Dance with the Dragon Read Free Page B

McCann’s secretary put him in the small conference room to wait until the DDO was finished with his afternoon briefing to the DCI. “We’d expected you much sooner, Mr. Perry,” she said. “I’ll tell Mr. McCann that you’re here.”
    “Thanks,” Perry said, but the woman was already out the door. “Bitch.”
    The DDO’s conference room was furnished with a table for eight people, a credenza on which was a carafe of water and glasses, and a couple of seascapes on the walls. Perry opened his attaché case and laid out copies of Updegraf’s personnel file, Chauncy’s initial report and the autopsy results, Gloria’s one-page summary of her legwork, which contained absolutely nothing of value, and his own brief summary of the events subsequent to Updegaf’s assassination.
    Slim pickings, but it was to be expected given the delicacy of the situation in Mexico and the ridiculous time constraints he’d been given.
    He was just pouring a glass of water when the door opened and Howard McCann breezed in. The DDO was a short man, with a round face, narrow glasses, and thinning light brown hair. But he was dressing better these days, though certainly not Armani or Gucci, and he was clean-shaven even at this hour of the afternoon.
    “I had to brief the director without your report,” McCann said, taking a seat at the head of the table.
    Perry put down the glass. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “I was delayed taking care of Updegraf’s widow.” He sat down to McCann’s left.
    “How is she?”
    “You were right to be concerned about her. She became hysterical—”
    “Something you should have anticipated,” McCann interrupted. “I expect my station chiefs to show some initiative.”
    “Yes, sir,” Perry replied, biting his tongue. McCann was a DDO to be admired because he ran a tight operation. But he was being unfair just now.
    “What’s going on in Mexico that got one of my people murdered?”
    Perry laid the files in front of McCann. “It’s not much yet, but it’s all there.”
    McCann didn’t bother looking down. “I’ll read these later. For now I want you to tell me what the hell is going on. Why did you send him to Chihuahua? If something important is going on up there, why didn’t you send him some backup? You know my drill, goddamn it. When you send assets into the field, you send them in pairs.”
    “I didn’t send him to Chihuahua,” Perry said. “The first I heard Louis was up there was when my assistant COS called to tell me that his body had been dumped at the emergency-room door of the hospital.”
    McCann sat back. “You’re telling me that you have no control over your people?”
    “I’m telling you, Mr. Deputy Director, that I have no control over a field officer who has his own agenda. Perhaps if he had been better vetted before he was sent—”
    “He was your man, and you got him killed,” McCann interrupted.
    “Yes … sir.”
    “Are you one hundred percent confident that Updegraf didn’t commit suicide?”
    “The Air Force doctor who performed the autopsy said the entry wound was at an impossible angle to be self-inflicted.”
    “Continue,” McCann said after a moment.
    “We still don’t know what he was doing in Chihuahua the night he was killed, but we think that he may have been running an operation to burn a communications clerk in the Chinese embassy.”
    “Where’s the connection?”
    Perry spread his hands. “We don’t know yet. But my people are backtracking Louis’s movements for the past ninety days, although his encounter sheets are turning out to be almost useless. He was lying to us.”
    “Why?” McCann demanded.
    “I don’t know,” Perry said. “I think he was trying to make a mark for himself. The big score. He wanted my job.”
    “Is anyone else on your staff working a Chinese connection?” McCann asked.
    “Not that I know of,” Perry said evenly. “Unless it’s another rogue operation.”
    McCann pursed his lips, but then nodded.