Conspiracy db-6 Read online

  But what if she was arrested when she went to the office?

  Arrested? For what?

  Murder?

  No way. No.

  What if someone had seen her at the hotel? What if she’d left some print or DNA somewhere? Even a tear might give her away.

  The NSA wouldn’t be involved then. It would be FBI agents.

  Maybe they’d simply lied. A weird lie to throw her off.

  She’d already spoken to the FBI agents, dumb jerks who weren’t anywhere near as thorough as the NSA people. Or maybe that was the game plan — she’d never be on her guard with the NSA people, right? Because they were spies, interested in foreign intrigue, not simple murder.

  What the hell had Jerry been working on?

  So was there another notebook? If so, maybe something in there would tell her what had happened.

  Only if someone else had killed him.

  They thought that was possible, though. Otherwise they wouldn’t have come to see her.

  Assuming they were telling the truth.

  Amanda was so consumed in her thoughts that she missed the exit for her office. As she passed she instinctively slapped on the brake, then pulled onto the shoulder. She slapped the wheel angrily.

  She was acting like an inept jerk. Paranoid and distraught.

  She should be able to keep her head clear. She was a federal agent, trained to stay calm in an emergency. What if she’d been on an assignment? What if she’d been guarding someone?

  But that was exactly the point. In that case, she’d have a script to follow. In that case, she’d be removed from the situation, distant. It would be easy. She wouldn’t know anything, or anyone, but her job.

  Amanda took a pair of very long breaths. She got back into traffic, and headed toward the next exit.

  I’ll dump the car at a Metro stop, she decided. I’ll find that notebook. Because if they do think it’s murder, then sooner or later they’re going to accuse me.

  It’s what I would do if I were following the script.

  33

  When Dean arrived in Vietnam the first time, he hadn’t been prepared for the heat. It hit him with his first step off the plane. He was soaked in sweat by the time he stepped onto the tarmac. He felt as if he’d stepped into the mouth of a whale.

  He wasn’t quite prepared for it now, either.

  The 757 had parked a good distance from the terminal, leaving the passengers to walk down a set of portable steps to a nearby bus. It had just rained, and there were large, shallow puddles on the cement apron. Dean glanced to his right and caught sight of a row of old hangar buildings, brown half-pipes made of corrugated metal. Thirty-some years before, the buildings had housed U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers; now they looked like overgrown gardening sheds.

  “I thought this was the dry season,” said Tommy, picking up the pace toward the squat, open-mouthed bus nearby. The door was where the hood would be on a truck.

  “Dry means less than a monsoon,” said Dean. The air steamed with the recent rain, though by Vietnamese standards the seventy-seven-degree temperature was mild.

  “Bring back memories?” asked Karr, sliding into a seat.

  “Not really.”

  “That’s good. Warn me if you feel a flashback coming on.” Dean had actually been to the Saigon airport only once, to pick up someone. It had been nighttime and from Dean’s perspective the airport consisted only of security checkpoints and a big, poorly illuminated building. So rather than seeming familiar or even nostalgic, the airport to him now seemed blandly generic, as if it could be anywhere in Asia.

  The large hall where the passport control was located reminded him of the airport in Istanbul, Turkey, where he had been a few months before: somewhat modern, somewhat utilitarian, a place where a crowd could be counted on not to loiter.

  The customs line was only a dozen people long. A Vietnam ese woman in front of Dean slipped a twenty-dollar bill into her passport. The clerk took it without comment, studied her documents, then waved her through.

  There was no reaction from the clerk when Dean presented his American passport; he flipped through it quickly, then handed it back.

  “Have a good day,” said the man, reaching for Karr’s documents behind Dean.

  “Hello, Charlie. How does it feel to be back in Vietnam?” asked Jeff Rockman, the runner back in the Art Room. He was speaking to Dean through the Deep Black communications system, partly embedded in Dean’s skull.

  “Fine,” said Dean, turning around to wait for Karr.

  “We’re in their video security system,” said Rockman.

  “Smile — you’re looking right at the camera.” Dean scowled instead. The Art Room regularly “invaded” computer-controlled video security systems to keep tabs on operatives during a mission. Ironically, the more sophisticated the system, the easier it was for the Desk Three hackers to penetrate. This system, which transmitted its images not only to the local security office but also to an interior ministry monitor in Ho Chi Minh City, was about as secure as a child’s piggy bank.

  Karr joined him and they walked down the steps to the baggage claim area.

  “A woman bribed the passport guy with twenty bucks,” said Dean, talking to the Art Room though he pretended to be speaking to Karr. “What was that about?”

  “Commonly done,” answered Thu De Nghiem, the Art Room’s Vietnamese interpreter and an expert on the local culture. “It’s a holdover from the past. A lot of returning Vietnamese will include ‘tips’ in their passports, though it brings them nothing. You will find a lot of petty corruption in the country. It’s pathetic really. A tip worth a few cents at most can get you very far.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Karr led the way to the luggage carousels, where their suitcases had yet to appear. As they joined the small knot of people milling around the conveyor belts, Dean spotted two men in suits watching tourists from the far end of the hall. A maintenance worker mopped up the spotless floor just to their right.

  “Your bags are being searched in the room behind the belt,” said Rockman. “Shouldn’t be long.”

  “I hope they don’t steal my razor,” said Karr. “I really need a shave.”

  A half hour later, re united with their luggage, Dean and Karr passed through the customs area without being stopped for an official inspection. Just past the door, a row of people crowded against a waist-high temporary metal fence, searching for the faces of relatives. The line extended out toward the main hall of the reception area, overflowing outside.

  “I’m guessing that’s our driver,” said Karr, pointing at a silver-haired man near the door. He held a cardboard sign with the words “Car/Bean” on it.

  “Kin chow,” said Karr, sticking out his hand.

  “Xin chào,” said Dean, correcting his pronunciation. The words for “hello” sounded like “seen chaw” to an American.

  The rhythm and tone — a flat, slightly drawn-out singsong — were as important as the sound of the consonants. “Tôi tên là Charlie.”

  “And I’m Tommy,” said Karr, shaking the driver’s hand.

  “Very nice to meet you,” said the driver. “I am Lu. You speak Vietnamese?”

  “I know a few phrases,” said Dean. “Râ´t vui d — uoc g˘a panh. I am very pleased to be able to meet you.” Lu answered in Vietnamese that he, too, was happy to meet Dean and welcome him to his country.

  “The car is outside,” he added in English. “I will take you to the hotel.”

  “How about a drive around the city first?” asked Karr.

  “You want scenic road?”

  The juxtaposition of “scenic” and Vietnam seemed highly ironic to Dean, and yet as they drove to the hotel he realized that the country was indeed beautiful. Even the developing outskirts of Saigon, which looked a lot like the smaller cities of China, with cranes and bulldozers scraping the earth, had plenty of lush greenery to set off the yellow machines and the buildings they passed.

  The ci
ty itself looked almost nothing like the Saigon Dean had visited as a Marine. New high-rises were sprinkled among the colonial-style buildings that had completely dominated then. Instead of casting shadows on the older, smaller buildings, the high-rises seemed to light them up, pulling them out of the past.

  Motorbikes flooded around the car as it circled a city square marked by a fountain and leafy green trees. Dean noticed a family of four clinging to an older bike, a three-year-old leaning precariously toward the ground.

  “The New World Hotel,” said Lu as they pulled up. “You enjoy it very much.”

  Built in 1995, the New World was one of the city’s finer hotels. Located not far from the Tao Dan Culture Center and Lelai Park, it towered over the downtown area, pushing the lesser buildings in its shadow toward the murky Saigon River. Sleek marble panels lined the hotel’s glass-enclosed atrium, and the lobby looked as luxurious and modern as any Dean had seen.

  Karr whistled as they took it all in.

  “We better get some serious sales to justify this bill, huh, Charlie?”

  Lu helped them with their bags, then gave them a card to call if they needed a driver again.

  They checked out their rooms, which were next to each other on one of the executive floors. Karr examined the rooms for bugs while Dean planted some of their own, positioning dime-sized video cameras so the Art Room could see not only their rooms but also the hallway, elevator, and stairs. The bugs sent their signals to a booster unit the size of a paperback book, which he placed on the interior window ledge of his room. The small case looked like a battery waiting to be recharged.

  Their rooms secure, Dean and Karr ambled out of the hotel and began what looked like a haphazard walking tour of the area. They spent a few minutes oohing and aahing, “doing the tourist thing,” as Karr put it — checking out the general area to make sure they were familiar with possible escape routes.

  Then they became more serious. They rented motorbikes from four different shops, stashing them at different parking areas so they would have them if necessary. Dean rented a car as well, though in Saigon, cars tended to stand out and were not as useful as the more ubiquitous motorbikes.

  Karr, meanwhile, made a visit to a small notions shop several blocks from the hotel, emerging with a pair of large suitcases. Inside the cases were weapons and other equipment pre-positioned in the country. The weapons included an assortment of pistols and a specially designed assault gun called the A2; its boxy magazine held ninety-nine caseless 4.92mm bullets, which could be fired in three-round bursts — or all at once, which would take a little more than ten seconds.

  “See anything familiar yet, Charlie?” asked Karr, when they hooked up again. He had already stashed some of the gear in a locker at the bus station and now filled the trunk of the rental car with the rest.

  “No.”

  Dean glanced around. The Saigon streets were very different from what he remembered. Even allowing for the fact that he had only been here briefly, very long ago, the place bore almost no resemblance to anything he remembered.

  He tried to scrub away the obvious anachronisms of his memory — the drab green military vehicles, the rock music that occasionally blared from the most unexpected places, strategically placed sandbags and gun emplacements. There were just too many things to add — tall skyscrapers, a multi-tude of motorbikes, billboards that, except for their Vietnamese characters, could have been sitting over an LA freeway.

  “Feels like I’ve never been here before,” said Dean, though that wasn’t 100 percent true.

  * * *

  After spreading backup gear around the city, they found a spot to park the car where it wouldn’t be disturbed and went back to the hotel.

  “You think you’ll be all right at the reception on your own?” Karr asked Dean as they got into the elevator.

  “You think you’ll be all right breaking into the ministry on your own?”

  “I’m not breaking in, Charlie. I’m visiting. After hours.” Karr smiled. “There’s a difference.”

  34

  A smiling woman in a long red dress approached Dean shortly after he entered the reception in the Ben Thanh Hall on the second floor of the hotel. She looked Asian but was taller and younger than most of the women Dean had seen in the hotel so far.

  “You must be Mr. Dean,” said the woman. “Kelly Tang.

  I’m with the U.S. Department of Commerce.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “Just get in?” asked the covered CIA officer.

  “This morning.”

  Tang asked him about his flight, glancing to the right at two men who had come in just behind him. She cut him off as he answered, excusing herself and then going over to speak to them.

  It was a pretty clever move, Dean thought, designed to show anyone watching that she wasn’t really interested in him.

  Or maybe not. Maybe she really wasn’t interested. It was sometimes hard to read the CIA people they worked with.

  Dean walked over to the bar and ordered a seltzer. A Japanese businessman standing nearby pretended to do a double take when the drink was delivered.

  “No alcohol?” asked the man in English.

  “I’m afraid it will make me fall asleep,” said Dean.

  “You are the first American I have ever met who did not drink. What do you do?”

  “I sell farm equipment for Barhm Manufacturing.”

  “Barhm? In Minnesota?”

  “Yes,” said Dean.

  “You are my competitor,” said the man, who stepped backward slightly and then bowed, as if they were two sumo wrestlers facing off. “Toshio Kurokawa. I with Kaito.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Dean, lowering his head.

  “You have a very good machine, RD-743.”

  “The rice cultivator,” said Rockman from the Art Room.

  “Kaito’s rival model is AG-7. They outsell you about twelve to one in the States.”

  “Thanks for the compliment,” Dean told Kurokawa.

  “Say something about his machine, Charlie,” prompted Rockman. “To show your bona fides.” That was the problem with the Art Room. They were world-class kibitzers, always trying to tell you what to do.

  The last thing Dean wanted to do was talk shop. Rockman might have all the facts and figures at his fingertips, but there was no way to finesse the nuances. A really skilled bull artist might be able to get away with it, but Dean had never considered himself very good at lying. The best thing to do, he thought, was simply change the subject.

  He turned and pointed vaguely across the room, singling out no one in par tic u lar. “Is that man from the agricultural ministry?”

  Kurokawa squinted across the room. “Yes,” he said finally, but Dean got the impression that he was just being agreeable and didn’t want to admit he had no idea whom Dean meant.

  “Have you been in Vietnam before?” Dean asked Kurokawa.

  “Many times.”

  “This is my first visit,” said Dean.

  “An interesting place to do business.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  Dean saw Tang approaching out of the corner of his eye.

  He asked Kurokawa what part of the country he liked best.

  The Japa nese businessman said diplomatically that all parts of the country were interesting.

  A waiter with a tray of American-style appetizers appeared, relieving Dean of the onerous task of making meaningless conversation. Kurokawa took a small barbecue-flavored piece of chicken and a fried dumpling.

  “Mr. Dean, I’m sorry to have left you. I hope you don’t think I was rude,” said Tang. She brushed a lock of her shoulder-length hair from her face as she spoke. Tang had a rounded face on a slim body, as if she were the product of a ge ne tic mismatch. But she smiled easily, and the vivacious energy that emanated from her made her attractive.

  “This is Mr. Kurokawa,” said Dean, introducing his drinking partner. “He’s with Kaito. My very successful competito
r.” The Japanese salesman bowed.

  “There’s someone I would like you to meet, Mr. Dean,” said Tang. “He can be very useful to your company as you do business in Vietnam.”

  They left Kurokawa and went across the room to a short, narrow-faced Vietnamese bureaucrat.

  Thao Duong, the first of Dean’s three contacts.

  “Mr. Duong, I would like you to meet my friend Charles Dean,” said Tang, allowing a hint of formality into her voice.

  “His company makes a very good rice cultivator, which could help you increase your yields.”

  “This would be very good,” said Duong. He had a plate of appetizers in his hand; it was heaped high with food.

  Tang drifted away. Dean, struggling with small talk, told Duong his company was very interested in doing business.

  The Vietnamese official merely nodded and continued to stuff his face. He was very thin, and Dean wondered if he didn’t get a chance to eat regularly.

  “I haven’t been in Vietnam since the war,” said Dean. “A great deal has changed.”

  “Yes,” agreed Duong.

  “I spent a lot of time in Quang Nam Province,” said Dean. “Has it been built up a great deal now?” Duong shook his head. “Not much. The industry is concentrated here. Factories.”

  Duong looked around the hall. He seemed ner vous, as if he thought someone was watching him.

  A good sign or a bad sign? Tang hadn’t been told exactly what they were up to, so there was no way that Duong knew, either — unless, of course, he was the man Forester had contacted. In that case, Duong would probably think it was more than a coincidence that he had been invited here and that he was now being approached.

  “I think we might have a mutual acquaintance,” said Dean, deciding there was no reason to beat around the bush.

  “Jerry Forester.”

  Duong shook his head immediately.

  “I thought you might have spoken with him recently by e-mail.”

  Duong said nothing.

  “I thought maybe you had something you’d like to say to him.”