She shook her head, but had to know he was right.
Jake pulled his gun from the small of his back and threw it into the river. Then he did the same with the extra magazines.
Alexandra reluctantly did the same thing.
Now that they were clean, with no weapons, Jake turned the motorcycle and headed back toward town. He would try to avoid the main street and then head south.
23
Other than by air, there was no good way to get from Siem Reap, Cambodia, to Saigon, Vietnam. Jake refused to call the city by its official communist name, Ho Chi Minh City. Why bring any recognition to that brutal dictator?
Jake and Alexandra had driven into the night on the motorcycle, stopping once for gas, along the lonely road from Siem Reap to the capital of Phnom Penh. From there they had ditched the motorcycle, gotten something to eat and some new clothes, stuffed into duffle bags, and caught the noon bus to Saigon. It would have looked really bad crossing into Vietnam without some sort of baggage. They had switched from Austrian to Canadian citizens, just in case the authorities had linked them in the five-star Siem Reap hotel to the shooting that had taken place. After all, every time they checked into a hotel, they were required to hand over their passport, where a clerk invariably made a copy.
Now, closing in on 8 p.m., the Canadian couple checked into a nice hotel in a rough-looking neighborhood about a mile from the newer downtown area of Saigon. Neither of them had ever been to Vietnam, so this place was new to Jake and Alexandra.
After riding on the uncomfortable motorcycle for almost two hundred miles and then sitting among coughing strangers on the six-hour bus ride from the capital of Cambodia to Saigon, Jake had to admit he was beat. He sat on the hard bed and lay down, closing his eyes.
“No, no, no,” Alexandra said. “You should have slept on the bus.”
Jake sighed. “I tried. But I couldn’t get this case out of my mind.”
She sat on the bed next to him. “Maybe we should just catch a flight home.”
He opened his eyes and gazed at her. “And where would that be?”
Flipping open her most recent passport, she said, “Somewhere in Canada.”
“It’s too damn cold up there this time of year.”
“Innsbruck?”
“Same thing.”
“Munich?”
“Do you really want to go back there right now?”
She lowered her chin. “Not really. My Service probably thinks I’m dead. But I should let them know I’m alive so at least they will pay out my pension.”
“You won’t need that working with me,” he assured her.
“Why? Because I’ll be dead before I need money?” She smiled at him.
“You’re much funnier than the average German.”
Alexandra stroked her hand across his short hair. “You think I’m average?”
“Not in the least. Can we get back to this case?”
She shrugged. “All right. What did Jenkins say when you updated him?”
Jake had called the former CIA director during a short stop on the bus trip. “He told me that the case was over. I had done my job and found Bill Remington. The Agency would be eternally grateful. You know the company line. It used to be for God and Country. Now I’m not even sure if what the CIA is doing is for the good of the country, or just for the good of government.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” she wanted to know.
“Not really, Alexandra. Our government has become a bloated behemoth of what our founders intended. In fact, it has become the very thing they fought against. And I’m not talking about just the Liberals or the Conservatives or the Progressives. They have all become corrupted by power. And everything they do is to maintain that power.”
“You’re not a political guy.”
Jake laughed. “I’ve worked for both parties. And I would never associate myself with either side.”
“But you like God, guns and gold,” she said. “Isn’t that the Right wing in America?”
“Yes. But mostly I believe in the Constitution of the United States of America. I proudly raised my hand to defend that against all enemies foreign and domestic. Everything else that happens in America is political theater.”
She seemed to be contemplating his statement. Perhaps she didn’t truly understand his Americanism. Time to change the subject. “All right. What do you think of this case?” he asked.
Alexandra shrugged. “I don’t know. I know this General Wu Gang was involved with the Munich company, Kreuzwelt Industries, which is selling arms to China.”
“And he was using Bill Remington and perhaps others to gain information and influence over the American government.”
“Is that illegal?”
Jake wasn’t sure anymore. It was certainly illegal to pay for information from an American intelligence officer. But lobbyists paid for information and contracts all the time. That didn’t make it right, though. Murder was still illegal everywhere on the planet. “What General Wu Gang is doing is illegal. I know he was behind that whole Chinese and French satellite shoot down, as well as trying to set up my friend, Chad Hunter, for that crime. I have a feeling the general is about as corrupt as they come. In a country like China, which is still supposed to be communist, all creatures are not created equal like Marx wanted. While the worker bee toils for pennies, others like the general are striking it rich like the robber barons in America during the big build-up of the railroads, the mines and the mills, and the huge infrastructure projects building sky scrapers. China has become one big cesspool of corruption, with the generals and politicians trading power and influence to become billionaires.”
“You’ve given this some thought,” Alexandra said.
He laughed. “A six-hour bus ride will do that to you.”
“What do we do now?”
“General Wu Gang has a factory in Saigon,” Jake said.
“And?”
“What? We go have a talk with the man. Saigon has a lot of high-end hotels where the general could be staying. I have Jenkins checking to see if the Agency can find the guy. But if not, we’ll go catch him at his factory tomorrow.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “You let that security guard in Cambodia live. Don’t you think he will warn the general?”
“I’m counting on it,” Jake said. “I want the man to be constantly looking over his shoulder. By now he has to know who’s after him. I’m guessing Bill Remington already told him about me trying to find him.”
“What does China know about you?”
“Not much. But I did go up against them a while back, dealing with their theft of laser technology from an American company. The general might know about that. I did embarrass their military and intelligence agencies. And the Chinese are like the Russians when it comes to their memories. They forget nothing.”
“So?”
“Now that we no longer have to worry about Agency insiders protecting Remington, Jenkins said he can get us some guns by tonight.”
“That’s great. What say we get a beer or two down at the hotel bar?”
Jake smiled. “I was thinking the same thing.”
24
For all of her bravado with regards to the sleep she had gotten on the bus from Cambodia, Alexandra drank a total of three beers before Jake hauled her up to their room and tucked her into bed. Then he had locked her into their room and went out for his meeting with the local Agency officer. Jenkins had sent him a secure image of his contact — a snapshot of a young woman in her early twenties, probably right out of college, the Farm, and on her first overseas assignment.