Gideon's Sword (16 page)

“Good-bye, jerk-off.”

27

G
ideon Crew strolled up Fifth Avenue and entered Central Park at the 102nd Street gate. He felt absolutely awful. It was early evening, and the joggers were out in force. He couldn’t get Orchid’s lovesick look out of his head. And now that Wu was dead—and his assignment had crashed and burned—he found himself replaying Glinn again and again in his mind, pulling out the medical file with a sorrowful look on his face.
Arteriovenous malformation.
The more he thought about it, the less probable it seemed: this mysterious illness that would just happen to strike him dead in a year with no warning, no treatment, no symptoms, nothing. It smelled phony, smacking of psychological manipulation. Glinn seemed the type to tell any kind of fantastic story if it got him what he wanted. Gideon walked aimlessly, not knowing where he was going, cutting across the baseball diamonds, heading west.

This is crazy,
he thought,
just forget about Orchid and the file and move on. Focus on the problem.
But he couldn’t forget. He pulled out a new cell phone he’d bought—a cheapie with preloaded minutes—and called Tom O’Brien as he walked.

“Yo” came the abrasive voice after an inordinate number of rings.

“Gideon here. What news?”

“Jeez, you told me I’d have twenty-four hours.”

“Well?”

“Well, the credit card and passport are just that. No hidden data. The cell phone’s the same. It’s a brand-new SIM card phone, probably just purchased.”

“Damn.”

“All that’s left on it are the contacts you already got, a few recent calls—and that’s it. No other hidden data, no secret microchips, nothing.”

“What about the string of numbers I gave you?”

“Those are a lot more interesting. I’m still working on them.”

Gideon turned south. It was now dusk, and the park was emptying.

“Interesting why?”

“Like I told you before, lot of patterns in here.”

“Such as?”

“Repeated numbers, rows of decreasing numbers, stuff like that. Right now it’s hard to say what they mean. I just started in on them. It’s definitely not code.”

Central Park Reservoir loomed ahead, and he stepped onto the jogging path. The water lay dark and still. Far to the south, over the tops of the trees, Gideon could see the skyline of Midtown, the lights in the buildings glowing against the fading sky.

“How do you know?”

“Any decent code yields a string of numbers that look random. They aren’t, of course, but all the mathematical tests for randomness will show that they are. In this case, even the simplest test shows they’re not random.”

“Test? Such as?”

“Tallying up the digits. A truly random string has roughly ten percent zeros, ten percent ones, et cetera. This one is way heavy on the zeros and ones.”

There was a silence. Gideon took a deep breath and tried to speak casually. “And the CT scans I gave you?”

“Oh yeah. I passed them along to a doctor like you asked.”

“And?”

“I was supposed to call him this afternoon. I forgot.”

“Right,” said Gideon.

“I’ll call him first thing in the morning.”

“You do that,” said Gideon. “Thanks.” He wiped his brow. He felt like shit.

And then all of a sudden—for the second time that day—he had the distinct impression he was being followed. He looked around. It was almost dark, and he was in the middle of the park.

“Hello? Anyone home?” asked O’Brien.

Gideon realized he hadn’t hung up. “Yeah. Listen, I’ve got to go. See you tomorrow.”

“Not before noon.”

He closed the phone and stuck it in his pocket. Maintaining a brisk stride, he headed west past the tennis courts, still keeping to the jogging path. What made him feel he was being followed this time? He hadn’t heard or seen anything…or had he? Long ago, he’d learned to trust his instincts—and they’d saved his ass again just that morning.

He realized that, by following the jogging path, he was making it easy for his follower—if there was one. Better turn back to the north, get off the paths, and cut through the wooded area around the courts. The pursuer would have to stay closer. And then Gideon could figure out a way to double around and come up behind.

He cut off the path and entered the woods below the courts. There were dead leaves underfoot that rustled as he walked. He continued for a moment, then stopped abruptly, pretending to have dropped something—and heard the crunch of leaves behind him cease abruptly as well.

Now he knew he was being followed, and his stupidity began to dawn on him. He didn’t have a weapon, he was in the middle of the empty park—how had he allowed this to happen? He’d been upset about Orchid, who’d turned out to have feelings as tender as a damn teenager’s. He’d been worrying about Glinn and his medical folder. And as a result he’d let down his guard.

He started up again, walking fast. He couldn’t let them know that he knew. But he had to get out of the park as soon as possible, get among people. He swung around the tennis courts and took a sharp left, walked along the court fence and then, in a bushy area, briefly reversed direction and made a quick ninety-degree dogleg, angling back toward the reservoir.

That would, he hoped, confuse the bastard.

“Move and you’re dead,” spoke a voice from the darkness, and a figure with a gun stepped out in front of him.

28

G
ideon halted, tensed to spring, but held his ground. It had been a woman’s voice.

“Don’t be stupid. Raise your hands. Slowly.”

Gideon raised his hands, and the figure took another step forward. She had a Glock trained on him with both hands, and he could see from her stance that she was thoroughly trained in its use. Slender, athletic, her mahogany hair was pulled back in a heavy, loose ponytail, and she wore a dark leather jacket over a crisp white blouse and blue slacks.

“Put your hands against that tree and lean out, legs apart.”

Jesus,
thought Gideon. He did as he was told and the woman hooked one foot inside his and patted him down. She stepped back.

“Turn around, keeping your hands raised.”

He complied.

“Name is Mindy Jackson, Central Intelligence Agency. I’d show you my ID but my hands are full at the moment.”

“Right,” said Gideon. “Now, look, Ms. Jackson—”

“Shut up. I’ll do the talking. Now, I’d like you to tell me who you’re working for and what the hell you think you’re doing.”

Gideon tried to relax. “Couldn’t we discuss this—”

“You don’t follow directions well, do you? Talk.”

“Or what? You’re going to shoot me here in Central Park?”

“Lots of people get shot in Central Park.”

“You fire that gun and in five minutes this place will be swarming with cops. Just think of the paperwork.”

“Answer my questions.”

“Maybe.”

There was a tense silence. “Maybe?” she said, finally.

“You want me to talk? Fine. Not at gunpoint and not here. All right? If you’re really CIA, we’re on the same side.”

He could see her thinking. She relaxed, holstered the gun under her thin jacket. “That would work.”

“Ginza’s over on Amsterdam has a nice bar, if it’s still around.”

“It’s still around.”

“So you’re a New Yorker?”

“Let’s dispense with the chitchat, shall we?”

29

S
itting at the bar, Gideon ordered sake, Mindy Jackson a Sapporo. They said nothing while waiting for the drinks to arrive. In the light, with the coat off, he was able to see her better: full lips, a small nose, just a hint of freckles, thick brown hair, green eyes. Thirty, maybe thirty-two. Smart. But maybe too nice for her line of work—although, he reminded himself, you never could tell. The important thing was, even though he had no idea what it might be, she had information he needed—he was sure of that. And to get it, he’d have to give.

The drinks arrived and Jackson took a sip, then turned to him, a hostile look on her face. “All right. Now who are you and why are you interested in Wu?”

“Just as I’m sure you can’t tell me all the details of your assignment, I can’t tell you mine.” The walk over had given Gideon time to work up a story; but he had always felt that the best lie was the one closest to the truth. “I don’t even have a badge, as you do. Oh, by the way, as a professional courtesy I’d like to see yours.”

“We don’t have badges. We have IDs.” She brought hers out and quickly flashed it at him under the bar. “So. Who do you work for?”

“I know this is going to frustrate you, Mindy, but I work for a private contractor with the DHS. They wanted me to get the plans for the weapon from Wu.”

She stared at him and he could see she was pissed. “DHS? What the hell are they doing meddling in our affairs? With a
private
contractor?”

He shrugged.

“What do you know?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. Wu spoke to you right after the accident. He said something to you. I want to know what it was.”

“He told me to tell his wife he loved her.”

“That’s not even a decent lie. He doesn’t have a wife. He gave you some numbers. I want to know what those numbers are.”

Gideon gazed into her face. “Um, what makes you think that he gave me numbers?”

“Witnesses. Said they saw you writing down numbers. Look,” she said, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face. “You said it yourself. We’re on the same side. We should be working together, pooling our resources.”

“I haven’t noticed you pooling with me.”

“You give me the numbers and I’ll pool with you.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“Don’t be an ass. Give me the numbers.”

“What do the numbers signify?”

She hesitated, and he sensed that maybe she didn’t know. But numbers were always stimulating to a CIA agent.

“I’ve got a question for you,” he continued, pushing just a little harder. “What is CIA doing working domestically? Isn’t that FBI turf?”

“Wu was coming from overseas. You know that as well as I do.”

“That’s not answering my question.”

“I can’t answer your question,” she said, looking increasingly irritated. “It’s not my place to do so, and it sure as hell isn’t any of your business.”

“If you want to know anything more, you’re going to have to answer it. You can’t force me to talk. I haven’t broken any laws. Talking to an injured man, inquiring about his condition, isn’t illegal.” He wondered where Mindy had been during the firefight at the police vehicle yard. Cutting somebody’s head off, perhaps?

“If it’s in the interests of national security, I can damn well make you talk.”

“What, are you going to waterboard me right here at the bar?”

He saw her smile despite herself. She sighed. “This was too sensitive to hand off to the FBI. Wu was our honey pot. We set it up.”

“You set up the honey trap?”

She hesitated. “Wu went to a scientific conference in Hong Kong, and we learned he had the plans with him. We set it up.”

“Tell me about it.”

She hesitated again, seemed to come to a private decision. “Okay. But if you’d like a behind-the-scenes tour of Guantánamo, just try telling somebody—
anybody
—what I’m telling you now. We hired a local call girl to have a chance encounter with Wu in the bar at the conference hotel. She brought him up to her room and satisfied his every fantasy—and we got the goods on him, video and audio and stills.”

“And that actually worked? You said the guy wasn’t married. What’s he afraid of?”

“It works in China. The Chinese are prudish. It wasn’t the sex, it was the perversion that, ah, would have destroyed his career.”

He laughed. “Perversion? What was it?”

“Dominatrix. Athletic, over six feet, and blond. We had reason to believe he liked that stuff but we had a hell of a time finding one. She whipped his ass good and we got it all on video.”

“Ouch. So then what happened to your blackmail scheme?”

“We approached him with the goods. Said we’d trade the pictures for the plans. But he freaked out. Said he needed half an hour to think about it. Instead he took off, got on the first plane here.”

“You miscalculated.”

She frowned.

“Why here?” he asked.

“We don’t know.”

“Was he defecting?”

“We have no idea what his intentions were. All we know is, he had the plans when he got on the plane.”

“Hidden where?”

“No idea.”

“And the car that ran him off the road? Who was that?”