Painkiller Read online

  Deng’s eyes found the report on the desk, and Li beside him. He stared at Li for longer than he wanted, knowing his eyes were lit with a sort of euphoric lunacy-something he didn’t particularly want Li observing. No matter: he had seen a slice of tomorrow, and he liked the way it looked. He broke eye contact and stood.

  “It is upon us,” he said.

  Li rose to proffer a salute, but Deng had already reached the exit hall, so the gesture encountered only empty air.

  The general had seen what he’d come to see.

  9

  Laramie had chosen a black suit, looking the part on a Monday morning she had not been looking forward to. The call came at nine-fifteen; it was Peter M. Gates’s secretary, known as Miss Anders, who asked whether she had a moment to come and visit with Mr. Gates.

  Gates.

  She hadn’t expected that.

  Gates was something of a legend, a three-term deputy director of central intelligence. He was easily one of the ten most powerful men in Washington-probably top five, as few understood how much influence one possessed as the chief operating officer of the world’s largest cloak-and-dagger outfit.

  The summons from Gates meant one of two possibilities: either Laramie was being pulled in to join a task force investigating the discovery she had presented in her report; or, as Eddie Rothgeb might have put it, Gates was about to burn her ass.

  Coming out of the elevator on the seventh floor, Laramie passed a pair of desks in a yellow hallway with brown carpeting, the waiting room for both the DCI and DDCI. Behind one of the desks sat Miss Anders, an older woman wearing a tall head of dark hair and a candy-apple-red suit jacket. She looked up from her desk, asked Laramie to state her name, and when she did, told Laramie she could go right in.

  She came in between the two men who were already in the office with Gates. Laramie knew them and had expected they might be here-Malcolm Rader, her direct boss and China section head; and Stephen Rosen, DDI, head of the directorate of intelligence. It was evident from Rader’s and Rosen’s expressionless faces that they’d held a full premeeting before she’d arrived. It appears Rothgeb’s predictions, she thought, are about to play out like a scene in a movie Eddie is secretly directing.

  She approached Gates’s massive desk and shook the DDCI’s hand as he offered it. Gates was tall, gray, and coiffed, Laramie thinking he should have chosen to work in private industry, since she was sure he’d have made CEO at any company he joined based on appearance alone. Miss Anders stepped in from her cubicle, pulled the door closed, and left.

  Gates motioned for them all to take their seats. “Is Rader here taking care of business?” he asked. “Go ahead and tell me if he’s causing you any undue stress.”

  The men in the room chuckled. Laramie offered a tight-lipped smile and a glance at Rader. “No, sir,” she said, “Malcolm is great.”

  Laramie’s chair was uncomfortable, an antique with little more than a flat, rubbery pad as a cushion. Sitting there, she got the full impact of the view: Gates behind his burly desk, an American flag on the wall above one shoulder, an acrylic portrait of the president behind the other. There were picture frames on the desk, facing his guests rather than him. Most showed a solemn Gates shaking hands with various important people.

  “Sorry we haven’t met before now,” Gates said. “Where do you hail from, Laramie?”

  “Hail? California, sir.”

  Gates snuck a glance at Rader, giving Laramie the sense that he’d sought a more sophisticated answer-maybe, she thought, he’d been asking about her collegiate alma mater when he’d used the word hail.

  “Skip the ‘sir.’ Nor Cal or So Cal? That what they call it?”

  “Some do,” she said, “and I’d be So Cal. San Fernando, originally.”

  “And you’ve been with us how long now?”

  “Three and a half years.”

  “Enjoying it?”

  Laramie hesitated. “There’ve been some surprises,” she said, “but I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on things.”

  “You enjoy it though?”

  She looked at him. “Yes,” she said. “I enjoy my work a great deal.”

  Gates picked up a photocopy of Laramie’s report from his desk and said, “Regarding your analysis of the satellite photographs and accompanying intel, we appreciate your speculations, but I’m going to go ahead and say that we have a problem with your interpretation of the facts. We also have a problem with your style.”

  He looked her in the eye for a few long seconds. Laramie held his gaze.

  “Our nation,” he said, “is building a harmonious association-both economic and political-with our neighbors in the Far East. As an analyst assigned to that region, you ought to be able to recognize that the administration isn’t going to jump to any conclusions that might strain this association. Further, as your manager, I must point out that you have jumped to conclusions by writing a report totally contrary to mandatory formatting and semantics guidelines. This is egregious and unacceptable behavior.”

  Laramie resisted the impulse to speak and instead merely sat in silence, the brown leather folder she’d brought with her squared off neatly in her lap.

  “Tell you what,” Gates said. “Why don’t Rader and Rosen give a listen while you take us through your analysis. Perhaps if you walk us through your suppositions, we’ll be able to assist in identifying your mistakes.”

  This, Laramie thought, would be how Peter M. Gates burns your ass.

  She handed out a short stack of photocopies from her folder and came around to the side of Gates’s desk, where she could face all three men. Then she pulled in some air and laid it out for them.

  “During a routine review of satellite imagery,” she said, “I discovered two full-scale invasion-simulation exercises, carried out jointly by the People’s Liberation Army and Navy. These took place in Shandong province, where there is little to no Western presence. Further, it was clear from the timing vis-à-vis our satellite routes and schedules that the exercises were held in a manner designed to avoid American scrutiny. Because of the scope and method behind each of the operations, the conclusion-or, perhaps, supposition-I reached is that China is planning to militarily annex Taiwan in short order.”

  She set a hand on Gates’s desk. Gates looked at her hand, so she removed it, and instead thrust it into one of the pockets of her suit pants.

  “My review of additional intel-including HUMINT gathered by a highly reliable deep-cover officer-yielded the supporting evidence of a Shandong-specific secret military draft. Based on the minutes from recent meetings-obtained by a second source-I believe both the draft and the exercise to have been kept secret from the ruling State Council. The exercise appears to have been supervised by a senior PLN admiral, and I think it’s only logical to conclude that PLA General and Vice Premier Deng Jiang had to be aware of the simulations and chose not to disclose them to his fellow State Council members.”

  She turned to face Gates.

  “I understand, sir, the tone of the discussions between the administration and the PRC are positive. I certainly don’t need to tell you that the current positive diplomatic environment emerged largely as a result of the public stance taken by China’s premier-backed by the full council-that China may consider recognizing Taiwan’s independence if the economic discussions with the United States proceed to the premier’s liking. I took the position I took precisely because there appears to exist some degree of subversion of the premier’s public stance, or at least a potentially incendiary hidden agenda, among what is probably at least three of the eleven members of the council’s Standing Committee. General Deng has at least two staunch allies on the council, and they have a history of operating in tandem on issues he’s pushing, so I’m making the assumption this is the case now as well.”

  She hesitated, debating whether it made sense to explain further, then decided quickly that she’d said too much already. She smiled, nodded, and returned to her seat.

  Gat
es watched her sit and waited patiently until she raised her eyes to look at him. When she did, Gates inclined his chin in the direction of Rosen. Rosen turned to face Laramie.

  “Kindly revise your report,” he said, “to reflect a less suspicious view of China’s position on Taiwanese independence, including the removal of suppositional passages speculating as to the intent of the simulation exercises. The revised report will also need to be properly formatted.”

  Gates paid homage to Rosen’s words with a solemn nod. “Following the revisions Mr. Rosen here has so eloquently spelled out,” he said, “I would like you to draft a memo, which I will forward to all stations. One paragraph, please.” He looked at her, and kept looking at her, and Laramie was beginning to feel self-conscious enough to consider objecting to his stare when she realized what it was he was waiting for.

  She pulled a pen from her folder to take notes.

  “The memo,” Gates said, “should order an operational emphasis on the reporting of intelligence related to the international or extranational transport of military hardware and/or lethal substances with probable military use.”

  Gates stood. The others followed suit. Laramie finished her transcription, noting, as she wrote the text, that while it contained approximately zero substance, the memorandum he was requesting nonetheless redeemed her analysis. Eddie Rothgeb hadn’t scripted that part of today’s scene.

  “I’ll need both by noon on Wednesday,” Gates said. “Good day, gentlemen. Laramie.”

  Laramie slid past Miss Anders, moral victory in arm. Take that, Eddie, she thought. He may well have burned my ass in front of my superiors, but at least the son of a bitch knows I’m right. She tucked the folder beneath an arm and strode from the Agency’s senior executive suite, merging into the usual foot traffic populating the seventh floor’s main hall.

  10

  Ronnie bent down along the path, dug for a couple stones, and came up throwing.

  “Cooper!” he said.

  Cooper came sharply out of a deep sleep. He knew immediately who it was, and his first impulse was to ignore the provocation-pretend you’re still asleep, out-wait the punk, and eventually he’ll give up and leave.

  The better idea, he thought, might be to lure him onto the porch. A little bit closer to the Louisville Slugger.

  “Why don’t you have your friends call on your bloody satellite phone?” Ronnie said. “It’s six o’clock in the effin’ morning!”

  After a moment of nothing but the sound of the waves lapping the beach, Cooper rustled inside the bungalow.

  “Sat phone,” he said, “doesn’t come with a secretary.”

  “Coffee, tea, or me, you fuck.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Eugene Little, and he’s flipped. Can’t understand a bloody word he’s saying.”

  Hearing, to his disappointment, Ronnie retreat down the stairs to the garden, Cooper grunted as he pulled himself out of bed.

  All right, Eugene,” Cooper said.

  “Cooper, Jesus, where have you been hiding out!”

  “What is it?”

  “Highly carcinogenic,” Eugene said, “that’s what it is. Uranium. What do you think of that? Christ, I’m sure you knew it already. Knowingly subjecting me to the hazard.”

  Standing at the beach club phone, Cooper yawned.

  “Uranium?”

  “U-238 and U-235, according to this lab report I’m reading, and lethal levels of this particular substance just happen to be spread all over your corpse. Which means all over my lab, my hands, and Jesus, probably in my system already. I’m telling you, I’m expecting incremental bonus pay. It’s always something with you.”

  “Right,” Cooper said, starting to listen. “Get back to the, uh, U-238.”

  “U-238 and U-235, apparently a mixture commonly found in places like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Ring any bells? This pathetic bastard you mutilated was directly exposed to radioactive fuel rods. No surprise to you, I’m sure.”

  “It’s a definite, the exposure came from fuel rods?”

  “I sent out tissue samples. Hair follicle sections. Trying to find the cause of those burns. I got a phone call from the technician, and I tell you this guy was going crazy-”

  “Like you.”

  “There’s a fucking reason for it, Cooper: they checked for radioactivity on the tissue sample and it tested off the scales. They did a second analysis-called me for authorization to do it, there are extra charges involved-and later confirmed massive quantities of uranium, they called it ‘ninety-nine-point-three percent U-238,’ on the torso and neck. ‘Characteristic signature of nuclear fuel rods manufactured prior to 1987,’ ” Eugene said. “I’m reading from the report, obviously.”

  “That what killed him? Which came first?”

  “You mean the uranium or the gunshots? I can’t answer that. Incidentally, the ballistics report ID’d the bullets as nine-millimeter armor-piercing shells. American manufacture. I’ll tell you, though, there was something odd about the time-of-death results. They were inconsistent-as though broad portions of the victim’s body had deteriorated to an advanced state of necrosis well prior to his time of death.”

  Cooper found he didn’t like the sound of advanced state of necrosis. He resisted the temptation to ask Eugene if this meant the kid was already a zombie at the time whoever it was who’d killed him administered the fuel-rod burn and fired the armor-piercing shells into his back. Maybe, he thought, I should ask him to check for traces of puffer fish and bouga toad venom. Or maybe not.

  “I checked my textbooks, Cooper, and many of the symptoms displayed by your murder victim were consistent with extreme radiation sickness. The kind you get from direct exposure. You get vomiting of blood, rapid deterioration of internal organs, sores-like getting terminal cancer and dying from it in five minutes. It’s fucking horrible, is what it is.”

  Cooper wasn’t listening. “Mail me the lab results,” he said. “I’ll give it a thorough read.”

  “That’s after we talk about the additional hazard pay.”

  “You’re starting to get annoying, Ignatius. Put the results in the mail.”

  He dropped the phone on its cradle.

  There were one hundred and ninety-two employees of the Central Intelligence Agency posted in the Caribbean. Since the agency’s primary mission in the West Indies was to gather intelligence on the Castro regime, eighty-four of the one-ninety-two operated under some form of cover within Cuba itself. An additional forty-three worked in the Puerto Rico station, serving the dual purpose of Cuba operational support and Puerto Rico-specific intelligence gathering; a staff of thirty-seven, combined, served in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Caymans. A small office in Grenada employed eight, and between the nations of Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, Barbados, Aruba, and Trinidad and Tobago, another fifteen held full-time positions with the firm. The U.S. Virgin Islands housed an office of four.

  In the British Virgins, where there existed no justification whatsoever for an Agency presence, a single employee was stationed: the CIA’s one hundred and ninety-second man. Classified as a case officer within the Directorate of Operations, the man served no strategic purpose, reported to no one, and virtually no one knew what he did, or that he existed at all. He was never subject to performance review, would never be denied his stipulated, periodic raises, and did not require authorization in order to be reimbursed for his expenses. For the sake of convenience, the man had decided to list himself in the internal company directory under an alias that held no secondary meaning other than the fact that he’d taken part of it from the character of the hero, and part of it from the actor playing the hero in High Noon, one of the only movies he remembered liking.

  The name under which he chose to list himself was W. Cooper.

  As the sole case officer in his territory, he was also, by default, chief of station. This had little import other than to place him on various distribution
lists for memoranda, and to give him the ability, for any reason at all, to order research on virtually any topic from the army of analysts housed in Langley. Cooper took advantage of this from time to time, using the Directorate of Intelligence as a sort of public library. He’d always preferred to read nonfiction anyway.

  Following Eugene’s call, Cooper got an analyst on the phone in Langley and ordered a research packet on the subject of uranium-specifically, U-238 and U-235. The Agency functioned like a transoceanic vending machine, his request yielding a classified ninety-seven-page presentation, delivered via diplomatic pouch two days following his request.

  When it arrived, he read the analyst’s report on the beach near the Conch Bay Beach Club bar, accompanied by a steady flow of painkillers, claimed on local menus as an indigenous BVI concoction-rum, cream of coconut, pineapple and orange juices over ice, topped off with a dash of nutmeg. Reclined in a chaise lounge, he alternated reading and sleeping, based on the excitement level of the various sections of the report.

  The type of uranium detected on Roy’s body from the beach, 99.3 percent U-238 and 0.7 percent U-235, was non-weapons-grade uranium, obtained from naturally occurring ore and, as Eugene had indicated, most commonly used as the fuel source in older nuclear reactors. Reactors built during the past twenty years, the report said, generally utilized U-238/U-235 with the U-235 “enriched” to four or five percent. The analyst authoring the report added that while it was theoretically possible to build a bomb using enough 99.3/0.7 percent U-238/U-235, the weapon would be so crude, unstable, and of such low yield that, even if successfully engineered, it wouldn’t release greater quantities of energy than an ordinary space heater.

  Atomic or nuclear bombs, Cooper read, utilized more highly enriched uranium-either 90 percent U-235 or plutonium-239, a by-product of processed U-238. The report spelled out some specifics that put Cooper to sleep within minutes:

  Unregistered non-weapons-grade uranium, when detected, is not considered a violation of nuclear nonproliferation policies. Modern thermonuclear warheads obtain their explosive power from entirely different substances, namely a scientifically controlled fission of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, triggered by a contained conventional explosion and boosted by the secondary fusion of deuterium and tritium.