Finally he released his grasp and rose to his feet. He was breathing in a hoarse rasp. He could feel his heart pounding like a jackhammer, not from exertion but from the excitement.
Everything, of course, had changed. The game — this one, anyway — was over. He couldn’t go back to Groom Lake. He was certain that Swinford and his FBI goons were looking for him. The money he’d been promised by the Chinese — five million dollars — would never be paid. He had just murdered his handler, and he sensed that the Chinese would not forgive him for that.
He was a fugitive.
For a long moment he gazed down into Tom’s contorted face. The unblinking green eyes still stared at him in fear and panic.
Tom. It occurred to him that he knew almost nothing about the agent. Throughout their relationship, Tom had remained an enigma, able to change roles like a chameleon, one moment a spymaster, handler of secrets, operative of a foreign power. In the next moment — the one Lutz remembered now — Tom was something else.
Tom was his lover.
Her professional name was Thomasina Maitland, and it never bothered Lutz that she was a hooker. She was a professional and so was he. The fact that she received money for her service was irrelevant. It was the quality of the service that counted.
Of course, she never charged Lutz. That was supposed to be part of the carefully constructed cover — Lutz and his predilection for hookers. Tom wasn’t the wholesome, girl-next-door that mothers and government agencies favored, but at least it didn’t raise undue flags with the FBI. It made you less a security risk than being homosexual or alcoholic or drug dependent.
It was a good cover, but for Lutz it became more than just a professional cover. He and Tom shared a common danger. And then, after the thrill of the transaction, came the exquisite, high voltage sex. They had something special.
Or so he had believed.
The truth hit him like a hammer blow. It was an act. Nothing more. It was her way of handling him — keeping him from becoming too difficult, too contentious. Tom made him think that maybe, just maybe, she was doing it for love.
The oldest trick of the world’s oldest profession.
He gazed down at the lovely dead face. A wave of rage consumed him, and he delivered a kick to the inert, tanned figure in the short leather skirt. Bitch. He’d been used again.
Maxwell’s debriefing went on for a week.
In an underground, sound-and-emission-proof chamber, he underwent questioning by specialists from all the intelligence communities, some he had never heard of. They wanted to know not just the details of the raid on Chouzhou, but his recollection of flying the Black Star, of the engagement with Col. Zhang, and how he managed a carrier landing with a hookless stealth fighter.
“And what makes you think it was this colonel…”
“Zhang.”
“How did you know he was flying the Black Star you shot down?”
“From my wizzo, Captain Chen. A PLA defector who had worked in the Black Star unit.”
The questioner just nodded.
When the debriefing was complete, Maxwell’s orders and airline tickets were waiting for him. That night he took the facility’s 737 to Las Vegas. The next morning he boarded a Delta jet to Los Angeles, connecting to a China Airlines flight to Taipei.
No one had told him why he was going to Taipei, nor why he wasn’t returning to the Reagan, which he knew was making a port call in Manila.
Not until he walked through the jetway into the Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport in Taipei did he begin to understand. At the arrival gate stood a familiar figure. He wore running shoes, wrinkled chinos, and a beat-up old leather flight jacket. He was gnawing the stub of an unlit cigar.
CHAPTER 27 — MAI TAIS AND A GUITAR
“Where are we going?”
“To the American Institute in Taiwan,” said Boyce, climbing into the taxi with Maxwell. “Formerly known as the United States Embassy before they moved it to China and gave this one a bullshit name. It still operates like an embassy, with all the stuff — a visa section and military attachés and intelligence specialists and a visitors’ quarters, which is where we’re staying tonight.”
Maxwell was feeling the effects of jet lag and dehydration and, most of all, the endless questioning by teams of unsmiling intelligence specialists.
To hell with intelligence specialists. “If I’m here for another debriefing, they can get stuffed.”
“No debriefing. You’re here because the president of Taiwan wants to thank you and some other guys.”
“I don’t want any thanks. I want a Scotch and a steak and some sleep. In that order.”
“Tough shit. Nobody said being a hero was going to be easy.”
They drove down a street that had been devastated by incoming missiles. Debris from shattered buildings was bulldozed onto the side of the road, forming a continuous wall of rubble on either side.
A commercial district had taken a direct hit. Along a row of store fronts a destroyed building left a jagged gap like a missing tooth. Broken windows were taped over. Hulks of ruined automobiles were shoved up on the curb.
Maxwell stared at the destruction. He shook his head. “I had no idea they were hit this bad.”
“War sucks,” said Boyce.
The rubble abruptly disappeared. They drove along a tree-lined street that looked like a scene from a postcard.
“Tsin Yi Road,” said Boyce, “and that’s the American Institute up there on the left. No bomb craters, no destroyed buildings, no burned-out hulks. Says something about the politics of war.”
After an ID check by the guards at the main gate, they climbed the broad steps and entered the compound. Boyce led him to the front desk of the visitor’s quarters. “All you have to do is sign in, then we head for the bar. I’ve already put your stuff in your room.”
“Stuff?”
“You needed a fresh uniform for the ceremony with the president, so I took the liberty of bringing it from your stateroom on the ship. Also warm civvies because Taipei gets chilly at night.”
Maxwell looked at Boyce. He had known the CAG long enough to recognize the clues. He was up to something. What?
In the next moment, he found out.
“About time you got here,” said a booming voice behind him. “Leave it to you Navy pukes to show up late.”
Maxwell turned to see a barrel-chested man walking toward them. He had short-cropped, brownish hair and very large teeth. He was wearing an Air Force uniform with two stars and a name tag that read Buckner.
The general paused, martini glass halfway to his mouth, and said, “You’ve gotta be shitting me, Maxwell.”
“No, sir. I’ll put in writing. I think Major Bass deserves a posthumous silver star. Or even higher.”
Buckner looked at Boyce, who seemed to be studying a spot on the ceiling. “Did you put him up to this, Boyce?”
“I told him Bass was his problem. He was the guy in charge, and if he thinks Bass deserves a medal, that’s his call.”
“Commander Maxwell, are you implying that the Air Force doesn’t take care of its own people?”
“No, sir. It’s just that after we picked up Major Bass after his… ah, ejection over the strait, I gathered that you weren’t exactly pleased with his actions.”
“Pleased? What I said was that I intended to kick his insubordinate ass up between his shoulder blades. Then send him to Leavenworth for ten to twenty.”
“Yes, sir, and having known Catfish, I understand your feelings. But as you know, he was assigned to me during a… very sensitive operation.”