thought he was being too cautious. Legwork wasn’t his strong suit; he was much better thinking through threads that other people had gathered. All his jujitsu wasted time, and time was suddenly in short supply.

Since Shubai’s defection five days earlier, Langley’s top two agents in the People’s Republic had gone dark. One spy, the logistics chief at the giant naval base at Lushun, had simply disappeared. He’d requested an urgent meeting with his case officer, then hadn’t shown up. Now his cell phone was turned off and his e-mail shut down.

The other agent, a deputy mayor in Beijing, was the highest-ranking political source the agency had inside Zhongnanhai. At least he had been until Tuesday, when he’d been arrested on what China’s official news agency referred to as “corruption charges.”

Of course, the arrest and disappearance might have been coincidences. But no one at Langley believed that. The odds were higher that Osama bin Laden would quit al Qaeda to become a pro surfer. Chinese counterintelligence officers had surely tracked both men for years, allowing them to remain free to provide false information to the CIA. Effectively, the men had been tripled up — used by China against the United States, even as the United States believed that it had doubled them back against China.

But Wen’s defection had ended that game, and so the spymasters in Beijing had arrested the men. And now the United States was flying blind at the worst possible time. Did the PRC want open war with Taiwan and the United States, or was it bluffing? Was its leadership unified, or was its belligerence the product of an invisible power struggle inside Zhongnanhai? The president, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council were desperate for answers. Too bad the CIA had none to give.

“I think I have something.” She recounted her meeting with Janice Robinson, as well as Keith Robinson’s strange personnel evaluations. When she was done, Shafer looked down at his notes.

“She didn’t specifically mention children, then?”

“I’m telling you the whole house was off.”

“Jennifer. I don’t doubt it. I’m only trying to figure out where to go next. Remember, Robinson’s only on the list because he failed a poly. He doesn’t meet Shubai’s criteria for a personal problem. He hasn’t had a heart attack, gotten divorced, sued, anything like that—”

And then Exley knew. “We should have figured it from the beginning, Ellis. What’s the worst personal crisis you can have? Not getting sick, not an accident—”

“You think he lost a kid.”

Exley nodded.

“Well, that we can find out. If you’re right, it’ll be time to tell Tyson.”

THE MOLE WAS SURPRISED by the silence that greeted him when he opened his front door. Janice always left the downstairs television on while she made dinner. And where was Lenny? “Janice? Jan?”

No answer. Then he heard her in the kitchen, crying softly.

She sat at the kitchen table, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Lenny lay at her feet, looking up hopelessly. An empty pan sat on the stove. A shrink-wrapped plastic tray of chicken breasts sat unopened in the sink, alongside uncut tomatoes and peppers.

Janice looked up as he walked into the dark room. For a moment she didn’t seem to know who he was. Then she covered her face in her hands and offered a high-pitched moan, O00000000000, a soft dirge that sounded like a distant tornado. He went to her and rubbed her neck. More than anything, he wanted the moan to stop.

“I’m a failure, Eddie.” The words emerged in a damp, stuttery blubber. “Such a failure.”

The mole — Keith Edward Robinson, known as Eddie only to his wife — pulled up a chair. “Sweetie. Did something happen?”

“This woman, she and her husband are looking at the Healy place, on the corner, and she asked me about the neighborhood and the schools and I just, I just snapped—”

The cabinet where the mole kept his whiskey was within arm’s reach. He grabbed a bottle of Dewar’s and took a long slug, not bothering with a glass.

“Woman? What woman?”

“She came by the house. She wanted to know about the schools, Eddie. Look at us. What’s happened to us?”

The mole put the bottle on the table. No more whiskey. He needed to think clearly now, and quickly. The strange part was that he really did want to comfort Janice. But first he had to figure how close they were. “This woman, honey, who did she say she was?”

Janice lowered her hands. She seemed perplexed at the turn the conversation had taken. “Said her name was Joanne.” She pulled a crumpled business card out of a dish on the table and handed it to him. “Said she was a consultant.”

The mole examined it as though it were a tarot card holding the secret to his future. Which in a way it was. Ender Consulting, a Professional Corporation. Joanne Ender, MBA. Beneath the name a phone number and an e-mail address. The mole wanted to call, but whether or not Ender Consulting was real, the number would go to a professional-sounding voicemail. And if it was a trap, they’d have a pen register on the line and they’d know he called. He tucked the card into his shirt pocket. He’d check later. “Did she ask anything about me, Jan?”

“What? No.”

“Please. I know it seems like a strange question, but think on it.”

Janice twisted her hands. “I told you we didn’t talk long. She mentioned her kids and I started to get upset, so I made her go.”

“Did she look around the house? The basement?”

“Of course not. Why?”

“Did you ask the Healys about her? If she actually went to their house?”

“She was just some lady asking about the neighborhood. What are you so worried about? Is she your girlfriend?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not stupid, Eddie. Don’t make things worse than they already are.”

“Sweetie. I promise I’m not having an affair with this woman.”

“Swear.”

“I swear on Mark’s grave.” He’d never said anything like that before.

“Do you love me?”

“Do I love you? What kind of question is that? Yes. Of course I do.” The mole surprised himself with the words. But as he said them, he knew they were true. For too long he’d forgotten that Janice was a real person. “Do you love me?”

As an answer, she put her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder. “Can we just start again, Eddie? Can’t we?”

Strange to hear the question asked so baldly, the mole thought. Like they could dunk themselves in a river and wash away not just their sins but their whole messy lives. Stranger still that the answer was yes. He had the means and the motive to leave all this behind. Because maybe he was panicking, but he didn’t think so.

The polygraph. Wen’s defection. George not showing up this morning. Now this woman visiting. Too many coincidences too soon. Nothing definitive, but if he waited for definitive he’d wind up in a cell or a wooden box. Both Ames and Hanssen had known the walls were closing in. They just hadn’t had the guts to run. Now they were spending their lives in prison.

“Jan. What if I said yes? What if we could start again?”

“I think I’d like that.”

“We’d have to change our names. Leave the country.” He couldn’t believe what he was saying.

She didn’t freak out. She giggled.

“I’m not kidding. We’d have to do it now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you want a new life or not?” Sailing around the Caribbean, fishing, hanging out. Maybe buying a cabin somewhere, trying again to have a baby. It would be a long shot, but what wasn’t?

“Yes, but—” She stopped, stood up, looked around the kitchen. “Could we take Lenny? And where would you work? Your job is so important.”

The mole’s visions of beachfront paradise faded. This wouldn’t work, he saw. When she said start over, she meant that they should take a vacation, be sweeter to each other. The things normal people meant. Not dropping everything and moving to Indonesia. Anyway, he didn’t have a fake passport for her, or any way to get one. And what would she think when she saw his face on TV? The FBI has named Keith Edward Robinson, a veteran CIA employee, as a person of interest in an ongoing espionage investigation….Keith Robinson, who disappeared two weeks ago, is suspected of the greatest intelligence breachin more than twenty years….Authorities now say they believe fugitives Keith and Janice Robinson have fled the country….

“Got that right, sweetie.” He made himself laugh. “And we can’t leave Lenny. Guess we’ll make do here.”

That night he lay beside her, listening to the suburban night, sprinklers rattling on and off to keep the lawns green. He was afraid, he couldn’t pretend he wasn‘t, but excited too. His last night in this bed, this house, this life. He supposed he’d known all along that the path he’d taken would end this way.

He’d had sex that night with Janice, not once but twice, the first time in years. Ironic. But not surprising. Part of her knew he wasn’t joking about leaving. Part of her wouldn’t be surprised when she woke up and found him gone.

He rolled out of bed, quietly, sure not to wake her. He padded out of the bedroom, down the stairs, into the basement. And there he unlocked his safe and filled a canvas bag with everything he needed.

26

EVERY DAY HENRY WILLIAMS THANKED GOD he’d been given the chance to command the USS Decatur. He knew it sounded like a cliché, but it was true. Nothing was better than controlling a five-hundred-foot-long destroyer armed with enough cruise missiles to level a city, or steaming into Bangkok or Sydney beside a carrier loaded with F-18s. The oceans were the world’s last frontier, and the United States Navy ruled them, full stop.

Plus Williams found life aboard the Decatur satisfying in a way he would never have imagined growing up as a landlubber in Dallas. He didn’t come from a Navy family. He’d chosen Annapolis mainly because the academy’s basketball coach had offered him the chance to start his freshman year. But after twenty-two years in the service, Henry Williams had fallen in love with the ocean — or more precisely, with the ships that plied its waves.

The sea was unpredictable, but the Decatur‘s rhythm was steady as a heartbeat. Its floors were scrubbed each day. Its bells chimed every half-hour. In the ward-room, the tablecloths were spotless, the silverware polished. Williams could no longer accept the chaos of real life, life on land. So his wife, Esther, had told him three years ago, when she filed for divorce. She still loved him, but she no longer understood him, she said. Williams didn’t try to change her mind. In his heart he knew she was right.

Within the Decatur, Williams’s word was law. He could call a general-quarters drill at noon or midnight. Demand that the laundry room be scrubbed until it shined — then scrubbed again for good measure. The 330 sailors and officers aboard the Decatur obeyed his orders without question. Nowhere in the world was the chain of command followed more closely than aboard ship.

And that discipline was vitally important now, with the Decatur in hostile waters, at the forward edge of the Ronald Reagan carrier strike group, almost in sight of the Chinese coast. Even the dimmest of the Decatur’s crew knew that the United States was close to war with China. The tension aboard the ship was palpable from the engine room to the bridge, and nowhere more than among the sonar operators, who had the job of listening to the ship’s SQR-19 towed array. The biggest threat to the Decatur came from the Chinese submarines that lurked in the shallow waters off the coast.

Now Williams sat in his stateroom, poring over the classified report that contained the Navy’s new estimate of the capabilities of China’s subs. The Chinese had made progress, but their fish still couldn’t hope to compete with the Navy’s nuclear attack subs, it seemed.

A knock on his cabin door interrupted him. “Yes?”

“Captain. Lieutenant Frederick requests permission to enter.”

“Come in, Lieutenant.”

Frederick stepped in and saluted Williams crisply. “I’m sorry to bother you, sir. It’s about the reporter.”

“What’s she gotten into now?”

As a rule, the Navy was the most publicity-friendly of the services. With the War on Terror having become the focus of U.S. foreign policy, the admirals in the Pentagon felt constant pressure to demonstrate the Navy’s relevance — and protect its $150 billion annual budget. After all, al Qaeda didn’t exactly present a major naval threat. The clash with China had given the service its chance for a close-up, and the Navy didn’t intend to miss the opportunity. Reporters and camera crews were thick as roaches aboard the Reagan, the AbrahamLincoln, and the JohnC. Stennis, the giant nuclear-powered flattops steaming toward the China coast. The Decatur had a reporter of its own, Jackie Wheeler. With her long dark hair and deep brown eyes, Wheeler could have been a TV babe, though she actually worked for the Los Angeles Times.

Williams generally disdained the media, but he didn’t mind Wheeler. Pretty women were good for the crew’s morale, and the Decatur was controlled too rigorously for her to get into much trouble. And Williams knew that being chosen to host a reporter from a national paper was something of an honor. He also knew that he hadn’t been picked to host Wheeler solely because of the Decatur‘sspotless record. He was one of only a handful of black captains in the service. But he didn’t mind being trotted out this way. Like his commanders, Henry Williams knew the value of good press.

“She’s been asking again about the CIC.” The Combat Information Center was the windowless room deep in the Decatur’s hull that functioned as the destroyer’s brain. “Says she can’t write a proper profile without spending a few hours inside.”

Williams sighed. He’d already given Wheeler a tour of the CIC a few days before, and he didn’t want her in there with the Decatur on combat footing. But he supposed he’d have to compromise to get the glowing profile he wanted.

“Okay, Lieutenant. Tell her to come over here at 2100.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

AN HOUR LATER, a knock roused him. “Captain?”

2058. Wheeler had learned something about naval etiquette during her week on board. “Ms. Wheeler? Come in.”

She stepped in tentatively. Until now Williams had been polite to Wheeler, but nothing more. He’d been busy. He’d also figured that keeping her at a distance, then slowly opening up, would make for the best profile. Up close she was younger than he had expected, barely thirty. Prettier too. “Sit.” He indicated the couch. “So you want another look at the CIC.”

“I won’t describe anything classified, Captain. I know the rules.”

“You bored with this skimmer?”

She laughed nervously. “Skimmer?”

“Some of us oldsters use that term to refer to any boat that floats.”

“Don’t they all float?”

“Not the submarines.”

“Oh, right.” She smiled, and Williams wished for a half-second that he were twenty years younger and meeting her in a bar instead of this cabin.

“Be honest. Wish you were over on the Reagan with the flyboys?”

“No, the crew’s treating me great.”

“Not the question I asked, but okay. Has Lieutenant Frederick told you about the man the Decatur is named for?” He flicked a thumb at the painting behind his desk, of a dark-haired dandy in a crimson jacket and fringed white shirt.

“No.”

Williams smiled with real pleasure. Telling this story reminded him that the Navy was different from the other services, more connected to its past. The men who had crewed the first ships in the fleet would recognize the way the Decatur was run — though they might not enjoy having a black man give them orders.

“You’re fortunate to be aboard a ship named for a famous American captain.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“I wish I could say yes, but we don’t have enough famous captains to go around. Some destroyers are christened after real second-raters. Or worse, Marines.”

“Tragic,” Wheeler said, playing along.

“Behind me is Commodore Stephen Decatur. During the War of 1812, he destroyed two British vessels. We won’t mention the third battle, the one he lost. After the war, he sailed to North Africa and shook down the Libyans. Along the way, he got famous for a line Machiavelli would have appreciated. ‘In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!’ Sort of a ‘Better dead than red’ for the nineteenth century.”

“I hope you don’t throw me overboard, but I’d say that kind of thinking has gotten us in a lot of trouble the last few years. We need more questioning of authority, not less.”

“You reporters have that luxury. Not us. Once the order comes, we follow it.”

“So what happened to Decatur?”

“He died in 1820. A duel.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised. Who was on the other side?”

“A retired captain named James Barron. Thing is, Barron couldn’t see all that well — the contemporary accounts say that Decatur could have killed him easily. But the good commodore wanted to be sporting. He limited the duel to eight paces and said he wouldn’t shoot to kill. So Barron blew out Decatur’s stomach, and he died a few hours later. You know the lesson I take from that story?”

“Duels are dumb. And dangerous.”

“War’s no game. Ships like this are deceiving. We’re so big that maybe we seem unsinkable. But put a deep enough hole in the hull and we’ll go down fast. I don’t intend to let that happen to my crew.”

“Can I quote you on that?”

“Of course. And be at the CIC at 1100 tomorrow. You can stay all day.”

“Thanks, Captain.”

Just then Williams’s phone rang. “Yes?”

“Skipper, you might want to get down here.” The Decatur‘s TAO, tactical action officer, was calling from the Combat Information Center. “We have a situation.”

“Be there in five.” Williams cradled the receiver.

“What was that?” Jackie said.

“Looks like we may get some action sooner than I thought.”

“Can I—”

Williams shook his head. “Sorry, Ms. Wheeler. No tour tonight.”

IF THE DECATUR’S FOUR GIANT TURBINE ENGINES, capable of 100,000 horsepower at full throttle, were its heart, the Combat Information Center was its brain. The CIC was a well-lit room, fifty feet long, forty wide, in the center of the ship, equally protected from missiles and torpedoes. The windowless space looked like an air traffic control center at rush hour. Dozens of pasty-faced men and women huddled over blinking consoles that pulled in information from the Decatur’s radar and sonar systems, as well as the E-2 Hawkeye overhead. Williams sat near the front of the room, facing away from the chaos and toward the big, bright blue flat-panel screens that offered an integrated view of the threats facing the Decatur from sea, air, and land.

As an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the Decatur came equipped with an Aegis combat system, which linked the ship’s radar and sonar systems with its missile batteries. The Aegis could simultaneously track scores of planes and ships, labeling each as hostile, friendly, or unknown. In case of open war, the system could be put on full automatic mode, taking control of all the ship’s weapons. Besides its cruise missiles, the Decatur carried surface-to-air missiles, antiship missiles, antisubmarine rockets and torpedoes, an artillery launcher, and 20-millimeter cannons for close-in defense, should all else fail. With the Aegis on full automatic, the Decatur could probably blockade Shanghai all by itself.

But the Aegis wasn’t on full automatic. This wasn’t open war. And Williams didn’t want to overreact to provocations and bluffs aimed at tricking him into firing the first shot. Under the rules of engagement governing this mission, Willams didn’t have to wait until he’d been acted upon before firing. He could launch first if he believed the Chinese were about to attack. “The commanding officer is responsible for defending his ship from attack or the imminent threat of attack,” the rules read.

Williams almost wished the orders were stricter. Under these rules, if the Chinese hit the Decatur with a first strike, he’d face terrible second-guessing about his decision not to launch first. And the Chinese had turned increasingly aggressive as the Decatur closed on their coast.

For a day, two Chinese frigates had shadowed the ship. Now, with the Decatur barely thirty miles from Shanghai, two more frigates had moved in. They were Jianwei-class, among the more modern ships in the Chinese fleet. Still, they were only one-quarter the size of the Decatur. Williams could destroy them easily, especially with the help of the F/A-18s from the Reagan circling overhead, as the Chinese surely knew.

In other words, the frigates weren’t there to fight. Still, Williams didn’t want to give them an excuse. Over the last few hours, he had turned south and slowed to fifteen knots. The Decatur was now heading roughly parallel to the coast, not closing on it. Still, the Chinese boats had ignored repeated warnings from the Decatur to back off.

Making matters worse, the Decatur was close to the Shanghai shipping lanes, forcing it to navigate around freighters and oil tankers. And in the last few hours, civilian Chinese boats had shown up. Motor-boats, fishing vessels, even a couple of sailboats, all flying the Chinese flag and carrying signs in Chinese and English: “Hegemonists out of East China Sea!” “Taiwan and China! One people, one nation!” “US Navy go home!”

Williams thought that being ordered this close to the coast was unnecessarily provocative. But provocation seemed to be the point. Two days before, Rear Admiral Jason Lee, the commander of the Reagan, had told Williams and the other captains in the carrier’s battle group that the White House wanted to send the Chinese government a stern message about the risks a deal with Iran would bring.

“We’re not backing down this time. Up close and personal, that’s what the big man wants. Make them blink. Our intel says that’s the right move. And if that’s what the big man wants, that’s what he gets. Now, I don’t want you to do anything rash, but if you need to protect your ships, no one’s going to second-guess you. We’ve got three flattops out here, we can turn their navy into scrap in about twenty minutes, and we’re not backing down. Understood?”

No one said anything when Lee was finished.

BUT THERE WERE GOOD TACTICAL reasons to stay farther offshore, Williams thought. Carrier battle groups were lethal on the open ocean, so-called blue-water combat. The Reagan’s jets could destroy enemy aircraft and ships long before the hostile boats got close, and the nuclear attack subs that served as its escorts were faster and had sonar superior to that of the diesel subs most other fleets used.

But this close to shore, the carrier group’s advantages shrank. First off, the Reagan’s jets no longer completely controlled the air. Land-based aircraft could take off from Chinese bases and be on top of the Decatur in minutes. Making matters worse, with hundreds of civilian planes taking off from Shanghai’s airports every day, even the Aegis system had a hard time tracking all the traffic in the air.

China’s submarines were also a serious threat in these shallow waters. The diesel-electric subs that made up the Chinese fleet could operate almost silently, and they didn’t have to worry about being outrun by the faster U.S. subs so close to shore. They hardly needed to move at all — the American fleet was coming to them.

Add the tactical problems to the strategic uncertainty, and Williams knew he’d been given a difficult job. Now the Chinese seemed to want to bring matters to a head, much sooner than Williams had expected.

Williams took his seat at the center console, beside Lieutenant (j.g.) Stan Umsle, his tactical action officer, a bespectacled man with a Ph.D. in engineering from Purdue. “Lieutenant, talk to me.”

“Didn’t want to bother you, sir, but we have two issues. First off, there’s one fishing boat aft and three starboard running steadily closer to us. Looks like they’re coordinating their movements with the frigates. In the last half-hour they’ve gone from two thousand yards to eleven hundred”—just over a half mile away.

“Any weapons?”

“None we can see. We’ve signaled and radioed them to leave, sir. Told them they’re subject to imminent defensive action if they come any closer.”

“In English.”

“Yes, sir.” Umsle didn’t have to tell Williams that no one on the Decatur spoke Chinese. Another reason the destroyer ought to back off a little, Williams thought.

“All right. If they get to five hundred yards, splash them with the Phalanx for five seconds. Warning shots only. No contact. And let’s don’t hit the frigates by mistake.” Williams hoped the Decatur could scare off the fishing boats with its cannons, which fired depleted-uranium shells that could cut the trawlers apart.

“Yes, sir.”

“Also let’s throttle up to thirty knots, get some distance from those frigates.”

“That’s the second problem, sir. There’s a red”—enemy—“destroyer in our path.” Umsle pointed to the Aegis display, where a red blip was moving toward the Decatur. “Twenty NMs”—nautical miles—“to our south, closing at twenty-five knots. It’s painted us twice already.” Meaning that the enemy destroyer had hit the Decatur with radar, possibly in preparation for a missile launch.

“Do we have positive identification?”

“Believe it’s one of their Luhas, sir. And the Hawkeye just picked up emissions from another hostile. Seventy NMs south.” The radar plane overhead could track a far larger area than the Decatur’s radar. “The Hawkeye believes it may be a Sovremenny-class boat.”

“We need visual confirmation on that ASAP. Tell the Reagan.”

“Yes, sir.”

Since the late 1990s, China had bought four Sovremenny-class destroyers from Russia. The Sovre mennys were the only surface ship in China’s fleet that posed a serious threat to the Decatur. They carried supersonic antiship missiles with a range of a hundred miles and a nasty radar guidance system. Though the missiles could be detected by infrared sensors because of the massive heat they generated, they were nearly impossible to intercept, because of their speed and the fact that they flew less than fifty feet above the water’s surface. Worse, they carried a 660-pound warhead, big enough to cripple the Decatur.

Williams turned to his communications officer. “Get me Admiral Lee.” If he was going to war, he wanted his boss to know. Meanwhile, backing off seemed prudent. He looked at Umsle. “Take us to twenty knots and a heading of one-five-zero”—a southeast heading, away from the Chinese coast.

“What about the trawlers? We’ll be on top of them.”

“Then they better get out of our way.” Williams preferred to pick a fight with an unarmed trawler rather than a Chinese destroyer. “Get ready to splash them with the Phalanxes. I want them to know we’re serious.”

“Captain,” his coms officer said, “I have the Reagan.” Williams picked up.

“Captain Williams.” The admiral spoke softly but with absolute authority, as befitted the commander of a 102,000-ton aircraft carrier. “Looks like the Chinese don’t want to grant you shore leave.”

“I could use more air support, Admiral.”

“It’s already happening.”

“Sir, request permission to pull back to the Lake Champlain.”The Lake Champlain,a guided-missile cruiser, was fifty miles northeast, seventy-five miles offshore.

“Understand your concerns, but that would send the wrong signal, Captain. Our intel’s clear on this.”

Easy for you to say in your floating castle, Williams thought. “Yes, sir,” he said aloud. “In that case, I’m going to lose these boats on top of me, open up some space, come back around for another look.”

“Sir, Captain, we’ve just fired warning shots at the trawlers—” This was Umsle, his voice rising. Williams waved a hand. Not now.

“Affirmative, Captain,” the admiral said in his ear. “We’ll have four more eighteens”—F/A-18 Super Hornet attack jets—“in the air for you by 2130.”

“Thank you, sir.” Click. At least he’d gotten approval, in a backhanded way, to pull back a few miles, buy some time.

“Lieutenant, I want us at twenty-five knots, heading of six-zero.” A sixty-degree heading was northeast, a hard left turn from the Decatur’s current path.

“Sir, the trawlers—”

Williams didn’t want to hear about the fishing boats anymore. He had bigger worries.

“We’ve warned them, Lieutenant. Every way we know how. It’s time for them to make way. Now! Hard over.”

THE COLLISION CAME THIRTY SECONDS LATER.

In the Combat Information Center, men skidded sideways. Manuals and pens and anything else not nailed down spilled to the floor. On the bridge, Wheeler, the Los Angeles Times reporter, banged her knee hard enough to leave it black-and-blue, but she hardly cared. She’d have the lead story in tomorrow’s paper, she knew.

The sailors and officers on the bridge of the Decatur insisted afterward that the trawler refused to move out of the Decatur’s way, as if daring the destroyer to run it down. The Chinese disagreed vehemently, saying that the Decatur had deliberately hit the little trawler, which weighed eighty tons, compared with the Decatur’s eight thousand. Jackie, who was as close to a neutral observer as anyone who saw the collision, wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. Both boats seemed to expect the other to turn away.

But neither did, and so the destroyer’s prow tore the little fishing boat nearly in half, slicing neatly through a banner that read “China Will Not Bow to America!” Besides its usual crew of ten, the boat contained another twenty-four passengers, mostly college students who had come out to protest — and snap some souvenir photographs of the destroyer. Only five people died in the collision, but most of the students couldn’t swim. Seventeen drowned afterward.

The Decatur slowed down after the collison, but before it could put any rescue boats in the water, one of the Chinese frigates fired warning shots at it. After consulting with Admiral Lee, Williams decided to sail away. The Chinese boats were moving quickly to the trawler, and staying around might inflame the situation. Later, the Decatur’s decision not to stop would add to the controversy.

Aside from a few bumps and bruises, no one aboard the Decatur was hurt. But in the days that followed, no one would say the United States escaped the collision unscathed.

27

EVEN WITH TYSON’S HELP AND THE WRITTEN APPROVAL of the agency’s general counsel, Exley needed almost a full day to get the agency’s health insurance records for Keith Robinson. Those showed that Robinson’s wife, Janice, had given birth to a boy, Mark, a decade before. Cross-checking Mark’s date of birth against Social Security death records revealed the boy had died eight years earlier, about the time the mole first contacted the Chinese, according to Wen Shubai’s timetable.

And so Exley and Shafer decided it was time to talk to Robinson. “We don’t have to ask about the dead kid,” Shafer said. “He might get upset.”

“Mr. Tact. Thank God you’re here to help. Of course we’re not mentioning his son. That failed poly gives us plenty of reason to interview him.”

But when Exley called Robinson’s office early Friday evening, he didn’t answer. His voicemail said he was out sick. With a couple of calls, Exley tracked down an admin on the China desk who told Exley that Robinson had seemed fine the day before.

IN THE NEXT OFFICE OVER, Wells was catching up on the mole investigation, poring over the transcripts of Shubai’s interview. He had put aside for now his efforts to find out who was paying Pierre Kowalski to support the Taliban. Without account numbers, the Treasury Department couldn’t trace the payments from Macao that Kowalski had admitted getting. And the CIA’s dossier on Kowalski offered no clues to the mysterious North Korean that Kowalski had mentioned — though the file had enough detail about Kowalski to infuriate Wells.

One billion. A thousand million. Maybe on Wall Street or in Congress that number was just another day at the office. But Wells couldn’t get his head around it. In Pakistan, he’d seen kids die from cholera because their parents couldn’t afford antibiotics that cost a few bucks.

The rest of the dossier detailed Kowalski’s personal history. Not surprisingly, he had never served in the military. As far as Wells could tell, he had never been near a battlefield, never seen what his mines and AK-47s and mortars did to the human body. He preferred the bodies in his vicinity to be young and blonde, and he could afford what he liked. Twice divorced, he’d acquired a taste for second-tier Russian models, who cost more up front than a wife but didn’t rate alimony on their way out. More than ever, Wells regretted not having put a bullet between Kowalski’s eyes back in the Hamptons.

After reading the dossier, Wells had paid a visit to the analyst who’d written it, Sam Tarks, a career officer in the agency’s arms control/nonproliferation unit.

“Pierre Kowalski? Nasty man.”

“I’m looking for anything that might have been too juicy to make it into the dossier,” Wells said. “Personal or business.”

“His personal life is about what you’d expect. He’s got a yacht called the Ares.Lots of coke, lots of Eu rotrash. Good times had by all.”

“Ares like the Greek god of war?”

“The one and only. But he doesn’t have any serious glitches as far as we know. I mean he’s not a pedophile or a sadist or anything. He likes to party is all.”

“How about the business side? Is there any country he’s especially close to? The Russians, say?” Wells still didn’t think the Russians would have helped the Taliban, but anything was possible.

“Not particularly. He sells mostly Russian stuff, but he keeps them at arm’s length. Smart man. And he makes sure to keep his business far from Zurich. Also smart. Pays enough in taxes to keep the Swiss happy and keeps his money in local banks, mainly UBS.”

“Did he ever work for U.S. companies?”

Tarks nodded. “Lots of folks wish he still would. The Indian Air Force is looking at a huge order, close to a hundred thirty planes, and the French have hired him to convince the Indians to go with the Mirage”—a French-made fighter jet—“and not the F-16. That would be a very big sale. North of five billion. If we don’t get it, some Lockheed lobbyists”—Lockheed Martin manufactured the F-16—“will tell the Armed Services Committee it’s because we don’t have guys like Kowalski on our team. They’ll say it quietly, but they’ll say it.”

“Wonderful world,” Wells said. “Could you see him selling weapons to the Taliban?”

“That’d be pushing it, even for him. He’d know we wouldn’t be happy if we found out. To put it mildly.”

“But if the money was right, and he thought he could get away with it?”

“Under those circumstances? I’d say there’s nothing he wouldn’t do.”

WELLS’S LAST CONVERSATION with Ed Graften, the East Hampton police chief, had been more gratifying. After the East Hampton police freed Kowalski, he refused to answer any questions. He had no idea who had attacked him and his guards, he said.

“Boys will be boys. Why don’t you ask them? I was in my bedroom.”

“What about the tape, the handcuffs?” the lead cop on the scene said.

“A new weight-loss method recommended by my physician. With my mouth taped shut, I cannot eat.”

“Sounds like you need a new doctor.”

“I have already lost five pounds,” Kowalski said, sucking in his gut in a show of dignity. “Now, I appreciate your leaving my property so I can return to bed.”

The unconscious guards were taken to Southampton Hospital. By morning, they were stirring. All four claimed they had no memory of what had happened. They refused to answer questions and demanded to speak to Kowalski’s lawyers. Since they appeared to be victims, not perpetrators, the cops had no choice but to let them go. They were asked to return for interviews later.

But they never showed up. And when the police went to Two Mile Hollow Road to find them, they discovered the mansion was empty. Flight records showed that Kowalski’s Gulfstream had flown out of the East Hampton airport less than eight hours after Wells’s courtesy call. According to the flight plan they’d filed before takeoff, the jet was bound for Miami — which probably meant it had wound up in the Dominican Republic or Barbados or Venezuela. In any case, Kowalski and his men were gone.

“Just thought you might like to know he’d flown the coop. My guys said he was a very cool customer,” the chief said. “Hardly complained when that tape came off him.”

“He is smooth.”

“A weight-loss program. Have to give him credit for coming up with that.” Graften chuckled. “Did you get what you needed?”

“Thanks for the help, chief. If you hear anything more, let me know.”

“Will do.” Click.

WELLS HOPED HE WAS ONLY temporarily stalled on Kowalski, although in truth he wasn’t sure where to look next. The trail seemed to have dead-ended. So he’d decided to catch up on the mole investigation. But as he read over the personnel reports that Exley and Shafer had put together, Wells wasn’t convinced that Exley’s hunch about Keith Robinson made sense. Then again, he hadn’t seen the guy’s house or his wife.

A rap on his door startled him. Exley. “Want to go for a drive?”

WHEN THEY GOT TO the Robinson house, Exley was glad she’d asked Wells to come. The lights in the house were off, but through the windows Exley saw the television in the den flashing.

“Sure she’s home?” Wells said. He was standing beside the door, hidden against the wall of the house.

“She’s home.” Exley knocked again. Finally she heard footsteps. Janice pulled open the door, glassy-eyed, a steak knife wavering in her hand.

“You,” she said. She jabbed the knife in Exley’s direction. She seemed more likely to drop it on her foot than do any serious damage, Exley thought. Janice took a tiny step forward, and Wells reached out his big right arm and twisted her wrist until the knife clattered down. Janice’s mouth opened and closed in wordless drunken confusion as Wells tossed the knife aside.

Exley knew Wells was just making sure they wouldn’t get hurt, but somehow she was angry at the almost robotic ease with which he’d disarmed this pathetic woman. Forget breaking a sweat. Wells hadn’t even blinked. She realized something about him then, something she should have known all along. For all the emotional weight Wells carried, the thought of death hardly scared him. On some unconscious level he must feel immortal, Exley thought. He probably couldn’t imagine losing a fight, couldn’t imagine anyone was stronger or faster than he was. Exley had seen firsthand what he could do in close combat. She wondered what it would be like to have such physical confidence. She’d never know. Women never got to feel that way. No wonder Wells was addicted to action.

Janice staggered forward, tripping over her feet. Wells put a hand on her arm and held her up. Her eyes flicked helplessly between Wells and Exley.

“You can‘t—” she said softly.

“Ma‘am,” Wells said. “We’re sorry, but can we talk to you inside? Please.”

Janice’s face crumpled on itself like a leaky balloon. She didn’t answer, just stepped into the yard and stared at the sky. The golden retriever stood behind her in the doorway, tail down.

Finally she waved them inside. “What difference does it make anyway?” she said. “Wait in the kitchen.” She wandered upstairs as Wells watched, a hand near the Makarov he had tucked into his shoulder holster before they left the office. But they had nothing to worry about, Exley thought. Janice was harmless now. Sure enough, her hands were empty when she reappeared. She seemed to have gone upstairs mainly to fix herself up. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail and fixed her makeup.

“I thought maybe when you showed up again that you were his girlfriend. But you’re not.”

“Your husband’s girlfriend? No, I’m not.”

“Because I know he’s got a girlfriend, and he got all nervous when I told him you came by. He wanted to know what you wanted. Then when I woke up this morning, he was gone.”

“You know where?”

“Haven’t seen him or that Acura of his since last night. He hasn’t called neither, and his phone’s turned off.” Janice focused her wobbly attention on Exley. “But anyway I see you’re not his girlfriend. He likes ‘em younger than you. And prettier. You from the agency?”

“Yes, ma‘am,” Wells said. “We are.” He passed her his identification card, the one with his real name. Janice held it close to her face, her eyes flicking between the identification and Wells.

“I don’t believe it, but I guess I do,” she said. “Is Keith in trouble?”

“We’re trying to find out,” Exley said. “He tell you where he was going?”

“As I just recounted”—Janice sat up straight as she used the half-dollar word—“he didn’t even say he was leaving, much less where. He was just gone when I woke up, and his favorite clothes too.”

“Did he take anything else?”

“I don’t rightly know. Maybe some stuff from the basement. He spends a lot of time down there. Last night he was saying strange stuff, like what would I think if we left the country and started over somewhere else.”

“Do you mind if we take a look?” Wells said. “In the basement?”

“I guess not. It’s locked, though. And I can’t find the key. I don’t know if he took it or what.”

“I can take care of that.” Wells reached into his jacket for his pistol.

JANICE FOLLOWED THEM DOWNSTAIRS, CHATTERING. She’d turned from self-pitying to wheedling, actively seeking their approval, an alcohol-fueled mood swing. Exley was not surprised to see that she was devoting her attention to Wells. For his part, Wells was hardly listening as he looked around the basement. The place was littered with bottles of bourbon and empty cigarette packs and stank like the morning after a week-long party. Wells popped open the DVD player and extracted a disk titled Girl-n-Girl 3: The Experiment.

Janice wiggled her eyebrows at Wells when she saw the disk. “He never tried that with me.”

Exley wanted to slap this drunk woman and tell her to stop embarrassing herself. Instead, she smiled. “Before he left, did Keith say where the two of you might end up?”

Janice plumped down on the couch and put a finger in her mouth like a misbehaving four-year-old. “Not that I recall. No.”

“Anything about Asia? China?”

“He didn’t like the Chinese much. Called them slant-eyes and Chinky-dinks and said they couldn’t be trusted.”

“Did he ever bring anyone over to the house? I mean, anyone unusual, somebody he didn’t identify?”

Janice reached for an open bottle of wine on the table. She poured the contents into a dirty glass and took a long swallow. “No. We don’t have too many friends, not since we moved here, not since our son died.”

“Your son—”

But then Wells called out from the bathroom. “Jenny. You need to see this.”

Janice followed, and they crowded into the bathroom, staring at the black safe.

“Any idea of the combination?” Wells said to Janice.

“I didn’t even know it was there,” Janice said. “I swear.”

“We can call Tyson, get someone over here to get it open,” Wells said. “Not that it matters, because it’s gonna be empty.”

Janice pursed her lips, a look Exley recognized. She’d be crying again soon. All this was too much for her.

“Come on, let’s go in the other room.” Exley led Janice back to the couch. “Did Keith keep money around? Did it seem like you were spending more than his salary?”

“He never said much about our finances. Gave me a couple thousand a month for expenses. If I ever wanted a dress or something, he was generous. We had an old-fashioned marriage, I guess you’d say. He made the money, I kept the house.”

“Did you ever see any mail from banks you didn’t recognize? Anything from outside the United States?”

“Once or twice. A few years ago. Then it stopped. I think he had a post office box. He was so secretive.” Janice tipped the wine bottle to her mouth. “I just attributed it to his having a girlfriend. He liked strippers. I pretended I didn’t know, but of course I did.”

“Men are pigs.” Exley patted her hand. A mistake. Janice flinched.

“What would you know about it? You lied to me yesterday. You’re not even married.” She began to cry, her tears cutting through the mascara she’d just applied, sending black streaks down her cheeks. She grabbed a dirty paper towel and dabbed at her face.

“I was. Married.” Exley didn’t know why she felt the need to defend herself.

“Divorced, huh? Just like I’m gonna be.” Janice stood. “God. Look at this place. Look at my life.” She stumbled toward the stairs. “You do what you have to do. You’re going to anyway. But leave me alone.”

As Janice pulled herself up the stairs, Exley put her head in her hands. They had to get moving, get the word out to the FBI and Homeland Security, add Robinson’s Acura to police watch lists, check his name against passenger manifests, review airport security cameras to see if they could match his face with whatever name he was using these days, maybe even get the media involved. But it wouldn’t matter. With an eighteen-hour head start and a few thousand bucks, Keith Robinson could be anywhere. He could have driven to Atlanta and then flown to Panama City, New York, and then Istanbul, Chicago, and then Bangkok. They’d find him eventually, but eventually would be too late.

She felt Wells’s hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong, Jenny?”

“It’s my fault. I flushed him.”

Wells pulled her up. “That’s crap and you know it. He was all set to run. You’re the reason we might find him. Let’s get Janice to give us something in writing—”

“She doesn’t want to talk anymore.”

“A couple sentences, so no one can say later we didn’t have permission to be here. And then let’s start making calls.”

SEVEN HOURS LATER, Exley, Shafer, Tyson, and Wells sat in the library of Tyson’s house in Falls Church, a windowless square room that Tyson had assured them was as secure as any at Langley. Books about spying, fiction and non-, filled the shelves, from classics like The Secret Agent and The Thirty-NineSteps to Tom Clancy’s massive hardcovers. Wells and Exley shared a love seat, and Exley allowed her hand to rest compan ionably on Wells’s leg. Two silky Persian cats slept in the corner. Tyson just needed a cigar and a glass of whiskey to complete the picture of the gentleman at ease, Wells thought. But the calm in the room was deceptive.

A few miles east, in Langley, an FBI/CIA task force was tearing up Keith Robinson’s office, trying to figure out exactly what he’d stolen over the years, what databases he’d accessed, what files he’d copied, what operations and spies he’d destroyed. Of course, if Robinson showed up the next morning, the agents in his office would have some explaining to do. But everyone agreed the chances of that happening were approximately zero.

“Guess we found our mole,” Tyson said. “Or rather, he found us.” He didn’t smile. “This is as bad as it gets. He had almost total access to our East Asian ops. Everyone in China is blown. North Korea too, and maybe even Japan and India. The only place that’s really insulated is the GWOT”—the global War on Terror, the U.S. fight against al Qaeda. “China’s peripheral to that, so people might have wondered if he asked too many questions.”

“Anyway, I don’t think that his friends in Beijing care much about Osama bin Laden,” Shafer said.

“We don’t know what they care about,” Tyson said. We’ve got no sources left. Aside from our friend Wen Shubai, whose advice has been less than perfect. Anyway what happened yesterday“—the collision between the Decatur and the fishing trawler—”has changed things so much that I’m not sure anyone on the other side of the river“—in the White House—”cares anymore what Wen thinks. Confrontation hasn’t worked so far.“

“So what now?” Wells said.

Tyson tapped on his desk, disturbing the cats. They blinked sleepily, rearranged themselves, and then lay back down. “What do the Chinese want? Why did they sign that deal with Iran? Why provoke us? It’s never made sense from the beginning. That’s what we have to know.”

Wells slumped in a love seat. He was sick of Tyson’s grandstanding. “And how do you propose that we four get the answer, George? Last I checked, our collective experience in China added up to a big fat zero.”

“And now I need to come clean with you. I believe, I hope, we have one live source left in the People’s Republic.”

In the silence that followed, Wells glanced at Exley and Shafer. They looked as surprised as he felt.

“A couple years after Tiananmen, a PLA colonel reached out to us. He was an evangelical Christian, a silent convert. They’re some of our best sources. He gave us good stuff during the nineties. But he went dark when Robinson approached the Chinese. Completely dark. At the time, we couldn’t understand why. Now it seems obvious. He was keeping his head down so Robinson couldn’t out him.”

“Any idea why he didn’t just tell us about Robinson?”

“Maybe he didn’t know enough about Robinson’s identity to give him up. Or maybe it was the other way. Maybe so few people knew about Robinson that our guy figured he’d compromise himself if he gave Robinson up. Anyway, one day he missed a meeting. After that, we never saw him again. Didn’t respond to any of our signals.”

“But he wasn’t arrested,” Exley said.

“No. He’s still around. In fact, he’s senior enough that he gets into the papers over there every so often. His name’s Cao Se.”

“Still. He could be doubled. Robinson could have given him up along the way.”

“We ran him out of Australia rather than China. Not for any great reason. Just that he initially found us at a military conference in Sydney. Then later he wouldn’t do business with any other office.”

“You really think he’s protected himself?” Shafer said.

“It’s possible. By luck or design.” Tyson huffed and settled back down in his chair. “I think if they’d doubled him he would have reached out a few years back. He would have been another thread in the web they spun for us. Instead he just disappeared.”

“So he’s been gone ten years?”

“Until last week. A visa applicant in Beijing dropped off a letter with the right codes. Amazing but true, the consular officers recognized it and passed it to our head of station. Cao wants a meeting. He says that he would, quote, ‘prefer an officer who has never worked in East Asia.’ Hard to argue with that.”

SHAFER JUMPED TO HIS FEET. “I know where you’re going with this, George. And I want to say for the record it stinks.”

“Where’s he going?” Wells said.

“He wants you to go over there, make contact with this general.”

Tyson nodded.

“Why don’t you send somebody two years out of school, somebody who’s not in their files?” Wells said.

“At this point we have no idea who’s in their files,” Tyson said. “Like Ellis said, the Chinese don’t care about bin Laden. What you did in Times Square was a sideshow as far as they’re concerned. And Cao needs to know we care enough to send somebody important. Like it or not, you’re in that category.”

“Let me add another reason,” Shafer said. “Vinny Duto can’t stand you and wouldn’t mind you spending the rest of your life in a Chinese jail. This is his big chance to get rid of you. If it works, great. If not, bye-bye.” Shafer looked to Tyson. “Et tu, Georgie? Still embarrassed you were on the wrong side last year? Or just looking for new and exciting ways to kiss Vinny’s ass?”

“That’s nonsense, Ellis. This is up to John. If he doesn’t want to go, there’ll be no hard feelings—”

“I’m not finished, George.” Shafer turned toward Wells. “He knows you’re too hardheaded to turn this down, even though we can’t save you if this is a trap. You know that, John. They may not even lock you up. Considering the way things are right now, they may just shoot you.”

Tyson pushed himself to his feet. “Ellis, the PLA has no reason to set up such an elaborate sting at this moment. They’re more worried whether we’re going to bomb Shanghai. I think this approach is genuine, and I want John to go because he gives us the best chance of reaching Cao. No other reason.”

“Yeah, he’s a great choice, considering he doesn’t evenspeak Chinese.” Shafer stepped toward the desk and leaned over Tyson. He looked like a terrier about to launch himself at a bulldog. “What exactly do you think Cao’s going to tell us? You think he’s gonna give us their launch codes so we can nuke Shanghai and not worry about them retaliating? What we ought to do is pull the Navy back to Hawaii and let things settle down.”

“Maybe. And maybe then the PLA will think they have carte blanche to invade Taiwan. The point is we don’t know what they want, what they’re thinking. Now somebody on their side, somebody who knows, wants to tell us.”

“Let him defect, then, if he’s so damn important.”

“He’s making the rules, Ellis, not us. And what he wants is a meeting, his terms, his turf. If John doesn’t want to go, that’s fine. I’ll find someone else.”

“One last question, George. Did you and Duto discuss this little plan?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“I rest my case.”

“I’d like to say something,” Wells said.

Exley folded her hands together in an unconscious prayer.

“I’ll go.”

Exley and Shafer spoke simultaneously.

Shafer: “Don’t do this—”

Exley: “No, John—”

“I’ll go.”