“My father. You know where he is. Tell me.”
“The damage is done.”
Michael pushed on, even as the life ebbed out of Ester’s body. “Where is my father?”
“Gone.”
Ester said nothing more, the dull gleam in her eye replaced by the stare of the dead. As she slumped forward, Michael thought that this woman whom he had worked so hard to find, this woman who had taken his father from him, had just taken one final thing — her secret to the grave.
“Is she dead?”
Michael nodded, reaching for what was left of Ester’s mobile phone with his left hand. He knew there might still be viable data on it, as did Kate, who stood behind him, no more than six feet away.
“Give me the phone, Michael.”
“Why?”
Kate laughed. “Call me an optimist. She didn’t send me the activation code for my payment. I’m willing to bet the data is still on her phone.”
Michael turned to see that Kate now held Ester’s shotgun. “I want answers,” he said. “She knew him and you knew him and I want to know where he is.”
“Dead.”
Michael bit his lower lip. “Why do you say that?”
“You know why.”
“No,” Michael said, “I don’t.”
“Your father’s video clip had to be months old. It’s the only way to explain it. It was taken while he was still in their custody. I don’t know how he managed to send it or why it had that time stamp, but it doesn’t matter. There’s no way he’s still alive. Not with them.”
Michael stood slowly, reaching into his pocket for the Luger as he did so. Kate must have seen the outline of the gun.
“Hands in the air, Michael. Above your head.”
Michael complied, palms open.
“I liked you. And I liked your dad. But like isn’t enough in this world. You need to survive. And dollars are the currency of survival. Your father was a spy. He knew the game. They made an offer and I did what I had to do.”
“Which was?”
“I didn’t kill him if that’s what you think.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“I handed him over to the Dragons. That’s it. He would have done exactly the same to me if he’d been in my shoes. So would you.”
Michael was silent for a long moment.
“No, Kate. That’s where you’re wrong. I wouldn’t do the same to you. Not for money.”
Michael’s words were punctuated by a burst of submachine gun fire from the bank below. Hidden behind the Horten as they were, Michael thought the chances of them being hit were remote, but it didn’t stop Kate from casting her glance in the direction of the shots. It was the split second Michael needed. He lunged forward and came up in a hard open handed block, pushing the shotgun to the side. Kate fired, but that’s what Michael wanted. He knew the double barreled weapon only chambered two shells at a time. He took hold of the barrel, pushing it away from himself, and Kate fired again. Before the hot exhaust had left the second barrel, Michael was able to wrench the weapon from Kate’s hand. He tossed it aside. The move was perfunctory. He was fairly certain Kate had no more shells, but regardless it seemed to confer the appropriate psychological effect. Kate backed away.
“It was never personal,” she said. “Not with your dad, not with you.”
Michael drew the Luger. Kate’s eyes were wide and wet with emotion, but Michael could see the calculation behind them. He could see the cogs turn.
“I’m going to walk away now,” she said.
Michael raised the Luger, training it squarely between her eyes.
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“You’re not a killer, Michael.”
And with that Kate turned and walked slowly away. He had a clear shot the whole time. He could have brought her down. She certainly deserved it for what she’d done to his father. To him. But he didn’t shoot. And he couldn’t fault her logic in thinking he wouldn’t. Because she was right. He wasn’t a killer. Not if there was a better way.
Chapter 59
The second-to-last thing Michael’s father taught him was how to deceive. He said it was different from lying. The way a symphony is different from a single instrument. To be able to lie was a useful skill. To be able to deceive was a brilliant one. He told Michael right off that the business of deception was just as serious as handling a gun. If you were going to deceive you had to do it for the right reasons. And you had to be ready to bear the consequences of failure. Hopefully you wouldn’t fail. But if you did, you had to man up and take it. The difference between deception and a gun was that the tools were more ethereal. Any idiot could buy a gun. Most could lie. But to deceive, to meticulously concoct a web of lies, that was an art.
His dad wasn’t content with theory, though. He wanted Michael to understand how it worked in the real world. So he brought Michael to a fishing lodge. He told him that they were going to tell all the other fishermen that they were brothers on vacation from their assembly jobs at the auto plant. Their goal was to gain one of the other fishermen’s trust so that they could borrow some equipment from the medical lab he worked in. Their excuse was that they needed to test a car component — to make sure that what the company was selling was safe. The set up sounded preposterous to Michael. Nobody would believe they were brothers. Nobody would give them access to their employer’s expensive equipment. But the fisherman did. And it was easier than Michael thought. All they had to do was appeal to the fisherman’s sense of justice. People wanted to believe, his father said. They’re trained to believe what they’re told from a very young age. You just needed to give them what they want.
***
Michael thought he heard an engine start, most likely a two-stroke, probably a motorcycle, but with the onslaught of vehicles cutting through the night he couldn’t be sure. What he was sure of was the fact that Kate was not going to be happy when she found out about him. But that wasn’t his problem. Not anymore. Within seconds of Kate’s departure, Michael was flanked by two Mercedes SUVs. A pair of men dove out of each. Two of the men laid down cover fire in the direction of the burning helicopter while the other two pulled Michael into the cab of the tractor trailer. That the men were Triad was evidenced by the tattooed tigers wrestling snakes on their thick necks. The taller of the two men took the wheel and seconds later Michael found himself leaving the reservoir as quickly as he had come. Five minutes after that they were headed south, hellbound down the Guanxi Expressway for Vietnam.
* * *
Huang was reeling. Not only had he lost the Horten, but his own helicopter had gone up in a ball of flame. He had no transportation, he had no radio, and what looked like a terrorist attack at the Jiuquan South Launch Center had taken his satellite phone offline. His men, as far as he could tell, had escaped the inferno, but the lack of casualties was of little consolation to him. Put simply, he had lost the war. His mission objective had been seized from him not once, but twice in one evening. He would not be granted a third reprieve. In his heart of hearts Huang understood that only one man was to blame for the debacle his mission had become and that man was the American spy. In that moment Huang decided that the American would pay. He would pay if it was the last act Huang committed in the service of his country. He would pay personally. And he would pay regardless of the cost.