He stepped away and sat back down in the chair she had been sitting in. Now the sunlight was coming in over his shoulder, wreathing his head in a curious brilliance. “You have erred in assuming my ignorance.”
She sat opposite him. “Enlighten me. Please.”
He grinned his strange jaguar grin, which, following their face-off, now seemed more compelling than dangerous. “When I was a child, I fell ill. In those days, my family lived in the mountains, in a tiny village, in a dirt-floor hut. My father worked twelve hours a day. When he died, his lungs were as black as the coal he hacked out of the mines.
“That was the day I fell ill. I was ten, burning up with a fever that refused to break. No one knew what was wrong with me, not the village doctor, who prescribed herbs, not the old women, who cast spells of enchantment. No one.
“By the second week, the fever had started to waste me. It was my older sister, Marissa, who took me down to the river, took me in her arms as she waded in. There was a spot she particularly liked, an almost circular pool, out of the main current. Soft eddies buoyed me as she bathed me in the cold, clear water.
“She held me in her arms for hours. I remember the clouds passing by overhead—they looked like mythical beasts keeping watch over me. I heard the calls of birds, but they came to me distantly and distorted, as if in a dream.
“The sun went down and still she held me, rocking me gently. In the darkness, she sang to me. The moon came out and I stared up into her face, and confused it with the moon. I must have slept then; the next thing I knew dawn was spreading over the sky and Marissa said to me, ‘Look at you, joven. You’re smiling.’
“Later that day or maybe it was the day after, I don’t remember, while I was enjoying my first real meal in two weeks, Marissa put her head close to mine and said, ‘Joven, you almost died because of ignorance. Remember now and always, ignorance is a form of death.’ I never forgot what she said, mujer. Never, because, you see, my sister is a goddess. From that moment on, every chance I got, I educated myself.”
Matamoros finished off his drink and said, “Now, come. Let us eat a great fucking meal together and talk about how together we will keep Maceo Encarnación’s legacy alive.”
11
Retzach arrived in Shanghai and hit the ground running. He had been recruited to Mossad when he was seventeen. Three years later he was chosen for induction into Metsada. Retzach’s climb to notoriety within Kidon began when he killed Muhammad, head of Syria’s nuclear program, by firing from a boat while the target relaxed on a beach in Tartus. It was cemented when he infiltrated into Damascus and killed Imad Mughniyah, a senior leader of Hezbollah complicit in the notorious 1983 bombing of the American embassy, by planting a small square of C-4 in the headrest of Mughniyah’s car, setting it off via his mobile phone.
The Mughniyah assignment was of particular interest to Retzach, which was why he fought so hard to get it. His younger brother had been a liaison officer assigned to the American embassy in Damascus, and was one of the victims. Payback was a matter of family honor, which was one of the reasons Amir Ophir, then the newly minted head of Metsada, granted Retzach’s request. The other reason was to irrevocably bind Retzach to him. Retzach knew this, if not at the time, then soon afterward when Ophir assigned him an off-the-books assassination. Retzach didn’t mind—frankly, he was pleased. Mossad was like a family—never more so than inside Metsada. For Ophir to consider him a kind of son was high honor indeed.
Traveling in from the airport, Retzach got on his mobile and started calling his local contacts. He had them in every major city. None of them was aware he was Israeli, let alone Mossad. The money he paid them came from his own pocket; he didn’t want even Ophir to know of their existence. Retzach cared little about money except for the information it could buy him. He had no use for material objects, the inevitable accumulations of an adult life. He’d had a wife once, and a strange child, whom he saw once a year.
He himself had been a strange child. Later, after much reading and research, he came to understand that he lacked empathy. That this was one definition of a psychopath concerned him not at all. After all, academics lived in a different world than he inhabited, a world as protected from life on the street as a pharaoh’s had been. What did they know of the exigencies of his life?
Having received as much intel as he was going to on his first go-round, he exited the taxi along densely packed Shanxi Nan Road, in Huangpu, and walked to Dongbei Ren, a teeming, cacophonous restaurant beloved by locals and tourists alike. He pointed to one of the large round tables and found a place open for him between a Chinese family of six and a fat local, wattles loaded with grease. The place, with its eye-bleeding gold-and-red decor, and uniformed waiters with pigtails, looked as if it were still mired in Mao’s Revolution.
“What to order, what to order?” Retzach said as he scanned the huge menu.
“Try the drunken shrimp,” the fat Shanghainese said.
“I’m allergic to shrimp,” Retzach said without turning his head.
“Pity,” the fat man replied. “They’re so fresh they’re still wriggling when you pop them in your mouth.”
Retzach ordered jade dumplings, a lamb shank, and a pot of chrysanthemum tea. Then he put the menu aside and said to the fat man, “Have you seen him?”
The fat man glanced again at the photo of Bourne that Retzach had sent him via his mobile. “I haven’t,” the fat man said, “but someone who has will be here shortly.” He belched mightily and stood up, bits of food flying like sleet from his over-ample lap. “In the meantime, please enjoy yourself, but be careful, the food’s so good here you can eat yourself into a coma.”
Retzach laughed and, dumping hot sauce on the dumplings the instant they arrived, took up his chopsticks and dug in.
Tak Sin owned an apothecary, as only the Chinese understand the word. To left and right, on either wall, were wooden drawers filled with countless herbs, ground horns of rhino, tiger teeth, dried sun bear paws, and the like. The shop was long, narrow, and dark as a subway tunnel.
When Bourne entered, carrying Yue in his arms, an old woman looked up from counting out on an abacus, cursed mightily in rapid Shanghainese, and ran into the back. Moments later a thin man with a potbelly, stringy white beard, and rheumy eyes shuffled out in slippers.
He peered closely through thick round lenses at Yue’s wound, then glanced up at Bourne with a disapproving look. He made a face and, gesturing, turned on his heel. The shop’s rear was a warren of rooms as antiseptic and immaculate as the front was dusty and odor-laden. They were also brilliantly lighted.
Again, Tak Sin gestured, and Bourne put Yue onto a long table.
“This man saved me, Uncle,” she said. “He speaks Shanghainese.”
“Does he now?” Tak Sin said. He didn’t bother to look at Bourne, busy as he was cleaning and disinfecting Yue’s bloody ankle. “What have you gotten yourself into, little sister?”
She laughed, then grimaced as a bolt of pain shot up her leg.
Tak Sin shook his head. “I knew I shouldn’t have given you the Passiflora caerulea liquid.”
“Cyanide,” Bourne said.
Tak Sin nodded. “You see, I have a soft spot for this little sister.” Finished with the cleaning, he began to wrap her ankle securely in swaths of gauze impregnated with an herbal antibiotic. He shrugged and smiled a secret smile. “What can you do?”
Bourne took hold of Yue’s hand and pulled her up to a sitting position. “The man you shot.”
“The one dressed as a cop? He’s a professional assassin.”
“Who hired him?”
“A man from Beijing, though for the last week he’s been here. Colonel Sun.”
Bourne started.
“You know Sun?”
“He and I have a history,” Bourne said thoughtfully. “Why would he target Wei-Wei?”
“I don’t know.” Yue hopped off the table. The leg with the injured ankle bent under her and Bourne held h
er as she grabbed the table’s edge. She looked at him. “But I know someone you can ask.”
You have a problem,” Maricruz said as she pushed back a plate filled with shrimp shells. “A serious problem.”
Felipe Matamoros wiped the grease off his thick lips. “And what would that be?”
“MEL Petroservicios.”
He sat back, his face as stony and enigmatic as a sphinx.
She had scored a direct hit, as she knew she would. “Simply put, the Americans have just put MEL out of business.”
“And that concerns me how?”
“Don’t be coy. You used the oil company—or I should say former oil company—to launder Los Zetas’s ill-gotten gains. Now you’re dead in the water.”
“I see you’re better informed than I had expected, mi princesa.” He cocked his head. “But actually, we’ll get by. We’re used to this kind of shit from the gringo. All life is shit in Mexico. No one values life. You think it’s just us in the drug trade? No, no, mujer. It’s the police, the army, the business tycoons, and most of all, the politicians, who spout platitudes out of one side of their mouths, while eating off my plate with the other.”
He spread his hands wide. “Now tell me, what are you going to do for me? Offer your father’s cyber-security business to launder our money?”
“Absolutely not. SteelTrap is one hundred percent legitimate and it will stay that way.”
“Then I don’t see what—”
“Art, Señor Matamoros. In China the new upper class is desperate to spend money in order to feel a sense of self-worth.” She looked around the opulent room with its many expensive artifacts from Mexico’s storied past, before returning her gaze to Matamoros. “Pathetic though that may be, it’s a fact of life in today’s Middle Kingdom.”
“I was born into poverty, mujer. From where I sit, the world has a very different look.”
“That’s as may be.” She gestured around the room. “But do you think this is the sort of legacy a man of ambition wants to leave? Don’t you think he wants to achieve something more, something greater than what has been?”
“Go on,” Matamoros said after a time.
“The benefit for you is that, unlike in the rest of the civilized world, the art market in China is entirely opaque. Real works of art commingle with fakes and no one knows the difference. All are bought for exorbitant prices and are sold for exorbitantly higher prices.”
“So you take Los Zetas’s money, buy artwork in Beijing, sell it to newly rich Chinese businessmen, and return the laundered money to us, for a fee.”
“Fifteen percent,” Maricruz said. “Plus fifty percent of the profit made from each sale—and believe me when I tell you we will make a tidy profit on each sale.” She smiled, her eyes shining. “It’s foolproof. And best of all, the Americans can’t touch you or your money.”
Matamoros rose and walked around the room, touching each piece of Aztec and Olmec sculpture as if they might speak to him, guiding his decision. At length, he turned back to her. “If I say yes, there are still five others who have to agree.”
“A hive mind. I understand a thousand percent.”
His expression remained somber. “First and foremost, mi princesa, we are commandos, the elite of the Mexican Army, which, I admit, is something of a joke. But nevertheless, we who make up the core of Los Zetas were well trained, because we set our minds to learning the art of war. Better still, when we defected we took both our advanced weapons and our contacts with us. There are six of us. We operate as a cadre. This is what makes us so strong; this is what makes us invulnerable.”
“Then take me to meet the rest of the cadre. I’ll convince them as I’ve convinced you.”
He smiled as he extracted a cigar from an elaborately carved humidor, offered it to her, stuck it in his mouth when she declined, and took his time lighting up. Puffing out blue clouds of smoke like an iron locomotive, he said, “With the untimely death of your father, liaising with the cartels has fallen on your shoulders, I understand that completely. But at the same time I understand it must be difficult for you. After all, this is not your business—you rub shoulders with the elite businessmen, politicians, and entertainers on the opposite side of the world. Every day you spend here is dangerous, I suppose I don’t have to remind you of that.”
“I very much doubt you can frighten me, Señor Matamoros.”
“Felipe, por favor, mujer.” He tilted his head back, blew smoke at the coffered ceiling of his vast, cluttered dining room. “Of course you’re right. And it was not my intention to frighten you.” He gestured. “But I must warn you my compadres are blunt, brutal men. They might not find you as charming as I do, they might not see the intelligence I do.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Now you insult me, mujer. You are my guest here. If we embark on this trip, you are under my protection. I am responsible for your well-being.”
This commitment was what she had been waiting for. Now to drop the other shoe and see how he reacted. “I appreciate that, Felipe. But as long as we’re going to meet the cadre, I’m thinking we should meet with the head of the Sinaloa as well.”
Matamoros stood stock-still. “¡Mujer, por favor!”
“I am perfectly serious, Felipe.”
“You speak of us getting together with our mortal enemies. This is insane. We are winning the war against them. Eventually—”
“Eventually. How many of your men will be killed before eventually rolls around?” Maricruz kept her smile in place, but a cold, dark place was forming in her heart. She had no friends here; she never would. But she would make her mark in Mexico, of that she was certain. She leaned forward. “Listen to me. Consider the damage, the deaths you and the Sinaloa inflict on each other. Then there’s the time the war you’re slowly winning takes away from earning money.”
Her eyes searched his, looking for the effects her words were having. “Why do you think el presidente does the minimum against you? Because, as you say, you’re invincible? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. El presidente is sitting back in his golden chair, patiently waiting, knowing it’s just a matter of time before you and the Sinaloa decimate each other. Then he’ll swoop in with his tanks, armored cars, and helicopters, and take credit for cleaning up crime, for destroying the severely weakened cartels.
“But if you and the Sinaloa join forces, think of the strength, the power the one cartel will have. You will have the run of Mexico without fear of reprisal or damage. I want you to leave the bloodshed behind. I want to take you into the twenty-first century. Think of the glory that can be yours, Felipe.”
For a long time there was silence in the room. Then, all at once, Matamoros laughed long and hard, the sound coming from deep down in his lower belly. At last, he wiped his eyes. “¡Ay de mí! You have a golden tongue, mujer; you could sell wool to sheepherders. Es la verdad.”
“Nevertheless, it’s for you to decide.”
“Allow me to make some calls.” He gestured. “Help yourself to some coffee—anything you want.”
“You know what I want.”
He smiled and left the room, an aroma of Cuban tobacco trailing after him. Maricruz thought of calling Jidan, but her acute sense that nothing was secure here gave her pause. There was nowhere in this vast villa or even on its grounds where she could be certain of not being overheard. Instead she amused herself with imagining outrageous erotic scenarios.
Twenty minutes later, Matamoros returned. He said nothing, only nodded to her.
Maricruz felt relief and also excitement surging through her. This was why she had come; this was what she was born to do: forging new ties, new alliances that would outstrip anything her father had ever dared attempt.
“We’ll go forward, Felipe.” Reaching across the table, she took his hard, callused hand in hers. “The future will be ours.”
Yue led Bourne through the narrow, impossibly teeming streets of Huangpu, limping less and less heavily, batting away his offers o
f help. They had been traveling for nearly half an hour, but she hadn’t paused for even a moment.
Taking him beneath the sign announcing THE CHINA SEAS PEARL, she entered the small but elegant store that seemed more suited to the upscale Pudong district across the river. But perhaps that was its secret, for it was packed with tourists eager to pay less for first-rate pearls than at the sky-high–priced shops along the Bund. The shop was the brainchild of Sam Zhang, who, when he heaved his bulk through the front door shortly after Yue asked for him, was slightly out of breath from his walk from Dongbei Ren, where he had left Retzach eating his steamed dumplings.
Zhang led a complicated life, one that was, at times, enervatingly difficult. He had stolen the idea of playing both sides against the other when, in a darkened movie theater, he had watched Clint Eastwood rid a town of its two warring bandit clans by doing just that. After that, he watched A Fistful of Dollars almost every week until he knew each scene by heart and could quote every line of dialogue.
The lessons of the film’s plot had stood him in good stead for close to two decades. While treading a path as narrow as a balance beam, and far more perilous, would have made most men quail, Zhang thrived on the adrenaline rush. Or at least he had. Lately, sleep deserting him, he found himself dreaming of a less complicated existence, somewhere far from jam-packed China.
By its very capitalist nature, Shanghai had become the nexus point for the clandestine affairs of both East and West. Zhang was simply taking advantage of the benefits derived from both the business and geography of the city of his birth.
Zhang greeted Yue warmly; he had a genuine affection for her, unusual for him. In his line of duplicity, it was often fatal to get emotionally involved with his clients; however, her history as she had related it to him had affected him deeply. He had been a child of the streets, like her, and like her he was an orphan, dependent on his own wits as well as the occasional kindness of strangers for his survival. This years-long trial by fire had made him tougher, smarter, more self-reliant—all qualities he recognized in Yue. If not by blood, then spiritually, she was like the daughter he’d never had.