Wall of Night

29

Mary Tsang’s ad ran in the Post’s Saturday edition.

Paul Randall and Janet Paschel spent the morning sharing surveillance duty on her apartment. At noon, Tsang stepped out her door wearing sweatpants, sweatshirt, and running shoes, then got into her car and drove off. Paschel called Latham. “She’s moving, Charlie. I’m passing Florida and Q. I don’t know if it means anything, but it looks like she’s dressed for a workout.”

“Maybe something,” Latham replied. In the ten days they’d been watching Tsang, the most exercise she’d performed was carrying grocery bags from her car. However subtle, this was a change in behavior. Better safe than sorry, Latham thought. “Where’s Paul?” he asked.

“Went to grab some lunch.”

“Call him and see if he can rustle up some sweatpants, then have him meet you.”

As it happened, Randall was only five minutes from his own apartment when Paschel called. He changed clothes and began heading toward Paschel’s location. “Passing the Spectrum Gallery on M Street,” she reported. “Looks like she’s trying to find a parking spot.”

“Good luck,” Randall replied. “I know that area. Finding a spot there on a Saturday morning is going to be a trick.”

Latham asked. “Doesn’t a jogging trail start around there — the one that goes to the zoo?”

“We’re passing Thirty-first,” Paschel announced.

“Yeah, you’re right. It starts on Prospect.”

“You may have called it,” Paschel said, “She’s turning toward Prospect … slowing down now … yep, she’s looking for a spot.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Latham said. “Paul?”

“Less than that.”

Whatever aversion Tsang had to exercise, it wasn’t apparent as she parked her car and started jogging northeast toward Rock Creek Park and the National Zoo.

Following Paschel’s directions, Randall took a few shortcuts and found a parking spot on P Street, then got out and started stretching. A few minutes later Tsang jogged past him.

“I’ve got her,” Randall called over the cell phone. “Damn, she’s moving fast.”

“Stay with her,” Latham said. “Dinner’s on me if you do.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

Tsang headed down Q Street to where it crossed the jogging path bordering Rock Creek, then turned north, following the trail into the park’s half-mile-wide forest of spruce and pine. She never once looked over her shoulder, Randall noted. In fact she seemed to be in a hurry, so focused was she on the path ahead.

A mile into the park she turned east onto a narrow path. The wooden sign at the intersection read “Steep trail — For experienced hikers and joggers only.”

“Just great,” Randall muttered, and pushed on.

Tsang began to slow as the grade increased. Randall adjusted his pace accordingly. The trees crowded the trail until branches brushed his arms and the canopy blotted out the sun. He took a bend in the trail and found himself on a straightaway. Fifty yards ahead, Tsang was rounding the next corner. Randall sprinted ahead and made the turn: another straightaway, this one downhill …

What’s this? He stopped and backpedaled out of sight.

Tsang, barely ten yards ahead of him, was emerging from the trees along the path.

Randall waited five seconds, then peeked around the corner. She was gone. He started out again, studying the underbrush as he passed it. He saw nothing.

Twenty minutes later he emerged from the park and turned onto Q Street. A hundred yards ahead of him, Tsang had slowed to a walk. He pulled out his cell phone, dialed Paschel, and gave her his location. “I see her,” Paschel said. “She’s passing me now.”

“Thank God,” he panted. “Damn, I’m outa shape.”

“At least you earned your dinner. Hold on, I’ll get Charlie conferenced in.”

Latham came on the line. “You alive, Paul?”

“Barely. She’s a dynamo. We may have something, though.” He explained what had happened on the trail. “I didn’t see anything, but it’s worth a check.”

“Okay. Janet, follow her home, make sure she’s got nothing else on her itinerary. Paul, I’m headed your way. Let’s see if we can figure out what she was up to.”

Had they not been looking for something, they would have never found it.

The pill bottle was tucked inside the knothole of a fallen tree about twenty feet off the trail. The white top had been smeared with mud, and a leaf was stuck to the plastic.

“Take a good look, Paul,” Latham said. “Memorize it. When we put it back, I want everything just as it was.” If Tsang had left any telltales — physical peculiarities designed to betray tampering — Latham wanted to make sure they recreated them perfectly.

Randall examined the knot from several angles. “The leaf’s stem is pointing at twelve o’clock … hold it …” Randall leaned closer. “There’s a toothpick, Charlie. It’s covered in mud; almost looks like a twig. It’s wedged under the bottle.”

Very smart, Latham thought. Move the bottle and the toothpick falls. “I thought you said she was only back here for ten seconds?”

“She was.”

“Then she’s been practicing. Anything else?”

“Nope.”

Latham eased the bottle out and peered into the hole. It was empty. Next he pried off the leaf and set it aside. He examined the bottle for more telltales. There were none. He unscrewed the cap. Inside the bottle was a folded piece of white paper. Counting folds as he went, Latham opened it. Inside he found six characters in what he assumed was Mandarin Chinese.

“Damn, Charlie, you were right about her,” Randall murmured.

“Looks that way.”

The unremarkable Mary Tsang had just serviced a dead-letter drop.

“What do you want to do?”

“Copy down the characters as best you can. We’ll see if Oaken can make sense of them.”

When Randall was finished, Latham refolded the note and returned it the bottle, then slid it back into the knot and replaced the toothpick and leaf. Stepping carefully, they backed onto the trail, brushing leaves over their footprints as they went.

“Now what?” Randall asked.

“We’re gonna have to stake it out.”

Randall chuckled. “I’ve got a sleeping bag.”

“Don’t laugh, it might come to that. I’m guessing whoever’s coming won’t wait long.”

“No problem. Take that to Walt. I’ll get things set here.”

“It’s Mandarin,” Oaken said. “How accurate was Paul in his copying?”

“Looked good to me. Why?”

“Chinese dialects are tricky — both in the written and the verbal. You take two characters, both seemingly identical, but curl a brush stroke a certain way and you’ve got a different meaning. Chinese is a metaphorical language, so there are very few single word characters. Hell, I studied Mandarin for a year in college and I still had a hard time telling the difference between the characters for ‘water running downhill’ and ‘eternal bliss.’”

“No wonder our governments are at odds,” Latham said. “That kind of subtlety doesn’t make for easy communication. They’re abstract, we’re more concrete.”

“Exactly,” Oaken said. “Okay, let’s see what we can do with this.”

He placed the note on a scanner, transferred it to his computer, then fed the file into a language database. After a few minutes, the computer chimed. Oaken looked at the screen, then tapped a few keys. “Done.” He took the sheet out of the printer’s tray and peered at it. “Now, remember, this is probably pretty close, but it’s not exact.” He handed Latham the translation and he read aloud:

“‘Opposition interested family; making connections; caution.’ That answers a couple questions.”

“Such as?”

“First, Hong Cho knows — at least in general terms — who killed the Bakers.”

“And second?”

“He didn’t buy the story we fed him.”

“But he sent a message anyway.”

“Which means he doesn’t know we’re onto Tsang. If he did, he wouldn’t have let her service the drop.”

“But he did,” Oaken said, “They’re still out there somewhere.”

Latham nodded. And up to God-knows-what, he thought. What was keeping them here?