Breakpoint

8 Sunday, March 15

“I didn’t think you would come,” Wu Zhan said, walking across the room to greet Sol Rubenstein.

“It’s been a while,” Sol offered, shaking hands.

“Since you rounded up my network and ran me out of Washington, you mean?”

“You left of your own volition, as I recall, before we declared you persona non grata,” Sol recalled.

“Yes, after the FBI accidentally ran my car off the road into Rock Creek.”

“Was it the FBI that did that?” Sol asked. “No hard feelings?”

“The best thing you could have done for me. As you know, I now run the foreign intelligence service of the Ministry, but I report directly to the President on certain matters. Come, let us have breakfast — your flight is in a few hours and we have much to talk about.”

As they sat by the window in the private dining room, Sol gazed again at the skyline, the busy traffic in the harbor. “Beautiful city, but why here? Why not in Beijing?”

“Too many people to see us in Beijing, including your embassy. Hong Kong is neutral ground,” Wu explained.

“It’s part of the PRC,” Sol asserted.

“Yes, but it is a Special Autonomous Region. It has its own elected government, own charter of rights, own flag, own police. Beijing exercises little control.” The waiter wheeled in a table with plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, pastries, and fruit. “I developed many bad habits living in the States. High-cholesterol breakfasts were one of them.” After piling his plate, Wu Zhan got down to business. “President Huang asked me to run operations to determine who was behind the attacks in the U.S., the internet bombings, the hackings. He did not know if it was the PLA or some arm of the Ministry. He asked me to spy on his government, my government.”

“And, let me guess, it wasn’t the PLA or the Ministry,” Sol said flatly.

“You won’t believe me, but I will offer you proofs. No, it was neither the Ministry of State Security, nor the military. But that is not to say that we do not monitor your cyberspace. As you yourself uncovered, we are well placed to see what is going on.

“The only connections to China were some hacks that were routed through Dilan University. They originated in California. Is there a Bagdad in California? Also, the hacks into the commercial satellites came from near there, within fifty kilometers. I have had all the files translated into English and placed on this thumb drive,” Wu said, placing a jump drive on Sol’s side of the table.

“I am afraid that isn’t proof enough. Somebody hired people in the U.S. to do these attacks. Who else would? You are threatening the new Taiwan government, placing your military on alert, running exercises along the coast and in the straits. You want us to back off, not to help Taiwan. So you send us a message. You’re also worried about the technological gap we have blown open again and you had a plan on the shelf to redress it. You implement that plan as the way of sending us a message. In New York, we call it a two-fer.” Sol spoke forcefully, staring at Wu.

“Sol, why would we do that? Our economy is tied to yours. We have lost billions already because of the attacks on the cyber connections and satellites. There are some who think a temporary economic dislocation is acceptable to get Taiwan back, but who is to say it would be temporary? And how do we control the provinces during an economic downturn? We are already having unrest in the villages.” Wu paused to see if he was persuading his old foe.

“We’re about to leave you in the dust technologically again,” Sol countered. “To borrow from the late, lamented Chairman Mao, there will be a Great Leap Forward, but this time it will be ours. Of course, you want to slow us down.”

“Yes, we have noticed the tech gap opening up again. We aren’t as good at genomics, nanotech. Living Software will set us back, at least until you let us be part of Globegrid. But we have plans to catch up. We are spending billions of yuan on research and training.” Wu reached into his idiomatic English: “Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg?”

“Wu Zhan, you know as well as I do that there are those in the PLA who think you have become too economically tied to the U.S., who would gladly sacrifice for a while to disentangled our two economies. We have our sources, too,” Sol asserted.

“The PLA is a problem. They took the election of the Independence Party in Taiwan very badly. And to rub salt in the wounds, the idiots on the island then shoot down PLA fighter planes. Their apology and offer of money was offensive. They shoot us down using a new laser gun, no less. Something we don’t have. That’s the tech gap they worry about. PLA studies say that if they don’t retake Taiwan soon, the defensive technology on the island may get to the point where it cannot be invaded successfully,” Wu explained.

“So they want to invade it now?” Sol asked.

“Yes. And some of them even believe that the Pentagon has staged these attacks in America to blame them on China, so that the President and Congress will want to fight us. They think the Pentagon is planning something for later this year, for your election. That’s why they want to go first and take Taiwan.”

Sol looked out the window and shook his head. Then, looking back at Wu, he asked, “How can they possibly believe that the Pentagon would kill Americans?”

“They mirror-image, Sol. The PLA would murder Chinese; they have. The PLA also knows there is a big U.S. exercise coming, strategic bombers in Guam and Australia. Atlantic Ocean — based aircraft carriers coming into the Pacific. What other conclusion could they come to?”

Sol pushed away his plate and stretched his long frame out, with his legs extending away from the table. He briefly closed his eyes. The jet lag was hitting him. He sighed. “How do you suggest we back our two sides down?”

“Give us something on Taiwan, have them say they will accept a Special Autonomous Region status, like Hong Kong,” Wu pressed.

“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You’d love that, have us abandon the Taiwan Relations Act?” Sol asked sarcastically. “Ain’t going to happen.”

“Without that, President Huang may not be able to control events.”

Sol stood up. “Thank you for breakfast. I have a flight to catch.”

Susan had risen early and run three miles of the six-mile-long island, on the hard-packed sand below the high-tide line. She had run in college, but now her sport was tennis and she was getting pretty good at it. She had beaten Sam during their end-of-year getaway in Boca Raton. As she stood at the top of the stairs at the lodge, high above the quaint harbor with its 1863 candy-cane lighthouse, she spotted Arnold Scott at the helm of the whaler, just entering the harbor. Then she felt her BlackBerry vibrate, finally getting a signal now that she was higher up and facing Marsh Harbor. She checked her messages. There was an encrypted signal marked urgent from JXF3, Jimmy.

Scott waved up to her and began to maneuver the whaler into the lodge’s dock at the bottom of the stairs. “Be right down,” she yelled. She stepped back into the lodge and read the message. “DSC is run by are tired general named Bowdin. We think he recruited and ran the hackers, killed the Russian mobsters. We think he and Gaudium are in league. You may be right about them planning to kill the children, but we haven’t figured out how. The kids are probably all over the U.S. You may just want to pull out now and we will send people in to find out. We can get the Bahamas police to sail over and get you.”

She thought for a moment and then sent a message back. “May not be time to organize others to go in. I have to save the children, no matter how many chromosomes they have.” She waved good-bye to the lodge owner as he sat down to an old PBX call router. All the phone lines in the little hotel were routed through the ancient switch to the one outgoing line.

“I see you’re wearing your Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. Very nice,” Scott said as Susan stepped down in to the whaler in a pink pantsuit.

“There weren’t very many choices. I’ve been on the road for almost a week.” Susan realized how big it had been as she said it. “But I wore sneaks for the boat.”

“Well, it’s very appropriate for an expectant mother, or one who hopes to be one,” he replied. Scott expertly handled the boat through the crowded little cove, into the channel, and then almost stood the boat up in the water as he sped toward the next cay, Man-O-War. “No buoys around here. You really have to know where you’re going, because it’s so shallow and there are lots of sandbars,” he yelled over the gas-driven outboards. The boat bounced across the clear water.

“If it’s not too personal, have you thought about actually having kids?” Scott asked. “I don’t mean these freak kids, but your own, natural ones?”

“You sound like my mother.” Susan spoke over the engine noise. “Here’s what I tell her: If my husband and I decide to, we’ll let you know.”

“It’s fun playing your husband, but what does the real guy do?” Scott asked.

“Boyfriend. He’s a doctor.”

“I’ll bet he’s a white guy,” Scott replied.

Susan gave him a look. “Well, as it turns out, this one happens to be. Why?”

“Tough for the brothers to succeed in America. Schools, drugs, gangs. A bright woman like you wants to be with successful men, and unless you go in the Army or are a super athlete…,” he explained.

“I know lots of successful black men, most of whom were never in the Army or the NBA,” Susan countered. “You got to get out more, Arnie.”

He cut the engine as the whaler moved into the harbor channel at Man-O-War. Susan could see a cute village of cottages and a few larger buildings. “Where’s the clinic?”

“Isolated, all by itself on the northern edge of the island, about a mile and a half,” he said, pointing. He brought the whaler into the large, wooden public dock and tied up. At the edge of the dock, Susan looked up and down the path at the few stores. They were closed for Sunday. “Before I walk you up there, we should go back to our safe house first,” Scott declared.

“Why? I’m supposed to be at the gate by half past.” Susan checked her watch. It was 7:20 A.M.

“Well, there are some guys there from DCS, came in last night, who you should meet first,” he said, hesitating.

“No,” Susan said, beginning to walk down the path, “No, Arnie, I think I’d better get moving.”

“It’s not a request,” Scott barked. He reached out a long arm to grab her. She saw his hand move toward her in slow motion. Her synapses fired. They know. They know we’re onto their plot to kill the children. The damn hotel phone. She bolted and sprinted up the path between two cottages. She saw his face, charging behind her, mean and focused. She ran hard, putting distance between them. There were clothes out on a line drying, and she dodged quickly behind them. No one was out on the pathways; they were in church. She saw a wooden stairway that led back to the water and she leaped down the steps. A dog went wild inside a cottage on her left. A rooster was crowing. She turned at the bottom of the stairs to look back, just as he arrived at the top. He was closing the distance between them.

She heard laughing from nearby and saw a large shop on a pier, opening up. A large white woman was putting a stick under a shutter window to prop it open and let in the air. Susan ran for her, down the pier toward the store. A sign said “Sail and canvas makers since 1793.” She burst inside the store. It was filled with brightly colored canvas bags. “Susan! Stop!” she heard from too close behind her. She turned and pushed over a table piled high with red, orange, and yellow canvas tote bags, then ran into the interior of the factory and outlet. “What’s going on out there?” someone yelled from inside. Susan turned a corner and saw three big women sitting at some sort of large cutting and sewing machines. Bolts of the bright canvas hung overhead.

“He’s after me. He’s trying to rape me,” Susan heard herself scream as she ran toward the women.

She heard the nearest woman say, “Ain’t none a our affair what you black people do.” The white woman had arms bigger than Susan’s legs and a look on her face like she had just seen an ugly bug. Arnold Scott exploded into the room, panting, “You can’t escape us.”

Susan saw an open doorway that led out onto the pier in the back. There was a small motorboat tied up. She ran between the machines toward the door and tripped over a pile of bags on the floor. She turned to get up, and Scott was over her. She kicked away, but he grabbed her ankle with a hand that felt like hot steel.

“I won’t let you kill the children!” she screamed.

He reached down and put a hand under her, raising her whole body in the air, as she tried to kick his face with her one free leg. He was yelling, “You have to come with…ARRR, oh, oh.” He dropped her hard on the wooden floor. She opened her eyes, but saw only lights and whirls, flashing. Arnold Scott was stretched out on top of one of the machines, with three large women standing around him holding blood-covered knives and giant scissors. One of them came over and stood above Susan. Susan watched blood drip onto her suit and saw that there was already a spray of fresh red blood on her side.

“Come on up, darlin’. Ain’t gonna be no gang rapes or child killed on our island. Haven’t been in over two hund’ years,” the large woman said as she pulled Susan up. “You get out of here now, fast, and we’ll keep him ’til our men come.”

Susan did not hesitate. She ran to the front door.

“You folks stay off our island!” she heard the first woman say as Susan made it onto the pathway outside. She was turned around. The clinic was on the north end; that would be to the left. She looked to see if Scott’s associates were about and then ran again up to the main path. There was a hand-painted wooden sign where the paths met: “Queen’s Highway.” She turned left on the white sand path and began running again. The sand here was loose and she slipped. It was 7:30 by her watch. There was thick vegetation and palm trees on both sides of the path, but no more cottages. She began power-walking, inhaling deeply. She started to think. They would be waiting for her at the gate, the men from Scott’s team. Her BlackBerry was still in her pocket. Again, there was no signal.

The path bent and then there was a long straightaway ahead. She could see a gate and a wall at the end. Then she noticed a golf cart and two men in blue blazers. Maybe they hadn’t seen her. She began to cut through the underbrush toward the beach. Maybe she could approach the clinic-villa from the beach side and avoid the men at the gate. Prickly vines scratched her and tore tiny rips in her suit jacket. She was afraid the pink suit could be seen through the trees.

Finally she made it to the beach. Unlike the southern part of the island, the beach here was rocky, coral. She pulled off the pink jacket and felt the cold ocean breeze on her back, drying the sweat. Stumbling over the coral and rock, she kept close to the edge of the trees in case someone was watching the beach. As she approached the place where the villa’s wall met the beach, she moved down toward the water’s edge. The sand was hard. Then she ran. Her calves were hardening up, her legs heavy to lift. She did not slow to look along the wall toward the gate, but kept running to the stairs she saw ahead. They were carved in the coral and went up to the lawn in front of the villa.

At the top of the stairs, the lawn looked like a broad green putting field. She caught her breath, ran her fingers through her hair, and walked to the first door she could find. “Oh my God!” a woman called out as Susan walked into a lounge.

“Honey, what happened to you?” a woman in a flowered dress asked as she got out of her chair and approached Susan. “You look like you just ran through a windmill. Oh dear, is this blood? Are you bleeding?” The woman backed away.

Susan stood looking at six very well dressed white women in their thirties, who had identical expressions of surprise, horror, and distaste. “I fell on the path. I–I’m late for my appointment,” Susan managed to get out. “Where is the doctor, the director?”

“Oh, you must be one of the new class, arriving today? We’re the group that’s flying back this morning. They all went in for the welcome lecture.” The flowered-dress woman pointed up a corridor leading off the lounge. “But you’ll want to freshen up first, I’m sure….”

“No, no. I need to tell them — tell them I’m here,” Susan said, brushing past the group and moving into the corridor. Halfway up the hall on the right was a door labeled “Pharmacy.” She tried the doorknob and moved inside. No one was there. The cabinets were padlocked, but there, on the counter, was a telephone. She hit nine, hoping for an outside line, and then punched in Jimmy Foley’s cell phone number.

It clicked into voice mail. “I’m at the clinic and I need to be extracted, and by guys with guns.” She hung up and started to punch in the IAC Watch Office when she heard male voices, arguing, approaching. “You can’t go in there,” one man said. “She’s having a suicidal incident, a breakdown. We need to get her out of here,” came the reply. The rest was drowned out by an engine roar outside. Susan peeled back part of the blinds to see out of the window, as a large white seaplane pulled toward the coast-side dock. She saw an awning-covered doorway on the outside a few windows down to the left. If she could get to that door on the inside, it would be a straight run to the seaplane.

She tried a connecting door to the next room. It opened into a storage room filled with blue boxes. Something on the boxes attracted her. “First Year” it said in large yellow letters. Under that, she read: “Special Baby Formula, not to be used by children for whom it is not prescribed. This formula has been created to enhance your baby’s special condition. It will be FedEx-ed to you every two weeks. If for any reason a shipment is late, call 888-800-BABY.” It meant something. She tried to bring back the memory.

It was Jimmy’s notes of his first and only meeting with TTeeLer in the pool hall, in California. What was it? TTeeLer had said formula. She opened her BlackBerry and scrolled to the notes and the recording Jimmy had made during the meet. She advanced through the conversation, listening on her earpiece. Then TTeeLer’s voice, from the grave: “No, I left when I heard the talking about needing to hack in somewhere to change the formula on something. He said ‘It’ll kill ’em all, hundreds, maybe thousands.’ Listen, whatever your real name is, Jimmy, I will steal from you in cyberspace if you are stupid enough to let me, but I am no killer. Nobody’s giving me the needle in some state pen. So I waited for the next cash disbursement and left the reservation.”

They didn’t know the addresses of the families with the extra-chromosome children, Susan thought, but somebody did, somebody who shipped the formula every two weeks. You don’t need to get their addresses if you hack in and alter the formula in a lethal way during its manufacturing, inserting some gradual poisoning. The clinic will ship the children the poison without knowing it. When had the altered formula started being shipped? She couldn’t just bolt for the seaplane; she had to tell the doctors immediately.

Susan opened the door to the corridor and found a man in a white medical lab coat slumped on the floor. She turned a corner. Two men in blue blazers were holding another man against a wall.

“It’s her!”

“Stop!”

She ran for the door to the dock. The seaplane’s engines overrode any other sound. She charged toward the plane. Over the roar, she thought she heard a gunshot. Turning, she saw a man in a blazer point a gun at her from the steps of the clinic. She rolled onto the dock. Maybe she could get to the water before …FWHACKKK!

Another shot. But it also missed her. She lifted her head up to look toward the clinic. The man in the blazer was sitting on the ground, up against the door, blood pouring from his head. Susan rolled onto her back and looked straight up at the sky. Set against the deep blue was an incongruously red-orange helicopter, with a man sitting outside while the helicopter flew, sitting on a landing sled, holding a rifle.

The noise of the helicopter merged with the roar of the seaplane surrounding her and piercing through to her bones, but through it she could make out a few words: “United States Coast Guard…Royal Bahamian Police…shut down…do not attempt…” The helicopter hovered in front and above the seaplane until the larger aircraft shut down its engines. Susan stayed flat on the dock. The helicopter landed on the lawn. And then it was quiet.

General Bowdin’s Hummer H3H, powered by its hydrogen cell, turned off the state highway and onto the road into the town. “I didn’t know there was a Washington in Virginia, except the real one, the big one. I guess it’s kind of in Virginia,” the driver said, taking advantage of being alone with the big boss, chatting him up.

“This is the real one, Todd, not that swamp up north. George Washington himself surveyed all around here before he joined the Army. Folks here named the town after him long before the Feds set up camp on the mosquito-ridden shores of the Potomac.”

As they entered the town, the driver pulled to the side of the road. “Sir, my orders don’t say where to go in the town. And they just say to take you to the inn. No name for the inn.”

“Hell, Todd, it’s not a big town. Just drive around — it ain’t enemy territory.”

The H3H got some stares as it slowly moved down Gay Street, past quaint shops, past tiny brick cottages that housed the county government, past two theaters, including one that had been a church. At the corner, the General spotted a building with both French and American flags. “That’s got to be it,” he told the driver.

“Gee, sir, the street name, what they did to that church, and now a frog flag — what kind of town is this? You sure this ain’t enemy territory?”

A uniformed doorman had appeared and was trying to open the Hummer’s door for the General. “Park in that lot over there,” the General spat out to Todd, “and don’t get out of your vehicle.”

Striding into the foyer, the General was quickly met by a greeter. “Good morning, sir. I’m sorry to inform you that we do not serve breakfast to the public. Only dinner.”

Bowdin looked around at the elaborate decor. “Looks like a damn New Orleans whorehouse.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“I bet you wouldn’t,” General Bowdin sneered. “I am not the public. I am joining Mr. Gaudium for breakfast, if that’s all right with you.”

“Oh yes, very good, sir. He’s expecting you in our Mayor’s House suite, across the street. Please follow me, and if you like, we can go through the kitchen.” They walked through a small bar, where a member of the staff was playing with two Dalmatian dogs. In the large, sunny kitchen, Gregorian chants played. The kitchen staff wore white pants with a Dalmatian pattern of black splotches. The General passed other Dalmatian-patterned staff doing Chinese stretching exercises in the herb garden. Across the street, they came to a two-story red house. “Let us know if there’s anything you need, sir.”

“General, please come in,” Will Gaudium shouted from the rear of the house. “We have breakfast set up in the courtyard.”

General Bowdin moved quickly through the richly adorned room to the courtyard. “Kind of a frilly place, Will.”

“Tremendous food and service, Frank,” Gaudium enthused. “Better than The French Laundry.”

“Never ate in a laundry,” the General said, seating himself under the outdoor heater.

“I flew in last night, but got here in time for a great dinner. I flew in to talk with you, Frank. There’s so much going on, and I just thought we should compare notes. I have some questions,” Gaudium began.

“There is a lot going on. And it’s working, they think it’s the Chinese. My guys in the Pentagon say they’re working up options for a meeting with the President,” the General asserted. “Pass the bacon there, Will. Thanks. What are your questions?”

“Well, Frank, we said we would avoid fatalities and yet people have died in the blackout out west, and others would have died if the truck bomb had made it to the Globegrid node at Moffett Field. Then there was the pancake house.” Gaudium spoke haltingly, deferentially, to the man he employed.

“That wasn’t us, Will. We didn’t do the pancake house. Speaking of which, do they do pancakes at this place?” General Bowdin answered, chewing his bacon, looking at the food he had piled onto his plate.

Gaudium ignored the question. “But people have died in our operations, Frank.”

Bowdin raised his eyes to look at the man opposite him. “I said I would try to avoid fatalities, and I have tried. But you can’t go ’round blowing shit up without someone gettin’ hurt. I told you that going into this. How else do you think we’re gonna stop these godless perversions? Did you think that in the Final Days there wouldn’t be a struggle, even before Armageddon? We don’t know how long this struggle period will be. Could be generations.” He reached across the table for the bowl of grits.

Gaudium sat, watching the General eat, then tried again: “I think we should back off now until the election. Things are getting too hot between America and China. It could get out of hand. And if Senator George can get elected, he’ll stop all of these technological excesses, peacefully, with laws and executive orders, international treaties.”

“Will, that ain’t gonna happen and you know it,” Bowdin said, putting down his knife and fork and looking straight at his employer. “George can get the nomination, but he’s not going to unseat the incumbent. Even if he did, the Congress, the courts, the bureaucracy would set up hurdles, slow things down. Anyway, this stuff is going on offshore, overseas, more and more. And international treaties, Will? Like the ones against nuclear weapons? Did they stop Pakistan, India, North Korea, Iran?”

Gaudium did not answer, and the General continued. “Yes, Will, things are heating up with China, and it looks like this President of ours might actually do the right thing for once, go protect Taiwan and let it announce its independence. Taiwan is on our side. China persecutes Christians, like Rome did to Saint Peter and the early church. It’s just like that over there now — secret bishops, underground churches. We have to stand up to them.”

Gaudium stood and walked around the courtyard, his hands deep inside his pants pockets. He stared at the brick patio floor. General Bowdin got up from the table and walked over to him. “Will, look, you are doing the right thing and history will say that. You will be a national hero a generation from now. You have spent over two hundred million of your own money on this operation because the government wasn’t doing its job.”

Will Gaudium lifted his head and threw back his shoulders. Looking at his employee, he said in what he thought was a command voice, “General Bowdin, I want you to suspend the operation until after the election, until mid-November, when I will review my decision. No more operations, no more deaths. That’s an order.”

Francis X. Bowdin chuckled and walked toward the back gate of the courtyard. “Well now, Will, that may pose a problem. I got the FBI and Navy investigators pouring all over the ranch out in California. We may have to throw them a few guilty bodies. I got two pain-in-the-ass investigators from the Intelligence Analysis Center, a wiseass gray-hat hacker, and a fuckin’ Harvard professor woman getting too close to figuring things out. They may all have to go. To say nothing of the devil children; they get their special formula delivered to them Monday. Besides, I may have to plant a few more fortune cookie crumbs leading back to the Reds on the Mainland.”

Gaudium was stunned. He raised his hand, made a fist, then pointed his index finger at the General. “Frank, you’re not listening. I gave you an order. You work for me!”

Bowdin walked slowly across the courtyard to Gaudium. “No, Will. No, actually I don’t.” He dropped a large hand down on Gaudium’s shoulder. “Listen, why don’t you come out to the hollow with me. You’ve never seen our training facility, and it’s not far from here.” As he spoke, he unrolled his hand and then, with a chopping motion, struck Will Gaudium sharply on the temple, between the forehead and ear. Gaudium slumped, instantly dead. “It’s the Ides, Will. Beware the Ides.”

Holding the body up with one arm, Bowdin spoke into the sleeve of his other arm. “Todd, there’s a red house up the street behind the inn and across the street. See it? There’s a parking lot out back of it. Pull the Hummer around there and drop the hatch open. We got something to take back to the hollow.”

“Mr. MacIntyre, have you heard from Susan?” Jimmy said as he and Soxster burst into the IAC Director’s office.

Rusty eyed the NYPD detective and the long-haired young man with him. “Actually, I’m on the line with her now. Who the hell is this?”

“Oh, sir, this is Soxster,” Jimmy explained. “He works with us.”

“He does?” Rusty asked. “Is he cleared for Top Secret?”

“Well, ah, at this point, yes,” Jimmy fumbled. “I’ll explain it all later, but yes, yes, he is.”

Rusty arched an eyebrow. “I’ll put her on speaker.”

“Susan, are you all right?” Jimmy asked anxiously. “I should never have let you do things alone.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m on a Coast Guard cutter. We just rounded up the last of the Dominion Commonwealth agents. They were making for Florida, but we chased them in the helo and vectored in the cutter.” She paused a moment. “I do solo just fine, thanks.”

“Susan, see if they can chopper you over to Lauderdale. I’ve got a chartered VLJ waiting to get you back here. I just finished reading Foley’s report about Gaudium and General Bowdin. It convinces me, but we’ll need to punch it up so that when Sol lands he can brief the Principals at tonight’s White House meeting. Also, we need to find those two guys, Bowdin and Gaudium, and get them arrested,” Rusty said both to Susan on speaker and Jimmy standing next to his desk.

The transmission from the cutter Bertholf was crystal clear on the speaker: “Sure, but, Rusty, we need to find a way to warn the parents of the children conceived with the help of that lab. They get the poisoned formula tomorrow and the director at the lab wouldn’t give me the list of parents, didn’t believe I was a U.S. federal government officer.”

“I got your message on that, Susan, and I am about to give that clinic director a call. Then I’m calling FedEx to have them find and stop the packages. The last thing I want to do is have to go public with this and make the appeal through the media,” Rusty said as he scanned Susan’s e-mail on his screen. “There’d be a witch hunt in this country, people trying to track down the superkids, people trying to kill them. It would be like—”

Soxster interrupted. “We already know where Gaudium is, or was this morning. And where he probably is now.” Russell MacIntyre shot him a look that said, Who told you that you could speak?

Jimmy came to his rescue. “We got Gaudium’s credit-card number from the Mandalay in Vegas and then checked to see when he used it last, which was last night for dinner and overnight accommodations in Rappahannock County, Virgina.” He did not bother to tell Rusty how Soxster had acquired either piece of information. “So I used a little professional courtesy and called the sheriff out there to see if Gaudium was still at this inn. Turns out he had a guest this morning that fits the description of General Bowdin to a tee. Then they both disappeared.”

Rusty looked from Jimmy to Soxster and back to Jimmy. “Dominion Commonwealth. I know that name from somewhere. Another case. Anyway, so how does all that tell us where he probably is now?”

Soxster leaped in again. “Property records in the surrounding area. Dominion Commonwealth Services owns about two hundred acres backing up on the Shenandoah National Park. Must be his lair.”

Rusty looked back at Jimmy. “Lair? I was just out in that park two weekends ago, climbing Old Rag Mountain. Little forest fires all over the park because of the drought. Got the park rangers’ shorts all in a knot. What’s he mean, lair?”

“It’s probably another facility like the one out near Twentynine Palms, hackers, control room, shooters, barracks, warehouses,” Jimmy explained. “Probably why Gaudium was in Virginia, to go there. The General picks him up this morning and takes him there to show him about the next attack or something.”

“Google Earth,” Soxster said.

“What did he just say?” Rusty asked Jimmy.

“We looked at it on satellite imagery. It’s at the end of a place called Thornton Hollow. Easily defended. The staff are probably heavily armed and are likely to be ex — Special Forces like the General,” Jimmy explained. “We counted nine major buildings, probably all prewired with explosives on the roofs in case the place gets raided. They probably plan to blow them up, like they did to me out at their ranch in the desert. We figure they also probably got a smart fence to detect intruders, land mines, maybe remotely operated machine guns.”

“Lovely. So we’ll need the Delta Force to go in and get him,” Rusty suggested.

Soxster shook his head quickly, no. Jimmy spoke their hesitation. “Well, sir, maybe not them. See, Bowdin used to command them, and probably a bunch of his Dominion guys were in the SF.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Rusty asked.

“Well, uh, I had an idea,” Soxster said. “Didn’t they, like, kill the head of the Pentagon’s advanced gizmo office, DARPA? I got some ideas how they can help.”

“Oh, good.” Rusty sighed and looked again at Jimmy. “Who did you say he is?”

“Soxster,” Soxster said. “Didn’t this use to be Wild Bill Donovan’s office in World War Two? The OSS?”

“So we would begin by shooting down their satellites, since they shot down ours,” Secretary of Defense William Chesterfield said, addressing the powerpoint slide on the screen.

“They didn’t. They hacked ours, or somebody did,” the Secretary of State corrected. “And that slide says you’re going to use ground-and space-based lasers. Didn’t Congress refuse to fund all that Star Wars laser stuff?”

Chesterfield shifted in his seat and looked at the National Security Advisor, who said nothing. Chesterfield sighed and then answered, “Brenda, this is obviously sensitive, but yes, the Congress did cut the laser weapons in space program. They did not cut the space-to-ground, ground-to-space laser communication program.”

“You’re going to attack them with a communications system?” Brenda Neyers asked.

“Well, they’re tunable lasers. And the way we developed them…” The Secretary of Defense again looked to the National Security Advisor for help.

Finally, Wallace Reynolds came to the Secretary of Defense’s assistance. “The communications lasers can be tuned up to the point that they could fry eggs on Mars, all the way from Arizona.”

Chesterfield kept going. “Then, because they blew up the internet beachheads and cut the fiber-optic cables, we would sever all of the internet connections in and out of China. Our specially equipped submarines are standing by, the Jimmy Carter and the like. DIA has found a Russian colonel freezing his ass off out in Vladivostok who will stage a few accidents where the fiber-optic landlines run from China into Siberia.”

“You’re proposing to blow things up inside Russia?” Secretary Neyers demanded.

Chesterfield did not answer her. “Of course, China may respond, if they think it’s us that did all this. They might attack Taiwan, in which case we just use Op-Plan 5010, the Seventh Fleet reinforced by land-based strategic and tactical air.”

“If they think it’s us, Bill?” Brenda Neyers challenged. “Who the hell else are they going to think it is? Botswana?”

And at just that moment, Sol Rubenstein opened the door. “Sorry, everybody. I have an excuse for my tardiness. I was in Hong Kong earlier today.” He plunked his weary body down in the seat behind the nameplate that read “Director of National Intelligence.”

Wallace Reynolds looked relieved. “And how was the dim sum, Sol?”

“Never got any,” Rubenstein said, opening his folder. “Now listen, it hasn’t been China that’s been doing all of these attacks. They gave me proof.” He raised his hand against the responses around the room. “And I just got a call on the way in from Rusty MacIntyre. My investigators have confirmed who has been doing the attacks — and it’s actually been Americans. A group of religious fanatics, neo-Luddites, and a former U.S. Special Forces general, all banded together.”

“That’s absurd, Sol,” Chesterfield exploded. “The U.S. Army has been attacking the U.S.? Nonsense! And who else — Lud something?”

Wallace Reynolds’s pleasure at Rubenstein’s arrival had quickly evaporated, but the former Princeton professor explained, “Ned Ludd, leader of an anti-technology rebellion, England, 1811. His followers were called Luddites. The term’s used now for anyone who opposes technological advance, especially through violence.” The other three in the room looked briefly at him and then continued.

“Does the FBI agree with this crazy Chinese theory?” Chesterfield asked.

“First of all, I did not say the U.S. Army was doing anything, I said a former member of it. And no, I have not yet briefed the FBI. I just landed, for Christ’s sake,” Rubenstein replied.

“Good, when you can prove it and the Bureau concurs, let me know. Meanwhile, the President has asked me for options and I am giving them in the morning. I have also issued a Warning Order to the relevant units and they are standing by. Is there anything else, Wallace?” The Secretary of Defense stood, nodded, and left the room.

“Really, Sol,” Secretary of State Neyers asked, “all the way there and not enough time for dim sum?”

“The PLA is scraping for a fight over Taiwan,” Rubenstein replied. “Wallace, did you get that? They’re gearing up, too.”

“I heard you, Sol,” the National Security Advisor said, staring at the presidential seal on the wall. “I was just wondering why I had ever left Princeton.”

“The aircraft will be ready at Dulles at 0600, sir. We fly direct to Antigua, refuel while you gentlemen visit the bank, and then disappear,” the ex-Major explained.

“All right. We’ll leave here in five hours,” Bowdin responded. “Any more word from the Bahamas?”

“No, sir, but I confirmed that FedEx has the packages and they will be delivered by ten tomorrow.”

“Well, then I think most of what we set out to do is on track…. What’s that noise? Sounds like an aircraft?” General Bowdin and his aide walked out of the log cabin — style house in time to see and hear an old Cessna prop plane sputter and then continue on a path into the woods on the steep slope above their camp. “It’s going in!” Bowdin yelled.

A few seconds later, they heard an explosion up on a wall of the hollow and then saw a bright yellow flash. “Send some men up there. See if anyone survived, although I don’t see how. And get that fire out,” Bowdin ordered, and returned to his cabin. A few minutes later, as he packed a suitcase, Bowdin saw shadows and lights on the wall. Turning to look out the window, he saw a line of flames moving down the hill toward the camp.

“What the fuck, Major!” Bowdin yelled from the cabin’s porch. The hill above was engulfed in flames, trees spontaneously combusting.

“Sorry, sir, the men didn’t get on it fast enough. Everything’s been so dry that it just lit up. It’s in the camp already, sir, and I don’t think we can hold it. All the men are out back trying to…” As he spoke, the warehouse a thousand yards behind them erupted with a concussive boom, and then came a secondary explosion as the helicopter on the pad next to the warehouse went up.

“I didn’t give the order to evacuate camp yet!” Bowdin screamed.

“No, sir.”

“Then why did that destruct charge go off, Major?” Another loud eruption farther up the road answered him. They could see pieces of a building shooting up into the night sky. “We’re leaving for Dulles now. Get everyone who’s going into my Hummer now! Get on it!”

Within three minutes, the Hummer was rolling away from the cabin as the wall of flames moved closer. “No, Todd, not the front gate,” Bowdin directed the driver. “I don’t know what’s going on here. Take the side gate, the dirt road through the park.” Another loud explosion boomed behind them. Bowdin, sitting behind the driver, turned and reached back into the vehicle’s third row. He lifted out a stubby Russian KBP light machine gun, the PP-2010. The man sitting next to the driver carried the same weapon. “Get ready. There’s something more going on here,” Bowdin barked.

The guard at the side gate lowered the V barrier as the Hummer roared toward it. The driver shifted, and the Hummer growled as the rough dirt road ramped up the hillside. Looking across the hollow, Bowdin glared at the fire that covered the other side of the steep valley. The road leveled off and turned sharply left at a granite boulder. The driver shifted again, and again. Then the headlights and dashboard faded to black and the Hummer slowed and stopped. Bowdin leaned forward, next to the driver. “Todd, what the shit’s—”

The total darkness around the Hummer abruptly became a ubiquitous blue-white light. “General Bowdin, Francis X. Bowdin, step out of the vehicle,” a voice boomed and echoed off the mountain walls. “You are under arrest. Do not resist — your position is totally covered.”

Jimmy watched the screen in the step van. There were six triangles moving over the map. “Which ones are which, Sox?” he asked.

“The red ones are the laser shooters that lit the fires. The yellow ones have the halogen lights and the speaker systems. The black one shot the electromagnetic pulse at the Hummer. And they’re all only ten feet long and can fly for four hours,” Soxster explained. “Ain’t technology grand?”

“Very grand,” Jimmy said, blinking his right eye. “Now, don’t get out of the van this time, Sox.” Foley climbed out and unholstered his weapon.

“Stay in the vehicle,” Bowdin instructed the three other men in the Hummer. “Get down.”

The General slowly opened the door and carefully stepped down, carrying the KBP gun. He walked forward with the light machine gun across his chest. Jimmy noticed the General was wearing an odd military-style vest, but it was not a bulletproof protector.

“Put down the weapon, General, or the sniper will do disabling fire. We’re not going to give you a suicide by police,” the voice echoed from above. Bowdin looked up but could not see through the light. His walk slowed and then he stopped and dropped the weapon onto the dirt road. He stood still, his head bowed. Suddenly, he lurched forward, running like a cheetah toward the light. Three shots cracked and hit the dirt in front and to the right of the running man. He seemed to accelerate, a black covered ball topped by a crop of white hair, flying above the dirt. Then the State Police sniper shot out Bowdin’s right kneecap, causing the General to fall backward. As he fell, the General pulled the rip cord attached to his vest.

The explosion was blinding. There was a ball of white light hanging above the middle of the road, then yellow flame falling onto the dirt. Most of General Francis X. Bowdin vaporized; some parts of him were thrown up into the trees and slowly drifted down. Jimmy Foley realized his ears were ringing and he could not make out what the trooper was saying to him. A few seconds later, Jimmy could hear the speaker booming again: “Step out of the vehicle without weapons. Walk in front of the Hummer and lie facedown on the ground!”

The three men left in the vehicle complied. “Can you dim the lights a little?” Foley asked. In a line with four uniformed Virginia State Police, he walked forward out of the dark. One of the troopers, a sergeant, carried a shotgun pointed at the prone men in the dirt. “Don’t move your hands!” the sergeant yelled.

“I suggest we wait for a bomb squad before we check the Hummer, and that we get these guys behind our truck quick,” Foley suggested. He used his new eye in infrared zoom mode, scanning the road behind the Hummer for any follow-on traffic.

“Hands off me,” Foley heard one of the men scream. “I have diplomatic immunity!” That got Foley’s attention, and he walked back to the front of the Hummer. As he approached the man, the trooper who had just cuffed him handed Foley an ID. It was a rich, red leather folder. Foley opened it and initially fixed on the Chinese characters, then the elaborate English script across the top: “Republic of China.”

“Take these cuffs off me. I am Ambassador Lee Wang. Taiwan.”