Читать книгу: «Liar's Market»
Praise for the novels of TAYLOR SMITH
“A former international diplomat and intelligence analyst, Smith uses her experience to good effect in her latest thriller.”
—Library Journal on Deadly Grace
“…a rare thriller that keeps its secrets until the end…while combining suspense and style.”
—Orlando Sentinel on Deadly Grace
“Fifteen rounds of sturdy international espionage-cum-detection…”
—Kirkus Reviews on The Innocents Club
“Smith’s gloriously intricate plot is top-notch, and her writing…is that of a gifted storyteller.” —Publishers Weekly on The Innocents Club “Taylor Smith…John Grisham. It’s a perfectly plausible comparison—though Smith’s a better prose stylist.”
—Publishers Weekly on Random Acts
“The mix of suspense, forensic science, romance and mystery makes this a real page-turner.”
—Orange Coast on Random Acts
“Sharp characterization and a tightly focused time frame…give this intrigue a spellbinding tone of immediacy.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Best of Enemies
“The pace is swift and the action is concentrated…making it a perfect summer read.”
—Orange Coast on The Best of Enemies
Also by TAYLOR SMITH
DEADLY GRACE
THE INNOCENTS CLUB
RANDOM ACTS
THE BEST OF ENEMIES
COMMON PASSIONS
GUILT BY SILENCE
Liar’s Market
Taylor Smith
www.mirabooks.co.uk
Three may keep a secret—if two of them be dead.
—Benjamin Franklin
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deep thanks for assistance and ongoing support to Lieutenant Brian Bray and Officer Harry M. Saval (Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police), Nick Banks, Lee Roberts, D. P. Lyle, the Fictionaires, Philip Spitzer and last but never least, Amy Moore-Benson.
And as always, Richard, Kate and Anna:
I couldn’t do it without you.
This book is dedicated to the memory of Robert Kost (1936–2003) artist, musician and son of the prairie.
This is a work of fiction. Although certain events mentioned in this novel are actual historical events, the characters I placed there are entirely figments of my imagination, as are their personal experiences. Any resemblance to real individuals is strictly coincidental.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
PROLOGUE
Hong Kong
August 27, 2001
Hong Kong radiated heat, sex and treachery in equal measures. Adding money and politics to that flammable mix guaranteed an explosion of murder.
From her twenty-eighth-floor penthouse terrace near the top of Victoria Park Alexandra Kim Lee gazed down on a city skyline that sparkled like diamonds strewn across a blue-black cape of velvet. Dazzling skyscrapers and light-strung yachts and fishing junks in the harbor made a festive display, specially contrived, it seemed, to mark her birthday. Her latest lover was expected any minute, and the plan was to celebrate at Fantin-Latour, Hong Kong’s newest, most exclusive nightclub.
She’d been born in the harbor below exactly thirty-five years ago that night on board a junk that smelled of fish guts, rotting wood and wet rope. It had been the Year of the Dragon, the luckiest and most powerful of signs. And like the mighty dragon, which begins life in the narrow confines of the soupy egg, Alex had emerged from damp, humble beginnings to conquer her world.
Now, she had luxury homes in London, New York and Eleuthera, as well as this sprawling penthouse in the coveted residential sector high above Hong Kong. It wasn’t so long ago that Chinese hadn’t been permitted to live on the Peak, but the timing of Alex’s life was as lucky as her sign. Schooling for young Chinese girls had become mandatory when she was a child, and she’d gone on to win scholarships at the London School of Economics. Afterward, she’d worked as an assistant to one of the leading British bankers in Hong Kong. When rule of the colony had reverted to China, she’d been in a prime position to strike out on her own, acting as go-between for western businesses looking for profit in the emerging modern China with its billion eager consumers.
Alex’s ancestors had been fishermen and noodle makers, but she was on a first-name basis with British lords, American senators and international businessmen, with whom she was often photographed in the U.S. and European press. Her helpful introductions to leaders in the People’s Republic led to lucrative commercial contracts for these influential Westerners. In return, she used her charm, as well as other incentives, to convince them to support trade accords and political treaties to Beijing’s advantage. If those incentives sometimes included a financial donation or the passing of a secret gleaned in pillow talk with an influential friend…well, that was part of the business, too. In return for her efforts, Alexandra Kim Lee received the grateful largesse of Beijing and foreign businessmen alike—very grateful. Bank presidents from Zurich to the Cayman Islands were on her speed dial, and they took her calls personally.
Turning away from the railing and the stunning view of the city below, Alex reached up and lifted her silken black hair off pale, bare shoulders. The sun had set nearly an hour ago, but the air was still muggy and very warm. She lit a few sticks of fragrant sandalwood incense and set them in sand-filled brass dishes around the terrace to discourage those few hardy mosquitoes who might venture up to this altitude. Down in the harbor on a hot summer evening like this, fishermen would be shirtless, skin glistening with sweat as they prepared their nets for the night run. But up here among the Peak’s green spaces, soft breezes carried delicate scents of jasmine, honeysuckle and orange blossom from well-tended terrace gardens.
The air stirred now, cooling Alex’s body, naked under a lucky red silk Versace gown. The gossamer thin dress dipped low in front and back, held at her shoulders by the sheerest of filaments that looked as if they might give way at any second. Like Alex herself, their apparent fragility was deceptive.
If she looked closely enough in the mirror, she could see the beginnings of a few lines around her eyes and mouth, yet it was a common occurrence still to hear the squeal of rubber heels behind her as men stopped dead in their tracks to stare when she passed by. More important than beauty, though, she had brains, and what little was lost in looks was more than gained back in experience, connections and poise. She was probably at the peak of her operational effectiveness right now. She estimated that she had five, maybe eight good years left before the advantages afforded by her appearance began to dim. It was unfair that a woman’s career should be shortened like that. Still, by the time her run was done, Alexandra calculated, she would have earned an extremely comfortable retirement.
Tonight, though, was an occasion to forget about business. Tonight belonged to her.
She peered once more over the filigreed-iron railing. City traffic sounded distant, muted in the steamy night air, but far below in the circular drive, a white limousine was gliding up to the building’s front entrance. The blue-uniformed doorman rushed out to open the limo’s back door, and as the passenger emerged, a hint of a smile touched the edges of Alex’s crimson-painted lips.
When the door chime sounded a few minutes later, her maid emerged from the kitchen to answer it. Alex turned away from the city lights, leaning against the terrace’s wrought-iron railing to face the richly furnished living room. The back of her silk dress draped to the cleft of her buttocks, and when the metal railing touched her bare skin, a shiver ran up her spine as if a shadow had passed over her grave. But then the maid opened the heavy, carved mahogany front door, and in spite of Alex’s momentary chill of apprehension, a musical laugh escaped her lips. He was such a poseur, this one.
Dressed in an impeccable black tuxedo, he stood in the doorway, one elbow propped up against the door-frame, ankles crossed casually, doing his best Cary Grant, sophisticate-about-town imitation. In one arm, he clutched a sterling silver ice bucket with carved jade handles. Two champagne flutes dangled precariously, upside down, their flimsy stems threaded between the fingers of his other hand.
He glanced around in confusion for a second, seeking her out on the deep, tufted sofas and then over by the marble fireplace mantle. Every highly polished surface in the room held dense arrangements of birthday roses and lilies sent by less favored admirers, many of whose invitations she’d turned down in order to spend her special night with him.
When he finally caught sight of her out on the terrace, he grinned and strode across gleaming cherry wood floors. It was Dom Perignon in the silver bucket, she noted, tiny beads of condensation on the black bottle sparkling under the soft overhead lights. The exquisite flutes dangling between his fingers looked like Baccarat crystal.
Behind him, the maid remained at the entrance, staring, her mouth as open as the still yawning door. She was new, not yet accustomed to the kind of men Alexandra entertained. Still, you’d think the fool had never seen a man in a tuxedo before.
“Shut the door,” Alex snapped in Cantonese. “Then go back to the kitchen.”
“Oh, yes, madam! So sorry.” The maid closed the door with a soft click of the latch, then shuffled away on slippered feet.
Alex turned her attention back where it belonged, on this silly, adorable, handsome man, as he leaned down to give her a kiss.
“Happy birthday, darling,” he said.
He was almost a foot taller than she, and trimly built. Still, her small body and his large one fit together very nicely, she thought. He was quite a decent dancer, too. They would make a striking couple out on the floor at Fantin-Latour.
“You look good enough to eat,” he added.
“Yes, please,” she said demurely.
His grin widened. “Bad girl. Later. First, champagne, then dinner. After that, we’ll see what else we can do for you.”
He set the flutes on one of the low, glass patio tables. When he uncorked the bottle and poured the bubbles into the thin crystal, Alex pretended not to see the blue Tiffany box peeking out of his tuxedo jacket pocket. It didn’t do to show too much excitement over such things or men might think you could be bought like some thoroughbred race horse—or worse, Kowloon whore. And Alexandra Kim Lee was certainly not that. She was a businesswoman, first, foremost and always.
He handed her one of the glasses, and the flutes chimed softly as the rims touched. “Many happy returns of the day, Alexandra.”
“Thank you.” She took a sip, savoring the perfect bubbles. Then she glanced over the rail once more. “Your car didn’t wait?”
“I told the driver to park off to the side. Our reservation is for nine o’clock. I hope you don’t mind not rushing right out.”
She leaned back and studied him over the rim of her glass, smiling. “Not at all. The champagne is perfectly chilled, and I was just thinking what a lovely evening it was for enjoying the view.”
“Gorgeous,” he said, but he wasn’t looking at the city or the harbor lights. “It’s so quiet up here. And it’s good to have you all to myself for a bit before we head back down into the heat and madness. It’s an exciting city, Hong Kong, but it can be a little exhausting with all that frenetic bustle down there.”
“Well, then, you should think of this as your refuge. Just you and me, all alone, floating on a cloud.”
“And the maid.”
She waved a delicate, dismissive hand, and her fine, woven gold bracelets sparkled.
He reached for the bottle and topped up their glasses. “Cheers, then. Here’s to refuge in the clouds.”
“Chin-chin,” she said.
He moved beside her and they stood quietly, gazing down on the glistening city. A swath of swirling blue draped the star-dappled sky, a reflection of lights on the warm haze. Alex felt his hand come to rest briefly on her shoulder, then move slowly, sensuously down her back, raising a pleasant thrum on her skin.
“There’s another reason I wanted a little time alone with you,” he said quietly.
“Really?”
“Yes. I wanted to ask you something. Maybe now’s as good a time as any.”
“What did you want to ask me?”
“Well,” he said, withdrawing his hand and looking down at his glass, suddenly boyish and coy. “I’ll tell you in a minute. But before I do, I have a little surprise.”
Aha, she thought, the Tiffany box. “Would it be a birthday surprise by any chance?”
“I think you could call it that.” He took her glass from her hand and set both flutes aside on the low table. Then he lifted her fingers to his lips. “You’re so very lovely, you know that?”
“Thank you. You’re sweet.”
He studied her face for a long moment and then, to her astonishment, he dropped to one knee. Alex’s smile remained fixed, but inside, she felt a frisson of panic. The little blue Tiffany box in his pocket—it was probably the right size to hold a ring case.
Oh, please, don’t tell me he’s going to propose.
They hadn’t even known each other all that long—not that longevity meant anything in cases like this. Last year, Hans Dietermann, chairman of the board of München Deutsche Bank, had proposed to her during their first dinner together, only a few hours after they’d met. Then, as now, it was out of the question.
She touched his shoulders, a queen signaling her knight to rise. “Darling,” she protested gently.
“Shhh, don’t speak. Let me. What I wanted to say…”
She sighed and leaned back against the railing. What a way to ruin a perfectly good birthday.
His fingers slid lightly down the sides of her dress, as if he could find the words he needed written there in silk-stranded Braille. He leaned his head toward her knees, meekly, almost penitently, hands resting on her calves.
“What I wanted to say, my love, is this…”
He paused and exhaled heavily—working up his courage, she thought. Really, it was too tiresome. She wondered if it was too late to accept one of those other birthday dinner invitations. Finally, he found his voice again and looked up at her, a mischievous expression rising on his handsome face—handsome but not irresistible.
“You’ve been talking to people you shouldn’t,” he said, “telling tales out of school, bad girl. It’s made your masters very angry.”
This was not what she’d expected, but she had no more than a split second to even begin to comprehend his meaning before his grip tightened on her legs. He stood abruptly, and in one smooth movement, flipped her backward over the railing.
Shocked breathless, she made not a sound falling the two hundred and eighty-three feet to the pavement below.
He heard a faint thud as she landed, but didn’t bother to look over the railing. What would be the point?
Instead, he dusted off the knees of his tuxedo pants, then picked up his champagne flute and downed the last dregs, slipping the drained glass into his jacket pocket next to the empty blue Tiffany box. He’d seen how her pupils had expanded when she’d spotted that stupid prop. He knew it would distract her.
Withdrawing a handkerchief, he wiped down the stem of her glass, the only part of it he’d touched, as well as the ice bucket and the bottle. Perhaps the initial thought would be that she’d been drinking alone, depressed on her birthday. The notion wouldn’t stand up to five minutes of careful scrutiny, of course, but he didn’t care. He’d be long gone, from the Peak, from Hong Kong, before the police ever got around to putting together a credible theory of what had happened here tonight—if they ever did.
Back inside, he crossed the living room quickly and silently. The place smelled like a bloody funeral parlor, he thought, with all those ostentatious floral arrangements. Appropriate, though, under the circumstances.
He withdrew a Sig-Sauer automatic from the holster at the small of his back, under his tuxedo jacket. The suppressor was in his other pocket, the one not holding the blue box. He screwed it onto the end of the barrel as he backed quietly along the wall, through the formal dining room and toward the kitchen.
He was at the swinging door when he heard the first faint yell of alarm rising from the front drive, twenty-eight floors below. A male voice. It wouldn’t be the doorman, though. His driver would have long since taken him out, dumping the body in the trunk of the limo before leaving to dispose of it. It could be days before it floated to the surface of the harbor.
He gave the silencer one last, tightening twist. The motorcycle on which he himself would make his getaway had been pre-positioned near the servants’ entrance at the back of the building. He calculated that he had as little as four minutes to get to it before the first police cars came up the Peak Road. In the meantime, the civilians on the scene would be preoccupied with that silk-clad mess on the front drive.
Poor thing. She probably wasn’t so gorgeous now.
When he burst through the kitchen door, the maid was sitting on a stool at the center island, a gossip magazine spread out in front of her, a bowl at her chin. Her chopsticks froze in mid-air and her mouth dropped open, grains of rice tumbling from her lips.
He put a single bullet in her forehead. The rice bowl sailed in one direction, the chopsticks in another, as the stool tipped backward. She slumped to the floor, her head wedged between the gleaming stainless steel stove and a maple cabinet.
Taking care to leave no prints, he left quietly through the rear kitchen door. The maid stared blindly after him, her black eyes milking over.
CHAPTER ONE
TOP SECRET
CODE WORD ACCESS ONLY
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION
CASE NO. 1786521-02
CODE NAME: ACHILLES
DATE OF INTERVIEW: August 14, 2002
LEAD INTERROGATOR: FBI Special Agent S. V. Andrews
(Special Agent Andrews) Okay, let’s get started. Today is Wednesday, August 14, 2002, and this is interview number two with Mrs. Drummond MacNeil, also known as Carrie MacNeil.
I should note for the record that two witnesses are present: Mr. Frank Tucker, representing the office of the Director of Central Intelligence, and Mr. Mark Huxley, from MI-6, the British foreign intelligence service. They’re being allowed to observe this interview as part of their damage assessment on joint-intelligence operations resulting from the alleged activities of Mrs. MacNeil’s husband. As of right now, Drummond MacNeil, CIA Deputy Director for Operations, is still at large, whereabouts unknown.
Okay, I think we’re ready to begin now. So, for the record, please, state your full name and date of birth.
(Mrs. MacNeil) Didn’t we establish that in the first interview?
We do it every time to keep the tapes properly identified for the transcribers.
Oh. That makes sense, I guess. So, once again then, it’s Carrie Jane MacNeil. Originally Carolyn, but I’ve always been called Carrie. My maiden name was Morgan.
And your date of birth?
May 16, 1973.
So you’re…um…twenty-nine years old, is that right?
Yes. I’ll be thirty on my next birthday. The big three-oh. And don’t I have a lot to be proud of approaching that landmark.
Such as?
I was being sarcastic, Agent Andrews. Obviously, my accomplishments are pretty limited. In fact, all things considered, I’d say I’ve made a real mess of things, wouldn’t you?
In what way?
Take your pick. I’ve pretty much blown everything over the last decade—education, marriage, credibility. Abandoned my personal goals, so no career to speak of. And now, here I am, suspected of treason—and murder, too, if I understand correctly where you were heading when we talked yesterday. Good job, Carrie.
I told you yesterday, Mrs. MacNeil, the Bureau’s official position is that you’re assisting our investigation into your husband’s activities and subsequent disappearance. No one has said you’re a suspect.
Not yet they haven’t. You’ll be sure to tell me when I am, though, won’t you?
You’ll be the first to know. But in the meantime, I want to confirm for the record that your participation in this debriefing is entirely voluntary. Is that right?
You mean, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing?
No, I mean you’re here of your own accord and we both understand that you’re free of leave at any time.
Yes, fine, we both understand that. I can think of plenty of places I’d rather be, mind you. Having a root canal, for example.
No doubt. But getting back to the subject of your accomplishments, what about your son? You’re proud of him, aren’t you?
Oh, God, yes, I am. He’s the best part of my life. All right, fair enough. I’ve messed up the rest of it, but I wouldn’t have Jonah if it weren’t for everything else. Let’s just hope I haven’t completely ruined his life, too.
That has to be a concern, for sure. But depending on the extent of your involvement in your husband’s activities—
There was no involvement! I don’t even know for sure that he was doing anything illegal. It’s you people who keep insisting he sold state secrets and caused the deaths of I don’t know how many people. Even if that’s true, I had no idea anything was wrong until he vanished two days ago.
And you say he’s gone into hiding, but what if you’re wrong? What if he’s been kidnapped? Isn’t it possible he’s innocent? That he’s being held hostage—or worse—by terrorists? And you’re just sitting here, wasting time, asking me questions I don’t know the answers to?
We think it’s highly unlikely he’s been kidnapped, the evidence being what it is.
I’m still waiting to see all this supposed evidence.
All in good time. And if, in fact, it turns out you weren’t involved, you’ll be free to go home and raise your son and try to get past all this. But first, we have some information blanks to fill in and we think you can help.
So, let’s just get back to the task at hand, shall we? State your address and place of employment once again for the record, if you don’t mind.
What if I do?
Do what?
Mind.
Are you saying you won’t cooperate with this investigation?
I’m just—never mind. It doesn’t matter. My address—1221 Elcott Road, McLean, Virginia. At the moment, anyway.
You’re planning to move?
I’m not sure. It’s a little awkward there right now, and I’ve been offered the chance to house-sit for some family friends so…Well, I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do.
Do you own the house in McLean?
No. I think I mentioned yesterday that it belongs jointly to my husband and his mother. Actually, the house was left to Drum when his father died, but with the stipulation that my mother-in-law continue to live in it during her lifetime. Drum left her on the deed as co-owner because he was out of the country so much.
But this information you’ve already verified, I’m sure.
These are routine questions we have to ask. So, lastly, your employment.
None, at the moment. My son just turned six. With him so young and with us living abroad during my husband’s last posting, I wasn’t really able to work. I’m thinking about looking for something part-time in the fall, though, once Jonah’s settled into first grade. Or, I was going to. But now that this has happened…
Sure. Things are up in the air, I can see that. Anyway, Mrs. MacNeil, I want to go back now to a subject we touched on yesterday before we had to wrap up—the murder of Alexandra Kim Lee in Hong Kong last summer.
I told you yesterday, I never met the woman.
But you know who she is.
Anyone who reads the papers or a newsmagazine would have heard of her. Her picture showed up there often enough, even before she died. I gather she was fairly well connected. Her murder was quite a little mystery back in the dog days of last summer. I seem to recall reading articles in Time—or Newsweek. Or both, I’m not sure. Weren’t her maid and butler killed, too?
It wasn’t a butler. It was the doorman of her building. Obviously, the killer wanted to eliminate witnesses.
Right. Anyway…I’m not sure why you keep asking me about her. It’s not like I have anything original to offer.
You say most of what you know is from the papers. But not all, isn’t that right? You have heard of Ms. Lee outside the media coverage of her murder, haven’t you?
(unintelligible)
Pardon?
I said, yes, but it’s still secondhand information. Until two days ago, when all hell broke loose, I only knew of her because of those newspaper stories. How would I have known her personally? She died in Hong Kong, right? At the time, we were living in London.
She had a home in London, too. Did you know that?
Not while we were there I didn’t. I only just found that out.
At the same time you learned your husband knew her?
(unintelligible)
What was that, Mrs. MacNeil? You’ll have to speak up for the microphone.
I said, you really like to rub it in, don’t you?
What do you mean?
The fact that Drum knew this woman—in the biblical sense, I suppose is what you’re implying.
Is that true? Was he having an affair with her?
I have no idea. You’re suggesting he was, apparently, but I have no proof of it.
Do you think it’s possible?
Anything is possible. I would have had no way of knowing. You know what my husband’s position was in London. He was CIA Chief of Station there. He had contact with all kinds of people, but I wasn’t allowed to ask questions about any of it. That’s how that game works, isn’t it? Need to know—isn’t that the operational term? Does your wife need to know about this conversation we’re having right now, Agent Andrews? Are you going to go home tonight and talk it over with her? I’m guessing not. You guys and your precious little spy games and secrets. You just love them.
Mrs. MacNeil, if you and I were sleeping together, I guarantee you, my wife would know it in two minutes flat. She’d see the guilt in my face, for one thing, even before she found lipstick on my collar or whatever.
Ah, well, there’s the problem—you just put your finger on it. You, Agent Andrews, would apparently feel guilty about sleeping with another woman and your wife would pick up on that. Bravo. She’s a lucky woman. Nice to be married to a man you can count on.
Are you saying your husband was unreliable in a general sense? Or just that he didn’t love you? Mrs. MacNeil? Carrie? Would you like some water?
No, I’m fine. I just—I thought—at the time…I knew there were other women. I did. Not because Drum showed any sign of guilt, mind you. Oh, there was a little pro forma remorse, maybe, on a couple of occasions when I tried to confront him about it, but I wouldn’t call it guilt. He didn’t even try all that hard to deny it. He said it was the nature of the job, that it didn’t mean anything.
Not to him, maybe….
Look, you have to understand, Drum’s twenty years older than me. His career and his habits were firmly established long before I came along. Not that I knew that when I married him, mind you. But from the time I found out what he really did for a living, I had to accept that he would be keeping odd hours and meeting people I’d know nothing about—his intelligence contacts, agents, sources—whatever you want to call them. Women in my position—it’s mostly women, although these days, I suppose there are some husbands in the same boat, too—anyway, when you marry into this business, you soon learn not to ask questions.
And Alexandra Kim Lee?
Well, I guess it makes sense she was the kind of source Langley would want to cultivate. The papers said she was bribing western officials on behalf of Beijing.
So that’s what you think your husband was doing? Cultivating a source? Or eliminating a threat?
I told you, I’m not even certain he knew her.
And if there were proof he did?
What kind of proof?
Copies of CIA contact reports on meetings he had with her. Surveillance photographs.
You have those? Do you have them here?
I can’t show you the contact reports. Those are highly classified, obviously. But I do have these pictures I can show you—
Oh, God—then it’s true.
This last one was taken three days before she was murdered…. Carrie? What is it?
The park they’re in here? I recognize it. That statue of the soldier on the horse? Jonah, my son, used to call it the dancing horse statue. It’s across the street from the American International School in London—Bloody hell! Drum took that woman to our son’s school?
According to the surveillance report, they had been at her place in Mayfair that afternoon until your husband had to leave to pick up your son. The Brits had her apartment bugged. Apparently he told her you were at the British Museum—something about a seminar on African sculpture?
It was that day? I remember. I’d been updating the research on my master’s thesis, trying to finish it. The British Museum was having a lecture series on African art that was right up my alley, so Drum agreed I should attend. Our housekeeper was off sick, so he said he’d take care of Jonah after kindergarten. Damn him! Then he goes and takes one of his bimbos to our son’s school? What a bastard! Did he—
What? Introduce her to your son? No. Apparently she left when the school bell rang. Honestly, Carrie? I doubt this woman had much interest in playing stepmom to anyone.
Still—
Anyway, she flew back to Hong Kong the next day and two days after that, she was thrown off a twenty-eighth floor balcony.
And you think Drum had something to do with her murder?
What do you think?
I have no idea.
Do you remember where he was when it happened? Three days after you attended that lecture at the British Museum, it would have been.
Not the foggiest. I mean, I presume he would have been in his office at the embassy, but I can’t be certain. Who can remember every little detail of a week that happened over a year ago?
Well, let me remind you then. His calendar for that week says he left London two days after this to attend a CIA regional meeting in Delhi.
Okay, I remember that, now that you mention it. He did go to India for a few days last summer. There you go, then. That’s where he was.
Except he showed up late to the Delhi meeting. Arrived the day after Alexandra Kim Lee was murdered in Hong Kong. He said one of his connecting flights had been cancelled, but when we retrace his steps, there are thirty-eight hours unaccounted for. We have no idea where he was. He had no shortage of CIA aliases he could have been traveling under, but in checking flight manifests, we can’t find any record of IDs sanctioned by the Agency. Thirty-eight hours, though, would have given him enough time to get from London to Hong Kong, murder Miss Lee, as well as the maid and doorman, then hightail it back to the Delhi meeting.
Sounds like a stretch to me. But even supposing you’re right about all that, are you really surprised? She was bribing western officials, right? That’s what the papers said, anyway. I know the CIA’s not supposed to be assassinating people, but I gather there are exceptions to the rule. Langley could have ordered him to do it.
Oh, he was ordered to do it, all right, but not by the CIA. She was one of their own assets, you see—a double agent and a direct feed into the Chinese leadership. Whatever she did for Beijing was small potatoes compared to the influence she exerted on key Chinese officials and the gold mine of information she funneled back to Langley.
Now, we know from other sources that the Chinese found out she was playing both sides of the street, and so they ordered the hit on her. And how did they find out? Because your husband sold them the information.
You have proof of that?
Let’s just say it looks like your husband has been selling out CIA assets for some time now—and some assets our British allies were sharing with us, too, which is why Mr. Huxley here from MI-6 is being allowed to observe these debriefings. And we’re not just talking about Chinese operations, either.
It’s so hard to believe. I mean, Drum’s no angel, but I find it difficult to credit that he would commit treason, especially given his family’s history of service to the country.
All I know for sure is that I had nothing to do with it. The only thing I’ve been doing for the past few years is trying to make a stable home for my son under circumstances that haven’t always been ideal.
And yet, you do seem to be personally connected to a number of people who subsequently show up murdered.
What do you mean, a number of people? Who else? And while we’re on the subject, let’s not forget that my connection to Alexandra Kim Lee is secondhand, involuntary and after the fact. I don’t know why anyone would think I had reason to want her dead.
She was sleeping with your husband and getting too close for comfort to your child.
Okay, that’s it. I’m out of here.
You should sit down, Carrie.
No. This has gone far enough. I don’t have to listen to this. I agreed to come in and tell you what I know about my husband’s comings and goings. Now, I find myself being accused of God only knows what. You said I could leave anytime. Well, I want to leave now.
That’s not a good idea. You leave now, it looks like you’ve got something to hide.
Like, I murdered this woman in Hong Kong? Are you out of your mind?
All right, all right. Let’s forget about Alexandra Kim Lee for the moment.
Not until it’s clear that I had nothing to do with her death—or anyone else’s, for that matter.
Fine. If we leave her aside, will you sit back down?
No more stupid accusations?
Come on, Carrie, you know we have to ask you these questions if we’re ever going to get to the bottom of what happened to your husband. Let’s just do what we have to do so you can get back to your son, all right.
As long as it’s understood…
Thank you. Now, if you’d take a look at another picture. What about this young woman? Do you recognize her?
Yes.
Where do you know her from?
I didn’t say I knew her. I saw her—once, at the embassy in London. Just before it happened.
Before she was murdered, right? Her name was Karen Ann Hermann, by the way.
I know. I mean, I didn’t know her name at the time—we barely spoke—but I learned it later. She was killed outside the embassy.
This past April 2, in fact. You were there when it happened. And then, right afterward, you skipped town—you and your husband both.
We didn’t skip town! His posting in London was supposed to be up that summer, anyway. We left sooner than planned, that’s all.
How convenient for you.
You’re twisting this—
Let’s just go over that day, Carrie—the day last spring when Karen Ann Hermann, a young American student who’d never hurt anyone in her life, was gunned down in cold blood outside the U.S. Embassy.
CHAPTER TWO
London, England
Tuesday, April 2, 2002
It wasn’t meant to happen that way. No one so young or sweet or blameless should die like that, sprawled bleeding and terrified in a muddy puddle on a dark and rainy London street, far from home, surrounded by gaping strangers watching her life ebb away.
Karen Ann Hermann was only nineteen years old, a pretty young student from Maryland with a slim build, shy brown eyes, and a thick, nut brown braid that ran down her back nearly to her waist. She’d arrived in Britain only the day before, eagerly anticipating the sights—London Bridge, Buckingham Palace and all the other tourist draws ticked off in her dog-eared guidebook. An innocent abroad. She was only meant to spend ten days in England, and then go home to a long, happy, productive life.
Instead, only thirty-six hours after her plane landed at Heathrow, Karen Ann Hermann was cut down in a hail of bullets in rainy Grosvenor Square.
American Embassy, Grosvenor Square
4:15 p.m
A somber overcast sky shrouded the city. Cold dreary rain had been falling all afternoon. The roads and sidewalks were slick and treacherous. Stubby London cabs kept their headlamps lit in order to see and be seen through the dank, gray mist.
But ominous as the day was, city life trudged on and the streets were crowded with pedestrians. From the roof of the fortresslike American Embassy, surveillance cameras peered down on a steady stream of umbrellas that passed through Grosvenor Square like a river of bobbing wet multicolored mushrooms.
Gunnery Sergeant Brian Jenks of the United States Marine Corps stood watch just inside the embassy’s main front doors, stationed in a booth fronted by an inch and a half of bulletproof glass. The receptionist at the window was locally engaged, the wife of one of the junior consular officers. At the moment, she was handing out temporary passport applications to a couple of American tourists who’d been scammed by a team of wallet-lifting pickpockets in the Earl’s Court Underground station.
Sergeant Jenks, known to his men as “Gunny,” was seated just behind and off to one side of her. It was his job to manage the security watch. A bank of closed-circuit monitors before him carried the feed from a dozen or so stationary and panoramic cameras located both inside and outside the chancery. The cameras were only a small component of the hardware mounted on the embassy, a spiny porcupine of a building bristling with antennae, sensors and filters attuned to the slightest noise, vibration, chemical or biological compound that might pose a threat to the building, its occupants, or the secrets it housed. Other equipment sent out a defensive array of silent, invisible beams to foil intrusions of the electronic, acoustic, microwave or infrared variety.
But none of this fancy equipment, the Gunny figured, was worth a damn without equal measures of human vigilance, precaution-taking, and plain old common sense. Overconfidence on technology opened the door to deadly intrusions of the low-tech variety, and when that happened, it was grunts like him and his men who paid the price with their lives. That’s what had gone down in Beirut, Saudi, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and they were probably due for another nasty surprise any day now. If so, it wasn’t going to happen on his watch.
The Gunny was five feet and seven inches of rock-solid muscle. As middle age loomed, it was getting harder to maintain the integrity of that bulldozer frame, but Jenks was proud of his powerful arms and rock-solid abs. “Small but mighty,” he liked to think of himself, as he worked up a sweat every morning on the free weights and Universal set in the basement of Marine House, the nineteenth-century Victorian mansion where the embassy’s twenty-eight-man Marine detachment bunked and where the Gunny and his family occupied a top-floor apartment.
The Gunny’s head was shaved in classic Marine style, high and tight, with a circular patch of blond stubble on top waxed to ramrod attention. It made for a slightly pointed skull that seemed a little too small for his thick neck and broad shoulders, but in this, the Gunny was the perfect Jarhead, a well-oiled machine of raw strength and pure military efficiency—a role model for his men.
In the past, the Marine Guard had worn dress uniforms for embassy duty, but with the heightened security climate now, they manned their stations in battle dress, the better to intimidate. The Gunny’s mottled cammies were starched to within an inch of their lives and pressed into razor-sharp creases. His webbed belt and holster cinched tight on his narrow waist, and his pants were tucked into black combat boots that spit-polish gleamed under the recessed overhead lights. His small forehead was permanently pressed into a corrugated line of worry wrinkles as his sharp eyes scanned the bank of monitors before him.
In the marble-floored lobby on the other side of the bullet-proof glass, hundreds of embassy visitors and staff passed each day through security scanners operated by his men. At the front gates, a guard hut stood inside a zigzagged row of concrete barriers erected to thwart any determined terrorist with an explosive-laden vehicle.
The Gunny’s focus zeroed in now on the monitor display of the guard hut out front, where two young Marines were scrutinizing visitor IDs. A car bearing diplomatic plates had just pulled past the concrete barricade and approached the high, wrought-iron embassy gate.
Parking inside the embassy compound was at a premium. Only the ambassador and selected senior diplomatic staff were permitted to drive or be driven inside, along with a very few high-level visitors, such as other ambassadors and representatives from the Foreign Office. Agents from MI-5 and MI-6, the British security and intelligence agencies, had also been showing up ever more frequently in recent months to liaise with their American counterparts.
The Gunny could almost feel the cold drizzle running down his shirt collar as one of his oilskin-jacketed boys bent low, rifles at the ready, to peer into the window of the chauffeur-driven Mercedes, whose tricolor flags fluttered wetly from staffs mounted on the front fenders. This would be the French ambassador, arriving for a private meeting with the visiting delegation of U.S. senators—late, of course, the Gunny thought, snorting lightly. A reception would follow the ambassadorial meeting, and it was scheduled to kick off shortly.
Trust the goddamn Frogs. If they couldn’t even show up on time for a high level meeting, how the hell could you count on them to do their bit in the war on terrorism?
With his attention focused on the action at the front gate, the sergeant failed to hear the footsteps approaching from behind. “Hey there, Gunny. Who do we have here?”
The Marine, to his credit, didn’t flinch.
When Drummond MacNeil peered over his shoulder at the screen, the Gunny noticed a flush rising on the receptionist’s cheeks. Typical. Most of the women in the embassy seemed to hover near MacNeil at internal office get-togethers or follow him with their eyes whenever he passed in the hall. “Gorgeous,” one girl had called him. Amazing how a mysterious job, six feet of lanky slouch, and a pair of blue eyes could turn some perfectly nice girls into total bimbos.
“Looks like the French ambassador, sir,” the Gunny told him.
“Ah, oui, Monsieur Chevalier de la Haye.” MacNeil’s expression was arch, his accent fruity, but it sounded dead-on to the Gunny’s untrained ear. “Fashionably late and ready to make a dramatic entrance, as always, I see.”
“I guess.”
They watched on the monitor as the young Marine at the gate waved the car through.
“Too bad he didn’t just take a miss altogether,” MacNeil added. “I’m sure our visiting dignitaries could do without this guy and his constant whining.”
“Don’t care for our French allies, sir?”
“Avoid ’em as much as I can. My old man used to say, ‘Count on the French to hide behind your back when the shooting starts and to stick a knife in it as soon as victory’s declared.’”
The Gunny glanced up with interest. “Your father served over there during WWII?” MacNeil’s much-decorated father, General Naughton MacNeil, had been a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the early days of Vietnam, so it made sense that the old man would have seen service in the Big One.
MacNeil nodded. “He was with Patton’s Eighth Army in North Africa, then arrived in Paris in time for the liberation. Not that the French ever thanked him for it. He said they drove him nuts when it came to working together in NATO.”
MacNeil stepped back from the monitor and perched his long, lean frame on the corner of a desk near the door, his gaze shifting to the receptionist as she bent low to withdraw some paper from a bottom drawer of her desk, revealing a hint of cleavage and a lacy patch of pink bra. The girl seemed to feel his eyes on her, because she looked up and her face flushed even deeper. She turned back to the window as MacNeil gave the Gunny a sly wink. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, shoulders slouching as his hands slid into the pockets of soft gray pants that even the Gunny could tell were custom-made and must have cost a fortune.
“Your father was a great military leader, sir.”
“Well, he died with his boots on, anyway. Dropped dead of a heart attack while reviewing the troops. All Army, all the way.”
MacNeil didn’t sound too broken up about it, the Gunny thought. Bad blood between them, maybe?
The younger MacNeil was about as different from the General as it was possible to be. Drummond MacNeil was in his late forties, with a thick head of hair that was considerably longer than the Gunny thought appropriate, even for a civilian. It took constant raking to keep the silvery mop from spilling into the man’s perpetually amused eyes. MacNeil always looked like the whole world was walking around with “KICK ME” signs stuck to their backs while he was the only one in on the big yuck.
The Gunny focused on his monitors so MacNeil wouldn’t see his frown of disapproval. The General, by contrast, had been a towering mountain of a man—not a Marine, of course, but pretty damn tough just the same. Once, on a visit to the Pentagon, Jenks had seen the old man’s portrait hanging in a corridor. Built solid, buzz-cut and stern-looking, General MacNeil had radiated leadership. The Gunny would’ve followed that guy into any field of action he named, and so would just about every Marine he knew.
But the son was another kettle of fish. Had never even served in the military, which must have been a real disappointment to the old man. The Gunny had a son himself, and the kid’s first words, swear to God, were Semper Fi. (Of course, Jenks had coached the baby for months, much to his wife’s disgust, but still…) Now six, Connor practically slept in his miniature size cammies and could hardly wait to join the Corps.
MacNeil the younger hadn’t gone the military route, though. Apparently he’d washed out of West Point and avoided the service altogether after that, trading instead on his rep as a Yale man. The Gunny had heard people in a position to know say Drummond MacNeil had done more partying than studying at the Ivy League school. Only the family’s connections had swung his admission and protected a bare “C” average. After spending most of the seventies swanning around beaches, bars, and no-brainer jobs, MacNeil had apparently used those same connections to land himself a job at Langley.
Still, he must have done something right at the Agency, the Gunny conceded, since he’d ended up with this plum London job and, by all reports, was on the fast track to the top. Go figure. Her Majesty’s official diplomatic list identified MacNeil as a trade counselor, but a select few knew he was actually chief of the CIA’s London station.
“Anyway, sir, did you need anything?” Jenks asked him.
“I just stepped out of the meeting to see this guy in,” MacNeil said, nodding at the monitor as the French ambassador’s car pulled up to the double front doors. “I was also hoping to spot my wife. Has she shown up yet, do you know?”
“I haven’t seen her, sir.”
Now, that’s what wasn’t fair, the Gunny thought. The guy was married to a great girl, his second wife, by all accounts. Carrie MacNeil was young, pretty, and nice as all get-out. The MacNeils’ son, Jonah, was in Connor’s kindergarten class at the American International School, and Carrie was one of the hardest-working parent volunteers there. Their boys always ended up playing together at embassy family functions, like the Fourth of July picnic and the annual Christmas party, where by tradition the biggest Marine in the detachment dressed up as Santa and handed out presents to the diplobrats and assorted other embassy offspring. And when Carrie got herself done up to the nines for some fancy dress function, with her long, reddish hair and those shy, gray-green eyes—well, all the Gunny knew was that he’d had to warn several of his randier guys that wives of senior staff (especially the CIA head of station, for chrissakes) were strictly off-limits.
“She’s supposed to be coming in for this reception and dinner of the ambassador’s,” MacNeil was saying. “Wives were originally invited to both, but then the ambassador’s wife begged off dinner, so now the other wives are uninvited and it’s turned into a working dinner. I tried calling Carrie to let her know, but there’s no answer at the house and she doesn’t seem to have her mobile turned on. What’s the point of having a cell phone, I keep asking her, if you don’t turn it on? That’s why I got her the damn thing.” MacNeil leaned closer to the monitors to scan the surrounding streets. “Jesus! Who can spot anybody under all these umbrellas. Anyway, Gunny,” he added, straightening as the French ambassador swept into the lobby, “I’ve got to get back upstairs. Could you let her know when she comes in that dinner’s off? As long as she’s here, she might as well come up for the reception, though, meet a couple of senators.”
“I’ll pass the message on, sir.”
But the Station Chief was already out the door, embracing the Parisian envoy like a long-lost brother and leading him back into the embassy’s inner sanctum.
The Gunny sighed and turned again to his monitors, studying the feeds from the street outside, wondering which umbrella belonged to Carrie MacNeil, and how she’d feel about finding out she’d been uninvited to the ambassador’s dinner after trekking out in this dismal weather.
Gunnery Sergeant Jenks wasn’t the only one in Grosvenor Square on the lookout that afternoon.
Across from the embassy, a hard-eyed man was parked in a squat London cab with its service lights switched to the “Off Duty” position. The cab was parked out of sight next to a London branch of the Canton-Shanghai Bank. A knit black watch cap was pulled low over his forehead, completely obscuring his hairline, but the thick black stubble on his chin and his heavy moustache suggested a heritage rooted anywhere around the Mediterranean or beyond—which could mean Spain, Italy, Greece, India, or any one of half a dozen Middle Eastern countries. There were so many immigrants in London nowadays that the man’s swarthy appearance was completely unremarkable.
In fact, this man’s ancestors hailed from the Caucuses, but he himself had been born and bred in an east-end London suburb only four miles from where he now sat waiting for his target to appear out of the mist.
National Gallery, Trafalgar Square
4:28 p.m.
The clerk at the youth hostel near St. Paul’s Cathedral had told Karen Ann Hermann and her two girlfriends that morning that heavy rain was predicted to begin in the afternoon and continue for the next couple of days, so the girls had decided to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace first thing, while the weather was still on their side. From there, they’d wandered up to Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons, then ducked into the National Gallery across the road as the rain moved in.
It was late afternoon when Karen, sitting on a padded bench near the gallery’s Leonardo etchings, consulted her much-thumbed guide book, her finger tracing a map of central London.
“The American Embassy’s just a few blocks from here,” she told her friends. “I think I could run over there and be back in an hour or so.”
Kristina Finch looked doubtful. “Maybe we should go with you.” The girls had been roommates at the University of Maryland.
“Seems like a waste of time for you guys if you’re going to bother registering,” said Karen.
Caitlin Bercha, the third in the group, had lived across the hall from the other two. “You don’t really have to, you know. That’s just something you do in places where there might be a revolution or something. Not much chance of that here.”
“Yeah, plus we’re only going to be here for ten days,” Kristina added.
Karen hesitated, then exhaled wearily, the much-put-upon sigh of youth everywhere. “I know, but I promised my parents.”
“But it’s pouring out there. You’ll get soaked walking all that way.”
“Why don’t you just tell them you registered?” Kristina suggested brightly.
“Yeah! How are they ever going to know?” Caitlin asked. “Then we can see if we can get some stand-by tickets for the theater tonight. The guy at the youth hostel said they disappear fast, so we should get to the box office early.”
Karen looked from one eager face to the other, sorely tempted. But then her conscience kicked in. She was an only child and her parents worried more than most. She couldn’t lie to them.
“I can’t. I promised. Look, I’ll tell you what. How about if you guys go over and see about the tickets, and I’ll do this embassy thing, and then we’ll meet up at, umm…” Her forefinger slid across her guidebook map. “Leicester Square. That’s in the theater district.”
The two other girls exchanged glances. “I don’t know,” Caitlin said. “Maybe we’d better stick together.”
“No, really, guys, this is a good idea. You go for the tickets and I’ll do this. No point in all of us wasting what little time we have.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
Karen waved away their worries and gathered up her things. “I’ll be fine.” She shrugged into her long tan raincoat, leaving her braid inside and flipping up the collar. From her pocket she withdrew a black knit tam which she pulled onto her head. “Watch for me at Leicester Square—say around six-thirty, just to be on the safe side. I don’t want to leave you guys hanging around in the rain.”
So, the plans were made.
Karen left her friends with a smile on her face, secretly glad for a little quiet time as she stepped out onto the wide, white front steps of the National Gallery and popped open her black travel umbrella. Not that the streets around Trafalgar Square were all that quiet, what with the swish of tires on wet pavement and the roar and honking of rush hour traffic. But the average teenage girl abhors a conversational vacuum, so Karen had been inundated with high-pitched chatter almost non-stop since she and her two friends had met up at Dulles Airport three days earlier to catch their flight for London. At this point, her craving for quiet was almost physical.
Life had given Karen Ann Hermann an unusual appreciation for silence. The only child of parents who were both profoundly deaf, her early childhood had been spent in a world as still and serene as it was warm and loving. Karen had no hearing deficit of her own, but long before a preschool tutor had been brought in to help bring her speech up to par, she’d been signing fluently, and she still moved easily between the hearing and non-hearing worlds. Every summer since the age of thirteen, she’d worked at a camp for hearing-impaired youngsters, first as a volunteer, then as a paid counselor.
Karen’s parents had never been encouraged to cultivate a sense of adventure themselves, but a couple of those kids their daughter worked with, they’d been astonished to discover, had traveled around the world. They skied and scuba dived and parasailed, and got downright snippy if you suggested there was anything surprising in that. Times had definitely changed. The Hermanns had never even been on bicycles for fear they might be struck by an unheard car coming up on them from behind. And though they now ran a small but moderately successful home-based Web site management business, neither had ever traveled beyond a sixty-or-so-mile radius of Washington, D.C.
Karen was already determined to help give the next generation of hearing-impaired kids more opportunities than her parents had had. She was even considering pursuing a doctorate and then teaching at Gallaudet University, the only one in the country dedicated to the needs of deaf students. Now there, the Hermanns thought, was a hot-bed of militancy. Both were Gallaudet graduated, but would a hearing-enabled professor, even one as sign-fluent and accomplished as Karen, be welcomed there these days, when so many students insisted that hearing people couldn’t relate to the issues they faced? They didn’t want their precious daughter targeted by reverse discrimination.
It was a source of constant worry, but they comforted themselves with the realization that Karen’s final career decisions were some way off.
In the meantime, she’d gotten it into her head to do some traveling. Having passed her freshman year at the University of Maryland with flying colors and the start of her summer job still a month off, she’d been eager to join two girlfriends on a spring vacation in England. She was a good kid, an honor roll student who’d never given them a moment of worry. What’s more, she was an adult now, for all intents and purposes, and she’d saved the money for the trip herself from the part-time tutoring she’d done all year. How could her nervous parents forbid her from going, much as they wanted to?
Before they would agree, though, they’d gone onto the Internet to do their homework. The State Department Web site posted travel warnings to Americans traveling abroad, but Britain, they were relieved to see, fell into a low-risk category. Fair enough. The IRA seemed to prefer negotiation to bombs these days, and London was as security-conscious as Washington where other hot-button populations were concerned. If their daughter must go abroad, England was probably as safe a bet as anywhere.
Still, the State Department Web site did advise U.S. travelers to register with the embassy on arrival in a foreign country so that they could be notified in case of emergency. If the advice was rarely heeded in the more popular tourist destinations, the Hermanns didn’t know that.
Afterward, they would bitterly regret extracting the promise that took Karen to the embassy that day. Had they been a little more worldly, they might not have, but Mr. and Mrs. Hermann had never been out of the country themselves.
Thus it was that Karen Ann Hermann came to be outside the American Embassy that dark and rainy London afternoon when all hell broke loose.
Бесплатный фрагмент закончился.
