China Box

3

3Four hours later, Holger and I took off from Dhaka’s international airport. We’d arrive in the US at eight-thirty-five on Thursday morning, east coast time.

The old man had upgraded us so he’d be able to sleep. Our carrier was rated one of the world’s ten best airlines for long haul business class. The wide, soft seats folded down into full-length beds.

I was more interested in the personal minibar separating our seats. Holger had hustled me away from the American Club before I finished drinking.

I’d had time only to get the ambassador’s approval of my request for emergency leave, change out of my tired admin outfit, and pack my soft-sided carry-on with enough clothes to last me a week.

I was thirsty and the minibar was calling to me. Before I could open it, a perfectly made-up woman in her twenties materialized beside me.

She wore a khaki skirt-suit with a faint pinstripe. Her lipstick matched the crimson piping on her collar and the red velvet tie holding her dark hair in a twist at the back of her neck.

I was glad I’d ditched my stained jacket and replaced my white slacks with new designer blue jeans. Clean and wrinkle-free in my sporty Liz Claiborne Henley blouse, I could fake self-assurance, always tough for me in the presence of the immaculately groomed.

The spiffy flight attendant tilted a sweating bottle inquiringly. The label read Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial.

I croaked out, “Yes, please.”

Holger settled for a measured nod, as if bestowing a blessing. He was a Lutheran minister as well as a military officer. Gestures from his Sunday job spilled over into his weekday life.

Our lovely attendant placed two flutes on the console, poured bubbly into both, and promised to return with appetizers.

I felt pampered and valuable.

Something tight and hard in my chest began to uncoil. My hands and feet tingled, as if they’d been asleep and were coming awake.

I was racing through the night, across half a world, to rescue someone I loved from danger.

The adrenaline surge was familiar. Lights seemed brighter, odors sharper, sounds more distinct.

The seats nearest us were unoccupied and the luxurious room-like space felt private. I was ready to take a stab at prying Holger’s tight lips apart.

A tough job. The old spymaster revealed information on a strict need-to-know basis. I had no role in whatever campaign he’d mounted against China’s Operation Fox Hunt and the woman known as May Lee.

He’d invited me along only to play a small part in the Woody sideshow. He’d reveal as little as possible about that main event.

Leaning toward him, I asked softly, “What happens after we clear passport control at Dulles?”

He smiled, inclined his head my way, and motioned me closer.

Sipping chilled champagne, our heads tilted so our foreheads were only two inches apart, Holger told me we’d be checking into an airport hotel. He had to update his dossier on May Lee before we proceeded further. DC was a “convenient” base from which to access his sources.

“While I do that,” he concluded, “You will meet with Isabella and discuss how to deal with Woody. She knows him best, after all.”

Whoever taught Holger his manners must’ve frowned on shortening Christian names. When Holger said Isabella, he meant Woody’s mother. Bella Hinton.

I squirmed in my seat. Holger didn’t know that Bella and I weren’t speaking.

“I doubt she’ll agree to see me,” I said.

Holger raised a bushy eyebrow. “What, you two have had a disagreement?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I muttered.

The flight attendant returned with a basket of warm pita. I spotted a small dish of hummus, green beans sautéed in olive oil, and a bowl filled with the grilled eggplant and tahini spread called baba ganoush.

Garlic scented the air.

I forked up beans and savored the spices. Beneath the garlic and olive oil, I detected pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and coriander.

“You don’t need me to contact Bella.” I pointed my empty fork at Holger and went on the offensive. “You talk to her.”

“That would accomplish nothing.” Holger filled a pita wedge with baba ganoush and chewed slowly. “Isabella doesn’t trust me. As you are well aware.”

Reminding me of a critical remark Bella’d made to me and I’d foolishly repeated to him.

“She said that years ago,” I pointed out.

“Isabella’s view of me hasn’t altered. She is more likely to accept your assessment of this situation. Hopefully, you can persuade her to work with you. She has access to useful resources.”

I sampled the hummus and smacked my lips thoughtfully before continuing.

“You think she knows about Woody and May Lee?”

“Unlikely.” Holger sniffed. “She’d have forced them apart. After all, their relationship threatens her livelihood, too.”

Bella’s damn livelihood. Her new job was why we didn’t talk. I’d have to deal with that issue before she’d discuss Woody with me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go see her.”

Shifting in my seat, I broke eye contact. “But before I do, I need answers to a couple of questions.”

“Tell me what you want to know,” Holger said. “Perhaps I can help.”

“Sorry. I prefer to access one of my other sources.”

Bella’s old words hung in the air between us. I was pretty sure his brain was repeating them along with mine.

The Great Dane thinks he's got a God-given right to lie his ass off to you.

Holger shrugged. “Do what you feel you must.”

“You can count on that.”

The stewardess reappeared with the dinner menu. I ordered the grilled lamb. Soothed by the gourmet food and a few glasses of what the wine list termed “an eminently drinkable” French merlot, I closed my eyes and fretted over Woody.

Woody Hinton, my godson.

His mother, Bella Hinton, had been regional security officer in the Warsaw embassy while I was there. She became my best friend.

During the Cold War, Americans weren’t allowed to fraternize with Poles, a rule Bella turned into a T-shirt slogan: SLEEP NATO.

Not that she obeyed those two words any better than I had.

Bella’s Polish lover was a jazz drummer. We’d Americanized his unpronounceable name into Woody Woodchuck. He’d left Warsaw before she realized she was pregnant.

She chose single motherhood and she was four months gone when Chernobyl dusted her with radioactive fallout. For other reasons, I also had to flee Poland and I drove her to safety in Denmark.

I coached her through labor and let her crush my fingers as she pushed her son into the world.

She’d named him for his father, though I didn’t realize that at the time. Holger had presided at the christening, touching Woody’s forehead with holy water from a polished font that gleamed in the candlelight.

The baby’s red tuft of hair had shone like a beacon in the dimness. Holger had asked the ancient questions in Danish and I'd translated them in my head. Who will protect this child from the Devil?

I will, I'd promised.

Both Bella and I prayed that Chernobyl had done no damage. But when Woody was twelve, he was diagnosed with leukemia. Luckily, Bella located the father and persuaded him to donate bone marrow.

I didn’t expect the union of a jazz drummer and a security officer to produce a math genius.

Yet, after the transplant Woody proved he was a physics prodigy. By age twenty-two, he was a doctoral student at Berkeley, working on the cutting edge of quantum physics. He was skilled at predicting the behavior of particles.

For the past five years, he’d been a staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. When he’d visited me in Dhaka last winter, he’d given me a short course on linear accelerators.

He’d explained the advantages of using the Large Hadron Collider based near Geneva. He preferred it to the two-mile-long linear particle accelerator at Stanford.

What I got from his lecture was that his work involved the word nuclear and he needed a security clearance cosmically higher than Top Secret to carry it out.

Intimacy with an agent of a foreign government jeopardized Woody’s future.

If the federal treason-hunters found out he was romancing May Lee, they’d arrest him immediately. Maybe they’d ask questions afterwards. Or maybe they’d strip him of his clearances and ruin him professionally.

As they’d done to me after I took a Polish secret agent to bed.

Beside me, the flight attendant was helping Holger fold his seat down. He stripped off his suit jacket and went to sleep. Exhausted, I changed in the restroom to a T-shirt and jammie pants, wrapped myself in a blanket, and followed suit.

The flight was uneventful and arrived on time. Dressed once again in jeans and the teal Liz Claiborne blouse, I shared a Washington Flyer taxi with Holger.

I dropped him and my carry-on at a chain hotel five miles from the airport. He’d chosen it for its convenience to Bella’s office. He told me she’d be working there today.

Before I saw Bella, I had to consult my most trusted State Department insider.

I continued on to Foggy Bottom to meet him.