The President's Daughter Read online

  On the ride down here, Black Hawk helicopters and other aircraft were a constant presence in the air, and twice he pulled over for roaring police cruisers coming up behind him with flashing lights and sirens.

  But now he waits for Asim Al-Asheed to arrive.

  By slipping past his watchers and illegally traveling to Canada, and then illegally reentering the United States, Jiang has violated numerous American diplomatic protocols for Chinese representatives, and he would be immediately expelled if caught. But so what? Just another trip across the tightrope.

  He yawns again, thinks of his wife, Zhen, and how upset she was that he had to leave so unexpectedly. Zhen is a smart woman, knows of Jiang’s work, is employed at the mission as a clerical staff supervisor, and with their daughter, Li Na, in her arms, she said, “Do you really have to go?”

  At any other time, Jiang would have abruptly dismissed her, but the little form of their daughter and her sweet innocent eyes…oh, that touched him.

  Maybe being a father was changing him.

  Was fieldwork like this still in his future?

  Earlier, Jiang had reached out to Asim and was pleased to see the despicable man’s quick reply. The system to do so was simple and nearly untraceable. Years ago, when Jiang was controlling Asim in Libya, he had set up an anonymous email account through a Swiss-based company that offered the world’s best secured encryption, and he shared the address and password with Asim. Using this shared account, they could leave messages in the email system’s drafts folder without anyone, from the NSA to Great Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, having a hint of what they were doing.

  Every six months or so he would contact Asim, just to keep that line of communication open, but the last email was the important one: it set up this meet.

  On the dashboard is a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. Time for a smoke. He smokes only Zhonghuas in his office at the New York embassy. He gets out of the car and takes a good look at the pond and the small park. Already there are visitors, mostly fishermen and children. Two men are hunched over a picnic table, with cups of coffee and breakfast pastries. Farther away, at another picnic table, children are squabbling with their parents.

  Filial piety, for these barbarians?

  Never.

  Ugh. To live in such an empty and wooded place.

  Years ago, dear Mother cried when he left for his schooling in America. She thought he would never return, but she had nothing to worry about. At UCLA and then Columbia, where he got his master’s degree in international affairs, he found the Americans lazy and unfocused, and while they droned on and on about freedom, the only freedom he and his fellow Chinese students experienced was the freedom of the Americans to lecture them.

  One day at lunch at the Ferris Booth Commons in Lerner Hall, an earnest woman grad student from Cambridge—the one in Massachusetts, not England—started lecturing him about Tiananmen, and she only shut up when he asked her if she had ever heard of the slaughters at Kent State and Jackson State.

  A black pickup truck rattles in and parks nearby. An old man, hunched over and holding a fishing pole, slowly steps out of the cab. He wears baggy jeans and a dirty yellow jacket, and a black knit cap is pulled over his head. Jiang reads the bumper stickers on the back of the truck: REGISTER CRIMINALS, NOT GUNS. MOLON LABE / COME AND GET IT. I FEAR MY GOVERNMENT.

  Jiang shakes his head. How this undisciplined rabble of a people got anything done is still a mystery to him. His own country only strode onto the world stage when the party took control in 1949. One party, one rule, one strong leader. That’s how his grandfather went from being an illiterate soldier to a respected party official who even made it unscathed through the Cultural Revolution.

  Jiang checks his watch. Asim is late. Of course. The men from the Middle East he has dealt with over the years can kill children, blow up airliners, and slaughter customers at a shopping center but they are unable to tell time or keep—

  The old man limps by and turns and shoves against Jiang’s side, dropping his fishing pole.

  Something hard is digging into Jiang’s ribs.

  “Hello, my old Chinese friend,” Asim Al-Asheed says.

  Asim smiles in pleasure at seeing the shocked look on the Chinaman’s face. Asim respects the man’s money and weapons, but that is about it. He is a smooth-handed and smooth-faced functionary, that is all. Definitely not a warrior who has had to wash the blood of his enemies off his clothes.

  And Jiang barely noticed Asim when he drove up in the smelly pickup truck, the one he and his cousin took two days ago, after killing the cigarette smugglers in the woods over in Vermont State. With old clothes, pebbles in his shoes to make him limp, a stretch of tape across his shoulders to make him hunchbacked, and a smear of color across his eyebrows to make them look gray, he fooled this “intelligence” officer.

  Asim pulls his pistol back. “I am here, Jiang Lijun. Don’t look so surprised. And don’t waste my time. What do you want?”

  The Chinaman quickly recovers, smiles, lights up a cigarette without offering one to Asim, who ignores the insult. Jiang says, “Congratulations, Asim. One professional to another, this has been one impressive operation. It must have taken years of preparation. Quite admirable.”

  “Thank you,” Asim says. “My contacts and networks are well paid, well prepared, and have been in place for years. And they always respond to my requests, whether it’s for weapons, money, or transportation.”

  “But what now, Asim?”

  “You know of my demands.”

  Jiang shrugs. “Nonsense, and you know it. If you get your demands and release the girl, the Americans will chase you down to the ends of the globe and kill you. And if you don’t receive your demands and you kill the girl, they will do the same, only quicker. The Americans are a softhearted and softheaded bunch. Killing a girl will only enrage them.”

  The Chinaman takes another drag of his cigarette. “Well?”

  Asim says, “My plans are mine. And what are yours?”

  Jiang drops the cigarette on the ground, grinds it with the heel of his shoe. “Officially, I’m here to ask you—as a courtesy and favor—to release the girl to me. It removes a dangerous burden from you, and it assists my government in improving relations with the United States. In return, we’ll be quite generous in rewarding you and your cousin. A nice cash payment, and relocation to any safe place on the globe. Even China.”

  Asim smiles, shakes his head. “Would you transport us, then, to Xinjiang Province? Where we would live among our cousins, the Uighurs? Would we then be placed into camps, reeducated, forced to work in slave labor factories?”

  The Chinaman remains quiet, stoic. Asim says, “You said…officially. Is there an unofficial position?”

  Jiang looks out across the quiet pond. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  A long pause, as though Jiang is considering what to say next. His voice softens.

  “I want you to succeed, whatever you’re planning to do,” Jiang says. “I can provide you with funds, means of transportation, weapons. Some intelligence on what the Americans are up to. Whatever it takes for you to humiliate this nation. I am on your side.”

  Asim ponders this. “Why would you do this for me?”

  “My business,” Jiang says. “And I have put my career and life in jeopardy by making this offer to you. Remember that, because I won’t forget.”

  Asim picks up the fishing pole, starts back to the truck. “I will remember your exposure, and I will consider your generous, and unofficial, offer. Thank you for the visit, old friend. Let us remain in touch.”

  Jiang opens the door to his car. “Yes. Let’s.”

  Ten minutes later, Jiang is driving along the country road when he rounds a corner and approaches a police roadblock. There are police cruisers and a wooden barricade painted orange, and officers in black jumpsuits and helmets, with automatic weapons.

  Jiang slows down his rental GMC, lowers the window.

 
Two men approach. One comes up to the door, the other stands back, covering him with an automatic rifle.

  “License and registration, sir,” the closer man asks. His face is flushed, eyes red-rimmed, as if he has worked too many hours without rest.

  “Absolutely, sir,” Jiang says.

  He hands over the car’s rental paperwork and his license.

  The officer gives it a good look. “You’re a Canadian citizen, Mr. Yang?”

  “I am.”

  “Do you have your passport with you?”

  “Absolutely,” Jiang says. “A moment, please.”

  He hands over his dark blue passport, its cover emblazoned with the seal of Canada, along with PASSPORT / PASSEPORT in bright yellow letters.

  The officer says, “Your business in New Hampshire, Mr. Yang?”

  “I’m traveling to Boston,” he says, thinking he’s on that tightrope once more, and all is well. “I work for Resolute Forest Products in Montreal and I’m making sales calls to a number of businesses in Manchester and Boston. Would you like to see my business card?”

  A shake of the head, and his passport and paperwork are returned. “Not necessary. Could you open the trunk, please?”

  “Of course.”

  He releases the toggle to the trunk and some other officers inspect it. The armed man near him produces two photos and says, “Have you seen either of these two men in your travels? Please look closely.”

  Jiang keeps his face bland as he looks over the color photos of Asim Al-Asheed and his cousin Faraj, one of them with a beard, one of them clean-shaven.

  A thought comes to him.

  He could tell these men that he saw Asim in that pickup truck, provide them with the license plate, and within minutes, a cordon would be drawn up and then hundreds—if not thousands—of police, government, and military searchers would flood this area.

  And Asim would be captured, and the girl would be freed, and Jiang would have accomplished his mission.

  His official mission. He would be congratulated, receive a promotion and citations, and perhaps relations would improve between his homeland and this unvirtuous country.

  But his unofficial mission is more near and dear to him. For you, Father, he thinks, and for you as well, daughter.

  He smiles. “No, sir, I have not seen these two men.”

  “Very well,” the officer says, stepping away, motioning for Jiang’s trunk to be shut and the barrier to be moved. Other cars have lined up behind Jiang. “You’re free to go.”

  “Thank you,” Jiang says, and to himself he says, cào nǐ mā, you and this entire foul place.

  Chapter

  48

  Saunders Hotel

  Arlington, Virginia

  After I disconnect my call to Saudi Arabia, I wait for a minute before attempting my second overseas phone call. Samantha—bless her—still seems to be sleeping, and I quietly walk over to Agent Stahl, typing away on his government-issue laptop at a round table on this side of the suite.

  I need him to check something out.

  Keeping my voice low, I say, “David.”

  “Sir?”

  “Tell me, do you have contacts in the Treasury Department?”

  David lifts his head. His hair is in disarray, face pale, eyes swollen and tired. “Certainly, sir.”

  “There’s that fund in the Treasury Department…the Judgment Fund,” I say, drawing on my memories as a congressman serving on the Financial Services Committee. “It’s a quick and easy way for the president to transfer funds, like bitcoin, for the payment for Mel’s ransom.”

  “Sounds familiar, sir,” Agent Stahl says, stifling a yawn.

  “Reach out to your contacts,” I say. “Find out what progress is being made to prepare the bitcoin payment.”

  I check my watch, my heart feeling like lead. Just seven more hours before the ransom deadline.

  David says, “On it, sir.”

  I go back to my work area, check on Samantha.

  Still sleeping.

  I hope she won’t remember whatever dreams she might be having.

  I go to my iPhone, dial another number, and it goes to voicemail.

  “This is Palumbo,” says the familiar voice. “You know the drill.”

  Yes, I think, I certainly know the drill.

  The deputy national security advisor for the National Security Council isn’t answering my calls.

  The next call goes more smoothly and is answered on the second ring.

  “Mr. President,” says the voice, with an accent that has a touch of Brooklyn and Hebrew. It belongs to Danny Cohen, the retired head of Israel’s Mossad. “I was expecting your call. How are you and your dear wife holding up?”

  “As well as can be expected,” I say. “We’re in a hotel suite across the river from DC, trying to keep on top of developments. And Danny—how’s retirement treating you?”

  A soft laugh. “Nice, in a way, when your biggest problem of the day is getting a replacement pump for your irrigation system so your orange grove doesn’t dry out. But…you’ve not called to check in on my retirement. What can I do for you, Mr. President?”

  “First, call me Matt,” I say. “And second…I know there are official communications and information sharing going on between Langley and Tel Aviv, but is there anything you may be hearing unofficially that can be of use? I…I just can’t sit back and just hope everything works out, Danny.”

  Danny says, “Asim Al-Asheed has always been a tough man, Matt.”

  “I know,” I say. “A freelance terrorist with no ties to a nation-state, like one of those evil types Ian Fleming used to come up with back when things were simpler, but with a worldwide network of supporters.”

  “A good analogy, Matt,” Danny says. “Our people are working very, very hard to come up with anything solid, trying to see if we have anything that traces Asim’s travels to the United States and your home. But he and his cousin, they work diligently, using cutouts and false identities. They are cold and cunning, with quiet allies across the world. But the work still goes on from Tel Aviv, I can promise you that. Many favors are being called in, and pressure is being applied.”

  I nod. Mossad is legendary for its intelligence work and operations for good reason. From the beginning, a precondition of Israel’s survival has been knowing what their neighbors are up to. Then, as more and more Jews came as refugees and migrants to Israel from countries like Russia and Kazakhstan, Morocco and Ethiopia, the US and Canada, Israel was able to develop back channels and direct information-gathering networks, not just in its region but in nations across the world, including those publicly wishing for its death.

  If any intelligence agency can catch a scent of Asim Al-Asheed’s travels, it will be Danny Cohen’s old haunt.

  “Thank you, Danny,” I say. From the other side of the room, I hear Agent Stahl talking to someone via his phone.

  “I wish I could do more, Matt,” Danny says with sympathy, “and I wish you could have done more when you were in the White House. You inherited a tough situation. But I believe you would have accomplished a lot more in a second term, which your vice president’s betrayal denied you.”

  Danny is being overgenerous. Presidents before me have tried to settle the thorny issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians, and future presidents will keep trying. The formula for success sounds simple: land for peace—land for an independent Palestinian state, security guarantees for Israel. It’s like the old joke about how to make elephant stew. Step one, boil a large pot of water. Step two, get an elephant.

  Though the violence between Israel and the Palestinians has been reduced, the possibility of peace that once seemed so close has dimmed: the continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank leaves less land for a Palestinian state, and the rise of Iran and its so-called Shia crescent stretching across parts of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain has driven Israel closer to the Sunni Arab states, which care more about their economic and security relationships with Israel
than about solving the Palestinian problem. These factors, plus the iron grip of Hamas on the Palestinians in Gaza for more than a decade, will bedevil whoever occupies the Oval Office.

  Danny knows all of that better than I do, of course.

  “I did what I could with the time I had,” I say. “Which wasn’t much. One of these days, if peace does break out, I’ll be just a footnote. If that.”

  Danny knows that, too. What matters to him is that he was sure of my commitment to Israel’s security. With the current administration, he isn’t so sure. He really wants to help.

  “You are a good man, Mr. President, and bless you and Samantha and Mel,” Danny says. “I will contact you if I learn anything, anything at all.”

  As I disconnect the call with the old Mossad leader, I hear a muffled curse behind me and turn. Agent Stahl is at his laptop.

  “The bastards. The coldhearted bastards,” he whispers.

  I go over to him.

  “David?”

  Tears are in his eyes. “Nothing,” he says, voice rising. “Nothing! There’s no movement, no plans, no procedures in place to get that bitcoin ready to be transferred. Nothing, Mr. President!”

  A sob comes from behind me.

  I turn.

  Samantha is sitting up on the bed, hand to her face. “I was right! Matt…I was right! They’re not going to get our daughter back, are they?”

  I try not to lose my temper. “No, they’re not.”

  There are tears in her eyes but her voice is strong and firm. “Matt, what are we going to do?”

  I look to Agent Stahl, and then to my duffel bag filled with arms and ammunition, and I’m fully alert, aware, all senses tingling, like I’m about to step into a Black Hawk in the middle of the night, ready to strike at whatever enemy is out there.

  “Whatever it takes,” I say. “We’re getting Mel back.”