Tang leafed through the packet of papers she handed him. It contained a passport that showed that the woman's husband had entered the country only six months earlier, a death certificate signed by Lo Chi Lyn indicating that death was due to a rare and highly contagious virus resulting from a bout with Borneo fever, the necessary signed-off customs papers with seal affixed, and a letter from the State Department instructing airport officials to assist Madam Yan wherever and whenever possible.
Tang was pleased with himself. He turned to Deng Zhen. "Back us up to the loading dock at customs. Let's get this shit over with."
Whenever he was in Washington, Bogner shared a two-bedroom apartment with Reese Smith of the Associated Press. The arrangement worked out well for both men. Smith was normally wherever news was breaking and Bogner averaged about a week a month in the capital. The two men seldom saw each other.
He tucked the rented Olds Aurora into the cramped parking space on the first level, noted with some satisfaction that Reese's BMW was nowhere in sight, and took the elevator to the third floor. What surprised him was the slash of light coming from under his door.
Bogner took out his key, opened the door, and stepped back. She was the last person he expected to see. The former Joy Bogner was curled up in an easy chair with a sheaf of papers in her lap. On the floor beside the chair was his bottle of Scoresby. The shaved ice had already melted. She had been napping, and there was no denying that old dewy-eyed-fawn look she had when she woke up. After all these years, she still had it.
"Surprised?" she asked.
Bogner nodded.
Tobias Carrington and Joy Ellen Bogner still had a thing for each other. Both of them knew it, both of them denied it.
Even now, when she was playing the role of frowning spouse, scolding him for the late hour, a small, almost secret smile played with the corners of her mouth.
He brushed her cheek with a kiss, picked up her glass, replenished the ice, and topped it off with the Scoresby. Then he sagged into a chair opposite her. "You always were full of surprises," he said. "What's the occasion?"
Joy shrugged. "Is it enough to say I was worried about you when I heard you were involved with what happened at Saint Martin's today?"
In Bogner's eyes she was just as beguiling as she had been in Pensacola back when he was in flight school. She lifted her glass in a toast.
"Let's drink to winter," she said. "It isn't far off."
"Okay," he said, "considering the hour, one of two things brings you here. One, you've heard from Kim at schooland she has a problem. Or, two, some of the brass at the network found out you use to be married to the only guy that survived the Saint Martin's massacre."
Joy frowned. "Wrong on both counts. Kim is doing fine. She made the dean's list. And no one in the Washington bureau at CBS knows about us."
"Then, reason three, you missed me."
"Tobias," she said with a slight nod, "there isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss you. And don't let your male ego run away with you. You were good in bed, but I loved you for other reasons as well."
Joy Bogner, professionally known as Joy Carpenter when she was on assignment for CBS, had, after a brief stint with a couple of PBS stations in Southern California, caught on with the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles. The rest was history. Now she was the grand dame of prime time, the queen of penetrating interviews, the darling of the celeb circuit, with Nielsen ratings that made her, according to Time magazine, the "High Dollar Harriet of Network Schmooze."
She still wore her sable-colored hair shoulder length, still had a voice that was both an invitation and a threat, and, despite the years, was still as exciting and beautiful as T.C. had always remembered her.
There was a protracted silence before she asked how he was.
Bogner nodded. "Other than a few cuts and scrapes, I think I'll make it. I'm a tough old bird."
"I have to ask, you know. You don't stay in touch."
"I didn't know there was any reason too. Seems to me I recall the word 'final' being printed across the divorce decree." Bogner couldn't help himself. Despite the passage of time, a tinge of bitterness still had a way of creeping into his feelings about the woman who had been unwilling to share him with the Navy.
Joy studied him over her glass. "Mike was with you today, wasn't he?" She was referring to Mike Capelli. Capelli had been in their wedding. He was the one who had introduced Bogner to Clancy Packer back in the days when the ISA chief had been recruiting for the Internal Security Agency. That was just one more dimension of the unevenness of their lives: She knew the people in his. He knew nothing about hersexcept what he read and what he occasionally saw on television.
Bogner nodded. He had tried not to think about Capelli, or what he would say to his wife, Barbara, at the funeral.
When Joy thought she saw a tear in his eye, she got up, walked across the room, sat down on the arm of his chair, and put her arm around him.
"That's why I'm here," she said. "I'm here because I know you're too damn macho to cryand because I know deep down under that 'me tough guy Navy pilotI can handle it' facade, you're hurting like hell."
Bogner sagged down in the chair and closed his eyes. The tears came. Joy was right. It did hurt like hell.
At fifty-five years of age and working two jobs to make ends meet, Henry Davidson had put in a long day. The man who was supposed to relieve him at midnight, Mi Po, had called in sick, and the supervisor had asked Davidson to work through until the morning shift. "If you do, I'll get Bricker to come in early," the man promised.
Davidson had agreed, but the penalty for cooperating had been having to update the week's logs, work he wasn't used to, and doublechecking two shipments of machine tools that had shown up without the proper paperwork. The phone calls had been lengthy and the courier with the paperwork wouldn't arrive until just before flight time. If the courier didn't understand Washington traffic, it would be late, and Henry Davidson knew that he would have done a lot of work in vain.
Now, however, he was faced with the disagreeable task of checking the aluminum cylinder containing the body of some minor Chinese diplomat. He walked into the waiting room, took his usual seat behind the customs desk, and called out the woman's name: "Madam Yan."
A young Chinese woman stood up and approached him slowly. She was small, slender, and, he judged, more than slightly confused by the bureaucratic proceedings. The dress she wore was black and ill-fitting. She took a seat in front of him. She was accompanied by a young man.
"Madam Yan," Davidson began.
She nodded, but the young man clarified, "Madam Yan Shi Ho."
Davidson shuffled through the papers. Unlike the shipment of machine tools, everything appeared to be in order. All that was left was the questioning.
"My name is Yan Shi Ho," she said. Then she began to cry. "My husband's name is Yan Yao Ping. He died of Borneo fever. We are returning to my husband's homeland in Xuzhou in Jiangsu province. Those are his papers."
"Borneo fever?" Davidson repeated. "When did he contract it?"
Lo Chi Lyn's nurse followed instructions. She smiled and gave a demure shrug.
"May I speak on behalf of Madam Yan, Officer?" Deng Zhen offered.
"Who are you?" Davidson asked.
Deng Zhen presented his card. "We are the transfer agency appointed by the Chinese Embassy. I'm afraid Madam Yan does not speak English very well. And, as you can well imagine, she is very distraught."
"What about this Borneo fever thing?" Davidson pressed.
"We have been told that he contracted the disease working as a minor official in an assignment in Malaysia prior to being transferred to Washington. He died four days ago."