The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1) (44 page)

He waited for what must have been over an hour.  There were no clocks.  Clocks had sophisticated movements; the room was too still and simple for clocks.  He waited so long he didn’t know what he expected to see.  He settled his mind on seeing Inspector Mak walk in with a big bandage around his neck.  Maybe he failed; he didn’t have time to stay and make sure Mak was dead.  Maybe it was Mak’s half-dead corpse come back to piss on his parade.  The cops couldn’t tie him to Mak’s death without a witness or a weapon.  He didn’t think they had either.  The doors were closed when he shot Deni, no one saw it but Liu Ping and the others.  Maybe one had talked. 
Maybe
.  The door opened.  Inspector Mak was a better guess than what came through the door. 
A man
. 
Not Chinese
. 
White
. 
Not even British
. 
American
. 

The man walked in the room with a white shirt and wintergreen tie.  He had charcoal gray slacks and a black belt.  A holstered gun was tied to his waist.  His hair was well-cropped, dark and parted—combed back.  He was clean-shaven with blue eyes.  He held a brown portfolio in his right hand.  He walked to the table and sat down in the empty chair across from Xiaoyu. 

“Want a coffee, tea or something?” said the blue-eyed man.  Xiaoyu sat in silence with his head angled down toward the table.

“Nothing?” said the blue-eyed man, “No water or anything, you must be thirsty.  They say they had you in here for a while.  Me, I just got here.”  Xiaoyu didn’t say a word.

“Alright, we’re not even gonna try the small talk,” said the blue-eyed man, “Then I’ll cut to the chase.  They’re gonna try to pin you with Mak’s murder, and Deni Tam’s murder and all the other Triads, even Uncle Martin Ma Woo.”  Xiaoyu looked up from the table.

“I’ll admit the evidence is a bit light, but they got a few of your boys here and they’ll get one of them to say something you can bet on that,” said the blue-eyed man, “I’m not trying to scare you, just trying to get you to take a good look at your situation.”  Xiaoyu looked back down at the table. 

“Now, I know you speak a bit of English,” said the blue-eyed man, “What is it?  The camera.  You can be sure I had it switched off.  No one’s listening or watching.”  The blue-eyed man paused and reconsidered his tactic.

“You know, talking to me is the only hope you got,” said the blue-eyed man, “I’m not a cop, not even by a long shot.  Honestly, my line of work isn’t too dissimilar from the Triads.  But you’re looking at spending the rest of your life in prison and from what I know about you you’re only twenty years old.  That’s a long ass time.”  He shook his head and put his hand on the brown portfolio on the table.

“You’re the toughest guy in the room, in every room,” said the blue-eyed man, “I get it.  I’ve known about you for a while.  I know what you’ve done, what you’ve been through.  You don’t wanna talk.  Guys like you don’t ever wanna talk.  No reason, your kind live in a different world.  I don’t speak
you
, so you’re not gonna talk to me.  Ok, let’s talk about something else.”  The blue-eyed man lifted a manila folder from the portfolio and slid out a sheet of paper.  He flattened the paper to the table and pushed it in Xiaoyu’s direction.

              “Let’s talk about someone else,” said the blue-eyed man.  Xiaoyu raised his head and his body along with it.  The chain on the handcuffs clanged against the metal crossbar as Xiaoyu extended his torso.  He looked down at the table and saw a ghost.  The page was a headshot of someone from long ago—a dead someone—his mother.   He studied the photo trying to understand why the blue-eyed man would dig his mother out of her grave.  There was something disturbing about the man and his blue eyes.  Xiaoyu suddenly realized the man was playing tricks.  The more he looked at the photo the more he realized it was distorted, perverted.  The woman’s face was too round to be his mother’s.  But the hair was the same.  His mother was always straight-faced in photographs in every respect.  The woman on the table had a slight smile at the corner of her lips; that wasn’t his mother.  And her eyes were too long and the photo too modern, the look too modern.  His mother was too dead to be modern.  Xiaoyu closed his eyes and someone came to him—someone from long ago—but alive.  He realized it wasn’t the blue-eyed man playing tricks.  It was his mind.  The woman in the photo
was
his mother—not the one who gave birth to him—the one who raised him.  The photo wasn’t of Li Qiu, his mother.  It was of Xiaofeng, his sister.  He was twenty years old and it was June, his sister would be turning thirty-four on the twenty-first of the month, the same age as his mother in her last photographs.  It was fitting to mistake his sister for his mother.  Most of the photographs he saw were of the two together.  His mind fused the images over time.  There were no photos of him and his mother.  After she was pregnant with him, she didn’t want to be photographed.

              “You recognize her don’t you?” said the blue-eyed man, “Your big sister.  While you’ve been climbing the list to public enemy number one, she’s been a model citizen.  She’s even applied to become one.  That photo is from the application she submitted for citizenship.  She’s a professor at UCLA, doing very well, looking at tenure in two years.  But if her green card was suddenly revoked, she’d be forced to leave the country.  How’s that for a birthday present?  Everything she’s worked so hard for gone just like that.  She wouldn’t even know it was her little brother that was responsible.”  Xiaoyu felt the joint between his jaw and his skull ignite.  The heat passed around the base of his skull setting fire to his whole head.  The fire burned hottest at two points on his brow forcing him to narrow his gaze to control the flame—he couldn’t. 

The first sound was his metal chair scraping the floor.  He hoisted the chair high in the air and let it fly.  With the chair as air cover, Xiaoyu rolled over the table sideways unthreading his hands from behind his back passing his feet between his arms as he tumbled.  He rolled off the other side of the table to find the blue-eyed man was no longer in his seat at the table.  Xiaoyu landed on his feet across the table from where he was seated and found no one.  He angled his head to the right to look for the blue-eyed man, turning his head into a piece of cast metal.  The metal was placed between his left and right eye; he could feel it more than see it.  Staring forward he saw only the blue-eyed man and his flooded eyes.  The man’s eyes said everything Xiaoyu needed to know:
I don’t need you, I can find someone else.
  The man’s preparation was obvious.  In the time it took Xiaoyu to move over the table, the man had sprung to his feet removed his
SP
pistol and converted it for a single-action shot.  He had seen Xiaoyu move before and didn’t want to take a chance with double-action.  Despite his prowess, Xiaoyu was unable to catch the man off guard.  He stood handcuffed with the metal chair still weighing on the cuffs and had a loaded pistol touching his face.  Xiaoyu had to give credit to the man.  Whatever lay behind his blue-eyes, was fit for preparation.  Xiaoyu developed a respect for the man that he wasn’t comfortable with.  He thought with the time he had to think and realized Xiaofeng was in no immediate danger.  He isolated that thought and took a step back from the man and his gun.  He turned his back to the man slowly and walked around the table and sat down in his original place—chair in front.  The man holstered his gun and sat down never taking his eyes off Xiaoyu.

              “What do you want?” asked Xiaoyu in Hong Kong-tasting English.

“Your sister looked after you as a kid, I’m giving you the chance to return the favor,” said the blue-eyed man, “You help me out, I promise she’ll get her citizenship.”

“How do I know?” asked Xiaoyu.

“Honestly,” said the blue-eyed man, “You don’t.  But I will make good on my promise to ruin her, if you choose not to play ball.”

“What is
play ball
?” asked Xiaoyu.

“I wanna offer you a position with my company,” said the blue-eyed man.

“What position?” asked Xiaoyu.

“Better than the position you‘re in now.  It’s a bad position to be in, having so many limits,” said the blue-eyed man leaning back in his chair.  He looked at the portfolio on the table and looked at Xiaoyu.  He looked to the side, as if something in the plain room had caught his eye.

“I’m talking about having the opportunity to have no limits at all,” said the blue-eyed man, “No limits but one.”

“What limit?” asked Xiaoyu, looking directly at the man.

“Me,” said the blue-eyed man.

“Who are you?” said Xiaoyu.

“I’ll tell you my name,” said the blue-eyed man, “If you agree to my terms, I’ll tell you who I am.”

“What’s your name?” asked Xiaoyu.

“Truthfully,” said the blue-eyed man, “Mason Keig.”

Xiaoyu looked at the picture on table long enough to remember all he could remember about his sister.

“Who are you?”

Xiaoyu woke up feeling like his bones were bugged.  He opened his eyes to see his own vision—dark and dusty.  The room was the opposite, a fluorescent fog.  The light lit his eyes so much they begged for darkness.  Xiaoyu winced as his eyes closed but he quickly realized darkness had a partner, curiosity.  Xiaoyu had no idea where he was; neither did his eyes.  But if they worked together they would fare better.  Xiaoyu shielded his face with his right hand.  He opened his eyes under a flesh-colored canopy starting his study at the floor.  The floor was polished, lonely and unvisited.  The janitor was the room’s only visitor.  Then there was him—lying on the floor.  It was cold but not too cold to sleep on.  The room was simple, four fluorescent panels in an even square.  Coated cinder block walls strained the imagination of what was outside.  The space was meant to be occupied, nothing had to happen in the room but so much could.  The floor was large square tile—easy to clean.  Xiaoyu looked around the room, with half a second and half a thought.  The room was clean and simple, the same atmosphere inside and out.  That was his best guess.  Xiaoyu was in a similar room before.  Both rooms said the same thing, government.  Xiaoyu still wanted sleep but sleep no longer wanted him.  He was aware of too many things to sleep.  Only ignorance slept soundly in an empty room.  He sat up from a prostrate position feeling next to naked in his gray scrubs.  The blue-eyed man had offered him a deal, no time for any of his crimes.  But he felt like a prisoner, rightfully so.

The room had no mirrors but he guessed he looked like a prisoner—grey scrubs and tattoos.  He moved toward the center of the room.  The wild light was tame in the corners but the cage had taught him he didn’t like corners.  He sat there under the lights.  As the light pecked at his flesh, he sat there—ever still.  He closed his eyes but imagined nothing.  He paid attention only to the synapses firing in his head.  He isolated only the instinct.  From the electric hum in the lights above to the electricity in his brain, an impulse told him he was being watched.  He knew it, just not how.  The room had no cameras.  If he were in Hong Kong Police custody, they would have him in a room with a camera.  With the charges against him, there might have been more cameras, one for every angle.  He knew he wasn’t in Hong Kong Police custody.  The synapses in his brain kept firing.  One fired quickly, over and over again.  The sparks jumping across the synapse were something he couldn’t feel.  It was the idea they emitted that shocked him—more lightning than spark.  Where he was, wasn’t Hong Kong.  His mind smiled, a smile that almost reached his face.  He was outside China for the first time.  He left Changyu to earn his way to Beijing, instead he got a trip abroad with no idea how it was earned.

For the first time in a long time he found sitting still easy.  His instinct settled.  He was alone in a room and he wasn’t in Hong Kong.  His enemies weren’t close where ever they were.  He liked moving around since he began training with Master Song.  Master Song had taught him to be adaptable, to keep his body and mind flexible.  Xiaoyu found sitting still ever easier.  Alone in the room he was being watched but not threatened.  He could sit still because there wasn’t anything else for him to do.  Curiosity was helpful only to a point.  He decided thinking too much was useless.  As long as he wasn’t in Hong Kong, he didn’t have to know much more.  He was sure he would know more than he wanted in time.  He steadied his eyes on the steel door in front of him.  With legs folded he closed his eyes trying to think of nothing.

• • •

The steel door opened from the outside.  Xiaoyu’s eyes stayed closed.  He heard one step then one lighter.  The person was right-footed. The door closed behind the person and he could be heard moving toward the center of the room. With eyes closed, Xiaoyu realized he had seen the person before or at least smelled him.  Aftershave, cologne or lotion, something on the man smelled familiar.  Xiaoyu opened his eyes to switch shifts with his ears and nose.  There was someone else in the room.  The memory took him a moment.  It was the blue-eyed man. 
The one from Police Headquarters
. 
The man with the deal, who threatened his sister
.  In his left hand he held a foldable steel chair like so many others.  In his right hand was a file folder unlike any other.  He unfolded the chair and sat down, three feet in front of Xiaoyu.  He dropped the file folder to the floor.

“Guam,” said the blue-eyed man, “That’s where you are.  I know you don’t remember.  Do you remember me?”  Xiaoyu looked at the blue-eyed man and looked.

“Mason Keig,” said Xiaoyu.

“And what’s my label?” asked Mason.

“Chessmaster,” said Xiaoyu.

“And your label?” asked Mason.

“I don’t know,” said Xiaoyu.

“You still have a bit of an accent but it should melt away in time,” said Mason, “That’s how it works.  Your mind knows how but the muscles in your mouth are playing catch up.  It will be like that with the other languages too.”  Mason picked the file folder off the floor showing the front side to Xiaoyu.

“Your label,” said Mason.  The brown file folder had one word written in all caps across the front:  RAINMAN.

“Your Chinese name means ‘little rain’ so we thought Rainman would fit and be easy to remember, given the volumes of things you have to remember,” said Mason putting the file folder down on the floor.

“You know what this is about?” said Mason, “It’s about vegetables.”  Mason paused for effect.  Xiaoyu sat preternaturally still, legs folded on the floor.

“
Artichoke
,” Mason continued, “That was the name of a project run by the technology office before either of us were born.  They tried to find better ways to interrogate people with useful information.  Of course that’s a very raw question: 
How do you get information out of someone’s mind?
  Especially if they know they become useless when you know what they know.  The mind has great ways to protect itself.  In our business there are so many lies that you believe them when you’ve told them enough.  And that’s it again, the mind trying to protect itself.  There’s nothing better and worse than believing your own lie.  There’s nothing better because it protects you.  No one will be able to prove you’re lying by interrogating you.  You believe you’re telling the truth.  There’s nothing worse because we have to go to extraordinary lengths to prove a person’s lying.  That’s expensive and inefficient.  What if you find two people who say the opposite is true.  How do you know who the liars are?  You have two people saying one thing and one person saying another.  A lie also has strength in numbers.  So you and the other guy might be getting set up by two people with the same false story.  Or maybe they’re all lying.  Or maybe all three are working together against you.  Maybe they give you truth enough to believe them and that’s what they want.”

“You get my point.  It’s difficult to get things done when you’re in the business of straight answers.  So the idea behind
Project Artichoke
was to know what the mind knows, not just the person in front of you.  That idea itself expanded into what was called
Project MK-ULTRA
. 
MK-ULTRA
was primarily useful in getting a lot of people in a lot of trouble.  The CIA conducted mind control experiments on American citizens.  When it got out, people didn’t like that so much, so the government had to do something.  They shut it down.  A lot of what really went on with
MK-ULTRA
, a lot of what was documented was destroyed.  There were accounts by people who participated but that goes back to the original question about interrogation.  How do you trust what someone is telling you?  Especially if they are admitting involvement in illegal activity.”

“One useful thing did come out of MK-ULTRA.  It had several names but when the dust cleared we called it ASF, After Sensory Function.  It’s actually quite difficult coming up with useful names for things.  What ASF is, is stripping away the layers of the mind and treating the subconscious.  The treatments can be anything:  skills; languages; a response to a particular question.  When it comes up, the mind answers the question.  If someone speaks to you in French you have a motor response to answer in French.  It’s the mind as a muscle.  We’ve taught your mind how to move a lot of weight.  We gave you French, Spanish, German and Italian.  We cleaned up your English as good as mine.  Because we like you, we gave you some technical skills and weapons identification.  Small to heavy arms, it’s all in there.”  Mason opened the folder on the floor.

“Your name we anglicized, because so many of us cannot pronounce it correctly. 
Rain
is not a name so we went with Reagan after Ronald Reagan.  He was tough enough.  And we just kept your last name the same with the English spelling, L-E-E. 
MK-ULTRA
was shut down but it took us in directions.  I think that the direction we’re on now is probably the most promising.  That’s why I signed on to this project.  We call it
Caprice
.  So if you hear anyone say the word, that’s what they’re talking about.  What
Caprice
is, is in addition to the information we’ve put in your head we also put one other thing.”  Mason pulled out a transparent tube from his pants pocket.  In the tube was what may have been a small piece of candy.  The candy rattled against the plastic tube as Mason turned it in his left hand.  Xiaoyu squinted as Mason held out the tube in front of him.  It didn’t look like any candy he had ever seen—too small to be satisfying. 

“This tiny thing costs seven million dollars to produce.  Project costs are what they are but they have to be worth it.  That’s why you’re here because I think you’ll be worth it.  You’ve been tagged with one of these.  It’s a radio frequency identification chip and it’s tiny, tiny enough to put it where it needs to be.  One of these is embedded in your brain.  It doesn’t need any external power source.  It has a motion capture system that is sensitive enough to absorb energy from your brainwaves and turn them into power for the chip, like those watches that run without a battery.”

“It takes about three hours after the chip is inserted for it to power up.  Once turned on the chip can stay on for a hundred years.  It was designed to out last you.  If you die, your brain shuts down.  The chip has a power reserve of a little over an hour.  The chip will tell us where to recover your body if recovery is in the cards.  The chip also allows us to track you by satellite within eight inches anywhere in the world, even underground.  My advice is that you try not to manipulate the chip; it’s tamper-proof.  Once activated the chip maps it’s ambient.  Biological changes can be accounted for but if you try to move or manipulate it, it will detonate inside your head.  Imagine a firecracker going off in your brain. It would kill you instantly.  If you take a bullet to the head that doesn’t kill you, the change in the environment of your brain could still cause the chip to detonate because it thinks you’re trying to manipulate it.  The best advice is
try not to get shot in the head
.”

“We also have the ability to detonate your chip by satellite link.  The connection is a two-way street.  We get a signal from the chip and we can send a signal to the chip.  If you decide to do anything unsanctioned, that is the first thing you should think about.   It’s called a
red card
. I’m your project manager so I make that decision.  As long as you do what you’re told, we shouldn’t have a problem.  There’s one other function the chip has.  It’s what’s called the
yellow card
.  We can send signal to your chip to cause it to vibrate a pulse.  The chip is designed not to interfere with your normal brain function.  If it starts to pulse it will interfere with neural activity.  It will incapacitate you and ultimately cause you to have a seizure.  This serves as a warning to remind you that you’re in the service of another.  Sometimes in deep cover, agents forget right from left.  The yellow card is there as your compass.  Once again, follow the parameters as I set them out and you’re good.  You’ll never need the reminder. If you get the red card—well—you won’t even know it.”  Mason paused to study Xiaoyu.  Xiaoyu’s pose on the floor was an unnatural stillness.  The expression on his face was subtleness of comprehension.  His mind had always been easy with computation.  He did the comparison between being imprisoned and being implanted.  The result was zero.  The two possibilities stared each other down then fainted, both fainted.  Neither could hold up to the other; they were both the same.

“I have a gift for you,” said the blue-eyed man, “You wanna come with me?”  Xiaoyu looked off to the side.  He looked at the plain and empty wall.  His choices were similar, plain and empty.  He unfolded his legs and stood up.  Mason stood up from his chair and gave Xiaoyu a firm nod.  Mason began to walk toward the door.  He held out a card from his pocket, hearing the door unlock itself.  Mason pushed through the door with Xiaoyu quietly behind him.  Xiaoyu took a look back at the plain room with the steel chair as a visitor.  The look of a newborn adult leaving the womb came across his face.  He tried his best to catch the moment knowing he would be dead before he saw the room again. 

The light in the hallway saluted the light in the room—fluorescent, just enough.  Xiaoyu followed Mason down the hallway—not the man—the sound of his footsteps.  Xiaoyu walked with his head angled downward 45-degrees.  Knowing there was a satellite watching above made looking down more comfortable.  The sound of Mason’s footsteps stopped as he came to a wood door.  An aluminum sign hung on the door looking like it wanted to be somewhere else. 
Shipping/Receiving
was all it said.  Mason opened the door to see a man sitting behind a counter in a room with boxes.