Deceived (25 page)

Twenty minutes
later the phone rang; Nick grabbed it anxiously. "Dennis?"

"Yeah."

"Did you
find her?" Nick asked.

"I tried. No
luck. But I did the next best thing."

"What's
that?"

"I've got
Senator Whitford holding on the other line."

"
Whitford?
"

On the mention
of Whitford's name, Meg moved to Nick's side, a questioning look on her face.

"Yeah,"
Dennis answered. "I woke him up. I thought about what you said, and you
were right
—
we can't just sit on this information. Whitford's the logical
person to contact. He's up to speed on the investigation, he's the power on the
Energy and Commerce Committee, and he chairs the Armed Services
Committee."

"Geez,
Dennis. Whitford? Why didn't you talk to me first?"

Dennis's voice
turned cold. "One, I didn't think it would be a problem, and two, I'm your
boss, remember? I don't have to consult you."

Meg clutched
Nick's shoulder and mouthed, "What's happening?"

Nick held up a
finger and spoke again into the receiver: "Well, you should have consulted
me, because I'm not going to tell him anything."

"I've
already given the senator a brief outline of your investigation, Nick. Consider
it an order if that makes it easier for you. As soon as we find Carolyn, she'll
be included in the loop."

Nick considered
his position for a moment and realized he had little room to maneuver. "All
right," he said reluctantly. "Put him on."

Another second
and the familiar drawl sounded over the line. "Mr. Ford, I hear you have a
story to tell me
…
"

At the
appointed time and the appointed place, Li's gray sedan pulled to the side of
the street. From the shadows of a brownstone's stoop Pu-Yi appeared; Li thrust
open the back door of the sedan and Pu-Yi entered. The car then continued its
course, winding through the streets headed nowhere.

Pu-Yi bowed his
head in deference.

Li barely glanced
in Pu-Yi's direction. "You are clear on your orders?" he demanded.

Pu-Yi nodded. "Yes,
sir."

"Repeat
them for me."

Pu-Yi did,
satisfactorily.

"It must
be made to look like a mugging," Li said. "Remove his wallet, his
watch, take her purse and jewelry."

Pu-Yi nodded.

"There can
be no mistakes this time."

"I
understand, sir."

"Be sure
that you do," Li said sternly. He passed on a few final instructions,
then, their business concluded, signaled the driver to return to the pickup
spot. There, Pu-Yi exited the car. It drove off immediately; there were no
good-byes.

The car drove
only a few miles before Li again signaled the driver to stop
.

He had arrived
a half-hour before sunrise. The night sky was clear, the humidity had finally
broken, and he looked forward to the walk along the reflecting pool stretching
from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, both lighted, each
glowing white and pure.

So different
than what lay a mile in any direction: a crumbling D.C. infrastructure
encapsulating poverty. A lesson there: governments didn't take care of you,
ideologies didn't take care of you, you had to take care of yourself, even in
America
.

Li came here
sometimes, at night, early in the morning, to think. The place had an order and
clarity, a Grecian balance, that inspired the same in his thoughts. Such a
clean, tranquil atmosphere, unlike Tiananmen Square with its mishmash of
monuments and obtrusive cadre of PLA soldiers and less obvious undercover
police
.

That the
buildings lacked the emotional character of some Chinese architecture
—
were
in fact almost dull
—
was not lost on him, however. They in some way
reflected much of America: technically impressive, but comfortable, over-fed,
and somehow mundane.

The walk was
therapeutic, to cleanse his mind of the events that would soon unfold. He had,
of course, ordered killings before, and no doubt would again
—
killing, in
itself, never bothered him. The morality that equated killing with evil, mercy
with good, had been propagated by the masses to protect themselves from the
powerful. Li ascribed to his own set of rules.

On reaching the
Lincoln Memorial, Li ascended the steps and read the inscription above
Lincoln's statue he had read many times before: "In this temple, as in the
hearts of the people for whom he saved the union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln
is enshrined forever."

To the south of
Tiananmen Square stood a strikingly similar memorial, Chairman Mao's Mausoleum.
Inside, seated much like Lincoln, was a massive white statue of Mao, a mural of
the mountains and rivers of China behind him.

Every country
had its heroes. Flaws were glossed over, be they Mao's or Lincoln's. Unfortunately
or fortunately, however
—
Li had no opinion on the matter
—
America
had become like a pretty teenage girl who dwelt on every mark of acne, every
extra half-inch of fat, until she convinced herself she was ugly. The Vietnam
memorial to his left was symptomatic: where the other memorials within his
sight praised America's successes, that memorial dwelt upon failure, where
other memorials gleamed white, its dark polished surface threw reflections but
had no light of its own. When America built its next statue on the Capital
mall, and the next after that, they would be to her supposed victims, Li
predicted, and a country that no longer glorified the noble was doomed to
ignobility.

What an
interesting time to live, to have witnessed the fall of one great empire, the
USSR, and to watch the erosion of another, the USA. A fertile field for the
oldest empire in the world to rise once again to world prominence

Not that Li
believed in the Chinese communist system, far from it; he had given up
believing in any system at all. Now he believed only in himself, a lesson he
learned years ago in Beijing
.

Through most of
his youth, Li had been an outcast due to his mixed blood, a gift from a father
he had never met. A minor British official appointed to Great Britain's Beijing
consulate, his father saw Li's mother, just eighteen at the time, as infinitely
attractive but wholly unsuited for marriage. His appointment in Beijing over,
he left Li's mother with child and John Li with a greater problem, for the
Chinese prized nothing more than a pure blood line.

But in 1972,
when John Li turned seventeen, he developed a close friendship with a boy one
year his senior, Wei Ziyang. Unlike the other boys and girls who ignored Li, or
worse, Wei sought out Li's company, seemed to enjoy it. In the universities of
China a growing underground of intellectuals discussed concepts of freedom of
the press and freedom of expression. Wei was a member of their circles
—
people
who cared more for Li's ideas than his background. Li attended just two
meetings with Wei's friends before his mother found out. She attacked him
viciously with a bamboo rod.

"You don't
understand," his mother explained to him later, after regaining her
composure. "I know what you think of me. You think I embrace what has been
drilled into my head by the party: communism is the savior of the peasants and
the working class, and all those who oppose the party are enemies of the
people. I never have.
Never
."

Li had been too
shocked to say anything
—
his mother had been a member of the party as
long as he could remember.

"No,"
his mother had continued. "I'll tell you what I have faith in: myself. I
trust no one to look after me, no one to provide for me. Every government,
every organization, every person, will use you, and enslave you, if you let
them. History is a river. It
will
follow its course. If you swim against
the current, you go nowhere. You eventually drown. Let history go where it must
—
you
keep alive."

His mother
forbade him to see Wei again, and to ensure he obeyed her orders, shipped Li
off to live with relatives in Guangzhou. There he learned the value of his
mother's advice
—
he relied on himself, and within a few years established
a flourishing business smuggling western consumer goods across the border from
Hong Kong. Soon no one commented on his size or rounded eyes, at least not to
his face.

Fourteen years
later came the
xuécháo
, the Chinese student uprising, known in the west
as the Tiananmen square massacre. Led by a dedicated group of students, nearly
one million protesters crammed Tiananmen square and its surrounds. Workers,
even policemen, aided the students; the ideal of democracy seemed almost within
their grasp. But then, unexpectedly, the more than quarter million troops
deployed around Beijing attacked. Heavy tanks and armored vehicles made short
work of the barricades hastily erected by the protesters, crushing anyone who
got in their way. Troops with automatic weapons strafed the crowds on the
street. Several thousand casualties, maybe more.

Li learned
later that his old friend, Wei Ziyang, had helped organize the students. After
crushing the protests, the Chinese committed Wei to a mental institution; he
died there two years later from "complications."

Were it not for
his mother's stern hand and good advice, Li might have shared his friend's
fate. He took the lesson to heart. He would willingly espouse communism as long
as communists ran China. When the communists fell, so would his avocation. Communism,
capitalism, democracy, he could live comfortably with any, for all were merely
labels, and therefore meaningless; only his life held value.

Li looked to
the horizon. The stars had all but disappeared and the black and purple hues of
night were rapidly giving way to the dark oranges of early morning. He started
down the steps of the memorial, back to the edge of the reflecting pool.

As the sun made
its first appearance, he began.

Standing erect,
his chest slightly concave, feet shoulder distance apart, Li sank smoothly into
his knees. His weight balanced over a stable base, he moved from the waist,
right then left in an endless circle, his hands and arms maintaining continuity
.

Each movement
flowed rhythmically, slowly, deliberately, adding a sudden grace to his bulky
body
.

He let his
hands rise, floating at an impossibly slow pace, till they were shoulder
height, palms down, then brought them to his body and let them sink while he
exhaled, and repeated the process
.

In China, Hong
Kong, all over the far east, at sunrise young and old could be found at parks
or on public squares doing just as he, practicing
—
"playing"
was the preferred term
—taijiquan
, T'ai Chi ch'uan. The discipline, as
always, brought harmony to his mind
—
the yin and the yang, the active and
passive, in balance.

His body moved
as if in slow motion dance, arms flowing wide into the White Crane Spreads
Wings posture. His
taijiquan
master prescribed ninety-one exercise
forms; this morning Li intended to concentrate on the low forms, the strenuous
postures
.

He planned to
finish with the most strenuous position of them all: Tiger, Poised for Attack.

Nick punched in
Dennis's extension and received an anxious "hello" from the other end.
"It's me," Nick said. "You ready to head to Whitford's?"

Nick's earlier
discussion with Senator Whitford had been brief and to the point. Nick had
given the senator a thumbnail sketch of the investigation, after which Whitford
had asked the three of them, Nick, Meg, and Dennis, to meet him at his
congressional office by five-thirty a.m.

It was now
five-fifteen
.

"What time
is it?" Dennis asked. "Quarter after five? Dammit, I'm not ready. I
have to finish up a memo for my secretary to type and
—
I need a few more
minutes. You're still taking Meg's car, right?"

"Yes,"
Nick said.

"Okay, you
better take off without me."

"We can
wait," Nick offered.

"No, don't
keep the senator waiting. I'll be maybe fifteen, twenty minutes behind you
…
maybe
less."

Nick tried to sound
disappointed. "You're sure?"

"Yes. Start
right in with the senator. I won't be long." With that the line went dead.

Nick shoved a
few last papers in a briefcase, then he and Meg started for the elevator. Once
outside, they made for Meg's car, parked a block and a half from the GAO
building.

Their shoes
echoed off the nearly deserted sidewalk, and Nick was reminded of their walk
home from the charity event. How uncomfortable he felt then, and how confident
now.

"Explanations
of the user log, breaking the password, all the computer stuff, I'll look for
you to handle," Nick said.

Meg, her face
lit by the orange hues of sunrise, nodded.

"That
leaves me with the financials, the wire transfers, Scott's research on Frasier
and Li, and
—
" Nick stopped in mid-stride; he pounded the fist of
one hand into the palm of the other.

"What is
it?" Meg asked.

Nick shook his
head, upset with himself. "The fax. From my friend at the State
Department. The background check on John Li. I left it in my office."

"Want to
go back?" Meg suggested.

Nick looked at
his watch. "No. I don't want to be late."

Meg turned and
pointed to a bank of phones they'd just passed. "Give Dennis a call. He
can bring it over with him."

"Good
idea." Nick set down the briefcase and searched his pocket for change. He
produced a couple of quarters
.

Meg pointed fifty feet up the street to a black Honda. "I'll meet
you at the car." She picked up his briefcase and headed toward the car as
Nick walked back to the phones.

For the last
ten minutes Pu-Yi had watched the newer model black Honda, knowing Ford and the
woman would come. Finally, through the dim morning light, he saw two figures
exit the GAO building and begin to walk in his direction. Pu-Yi stepped back
into the shadow of a doorway and watched the approaching figures. It was almost
a block before he made a positive identification. Immediately he left the
doorway and started in their direction carrying a folded newspaper, feigning
interest in the front page
.

The plan was
simple: confront the two as they entered the car. Shoot Ford immediately, leave
the woman and her car in the inner city for the police to find: a carjacking
and a violent rape, both victims deceased. Tabloid fodder.

Li had vetoed
the use of a silencer. Only professionals used silencers, and as Li had made
very clear the shooting must not look suspicious
.

Pu-Yi peered
above the newspaper. Down the block Ford and the woman had stopped, seemed to
be engaged in conversation. Then they separated, the woman continuing on, Ford
turning back to stop at a bank of pay phones.

Now what?
Ford, as the primary target, should be disposed of first; the woman was of
secondary importance. But Pu-Yi had seen Ford hand the woman his briefcase; if
it held the copy of McKenzie's disk, and the woman drove off with it
—

The choice was
clear: the woman must be dealt with first.

Pu-Yi
considered his weaponry. The snub-nosed .38 in the right pocket of his
windbreaker would effectively remove the woman, but the gun blast would alert
Ford. The knife in his left pocket, on the other hand, had its advantages
—
the
woman would die quietly in his arms. One problem: Pu-Yi was not so sure he
wanted the woman to die, at least not so quickly. Not when he had so many uses
for her.

Better,
perhaps, to keep the woman alive and use her to draw Ford in.

Yes, Pu-Yi decided, keeping the woman alive, for a time, had multiple
advantages.

Nick lifted the
pay phone's receiver and deposited the quarters in the coin slot. He casually
scanned the sidewalk as he waited for a dial tone. To his left, a woman
scuttled away from him clutching a grocery bag. To his right, past Meg, a man
in a blue windbreaker approached reading a newspaper. Otherwise the sidewalk
was empty. The street was almost as deserted, just a few passing cars.

At the dial
tone Nick punched in Dennis's number with a shaking hand
.

A few minutes
now and he'd be in Whitford's office, then the story would come out and the
nightmare would end.

As Dennis's
line rang, Nick's eyes found Meg and followed her as she neared her car. He
smiled thinking of her. His eyes then tracked to the side, to the man in the
windbreaker a half-dozen yards beyond Meg. Asian, Nick now realized. He could
just make out the man's features in the morning light: a broad face, what
looked like a long scratch on his right cheek.

A
"hello" came over the phone breathlessly, and Nick turned his
attention back to the phone.

"Dennis,
it's Nick." He saw the face of the Asian man again in his mind. A scratch
along the cheek.
A scratch?
Why was that important?

The line went
silent for moment, then Dennis squeaked, "Nick?"

"Yeah,"
Nick answered. "I forgot something in my office, the fax from the State
Department on John Li. Could you bring it along with you?"
Why was the
scratch important?

"Where are
you calling from?" Dennis asked.

"The
street. From a pay phone."
A scratch.

"
…
Sure,
I can bring it."

"Good,
it's right by my
—
" Nick started. A long scratch, as if someone's
fingernails had raked the man.

As if
someone's fingernails had raked the man.

Nick's stomach
dropped as he suddenly remembered: the autopsy outside Birmingham. McKenzie,
the owner of Tremont engineering. The medical examiner had noted the
fingernails of one of McKenzie's hands had been cleaned. Nick had followed the
examiner's inference: McKenzie had scratched someone before he'd died, and that
someone had not wanted to leave skin traces under McKenzie's nails.

Nick jerked his head urgently in Meg's direction, letting the receiver
fall to swing by its cord.

Pu-Yi closed on
the woman's back, admiring her shape as he did so. Fit, athletic, but one could
never tell. Sometimes the unfit were the ones that fought fiercely to cling to
life while the fit succumbed surprisingly quickly. He found himself hoping that
that would not be the case
.

The woman
opened the back door of the Honda and placed the briefcase in the back seat. A
few steps and Pu-Yi would be to her. One hard slap to the face should do it. The
woman would scream and Ford would come running to her aid
—
it was his
nature. Pu-Yi would be waiting, knife in hand.

Pu-Yi grabbed the woman's shoulder, spun her around easily. Their eyes
locked momentarily, hers showing a hint of fear, then annoyance. "What are
y
—
" she started, when his blow took her across the face and knocked
her against the car. First lesson, he thought, speak only when spoken to. He
reached out to pull her to him.

Nick crashed
into the Asian man in stride, sending him sprawling to the sidewalk and
knocking the gun from his hand. Nick's first concern was Meg
—
she seemed
dazed, unable to protect herself. He pushed her into the back seat of the
Honda, flipped the lock, and shut the door. He turned in time to receive a kick
to his stomach
.

The Asian man
leapt for the car door, swearing on finding it locked, and incidentally
granting Nick time to recover his feet. The man turned back on Nick, and Nick
retreated
.

Run. Draw
the man away from Meg.

Nick cut across
the street, dodging easily through the sparse traffic. A blast of horns sounded
behind him, indicating, he hoped, his follower's passage had not been so
trouble free.

After a dozen
frantic strides, Nick risked a glance over his shoulder. His heart stalled
—
the
man was there, running behind him, and in his hand something glinted. A knife.

Nick flew
around the first corner he came to, then risked another glance to his rear. The
man had closed the distance between them.

At the end of
the block Nick realized he was slowing. His breathing had turned ragged, his
legs heavy. A few more seconds and the man would be on him. He saw no
alternative but to turn and face the attack. What would he do then? Untrained
fists against a knife?

The obvious
answer flashed through his mind: what would he do then?
He would die.

Nick spotted a
wooden chair propped by someone's stoop. He veered, steps ahead of his
attacker, and reached the chair, swung it outward as shield and weapon.

The man in the
windbreaker stopped short of Nick. Saying nothing, his face cold, he began to
circle Nick slowly, the knife tracing small figures in the air.

Nick's gut
tightened. He yelled out, calling for help, as the man lunged forward. Nick
blocked with the chair, rapping the man on the wrist with one of its legs, but
the knife did not clatter to the ground as Nick hoped.

Nick yelled
again, his voice cracking with fear. A window above him opened, and then
another, but no voices came from the shadows within. It was a mistake, to look
to the windows. The man lunged again, and this time grabbed the chair and
wrested if from Nick's grasp.

The man swung
out one of his legs, catching Nick at the back of the knees. One second Nick
was standing, the next his head cracked concrete. He looked up, saw the man,
saw the knife, the images swimming as he fought unconsciousness.

The Honda roared down the street, and finally Meg caught sight of them
again. Nick was on the ground. The man stood over him with a knife. She spun
the wheel and gunned the engine. The car flew over the curb, catapulting her
against the roof of the car and knocking her momentarily into blackness. She
didn't see Pu-Yi turn, his face pure panic, nor did she feel the grill of the
car take him at the hips, knocking him beneath the undercarriage. She did feel
the chain link fence that came next and managed to slam the brakes to the
floor, slowing the car slightly before it skidded sideways into the brick wall
of an office building.

Nick heard the
car clear the curb at the same time as Pu-Yi. He rolled to the side, escaping
Pu-Yi's fate by a yard
.

Still dizzy,
Nick started after the car, but stopped momentarily when Pu-Yi's body appeared
from underneath it. He prepared to leap on the man and wrestle the gun from
him; a look at the twisted joints and the crushed chest smeared crimson told
him it wouldn't be necessary.

The car had
stalled, the driver's side up against a brick wall. Nick ran to the passenger's
door and ripped it open. Slumped forward, Meg's head rested against the
steering wheel. "Meg," he yelled, panicked.

She opened her
eyes; her hand went to her forehead. "I'm okay," she said weakly, a
bead of blood laying a path to her eyebrow. He pulled Meg's body away from the
steering wheel. The rivulet of blood from her forehead had now wound its way
past her eye and continued on toward her chin. "Can you move?" he
asked.

She nodded, but
winced when she tried. "It hurts," she groaned through clenched
teeth.

"All
right, let's see if we can slide you out." He put his hands under her
body, lifted and pulled simultaneously. She slid easily. He picked her up in
his arms.

Her head rested
on his shoulder; her hands gripped his shirt fiercely.

Nick laid Meg on
a small patch of grass; he knelt beside her, making a quick examination. Her
eyes looked clear. He traced the bleeding to a one inch scrape on her forehead
that didn't appear serious, but might mask a concussion
.

"Stay
here," he whispered, then made his way back to Pu-Yi's body. He had not
noticed Pu-Yi's face at first, and now averted his eyes. The car's
undercarriage had skinned his forehead and one cheek to bone. The knife lay a
few feet from Pu-Yi's outstretched hand; Nick left it there, his first diagnosis
correct: the man was dead and no longer a threat
.

A crowd had yet
to gather, but a half-dozen pedestrians crept forward, steadily gathering their
courage. "Get help," Nick yelled to deaf ears, and it took two
additional attempts before a man sped off.

Returning to
Meg's side, Nick laid beside her, propping himself on one elbow. He set a hand
gently on her neck. "How are you?"

"Okay,"
she said with great effort, but in another moment her face went slack.

"Meg?"
Nick's eyes bulged
.

"Meg?"
he tried again, louder this time. He brushed back the rivulet of blood from her
forehead, as if that might in some way help
.

 In the
distance he heard the wail of sirens.