I opened my manila envelope, and dropped the enlarged faceof Xiang Fei on his desk in front of him. “I suggest you look at this because it tells the whole story. Maybe you don’t know enough, but believe me, this photo at the top of an L.A. Times feature story is going to make a lot of people unhappy.”
He pulled the photo to him. As I expected, it meant nothing. But I had his attention. “What feature story?”
“The one that will explain who those two men who talked to Xiang Fei were, and who towed Xiang Fei’s car. Or whatever her other name is.”
“Other name? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Just tell the sheriff I want to meet with those guys before I put the story in motion and hire the best lawyer Donald Lewis’s father’s money can buy.”
Bruccoli wasn’t exactly sputtering when I left, but I hadn’t made a friend.
If I were right, I didn’t give a damn.
Now, as Kay and I walked home along cold and windy Las Vegas Boulevard, the midnight blue sedan pulled to the side of the road in front of us. The rear door opened. “He’ll talk to you. Get in.”
I gave Kay a kiss, and climbed into the sedan. The man closed the door, the driver squealed away.
The John Lawrence Bailey Federal Building in Las Vegas is at 700 East Charleston Boulevard. The man I faced this time across his desk was tall and wore the mandatory dark suit. Except his suit was a custom-made charcoal gray, and his office was a large corner one. He pushed my business card around his desk with one finger as if playing with a small animal.
“What do you think you want, Mr. Fortune?”
“I want to talk to her.”
“Why?”
“To hear what she has to say before I go to a lawyer and the L.A. Times.”
“You can’t see her, and neither can your lawyer or the L.A. Times.”
I sat watching his finger toy with my card. “Exactly who is she terrorizing?”
“That’s classified.” The Mister was gone. He gave me a cold stare Captain Bruccoli couldn’t begin to match.
“You like what you’re doing?”
“What am I doing?”
“Throwing a woman into a cell alone and incommunicado, when she’s done nothing in this country, or against this country. No lawyer, no judge, no visitors, no charges, no telephone call, no civil or human rights. No admission you’re even holding her. She disappears. Exactly like Chile or Argentina.”
“Chile and Argentina were political civil wars. Our war against terrorism is international. We’ve been attacked. We’re defending ourselves.”
I took an interest in the darkness outside his windows. We were high enough, and facing in the right direction, to see the dark even in Las Vegas. “Don’t you get a sense of déjà vu? That we’ve all been here before?”
“If you’re talking about the McCarthy era, there’s no resemblance.”
“Actually, I was thinking of the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by Congress and President John Adams in 1798.”
“Never heard of them, but I expect Adams knew what he was doing.”
No one knows history anymore, not even our own.
“Ben Franklin didn’t think so: ‘They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.’ Tom Jefferson rescinded those laws as soon as he became president.”
“Ben Franklin and Tom Jefferson lived in different times, without terrorists who target civilians and strike without warning, nuclear bombs in satchels, and biological weapons that can be carried in a pocket.”
“They lived in times of Indians who targeted civilians and struck without warning on a thousand mile frontier. A time of two superpowers who encouraged and armed the Indians against us, and were ready to attack us at any time. And a far more dangerous and vulnerable homeland.”
“Then President Adams knew what he was doing after all.” It was his turn to look out at the dark. “You’re wasting your time and mine. The woman isn’t a citizen. She’s Chinese.”
“I don’t think she is.”
His eyes were suddenly cautious. “You don’t think she’s what?”
“Chinese. And legal resident aliens who have done nothing are supposed to have rights here. That’s what America is about.”
He sat there staring down at my card as if trying to understand something. He either gave up, or decided he didn’t care. “We’re in a war against terrorism. She belongs to a terrorist organization on our list. It’s national security. Period.”
I said, “Whose national security? Ours or China’s?”
This time he only stared at me. “Go home, let us do our job.”
I shook my head. “For twenty years we’ve been pressuring Beijing to improve their human and civil rights record. Three years ago we would have been loudly demanding Xiang Fei’s rights and freedoms. Shouting for democracy. Now, she’s done nothing against us, but we arrest her without charge and throw her into a cell without trial.”
“Things have changed.”
“Not for her, not for China, and not for me,” I told him. “I’m going to John Jeffries, I expect you know who he is. I’m going to report to my client. His father is very rich, and that means connections as well as the money to pay Jeffries. I’ve already talked to Larry Norris at the Times. He loves the Chinese spin on this story.”
“The Times won’t print it.”
“Norris will write it, and someone will print it. It’s too good a story. That’s America too. At the very least it’ll embarrass your bosses. Everything is spin these days, and a lot of their supporters won’t like this spin.”
He thought about that. “I could stop you.”
“Not with lawyers and feature writers already knowing exactly what I’m doing. Too big a kettle of fish. Very bad PR. I’ll make the same deal I came to make. I’ll talk to her before I do anything else. It could change my mind.”
He hesitated longer than Lieutenant Yost had three days ago. Then shook his head. “It’s not going to happen.”
I stood. “You’ll hear from Jeffries. Do I get a ride home?”
He reached for his phone. “Drive Fortune back to his hotel.”
I didn’t look back as I left. I didn’t have to. By the time I was in the midnight blue sedan down in the garage he’d be on thephone to the director in D.C. The director would call the attorney general. In the car, I watched the lights of Vegas, bright and busy at any hour. Traffic was still heavy. We’re a busy people, too busy most of the time to think about yesterday or tomorrow.
I heard the car phone ring. The conversation in the front seat was muted.
Then the agent in the passenger seat turned and said, “We’re going back.”
I took out my cell, called Kay. I knew she wouldn’t be asleep. “It’s okay. Go to bed. I’ll be in the hotel by morning if not earlier.”
They had Xiang Fei in an isolation cell. She lay on the bottom bunk reading a book, still wearing the clothes she’d disappeared in.
“I’m Dan Fortune, a private investigator hired by Donald Lewis to find you.” I held out my card. “He thinks he’s your fiancé.”
She lowered her book. “He’s a nice boy.”
“What’s your non-Chinese name, and which Central Asian ethnic group are you? Kazakh? Kirghiz? Uighur? Uzbek? Maybe Tajik?”
She closed the book. “Why have they let you talk to me?”
“Let’s say you’re a special case, I have connections, and Donald has money.”
She stood, and walked to the window. Taller than I’d thought from the snapshot, leaner and sturdier. A woman who could ride a horse all day with a baby on her back and a rifle over her shoulder. None of which would help her here. She looked out at the shining glitz of Las Vegas. “My name is Aimur Imin. I’m a Uighur from Kashgar.”
“Yet the Chinese sent you abroad for an education. Isn’t that unusual?”