Duke shrugged and winked at the elderly couple staring in their direction. “Thing is, sport, I’m not talking to you. Reflect upon that.”
Gibson took out the refurbished laptop that he’d paid cash for at a storefront repair shop in Arlington; the machine didn’t have a lot of pop under the hood, but it would get him where he needed to go. The purchase had put a serious dent in his bankroll, especially given that he already owned a laptop. But Gibson didn’t see any other way. It had occurred to him that his original laptop had also been in the custody of the CIA for the last eighteen months. God only knew what kind of malware had been installed. He could tear it apart like Gene Hackman and still never trust it again. There could be malware embedded all the way down in the motherboard and chipset. He’d drive himself crazy—crazier—looking. He’d wipe it and sell it as soon as possible.
“Easy there, cowboy,” Duke said. “That old computer could still come in handy.”
Gibson looked at his dad questioningly.
“If they’re watching,” said Duke, “then why don’t you show ’em what they want to see?”
Why hadn’t he thought of that?
“You did,” Duke said with a wink.
Assuming the Agency was keeping tabs on him, he could use the old laptop on free Wi-Fi at coffee shops and public libraries to establish a pattern of behavior for his watchers to take in: job and apartment hunting, shopping for a used car, contacting his credit-card companies to set up a payment plan. Anyone watching would see a reformed, upstanding citizen trying to rebuild his life. Then he would switch to his burner laptop and hunt Damon Washburn.
“Now you’re thinking,” Duke said.
Toby reappeared to clear the table and ask a favor. The wife of his dishwasher had finally gone into labor for real, leaving Toby shorthanded. Gibson packed up and followed Toby into the back, where he was put to work. He washed dishes for four hours, and when Toby pulled him off the line, Gibson had himself a part-time job.
All in all, not bad for his first full day back in the real world.
CHAPTER NINE
On New Year’s Eve, Gibson worked the morning rush at the diner before taking the metro into DC. He changed trains at Gallery Place and rode the Red Line uptown. At Van Ness–UDC, he exited and climbed the long, broken escalator up to Connecticut Avenue. A wave of vertigo hit him as he emerged into the open air. He put his hands on his knees and squeezed his eyes closed to keep from panicking. Bear counted slowly backward from twenty, which helped settle him down. He stood upright and took a deep breath. She smiled at him, and, when he felt steady, they walked up the hill to the Chinese embassy to see the Fisherman.
Finding Damon Washburn had proven complex.
An intensive two-day search had confirmed what Gibson had suspected eighteen months ago—Damon Washburn didn’t exist. Whomever Gibson had rescued on the fifth floor of the Wolstenholme Hotel in Niobe, West Virginia, his name wasn’t Damon Washburn. Gibson wished he’d stopped to get some answers from Charles Merrick in the snow. He’d briefly considered tracking Merrick down again, but he didn’t relish the thought of their meeting again. Nor did he care to imagine what it would take to compel Merrick’s cooperation or how much he would enjoy compelling it. Still, it was a better option than launching a penetration attack on the CIA’s employment records. He might be crazy, but not even he thought that a good idea.
“There might be another option,” Duke had pointed out.
Hence today’s trip to the Chinese embassy.
Damon Washburn hadn’t been the only spook in Niobe. Gibson had also crossed paths with a Chinese operative who’d wanted Charles Merrick for his own reasons. In retrospect, perhaps Gibson should have suspected that he was with the Ministry of State Security. But the man in the fisherman’s vest had offered information that Gibson had badly needed, and Gibson hadn’t asked why. He still didn’t know the Fisherman’s name but bet that if the Fisherman knew Charles Merrick, then he also knew Damon Washburn.
“Why are you here?” Gibson asked Bear.
He knew she didn’t think much of Duke’s plan. She thought he should devote himself to finding a way back to Ellie. In her opinion, his vendetta against the man calling himself Damon Washburn would only make things worse. But when Gibson had challenged her to describe what worse might look like, she couldn’t come up with an answer. Since then, she’d held her peace on the subject, still clearly disapproving but not abandoning him. Gibson didn’t understand why.
“Because you’re going to need me,” she said.
“I can do this without you.”
“I know,” Bear agreed sadly. “That’s when you’ll need me.”
The limestone walls of the Chinese embassy rose into sight. The old embassy had been located in a pair of dilapidated apartment buildings at the top of Kalorama near the Taft Bridge. A look unbefitting of the new China. In 2006, a new embassy had been commissioned, modern and sleek. Designed by renowned architect I. M. Pei, it reflected China’s twenty-first-century ambitions. Bear refused to go inside but said she would wait for him by the curb.
The front doors opened into a grand entrance hall large enough to feel deserted despite the heavy traffic. Security was intense, but a scrupulous job had been done concealing the dozens of cameras blanketing the entrance. Gibson walked to the center of the hall and stood there. He waited patiently, chin up so that the cameras could get a good, clean look. He made no hostile moves, knowing that simply standing in an embassy with no apparent business would draw attention. It took security only a minute or so to approach him.
“Do you have business at the embassy?” a guard asked.
“No,” Gibson replied, keeping his eyes up toward the cameras.
“Then I must ask you to leave.”
“Poisonfeather.”
The guard looked at him blankly. The man had no idea what that meant, but it wasn’t intended for him anyway. Gibson said it again to make sure he heard.
“Tell him I want to make a deal.”
“Please leave, sir, or we will call the authorities.”
“Tell him I will be back tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.”
To the guards’ credit, they didn’t lay a hand on Gibson and ushered him courteously off embassy grounds. Bear stood across the street, waiting for him. She still wasn’t dressed for the weather but didn’t look bothered by the cold wind that whipped her dress around her knees.
“How did that go?” she asked.
“I guess we’ll see.”