Blowback, page 27
Why in the world, indeed?
Noa is about to say something when the lights flicker in Kay’s apartment.
They blink again.
“What the …”
Noa gets up from the table. “You ever have utility problems or brownouts here?”
“Never.”
She reaches into her purse, pulls out her 10mm Glock.
“Call 911, right now. Someone’s breaking into your apartment.”
“But … nothing’s happening!”
Noa says, “Trust me, they’re coming.”
She goes to the front door in the living room, makes sure it’s locked. There’s a chain and lock that she additionally secures, which will only slow the invaders by a few seconds, but she’ll take it.
Kay steps in, voice trembling. “I can’t make a call.”
“Service here is blocked,” Noa says.
Noa goes back into the kitchen, grabs a chair, brings it to the door and shoves the back under the doorknob. She looks into the living room and says, “Help me with the couch.”
The two of them drag the couch so it’s nearly blocking the door.
The lights flicker and stay out.
Noa says, “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Over here.”
Noa goes to the bathroom, takes a quick glance, and says, “Do you have a weapon? Any kind of firearm?”
“What, no, I mean—”
Noa says, “Get into the tub. Now. Keep on dialing 911 in case service is restored. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Move, move, she thinks.
Kay calls out, “What’s going on?”
“Into the tub!”
Messy bedroom. More books and papers on the floor, along with piles of clothes. Noa strips off the top sheets and blankets, hauls the mattress out, knocking over a lamp, and pushes and shoves the mattress into the bathroom.
“Stay here, no matter what,” Noa says. “Keep on dialing.”
“But—”
Noa drops the mattress over Kay, steps out, locks and closes the bathroom door.
Move, move, move.
The couch is tipped over.
She thinks she hears low voices.
Route of escape?
On the other side of the living room is a set of sliding glass doors, leading to a small outdoor deck.
Three floors up, but still.
Noa kneels behind the couch, takes a throw pillow, unzips it, and tugs out the foam insert. She tears off chunks of the foam, wets them with her mouth, rolls them into tight little balls and puts them into her ears.
Weapon now in her hands.
Waiting for what’s coming.
Sharp, twin blasts from a shotgun in the hallway takes out the door hinges, and a battering ram breaks down the door. Noa opens her mouth, waiting for the flashbang grenades to go off, but, surprise surprise, the two-man crew wearing helmets and black tactical gear start shooting, no flashbang grenades in play.
No yells of Police! or Search warrant!
You started it, she thinks, and starts shooting back.
CHAPTER 96
IN THE LONG minutes that it takes to pass through the West Wing of the White House, Xi Dejiang of the Chinese Ministry of State Security keeps a slight smile on his face, enjoying every moment of being in the so-called belly of the beast, the center of America’s imperialist government.
Yet he is under no illusions, as each White House staffer, all wearing those silly lanyards with colored cards that make them look like farm animals being sorted for later slaughter, gives him looks of anger or distaste as he strolls along. They don’t know who he is, only that he’s a high-ranking Chinese diplomat, coming in for a face-to-face meeting with their increasingly irrational boss.
That’s fine.
He’s not concerned at all about their looks, or their hate.
It is expected to receive such discourteous looks from a class of people who sense within their very bones that their famed American empire is in decline, to be replaced by another. With their internal squabbles, their willingness to bend over to give the Middle Kingdom technology and knowledge, and the opening of their finest universities to train the next generation of Beijing technocrats, what do they expect?
“Just this way, sir,” the unctuous young male aide says, walking Dejiang down an elegant hallway, and thus to the first surprise of his visit: being brought to an open elevator door.
Dejiang says, “I’m sorry, what is this? I’ve always thought the president’s work area was the Oval Office, on the first floor.”
A knowing smile from the aide. “Not this president.”
Just a few seconds later the elevator opens to an old-fashioned living area, decorated with antique American paintings, furniture, and sculptures that should be in a dusty museum instead of this supposed powerful house.
They go down a short corridor with a female Secret Service agent in a black suit standing guard. The aide raps on a door, opens it, and says, “Here you go, sir. The president.”
Dejiang gives a slight bow of thanks, walks in, and a host of familiar smells come to him. The room is small, with a wooden desk, no windows, two couches facing each other, two chairs, and a small table.
On the table are platters of breakfast foods—Chinese—and President Barrett stands up from the far couch and waves him in.
“Mr. Xi, do come in, please,” he says, in that pleasant baritone voice of his. “I know it’s late and practically lunchtime, but I asked the White House Mess to prepare a traditional breakfast for you, and I hope they’ve done you a service. Have a seat.”
Dejiang slowly sits down on the opposite couch, still staring at the food. The president gives a quick tutorial of what is available, saying, “Here’s your steamed baozi, half with pork and the other half with vegetables. This one I think is called jianbing. To me it looks like a French crepe that ended up in the wrong neighborhood.”
Barrett laughs but Dejiang doesn’t join.
What is this man doing? Is he becoming even more mad, after that note mentioning the two old CIA agents, and the cruise missile attack?
“And lastly, youtiao, fried flour sticks and warm and sweetened soy milk. You know,” he says, sitting down, “those youtiao look mighty fine. I think I’m going to try one.”
He picks up a napkin and Dejiang sits there, feeling out of order, slightly humiliated, like he’s some junior official from the Ministry of Trade, here to finalize a contract about soybean deliveries.
The president starts munching on one of the fried sticks and he says, “Damn, that tastes pretty good. I might have the White House Mess put this on the regular breakfast menu.”
Focus, he thinks, and says, “Mr. President, thank you for seeing me on such short notice. There are evolving issues involving our two nations and I hope that we can talk out our differences this morning, reach some sort of understanding, some way to reduce tensions.”
The American leader finishes off his youtiao and gently wipes his fingers with the white cloth napkin. “You ready to stop suppressing the Uighurs?”
“Ah, well—”
“Abandon your illegal military bases on your man-made islands in East China?”
“Mr. President, I—”
“Return autonomy to Tibet and Hong Kong?”
Dejiang keeps quiet. The man is ranting.
“Or stop stealing our technological information? Hacking every computer system from local water works to the federal government? Are you telling me, Mr. Xi, that Beijing is prepared to do all of this? For real?”
Dejiang feels color come to his face. “Those are unreasonable demands, sir. And you know it. We are a great and proud nation. We will not be humbled.”
The president says, “Unreasonable or not, that’s all you’re going to get today. And if I hadn’t made myself clear, I love and admire the Chinese people, but you and your Communist government can go fuck off.”
A heavy, cold pause, and Dejiang is now regretting this unofficial visit.
The president says, “Get you something else to eat?”
CHAPTER 97
NOA HIMEL IS limping down a side street, maybe three blocks away from Kay Darcy’s apartment, hoping the Post reporter is still alive. When the shooting started Noa was under no illusions, she wasn’t going to bravely hold off a tactical team intent on killing them both. No, she just wanted a delay.
A delay for the neighbors to call the real police, and for her to escape.
After the shooting started, she returned fire. When there was a pause, she escaped out through the rear deck glass door and over the railing. Something stung her hard when she started to drop, and when she hit the ground, she sliced her wrist on a nail sticking out from one of the deck beams.
Walk calmly, she thinks, as she strolls down the sidewalk, hearing sirens out there near Kay Darcy’s apartment. Don’t walk with hesitation or a limp, even though your left arm and your side hurt like hell, because you will stand out, you will be noticed.
No time to be noticed.
She comes across an alleyway between two apartment buildings, the narrow row crowded with trash bins and piles of collapsed cardboard boxes tied with twine. Noa sidles in, takes a series of deep breaths, takes stock of the crappy situation.
Her left wrist was shredded when she struck the exposed nail. Noa takes off her torn jacket, sees the ripped sleeve and blood. From her purse she takes out a Leatherman tool—essential gear for nearly everyone—and slices off the torn sleeve and its opposite. She wraps the good shirtsleeve around the bloody wrist, ties it as best she can.
Sirens still sound off in the distance.
Now to her left side, just below the ribs. One bloody mess. Either she was shot bailing out of the third-floor apartment or was grazed.
Shit.
From the near trash bin, a burst-open green trash bag reveals old sheets and towels. A bit more work and later, she’s made a compress against the wound and has tied it in place with twine.
Noa is hurt, she’s light-headed, and needs to get on the move.
The hospital?
Nope, not with a gunshot wound. That would immediately get police attention, or uniformed men and women claiming they were police.
Call the CIA? Even with their usual and customary objections against working in CONUS—hah-hah, she sourly thinks, remembering what she’s been doing these past months—there is a phone number she could call and get help within minutes.
But who would respond? The domestic CIA quick reaction force, or officers whose lasting loyalty is to President Barrett?
Gina Stasio? Her friend from the Office of Technical Services? She nearly sobs at the memory of her last meeting with Gina, relaxing in her cozy apartment, drinking wine, sharing secrets.
A call to Gina would get her here for sure.
But it would take too long, and who knows what kind of danger Noa would put Gina in, by reaching out to her.
No, she thinks, walking farther down the alleyway.
She needs to get to Director Abrams’s house, as fast as possible, before it is too late, before she bleeds out here.
The end of the alleyway ends in an old wooden fence, falling apart, and she slips through, wincing, finding a parking lot for another apartment building.
It’s crowded with cars, SUVs, and a few pickup trucks. Noa takes her time, walking and examining every vehicle she passes by, until she stops with relief at a dark silver Toyota Celica with some rust and dings, made back in the 1990s.
She moves in and tries the driver’s door.
Locked.
Well, finding an old car here was going to be luck enough. She walks out and returns a few minutes later with a good-sized rock in her right hand.
“Sorry,” she whispers and, with one sharp blow, shatters the passenger’s-side window. Reaches in, unlocks the door. The inside of the car is filthy with sweaty gym clothes, empty water bottles, crumpled-up food wrappers from Popeyes.
Noa gets into the front seat, leans down—moans from the pain radiating up from her side—and with the Leatherman tool, gets to work, undoing the low plastic panel next to the steering wheel, tugging it free.
Three clusters of wires dangle in front of her.
She ignores the one to the left and the one to the right, focusing on the middle set of wires, consisting of three: red, yellow, and white.
Noa blinks her eyes. Things are looking shaky.
Focus!
Leatherman tool in hand, she cuts all the wires away, strips off some of the insulation.
“Eddie, old boy,” she whispers, thinking of one of her instructors back at the CIA’s Farm years ago, “I sure hope I remember this right.”
Using part of a T-shirt she found in the car’s rear seat as insulation, she wraps the bare ends of the red and yellow wires together.
The Celica’s dashboard lights up.
There you go.
She takes the last white wire, and gently touches it to the twisted red and yellow wires.
The engine roars into life.
She feels like fainting.
No, not yet.
She slowly maneuvers her way back so she’s sitting in the driver’s seat.
Grabs the steering wheel.
It’s locked.
Noa finds the rock she used earlier and hits the metal keyhole on the side of the steering column as hard as she can. On the fourth blow, it breaks, and she tugs it free, digs out a spring, and tries the wheel again.
It moves smoothly under her touch.
She puts the Celica in reverse just as she hears, “Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing to my car!”
“Stealing it, silly,” she murmurs, heading to the lot’s exit. “For the good of the country.”
After some turning and driving—avoiding potholes and manhole covers, so the twisted wires don’t loosen up—she’s heading south on Wisconsin Avenue NW, heading for O Street NW, where the director lives.
Her wrist is burning and every breath she takes causes a jagging pain in her left side. She keeps glancing at the side view and rearview mirrors, looking for district police cruisers to come racing up to her, lights flashing, siren wailing. The breeze coming in through the smashed window makes it one chilly ride indeed.
Noa gets off on O Street NW, into a pleasant avenue lined with Georgian-style homes. She figures she’s about six blocks away from Director Abrams’s home.
Just six blocks.
We can make it, she thinks, we can get there.
We’ve got to tell the director what’s been learned.
The unauthorized spending from upgrading the government retreat at Mount Weather, to paying for the weapons and car those Iranians had—a setup, had to be a setup—the extent of Barrett’s actions are getting more terrifying with each passing hour.
Three blocks to go.
Noa reaches a four-way stop at 31st Street NW, looks both ways, and gently eases into the intersection.
A flash of blue on the right catches her eye and in seconds her stolen car is T-boned by another car. The Celica spins, hits something, and Noa loses consciousness when the airbag deploys, hammering her face.
CHAPTER 98
THE PRESIDENT PICKS up another youtiao, examines it for a moment, and then puts it down on the crowded coffee table. “Okay, Mr. Xi, I’ve made my points. The ball is in your court. It’s your turn at bat. You’ve got the conn.”
“Sir?”
Barrett waves a hand. “Get on with it. What does Beijing want?”
Now we’re finally getting somewhere with this strange man, Dejiang thinks.
He says, “From your communities in the United States to our city of Jieyang, you have made your displeasure about our past activities quite apparent. We hear your messages, and we are eager to engage in high-level talks to ease the tension, reach an understanding before events escalate and spiral out of control.”
“Another negotiation?” Barrett says. “Wow. Color me shocked and impressed, that the rezident of the Ministry of State Security for the United States would come to the White House and offer additional negotiations. Gosh.”
Even though he knows he’s being mocked, Dejiang says, “Sir, this makes sense. You know it does.”
Barrett says, “You a student of history?”
“In a manner, yes,” Dejiang says, feeling like he’s on a slippery set of stone steps, like a tour he took once on the Great Wall, where one false move would end in injury or death.
“Back in 2001, after long negotiations, China was allowed to join the World Trade Organization,” Barrett says. “Negotiators from the West, including my predecessor here, thought it was a wise decision. By opening markets to you and a greater exchange of information and goods, it was thought that you were on the road to democracy, and that a great liberalization would take place in Beijing.”
Barrett returns to the fried pastry, breaks off a piece, chews, and swallows. “Guess we messed that one up, eh? You got the enormous economic trading advantages of being part of the WTO, but your government in Beijing thought it also gave you license to raise hell around the world. But it ends now, with me.”
Dejiang’s face is still flushed, but now his hands are cooling.
“Ends how, sir?”
Another wipe of his fingers on the napkin. “You’ve come here to ask me to stop my activities, in finally paying Beijing back for the years of economic theft and cyberattacks. And I’m telling you, no, it’s not going to happen. Sorry. Oh, hold on a moment, I forgot I have something for you.”
Dejiang looks on in astonishment as the president of the United States pulls a bulging white plastic bag from underneath the table, and hands it over. Dejiang takes the bag and looks in.
Four cartons of Marlboro cigarettes.
With pride Barrett says, “Had one of my aides bounce over to the 7-Eleven on 19th Street Northwest. Your favorite brand, correct?”
Dejiang drops the bag on the couch and sharpens his voice, saying, “Mr. President, I came here in good faith, to offer talks to reduce tensions and stop the situation from escalating, and you’re not taking me, or my nation, seriously. I won’t stand for it.”
