Court rolled his eyes. “She’s not a girlfriend.” Then softly he said, “SVR.”
Fitzroy jerked his head around towards the bedroom, astonishment on his face. Shifting back to Court he said, “Her? You’re mad.”
“This whole thing is mad, Don. I don’t understand what the hell is going on.”
“She’s Russian?”
“Yep.”
“And she’s with you?”
“Sort of. She trusted me, till it became apparent I was working for the Chinese. I had neglected to mention that to her.”
Fitz was still looking at the door to the bedroom. “Incredible. Russian intelligence? What’s her angle in all this?”
“She’s on my side now.”
“Raises the question: whose side are you on?”
Court did not respond directly. “How’s the hand?”
Fitzroy held up the bandaged appendage. “It feels quite like some sod cut off two fingers with a straight razor.”
“Sorry about that.”
Fitzroy reached for a decanter on the coffee table, filled with an amber liquid. “I’ve been looking at this since I got here. What do you suppose it is?”
“I don’t guess it matters; you’ll drink it anyway.”
“Too true,” Fitzroy said as he poured two healthy shots in crystal glasses. Without even smelling it he downed his full portion.
He made a little face. “Whiskey. Nothing special, but not utter shit, either.”
He gestured towards Court’s glass.
Court shook his head, so Fitzroy lifted it and took a sip. After he swallowed he said, “I don’t blame you about the hand. I blame whoever got you into this in the first place. You shouldn’t even be involved.”
“What does that mean?”
“C’mon, lad. I don’t believe for an instant you just fell down from heaven when I got kidnapped by Colonel Dai. No. You were sent in. I’d say by Langley, but since Langley is your sworn enemy, I confess I’m at a loss. Whoever sent you on this little fool’s errand, I am quite certain you didn’t come to assassinate Fan Jiang just to earn me my freedom. Your aim from the beginning has been to capture Fan and hand him off to a Western power.”
Court said, “That was the job I took. But Dai will kill you if I double-cross him.”
“Of course he will. If you rescue Fan from all this, Dai will put a bullet in my skull, and then he’ll put a bullet in his own, because he can’t go back to China without Fan’s head on a pike. But now Fan is nearby, and Dai has thirty stone-cold killers readying to raid that property and give poor Fan a terminal overdose of lead. And at that point, it’s anyone’s bet what Colonel Dai will do to us.”
Court spoke low. “The Agency is sending in an SAD team. Oh one hundred hours.”
Fitzroy finished his second shot, then rubbed his meaty face with his good hand. “Dear lord. What a mess.”
“Yeah.”
The Englishman sat back on the couch and looked at Court for a long time.
“What is it?” Court asked.
“I’m trying to figure out how you became involved with Langley.”
“The short version is they told me you’d been snatched in Hong Kong and I was to go in and get intel from you and Colonel Dai, something to identify Fan’s location.”
“And you did just that.”
“Damn lot of good it did.”
“Don’t blame yourself for any of this. If Langley had just stayed out of it from the beginning, we could have avoided the whole thing.”
Court cocked his head. “Who is we?”
Fitzroy reacted to Court’s confusion. “Ah… I see. You don’t know. Langley just told you I was over in HK working for Dai on the Fan hit.”
“That’s right. Dai hired you to kill Fan Jiang. Was there something else?”
“I’d been in Hong Kong for weeks before I’d ever heard of Colonel Dai.”
“Doing what?”
Fitzroy smiled. “Oh, boy, you really are in the dark, lad. I was over here on a job for MI6.”
Court raised an eyebrow. “You work for 6?”
“Things come up. You know how it goes.”
Court nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“I was hired to oversee the assassination of a man inside mainland China. Damn difficult to do, as it happens.”
“Who… who did they send you in to kill?”
“A PLA man called Major Song Julong. He was—”
Court interrupted. “He was the personal bodyguard of Fan Jiang’s parents.”
“That’s it. MI6 wanted him dead, so I sent a team in to Shanghai to eliminate him.”
“Why would they want to kill the bodyguard of a couple of retirees?”
“It’s a tad complicated, but Song was an agent for the West.”
Pieces were falling together quickly for Court. “Song sent Fan over the border into Hong Kong because his parents were killed in a car crash. He told Fan he’d be killed if he didn’t run.”
“Yes,” said Fitzroy, and he poured himself another drink.
Court said, “Song tried to arrange for the Taiwanese to help Fan, but the PLA got there first and the defection fell apart.”
Fitzroy cocked his head. “No, lad. We… I mean whoever in the West that was really running Song, found out that Song’s plan was to kill Fan’s parents. So they hired me to go in and stop him. I sent a team in to kill the son of a bitch in Shanghai before he did it, but my lads were themselves killed in Shanghai. By who, I do not know.”
“Why did Song want to kill Fan’s parents?”
“I was never told. I was just told there was a timeline, because if I didn’t get Song, the Fans would end up dead. Which, unfortunately, is exactly what happened.”
“How did you get hooked up with Dai?”
“After Fan stumbled over the border with the PLA on his tail and no arms to run into, Colonel Dai came into Hong Kong looking for Fan. Someone told him I was here, and he knew about my network. He knew about you, in fact. It was like that. When he reached out to me, I spoke with MI6, and they realized they had a chance to use me and my network to grab Fan. My teams went looking for him, not to kill him, as Dai thought, but to capture him for the West.”
Court said, “But by then Fan had gotten himself hooked up with Wo Shing Wo, and your men got themselves killed.”
Fitzroy nodded. “That’s when Dai kidnapped me, and that’s when you showed up.”
Court said, “I was sent by Langley. This was sold to me like they had this once-in-a-lifetime chance to get Fan to the West so they could learn his secrets.”
Fitzroy smiled ruefully. “I’d say it was a twice-in-a-lifetime chance. The first time was at the border crossing. If Langley knew about that, which is a safe bet because the Taiwanese knew about it, then it is likely Langley was involved somehow.”
Court said, “I wonder if your people were sent in to scare Song. If he knew people were trying to kill him in Shanghai, he would want out of China. His handlers in the West could get him out, but only if he produced something valuable for them.”
Fitzroy understood. “It was the push he needed that would show him he was in danger. The catalyst that would get him to act. Someone in the West wanted Song to kill Fan’s parents so that Fan would run over the border to avoid being put to death for losing his family collateral.”
Court looked out past the balcony at the darkness there. “So… if this is all true, then the CIA was responsible for the murder of Fan’s parents.”
“CIA, MI6, Taiwan’s NSB, even. A safe bet they were all in it together. Either they conceived of the plan and pushed Song to go along with it, or they sat back and let it happen, happy to be the ultimate beneficiaries of the crime.”
Court put his head in his hands. “Well, this blows.”