“That's a bluff.”
“It is,” McAlister admitted.
“And they'll know it's a bluff.”
McAlister shook his head no. “Regardless of what the newspapers may print about it, the great détente between the United States and the People's Republic of China is quite fragile. Oh, sure, most of the Chinese people want peace. They really aren't all that imperialistic. They want open trade with us. But the great majority of the Party leaders don't trust us. Not the least bit. God knows, they have good reason. But with most government officials, the distrust has grown into paranoia. They wouldn't find it hard to believe that we'd let Dragonfly strike, because they're certain that we'd like to split their country between ourselves and the Russians.”
“They actually think we're all wild-eyed reactionaries?”
“They suspect that we are. And for most of them, suspicion is as good as proof. If he believes you're capable of committing the most despicable acts against China, General Lin won't push you too far. He'll believe your threats if you have to make them.”
“But don't threaten him lightly?”
“Yes. Diplomacy is always best.”
Canning's eyes were a crystalline shade of gray. Ordinarily they contained a sharp cold edge that most men could not meet directly. At the moment, however, his eyes were like pools of molten metaclass="underline" warm, glistening, mercurial. “When do I leave?”
“Four o'clock this afternoon.”
“Straight to Peking?”
“No. You'll catch a domestic flight to Los Angeles.” McAlister took a folder of airplane tickets from an inner jacket pocket and laid it on the table. “From L.A. you'll take another flight to Tokyo. There's only a one-hour layover in Los Angeles. It's an exhausting trip. But tomorrow night you'll rest up in Tokyo. Friday morning you'll board a jet belonging to a French corporation, and that'll take you secretly to Peking.”
Canning shook his head as if he were having trouble with his hearing. “I don't understand. Why not a government plane direct to Peking?”
“For one thing, I'd have to go through the usual channels to get you a seat. Or the President could go through them for me, with no need to explain anything to anyone. But either way, The Committee would learn about it. And if they knew… Well, I'm not so sure you would ever get to Peking.”
“I can handle myself,” Canning said, not boasting at all, just stating a fact.
“I know you can. But can you handle a bomb explosion aboard your airplane while it's over the middle of the ocean, hundreds of miles from land? Remember Berlinson?”
“Your informer?”
Jagged lightning, like a dynamite blast in a bus-terminal locker, slammed across the purplish sky. The stroboscopic effect pierced the window and filled the kitchen with leaping shadows and knife-blade light. The crack of thunder followed an instant later — and there was an electric power failure. The refrigerator stopped humming and rattling. The fluorescent tubes above the kitchen counter blinked out.
The meager, penumbral light of the early-afternoon storm sky, further filtered by the misted window, left them dressed in shadows.
“Do you have any candles?” McAlister asked.
“Let's give them a few minutes to fix it. You were explaining why you think these Committeemen would go to any lengths to kill me. It has something to do with Berlinson…”
McAlister sighed. “Once he had whetted my appetite by telling me a bit about Dragonfly, I promised Roger Berlinson three things in return for the rest of his information: exemption from criminal prosecution for anything he did as a CIA operative; a rather large cash payment; and last of all, a new name and a whole new life for him and his family. So… After he told me what he knew, I went to Ryder, the new FBI director, and I asked him for the use of an FBI safe house. I told him I needed it for a man whose name and circumstances I could not divulge. I explained that Ryder himself was the only man in the Bureau who could know the safe house was harboring someone I wanted to protect. Ryder was great: no questions, complete cooperation. The Berlinsons were spirited out of Washington and, by devious route, ended up in Carpinteria, California. So far as the FBI agents knew, Berlinson was a Mafia figure who had ratted on his bosses. Meanwhile, I went to various non-agency sources to obtain new birth certificates, passports, credit cards, and other documents for Roger, his wife, and his son. But I was wasting my time.”
“They killed Berlinson.”
His voice leaden, McAlister said, “The house in Carpinteria was protected by an infrared alarm system. It seemed as safe as a Swiss bank. What I didn't know, what the FBI didn't know, was that the Army has recently perfected a 'thermal isolation' suit that is one hundred percent effective in containing heat. It can be used by commandos to slip past infrared equipment. Two of these suits were stolen from an Army-CIA experimental lab in MacLean, Virginia.” He stopped for a moment as thunder rattled the windowpanes. It was convenient thunder, Canning thought, for McAlister needed to compose himself and clear his phlegm-filled throat. Then: “You can spend only twenty minutes inside the suit, because your body heat builds and builds in there until it can roast you alive. But twenty minutes is sufficient. We believe two men, wearing these suits, entered the Carpinteria house through a living-room window. Inside, they quietly stripped down to their street clothes before they broiled in their own juices. Then they went out to the kitchen and murdered the FBI agent who was monitoring the infrared repeater screens. When he was out of the way, they went upstairs and shot Berlinson, his wife, and his son.”
The only sounds were those of the storm. The heavy dark air could not hold the words McAlister had spoken, but it did retain the anguish with which they'd been freighted.
Canning said, “Families are never hit.”
“We're dealing with fanatics.”
“But what did they have to gain by killing the wife and son?”
“They probably wanted to set an example for anyone else who might be thinking of informing on The Committee.”
Recalling Duncan, Tyler, and Bixby, Canning decided that such a thing was not only possible but likely. “Lunatics!”
“The point is, if they would do a thing like this, then they wouldn't hesitate to blow up a government aircraft, passengers and crew, just to get you. We must keep your involvement a secret until you're safely inside China. If they kill you, I've got no one else I can send. I'll have to go myself. And they'll kill me.”
“But why don't they just trigger Dragonfly? Why don't they get it over with before we can stop them?”
“That's the one thing that doesn't make sense,” McAlister said. “I just don't know the answer.”
It was a paranoid nightmare.
Yet Canning believed every word of it.
Orange-red numerals suddenly glowed in the shadows. McAlister checked his electronic read-out watch and said, “We don't have much time left.”
“If we're taking all these precautions,” Canning said, “then I assume I'll be traveling under another identity.”
Reaching into an inside pocket of his suit coat, McAlister produced a passport, birth certificate, and other identification. He passed the lot to Canning, who didn't bother to try to examine it in the poor light. “Your name's Theodore Otley. You're a diplomatic courier for the State Department.”
Canning was surprised. “Wouldn't it be better for me to go as an ordinary citizen? Less conspicuous that way.”
“Probably,” McAlister agreed. “But an ordinary citizen has to pass through anti-hijacking X-ray machines and later through customs. He can't carry a gun. A diplomatic courier, however, is exempt from all inspections. And this one time you don't want to be without a gun.”