Catherine Staples insisted that her dinner guest have another vodka martini, demurring for herself, as her glass was still half full.
“It’s also half empty,” said the thirty-two-year-old American attaché, smiling wanly and nervously, pushing his dark hair away from his forehead. “That’s stupid of me, Catherine,” he added. “I’m sorry, but I can’t forget that you saw the photographs—never mind that you saved my career and probably my life—it’s those goddamned photographs.”
“No one else saw them except Inspector Ballantyne.”
“But you saw them.”
“I’m old enough to be your mother.”
“That compounds it. I look at you and feel so ashamed, so damned dirty.”
“My former husband, wherever he is, once said to me that there was absolutely nothing that could or should be considered dirty in sexual encounters. I suspect there was a motive for his making the statement, but I happen to think he was right. Look, John, put them out of your mind. I have.”
“I’ll do my best.” A waiter approached; the drink was ordered by signal. “Since your call this afternoon I’ve been a basket case. I thought more had surfaced. That was a twenty-four-hour period of pure outer space.”
“You were heavily and insidiously drugged. On that level you weren’t responsible. And I’m sorry, I should have told you it had nothing to do with our previous business.”
“If you had, I might have earned my salary for the last five hours.”
“It was forgetful and cruel of me. I apologize.”
“Accepted. You’re a great girl, Catherine.”
“I appeal to your infantile regressions.”
“Don’t bet too much money on that.”
“Then don’t you have a fifth martini.”
“It’s only my second.”
“A little flattery never hurt anyone.”
They laughed quietly. The waiter returned with John Nelson’s drink; he thanked the man and turned back to Staples. “I have an idea that the prospect of flattery didn’t get me a free meal at the Plume. This place is out of my range.”
“Mine, too, but not Ottawa’s. You’ll be listed as a terribly important person. In fact you are.”
“That’s nice. No one ever told me. I’m in a pretty good job over here because I learned Chinese. I figured that with all those Ivy League recruits, a boy from Upper Iowa College in old Fayette, Big I, ought to have an edge somewhere.”
“You have it, Johnny. The consulates like you. Our out-posted ‘Embassy Row’ thinks very highly of you, and they should.”
“If they do, it’s thanks to you and Ballantyne. And only you two.” Nelson paused, sipped his martini, and looked at Staples over the rim of the glass. He lowered his drink and spoke again. “What is it, Catherine? Why am I important?”
“Because I need your help.”
“Anything. Anything I can do.”
“Not so fast, Johnny. It’s deep-water time and I could be drowning myself.”
“If anyone deserves a lifeline from me, it’s you. Outside of minor problems, our two countries live next door to each other and basically like each other—we’re on the same side. What is it? How can I help you?”
“Marie St. Jacques … Webb,” said Catherine, studying the attaché’s face.
Nelson blinked, his eyes roving aimlessly in thought. “Nothing,” he said. “The name doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“All right, let’s try Raymond Havilland.”
“Oh, now that’s another barrel of pickled herring.” The attaché widened his eyes and cocked his head. “We’ve all been scuttlebutting about him. He hasn’t come to the consulate, hasn’t even called our head honcho, who wants to get his picture in the papers with him. After all, Havilland’s a class act—kind of metaphysical in this business. He’s been around since the loaves and the fishes, and he probably engineered the whole scam.”
“Then you’re aware that over the years your aristocratic ambassador has been involved with more than diplomatic negotiations.”
“Nobody ever says it, but only the naïve accept his above-the-fray posture.”
“You are good, Johnny.”
“Merely observant. I do earn some of my pay. What’s the connection between a name I do know and one that I don’t?”
“I wish I knew. Do you have any idea why Havilland is over here? Any rumors you’ve picked up?”
“I’ve no idea why he’s here, but I do know you won’t find him at a hotel.”
“I assume he has wealthy friends—”
“I’m sure he does, but he’s not staying with them, either.”
“Oh?”
“The consulate quietly leased a house in Victoria Peak, and a second marine contingent was flown over from Hawaii for guard duty. None of us in the upper-middle ranks knew about it until a few days ago when one of those dumb things happened. Two marines were having dinner in the Wanchai and one of them paid the bill with a temporary check drawn on a Hong Kong bank. Well, you know servicemen and checks; the manager gave this corporal a hard time. The kid said neither he nor his buddy had had time to round up cash and that the check was perfectly good. Why didn’t the manager call the consulate and talk to a military attaché?”
“Smart corporal,” broke in Staples.
“Unsmart consulate,” said Nelson. “The military boys had gone for the day, and our hotshot security personnel in their limitless paranoia about secrecy hadn’t rostered the Victoria Peak contingent. The manager said later that the corporal showed a couple of ID’s and seemed like a nice kid, so he took a chance.”
“That was reasonable of him. He probably wouldn’t have if the corporal had behaved otherwise. Again, smart marine.”
“He did behave otherwise. The next morning down at the consulate. He read the riot act in all but barracks language in a voice so loud even I heard him, and my office is at the end of the corridor from the reception room. He wanted to know who the hell we civvies thought they were up there on that mountain and how come they weren’t rostered, since they’d been there for a week. He was one angry gyrene, let me tell you.”
“And suddenly the whole consulate knew there was a sterile house in the colony.”
“You said that, Catherine, I didn’t. But I’ll tell you exactly what the memorandum to all personnel instructed us to say—the memo arrived on our desks an hour after the corporal had left, having spent twenty minutes with some very embarrassed security clowns.”
“And what you were instructed to say is not what you believe.”
“No comment,” said Nelson. “The house in Victoria was leased for the convenience and security of traveling government personnel as well as representatives of U.S. corporations doing business in the territory.”
“Hogwash. Especially the latter. Since when does the American taxpayer pick up those kinds of tabs for General Motors and ITT?”
“Washington is actively encouraging an expansion of trade in line with our widening open-door policy with respect to the People’s Republic. It’s consistent. We want to make things easier, more accessible, and this place is crowded as hell. Try getting a decent reservation on two days’ notice.”
“You sound like you rehearsed that.”
“No comment. I’ve told you only what I was instructed to tell you should you bring the matter up—which I’m sure you did.”
“Of course I did. I have friends in the Peak who think the neighborhood’s going to seed, what with all those corporal types hanging around.” Staples sipped her drink. “Havilland’s up there?” she asked, placing the glass back on the table.
“Almost guaranteed.”
“Almost?”
“Our information officer—her office is next to mine—wanted to get some PR mileage out of the ambassador. She asked the CG which hotel he was at, and she was told that he wasn’t. Then whose residence? Same answer. ‘We’ll have to wait until he calls us, if he does,’ said our boss. She cried on my shoulder, but the order was firm. No tracking him down.”
“He’s up in the Peak,” concluded Staples quietly. “He’s built himself a sterile house and he’s mounted an operation.”
“Which has something to do with this Webb, this Marie St. Somebody Webb?”
“St. Jacques. Yes.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Not now—for your sake as well as mine. If I’m right and anyone thought you’d been given information, you could be transferred to Reykjavik without a sweater.”
“But you said you didn’t know what the connection was, that you wished you did.”
“In the sense that I can’t understand the reasons for it if, indeed, it exists. I only know one side of the story and it’s filled with holes. I could be wrong.” Catherine again drank a small portion of her whisky. “Look, Johnny,” she continued. “Only you can make the decision and if it’s negative, I’ll understand. I have to know if Havilland’s being over here has anything to do with a man named David Webb and his wife, Marie St. Jacques. She was an economist in Ottawa before her marriage.”
“She’s Canadian?”
“Yes. Let me tell you why I have to know without telling you so much you could get into trouble. If the connection’s there, I have to go one way; if it’s not, I can turn a hundred and eighty degrees and take another route. If it’s the latter, I can go public. I can use the newspapers, radio, television, anything that can spread the word and pull her husband in.”
“Which means he’s out in the cold,” broke in the attaché. “And you know where she is, but others don’t.”
“As I said before, you’re very quick.”
“But if it’s the former—if there is a connection to Havilland, which you believe there is—”
“No comment. If I answered you, I’d be telling you more than you should know.”
“I see. It’s touchy. Let me think.” Nelson picked up his martini, but instead of drinking he put it down. “How about an anonymous phone call that I got?”
“Such as?”
“A distraught Canadian woman looking for information about her missing American husband.”
“Why would she have called you? She’s experienced in government circles. Why not the consul general himself?”
“He wasn’t in. I was.”
“I don’t want to disabuse you of your dreams of glory, Johnny, but you’re not next in line.”
“You’re right. And anyone could check the switchboard and find out I never got the call.”
Staples frowned, then leaned forward. “There is a way if you’re willing to lie a bit further. It’s based on reality. It happened, and no one could say that it didn’t.”
“What is it?”
“A woman stopped you in Garden Road when you were leaving the consulate. She didn’t tell you very much but enough to alarm you, and she wouldn’t go inside because she was frightened. She’s the distraught woman looking for her missing American husband. You could even describe her.”
“Start with her description,” said Nelson.
Sitting in front of McAllister’s desk, Lin Wenzu read from his notebook as the undersecretary of State listened. “Although the description differs, the differences are minor and easily achieved. Hair pulled back and covered by a hat, no makeup, flat shoes to reduce her height but not that much—it is she.”
“And she claimed not to recognize the name of anyone in the directory who could be her so-called cousin?”
“A second cousin on her mother’s side. Just farfetched yet specific enough to be credible. According to the receptionist she was quite awkward, even flustered. She also carried a purse that was so obviously a Gucci imitation that the receptionist took her for a backwoods hick. Pleasant but gullible.”
“She recognized someone’s name,” said McAllister.
“If she did, why didn’t she ask to see him? She wouldn’t waste time under the circumstances.”
“She probably assumed that we’d sent out an alert, that she couldn’t take the chance of being recognized, not on the premises.”
“I don’t think that would concern her, Edward. With what she knows, what she’s been through, she could be extremely convincing.”
“With what she thinks she knows, Lin. She can’t be sure of anything. She’ll be very cautious, afraid to make a wrong move. That’s her husband out there, and take my word for it—I saw them together—she’s extremely protective of him. My God, she stole over five million dollars for the simple reason that she thought quite correctly he’d been wronged by his own people. By her lights he deserved it—they deserved it—and let Washington go to hell in a basket.”
“She did that?”
“Havilland cleared you for everything. She did that and got away with it. Who was going to raise his voice? She had clandestine Washington just the way she wanted it. Frightened and embarrassed, both to the teeth.”
“The more I learn, the more I admire her.”
“Admire her all you like, just find her.”
“Speaking of the ambassador, where is he?”
“Having a quiet lunch with the Canadian High Commissioner.”
“He’s going to tell him everything?”
“No, he’s going to ask for blind cooperation with a telephone at his table so he can reach London. London will instruct the commissioner to do whatever Havilland asks him to do. It’s all been arranged.”
“He moves and shakes, doesn’t he?”
“There’s no one like him. He should be back any minute now—actually, he’s late.” The telephone rang and McAllister picked it up. “Yes?… No, he’s not here. Who?… Yes, of course, I’ll talk to him.” The undersecretary covered the mouthpiece and spoke to the major. “It’s our consul general. I mean American.”
“Something’s happened,” said Lin, nervously getting out of his chair.
“Yes, Mr. Lewis, this is McAllister. I want you to know how much we appreciate everything, sir. The consulate’s been most cooperative.”
Suddenly, the door opened and Havilland walked into the room.
“It’s the American consul general, Mr. Ambassador,” said Lin. “I believe he was asking for you.”
“This is no time for one of his damned dinner parties!”
“Just a minute, Mr. Lewis. The ambassador just arrived. I’m sure you want to speak with him.” McAllister extended the phone to Havilland, who walked rapidly to the desk.
“Yes, Jonathan, what is it?” His tall, slender body rigid, his eyes fixed on an unseen spot in the garden beyond the large bay window, the ambassador stood in silence, listening. Finally, he spoke. “Thank you, Jonathan, you did the right thing. Say absolutely nothing to anyone and I’ll take it from here.” Havilland hung up and looked alternately at McAllister and Lin. “Our breakthrough, if it is a breakthrough, just came from the wrong direction. Not the Canadian but the American consulate.”
“It’s not consistent,” said McAllister. “It’s not Paris, not the street with her favorite tree, the maple tree, the maple leaf. That’s the Canadian consulate, not the American.”
“And with that analysis are we to disregard it?”
“Of course not. What happened?”
“An attaché named Nelson was stopped in Garden Road by a Canadian woman trying to find her American husband. This Nelson offered to help her, to accompany her to the police but she was adamant. She wouldn’t go to the police, and neither would she go back with him to his office.”
“Did she give any reasons?” asked Lin. “She appeals for help and then refuses it.”
“Just that it was personal. Nelson described her as high-strung, overwrought. She identified herself as Marie Webb and said that perhaps her husband had come to the consulate looking for her. Could Nelson ask around and she’d call him back.”
“That’s not what she said before,” protested McAllister. “She was clearly referring to what had happened to them in Paris, and that meant reaching an official of her own government, her own country. Canada.”
“Why do you persist?” asked Havilland. “That’s not a criticism, I simply want to know why.”
“I’m not sure. Something’s not right. Among other things, the major here established the fact that she did go to the Canadian consulate.”
“Oh?” The ambassador looked at the man from Special Branch.
“The receptionist confirmed it. The description was close enough, especially for someone trained by a chameleon. Her story was that she had promised her family she would look up a distant cousin whose last name she had forgotten. The receptionist gave her a directory and she went through it.”
“She found someone she knew,” interrupted the undersecretary of State. “She made contact.”
“Then there’s your answer,” said Havilland firmly. “She learned that her husband had not gone to a street with a row of maple trees, so she took the next best course of action. The American consulate.”
“And identifies herself when she has to know people are looking for her all over Hong Kong?”
“Giving a false name would serve no purpose,” the ambassador replied.
“They both speak French. She could have used a French word—toile, for instance. It means web.”
“I know what it means, but I think you’re reaching.”
“Her husband would have understood. She would have done something less obvious.”
“Mr. Ambassador,” interrupted Lin Wenzu, slowly taking his eyes off McAllister. “Hearing your words to the American consul general, that he should say absolutely nothing to anyone, and now fully understanding your concerns for secrecy, I assume Mr. Lewis has not been apprised of the situation.”
“Correct, Major.”
“Then how did he know to call you? People frequently get lost here in Hong Kong. A missing husband or a missing wife is not so uncommon.”
For an instant Havilland’s expression was creased with self-doubt. “Jonathan Lewis and I go back a long time,” he said, his voice lacking its usual authority. “He may be something of a bon vivant, but he’s no fool—he wouldn’t be here if he were. And the circumstances under which the woman stopped his attaché—well, Lewis knows me and he drew certain conclusions.” The diplomat turned to McAllister; when he continued, his authority gradually returned. “Call Lewis back, Edward. Tell him to instruct this Nelson to stand by for a call from you. I’d prefer a less direct approach, but there isn’t time. I want you to question him, question him on anything and everything you can think of. I’ll be listening on the line in your office.”
“You agree, then,” said the undersecretary. “Something’s wrong.”
“Yes,” answered Havilland, looking at Lin. “The major saw it and I didn’t. I’d phrase it somewhat differently, but it’s essentially what disturbs him. The question is not why Lewis called me, it’s why an attaché went to him. After all, a highly agitated woman says her husband’s missing but she won’t go to the police, won’t enter the consulate. Normally such a person would be dismissed as a crank. Certainly on the surface it’s not a matter to bring to the attention of an overworked CG. Call Lewis.”
“Of course. But, first, did things go smoothly with the Canadian commissioner? Will he cooperate?”
“The answer to your first question is no, things did not go smoothly. As to the second, he has no choice.”
“I don’t understand.”
Havilland exhaled in weary irritation. “Through Ottawa he’ll provide us with a list of everyone on his staff who’s had any dealings whatsoever with Marie St. Jacques—reluctantly. That’s the cooperation he’s been instructed to deliver, but he was damned testy about it. To begin with, he himself went through a two-day seminar with her four years ago, and he ventured that probably a quarter of the consulate had done the same. Not that she’d remember them, but they certainly would remember her. She was ‘outstanding,’ was the way he put it. She’s also a Canadian who was thoroughly messed up by a group of American assholes—mind you, he had no compunction at all using the word—in some kind of mentally deranged black operation—yes, that was the phrase he used, ‘mentally deranged’—an idiotic operation mounted by these same assholes—indeed, he repeated it—that has never been satisfactorily explained.” The ambassador stopped briefly, smiling briefly, as he coughed a short laugh. “It was all very refreshing. He didn’t pull a single punch, and I haven’t been talked to like that since my dear wife died. I need more of it.”
“But you did tell him it was for her own good, didn’t you? That we’ve got to find her before any harm’s done to her.”
“I got the distinct impression that our Canadian friend had serious doubts about my mental faculties. Call Lewis. God knows when we’ll get that list. Our maple leaf will probably have it sent by train from Ottawa to Vancouver, and then on a slow freighter to Hong Kong, where it’ll get lost in the mailroom. In the meantime, we’ve got an attaché who behaves very strangely. He leaps over fences when no such jumps are required.”
“I’ve met John Nelson, sir,” said Lin. “He’s a bright lad and speaks a fair Chinese. He’s quite popular with the consulate crowd.”
“He’s also something else, Major.”
Nelson hung up the phone. Beads of perspiration had broken out on his forehead; he wiped them off with the back of his hand, satisfied that he had handled himself as well as he did, all things considered. He was especially pleased that he had turned the thrust of McAllister’s questions against the questioner, albeit diplomatically.
Why did you feel compelled to go to the consul general?
Your call would seem to answer that, Mr. McAllister. I sensed that something out of the ordinary had happened. I thought the consul should be told.
But the woman refused to go to the police; she even refused to come inside the consulate.
As I said, it was out of the ordinary, sir. She was nervous and tense, but she wasn’t a ding-dong.
A what?
She was perfectly lucid, you could even say controlled, in spite of her anxiety.
I see.
I wonder if you do, sir. I have no idea what the consul general told you, but I did suggest to him that what with the house in Victoria Peak, the marine guards, and then the arrival of Ambassador Havilland, he might consider calling someone up there.
You suggested it?
Yes, I did.
I don’t think it would serve any purpose for me to speculate on these matters, Mr. McAllister. They don’t concern me.
Yes, of course, you We right. I mean—yes, all right. But we must find that woman, Mr. Nelson. I’ve been instructed to tell you that if you can help us it would be greatly to your advantage.
I want to help in any event, sir. If she reaches me, I’ll try to set up a meeting somewhere and call you. I knew I was right to do what I did, to say what I did.
We’ll wait for your call.
Catherine was on target, thought John Nelson, there was one hell of a connection. So much of a connection that he did not dare use his consulate phone to reach Staples. But when he did reach her, he would ask her some very hard questions. He trusted Catherine, but the photographs and their consequences notwithstanding, he was not for sale. He got up from his desk and headed for the door of his office. A suddenly remembered dental appointment would suffice. As he walked down the corridor toward the reception room his thoughts returned to Catherine Staples. Catherine was one of the strongest people he had ever met, but the look in her eyes last night had conveyed not strength, but a kind of desperate fear. It was a Catherine he had never seen before.
“He diverted your questions to his own ends,” said Havilland, coming through the door, the immense Lin Wenzu behind him. “Do you agree, Major?”
“Yes, and that means he anticipated the questions. He was primed for them.”
“Which means someone primed him!”
“We never should have called him,” said McAllister quietly, sitting behind the desk, his nervous fingers once again massaging his right temple. “Nearly everything he brought up was meant to provoke a response from me.”
“We had to call him,” insisted Havilland, “if only to learn that.”
“He stayed in control. I lost it.”
“You could not have behaved differently, Edward,” said Lin. “To react other than you did would have been to question his motives. In essence, you would have threatened him.”
“And at the moment, we don’t want him to feel threatened,” agreed Havilland. “He’s getting information for someone, and we’ve got to find out who it is.”
“And that means Webb’s wife did reach someone she knew and told that person everything.” McAllister leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, his hands tightly clasped.
“You were right, after all,” said the ambassador, looking down at the undersecretary of State. “A street with her favorite maple trees. Paris. The inevitable repetition. It’s quite clear. Nelson is working for someone in the Canadian consulate—and whoever it is, is in touch with Webb’s wife.”
McAllister looked up. “Then Nelson’s either a damn fool or a bigger damn fool. By his own admission he knows—–at least, he assumes—that he’s dealing with highly sensitive information involving an adviser to presidents. Dismissal aside, he could be sent to prison for conspiring against the government.”
“He’s not a fool, I can assure you,” said Lin.
“Then either someone is forcing him to do this against his will—blackmail most likely—or he’s being paid to find out if there’s a connection between Marie St. Jacques and this house in Victoria Peak. It can’t be anything else.” Frowning, Havilland sat down in the chair in front of the desk.
“Give me a day,” continued the major from MI6. “Perhaps I can find out. If I can, we’ll pick up whoever it is in the consulate.”
“No,” said the diplomat whose expertise lay in covert operations. “You have until eight o’clock tonight. We can’t afford that, but if we can avoid a confrontation and any possible fallout, we must try. Containment is everything. Try, Lin. For God’s sake, try.”
“And after eight o’clock, Mr. Ambassador? What then?”
“Then, Major, we pull in our clever and evasive attaché and break him. I’d much prefer to use him without his knowing it, without risking alarms, but the woman comes first. Eight o’clock, Major Lin.”
“I’ll do everything I can.”
“And if we’re wrong,” went on Havilland, as if Lin Wenzu had not spoken, “if this Nelson has been set up as a blind and knows nothing, I want all the rules broken. I don’t care how you do it or how much it costs in bribes or the garbage you have to employ to get it done. I want cameras, telephone taps, electronic surveillance—whatever you can manage—on every single person in that consulate. Someone there knows where she is. Someone there is hiding her.”
“Catherine, it’s John,” said Nelson into the pay phone on Albert Road.
“How good of you to call,” answered Staples quickly. “It’s been a trying afternoon, but do let’s have drinks one of these days. It’ll be so good to see you after all these months, and you can tell me about Canberra. But do tell me one thing now. Was I right in what I told you?”
“I have to see you, Catherine.”
“Not even a hint?”
“I have to see you. Are you free?”
“I have a meeting in forty-five minutes.”
“Then later, around five. There’s a place called the Monkey Tree in the Wanchai, on Gloucester—”
“I know it. I’ll be there.”
John Nelson hung up. There was nothing else to do but go back to the office. He could not stay away for three hours, not after his conversation with Undersecretary of State Edward McAllister; appearances precluded such an absence. He had heard about McAllister; the undersecretary had spent seven years in Hong Kong, leaving only months before Nelson had arrived. Why had he returned? Why was there a sterile house in Victoria Peak with Ambassador Havilland suddenly in residence? Above all, why was Catherine Staples so frightened? He owed Catherine his life, but he had to have a few answers. He had a decision to make.
Lin Wenzu had all but exhausted his sources. Only one gave him pause for thought. Inspector Ian Ballantyne, as he usually did, answered questions with other questions, rather than delivering concise answers himself. It was maddening, for one never knew whether or not the vaunted transfer from Scotland Yard knew something about a given subject, in this case an American attaché named John Nelson.
“Met the chap several times,” Ballantyne had said. “Bright sort. Speaks your lingo, did you know that?”
“My ‘lingo,’ Inspector?”
“Well, damn few of us did, even during the Opium War. Interesting period of history, wasn’t it, Major?”
“The Opium War? I was talking about the attaché John Nelson.”
“Oh, is there a connection?”
“With what, Inspector?”
“The Opium War.”
“If there is, he’s a hundred and fifty years old and his dossier says thirty-two.”
“Really? That young, eh?”
But Ballantyne had employed several pauses too many to satisfy Lin. Regardless, if the old war-horse did know something, he was not going to reveal it. Everyone else—from the Hong Kong and Kowloon police to the “specialists” who worked the American consulate gathering information for payment—gave Nelson as clean a bill of health as was respectable in the territory. If Nelson had a vulnerable side, it was in his extensive and not too discriminating search for sex, but insofar as it was heterosexual, and he was single, it was to be applauded, not condemned. One “specialist” told Lin that he heard Nelson had been warned to have himself medically checked on a fairly regular basis. No crime; the attaché was a cocksman—ask him to dinner.
The telephone rang; Lin grabbed it. “Yes?”
“Our subject walked to the Peak Tram and took a taxi to the Wanchai. He is in a café called the Monkey Tree. I am with him. I can see him.”
“It’s out of the way and very crowded,” said the major. “Has anyone joined him?”
“No, but he asked for a table for two.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. If you have to leave, I’ll contact you by radio. You’re driving Vehicle Seven, are you not?”
“Vehicle Seven, sir.… Wait! A woman is walking toward his table. He’s getting up.”
“Do you recognize her?”
“It’s too dark here. No.”
“Pay the waiter. Disrupt the service. But not obviously, only for a few minutes. I’ll use our ambulance and the siren until I’m a block away.”
“Catherine, I owe you so much, and I want to help you in any way I can, but I have to know more than what you’ve told me.”
“There’s a connection, isn’t there? Havilland and Marie St. Jacques.”
“I won’t confirm that—I can’t confirm it—because I haven’t spoken to Havilland. I did, however, speak to another man, a man I’ve heard a lot about who used to be stationed here—one hell of a brain—and he sounded as desperate as you did last night.”
“I seemed that way to you last night?” said Staples, smoothing her gray-streaked hair. “I wasn’t aware of it.”
“Hey, come on. Not in your words, maybe, but in the way you talked. The stridency was just below the surface. You sounded like me when you gave me the photographs. Believe me, I can identify.”
“Johnny, believe me. We may be dealing with something neither one of us should get near, something way up in the clouds that we—I—don’t have the knowledge to make a proper decision.”
“I have to make a decision, Catherine.” Nelson looked up for the waiter. “Where are those goddamned drinks?”
“I’m not panting.”
“I am. I owe you everything and I like you and I know you wouldn’t use the photographs against me, which makes it all worse—”
“I gave you all there were, and we burned the negatives together.”
“So my debt’s real, don’t you see that? Jesus, the kid was what—twelve years old?”
“You didn’t know that. You were drugged.”
“My passport to oblivion. No secretary of State in my future, only secretary of kiddie-porn. One hell of a trip!”
“It’s over and you’re being melodramatic. I just want you to tell me if there’s a connection between Havilland and Marie St. Jacques—which I think you can do. Why is that so difficult? I will know what to do then.”
“Because if I do, I have to tell Havilland that I told you.”
“Then give me an hour.”
“Because I do have several photographs in my vault at the consulate,” lied Catherine Staples.
Nelson shot back in his chair, stunned. “Oh, God. I don’t believe this!”
“Try to understand, Johnny. We all play hardball now and then because it’s in the best interests of our employers—our individual countries, if you like. Marie St. Jacques was a friend of mine—is a friend of mine—and her life became nothing in the eyes of self-important men who ran a covert operation that didn’t give a holy damn about her and her husband. They used them both and then tried to kill them both! Let me tell you something, Johnny. I detest your Central Intelligence Agency and your State Department’s so grandly named Consular Operations. It’s not that they’re bastards, it’s that they’re such stupid bastards. And if I sense that an operation is being mounted, again using these two people who’ve been through so much pain, I intend to find out why and act accordingly. But no more blank checks with their lives. I’m experienced and they’re not, and I’m angry enough—no, furious enough—to demand answers.”
“Oh, Christ—”
The waiter arrived with their drinks, and as Staples looked up to signify thanks, her eyes were drawn to a man by a telephone booth in the crowded outside corridor watching them. She looked away.
“What’s it going to be, Johnny?” she continued. “Confirm or deny?”
“Confirmed,” whispered Nelson, reaching for his glass.
“The house in Victoria Peak?”
“Yes.”
“Who was the man you spoke with, the one who had been stationed here?”
“McAllister. Undersecretary of State McAllister.”
“Good Lord!”
There was excessive movement in the outside corridor. Catherine shielded her eyes and turned her head slightly, which widened her peripheral vision. A large man entered and walked toward the telephone against the wall. There was only one man like him in all of Hong Kong. It was Lin Wenzu, MI6, Special Branch! The Americans had enlisted the best, but it could be the worst for Marie and her husband.
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Johnny,” said Staples, rising from her chair. “We’ll talk further, but right now I’m going to the ladies’ room.”
“Catherine?”
“What?”
“Hardball?”
“Very hard, my darling.”
Staples walked past a shrinking Lin, who turned away. She went into the ladies’ room, waited several seconds, then walked out with two other women and broke away, continuing down the corridor and into the Monkey Tree’s kitchen. Without saying a word to the startled waiters and cooks, she found the exit and went outside. She ran up the alley into Gloucester Road; she turned left, her stride quickening until she found a phone booth. Inserting a coin, she dialed.
“Hello?”
“Marie, get out of the flat! My car’s in a garage a block to your right as you leave the building. It’s called Ming’s; the sign’s in red. Get there as quickly as you can! I’ll meet you. Hurry!”
Catherine Staples hailed a taxi.
“The woman’s name is Staples, Catherine Staples!” said Lin Wenzu sharply into the phone on the corridor wall of the Monkey Tree, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “Insert the consulate disk and search it through the computer. Quickly! I want her address and make damn-damn sure it’s current!” The muscles of the major’s jaw worked furiously as he waited, listening. The answer was delivered, and he issued another order: “If one of our team’s vehicles is in the area, get on the radio and tell him to head over there. If not, dispatch one immediately.” Lin paused, again listening. “The American woman,” he said quietly into the phone. “They’re to watch for her. If she’s spotted, close in and take her. We’re on our way.”
“Vehicle Five, respond!” repeated the radio operator, speaking into a microphone, his hand on a switch in the lower right-hand corner of the console in front of him. The room was white and without windows, the hum of the air conditioning low but constant, the whir of the filtering system even quieter. On three walls there were banks of sophisticated radio and computer equipment above spotless white counters made of the smoothest Formica. There was an antiseptic quality about the room; hardness was everywhere. It might have been an electronics laboratory in a well-endowed medical center, but it was not. It was another kind of center. The communications center of MI6, Special Branch, Hong Kong.
“Vehicle Five responding!” shouted an out-of-breath voice over the speaker. “I received your signal, but I was a street away covering the Thai. We were right. Drugs.”
“Go on scrambler!” ordered the operator, throwing the switch. There was a whistling sound that stopped as abruptly as it had started. “You’re off the Thai,” continued the radioman. “You’re nearest. Get over to Arbuthnot Road; the Botanical Garden entrance is the quickest way.” He gave the address of Catherine Staples’s building and ended with a final command. “The American woman. Watch for her. Take her.”
“Aiya,” whispered the breathless agent from Special Branch.
Marie tried not to panic, imposing a control over herself she did not feel. The situation was ludicrous. It was also deadly serious. She was dressed in Catherine’s ill-fitting robe, having taken a long hot bath and, far worse, having washed her clothes in Staples’s kitchen sink. They were hanging over the plastic chairs on Catherine’s small balcony and were still wet. It had seemed so natural, so logical, to wash away the heat and the dirt of Hong Kong from herself as well as from strangers’ clothes. And the cheap sandals had raised blisters on the soles of her feet; she had broken an ugly one with a needle and walking was difficult. But she dared not walk, she had to run.
What had happened? Catherine was not the sort of person to issue peremptory commands. Any more than she herself was, especially with David. People like Catherine avoided the imperative approach because it only clouded a victim’s thinking—and her friend Marie St. Jacques was a victim now, not to the degree that poor David was, but a victim nevertheless. Move! How often had Jason said that in Zurich and Paris? So frequently she still tensed at the word.
She dressed, the wet clothes clinging to her body, and rummaged through Staples’s closet for a pair of slippers. They were uncomfortable but softer than the sandals. She could run; she had to run.
Her hair! Oh, Christ, the hair! She ran to the bathroom, where Catherine kept a porcelain jar filled with hairpins and clasps. In seconds, she secured her hair on the top of her head, walked rapidly back into the flat’s tiny living room, found her foolish hat and jammed it on.
The wait for the elevator was interminable! According to the lighted numbers above the panels, both elevators jogged between floors one, three, and seven, neither venturing above to the ninth floor. Preceding residents going out for the evening had programmed the vertical monsters, delaying her descent.
Avoid elevators whenever you can. They’re traps. Jason Bourne. Zurich.
Marie looked up and down the hallway. She saw the fire-exit staircase door and ran to it.
Out of breath, she lunged into the short lobby, composing herself as best she could to deflect the glances directed at her by five or six tenants, some entering, some leaving. She did not count; she could barely see; she had to get out!
My car’s in a garage a block to your right as you leave the building. It’s called Ming’s. Was it to the right? Or was it left? Out on the pavement she hesitated. Right or left? “Right” meant so many things, “left” was more specific. She tried to think. What had Catherine said? Right! She had to go right; it was the first thing that came to her mind. She had to trust that.
Your first reflections are the best, the most accurate, because the impressions are stored in your head, like information in a data bank. That’s what your head is. Jason Bourne. Paris.
She started running. Her left slipper fell off; she stopped, stooping down to retrieve it. Suddenly a car came careening around the gates of the Botanical Gardens across the wide street, and, like an angry heat-searching missile, whipped to its left and zeroed in on her. The automobile swerved in a semicircle, screeching as it spun in the road. A man leaped out and raced toward her.