Robert Ludlum - The Ambler Warning

The Ambler Warning

Beijing

Though President Liu Ang had retired to his private quarters in another wing of the compound, the conversation continued.

What of the photographic evidence you mentioned? the soft-spoken MSS veteran prompted, turning to Chao.

The Second Bureau chief, Chao Tang, nodded and removed a dossier from his black portfolio. He spread several photographs across the middle of the table. Of course, I have already shown this to Ang, with predictable results, which is to say none at all. I have asked him at least to cancel his foreign appearances for the sake of security. He refuses. But the rest of you should see.

He tapped one of the photographs: a crowd before a wooden platform.

Taken a few minutes before the assassination in Changhua, said the spymaster Chao. You'll recall the event. It was a little more than two years ago. Please notice the Caucasian in the crowd.

He distributed another photograph, a digitally enhanced close-up of the same man.

The assassin. The man whose bloody handiwork this is. In other photographs, you'll see him at the location of other killings. A monster indeed. Our spies have learned a thing or two about him.

What's the monster's name? the elderly Li Pei demanded, in his harsh country accent.

Chao looked distressed by Li Pei's question. We have only a field alias, Chao admitted. Tarquin.

Tarquin, Pei repeated, his dewlaps quivering like an old sharpei's. An American?

We believe so, though we are not certain who controls him. It has been difficult to filter signal from noise. Yet we have reason to think he may be a capstone actor in the plot against Liu Ang.

Then he must be eliminated, said the white-haired man, slapping the table.

Indeed wily, Chao thought, but indeed a peasant, too.

We think alike, the spymaster said. Sometimes I worry that Liu Ang is too good for this world. He paused. Fortunately, I am not.

There were grim nods around the table.

In the event, precautions have already been taken. We've had a team from the Second Bureau's signals intelligence unit working the matter. Yesterday, when we gained credible information about his possible whereabouts, we were able to take immediate action. Trust me, the finest this country has to offer is on the case.

It sounded like empty rhetoric, Chao reflected, yet in a strictly technical sense he believed it to be true. Chao had found Joe Li when he was still in his adolescence and had taken first prize in a regional shooting competition, run by the local branch of the People's Liberation Army. Test scores indicated that the boy, despite his rural background, had unusual aptitudes. Chao was always alert for the hidden prodigy; he believed that China's ultimate asset was to be found in its numbers-and not merely the brute muscle of cheap labor but the occasional prodigy that sheer numbers were bound to yield. If you shucked a billion oysters, you would find more than a handful of pearls, Comrade Chao liked to say. He had been convinced that young Joe Li was such a pearl and took it upon himself to see that he was prepared for an extraordinary career. Intensive language training began early. Joe Li would become adept not only in the major Western languages but also in the folkways of the Western nations; he would have a mastery of what was common knowledge there. He would also receive extensive training in weaponry, camouflage, Western-style hand-to-hand combat, and Shaolin-style martial arts.

Joe Li had never disappointed Chao. He had not become a large man, and yet his small size proved an advantage; it made him especially unthreatening and inconspicuous, his extraordinary skills concealed by a carapace of the commonplace. He was, Chao had once told him, a battleship disguised as a skiff.

There was more to him, however. Though Joe Li did his work with professional dispatch and dispassion, his personal loyalty to his country and to Chao himself was beyond question. Chao had made sure of it. Partly for reasons of security, partly because Chao was mindful of the constant squabbling for resources at the highest levels of government, he had kept Joe Li's operational controls strictly sequestered. Not to put too fine a point on it, China's most formidable operative reported to Chao and to no one else.

But this Tarquin-he is dead? asked the economist Tsai, drumming his fingers on the black lacquered table.

Not yet, Chao said. But soon.

How soon? Tsai pressed.

An operation of this sort on foreign soil is always delicate, Chao cautioned. But as I have assured you, we have our very best in place. This is a man who has never failed me yet, and we are supplying him with a steady stream of real-time intelligence. Death and life have their determined appointments, as the great sage has it. Suffice it to say that Tarquin's appointment is coming up momentarily.

How soon? Tsai repeated.

Chao glanced at his watch and allowed himself a tight smile. What time do you have?

New York

The Plaza Hotel, at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, had been erected at the start of the twentieth century and was a mainstay of Manhattan elegance ever since. With its copper-edged cornices and gilt-and-brocade interiors, it suggested a grand French chateau on the corner of Central Park. Its Oak Room and Palm Court, along with its upscale galleries and boutiques, provided countless opportunities for people to help pay for its upkeep, even those who had not rented one of its eight hundred bedrooms.

But it was the hotel's Olympic-sized swimming pool, on the fifteenth floor, where, at Osiris's insistence, the two men continued their conversation.

Another clever rendezvous, Ambler judged, as the men disrobed and changed into Plaza-provided swim trunks. It would be hard to conceal a listening device under these conditions-and nearly impossible to make an audible recording over the ambient noise of splashing water.

So who are you working for these days? Ambler had prompted, treading water in the deep end beside Osiris. An elderly woman toward the shallow end was lazily swimming laps along the pool's narrower dimension. Otherwise the pool was vacant. A few dowager types, dressed in one-piece swimsuits, were sipping coffee or tea as they reclined on poolside chaise lounges, doubtless summoning energy for some postponed exertion.

They're people like us is who they are, Osiris replied. Really, just organized differently.

I'm intrigued, Ambler said. But not enlightened. What the hell are you talking about?

It's really about unleashing talent. You've got all these former covert-ops people, lots of old Stab hands, in fact, who might not have been using their skills to full advantage. Now they're still serving American interests, but they're paid for and deployed by means of a private concern. Osiris's avoirdupois kept him buoyant; treading water cost him minimal effort.

Private enterprise. An old story in this country. Old as the Hessian mercenaries who helped spice things up during the American Revolution.

A little different, maybe, Osiris said, breathing easily. We're organized as a private-sector network of associates. Network's the key idea.

More like Avon or Tupperware than Union Carbide, then. The multilevel marketing model.

Following the sound of Ambler's voice, Osiris repositioned his face slightly; his sightless eyes seemed almost to peer. Not how I'd put it, but yes, that's the general idea. Independent agents, working independently, but coordinated and deployed by their 'upline.' So you can understand why the team is so eager to have you aboard. They want you for the same reason they wanted me. I have a unique skill set. So do you. And these people are intent on bringing in unique talent. Puts you in a good bargaining position. You know, you're something of a mythic figure among the Stab boys. The bosses figure if only half the stories they tell about you are true ... and I've seen you work, so I know the score. I mean, Christ, what you did in Kuala Lumpur-now that's the stuff of legend. And I was there, you'll recall. Not a lot of Malay speakers in the Political Stabilization Unit.