Don Winslow - Satori

“Run it down.”

Frantic phone calls to Hong Kong turned up nothing. Emile Guibert wasn’t at his house on Victoria Peak, not at his office downtown, his club in Western. Not at his mistress’s pad. Off the radar.

They were thin on the ground in HK because of British hypersensitivity. In fact, Haverford briefly considered reaching out to Wooten for help. The MI-6 man had the Hong Kong police on his payroll and could scour the island quicker than the small American contingent.

But he decided that he couldn’t answer the questions that Wooten would ask, and that the payback would be too ferocious, so he had to leave it to Benton’s people.

The search took twenty-eight endless minutes.

Haverford jumped on the cable.

P-BEAR OFF GRID. ABORT? ADVISE.

John Singleton took his wool overcoat off the coat rack and put it on. His left shoulder suffered from bursitis, so it took a few seconds. He wrapped his scarf tightly around his neck, put on his hat, and headed out the door of his office.

For most people, going to the White House was a thrill; for Singleton, it was a chore. He was halfway down the hall when his assistant scurried up behind him.

“Yes?”

“An urgent cable from Tokyo.”

He glanced at it and said, “Not now.”

“You don’t want to res -”

“I can’t very well respond to something that you didn’t give to me, can I?” he said. “I had already left the building. I’ll look at it when I come back.”

The elevator doors slid open.

“We’re dark,” the young agent said.

That is not good, Haverford thought.

Singleton had hung him out to dry. The old spymaster would take credit for the success, but dump blame for the failure on Haverford.

“It’s your call.”

“Just find Emile Guibert,” Haverford snapped, “and spare me your observations of the obvious.”

“Sorry.”

Fifty-nine minutes out.

Once operational, Haverford had the authority to abort the mission at his discretion. He could flip the “kill switch,” which would trigger an alert that Hel knew to look for. In that case, Hel would simply walk out of his hotel, a preplanned diversion would occupy his surveillance, and he would go straight to the Niujie Mosque.

“Keep trying on Papa Bear.”

“Yes, sir.”

Assume the worst-case scenario, Haverford told himself.

Assume that Voroshenin has Guibert and is sweating him.

Assume that Guibert has given it up.

Given that scenario, Voroshenin knows that Guibert is a cover, but Guibert couldn’t have given him Hel’s real identity. All Voroshenin knows is that “Michel Guibert” is a cover under British control, which is what Guibert believes. Voroshenin will take the next logical mental step, though – he’ll believe that the British were subbing in for us. He’ll know it’s an American operation.

So what does he do?

He gives it to the Chinese, to his buddy Kang.

What does Kang do?

Either he lets Hel stay operational to see where it leads him, or he picks Hel up and tortures the truth out of him. Everything they knew about Kang indicated the latter course of action.

“You confirmed that Go Player is in place?” Haverford asked.

“He signaled.”

Their watchers outside the hotel had seen Hel go in but not come out, and they observed the correct arrangement of the window curtains. Only ten minutes ago, Hel had called room service to request a fresh thermos of water for his tea, so there was every reason to believe that he was safely in his room and not in Kang’s hands.

But for how long? Haverford wondered.

Abort, he told himself.

Get a signal to the Monk, hit the kill switch now.

NICHOLAI STEPPED OUT on the little balcony.

Across the boulevard, lit by the amber streetlamp, the monk still stood under the tree, facing south.

The mission was a “go.”

Nicholai started to pull a cigarette out to light it and acknowledge.

Then the monk moved.

“WE HAVE Papa Bear.”

“Kill the abort signal,” Haverford said. “Where the hell was he?”

It turns out that Papa Guibert found himself a new honey and took her to her place. He was surprised and a little indignant to find out that handlers were looking for him.

“So I wanted a little variety,” he told the Brit who was under Haverford’s employ. “So what, I am French.” He didn’t really expect a Brit to comprehend a man’s sexual needs. The British were about as sensual as their food.

“Keep him on ice,” Haverford ordered. “Did you signal the Monk back?”

“Confirmed.”

Haverford sat down and looked at the illuminated wall clock.

Twelve minutes out.

VOROSHENIN WAS on the phone.

The old man had broken – no Frenchman of his generation would let a beautiful woman have her brains spattered all over the walls – and confirmed that his son had died in the car crash, and “Michel Guibert” was the cover of an agent working for the British.

The British my liver, Voroshenin thought. The British are assclenching happy just to hold on to Hong Kong, they’re not going to wake the dragon by messing about in China. Besides, it wasn’t London that had control of Nicholai Hel, it was Washington.

Kang finally came on the line.

“Wei,” he asked blandly, as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

“The father confirmed my hypothesis,” Voroshenin said.

There was a long pause, then Kang said, “Enjoy the opera.”

I will, actually, Voroshenin thought.

NICHOLAI SAW THE MONK start to turn to the north, then change his mind and face south again.

The mission had been aborted, then just as quickly revived. That didn’t trouble Nicholai – the go-kang was a kinetic field that required fluid thought and action.

But then the monk did something unexpected. He turned to face the hotel and looked directly up at Nicholai. Even from that distance – five floors down and across the street – Nicholai could feel the monk’s eyes, almost as he had once sensed the intensity of Kishikawa-sama and Otake-san.

Nicholai nodded.

Cupping one hand around his cigarette, he lit it – the signal that he was ready to proceed. He took a long drag, then stepped back into the room and shut the doors behind him.

Then he left the room and went downstairs.

“GO PLAYER acknowledged.”

“Roger that.”

Now all Haverford could do was sit and wait.

Worst part of the job.

DIAMOND MADE A POINT not to be in, or even near, the office. But he left word where he could be reached and an order that he be immediately briefed on any developments coming out of Beijing.

Waiting around is the shits, he thought.

THE NORTH WIND had picked up again and Nicholai wrapped his scarf around his neck as he stepped out into the cold night air and waited for Chen and the car. Where were they? Chen was usually pathologically prompt.

Across the boulevard the monk walked away, toward the south.

The last check, Nicholai thought with a twinge of sorrow. The last chance to stop this thing literally just walked away.

The car came up the street, its red flags snapping in the stiff breeze. It pulled up in front of the hotel, the back door opened, and Chen got out.

“Sorry to be late,” he said. “Traffic.”

He looked afraid.

Chen ushered Nicholai into the backseat and got in beside him.