Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

Dinner should be surprises.

“Where did I fit in?” Neal asked.

“No offense, but we used you like a springer spaniel. Your job was to flush them from the bushes and make them run. You did a great job, by the way, Fido.”

Okay, except Fido here went on point and the hunter didn’t let them run, he took his best shot. What’s wrong with this metaphor?

“Thanks, but why did you want them to run? Why not arrest them in the States? Wouldn’t that have been easier?”

“Sure. The only problem is that the old boys in the Congress won’t allow us to conduct operations within the States. That’s why we used Friends of the Family instead of sending one of our own pups. If we had picked up Li Lan in the States, we’d have had to turn her over to the FBI, and that would have been a damn shame. They’d have just had a big old trial and chucked her lovely ass into prison, which is not the best and highest use of that particular piece of flesh.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Li Lan wants to turn Pendleton. We want to turn Li Lan.”

Neal settled back into the rich red velvet of the seat cushion. This was getting interesting. Maybe there was a way everybody could survive this thing, although Simms’s explanation was still one bullet shy of a load.

“See,” Simms went on, warming to his subject, “we don’t take these things personally. We harbor no ill will toward Li Lan or Pendleton. Hell, we have so many Russians defecting we can’t keep the safe houses stocked in vodka. We turn them away. But a Chinese defector? A rare bird, my friend. A rare bird who could sing some interesting songs.

“We knew she’d run to Hong Kong to cover the trail before she took him into the PRC. If we could trap her here and explain her options… well, we think she’d choose air conditioning, ice cubes, color television, and the good old U.S.A. over a Hong Kong jail cell. Hell, she’d probably prefer that over the pure numbing blandness of the PRC. A lot of the comrades will defect just to go shopping.”

“And if you take her in Hong Kong you don’t have to deal with the FBI.”

“Exactly.”

“Or any bothersome defense attorneys or judges or that shit.”

Simms sighed. “Try to be professional about this, Carey. Her options aren’t all that rosy. If she came with us, we’d debrief her for a year or two and set her loose with a nice new identity and a bank account. For a Third World baby like Li Lan, that’s like winning the lottery.”

Yeah, maybe it is, Neal thought. She could stay with Pendleton, paint her paintings, go to the supermarket and shop for elaborate Chinese dinners. There are worse lives.

“What would you do to Pendleton?”

“Nothing. Frankly, his brains and his knowledge protect him. We’d rather have him working for us than for the Chinese. Of course, you’ve fucked all this up, Carey, with your heroic chase up Austin Road. When you first slipped your leash in San Francisco and bolted over here, I was ready to have you busted. But then you actually came up with a half-bright plan, so I thought, let’s go with it. Mind you, we’ve had you followed since day one.

“I figured that you weren’t coming up to Victoria Peak just for the view, so I was all nice and ready to make contact with our little friend. But you spooked them and they called out the troops and I lost them. Mostly because I had to save your worthless butt. Thanks.”

Neal contemplated the red hue of the room reflecting in the golden color of the scotch. Maybe it’s all true, he thought. In which case I was the target in the hot tub, just like I was a candidate for the slice-and-dice treatment tonight. But then why would she want to meet with me at all? Just to set me up? Sure, so the track is a little colder for the next guy. And if she thought I was the CIA hound, that’s exactly what she would do. Come on, Neal, face it. How many times do you have to dodge the bullet, so to speak, before you face the facts? She’s a killer. A spy and a whore and a killer. A triple threat.

“So what’s next?” Neal asked.

“Well, I’m going to have the staff bring in some food and we’re going to have a nice long chat. You’re going to tell me everything-and I mean everything-you can remember about your friend and mine, Li Lan. What she wore, what she said, what she did-everything. Then I’ll have the driver drop you off at the ferry and you go back to your hotel and stay there until the next flight out.”

“And what about Li and Pendleton?”

“If I can find her before she bolts to the PRC, I’ll offer her the deal. She’ll take it.”

“What if she won’t talk to you? What if she bolts?”

Simms poured a cup of tea and savored the smell.

“Well,” he said, “I can’t let her take Pendleton to China.” He slipped the lapel of his jacket back to show the butt of his automatic pistol. “More tea?”

Neal shuffled down the hotel hallway in his Chinese clothing. He was played out. The debriefing had taken over two hours, and he had told Simms everything. He had told him about the bus tickets, about the art gallery, about the dinner. He had even told him about the seduction in the hot tub. Told him about everything except the shot that had almost killed him.

He wasn’t sure why he had held that back, except that he suspected Simms knew about it anyway, and he had wanted to see if the CIA man brought it up. He hadn’t.

The hallway was empty. No protective net, no Doorman. Obviously Chin was through protecting him. Good, he thought. I’ve had all the protection I can stand. He fished his room key out of his pocket and opened the door.

Ben Chin was sitting on his bed.

“You were great back there on the Peak,” Neal said. “Too bad there weren’t any old ladies for you to push around.”

“You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“The Doorman isn’t.”

Chin shrugged. “He did his job.”

“That’s right. Where were you?”

“Doing my job. I followed your friends.”

“Bullshit.”

“True. I went up into the gardens and picked up their trail.”

“Where are they?”

Chin looked down at the bedcover. “I lost them coming off the ferry.”

“Kowloon side?”

“Sure.”

Neal went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He was as tired as he could ever remember being. His chest ached from the old shotgun wound he’d taken the last time he’d stepped in between predator and prey, and he just wanted to fall asleep in a steaming bath. He brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth out, and then ran hot water to shave. When he was finished he stood in the bathroom doorway and said to Ben Chin, “You’re fired. Get out.”

“You’re the one who fucked up, not me.”

“You lied to me. You brought your crew along when you promised me you wouldn’t.”

“If I hadn’t, you’d be dead.”

“So the Doorman’s dead instead.”

“It was his job to die so you could escape.” Chin’s jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. “Would you rather be dead instead of him? Tell the truth.”

The truth. What the hell does the truth have to do with anything?

“No,” Neal said. “No. I wouldn’t.”

Chin smiled triumphantly-one of those smiles that says, That settles it, then.

“Where’s your crew now?”

“They don’t want to work with you anymore.”

Okay, Neal thought. Which means you know what happened up there. You know your boys left me for dead. Why were you waiting for me here, then? Why weren’t you surprised to see me walk in?

Okay, you can’t give Chin the chance to realize he just screwed up.

“So,” Neal said. “You couldn’t stay on their tails, huh?”

“It’s hard to do without help.”