“Gold or no gold,” Fields said. “You need to accept that all three of your most trusted children are up to something.”
While Pope did believe that Gil and Crosswhite were up to something, he didn’t believe they were up to the same thing. And he knew for a certified fact that, whatever they were up to, it had nothing to do with any missing gold. He knew this because every ounce of bullion stolen from the Palinouros—a yacht owned by a corrupt Turkish banker in the Mediterranean — the year before, had been accounted for behind door number nine of the French storage unit.
How silly, he thought, his mind drifting. People are so prone to conspiracy theories. As if Gil and Crosswhite could ever sell gold bullion on the black market without me catching them. But this was the lens through which Fields viewed the world, and the reason that Pope had put him in charge of the Mexico crisis in the first place. Fields was predictable.
“They didn’t steal any gold,” he said, dismissing the notion. “What’s happening with Serrano?”
Fields let the question of gold pass for the moment. “He’s cooperating, but if things go bad for him, he’ll attempt to throw you under the bus — he as much as said it.”
“There’s no record of our dealings with Hancock,” Pope said. “It would be my word against Serrano’s. No one paid attention when Manuel Noriega accused Bush I of colluding with him as director of the CIA in the midseventies. Everyone believed it was probably true, but nobody paid attention.”
“Still, we might have backed the wrong horse,” Fields went on. “There’s some low-level buzz in the Mexican media. They’re accusing Serrano of arranging Ruvalcaba’s ‘escape’ from prison last year. Few journalists have been brave enough to write about it, but if the story picks up momentum, it could put Serrano out of the race for president. Meanwhile, Castañeda continues to honor the truce.”
“Castañeda’s intelligent,” Pope conceded, “but he has no political ties; no one to run interference for him with the Mexican government. That makes him problematic in the long term. It’s true that Ruvalcaba is less intelligent, but he’s easier to control. Our most immediate problem is Vaught. How do we stand?”
Fields sat up in the chair. “I’ve told Serrano to send Hancock after him. It’s the most expedient solution.”
Pope nodded. “In that case, Hancock will have to go too — eventually.”
“I already thought of that, so I’ve tracked Billy Jessup to Tijuana. Once I have him, I should be able to learn quite a bit concerning Hancock’s movements.”
“I trust you have the necessary assets in Tijuana?”
“I’m leaving tonight.” Fields was satisfied that Pope was not asking for details because he wasn’t sure how he would have reacted to him manipulating Mariana. “I’ll have things in order within a few days. Jessup isn’t going anywhere soon. He’s too busy living the Tijuana nightlife.”
“Hancock won’t be easy to remove,” Pope warned. “I misjudged his mental stability, but his skill set is sound. Has he figured out the CIA put him in touch with the Ruvalcabas?”
“Not that I know of.”
Pope’s mind began to drift again, but he came back on tangent. “Midori asked me what you were doing in Mexico City. Did you meet with anyone other than Serrano while you were there?”
“I did. I made it a point to drop in on the head of the PFM. He thanked us for our cooperation in allowing them to use Agent Vaught — though the quake seems to have derailed their investigation for the time being.”
“Good,” Pope said. “That will make it easier to explain why you took a company jet to Mexico, if anyone ever comes asking. Continue to be careful, Clem; there’s no way to know who’s watching what anymore.”
45
There was a knock in code at the hotel room door, and Gil let Nahn into the room. The Asian man gave him a small brown paper bag, and they spoke in Vietnamese while Lena applied her makeup in front of the mirror. Nahn finally left as she was finishing her lipstick.
“He doesn’t speak English?” she asked, capping the tube and turning around.
Gil took a bottle of lighter fluid from the paper sack and set it on the table. “I’ve never asked.”
“He speaks Chinese, I assume?”
“His Cantonese is perfect. That’s what they speak down south, closer to Vietnam. Up here they speak a lot of Mandarin dialect. His Mandarin is passable but not perfect.”
“Can the people here tell he’s not Chinese?”
“Probably, but he doesn’t try to pass himself off as Chinese, so it doesn’t matter. There are a lot of Vietnamese living in China. What’s important is that our Russian friends across the street can’t tell the difference.” He took the Zippo lighter from his pocket, pulled off the bottom and began soaking the cotton wadding inside with lighter fluid. “I have to go out for a while — be back in an hour or so.”
“Out to do what?”
“Nahn needs to show me something.”
“Show you what?”
“Where the Russians parked their car. I’ll disable it so they can’t follow us to the Dragon Wall. There are too many places in the park where they could pull some shit.”
“Can’t Nahn disable the car?”
He put the lighter back together, tucking it into his pocket. “The man isn’t being paid to risk his life.” He shrugged into his Carhartt jacket and gave her a kiss. “Back in an hour or so.”
“It’s the so part that concerns me. Aren’t they watching our hotel?”
“No. Nahn says they paid the concierge downstairs to call them if we leave.”
He gave her another kiss and slipped out the door.
Nahn was waiting for him in the back hall, where he gave him a small rucksack, and they took the stairs down to the first floor, leaving out the back. They skirted behind the restaurant next door and crossed the street a block down, making their way back behind a row of lesser buildings to arrive eventually at the rear entrance of the Russians’ older hotel.
“Are they still in their room?”
Nahn checked his cellular to see if he’d received a text from the cleaning woman he had paid to keep an eye out. “All clear,” he said in perfect English.
They went inside and took the stairs to the top floor. Nahn showed Gil how to access the elevator shaft through a maintenance panel in the janitor’s closet.
“Okay,” Gil said, removing the access panel. “If all goes as planned, I’ll meet you by the river.”
“Good luck, my friend.” Nahn closed the closet door and disappeared back down the stairs.
Gil took a small headlamp from the rucksack and slipped it over his head, switching on the red light and easing himself into the elevator shaft through the maintenance hatch. Using the ladder mounted on the wall of the shaft, he descended three floors to the top of the elevator car and gently stepped aboard, locating a small electrical box that Nahn had wired directly into the elevator’s control panel. The elevator doors opened and passengers stepped aboard. Gil took hold of the cable attached to the top of the car and steadied himself for the ride.
The old car descended seven floors to the lobby, and the passengers disembarked. Someone else stepped aboard, and a few seconds later, the elevator was going back up. Nahn had assured him there was plenty of headroom even if the car went all the way up to the tenth floor, but in the almost pitch dark, Gil could not resist the instinct to keep low.
The car stopped on the ninth floor, and he took his cellular from his pocket, texting Lena to meet him in the lobby of their hotel as quickly as possible with only her carry-on. Then he used a screwdriver to pry open the trapdoor in the roof of the elevator, wedging it in place to keep the door open just enough for him to peer down into the car. Two Chinese passengers stepped aboard, and the elevator descended to the lobby.