59

MI6 HEADQUARTERS

VAUXHALL CROSS

LONDON

Chalmers stuck his head in the door of the conference room, interrupting Calibrisi, who was on a phone call. Katie and Tacoma were seated at the conference table, looking at their laptops.

“We have something,” said Chalmers.

The group took an elevator to the second floor of MI6 headquarters. When the doors opened, they entered a cavernous, brightly lit room filled with dozens of men and women at workstations. This was MI6’s operations room, Smythson’s nerve center for the management of MI6 paramilitary teams.

“Close your eyes, guys,” said Chalmers as they walked through.

Technically, Calibrisi, Katie, and Tacoma shouldn’t have been allowed on the second floor of Vauxhall Cross. But while there existed plenty of information that the two agencies kept separate, including activities inside each respective country, the fact is that MI6 and the CIA were more like siblings than adversaries. The occasional courtesy, such as allowing Langley’s well-liked director to pass through, was looked at by everyone on the floor with a mixture of amusement and pride.

In the middle of the floor stood a small frosted-glass conference room. In each corner, a large plasma screen was hanging. In the center of the room was a steel conference table. Smythson stood at the table, looking across it at two men who were seated behind computer screens.

Chalmers, Calibrisi, Katie, and Tacoma entered the room.

Smythson’s brown hair was brushed back from her face, tousled after so many hours of stress and work. She looked up at Chalmers, a blank expression on her face.

“Punch it up on two,” said Smythson.

One of the plasmas lit up, and the group watched as video started to play on the screen.

“We’ve been monitoring SIGINT coming out of PRC,” said Smythson. “Video, audio, data. This came off a British Airways flight four hours ago. The jet was on approach to Beijing International Airport.”

The screen was black. After several moments, the orange and yellow lights of Beijing twinkled across the screen as the plane descended.

“Watch for it,” said Smythson.

Flashing green and yellow lights pulsated in a long line, which indicated the runway that the jet was headed for. To the right of the runway, an orange mushroom cloud of flames was visible. As the lights on the ground grew larger, the plume of bright orange spiraled spectacularly into the sky, the flames lashing orange and white into the black of the night.

“It’s an explosion,” said Smythson. “We’ll get a closer shot, here.”

The jet moved lower. As it closed in on the runway, the size of the inferno grew larger. An analyst paused it. The right side of the screen was now taken up by a still frame of the explosion. Within the flame stacks was the skeleton of a plane, now aflame.

“So there was a plane that caught fire at Beijing International,” said Calibrisi.

Smythson smiled at Calibrisi.

“It’s Borchardt’s plane,” said Smythson.

Calibrisi’s eyes grew wide.

“Once we saw the burning plane,” said an analyst, “I called MIS to see if we could look at all SIGINT for Beijing International starting six hours ago, the approximate earliest point in time I thought they could fly in from London to Beijing. I got a hit on a flight plan, an inbound private flight, Boeing 757, which landed three hours before the video was snapped. The plane crossmatched against a British customs filing that one of Borchardt’s companies made almost a decade ago, an ownership certificate, necessary if your plane is British domiciled.”

Calibrisi nodded. “Excellent work.”

“What does it mean?” asked Katie. “Could they have attacked the plane? Perhaps on landing?”

“We’re not there yet,” said Smythson. “There are a number of different possible explanations.”

“There aren’t that many,” said Katie, walking to the screen, pointing at the skeleton of the jet. “It landed, so it wasn’t shot down, right? It’s in Beijing, which could mean Dewey flew right into the waiting arms of Fao Bhang.”

“Yes,” said Chalmers. “Or there’s simply a different explanation. In any event, we need some real-time intelligence on Dewey. Hector, this guy is your guy. Do you have any way of reaching him?”

Calibrisi shrugged his shoulders.

“What can I say?” asked Calibrisi. “The guy’s AWOL.”

“We need to find Dewey,” said Smythson.

Calibrisi nodded, then pulled his phone out.

“Get me Bruckheimer over at NSA,” he said into the phone, to an operator at CIA control. “Tell him it’s important.”

60

IN THE AIR

Dewey leaned into the cockpit.

“No radio,” said Dewey, “unless you feel like having China shoot us out of the sky.”

Dewey went back to the seat and opened his leather bag. He removed a half-empty pint bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He sat down in the seat and kicked his feet up on the seat in front of him.

“Why did you save me?” asked Borchardt. They were his first words since taking off from Beijing several hours before.

Dewey held the bottle in his hand, reading the label on the side of the bottle. He took another sip but said nothing.

Borchardt sat up, a pained grimace crossing his face. He felt for his ear. It had turned into a large red scab. The gash had clotted up. Dewey had left it alone, even though it needed a bandage. Eventually, the blood had stopped trickling.

Borchardt touched the raw, fresh scab, then grimaced again. He glanced around the interior of the plane.

“This must be the new plane,” he said, admiring it. “They’re too expensive, of course, but Gulfstream makes the best planes. Look at it.”

Dewey stared at the seat in front of him, his mind a thousand miles away.

Killing Bhang’s brother had done little to make the pain go away. His mind kept replaying the sight of Jessica, her eyes looking helplessly up at him from the ground.

“Nothing,” Dewey whispered to himself. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Dewey,” said Borchardt. “Why did you save me?”

Dewey glanced at Borchardt, a look of contempt and sadness on his face.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“Because I gave you my word,” said Dewey, looking away, shutting his eyes for a moment, trying to shut out the sight of Borchardt, of the plane—trying to shut out the world.

Borchardt sat back.

“Well, thank you,” said Borchardt. “Whatever you did it for.”

Dewey opened his eyes. He stared impassively at Borchardt. Borchardt was a mess. On one side, his shirt was covered in blood. He had a raw, fresh contusion on his forehead. His ear looked as if a bear had clawed part of it off.

Dewey had inflicted the counterblow he wanted to. He’d struck hard at Bhang, in a way that had undoubtedly hurt him. But Bhang wasn’t expecting it. He would be anticipating Dewey’s next move.

Dewey knew Bhang would bring the weight of the ministry to bear now. He would scour the earth looking for him, much as Aswan Fortuna had done. Yet, unlike Fortuna, Bhang had an army of committed, disciplined warriors, not just a cell of half-crazed jihadists.

And the first place they’d be looking is somewhere in the vicinity of the disheveled, blood-crusted, ashen-pale little German billionaire with the odd haircut seated across from him.

Dewey glanced at his watch. They’d left Beijing nine hours before. They would be over Europe soon.

Dewey knew that now was the time to move beyond improvisation. Bhang would come looking for him, and when he did, he had to be ready. He would have, at most, one chance at Bhang.

Dewey knew he couldn’t do it alone. He needed Hector.

But would Hector ever forgive him?

Dewey shut his eyes, feeling shame, as his mind replayed the look in Hector’s eyes as Dewey held him by the neck, against the concrete wall.