Conspiracy (26 page)

And maybe the dust. He pulled off his shirt, planning to use it to clean the floor so it wouldn't be obvious from his marks in the soot that someone had come in.

“All right,” he told Rockman finally. “I'm going back into the apartment. Hopefully I won't sneeze.”

Thao Duong had begun to snore loudly. Karr's nose began to itch as soon as he tiptoed across the threshold. He slid the shoe into place, then began dusting.

A centipede scurried under Thao Duong's bed as Karr backed out of the room.

At least it wasn't a rat, Karr thought to himself, retreating from the house.

 

THERE WERE PLENTY
of rats in the building Thao Duong had visited earlier, including a pair with two legs who were sleeping in the front vestibule, pistols in their laps.

Karr could see both men from the landing of the second-floor hallway where he climbed in through the side window. He positioned a video bug so Rockman could keep an eye on them, then moved down two steps and lowered a video bug from a telescoping wand to examine the rest of the first floor.

The open, loftlike space was crowded with sewing machines and large, empty shelves and bobbins where fabric and thread had been stored.

It was also well populated with vermin, who were running laps between the refuse.

Karr went back up the stairs and slipped over to the doorway to the second floor. If there had ever been a door here, it was long gone, as were the hinges and any other trace. This room, too, was open, though there were no machines—only wall-to-wall bodies.

Karr tacked a video bug on the wall, then tiptoed to the nearest figure, huddled fetuslike on the bare wood floor. The man wore only a pair of shorts. His chest moved in and out fitfully; except for that, there was no sign he was alive. Near him were three children, also each wearing only one piece of clothing, each with a hand wrapped over another's shoulder.

“Must be a hundred people here,” whispered Karr.

“We count one hundred and two,” said Rockman.

Karr backed out quietly, then crept up the steps to the third floor. The space appeared to be totally abandoned; overturned chairs sat under a thick layer of dust in the middle of the floor. With his nose starting to revolt, Karr went up to the fourth and last floor. This, too, was empty; large pieces of the ceiling hung down, and here and there he caught glimpses of the moonlight shining through the cracks.

“I can't imagine that place was a whorehouse,” Karr told Rockman, placing another video bug near the doorway.

“Just a flophouse,” said Thu De Nghiem. Then the translator added bitterly, “Uncle Ho's legacy.”

“So what was our guy doing here before, you think?” Rockman asked.

“Maybe he's going to take some of that rice he tracks for the government and give it to these people,” said the translator.

“Somehow I doubt that,” said Karr. He slipped back down the steps toward the window he had used to get in. Just as he reached the landing, Rockman warned Karr that one of the people in the room on the second floor had woken.

“Sitting up,” said Rockman, his voice stopping Karr mid-step.

He was only about six feet from the window, but he'd have to pass in front of the doorway to get there. Karr leaned back against the wall.

“Another person, two more, awake,” reported Rockman. “Kids. They're coming to the door.”

Karr climbed back up the stairs, his back against the wall. He reached the third-floor landing just as three girls, roughly ten years old, came out of the room and went down the steps.

“Going out into the back,” said Rockman.

“Probably to relieve themselves,” added the translator.

“Tommy, the guards are moving,” said Rockman.

Karr went back down to the second floor, opened the window, and began climbing down. As he did, he heard an angry shout from inside. He jumped to the ground; rolling to his feet, he grabbed his gun, ready.

But the guards weren't coming for him.

One of the girls started to scream.

“Get out of there, Tommy!” said Rockman. “Go!”

 

ONCE THE PAPERWORK
cleared, Gallo began probing computers overseas to see if he could snag anything interesting. He sent e-mails to computers owned by people he could track down; the e-mails contained what were essentially viruses that would help him ferret out his prey. It was a bit like fishing without bait, however; it might be hours before the e-mail was even opened.

Bored, he considered going home and getting some sleep—for about five seconds. Instead, he went to the lounge, got two Red Bulls, and came back and started looking through the in-house blog to see what the analysts had found in the data he'd help them compile.

Two things stood out. One, a lot of the people whom he had tracked down in the States didn't exist—their names didn't match the Social Security numbers on their bank accounts.

And two, their bank accounts were as empty as his was.

“Their bank accounts look like mine,” Gallo told the empty lab. “They're all scraping by.”

It was a definite pattern, but what did it mean?

Gallo did what he always did when he couldn't figure something out—he lay down on the floor and stared at the ceiling.

Maybe they just used cash.

Sure. If they had it.

So many people without money, though?

So many Vietnamese people.

Actually, most of the names didn't look Vietnamese; they were Chinese: Chan, Wang.

There were ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. A lot of them.

Why would you need so many people in a network to assassinate someone?

Well, they weren't real people. Or they were real, but their Social Security numbers were fake.

“Oh!” shouted Gallo, jumping up from the floor.

 

TOMMY KARR WAS
a dedicated professional, personally chosen by William Rubens as a Desk Three op for his athletic abilities, intelligence, and good judgment under incredible pressure. Karr had disarmed a bomb under fire while dangling from the Eiffel Tower and captured a killer while sick with a life-threatening designer virus.

But Tommy Karr had one serious weakness: he could not ignore a cry for help from a little girl.

He made it to the backyard just as one of the two thugs was about to smack the girl a third time. Launching himself in the air, Karr put 280-some pounds into the man's back, crushing two of the man's vertebrae as he hammered him into the ground. For good measure, Karr broke the man's jaw and cheekbone with a hard right before jumping to his feet.

The man's companion let go of the girl and pulled out a pistol. Karr never saw the weapon—he'd already set himself into motion, bowling into his enemy before the man could click off the safety and take aim. The gun fell to the ground, as did the Vietnamese thug. Karr kicked his face soccer-style, snapping something in the man's neck.

“Tommy, what the hell is going on?” demanded Rockman.

Karr ignored the runner. He scooped up the fallen gun and went to the three girls, who were standing a few feet away. They stared at him in amazement, tears frozen on their cheeks by awe.

“Hey, ladies, are you all right?” asked Karr. He dropped
down to his knees, bringing his six-eight frame a little closer to their size.

“Yi,” said one of the girls, her voice very low. She pointed at Karr. “Yi.”

“Yeah. That's what it is,” answered Karr. “Yi.” He smiled and nodded his head. “Yi.”

The other girls' mouths opened even wider. The tallest girl said something Karr couldn't understand; the others answered excitedly.

“Yi,” they started to chant. “Yi.”

“What's that mean?” Karr asked the translator in the Art Room.

“Haven't a clue. Those girls are speaking Chinese.”

One of the girls started speaking in a soft voice. Karr nodded and smiled, hoping to encourage her. At the same time he glanced toward the thugs in the corner, making sure they were still out cold.

“Hey, Rockman, can you get someone to figure out what they're saying?”

“Stand by.”

“Yi,” said Karr. He pointed at them. “Yi.”

The little girls laughed and pointed back. “Yi.”

“Well, it's fun, whatever it is,” said Karr. He started walking toward the corner of the building.

“Yi?” the tallest girl called after him.
“Nee chü nar?”

“She wants to know where you are going,” said a new translator, coming onto the Deep Black communications line. Her sweet voice reminded Karr of his girlfriend's. “Is she calling you Yi?”

“I guess.”

“Hou Yi?”

“Huh?”

The translator gave him a phrase, which Karr repeated. This elicited a flood of sentences from the older girl.

“They think you are the Divine Archer Yi,” explained the translator. “A mythological hero. Among other things, he shot down the sun.”

“There's something I've never done.”

“They want to know if you will take them to the boat,” added the translator.

“Boat? What kind of boat?”

“America?” asked one of the girls.

“You want to go to America?” Karr asked in English.

Before the translator could give him the words, Rubens cut into the line.

“Mr. Karr, I think what you are dealing with here are refugees who are hoping to escape to America,” said Rubens. “I believe we may find that Thao Duong is a snakehead, not an assassin. A snakehead,” added Rubens dryly, anticipating Karr's next question, “is a person who illegally smuggles immigrants overseas.”

 

RUBENS TURNED AWAY
from the Art Room's main screen, sour and disappointed. He'd devoted an enormous amount of resources to discovering an illegal immigrant operation.

And that was all they had to show for an operation that had included a rather large number of intercepts, data searches, and field operations.

Dean hadn't spoken to Phuc Dinh yet; perhaps that would yield something definitive. But Infinite Burn seemed less than likely.

It could be very cleverly disguised and hidden, surely. Robert Gallo rushed into the Art Room, breathlessly shouting Rubens' name.

“Mr. Gallo, what can I do for you?”

“Thao Duong is a people smuggler,” said Gallo. “I've been analyzing his network and—”

“The term is ‘snakehead,' ” said Rubens. “Good work, Mr. Gallo. Ms. Telach, prepare a dossier of the pertinent information for the Immigration Service and FBI. And then get some sleep please. You, too, Mr. Gallo,” Rubens added. “And by that I mean in a proper bed, at home, not on the floor of your lab.”

 

GALLO RETURNED TO
his lab to find Angela DiGiacomo beaming at him. He was feeling pretty confident after talking to Rubens—almost enough to ask for a date.

But she spoke first.

“You got something!” she said. “Another threatening e-mail to McSweeney.”

“No shit?”

Gallo pulled out his seat and hunkered in front of the computer. Angela put her hand on his shoulder.

Not bad, he thought.

“Can you track it?” she asked.

“Maybe.” He stared at the screen. “Probably,” he said. His fingers started to fly around the keyboard.

Five minutes later, Gallo looked up from the computer and realized that Angela had left. He cursed silently to himself, then went back to work.

 

DRIVING BACK TO
her hotel after speaking to the doctor, Lia wondered why she was so convinced that Forester hadn't killed himself. Was it the kid? Amanda Rauci? Or the fact that a Secret Service agent was supposed to be tough enough to stand up to standard strains and stresses, like a marriage gone bad?

Maybe Lia just didn't like the idea that someone could feel so bad he would want to kill himself. She'd fought so hard to live that she couldn't imagine the other side of things.

Her sat phone rang. It was Chris Farlekas, the relief Art Room supervisor. Lia, as she often did, had “forgotten” to turn her com system back on after lunch.

But he wasn't calling to scold her.

“We have something,” Farlekas told her. “It's another e-mailed threat. We know where it came from. Ambassador Jackson is informing the Secret Service and FBI liaisons, but you may want to tell Mandarin about it yourself.”

Farlekas explained the circumstances. The house was just north of Poughkeepsie, not far from the Taconic State Parkway or Pine Plains—but not close enough, Lia thought, to be the target of Forester's investigation.

“Go with them when they investigate,” Farlekas added. “We can analyze the computer a lot quicker than their people can.”

 

AT EIGHT STORIES
high, Tam Ky's municipal building not only towered over the town but also dominated the jungle beyond, its white body standing like a ghost before a dark castle. From the distance, the building made the city seem larger than it truly was, the eye and brain adding bulk to the blocks around it out of a sense of proportion.

“I don't want you to get insulted,” Dean told Qui as they parked. “But when we go in, I'm going to talk to him alone.”

“I'm not insulted.” Qui took the key from the ignition and opened her door.

There were more bicycles and motorbikes here than there were in Saigon, and many fewer cars. A large open square paved with pinkish brown stones sat before the municipal building at the center of town. Dean couldn't remember being in Tam Ky during the war, but he was sure it wouldn't have looked like this—bright and shining in the sun, the facades of the nearby buildings showing off new paint, the tree leaves so green they almost looked fake.

There were no guards, and no receptionist in the lobby as they entered. The floors and walls were polished stone.

“Second floor,” Rockman told Dean. “Near the back.”