Gordon Kent - Hostile Contact

“Sir!” Jiang vanished, in his fingers the piece of paper on which Lao had written, “Code name Running Boy, name Li, Bobby, agent for Chen 1983.”

Jiang was back in ten minutes. “Still in Jakarta, still active, but not used in three years. Control code-named Loyalty Man.”

“Get him.”

Jakarta.

Alan lay in his dark hotel room and watched Jakarta through the window. It was cool in the room, almost cold. Outside, Jakarta was hot and busy, and Alan watched it for a while, the constant bustle of taxicabs, rickshaws, and vast limousines pulling up to the front of his great hotel, twenty stories below. NCIS seemed to have paid for a really good room in a really good hotel, and it was all wasted; Alan felt as if the huge windows were force fields walling him off from the reality of Jakarta. He wanted to go out and explore, but his instructions were explicit. So he repeated today’s operation until he had it to his satisfaction and then reviewed tomorrow’s until it bored him.

Buy a copy of The Economist. Go to the theme park and go to Anjungan Bali. Sit in the dance kiosk and watch the dancers. When they finish, walk across the Anjungan Sumatra to the Orchid House, carrying The Economist. When you are inside, walk along the path. If a man approaches you with a copy of The Economist and asks if he met you at the AGIP Christmas party, respond that you were there with a Dutch girl. It won’t happen, cowboy. It’s a fake. There won’t be anybody there. Just go and fill the bill, okay?

He got up and headed toward the door. He needed to walk.

Just stay in your room, Al. Just sit tight and don’t get robbed, don’t leave your briefcase, don’t have any adventures, okay?

Alan walked back and forth in front of the window for the thirtieth time, bored, angry, all keyed up and wanting to discuss the problems of the morning, talk about the tactics for tomorrow, anything. He had been a spy for about thirty hours; so far, it was really dull.

It beat the crap out of flying a Microsoft product in his living room and having rages at his wife, though.

He paced back again. He wanted to go down to the giant lobby; there had to be a kiosk there to buy a paper. Triffler wouldn’t mind if he just went and bought a copy of The Economist.

He got as far as the door with his electronic key in his hand before his conscience stopped him.

Just stay in your room, Al. Just sit tight and don’t get robbed, don’t leave your briefcase, don’t have any adventures, okay?

Triffler wasn’t Mike Dukas; he was a thorough, professional man who seemed unimpressed with Alan’s reputation and impatience. He hadn’t grinned when he spoke about any adventures , either. He meant what he said. Alan walked back to his enormous bed and threw himself on it, the expensive pillow-top mattress swallowing him whole.

Too damn soft.

Lying sideways on the bed, Alan stretched out an arm to rifle his belongings in the carry-on on the floor. Underwear; a linen jacket that Rose had given him a year ago and thought would be perfect in Jakarta; probably would, at that. She’d ordered him to hang it up as soon as he got to a room, and he smiled at the pang of guilt and unfolded it from the bottom of the case.

Something heavy slipped out from its folds and fell on the bed. Alan leaped back for a moment, and laughed aloud. A book. The cover said Blue at the Mizzen. Inside, a feminine hand had written: All I want you to take to bed while you’re away. Love, R.

His grin threatened to crack his face, and he kissed her writing. Deep inside him, more ice cracked.

And he started reading.

In the air, Beijing–Jakarta.

Qiu was very young, as his code name—“young dragon with new horns”—announced. The name irritated him, as it indicated a lack of respect from his superiors. He had, after all, graduated from all the schools; he knew exactly how to perform his tasks. Why such a disrespectful code name?

He knew what he was about to do to perfection: he would meet with the Jakarta embassy black team in a warehouse near the Jakarta waterfront only two hours before the meeting was to take place, and he would outline to them his surveillance plan as based on a map of the Fantasy Island Park that he had downloaded from the Internet. If, as he anticipated, the local chief watcher was rude, Qiu would step on him hard to make sure that the fellow knew his place. In fact, he planned to step on everybody hard.

This was his first independent assignment.

The local station had reported a certain signal placed on a certain old cannon. They had no idea what the signal meant. Qiu, however, knew, because he had been told in Beijing: it was an old signal from an old comm plan between his service and an American double agent. Qiu was to follow the comm plan and meet whoever had left the mark. No reason had been given for doing so: there was no context, no background, no time for analysis or research. His head swam with questions, but no answers came. He knew enough to do only one thing: follow orders. And, by implication, a second thing: be ruthless, meaning that he wanted an armed team, as if for a hostile meeting, and he wanted absolute discipline.

He went over and over it, and any idea he had had of sleeping on the flight proved foolish. He was awake all the way—awake when the sun rose and still awake when the plane banked and began its final approach into Jakarta.

The local man seemed relieved to be able to push the responsibility for the hasty operation off on him. He was even apologetic, in fact. “But there’s been a change,” he said.

Qiu bristled. “I will decide that!” he said. They weren’t even in the embassy car yet.

“It was decided at a higher level.” He handed Qiu a message.

Qiu read it, his fatigue suddenly heavy and depressing. He gave an exasperated groan. “Where is this Loyalty Man now?” he said.

The embassy man jerked his head at the car. They walked toward it; the driver, standing by the passenger door, braced and swung it open. A middle-aged man was sitting inside, a burning cigarette in his fingers. He looked at Qiu without expression, making it clear that he was a veteran who would go along with this stripling because he had been ordered to. Qiu settled himself next to him. “Well?” he said. He made it sound like a challenge.

“You are to add one of my agents to your team. He is to be with you at the meeting.”

“That is ridiculous!”

“That is the order.” Loyalty Man didn’t even bother to look at him.

The embassy man got in and sat on a jump seat. The driver got in behind the wheel. Everybody sat there until at last Qiu realized that they were waiting for him to give an order.

“Well, get him!” he shouted.

Suburban Virginia.

Sally Baranowski was healthier-looking than Dukas remembered, but vulnerable, obviously glad that Rose was there with them. She was a fairly big woman, better eyes and color now she had dried out, good black dress that maybe showed too much of pretty hefty legs. But who was he to notice?

“Did you ever run into a case code-named Sleeping Dog?” he said to her.

“If I did, I wouldn’t talk about it, would I?”

“Well, you were Shreed’s assistant for a while there, I thought you knew what was going on.”

“I knew some things.” She was picking at her food, not looking at him. She’d been kicked sideways from her job at the Agency, because when the dying Shreed was brought back as a traitor, there had been a lot of vengeance within the Agency. Some people had been punished for being too loyal to Shreed. She had been punished for being too disloyal. Now, fresh out of rehab, she was working in a nothing job in Inter-Agency Liaison after having been a rising star in Operations Planning.