“Right,” Liz replied quietly. The alarm in her back was now a small tickle.
“In other dossiers you remark on the impact of marriages and divorces — extensively in the case of Paul Hood. But there is nothing about yourself.”
“There was nothing to say.”
“Nothing that would affect your work, the way you wrote about Paul’s divorce or Darrell’s marriage?”
“No.”
Carrie regarded her. She chewed slowly, her mouth closed, her jaw making strong, purposeful motions. It seemed connected to the general’s thought process, as if she were mulling something over.
“All right,” Carrie said. She clicked the file shut.
That’s it? Compared to the scrutiny the others had received, Liz felt she was getting off easy.
“Are you sure you’re all right with this?” Liz asked as her heart slowed.
“I wouldn’t have said so if I weren’t,” Carrie assured her. “Are you?”
“Sure,” Liz said.
“If you’re concerned, I do not think there was anything wrong with what you did. In fact, I am a bit resentful that it is in your file at all. If you had put your arm around Lowell or Matt, no one would have mentioned it.”
Liz appreciated the support, though it missed the point. She would not have put her arm around any man by accident.
It also did not change the fact that there was something about General Carrie that Liz found very appealing. The confidence was a large part of that. Monica Sheard had been an extremely insecure, anxious woman. Liz had been drawn to her talent and her sensitivity, but the artist’s low self-esteem and jealousy drove them apart. Since the breakup, Liz had not dated and, like Hood and Herbert, had spent most of her time at Op-Center. She had once remarked, not in jest, that the intelligence community would benefit if it were comprised entirely of people who had lost their significant others.
Carrie shifted the subject to the second tier of workers, men like Bugs Benet and Kevin Custer in Elec-Comm. Part of Carrie’s goal was to find individuals who could multitask in a crisis, such as the EMP bomb attack on Op-Center. Liz’s profiles of the team during that crisis were a valuable guide for Carrie. Former serviceman and MIT graduate Custer — a distant relative of General George Armstrong Custer, through the general’s brother Nevin — seemed in particular to catch and hold Carrie’s eye.
The palpitations and self-imposed pressure waned as the day grew older. Carrie and Liz hit a comfortable groove that gave her a good feeling about her future here, and also the future of the NCMC.
It also allowed Liz to focus on professional matters instead of personal issues.
For now, anyway.
FORTY-ONE
In Chou Shin’s business, two days was a long time.
The head of the Guoanbu lay on the thin cot in the situation room. He was dressed in a silk robe, a fan blowing on his desk. For the second night in a row he did not go home to his wife, their daughter and son-in-law, and their grandchild. Chou Shin missed the little one. He missed the boy’s innocent eyes and gracious smile. He even missed the sincerity of his tears.
His world had been flat and silent since the explosion at the Taipei nightclub. There had been no response to the blast from General Tam Li. The absolute silence alarmed Chou Shin even more than the odd intelligence reports he was receiving about unusual troop allocations along the eastern coast. Surely Tam Li had more than the Durban counterattack prepared. The general had allies in the military, men who would do anything for a price and do it quickly. And he was not the sort of man to back down or allow an insult to go unanswered.
Perhaps Tam Li was waiting for a shot at the enemy himself. That was why Chou Shin did not want to go home. If he were to be the next target, Chou Shin did not want his family to be hurt. He did not think Tam Li would attack his family directly. That would be dishonorable.
The intelligence officer looked at his watch. In less than twelve hours he would be in Xichang alongside General Tam Li and the prime minister. Maybe the general was waiting until after the launch. A successful mission would elevate Tam Li in the eyes of the military. Perhaps he was holding out for retaliation that was less dramatic but far more effective: a high political post.
No doubt it would be the position Chou Shin wanted for himself, the prime ministership. An effective prime minister ran the country. While the president and vice president were concerned with foreign affairs, the prime minister could make deals with ministers and representatives. He could control banking, communications, utilities, even the military. With his access to information, Chou Shin could woo or blackmail anyone he wanted — provided he had a clear path to a new job. Otherwise, he was just a wooing, blackmailing intelligence chief. That was something that would appeal to Tam Li but not to Chou Shin. The director of the Guoanbu wanted power for Communist China, not for himself.
Chou Shin was outraged that he should have to fight for that. The battle was fought decades before, and won. Tam Li was a traitor.
There were two things Chou Shin did not do well. One of them was to operate in an intelligence vacuum. Information about everyone and everything was out there. If the data were not in his possession, there was something he or his people were doing wrong. The other thing Chou Shin did not do well was wait. The two attacks he had organized were designed to spur an instant overreaction from Tam Li. He did not understand why that had not happened. For Chou Shin that was a double failure: an intelligence vacuum and having to wait.
The intelligence officer rose from the cot. He lit a cigarette and paced the bare tile floor of the basement office. An aide had once warned Chou Shin that this was a dangerous place, a room with just one way out. That was all right with the director. It also had just one way in. He had several handguns and automatic weapons in a locker at the head of the bed, along with a gas mask and rations for five days. It would be difficult for anyone to get to him through the iron door.
It was a spartan room, with bare walls painted green and just a few hanging lightbulbs. There were no electronics down here, and the furniture was sparse. It was a place where strategy and intelligence could be discussed in absolute secrecy. Hiding a bug or Web camera in here would be virtually impossible. Only Chou Shin and two trusted aides had access to the room. During the heyday of Mao Tse-tung, the basement was an interrogation room used to “reorient” dissidents. Their broken spirits gave the place a spiritual character the director could feel. Now and then Chou Shin would take a sketch pad and charcoal from the desk and draw. He sketched images in his mind, odd shapes or scratched shadows that were the outlines of shapes. Sometimes he would look at them and try to figure out what they were, as though they were windows to his subconscious. They were like inkblots to him. And it was only fitting. Others had been interrogated here. Why not himself?
Mao himself had come down here often in the early days of the regime. He did not question prisoners himself. Most of his enemies wanted to stand proud in his eyes, to show him that the opposition had heroes as well. Mao would come down, speak to one of the interrogators without looking at the prisoner, then leave. His disinterest suggested to the captive that he was not important, that his information was unnecessary. Few men were willing to die for a trivial contribution to a cause.
Chou Shin did not know if the spirit of Mao were here, but that thought always energized him. It gave him direction and purpose. And as Chou Shin paced the room he wondered if it might have given him something else.
An idea.