Dean Koontz - Dragonfly

“Welcome to Peking,” Webster said, bowing slightly to Lee Ann and shaking hands with Canning. His voice was not hard and gravelly, as Canning had expected, but soft and easy and deep and spiced with a trace of what had once been a lush Louisiana accent. “Miss Tanaka, if all CIA operatives were as lovely as you, we'd have won the espionage war decades ago. Who on earth would want to fight with you?”

“And if all our ambassadors were as gracious as you,” Lee Ann said, “we'd have no enemies.”

Outside, there was no limousine waiting for them. Webster explained that the use of “decadent forms of transportation” within the People's Republic had recently been denounced and forbidden by Party edict — although Chinese diplomats in Washington and at the UN in New York relied increasingly upon custom-ordered black Cadillacs. “Western governments don't have an exclusive right to hypocrisy,” Webster observed.

Instead of a Cadillac, there was a Chinese-made vehicle that resembled a Volkswagen microbus. Inside, behind the driver's seat, there were two benches, one along each wall. Lee Ann and Canning sat on the right and faced Webster across the narrow aisle. The seats were uncomfortable: thinly padded and upholstered in canvas. But there were windows on both sides, and they would at least be able to see the city as they passed through it.

The driver, a State Department career man whom Webster introduced as James Obin of St. Louis, finished loading their luggage aboard. Then he got behind the wheel and started the tinny engine.

As the microbus began to move, Webster said, “Security was so tight on your flight that I didn't even learn what plane you were on until it was airborne.”

“Sorry if you were inconvenienced,” Canning said. “But it was necessary.”

“There were several attempts on his life before he even got to Tokyo,” Lee Ann said.

“Well then, I can understand the tight security,” Webster said. “But what I can't understand is why you had to come all the way out from the States in the first place. McAlister could have wired me the names of these three deep-cover agents of ours. I could have worked with General Lin to locate and interrogate them.”

“I'm sure you could have handled it,” Canning said. “But if we had wired the names, General Lin's Internal Security Force would have intercepted them. No matter how complicated the code, they would have broken it — and fast.”

“But they're going to learn the names anyway, sooner or later,” Webster said.

“Perhaps they won't have to be told all of them. If we find the trigger man the first time out, we can withhold the other two names from Lin.” He quickly outlined the procedure he would insist upon for the pickup and the interrogation of the three agents.

Webster grimaced and shifted uncomfortably on the bench. “The general won't like that.”

“If he doesn't accept it, then he doesn't get any of the names. He has absolutely no choice in the matter — and I'll make that plain to him. I'm not a diplomat, so I don't have to waste time being diplomatic. It'll be your job to smooth his feathers.”

“He's not an easy man to deal with.”

Canning said, “Yes, but since he's in the counter-intelligence business himself, he ought to be able to understand my position even if he doesn't much like it. Although my primary concern is to find the trigger man and learn from him who Dragonfly is, I've a second duty nearly as important as the first. I have to keep the ISF from cracking open the agency's entire network in the People's Republic.”

“I'll do what I can to help.”

“Did the polygraph arrive safely?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“Good.”

“It's quite large.”

“It's not a traditional lie detector. It's actually a portable computer that monitors and analyzes all of the subject's major reactions to the questions he's asked. The newest thing.”

“It's locked in a tamper-proof steel case,” Webster said. “I suppose you have the key?”

“Yes.” It had been in the packet of Theodore Otley identification and expense money that McAlister had given him in Washington. “When do we meet General Lin?”

“An ISF car is following us right now,” Webster said, pointing through the rear windows of the micro-bus. A jeeplike station wagon trailed them by a hundred yards. “By this time they'll have radioed the news of your arrival to the general's office. Knowing how polite and thoughtful the Chinese are, I'd say Lin will give you fifteen or twenty minutes at the embassy to freshen up before he comes knocking.”

They were now cruising along an avenue at least three times as wide as Fifth Avenue in New York. There were no automobiles and only a few trucks, vans, and buses. But there were thousands of bicycles whizzing silently in both directions. Many of the cyclists smiled and waved at Canning, Lee Ann, and the ambassador.

“Are all the streets this wide?” Lee Ann asked.

“Many but not most,” Webster said. “These ultra-wide thoroughfares are the newest streets in Peking. They were built after the revolution. Once they were completed and opened, the Party was able to classify the old main streets — which were often very broad— as lanes and alleyways. Today, most domestic and all foreign traffic moves on these new arteries.”

“But why did they build new and bigger streets when they didn't have cars enough for the old ones?” Lee Ann asked. “Two-thirds of this avenue is empty.”

“The old streets were dotted with religious shrines and literally hundreds of magnificently ornate temples,” Webster said, enjoying his role as guide. “Some of these were destroyed in the revolution and some later, by Party edict. But the Communists realized that the temples — although they were shameful reminders of a decadent past full of excess and injustice — were priceless works of art and history. Cooler heads prevailed, thank God, and the destruction ceased. They opted for an alternate program. They built these thoroughfares, restructuring the city away from the temples. As a result, many of the old landmarks are tucked away behind fences in quiet pockets of the city where they can't have a corruptive influence on the masses.” Webster was amused by all of this, and he winked at Lee Ann as if they were adults tolerating the eccentricities of slow-witted but pleasant children.

“Incredible,” Lee Ann said.

Canning said, “Not really. We do the same thing.”

Webster frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We build and redesign our cities to hide the ghettos from ourselves, rather than the churches.”

“You know, you're right!” Lee Ann said.

“Well,” Webster said stiffly, “I don't see even the most remote similarity. And if I were you, I wouldn't express that sort of an opinion in front of someone like General Lin. He would be delighted to spread your thoughts far and wide, to the detriment of the United States' image in Asia.” He turned away from them and stared out at the hordes of cyclists.

Lee Ann glanced at Canning and raised her eyebrows.

He just shrugged.

Peking was a city of eight or nine million, capital of the largest nation on earth — yet it was more like a small town than like a metropolis that was four thousand years old. There were no neon signs. There were no skyscrapers. There was nothing that looked like a department store or theater or restaurant — although there were surely all of these things in the city, tucked away in squat and official-looking brick buildings. Beyond the broad avenues and occasionally glimpsed spires of the forbidden temples, there were tens of thousands of gray houses with gray and yellow rooftops; they stretched like a carpet of densely grown weeds over all the city's hills, encircling countless small gardens of trees and shrubbery.