Durant nodded. “Except we’re not sure about Washington.”
“Spooks sticking their oar in?”
“Could be,” Wu said.
“So what d’you want me to do?”
“Create a diversion,” Wu said.
“You mean stir it up over here while old Al sneaks away over there?”
“Something like that,” Durant said.
There was a long pause as Crouch stared at the floor, considering the proposition. A minute went by before he looked up at Artie Wu and said, “How much?”
“What would you say to ten thousand?” Wu asked.
“I’d say fifteen right off the bat.”
Durant grinned. “Why fifteen?”
“Because I’ve got a granddaughter who wants to go to Swarthmore next year and fifteen thousand’ll just about cover it. Unless I buy myself a new car. Haven’t decided yet.” He grinned. “Things don’t really change much, do they? Back when I was a kid my old man had to decide whether to send me to Dartmouth or buy himself a new Buick. He sent me to Dartmouth, I flunked out and he regretted his choice till the day he died.”
“Okay, Colonel,” Artie Wu said. “Fifteen.”
“You guys got a plan?”
“A germ of one,” Durant said.
“Well, let’s hear it and then I’ll tell you how to make it work.”
The block-long Chinese-owned department store was on Colon Street, the oldest street in Cebu — or in the Philippines, for that matter. Its executive offices were on the fourth floor and it was there that Artie Wu sat on a couch in the reception area, dressed in his white money suit, both hands clasped over the head of his cane, the Panama hat on the arm of the couch. Next to him sat Durant, wearing a light gray suit, shirt, and tie. On Durant’s knees was a leather zip-around envelope case large enough to hold a legal brief. Inside it was $30,000 in $100 bills.
The reception area had been done in pale shades of green and yellow. The chairs and the couch looked as if they had been thriftily salvaged from broken suites in the store’s furniture department. On the walls were six mass-produced oil paintings, all seascapes, two of them identical or nearly so. From the ceiling came Muzak with something syrupy from My Fair Lady. Artie Wu was almost sure it was being played for the third time. At last the green carved door opened and the young Chinese who had introduced himself as Mr. Loh came out. “He’ll see you now, gentlemen.”
The room they entered was large and filled with fine old stuff from Madrid and Seville, Shanghai and Canton. None of the furniture seemed less than 300 years old and its juxtaposition offered a remarkable study in blends and contrasts.
Behind a desk that Durant guessed to be eighteenth-century Spanish sat a small Chinese who looked only a little younger than his desk. He had miles of wrinkles and not much hair and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses that he wore down on the tip of his nose. Two very black, very young-looking eyes peered over the glasses.
He waved Durant and Wu into chairs. They sat down and heard the green door close behind them. “I am Chang and you obviously are Wu and you, sir, Durant,” the Chinese said in a firm high voice that ended in an almost adolescent titter. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”
Wu smiled politely; Durant didn’t.
Chang tilted his head back so that he could peer down through his glasses at the letter in his left hand. “My dear friend Huang in Manila is well?”
“Mr. Huang is very well,” Artie Wu said.
“He writes of you with warm praise.”
“He flatters me.”
“He asks me to show you every courtesy.”
“I would be grateful.”
“And urges me to do business with you because it will be profitable.”
“A fair profit is only just,” Wu said.
Chang put the letter down on his desk, scratched his left ear thoughtfully and said, “Very well. Tell me what you want.”
“Mercenaries.”
Chang nodded as if he sold them every day on the mezzanine. “Good ones?”
“Mediocre ones.”
“Good ones would be expensive.”
“And mediocre ones?”
“Less so — depending on how many you want.”
“Say, two dozen?”
“And what would you do with these two dozen mediocre mercenaries?”
“They will indirectly help Alejandro Espiritu flee to Hong Kong.”
“Flee?”
“Flee.”
“And once there, what will become of him?”
“He will enjoy a comfortable retirement and exile.”
“And what, please, will the mercenaries be required to do?”
“Surrender.”
Chang smiled and tittered again. He had small uneven teeth that seemed to be his own. “How interesting,” he said.
“I am pleased you find it so.”
“Before we discuss details,” Chang said, giving the right ear a scratch this time, “perhaps we should talk of price.”
“As you wish.”
“Do you have a price in mind?”
Wu shook his head. “Price will be determined by our severely limited resources.”
“Are your resources in dollars?”
“They are.”
“Then I can offer a ten percent discount.”
“Ten percent off how much, may I ask?”
Chang thought about it, his eyes now fixed on Durant. “Two dozen mediocre at fifteen hundred each, less ten percent for cash, would be thirty-two thousand four hundred.”
Durant shook his head.
“Say, thirty thousand even?”
Durant nodded.
Chang smiled at Artie Wu. “Your partner drives a hard bargain, Mr. Wu.”
Wu looked at Durant with pride. “He does something else equally well,” he said, turning back to Chang with a suddenly chill stare. “He makes sure that bargains, once made, are kept.”
Chang’s wrinkled face went cold and stiff. He’s freeze-dried it, Durant thought. Then it slowly thawed and a smile appeared. “I share Mr. Durant’s concern,” Chang said to Artie Wu.
Wu relaxed. He relaxed even more when Chang bent forward, his eyes glittering, his tone conspiratorial. “Shall we go into the details now?” he asked. “I’m sure I’ll find them most tasty.”
Chapter Thirty-three
At 3:32 that afternoon, Alejandro Espiritu put down his mug of tea and asked, “What’s the most you ever earned in a year from this terrorism diddle of yours?”
“Diddle?” Stallings said with a grin.
“Diddle. A perfectly good word — good enough for Poe, which is where I first ran across it. In one of his short stories.”
“You’re a treat, Al.”
They were again seated at the rough board table in the big nipa a hut. Minnie Espiritu had returned a half hour earlier with a sack full of beer for Stallings. She now sat with her ear to the Sony shortwave, listening to a talk program from the BBC.
“Well, how much?” Espiritu asked.
“Fifty-eight thousand in eighty-four.”
“What qualifications must you have before setting yourself up as a terrorism expert?”
“Well, you should read a couple of books, maybe even three. Spend at least a week in Beirut and maybe one in either San Salvador or Lima. Then you come back to the States, Washington probably, rent an office, get some cards printed and you’re in business.”
“You’re joking, of course.”
“Not much.”
“Isn’t there some kind of professional organization that sets standards — an American Society of Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency Experts?”