The Conspiracy II Page 5

  “No, we don’t expect you to try to break in again. We’ve moved your belongings from the hotel to the Wilshire Creek Condos complex not far from their embassy. It’s owned by a Chinese billionaire and is where visitors to their embassy from Beijing usually stay. They have a reception you can leave a message for your friend at. That will get it to him, I am sure of it.”

  Rob looked around. “Is all this conversation being recorded?”

  “Yes,” said Bishop.

  “I want it clear that I am doing this at your request,” said Rob, looking up at one of the camera pods in a corner of the ceiling.

  “You can ask them for information about your wife,” said Faith. “We want you to find out everything you can about what happened to Jackie.”

  Rob didn’t respond for a minute. He was thinking about the implications of what he’d just agreed to.

  “I am not going to give them details of our trials.”

  Jim put his hand up to intervene. “We want you to discuss only your work up to today. Say nothing about any ongoing work with TOTALVACS. It is likely, given the break-in at your institute—and don’t start me on the subject of your security—it is likely that they know the exact makeup of your vaccine. That is also what you spoke about in Beijing and Moscow.” Jim paused, then continued at a slower pace. “Just repeat what you told them there, what you know they already know.”

  “You think they’ll fall for that?” said Rob.

  “You’d be surprised,” said Bishop. “I had someone who worked for me a few years ago who became part of their thousand talents program to recruit high-flyers. In the end, all he had to do was give the same lectures he was giving at MIT, but in Beijing.”

  Rob didn’t like it, but anything that might help him find out what had happened to Jackie had to be considered. And if he missed this opportunity, it might never come again.

  “OK, I agree, and on the terms discussed.” He pointed at the camera pod. “Can I have a copy of this recording?”

  “Sure,” said Jim. “I’ll have it emailed to you.”

  Dr. Bishop stood. “You are now officially part of our family. You may use this office as you need it. You’ll have 24-hour access with supercomputer power available and concierge services to arrange travel and transport.” He nodded at Rob. “You made the right call for this country. Millions of lives depend on us having a bridge to the Chinese vaccine effort. You are totally ideal for this role. They would not accept anyone without your type of credentials. Thank you for your service, Dr. McNeil.”

  He escorted them out. They exited the building and climbed into a black Chevy with darkened windows that pulled up just as they reached the curb.

  Twenty minutes later they were pulling up at the Wilshire Creek Condos.

  13

  Dulles Airport, Washington DC, May 31st, 2020

  The flight from Moscow Vnukovo airport was uneventful, but long. They stopped at Shannon in Ireland for refueling. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Cessna Citation, donated by an oligarch, had a seating capacity of eight. A party of four replacement embassy staffers were the only other passengers.

  Vladimir was happy not to have to wait for a connection at Paris or elsewhere, with the chance of getting quarantined if they took a layover in the wrong city.

  He went through the United States passport check last. If there were problems, he didn’t want the others held up. But there weren’t any. The passport checker put his new diplomatic passport through a scanner, and he went through without even having to stop at customs. The required declarations had already been made on behalf of all the embassy officials, stating that they weren’t carrying dutiable items.

  The embassy had also arranged for a shuttle bus to take them to the staff residence. The light blue bus was waiting outside the main terminal arrivals area. The new liaison officer was deep in conversation with one of the other embassy staffers, so Vladimir went to the back and looked out the back window. As expected, an FBI vehicle was right behind them. It was one of their new Chevys with video capture cameras near the front fender. They may have seen a warning flag about him already and might even know about his visit to China and to the United Kingdom.

  His cover of being a driver would really only be useful for non-state actors in the United States and for internal purposes within the embassy.

  The Russian Embassy in Washington is located in Westchester, north east of the city center, on leafy Wisconsin Avenue. The embassy is a pale-gray, eight-story modern block set back from the street. The yellow apartment blocks, farther up the slight hill, housed some of the low-level embassy staffers.

  Vladimir had been allocated a single person’s apartment in one of those blocks. He exited the shuttle bus with the other staffers at the entrance to the apartments. It was late afternoon. He’d been traveling for twenty hours.

  As he followed the group of chattering embassy staffers to the apartment block, an FBI vehicle pulled up with a squeal of brakes near him. A smoked glass passenger window rolled down and a voice called his name.

  “Vladimir, over here.”

  He looked around. The staffers hadn’t noticed, yet.

  He stood a few feet from the vehicle, bent down, and looked in. A bull-necked agent stared back at him.

  “No funny business while you are here, Vlad. We know the type of work you do.”

  “I’m just a humble driver,” said Vladimir. “Do I not get a warm welcome to your great democracy?”

  “Save it for someone else, Vlad,” said bull-neck as the window closed.

  Vladimir looked around. Things were very different here from the precautions everyone was taking in Moscow. Few people on the street were wearing masks and the FBI men hadn’t been wearing them either. He’d seen some people at Dulles Airport wearing them, but not many. He took a deep breath. One good thing you could say about America was that you could do whatever you wanted, as long as you were prepared to face the consequences—including death.

  The liaison officer was holding the door for him into the apartments. He hurried in and thanked her.

  “Is that your only baggage?” she asked.

  He patted his bulky backpack. “All I need is here. I don’t expect I will have the big social life you will.”

  “I don’t expect any social life, apart from appearing on VK,” she replied. “Is it allowed in the United States?”

  “They don’t block our social media sites,” said Vladimir. “You can show off about your new job all day there.”

  “I’ll see you when I need a driver.” She shook her head. “But I don’t expect we’ll be going out much with the virus.” She was looking at him and blinking, as if finally wondering why a driver had been allocated to be with her in the middle of a pandemic.

  Vladimir’s rooms were at the back of the building, on the third floor, with a large window facing the embassy compound, so he couldn’t be easily observed by the various agencies and other nations who watched Russian Embassy staffers.

  He’d once heard someone say that there were at least ten countries spying on their Washington Embassy at any one time, from rival petroleum states to the big powers. He would have to careful here. After a shower, he checked the time was right, then picked up the encrypted cell phone waiting for him and dialed 112 for embassy security.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “Good,” the voice at the other end replied in Russian.

  Before he exited the room, he looked at himself in the mirror. His new wig was a mop of unruly hair tied back in a ponytail. His brown, ill-fitting janitor’s overalls had All Services on the sleeves and across the front. He headed down the service stairs to the basement. The door out to the underground car park was open. The All Services vehicle was waiting. They’d sent a man into the building with a ponytail twenty minutes before. Now Vladimir would be leaving instead. The man who’d been dropped off would go out the front door, without the overalls. You can get a lot done if you pay the right price.

 
He got in the back of the service vehicle and said nothing to the driver. He was dropped off near Farragut Square, at the K Street intersection.

  14

  Washington DC, May 31st, 2020

  Rob’s room was bigger than he expected. It was on the second floor at the end of a long corridor. He had seen no one since arriving. The entry card he’d been given by Faith had opened the apartment reception area, which was empty of people when he passed through, and had allowed him entry to his room.

  The room had a high double bed, a table, desk, two chairs, a TV, and plastic notices pinned to the wall near the door. A small balcony overlooked a line of black pine trees at the back of the condos.

  He noted his clothes and washbag were all in the room and examined the wall notices. They were in Chinese characters and English. One section, at the end of the last notice, gave information on how to contact another person staying in the complex. Following the instructions, he went to the landline, pressed zero, and left a voicemail for the reception asking for it to be passed to a Wang Hu, if he was staying in one of the condos.

  Contact me, was the message he left.

  He showered, then went for a walk in the nearby Rock Creek Park. It was busy with afternoon walkers. He found a coffee shop on the way back and enjoyed a double espresso and a bar of Hershey’s to keep his sugar levels up.

  When he got back to his room, the message light was flashing on the phone.

  As he was about to pick it up, a knock sounded on the door. He looked out the spy hole and saw someone bending down in front of his door. He stepped back and watched a slip of yellow paper come through under the door.

  The Pool—Now, was all it said.

  He found a map of the complex and located the pool in the gym area at the rear. He closed the door to his room and made his way there, wondering who had summoned him. The pool wasn’t easy to find. There were few signs and lots of branching corridors. Everyone he met was wearing a face mask here, and they didn’t seem happy to be stopped, even if he was wearing a mask and stood well back when he asked for directions.

  Both of the people he asked were Chinese. Both told him, with a glum shake of their heads, that the gym and pool were closed. He said he just wanted to see them.

  When he finally found it, the door to the gym was open and the door inside, leading to the pool observation area, where parents could watch their youngsters swimming, was also open. The pool had a blue plastic cover over it. There was a strong smell of chlorine in the air.

  The observation area was a tiered set of seats stretching along one full side of the pool. Wang was standing about half-way along the middle tier of seats.

  When Rob arrived near him, Wang turned to him. “I didn’t expect to see you again, Dr. McNeil. People tend to stay away from me after I’ve tried to get information out of them.”

  Rob shrugged and peered at Wang, who was clearly wearing makeup, as the marks on his face were not visible. His mask was black with a red star at the mouth.

  “You didn’t carry out your threats, so I figured you were more bark than bite,” said Rob. “And you made me an offer I’d like to talk to you about.”

  Wang shook his head. “Your friend caused over a million dollars’ worth of damage to Wuhan airport when his plane exploded. Who will pay for that?”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” said Rob. “But I do know I can help you.”

  Wang looked uneasy. “You’ll have to prove yourself,” he said. “How do I know you have not been sent to me?”

  “I’ll prove it.” He pulled out his smartphone. He went to his photos and showed the pic of the TOTALVACS building he’d taken earlier.

  Wang peered at it. “What are you doing with them?”

  “I’m working for them as a consultant too.”

  “We know these people. They are putting a lot of money into their vaccine candidates. What do you need us for?” Wang’s expression hardened.

  “I’m determined to bring justice to whoever killed my wife,” said Rob.

  “You won’t let it go, will you?”

  “I just want to understand what happened; why she had to die,” said Rob.

  “So you can stop blaming yourself?” said Wang.

  “I don’t blame myself,” said Rob, angrily. He stepped nearer to Wang. “But if I find out someone from China was behind my wife’s death, I will track them down and find a way to make them suffer like she did.” The frustration and anger were still there. Every time he thought about the possibility that someone had infected her deliberately, he wanted to break something.

  “I will find a way.”

  Wang shook his head. “I am sure you will, Dr. McNeil.”

  They stared at each other. “But I can tell you this. You will not be coming after me, because I was not involved in your wife’s death.”

  “I was told a woman named Gong Dao, from the Chinese Embassy in London, gave my wife the virus.” Rob’s fist was up. It was shaking.

  “Do you believe everything the Russians tell you?” said Wang. His eyes were wide with mock surprise. “A Chinese woman named Gong Dao may well have visited your wife. She may even have infected her, but this was not an official Chinese government plan.” He looked around.

  “Think on this, Dr. McNeil. Many other people, not members of the Chinese Communist party, may be seeking to delay or stop your vaccine production in America.”

  “Why?”

  “There are billions at stake. Many people will want other competing vaccines to fail.”

  “Like the Chinese Communist party perhaps?”

  Wang shook his head. “We don’t need to stop your vaccine to prove we are superior. The world knows already we have the best system for dealing with the challenges of this century, including the virus and many other things you struggle with.”

  “You are deluded,” said Rob.

  “Our form of government is superior, Dr. McNeil. It is obvious to all. You may have the freedom to do what you want here in America but many more of you will die for this freedom. We control every life and we will live because of that. I know which I prefer.”

  “A living death,” said Rob. “Without freedom we are robots.”

  Wang shook his head.

  “So how do I find out who gave Gong Dao her orders?” asked Rob.

  Wang waited a few seconds before replying. “What do you Americans say; you scratch my back and I will scratch yours? Is that right?” Wang gave him a thin smile.

  “What do you want?”

  “There is something you can take for me into the TOTALVACS offices here in Washington and put it somewhere where people talk.” Wang pulled a black, palm-sized clock out of his pocket. It was a simple design, the type of clock you would see in many offices on a desk or in a kitchen.

  “Put it where? What will it do?”

  “It listens and it relays Wi-Fi passwords tapped into phones.”

  “You want me to plant a spying device?”

  “No, not that. This is a better idea,” said Wang. “You bring it to whoever you work for at TOTALVACS and you tell them I gave it to you and what I asked you to do. This way they will trust you.”

  “What is it you want me to do?”

  “As you can see, nothing, except what I asked, for now. Tell them you fooled me and then keep me in the loop about your vaccine progress.”

  “That’s it?” Rob didn’t feel convinced.

  “We need to build bridges too,” said Wang. “Let us say we will drive things over it later.”

  “So, what can you tell me about the people responsible for Jackie’s death? How do I find them?”

  “You know how to already, Dr. McNeil.” Wang looked pleased with himself. “Simply think about who sent you to Paris.”

  15

  Washington DC, May 31st, 2020

  Vladimir headed south, circling Farragut Square, looking for any sign of the looters reportedly defacing stores and vehicles. The latest report stated that a group of about twenty-five
had broken from a Black Lives Matter protest and were heading toward Farragut Square, perhaps in the mistaken belief that the statue in the square of General Farragut was a Confederate General, not a Union Admiral.

  Whatever the reason, the looters had spray painted some vehicles and the windows of some stores on the way here. As Vladimir walked along by the side of the square, he spotted some homeless people with unkempt hair sitting on two of the seats on one of the paths through the square. He pulled up the hood on his sweatshirt and pulled a hundred dollar note from the roll in his pocket.

  Two Washington DC police officers were standing beyond the group of homeless. If he was stopped by them or anyone else, he could truthfully say he was looking for information about the rioting for his embassy. The truth is the lie.

  Two of the homeless men looked at him with suspicious eyes as he approached.

  “Where are the protestors?” he asked.

  Someone cackled an indistinct reply. Another man with greasy jeans slouched toward him, eyes wide, pupils dilated.

  “I got a Benjamin for anyone can tell me which way they went.”

  “That’s easy, man,” said the sloucher. His face was thin and dirty. He pointed toward 17th Street.

  Vladimir held the $100 note out.

  “Anyone else know anything better?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that doper’s a born liar,” said a young woman with stringy black hair and a baggy t-shirt dress. “They headed down Connecticut Avenue five minutes ago.”

  Vladimir dropped the $100 note on the ground and stepped back. He walked away as a scuffle broke out. He headed down Connecticut Avenue.

  Ten minutes later he spotted a small crowd of young people at a Starbucks and stood to the edge of the crowd with his hood up, looking for a leader. There was an argument going on. Some of the young people were looking at their phones, presumably trying to figure out where the real Black Lives Matter action was. A tall, young white man with a hipster beard, was poking at an overweight, bushy-haired black man wearing a BLM t-shirt.

  “We gotta get that statue down,” he was saying.