Steve Martini - The Enemy Inside

It took him three more minutes to run it down. “Aeries” was one of two spellings for the same object in the English language. The other more preferred spelling was “Eyries.” But of course the Bermuda corporation couldn’t use that because there already existed another company using the name, Eyries International. The answer was found in the meaning of the word. An aerie is an eagle’s nest.

Cheng leaned back in his chair and thought about it. He couldn’t help but smile. Even though the man with the eagle-headed cane had crossed him, he had to admire his audacity. It was, in fact, brilliant. He might have lasted much longer had he stayed away from the feathered themes.

Ying was using the politicians he bought as well as some of their spouses to front for him on investments. He didn’t have to trust them because he owned them. They did his bidding because they had no choice. Cheng wondered how much of the wealth that showed up on these people’s financial statements was actually owned by Ying. Golden opportunities for special investments no doubt came his way, because of who they were. He probably had secret agreements signed by them tucked away in a safe somewhere, not that he would ever need them.

Ying, a.k.a the Eagle, clearly possessed elements of genius, but like anyone else wielding such power he also had his share of enemies. There was, in fact, one at the moment who was quite active. In anticipation of this possibility Cheng already had his agents with their ears to the ground. He made a note to pass the word.

Cheng’s intelligence bureau had worked for years using cutouts, front corporations and sham companies in a program designed to compromise members of the US Congress. You would run out of digits trying to compute the amounts of money they had spent. The approach was always the same. Shower the politicians with cash, campaign contributions if you had to, outright bribes if you could convince them to take it. The goal was to compromise them so that the Bureau might extort official acts and secret information-to own them.

The Chinese thought their program was unique. In fact rogues from the US intelligence community, people who had left the government in some cases decades earlier and who went private setting up their own companies, were doing the same thing. Only they were doing it on a much larger scale and with much greater success.

In the last eight years, China had managed to net three members of Congress, people who were fully hooked. Two of them lost their next elections and the third died in office. Cheng and the bureau spent vast sums pursuing many more, mostly in the form of campaign contributions. All of this disappeared down a rat hole. When his agents, all hired occidental cutouts, went calling to ask for favors, they were told in effect to get lost. It was what the American lobbyists called “being paid for, but not staying bought.”

By contrast, Ying, the Eagle, had compromised and as a consequence owned nearly a third of the key positions in the House and almost as many in the Senate. Cheng knew the approximate numbers, but he had lost years of sleep trying to figure out who they were. In the end it became easier and cheaper to deal through Ying, though the Bureau couldn’t always get what it wanted, either in terms of information or the performance of official acts.

Cheng concluded that there must have been some vital element of the American political process that no matter how hard they tried, the Chinese simply could not comprehend. Perhaps it was cultural. One thing was certain: at least in the battle to seduce and corrupt their own leaders, Americans had clearly trumped their foreign adversaries.

By the time Harry and I get home I find a message left on my phone at the house from Herman down in Mexico. Something has happened. He doesn’t say what. He tells me they’re both fine. Then something about a charter flight and Tampico. Says he’ll call back from there.

I listen to it again, this time taking notes, but before I can finish, the phone rings.

It’s Harry. “I got a message from Herman.”

“So did I.”

“What do you make of it?”

“Well, they’re alive. At least they were when he called. Did you get a time and date?”

“Sorry,” he says. “I never set the feature on my phone.”

“Same here.” The fact is my telephone system at the house is so old it probably wasn’t available on the handset when I bought it. It’s a relic I brought with me from Capitol City on the move when I came south almost twenty years ago.

“They must have found them.” Harry means the people chasing Alex.

“Sounds like it.”

“Did you catch the part about the courier?”

“I was about to when you called.”

“Says it’s compromised. No more messages.”

Harry is thinking the same thing I am, but he doesn’t want to say it over the phone. This is probably how they found them.

“The place they went,” he says. “Do you know it?”

Harry means Tampico. “No. Never been near the town. I don’t have a clue as to where they might go. Herman has contacts in Mexico but I don’t have any names, numbers, nothing. They’re off the edge of the earth for all I know.” If anyone is listening I want to get this part crystal clear.

“The phones are back up and working at the office,” he says. “I just called. Told them we’re back in town. Why don’t we meet up there, say in an hour?”

I look at my watch. It’s ten thirty in the morning. We flew standby, a red-eye out of Amsterdam, chasing the sun across the Atlantic. It lapped us and won. “What day is it?”

“Friday,” says Harry. “Least that’s what the calendar in front of me says.”

Even with some pretty good winks on the plane, I’m dead. “Let me take a shower, get some coffee,” I tell him. “Gimme an hour and a half.”

When I get to the office Harry is already there. There’re a handful of messages waiting for me in the little carousel on the reception counter. There would have been more, I’m sure, except the phones were down.

Sally, the receptionist, hands me another one. “This guy’s called three times in the last two days. Says it’s important.”

I take the slip and look at it. “Clete Proffit.” The pillar of the bar who had me followed to Graves’s office in D.C. He wants me to call him back. I’m wondering what he wants.

I check the other messages. Nothing from Herman.

Sally is back talking on the headset, taking a call. I whisper over the counter, “Did Mr. Diggs call by any chance?”

She shakes her head.

“If he does, put him through immediately. Even if I’m on the phone.”

She nods. Gives me the big OK circle, finger to thumb.

I head to my office. When I pass Harry’s open door I see him sitting behind his desk swung around in his chair with his back to me. At first I think he’s laughing. Then I realize Harry is crying. Sobbing like a baby.

“What’s wrong?”

He turns and looks at me, his face all red. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s nothing.” He grabs some Kleenex from a box on the credenza behind his desk.

I close the door so that no one else can see. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head, wipes his eyes, puts his hand out, like maybe I should go away. “It’s nothing,” he says.

“It must be something,” I tell him. I’ve never seen Harry cry before. This is a first.

“I guess. . I don’t know. I guess it’s just everything,” he says. “All of a sudden it’s just catching up with me. The other night. The old man.”

He’s talking about Korff. His body by the bridge. Harry is suffering a delayed reaction. Post trauma. “Listen, why don’t you go home and get some sleep? We’re both tired. That’s where I’m going in just a few minutes. As soon as I check my desk and take care of a few messages.”