Douglas Preston - Gideon’s Sword

Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he stepped back and stopped a Chinese man. “Excuse me?”

The man stopped. “Yes?”

“I don’t read Chinese, and I’m trying to figure out which one of these apartments belongs to my friend.”

“What is your friend’s name?”

“Roger Marion. But he goes by the nickname Fa — you know, the mah-jongg character they call the Green Dragon?”

The man smiled, pointed to a character beside the label 4C. “That is Fa.”

“Thank you.” The man walked on and Gideon stared at the character, memorizing it. Then he pressed the button.

“Yes?” came the voice almost immediately, in unaccented English.

He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial hiss. “Roger? I’m a friend of Mark’s. Let me in right away.”

“Who? What’s your name?”

“No time to explain. I’m being followed. Let me in, please!”

The buzzer sounded and he pushed in, climbing a dingy set of stairs to the fourth floor. He knocked on the apartment door.

“Who is it?”

He could see the man’s eye in the peephole. “Like I said, I’m a friend of Mark Wu’s. The name’s Franklin Van Dorn.”

“What do you want?”

“I’ve got the numbers.”

The bolt shot open and the door opened to reveal a small, intense Caucasian man in his mid-forties: shaved head, very fit and alert, thin and whippet-muscular, wearing a tight T-shirt and baggy pajama-type pants.

Gideon ducked in. “Roger Marion?”

A sharp nod. “Mark gave you the numbers? Give them to me.”

“I can’t do that until you tell me what this is all about.”

The features immediately creased with suspicion. “You don’t need to know. If you were really a friend of Mark’s, you wouldn’t ask.”

“I must know.”

Marion looked at him intently. “Why?”

Gideon stood his ground, saying nothing. Meanwhile, he took in the small, crowded, but neat apartment. There were Chinese block prints on the walls, scrolls covered with ideograms, and a curious, colorful tapestry showing a reverse swastika surrounded by yin — yang symbols and spinning designs. There were also various placards and awards that — when he looked more closely — turned out to be for kung fu competitions.

Gideon returned his attention to Marion. The man was looking back at him as if making up his mind. He did not appear in the least bit nervous. There was something about his manner that told Gideon he was not one to push his weight around, but that — if the need arose — he could be violent.

Quite abruptly, the man spoke. “Out,” he said. “Get out now.” He moved toward Gideon menacingly.

“But I have the numbers—”

“I don’t trust you. You’re a liar. Get out now.”

Gideon placed a light hand on the man’s advancing shoulder. “How do you know—”

With frightening speed, the man grabbed the hand and twisted it sharply, spinning him around. “Shit!” Gideon cried out, pain lancing through his shoulder and down his arm.

“Out.” He ejected Gideon out the door and slammed it, the bolts shooting back.

Standing in the hall, Gideon rubbed his hurt shoulder thoughtfully. He wasn’t used to being smoked out, and it was not a pleasant feeling. He’d assumed making up a story would be worse than nothing — but maybe he’d assumed incorrectly. He hoped he wasn’t losing his touch.

He found Orchid in the tea shop, chowing down a plate heaped with pressed duck and white rice. “They didn’t have dim sum but this is pretty good,” she said, grease dripping down her chin.

“We’ve got to go.”

Overriding her protests, he hustled her out and they walked over to Grand, where they grabbed a cab.

“Mount Sinai Hospital,” he told the driver.

“To see your friend?” Orchid asked.

Gideon nodded.

“Is he sick?”

“Very.”

“I’m sorry. What happened?”

“Car accident.”

At the reception desk, Gideon gave his real name, making sure nobody but the duty nurse heard him speak. Even though he looked very different from the Gideon Crew who had come in after the accident, he was confident he wouldn’t run into anyone who had seen him before in the huge city hospital. When he’d called earlier in the day, he’d also learned Wu had been transferred from the ER to the intensive care unit. Even better, he’d been told Wu was coming out of the coma. He wasn’t yet lucid, but they felt he might be soon.

Soon would be now.

Gideon had come prepared with a beautifully wrought plan of social engineering. He’d talk to Wu, posing as Roger Marion, and get everything out of the scientist — the location of the plans, the meaning of the numbers, everything. He had gone over his plan in detail and felt at least ninety percent certain it would work. He very much doubted Wu had ever met or seen “Roger,” only talked to him on the phone, and Gideon, after his visit, at least had an idea of how the man talked and sounded. Wu would be disoriented, off his guard. The man would have been too devastated at the accident scene to have taken note of his features. He could pull this off. Despite being shot at, despite his dunking in the river, it would be by far the easiest hundred thousand he’d ever earned.

The busy duty nurse didn’t even bother to check his ID against his face, just directed them both to a large and comfortable waiting area. Gideon glanced around but saw no one he recognized. Yet he was certain the one who had chased him would not be far behind.

“The doctor will be down to see you in a moment,” the nurse told him.

“We can’t just go visit Mark?”

“No.”

“But they said he was much better.”

“You’ll have to wait for the doctor,” said the nurse firmly.

The doctor arrived a few minutes later, a portly man with woolly white hair and a sad, friendly look on his face. “Mr. Crew?”

Gideon leapt up. “Yes, Doctor, that’s me. How is he?”

“And the lady is—?”

“A friend. She’s here to support me.”

“Very well,” he said. “Please come with me.”

They followed the doctor into another, smaller waiting room, more like an office, empty of people. The doctor closed the door behind them.

“Mr. Crew, I’m very, very sorry to tell you that Mr. Wu passed away about half an hour ago.”

Gideon stood thunderstruck.

“I’m very, very sorry.”

“You didn’t call me — to be there at the end.”

“We tried to reach you at the number you gave us.”

Damn, thought Gideon; his cell phone had not survived the swim.

“Mr. Wu gave signs of stabilizing, and we had hopes for a while. But he was severely injured, and sepsis set in. This is not uncommon with severe injuries. We took every possible measure and did the best we could, but it wasn’t nearly enough.”

Gideon swallowed. He felt Orchid’s comforting hand on his shoulder.

“I have here some paperwork, unfortunately necessary, which you as next of kin will need to fill out regarding the disposition of the remains and some other details.” He proffered a manila packet to Gideon. “You don’t need to do this right away, but we would like to know as soon as possible. In three days, Mr. Wu’s remains will be moved to the city morgue to await your instructions. Would you like me to arrange for you to see the body?”

“Um, no, no, that won’t be necessary.” Gideon took the folder. “Thank you, Doctor. Thank you for all your help.”

The doctor nodded.

“By any chance…did Mark say anything before he passed? When I talked to the nurse this morning, she said she thought he was becoming lucid. If he said anything, anything at all, even if it seemed nonsensical, I’d like to know.”