An Affair of Deceit (7 page)

“It would be difficult to say.”

Difficult to say?
Abigail nearly shouted out in disbelief. How could her mother forget the last time they’d seen her father? It had seared itself into Abigail’s memory, although at the time she’d only thought he was leaving on a business trip. He’d given Abigail a brief hug and a stern admonition to be a good girl. She was always a good girl, so she’d giggled, but then nodded seriously as he recited further directions. He asked her to speak Mandarin with her mother, to practice her wushu every day, and to keep the rice pot full. She did everything as he asked. A week later, still several days before he was due to return, her mother abruptly announced that they were moving to America without him. Her mother said that he’d join them later. But Abigail refused to leave him behind. She’d always been a respectful daughter, but she turned against her mother, doing everything in her eight-year-old power to prevent the move from happening. But the move was inevitable—and immediate. A day later, with most of their belongings abandoned, Abigail and her mother were on a plane to Washington, DC, never to see her father again.

For years afterward, she’d replayed her last moments with her father over and over again in her mind, hoping to figure out what she’d done wrong. Later, she determined that her mother may have been at fault, for it was she who’d left Taiwan without him. Blaming her mother didn’t make her feel much better, but it did give her a more visible target for her anger.

Surely one of them had done something to keep him away. Yes, they’d left their home in Taiwan without him, but they’d moved to America, his homeland. Undoubtedly, he could find
them if he wanted to. He had their address—he sent those checks, after all. Why wouldn’t he come home to them?

Abigail never could figure it out, but she didn’t believe that her mother had actually forgotten the most devastating week of their lives—unless it hadn’t devastated her as it had Abigail, in which case Abigail was furious with her all over again.

Riley tried a different angle, oddly using the present tense. “Have you ever discussed with Peter the nature of his work?”

“Not often.”

“But sometimes?”

“Even Peter had need of a wife’s counsel every now and then. Do you not?”

“I don’t have a wife. Did Peter ever tell you about his work in France?”

“Not that I can recall. You have no wife?”

“I wouldn’t have the time for a wife, even if I knew of one I wanted,” Riley answered, not unkindly. “What about a man named Lukas Kral?”

The name earned a sharp choke from Abigail. She hoped they’d dismiss it as a squirrel’s bark. But she was shocked—she knew of Lukas Kral from her work in the national security section of the DC judicial system’s criminal division. Kral was a notoriously slippery heavy-weapons smuggler based in France but born in the Czech Republic, back when it was still Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia. He was suspected of selling arms to anyone with the required cash, including embargoed dictators, terrorist militias, and both sides of civil wars, but so far, no nation was willing to attempt the prosecution of his crimes. For only Lukas Kral had the ability to deliver tanks to freedom-fighting armies in the heart of war-torn Central Africa. Only Lukas Kral could send helicopters into an Amazonian jungle to drop assault rifles into the hands of tribes battling fascist regimes. Because of the extensive shipping network he maintained, Kral could intervene where no sovereign nation dared, and for that, he was protected.
And if he began to feel pressure to halt his less savory activities, he was only too happy to contribute to the reelection campaigns of that nation’s leaders.

Her mother walked to a hutch that Abigail knew held assorted snacks for guests. “What about who?” her mother asked as she opened a cupboard.

Riley watched Fei load crackers onto a plate. “Has Peter ever mentioned Lukas Kral?”

“Has this person something to do with Peter’s disappearance?”

“Would you be concerned if he did?”

Fei returned to the bench with a small platter of food. “I would be concerned to hear that any one person had detained my husband.”

“You’d rather hear he was detained by a group?”

“You look for meaning between my words.” Fei’s eyes narrowed. “But I will answer. It seems to me that a group would be motivated by politics or money, but an individual would seek something more personal. That which is personal is more painful to lose than any amount of money.”

“From what I know of Peter Mason, he doesn’t have much of a personal life to lose, does he?”

“Everyone has a personal life, even if they keep it to themselves. That is what makes it personal.”

“Like you? Are you a part of his personal life?”

“I will always be a part of him, and he of me.”

“I know.” Riley chewed and swallowed before continuing. “I know he visits you.”

Abigail’s breath caught in her throat. Was it true? Or was it a trick, something Riley had said to startle her mother into a confession?

Fei stared at her garden, unfocused, a small smile frozen on her pale, ageless face. “Yes, of course you would know that. He does not visit very often, though. Just often enough to keep the memories alive. Sometimes I wish he would not.”

Anger scorched Abigail’s senses, burning her ears, searing her nose, lighting her very tongue on fire. Suddenly sweating, she struggled to keep herself from throwing the gate open and charging into her mother’s sanctuary to demand answers. As far as she’d known, her mother hadn’t spoken to her father since they’d left Taiwan. Why had she lied? And if he’d been in touch with her mother, then why hadn’t her father seen fit to contact his own daughter?

“There is very little that we don’t know about you, I’m afraid. But you know him better than we do. You know that he’s in danger. You can help us find him,” Riley urged.

Fei smiled at the pond below the pavilion’s deck, where her fish surely swarmed near her feet. “And what if he does not wish to be found?”

“It’s not his choice, not this time. He is in possession of dangerous things that don’t belong to him, and he’s with a person who is not a friend to the United States.”

“This Lukas Kral you mentioned, he is with my husband?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

Fei put down her plate on a small table before her. Her fingers then linked tightly in her lap. “I know that he wishes my husband harm.”

“I don’t doubt you, but words aren’t enough to change the minds of those in charge of this task force.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s suspected that your husband is”—Riley grimaced apologetically before continuing—“no longer acting in the best interests of the United States government.”

Abigail gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth to prevent further outbursts, but Fei only nodded, unmoved by the revelation—or the sound of Abigail’s reaction. “He acts according to his own conscience. He always has. But I have never lost faith in him, even when I did not understand him. He knows what he’s doing. You mustn’t worry.”

You never lost faith in him?
Shock and anger bringing tears to brim in her eyes, Abigail clutched at the moon gate, her fingers going white around the wooden slats. She hardly cared if they spotted her now.

“I don’t think he’s an accomplice in what’s happening,” Riley said. “I think he’s a hostage. However, I can’t prove his innocence and spare him what may be coming if I can’t put the pieces of this puzzle together.”

“No.” Fei shook her head. “He will tell us what he wishes us to know, when he wishes us to know it. Until then, we must trust him. He is a patriot and a good man. He has never and will never conspire against his country.”

What about the interests of his family?
Abigail, who rarely raised her voice, wanted to scream. The carefully suppressed anger and pain of two decades surged up, ready to stream through her like a geyser.

“It’s not up to him anymore,” Riley said, his voice growing hard. “As much as I respect Peter Mason, we cannot wait for him to sort this mess out. If it were only his life at stake, we might leave him alone. But his isn’t the only life endangered now.”

Fei looked sharply at Riley. “What do you mean?”

His lips tightened. “I can’t be more specific. But trust me, the threat to public safety is real.”

Water splashed; a carp must have breached the pond’s placid surface. The creatures did that, Abigail knew, when her mother was nearby but ignoring them. The enormous fish were her mother’s pets, though Abigail never understood what sort of relationship a human could have with a creature so different from herself.

Fei bent down to stick her hand in the pond. The animals would swim around her, suckling her fingers and twisting their tails like excited puppies. “The koi are concerned. So must I be.”

“Is there anything you can tell me that can help me find your husband?”

Fei lifted her head. A tear ran down her mother’s right cheek. Abigail couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mother cry, and for a moment, she was surprised enough to forget her anger.

“I wish there was,” her mother said. “But he has told me nothing that would relate to this disappearance. We last spoke by phone seven days ago, but you must understand that we do not speak of his work very often, and we did not speak of it then. I did gather, though, that he was working on something momentous, something that could change everything for us. And for Abigail.”

Abigail stopped breathing, stunned by the mention of her name.
For me?
That bastard—yes,
bastard
felt like the right word now—thought he could do anything that might benefit her?

“For her? How?”

“I cannot say. But everything he does—everything he has ever done—is for our family and his country. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Riley’s mouth turned down, and the wrinkle between his brows deepened. “If that’s what he wants, then why not just be a family now? What’s he been doing all these years? Letting his daughter grow up thinking that he didn’t care about her?”

“He has done what needed to be done for her sake.”

Complete nonsense.
Abigail’s father hadn’t done more than cut a check for her in twenty years. She could hardly listen any further.

Riley stared at her mother, and when he spoke again, his voice had smoothed. He was once again the comforter, not the interrogator. “Then tell her why he left. Tell her why he never even called. Abigail is a strong woman—the strongest I’ve ever met—but she’s been deeply hurt by her father. She has a right to know why he abandoned her.”

Abigail could hardly disagree, though she was aghast to hear such personal things being argued by a man she had only met
that morning. She knew that she didn’t wear her emotions on her sleeve. How could he—how could
anyone
—know what she’d never spoken aloud?

Fei looked pained and shook her head. She stood. “You cannot understand what you say. To make you understand, I would have to venture into personal matters, family matters, that would…”

“That would what?” He stood beside her, his fingers spread wide in what Abigail thought was an attempt to not ball his hands into fists.

Fei’s features flattened. “You understand, I hope, how much I value our new acquaintance, but there are things that I do not even discuss with my daughter. Please. If I think of more, or learn more, I will contact you immediately.”

Riley’s lips compressed. He didn’t seem to want the conversation to end, but Abigail knew her mother had put her foot down. He handed her a business card. “Please do.”

Together they began to walk back toward the house, and Abigail ducked down to hide beneath the magnolia tree again.

“You know, my mother would absolutely love your garden,” Riley said.

“Does she miss Asia as well?”

“I think so. She doesn’t get nostalgic, but she loves gardens. Our house has a big American lawn in the front, an English cottage garden in the back, and a French potager on the side.”

“No Chinese?”

“No. I didn’t think it would grow, to be honest, but you’ve done it here.”

“Your mother lives nearby?”

“Yup. Pretty close, actually. Has a nice piece of old farmland just outside of Arlington.”

“Well,” Fei said, “please tell her of my garden, and if she expresses a desire to see it, I would be glad to invite her.”

Riley’s grin widened. Fei returned his smile, but once his back was turned, the look that contorted her normally tranquil face was anything but happy.

Abigail’s mother looked afraid.

A
BARE FOOT
sliced through the air toward Abigail’s head. She flipped her left arm up in defense and deflected her assailant’s shin away from her face.

It stung, but she didn’t stop to contemplate the lump that would form where bone had crunched bone.

Seeing an opening, she slammed the bottom of her right foot into her opponent’s belly and relished hearing him gasp. A roundhouse kick to the side of his head knocked him off balance, and she was about to move in to jam her elbow into his solar plexus when she heard a shrill whistle.