The Wolves Read online

  A minute later, Duberman returned. Smiling. He didn’t seem angry.

  “Everything all right?” Cheung said.

  “I have just what you want. Vietnamese. Beautiful. Ten years old. Let’s drink to it. Tequila.”

  Suddenly Jian was at Cheung’s side, a tray with two glasses in her hand, two little shots, one in the middle of the tray, the other at the edge. She handed the one in the middle to Cheung as Duberman took the other. The sequence puzzled Cheung, but he couldn’t figure out why. He was too muddled, and too excited.

  “Congratulations.” Duberman raised his glass and they drank. The tequila was vaguely bitter, chalky on Cheung’s tongue. An odd warmth chased it down his throat, into his stomach, and from there spread through him. Not the burn of alcohol. Something deeper and more pleasant. It doubled him over. He would have fallen if Chou-Lai hadn’t grabbed his arm.

  Duberman stepped away.

  “Are you coming?”

  Duberman didn’t answer, and Chou-Lai steered Cheung toward the door. Cheung wanted to fight but he couldn’t. He couldn’t make his muscles move. “My money.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Then Cheung couldn’t speak. The tequila must have hit him all at once. No. He didn’t feel drunk. Or not just drunk. When he was drunk, he knew what he meant to say even if he couldn’t make anyone else understand. Now he couldn’t speak even to himself. Something was wrong, he could see the door in front of him, the thing that moved up and down, but he didn’t know its name. He knew he should be afraid, but instead he felt the greatest pleasure, high, a word he hadn’t understood until this moment, a million meters above the earth—

  He was outside—

  In a car, on a bridge, the lights of a city leaving streaks on his eyes—

  Time turned strange. He wasn’t blacked out, not entirely, but he couldn’t keep up with the world, it was moving so much faster than he was—

  Still in the car, slowing now, on a narrow street crammed by dirty concrete apartment blocks. Chou-Lai handed him two blue pills; he felt a bolt of pleasure that he knew them, Viagra. He took them without complaint—

  Chou-Lai opened a door, a bedroom door; inside a girl lay on a narrow bed, nude, Vietnamese, so young, so beautiful, what he’d wanted all this time—and Chou-Lai shoved him inside and closed the door.

  For half a second, Cheung hesitated. He could still leave. Then the girl smiled at him and he stepped toward the bed—

  —

  CHEUNG WOKE. The pain was so much worse than the month before. Like his body wanted to reject the world. Like he was dying. Like dying would be a relief. He squeezed his eyes shut. He already knew something terrible had happened the night before. That he had done something terrible. Though he couldn’t remember what.

  He wanted to keep his eyes closed forever, hide from the truth, but his body wouldn’t let him. His mouth was dry, his thirst overpowering. It was day, it had to be, the light streamed through his closed eyelids. He lay on something painfully hard, not the perfect bed in the high-roller suite. The room around him was hot, no air-conditioning here, and flies buzzed around him, and he knew that when he opened his eyes, he would be somewhere he didn’t want to be, looking at something he didn’t want to see.

  He opened them.

  He lay on his back on a concrete floor. Naked. His little bird felt sticky and when he looked down it was covered in brownish dried blood. The blood there didn’t scare him. The blood on his hands did.

  He moved his head, gently and precisely as a metronome ticking, until he saw the bed. The girl was still on it, one leg dangling, a trace of blood just visible on her thigh. The mattress was bare and a sheet piled on the floor, blood there, too—

  Cheung screamed, tried to scream, his voice wavering and thin in his throat.

  The night came back to him all at once, Duberman in his boots, the casino, the whiskey, the tequila—

  Then nothing. This time, he knew he wouldn’t remember no matter how hard he tried. What had they given him? What had he done? He pushed himself up, grabbing the windowsill for balance, ignoring the inferno in his head. The girl lay unmoving, head curled at a strange angle, blood leaking from her mouth—

  The door swung open. Two men walked in. Laowei. Round-eyes. One not much bigger than Cheung, the other enormous, a mountain of a man. They wore suits and latex gloves. Without a word, they grabbed him, pulled him down a dim hallway. Cheung tried to fight but they were too strong, far too strong.

  Thirty meters down, a door on the other side of the hall was open. They threw him inside, pulled the door shut. The room was a mirror image of the other, a single bed, a wooden chair, a dirty window, the smell of sewage, flies buzzing through the open bathroom. One difference. A laptop lay on the bed instead of a girl. The big man pushed him down on the chair as the small one reached for the laptop.

  “Watch this.” He pushed a button on the laptop and a video played, the image on the screen clearer than the one in Cheung’s mind. The Sky Casino. Black plaques sitting on the baccarat table. Him and Duberman.

  “How old?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Why do I have to say?”

  “I don’t want any confusion, that’s all. I’ll say it for you. Fifteen? Sixteen?”

  Exasperation twisting Cheung’s face. “No, no. A flower.”

  “I’m sorry, General—”

  “Nine. Ten. Eleven at most.”

  “A girl.”

  “Do I look like a pansy? Of course a girl!”

  The screen went dark. The big man grabbed Cheung’s arm, threw him to the floor. The small one kicked him twice in the back, the pain radiating into his kidneys, up his spine—

  “You’re disgusting. Get up. Stand.”

  Cheung pushed himself to all fours.

  “Stand.”

  His legs shook as he stood. “But he agreed, Duberman agreed—”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Play it, you’ll see, it comes next.”

  The man played the video again.

  “Do I look like a pansy? Of course a girl!”

  On screen, Duberman stepped away, spoke the English words that Xiao hadn’t translated.

  “You don’t know what he’s saying.”

  Cheung shook his head.

  “Too bad you studied in Germany and not the U.S. It translates as ‘Get out of my casino, you piece of shit. I don’t do business with pedophiles.’”

  “But he—”

  “He threw you out.”

  “He agreed.” Cheung wasn’t sure why he was bothering to argue, the truth hardly mattered, but he wanted to understand. “He gave me a drink—” Cheung could taste it now, feel its strange warmth, the euphoria that followed. Despite everything, his body craved another dose. Not tequila. An opiate. They’d given him those drugs in the hospital after his crash. “Play the rest.”

  “That’s the end. There isn’t any more. So he tossed you, you found your way here—”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “Tell me, then, how you got here, wound up in that room with that girl.”

  Cheung had no answer. The whiskey and whatever was in the shot glass had erased his memory. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to think. A trap. Duberman had trapped him—

  A slap stung his face, sent him sprawling. From the floor, he looked at his tormentors.

  “You think we’re done? I have another video for you.”

  “No, please, no—”

  “The one that shows what you did to her.”

  Bile filled Cheung’s mouth as it had the month before. This time, he knew he couldn’t control himself. He ran for the bathroom, retched a thin yellow stream of drool and acid into the stinking toilet. He mopped his mouth with the back of his blood-splattered
hand and tried to understand how his life had come to this point.

  The big man was behind him now, dragging him back, not a moment’s peace.

  “You don’t want to watch?” the other one said. “You put on quite a show.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Where? Your clothes aren’t there. Nor your phone. Nothing. How far do you think you’ll get before someone calls the police to report a naked man covered in blood? What will you tell them when they pick you up?”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “I know just who you are. A half man with a thing for little girls.” He reached into his pocket, came out with Cheung’s air force identification. “General Cheung Han of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Maybe you should call your friends in Beijing, ask Uncle Xi to cover for you. I’m sure he’ll be glad.”

  Not quite. Xi Jinping and his prosecutors would throw Cheung in a hole for a hundred months. Make him a hungry ghost while he still lived. Then they’d hang him.

  Hot tears streamed down his face. No. He’d never cried. Not even when he’d woken up in the hospital with every bone in both legs shattered.

  “General, you’re looking at this backward. The question you ought to be asking is who we are.”

  “Please.” He couldn’t hide the truth from himself. They’d broken him. He would do whatever they asked, as long as they made this go away.

  The round-eye smiled. “Please, you say. Please.” He pulled a clean white handkerchief from his pocket, passed it to Cheung. “Wipe your face. You look terrible.”

  Cheung mopped at his face. “Who are you?”

  “We’re the ones who are going to make all this vanish.” He made two fists, opened them, poof. A magic trick. “And save you.”

  “Yes?” Cheung hated himself for the hope in his voice.

  “But you have to help us first.”

  15

  WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN,

  ABOARD THE USS RONALD REAGAN

  Like any city of six thousand, the USS Ronald Reagan came equipped with a jail—a brig, in naval lingo. For three weeks, it had held two prisoners: a petty officer caught with six ounces of methamphetamine in his mattress, and Wells.

  His MI6 captors had ferried him out of Hong Kong on a trawler, sent him on a ten-day dogleg across the South China Sea. Finally, they transferred him to a gray ship five times their size, the USS Sampson, an American destroyer. They gave Wells no fresh clothes, only one shower. By the time he arrived on the Sampson, he looked like he belonged in a Mathew Brady daguerreotype of the Civil War, and the crew treated him like he had Ebola. He spent a night locked in an empty storage room before a helicopter brought him to the Reagan, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier a thousand feet long, with a better air force than most countries.

  Five petty officers greeted Wells as he stepped onto the carrier’s deck, walling him off from the F-18s like he might make a break for them. “Shower, shave, brig,” the one nearest Wells said. “Do not pass go, do not collect your hazard pay bonus. Going to make a fuss?”

  Not unless it’ll pay. After the shower, Wells’s captors put him in a blue jumpsuit and brought him to the ship’s ninth deck, a warren of low corridors and stale air. His cell occupied the end of the brig, its only connection to the outside world a foot-square Plexiglas window. Its bookshelf was empty but for a single volume, a well-thumbed copy of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Wells settled in to read, though he couldn’t decide which section applied. Twenty minutes later, his cell door swung open. Two sailors stepped inside, followed by an officer in a spotless blue uniform with a single gold star and four stripes on each sleeve.

  “Mr. Wells,” the gold star said. “Captain Devin Barnett. Commander of the Reagan.” More than the other services, the Navy was a family business, proud of its East Coast traditions. Barnett looked the part, with narrow blue eyes, ramrod posture, gray hair trimmed close to his skull.

  “You visit all your prisoners?”

  “I’m sorry about the circumstances, but I’ll do my best to make your stay comfortable.” Barnett had a genteel Tidewater Virginia twang. “You’ll have fresh clothes, all the books you want, gym access.”

  “You sound like you’re running a La Quinta.” Wells was out of patience for false niceties.

  The petty officers swarmed him, each grabbing an arm, digging their fingers into his biceps. “You don’t speak to our captain that way—”

  “Tell Click and Clack to let go before this gets messy.” Wells felt his anger rising. The cell was narrow, and the petty officers were crowding him, telegraphing their lack of close-quarters fighting experience. Wells could put them both down, but he’d stain his nice new jumpsuit. “Please.”

  “Go on,” Barnett said. “Outside—”

  “Captain—”

  “And close the door. That’s an order.”

  They went.

  “I’m trusting you.”

  Yeah, with six thousand guys and an ocean on your side. “Wish I could say the same. Why am I here?”

  “I’ve been ordered to hold you—”

  “Charges? Authority?”

  “You’re a material witness in a classified national security investigation.”

  In other words, the White House couldn’t even find a plausible excuse. The material witness label was tissue-thin. No competent federal judge would believe it. But the Reagan’s crew didn’t include federal judges, competent or otherwise.

  “You know who I am, yes?”

  “Broadly.”

  “I’d like to make a phone call.”

  Barnett shook his head. “Nor email.”

  “Captain—”

  “I don’t love it, either, Mr. Wells. But these orders come straight from the White House. I give you my word as the commander of this vessel that as soon we reach American soil, I will personally ensure you speak to counsel of your choosing.”

  “And when’s that?”

  Barnett looked at the floor. “We’re scheduled to dock in San Diego in eight months.”

  Eight months. The President might not have the CIA, but he had sidelined Wells nonetheless. Sure, it was only a delaying action, but eight months wasn’t bad, considering the President had less than two years left in office. Justice too long delayed is justice denied, Martin Luther King had written from a Birmingham jail. Wells could see what King meant. He wondered if he should give Barnett a taste of the truth. But why bother? The guy seemed decent enough, but freethinkers were rarely given aircraft carriers to run.

  By now, with Wells out of pocket for ten days, Duto and Shafer would be worried. But they had no threads to follow. Wells hadn’t told Shafer about his plans to meet with William Roberts. He’d planned to, sure, but then Shafer hadn’t answered his call, and he hadn’t left a message—

  Stupid. He’d been stupid. Anyway, MI6 had no doubt pulled its own disappearing act for Roberts and his family, given them a paid vacation in the English countryside. Duto would lean on Wright, the Hong Kong station chief. But Wright wouldn’t have any idea where to look. The Brits knew, but they weren’t about to share. Maybe if Duto went to the top of Vauxhall Cross, maybe not even then. As the weeks stretched into months, Duto and Shafer would assume the worst.

  And what about Evan?

  “You need to let me call my son. You can monitor it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You have children, Captain?”

  Barnett grunted.

  “What would they think if you vanished? Email him yourself, then. Doesn’t have to come from me.”

  “I wish I could, but the IP addresses from the ship are traceable to someone who knows.”

  “Then ask somebody at home to set up an anonymous account, I don’t care. Not trying to play games. I just want him to know I’m alive.” Though Wells figured Evan would pass the message to Shafer and D
uto. Give them extra incentive to track him down.

  Barnett walked out, left the cell door open. The two petty officers in the brig’s corridor shifted leg to leg like they couldn’t decide if they wanted Wells to start up. “What’s Click and Clack?” From the one nearer Wells.

  “Tom and Ray. Car Talk.”

  “Car what?”

  “You never heard of Car Talk?” Man, I’m getting old. Though I could still take you two.

  Barnett returned with a pad and pencil. “Write exactly what you want to say. Nothing cute. If it looks weird, I won’t do it.”

  Wells played it straight: Evan: Sorry I haven’t called. I’m safe and healthy but I’ll be tough to reach for a while. What I said that last night holds. You’re still lucky. Love, Pops. He gave the sheet back to Barnett.

  “What did you tell him the last night?”

  “What it says. That he’s lucky. Proof of life, as people like you like to say.”

  “People like me?”

  “Kidnappers.”

  Barnett grimaced. “And he calls you Pops.”

  “Straight outta Montana.”

  Barnett folded away the note. “I’ll let you know what he says.”

  —

  A PETTY OFFICER brought back the note five days later. “The captain asked me to tell you, your son says everything’s copacetic.”

  Copacetic sounded like Evan, all right.

  Barnett kept his word about the privileges, too. Every day two sailors brought Wells to the library and the gym and delivered him food from the officers’ mess. As a rule, the escorts didn’t talk to him, but two weeks on, one blurted out, “I don’t get it. Are you a prisoner or a VIP?”

  “Ask the captain.”

  In fact, aside from the lack of sunlight, the cell had certain advantages. Wells had time to read and pray. And he didn’t have to worry about seasickness. The Reagan was so enormous that even the biggest waves barely moved it. He spent a couple days thinking about his near-failure on Wellington Street, then decided it had nothing to teach him. He could promise himself he wouldn’t seize up again, but until the moment arrived, he couldn’t be sure. He did decide that if it happened even once more, he would quit. Walk away, regrets or no.