"I've been ordered to be your liaison," the man said, placing the cigarette in his mouth. Squinting from the smoke, he extended his hand. "Del Wyme."
"I'm John Taft," said Taft, shaking Wyme's hand.
"Larry Martinez," his partner noted, and he also shook with Wyme. Wyme led the pair through a back door into the police station. Skirting the main reception area, which was already filled with people awaiting the morning release of prisoners from the jail, he paused at a side door and slid a plastic card through a reader. When the door buzzed, Wyme opened it and led Taft and Martinez inside. Walking through the halls crowded with police and civilian technicians, he kept up a nonstop discourse. "We found him floating in the bay," Wyme said as he rounded the corner.
"Hey, Jerry," he said to a passing detective. "Anyway, after we lifted him from the water we found his passport stuck in his shoe," Wyme said, slowing down. "This is my office," he said, pointing to a small office with a glass front. "The coffee is next door in the break room. Go ahead and make any phone calls you need to, have a cup of Joe. Whatever. I'm going to be in the bathroom a few minutes — my stomachs been killing me," Wyme said as he walked off.
"Coffee?" Martinez asked.
"Okay. You fetch the coffee. I'll call the office." Taft walked into Wynne's office and opened his briefcase. When the secure phone had locked on to a satellite and the green light came on, Taft dialed Benson's office.
"This is Agent Taft."
"Hold, please."
Taft waited for a few seconds.
"This is General Benson."
"Martinez and I are now at the Newark Police Department."
"I've received a description and picture of Jimn from the Central Intelligence Agency. Stand by and I'll fax it to you," Benson said.
Taft waited as the picture hurtled through the air down to the briefcase. Martinez walked into the office and handed Taft a Styrofoam cup of black coffee as the page began to print. Taft smiled at his partner and nodded. Tearing off the page, Taft glanced at it, then handed it to Martinez to read.
"It's a clear copy, sir," Taft said.
"Good. What I want you to do first is ascertain that the person in custody is Hu Jimn."
"We'll do the identification, sir," Taft said easily. "What then?"
"Then question him and find out what the hell he was doing in our country," Benson said.
"You mean he's not dead?" Taft asked incredulously.
"No, just wounded. Detective Wyme will take you to the hospital."
"We'll call you back when we know something," Taft said.
"Very good," Benson said as the phone went dead.
Taft replaced the phone and closed the briefcase. Sipping the burning-hot coffee, he stared at Martinez. "For some reason I assumed Jimn was dead."
"Me, too," Martinez said as he sipped his coffee.
"Just our luck," Taft said. "He's at the hospital, merely wounded." Taft looked up through the glass wall as Del Wyme approached. He was carrying a folded-up newspaper and wearing a smile. "Much better. Let me just get another cup of coffee and I'll take you to Jimn," Wyme said as he picked up a coffee-stained twentyounce mug from his desk, walked into the break room, and filled the cup. Taft and Martinez stood next to the door to Wynne's office. He returned from the break room, set the cup down on his desk, then removed a light jacket from the hook on the back of his door and put it on. Clutching the cup once again, he led them down the corridor to the parking lot. At the front door, he signed the log, then motioned with his head for the pair to follow. Wyme led them to an unmarked Ford sedan that was instantly recognizable as a detective's car.
Taft sat up front with Wyme, Martinez in the back. Driving from the parking lot, the Newark detective made an obscene gesture at the No Smoking sign on the car's dash as he lit a Winston and inhaled deeply. "George Washington grew tobacco," he noted laconically. "This antismoking shit is getting out of hand. Now can you tell me why you feds are interested in Jimn?" he asked.
"Guess what I'm going to tell you," Taft said.
"It's classified," Wyme said, speaking like the cartoon character Deputy Dog.
"Bingo," Martinez said from the rear.
"I can accept that. But just so you know, if this goes past five o'clock, the feds are buying me dinner," Wyme said.
Ten minutes later Wyme pulled into the emergency room driveway and parked at the far end. Flashing his badge at the only person nearby, a laundry attendant who had immigrated from El Salvador, he led the trio inside. Once in the lobby, Wyme motioned with his head toward the elevator and, after a short wait, the men rode up to the fifth floor in silence.
"This way," Wyme said as they exited the elevator.
Leading the way down the hall, Wyme stopped at the door and spoke to a police officer sitting in a chair outside. "These guys are feds. They need to question the prisoner."
The officer grunted and leaned back in his chair. Wyme opened the door and the trio walked inside. A monotonously beeping heart monitor sounded out an endless staccato. Jimn was hooked to several machines, as well as two separate intravenous bags. An oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose. His eyes fluttered as Taft approached.
"Hi," Taft said easily, "we met last week along the Kazakhstan border. I was riding a motorcycle. You were trying to kill me. Remember?"
Jimn's eyes bulged and his face turned beet red.
"I just wanted to formally welcome you to my country and ask you a few questions," Taft said slowly.
Martinez stepped closer and examined Jimn for several distinguishing scars. Finding them, he checked Jimn against the rest of the description — including a picture — that Benson had faxed them, then folded it up and put it in his jacket pocket.
"It's him," he said without hesitation.
Taft looked down at Jimn. "What are you doing in my country?"
"I'm on vacation," Jimn whispered in English.
"Gee," Taft said, "I think you're lying."
"Yeah, well, screw you," Jimn muttered quietly.
"I think you got that backwards, Jimn." Taft smiled down at Jimn, then turned to Martinez. "Larry, could you take Del for a cup of coffee? I'll be fine here alone," Taft said, turning his gaze back to Jimn.
Wyme looked confused as Martinez led him away by the arm. "Five minutes, Del, that's all," Taft said.
Taft grabbed the oxygen hose leading to the mask and kinked it in half. "Screw me, huh?"
It only took a few minutes to convince Jimn to talk.
"So you grabbed the diaries, shot the guard, faxed them to China, then delivered the originals to the Chinese Embassy in New York?" Taft said as he watched Jimn gasping to catch his breath.
"Yes," Jimn said weakly.
"Did you happen to find anything interesting in the diaries?"
"I didn't read them. I just delivered them."
"Who tried to loll you?"
"There were Chinese agents, employed by my government," Jimn said. Taft sat back and thought for a moment. "Guess what, Mr. Jimn?" he said at last.
"What?" Jimn croaked.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to die," Taft said slowly. The heart monitor began beeping loudly as Jimn passed out.
Taft walked out of the room.
"Don't let anyone but hospital staff enter this room," he said to the guard. "I'll have a couple people from my agency take over within the hour."
The policeman nodded and returned to reading a dog-eared magazine he had taken from a waiting room.
Taft located Martinez and Wyme at the end of the hall. Three minutes later they were back on the road.
The guard from Princeton is still alive," Martinez said as he replaced the phone in the hotel room they had rented near the Newark Airport two hours later.