The Orpheus Deception (30 page)
Read The Orpheus Deception Online
Authors: David Stone
“Mandy, I need you to do something for me.”
“Yes. Certainly. What?” A hoarse whisper, barely audible over the soundtrack music.
“I need you to scarper.”
Doubt flickered across her face and her mouth tightened.
“Now
you want me to scarper? Now? Bloody poor timing, Micah.”
you want me to scarper? Now? Bloody poor timing, Micah.”
“Yes. I’m changing the tactics. You need to be on the outside.”
“Lovely. And how do we arrange that, with the bloody wolf kicking at the bloody door?”
“Go to your room, Mandy. Get some clothes on. Your bedroom suite connects to the Ambassador Suite next door. That suite’s empty.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m a spy. Plus I reserved it the morning before we left for Milan and I paid for it when we got here. I like to have an evasion strategy.”
“Paid? With what? Your platypus card? The cops will know that.”
“No. I used one of the Agency’s cover cards.”
“Whose?”
“Jack Stallworth’s. He’s dead, he won’t mind. Here’s the key card. Get yourself in there. Take the encrypted cell. Plug in the charger and keep the phone charging. Get on the line to the duty desk at Langley and
keep
them on the line. Do
not
get disconnected. You understand me? Stay on that line, and don’t open the door to anyone.”
keep
them on the line. Do
not
get disconnected. You understand me? Stay on that line, and don’t open the door to anyone.”
“You sure this is Chong?”
“Who else?” he said, looking at the door and then back at her. She had the two small red spots on her cheekbones now, and the glitter in her eyes, the look she got when she was about to dig her stilettos in.
“No. I’m not running away.”
“No. You’re not. You’re staying loose. Operational. They take me, I’ll need you on the outside . . . When I’m gone, get Langley to send over someone from the U.S. Embassy. Go straight there.”
“No. I’m not leaving the field and hiding in the bloody Embassy.”
“You really want to be in a jail cell alone with Chong Kew Sak?”
Mandy worked on it but could not hide the way her irises narrowed, blinded by the incandescent
now.
There were voices out in the hallway, and now a loud, rapid pounding at the main door. The knocking accelerated. Muffled voices in the hall; stern, official voices. The moment was on them. Mandy nodded once, pulled him down and kissed him very hard, put everything she had into it. Dalton felt the kiss burn through him.
now.
There were voices out in the hallway, and now a loud, rapid pounding at the main door. The knocking accelerated. Muffled voices in the hall; stern, official voices. The moment was on them. Mandy nodded once, pulled him down and kissed him very hard, put everything she had into it. Dalton felt the kiss burn through him.
Then she pushed him off, her face pale, sent him a last anxious look over her left shoulder and was gone down the hall, her robe flaring wide as she ran. Someone in the front hall was using a boot on the door. Down in his lizard brain, something a little like a crocodile opened one slitted green eye. He felt his blood rising, anger coming up fast. He hit the remote and killed the picture, throwing the suite into an ominous silence punctuated only by the aggressive pounding on the door.
He threw on his suit jacket, glanced around the suite, controlled his aggression, letting it work for him and not against him. He gatheredup his wallet and his cell phone, slipping them into his pocket as he walked to the main door, waited a moment with his hand on the latch, lowering his adrenaline, and then pulled it open. Sergeant Ong Bo was standing there, apparently in the same cheap black suit, his rubbery lips pulled tight and his black eyes hard. Two uniformed cops, both thick-necked and bull-bodied and dull-eyed, barely out of their teens, were standing behind him. The little Malay cop, Corporal Ahmed, was nowhere around. Ong was holding up a worn leather badge case, flashing tin, with his best Hollywood war face on. Dalton figured he practiced it in the mirror.
“Mr. Dalton. You must come with us.”
Dalton went back to his Brit banker persona, edged it with some steel.
“Bloody hell I will. It’s four in the goddam morning.”
Ong tried to peer around Dalton’s shoulder, but he filled the frame.
“Where Miss Pownall?”
“Out. Hours ago.”
Ong had a problem. The only way he could argue this was to admit that they had the place miked.
“Why she move?”
“Why she move? Because you feckless hammerheads searched the entire fucking apartment, including her goddam panty drawer.”
Ong, in spite of himself, facing Dalton’s rage, stepped back a pace, and then another, until he had backed into one of the uniforms behind him. Dalton was pleased to see it, partly because Mandy was getting the seconds she would need to open the door to the next suite. The loss of face made Sergeant Ong get all hissy.
“She must come too. Where is she?”
“The British Embassy. To file a formal complaint.”
It gave Dalton some hope when Ong went a little green at that. He believed it, or, at least, believed it was
possible.
Which meant their mikes had told them nothing since Dalton had put on
Lady from Shanghai.
It also meant that he’d been right: there were no cameras. And no surveillance in the lobby or on the street, because he’d have known she hadn’t left the building. They trusted their mikes. Careless. More lousy tradecraft.
possible.
Which meant their mikes had told them nothing since Dalton had put on
Lady from Shanghai.
It also meant that he’d been right: there were no cameras. And no surveillance in the lobby or on the street, because he’d have known she hadn’t left the building. They trusted their mikes. Careless. More lousy tradecraft.
In a word,
mooks.
mooks.
Ong was looking a tad downhearted. Not even Chong Kew Sak could get Mandy Pownall out of the British Embassy. This was not going according to plan. But Dalton was still here. That much he could save.
His round, rubbery face, as much as it could, became set and hardened. He turned to the two guards, said something urgent and ugly in Hokkien that apparently meant
Search this pompous asshole’s suite right now.
Galvanized, they pushed past Dalton, the muscular boy on the left aiming a hard shoulder butt that Dalton saw coming, steeling himself for it. The kid cop bounced off him and slammed into the wall. He came right back at Dalton, red-faced, boiling with the indignant outrage of a totalitarian cop when faced with the slightest civilian affront; hand up, palm open, a wide, sweeping strike to the side of Dalton’s head. This ill-advised action on the part of the kid cop put a variety of factors into immediate play. Dalton’s grip on his temper had always been a little slippery. It was four in the morning. He was slightly hungover. Okay. Not slightly. He was a train wreck. The kid was trying to bitch-slap him. Dalton did not like being bitch-slapped. Not one little bit. Plus he was brutally hungover. This may have been mentioned previously, but it bears repeating. So, the situation being what it was, at the end of the day, in the fullness of time, and in the half nanosecond that it took for all these various factors to kick in, Dalton lost it.
Search this pompous asshole’s suite right now.
Galvanized, they pushed past Dalton, the muscular boy on the left aiming a hard shoulder butt that Dalton saw coming, steeling himself for it. The kid cop bounced off him and slammed into the wall. He came right back at Dalton, red-faced, boiling with the indignant outrage of a totalitarian cop when faced with the slightest civilian affront; hand up, palm open, a wide, sweeping strike to the side of Dalton’s head. This ill-advised action on the part of the kid cop put a variety of factors into immediate play. Dalton’s grip on his temper had always been a little slippery. It was four in the morning. He was slightly hungover. Okay. Not slightly. He was a train wreck. The kid was trying to bitch-slap him. Dalton did not like being bitch-slapped. Not one little bit. Plus he was brutally hungover. This may have been mentioned previously, but it bears repeating. So, the situation being what it was, at the end of the day, in the fullness of time, and in the half nanosecond that it took for all these various factors to kick in, Dalton lost it.
In one snaky, fast motion, he caught the kid’s incoming right wristbone with his own right hand, jerking him forward and off balance, turning the wrist around as he pulled the kid’s arm downward along his right side, using the kid’s own momentum, until the kid was almost on his knees, his right arm fully extended, palm twisted sideways. At the same moment, Dalton braced his left hand on the back of the kid’s elbow and jerked the kid’s forearm upward with his right. This had the intriguing effect of snapping the kid’s arm at the elbow joint, which tends to sting a bit. The sound of the joint giving way was a little like somebody twisting the turkey’s leg right out of the joint at Thanksgiving, a muffled, sinewy grinding followed by a short, sharp
snap.
The kid’s forearm had now assumed an angle in relation to the upper arm that was anatomically quite novel, if not unique. This all happened in less than two seconds. Two seconds that changed the kid’s world. The kid’s immediate response to having the basic geometry of his right arm radically revised was a contralto shriek, followed by a precipitous upward glissando into frequencies only audible to Nancy Pelosi. A moment later, Dalton not surprisingly, was looking down the black muzzle of Sergeant Ong’s Glock service pistol, held out the full length of Ong’s arm, the knuckle of his trigger finger showing pink, then white, as he pressed on the blade.
snap.
The kid’s forearm had now assumed an angle in relation to the upper arm that was anatomically quite novel, if not unique. This all happened in less than two seconds. Two seconds that changed the kid’s world. The kid’s immediate response to having the basic geometry of his right arm radically revised was a contralto shriek, followed by a precipitous upward glissando into frequencies only audible to Nancy Pelosi. A moment later, Dalton not surprisingly, was looking down the black muzzle of Sergeant Ong’s Glock service pistol, held out the full length of Ong’s arm, the knuckle of his trigger finger showing pink, then white, as he pressed on the blade.
Dalton stared at Ong’s wet face over the vibrating pistol, aware of the black hole of the muzzle as it wavered left and right. Stared hard into Ong’s right eye at the far end of a long narrow corridor. Waited for the shot, thinking that, so far, the score here in lovely downtown Singapore was Snobbish British Bankers 2 and Pushy Local Noncoms 0, and that, if he had it to do all over again, he would have broken Ong’s arm instead.
At Dalton’s feet, the kid cop was busily throwing up something lumpy, gray, and apparently inexhaustible on the plush Oriental carpet in the foyer. The other cop was standing out of the firing line, his flat face stunned, waiting for Ong to shoot the
ang mor.
Everybody in the hall was waiting for Ong to shoot the
ang mor.
Hell, even Ong was waiting for Ong to shoot the
ang mor.
Ong did not shoot the
ang mor.
ang mor.
Everybody in the hall was waiting for Ong to shoot the
ang mor.
Hell, even Ong was waiting for Ong to shoot the
ang mor.
Ong did not shoot the
ang mor.
FIVE MINUTES LATER,
Dalton was in the back of the same armored-up limo with the bulletproof glass, sitting alone on the black leather bench seat and looking at Sergeant Ong’s rubbery face, shadowy in the downlights from the overhead mood lighting, watching Ong watch him back with a carefully blank expression that did not hide the rage in him. The kid cop with both arms working was driving the limo. The kid cop with the backward right arm that looked sort of funny and didn’t work at all was on his way to the nearest military hospital in an unmarked EMS van. Dalton figured the kid was still screaming so loud, the driver wouldn’t need to use the siren. Outside the tinted windows of the limo, Singapore unspooled like a long neon hallucination, the streets deserted, the lamps glowing in the damp tropical haze, the tires drumming on the blacktop. The limo smelled of leather polish and Turkish tobacco and the unwashed body of Sergeant Ong. As far as Dalton could determine, they were headed east through the Malay cantonment of Geylang. The last road sign he had been able to pick out of the gloom was Changi Road. Changi Road led, eventually, to Upper Changi Road, which led in its turn to the gates of Changi Prison.
Dalton was in the back of the same armored-up limo with the bulletproof glass, sitting alone on the black leather bench seat and looking at Sergeant Ong’s rubbery face, shadowy in the downlights from the overhead mood lighting, watching Ong watch him back with a carefully blank expression that did not hide the rage in him. The kid cop with both arms working was driving the limo. The kid cop with the backward right arm that looked sort of funny and didn’t work at all was on his way to the nearest military hospital in an unmarked EMS van. Dalton figured the kid was still screaming so loud, the driver wouldn’t need to use the siren. Outside the tinted windows of the limo, Singapore unspooled like a long neon hallucination, the streets deserted, the lamps glowing in the damp tropical haze, the tires drumming on the blacktop. The limo smelled of leather polish and Turkish tobacco and the unwashed body of Sergeant Ong. As far as Dalton could determine, they were headed east through the Malay cantonment of Geylang. The last road sign he had been able to pick out of the gloom was Changi Road. Changi Road led, eventually, to Upper Changi Road, which led in its turn to the gates of Changi Prison.
Jolly good work,
thought Dalton.
Only on the ground for eighteen hours and already you’ve found a way to infiltrate Changi Prison.
thought Dalton.
Only on the ground for eighteen hours and already you’ve found a way to infiltrate Changi Prison.
The limo rolled on through the steaming Asian night, but it did not roll all the way to Changi Prison. After about a half hour’s travel through darkened apartment blocks and shuttered strip malls of eastern Singapore, the streetscape opened up into rolling green space. A few sago palms appeared, and the homes got more expensive; and now, through the palms, Dalton was getting slices of a broad starlit sea. A street sign said NETHERAVON ROAD where they turned, and cruised along through an area that looked and, when Dalton rolled the window down, smelled of the sea. Dalton knew the area, a dense, tree-shaded residential area north of Changi Village, a pricey resort section of eastern Singapore with a view across the channel to Malaysia and Pulau Ubin. In a few minutes, the limo came to a stop under the marquee of a softly lit mahogany-and-teak hotel structure half hidden in palms and bougainvillea. It looked large and pricey and exclusive, more of a sanctuary than a hotel; enclosed, walled, a cloister offering a Zen-like simplicity. The parking lot was empty, and no one was moving around in the grounds. A sign, in fine brass letters, said HENDON HILLS GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB. Under this sign, a temporary-looking notice had been attached to the wall.
It read: CLOSED FOR PRIVATE FUNCTION.
Sergeant Ong, who had neither spoken one word nor taken his flat reptilian stare off Dalton during the entire trip, grunted a command that Dalton took to mean
Get out.
Dalton tried the door. It was unlocked. Dalton got out, a little stiff, leaving the door open behind him. Sergeant Ong made no move to follow him. He leaned forward, grabbed the interior handle, shot Dalton a look that said
Someday,
and pulled the door closed hard enough to rock the Home Ministry tank a little on its fat, bulletproof tires.
Get out.
Dalton tried the door. It was unlocked. Dalton got out, a little stiff, leaving the door open behind him. Sergeant Ong made no move to follow him. He leaned forward, grabbed the interior handle, shot Dalton a look that said
Someday,
and pulled the door closed hard enough to rock the Home Ministry tank a little on its fat, bulletproof tires.
The engine powered up in a throaty rumble, and the limo slipped away into the night, showing a brief flash of taillights as it braked on Netheravon Road, and then Dalton was alone under the low, dimly lit mahogany marquee, breathing in the scent of salt air, his heartbeat gradually returning to sub-myocardial-infarction levels. In the distant south, in the first pale glow of the oncoming sunrise, he could see a silvery plane heading skyward out of a glow of hard-white light that could only be Changi Airport.
He pulled out his cell, considered and rejected the idea of calling the U.S. Embassy and asking for Mandy Pownall. Either she had made it or she hadn’t. The absence of a panicked phone call from Langley argued for the former. He flipped the phone shut, extracted a pack of Mandy’s Balkan Sobranie Cocktail cigarettes, pondered the color scheme and had just chosen turquoise, when he heard a whispered hiss of wood on steel and a shaft of warm yellow light fell across him. A tall, slender figure, silhouetted in the amber light pouring from the open door, bowed once, and said:
“Mr. Dalton. Please come in. We are ready for you now.”
25
The National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland
“What am I looking at here, Oakland?”
Mr. Oakland, who preferred to be called Mr. Oakland, kept his eyes on the monitor, partly because the short and nasty little snuff video held a sick fascination for him that never seemed to weaken, but also because the Assistant Director of Research Analysis was a retired Marine Corps Intelligence Colonel who had been terribly maimed in a roadside bombing in Anbar Province, and now the left side of his face and most of his neck looked like he was wearing the peeled skin of a purple lizard as a kind of half mask. Mr. Oakland, an intelligent and ambitious but rather diffident man, did not want to cause any further offense to the AD of RA by visibly flinching away from a direct look at the injury, which he had done twice already. Mr. Oakland was aware, on a subliminal level, that the AD of RA couldn’t give a rat’s kidney what Mr. Oakland thought of his face, but this insight never seemed to drill its way through to the surface of his mind.
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