Conspiracy (36 page)

Automatic rifle fire sounded behind them. The stairwell magnified the sound of the AK-47, so that it seemed as if it were coming from inside Dean's skull.

“Now,” said Dean.

They rammed their shoulders together. The lock gave way and Dean sprawled into the cement stairwell.

Karr tossed a grenade behind him and then rushed past carrying Qui. Dean followed, stumbling up the wide concrete ramp that led to the yard at the side of the building.

Rockman was yelling at him. Dean couldn't understand what it was, but he guessed it might be a warning. As soon as he saw something moving on his left, Dean lowered the shotgun and fired from his hip.

The pellets sailed wide right without hitting the figure. But the shadow collapsed anyway, its owner flattening himself on the ground to avoid a second shot.

“To the wall, Charlie, let's go!” yelled Karr.

“Two more, coming from the right side of the building,” warned Rockman.

Dean stopped and dropped to his knee, waiting for the men to appear. They stepped out from a line of tree trunks at about thirty feet. Dean fired two shots, both times hitting home.

By now his lungs felt as if they were going to explode. He ran as fast as he could for the wall. Just as he reached it, a thousand firecrackers began exploding in the courtyard—another of Karr's diversions.

As Dean put his hand on the top of the wall, he heard an AK-47 firing somewhere nearby. He lost his balance in the haste, slipping all the way back to the ground. Chips flew from the wall.

I'm not going to die here, he thought. And he leapt to his feet and jumped headfirst over the wall.

 

THE MOTORBIKE BEGAN
to move.

“Hang on,” said the man who had carried Qui from the building.

Within a minute, they were on a highway, driving to the west. Qui felt as if she were riding on a thin stick and that any false move would send them over to the side.

Ten minutes later, they stopped. Qui's eyes still stung from the odor of the pepper gas.

“Why?” she demanded. “Why did you do this to me?”

The man laughed.

“Come on and get into the truck.”

“Are you kidnapping me?”

He laughed again. “We're rescuing you. Come on. Get into the truck. We have a plane to catch.”

He started to let the bike slide out from under him to the ground. Qui stepped away.

Dean drove up a few seconds later.

“Mr. Dean,” she said after he hopped off his own bike. “Why did you do this to me?”

“What do you mean?” asked Dean.

“Why did you do this?”

“Rescue you?”

“I didn't need to be rescued.”

“Hey, lady, are you serious?” said the other man.

“I am very serious. I could have handled this.”

“They would have put you in jail.”

“It's all right, Tommy,” said Dean. “I'll talk to her. Go get the truck ready.”

Karr walked away, chuckling to himself.

“I'm glad your friend is so amused,” Qui told Dean.

“Tommy thinks the world's a sitcom. He's always laughing at something.”

“You've given me a great many problems, Mr. Dean.”

“No.” Dean shook his head. “You're going to come with us. We'll be in America tomorrow.”

“I don't want to go to America.” Qui felt her body begin to tremble once again. “Who asked you to rescue me? Who? Why did you have to interfere?”

 

DEAN PERSUADED QUI
to sit in the back of the truck while he talked over the situation with Karr.

“We can't take her back if she doesn't want to go,” Dean told Karr.

“Gotta do something, Charlie. And we only have about a half hour to meet that boat. Telach said he'd only wait two hours.”

Dean paced back and forth along the side of the van. Karr was right. But taking Qui away against her will didn't seem right, either.

How did you save people who didn't want to be saved? Or rather, who
did
want to be saved but didn't want your solution?

Vietnam, all over again.

“All right, come on,” Dean said finally. “Hop in the truck.”

“We going to the docks?”

“No. Plan B.”

 

RUBENS WAS NOT
a television aficionado and watched news shows only when absolutely forced to. But Marie Telach was right—he did want to see what was on Fox.

Not that he liked it very much.

The cable network was airing a noon press conference with Senator McSweeney in California.

“This is the first I heard about it,” said McSweeney.

“So you can't confirm that the Secret Service is investigating whether the government of Vietnam tried to have you assassinated?” asked the reporter.

“You're going to have to ask either the Secret Service or, I guess, the government of Vietnam.” The senator smiled as the reporters snickered. “Can we move on?”

“You weren't even notified?” asked another reporter.

“Guys, this sounds to me like an off-the-wall rumor. Really,” said McSweeney.

More reporters pressed with questions.

“This is a replay,” said Rockman. “It aired live about ten minutes ago.”

“Why did the Secret Service tell McSweeney about the Vietnamese connection?” asked Telach.

“I don't know,” said Rubens, turning to go back to his office and find out.

 

“
HOW THE
HELL
did that get into the media?” roared Gideon McSweeney as he walked down the hallway after the press conference. Aides scattered; two hotel workers froze, sure that he was going to punch them in his fury. “And why the
hell
didn't they tell me! Jesus H. Christ.”

“Relax, Senator,” said Jimmy Fingers. “I told you. It's not going to hurt you.”

“The hell, says you. ‘Elect this man and start a war with Vietnam!' There's a slogan for you.”

“You're overthinking it,” said Jimmy Fingers. “People are going to admire you. For one thing, it reminds them you were a war hero—”

“Don't give me that war-hero crap, Fingers.” McSweeney pointed his finger at his aide, waving it as if it were a stick. “You know how something like that can backfire. And I was
not
a hero. Heroes died. Those guys were heroes.”

“You're being too hard on yourself, Gideon. Relax. This will blow over.”

McSweeney grabbed Jimmy Fingers by the arm. “Don't tell me to relax.”

The look in Jimmy Fingers' eyes was as sharp as a slap in the face. McSweeney let go of him, then exhaled slowly.

“I'm sorry, Jim. You're right. I'm overreacting. I'm not sure why.”

“Pressure of the campaign. You'll get over it.”

“Thanks.” McSweeney tapped his aide and began walking again. “You've been working out?”

“Not really.”

“Has Frey called you back?”

“I haven't spoken to anyone except his aide. He wouldn't confirm or deny.”

“You get me Frey. Make sure it's him. I want to give him a piece of my mind.”

“I put the call in as soon as I heard the first question.”

 

FREY DIDN'T CALL
back for another half hour. By then, McSweeney had sat down for dinner with a group of county party leaders. Jimmy Fingers sent someone to get the senator and in the meantime spoke to Frey himself.

“Let me give you a heads-up here,” he told the head of the Secret Service. “The senator is really, really hot about the leak.”

“I'm not too happy about it myself.”

“I calmed him down. I told him it wouldn't have come from you. I am right, ain't I?”

“Of course I didn't leak it. Did you?”

“Me?”

“My aide Paul Quantril says you were asking about rumors.”

“Why would I leak it?”

“Where did you hear the rumors?” Frey's voice still had enough of an edge to it to tell Jimmy Fingers that he thought it had come from him.

“A reporter. I don't know what his source was, but I can guess it was the White House.”

“The White House?”

“There are people there trying to make the Vietnamese look bad,” said Jimmy Fingers. “I assume this was part of their agenda. They don't like Senator McSweeney, either, but I don't think that entered into their calculations.”

Jimmy Fingers looked up and saw Senator McSweeney striding across the suite room. The aide he'd sent to fetch McSweeney was nowhere in sight, clearly having been left in the dust.

“Brace yourself,” Jimmy Fingers told Frey before handing over the phone.

 

“
THE LEAK DID
not
come from us,” Frey told Rubens. “Less than a dozen people are even aware of that theory.”

“Where do you think it came from?”

“I'm not sure. James Fahey, McSweeney's ferret-faced right-hand man, thinks someone in the White House leaked it, trying to make points against Vietnam. Personally, I think he said that to keep suspicion off himself. He called my office saying he'd heard rumors a few hours before this came out. They call Fahey Jimmy Fingers because he's got his fingers in everything,” added Frey. “He's always playing some angle.”

“I would not necessarily rule Mr. Fahey's theory out,” said Rubens.

“Who?”

“Without evidence, I would hesitate to accuse anyone,” said Rubens, though he had an obvious candidate: Bing. “There are some agendas there that this would play into.”

“If I find the person, I'll break them in two.” Most people grew calmer as they talked; Frey seemed to do the opposite. “If they leaked this, what else did they leak? And what will they leak tomorrow?”

“Yes,” said Rubens.

After they exchanged some calmer details of the investigation, Rubens hung up and walked to the center of his office. His back was knotted in a dozen places, and he could feel a headache coming on. His yoga teacher had suggested a routine to loosen his spine and help him relax.

Obviously, the leak had come from Bing, thought Rubens as he slipped off his shoes. Bing was the only person who had anything to gain from it. She'd do it cleverly, of course—an aide would have lunch with a reporter, drop a strategic comment, and that would be that. Plausible denial intact.

Rubens was just beginning a tiger pose when his phone rang. He got up slowly, and saw that it was Bing.

“Senator McSweeney was just asked at a press conference about the possibility that the Vietnamese government wants to kill him,” she told Rubens when he picked up.

“Yes, I saw a tape of the press conference,” said Rubens. “I have been wondering who alerted the media.”

“Was it you?”

Rubens' back muscles immediately spasmed.

“I can't even see the logic of asking me that question,” said Rubens, his tone nearly as stiff as his back. “Unless you're trying to turn suspicion away from yourself.”

Bing was silent.

“Is there anything else?” said Rubens finally.

“I'm still waiting for the Vietnam report.”

“There is nothing to report. As I told you the other day, there is no connection between the assassination attempt and the Vietnam government.”

“That's all you have?” Bing asked. “Nothing more.”

She hung up. Less than thirty seconds later, Rubens got a call from the White House.

“The President wants to see you,” said Ted Cohen, the chief of staff. “And he wants to see you
now.
”

“Yes,” said Rubens. “I suspected he might.”

 

THE NEWS OF
the attack on the station where he had ordered the woman held reassured Cam Tre Luc in an odd way. It confirmed that the man who had surprised him in the bordello was an American spy. This restored some of Cam Tre Luc's dignity; it would have been unbearable if the man had been simply a businessman or private citizen, as the official entry records and his sources at the hotel suggested.

Not that he was going to let Mr. Dean get away with it.

On the contrary.

Cam Tre Luc spent several hours checking personally with the officials who oversaw the immigration checks at all of the country's airports, not just Saigon. He called the chief of the local police and gave him a full description of the man, adding that his apprehension would be rewarded in meaningful ways. Finally, exhausted, Cam Tre Luc went to bed.

His eyes began to close even before his head slipped back on the pillow.

Cam Tre Luc realized that he was becoming an old man. This was a good thing in Vietnam; people respected a man with silver hair, appreciating his wisdom and making allowances for his failings. How much better would that aura seem, he mused, when he apprehended an American spy ring?

Very possibly he could move up to a national position. He saw himself in Hanoi—then his vision dimmed completely as he fell asleep.

The next thing Cam Tre Luc knew, a hand was pressed over his mouth and he was being hauled upright in the bed.

Light shined in his eyes.

Charles Dean stood before him. Cam Tre Luc tried to yell for his bodyguards, but the hand clamped over his mouth would emit no noise.

“Your bodyguards are tied up,” said Dean. He repeated what he had said in roughly accented Vietnamese. “I want to talk to you.”

Cam Tre Luc shook his head.

“All you have to do is listen,” said Dean. He pointed at whoever was holding Cam Tre Luc, and the hand slipped from his mouth.

Cam Tre Luc yelled for his men.

“They're not going to come,” Dean said in English. “I told you. They're tied up.”

“I understand your English better than your Vietnamese,” Cam Tre Luc told Dean as he started to repeat himself in Vietnamese. “Your accent is horrible.”

“Why did you arrest Qui Lai Chu?” asked Dean.