Clive Cussler - Thriller 2 - Stories You Just Can’t Put Down

“Liar.” I spun toward him. “Why are you saying that?”

Frank continued, “We were in the shelter, watching the inauguration on television. President Bekkar was taking the oath. Then Sylvia ran out.”

“According to the victim’s ID, he’s Dr. Truman North,” one of the cops said. “Psychiatrist.”

My mind reeled. No, no, no-not Dr. North. President Bekkar. Couldn’t they see?

“He’s her doctor,” Frank said. “I told him she stopped taking her medicine.”

“North refuses to go to the hospital,” the other policeman said, “without talking to his patient first.”

I squinted at the officer. “Dr. North’s here?”

He nodded and walked me over to a gurney. I stared down into North’s blue eyes and said, “I’m a hero. I killed the Islamo-fascist president.”

“No, Sylvia.” North paused to catch his breath. “You didn’t kill the president.” Racking coughs overcame him. “You stabbed me.”

“No, I-”

“We’ve got to go,” a paramedic said.

“You stabbed me, ” North said again. His eyes rolled back in his head as his jaw went slack.

“No.” I shook my head. “I would never do that. I-”

Paramedics rushed North’s gurney toward the ambulance. Blood seeped through the blanket that covered him.

My God, what did I do?

Drip…drip…drip.

It’s almost four years later now. Dr. North made me see that I didn’t kill any president. Instead, delusional, I stabbed North. I understand what happened-my break with reality-and I’m all better.

Gray clouds coat the sky with a steady drizzle, and I listen to the relentless drip…drip…drip of rain off the nearby eaves.

Funny how some things never change.

I stand at the rope line waiting for President Izaan Bekkar to swing through his campaign stop in Fairfield, Virginia. Television vans line the street awaiting his arrival. A petite blond in a short skirt and matching jacket advances to the rope line and thrusts her microphone in front of the man next to me.

“After a controversial presidency, President Izaan Bekkar is determined to run for a second term. Sir, how did you feel four years ago when President Bekkar revealed he was a Muslim?”

“Being a Muslim didn’t bother me,” the man says. “Man has a right to his own religion, so long as it doesn’t get forced on anybody.”

“President Bekkar has said that if he wins, he’ll be sworn in on the Quran. Does that bother you?”

“No. Why should it? He’s been a damn good president.”

I step away, fearing the reporter will approach me. Fools. Every one of them is too stupid to be afraid. They don’t understand agendas. I understand. I see the truth.

I also know habit.

I’ve watched footage from all of Bekkar’s campaign stops. He always starts on the left, shaking hands with his supporters as he moves right. I chose this spot well. He’ll come directly to me. He’ll like my burqa.

I wore it for him.

Beneath it, I grip the knife.

David writes for several of the country’s largest newspapers as a book critic, but we won’t hold that against him. Recently he’s begun producing fiction the rest of us can critique, discuss…and enjoy. Because he’s good. One of the most prolific and respected reviewers of thrillers in the business, he not only has an eye for writing, “Bedtime for Mr. Li” demonstrates he has a pen for it as well.

Jason Ryder: a hit man you wouldn’t mind having a beer with. Certainly, it would have to be a casual drink-you wouldn’t want to get mixed up in his business-but it you could talk to such a man, wouldn’t you? In a world of uncertain moral landscapes, an antihero like Ryder is an intriguing figure from beyond the pale, but not beyond redemption. Just don’t say anything bad about the Lakers around him.

Jason Ryder sat slumped behind the wheel of the rented Ford, watching the raindrops chase each other down the windshield. He’d been sitting there for over an hour already and his ass was starting to go numb. On the radio was a playoff game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trailblazers, with the Lakers ahead by three in the fourth quarter. Listening to basketball on the radio was like watching a porno movie with the picture turned off, but he had to make do.

Ryder had been on the job for a week already, enough time to make him more than a little antsy. He was never one to hurry-he was nothing if not meticulous, an essential requirement for success in his line of work-but that didn’t mean he wanted to waste time, either. There were places he’d rather be than the front seat of an ’06 Taurus, and things he’d rather do than drink lukewarm McDonald’s coffee while watching a middle-aged Chinese man negotiate with hookers.

Officially, Li Jinping held the position of Cultural Attaché in the Washington, D.C., embassy of the People’s Republic of China. He spent his days overseeing the loan of endangered giant pandas to various zoos across the United States, as well as organizing tours of the Shanghai Acrobats and Beijing Opera.

Unofficially, Li was a colonel in the Second Department of the People’s Liberation Army-PLA-and the head of all human intelligence gathering operations in the United States. In other words, he was China ’s top spy in North America.

Li wasn’t a very good spy-he had only successfully recruited one American: a disgruntled line cook working in the White House mess-but that never dampened his enthusiasm for the job. He fancied himself as the Chinese James Bond, despite his receding hairline and expanding waistline. He would likely have been fired for incompetence long ago, had he not gotten lucky during his previous posting in Beijing, a posting that had allowed him to gather some juicy intel on select Politburo members and high-ranking officials in the Party.

Li loved life in the U.S. He ate like a trencherman and drank like a sailor. He had not one but two mistresses-in addition, of course, to his doting wife back home in Beijing. He was the very picture of ill health, but he didn’t care. He was master of his domain in Washington and would only leave when he dropped dead of the inevitable heart attack.

If only Li Jinping were a better spy. Or perhaps if he had been more modest in his appetites. Or, most of all, if he hadn’t hired a room service waiter at the Beijing Hilton to secretly take pictures of the vice chairman of the National People’s Congress while he was rendezvousing with his much younger boyfriend, a gymnastic star predicted to make a fine showing at the Olympics. But he had. And that was why he was going to die.

Jason Ryder didn’t really care about the reasons. Li Jinping’s misdeeds, outsize appetites and poor judgment were of no concern to him. He could have been screwing the giant pandas instead of renting them out to American zoos and Ryder still wouldn’t have cared. He had only one reason to kill Li-and it came with five zeros after it.

Ryder had been hired, via a circuitous path involving two diplomats, one general and a transsexual Korean bartender, to eliminate Li, through whatever method proved most convenient. The vice chairman of the National People’s Congress hadn’t specified any requirements, other than that Li had to die, soon if possible, painfully if it happened to work out that way.

The vice chairman had also promised a bonus of an additional $50,000 if Li’s elimination could be handled in a particularly embarrassing way, but Ryder hadn’t quite figured out how to handle that one yet. He’d been giving it some consideration, however, and had purchased a size XXL pair of frilly undergarments from a plus-size women’s store at the mall. He didn’t relish the prospect of undressing Li in order to paint him as a cross-dresser-but when the time came, he thought he’d be able to persuade himself with the hefty bonus. Even so, he was keeping an open mind to the possibilities, just in case a better opportunity presented itself.