Conspiracy db-6 Page 12

  How about going up? There was only one floor between him and the flat roof. A row of bricks ran just above the windows, a decorative bump-out thick enough to grab on to. He wrapped his fingers around the bricks and pulled himself up as if doing a reverse chin-up. He put his right boot against the window casing for more leverage. He started to pull himself up, then realized it wasn’t going to work; the window ledge above the row of bricks was too far away to reach. But it was too late; he couldn’t get his feet down without risking a fall.

  * * *

  A short line of taxis waited at the curb of the hotel. Dean got in the first one, and with the aid of the Art Room translator gave the driver an address a half block from the office building where Karr was. It was less than four miles away, and there was very little traffic on the streets at night, but Dean found himself bouncing his foot up and down on the floor in the backseat, anxious to get there.

  “Wait for me here,” he told the driver when they were about a block from the destination. Dean threw a twenty-dollar American bill on the front seat and bolted from the cab.

  “Tommy’s around the back of the building,” Rockman told him. “Thao Duong is still in his office. We want you to trail him if you can.”

  “Tommy, can you hear me?”

  “He’s on the window ledge,” said Rockman.

  “Connect us.”

  The op-to-op mode on the communications gear could be activated either by the operatives themselves or by the Art Room. Dean heard Karr’s heavy breathing and asked if he was OK.

  “Uh, yeah,” grunted Karr. “Just busy.”

  “I’ll be there in a second,” said Dean, starting to run.

  if he was going to fall anyway, Karr decided it would be better existentially to fall while going up rather than down. He gritted his teeth and jerked his right leg upward, swinging it up and over the ledge above him — and into the window glass, which shattered above him. He pushed up with his hands, curled what he could of his foot inside the building, and then for a moment hung suspended in mid-air.

  “Hang on!” yelled Dean in Karr’s ear.

  “Oh yeah.”

  Upside down, Karr struggled to get a grip on the side of the window. He was now draped halfway in and halfway out, part of him inside the room and the larger part out. Blood rushed to his head. His face swam in sweat.

  Karr had just enough of his calf inside the window to leverage himself upward. The rest of the glass broke and fell into his lap as he pulled himself up. Hands bleeding, he managed to maneuver himself around into a seated position.

  Shouldn’t have done that, he told himself. It was OK to be negative once he’d succeeded.

  Something smacked the side of his face. He looked up but couldn’t figure out what it was. All he could see in his night glasses was a black blur.

  “Grab the rope,” said Charlie Dean. “It’s by your head.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Grab the damn rope before you fall,” said Dean. “I’m on the roof. I don’t know if this rig is going to hold long enough to pull you up.”

  “Nah, I’m OK,” said Karr. “Is there a door up there?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I’ll meet you on the sixth floor,” he said, slipping inside.

  40

  Since the assassination attempt, reporters always began interviews with Senator McSweeney by expressing concern for his continued well-being. Some were sincere, some sounded sincere; few were both. McSweeney played a private game with himself, trying to predict beforehand the sort of expression he would receive. In this case, the reporter had the bad taste to suggest that getting shot at had helped McSweeney tremendously in the polls.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” said McSweeney tartly.

  The reporter was correct; McSweeney had vaulted from also-ran to the odds-on favorite not only for Super Tuesday but also in the round of primaries the following Thursday and Tuesday. If the trend continued, he would wrap up the party nomination within a month.

  The pollster worried that it was just a temporary bump.

  Jimmy Fingers pointed out that as long as “temporary” got them through Tuesday, it might as well be permanent. Sympathy vote or not, McSweeney’s aide added, the effect had helped Reagan during his first term when Hinckley tried to kill him. “It gave him space for his first-term agenda. This time, it’s going to get you elected.” McSweeney preferred to think that people would vote for him based on his record. But if they pulled the lever because he had the good sense to duck when someone shot at him, so be it.

  “Why do you want to be President?” asked the reporter from the Times-Union, starting the interview with a softball question.

  McSweeney rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger, an old trick to make it look as if he were giving the question serious thought. In fact, he had a ready answer, a stock rehash of sound bites he knew would play well no matter how the reporter sliced and diced them in his story.

  “It’s time to tap the full potential of the people. The President is the only person — the only real national leader — who can do that effectively.”

  McSweeney continued, citing John F. Kennedy, talking about the contributions and attitude of the World War II generation, and laying out a program that all but the most cynical hack would applaud.

  “But why, really?” said the reporter when McSweeney finished.

  The question threw McSweeney. It wasn’t the words so much as the tone of familiarity. The reporter sounded like a friend who had detected a false note in a casual comment and wasn’t going to stand for bull.

  Why did he want to be President?

  Power, prestige. The ability to do what he wanted to do without being stopped.

  The guarantee that he would be included in history books.

  Who didn’t want to be President, damn it?

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” said McSweeney.

  “Inside,” said the reporter. “Why do you want to be President?”

  McSweeney began recycling his earlier answer. But he got only two sentences out of his mouth before the reporter said, “Ah, come on, Senator. Why do you really want to be in the White House? Ego? The babes?”

  Someone other than McSweeney might have answered the reporter’s poor attempt at a joke with a humorous joke of his own, cementing a favorable relationship for the rest of the campaign. Most of the others would have said something ridiculously stupid meant as a joke, but so inept that it would end up burying them when quoted.

  McSweeney found a third way — he simply didn’t answer.

  “Wanting to make America a better place, help us live up to our potential, can seem corny,” he told the reporter. “But that’s what I’m about. And it’s funny, I’ve always been ab-surdly idealistic, even as a nine-year-old. My mom has an essay I wrote on how I wanted to be President and how I was going to help the environment and improve schools.”

  “Really? You have it?”

  “She has it. Call her. Between you and me, my spelling was probably atrocious. I still have trouble. Thank God for spell-check.”

  41

  “He’s coming out of the building,” said Rockman as Dean met Karr in the stairwell. “He’s turning right.”

  “You really lost your calling, Rockman,” said Karr as they clambered down to the basement. “You’d be great doing play-by-play.”

  “Very funny. He’s crossing the street. He doesn’t seem to have a car nearby,” added Rockman. “We’ll lose him in a minute.”

  Propelled by the need to rescue Karr, Dean had had no trouble running up the stairs. Going down, though, was a different story. He felt winded, and every step jabbed at his legs. The calf muscle in his right leg cramped while his ham-strings pulled taut.

  “I have a cab waiting about a block to the west,” grunted Dean, losing ground to Karr, who jogged down the steps two or three at a time. The younger man’s pants were red with blood, but it didn’t seem to slow him down.

 
; “I got something better than a cab,” Karr told Dean, hitting the landing and turning toward the door. “Come on.” By the time Dean caught up with him outside, Karr had hopped into the truck behind the building. The truck’s motor coughed to life as Dean pitched himself into the seat.

  “Just turn left on that street behind you,” said Rockman.

  “Got it,” said Karr. He threw the truck into reverse, swerved into the intersection backward, and squealed the tires as he changed direction. The truck tottered sideways, then picked up steam.

  “Keep us in one piece,” said Dean, still out of breath.

  “Oh yeah!” said Karr. It was more a battle cry than an ac-know ledg ment; the truck continued to accelerate.

  Dean slapped his hand on the dashboard as Karr barely avoided hitting a parked car at the next corner. The truck tilted on its left wheels as he veered through the intersection; Dean braced himself, waiting for the crash.

  “That’s him up there, getting onto the Honda ôm. Damn,” said Karr.

  The Honda ôm—the generic name for a motorbike used as a taxi and common in the city — was headed in the wrong direction. By the time Karr found a place to turn around, it was nowhere in sight.

  “Rockman, get us directions to Thao Duong’s apartment,” Dean said. Then he turned to Karr. “Let’s swap places.”

  “Why? Don’t trust my driving?”

  “Your leg’s bleeding,” Dean answered.

  “Ah, just a scratch.”

  “Well, let’s give it a chance to heal.”

  “You don’t trust my driving,” said Karr.

  “No, I don’t.”

  Karr chuckled, and pressed harder on the gas.

  * * *

  Thao Duong lived a few blocks away. Even from the outside, it seemed obvious he hadn’t taken the cab there; the place was dark. Dean left Karr in the truck and went up the fire escape. The window to the kitchen was open; Dean lifted it and slipped inside. Ten minutes later he was back in the truck, having planted two audio bugs in the flat and a tracking bug on the bicycle Thao kept in the hallway.

  “Gotta be our guy,” said Karr as they returned the truck.

  “What ever you said to him at the reception spooked him.”

  “Maybe,” said Dean. “But if he is, how do we get him to talk?”

  “You turn on the charm,” said Karr. “But before that, we ought to find out what he’s got locked away.”

  “Yeah,” said Dean.

  A light-colored sedan passed on a nearby street. The car looked like an unmarked police car, though he caught only a glimpse. They waited a few minutes, then slipped from the truck and began walking in the direction to the hotel.

  “You don’t think Thao Duong’s our guy?” asked Karr.

  “Seems too easy.”

  “Easy?”

  “First guy we check?”

  “Odds are only one out of three,” said Karr. “Just as likely to be number one as number three.”

  “The one thing I know about Vietnam,” said Dean, “is that nothing’s easy. And nothing’s what it seems.”

  “That’s two things,” said Karr. “You can’t fool me, Charlie. I was once a mathematician.”

  42

  The Marshals’ Service credentials didn’t impress the state troopers in Danbury, Connecticut, nor were they shy about letting Lia know that they’d been over the same ground with both the Secret Service and the FBI, ad infinitum. But one of the investigators was recently divorced, a little lonely, and obviously bored — a combination that made getting him to give her a complete tour of the crime scene and an in-depth review of the case child’s play.

  The only downside was that he wanted to take her to lunch as well. Not particularly hungry — and in no need of a shadow as she checked out the computers in the hotel for messages Forester might have sent — Lia let him down as gently as possible, feigning a headache. But he didn’t really get the message until she told him she had to call her boyfriend.

  “Oh,” said the investigator. “Maybe another time.”

  “Wait,” said Lia as he headed for his car.

  When he turned around, she could see the hope in his eyes. She felt like a heel.

  “Was there a notebook in the car?” she asked. “One of Forester’s notebooks seems to be missing.”

  “Notebook? No.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s OK.”

  “Another time.”

  “Sure.”

  Lia drove back to the hotel where Forester had killed himself, thinking about Charlie Dean the whole time. She wished she’d gone to Vietnam with him — or that he was here with her. She thought of calling him, or asking the Art Room to connect them, but Vietnam was eleven hours ahead time-wise; he’d be sleeping.

  The hotel advertised that it “catered to businesspeople” by offering a “dedicated business center.” The business center turned out to consist of a fax machine and copier, along with two computers connected to the Internet. The person supervising the center was also assigned to clean up the nearby eating area and help at the front desk, and left Lia alone soon after showing her the room. Lia slipped a specially designed “dongle” into one of the computer’s USB ports, then had the Art Room read off the contents of the hard drive via the Internet. She repeated the pro cess a few minutes later with the second computer.

  “Did you get it all?” she asked Marie Telach, taking out her sat phone and pretending to use it.

  “Another minute. When you’re done, check out the hotel where Amanda Rauci stayed. Maybe he was there.”

  “She says he never made it.”

  “Check it out anyway,” said Telach, her tone implying that Lia was somehow slacking off.

  “Wild-goose chases are us,” replied Lia.

  * * *

  The other hotel was set back farther from the road, up a twisting driveway that made it feel more secluded — it looked exactly like the sort of place someone would pick for an affair, Lia thought. The lobby was located at the side of an atrium, and the place had a less rushed, more luxurious feel than the other hotel. The business center here had a full-time employee and six computers, three of which were occupied when Lia came in. There was also a wireless network, allowing individuals to connect to the Internet via their laptops.

  “Room number?” asked the room’s supervisor.

  “I haven’t checked in yet,” said Lia.

  “I’m sorry, the computers are only for guests.”

  “Well I’m going to register,” said Lia.

  “Come back when you do.”

  Lia left the room and walked back to the atrium, where she took out her sat phone, pretending to use it while she spoke to Telach.

  “You want me to flash the credentials and ask if I can look at the computers?” Lia asked. “Or should I just rent a room?”

  “Rent a room,” said Telach.

  “Sorry,” said the desk clerk when Lia got there. “We’re booked solid. It’s a busy week. Two weddings, and the biker festival. You here for the Harleys?”

  “Just looking after a friend,” said Lia.

  “Maybe at one of our sister hotels.”

  “But my mom really wants me to register here,” said Lia.

  “Right, Mom?”

  The clerk gave Lia an odd look.

  “Sometimes I talk to my mom in my head,” Lia explained.

  “Tell her to check the central reservations system now,” said Telach. “Looks like one of the bikers just got a flat tire.”

  43

  Dean woke up in the middle of the night, not knowing where he was. He stared at the ceiling, waiting for his memory to come back. It took only a few seconds, and yet those few seconds seemed enormously long. He sank into them, unsettled, his disorientation extending.

  Finally he realized he was in Vietnam. Dean remained on his back, still staring into the gray light above him.

  How strange was it to come around in a circle?

 
; It wasn’t as if Vietnam or the things he did here haunted him. From time to time he’d remember things, missions as a sniper, old buddies, songs that he’d first heard here, but Vietnam never obsessed him, never burned viciously in his brain the way it did for many others. Vietnam to Charlie Dean was a place and time in the past, not the present. Its demons had been real enough, but they had no afterlife to haunt him.

  Except for Phuc Dinh.

  Dean sat upright in the bed, then slipped his feet over the side to the floor, one by one.

  He had made that kill. He’d taken a photograph to prove it.

  So why wasn’t it in the file?

  There were a million possible reasons, starting with the fact that what he’d seen at Crypto City wasn’t the file, just a copy of some things that were in it.

  Or might have been. He had no real idea. He didn’t know what happened behind the scenes or above him. He knew only what the CIA people and the Marines who dealt with them wanted him to know.

  * * *

  After he’d killed the last VC guerilla on the trail, Dean had gone back to his friend’s body. There was no way Dean was leaving Longbow behind. Dean hoisted Longbow onto his back and began trekking up the trail into the jungle. He couldn’t have expressed the emotions he was feeling. Grief and anger, guilt — everything was tangled together.

  The original plan called for Dean and Longbow to either hook up with the unit they had swung into the area with, or, missing them, trek about twenty miles southeast to a small observation post held by another Marine unit.

  Twenty miles in the Vietnamese heat was a good, long hike, even if you weren’t carry ing a body. Dean didn’t think about the distance at first, trudging slowly but steadily, using the path for long stretches before tucking into the jungle and making sure he wasn’t followed. Twice, he lost his way and found himself almost back where he started. By nightfall, he reckoned his destination was still fifteen miles away.

  Dean knew he was going no farther with Longbow’s body. What had once been his friend was now a decrepit bag of gases and ill-smelling remains. And Dean himself was so exhausted he could barely carry himself. His only option was to leave Longbow where he could find him and come back with help.