The phone went dead and I followed orders. Rita never got a chance to protest or ask questions. Traffic was the thing that delayed me the most and was a few minutes late but I was lucky. The call had also been delayed. Hawk was chewing his cigar furiously as I entered. He shoved a typed message at me. "This came, coded. Our boys decoded it and gave it to me."
I read it quickly. "Will radiophone at 10:15 your time," it read. "Discuss unfortunate occurrence with your agent N3. General Chung Li, Chinese People's Republic."
I'd just shoved it back at Hawk when the phone with the row of little red buttons rang. Hawk took the cigar out of his mouth and tossed it into the wastebasket; his gesture of distaste was not all for the cigar. His voice, when he spoke, was tight, flat, masked; he nodded to me.
"Yes, General, Carter has reported in safely with Dr. Carlsbad. You're relieved at that… Yes… thank you. In fact, he's standing here with me. Perhaps you'd like to speak with him directly. I shall indeed… we are most appreciative."
He handed me the phone, his steel-blue eyes impassive. I heard Chung Li's quiet, controlled tones and could almost see his bland, round face in front of me as I listened.
"I hasten to offer my regrets at that bandit attack upon our lorry," he said. "When your party did not arrive at Yenki later that night, we sent a force out to find out what had happened. When they came upon the lorry with our own two men killed and the remains of the bandits, they reported back to me at once. Naturally, we first assumed you had been taken captive. It was only the next day, after I'd learned about the theft of one of our aircraft at Yenki, that I realized what must have happened. May I ask why you did not go to the airport and ask the officials there to contact me?"
"I didn't think they'd believe my story " I lied.
"It would have been so much simpler," he said. I'll bet it would have been, I agreed silently. He went on, that faint air of deprecation in his smooth voice again. "No matter, you have reached your shores safely with Dr. Carlsbad. That was my main concern. Again, my apologies for not having considered the possibility of an attack. I have a large force making a meticulous search of the area. I shall inform your people as soon as they recover the virus."
"Please do," I said. "And thanks for your concern." I could toss it back as well as he could hand it out. The phone went dead and I hung up. I looked up to see Hawk carefully replacing the receiver of the monitoring phone. His eyes met mine.
"The World Leadership Conference is just two days away," he said. "I need you. I need every man I have. Ill give you another day on Carlsbad. If you can come up with any new things or theories which make sense, I'll listen. Fair enough?"
I grimaced but nodded. It was fair enough, especially at this time. But I knew he had givem me damned little time to come up with anything new.
"Dr. Hobson called," Hawk added. "There's little hope Carlsbad can be brought around. Severe brain damage. But Hobson also said they never know when one of these cases has a moment's flash of normality. Very often they do and then go under once more. Keep hoping and keep checking were his parting words." I nodded and left with a last glance at Hawk. I don't think I'd ever seen his face so tired.
When I got back to my place, Rita was asleep, but the sheet over her was more off than on. I contented myself with looking at the beauty of her sleeping body. She lay half on her stomach, one leg drawn up, her left breast a soft, pink-tipped invitation. I pulled the sheet over her and went into the living room where I poured a shot of bourbon. I sipped it, letting the warmth trickle slowly downward. Once again I tried putting the pieces together in a way that would stifle my damned uneasiness, but I couldn't still my suspicions. I was convinced of certain things. One was the attack on the lorry — I was sure that Chung Li had engineered it. His phone call tonight had only reinforced that suspicion. The wily bastard had to find out if we'd really made it back.
"Goddammit to hell!" I said through gritted teeth. Why was I so suspicious of Chung Li, just because we'd been on opposite sides in the past? I had no proof he was acting in bad faith — no proof at all. I forced myself to stop wrestling with it and undressed. When I crawled into bed beside Rita's warm, soft body, she put an arm over my chest and cuddled up to me. I lay there until I finally fell asleep, still unhappy with my own reasoned explanations, still on edge, still strangely afraid.
It was no better when I woke up. But there was Rita, and she proceeded to make me forget about everything for a little while as I woke to her lips, her mouth moving across my body. I felt myself stirring as the hungry eagerness of her desires made their own communication. Her lips, moving down my body, pausing to devour hungrily, were cool and hot at the same time, and it was as if she was trying to erase the troubled tenseness she knew was inside me. While it lasted, she did a helluva good job, and suddenly I found myself thrusting and tossing and forgetting all else but the wildly passionate creature making love to me.
I pulled her up and smothered my face in her breasts and she turned over to receive me at once, her legs a warm embrace. I moved inside her quickly, almost savagely, but she cried out for more and more and then still more. Finally there was that searing, hoarse scream, and then she lay exhausted beside me, but it was a sweet exhaustion, a tiredness that somehow also revived. We lay together, bodies touching, her arm across me in satisfied contentment. Then the phone rang — that special phone again.
"Chung Li has sent a cable I think will interest you, Nick." Hawk's voice came over the wire. "I'll read it. 'Am happy to cooperate further on the eve of the World Leadership Conference. Advise Agent N3 we are told Carlsbad's men are in New York. Woman named Lin Wang, at 777 Doyer Street, has seen the big man. "
Hawk paused. "I've checked the address out with the New York police," he said. "It's a brothel, a quiet, well-run one, catering mostly to the Chinese community and those with a taste for Chinese food, you might say."
"This Lin Wang must be one of the girls," I said. "Do you think she's working for Chung Li?"
"I doubt that or he wouldn't have given us her name," Hawk replied. "She probably told somebody who told somebody else who told one of their people. Frankly, Nick, I'm surprised by all this. I didn't really expect any further cooperation from Chung Li."
"I'm surprised, too," I answered. "And I'm going to follow through right away."
"One more thing," Hawk said. "I checked Dr. Hobson.-Carlsbad's pulse rate is weakening. And he's still in a coma."
"Thanks," I said grimly and put down the phone. If Chung Li had any fears about Carlsbad's talking, it seemed they were unfounded. I turned to Rita, who had put on bra and panties and who looked too delicious to leave. But I was leaving.
"I have to go to New York," I said. "Your uncle's big Japanese friend's there."
"He's in New York?" she said, incredulousness in her voice.
"Not a bad place to hide in," I commented.
"Be careful, Nick."
I kissed her again and cradled her breast in the palm of my hand. "Hurry back," she choked out. I changed and left in time to catch the hourly shuttle flight from D.C. to New York. In a little more than two hours I was threading my way through the narrowed, crowded streets of New York's Chinatown. People and old buildings jostled one another and there was a gray dinginess all the bright lights of restaurants and stores couldn't hide.
Number 777 Doyer Street was a tall old building with a gift shop occupying the ground floor. The other gifts to be purchased were upstairs. I walked up one flight and rang a doorbell. The door was opened and the thick, cloying odor of incense was so strong it was almost a physical blow. The woman standing before me was Eurasian, a little blowsy with too much makeup, lips too red and black hair too lacquered in a tall upsweep. She wore a black hostess gown embroidered with a red dragon. My eyes went past her to the two men in the hallway, neither of them Chinese, lounging against the wall in shirtsleeves. Their narrowed, shifting eyes tabbed them for what they were — "protection."