“Their concern was less with your tone or what you called them and more with your... lack of leadership skills.”
“You mean my lack of... Can I say ‘balls’ to you? Will that offend you? Will it show poor leadership on my part?”
“Very funny, Ms. Martindale, but it does seem their concerns about how you handled this operation were justified.”
“I was supposed to discern not only that the woman in that penthouse was a decoy, but to anticipate that she would be gunned down by a hijacked drone?”
“How did you know the drone was hijacked?” Parks asked, trying to raise an eyebrow suspiciously, but only succeeding in looking like he was twitching.
“Of course it was hijacked. Unless you believe the Chinese military was trying to kill a woman pretending to be a spy.”
As Millie said the words, it dawned on her that maybe the drone hadn’t been hijacked. Maybe the Chinese government really did aim to kill the woman for some reason.
“Do you have reason to believe the Chinese government wasn’t behind this?” Parks asked.
“I can’t divulge the details of my operation, but I can tell you that the Chinese government would have known that woman wasn’t Li Feng.”
Millie had thought she was ready for this conversation. She’d planned to give short, respectful answers that provided enough information that she’d appear compliant without taking any blame for what happened. She hadn’t absolved herself of the guilt, but she would talk to Lance and deal with it appropriately. She would not let some internal affairs jerks likely sent by Arrow Donaldson get to her.
It wasn’t going great, but she was hoping she could still turn the conversation her way until she heard the helicopter overhead.
Everyone in the parking lot looked up and watched it land. Millie expected Arrow Donaldson to step out, which made it even more surprising when she saw her boyfriend, FBI agent Quentin Phillips, emerge from the helicopter and walk toward her.
“Who are you?” Agent Parks asked.
Quentin brushed passed him and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Millie.
“Quentin Phillips. I’m with the FBI.”
“Ms. Martindale is a CIA officer and therefore under the jurisdiction of—”
“I have a letter here signed by the president of the United States that demands you stand down and let Ms. Martindale get back to work.”
“The FBI has no jurisdiction in China.”
“I’d think the seal and signature of the president would be enough to calm your territorial instincts, but since that doesn’t seem to be the case, I’ll let you in on a little secret. The drone that was shot down was hacked through a network of servers, one of which is in the United States of America. The drone itself was built with schematics that are alleged to have been stolen from a United States defense company. That’s corporate espionage, and that’s FBI jurisdiction.”
Parks and Malmon looked at each other with confused irritation before stepping away to confer with each other. When they returned, Agent Malmon spoke for the first time.
“This isn’t over.”
“Have your boss call my boss and we’ll set up a playdate,” Quentin said.
Malmon and Parks argued all the way back to their car while Quentin put his arm around Millie in an awkward side hug. She pushed him back with a wry smile.
“I can fight my own battles, you know,” Millie said. “I don’t need a man to rescue me.”
“The president, who authorized my visit to rescue you, is a woman,” Quentin said.
27
“I feel like we should be in tuxedos for this to work,” Teddy said, again to the dealer, because he was the only one responsive at the table. Bingo was still staring vacantly off into the distance and ignoring Teddy’s conversation. Teddy had briefly wondered if Bingo was only acting zoned out so that he didn’t have to answer Teddy’s questions, but after a few quick tests to see if he could catch Bingo off guard, Teddy concluded the vacant stare was real.
He was about ready to give up and take Bingo back to Stone’s suite — to use more traditional means of information extraction — when a waitress walked by and asked if he’d like a drink.
“Lemon tea for my friend,” Teddy said.
The woman smiled and nodded, returning several minutes later with an elegant ceramic teacup steaming with a thick yellow-tinted liquid. Teddy tipped her and the dealer well, then played a few hands to reacquaint himself with the game while the calming properties of the lemon and hot tea hopefully cleared the remainder of the tranquilizer from Bingo’s system. A few hands in, Teddy noticed the life coming back to Bingo’s eyes.
“Deal my friend in this time,” Teddy said.
Teddy knew the odds in baccarat, like everything else, were in the house’s favor, but the margin was as slim as possible and had great potential for careful players to win considerable amounts. This is how Teddy saw his interaction with Bingo. He could have played the easy odds and killed him, but the payoff would have been minimal. Playing this game, buying time with Bingo, had the potential to net very useful information if Teddy was patient.
“Tie,” the dealer said, pulling Teddy’s attention back to the table.
Teddy had his wager on the player’s hand and Bingo’s was on the banker’s hand. Two rounds in a row there’d been a tie. This time Teddy moved both wagers to the player’s hand, where the payoff was better.
“If you win, you keep the cash and tell me who sent you,” Teddy said.
Bingo nodded, though Teddy wasn’t completely sure he was coherent. Even so, it wasn’t so much specific information he was hoping to get from Bingo. Playing the game would give them time together, which would up the chances that the drugs in Bingo’s system would cause him to spill something he normally wouldn’t.
They were playing at the mini-baccarat table, so there was less ceremony and the game went quicker because there was less money at stake. The dealer dealt the player’s hand first with a total of seven, and Teddy waved off another card.
“That’s very good for us,” Teddy said.
The dealer then dealt his own hand which totaled nine, beating the player’s hand.
“Looks like I don’t have to tell you anything,” Bingo said.
Two more hands, two more shifts in wagers, and Teddy managed to lose both. After twenty minutes of poor game play, Teddy’s patience was running thin and more players were joining the table, making conversation difficult.
“Tell me what’s going on with the film set attacks and the blackmail letter to my partners,” Teddy said.
“Seven hands in a row your hand has either tied or lost. I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“I can’t say this is how I imagined things going, but I think we both remember the look on your face in that alley when I was on top of you and could have easily snapped your neck.”
“It seems to me,” Bingo said, finishing off the last of his tea, “that you can’t even manage to drug me properly, let alone kill me.”
“One more hand. Last chance.”
“This game is ridiculous. I’m leaving.”
Teddy let Bingo walk away and get far enough away that he had to hurry up to reach him when he left the table. It gave the illusion of a drunk friend catching up to his buddy while providing cover for Teddy to stumble into Bingo and jab him with another syringe. Teddy had his arm around Bingo and kept a firm grip on him even as Bingo wriggled to escape.
“This one was poison,” Teddy said. “Maybe I put too much in this one, too. Who knows?”
“You’re bluffing.”