Three hours later, three hours of uninterrupted talking, explaining, clarifying, and praying, Valerie sat down and
waited. It had been explained to her that there would be no questions directly to her. That the procedure was for the assemblage to write down their questions, submit them to the Council, then to have Franco ask only those questions that the Council ruled were critical to the decision to be reached.
After forty minutes of silent discussion amongst themselves, the Council members handed the questions over to Franco. He seemed stunned by how few there were.
“Uh, Congresswoman, we have five questions for you. Are you prepared to answer them freely and truthfully?”
“I am,” Valerie said as confidently as she could.
“First, this Pei, Source 24601. What was his exact position in this LRSO and what was his exact assignment?”
Simple enough beginning.
“Pei was the deputy director of the LRSO’s Office of Planning Review. It was his job to supervise analyses and critiques of ongoing Chinese intelligence operations. In order to determine if the best methods had been used, if there were possible improvements that could be implemented in the future; to ascertain whether or not the operations had been or still were being run as efficiently and profitably as they could be.”
“And what did he conclude with Apple Blossom?” one of the eleven interrupted, as she’d been told they might.
“He told me that Apple Blossom was as well run a plot as he’d ever come across. But that the operative was as unstable a lead element as he’d ever experienced. He even suggested that there might’ve been a flaw in the screening process that allowed this person to get through an otherwise tight net.”
Franco looked over the room; no follow-ups were forthcoming, so he turned to the next question. “Why were you chosen to have such close access to Pei? Including but not limited to individual debriefings that were—by your own account—unsupervised and unrecorded.”
Valerie exhaled deeply. “Pei had, at one time, been in charge of maintaining the LRSO’s profiles of members of
Congress. The CIA seemed to think that he had become, well,
enamored
of me at that time. They wanted me to encourage that in him. He was scared, timid at first, kinda sweet really.” She pulled herself back from the memory. “He was raised to fear the CIA, so they thought I could get him past that.”
“Did you become his lover?” someone asked.
“No, she responded too quickly, forcing down the memories of the slight brushings and touchings she’d allowed the basically naive defector.
Praying that the CIA
had
—as promised—destroyed the covert videos that she would never admit to. Pei had been a find—a man with virtually unlimited access to the inner circles of ChiCom intelligence. The benefits of his testimony in front of her committee—to national security and to her career—had been worth allowing the socially innocent man his fantasies.
There had been one other thing besides.
In the dark, sleep-deprived eyes of the man, she recognized something painfully familiar. A soul alone in the world. A person beneath the spy, who had risked everything to try to save himself. A person who needed someone to tell him that everything would be all right; that the myriad decisions he’d made that left him essentially alone and a traitor to his birth were the right ones.
As no one had ever consoled Valerie.
“The next question,” Franco said immediately. “You said that you were contacted by the Canvas Group
before
Pei was killed, along with the three agents guarding him. Did you give the Canvas Group the information on where Pei was being hidden and with what security?”
All eyes in the room turned to her.
“No! I wouldn’t do such a thing!”
The seventeen men sat quietly, calmly, their eyes locked with her soul.
“Yes,” she whispered. “They took my kids, my…”
“So you are responsible for their deaths?”
In her role as chair of the investigating subcommittee, Valerie had been walked through the scene, even before
the bodies were removed. The look of surprise in the dead eyes of one of the agents, the look of betrayal in another’s, were seared into her brain.
She’d rationalized that her interrogators—the bastard traitor and his two Chinese assistants—would use the information to carry out surveillance of the defector. To try to listen to his interrogations, maybe to sneak a message of warning to him.
All bullshit, she thought as she faced this almost primordial tribunal who demanded instant truths with no exception.
As she faced her soul.
Were the seven children left without their fathers worth the lives of her two?
Mercifully Franco interrupted before she could find an answer.
“The next question,” he said as he looked away. “This Canvas person, or any of the Chinese, or the men who worked for them, did they ever tell you specifically that they murdered Paolo?”
He whirled on the Council.
“Fratelli, questo è un oltraggio! Pensa quello …”
“Silenzio!”
the man in the center chair called out. “You will answer the question, Congresswoman.”
Valerie took a deep breath. “No. No one ever expressly said that they’d killed Paul, Paolo.” She sighed. “But I have no doubts in my mind. They would’ve killed anyone that they even suspected might compromise their operations. No question.”
“U
ltima domanda,”
the old man said to Franco.
Franco briefly bowed his head.
“Congresswoman Alvarez,” he began slowly as he read the question over. “What, in your opinion, is the long-term goal of this Apple Blossom operation?” He looked up. “And please be specific.”
For a full minute Valerie shuffled papers on her table—a meaningless act, since she was far more concentrating on the answer that was still forming in her head. The dark gooey thing that had never quite found its voice.
Until now.
“Pei said that they had spent decades working on the idea. Their top psychiatrists, behaviorists, theorists, had created profiles and tests to identify an individual that could be completely controlled merely by the manipulation of this individual’s lusts, desires, wants, needs, inclinations. They no longer believed in brainwashing. Instead they believed that they could exploit an already existing amoral individual’s weakness. They called it the, uh,
doctrine of sociopathy.
“Their economists, political scientists, psychologists, and behaviorists had reasoned and evaluated; planned and projected until they were
certain
of the costs and procedures. Apple Blossom was the result.”
She checked some notes, then put them away and looked each man in the room directly in the eyes.
“The Chinese reasoned that they would never develop an industrial base that could compete with the West s. They understood that technological proficiency and inspiration was not their forte, so they could never hope to win a
technical
arms race. But there was one area where they had an advantage over all other societies.
“People and time.
“The Chinese believe they must, as a matter of historical perspective, triumph over the Western democracies. And to that end, Apple Blossom was created.
“They screened hundreds, maybe more, until they found the one they needed. With an almost open-ended budget and the finest analysis and planning possible, they intend to manipulate their man—this Apple Blossom—into a senior decision-making position in the United States government. A position where this Apple Blossom could influence events in the ChiCom’s favor. A position where—over time—he could, well, cede control over our government to the Chinese… with no one being any the wiser.
“A simple, bloodless, invisible coup d’état.”
“Do you know who this Apple Blossom is? asked one of the assembled.”
“No, beyond Pei’s contention that he was already ‘deeply integrated into the government’s fabric,’ his phrase.”
“Do you have any suspicions?” from another.
Valerie did—a great many. But none that would answer the specific question being asked. And Franco had warned her to be as specific as possible.
“I can only refer back,” she began carefully, “to what I said in my statement. To the man who led the interrogation sessions.” She took a deep breath, trying to control her evident anger. “That
he
is a traitor there is no doubt. But I don’t know if even that
bastard
knows the real answer to your question.”
The room was silent, nonreactive, uncaring. It startled Valerie to the core.
“Franco,” the old man in the center chair said casually,
“finiscila.”
“Sono il tuo schiavo.”
He turned to the group, bowed his head to them, then straightened. “My brothers, the picture is clear. One of our own has been murdered. Savagely killed while carrying out the duties assigned him by our most precious Brotherhood, our Union. That he is blood to me is of no import. That he is kith to all of you is. This Canvas, these
Cinesi
behind him, they have robbed us of Paolo’s counsel and brotherhood forever. I ask you to help me take my due revenge. And that as an instrument for that vendetta we use Congresswoman Alvarez, as she has offered.”
He hesitated, fighting back his emotions. “For Paolo, for our honor, in order to live with ourselves as freemen of the island of Corsica, we can do no less.
Non ho pié niente da dichiarare.”
It was early evening when the Council came to see Xenos. With his father and Valerie sitting nearby, they gathered around his bed, dutifully crossing themselves and offering him their prayers for recovery. Then they waited silently.
“Valerie,” Xenos said after studying the men, “would you mind waiting outside with my father?”
Reluctantly they left.
“Dureté,” Franco began simply, “the Council wishes to ask you about Canvas.”
“I thought they might.”
“You are well enough for this? the man from the center chair asked cautiously.”
With Franco’s help, Xenos sat up, a stern expression covering the pain of the movement.
“I owe much to the Brotherhood.”
The old man smiled. “As I knew would be your answer.” He hesitated, though. “Dureté, we are troubled by the situation surrounding our lost brother, Paolo. Is it your belief that he
was
killed by this Canvas?”
“By him, or at his order, yes. His voice was strong, firm, committed.”
“And that it is the
Cinesi
, the communists, that are behind him?”
“Ab solutely.”
“You believe this woman’s story, then?”
Xenos nodded solemnly. “What I know of it, yes. Everything I saw was consistent with her tale.”
The old man seemed to hesitate, as if something in what he would next say was personally painful. “Dureté, there is no bullshit between us, yes?”
“Yes.”
The old man looked out the window as he continued. “Franco has told us about this Canvas. About the kind of man he is, what he has behind his balls.”
“He has the Chinese military establishment behind those balls, old man.”
The man nodded.
“Si, lo so.”
He took a deep breath. “Dureté, could the Brotherhood stand against such a man?”
Xenos considered the question. The organization, loyalty, and savage fury of the Corsicans butting up against Canvas—an unemotional, calculating planner/killer with the resources of a malevolent continent behind him.
“He’s a man, and dies from a bullet in the brain like
any man,” he said after five minutes’ consideration. “You
could
get lucky.”
Franco flinched, but recognized the truth behind the flat statement of fact.
“And if we are not
lucky?”
The old man needed to hear the answer.
Xenos shrugged. “Then many more Paolos will die. Along with the Alvarez children.”
“Could you take him?” Franco’s voice reflected the near panic and fury that threatened to erupt from just beneath the surface.
“Maybe,” Xenos said matter-of-factly. “With help, the right breaks, the right … luck.”
The old man studied the man in the bed. “And the dead?”
Xenos merely returned his gaze.
“Will
you take him?” the old man finally asked.
An hour later Valerie and Avidol were allowed back in the room.
“What happened?” she asked when she saw the expressions on the Council members’ faces.
Franco spoke
… carefully.
“The Brotherhood has had dealings with the Chinese before. In Macao, in India.”
Valerie looked from one face to another. “What does that mean?”
The man from the center chair nodded at Franco.
“It has been decided,” the younger man said, “that any attempt by us—alone,” he added, drawing a look of reproval from the older man, “would only result in more deaths, including those of your children. So we are sending an envoy to the Chinese to demand the following.”
“One: the immediate return of your children, unharmed. Two: a guarantee that your treasons in the Pei affair will never be revealed. Three: a payment of six hundred thousand francs, our investment in Paolo’s education, along with a five-million-dollar penalty. Four: a payment of five million dollars as an indemnity to Paolo’s family for
his death. Five: the turning over to us of the man known as Canvas.
“The Council has ruled, the old man said as he led the others out.”
Franco lingered behind briefly, staring daggers at the man in the bed, unable to further meet Valerie’s sickened eyes. Finally he walked slowly away.
“Oh God,” Valerie muttered as if in pain. “It was all for nothing. Nothing.”
Xenos looked up from whispering to his father. “They might well go for the deal. Negotiation makes sense, and the Chinese appreciate sense.”
“And if they don’t? What then?”
Xenos held out his hand to her.
At first she thought it a conciliatory gesture, then she noticed the business card in it. She took it, seeing only a phone number printed on one side.
“What’s this?”
“Ask for Herb,” Avidol said with an odd expression. “Tell him—”He thought for a moment. “Tell him
… shalom.”