Chapter 24
Ted strode up West Street, Michael and Kate following him through the crowd. They were safely anonymous, at least for the time being, and Michael felt his composure return. Still, he was embarrassed that he had lost his focus, even momentarily back on the bridge. What had happened so long ago on the mountain side in Peru had happened. Nothing could change that. But he couldn’t let the past interfere with what he had to do now.
“Those guys on the bridge were MSS,” Ted said. “Ministry of State Security.”
“How do you know?” Michael asked.
“My gut. My gut and the fact that I think I saw an ear piece on one them. Your typical farmer doesn’t wear earpieces. Earrings maybe, or ear plugs, but not earpieces.”
Ted was walking quickly now, Michael and Kate struggling to keep up. “Suddenly you’re an expert on Chinese Intelligence Services?” Michael said.
“I never said that.”
“Kate’s been telling me things, Ted. Stuff about my dad. Stuff you’d never mentioned.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that he was CIA for starters,” Michael looked to Kate before adding the next part. “The fact that she’s MI6. That they spent a couple of years partnered together looking for an old Nazi airplane. That maybe the reason he’s gone missing is because of it.”
Ted clicked his tongue and redoubled his pace up the street.
“Is that all you have to say? You were his best friend. Are you going to tell me you didn’t know about any of this?”
Ted ignored Michael, instead leading the way toward an establishment that was about as different from the ramshackle guest houses lining West Street as you could get. Its expansive gardens and reflecting pools made it look more like a palace than anything else. Kate seemed to know the place.
“The Yangshuo Hotel?” Kate said.
“I’m getting too old for the backpacking thing.”
“And?”
“And it’s time to read the writing on the wall.”
***
The wall in this case was to be found in the resort’s gracious glass paneled lobby. Outside, the landscaping was lush, waterfalls and exotic plantings covering the inner courtyard. Inside, the floor to ceiling windows were broken up by traditional bearing walls at fifteen-foot intervals. A polished marble floor separated them from the empty reception desk at the far end of the lobby. Other than the bellhop outside the swinging glass doors, they were alone.
“Check out the artwork,” Ted said. “See anyone you know?”
Michael noted that the walls between the glass panels were covered in framed photographs. He turned his attention to the nearest one — a framed photo of what looked like some Japanese tourists in front of the hotel. Strike that, they were Japanese dignitaries; their suits were formal. Michael turned to the next picture and saw a similarly laid out photo of the British Royal Family. Continuing along the wall, the next shot was of President Nixon standing with a cadre of Secret Service; the next showed President Carter with his Secret Service; then President Clinton alongside his protection detail; then George W. Bush.
“So this place is popular with Royals and ex-presidents?”
“Presidents,” Ted said. “They were in office when they visited.”
Michael’s eyes skipped across the glass panels overlooking the courtyard to the solid wall behind the reception desk. There was a bell on the desk and on the wall behind it were more of the same photos, each sporting an identical layout to the last. There were dignitaries from Africa, India, South America, the list went on.
“So what do you think?” Ted asked. “Why so many official visitors?”
“The banana pancakes?”
Ted ignored Michael’s quip. “What if I told you I have firsthand knowledge as to why one of these guys was here, flawless intelligence on two more, and a lot better than a guess on the rest of them?”
“I’d say start talking.”
Ted eyed the front desk. Even though there was nobody there, he beckoned Michael and Kate to follow him outside just the same. Once they were clear of the bellhop he spoke quietly.
“All those presidential visits from Nixon on up amounted to one thing.” Ted quietly surveyed the area as they walked to ensure nobody was within earshot. “They were official cover to get a CIA team into Red China under the auspices of a Secret Service Security Operation.”
“How do you know any of this?” Michael asked.
“Kate didn’t tell you?”
“Tell him what?”
“I was on the CIA team,” Ted said to Michael. “So was your dad.”
* * *
Michael bit down on his tongue as a group of Japanese tourists shuffled past on their way back to the hotel.
Kate said, “I had no idea, Michael. I swear.”
“Calm down, nothing to get uppity about,” Ted said. “I just assumed you knew. Nixon on his trip to China in seventy-one. I was a new agent. Your father and I had just finished the basic operative training course at Camp Peary. Everybody calls it The Farm now. Both of us were pretty psyched when we got the assignment.”
“You’re saying my dad was here all the way back in nineteen seventy-one?”
“Michael, your father ran one mission for more or less his entire career — the recovery of the Horten 21. Everything else, every single other thing he did for the CIA, was filler.”
“Yeah, but you’re saying he was looking for this thing for decades?”
“That’s what I’m saying. It was our first assignment together. He just never let go. Back when we started, half our classmates were stuck in embassies somewhere and we were out here on the front lines posing as Nixon’s security detail. You’ve got to remember, back in the Nixon era coming here was big news. His was the first US presidential visit ever and the Chinese wanted to impress him. They even built a bloody highway for him. They call it the Nixon Road, from the airport to the city, and they did that just to make Tricky Dick feel welcome. You can imagine how they’d feel if they knew a big old chunk of the reason for his trip to this part of the country revolved around a CIA plan to find the Horten.”
“Let me make sure I got this,” Michael said. “You’re basically telling me Nixon came to China in seventy-one to look for a Nazi airplane?”
“Look, I can’t speculate as to every reason Nixon had for his presidential trip to China. I can’t even tell you how much he knew about the Company’s plan to locate the Horten. But I can tell you this. Posing as his security detail provided us with about as good a cover as we were going to get back then. We traveled up and down these hills doing bogus security reconnaissance in anticipation of his visit. Chinese Intelligence followed us the whole time but we still managed to cover a lot of ground.” Ted paused. “In the end it didn’t matter much, though. We didn’t find a thing.”
“And Carter and Clinton? Bush?”
“Same deal. Though I was out of the Agency by the time Bush came around. Word has it that the British did the same thing with their security teams. And the Japanese. Everybody wanted a piece of that lost Nazi tech.”
They reached the main road. Locals still sat on bicycles, backpackers wandering up and down the street.
“Your dad stayed with the project and became something of an expert on the Horten. The way I hear it, he even kept the search for it alive when nobody else seemed to think it was worth finding. Your father realized that the Horten was more than a plane. It was the holy grail of the energy crisis. Its reactor could solve the planet’s energy needs and redraw the world map in the process. If the word passion wasn’t as played out as a Thai hooker, I’d say he had a passion for it — a passion to find that technology. He managed to get himself reassigned to the project multiple times that I know of. It looks like this last time, with Kate here, he just didn’t come back.”