The exploding airbag was a problem for the first half second — the hot gas and powder stinging Gil’s eyes as he released the seat belt. But the vehicle rolled over to the right as planned, and he opened the door, allowing the centrifugal force to throw him clear. After that it was simply a matter of spreading his arms and legs, soaring away though the fog in the black wing suit.
Unable to see the surface of the river, he kept an eye on the altimeter Velcroed to his wrist, conscious of the fact he was picking up a good deal of speed as he descended. Thirty feet from the surface, the mist cleared well enough to see, and he braced himself for impact, skidding into the water at an angle of 20 degrees doing better than sixty miles per hour. The impact bloodied his nose, knocked the wind out of him, and dislocated his shoulder, but he rolled onto his back and kept himself afloat until Nahn came motoring out of the morning fog to haul him into a small boat.
They were ashore within three minutes, where Nahn reset his shoulder by sitting on the ground, putting his foot into Gil’s armpit and giving his wrist a stiff pull. The joint popped back into the socket, and Gil sat up with a groan, working the shoulder.
“How was your flight?” Nahn asked with a grin.
Gil got to his feet, unzipping the soaking wing suit. “The service was a little slow.”
They were in a van headed for Chongqing ten minutes later. Upon their arrival at a secluded airfield, the two were flown in a private plane to within a few miles of the Vietnamese border, where both men parachuted out of the aircraft at low altitude, gliding over the border to land safely in northern Vietnam, where Nahn’s nephews were waiting to take them to Hanoi.
From Hanoi, Gil was able to access his bank account in the Cayman Islands and make all the necessary arrangements for his trip to Mexico.
At the airport, Gil and Nahn shook hands.
“Thanks, old friend. I owe you more than I can repay. And don’t worry. The man who betrayed you will pay for what he did. You have my word.”
Nahn smiled, saying, “Ai làm n
y ch
u.” Roughly translated: Whoever sows wind shall harvest storm.
73
Midori appeared in the doorway to Pope’s office. “You wanted to see me?”
He looked up and closed his laptop. “Come in and shut the door.”
She did as she was told, taking the seat before his desk and crossing her legs.
The vein in his head was pulsing, though his face showed no outward emotion. “You’ve been a very bad girl.”
“Oh?” she said innocently. “How so?”
“Lazaro Serrano is dead.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what that’s got to do with me. I’ve never even been to Mexico.”
“Fields isn’t answering his phone.”
She shrugged again. “It isn’t my day to watch him.”
“Yet it appears you’ve been doing exactly that. What’s more, last night you took personal control of a UAV”—an unmanned aerial vehicle—“and more than twelve hours of surveillance footage have been illegally purged from all three data bases.”
“Again,” she said, “I don’t know what that has to do with me. The CIA doesn’t have stealth drones in the skies over Mexico. The president himself said so last week on national television.”
He sat staring at her.
“You can’t have me prosecuted, Robert. We both know that. So you can either get over it, fire me, or have me killed. Which is it going to be?”
Pope ignored what he considered hyperbole. “Is Fields dead?”
She laced her fingers in her lap. “Extremely.”
He reddened. “Ortega?”
“No, but Crosswhite has him on ice. I don’t expect he’ll kill him unless Ortega does something stupid.”
Pope took off his glasses and tossed them onto the desk. “So who’s running the goddamn show down there?”
“Mariana Mederos — and she appears to have all of her ducks in a row.”
“Does she, indeed? What are her intentions?”
“I don’t know. I suppose we’ll both have to wait and see.”
“This is entirely unacceptable!”
Midori grabbed the arms of the chair and sat forward. “Do you ever listen to yourself? Unacceptable, Robert? You assassinated an American diplomat!”
He darkened. “I’m not the first director to do so.”
“And you might not be the last, but Alice Downly was your last — at least as long as I’m working for you. I won’t be party to it. I’ve gathered enough intelligence to demonstrate that you were complicit in her death. If I turn up dead, that intelligence goes public. And I’m not just talking about WikiLeaks. You can fire me, and I’ll go away quietly — I’m not a vindictive person — but I have no control over what happens after I’m dead. My protector is beyond your reach.”
“Your protector?” He opened the middle desk drawer, taking the top from a prescription bottle and swallowing an anxiety pill, chasing it with a drink of water. Then Pope tossed the pills back into the drawer and slammed it shut. “Damn you!”
“Damn you,” she said quietly.
“I trusted you!”
“I trusted you.”
Pope stood up from the desk and went to the window, looking out over the campus with his arms folded. “What about Hancock?” he said finally.
“Crosswhite and Vaught are organizing the defense of Toluca. They plan to kill him during the battle. That’s as much as I know.”
He turned around. “Battle? What the hell’s going on down there?”
“Crosswhite couldn’t get to Serrano in time to stop the Ruvalcabas from moving to take over the city. The fighting began about an hour ago. The Mexican government has its hands full in Mexico City, where the Ruvalcabas are causing chaos, which means they’re not sending any reinforcements.”
“So it’s civil war.”
She shook her head. “Not really. Just another battle for a Mexican town while the federal government keeps its back turned. More like business as usual, I’d say.”
“I want to talk to Crosswhite. I assume you’re in contact?”
“He won’t talk to you. He’s made it clear you have no say in what’s going on down there right now.”
“He and Mariana are working together?”
She nodded. “Vaught is with them.”
Pope stood stroking his chin. “They’re setting themselves up to take over Mexico station.”
“Robert, with Fields dead and Ortega fully compromised, they are Mexico station.”
The die was cast, and the CIA director saw there was nothing he could do about it. “What do they need from me?”
“They haven’t asked for anything. They don’t trust you anymore; not after you turned them over to Fields. He tried to have them both killed. I’ll take it on faith you knew nothing about that — and if you did, I don’t ever want to know.”
“Who killed Fields?”
Not entirely convinced it was the correct move, Midori stuck to the plan and followed Gil’s advice. “Mariana projected his movement; she acted first.”
Pope’s eyes widened. “You’re telling me she preempted him?”
“That’s correct.”
“She did it herself?”
“Of course not. She maneuvered him into position for Castañeda’s people.”
“She’s learning,” he muttered, retaking his chair. “Her plan must be to consolidate the drug trade under Castañeda. Bad choice. But with Serrano dead, Ruvalcaba becomes a nonstarter.”