“Told you the moto comes in handy sometimes.”
“You have to slow down, John. Didn’t you feel me hitting you?”
“Thought you wanted me to go faster.”
Exley couldn’t believe they were fighting about this, after what they’d just pulled off, but they were. “Such a child. If you’re gonna get us killed, do it for a halfway decent reason. You don’t have to prove to me you have a big dick.”
“Well, that’s comforting.” Wells lay next to Exley, his face almost touching hers. The bed sank under him. “Think this is one mattress or a bunch stitched together?”
Exley had to laugh. Wells could be impossible, and more than once lately she’d thought that he planned to push his luck until he wound up in a wooden box. But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t love him. “So what did he say? Kowalski?”
“Not much.” Wells recounted the conversation. “But there was one thing. He said he was getting paid out of a bank in Macao. Which doesn’t really make sense. Of course, the money could have been coming into that bank from anywhere.”
“Think he was telling the truth?”
Wells propped himself up on an elbow and stroked Exley’s hair. Finally, he nodded. “Yeah. He didn’t know who I was, but he knew no matter what, I couldn’t use it in court. He wanted me out of there and he didn’t know how much I knew. Honesty was his best bet.”
“He’s going to come after you. Us. In a way, he was flaunting what he’d done.”
“If he’s smart, he’ll let it go, be happy I didn’t shoot him. He can’t track us anyway. And if he does figure out it was us…”
Exley understood. They were untouchable. Or so Wells thought.
“Why did you tape him up that way at the end, John? He was angry already.”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
She waited, but Wells was silent, his breathing steady, and she knew he wouldn’t say anything more. “Roll over,” she said.
He turned his big body and Exley snuggled up and ran her hands around him. She pushed up his shirt and touched the raised red scar high on his back. He sighed softly, happily, and reached back for her. She closed her eyes and kissed his back.
“So who do you think was paying for those guys?” he said.
She lifted her mouth from his skin. “Don’t know. And that’s real money. A hundred and twenty million.”
“But think on it. We spend a couple billion bucks a month in Afghanistan. For a fraction of that, somebody’s making it a lot harder for us. Not a bad investment.”
“Syria. Libya.”
“Iran?”
“Maybe.”
Wells sat up and leaned against the bed’s battered headboard. Exley traced her hand over his chest, the muscles solid as iron.
“You close on the mole?” he said.
“We’d be closer if I hadn’t come up here. But we’ll get him soon. Shubai gave us enough. In a way it doesn’t matter, though. He’s already done the damage. We don’t have one Chinese agent we can trust.”
“Not a good time for it either,” Wells said.
“No. Any day now, China and Iran are about to announce something big. They aren’t even denying it. There’s all this trouble in Taiwan. And Shubai says there’s a power struggle in Beijing. Says the hard-liners want to prove how tough they are, that we have to stand up to them, that showing any weakness will just make them push us harder.” Exley closed her eyes and felt weariness overtake her.
“You think Beijing might have been supporting the Talibs through Kowalski?”
“I wondered too when you said Macao. But why risk a war with us?”
“None of it makes sense,” Wells said. “The Chinese make this deal with Iran. They betray the Drafter. It’s like they want a fight.”
“Yes and no. They’re coming at us sideways. They’re hoping we overreact.”
“But that’s not what Shubai says, right? He says they want us to back down so that the whole world will see how much more powerful they’re getting.”
“What would you do, John? If you were running the show? Push back hard on the Chinese or let things simmer?”
He considered. “I don’t know. We can’t let them push us around, and it sounds like this guy Shubai knows what he’s talking about. But there’s something we can’t see. Hate to go to war by accident.”
Wells didn’t bother to ask what she thought. Without another word, he rolled onto her, his size surprising her, as it always did. He enveloped her, his mouth on hers, wet open-mouthed kisses. He never asked permission, she thought. He never needed to. His big hands gripped her waist, then one was unbuttoning her jeans, the other pulling them off her hips. And as quickly as that, she forgot she was tired.
24
LARRY YOUNG, THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY, felt the buzz in the press-room as he strode to the podium. These afternoon briefings were usually inside baseball, watched by a few thousand political junkies. Not today. Today Young would be live from Los Angeles to Boston, Tokyo to Moscow. The Chinese and the Iranians had certainly gotten the world’s attention that morning.
Young waited for the cameras to stop clicking before he read the statement, approved forty-five minutes before by the president himself.
“The United States denounces the action by the People’s Republic of China in the strongest possible terms. If China wants the world’s respect, it should condemn Iran’s nuclear program, not support it. Most important, China must understand that the United States will hold it accountable if Iran deploys a nuclear weapon.”
The statement was short and to the point, as Young had recommended. “That’s all. I’m sure you have questions.” A dozen hands went up. “Jackson? My hometown favorite.”
Jackson Smith, from The Washington Post, stood. “Any sanctions planned against China? A trade embargo? Will we be recalling our ambassador?”
An easy one, Young thought. Smith was smart but predictable. “That’s three questions, but they all have the same answer. At this time, we’re reviewing our options, both economic and diplomatic.”
“But nothing planned at this time?”
“We’re not going to be hasty, Jackson. Next.” He pointed to Lia Michaels, from NBC. They’d had a brief fling a few years back, when he was a congressional aide and she was at CNN. They were both married now and never mentioned their history, but he always made sure to call on her and she always smiled at him when he did.
“The Pentagon has announced that the United States is deploying three aircraft carriers to the South China Sea. Why? Do we plan any military action?”
Young took a moment to get the answer exactly right. He’d worked this phrasing out with the president’s chief of staff and he didn’t want to miss a word. “The announcement today is only the most recent in a series of provocative actions by the People’s Republic. China must be aware that its actions have consequences. Next?”
But Lia wasn’t finished yet. “You said the United States will hold China accountable if Iran uses a nuclear weapon. Does that threat include a nuclear strike against China?”
“It’s not a threat. And we never discuss military contingencies. Next?”
Anne Ryuchi, the new CNN correspondent, caught his eye. “There have been rumors about this agreement for a couple of weeks. Did you try to warn China off?”
“We did attempt to express our concerns. Obviously the Chinese weren’t interested in hearing them. Next.”
Dan Spiegel, from The New York Times, practically jumped out of his seat. Young didn’t much like him. A typical Times reporter, smart but not as smart as he thought. “Mr. Spiegel.”