Dark Ambition (47 page)

"What did you mean, you were hopeful?"

"I meant that Robert was contrite and ashamed. He made it clear that he would probably resign within the thirty days. I always liked Robert. We were good friends. I thought, under the circumstances, that would be the best choice for him personally and for the administration. The President's chances for reelection would be destroyed by the release of that video." He handed the document to Hawthorne. "You can read it for yourself, Ches."

Ben picked up the questioning. "Did you discuss the Chinese video with anyone else?"

"I told Jim Slater about it shortly after this meeting."

"What did he say?"

"He just listened and nodded, the way he does."

"What happened then?"

"Nothing that I was involved in. I decided that I'd wait three weeks before I turned up the pressure on Robert, or get Brewster to talk to him. I didn't think I'd have to do that. As I said, I was convinced from what he told me that he would resign. Then he was killed, and that was the end of that." Cunningham paused. "Are you satisfied now?"

Ben was convinced that Cunningham was lying, but he knew that he'd never be able to shake the former general. "I just have one other question. Does the name Alexandra Hart mean anything to you?"

Cunningham looked perplexed. "Never heard the name. Why?"

"Winthrop ever mention it to you?"

"Never. Was she a girlfriend of his, or one of the girls the Chinese filmed him with in London?"

"I'm not sure who she was. I'm just trying to find out who hired the blond shooter."

"That's what we're all trying to do."

* * *

"I don't know what to think about Cunningham," Ben said.

It was nine in the evening. They were seated around the dining room table in Ben's house with boxes of pizza in the center. Ben and Jennifer were on one side, Traynor and Campbell on the other, Ann at the end of the table. Amy was upstairs sleeping.

"What about the contemporaneous notes of his meeting with Ambassador Liu?" Traynor asked.

"For all we know, he could have prepared that piece of paper after our meeting last evening at the White House and backdated it."

Jennifer turned to Ann. "Cunningham said that after Liu gave him the tape, Robert was leaning toward resigning."

Ann choked on a piece of pizza. "That's a total crock." She took a sip of beer and cleared her throat. "In fact, I asked him whether he was going to resign. I wanted to know if we'd be moving back to New York."

"What did he say?"

"He replied in typical Robert Winthrop style. 'Fuck 'em. They're bluffing. I'm going to tough it out.' Something like that. The point is, he didn't seem worried at all by the Chinese threat."

Trying to recall Cunningham's precise words, Ben asked, "Would you say that Robert was contrite and ashamed?"

She laughed. "Robert? Are you kidding? You knew him, Jennifer. Try arrogant and bold if you want a couple of adjectives. But he was always like that. He cleaned up at poker because he'd ride a pair of deuces so hard that everyone else would fold."

"Do you know whether he ever talked to Marshall Cunningham about the Chinese government blackmail?"

Ann closed her eyes, trying to remember. "You know, that same evening, the second of November, when I asked Robert whether he'd be resigning and we'd be moving back to New York, he said, 'You sound like Marshall. That's what he told me to do today. I told him "Hell, no." I'll tell you the same thing.' Then he launched into his diatribe, 'fuck 'em' and so forth."

Ben looked around the table. "That doesn't really help us, though. Even assuming that Cunningham did lie to us, big whoop. Liu and Cunningham have managed to play off against each other so well that we're now at a total dead end. Alexandra Hart hasn't gotten us anywhere. There is absolutely nothing else we can do to find Winthrop's killer."

He waited, hoping someone would challenge him with an idea.

It was Jennifer who spoke up. "We still have one other chance."

"What's that?"

"Once our blond shooter comes out of a coma, she may be willing to talk if we can cut a deal with her."

"And when will that happen?" Ben asked glumly.

She returned his discouraged look. "I've got some information you're not going to like."

"You can't make it any worse."

"While you were interviewing Liu this morning, I talked to Dr. Marks, who's the attending for the shooter at G.W."

"What'd he say?"

"She. It's Dr. Deborah Marks. Could be tomorrow. Could be a week from now. Could be never."

* * *

Chen had no idea how long the beatings continued, how many men took turns pummeling him with their fists and clubs, or how many times he had passed out. His body was so battered and bruised that he prayed for death. But they were good at their work. They wouldn't let him die. Not until he told them who sent him on this mission.

He didn't betray Donovan even after the beatings. They hooked up electrodes to his genitals and sent ever-increasing surges of electricity through his body, but he still didn't talk.

He was barely conscious, hanging upside down with his feet tied by a rope to a metal bar, when the sadistic colonel who had been directing Chen's interrogation walked into the prison cell with a swagger. "Cut him down," he said.

They put Chen in a chair and tied him to it so he wouldn't fall over. Blood was oozing down his face.

"We know all about you, Chen," he said, smiling with a mouth missing several teeth. "Your father in Taipei is the owner of Diamond Computers. Your wife is Mary Ann. Your children are Ted, Walter, and Donna. We know where they live."

The colonel's words jolted what was left of Chen's senses to attention.

"You have a choice," the colonel said. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Chen nodded.

"You have a choice. Either you tell me who arranged this despicable crime of yours, there will be an explosion tomorrow night at your house when they're asleep. An explosion large enough to kill all of them."

That broke Chen. "No... No... No..." he stammered.

"Then talk," the colonel said.

Chen told him the entire story, beginning with his recruitment by Chip Donovan in Boston. He told him about Donovan's proposal for Operation Matchstick and then its execution.

When he was finished, the colonel picked up the phone and reported to a superior. As if Chen weren't listening, they discussed the alternatives for his fate—a show trial followed by the death sentence, or killing him now.

In the end, someone in Beijing decided that a show trial would embarrass the United States and Taiwan, but it would also expose to the Chinese people and to the world how lax security had been at the missile site, which was humiliating for the regime.

The colonel put down the phone. "Take him outside and kill him."

 

 

 

Chapter 30

 

"You must come to my office immediately," Liu said to Cunningham on the phone. It was eight-fifteen in the morning, and the secretary of defense was scheduled to begin a review of American military movements in the Pacific with the Joint Chiefs in fifteen minutes. That would have to wait. The urgency in Liu's voice persuaded Cunningham that he had to drop everything and get to the Chinese embassy ASAP.

Mired in heavy rush-hour traffic Cunningham sat in the back of a black Lincoln Town Car on the tedious ride from the Pentagon into the city, trying to guess what new development had occurred. Was this more nonsense about Winthrop's murder? Or had the Chinese decided to ignore the agreed-upon December seventh deadline and attack Taiwan? Had Taipei, frightened by the reports of Chinese troop movements, decided to launch a preemptive strike? Each scenario he envisioned terrified him more than the previous one.

His anxieties were increased when he was ushered by a secretary into the ambassador's office. Instead of the Liu he had come to know, cool and unflappable, the man looked distraught. Liu's eyes were bloodshot, evidence that he had been up all night. His hair was tousled, his tie loose, and his shirt open at the collar.

"An extreme provocation," Liu said as he rose from his desk to confront Cunningham.

"What happened? I don't understand."

"You've tricked me. Strung me along. You might as well have been signing my death warrant."

Cunningham was horrified. "What are you talking about?"

"Please don't insult me by pretending you don't know."

"Don't know what? So help me, God, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"The CIA plot to blow up one of our missile batteries."

"The CIA plot to do
what
?" Cunningham raised his voice in astonishment.

"You heard me."

"I swear I don't know anything about that. You must be mistaken. The CIA couldn't do something like that without my knowledge. Not now, not with the tension between our governments."

Liu motioned to Cunningham to sit down on the sofa, while he took a chair across a small teak table. "Don't tell me that nobody in your government can control Chip Donovan."

At the sound of the name, Cunningham cringed. When the Chinese had forced down and stripped the American reconnaissance plane, Donovan had argued and cajoled in White House strategy sessions for a prompt and forceful response. In the end, at the request of the President, Margaret Joyner had stopped bringing him with her to meetings. What in the hell had Donovan done on his own?

"We've always been straight with each other," Cunningham said. "I won't lie to you now. I'm not sure anybody in my government does control Chip Donovan. You have to believe me when I say I knew nothing about any action of this type. And if I didn't know, the President didn't know either. So you'd better tell me what you've heard. We can deal with it together."

Liu hesitated.

His face set in determination, Cunningham pressed, "If it's that bad, you don't have anything to lose by talking it through with me."

"You don't understand. I'm supposed to file an official protest with your President. Then I've been recalled until further notice. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding about how seriously my government views this action."

Cunningham sucked in his breath. Jesus, recalling Liu was one step short of a declaration of war. "I appreciate how grave the situation is. Now tell me what happened."

In short, staccato sentences in his British accent, Liu described everything Chen had done since leaving the Shangri-La Hotel in Shanghai. He walked over to his desk and returned with a faxed copy of Chen's signed confession, which he showed to Cunningham.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Cunningham read the document twice. "Was he tortured to sign this?"

"He was questioned at length," Liu replied.

Cunningham raised his eyebrows. "Can I be blunt?"

Liu nodded.

"In view of how the confession was obtained, is it worth anything? Perhaps the whole episode is a fabrication by hard-liners in your country to find one more excuse for launching an attack on Taiwan."

Liu frowned. "That was blunt."

"We don't have time for beating around the bush. Are you prepared to respond to my last point?"

Liu had no problem with that at all. From everything he had heard this morning, the confession, though coerced, was accurate. "You can rely on the confession."

"You're certain of that?"

"Quite. Now I need your help. If I'm to have any chance of surviving the next several days in Beijing, it's imperative that I get in to see your President to lodge the protest with him before I fly home."

Cunningham grimaced. In two hours Brewster was leaving for Paris to attend an economic summit with European leaders. Cunningham would have to find a window for Liu, but only after he got some facts from Joyner.

Liu gave Cunningham a private office to call the White House. Using his cell phone, Cunningham said to Brewster's secretary, "Listen, Doris, I need thirty minutes with him before he leaves. Fifteen alone and fifteen with the Chinese ambassador."

"You're kidding."

"I wish I were. Tell him it can't wait." At a moment like this, Cunningham was glad his relationship with Brewster went back so far.

"Hold on. I'll go ask." She returned to the phone a minute later. "Come in an hour. Senator Burns will be upset that he lost his slot. I'll get a tongue-lashing, but I can take it."

After telling Liu about the meeting, Cunningham added, "It's your call, but I don't think you should raise the Taiwan arms package with the President. I'm working on the issue. I need more time."

Liu didn't reply.

Once he was back in his car, Cunningham called Margaret Joyner at her office at the CIA. "All hell has broken loose," he said. Then he reported what Liu had told him.

"If it's true, I'll kill that damn Donovan with my own bare hands," Joyner shouted into the phone.

Cunningham was relieved. Unless Joyner was the world's greatest actress, which he doubted, this had been an unauthorized rogue operation, if in fact it had occurred.

"Keep your cell phone on," Joyner said. "I know Donovan's in his office today. I'm going to pay him a surprise visit and see what he has to say."