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“Good,” he says. “You stay on your side of the Potomac, and I’ll stay on my side, and we’ll get along just fine. In the meantime, the dog and pony show for the press is over. Get the hell out of my house.”
My house,she thinks. Not the People’s House, or the White House.
My house.
“Yes, Mr. President,” the director of the CIA says, turning on her heel and striding to the door leading out.
CHAPTER 48
SOMEWHERE IN SOUTH AFRICA
BENJAMIN LUCAS ISN’T quite sure, but he thinks he’s been held captive in this single-room cell for at least three days. His SERE training back at the Farm years ago pounded him into knowing that the captors have control not only of food and water, but the environment itself.
Meaning they control the lighting, the temperature, and the quantity and quality of the meals—and his ability to gauge the passage of time.
Still, he’s sensing rhythms of a regular schedule. At what feels like the morning hours, the sole metal door is opened and a meal tray is placed on the floor by a smiling yet uncommunicative young Chinese male, and then quickly closed.
It’s breakfast—made from American MREs, how ironic—with orange juice and coffee. Sometime later the door is opened again, and the tray is removed. Lunch and dinner arrive in the same way, except the evening meal is accompanied by three South African newspapers: theDaily Sun,theCape Times,and theStar.At some point the recessed lights overhead in the concrete ceiling dim enough to allow him a troubled sleep.
Three meals a day, and a solid metal toilet and sink in the corner,standard issue for any prison. Black slippers, orange shirt and pants. He knows that despite the aches and bruises from his being captured at the meeting location, he’s being treated reasonably well. No loud noises. No flashing lights. No sub-harmonic frequencies to make him feel anxious. No screeching music from Yoko Ono or out-of-tune bagpipes.
He’s sitting on his carefully made bed, sheets and blanket in place, thinking.
He knows he’s under constant surveillance, so he’s been as boring as possible, though inside, he’s still pained over Chin Lin, their sweet embraces and first steps to getting her back to the States, and then—
The room being broken into.
Him being seized.
Her tossed against a wall.
Shot three times in front of him.
He blinks at the tears forming in his eyes.
Chin Lin.
Had she betrayed him, taking the role of “honey trap” used in so many espionage stings over the years?
If so, why?
Honey traps are used to hook in an opposing intelligence operator, make them turn so their embarrassment of having sexual relations with a foreign spy isn’t made public.
But he and Lin?
He wasn’t an ambassador, a high-level diplomat, or anybody of influence.
Just a field operator.
And in honey traps … the traps aren’t shot and killed in front of the target.
Chin Lin …
What happened?
The door is starting to get unlocked. There’s no handle on hisside, the hinges are hidden, and overall, this cement and metal cube is pretty secure.
But he doesn’t feel hungry.