The Westerner and the General talked about details for some minutes — Shreed, Chen, the reason why Chen himself had gone to Pakistan to meet with Shreed. Neither the General nor the civilian was being quite forthright, Lao thought. He wondered if he was simply being set up so that they would have a scapegoat. They talked almost as if he weren’t there. He wanted to smoke, felt too junior to light up, although both older men were smoking hard.
“If Chen isn’t in America but is dead or wounded—” He pushed himself in like a timid housewife at a fish stall.
“Yes, yes—?”
“I would like to be ready to make a forensic examination, if I have to. If I find him. Fingerprints, DNA—”
The civilian waved his cigarette and growled, “Yes, of course,” and muttered something about the files. The General nodded and separated the top three from the stack. Lao could see that he was reluctant, even now, to hand them over. “If you accept, then I suggest you take these with you — you will have an aircraft to fly you back to Dar es Salaam, plenty of time to read in an absolutely secure atmosphere.”
“I won’t go direct to Dar, General. I’ll start in Pakistan.”
“Good. Time is short.” He hesitated. “These are the communications files that Chen used with Shreed.” He put one file down on the desk. “Pass-throughs, cutouts, dead drops.” He put down the second file. “Electronic communications, mostly the Internet — Shreed was a master of the computer.” He put down the third file. “Communications plans for face-to-face meetings. Three places — Nairobi, Jakarta, and the village in Pakistan where the shootout took place. We consider that the Pakistan site is no longer usable; therefore, Nairobi or Jakarta—” He gave Lao a look.
“These are the original files from American Go? Or substitutes?” Lao was suddenly sharp. He winced at his own tone, imagined that he could be marched from here to a basement and shot, but he knew he was being used and he might as well be used efficiently.
The two exchanged a look. The Westerner wrapped a length of hair around his fist and twisted, gave an odd sort of grunt. “Substitutes,” he conceded.
“I want the originals. I want the entire case, not three files.” Lao threw caution to the winds. “If you want me to find Chen, I think I need to have everything Chen was working on.”
The General smiled, the last gesture Lao expected. “I told you he was sharp,” he said, talking to the Westerner as if Lao were not in the room. The General lit himself a Pear Blossom, lit one for the Westerner. Then he reached behind his desk and started to sort folders, old ones with red spines. Lao imagined hundreds of folders in the vast space he couldn’t see behind the General’s desk, all the secrets of the universe. He shook his head to clear it.
Then they went over some of it again, and the General handed several files to Lao and told him that the entire case would be sent to him in the diplomatic bag at Dar es Salaam. Lao said that he would rather work out of Beijing, and the General’s eyes almost disappeared in a smile and he said that, of course, who wouldn’t rather be in Beijing, but they wanted him to stay where he was. “For cover.” They didn’t know if Chen had associates who might smell a rat if Lao worked from the capital. And there were other elements in the People’s Army and the Party who might try to interfere, for their own purposes — times were difficult — Lao’s mind had caught on the expression “for cover”; you didn’t need cover within your own service unless you were doing something fatally risky, he was thinking.
“So,” the General said finally, “you will accept this responsibility?” He said it smiling, as if Lao had a choice.
“Of course,” Lao said firmly, although he, too, knew they had passed the point of choice when he demanded the folders.
“The people will be grateful.”
The third man made another of his chopping gestures. “The people will never know! We will be grateful, which is what matters.” He began to cough.
“There is another matter, Colonel Lao.” The General’s aged geniality had vanished. “It actually falls under your responsibilities at Dar es Salaam — a Middle Eastern matter. I speak of the loss of face we suffered when the Americans shot down two of our aircraft and got their agents and Shreed out of Pakistan. We were made to look like children in this matter. We were humiliated in front of the Pakistanis. We will pay for this failure for years. Admittedly, we may have been too ‘forward leaning.’ That is not for me to say. But we have been tasked to register our anger with the power that interfered with us.”
Lao had an armful of critically secret folders and was burning to begin his investigation. The idea that there was further business irritated him. “Yes, sir?”
“We are going to target a strike on one of their carriers. The one that was used in Pakistan.”
The General opened yet another file and tossed it on the desk.
Lao had to change his grip on his stack of folders and put them on the floor. The Westerner was watching him now, as if judging him. “Yes, sir?” he repeated.
“USS Thomas Jefferson. We will hit her through surrogates. The Americans will get the message.”
Lao’s heart pounded, and he thought, They’ll kill us. “Has this been approved by the War Council?”
“This operation was planned by the War Council.” The Westerner seemed less watchful, as if he had passed some test. “It is called Jade Talon. You will execute it. Use Islamic surrogates. I have appended contacts that we recommend.”
Lao opened the new file with trepidation. The first item was a photograph of a Nimitz-class carrier. There followed a detailed analysis of the possibility of crippling a Nimitz-class carrier with a speedboat full of explosives. Lao looked up. “I don’t believe this will sink a carrier.”
“Sink? Probably not, although we want you to use several boats. But a nice big hole? Perhaps leaking radioactive material? Hundreds of dead sailors?”
“And how are these small boats to target a carrier?”
“I’m sorry, Colonel?”
“How are a group of Islamic surrogates in tiny boats supposed to find this carrier and strike it?”
“Jefferson will be off the coast of Africa for sixty days. We have a method to pass accurate targeting information.”
“Is this my operation?”
“Absolutely. Only, do not fail. And make finding Chen your priority. Am I clear?” The General was no longer smiling.
“Perfectly clear, sir.”
Lao picked up all the files and saluted and turned. The room wheeled as if he were dizzy, but his mind was utterly clear. He knew that he had been sent to walk a razor’s edge.
“Does he know what this is really about?” the General said when the door had closed. The civilian snorted and shook his ugly hair. He lit another cigarette. The General sat back, hands folded. “He must have heard things.”
“He doesn’t know about the money. Nobody knows about the money.”
“Perhaps we should have told him.”
“No!” The hoarse voice was rude; the General’s eyebrows arched a millimeter. “No. If he finds Chen, he finds the money. If he doesn’t find Chen—” He shrugged.
“He is a good man,” the General said. “There is no real chance for a speedboat to cripple a carrier, is there?”
“It sends a message. Either way. American public opinion is fickle. It might move the U.S. away from Africa. A lucky hit? It might damage the reactor and kill everyone on board. It might call into question the whole legality of placing a nuclear reactor on a vessel in international waters.”
“But Lao? Whether he finds Chen or not, he loses.”