Take No Names, page 13
I wave at her impatiently. She scuttles down the spiral staircase and snags a chair from a neighboring table.
“What’s going on?” she says. “Where’s Sun? I thought I was pretending to not know you guys.”
“Sun’s waiting with the buyer.” I glance over my shoulder at the door as I talk, search the big windows that overlook Avenida Mazatlán, scanning for the lite beer grunts. “They’re some kind of American paramilitary outfit. They’re insisting on meeting us both in person. They’ve got access to the NSD.”
“Chief, slow down,” Mark says. “If you stroke out before lunch, no one wins.”
“These people want more than the stone. They want us to do something for them. And they’re offering more than money: they’re claiming that they can wipe our warrants. SeaTac, Pasadena—everything!”
“Okay, wow, way too much,” Jules says. “What say we mosey over to the embassy instead?”
“We might end up in the same hands,” I say. “But with no leverage left.”
“Feels like we’re switching planes mid-flight,” Mark says. “I like the old plan, where we get paid today and get lost tonight.”
I press my hands flat on the granite tabletop. “Listen to me, both of you,” I say. “These people are for real. They can clear our names.”
“How could they do that? Who are these guys exactly?” Mark says. “Like, S.H.I.E.L.D.?”
“They look like military. They talk like CIA. But they’re riding around in an armored party limo that must’ve been custom-built for a drug lord.”
Nobody says anything as this information sinks in, our silence making room for the lively sounds of the café. People drinking coffee, eating cute foods, living nice lives.
“All they want is the gemstone and a few days of our time,” I say. “They’ll pay us double the original price. Half a million and a clean slate. No more running, no more hiding.”
Mark purses his lips and raises his eyebrows like, Doesn’t sound too bad to me. But Jules folds her arms over her chest. “This feels exactly like last year when you followed Sun to Beijing. You thought you were making things right, but it turned out to be a total disaster.”
“I thought you came here to help me.”
“I did,” she says. “But not to enable you to make more bad decisions. What do these people want you to do, anyway?”
“They won’t say what until they have our confidence. But it doesn’t involve violence,” I say. “Sun was particular about that. He’s following your rules for him.”
“What’s he got to do with it?”
“They want him, too, and he wants to do it. He says he owes me.”
“Victor, how do you know these people won’t screw you over?”
“I don’t,” I admit. “That’s where you come in. They’re stingy with information, but they don’t know you’re here. If you can figure out who they are and what their game is, then maybe we can get an edge on them.”
I take our room key out of my pocket and put it on the table in front of her.
“Call this guy Arturo. His number’s in my backpack. He’ll want some money, but he’ll be willing to help. Tell him we need a safe house.”
And I tell them what Keystone said: a drama unfolding in this city, a role for us to play.
“Something to do with the Longdai airport,” Mark interjects, his face bone-white. “It has to be.”
I stay focused on Jules. “See if Art knows anyone in the police or the army. And get online, comb the message boards, look for rumors about US military operations in Mexico. I’ll find a way to contact you. A few days, that’s it. Please.”
Jules stares at the room key on the table, pressing her fingertips against her temples. Then she lifts her chin again and fixes me with a look sharper than a diamond saw.
“Tell me I should trust you,” she says.
I squeeze my eyes shut, take a deep breath, open them again.
“Maybe you shouldn’t, Jules. But I’m taking this chance whether you help me or not. I’m tired of fake names and shell games and surviving in the shadows.” As the words come out of my mouth, conviction braces me like a plunge in the ocean, and for the first time in sixteen months, my mind is clear as polished glass. “I want to go home.”
20
We walk around the rim of the larger artificial lake in Chapultepec Park, toward the bench where the man called Keystone awaits us. The bench faces north, offering him a view of our approach. Behind him, towering above the park’s lush treetops, are the austere ramparts and parapets of Chapultepec Castle.
Keystone sits cross-legged and casual. He’s wearing wraparound shades, an Oxford shirt tucked into olive slacks, and the kind of chunky white sneakers favored by sciatica sufferers. His pale hair is parted and moussed. His jaw is square and tan. His wristwatch is big and shiny.
He looks like an advertisement for multivitamins or boner pills.
“Mr. Knox.” He stands up to shake our hands. “Mr. Li. Mr. Sun.”
“Call me Mark,” says Mark.
Keystone looks past us to Pabst and Miller, trailing some fifty feet behind, and makes a gesture with his hand at belt level. They disperse into the throngs of families and tourists as Keystone starts walking around the perimeter of the lake, and we fall in beside him.
“Let’s see this stone, then,” he says.
I look at Mark. He shakes his head.
“Buy me dinner,” he says. “Take me dancing.”
Keystone smirks. “No matter. Ken assured me that it was the one we did not buy from Isabel.”
As he speaks, he inclines his head ever so slightly across the lake. Following his gaze, I see the man from the pulquería on the other side: Ken, dressed in the same leather motorcycle jacket, pretending to watch birds through a pair of binoculars.
Then I look back to Keystone, see him watching me notice Ken with a slight smile of approval on his face.
“Wanna explain to us what this is all about?” I say. “What’s the military doing down here, buying Burmese conflict stones?”
“I am not the military,” Keystone replies in his gentle drawl, “I” sounding like ah. “I have told you what I can do for you: clear your records and pay you well. And I’ll do it if you can do something for me. But before that happens, I need to know I can depend upon your competence. So.”
“So?”
“So you know that the Chinese are in town, leashing up Mexico with this mammoth airport loan. You know that Ken and I are buying uncertified painites at Los Tres Piratas. What else do you know?”
Mark chews his lip. “The Chinese are mining painite in Myanmar, right?”
Keystone inclines his head.
“They’re using rare gems as currency. Why? Oh.” I connect dots in my head. “The sanctions. Longdai can’t access normal financial systems.”
Keystone smiles without showing his teeth. “That’s public information. The US Treasury has placed extensive restrictions on Chinese state-owned firms, including Longdai. We’ve gotten half of Europe to do the same. Of course, China’s money can’t be contained completely.”
“The stones are untraceable.” It dawns on Mark’s face as he speaks. “Great way to put a million dollars in a sandwich bag.”
Keystone’s smile widens, producing a chin dimple, and he raises his blond eyebrows above his dark glasses.
“Let’s walk this way,” he says, leading us onto a brick path lined with vendor carts. Luchador masks. Hibiscus iced tea. Skewered slabs of peeled jicama, coated in chili salt and lime.
“So Longdai’s using painite for what? Bribes to garner support for their airport project?” I say. “That doesn’t explain why you’re buying it.”
“We’d like to know who’s in Longdai’s pocket,” Keystone says. “Thanks to our front at Los Tres Piratas, we have an extended list of local nabobs with their hands in the cookie jar. It’s simple: they send their gophers, we pay an extra slice on top, and we learn fer whom the gophers go. Thanks to Ken’s hard work, we know that half the Mexican cabinet has a painite collection by now.”
I roll my eyes. “Using taxpayer dollars to buy Chinese IOUs from corrupt Mexican politicians. That’s rich.”
“We’re using taxpayer dollars to uphold the Monroe Doctrine.” The chin dimple disappears as an edge drops into Keystone’s voice.
“But what does that get you?” Mark asks. “A list of names?”
“The names are a starting point. We’re looking for more than that. You’ve seen the protests? The airport is unpopular. With the right nudge, Mexico could turn against China.”
“You want dirty laundry,” Mark says.
“Someone taking bribes from Longdai who would expose their scheme,” I say. “And make the Chinese look bad.”
Keystone says nothing. We compress into a single file to pass between two clumps of lost German tourists on rented bicycles.
“You haven’t found anyone,” Mark says. “You haven’t even come close.”
Keystone shakes his head, but the smile stays on his face, takes on a rueful tightness. “We did come close. Isabel was a disappointment.”
“So Isabel had some connection to Longdai? And you recruited her?” I ask.
“She came to us. Isabel was Longdai’s ace security officer. But part of her job was attending galas in evening gowns and handing off painite to Mexico’s sleaziest oligarchs. She developed an unfondness for it. So she got her hands on two large stones and came to see us at Los Tres Piratas.”
He pauses to watch a bird flap across the cloudless sky, following it with his whole torso like he’s drawing a bead. When it disappears behind the ramparts of the castle, Keystone resumes talking in the same casual tone.
“We asked Isabel to blow the whistle on Longdai. She corroborated our list of corrupt locals, but that’s as far as she would go. So we paid her for one of her stones and helped her escape to her chosen place of exile, which was the United States. She said she wanted to see the Grand Canyon.” He shrugs his shoulders like, None of my business. “Naturally, we suggested to some friends back home that they keep tabs. It seems that they saw fit to have her deported. She was the first candidate for the job we’d like to discuss with you.”
“She wouldn’t wear a wire,” Mark says.
The dimple returns when Keystone does his gentle chuckle. “Gentlemen, you’re no fools,” he says. “Our intel from Beijing indicates that Longdai’s on thin ice with the Communist Party leadership. As they see it, Longdai is generating image problems. Acting a little big for their britches, one might say.”
Sun’s stab at Song Fei’s encoded message replays in my head: Hēishǒu lànquán, tiān gāo huángdì yuán. I flip the order of the clauses. The sky is high, and the emperor is far away. The black hand abuses its power.
So that’s why Song Fei defected and fled to the States. She didn’t like being the black hand.
“So the party leadership isn’t so keen on the Amistad Airport,” I say.
“The airport’s all right,” Keystone replies. “It’s all the protest movement that has the general secretary losing sleep. China wants to look like the savior of the world’s downtrodden. Not just a new colonial villain.”
“And you want to vilify them a little more. Expose the bribery and the corruption. Fuel the local outrage in order to pull Mexico away from China,” Mark concludes.
I shake my head in disbelief. “Just so that Washington can keep using this country as a scapegoat.”
“Washington ain’t got a thing to do with it,” Keystone snaps at me. “Son, we play a longer game than the blowhard demagogues who spend all morning in hair and makeup. Mexico’s been a good friend to the United States for centuries. Farming our produce. Cooking up some damn fine recreational drugs. Number two market for our exports. Mexico’s a pillar of the American empire, and we all know it. It appalls me, the way our politicians disrespect these fine people.” Keystone’s lips twist into a sneer. “Like a jockey who loses a race and tortures his horse.”
“But you’re smart. You torture the other guy’s horse.” Mark grins.
“I’m serving the greater interests of the American nation.”
“And that gives you the right to stick your fingers in Mexico’s affairs?” I say.
Mark jabs his elbow into my ribs.
Keystone stops walking, heaves a sigh, and puts his hands on his hips. We’ve arrived in a spacious plaza, tiered with wide brick steps, dominated by six marble columns.
“See this monument? Los niños héroes.” Keystone’s Spanish pronunciation is flawless. He gestures to the columns, each of which is topped with a statue of a black eagle. “The boy heroes. Six cadets who gave their lives defending that castle in 1847. The last of them, they say he leapt from the ramparts wrapped in a Mexican flag. You know who built that castle? The Habsburgs, my friend. Spaniards with Austrian kings. And who was invading in 1847? You know that, smartass?”
Keystone pulls off his sunglasses and squints at me. His eyes are steel gray.
“We were. The good ol’ U. S. of A. Won that war, too. Mr. Li, Mexico has been a vassal state ever since Cortés. Longdai’s just the latest jack in town. They’re the ones doing the meddling. We can’t let our main competitor set up shop down here.” The veins in Keystone’s neck thump with his pulse. “That airport is a thumb in Uncle Sam’s eye and you know it.”
“Yeah, look, we got sidetracked somewhere.” Mark shoulders in front of me. “Nobody here is trying to defend Chinese bribes. Transparency, accountability: all for it.” His hands go up, palms out. “But what is it exactly that you think we can do about that? You know about our warrants, so you know we got the stone in Seattle. Nobody’s bribing us. We have no access to Longdai. We can’t wear a wire for you.”
Keystone’s posture softens, and the good humor returns to his face. “The wire is an antiquated concept, Mr. Knox,” he says. “Longdai’s entire operation is embedded with smart surveillance. We don’t need to make recordings because they already exist. We just need to steal them. And we need to do it without getting burned.”
“You want to hack Longdai,” Mark says. “From the inside.”
Keystone lowers his chin half an inch.
“So why us? Haven’t you got your pick of white hats and ghosts from the Pentagon? Or do they only send you beefcake?” Mark cuts his gaze toward Pabst and Miller, who are standing at the back of a large crowd across the plaza, watching a clown with a mobile PA system entertain several dozen rapt children.
Keystone studies Mark for a moment. Then he raises his chin and looks past him to Sun, who’s staring upward at the monument to the boy heroes. The black iron eagles cutting sinister silhouettes into the cloudless blue sky.
“Mr. Sun, you’ve been awfully quiet.”
Sun turns to face Keystone with his blank, observant gaze.
“Do the words ‘plausible deniability’ mean anything to you?” Keystone says.
The slight smile appears on Sun’s lips. He does his one-shoulder shrug.
“So?” Keystone says.
“We don’t work for you. No paper trail,” he says. “And we look Chinese.”
21
Mark, it must be acknowledged, does not look Chinese. For this reason, Sun’s arrival was a boon for Ken Saito, the man we met at Los Tres Piratas, who turns out to be the architect of the scheme into which Keystone recruited us.
“After I got your names and researched you guys, Keystone and I drew up a three-man infiltration op. Li and me at Longdai’s offices, passing as Chinese, and Knox driving,” Ken explains to us after lunch. “Four is much better. More elbow room. And I get to drive.”
We’re sitting on lounge chairs on the roof of a pool house. The pool house is on the grounds of a mansion in the Las Lomas neighborhood. Keystone deemed us fit for the job, so he confirmed the terms he’d made over the phone: he would wipe our warrants from the NSD and pay us double the original price in exchange for the stone and four days of our time. After we accepted, he beckoned to Miller, who jogged over and handed him a tablet computer. Then he transferred me nine OroCoins on the spot, each one tethered to a kilobar of gold worth sixty thousand dollars.
After that, right there in Chapultepec Park, Mark barfed up a tiny Ziploc bag containing the painite. He rinsed the stone in a water fountain and handed it to Keystone, who barely looked at it before slipping it into his pocket. We rode the limo to the mansion, where a quartet of Mexican marines stood guard at a tall iron gate. Keystone escorted us to the pool house with Miller and Pabst in tow.
He told us that the pool house would be our home for the next three days, and we were not to leave under any circumstances. He said that Ken would be along later to brief us on our operation. Then he walked across the lawn toward the mansion without waiting for us to respond, his hands in his trouser pockets, whistling a Rat Pack tune in the warm June breeze.
This pool house was not a shack containing a filter pump and a net on a pole. It was a full-sized guesthouse with an open floor plan and a gourmet kitchen. Pabst showed us to our room, which was right across from his. Before the mansion became a mysterious paramilitary stronghold, our room must have been the kids’ room. There were two sets of bunk beds, a fold-up Ping-Pong table, and a fortune in Legos.
It didn’t take us long to settle in. We didn’t have anything to unpack. I helped Mark remove the duct tape from the small of his back, where he had concealed his balisong knife. Miller served us some very salty spaghetti and meatballs. Then Ken summoned us to the roof.
Now he’s handing me three sheets of paper. The first says POINT BRIEF at the top, followed by about a hundred bullet points in tiny handwriting. The second is a black-and-white photo labeled LIJIA NU’ERHACHI—a glum Manchurian man with rimless glasses and a mole on his upper lip. On the third, a trio of detailed maps:
MEZZANINE
ATRIUM
CORRIDOR
“I don’t know, and I don’t need to know, how you got into the picture,” Ken says to Sun as he hands him a sheet of paper. “But you’re gonna make things a fuckton easier.”
I tip my head to look over Sun’s shoulder. His sheet is labeled GREASE BRIEF.
