Hostile Contact. Gordon Kent

he started reading.

      

      In the air, Beijing–Jakarta.

      Qiu was very young, as his code name—“young dragon with new horns”—announced. The name irritated him, as it indicated a lack of respect from his superiors. He had, after all, graduated from all the schools; he knew exactly how to perform his tasks. Why such a disrespectful code name?

      He knew what he was about to do to perfection: he would meet with the Jakarta embassy black team in a warehouse near the Jakarta waterfront only two hours before the meeting was to take place, and he would outline to them his surveillance plan as based on a map of the Fantasy Island Park that he had downloaded from the Internet. If, as he anticipated, the local chief watcher was rude, Qiu would step on him hard to make sure that the fellow knew his place. In fact, he planned to step on everybody hard.

      This was his first independent assignment.

      The local station had reported a certain signal placed on a certain old cannon. They had no idea what the signal meant. Qiu, however, knew, because he had been told in Beijing: it was an old signal from an old comm plan between his service and an American double agent. Qiu was to follow the comm plan and meet whoever had left the mark. No reason had been given for doing so: there was no context, no background, no time for analysis or research. His head swam with questions, but no answers came. He knew enough to do only one thing: follow orders. And, by implication, a second thing: be ruthless, meaning that he wanted an armed team, as if for a hostile meeting, and he wanted absolute discipline.

      He went over and over it, and any idea he had had of sleeping on the flight proved foolish. He was awake all the way—awake when the sun rose and still awake when the plane banked and began its final approach into Jakarta.

      The local man seemed relieved to be able to push the responsibility for the hasty operation off on him. He was even apologetic, in fact. “But there’s been a change,” he said.

      Qiu bristled. “I will decide that!” he said. They weren’t even in the embassy car yet.

      “It was decided at a higher level.” He handed Qiu a message.

      Qiu read it, his fatigue suddenly heavy and depressing. He gave an exasperated groan. “Where is this Loyalty Man now?” he said.

      The embassy man jerked his head at the car. They walked toward it; the driver, standing by the passenger door, braced and swung it open. A middle-aged man was sitting inside, a burning cigarette in his fingers. He looked at Qiu without expression, making it clear that he was a veteran who would go along with this stripling because he had been ordered to. Qiu settled himself next to him. “Well?” he said. He made it sound like a challenge.

      “You are to add one of my agents to your team. He is to be with you at the meeting.”

      “That is ridiculous!”

      “That is the order.” Loyalty Man didn’t even bother to look at him.

      The embassy man got in and sat on a jump seat. The driver got in behind the wheel. Everybody sat there until at last Qiu realized that they were waiting for him to give an order.

      “Well, get him!” he shouted.

      

      Suburban Virginia.

      Sally Baranowski was healthier-looking than Dukas remembered, but vulnerable, obviously glad that Rose was there with them. She was a fairly big woman, better eyes and color now she had dried out, good black dress that maybe showed too much of pretty hefty legs. But who was he to notice?

      “Did you ever run into a case code-named Sleeping Dog?” he said to her.

      “If I did, I wouldn’t talk about it, would I?”

      “Well, you were Shreed’s assistant for a while there, I thought you knew what was going on.”

      “I knew some things.” She was picking at her food, not looking at him. She’d been kicked sideways from her job at the Agency, because when the dying Shreed was brought back as a traitor, there had been a lot of vengeance within the Agency. Some people had been punished for being too loyal to Shreed. She had been punished for being too disloyal. Now, fresh out of rehab, she was working in a nothing job in Inter-Agency Liaison after having been a rising star in Operations Planning.

      Dukas wanted to pick her brains—and to take her to bed—so he tried to explain the case as he understood it. The burst transmissions, the case’s being kicked around among NSA, the Bureau, and the CIA.

      “Now does it sound familiar?”

      “Not even remotely. Sorry.” She smiled at him. “Why?”

      “Because I’ve got the case, and it seems to me to have a kind of tang. What the Brits call a pong. A hint of fish.”

      “Like what?”

      He was thinking of how to propose that they start over, go to his place, get in the sack—“Like I need your help,” he said.

      

      Jakarta.

      Bobby Li was awake. He was a nervous man, easily kept awake by the tensions of the family or his business. Now he was awake because of the operation. Nothing would go wrong, but—

      The telephone rang twice and stopped. He felt his wife tense beside him; he realized that he had tensed, too. The telephone rang again—twice. And stopped.

      Bobby sighed.

      “You have to go?” she said.

      “Only a few streets.”

      He dressed quickly, not even bothering with socks, and went out into the warm, wet night. Three streets away was a public telephone. He leaned into its plastic shelter to escape a sudden patter of rain and dialed. He knew the voice at the other end at once: Loyalty Man, his Chinese control. He flinched.

      “The southeast corner of Suharto and Nyam Pareng. Now.”

      He knew better than to object or ask a question. He hung up, found he was trembling, lit a cigarette in the shelter of the phone and then splashed off into the night. His sockless shoes rasped on his feet and he shivered as if the warm rain had given him a chill. He was at the proper corner in six minutes, but there was already a dark car there waiting. He saw from thirty feet away that there were three men as well as the driver, and he knew what sort of car it was and what sort of people were inside.

      “Get in.” A man he didn’t know, sitting with his knees drawn up on a jump seat, had opened the door from inside and was holding it open. Loyalty Man was against the far window, a young, foolish-looking stranger closer to Bobby.

      “Get in!” the young one screamed.

      The air inside was bitter with cigarette smoke. The car pulled away but went slowly, so that he knew they were not really going anywhere yet. Whatever it was, they were going to talk first. Did they know about Andy? Did they know he was helping on an operation he hadn’t told them about? He began to think up excuses—

      “I am Qiu,” the foolish one said. “I am your superior, and you will do precisely what I tell you.”

      Bobby tried to look at Loyalty Man, through whom this insane youth should have been speaking, but Loyalty Man was looking out the window, as much as to say to Bobby, I have nothing to do with this.

      “Yes, sir.”

      “I have orders directly from Beijing. I am from Beijing. Flown in expressly for this.” Bobby knew he was from Beijing from his accent.

      “Yes, sir.”

      “You have been added to my team. I have a strict plan. You will conform to it. Well?”

      “Yes, sir.” This didn’t seem so bad as he had feared. Nothing about Andy, at any rate. Merely some stupid, extra work. Bobby kept himself from sighing.

      “In—” Qiu looked at his watch, which he