By noon of that paralyzing day when Kai-tak was merely an airport and not an assassination field, Ambassador Havilland had described to a stunned Catherine Staples the broad outlines of the Sheng conspiracy with its roots in the Kuomintang. Objective: a consortium of taipans with a central leader, whose son Sheng was, taking over Hong Kong, and turning the colony into the conspirators’ own financial empire. Inevitable result: the conspiracy would fail, and the raging giant that was the People’s Republic would strike out, marching into Hong Kong, destroying the Accords and throwing the Far East into chaos. In utter disbelief Catherine had demanded substantiation, and by 2:15 had twice read the State Department’s lengthy and top secret dossier on Sheng Chou Yang, but she continued to strenuously object, as the accuracy of authorship could not be verified. At 3:30 she had been taken to the radio room and by satellite-scrambler transmission was presented with an array of “facts” by a man named Reilly of the National Security Council in Washington.
“You’re only a voice, Mr. Reilly,” Staples had said. “How do I know you’re not down at the bottom of the Peak in the Wanchai?”
There was at that moment a pronounced click on the line and a voice Catherine and the world knew very well was speaking to her. “This is the President of the United States, Mrs. Staples. If you doubt that, I suggest you call your consulate. Ask them to reach the White House by diplomatic phone and request a confirmation of our transmission. I’ll hang on. You’ll receive it. At the moment I have nothing better to do—nothing more vital.”
Shaking her head and briefly closing her eyes, Catherine had answered quietly, “I believe you, Mr. President.”
“Forget about me, believe what you’ve heard. It’s the truth.”
“It’s just so unbelievable—inconceivable.”
“I’m no expert, Mrs. Staples, and I never claimed to be, but then neither was the Trojan Horse very believable. Now, that may be legend and Menelaus’ wife may have been a figment of a campfire storyteller’s imagination, but the concept is valid—it’s become a symbol of an enemy destroying his adversary from within.”
“Menelaus …?”
“Don’t believe the media, I’ve read a book or two. But do believe our people, Mrs. Staples. We need you. I’ll call your Prime Minister if it will help, but, in all honesty, I’d rather not. He might feel it necessary to confer with others.”
“No, Mr. President. Containment is everything. I’m beginning to understand Ambassador Havilland.”
“You’re one up on me. I don’t always understand him.”
“Perhaps it’s better that way, sir.”
• • •
At 3:58 there was an emergency call—highest priority—to the sterile house in Victoria Peak, but it was not for either the Ambassador or Undersecretary of State McAllister. It was for Major Lin Wenzu, and when it came, a frightening vigil began that lasted four hours. The scant information was so electrifying that all concentration was riveted on the crisis, and Catherine Staples telephoned her consulate telling the High Commissioner that she was not well and would not attend the strategy conference with the Americans that afternoon. Her presence in the sterile house was welcome. Ambassador Havilland wanted the foreign service officer to see and understand for herself how close the Far East was to upheaval. How an inevitable error on either Sheng’s or his assassin’s part could bring about an explosion so drastic that troops from the People’s Republic could move into Hong Kong within hours, bringing not only the colony’s world trade to a halt, but with it widespread human suffering—savage rioting everywhere, death squads from the left and the right exploiting resentments going back forty years, racial and provincial factions pitted against one another and the military. Blood would flow in the streets and the harbor, and as nations everywhere had to be affected, global war was a very real possibility. He said these things to her as Lin worked furiously on the telephone, giving commands, coordinating his people with the colony’s police and the airport’s security.
It all had started with the major from MI6 cupping the phone and speaking in a quiet voice in that Victorian room in Victoria Peak: “Kai-tak tonight. The Sino-British delegations. Assassination. The target is the Crown governor. They believe it’s Jason Bourne.”
“I can’t understand it!” protested McAllister, leaping from the couch. “It’s premature. Sheng isn’t ready! We’d have gotten an inkling of it if he was—an official statement from his ministry alluding to a proposed commission of some sort. It’s wrong!”
“Miscalculation?” asked the ambassador coldly.
“Possibly. Or something else. A strategy we haven’t considered.”
“Go to work, Major,” said Havilland.
After issuing his last orders, Lin received a final order himself from Havilland before heading for the airport. “Stay out of sight, Major,” said the ambassador. “I mean that.”
“Impossible,” replied Lin. “With respect, sir, I must be with my men on the scene. These are experienced eyes.”
“With equal respect,” continued Havilland. “I must make it a condition of your getting through the outside gate.”
“Why, Mr. Ambassador?”
“With your perspicacity, I’m surprised you ask.”
“I have to! I don’t understand.”
“Then perhaps it’s my fault, Major. I thought I’d made it clear why we went to such extremes to bring our Jason Bourne over here. Accept the fact that he’s extraordinary, his record proves it. He has his ears not only to the ground, but they’re also locked into the four winds. We must presume, if the medical prognosis is accurate and portions of his memory continue to come back to him, that he has contacts all over this part of the world in nooks and crannies we know nothing about. Suppose—just suppose, Major—that one of those contacts informs him that an emergency alert has been sent out for Kai-tak Airport tonight, that a large security force has been gathered to protect the Crown governor. What do you think he’d do?”
“Be there,” answered Lin Wenzu softly, reluctantly. “Somewhere.”
“And suppose again that our Bourne saw you? Forgive me, but you are not easily overlooked. The discipline of his logical mind—logic, discipline, and imagination were always his means of survival—would force him to find out precisely who you are. Need I say more?”
“I don’t think so,” said the major.
“The connection is made,” said Havilland, overriding Lin’s words. “There is no taipan with a murdered young wife in Macao. Instead there is a highly regarded field officer of British Intelligence posing as a fictitious taipan, having fed him yet another lie, echoing a previous lie. He will know that once again he has been manipulated by government forces, manipulated in the most brutal fashion possible—the abduction of his wife. The mind, Major, is a delicate instrument, his more delicate than most. There’s only so much stress it can take. I don’t even want to think about what he might do—what we might be forced to do.”
“It was always the weakest aspect of the scenario, and yet it was the core,” said Lin.
“ ‘An ingenious device,’ ” interrupted McAllister, obviously quoting. “ ‘Few acts of vengeance are as readily understood as an eye for an eye.’ Your words, Lin.”
“If so, you should not have chosen me to play your taipan!” insisted the major. “There’s a crisis here in Hong Kong and you’ve crippled me!”
“It’s the same crisis facing all of us,” said Havilland gently. “Only this time we have a warning. Also, who else could we have chosen? What other Chinese but the proven chief of Special Branch would have been cleared by London for what you were initially told, to say nothing of what you know now? Set up your command post inside the airport’s tower. The glass is dark.”
In silence the huge major turned angrily and left the room. “Is it wise to let him go?” asked McAllister as he, the ambassador and Catherine Staples watched Lin leave.
“Certainly,” answered the diplomat of covert operations.
“I spent several weeks here with MI-Six,” continued the undersecretary rapidly. “He’s been known to disobey in the past.”
“Only when the orders were given by posturing British officers with less experience than himself. He was never reprimanded; he was right. Just as he knows I’m right.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Why do you think he said we’ve crippled him? He doesn’t like it, but he accepts it.” Havilland walked behind the desk and turned to Catherine. “Please sit down, Mrs. Staples. And, Edward, I should like to ask a favor of you, and it has nothing to do with confidentiality. You know as much as I do and you’re probably more current, and I’ll no doubt call for you if I need information. However, I’d like to talk with Mrs. Staples alone.”
“By all means,” said the undersecretary, gathering up papers on the desk as Catherine sat down in a chair facing the diplomat. “I’ve a great deal of thinking to do. If this Kai-tak thing isn’t a hoax—if it’s a direct order from Sheng—then he’s conceived of a strategy we really haven’t considered, and that’s dangerous. From every avenue, every direction I’ve explored, he has to offer up his clearinghouse, his damned economic commission, under stable conditions, not unstable. He could blow everything apart—but he’s not stupid, he’s brilliant. What’s he doing?”
“Consider, if you will,” broke in the ambassador, frowning as he sat down, “the reverse of our approach, Edward. Instead of implanting his financial clearinghouse of assorted taipans during a period of stability, he does so in instability—but with sympathy—the point being to restore order quickly. No raging giant but rather a protective father, caring for his emotionally disturbed offspring, wanting to calm it down.”
“To what advantage?”
“It takes place rapidly, that’s all. Who would so closely examine a group of respected financiers from the colony put in place during a crisis? After all, they represent stability. It’s something to think about.”
McAllister held the papers in his hands and looked at Havilland. “It’s too much of a gamble for him,” he said. “Sheng risks losing control of the expansionists in the Central Committee, the old military revolutionaries who are looking for any excuse to move into the colony. A crisis based on violence would play right into their hands. That’s the scenario we gave Webb, and it’s a realistic one.”
“Unless Sheng’s own position is now strong enough to suppress them. As you said yourself, Sheng Chou Yang has made China a great deal of money, and if there ever was a basically capitalistic people, it’s the Chinese. They have more than a healthy respect for money, it’s an obsession.”
“They also have respect for the old men of the Long March, and it, too, is obsessive. Without those early Maoists most of China’s younger leadership would be illiterate peasants breaking their backs in the field. They revere those old soldiers. Sheng wouldn’t risk a confrontation.”
“Then there’s an alternative theory that could be a combination of what we’re both saying. We did not tell Webb that a number of the more vocal leaders of Peking’s old guard haven’t been heard from in months. And in several instances, when the word was officially released, this one or that one had died of natural causes, or a tragic accident, and in one case was removed in disgrace. Now, if our assumption is right, that at least some of these silenced men are victims of Sheng’s hired gun—”
“Then he’s solidified his position by elimination,” broke in McAllister. “Westerners are all over Peking; the hotels are filled to capacity. What’s one more—especially an assassin who could be anyone—an attaché, a business executive … a chameleon.”
“And who better than the manipulative Sheng to set up secret meetings between his Jason Bourne and selected victims? Any number of pretexts would do, but primarily military high-tech espionage. The targets would leap at it.”
“If any of this is near the truth, Sheng’s much further along than we thought.”
“Take your papers. Request anything you need from our Intelligence people and MI-Six. Study everything, but find us a pattern, Edward. If we lose a Crown governor tonight, we may be on our way to losing Hong Kong in a matter of days. For all the wrong reasons.”
“He’ll be protected,” muttered McAllister, heading for the door, his face troubled.
“I’m counting on it,” said the ambassador, as the undersecretary left the room. Havilland turned to Catherine Staples. “Are you really beginning to understand me?” he asked.
“The words and their implications, yes, but not certain specifics,” replied Catherine, looking oddly at the door the undersecretary of State had just closed. “He’s a strange man, isn’t he?”
“McAllister?”
“Yes.”
“Does he bother you?”
“On the contrary. He lends a certain credibility to everything that’s been said to me. By you, by that man Reilly—even by your President, I’m afraid.” Staples turned back to the ambassador. “I’m being honest.”
“I want you to be. And I understand the wavelength you’re on. McAllister’s one of the best analytical minds in the State Department, a brilliant bureaucrat who will never rise to the level of his own worth.”
“I think you know, but if you don’t, you sense it. He’s a thoroughly moral man and that morality has stood in the way of his advancement. Had I been cursed with his sense of moral outrage, I never would have become the man I am—and in my defense, I never would have accomplished what I have. But I think you know that too. You said as much when you came in here.”
“Now you’re the one being honest. I appreciate it.”
“I’m glad. I want the air cleared between us because I want your help.”
“Marie?”
“And beyond,” said Havilland. “What specifics disturb you? What can I clarify?”
“This clearinghouse, this commission of bankers and taipans Sheng will propose to oversee the colony’s financial policies—”
“Let me anticipate,” interrupted the diplomat. “On the surface they will be disparate in character and position and eminently acceptable. As I said to McAllister when we first met, if we thought the whole insane scheme had a prayer, we’d look the other way and wish them great success, but it doesn’t have a chance. All powerful men have enemies; there’ll be skeptics here in Hong Kong and in Peking—jealous factions who’ve been excluded—and they’ll dig deeper than Sheng expects. I think you know what they’ll find.”
“That all roads, above and below ground, lead to Rome. Rome here being this taipan, Sheng’s father, whose name your highly selective documents never mention. He’s the spider whose webs reach out to every member of that clearinghouse. He controls them. For God’s sake, who the hell is he?”
“I wish we knew,” said Havilland, his voice flat.
“You really don’t?” asked Catherine Staples, astonished.
“If we did, life would be far simpler, and I would have told you. I’m not playing games with you, we’ve never learned who he is. How many taipans are there in Hong Kong? How many zealots wanting to strike back at Peking in any way they can in the cause of the Kuomintang? By their lights China was stolen from them. Their motherland, the graves of their ancestors, their possessions—everything. Many were decent people, Mrs. Staples, but many others were not. The political leaders, the warlords, the landlords, the immensely rich—they were a privileged society that gorged themselves on the sweat and suppression of millions. And if that sounds like a crock of today’s Communist propaganda, it was a classic case of yesterday’s provocation that gave rise to such bilge. We’re dealing with a handful of obsessed expatriates who want their own back. They forget the corruption that led to their own collapse.”
“Have you thought of confronting Sheng himself? Privately?”
“Of course, and his reaction is all too predictable. He would feign outrage and tell us bluntly that if we pursue such despicable fantasies in an attempt to discredit him, he’ll void the China Accords, claiming duplicity, and move Hong Kong into Peking’s economic orbit immediately. He’d claim that many of the old-line Marxists on the Central Committee would applaud such a move, and he’d be right. Then he would look at us and probably say, ‘Gentlemen, you have your choice. Good day.’ ”
“And if you made Sheng’s conspiracy public the same thing would happen, and he knows you know it,” said Staples, frowning. “Peking would pull out of the Accords blaming Taiwan and the West for messing around. Their face is beet-red with internal capitalistic corruption, so the territory marches to a Marxist drum—actually they wouldn’t have a choice. And what follows is economic collapse.”
“That’s the way we read it,” agreed Havilland.
“The solution?”
“There’s only one. Sheng.”
Staples nodded her head. “Hardball,” she said.
“The most extreme act, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s obviously what I mean,” said Catherine. “And Marie’s husband, this Webb, is intrinsic to the solution?”
“Jason Bourne is intrinsic to it, yes.”
“Because this impostor, this assassin who calls himself Bourne, can be trapped by the extraordinary man he emulates—as McAllister put it, but not in that context. He takes his place and pulls out Sheng where he can implement the solution, the extreme solution.… Hell, he kills him.”
“Yes. Somewhere in China, of course.”
“In China … ‘of course’?”
“Yes, making it appear as internal fratricide with no external connections. Peking can’t blame anyone but unknown enemies of Sheng within its own hierarchy. Regardless, at that juncture, if it happens, it’s probably going to be irrelevant. The world won’t officially hear of Sheng’s death for weeks, and when the announcement is made, his ‘sudden demise’ will undoubtedly be attributed to a massive coronary or a cerebral hemorrhage, certainly not to murder. The giant does not parade its aberrations, it conceals them.”
“Which is precisely what you want.”
“Naturally. The world goes on, the taipans are cut off from their source, Sheng’s clearinghouse collapses like a house of cards, and reasonable men go forward honoring the Accords for everyone’s benefit.… But we’re a long way from there, Mrs. Staples. To begin with, there’s today, tonight. Kai-tak. It could be the beginning of the end, for we have no immediate countermeasures to put in place. If I appear calm, it’s an illusion born of years of concealing tension. My two consolations at this moment are that the colony’s security forces are among the best on earth, and second—the tragedy of death notwithstanding—is that Peking has been alerted to the situation. Hong Kong’s concealing nothing, nor does it care to. So, in a sense, it becomes both a joint risk and a joint venture to protect the Crown governor.”
“How does that help if the worst happens?”
“For what it’s worth, psychologically. It may avert the appearance if not the fact of instability, for the emergency has been labeled beforehand as an isolated act of premeditated violence, not symptomatic of the colony’s unrest. Above all, it’s been shared. Both delegations have their own military escorts; they’ll be put to use.”
“So on such subtle points of protocol a crisis can be contained?”
“From what I’ve been told, you don’t need any lessons in containing crises, or precipitating them, either. Besides, everything can go off the wire with one development that throws subtleties into the garbage heap. Despite everything I’ve said, I’m frightened to death. There’s so much room for error and miscalculation—they’re our enemies, Mrs. Staples. All we can do is wait, and waiting is the hardest part, the most draining.”
“I have other questions,” said Catherine.
“By all means, ask as many as you like. Make me think, make me sweat, if you can. It may help us both take our minds off the waiting.”
“You just referred to my questionable abilities in the area of containing crises. But you added—I think more confidently—that I could also precipitate them.”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. It’s a bad habit.”
“I assume you meant the attaché, John Nelson.”
“Who?… Oh, yes, the young man from the consulate. What he lacks in judgment he makes up in courage.”
“You’re wrong.”
“About the judgment?” asked Havilland, his thick eyebrows arched in mild astonishment. “Really?”
“I’m not excusing his weaknesses, but he’s one of the finest people you’ve got. His professional judgment is superior to that of most of your more experienced personnel. Ask anyone in the consulates who’s been in conferences with him. He’s also one of the few who speak a damn good Cantonese.”
“He also compromised what he knew was a highly classified operation,” said the diplomat curtly.
“If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t have found me. You wouldn’t have come within arm’s reach of Marie St. Jacques, which is where you are now. An arm’s reach.”
“An ‘arm’s reach’ …?” Havilland leaned forward, his eyes angry, questioning. “Surely, you won’t continue to hide her.”
“Probably not. I haven’t decided.”
“My God, woman, after everything you’ve been told! She’s got to be here! Without her we’ve lost, we’ve all lost! If Webb found out she wasn’t with us, that she’d disappeared, he’d go mad! You’ve got to deliver her!”
“That’s the point. I can deliver her anytime. It doesn’t have to be when you say.”
“No!” thundered the ambassador. “When and if our Jason Bourne completes his assignment, a series of telephone calls will be placed putting him in direct contact with his wife!”
“I won’t give you a telephone number,” said Staples matter-of-factly. “I might as well give you an address.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing! What do I have to say to convince you?”
“Simple. Reprimand John Nelson verbally. Suggest counseling, if you wish, but keep everything off the record and keep him here in Hong Kong, where his chances for recognition are the best.”
“Jesus Christ!” exploded Havilland. “He’s a drug addict!”
“That’s ludicrous but typical of the primitive reaction of an American ‘moralist’ given a few key words.”
“Please, Mrs. Staples—”
“He was drugged; he doesn’t take drugs. His limit is three vodka martinis, and he likes girls. Of course, a few of your male attachés prefer boys, and their limit is nearer six martinis, but who’s counting? Frankly, I personally don’t give a damn what adults do within the four walls of a bedroom—I don’t really believe that whatever it is affects what they do outside the bedroom—but Washington has this peculiar preoccupation with—”
“All right, Mrs. Staples! Nelson is reprimanded—by me—and the consul general will not be informed and nothing goes into his record. Are you satisfied?”
“We’re getting there. Call him this afternoon and tell him that. Also tell him to get his extracurricular act together for his own benefit.”
“That will be a pleasure. Is there anything else?”
“Yes, and I’m afraid I don’t know how to put it without insulting you.”
“That hasn’t fazed you.”
“It fazes me now because I know far more than I did three hours ago.”
“Then insult me, dear lady.”
Catherine paused, and when she spoke her voice was a cry for understanding. It was hollow yet vibrant and filled the room. “Why? Why did you do it? Wasn’t there another way?”
“I presume you mean Mrs. Webb.”
“Of course I mean Mrs. Webb, and no less her husband! I asked you before, have you any idea what you’ve done to them? It’s barbaric and I mean that in the full ugliness of the word. You’ve put both of them on some kind of medieval rack, literally pulling their minds and their bodies apart, making them live with the knowledge that they may never see each other again, each believing that with a wrong decision one can cause the other’s death. An American lawyer once asked a question in a Senate hearing, and I’m afraid I must ask it of you.… Have you no sense of decency, Mr. Ambassador?”
Havilland looked wearily at Staples. “I have a sense of duty,” he said, his voice tired, his face drawn. “I had to develop a situation rapidly that would provoke an immediate response, a total commitment to act instantly. It was based on an incident in Webb’s past, a terrible thing that turned a civilized young scholar into—the phrase used to describe him was the ‘supreme guerrilla.’ I needed that man, that hunter, for all the reasons you’ve heard. He’s here, he’s hunting, and I assume his wife is unharmed and we obviously never intended anything else for her.”
“The incident in Webb’s past. That was his first wife? In Cambodia?”
“You know, then?”
“Marie told me. His wife and two children were killed by a lone jet fighter sweeping down along a river, strafing the water where they were playing.”
“He became another man,” said Havilland, nodding. “His mind snapped, and it became his war despite the fact that he had little or no regard for Saigon. He was venting his outrage in the only way he knew how, fighting an enemy who had stolen his life from him. He would usually take on only the most complex and dangerous assignments where the objectives were major, the targets within the framework of command personnel. One doctor said that in his mental warp Webb was killing the killers who sent out other mindless killers. I suppose it makes sense.”
“And by taking his second wife in Maine you raised the specter of his first loss. The incident that turned him into this ‘supreme guerrilla,’ then later as Jason Bourne, hunter of Carlos the Jackal.”
“Yes, Mrs. Staples, hunter,” interjected the diplomat quietly. “I wanted that hunter on the scene immediately. I couldn’t waste any time—not a minute—and I didn’t know any other way to get immediate results.”
“He’s an Oriental scholar!” cried Catherine. “He understands the dynamics of the Orient a hell of a lot better than any of us, the so-called experts. Couldn’t you have appealed to him, appealed to his sense of history, pointing out the consequences of what could happen?”
“He may be a scholar, but he’s first a man who believes—with certain justification—that he was betrayed by his government. He asked for help and a trap was set to kill him. No appeals of mine would have broken through that barrier.”
“You could have tried!”
“And risk delay when every hour counted? In a way, I’m sorry you’ve never been put in my position. Then, perhaps, you might really understand me.”
“Question,” said Catherine, holding up her hand defiantly. “What makes you think that David Webb will go into China after Sheng if he does find and take the impostor? As I understand it, the agreement is for him to deliver the man who calls himself Jason Bourne and Marie is returned to him.”
“At that point, if it occurs, it doesn’t really matter. That’s when we’ll tell him why we did what we did. That’s when we’ll appeal to his Far East expertise and the global consequences of Sheng’s and the taipans’ machinations. If he walks away, we have several experienced field agents who can take his place. They’re not men you’d care to bring home to meet your mother, but they’re available and they can do it.”
“How?”
“Codes, Mrs. Staples. The original Jason Bourne’s methods always included codes between himself and his clients. That was the structured myth, and the impostor has studied every aspect of the original. Once this new Bourne is in our hands we’ll get the information we need one way or another—confirmed by chemicals, of course. We’ll know how to reach Sheng, and that’s all we have to know. One meeting in the countryside outside Jade Tower Mountain. One kill and the world goes on. I’m not capable of coming up with any other solution. Are you?”
“No,” said Catherine softly, slowly shaking her head. “It’s hardball.”
“Give us Mrs. Webb.”
“Yes, of course, but not tonight. She can’t go anywhere, and you’ve got enough to worry about with Kai-tak. I took her to a flat in Tuen Mun in the New Territories. It belongs to a friend of mine. I also brought her to a doctor who bandaged her feet—she bruised them badly running from your Lin Wenzu—and he gave her a sedative. My God, she’s a wreck; she hasn’t slept in days, and the pills didn’t do much for her last night; she was too tense, still too frightened. I stayed with her and she talked until dawn. Let her rest. I’ll pick her up in the morning.”
“How will you manage it? What will you say?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll call her later and try to keep her calm. I’ll tell her I’m making progress—more, perhaps, than I thought I would. I just want to give her hope, to ease the tension. I’ll tell her to stay near the phone, get as much rest as she can, and I’ll drive up in the morning, I think with good news.”
“I’d like to send a backup with you,” said Havilland. “Including McAllister. He knows her, and I honestly believe his moral suasion will be communicated. It will bolster your case.”
“It might,” agreed Catherine, nodding. “As you said, I sensed it. All right, but they’re to stay away until I’ve talked to her, and that could take a couple of hours. She has a finely honed distrust of Washington, and I’ve got a lot of convincing to do. That’s her husband out there and she loves him very much. I can’t and I won’t tell her that I approve of what you did, but I can say that in light of the extraordinary circumstances—not excluding the conceivable economic collapse of Hong Kong—I understand why you did it. What she has to understand—if nothing else—is that she’s closer to her husband being with you than being away from you. Of course, she may try to kill you, but that’s your problem. She’s a very feminine, good-looking woman, more than attractive, quite striking actually, but remember she’s a ranch girl from Calgary. I wouldn’t advise being alone with her in a room. I’m sure she’s wrestled calves to the ground far stronger than you.”
“I’ll bring in a squad of marines.”
“Don’t. She’d turn them against you. She’s one of the most persuasive people I’ve ever met.”
“She has to be,” replied the ambassador, leaning back in his chair. “She forced a man with no identity, with overwhelming feelings of guilt, to look into himself and walk out of the tunnels of his own confusion. No easy task.… Tell me about her—not the dry facts of a dossier, but the person.”
Catherine did, telling what she knew from observation and instinct. Time passed; the minutes and the half hours punctuated with repeated phone calls apprising Havilland of the conditions at Kai-tak Airport. The sun descended beyond the walls of the garden outside. A light supper was provided by the staff.
“Would you ask Mr. McAllister to join us?” said Havilland to a steward.
“I asked Mr. McAllister if I could bring him something, sir, and he was pretty firm about it. He told me to get out and leave him alone.”
“Then never mind, thank you.”
The phone calls kept coming; the subject of Marie St. Jacques was exhausted, and the conversation now turned exclusively on the developments at Kai-tak. Staples watched the diplomat in amazement, for the more intense the crisis became, the slower and more controlled was his speech.
“Tell me about yourself, Mrs. Staples. Only what you care to professionally, of course.”
Catherine studied Raymond Havilland and began quietly. “I sprang from an ear of Ontario corn.…”
“Yes, of course,” said the ambassador with utter sincerity, glancing at the phone.
Staples now understood. This celebrated statesman was carrying on an innocuous conversation while his mind was riveted on an entirely different subject. Kai-tak. His eyes kept straying to the telephone; his wrist turned constantly so that he could look at his watch, and yet he never missed the breaks in their dialogue where he was expected to voice a response.
“My former husband sells shoes—”
Havilland’s head snapped up from looking at his watch. He would not have been thought capable of an embarrassed smile, but he showed one at that moment. “You’ve caught me,” he said.
“A long time ago,” said Catherine.
“There’s a reason. I know Owen Staples quite well.”
“It figures. I imagine you move in the same circles.”
“I saw him last year at the Queens Plate race in Toronto. I think one of his horses ran respectably well. He looked quite grand in his cutaway, but then he was one of the Queen Mother’s escorts.”
“When we were married, he couldn’t afford a suit off the rack.”
“You know,” said Havilland, “when I read up on you and learned about Owen, I had a fleeting temptation to call him. Not to say anything, obviously, but to ask him about you. Then I thought, My God, in this age of post-marital civility, suppose they still talk with each other. I’d be tipping my hand.”
“We’re still talking, and you tipped your hand when you flew into Hong Kong.”
“For you, perhaps. But only after Webb’s wife reached you. Tell me, what did you think when you first heard I was here?”
“That the U.K. had called you in for consultation on the Accords.”
“You flatter me—”
The telephone rang, and Havilland’s hand flew out for it. The caller was Lin Wenzu, reporting the progress being made at Kai-tak, or more substantively, as was apparent, the lack of progress.
“Why don’t they simply call the whole damn thing off?” asked the ambassador angrily. “Pile them into their cars and get the hell out of there!” Whatever reply the major offered only served to further exasperate Havilland. “That’s ridiculous! This isn’t a show of gamesmanship, it’s a potential assassination! No one’s image or honor is involved under the circumstances, and believe me, the world isn’t hanging by its collective teeth waiting for that damned press conference. Most of it’s asleep, for God’s sake!” Again the diplomat listened. Lin’s remarks not only astonished him, they infuriated him. “The Chinese said that? It’s preposterous! Peking has no right to make such a demand! It’s—” Havilland glanced at Staples. “It’s barbaric! Someone should tell them it’s not their Asian faces that are being saved; it’s the Anglo Crown governor’s, and his face is attached to his head, which could be blown off!” Silence; the ambassador’s eyes blinked in angry resignation. “I know, I know. The heavenly red star must continue to shine in a heavenly blackout. There’s nothing you can do, so do your best, Major. Keep calling. As one of my grandchildren puts it, I’m ‘eating bananas,’ whatever the hell that means.” Havilland hung up and looked over at Catherine. “Orders from Peking. The delegations are not to run in the face of Western terrorism. Protect all concerned, but carry on.”
“London would probably approve. The ‘Carry on’ has a familiar ring.”
“Orders from Peking …” said the diplomat softly, not hearing Staples. “Orders from Sheng!”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
“It’s his ballgame! He calls the shots. My God, he is ready!”
The tension grew geometrically with each quarter hour, until the air was filled with electricity. The rains came, pounding the bay window with a relentless tattoo. A television set was rolled in and turned on, the American ambassador-at-large and the Canadian foreign service officer watching in fear and in silence. The huge jet taxied in the downpour to its appointed rendezvous with the crowds of reporters and camera crews. The English and the Chinese honor guards emerged first, simultaneously from both sides of the open door. Their appearance was startling, for instead of a stately processional expected of such military escorts, these squads moved rapidly into flanking positions down the metal steps, elbows bent skyward, sidearms gripped, guns at the ready. The leaders then filed out waving to the onlookers; they started down the staircase followed by two lines of awkwardly grinning subordinates. The strange “press conference” began, and Undersecretary of State Edward McAllister burst into the room, the heavy door crashing into the wall as he flung it open.
“I have it!” he cried, a page of paper in his hand. “I’m sure I have it!”
“Calm down, Edward! Speak sensibly.”
“The Chinese delegation!” shouted McAllister out of breath, racing to the diplomat and thrusting the paper at him. “It’s headed by a man named Lao Sing! The second in command is a general named Yunshen! They’re powerful, and they’ve opposed Sheng Chou Yang for years, objecting to his policies openly on the Central Committee! Their inclusion in the negotiating teams was Sheng’s apparent willingness to have a balance—which made him look fair in the eyes of the old guard.”
“For God’s sake, what are you trying to say?”
“It’s not the Crown governor! Not just him! It’s all of them! With one action he removes his two strongest opponents in Peking and clears the path for himself. Then, as you put it, he implants his clearinghouse—his taipans—during a period of instability, now shared by both governments!”
Havilland yanked the telephone out of its cradle. “Get me Lin at Kai-tak,” he ordered the switchboard. “Quickly!… Major Lin, please. At once!… What do you mean, he’s not there? Where is he?… Who’s this?… Yes, I know who you are. Listen to me and listen carefully! The target is not the Crown governor alone, it’s worse. It includes two members of the Chinese delegation. Separate all parties—You know that?… A man from the Mossad? What the hell …? There’s no such arrangement, there couldn’t be!… Yes, of course, I’ll get off the line.” Breathing rapidly, his lined face pale, the diplomat looked at the wall and spoke in a barely audible voice. “They found out, from God knows where, and are taking immediate countermeasures.… Who? For Christ’s sake, who was it?”
“Our Jason Bourne,” said McAllister quietly. “He’s there.”
On the television screen a distant limousine jolted to a stop while others peeled away into the darkness. Figures fled from the stationary car in panic, and seconds later the screen was filled with a blinding explosion.
“He’s there,” repeated McAllister, whispering. “He’s there!”