Tomahawk (54 page)

Finally, Li said, “It's bogus.”

“What? No, that's good material.”

“Don't take me for an idiot. That man up front's from our missile program. Doctorate from Cal Tech. What you just gave me has nothing to do with Tomahawk, or with any other weapon. It's a farrago of technical-looking crap. So that leaves two possibilities. One: You're a small-time grifter, trying to fish me in and scam me. For the cash. Two: You're working with American counterintelligence. Which is it, Dan? Please level with me. It will get very bad if you don't.”

He sat sweating for a moment more. He thought of blaming it on someone else, saying he was just a conduit, that he'd been tricked, too. Then he decided he'd been too dumb for too long. He'd underestimated this man, and his organization, just as Attucks had said they all did He wasn't going to make up anything else. He simply sat silent, arms crossed, and stared back at Li.

“You aren't answering? Well, perhaps you're right. Perhaps it really doesn't matter which. All right, Mr. Hickey,” said Li, and the black man reached forward.

The beating was thorough and professional, leaving him unable to move or speak. He'd tried to fight back, but he hadn't landed a blow. Hickey blocked his punches without expression. Now he lay on the floor, curled like a fetus, tasting blood and only partially conscious.

Later, the car stopped. The voices told him to get up. He tried but couldn't. So the hands gripped his armpits and legs and dragged him out across rough pavement,
then thrust him inside another car. He felt cracked vinyl against his cheek, smelled the reek of gasoline and exhaust from a leaking muffler.

When he came to again, he saw a streetlight passing overhead. Then another one, unlit and shattered. Another, lit but flickering.

He dragged himself up, to find himself in the backseat of a large but badly maintained American-made automobile. Strips of headliner hung down. The ashtrays were missing. A litter of fast-food packaging and empty oil cans covered the floor. Hickey sat across the seat from him, a stainless-steel handgun pointed at him. A squat dark man drove without looking back.

“How you doin'?” Hickey said. Dan didn't answer at once. He dragged his hand across his lips and examined the smear of blood.

“Did you kill her?” Dan asked him.

“Who, man?”

“The woman on the trail. Kerry Donavan.”

“That was a mistake. We ain't usin' them kids again. Your woman, right? Sorry about that.”

He squinted out as they rolled past paintless, sagging houses, massive brick tenements, empty, littered lots, cracked concrete walls, chain-link fences. He didn't know where they were now. Washington, yes, but this was the other face of the futuristic world capital, the dark side of the shining city on a hill: potholed roads, abandoned lots, fear palpable in the deserted streets. There didn't even seem to be any street signs. Eventually, the big sedan's tie-rods creaked as it heaved and dipped over a railroad grade. The driver racked in a knob, and the headlights went out. It rolled slowly through an underpass, swayed into a wide right turn, and rolled at steadily diminishing velocity through a crumbling brick gate. A slow parting of shadows began ahead of them. The tires crackled over shattered glass and loose gravel, more and more deliberately, and at last rocked to a halt.

The window-shattered buildings around them were abandoned and lightless. The only light came from the cupric sky. They sat for a few seconds, the driver, Dan, and the man with the gun, Hickey, watching the last of
the shadows drift and stagger out of the courtyard.

“Get out,” Hickey said then.

When he got out, he saw cigarette butts, torn bits of foil and paper, and thousands of used matches covering the cracked asphalt. The air was thick with the odor of fresh shit.

He understood now. Blood tasted like copper filings in his mouth. They'd find him here in the morning, lying on the pavement deep in the crack district. Another random killing. Another colored pushpin on a map in a dingy office.

“Any point in begging for my life?”

“Don't degrade yourself, man. This is business. That's all.”

“Why are you doing this? Working for them? Don't you know who they are?”

“I know who they are,” Hickey said. “And they're gonna be givin' us guns. A whole shipload a machine guns. So it all
gonna,
work out.You want it in the back of the head? Quick and neat. Turn around if you want it in the back of the head.”

He turned slowly, gauging the distance to the open maw of the warehouse. At least fifty yards. The way his legs felt, he wouldn't make more than four or five steps before he fell. But if that was all there was left to do, that was what he'd do. The glitter of broken glass—maybe he could get his hands on a shard.

Or was it time to stop fighting at last, here at the end? Time just to accept?

The click of a hammer going back, the crackle of steps coming around the car.

He lurched into his run, but his legs gave way almost at once. He collapsed, rolling over on the stinking dark ground. His hands searched for something sharp but found nothing.

On his knees, he looked up at the approaching dark figure, its long arm raised, extended at his head. The end, then. And he'd lost. He wasn't thinking of Kerry then, or Nan, or God. He was simply and purely filled with rage, because his hands were empty, because he was dying not just uselessly but helplessly.

The lights came on directly behind Hickey, silhouetting the gun, silhouetting him as he wheeled. Dan cowered, shielding his eyes from the brilliance. The flashing, rotating strobes, repetitive detonations of light that felt as if they were exploding in his brain.

The loudspeaker said, “This is Detective Sergeant Joe Ogen of the D.C. Police. Get out of the car. Drop your weapons and put your hands up.”

Ogen brought him a blanket and put him in the backseat of the squad car. The uniformed cops took the others away, leaving the T-Bird sitting in the littered courtyard. The detective leaned in after a time. “You okay, Lieutenant?”

Dan murmured between bruised lips, “That's about the closest I've ever come.”

“We lost you there, after they took off from National. But then I started thinking. Knowin' that your girl got killed by some of the gang bangers. Knowin' somebody called Reeney gave ‘em their orders. And knowin' from the street that Rene Hickey was getting guns somewhere. Not just the usual junk, either, but Chinese-made full-auto AK-forty-sevens. This is where he likes to take his competitors when it's shake-out time. So I figured I'd swing by and see if he showed up.”

“Good police work.”

“It ain't anything intellectual; it's just knowing how these scumbags work. You gonna help us tie him to the Chinese?”

“You bet.”

“Good, we might could clear up five or six cases at once. Look, right now there're some other fellas looking for you. So I'm gonna tell ‘em I got you and you're still breathing, and see what they want me to do with you.”

Dan said that was fine. He sat with his feet on the ground and laid his head back against the seat, breathing slowly and deeply and listening to the slackening rattle of his pulse, fighting the nausea that threatened to turn him inside out like a sea cucumber.

He woke to find Ogen starting the car. He lay back again, trying to marshal his strength. The nausea remained.

When the car slowed, he opened his eyes. The Hoover Building. Ogen drove up a back ramp into it.

Bepko was waiting, looking grim. A wheelchair stood on the concrete in the parking area. Dan fended off his assisting arm, limped for four steps, then gave in. He sank into the chair and gave himself again to semiconsciousness as they rolled him into and out of elevators and through carpeted corridors until at last they were in a large room with recessed lighting and several older men in gray suits. Dan couldn't see them very well. He blinked, shielding his eyes with a trembling hand. Attucks didn't introduce them, just sat down with them. Bepko remained standing beside Dan.

The FBI man kicked off. “Detective Ogen. Good work. Thanks for bringing him back.”

Ogen said nothing, and after an awkward pause, Attucks went on. “We've just witnessed the failure of Operation Snapdragon, our maiden effort to identify and trap Chinese agents in the United States. We owe Commander Lenson thanks for his courageous volunteering to act as the link to this spy ring. Unfortunately, this time we were outmaneuvered. Now we've got to decide where to go from here.”

He turned to where Dan watched. “Do you have anything to add? Anything you noted, or wish to contribute?”

He mustered his thoughts. “Could I have a drink of water?”

Bepko left his side. Dan took a couple of deep breaths, then stood. Swaying, but standing, he leaned forward and put his hands flat on the table. “You people left me defenseless. Told me I had nothing to worry about. Everything was covered. But if it hadn't been for the D.C. Police, I'd be dead right now.”

They watched him, expressionless and lofty as chiseled gods.

He said, “All right, I'm not blameless, either. I wanted to confront him and I did. Unfortunately, I trusted you too much. So there's nothing more to say on that score. But there's something else you need to know.

“There were two Americans helping them.”

The gods narrowed their eyes. Bepko came back. Dan sipped the water, then placed the glass on the table. It shook, and a little spilled, making quivering globules that reflected the focused light.

“One's a gang leader. His name is Hickey. Detective Ogen has him in custody. He can be charged with attempted murder. I think there's a good chance he'll cooperate in nailing Li for you.

“The second is white. He was in the car with Li. He helped evaluate the intelligence value of the documents I handed over. His name is Martin Tallinger. I've met him before. I believe he's passing information and advice to the Chinese, and not only that; he's assisting them in recruiting and spying.”

The stone faces regarded him. He felt a wave of weakness coming, and swallowed, trying to keep from throwing up. Someone asked if he was absolutely certain the man he had seen was Tallinger. He explained about what he'd been wearing, how he'd recognized him.

“You didn't actually see his face, then? This is a conclusion based on hair color and so forth?”

“I didn't see his face, no. But it's him. He tried to get information from me before; he called me at work and—”

Bepko leaned over. “I think that will do it, Commander.”

“Excuse me?”

“It's time to go.” The NIS man motioned him to sit. He lowered himself unwillingly.

Outside, he said, “What did we leave for? It was just starting.”

“They're starting, but
you're
done. We're gonna go get those cuts dressed, get an X ray on that head. Then I'll take you back to your apartment.”

“I'm not leaving now. Not if they're in there discussing this.”

“I told you, it doesn't have anything to do with you anymore.”

He scowled and fumbled at the wheels on the chair. Bepko's arm shot out, pushing his hands off the brakes. “I said, you're not going back,” he said, and Dan saw he
wasn't going to talk or argue his way past the guy.

Only when he was hobbling back up the sidewalk to his apartment building did he recall the look in their eyes as he left. That hadn't been detachment. It had been suspicion, as if he'd been dirtied in some way by what he'd done.

34

 

 

 

When Dan told him what he wanted, Niles blinked slowly. The admiral didn't answer right away. He swiveled to the window and stared down at power diggers and lines of trucks, ripped-open earth, the renewed bustle of construction after the winter hiatus. At last he murmured, as if to himself,
“You
submitted your resignation. Of your own free will.”

“Yes, sir. I did.”