Douglas Preston - Gideon’s Sword

Gideon didn’t answer right away. His mind started to race. He had worked up several stories, of course, several possible phony scenarios, for extracting the information from her. But sitting opposite Madame Chung like this, now, face-to-face, he realized that she was not one to be taken in. By anything. All his careful constructs, his machinations, his ploys and stratagems and cons were—​quite suddenly—​emasculated. He was strangely afraid; he didn’t know what to say. He frantically cast about for a better story, a better concatenation of lies and half-truths to tell her, realizing even as he did so that it was a hopeless effort.

“Just tell me the truth,” she said, with a smile, as if reading his mind.

“I…” He couldn’t go on. If he told her the truth, all would be lost. And now he did blush, coloring in confusion.

“Let me ask you some questions, then.”

“Yes, thank you,” he said with enormous relief.

“Your name?”

“Gideon Crew.”

“Where are you from and what do you do?”

He hesitated, again casting about for a suitable lie, but for perhaps the first time in his life he came up blank. “I live in New Mexico and work at Los Alamos National Lab.”

“Your place of birth?”

“Claremont, California.”

“And your parents?”

“Melvin and Doris Crew. Both gone.”

“And your reason for being here?”

“My son Tyler will be in Jie’s class at Throckmorton this fall—”

She folded her hands. “I’m sorry,” she gently interrupted, peering at him with her bright black eyes. “I think you’re a professional liar,” she said. “And you’ve just run out of lies. That’s what I think.”

He had no answer.

“So, as I said before, why not try the truth for a change? You might just get what you want.”

He felt like he’d been backed into a corner by this old woman. There was no way to turn, he was unable to escape. How had this happened?

She waited, hands folded, smiling.

What the hell. “I’m a…a sort of special operative,” he said.

Her carefully painted eyebrows went up.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. He could latch on to nothing save the truth, and in an odd way he felt relieved. “My assignment is to find out what Mark Wu was bringing into this country and to get it.”

“Mark Wu. Yes, that makes sense. Who do you work for?”

“I work for the United States. Indirectly.”

“And where do I fit in?” the old woman asked.

“You gave something to Mark Wu at the airport, just before he got into a car and was chased down and killed. I want to know what you gave him. Beyond that, I’d like to know if he really was carrying plans for a new weapon, what that weapon is, and where those plans are now.”

She nodded very slowly. She took a sip of tea, replaced the cup. “Are you left-handed or right-handed?”

Gideon frowned. “Left-handed.”

She nodded again, as if this explained quite a bit. “Please extend your left hand.”

After a moment, Gideon complied. The woman took it gently with her right. For a moment, Gideon was aware only of the feel of her dry, withered skin against his. Then he almost cried out in surprise and dismay. Her hand seemed to be burning his own.

He jerked in his chair, and she released her grip.

“I will try to answer all your questions,” she said, hands once again folded on her knees. “Even though you are a professional liar, that is evidently part of your job. I see — I sense —that you are at heart a good person. And I think that by helping you, we can help ourselves.”

She took another sip of tea.

“Mark Wu was a scientist working on a secret project in China. He was also a devotee of Falun Dafa.” She nodded slowly, several times, letting the silence build. “As you may or may not know, Falun Dafa has been brutally suppressed in China. For this reason, Dafa has had to go underground in China. Deep underground.”

“Why have the Chinese done this?”

“Because we pose a threat to their monopoly on power. China has a long history of empires being brought down by charismatic spiritual movements. They are right to be afraid. Because Dafa not only challenges their assumptions about communism and totalitarian rule — but also challenges their new notions about the value of materialism and unbridled capitalism.”

“I see.” And Gideon did in fact see: here would be a prime motive for Wu’s defection. But then, what of the CIA honey trap?

“Because of the persecution, Dafa adherents in China must practice underground, in secret. But we remain linked with our Chinese brethren. We are all in touch with one another. Dafa requires a communal spirit. The government tried to block our websites and silence us — but they failed.”

“Is this why you said you’re in danger?”

“It is part of the reason.” She smiled. “You’re not drinking your tea.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Gideon raised the cup, took a gulp.

“Many Dafa adherents are scientists and computer engineers. We developed a powerful software program called Freegate. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.”

“It rings a bell.”

“We distributed it worldwide. It enables internet users from mainland China — and other countries — to view websites blocked by their governments. And it allows users to penetrate those firewalls certain governments use to block websites and social networking sites.”

Listening, Gideon took a more careful sip, found it excellent.

“Freegate servers disguise true IP addresses, so people can roam freely online. Right here at the Bergen Dafa Center, we have a massive Freegate server cluster. There are other locations across the world.”

Gideon finished his tea. “What does this have to do with Mark Wu?”

“Everything. You see, Mark Wu was bringing us a secret from China. A huge, huge secret.”

“Us? You mean, Falun Gong?”

She nodded. “It was all in place. He was going to pass it to us, and we were going to put it on our Freegate servers. We were going to broadcast this secret to the entire world.”

Gideon swallowed. “So. What is this huge secret?”

She smiled again. “We don’t know.”

“What do you mean? How could you not know? I don’t believe you.” The words tumbled out before he could stop himself.

Madame Chung let this pass. “Wu couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell us. Our job was to disseminate the information. That’s all.”

“And it was a super-weapon?”

“Perhaps. But I doubt it.”

Gideon stared at her. “Why?”

“Because that isn’t quite how Wu described it. He said it was a new technology that would allow China to conquer the world — to rule the world, I think he said. But we didn’t get the impression it was necessarily dangerous. Besides, I doubt he would have wanted the plans for a new weapon to be broadcast everywhere — that would put the information into the hands of terrorists.” She paused. “How unfortunate they murdered him first.”

“If he had the plans with him, where are they now?”

“We don’t know that, either. He was very secretive.”

“Surely he must have indicated to you where and when he’d pass you the plans.”

“We took the precaution of choosing which person should take possession. One of our technical contacts, Roger Marion, was to pick them up at a hotel room. We passed him Roger’s name when he arrived at the airport.” She paused, as if recollecting. “During the negotiation process, Wu did say something odd. He said he would need a few moments in his room to extract the information.”

“Extract? I don’t understand.”

“He used the Chinese phrase cai jian , which means ‘to extract or cut out.’ I had the impression the information was buried in something and that it had to be removed.”