They walked back down the hill and turned south on Connecticut Avenue past a series of stately apartment buildings. They entered a small commercial district. On the left, he saw a service station and a small strip mall that seem out of place in such tony surroundings. To his right, Gibson looked up at the marquee to see what was playing at the grand Uptown Theater—the last of the old DC movie houses. His father had taken him there to see the twentieth-anniversary rerelease of Star Wars. They’d sat in the first row of the balcony with their feet up. It had been awesome.
Across the street were restaurants, bars, and a few stray shops. Gibson went down the stairs into a cramped basement pool hall with a retro fifties vibe. The Christmas decorations were still up, and the bartenders hurried around setting up for an influx of New Year’s revelers. Gibson found a seat at the bar, ordered a beer, and waited.
After a few hours, the bar began to fill up, and a waiting list grew for one of the six pool tables. The bar stocked board games, and Bear pestered him to play Settlers of Catan, but Gibson knew he’d get himself thrown out playing games by himself. She groaned and spun on her stool, kicking her legs aimlessly until someone took her seat. After that, Gibson kept himself company. An hour before midnight, he paid his tab and made the long train ride back to Virginia. He rang in the New Year on an empty platform at Metro Center.
“Happy New Year, son.”
“You too, Dad.”
“Ought to be a better one.”
“That’s a pretty low bar,” Gibson said, trying to make himself comfortable on one of the concrete benches.
“Exactly,” Duke said, once again immune to sarcasm. He walked to the edge of the platform and sang an old Pogues song in a clear, rising voice.
Gibson pulled his coat tight around him, rested his chin on his chest, and listened to the ghost sing.
It was only nine p.m. on the West Coast. Maybe Nicole was getting ready to go out for the evening. Ellie might still be awake, sitting on the edge of the bed, helping her mother pick an outfit. Maybe Nicole had a date. He hoped she did, even as the thought made his heart ache. He still hadn’t replied to her e-mail and was no closer to knowing what to say.
“Happy new year, Nicole,” he said to himself.
Good to his word, Gibson returned to the embassy each day to stand in the lobby until escorted outside. Then he retreated to the pool hall to nurse his beers. On the fourth day, embassy security met Gibson at the door and barred his entrance. He repeated his message to them and then stood on the sidewalk outside the embassy under their watchful gaze. The temperature had dropped all week, dipping into the twenties at night, and by the time Gibson sat down at the bar, he was cold straight down to the bone. He ordered an Irish coffee and it tasted so good that he ordered a second. Then he settled in to wait, passing the time trying to come up with a plan B.
A little after nine o’clock, a group of Chinese came down the steps—three men and two women, all in their twenties. The men wore suits and the women, dresses: one red and one green. Overdressed amid the T-shirts and jeans of the regular clientele. They took a tray of balls from the bartender and racked them on a table in the back corner. Two of the men began rolling cues back and forth across the table, looking for the least warped one. The third man and the two women returned to the bar and ordered a round of drinks. They leaned against the bar beside Gibson and talked animatedly in Mandarin while the bartender made their drinks. The man told the women a joke, or what Gibson assumed to be a joke based on their laughter. Gibson glanced at the group, hoping to make eye contact, to see some spark of recognition, but they took their drinks back to their pool table, paying him no mind.
Gibson exhaled in disappointment, asked for his tab, and went to use the restroom. When he returned, one of the Chinese women was sitting in his seat and, in an embarrassed, almost childlike voice, was asking the bartender for a new drink. She crinkled her nose to convey that it was too strong. While the bartender remade her drink, Gibson stood to the side and counted out bills to pay his tab, then lifted his glass to finish the dregs of his beer. He waited until she stood to reclaim his coat from the back of the stool. He zipped it up and went up the stairs and into the night.
He rode the long escalator to the bottom of the Cleveland Park metro. Down on the platform, he walked away from the few passengers waiting on a northbound train to Shady Grove and sat on one of the concrete benches. The digital sign said the next train was twenty minutes away. Gibson crossed his legs at the ankles and thrust his hand into his jacket pockets, trying to get comfortable. His fingers closed around a scrap of paper that hadn’t been there before. He glanced up and down the platform before unfolding it. In small type, it listed an address in Columbia Heights. Beneath that, it instructed him to take the metro to Woodley Park and walk from there. Gibson grinned to himself as he tore the paper into shreds; he’d gotten someone’s attention after all.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Duke said. “We’re on a roll now.”
Gibson rode the metro one stop, disembarked, and walked east along Calvert Street toward Adams Morgan. No doubt he was being followed, but he didn’t have much skill at spotting tails. Gavin Swonger had proved that on more than one occasion, and if that dopey hillbilly could follow him undetected, Gibson didn’t like his chances of spotting trained agents of the Ministry of State Security. Anyway, what did it matter? If they wanted to confirm that he was alone, then he was fine with that.
On Columbia Road, two Chinese men came out of nowhere and muscled him into an alley. One of them pinned him against a wall while the second patted him down. They took his phone and wallet and swept an electronic baton over him, looking for a wire. They discussed him in Mandarin and, satisfied, shoved him back out onto the street before disappearing up the alley.
“Not even waiting for you to get to the meet,” Duke said. “It’s a good sign.”
“How is it a good sign? I just got mugged.”
“Well, it wasn’t one of those muggings where they shoot you.”
Gibson shook his head at his father. “One time, I’d like the good news to be better than I didn’t get shot.”
Duke shrugged. “Maybe start small and work up to it.”
The address led Gibson to a row house on Thirteenth Street. A real estate agent’s “For Sale” sign stuck out of the small dirt patch that qualified as a front yard in this neighborhood. The house was pitch-black, but Gibson went up the stairs and tried the front door. Unlocked. He went into the foyer. The old hardwood floors creaked under his feet. He wasn’t sneaking up on anyone, so he called out a greeting. No response. He walked through the unfurnished house.
He found the Fisherman sitting patiently at a folding card table in the kitchen. Gibson’s phone and wallet were on the table. At the back door, a bodyguard trained his gun on Gibson. Another bodyguard materialized behind Gibson and searched him a second time. When he finished, the bodyguard spoke in Mandarin to the Fisherman.