The Mandarin Club (37 page)

“I have a holiday surprise for you,” he said sheepishly as Michael and Henry looked at each other, confused but grinning. “They said I could take you for a special ride—maybe all the way to Alaska.”

Then he held them tight, tears of joy mingling with tears of sorrow.

B
y the time Mickey Dooley and his boys landed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, the carefully woven fabric of U.S.-China relations had begun to shred. Official Beijing was full of super-charged rhetoric. But inside their airborne cocoon, as they waited on the runway for refueling, the American travelers were, for the most part, blissfully ignorant of global developments.

With his groggy boys, Mickey slipped away from the delegation and disembarked at the military facility just outside of Anchorage. They rode in a car Branko had sent, heading straight to the international airport and a United flight to San Francisco. Albuquerque, Branko had concluded, would become too hot, the media likely to turn the grandparents’ neighborhood into a replay of the Elian Gonzalez circus once played out in Miami. They even had a passing concern about Mei Mei’s father sending agents to pull some wild stunt on U.S. soil, though few in Langley took that threat seriously.

Mickey was sobered by the need to further debrief his Agency escort about his on again-off again efforts to recruit Lee. He employed some code names and phrases about the fruitless attempt to bring Lee in, lest the serious talk in front of the kids concern them. He remained horrified by what might befall Lee, marooned in his homeland. But Mickey stuck to the facts and focused on getting through with the boys. The Agency officers then brought them through a secure entrance to the terminal, giving Dooley two overnight bags with some underwear, socks, and a clean change of clothes for his sons. There would be more in California, he was assured.

Mickey postponed a more serious reckoning with the boys, devising an elaborate tale on the plane about a surprise visit to the grandparents and a major league baseball game. He fervently hoped it would be his last lie. It would not be easy for the boys to endure the separation to come, with their mother in a fury back in Beijing.

For now, the boys took it all as a lark as they arrived back in the USA. During those first hours of flight, the strangest thing for Michael and Henry turned out to be the fact that, having crossed the international dateline, it was July 4th all over again in Anchorage. They were giggling about the “Groundhog Day” movie with Bill Murray they had seen on video—clamoring for a holiday do-over. But they were hurried away and pre-boarded, First Class, on the domestic flight. They were asleep again before they took off, bound for California. Mickey was still in a state of shock, worrying about Lee and awaiting an uncertain future.

Rachel flew on toward Washington with Smithson’s entourage. Out her window, the jagged peaks of the Canadian Rockies gave way to the great flat northern plains. There had been little cell phone traffic from Alaska because everyone but Mickey and the boys had stayed on board. Gossip from those who had called home nevertheless began to fill the fliers in on the drama unfolding about them.

They had become part of an international incident, the full significance of which was as yet unclear. The only overt sign on board was when Senator Smithson huddled with military liaison in the cockpit, on what Rachel later learned was some special Pentagon hook-up.

It was very late Saturday night—again—when the plane finally rolled to a halt at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. The fireworks on the Mall were long past done, dissipated into the tons of garbage that patriotic revelers left in their wake. The exhausted travelers gathered their carry-on bags and peered onto the tarmac. Just outside the modest military arrival terminal, a full press stakeout awaited them, complete with live cameras and bug-attracting klieg lights penetrating the heavy air. There, too, to Rachel’s great relief, was Alexander.

“Welcome back to the land of the free!” said Alexander, greeting her with a chaste peck and immediately taking her carry-on bag. “You guys OK?”

“Bless you for being here,” Rachel said, clutching his arm as she waved away a couple of reporters headed her way. “I haven’t become work for you again, have I?”

“I came for
you
, not for this circus.”

“What the hell!” An elongated boom mike was hanging just above Alexander’s head, and Rachel swatted at it as if it was some grotesque insect. It seemed to bob and weave, guided by its own manic design, before veering off toward another target.

A few minutes later, they were safe in Alexander’s car, motoring across the still-busy Beltway and around the weary city.

“I’m afraid I’m not quite all here,” Rachel apologized, breaking the silence.

“It’s always a killer flight. Even with Air Force wheels.”

“Eighteen hours—and through about four civilizations, it feels like. Major culture shock.”

“And I thought we were converging.” Alexander chuckled before putting the question to her: “So, what exactly happened at the Beijing airport? Did you see how he did it?”

“Did what?”

“The, uh, ‘kidnapping’ I believe is what the Chinese Foreign Ministry is calling it.”

“Kidnapping! You’re serious?”

“Really. It’s all over the news. They’re making a really big stink about it. And it’s the perfect cover because the PRC is rolling out their annual Taiwan war game exercise early. So it’s part of a much bigger story. Was it really Mickey and his boys?”

Rachel buried her eyes in her palms, rubbing in a vain search for clarity. “Yes, Alexander, it really was. And Cowboy Mickey pulled it off.” Then she slumped back, her thoughts on Jamie and the coming dawn.

There was an awkward scene when they first arrived at Rachel’s home. Barry was up, pacing in the hallway. Having tucked Jamie in, he was there for the night, evidently, and had opened up the sofa-bed in the den. Several of his bags were packed in the front hallway for his morning departure.

An opera was playing in hidden speakers—Pavarotti—too boisterous for midnight. Rachel set her bags in the front hall and Barry hugged her, told her he was relieved she was back safe and sound. She lingered a long moment while Alexander busied himself with her bags in the entry, then she headed up to give Jamie a kiss and collapse in her bed.

Barry and Alexander made small talk, non-sequiturs trailing into meaningless generalities—the weather, the Nationals’ playoff hopes, whatever. Alexander went to use the toilet before hitting the road. But when he came back, Barry had two Amarettos in his hand, standing expectantly.

“Nightcap?” The question hung in the air, part demand, part peace offering.

“Sure,” Alexander said. “I guess I could use one.”

He followed Barry through an immaculate kitchen, where only the stove light illuminated glistening counters. He waited as Barry fiddled with the lock to the sliding glass door, and then they walked together onto the deck, side by side. A fattened moon rode between waves of rolling clouds. The air was thick with crickets and humidity; it seemed too bright for the depths of the night.

They sipped the almond liquor, and leaned against the railing, peering into the distance. “So, I’m off for a few weeks,” Barry said matter-of-factly, leaving his itinerary typically vague.

“Jamie will miss having you twenty-four/seven, I’m sure.”

“We had a great two weeks.”

Alexander was staring down, averting his eyes even in the dark.

“You know, there’s something I always meant to ask you, Bonner.”

Something in Barry’s tone made Alexander want to leave. He regretted accepting the drink. He felt guilty; he didn’t really want to be there with Barry, for whatever it was that needed to be said.

“I mean, I don’t necessarily have any right,” Barry said, stumbling. Alexander could hear now that this wasn’t his first drink of the evening. “But, then, what the hell.”

“Barry,” Alexander began, turning to face him, “you don’t need to—”

“For old times’ sake. You can ask your own question first.”

Barry had squared up at him, taller and more formidable than Alexander had remembered. Alexander saw the strength in his shoulders, the old swimmer’s bulk looming above him in a streak of moonlight.

“C’mon, I’m not really up for—”

“Just do this with me. Ask me whatever the hell comes to mind. I get one question for you. And no bullshit.”

“Sheesh.” Alexander felt his head droop.

He could hear Barry breathing, too close, an intimidating presence. They stayed like that for several moments, Alexander waiting.

“OK. . .”

“Shoot.”

“OK,” Alexander began again, “I guess I always did wonder. . .”

“What?”

“What’s the deal with all the safes?”

Barry did not answer immediately. After several moments, he just repeated “the safes.”

“Yeah. Like the wall safe, the combo safe on the filing cabinets—your whole inner sanctum thing with all your stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t need all that security just to bring your Wall Street business home. Can’t be that many corporate secrets you carry around on weekends.”

There was a stillness about them now as the clouds streamed noiselessly before the flush moon.

“So,” Barry finally responded, “what if I told you it was none of your business?”

“Hey, the game was
your
idea,” Alexander noted, then set his glass down and stood to leave. “This is dumb.”

“No,” Barry said, catching him firmly by the wrist. “Stay a minute.”

Alexander first tried to eye him in the dark, then spoke. “You know, I always had this theory. . .”

“What’s that?”

“Well, I’d make up my own story for you. Like when you’re waiting at an airport, killing time, watching people, and you make up secret lives for them, detailed biographies. You ever do that?”

“Sure.”

“After Stanford, once we all scattered, I never really felt I knew you. I never really knew Barry any more. None of us did. The years went by and the rest of us managed to stay connected. You became an enigma. You seemed more and more remote. I wondered where you had gone.”

“So. . .”

“So, I made up a story. I had it all figured out.”

“Right.”

“I figured you were some secret agent, a regular James Bond type.”

“That’s a reach!” Barry laughed, too loud, shattering the evening air. A frog scampered through the bushes near the birdbath.

“I figured Lee had recruited you, made you a Chinese spy. Sold you on the idea he could land you some mammoth business deal if you helped him look good with all the Party higher-ups. That was my theory, anyway.”

“That would also enrich me, no doubt. What was Mickey’s old line about coming to do good, and staying to do well?”

“Sure. Then I figured maybe the CIA found you out—had Branko flip you as a double agent.”

“Thus the need for two safes.”

“Exactly! A double agent must keep his files straight. Anyway, the absurdity is what gave the theory color.”

“Bonner, you always were meant to write fiction.”

“I wish.”

“It’s your overactive imagination.”

Alexander finished his drink and, with a swirling movement, launched the ice in the general direction of the woods. They both stared at the moon. They were slowing now, like a carousel after the music stopped.

“Anyway. . .” Alexander began again tentatively.

Barry was still lost in a private thought.

“So, man. . .” Alexander stood and offered a hand.

Barry did not move as he muttered, “I never asked you
my
question.”

“No,” said Alexander, halting. There was some perfect balance to this moment, some equilibrium he was loath to upset. Gently, he placed his hand on Barry’s shoulder. “And you never answered mine.”

“I’m not sure you really want an answer,” Barry said, his voice so soft Alexander could not quite make out the words.

“Huh?”

“I’m not sure you really want the truth,” Barry continued, purposeful now. Alexander noticed the light go out upstairs in the master bedroom. “Sometimes, people
don’t
, you know. They just pretend to. But then, despite the awkwardness of our situation, I respect you too much to lie.” “Suit yourself,” Alexander said, again fighting the impulse to leave.