Dance with the Dragon (2 page)

When Perry got off the elevator, Chauncy appeared at the end of the corridor, at the door to the secure room that they used as a conference center. Other than the communications center in the basement, the conference room was the safest spot in the entire embassy. It was electronically and mechanically shielded from the outside world. Whatever was said or done there was perfectly immune to any means of surveillance.

Except for humint—human intelligence, Perry thought as he walked down the hall. “What’s all this fuss about?”

“Glad you’re here, finally,” Chauncy said. He stepped aside. “Inside.”

Perry followed him into the windowless room, the first glimmerings of doubt entering his mind. At forty-five Chauncy was too old, too overweight, and too much of a blue-collar man ever to rise higher in the CIA than he already was, but his was generally a steady hand in a situation. But this morning it was plain that the man was concerned, even frightened.

Chauncy closed the door and flipped the light switch that operated the door lock and activated the electronic countersurveillance equipment. “It’s about Louis,” he said.

Perry’s stomach did a slow, sour roll. “What about him?” he asked, careful to keep his voice level.

“He’s dead. Took a bullet to the side of his head.”

“Good Lord,” Perry said softly, and he sat down at the long conference table. “Where?” he asked.

“I said a bullet to the side of his head.”

Perry looked up. “No, I mean where was he found? Who found him? I hope to God it wasn’t Janet.” Janet was Updegraf’s wife. She and Louis had a trendy apartment in the city’s La Condesa neighborhood. She was a cow who stupidly trusted everything her husband told her, but nobody deserved to find her husband lying in a pool of blood.

“It wasn’t Janet. Someone from the Red Cross up in Chihuahua called the switchboard a couple hours ago, said they needed to talk to someone in security. It was about a dead American whose body had been dumped in front of the hospital’s emergency-room entrance. So the locator called me.”

“Good heavens,” Perry cried. “What was he doing all the way up there?”

“I haven’t a clue,” Chauncy admitted. “I was hoping that you might know something.”

Perry felt as if he was going to be sick at his stomach. “Are we absolutely positive that it was Louis?”

“It gets worse, Gil,” Chauncy said. “The people at the hospital found his ID. They didn’t know what to do with it, so they turned it over to the Red Cross along with his other belongings.”

“What do you mean, his ID?”

“Just that,” Chauncy said. “His CIA identification card.”

CIA officers in the field
never
carried anything that could link them to the Company. It just wasn’t done. “That’s not possible,” Perry said.

“They gave a good description.”

Perry closed his eyes for a moment to give himself time to think. The entire CIA operation in Mexico could easily unravel over this incident. If that happened it would be the chief of station who took the fall.

“I want you to get up there right now and put a lid on it,” Perry said. “This hits the media and we’re dead. In the meantime I’ll do what I can here to put out any fires that might develop.”

“What about Louis’s body?” Chauncy asked.

“I don’t care,” Perry said, but then he changed his mind. “No, get it out of Mexico. Fly it up to the Air Force hospital in San Antonio and have it autopsied.” He shook his head. “Tell them that Louis did not commit suicide. He was murdered, and I want the proof.”

TWO

U.S. EMBASSY
MEXICO CITY

It was nearly noon, local, which put it about one in Washington, before Perry was able to call his boss, Deputy Director of Operations Howard McCann, at the Building. He’d sent a very brief classified cable around nine, after Chauncy finally left for Chihuahua, reporting only that a CIA officer was dead, presumed assassinated. In Perry’s estimation the DDO was not only a consummate professional, but also enough of a gentleman to allow his local station chiefs to handle their own shops without interference from headquarters.

McCann’s not bothering him all morning had given Perry a few hours to make a couple of phone calls, and to figure out what his next moves would have to be. Most, though not all, CIA officers operating under cover legends out of the embassy did so with the tacit approval of Mexico’s intelligence apparatus, the Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional. So long as the CIA was not spying on Mexicans, but only on the intelligence operations run from the embassies of other governments, nothing was said at the official level. But every station chief’s first job on arriving in Mexico City was to make his contacts within the CISN. Perry’s was Colonel Luis Salinas, in charge of counterterrorism operations. So long as Perry kept him informed, the colonel would not press the matter, and would do what he could to keep it out of the media.

“This is a bad business, when FSOs are murdered on Mexican soil,” Salinas said. “Do you think it was guerrillas? The EPR?” The EPR was the Popular Revolutionary Army, formed in 1996. The organization wanted Mexico for Mexicans, which meant all foreigners were to leave or be killed.

“It’s possible, but we’re just not sure yet,” Perry said. “When I find out something I’ll call you.”

“Yes, please do, my old friend. And if there is anything else I can do to help, let me know. I have some friends in Chihuahua.”

“Thank you,” Perry said. “I might have to cancel the reception and concert this weekend.”

“Duty calls, I understand,” Colonel Salinas said. “Good luck.”

Perry’s secretary buzzed him. “Mr. McCann is on the secure line.”

“I’ve got it,” Perry said. He picked up the red handset, and a powerful quantum effects encryption algorithm automatically kicked in, lending an odd tone to human voices. “Good afternoon, sir,” Perry said.

“What the hell is going on down there?” McCann shouted.

Normally McCann ran the DO with a steady, if sometimes overly cautious hand, and Perry had never heard the man raise his voice. This now came as something of a surprise. “One of my people was probably shot to death up in Chihuahua last night. That’s in the mountains about one hundred fifty miles south of the Texas border.”

“I know where it is,” McCann barked. “What the hell was he doing up there that got him killed? I haven’t seen a damned thing in your operation reports.”

“Frankly, I don’t know,” Perry admitted. “But I’m going to find out.”

The line was silent for a long moment. “I would hope so,” McCann came back sarcastically. “What are your people at the CISN saying?”

“They knew nothing about it, but they’ve agreed to keep it out of the media as long as possible. In the meantime I’ve sent one of my people to take the body across the border to San Antonio for an autopsy.”

“What about his wife?”

“I haven’t talked to her—”

“Well you goddamned well better do it pronto. If she finds out about it from someone else, she could start screaming her head off, and we’d be up a creek. Are you clear on that?”

“Yes … sir,” Perry said, keeping his temper in check. His estimation of McCann’s gentlemanly attributes had sharply lowered. But he needed to stay on the DDO’s good side on this one. “I’ll talk to her this afternoon and then have her brought to Washington, where we can get her a couple of babysitters until the issue is resolved.”

“Good thinking,” McCann said, somewhat calmer. “I don’t want to interfere in your shop, but when one of my people takes a hit I need to know who, what, why, when, where, and how. I’ll expect you to get on with it.”

“Consider it as good as done, sir.”

“I have a better idea. I want you to bring his wife up here yourself on Saturday. Gives you three days to figure out what happened. Once you get her settled, you can brief me on what progress you’ve made. Hopefully the situation will be resolved by then.”

Perry closed his eyes. Three days. It was impossible. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

After he hung up he turned his chair so that he could look out the window toward the modernistic Torre Mayor skyscraper, which at fifty-five stories was one of the tallest buildings in Latin America. It was supposed to represent Mexican progress into the twenty-first century, and Mexican engineering. It had been designed to withstand even the strongest of earthquakes. But knowing what he knew about Mexico and Mexican engineering, Perry had long ago decided he wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the skyscraper in even a minor quake.

In fact at this moment he didn’t want to be anywhere near Mexico, but since he couldn’t run away from this business, he would have to deal with it.

He asked his secretary to find Gloria Ibenez and have her come to his office. Surprisingly, she was in the building for a change, and she showed up five minutes later, dressed in a very short khaki skirt, sandals with no nylons, and a white peasant blouse that left little to the imagination. He’d warned her repeatedly about dressing suggestively, but she’d completely ignored him. “If you don’t like what I’m wearing to work, don’t look,” she’d once told him, actually laughing in his face. She was a Cuban-born American, and had been with the CIA seven years. Mexico City was the perfect assignment for a Spanish-speaking woman who was beautiful, intelligent, and experienced, and had good contracts. Her father was General Ernesto Marti, who was an adviser to the CIA on Cuban affairs, and just last year she’d been involved on an assignment with Kirk McGarvey when they finally tracked down and eliminated Osama bin Laden. She was a pain in the ass, and Perry had wanted to get rid of her within the month after she’d arrived, and now he saw his chance.

She sat down across the desk from him, a bright smile on her oval, dark face. “Good afternoon, Judge,” she said brightly, which Perry was sure she did to needle him, as if she were making fun of him. “What’s up?”

Perry studied her for several long seconds, as if he were examining a bug under a magnifying glass, but then he shoved Updegraf’s personnel file across the desk to her. “Louis was shot to death last night up in Chihuahua.”

Gloria had reached for the file, but she stopped, the smile fading from her lips. “My God,” she said softly. “Are you serious?”

“I’m always serious,” Perry replied drily. “I sent Chauncy up there to take charge of the situation, and I’ve talked to the Mexican authorities, who’ve agreed to keep it out of the media for the time being.”

“What about his wife?”

“I’ll take care of her,” Perry said. He laid a thin buff folder stamped
TOP SECRET
on top of Updegraf’s dossier. “It’s what we have so far, which isn’t much. Louis’s body was dumped outside the hospital early this morning. But we don’t have any idea what he was doing up there, except it may have involved Chinese intelligence.”

Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “Their intelligence presence isn’t very strong in Mexico. Anyway, I wasn’t aware that we were running any ops against them.”

“Neither was I until I opened Louis’s safe this morning.”

“What’d you find?”

“I don’t know what it means yet, I’m still working on it,” Perry said. “But I know enough to think that he was trying to turn an embassy clerk. Someone in their communications section.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Run his background. Find out what he was doing with the clerk, and find out if he’d ever approached anyone else over there.”

“I’ll need to see Louis’s encounter sheets so I can get the name of the clerk,” Gloria said. “That’d at least be a start. But what about Chihuahua?”

“Chauncy is taking care of the situation up there. At least for the time being, I want you right here in Mexico City.”

Gloria gathered the files and rose to leave.

“I need to see something in writing on my desk no later than eighteen hundred hours Friday,” Perry told her.

She laughed. “You’re dreaming.”

“Eighteen hundred hours, Ms. Ibenez. Let’s see just how much of a hotshot you really are.”

THREE

CIA HEADQUARTERS

Chauncy had returned from San Antonio late Thursday with the results of the autopsy on Updegraf’s body, and Gloria Ibenez had turned in her brief report exactly on time yesterday afternoon. And then the weekend had turned into an absolute disaster.

As Perry drove out to the Building in a rental Taurus a few minutes before five on a stiflingly hot and humid afternoon, his palms were sweaty and his stomach was sour. Handling Updegraf’s widow was one of the worst jobs he’d ever had to accomplish. Even with the help of Dr. Carol Zywicki, a Company shrink who’d flown aboard a private Gulfstream IV down from Andrews Air Force Base Friday morning, the evening had been a mess until Zywicki had sedated the blubbering cow.

“God save us from hysterical women,” Perry mumbled to himself. His own wife was no mental giant, but she’d come from good Ivy League stock—her father was a prominent Boston attorney and her mother was still a society maven—and she knew when to keep her mouth shut. Being the wife of an important CIA officer demanded her discretion, as well as an ask-no-questions-expect-no-lies attitude when it came to her husband’s extracurricular activities.

Janet Updegraf, on the other hand, had begun screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs the moment she’d found out that her husband had been shot to death in the line of duty sometime late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.

“You son of a bitch!” she’d screeched. “You knew all this time and yet you didn’t have the common decency to tell me.” She’d come off the couch in their expensively furnished downtown condo and physically attacked Perry, slamming her fists into his chest and trying to slap him in the face.

On the way up to Washington, the cow still sedated, strapped in one of the rear seats, Perry had debated putting the incident in his situation report. In the end his good sense had won out and he’d written a complete Sitrep with the recommendation that the Company be more thorough when it vetted the wives of its field officers. If she hadn’t been brought under control she could have created a potentially embarrassing incident for everyone involved.

It was one time in which Perry had been totally at a loss trying to figure out a way to turn a situation to his advantage. And he had to admit to himself that he was becoming concerned. If they took another hit, the situation in Mexico could very well unravel.