Hostile Contact. Gordon Kent

The man smiled wickedly, as if he had just been asked where to find something far more sinister, and he left the curb with a jolt reminiscent of a cat shot.

      Twenty minutes later, his insides comforted by a chocolate croissant and a cup of excellent coffee, Alan left the café and walked through the steamy morning. He window-shopped along a closed arcade and made left turns until he found an open news store, the magazines and newspapers international and mostly concerned with the upcoming presidential election in the United States. The subject didn’t interest him much, but he had a tiny cup of espresso and bought a local Englishlanguage paper, skimmed it to eat the rest of his surplus time, and departed with a much better understanding of the economy of oil in Indonesia.

      His second cab of the morning was duller; the driver was quite young and didn’t seem to want to talk. He made good time, though, and Alan arrived at the gates of the park that contained the Orchid House with fifteen minutes in hand and a charge from all his energy and caffeine on top. He was beginning to feel nervous, the nerves of inexperience, concern about making mistakes through ignorance—feelings he hadn’t had in a long time. Then he told himself, for the twentieth time, that nothing was going to happen, and he sagged and felt the fatigue under his energy.

      It was damp and hot. He started to walk.

      

      Washington.

      Dukas had got as far as suggesting to Sally, while Rose was out of the room, that they maybe check out his apartment, and then the shit had hit the fan. He had hardly tried his dessert when she had seen something in his open attaché and gone through the roof. “What the hell is this?” she cried.

      “Hey, what—?”

      “What the hell are you trying to pull?” she said. She didn’t seem vulnerable any longer.

      Dukas misunderstood. He thought it was something about his clumsy approach to sex. “Hey, I was only—”

      She tried to speak, moved her lips to form words that didn’t come, and then slapped the attaché and shouted, “This is Chinese Checkers!” She began to scrabble in the old papers, knocking them out of their neat alignment, dropping some on the floor and not caring.

      “What the hell?” he said.

      “You bullshitter, what have you done to—” She shook the folder. “This is the Jakarta part of Chinese Checkers!”

      Dukas tried to focus. He had an idea what the code name Chinese Checkers meant. Chinese Checkers had been a CIA operational project—a comm plan that George Shreed had covertly used to meet with his Chinese control. When Dukas and Alan Craik had gone into Pakistan after Shreed, they had known he was following one of the Chinese Checkers comm plans to a village near the Kashmir border. That’s how they caught him—because Sally Baranowski had illicitly given Dukas a copy. But he had seen only the Pakistan section, and then only long enough to know where Shreed was going.

      But Jakarta?

      “Chinese Checkers is a defunct Ops comm plan,” Sally Baranowski snarled now. “And now here it is! I risked my fucking career to give you this stuff, and you’re walking around with it in your attaché!”

      Dukas didn’t say that everybody walked around with classified material in his attaché. He was too stunned by what she was saying, stunned by the implications. A warning bell was sounding in his head. “This is Chinese Checkers?” he said.

      “What did I just say?”

      “Maybe it’s just like Chinese Checkers. Sally, it can’t possibly be—”

      She simply looked at him.

      “This comm plan can’t—I don’t see how it can be part of Chinese Checkers.” He grabbed her upper arm, then let it go and leaned back so she wouldn’t think he was bullying her. “I just sent Al Craik to Jakarta to roadtest it. He’s there right now.”

      Sally stared.

      “All I’d paid attention to in Chinese Checkers was the Pakistan part. I didn’t even read the rest. If this is really—”

      Her look told him everything. She said, “I helped Shreed edit Chinese Checkers. I used to pull it up to see why it never got activated. There were three comm plans, Mike—Pakistan, Nairobi, Jakarta.” She picked the pages up again. “And why the hell is it typed this way? It’s beat-up, like you’ve had it forever. I didn’t give it to you like this—I gave you a goddam floppy! Where the hell did you get this?”

      “It’s part of Sleeping Dog.” Even as he said it, Dukas saw the abyss that was opening.

      “This was never part of Sleeping Dog!” she shouted. “Never, never, never!”

      He realized that Rose was standing in the doorway and that she had heard. He ran for the telephone.

       6

      Fantasy Island Park, Jakarta.

      Jerry Piat was up early and feeling good—rested, strong, wired just enough to stay alert. He got a paper cup of coffee and walked to the park. He took his time; it was only a little after seven, the streets already hideous with traffic, sidewalks still puddled from a rain that now steamed in early sunshine.

      The Glorious Mornings. Title of some book. Nice phrase.

      He looked around like a tourist, checked out a couple of ethnic displays, tossed his coffee cup at an overflowing trash bin, and went into the Orchid House.

      

      Bobby Li hitched a ride on the back of a scooter to within five streets of the park gate. He’d shoved the gun down into his pants, with a loop of string holding it to his belt, a trick that George had taught him and that he said his side had used in World War II. The Economist and the envelope full of newspaper that was supposed to be money were inside his shirt. He kept the camera in view, like a tourist.

      His heartbeat was way up. He thought a heart attack might be a good way to get out of this fix. His wife would get the business and a little insurance, and Andy and Qiu would forget him. But his heart wouldn’t cooperate.

      A woman in a headscarf was sweeping the area in front of the park gate. He went around her and sidled in, looking for Ho, anxious not to miss him. Ho was lazy and would more likely be late than early. Bobby walked around, feeling his bowels get queasy. He couldn’t do it, he thought. He couldn’t walk in there behind Qiu and risk Andy’s seeing him. He was in a vise, being squeezed.

      Ho grunted behind him, and Bobby whirled. His breath came too fast, and he had to breathe through his mouth or faint. “Give me the camera,” he managed to say. He had just seen, beyond Ho, a Chinese who looked professional and dangerous. But every Chinese he saw today would look as if he belonged to Qiu. “Don’t give it to me here; walk down to the toilets and meet me in the men’s.”

      Ho walked away. He was eating an Indian sweet, slender coils of orange jelly. The smell of it made Bobby sick.

      In the men’s room, he stood next to Ho and tried to piss. Ho was making water like a fire hose. Bobby strained; nothing came out. The vise was squeezing even his piss.

      He put his own camera, the one with the grease on the lens, on the metal urinal. Below it was a wall of metal over which water ran, splashing their shoes. “Take this camera. Put yours there so I can take it.”

      “Why?”

      “It’s a better camera.”

      They switched. Bobby said, “Take the pictures, and the moment the meeting is over, get out. Get your people out. You meet me by the east door and hand me the camera, and we’re done.”

      “Not until you hand me the rest of the money.” Ho zipped up as if he was tightening a garrote.

      “Right. You hand me the camera