The Altman Code

Chapter Fourteen

On the gray ocean, the guided missile frigate USS John Crowe slipped into its assigned station. The water was placid, with a gentle southwest swell and a following sea. Dawn glowed low across the sky behind them, while to the west, night still reigned, dark and unfathomable. Radar had raised the Crowe’s quarry, The Dowager Empress, an hour ago, but the suspect ship was still invisible in the night ahead.

On the Crowe’s bridge, Commander James S. Chervenko focused his binoculars on the black horizon and saw nothing. Square and muscular, he had a rugged face with eyes permanently narrowed from years of sea duty.

He spoke to his exec, It. Commander Frank Bienas. “Any indication she’s not alone, Frank?”

“Nothing on radar or sonar,” Bienas reported. Bienas had the fluid grace of a boxer. Young, smart, and handsome, he was something of a ladies’ man.

“Okay. When it’s light enough to see the freighter, drop back and track by radar alone. I’ll be in my quarters.”

“Yes, sir.”

The commander left the bridge, working his way below. Admiral Brose had impressed on him the importance of this mission, but he needed no one, admiral or anyone else, to do that. He was well aware of the Yinhe incident. Today, with China stronger, more stable, and more important to the state of the world, the situation was all the more treacherous. At the same time, allowing Iraq to create a new batch of biological and chemical weapons was no option either.

Once in his quarters, Commander Chervenko opened direct communication with Admiral Brose, as ordered, bypassing task force and fleet HQs.

“Commander Chervenko reporting the USS Crowe on station, sir.”

“Good, Commander.” The admiral sounded as if he had been pulled from his dinner table in Washington, where it was still Thursday night. “How’s it look?”

“Routine so far. Radar shows no other vessels, surface or submerged, in the area, and not a peep out of their radio. As soon as it’s light, we’ll drop back and rely on radar contact.”

“Keep monitoring their transmissions and receptions. You have a Chinese interpreter aboard?”

“Yessir.”

“All right, Commander. Jim, is it?”

“Jim, yessir.”

“Keep me posted on anything that happens out there, the instant it happens, short of endangering the operation or your ship. Anything, you understand?”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“Good to have you aboard on this, Jim.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The transmission over, Commander Chervenko leaned back in his desk chair, his gaze focused on the ceiling of his quarters. This was not the kind of bombshell mission that usually fell to the lot of a frigate commander. He could see a hell of a lot of risk involved, right down to a live engagement that could cost him his ship. He could also see opportunity. In the navy, there were no higher stakes than those that threatened an officer’s vessel in combat. And success in the face of high risk was what could make a career. Or break one.

The pulsing power of the carrier’s giant engines reverberated through the hull and into Jon’s bones. The sounds and sensations were soothing as he waited in his temporary quarters for the call to Fred Klein to go through to the yacht club back in Washington. He knew Klein’s habits.

Dinner — if Klein remembered to eat that night — was usually in his cluttered office there, despite the late hour.

The submarine had ferried him to the carrier, which had been running dark north of Taiwan, surrounded by escort vessels. Jon had the distinct impression the captain and the fleet admiral considered being ordered to extract an undercover agent a waste of time for their mighty ship. After a cup of coffee with the lieutenant commander, who had been sent to escort him, he was shown straight to his makeshift quarters. He showered, shaved, and asked to make a call.

As he waited, he thought about the Uighers, especially Alani. He hoped they had escaped safely. When the phone rang, he snatched it up.

“You got out in one piece, Colonel?” Fred Klein’s unemotional voice was somehow reassuring.

“Thanks to you, the U.S. Navy, and some local help.” He related his escape, from the moment he had ended his call to Klein at the Peace Hotel. “The Uighers want independence from China, but they seem to have no illusions that it’s going to happen anytime soon. They’d settle for being able to keep their identity and culture. President Castilla’s human-rights treaty might help them do that. Or at least lead to it eventually.”

“One more reason to concentrate on getting that agreement signed,” Klein said. “So Asgar Mahmout was Mondragon’s asset?”

“Thought you’d like to know.”

“You’re right. Any change with regard to the manifest?”

“It’s probably destroyed by now, if they’re smart. That copy, at least.”

“I agree.” Jon could hear Klein puffing on his pipe in the distant office. “Yet you think they tracked you to that beach with the Uighers.

If they destroyed the manifest, why would they also want to eliminate you? That seems like overkill. Certainly an unnecessary risk. Are you sure your attackers weren’t police or state security?”

“As sure as I can be.”

Excited puffing. “Then something else is going on. They don’t want the manifest to fall into our hands, that’s obvious. But they had plenty of time to make certain no one would ever get it. Yet they still tried to kill you, and they did it on their own. Without the police.”

Jon’s pulse accelerated. He saw what Klein was getting at. “They don’t want Chinese government security to know there was a manifest, and that an American agent was looking for it. Public Security already knew I was there and was more than I appeared to be, but they couldn’t figure out what I was doing. Whoever forced Yu Yongfu to commit suicide doesn’t want them to know.” He thought rapidly. “Do you think it’s some kind of internal power struggle in Beijing?”

“Or maybe the shady deal of some big Shanghai tycoon.”

“Isn’t that the same thing in New China?”

On the other end of the line, the pipe puffing stopped. The dead air was like a vacuum. Klein said in an awed voice: “The Chinese government doesn’t know what The Dowager Empress is carrying. That’s got to be it!”

“How is that possible? In China? Everything’s done by committee, by arrangement. Hell, they probably don’t even take a leak alone.”

“It’s the only logical answer, Colonel. Someone, almost certainly very high up, is trying to cause trouble between our nations. It is a power struggle, but on an international scale.”

Jon swore. “China’s got heavy-duty nuclear armaments. A lot heavier than the world knows.”

The silence at the far end of the connection was ominous. “Jon, this makes the situation far more dangerous than we’d thought. If we’re right, the president must have the proof of the Dowager’s cargo before he orders any kind of move. I’ll have the navy fly you to Taipei right away. You can catch the first flight out to Hong Kong from there.”

“What do I use as a legend?”

“We’ve researched this Donk & Lapierre company. They’re a conglomerate with interests in international shipping and electronics. What’s perfect for you is they also work in biotechnology.”

“I can’t go as myself anymore.”

“No, you can’t. But I’ve arranged for you to impersonate one of your colleagues at USAMRIID: Major Kenneth St. Germain.”

“We look something alike, but what if they check and find he’s still there, working?”

“They won’t. He’s taken an offer to go mountaineering in Chile.”

Jon nodded. “An offer Ken would never refuse. Nice work. Now ask your new permanent staff to arrange a meeting between me — or Ken St. Germain — and the head of Donk & Lapierre’s Hong Kong office to discuss their work with viruses.”

“Consider it done.”

“Have you learned anything about the killer I told you about — Feng Dun?”

“Not yet. We’re still checking. You get to Taipei, and I’ll bring the president up-to-date here. He’s not going to be happy.”

“You should let him know the latest about the old prisoner who says he’s David Thayer, too.”

“You have new information?”

Jon repeated what Asgar Mahmout had told him. “The prison farm’s outside the city of Dazu, about seventy miles northeast of Chongqing. It’s apparently low security, at least by Chinese standards.”

“Good. That gives me something to work with, in case we do have to go in for him. A simple fence won’t stop us, and neither will ordinary prison guards. It’s helpful that he’s got privileges and only one cell mate. If we bring some of the political prisoners out, too, that’ll give cover to both Thayer and the mission. I don’t like the farm’s location — it’s a heavily populated area. And I don’t like that they move him around. It’s possible he could be gone before we get there.” “From what Asgar said, he’s been at Dazu awhile. It didn’t sound as if there was any hint he was going to be relocated.”

Jon heard the slow puffs that indicated Klein was thinking. “Okay, and where the farm is could be worse. At least it’s close to the borders of Burma and India.”

“Not that close.”

“So we’ll have to work a little harder. We all have to do that anyway. I want that manifest, Colonel.”

In the communications-and-control center of the USS John Crowe, It.

Commander Bienas leaned over the shoulder of the radar man, his gaze fixed on the screen. “How many times has her captain changed course?”

“Counting this time, three, sir.” The radar man looked up.

“Describe the changes.”

“First he turned forty-five degrees south, then he―”

“For how long? How far did he go?”

“About an hour, maybe twenty miles.”

“Okay, go on.”

“He went back to his original heading for close to another hour, then went north for maybe another hour, and back to his original course again.”

“So he’s back where he started?”

“Yessir. Just about.”

“And we changed course every time?”

“Sure. I reported the new headings.”

“Okay, Billy, good work.”

The radar man grinned. “Anytime, sir.”

The lieutenant commander did not return the grin. He left the control center and slid down the gangways until he reached the captain’s quarters. He knocked.

“Come.”

Commander Chervenko looked up from where he sat at his desk doing his paperwork. He immediately saw the concern on Bienas’s face. “What’s happened, Frank?”

“I think they’ve spotted us, sir.” Bienas reported everything the radar man had told him.

“We changed helm each time?”

” ‘ so. Canfield had the bridge. He’s too damned new.”

Chervenko nodded. “Later would’ve been better, but we knew they’d spot us eventually. Any increase in radio—?”

His ship intercom squawked: “Communications, sir. I’m picking up a big increase of radio activity in Chinese.”

“Speak of the devil,” Commander Chervenko muttered. Then into the intercom: “Get Ensign Wao up there now.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Chervenko remained bent to his communications console. “Chief, crank her up. I need top speed.” Then he stood up. “Let’s hit the bridge.”

By the time the commander and Bienas reached it, Ensign Wao was already there. “They’ve figured out we’re back here, sir, and they’re on the horn in a panic to Beijing and Hong Kong.”

“A panic?” Chervenko frowned.

“Yessir. That’s the funny thing. They know who we are. I mean, they know we’re a U.S. Navy frigate.”

“They must have a military radar expert on board,” Bienas decided, astounded.

Commander Chervenko nodded unhappily. “Tell the chief to give me all he has. No point hiding now. Let’s see what they’re doing on board.” He focused his binoculars on the horizon. It was a clear, sunny day, a calm sea, and visibility was nearly unlimited. Surging forward at twenty-eight knots, the Crowe soon raised the Empress dead ahead and closed to viewing distance.

It. Commander Bienas joined the captain with his binoculars.

“You see what I see, Frank?”

Bienas nodded. The decks of the cargo ship were packed with crew members, everyone pointing astern and waving their arms. An officer stood on the cabin housing, yelling down to them, but the crew members continued to mill around.

“They’re worried as hell, Jim,” Bienas said.

“I’d say so,” Chervenko agreed. “No one told them we were back here, and they were taken by surprise. But someone expected either us or someone like us.”

“Or they wouldn’t have had that radar expert on board.”

“Yeah,” Chervenko said. “The bridge is yours, Frank. Keep a close eye on them. The fat’s sizzling in the frying pan.”

“What do you think the Chinese’ll do?”

Chervenko turned away to go below and make his report to Admiral Brose.

“I don’t know,” he said over his shoulder. “I expect a whole lot of people in D.C. are going to be worried about that question real soon, too.”

Chapter Fifteen

President Castilla sat in his Zero-Gravity recliner upstairs in his bedroom in the White House residence, trying to read while worrying about China and the human-rights treaty … thinking of the father he had never known and the suffering he must have endured … and longing for the first lady.

His mind wandered, and the sentences ran together. He lay the book on his lap and rubbed his eyes. He missed the cutthroat two-handed poker games with Cassie they always played on nights one or the other could not sleep, even if she did win eight of ten. But she was off in Central America, doing good works, surrounded by a gaggle of press, and making friends along the way. He wished she were home, with him. Making friends with him.

His thoughts had begun to drift toward what their lives would be like after he left office, when Jeremy knocked lightly.

“What is it now?” he snapped, hearing his irritation too late.

“Mr. Klein, sir.”

Castilla came alert. “Send him in, Jeremy. And sorry, I guess I miss my wife.”

“We all do, Mr. President.”

Was there a faint smile on Jeremy’s face as he avoided any hint of a particular interpretation of why Castilla was missing her? The president hid his own smile with a frown.

Jeremy waited as Fred Klein padded into the bedroom. He closed the door.

Castilla had a sudden image of Klein flowing through the world like fog, silent and impenetrable. What was it Carl Sandburg wrote … Yes: The fog came in on little cat feet … Klein’s feet were far too big for that.

“Have a seat, Fred.”

Klein lowered a hip on the edge of an armchair. The Covert-One chief’s hands fluttered as if searching for a lost jewel.

“Chew on the damn thing,” Castilla growled, “before you drive me to drink.”

Klein looked sheepish, took out his battered pipe, and gratefully stuck the stem between his teeth. “Thank you, Mr. President.”

“I just hope it doesn’t kill you until after I’m out of office,” he grumbled. “Okay, what’s the bad news this time?”

“I’m not sure if my bulletins are good or bad, sir. You might say it depends on how this Empress affair unfolds.”

“That’s hardly reassuring.”

“No, sir.” Klein explained the essence of Jon’s experiences of the last hours, but not the details. “We’re fairly certain that the original invoice manifest must have been destroyed. My people in Iraq have found nothing so far. Colonel Smith is on his way to Hong Kong where we hope the third copy is with Donk & Lapierre.”

The president shook his head. “Sometimes I wish all these multinational corporations and holding companies had never been allowed to come into existence.”

“So do most governments,” Klein agreed.

“What about our other agents in China?”

“Nothing. They haven’t caught a hint of the Empress and its actual cargo from any of their contacts within the Chinese government or the Communist Party.”

Castilla pinched the bridge of his nose, narrowing his eyes. “That’s odd, isn’t it? Beijing is usually rife with rumor and speculation.”

“Colonel Smith and I’ve come to the conclusion that, in fact, Beijing may not know about the contraband.”

The president’s eyebrows rose. “You mean … it’s a private venture?

A lucrative business deal?”

“With a complication. We think a high Beijing official may be involved, perhaps someone on the Politburo itself.”

The president thought rapidly. “Corruption? Another Chen Xitong situation?”

“Possibly, yes. But there also could be a power struggle within the Politburo. Which …”

“Isn’t necessarily good for us.”

“No, sir, it isn’t.”

The president was quiet, lost in thought. So was Klein as he fiddled with his pipe, absently took out his tobacco pouch, then realized what his hands were doing. He hastily returned the fragrant tobacco to his pocket.

Finally, the president hauled himself out of his comfortable recliner and began to pace, his slippers slapping the carpet. “I doubt it makes a damn bit of difference whether Beijing knows. They’ll react the same.

They’ll defend the rights of their ships to go anywhere on the high seas with any cargo, whether or not they approve of this one. We still have only one way to prevent the chemicals from reaching Iraq without a confrontation and the resulting consequences.”

“I know, sir. We have to have that manifest to prove to the world — and to China — that we’re not pulling a fast one. But if Beijing isn’t involved and doesn’t know what the Empress is carrying, when we do prove what the cargo is, we should get swift cooperation. They’ll have no reason to cover up. In fact, they’ll want to look as responsible and committed to international peace as everyone else. Or at least we can hope they will.” He studied the president, who still paced the bedroom as if he were entangled in an unseen web. “Is this a good time to update you about David Thayer?”

The president stopped and stared at Klein. “Yes, of course it’s a good time. What more have you learned?”

“One of Covert-One’s assets in China has reported that the prison farm isn’t as tightly guarded as it might be. It’s possible we’ll be able to insert one of my people to make contact and find out what Thayer’s condition is and what he wants.” “All right,” the president said cautiously. He did not resume pacing.

Klein sensed hesitancy. “Are you reconsidering a rescue incursion, sir?” “As you said, if Beijing really isn’t involved in sending the Empress to Iraq, they should be more inclined to cooperate, once they have incontrovertible proof. But a clandestine incursion by us, with a goal that can’t help but condemn them before the world, successful or unsuccessful, is going to enrage them.”

Klein had to agree. “True.”

“I can’t risk our nation’s safety or the treaty.” “Maybe you won’t have to,” Klein said. “We can send in nongovernmental, nonmilitary forces. Strictly volunteers. They’d abort at the first sign of discovery. That way, you preserve full deniability.”

“You could get that many volunteers with training?”

“As many as I want.”

Castilla fell heavily into his armchair. He crossed his legs and rubbed his big chin. “I don’t know. History isn’t kind to private raids into enemy territory.”

“There’s risk, sir. I admit it. But far less than with an official operation.”

The president seemed to accept that. He mused, “Your first step would be to send someone into China to contact Thayer? Find out if he even wants to be rescued rather than wait for the treaty to free him?”

“That and to report on the military conditions, terrain, locations … all the details we’ll need if you give the go-ahead.”

“All right. Do it. But make no further move until you clear it with me.”

“That goes without saying.”

“Yes.” The president considered Klein, his expression somber. “He probably gave up on coming home years ago. Ever seeing this country again. It’d mean a lot to me to get him out of there. Imagine being able to give him a final few years of peace and comfort here at home.” He stared past Klein at the White House wall. “It’d be nice to finally meet my father.”

“I know, Sam.”

They exchanged a look across the years.

The president sighed and rubbed his eyes again.

Klein stood and quietly left the bedroom.

The Asian headquarters of Donk & Lapierre, S. A., occupied three floors of a new forty-two-story building in the heart of Central, the main business district of Hong Kong Island. Downtown’s two other districts were Admiralty and Wanchai, the former red-light quarter but now Hong Kong’s third financial district, east of Central. Most skyscrapers in recent years had been built in Central and Admiralty, while new commercial redevelopment projects were under way west of Central. Across the narrowest neck of Victoria Harbor was a fourth section, teeming with activity and humanity — Kowloon, on the mainland.

At exactly noon on Friday, a telephone call came into Donk & Lapierre that bypassed the corporate switchboard and rang in the office of a Mr. Claude Marichal. It did not ring on Marichal’s desk phone, nor on a second phone set on a side table next to an armchair for important visitors. Instead, it rang on what appeared to be an interoffice phone — no dial or button pad. It was stored on the top of a three-shelf bookcase under the windows behind his desk.

Startled, Marichal dropped his pen, swore as the ink splashed on his papers, and swiveled to pick up the receiver. “Yes? May I help you?”

“You may, if you’re Mr. Jan Donk.”

The receiver nearly slipped from Marichal’s grasp. He said quickly, “What? Oh, yes. Yes, of course.” Keeping his shock under control, he took a deep breath. “Hold on, please. I’ll get him.” He laid the receiver down on top of the bookcase … and picked it up again. “It may take a few minutes, so please remain on the line.”

“I’ll stay as long as I can.”

He put the caller on hold, swiveled frantically back to his desk phone, and dialed an extension. “Sir? There’s a call that just came in on the private Donk line, asking for him.”

“Asking for him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s not Yu Yongfu or Mr. Mcdermid?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Don’t let him hang up.”

“I’ll try.” Marichal ended the connection and swung back to the special phone. “I’m sorry, sir. We’re having some trouble locating Mr. Donk.” He tried to make his voice bright, eager, and helpful. “Perhaps I can help you. If you’ll tell me your business with Jan—?”

“That’s all right, but no thanks.”

A man came into Marichal’s office, tiptoeing, his finger to his lips, and his eyebrows raised in question. Marichal nodded vigorously while racking his brain for a tactic to stall the caller longer. “It’s possible he’s already gone to lunch. Mr. Donk, I mean. Left the building. If you’ll give me your name and number, or perhaps a message, I’m sure he’ll get back to you the moment he comes in. I know he’d hate to miss … hello? Hello? Sir? Hello?”

“What happened?”

Marichal peered up as he returned the receiver to its cradle. “He’s gone. I think he figured it out, Mr. Cruyff.”

The man, Charles-Marie Cruyff, nodded. He picked up the receiver of Marichal’s desk phone and asked, “Did you get the trace?”

“He called from a public phone booth in Kowloon.”

“Give me the number and the location.” He wrote it down.

Kowloon He’d made a mistake. As Jon slammed the phone into the cradle, he knew that. Either the number had been special and unlisted, or Jan Donk did not exist. Or both. Now whoever had answered was alerted that some unauthorized person, speaking American English, knew the number. The only question was whether they had been able to trace his call. That was a question that had only one answer: He must assume they did.

As Major Kenneth St. Germain, Ph. D., wearing a dark-blond wig to match the long hair of the aging hippie and eminent microbiologist, he had landed at Hong Kong International on Lantau Island two hours ago, gone through customs, and taken the Airport Express to the Kowloon Shangri-la Hotel. He wasted no time in his room. After checking the location of Donk & Lapierre, he slid the blond wig into his pocket, donned a new tropical-weight suit, and left the hotel.

The city lay under an oppressive blanket of heat and high humidity that day, unusual for mid-September. Walking out into it was like hitting a wall of diesel fumes and saltwater air, spiced up with the stink of fried meats and fish. He was engulfed by the surging masses of people, cars, and buses that were, if anything, more numerous than in Shanghai.

He pushed, dodged, and bumped his way to the Star Ferry terminal, where he had found this public phone.

Now he hurried away, blending into the throngs on the harbor promenade.

He looked around for a convenient fast-food kiosk where he could observe the public phone. One thing was to his advantage here — a tall man in Western clothes was only one of thousands walking the Hong Kong streets every day, all of whom must look pretty much alike to the Chinese.

He had eaten only three shrimp by the time the two unmarked black sedans arrived. They were Mercedeses, by the look of them over the distance.

Six Chinese men in suits emerged and fanned out. All casually approached the public phone from different directions, scrutinizing everyone. They carried no obvious weapons, but Jon noted telltale buttoned suit jackets and suspicious bulges. There was an anxiety that hovered about them, a touch of angry nervousness.

Not national security or even local police. They were something else.

None had looked at the food kiosk yet. That was too good a piece of luck to test. Besides, he had learned all he was going to. He dropped the remainder of the greasy fried shrimp into a trash can and circled away to the ferry terminal. The next departure for Hong Kong Island was in three minutes. He bought a ticket.

Once aboard, he made his way forward to the bow, thinking about the six men, replaying their faces in his mind so he would remember them. Were they from Feng Dun again?

As he considered that possibility, he raised his gaze, remembering his role as a tourist, and looked out across the channel. No one was prepared for the breathtaking view, no matter how many times they had heard about it or studied photos. Ahead, the scene spread so wide it was impossible to take it all in at once. First were the ships, barges, seagoing yachts, green sampans, and ferries, churning across the aqua waters. Then came the piers, docked ships, and waterfront buildings that skirted the island of Hong Kong. Behind them rose skyscrapers of every height, massed like titans readying an attack, with neon advertising signs as their mammoth insignias. Finally, towering over them were cloud-ringed mountains, serene and timeless. Out in the water to the east, islands rose like pyramids. Altogether, the panorama was as large and stunning as New York’s.

As the ferry left the terminal, the impact of it all moving toward him was palpable. He caught his breath and turned away — and saw two of the six, their hands sliding up under their suit jackets, as if checking to make certain their weapons were convenient. They were weaving through the throng. Closing in on him.

Chapter Sixteen

Beneath a glassy blue sky and a blistering sun, the modified C-130 landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport at 1400 hours. It taxied to a remote hangar far from Manila’s commercial terminals, where a camouflaged army command car and armed Humvee were parked inside.

As the hangar door rolled closed, the cargo jet’s door opened, and its stairway unfolded. The uniformed driver of the car jumped out, ran around to the side of the car that faced the jet, and opened the rear door.

Concealed inside the hangar, Secretary of the Army Jasper Kott descended the stairway, four aides following. His smooth features were hidden behind black aviator glasses. As he approached the command car, the driver stood at attention. Elegant as usual in a perfectly tailored, three-piece suit, Kott nodded acknowledgment and stepped into the backseat. His aides climbed into the Humvee.

There was already a passenger inside the command car — a uniformed man who wore on his shoulders the single silver star of a brigadier general.

Sitting beside the far window, he drew on a thick cigar and exhaled aromatic smoke. “The cigar bother you, Mr. Secretary?” Brigadier General Emmanuel (”Manny”) Rose asked.

“Not if you need it to think, General.” Kott opened the window as the car pulled away, the Humvee following.

A door the size of an outsized garage door rolled up in the shadowy hangar, and the two vehicles drove through into the sweltering Philippine day.

“On this assignment, I need it for patience.” Rose blew another cloud as the tires droned over the tarmac. “You won’t believe these people.”

“Of course I will. I work in D. C.” Secretary Kott glanced out at the palms and tropical vegetation. The hot air did not bother him. Mango trees crowded together in the distance. Birds in violent colors flew from the branches of hibiscus and bottlebrush trees. Ahead, a mirage shimmered on the pavement. It was at least ten degrees hotter here than in Washington— hot, humid, and fecund.

“You’ve got a point.”

The secretary questioned, “You think this al-Sayed prisoner is the real thing? A top leader of the Mindanao Islamic guerrillas?”

“Sure looks like it.”

“Why? Because they want to hold on to him, get all the credit?”

“Those who don’t want to nail him to a wall and skin him alive, and those who don’t want to make a fast deal and cut him loose so he’ll keep muni about what they’ve been doing.”

“You’ve insisted we be present at all interrogations?” the secretary pressed.

General Rose nodded, his jowls quivering, on the verge of outrage. “Damn right. If they neglect our wishes, they don’t get any more aid or tech training from us. Just to be sure, I’ve put my own men on the guard detail.”

“Good.”

The general paused to smoke and watch the street. He seemed to see nothing that disturbed him. He glanced at the secretary. “You brought a team?”

“A CIA interrogation expert as well as an air force captain who speaks Moro.” Kott did not bother to mention he had also brought his chef. “My aide’s with them in the Humvee. Tomorrow, we’ll have a go at him.”

“Yeah. You will if you convince the Filipinos at the dinner tonight to let us.”

Kott smiled confidently. “That won’t be a problem.”

Soon after, both vehicles arrived at the sprawling country estate that was the temporary command headquarters of the American military mission, courtesy of the Manila government. Making small talk for the benefit of anyone who might be eavesdropping, General Rose escorted Secretary Kott to his air-conditioned quarters to rest and freshen up before the all- important dinner meeting tonight with the Filipino politicians and military men.

“This evening then, General.” Kott extended his hand.

Rose shook it. He growled around the butt of his cigar, “I’ll be ready.

Get a good nap. You’re going to need it.”

As his air conditioner whistled from the corner of his suite, Kott closed the door and waited five minutes. He opened it and peered in both directions along the hallway. No one was in sight.

Crouched outside beneath a window of the frame building, a slim woman wearing the uniform of a U.S. Air Force captain pressed a contact microphone against the wall. She had arrived on the cargo jet with Secretary Kott.

Inside his suite, Kott’s footsteps marched across the floor. There was the click of keys on a keypad being depressed, and the sound of a telephone receiver being lifted.

“I’m here,” he said. “Yes. I have to be back by six tonight. In two hours? Fine. Where? The Corregidor Club? Right. I’ll be there.”

The receiver dropped into its cradle, a wooden chair creaked, footsteps walked away, and finally shoes clattered onto the floor. Bed springs sighed. Kott was relaxing before going to meet whomever he had been talking to. Probably lying on the bed wide awake and looking up at the ceiling where assorted strange insects waited to drop onto the mosquito netting.

The air force captain was also Secretary Kott’s Moro interpreter. Her name tag read Captain Vanessa Lim. She left the window. She was not headed off to rest, and her name was not Vanessa Lim.

Hong Kong The most difficult action for an undercover agent was to do nothing. Jon stood in the bow of the ferry, pretending to feast on the kaleidoscopic cityape that filled the horizon. Although the skin on the back of his neck puckered, he did not turn again to check the two men who had been moving forward through the press of passengers, studying clothes, faces, and the attitudes of everyone they passed. There was no way they could know what the caller to Donk & Lapierre looked like. In fact, the chance that Feng Uun or anyone else in China knew It. Col. Jon Smith was even in Hong Kong was minimal.

But a minimal chance was still a chance. Possible, but not probable. As Damon Runyon once said, “The race isn’t always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. But that’s the way to bet.” A matter of odds.

Smith remained at the front of the ferry, apparently unworried, no sign he was aware anything unusual was occurring around him. He appeared transfixed by all the exotic sights and sounds, as the ferry drew closer to its terminal on Hong Kong Island.

When the boat slid and thudded along the pilings, deckhands in blue uniforms pulled it in. The crowd moved forward, ready to trample onto land the instant the ferry stopped and the gates opened.]on joined them. Above them, seagulls circled and cawed, while a wave of impatience rushed through the waiting throngs. Finally, the gates opened. The surge of humanity carried Jon down the wood ramp and up the concrete one. When he looked back, the two hunters had vanished.

Manila Secretary of the Army Jasper Kott had changed into a loose-fitting blue shirt, linen sports coat, tan slacks, and bone-colored loafers. He was sitting relaxed, enjoying the stream of cool air from the air conditioner, as he studied a special forces report on a guerrilla force that had made a lightning incursion and strike on a Filipino army garrison in northern Mindanao.

When someone knocked, he marked his place, set the report on a table beside his chair, and went to the door.

The special forces sergeant who had driven him to the headquarters stepped inside. “Good evening, sir.”

“All clear, Sergeant?”

“Yessir. Most of their people are taking siestas. Ours are busy with the antirrorist training. Your car’s at the side door. The only sentry is one of my guys.”

“I appreciate the help. Very discreet. Thank you.” Sergeant Reno smiled. “We all need a little R and R sometimes, sir.” Kott smiled back, man to man. “Then let’s go.”

He strode down the silent hallway, the sergeant respectfully three paces behind. Outside, the same camouflage-painted command car waited, its engine on. The secretary nodded approval: A quietly running engine attracted far less notice than one starting suddenly.

He climbed into the backseat, which was empty. The sergeant closed his door, got behind the wheel, and drove the car off. Bored by the poverty- stricken scenery of greater Manila, Jasper Kott settled back, crossed his arms, and considered how he would handle the afternoon’s tasks. Once a highly successful executive in private industry, his last position was CEO of Kowalski and Kott — K&K, Inc. — mass supplier of artillery gun mounts to arms manufacturers around the globe. It was true he had grown wealthy and influential, far more wealthy and influential than most of his competitors realized. Still, numbers were useful only in keeping score, not in judging satisfaction.

He was a fastidious man in all ways, from dress to personal habits, from social relations to business deals. He had used his meticulousness as a tool to disarm competitors. In today’s rough-and-earthy corporate climate, he simply did not fit the mold. Who would suspect his raging ambition? Who would credit him with a razor-sharp coldness that allowed him to cut his losses without ever looking back? While others ignored him as too prissy to be strong, he rose. By the time they noticed, they were too far behind to hurt or stop him.

He had never had a. business opportunity to match the potential of this new one. With pleasure, he contemplated what success would mean … untouchable wealth, power beyond the imagination of his colleagues … a guaranteed future of more deals, each bigger than the last–

On a quiet street, the sergeant pulled into the driveway of an imposing house on a large lot in one of the better parts of Manila. A high hedge rimmed the property. On the rolling green lawn, palms grew tall against the sky, while tropical flowers in a rainbow of colors spread against the white- plastered walls. It was a hacienda from the Spanish era, stately and secluded.

Kott leaned forward. “Give me a few hours, Sergeant. You have your cell with you?”

“Right here, sir.” The sergeant patted the shirt of his uniform. “Take your time.”

Secretary Kott marched across terra-cotta tiles up to the long porch.

The front door was massive — rich mahogany, while the fittings, including an ornate knocker in the shape of a coiled snake, were polished brass.

He knocked and sensed rather than saw a peephole open and close. The door swung open, and a tiny Filipina bowed. She was no more than sixteen and stark naked, except for a pair of high-heeled purple shoes and a purple lace garter as high on her thigh as it could get. Kott’s expression did not change.

She ushered him inside to a heavily furnished room where some twenty other women of various ages in various stages of undress stood, sat, and lounged. A well-stocked bar stretched along a wall. The teenager continued on through the room, Kott following, the twenty pairs of eyes assessing him. They climbed a sweeping stairway that could have been in a noble house in Madrid. On the second floor, she led him down a maroon-carpeted hall to the last door. The naked girl opened it, smiled again, and stood aside.

Kott entered. The room was spacious, with gold-flecked maroon wallpaper, gilded woodwork, a comfortable upholstered sitting area, a small bar, and a giant four-poster bed. Still unspeaking, the girl closed the door, and her footsteps faded away.

“Enjoy your usher, Jasper?” Ralph Mcdermid asked from his easy chair. He was grinning from ear to ear, his joviality on display. His round body and round face looked thoroughly relaxed.

“She’s my daughter’s age, for God’s sake, Ralph,” Kott complained. “Did we have to meet in a place like this?”

“It’s excellent cover,” the chairman and CEO of the Altman Group said, giving not an inch. “I’m known here. They protect me. Besides, I enjoy the company, the merchandise, and the services, eh?”

“Everyone to their own taste,” Kott grumbled.

“How broad-minded and egalitarian of you, Jasper,” Mcdermid said. “Sit.

Sit down, dammit, and have a drink. Loosen up. We both know you’re not the old grandpa you want everyone to think. Tell me about Jon Smith.”

“Who?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, M. D.” Mcdermid pressed a button on the table beside the armchair where he sat, and a white-coated Filipino materialized behind the bar.

“An army officer?” Kott shook his head. “Never heard of him. Why? What’s he to us?” He called to the barman, “Vodka martini, straight up with a twist.”

“He’s dangerous, that’s what he is. As for why he’s important … ”

Mcdermid related the events from the time Mondragon was killed to Smith’s extraction from the Chinese coast.

“He’s got a copy of what the ship’s actually carrying? Holy―”

“No,” Mcdermid interrupted. “He nearly had a copy, but we took it back.

I don’t know whether he saw it, or understood it if he did. But Mondragon definitely did, which no longer matters since that bastard is dead. However, here we walk a fine line: We want them to know what The Dowager Empress is carrying, but not be able to prove it.”

The barman arrived with Kott’s martini on a sterling tray. Kott sipped appreciatively. “So there’s no problem. We’re go then?”

“We’re all-go, but I wouldn’t say there’s no problem.” Mcdermid held up his empty highball glass and angled it toward the barkeep, who immediately went to work to replace it. “I doubt Smith, or whoever employs him, is going to give up.”

“What do you mean, whoever employs him? He’s got to be CIA. They recruit army personnel sometimes.”

“I meant exactly what I said. As far as my people, and apparently the Chinese secret police, can figure, he doesn’t belong to the CIA or to any of the other of our intelligence agencies.”

Kott scowled. “You said he works for USAMRIID, and that’s the excuse he used to enter China. So he’s probably a one-time CIA asset. But he failed to get his job done. So now he’s out, and he’s probably out of our hair, too.”

“Perhaps. But my people say he’s very skilled and hardly sounds like a one-time recruit.”

Kott drank more deeply. “Some competitor of yours looking to hurt you?”

“That’s possible, I suppose. Some renegade agent. FBI maybe, considering how they’re getting around these days. But whatever he is, all of us had better be extraordinarily cautious … for a multitude of reasons.”

“Of course.” Kott drained the martini, set the glass down. “But for now, we’re on course?”

Mcdermid nodded. “The frigate Crowe is already shadowing the Empress in the Indian Ocean.”

“Excellent.”

“Any more news about military appropriations?”

Kott related the military appropriations meeting in the cabinet room in greater detail. “As I said, Brose and Oda were the only ones willing to give Secretary Stanton full support, and Oda’s unimportant. Everyone else has a weapon in development they don’t want to lose. It was an edgy meeting.”

“And the president?”

“He’s worried, and we know why, don’t we? It’s the Empress and a potential blowup with China. If that happens, he’s got to have everything activated, whether it’s in our arsenal or on the drawing board. If we’ve got the weapons for a big war in a big area, that’ll scare the crap out of the Chinese.” Kott sat back, smiling. “I’d say our plan’s going smoothly, wouldn’t you?”

“But we still have to be careful. If the doves in Zhongnanhai have gotten wind something’s up, and if they compare notes with President Castilla, we’re as good as dead. That real manifest can’t fall into anyone’s hands.”

Kott was growing impatient. “So eliminate all the copies.”

“It’s not that easy. We’ve gotten rid of the one in Shanghai that Flying Dragon had. But there’s still one in Basra. The Iraqis think no one can penetrate their security, so they refuse to destroy it, because they don’t trust us to deliver if they do. Anyway, they claim to be fully confident the Empress will make it through. There was a third copy in Hong Kong, but I’ve ordered it destroyed.”

“The Empress will never pass the Strait of Hormuz. So what’s really worrying you?”

“Yu Yongfu — the Flying Dragon president. He was vain, ambitious, unpredictable, nervous, and would never hold up under pressure. You know the type. He had delusions of empire, but a backbone of jelly.”

“Had?” Kott asked.

“He’s dead. When he learned of this Jon Smith’s being in Shanghai, he fell apart. We applied pressure. He committed suicide.”

“God dammit, Ralph!” Kott exploded. “That’s two more corpses! You can’t keep a secret this way. Murder complicates everything!”

Mcdermid shrugged. “We had no choice. Now we’ve got no choice with Smith either.” He grinned and held up his glass in a toast. “Let’s enjoy the pleasures of the house. There’s time.”

“Damnation, Ralph, they could all be my daughter! Don’t you have any civility in you at all?” Kott shuddered.

Mcdermid laughed loudly. “None the way you define it. I have a couple of daughters around her age, too. I can only hope they’re enjoying themselves as much as I plan to.”

Kott stood. “You haven’t seen your daughters in at least ten years. I have an hour before I can call my driver. Put me in an office somewhere with a phone. I’ll get some work done.”

Mcdermid touched the button on the side of the table, signaling the waiter to return. He looked up at Kott, who had stood, eager to leave.

There was a wide smile of amusement on the Altman founder’s mouth, but his eyes were cold. “Whatever your pleasure.”

Chapter Seventeen

Constructed of steel, glass, and slate, the building where Donk & Lapierre had its offices was a towering showplace of modernity. Judging by the exacting architectural details and the international renown of its designer, whose name was engraved on black glass beside the front doors, offices here were shockingly expensive and the address coveted.

Wearing his dark-blond wig again, Jon paused outside to check the bustling street. He was back in his cover as Major Kenneth St. Germain.

Satisfied he had not been followed, he stepped inside the revolving doors and was deposited into the foyer. He headed across the slate floor toward the stainless-steel elevators. The building’s air had been filtered so many times it smelled like a virus-free clean room. But then, the whole place was antiseptic looking.

The thought of viruses brought him back to his cover’s latest project, and he began to submerge his own personality into Ken’s. As a top USAMRIID researcher, Ken St. Germain, Ph. D., had been galvanized by a virus discovered recently in northern Zimbabwe. The still-unnamed virus resembled the Machupo strain, which came from a distant continent — South America. Ken was using field mice to study his theory that the new virus was a form of Machupo, despite thousands of miles and an ocean separating the occurrences.

By the time he left the elevator, reached the glass doors of Donk & Lapierre, and pushed through, he was eager to ask for help with his research from Charles-Marie Cruyff, managing director of Donk & Lapierre’s Asian branch. Then, of course, there was his real motive ….

“Major Kenneth St. Germain to see Mr. Cruyff,” he announced to the woman behind the desk, who looked more like a cover model than a receptionist.

“We called ahead.”

“Of course, Major. Monsieur Cruyff is expecting you.” She had a megawatt smile, perfect golden skin, and just a touch of makeup to enhance her considerable natural assets.

The secretary, or assistant, who came to usher him into the inner sanctum was an entirely different matter. Unsmiling, white-blond hair coiled severely, clothes loose and frumpy … she was all Donk and no Lapierre.

“You will please follow me, Major.” Her voice was a baritone, and her English was Wagnerian. She led him over a Delft-blue carpet to an ebony door. She knocked and opened it. “Major St. Germain from America, Monsieur Cruyff,” she announced.

The man inspiring this deference proved to be short, broad, and muscular, with the massive thighs of a professional bicyclist. He glided forward from around his desk in his costly beige suit as if he could bend his knees only marginally.

He smiled, holding out a small hand. “Ah, Dr. St. Germain, a pleasure, sir,” he said. “You’re from USAMRIID, I hear. My people think highly of your work.” Which meant he had checked on Ken St. Germain’s credentials, no surprise.

They shook hands.

“I’m flattered, Monsieur Cruyff,” Jon told him.

“Please sit. Relax a moment.”

“Thank you.”

Jon chose an ultracontemporary sofa with chrome legs and removable cushions. As he turned toward it, he slipped his pocketknife out of his trousers and concealed it in his right hand. He settled onto the cushions, his right hip next to where two met. He looked up. Cruyff had returned to his desk. He had the sense Cruyff had never taken his gaze from him. His hand tightened around his hidden pocketknife.

“I’m not a scientist, as you may know.” Cruyff lowered himself into his chair. “I hope you won’t be offended if I tell you honestly I have little free time today.” He gestured around his office, which was full of the superficialities of business — photos with important people, plaques from charities, awards from his company — and then at his desk, where file folders were stacked high. “I’m behind in my work, but perhaps there’s something I can do for you quickly.” He folded his hands over his chest, leaned back, and waited, studying Jon.

Jon needed to plant the knife between the cushions, but until he could get Cruyff to look away, it would be impossible. “Of course, monsieur. I understand. I appreciate any time you can give me.” He described Major St. Germain’s current research into the new virus. “But my progress at USAMID has been slow,” he explained. “Far too slow. People are dying in Zimbabwe. With the constant movement between countries and continents these days, who knows where the virus will strike next? Perhaps even here in Hong Kong.”

“Hmm. Yes. That could be catastrophic. We are a very dense city. But I don’t see what I can do to help.” The gaze continued its relentless focus.

Jon hunched forward, his expression deeply concerned. “Your pharmaceutical subsidiary has been working with hantaviruses, and I―”

Cruyff interrupted, losing patience: “Biomed et Cie is located in Belgium, Major. Thousands of miles away. Here in Hong Kong, at least in this office, our dominant assignment is marketing. I’m afraid I have little to offer you―”

It was Jon’s turn to interrupt: “I’m aware of that subsidiary. But Donk & Lapierre also has a microbiological research team at a facility on mainland China. Those are the scientists I’m referring to. As I understand it, they’re making progress on hantaviruses that have appeared near there. My studies of our new virus lead me to believe it may be carried through mice droppings that dry into dust, become airborne, and infect people, exactly as Machupo does in Bolivia and elsewhere in South America. Of course, hantaviruses like the ones your people are examining are transmitted in the same manner Machupo is. I’m sure you’re familiar with those studies.” He smiled ingenuously at Cruyff.

“Of course,” Cruyff agreed. By doing so, he appeared neither ignorant nor as if he were hiding something. “What exactly do you wish to know?

Providing it isn’t confidential, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Jon echoed.

“Since Donk & Lapierre is a business, your scientists may have been working on vaccines against the hantaviruses.

If they have, I may be able to figure out a new research path based on what they’ve learned.”

“No vaccine, Dr. St. Germain. At least, not that I’ve heard. On the other hand, they wouldn’t report the early stages of something like that to corporate, or even the later stages, until they were sure there was high potential for commercialization. Although it’s possible they’re pursuing it on an entirely experimental basis, I doubt they’d be working on vaccines for your particular class of viruses.”

“Really? Why is that?” Cruyff smiled indulgently. “Significant outbreaks of hemorrhagic viruses occur only in poor countries. Research and development are astronomically pricey, particularly these days. The Third World simply doesn’t have the money to pay for the R and D, much less the vaccines, now do they?”

“Perhaps not. Still―”

“So where would the return on investment be? What would happen to our stock if we pursued such quixotic research and development? We have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders.”

“Ah, I see. So vaccines are out.”

He allowed real disappointment to enter his voice. Then he brightened.

“Still, you have very good scientists there. They might be doing something fresh and interesting with hantaviruses. I seldom have time to fly to Asia, so I’m going to gamble that you won’t be irritated if I ask to visit the facilities anyway. If you would be kind enough to give me permission … after all, we scientists learn from each other, you know. I might be able to contribute something to help them.” Cruyff’s brows raised. “I suppose there’s no reason not to. You’ll have to secure the proper entry and travel papers on your own, of course, but I’ll have my assistant type up a letter of introduction and send it over to your hotel. Just give her the details when you leave. Perhaps with that, China will cooperate and approve your trip.”

“Thank you. Your letter will make all the difference.” The pocketknife felt heavy in his hand.

The visit was coming to a close, and he still had not had an opportunity to plant it. He fought tension and beamed and nodded toward the two ship models on Cruyff’s desk. There were four more in glass cases on the walls. He said, “I’ve been admiring your ships, monsieur. Beautiful. Did you make them yourself? A hobby?” Cruyff laughed and waved his hand.

“Hardly. They’re the work of professionals, recreations of some of our more successful ships. Donk & Lapierre is primarily a shipping company, you see.” He continued to watch Jon. He had not even glanced at the ships. “Do you work mostly with Chinese companies?” Jon asked innocently. Cruyff was startled. “Chinese companies? No, of course not.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. It just seemed logical, and I noticed how many of your ship models have their names in Chinese lettering as well as roman.”

Cruyff gave a sudden, involuntary glance, not at his models, but toward a safe in plain sight on the wall to the left of his desk. That distraction was all Jon needed. With a frisson of relief, he flipped open his fingers and used his thumb to jam the knife down between the cushions. Cruyff quickly refocused on Jon. “No, not especially. All ships registered in Hong Kong display their names in Chinese as well as in our alphabet.”

“Of course,” Jon jumped to his feet. “Stupid of me.

Well, I won’t waste any more of your time. It was gracious of you to see me, and even more to allow me to visit your biomed installation.”

“Think nothing of it, Doctor.” Smiling and nodding, Jon backed out and closed the door. In the outer office, Jon stopped to give the unsmiling Valkyrie the name of the Shangri-la Hotel and his room number. He headed off, smiled at the gorgeous receptionist, and pushed out through the glass doors. His pulse ratcheted up as a messenger approached. But the messenger did not go into Donk & Lapierre. He passed on down the hall, and as soon as the man was out of sight, Jon made a quick detour into the men’s restroom. Locked in a stall, he pulled a tiny listening device from an inner pocket and fitted it into his left ear. It was about the size of a jelly bean, another remarkable invention from intelligence R&D. He paused long enough to change his demeanor. Radiating agitation, he hurried from the bathroom back into the offices of Donk & Lapierre, rushed past the exotic receptionist as if his return had not only been planned, but demanded, and — with a distracted wave — burst past the startled Brunhilde. “Must have dropped my pocketknife,” he announced as he slammed into Charles-Marie Cruyff’s office without breaking step.

Cruyff was leaning back in his desk chair and talking confidentially into the phone. He gazed up, surprised, in midword. “What!” he demanded of Jon.

Jon grumbled, irritated, “Dammit. Sorry. Must’ve dropped my knife,” he repeated. “Let’s see, I was standing here, and … ” He paused before the desk, facing Cruyff, while looking around the airy office as if trying to remember exactly what he had done when he entered. Cruyff scowled. “I have an important call, Dr. St. Germain. Please be fast.” He paused, listening to the voice on the phone. The cutting-edge directional microphone in Jon’s ear picked up Cruyff’s end of the conversation loud and clear. Cruyff cupped his hand around the mouthpiece and whispered, “… I don’t think so. No, sir, he was simply fishing for information about our han-virus research, mostly to know if we were working on any vaccines. He wanted an invitation to visit the lab inside China. What? Yes, absolutely legitimate. Works at USAMRIID, sir, yes. It has to be a simple coincidence. What? Well, yes, as a matter of fact, he did ask an odd question about our working mostly with Chinese firms. He saw my ship models, and … ” Jon let his glance fall on the couch. “Ah, that must be it!” He sat down and rummaged between the cushions. “I’m sure you’re mistaken, sir.” Frowning, Cruyff continued to watch Jon as he searched. “Well, perhaps a shade over six feet, yes, and … ” Jon had heard enough. He needed to get out before Cruyff grew too suspicious. Grinning with relief, he retrieved his knife from where he had hidden it and held it up. “Here it is. Must’ve fallen out of my pocket. Sorry for the intrusion, and thanks again, Monsieur Cruyff.” He sped out the door, knocking aside the outraged Valkyrie, who had arrived to make certain all was well. Seconds later, Jon trotted along the corridor to the elevators. The door of the only open one was closing. He sprinted, slid through just in time, and punched the button.

As the car started down, he smiled grimly to himself: There was someone who was obviously higher and more important in the company than even the managing director of the Asian branch, so much higher he couldn’t be made to wait while Jon searched, and who had wanted to know whether Major Kenneth St. Germain really was from USAMRIID … whether he had asked any unusual or unexpected questions … and exactly what he had looked like. And what was the meaning of Cruyff’s startled glance at his safe when Jon had asked about Donk & Lapierre’s working with Chinese companies?

Lying under silk sheets on the four-poster bed in the high-ceilinged room that had once entertained Spanish grandees, Ralph Mcdermid growled into the phone, his languor and good humor long gone. “What else?”

Charles-Marie Cruyff was filling out his description of the man who had come to ask questions that could easily have been asked over the telephone or by e-mail before flying all the way to Hong Kong, and who had also asked about Donk & Lapierre’s work with Chinese companies.

“He’s in his early forties, I’d guess,” Cruyff said. “Trim. Looked as if he worked out a lot or played some vigorous sport.”

“Dark hair brushed back?”

“No, sir. What I’d call dark blond, and it was parted on the side. I’m sure―”

“All right. The Shangri-la Hotel, you say? In Kowloon?”

“That’s where I’m supposed to send my letter of introduction.”

“Wait a few hours first. I want to be back in Hong Kong before then.”

“Very well, Mr. Mcdermid. But I’m sure he was exactly who he said he was. Remember, the appointment was arranged by USAMRIID through our head office in Antwerp.”

“Perhaps you’re right, Charles-Marie. Perhaps he merely wants to visit your research people. We’ll talk — further when I get there. Meanwhile, make sure you take care of that urgent matter.”

“Of course, Mr. Mcdermid.”

Mcdermid hung up and lay back, his eyes closed. His joviality did not return, nor did his languor. When the girl emerged from the bathroom, perfumed and glossily nude, he opened his eyes and dismissed her with a curt wave. As she left, he grabbed the phone and dialed. The polished voice on the other end of the line answered immediately. “Yes?”

“It’s me. That problem in Shanghai may not be over after all.” Mcdermid described the USAMRIID scientist and his intrusion at Donk & Lapierre as the other man listened and asked quiet, intelligent questions.

The more Mcdermid laid out the situation, the more he felt himself calm.

This man with the polished voice was the key to his future. The Altman Group had soared high, but it could go even higher, now that he was in his pocket. The future was limitless. As they concluded their conversation, Mcdermid was smiling again.

Often when he accepted an assignment from the American, Ghassan thought back to that day in Baghdad when, resigned to his death, he had been spared not by Allah but by the vanity of the Republican Guard. Trapped in his shop, defending Dr. Mahuk, he’d had no chance to survive.

Suddenly, more Guards burst past, hot on the heels of the unarmed doctor. They had not noticed him, and the others forgot him, as they rushed after, eager to share the credit.

Ghassan had dragged himself outside, leaving a trail of blood. Many hands helped him into hiding. From then on, he had not only walked with a limp, he had abandoned all fear and dedicated his life to freeing his country. Through Dr. Mahuk, he made contact with Colonel Smith again, and he began helping an American voice on the telephone.

Tonight, Ghassan was on such a mission for the Americans. Dressed in black, he crouched on the roof of the building next door to his target — five stories of brick and mortar, pockmarked by the bullets and shells of the Americans and the Republican Guard. Now it housed the local offices of Tigris Export-Import, Ltd., Agricultural Chemicals, one of the few companies allowed to trade in the outside world. In the distance stood the towering bronze statues of the 101 martyrs of the holy war against Iran. They were only a few blocks away, silhouettes lining the boardwalk along the canal. After years of inactivity, the canal was bustling again with ships and fishing boats sailing up and down the Shatt al Arab. Their lights blinked reassuringly in the night.

At last, he heard activity at the street entrance. He peered over the parapet. The cleaning crew was strolling off while the foreman locked the door and followed. It was time. Ghassan hooked a thin cable to his harness, took a deep breath, and lowered himself over the edge. At the first row of windows, he used his suction cup and glass cutter to remove a section of glass. He reached in, unlocked the old-fashioned window, and crawled inside. Concealment of his entry was not important; that he finish his assignment undiscovered was.

Moving with speed and silence, he glided past offices and into the next building. Finally he found the office of the Tigris branch manager.

Inside, he switched on his tiny flashlight and searched the rows of filing cabinets until he found the right drawer and the right file — Flying Dragon Enterprises, Shanghai. He searched through the documents more slowly than he liked, as all the letters to and from China were in English.

There it was. The fifth document from the front — an invoice manifest.

Laboriously, he compared the English list on the document to the list dictated by the quiet American. When he finally determined they were identical, his spirits soared. The manifest was correct. After a moment of exultation, he slid the document into the plastic envelope strapped under his shirt, returned the file to the cabinet, and hurried through the offices to the window. He rehooked the cable, slipped out, and seconds later stood on the roof. As he stuffed his equipment into his small waist pack, he ran down the staircase. At the street, he fell back into the shadows, scanning all around.

A patrol vehicle packed with Republican Guardsmen drove slowly past.

The moment it was out of sight, Ghassan sprinted away. Twice more on his way home he hid as Guards out on patrol rolled by. Finally he reached his tiny room. His adrenaline still pumping, he removed his special cell phone, which was hidden beneath the planks of his floor, and dialed the American’s number. He did not know where the American’s office was. He had never asked, and the American had never offered.

“So this is how you get your orders, Ghassan? How efficient of the Americans. But then, they have many advantages we do not.”

Ghassan jerked around. The speaker’s face was hidden in shadow, while the pistol in his hand showed in the room’s gloom. “Hand me the phone and the document.”

Discovery was something Ghassan feared every day, and he had practiced well to be prepared. Without allowing himself thought or regret, he bit down on the cyanide pill in his tooth and dropped the cell phone to the floor where his foot crushed it into useless pieces. Pain tore through his body. He felt himself falling into a great darkness. As he collapsed, twisting in pain, rage burned through his mind: Death was nothing. Failure was everything, and he had failed.

Chapter Eighteen

The president’s chief of staff, Charles Ouray, wandered around the deserted sitting room in the White House residence. Dawn was breaking, and pale light flowed in through the windows. From time to time, he reached into his shirt pocket for the pack of cigarettes he had given up carrying nineteen years ago when he signed the pledge. In his early sixties, his triangular face was grim, and his movements erratic with tension.

Every five minutes, he checked his watch. As soon as he heard the door to the president’s bedroom open, he turned.

Sam Castilla emerged fully dressed and brisk, his large body svelte in a meticulously tailored suit. “When does the ambassador arrive, Charlie?”

“Twenty minutes, sir. He sounded upset. Very upset. He emphasized the matter was extremely serious and said you’d know what he was talking about. He wanted an immediate meeting. In fact, he came close to demanding one.”

“Did he now?”

Ouray was not going to be put off. “Do you, Mr. President?”

“Do I what, Charlie?”

“Know what’s got his tail thumping?” “Yes,” he said simply.

“But I don’t?” The president looked uncomfortable but said nothing.

Ouray kept his gaze steady. Sometimes prying information from the president seemed tougher than breaking into Fort Knox. Ouray said thoughtfully, “The leaks are making all of us paranoid. I found myself not telling my assistant about the defense appropriations meeting.

Clarence has been with me twenty years. I know I can trust him with my life.”

The president sighed heavily. “You’re right. I should’ve told you.” He hesitated as if still unsure. Then he grimaced and nodded, his mind made up. “It’s all about a Chinese cargo ship by the name of The Dowager Empress. It sailed from Shanghai early this month, bound for Basra. We have an unconfirmed report from a highly reliable source that it’s carrying tens of tons of thiodiglycol and thionyl chloride.”

Ouray stared. His voice rose. “Blister and nerve weapons? The Yinhe.”

“In a more ambiguous, more complicated, and more dangerous world than the Cold War. Makes one nostalgic for those awful days when it was just two hairy giants with clubs, circling in a primitive face-off. Not a pretty world, Charlie, but it was simple. Now we’ve got one really big giant, one sick giant, one sleeping giant, and a thousand wolves biting at our heels and ready at any time to go for our throats.”

Ouray nodded. “So what’s activated the ambassador?”

“They’ve probably discovered we’ve got a navy frigate shadowing their freighter.” The president was solemn. “I’d hoped we’d have more time.” He paused. “I have reason to think Beijing doesn’t, or didn’t, know about the cargo. A private deal. But that doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Unless we can prove it.”

“True.”

“Can we prove it?” Ouray asked hopefully.

“Not yet. We’re working on it.”

The two men stood for a time in silence, staring down at their polished shoes, as the president prepared himself. He was about to start dancing the dance he hated. Posturing, threatening, conciliating, verbally fencing, and flat-out lying. Stalling for time. The dangerous diplomacy ballet that could so easily turn deadly.

Finally the president sighed, opened his suit jacket, and hitched up his trousers. “Well, let’s go talk to his excellency.” He rubbed his hands together. “Battle.”

In the Oval Office, the president and his chief of staff stood politely before the president’s desk as Ambassador Wu Bangtiao entered. The ambassador of the People’s Republic of China was a tiny man with the swift, agile stride of the international soccer forward he had once been. He was dressed in a confrontational dark-blue Mao suit, but the smile on his face, while small, was amiable and possibly friendly.

The president caught the mixed message and looked at Ouray through his peripheral vision. Ouray had a small smile himself, and the president knew his longtime confederate had also understood.

“So good of you to see me on such short notice, Mr. President,” Wu Bangtiao said with a moderate Cantonese accent, although the president knew he could speak perfect Oxbridge English. He had studied for years at Christ Church and the University of London. “You are aware, I’m sure, Mr. President, of the reason for my sudden alarm.” Despite the positive signs, the ambassador did not extend his hand.

The president gestured. “You know Charles Ouray, my chief of staff, don’t you, Mr. Ambassador?”

“We have had the pleasure many times,” Wu Bangtiao said, an edge to his voice to show he had noticed the change in subject.

“Then why don’t we sit down?” Castilla said cordially.

He gestured to one of the comfortable leather armchairs that faced his desk. As the ambassador settled in, the president returned to his large desk chair. Ouray took a straight chair against the wall some distance to the side. Ambassador Wu’s feet barely touched the floor; the chair was designed for far taller New Mexican ranchers, which, of course, was why the president had sat him there.

Hiding a smile, the president leaned back and said pleasantly, “As for why you’re here, Ambassador Wu, I haven’t a clue. Why don’t you fill me in?”

Wu’s eyes and smile narrowed. “One of our cargo ships on the high seas reports that your frigate, the USS John Crowe, has been keeping it under surveillance.” Charles Ouray said, “Are they sure the frigate isn’t simply on the same course, Mr. Ambassador?”

Wu’s gaze grew icy. He turned it onto Ouray. “Since your warship is far faster than a simple cargo ship but has maintained its current position behind it many hours, the conclusion can be only that the Crowe is shadowing the Empress.”

“I wouldn’t say that’s the only conclusion,” the president said evenly.

“May I ask exactly where this ship of yours is?”

“The Indian Ocean.” He glanced at the clock. “Or possibly the Arabian Sea by now.”

“Ah. And its destination is—?”

“With all due respect, Mr. President … that’s hardly relevant. The ship is on the high seas where the right of passage to any port belongs to every sovereign nation in the world.”

“Now, Mr. Ambassador, we both know that’s hogwash. Nations protect their interests. Yours does. Mine does.”

“And what interest is the United States protecting by harassing an unarmed commercial vessel in international waters, sir?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Ambassador Wu. Since I haven’t been informed about the Crowe, I have no details, not even that your freighter is anywhere near our frigate. But I assume that if you’re correct, the situation’s the result of some well-known, routine operation by our navy.”

“America routinely shadows Chinese ships?”

The president exploded, “That’s horseshit, and you damn well know it!

Whatever the reason for this alleged shadowing is, I’ll find out. Is that all, Mr. Ambassador?”

Wu Bangtiao did not blink. He stood. “Yes, Mr. President. Except that my government has instructed me to inform you that we will protect our right of free passage anywhere and everywhere on the high seas.

Including against interference or attack by the United States.”

The president stood even more quickly. “Tell your government that if your freighter is violating international laws, regulations, or accepted limitations, we reserve the right to intervene to stop such a violation.”

“I will present your view to my government.” Wu inclined his head to Castilla, nodded to Ouray, turned gracefully, and stalked out of the Oval Office.

The president studied the door that had closed behind Wu Bangtiao without really seeing it. Charlie Ouray was doing the same thing.

Finally, the president decided, “They don’t know what the Empress is carrying.”

“No. But does that change anything?”

“Normally, I’d say no.” Castilla rubbed his jaw. “Only there was more restraint there than I would’ve expected. You agree?”

Ouray clasped his hands between his legs and leaned forward, frowning.

“I’m not sure. That last sounded a lot like the standard warning, the same posturing as usual.”

“Pro forma. To be expected. But Wu’s a consummate master of the nuance, and I had the impression his delivery this time suggested that the warning was, indeed, pro forma. In fact, he intended it as a hint that he was posturing.”

“Maybe so. But he knows we were lying about the Crowe.”

“Of course he does, but there again he let me get away with it. Didn’t challenge me, and didn’t deliver the formal warning until I’d dismissed him, which forced him to make it or get the hell out with empty hands.”

“He didn’t come in firing all guns either, that’s for sure. But he was definitely wearing the Mao armor.”

“His presentation was ambiguous,” the president decided. “Yes, that was the message. Beijing, or at least a majority of the Standing Committee, is in the dark. Still, they can’t let China be pushed around with the world watching, no matter what the circumstances. On the other hand, I read it that they’re not looking for a confrontation. They won’t make the situation public, at least not yet. They’re giving us a little leeway and some time.”

“Yeah, but how much?”

“With luck, at least until the Empress gets so close to Basra that we have to make a move.” The president shook his head unhappily. “Or until the whole thing is leaked, blows up, or falls apart.”

“Then we’d damn well better keep it under wraps.”

“And get our proof.” “Yeah,” Ouray said. “But I have a suggestion.”

“What?”

Ouray remained hunched forward as if he had a sharp pain somewhere in his gut. His aging face seemed brittle. “After listening to you and Wu, I understand even more why this demands tight secrecy. Nevertheless, it’s time to bring in Defense Secretary Stanton, Secretary of State Padgett, and Vice President Erikson, because the Chinese government’s on to us. That means Stanton and Padgett need to be prepared. And if — God forbid — anything were to happen to you, the vice president will have to deal with this situation. We’d have to bring him up to speed instantly.

There might not be time.”

Castilla considered. “What about the joint chiefs?”

“For now, it’s probably enough that Brose knows. The others could get trigger-happy and complicate things.”

“Okay, Charlie. I agree. Set up a meeting. Include Brose.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Alone, the president swiveled to the high windows behind his desk. For a few seconds, he saw a little boy in his mind, and he smiled. The boy was like he had been, oversized for his age and with messy straw-blond hair.

He was raising his arms up eagerly to a man. The man bent low to pick him up, but the man’s face was hazy, out of focus. The child could not see the face, could not see his father.

Outside Donk & Lapierre’s building, Jon dodged through the crowds and traffic and crossed Stanley Street to a Dairy Farm ice cream parlor.

Blaring horns and Chinese curses punctuated the air. He ordered a cup of coffee and watched the entrance to the showcase building. When no uniformed guards or civilians came rushing out as if looking for someone, he finished his coffee and hailed a taxi to take him to his hotel.

Still vigilant, he watched all around as the cab wove through the congestion, turned into the tunnel that dove under the harbor to Kowloon, and at last pulled up to the Shangri-la. Once in his room, he dropped onto his bed and used his scrambled cell phone to report to Fred Klein. As usual, Klein was at his desk in the Anacostia marina.

“Do you ever go home, Fred?” Jon pictured the dim office, the shutters and drapes closed, turning day into perpetual night.

Klein ignored the question. “You got there safely, I take it.”

“So far, yes.” He hesitated, a sour taste in his mouth. “But I’ve made a mistake.”

“How bad?” “Hard to say.” He explained the phone call to Donk & Lapierre.

“Obviously, Jan Donk doesn’t exist, or the phone number was unlisted, or both. Maybe it was a special number for Yu Yongfu that only he’d know, and it didn’t sound like a Chinese entrepreneur.”

“It could be a number specifically for the Empress deal.”

“Whatever, Donk & Lapierre knows someone unauthorized has the number now, is in Hong Kong, and could be interested in the Empress. They were worried enough to send armed thugs to the phone booth. Which brings me to the next problem.”

“I can’t wait.” Klein’s voice was tired, irritable. “You’re sure you’re up to this assignment, Colonel?”

“Anytime you want to bring me home, be my guest,” Jon growled.

There was a surprised silence. “All right, Jon. Sorry. Merely trying to lighten the situation, which is grim enough back here.”

“Trouble on your end?”

“The Chinese have spotted our surveilling frigate. Their ambassador is making waves, if you’ll pardon the nautical metaphor.”

“Is it out of control?”

“The president thinks not yet. They appear interested only in dancing so far. We both know that won’t last. Give me some good news before you depress me even more with the next problem. Did you get anything from your appointment with Donk & Lapierre?”

“Three things. Managing director Cruyff has something in his safe he’s worried about, and he’s antsy about being questioned over connections to Chinese companies.”

“That’s two.”

“Three is the big one. Someone a lot higher is involved — someone Cruyff reports to, who knows I was in Shanghai and what I look like.” He described the meeting and his trip back into the office to eavesdrop.

“It should be simple enough to identify Cruyff’s boss in Antwerp.”

“Since Cruyff spoke English to him — not French or Flemish — I don’t think he was reporting to Antwerp. No, whoever the boss is, he’s here in Hong Kong. My blond wig left Cruyff and him with just enough doubt to move slowly, but sooner or later, they’ll send people here to the hotel. I need information about the man on top, so I can gauge what to do.”

“In these days of international corporate conglomerates and holding companies, we can’t rule out that his Belgium bosses aren’t English or American. But all right, I’ll get right on it. What will you do now?”

“Food. Something decent for a change. And sleep. A whole night’s sleep would be a novelty.”

“I’m not sleeping, and neither is the president.”

“It’s morning there.”

“A mere technicality. Take your cell with you, and sleep with it and your pistol under your pillow. I’ll get back to you, Colonel. Sweet dreams.”

Aloft, En Route to Hong Kong Ralph Mcdermid considered the company’s top jet — a retrofitted 757 with a gourmet kitchen, cherry-paneled conference room, and sleeping suite — to be his personal transport. In fact, its free use was written into his forty-page employment contract, which, of course, included the usual stock options, monetary incentives, golden severance package, insurance, and use of company cars, cleaning services, club memberships, and houses and apartments around the globe.

He was sitting back, his feet up, lulled toward sleep by the jet’s purring engines, when his phone rang. It was Feng Dun.

Mcdermid was instantly awake. “Where the devil have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve tried three times to reach you!”

Feng’s voice turned cold. “I’ve been looking and making calls, Taipan.”

Mcdermid was never quite certain whether Feng’s use of the old honorific was insulting. He suspected so. In the 1800s, the Chinese had used taipan to describe European and American freebooters who took fortunes out of Hong Kong and China and gave little back.

But Mcdermid needed Feng, so he said only, “What have you learned?”

“Li Kuonyi has disappeared. She was at her father’s house, now she’s gone. No one knows where. Not her staff, and, of course, no one at Flying Dragon.”

That worried Mcdermid. Now that Yu Yongfu had killed himself, his wife might turn into a loose cannon. It would depend on her level of grief and her concern about their children.

Mcdermid asked, “Her father doesn’t know where she is?” “So he says. Her children are with him. I’ll watch them closely.”

“No. Assign your best people instead. I’ve got something else I want you to handle personally.”

“And that is …?”

“Jon Smith. He may be in Hong Kong.”

In the distance, Feng clicked his teeth, interested. “This man is like the snake at midnight. He keeps appearing where least expected. You didn’t warn me he had such talent.”

Mcdermid bit off a retort. “I suspect he’s looking for the third copy of the invoice manifest. I know the cover he’s using and where he’s staying. How long will it take you to get to Hong Kong and kill him?”

reared back like a wild animal in terror. In a convulsion of retreat, the whole body attached to the wrist pulled madly back from Jon’s grip.

Jon tightened his hand and jerked the wrist toward him to shake the dagger free.

But the dagger did not drop. The hand would not release it. Jon hurled himself up, and the rearing shadow fell to the rear, dragging Jon with him, twisting to be free. His momentum fully backward, the man toppled to the floor.

Jon landed on top with his full weight. Abruptly, the man stopped moving. Panting, naked except for his shorts, Jon suddenly felt the chill of the dark room. He heard the muted noises of distant traffic.

His attacker did not move.

Jon kept his grip on the killer’s wrist but reached over with his other hand to take the knife. There was no knife. Quickly he felt the carpet around the wrist. No knife there either. But he felt something hot and liquid on his bare chest. There was a faint, metallic stench of fresh blood. Instantly he felt for a pulse in the wrist. There was none.

He jumped up, switched on the light, and drew a sharp breath. The hilt of the dagger protruded from the side of the man’s chest, where it must have been jammed as the man twisted when they fell. A small amount of blood seeped into his black shirt.

Jon took a deep breath. And walked toward the phone on the bed table… and stopped. There was no way he could call the Hong Kong police.

Questions would be asked.

He returned to the corpse and saw that the blood had not yet oozed to the carpet. He lifted the thin body in his arms. It was light as a baby’s. He carried it to the bathroom, laid it in the tub, and stood back, considering.

The harsh buzz of his cell phone made him whirl. He hurried from the bathroom and pulled the phone out from his bedcovers.

“Fred? I―” he began.

Fred Klein interrupted, his voice bristling with news: “I have two possible candidates for your mystery man — the one who appears to be more important to Donk & Lapierre than Charles-Marie Cruyff. One is a routine guess, the other quite a different pot of fish.”

Jon barely heard. “I just killed a man. He was so small, he looked like an undernourished thirteen-year-old. If I hadn’t turned on the light, I never would’ve guessed he was an adult. He … ”

The shock was a split second. Then: “Why? Where?”

“He was sent to murder me. Chinese. Here in the hotel.”

Klein’s shock became alarm. “The body’s still there?”

“In the bathtub. No blood on the carpet. We got lucky, didn’t we? I got lucky. He nearly had me. Some hungry guy needed their money, whoever the bastards behind all this are, and I got lucky, and he didn’t.”

“Calm down, Colonel,” Klein snapped. Then, almost gently, “I’m sorry, Jon.”

Jon took a deep breath and steadied himself. For a moment, he felt disgust for being so eager for an “adventure” to break up the monotony of the biomed conference in Taiwan. “Okay, I’ll move the body somewhere.

They won’t find a trace here.”

As he spoke, he heard Klein’s opening words in his mind: I have two possible candidates for your mystery man — the one who appears to be more important to Donk & Lapierre than Charles-Marie Cruyff. One is a routine guess, the other quite a different pot of fish.

Somewhere deep inside, he felt himself rally. A wave of rage swept through him, and then dull acceptance. For the first time, he saw how crucial it was to him that he believed he was working for something good. How could anyone do this job otherwise?

He asked briskly, “Tell me about the ” candidate for Cruyff’s big boss.” “That’d be Louis Lapierre,” Fred Klein said. “He’s the chairman and managing director of Donk & Lapierre worldwide. He’s in Antwerp, speaks English, but at the same time is a thoroughgoing Belgian Walloon. His first language would certainly be French, and his second Flemish. It’s highly unlikely he and Cruyff would converse in English.”

“Of course, in Hong Kong almost everyone speaks English. It might’ve been because Cruyff and Lapierre didn’t want lesser mortals in Antwerp to overhear.”

“The possibility occurred to me, too.”

“Who’s the second candidate?” Jon asked.

“That’s where it gets interesting. As it turns out, my financial and corporate experts found a maze of fronts, subsidiaries, and offshore companies masking who ultimately owned Donk & Lapierre itself. Finally, they were able to discover that — big as it is — Donk & Lapierre is a wholly owned subsidiary of a far larger entity, which turns out to be the source of my second candidate: the Altman Group.”

“Never heard of it.”

“You probably have,” Klein assured him, “but you had no reason to pay attention. Most people don’t. Altman employs expensive publicity people to keep it off the front pages. However, Altman’s famous … almost mythical … in global business circles.”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s a multiproduct, multinational conglomerate … but it’s also the planet’s largest private equity firm. We’re talking about making and breaking enormous fortunes daily. Now figure in Altman’s executives — insiders from the past four presidential administrations, including a former president, a former secretary of defense, and a former CIA chief. That’s not all. Altman Europe is run by a former British prime minister, with a former German finance minister as second in command. Altman Asia is led by a former Philippine president.”

Jon whistled. “Talk about a golden Rolodex.”

“I’ve never heard of another company with so many political stars on the payroll. Altman’s global headquarters is in Washington, which isn’t particularly unusual. However, its address is more gold — on Pennsylvania Avenue, midway between the White House and the Capitol. Only a fifteen-minute walk either direction.”

“And a stone’s throw from the Hoover building,” Jon decided, seeing the geography in his mind. “Hell, it’s at the very center of the Washington establishment in all ways.”

“Exactly.”

“How could I not know about Altman?” “As I said, an iron hand when it comes to general publicity.”

“Impressive. Where did it come from?”

“What I’m about to tell you is public information. Anyone could find it, but since Altman keeps such a low profile, few people care. The company started in 1987, when an ambitious federal employee quit his job, borrowed a hundred thousand dollars, and brought in his first political celebrity — a retired senator. With that marquee name, Altman started growing. It bought up companies, held some, and sold others, always for decent profits, sometimes for obscene ones. At the same time, it attracted bigger and bigger names for its letterhead. Today, its political clout and door-opening ability is impressive, to say the least. It’s a thirteen-billion-dollar empire, with investments of all sorts around the world. Hell, they’ve probably got something going in Antarctica, too.”

“So what you’re saying is Altman’s basically a giant financial holding company.” Jon considered where it fit into his assignment. “Are the Asian headquarters here in Hong Kong?”

“They are.”

“Does the Philippine ex-president speak nothing but Tagalog and English?”

“No, he’s fluent in at least six languages, including French and Dutch. But he’s not in residence there now. Hasn’t been for months. He’s at a health spa in Sweden. We checked, and he hasn’t had any calls from Hong Kong in weeks.”

“Then who is the second candidate for Cruyff’s boss?”

“Ralph Mcdermid, the investment guru who founded the company.”

“Mcdermid? Then where did ” come from?”

“It was his father’s first name,” Klein explained. “Altman Mcdermid. He was a failed businessman — lost his drugstore in the Depression when he was just starting out, rebuilt it, but lost it again in the 1960s when a big Walgreen store came into the little town in Tennessee where they lived. He never worked again. His wife supported the family by cleaning houses.” Jon nodded. “Could be Ralph Mcdermid’s trying to make up for what happened to his father. Or he’s scared to death it’ll happen to him, so he’s building a stockpile against disaster.”

“Or he’s such a financial genius he can’t help himself.” Klein paused. “Ralph Mcdermid is in Hong Kong right now. He’s an American, speaks nothing but English.” Jon let that sink in. “All right, I get the picture, but what the hell would Ralph Mcdermid care about the Empress? It’s just one ship. It seems damn small potatoes for that kind of powerhouse megalith he’s running.”

“True. But our information is solid: The Altman Group owns Donk & Lapierre, and Donk & Lapierre are equal owners with Flying Dragon of the Empress and its cargo. What I need from you — instantly, if not sooner — is that third copy of the manifest. Check into Ralph Mcdermid. See if you can tie him to the Empress, and see if he has the third copy.”

President Castilla paused to find the exact words to convey both the gravity of what he was about to reveal and the justification for holding back as long as he had. He gazed around the highly secure situation room in the basement of the White House, at the five men who sat on either side of him at the conference table. Three looked mildly puzzled. “Obviously, since we’re meeting here,” he told them, “you know there must be some kind of serious situation. Before I describe it, I’m going to apologize to three of you for not bringing you into the loop sooner, and then I’m going to explain why I don’t have to apologize.”

“We’re at your disposal, Mr. President,” Vice President Brandon Erikson said. He added sincerely, “As always.” Wiry and muscular, Erikson had sable-black hair, regular features, and a casual, Kennedyesque air that voters found disarming. A youthful forty years old, he was renowned for his dynamic personality and energy, but his true strength was his brisk intelligence, which hid political acumen far beyond his years of experience. “What situation?”

Secretary of Defense Stanton wanted to know, suspicion in his voice. He turned to stare around the table, the overhead light making his bald head gleam. Secretary of State Abner Padgett asked, “Do I gather Admiral Brose and Mr. Ouray already know what you intend to tell us?” His voice was deceptively quiet, but his eyes flashed at the insult. His meaty frame lounged in his armchair, unconsciously displaying his natural self-confidence, the same self-confidence that Castilla relied on over and over again to send into hot spots around the world to cut hard deals and soften hard hearts. Padgett was the best man to dispatch on a touchy diplomatic mission. Contrarily, he had a short fuse at home. “Admiral Brose had to know,” the president snapped and glared at them. “I told Charlie only this morning, so he could call this meeting. Your reactions are precisely why I don’t have to apologize. There are entirely too many overblown egos and personal agendas in this cabinet and administration.

Worse — and all of you know this is the unvarnished truth — some folks are talking to people they shouldn’t, about subjects they shouldn’t. Do I make myself clear?” Henry Stanton flushed. “You’re referring to the leaks? I hope that isn’t intended to apply to me, sir.”

“I am referring to the leaks, and what I said applies to everyone.” He fixed his glare on Stanton. “I decided that in this situation no one would be told, except on a need-to-know basis. My need for them to know. Not yours. Not anyone else’s either. I stand by that.” His jaw was rock hard. His mouth was grim. His gaze was so flinty as it swept over them that, at that moment, his face could have been carved out of Monument Valley stone.

The vice president was conciliatory. “I’m sure we understand, Mr. President. Decisions like that are difficult, but that’s why we elected you. We knew we could trust you.” He turned to Stanton and Padgett.

“Don’t you agree, gentlemen?”

The secretary of defense cleared his throat, chastened. “Of course, Mr. President.”

“Absolutely,” the secretary of state said quickly. “He has the facts.”

“Yes, Abner, I do, such as they are. And now I’ve made the decision that it’s time to bring you in.” He leaned across the table, his hands clasped. “We have a possible repeat of the Yinhe debacle with China.”

As they stared, riveted, their alarm growing, he described what had happened so far, leaving out any specific reference to Covert-One and to the man who claimed to be his father. As he talked, he could see they were already considering how the situation might impact their departments and responsibilities.

When he finished, he nodded to the vice president. “I do apologize to you, Brandon. I should’ve brought you in sooner, in case anything happened to me.”

“It would’ve been better, sir. But I understand. These leaks have made us all leery. Under the circumstances, with secrecy so vital, I probably would’ve acted similarly.”

The president nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate that. Now, let’s discuss what each of us must do to prepare in case this does escalate and we’re forced to go public without proof and stop the Empress on the high seas.”

Admiral Brose spoke up. “We need to assess what China will do next, now that they’ve spotted our frigate. We should also figure the size of a conflict like this into our military plans and appropriations.”

Secretary of State Padgett agreed. “We must think about not only conflict with China, but what we can do to take a strong posture of deterrence.”

“The Cold War all over again?” the vice president wondered. “That’d be a tragedy.” He shrugged unhappily. “But at the moment, I see no alternatives.”

Charles Ouray said, “We’ve got to keep this information confined to those of us here. Is that understood? If the Empress problem leaks, we’ll know it’s one of us.”

Around the table, heads nodded solemnly, and the discussion resumed. As the president listened, a part of his mind began counting — two, four, one, two, two, and one. Among the six men there, they had twelve children. He was surprised that he was aware how many children each had. Surprised, too, that, when he thought about it, he remembered their names. Abner’s youngest had him stumped.

But then, he could recall the children of most of the other people he had worked with over the years. Knew their names a lot of the time, too.

For only an instant he wondered what that meant. Then he knew … In his mind, he could see that little boy again, reaching up to the faceless stranger.

There was a pause in the conversation, and he realized they were waiting for him to say something. “State needs to get ready to go into high diplomatic gear. Defense needs to figure out what we’ve got that we can use to scare the shit out of China. The navy needs to come up with alternate plans to board and inspect the Empress.” He slammed his hands on the table and stood up. “End of discussion. That’s all, gentlemen.

Thanks for coming.”

Chapter Twenty

In his hotel room, Jon put on gloves, searched the young man’s pockets, and found a master key, a few coins, and a pack of gum. He put everything back, including the key, and checked the corridor. Deserted. He carried the corpse to the fire stairs landing. The steps reached far up and far down in silence. He climbed two flights and propped the body against the wall of the stairwell.

The dagger still protruded from the emaciated chest. He pulled it out.

With the wound open, blood flowed like the Yangtze. Sighing, he left the knife beside the killer and returned downstairs.

Once more in his room, he propped a chair against the door, in case someone else with a master key and a way to flip the chain lock had ideas. Last, he scrubbed the tub and scrutinized the floors and furniture, including the bed. There was no trace of blood, and nothing had been dropped.

With relief, he took a shower. In the steaming water, he scrubbed until his skin glowed, forcing his mind away from the dead man and into the future. As he toweled off, he made plans.

At last, he returned to bed. He lay awake for some time, trying to calm his disquiet as he listened to the occasional night sounds of the hotel, the scattered noise of traffic, and the mournful horns of ships and boats in the harbor. All the sounds of life in a busy city on a busy planet in a busy galaxy in a busy universe. An indifferent universe, and galaxy, and planet, and city.

He listened to the beating of his own heart. To the imagined sound of blood flowing through his veins and arteries. To sounds heard nowhere but in his own mind. Sometime before daybreak, he fell asleep again.

And jerked awake once more. He sat bolt upright. Out in the corridor, the wheels of a room-service cart ferried an early breakfast to someone.

The first rays of morning showed around the drapes, while city noises rose and crescendoed. He jumped out of bed and dressed. When the assassin did not report in, and he did not reappear — whether or not the body had been found and the police called — another assassin would eventually be sent.

Fully dressed in the same suit, fresh shirt, and new tie, he selected items from his suitcase — his backpack, a pair of gray slacks, a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, a seersucker sport jacket, canvas running shoes, and a collapsible Panama hat. His black working clothes were already in the backpack. He packed everything else in, too, including his folding attache case.

Finally, he put on his dirty-blond wig and adjusted it in the mirror. He was Major Kenneth St. Germain again.

After a final survey of the room, he left, carrying the suitcase and wearing the backpack. The carpeted corridor was still empty, but behind the doors, televisions had been turned on, and people were moving.

Jon rode the elevator down to the floor above the lobby and took the stairs the rest of the way. From the doorway, he scanned the lobby east to west, north to south. He saw no police, no one who acted like police, and none of the killers from yesterday. There was no one he recognized from Shanghai. Still, none of his precautions guaranteed no one was waiting.

He stood out of sight another ten minutes. At last, he crossed to the registration desk. If he left without checking out, the hotel might notify the police, especially since it was only a matter of time until the corpse upstairs was discovered. While he waited for the bill, he asked the bell captain to call a taxi with an English-speaking driver, to take him to the airport.

The cab was barely out of sight of the hotel when Jon leaned forward from the backseat: “Change of plan. Take me to Eighty-eight Queensway in Central. The Conrad International Hotel.”

A thousand years ago, religious artists carved and painted stone sculptures into the mountains, caves, and grottos that surrounded the rural village of Dazu. Now a metropolis of more than eight hundred thousand, Dazu had terraces of well-maintained rice paddies as well as high-rise buildings, small farmhouses nestled among trees, and mansions surrounded by formal landscapes. The soil and climate of the green, rolling land were favorable for city gardeners and suburban farmers, who grew as many as three crops a year, most still using the methods of their ancestors.

The prison farm was less than five miles from the giant Sleeping Buddha, carved at Baodingshan. Secluded and isolated, the prison was a sprawl of frame buildings and walkways, locked behind a tall, chain-link fence that had raised platforms at each corner for the armed sentries. The dirt road that led to it was never traveled by tourists or city people.

Inmates, who worked in fields and paddies operated by the distant Beijing government, were marched to and from work by armed guards. They had little contact with locals. Light as the confinement and security appeared, China did not coddle those it branded criminals.

The old man was one of the few inmates excused from the fields and morning march. He was even allowed some privileges, such as the cell— almost a normal room — he shared in the barrack with only one other prisoner. His offense was so long ago that neither the guards nor the farm’s governor remembered what it was. This ignorance left them nothing specific to condemn him for, nothing easy to cause hate or fear, nothing longstanding to punish and feel righteous about. Because of this and his advanced age, they often treated him like a grandfather. He was given treats and a hot plate, books and newspapers, pens and writing paper.

All illicit, but known to and ignored by the usually stern governor, a former PLA colonel.

This made it more disconcerting to the prisoner when very early in the morning, even before breakfast, his Chinese cell mate vanished to be replaced by a younger, non-Chinese man. He had been brought in at dawn, and since then he had been lying on his sleeping pallet. His eyes were usually closed. Occasionally, he stared up at the unpainted barrack ceiling. He said nothing.

Frowning, the old man went about his activities, refusing to let this abnormality interfere with his routine. He was tall and rangy, although on the thin side. He had a rugged face that was once handsome. Now it was heavily lined, the cheeks sunken, the eyes set in hollows. The eyes were intelligent, so he kept them downcast. It was safer that way.

That morning, he went to his clerical assignment in the governor’s office as usual, and, when lunchtime arrived, he returned to his cell and opened a can of Western lentil soup, heated it on the hot plate, and sat alone at his plank table to eat.

The new prisoner, who was perhaps fifty, had apparently not moved from his pallet. His eyes were closed. Still, there was nothing restful about him. He had a tough-looking, muscular body that never seemed completely at rest.

Suddenly he jumped lightly to his feet and seemed to flow to the door.

His face had a gray stubble that matched his iron-gray hair. He opened the door and scanned the barrack, which was empty because most of the inmates ate beside the fields. He closed the door, returned to his pallet, and lay down again as if he had never moved.

The old man had watched with a kind of envy mixed with admiration and regret, as if he had once been as athletic as that and knew he could never be again.

“Your son can’t believe you’re alive. He wants to see you.”

The longtime prisoner dropped his spoon into his soup. The younger man’s voice had been soft and low, yet somehow carried clearly to his ears.

The newcomer stared calmly up at the ceiling. His lips had not moved.

“Wha … what?” “Keep eating,” the motionless man said. “He wants you to come home.”

David Thayer remembered his training. He bent to his soup, lifted a spoonful, and spoke with his head down. “Who are you?”

“An emissary.”

He sipped. “How do I know that? I’ve been tricked before. They do it every time they want to add to my sentence. They’ll keep me here until I die. Then they can pretend nothing ever happened … I never existed.”

“The last gift you gave him was a stuffed dog with floppy ears named Paddy.”

Thayer felt tears well up in his eyes. But it had been so long now, and they had lied to him so many times. “The dog had a last name.” “Reilly,” the man on the pallet said Thayer laid down his dented soup spoon. Rubbed his sleeve across his face. Sat for a moment.

The man on the floor remained silent.

Thayer bent his head again, hiding his lips from anyone who might be watching. “How did you get in here? Do you have a name?”

“Money works miracles. I’m Captain Dennis Chiavelli. Call me Dennis.”

He forced himself to resume eating. “Would you like some soup?”

“Soon. Tell me the situation. They’re still not aware of who you are?”

“How could they be? I didn’t know Marian had remarried. I didn’t even know whether she and Sam were alive. Now I understand she’s dead.

Terrible.”

“How did you find out?”

“Sam’s visit to Beijing last year. I get the newspapers here. I … ”

“You read Mandarin?”

“Washington wouldn’t have sent me if I weren’t fluent.” Thayer smiled thinly. “In nearly sixty years, I’ve become expert. In many of the dialects, too, especially Cantonese.”

“Sorry, Dr. Thayer,” Captain Chiavelli said.

“When I read about Sam’s visit, his name jumped out, because Serge Castilla had been my closest friend at State. I knew he’d been helping in the search for me, too. So I did some calculations. President Castilla was exactly the right age, and the paper said his father was Serge and his mother Marian. He had to be my son.”

Chiavelli gave an almost invisible shake of his head. “No, he didn’t. It could’ve been a coincidence.”

“What did I have to lose?”

The Covert-One agent thought about that. “So why did you keep quiet until now? You’ve waited a full year.”

“There was no chance I’d ever get out, so why embarrass him? And why risk Beijing’s finding out and vanishing me completely?”

“Then you read about the human-rights treaty.”

“No. It won’t be announced in the Chinese papers until it’s signed. The Uigher political prisoners told me.” Thayer pushed the soup bowl away.

“At that point, I allowed myself to hope. Maybe there was a chance I’d be overlooked among the crush of releases and accidentally let go.” He stood up and walked to his hot plate.

Chiavelli watched with half-closed eyes. Despite Thayer’s advanced age— he had to be at least eighty-two, according to Klein — he walked energetically, steady and firm. His posture was erect but relaxed. There was a spring to his step, now, too, as if he had shed years in the fifteen minutes they had been talking. All of this was important.

Routine had saved Thayer’s sanity. He picked up a chipped enamel kettle, carried it to the scarred sink, filled it, and put it on the hot plate.

From a little cupboard, he brought out two chipped cups and a tin canister of black tea. His method of making tea was an unusual mixture of traditional English and traditional Chinese. He poured the boiling water into the earthenware pot, rinsed it, poured it away, then measured in four teaspoons of tea. He immediately poured more boiling water onto it and let it steep less than a minute. The result was a pale, golden-brown liquid. The pungent aroma filled the cell.

“We drink this without milk or sugar.” He gave Chiavelli a cup.

The undercover agent sat up and leaned back against the wall, cradling it.

Thayer sat at the table with his. He sighed. “Now I’m beginning to believe getting out because of the treaty is just the pipe dream of a man at the end of his years. They’ve held me in secret far too long to admit that they’ve held me at all. It’d make their human-rights record look even more despicable.” Chiavelli drank. The tea was light-bodied and mild for his Italian-American palate, but it was hot, a welcome improvement to the underheated barrack. “Tell me what happened, Dr. Thayer. Why were you arrested in the first place?”

Thayer set down his cup and stared into it as if he could see the past.

When he looked up, he said, “I was working as a liaison with Chiang Kaishek’s organization. My job supposedly was to bring about some kind of detente between his Nationalists and Mao’s Communists, so I thought it’d help the process along if I personally went to Mao and reasoned with him.” He gave a smile that was half grimace. “How ludicrous. How naive. Of course, what I didn’t see was that my real mission was to keep Chiang in power. I was supposed to make deals, hold talks, and stall until Chiang could destroy Mao and the Communists. Going to Mao was the quixotic notion of an inexperienced intellectual who believed people could talk rationally together even when power, values, cultures, ideas, classes, haves, have-nots, and geopolitical spheres of influence were in conflict.”

“So you really did it? You actually went to see Mao alone?” He sounded both amazed and horrified.

Thayer gave a thin smile. “I tried. Never got to him. His army decided I was an agent of the West, or of Chiang, or both. Of course, they arrested me. I would’ve been shot by the soldiers, if Mao’s politicians hadn’t intervened because I had diplomatic status. Over the years, I often wished I had been shot on the spot.”

“Why did they report you dead and then hold you like the Soviets held Wallenberg?”

“Raoul Wallenberg? You mean the Soviets did have him?”

“Denied they did, never released him, and for fifty years continued denying they ever had held him. He died early on, in custody.”

Thayer seemed to sag. “I expect what happened to me was what happened to him. They couldn’t believe he was nothing more than he appeared. That’s the direct result of paranoia, the kind that happens when anyone who speaks out is ruthlessly suppressed. At the time I was captured, the Communist revolution was sweeping China. There was such chaos … endlessly changing commanders, new civilian orders, confounding proclamations, and bureaucrats who had no idea what was going on. I think I must’ve been simply lost in the machinery. By the time Zhongnanhai stabilized, it was too late to send me home without creating an international incident and losing face.” He turned the warm cup between his gnarled fingers. “And here they intend for me to stay. Until I die.” “No,” Chiavelli said firmly. “What happened to Wallenberg isn’t going to happen to you. You won’t die in captivity. When the treaty’s signed, China will release all political prisoners. The president will make a point of bringing you to the attention of Niu Jianxing and the rest of the Standing Committee. I’ve heard he’s called the Owl, because he’s a wise man.”

David Thayer shook his head. “No, Captain Chiavelli. When that treaty is signed by the general secretary and my son, I will have been conveniently ” again. If my son pushes too hard and makes an issue at this late date, no one will ever find me. Instead, a hundred old men will appear and claim to have witnessed my death a half century ago.

There’ll be assorted proofs. Probably pictures of my grave that is now, alas, deep underwater behind some new dam.” He shrugged, resigned.

Chiavelli studied him. The Covert-One agent was a former special forces captain who had operated in Somalia and the Sudan. Recently, he was called back into action in the valleys, caves, and mountains of eastern and northern Afghanistan. Now his new assignment was David Thayer. His first question was whether Thayer could be extracted.

He had surveyed the immediate area and found it encouraging. It was sufficiently rural and remote, if not sparsely populated — nowhere in China, except for Xinjiang, Gansu, and the Mongolias, was sparsely populated. Outside Chongqing, the roads were bad, military installations scattered, and airfields primitive. Fortunately for his assignment, outside Dazu, they were largely nonexistent.

The camp guards were well armed, but they lacked sharp discipline. Their resistance to a swift, heavily armed, and well-planned raid would likely be minimal. With some help from inside, which he planned to provide, and a certain amount of good luck … experienced raiders could be in and out within ten minutes, back in the air within twenty, and more than halfway to the border and safety before significant military force could be assembled.

The big question now was Thayer’s stamina. So far, Chiavelli liked what he saw. Despite his age, he seemed in decent condition.

“How’s your general health, Dr. Thayer?”

“As good as could be expected. The usual aches, pains, discomforts, and annoyances. I’m not going to leap tall buildings or climb Mount Everest, but they keep us in shape here. After all, there are fields to be plowed.”

“Calisthenics, jogging, walking, working out?”

“Morning and evening calisthenics and jogging, when the weather’s good.

Minimal calisthenics in the barracks, when it isn’t. The governor likes to keep everyone busy when we’re not working. I do clerical work, of course. He doesn’t want us to sit around and plot or get into arguments.

Inactivity leads to thinking and restlessness — a dangerous combination in a prisoner.” Thayer hesitated. He sat up straighter. His faded eyes narrowed as he turned to stare at Chiavelli. “You’re thinking about getting me out of here somehow?”

“There are considerations. Constraints. Not just your health, but what my boss thinks and what the president can and can’t do. You understand?”

“Yes. That was my life. Politics. Interests. Diplomacy. Those forces are always at work, aren’t they? The same ” that made State keep me ignorant about what we were really doing back in ‘-eight.

That and my naivete got me into this mess.”

“The Chinese won’t keep you here much longer, if I have my way. And I think I will.”

David Thayer nodded and stood. “I have to go to work. They’ll leave you alone for now. Tomorrow, you’ll go to the fields.”

“So my friendly guards tell me.”

“What’s your next move?”

“I make my report.”

In a pricey boutique in the Conrad International Hotel, Jon bought a white Stetson hat, using the credit card for one of his covers — Mr. Ross Sidor from Tucson, Arizona. He put on the hat, checked into the hotel, and overtipped the bellman so he would remember Mr. Ross Sidor. As soon as Jon was alone in his room, he went to work: He changed into the gray slacks and neon-bright Hawaiian shirt from his backpack. Over the shirt and slacks, he put on the suit he had worn yesterday to Donk & Lapierre.

It was tight but manageable. Finally, he added the blond wig again and shoved his Beretta into his belt at the small of his back. Ready to go, he packed the blue seersucker sport jacket, canvas running shoes, folded Panama hat, and backpack into his black attache case. He picked it up and left the room. He saw no one suspicious in the lobby. Outside on Queensway, he walked deeper into Central, carried along by the mob of pedestrians that seemed to live their entire lives on the streets of the city. He had gone a block when he spotted three of the armed men who had searched for him around the public phone in Kowloon yesterday. As soon as they saw him, they spread out through the traffic and pedestrians.

They made no attempt to close in; he made no effort to lose them. He also did not try to disguise his destination. If they recognized him as Major Kenneth St. Germain, they might be surprised and, he hoped, confused to see him return to the high-rise that housed Donk & Lapierre.

When he spotted the building, he shoved through the crowds to the entrance. As he went inside, his three tails took up posts across the street, one talking urgently into a cell phone. Jon smiled to himself.

Altman Asia occupied the top ten floors of the building. The head of Altman Asia was Ferdinand Aguinaldo, the former president of the Philippines. His office was even higher — the penthouse. Jon took the elevator up. The waiting area was decorated with green bamboo, tall carved tables, and high-backed chairs and sofas. The Filipina receptionist smiled politely. “May I help you?”

“Dr. Kenneth St. Germain. I’d like to see Mr. Aguinaldo.”

“His excellency is not in Hong Kong at this time, sir. May I inquire why you want to see him?”

“I’m here on behalf of the surgeon general of the United States to consult with Donk & Lapierre’s biomedical subsidiary on mainland China and its research into hantaviruses.” He showed his USAMRIID credentials and flashed a fake letter from the surgeon general’s office. “Mr. Cruyff downstairs sent me up to talk to Mr. Aguinaldo.”

The receptionist’s eyebrows raised, impressed. She studied the surgeon general’s signature and looked up. “I’m sorry that Mr. Aguinaldo isn’t here to receive you, sir. Perhaps Mr. Mcdermid can help. He’s chairman and CEO of the Altman Group worldwide. He’s a very important man.

Perhaps you could speak with him?” “Mcdermid is here?” Jon said, as if he knew the CEO and chairman personally.

“On his annual visit,” she said proudly.

“Mcdermid will do. Yes, I’ll see him.” The woman smiled again and opened her interoffice line.

Lawrence Wood stepped inside the elegant penthouse office of Ferdinand Aguinaldo, head of Altman Asia.

“What is it, Lawrence?” Behind the big desk, Ralph Mcdermid stretched and yawned.

“The receptionist says a Dr. Kenneth St. Germain has arrived with a letter from the U.S. Surgeon General. He wants to see Aguinaldo. He says Cruyff down at Donk & Lapierre sent him up, and she wonders if you’d care to meet the man, since he has such good credentials.” Mcdermid said, “Tell her I’ll be free in fifteen minutes.”

Wood hesitated. “Cruyff couldn’t have sent him.”

“I know. Just give her the message. On the other hand, I’ll do it myself.”

“As you wish.” Wood frowned and returned to his outer office.

Mcdermid touched his intercom button. He was feeling more cheerful. With the strange arrival of Jon Smith, things were looking up. “I’d be delighted to see Dr. St. Germain,” he told the receptionist. “Ask him to give me fifteen minutes, and then I’ll be down.” As she gave her usual pert reply, he severed the connection and dialed his man, Feng Dun.

“Where are you, Feng?”

“Outside.” Again Feng cursed Cho, the assassin chosen for the night. He had failed to eliminate Smith, and his corpse had not been discovered in time to send a replacement. “My men saw him go in. Did he return to Donk & Lapierre?”

“No. He’s up here in the penthouse lobby. He wants to see me.”

“You?” A moment of shock. “How does he know you’re even in Hong Kong?”

“One wonders. I’m fascinated. I think we’re lucky he survived your killers. I want to learn more about this unusual doctor’s sources.”

Chapter Twenty-One

To Major Pan Aitu, the small office of Niu Jianxing — the legendary Owl— was intriguing. As ascetic as a monk’s cell, it had unadorned walls, shuttered windows, a worn wood floor with no rug, a simple student desk and chair for the master himself, and two wood chairs for visitors. At the same time, the desk and the floor were clogged with haphazard piles of files and documents, ashtrays stinking with masses of half-inch butts of the English cigarettes that were Niu’s one indulgence, stained tea mugs, food-encrusted paper plates, and other detritus that indicated his days were long and intense. It was a contradiction that mirrored the man himself.

As a longtime intelligence agent, Major Pan was an astute reader of the intricate maze of individual psychologies, and so he enjoyed himself while Master Niu continued to read the report he had been bent over when Pan arrived. The only sound was of Niu’s turning over sheets of paper.

Major Pan decided the office displayed the serenity of the solitary thinker, as well as the cluttered turmoil of the man of action, fused together in the same person. Yes, the Owl was a throwback to those giants who had founded and led the revolution. Poets and teachers who became generals. Thinkers who were forced by the necessity of history to brawl and kill. Pan had known only one of those revered ones — Deng Xiaoping himself, in his extreme old age. Deng had been but a young general back in the idealistic years between the Shanghai Massacre and the Long March. Major Pan did not like many people. He found it a waste of time. But there was something about Niu Jianxing that appealed to him. Niu, true to form, broke the silence without looking up, a hint of rush in his voice.

“General Chu tells me you have a report he would have you give me directly.”

“Yes, sir. We thought it best, considering your request for information on the cargo ship.”

“The Dowager Empress, yes.” Niu nodded down toward his paperwork. “You have what I want?”

“I may have some of it,” Pan said, cautiously. He had learned to use extreme care when making claims or promises to leaders of the government, especially to those on the Standing Committee. Niu Jianxing looked up sharply. His decidedly unsleepy eyes were hard points of coal behind his tortoiseshell glasses. His sunken cheeks and delicate features showed displeasure. “You don’t know whether you have it, Major?” The intelligence agent felt a moment of emptiness. Then-. “I know, Master Niu.” The Owl sat back. He studied the small, pudgy Major Pan, his little hands, his appeasing voice, his benevolent smile. As usual, Pan was dressed in a conservative Western suit. He was the perfect operative — slippery, anonymous, clever, and dedicated. Still, for all that, Pan was also a product of the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, and a too-rigid system that left little room for the individual.

Plus, there was the five-thousand-year history of China that valued the individual even less. If Niu continued to push for a yes-or-no answer, the spycatcher would say no rather than give a positive statement that could be construed as a declaration of success. If he were to know everything Major Pan had learned about the Empress before the Standing Committee met later today, he would have to let him tell it his own way.

Niu repressed a sigh of frustration. “Make your report, Major.”

“Thank you, master.” Pan explained who Avery Mondragon was and described his disappearance the day before Jon Smith arrived in Shanghai. “You believe this Mondragon is, or was, an American intelligence agent?”

Pan nodded. “I do, but not an ordinary one. There’s something unusual about the Americans involved in this case. They act like undercover spies, yet they’re not spies. Or at least not affiliated with any of the intelligence agencies we know of in the United States.”

“That would apply to Colonel Smith — the doctor and scientist — also?”

“I believe so. His scientific work isn’t a cover. He really is a medical doctor and scientist. At the same time, he appears to be using his specialty as a cover.”

“Interesting. Are these American operatives private? Perhaps working for a business or an individual?”

“It’s possible. I will continue to seek an answer.”

Niu nodded. “It may be of little practical significance. We shall see.

Go on, Major.”

Pan warmed to his report. “A cleaning woman discovered the body of a man named Zhao Yanji in the office of the president of Flying Dragon Enterprises in downtown Shanghai. Flying Dragon is an international shipping company with connections in Hong Kong and Antwerp.”

“Who was Zhao?”

“Flying Dragon’s treasurer. Not only is he dead, the company president is missing, as is his wife. The president’s name is Yu Yongfu. His wife is Li Kuonyi.”

“The beautiful actress?”

“Yes, sir.” The major related the rapid rise of her husband into wealth and power with the apparent help of her father, the influential Li Aorong.

The Owl did not know Li Aorong personally but by reputation. “Yes, of course. Li is high up in Shanghai’s municipal government.” What he did not say was that Li was also the protege of Wei Gaofan, one of his hardline colleagues on the Standing Committee. All things considered, Wei was the most powerful of all the hard-liners, and Li Aorong’s politics were identical to Wei’s.

“Yes,” Pan acknowledged. “We spoke with Li. He has no explanation for the murder of Zhao or the disappearances of his daughter and her husband. But―” Pan moved forward, perching on the edge of the straight chair, as he explained about An (”Andy”) Jingshe, the young interpreter who had studied in the United States and who was seen in Colonel Smith’s company. Later, Andy was found shot to death in his car. “That is, so far, what we know.”

The Owl’s expression was somber behind his large glasses. “An American in Shanghai disappears. Colonel Smith arrives the next day. The treasurer of a shipping company is murdered. The president of that company and his wife vanish. And an American-educated Shanghainese interpreter is killed that night. Is that your report?”

“With the addition that when we finally located Colonel Smith again, he evaded us, fled, and has apparently gotten out of China altogether.”

“We can speak of that later. When does my request for information about the cargo ship, The Dowager Empress, appear in your report?”

Pan sat back, chastised. “Flying Dragon Enterprises is the owner of the Empress.” He should have said that earlier.

“Ah.” Niu’s chest tightened. So that was the connection. “You have formed an opinion of these events?”

“I think that after Yu Yongfu acquired Flying Dragon, his treasurer discovered something he didn’t like, something that concerned the United States. He leaked it to Mondragon, who took the information to the Americans. Or tried to. Something went wrong. Mondragon was most probably killed and the information lost. Smith was sent in to retrieve it. Also, it seems to us that Andy Jingshe was an American asset assigned to guide and interpret for Smith.”

The minister pursed his lips, thinking. “Therefore … people in our country — not our security forces — are willing to go to extremes to stop the Americans in their quest, whatever that quest is. The information the treasurer discovered, and Smith’s attempts to find it again, led to the death of the treasurer, the disappearances of Yu Yongfu and his wife, and the murder of the interpreter.”

“Something along those lines, sir. Yes.”

Niu’s sense of foreboding increased. “What do you think the treasurer found at Flying Dragon that has ignited this dangerous uproar?” He reached for a cigarette.

“I had no thoughts about that until you asked for information about the Empress. That was when I learned she was part of Flying Dragon’s fleet.

I don’t know what prompted your inquiry, but the connection to the case of Colonel Smith can’t be a coincidence.” “I asked for information about the freighter, its destination, and its cargo. Which is everything there is to know of such a ship.”

“Yes, sir.”

He lit his cigarette and inhaled uneasily. “What have you found?”

“The destination is Basra. It’s scheduled to arrive in the gulf in approximately three days.”

“Iraq.” Niu shook his head. He did not like that news. “What’s the cargo?”

“According to the manifest on file, it’s carrying DVDs, clothing, industrial products of various types, farm implements, agricultural supplies — the usual load one would expect to be going to Iraq. Nothing special. Certainly nothing that should interest the Americans.” As the counterintelligence agent concluded, he watched the Owl with a question in his eyes.

“Yet the Americans are interested. Very interested,” Niu said, turning the question back on Pan. He was not about to inform the major of the emergency that was brewing about the freighter. Thus far, only the Standing Committee and Ambassador Wu in Washington knew. He hoped to resolve it before it exploded into a crisis. “You have a thought about all of this, Major Pan?”

“If, as I now suspect, the Empress is involved, it can be only because of the cargo.”

“Therefore, you think the official manifest filed by Flying Dragon is false, and the Americans know this.”

“What other conclusion could there be?”

The Owl inhaled. He blew out smoke. “Did Colonel Smith get what he came for?”

“That we don’t know.”

“That is what I must know, Major. Immediately.”

“We will find Yu Yongfu, question his father-in-law, and investigate Flying Dragon.”

Niu nodded. “Now tell me how Colonel Smith evaded you a second time, without speaking our language or having been in China before, and then escaped the country … after his interpreter was killed?”

“We think he had help from a cell of the Uigher resistance. My people are searching for them now, but they hide among the old longtangs, as hard to catch as rats in a sewer. The police don’t take them seriously enough, largely because they’re so few. Consequently, they’ve gone unregulated. Like the rat, they’re smart, adaptable, and determined.”

“Obviously there aren’t as few as we’d like,” Niu said. “How did they help Smith?”

“They took him into the longtangs and hid him, and then they managed somehow to get him out again. After that, we have only hints. A police roadblock recalls letting a party of Uighers in a Land Rover pass through. Two of the Uighers had long-standing residence papers for Shanghai, and anyone with official passes like that, of course, can move about freely. Later, many shots were heard on a Huangzhou Bay beach between Jinshan and Zhapu. And this morning, one of our patrol boats reported a submarine identified as American surfaced offshore soon after the gunfire ceased.”

Niu was silent. He smoked. At last, he nodded. “Thank you, Major Pan.

Continue the investigation as a top priority.”

Major Pan looked reluctant to leave, as if he wanted to resolve all of these questions here and now, but he was also a well-trained government man. He stood up, his stubby body erect.

He straightened his European suit jacket. “Yes, sir.”

Niu put out his cigarette as the agent closed the door behind him. He leaned back and rocked on the back legs of his chair. He contemplated the question of what was so important that the Americans would risk not only sending a submarine within a few thousand yards of China’s coast, but dispatching a guided-missile frigate to shadow the Empress. The situation had a sour taste.

Shaking his head with worry, he thought about the gunfire on the beach and about the ambitious Li Aorong, who apparently had helped his son-in-law to great business success. Then Niu contemplated what he could not tell Major Pan, or General Chu Kuairong, or anyone else in the government or the Party: He was secretly making every effort to open up China to all of the opportunities the world offered.

Melancholy swept over him. He remembered how, when he was a young man, Chairman Mao had spoken eloquently of his yearning for the open, simple days before 1949, when all he had to do was write poetry and fight the enemies of China. After that, he was trapped in the hidden, dirty, and convoluted machinations of governmental interests and power.

What Niu wanted at the moment — the signed human-rights agreement— could lead to a better life for everyone. Still, he suspected the treaty had far more opponents in the public sector than it did supporters. But then, that was because so many high officials were opposed … on both sides of the ocean.

Hong Kong.

A polite smile on his face, Jon Smith settled into one of the high-backed chairs in the penthouse lobby outside the Altman office suite. He had heard Ralph Mcdermid tell the receptionist he would see him. As he waited, he clicked open his attache case as if to check his notes.

Abruptly, he slammed the lid closed and jumped up. “Damnation! I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to swear, miss. I must’ve left my notebook down at Donk & Lapierre.” He glanced at his watch and then at the polished grandfather clock that stood in a corner. “Mcdermid’s coming to meet me in fifteen minutes. I’ll be back in ten.”

Before she could protest, he ran, carrying his attache case to the elevators. He punched the button and stepped into the car, which was empty. As the doors closed, he smiled and waved back at the startled woman. He had little time and silently urged the elevator to hurry. He got off two floors below and rushed along the corridor until he found a public restroom. Once inside a stall, he peeled off his outer suit and put on the light-blue seersucker sport jacket, the blue canvas running shoes, and the collapsible Panama hat from his attache case. With his gray slacks and Hawaiian shirt, he had the gaudy appearance of an American tourist with more money than taste. He packed the suit into the attache case, and the attache case into his backpack. He put on the backpack and slipped out the door.

Thinking about what he suspected he would find, he stepped onto a different elevator and faded into the rear as businesspeople entered and left at several of the floors, heading down. When the car at last reached the mezzanine, he pushed his way through the packed passengers, who were continuing down to the lobby.

He got off the elevator. The inner wall of the mezzanine was lined with glass doors into expensive boutiques, travel agencies, and office shops.

The outer wall was no wall. It was a marble parapet that rose to waist height, interspersed with thick pillars supporting the floor above. The parapet overlooked the vast lobby. Jon stood in the cover of a pillar, where he could see the marble stairs that swept up to the mezzanine, the bank of elevators, and the building’s entrance.

Jon waited impatiently. Suddenly the man he had hoped to see was there — the big Chinese who had led the attack in Shanghai. Feng Dun. He was pushing in through the lobby’s glass doors, followed by three men Jon also recognized. For the first time, he got a good look at Feng: He was so pale his skin seemed to be bloodless. His close-cropped hair was a light red with patches of stark white. He was shorter than Jon had thought when he saw him in the dark. Still, he was tall for a Han, maybe six-foot-three, and muscular — not an ounce more than two hundred pounds.

He paused just inside the doors and surveyed the lobby as if searching for something — or someone.

Ralph Mcdermid put his patented genial smile on his face and walked out of the private penthouse elevator. He paused to gaze around the reception area for Dr. Kenneth St. Germain.

Except for the receptionist, the luxurious room was empty. She stared in awe.

He frowned at her. “Where is he?”

“Er, Mr. Mcdermid. I’m very sorry, sir, but Dr. St. Germain rushed downstairs to pick up his notebook at Donk & Lapierre. He’ll be right back.” She glanced at the clock. “Oh, my. He said he’d be gone just ten minutes, but it’s fifteen already. Should I call to see what happened?”

“Yes. But ask only whether he’s there now or was there. That’s all.

Don’t speak to him or have him sent up.” It was possible the man could have gone to Donk & Lapierre for some reason.

She called, asked her questions, and ended the connection. She looked at Mcdermid in confusion. “They say he’s not there and never was. Not even earlier.”

Behind Mcdermid, the elevator doors opened. As Mcdermid turned, Feng Dun stepped out. Feng held a 9mm Glock that looked small in his big hand.

The receptionist’s eyes grew large and frightened as she took in his appearance. Her gaze froze on the Glock.

Feng’s whispery voice asked, “Where is he?”

“Gone,” Mcdermid said, disgusted. “He left fifteen minutes ago.” “He’s still in the building,” Feng said flatly. “We’ve been watching. He can’t leave. He’s trapped.”

Jon was on edge, his shoulders tight, his muscles aching to fight.

Still, he remained hidden behind the mezzanine pillar, studying the lobby below.

After Feng Dun had instructed his three gunmen, he entered an elevator.

The numbers above the door indicated it had shot straight up to the penthouse. Even though Jon had already guessed, he was still shaken: It looked increasingly probable that Ralph Mcdermid had stalled Jon upstairs so he could summon these killers. Which meant the chairman and CEO of the mighty Altman Group was likely not only a player in the Empress crisis but was intimately involved in the bloody aspects of it.

Beneath Jon, the three hunters took up unobtrusive positions, where they could cover all exits. When Feng Dun returned, he did not so much stride from the elevator as appear as if by magic, suddenly there on the lobby floor. He made a subtle gesture close to his hip, and the four converged on a corner behind potted palms. As they conferred, they observed everyone who passed through. Feng glanced up at the mezzanine once and seemed to fix his gaze on where Jon stood in the shadow of the column.

Jon stepped slowly back. He checked his disguise, from the Hawaiian shirt to his blue tennis shoes. He tugged the Panama hat lower over his forehead and slipped his Beretta into the small of his back under the seersucker jacket. As he headed for the staircase, he bent his knees a fraction of an inch and aimed his toes inward, giving him a faintly prissy walk.

He did not look at the killers, although each glanced at him. He found himself stiffen with tension, waiting for one to decide he was worth stopping. As he passed them and closed in on the glass doors that opened onto the street and safety, he could feel someone’s gaze hot on his back. He pushed through the glass doors, waiting to be stopped.

When he was not, he felt a moment of surprise, then relief. As he walked out of the building and crossed the street, the daylight seemed particularly bright and welcoming. He took up a position in the shadows and waited.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was nearly dark when Ralph Mcdermid finally left the building through a side door, although Feng Dun and his hunters had emerged hours before, one at a time, and scattered as if on assignments. Because the Hong Kong crowds had swollen with the evening rush to go home, Jon did not hang back. During the afternoon, the humidity had broken, and the struggle through the mass of pedestrians was easier.

Frustrated and worried, he hurried to keep the CEO in sight. Mcdermid walked only as far as the Central station of the M. T.R., the subway. Jon waited twenty seconds, bought a ticket, and followed. There were fewer people on the platform, and Jon paused, making certain no one else surveilled the CEO — either surreptitiously or as a hidden bodyguard.

When the train came, Mcdermid entered a car, and Jon slipped on behind, through a second door. Mcdermid wove forward until he found a space he liked on one of the stainless steel benches. He sat and stared into space, making eye contact with none of his silent, weary fellow passengers and ignoring the colorful advertisements, all of which were in Chinese, very different from the days before the island returned to mainland China’s control and commercials appeared in English as well.

Jon moved in the opposite direction and grabbed a pole, his back half turned, where he could catch Mcdermid in a window reflection. He found himself wondering why anyone of Mcdermid’s position and wealth was riding the subway. Not going far? Not wanting to use company cars or personnel in another man’s empire? Tired of the pandemonium and pressure of the streets? Cheap? Or, more likely, he wanted no one, not even a chauffeur or taxi driver, to know where he was going.

The ride was remarkably quiet and smooth. Mcdermid never bothered to gaze around, apparently unconcerned that he might have picked up a tail.

He got off a couple of stops later, at the Wanchai station. Jon waited until the last moment again, when the CEO was already some forty feet away, to squeeze out through the closing doors. He hurried out to Hennessy Road, where Mcdermid was ambling along, looking relaxed.

Mcdermid led him through Wanchai, Hong Kong’s former red-light district.

Once notorious for sex and drugs, the area had fallen on hard times. The result was that the city’s booming financial district had invaded. New high-rises clustered together, and the newest and best hotels asked and received more than three thousand dollars a night for rooms.

Hands in his pockets, Mcdermid strolled down neon-lighted Lockhart Road, where most of the remaining sex trade was. Here, Wanchai still lived down to its tawdry reputation. Wanchai girls loitered at bar doors and gave a well-rehearsed pssst to any man who looked as if he could pay.

There were gaudy hostess clubs, topless bars, discos, and raucous English and Irish pubs. The signs and the spielers, the neon and the come-ons were still loud and bright here, broadcasting the delights inside for the hungry and the lonely.

But the beat was gone. Neither he nor Mcdermid gave more than a glance at the tarnished pleasure shacks, while Jon again wondered where Mcdermid was headed — and why.

At last, the CEO turned into a side street and then into a brick office building in the shadow of a spanking new higher-and-shinier, glass-and-steel monolith of offices. The street was narrow. Vendors assembled their gear. A few stores offered peep shows and porn, tattoos and adult toys. At the same time, a steady stream of middle-class office workers and executive types left the brick building on their way home to the darkening hills and suburbs, a reflection of the cultural schizophrenia that Wanchai had become.

His curiosity growing, Jon used the exiting stream as cover and slipped inside. In the marble-lined lobby, Ralph Mcdermid stood facing a row of filigreed elevators. When a car emptied a small river of people, he walked inside, the only passenger, since everyone else was leaving.

Again Jon watched the numbers of the floors light up on the indicator above the door. Me-Dermid’s car stopped on the tenth then returned down.

Jon stepped into another car and pressed the button. At the eleventh floor, he rushed off and ran down the fire stairs two at a time. Finally on the tenth, he peered out into a twin of the empty, marble-lined corridor above. Where had Mcdermid gone?

Jon jerked back when three women left one of the offices and headed toward the elevators, chattering in Chinese. Flattened against the stairwell, he listened, mystified, wishing he had learned the language.

Before he could look out again, other footsteps clattered along the marble floor and stopped at the elevator, where the three women were still talking. More doors opened and closed, and the unseen corridor was silent again … except for a rustling that passed directly outside his door.

Jon cracked it open and peered out. Dressed in the black pajamas and conical strawhat of a rural peasant, a Chinese woman disappeared through the door at the very end of the hall. But where was Mcdermid? As he was about to go looking, he heard what he thought was the CEO’s voice from somewhere to the right, beyond the elevators. He gave a grim smile, pulled out his Beretta, and padded into the corridor.

He listened at each door. All were identical — cheap and hollow-core, with steel mail slots and name plaques that announced the businesses housed inside, everything from accountants to start-up Web site companies, dentists to secretarial services. Muted voices sounded from behind several, and a radio station from one. He was beginning to worry that he had somehow lost Mcdermid when he heard him again.

He slowed. The muffled tones were coming from the other side of a door that proclaimed in Chinese and English: dr. James chou, acupuncture & shiatsu. It appeared that Ralph Mcdermid indulged in acupuncture or shisu massage or both. But why did he go to the trouble of taking the subway here and then the long walk? Mcdermid was a physically soft man.

Or was he here for a different purpose? Perhaps this was a front for an old-fashioned “massage parlor.”

As Jon thought that, he dropped low and peered in through the mail slot.

The reception area was sparsely furnished, with cheap molded-plastic chairs and tables. The couch was overstuffed and had bamboo arms and braces.

Magazines in both Chinese and English lay on the tables and couch. The waiting room was deserted. So where was the voice coming from? Had he been wrong?

Weapon in hand, he turned the knob and crept inside. That was when he saw the second door. Mcdermid said something from the room on the other side of it.

Jon had begun to smile to himself when suddenly there was complete silence. The talk had stopped in the inner office. Two people — Mcdermid and the doctor or the masseur — should make some sound … Jon’s chest tightened as a new answer occurred to him. There was another reason Mcdermid might take the subway and walk. Mcdermid could have expected to be followed. He could have expected Jon. The unpleasant truth was … Mcdermid could have lured him into an ambush.

Jon spun, dove to the floor, and skidded behind the couch, his Beretta ready.

The hall door flew open, latch and hinges ripping, and crashed to the floor in a shower of splinters. Two of his earlier tails slammed through the opening, pistols preceding them.

Jon squeezed off two rounds. One of the men fell onto his face and slid across the linoleum floor, leaving a slash of red blood. The other flung himself backward out of harm’s way, into the hall again. Jon’s bullet had missed him.

Jon snaked forward on his elbows. The second man darted into view again, gun aimed at the couch. Jon was halfway toward the door, where the gunman had not expected him to be. Jon fired once. This time there was a grunt of pain, a curse, and the man fell back.

Warily, Jon reached the shattered doorway and positioned himself low but where he could rise to see along the hall toward the elevators and where anyone trying to enter the reception room through the second door would have to be fully inside before they could focus on him and shoot. Ahead in the hall, two men bent over a third, who sat against the wall. Blood pooled at his side, where Jon’s shot had connected. They glanced angrily back at the office where Jon hid and watched.

Jon scrambled up, ran to the couch, laid it on its cloth side, and pushed it to the doorway. He positioned it to cover his flank and dropped to the floor again.

He could hear the sounds of feet outside in the corridor, trying to be quiet. His hunters were moving in. He made himself stay down. He counted off ten seconds, raised up, and dropped one with a single shot as he burst in, low to the floor.

As the cry of pain echoed against the marble walls, the office’s other door blasted open and shots slammed into the couch’s bamboo and stuffing. Jon fell flat, waiting. His heart ticked into his ears.

Finally, a man jumped through the door and into the room, a tiny submachine gun in his hands. Jon fired off a bullet. The man catapulted back against a large window and crashed through, his scream receding as he dropped from sight.

Jon raised above the couch again to check the hall. They were closing in — three this time. He fired twice, and they scurried back, but for how long? They would try again from the inner room, too. He had another clip, but eventually they would coordinate better, attack simultaneously from both doors, and that would end it. He would be killed or captured.

He was unsure which they wanted.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. On one knee, he waited for the next assault from the inner office. Without warning, they barreled through.

There were two now. They moved faster and were cleverer, diving to either side, while he had to remain alert in case those in the hall attacked simultaneously. He emptied his gun, spraying the chairs, tables, walls. He slammed in his last clip — and they were gone.

Or were they? Abruptly, more shots exploded, shook the walls. But from where? The hall or the inner office? And where were the bullets? Nothing hit the couch where he crouched, and nothing slammed into the waiting room. Should he drop or remain kneeling? As another fusillade erupted, he realized the noise came from out in the hall. Oddly, they were not shooting at him.

He raised up and looked. There were four of them, including the two from the inner office. The fifth and sixth — both injured — lay in one of the elevators, the doors jammed open. The remaining four hunters were firing away from him, toward the opposite end of the corridor. Abruptly, one turned and shot back, trying to keep him pinned down.

He returned fire, rising and dropping. Suddenly there was swearing, scrambling, and the slam of a door as heavy feet raced away. He listened. An elevator door closed. There was silence from both the corridor and the inner room. Were they really gone? Or was this another damn trick?

Cautiously, he leaned out to look. The hall was empty in both directions.

The old building creaked. Somewhere on another floor, a toilet flushed.

Jon inhaled. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead as he studied the motionless man he had shot, who still lay sprawled on the floor of the waiting room. He crab-walked to him. The man was dead, and his pockets carried nothing that would identify him.

Disappointed, Jon jumped up and sped into the inner office. There was a massage table, a cabinet, a chair, and a portable radio-and-CD player.

Everything had been riddled with gunfire. Wind whistled through the broken window through which one of the men he had shot had crashed.

Below, sirens screamed. The Hong Kong police were on their way.

There was a second door in here, too. It stood open into the hall. He sprinted toward it and gazed carefully out. The corridor was still deserted, blood and bullet casings making a trail to the elevator.

Beretta in both hands, he moved toward the elevators, too, swinging the pistol front and back, covering the passageway, as he continued past and reached the last door in the hall, the only other one that was open. It faced the length of the corridor.

Beretta up, he rolled around the doorjamb and pointed. In his sights was the Chinese peasant woman he had seen earlier from his hiding place in the stairwell. Still dressed in her black pajamas and conical straw hat, she sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against a rolltop desk.

There was a cell phone at her side. Both hands aimed a thoroughly non-peasant 9mm Glock at him.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Still keeping her Glock aimed at him, her voice was irritated as she said in perfect American English, “So this is the answer. Your goal in life is to screw up my operations. Your timing stinks.” But she smiled.

“Randi?”

“Hi, soldier.” She lowered her weapon.

He stared as he put his away. “Unbelievable. The CIA just keeps getting better at their disguises.” So this was where the other gunfire had originated. Randi had created the diversion that had saved him.

She uncoiled from the floor and rose to her feet in a single motion. “Do I hear sirens?”

“You do. We’d better get the hell out of here.”

The scent of camellias floated in from the lush garden at Zhongnanhai as Niu Jianxing — the Owl — leaned back, listening angrily to the discussion at tonight’s special Standing Committee meeting. All of his intellect was being required to keep his program on track in the face of the Empress crisis. He could not allow his bad temper to show.

“First the American spy, who has, it seems, been allowed to escape,” Wei Gaofan complained. His fierce, temple-dog scowl made his usually unsmiling face seem almost kindly. “Now this American warship — what is it? the John Crowe? — invading our rights on the high seas! It’s an outrage!” It was the hawk party line.

“Exactly how did Colonel Smith escape?” Song Riuyu, one of the younger members of the Standing Committee, asked.

Niu said calmly, “That is being investigated as we speak.”

“How is it being investigated?” Wei Gaofan demanded. “Are you forming one of those endless, pointless committees like the Europeans do?”

Niu’s voice was suddenly sharp. “Are you volunteering for that committee? If so, I can certainly form one and would be honored to add your name … ”

“You have the confidence of us all, Jianxing,” corpulent Shi Jingnu purred in his smooth, silk-merchant’s voice.

The general secretary intervened: “These matters concern all of us. I, for one, need answers to both questions. Are the Americans just waving the Roosevelt big stick, or are they actually sharpening their Kennedy swords?”

“A full report on the escape of Colonel Smith will be in your hands tomorrow,” Niu promised.

“And their frigate shadowing our cargo ship?” The secretary glanced down at the papers before him on the long table. “The Dowager Empress, is it?”

Niu nodded. “That’s her name. She’s owned by Flying Dragon Enterprises.”

He cast a swift glance toward Wei Gaofan, because the son-in-law of one of his closest proteges was the president of Flying Dragon. Still, Wei showed no particular interest — or even a reaction — to Niu’s statement.

Niu continued, “She’s registered in Hong Kong. I have completed an investigation of Flying Dragon and learned it’s operated by one Yu Yongfu in Shanghai, and that the Empress is en route to Basra, Iraq.”

There was still no reaction from Wei. At the least, he should be offering his observations if not the information that he knew Yu Yongfu.

“Iraq?” questioned Pao Peng, the secretary’s old Shanghai partner, suddenly becoming alert.

“What is its cargo?” Han Mengsu, another of the younger men, demanded.

“The actual cargo seems to be in dispute,” Niu said. He explained the possible connection of Lieutenant Colonel Smith to the Empress. “Smith came to Shanghai looking for something.”

“What does the manifest say the cargo is?” Wei Gaofan questioned.

Niu recounted the innocent cargo listed on the official manifest.

“Well, there you are,” Wei Gaofan said angrily. “As usual, the American bullies are throwing their weight around to impress their own people, as well as Europe and the weaker nations. It damn well is another Yinhe, and this time we absolutely can’t permit them to board. We’re a strong, independent nation, far larger than the United States, and we must put a stop to their warmonger politics.”

“This time,” Niu insisted, “there really could be contraband material aboard the Empress. Do we want such material to reach Iraq, especially without our knowledge or permission?” From the corners of his eyes, he continued to carefully observe Wei, not wanting him to become suspicious that he knew about Wei’s connection to Flying Dragon. The information would prove useful at some point. But not yet. As far as the Owl was concerned, patience and knowing when to act were the keys to success in all things.

“On what is that conjecture based?” Shi Jingnu demanded, his unctuous tone uncharacteristically absent.

“Colonel Dr. Smith is an unusual man to send as an agent. The only reason I can think is that he was in Taiwan and was that rare American who could get into China immediately by invitation. Whatever he actually came for had to be vital and time urgent.”

The general secretary pondered. “And you suggest that his mission could be to discover the truth about the Empress’s cargo?”

“That would qualify.”

“Which,” Wei Gaofan declared, “makes it all the more imperative the Americans are not allowed to interfere with it. If the charges are true, we would be exposed to the world.”

“Even if we had no knowledge and were innocent?” Niu asked.

Shi Jingnu said, “Who would believe that of China? And if they did, would we not appear weak and vulnerable? Not able to control our own people and in need of American oversight?”

Song Riuyu looked grave. “We may have to show our power this time, Secretary.”

Pao Peng nodded, one eye directed at the general secretary. “At least, we should plan to match them threat for threat.”

“A standoff?” the secretary mused. “You may be right. Who agrees?”

From behind his half-closed eyes, Niu Jianxing counted the hands. Seven.

Two were raised a little lower and less certain than those of Wei Gaofan, Shi Jingnu, and Pao Peng. The secretary did not raise his hand, but that was irrelevant. He would not have called for a vote had he been opposed.

Niu had a formidable task ahead if he were to save the human-rights accord. He did not like to think what else might need to be saved, if, during the standoff, someone pulled a trigger.

Chapter Twenty-Three

In the clear air of late morning in the southern Arabian Sea, the day’s heat was beginning to build as Lieutenant (jg) Moses Canfield leaned on the aft rail enjoying the fresh air before he went below for his watch in the communications-and-control nerve center of the John Crowe. The Empress, which they had been shadowing for close to twenty-four hours, was hull up on the horizon, still making a steady course for Basra. Only the officers knew where the Empress was heading and what she was supposed to be carrying, and they had been ordered to tell no one. The secrecy somehow made Can-field’s nerves worse. He had found it difficult to sleep last night.

Now he was reluctant to go below. He had always been a little claustrophobic, which had prevented him from considering the submarine service, and his imagination was working overtime. He imagined himself trapped belowdecks as the Crowe absorbed a direct missile hit and plunged to the bottom within seconds, taking everyone with it. He shivered in the day’s growing heat and told himself to get a grip.

His nervousness had not been helped by the firm lecture from Commander Chervenko about waiting patiently and alertly when shadowing a ship until one was sure it was really changing course and not simply going on a brief side venture.

“Never jump to conclusions about the actions of the enemy, Lieutenant,” Chervenko had told him. “Get information before committing your ship.

Put yourself in the other man’s position and consider what he would do.

Finally, always be sure of your identifications.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Canfield had answered. He was mortified and a shade angry at the commander.

The touch of anger, as it so often did, refocused Canfield’s mind and, at least temporarily, chased away his claustrophobia as he looked at his watch, turned from the rail, and hurried below to his post in the cramped communications-and-control center.

Radar man OS2 Fred Baum was leaning back in his chair, drinking a Diet Coke. There had been nothing on the screen except the Empress since late yesterday. The Crowe was in action, and the excitement of pursuit, which had sustained Canfield’s people for most of the last twenty-four hours, was exhausted. Now they faced another day with only a blip on the radar or, when on deck, a distant silhouette. Boredom was becoming a danger.

Canfield decided to give them a version of the captain’s lecture. “All right, people, let’s shape it up. The Empress skipper could make a move any damn time. Don’t jump to conclusions about the actions of another ship. It all may look routine, but she can turn on you in a second. We can’t be sure what the Chinese have aboard or what they have in mind.

They might have a big gun or missiles, too. Always think every second about what could be in the mind of the enemy skipper.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. You’re right.”

“Wish they’d do some damn thing.”

“You can say that again.”

“I mean―”

“Hold it!”

The shout came from OS2 Baum at his radar monitor. For a long moment, no one reacted. At first, the warning seemed nothing more than another comment in the stream of weary complaints about inaction.

Almost in unison, they turned to look.

“Report, Petty Officer!” Canfield snapped.

“I’ve got something!” Too excited to remember to say sir when talking to Canfield. “I think it’s a new bogey!”

“Take it easy, Baum.” Canfield leaned over his shoulder. “You think?”

Baum pointed to a tiny dot that appeared and then disappeared at the edge of the screen, astern of the Crowe. “It’s damn low in the water, Lieutenant. A real small profile.”

“Where?”

“Dead astern.”

“How far?”

“Maybe fifteen miles.”

Canfield turned his head. “Radio?”

“Nothing, sir.”

Canfield bent again. The blip had vanished. “Where’s it gone?” “It’s still there, Lieutenant. Like I said, it’s low, so it gets obscured by the running sea. Trust me, it’s there and coming closer.”

Canfield was having difficulty spotting it as the radar arm swept around. “You sure it’s not some weather anomaly? Maybe a surface disturbance?”

“Yessir, I’m sure.” Still, Baum craned, not quite as certain as he claimed. “It’s just damn small.”

“But coming closer?”

“Yessir. I mean, we’re hanging back, matching that tub up ahead.”

Canfield knew the Empress could do only fifteen knots at top speed, and that was pushing it.

“Damn!” Baum peered at the sweeping screen. “Now it’s out of sight again.” He looked up at Lieutenant Canfield. “But I know I saw it, sir.

It was there, and moving―”

“Lieutenant!” Sonar Technician First Class Matthew Hastings bellowed.

“What, Hastings?”

“I’ve got it, too. Dead astern!” Hastings held up earphones.

Canfield clapped one phone to his ear. “How far astern?”

“Right where Freddy’s bogey was.”

Canfield turned his head. “Baum?”

“Still nothing on radar yet, sir.”

Canfield glared at Hastings. “How fast?”

“Twenty knots, maybe twenty-two.”

“Whale?” It was a possibility. A big whale, logging on the surface.

Hastings shrugged. “Could be, but they don’t usually swim so fast unless they’re scared. Wait!” The sonar technician cocked his head as if the motion could make him hear more clearly. “Propellers, sir. It’s got an engine.”

Canfield’s voice rose. “You’re sure?”

“Shit, Lieutenant. It’s a sub. Closing in on us!”

All talk was cut off as if someone had pressed the mute on a TV remote.

Silence enveloped communications-and-control like a cocoon. Canfield hesitated. It had to be the same bogey as the one Baum had spotted on the radar — a sub running with only its conning tower above the surface.

Now it had dropped off the radar screen because it had submerged. Would it have dived if it did not intend to attack? Commander Chervenko’s words reverberated inside his head — be sure before you act, be very sure.

“Can you identify the sub, Petty Officer?”

“No, sir.” ST1 Hastings sounded uneasy. “Single screw, I’m sure of that.

The engine’s quiet, but kind of ragged. I’m getting a resistance signature I never heard before.” He listened for a time. “It’s not ours.

I can guarantee that.”

“Conventional or nuclear?”

“Nuclear for sure, but not Soviet. I mean, not Russian. I know what those suckers sound like. A small sub, attack type, nuclear.”

“British, maybe?”

Hastings shook his head. “Too small. Doesn’t sound right for that.” He glanced up at the lieutenant again. “If I had to guess, from what I learned in training, I’d say it’s an old Chinese Han class. They got new ones in the works, but I ain’t heard they launched any. Besides, it’s got the burred sound of an old design.”

The silence hung heavier as Hastings continued to listen. “It’s closing in, Lieutenant.”

“How far.”

“Ten miles.”

Canfield nodded. His lungs felt squeezed. Still, he shouted, “Sparks?

Call the bridge! Pronto!”

On the bridge, Commander Chervenko said quietly to It. Commander Bienas, “You have the bridge, Frank. Better clear for action. Everyone their posts. I’m going below.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Chervenko slid down the gangway, entered communications-and-control, and nodded to Lieutenant Canfield. “Tell me, Mose.”

Canfield filled him in on everything that had happened from the moment OS2 Baum had spotted the small blip on his radar.

“All right. Are we sure it’s Chinese?”

“Hastings can’t identify it as anything else so far.”

“I’ve had some experience with a Han class, maybe―”

ST1 Hastings looked up. “Captain! She’s slowing down!”

Commander Chervenko moved in to stand behind the sonar technician. “How far back, Hastings?”

“Five, six miles, sir.” The first-class petty officer’s eyes stared into some empty, distant place as he concentrated all his senses on his hearing. “Yeah, definitely slowing, sir.”

“You hear any activity?”

Hastings concentrated. “No, sir. Just the screw. It’s at a way lower speed.”

“Matching us?” He looked up, impressed by the commander’s accurate prediction. “Yessir, I’d say that’s exactly what she’s doing.”

Chervenko nodded. “Shadowing the shadower.”

The technicians glanced uneasily at one another.

Chervenko turned to Canfield. “Keep on top of it here, Mose. Report any change, no matter how small. I want to know if they hiccough back there.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“I’ll be in my quarters. Tell Frank on the bridge.”

Chervenko left the electronics-crammed center and hurried to his cabin.

He dialed his secure phone again.

The big voice on the far end of the line boomed, “Brose.”

“This is Commander Chervenko on the Crowe, Admiral. We’ve got some company out here. You’re not going to like it.”

When Jon thought back over the past few years to how much his life had changed since the Hades virus had killed his fiancee and had been on the verge of a world pandemic, one of his few pleasant constants had been her sister, Randi Russell. Although he seldom saw Randi, since she was usually in the field, they sometimes found themselves in the Washington area at the same time. They had a standing arrangement to leave a message on the other’s answering machine. When they connected, they would have drinks, dinner, and dancing — but their dancing was almost entirely verbal, because neither could divulge their espionage activities.

Covert-One was such a highly secret organization that he could not mention its name, much less that it existed. At the same time, she usually could say nothing about her Langley missions, which took her around the world. Occasionally, they found themselves involved in similar assignments, such as when Jon had convinced her, Peter Howell, and Marty Zellerbach to help him stop the terrifying geopolitical threat caused by Emil Chambord’s futuristic DNA computer.

Instead of returning to the corridor where so much shooting had happened only moments before, Randi opened a side door in the office. They ran across a storage area to another door that opened into another corridor.

Their first priority was to get out before the police arrived. The sirens in the distance were growing louder, closer.

“Thanks for the diversion,” he told her. “They were closing in on me.”

“Always glad to help a pal.” Her American voice from the Chinese face was unnerving. The CIA had done a remarkable job of turning a citified blond Caucasian into a black-haired Chinese peasant.

“Where are we?” “Same building,” she told him, “but a different wing. It’s the old English style of office construction. It kept the ” and corridors from being too crowded.”

This wing was quiet after quitting time, too. They rushed into an elevator and headed down to the ground floor — and then down one more level toward the basement.

As the elevator clattered, Jon said, “Impressive how well you know this building.”

She glanced at him. “Research.”

“So my problem upstairs was impacting your assignment.” She said innocently, “Ralph Mcdermid not only likes acupuncture, he’s been panting after the girl who gives the shiatsu massage. This time, he seemed to have more than needles and flirtation in mind. You must’ve activated him somehow. Could there be something not on the up-and-up in the Altman Group’s China installation?”

“How do you know those gunmen were here for me? Maybe I bumbled into a trap set for you. The CIA doesn’t tail private American citizens for the fun of it. Langley must suspect Mcdermid’s up to something against our interests.”

The dance had begun. They looked away from each other as the elevator stopped and the door opened onto a storage basement, complete with the stink of dampness and the scurrying noises of rats.

“Why in the devil were you tailing Mcdermid?” Her voice was half aggravation, half resignation. The perfect Chinese mask of her face remained impassive.

To reveal his investigation into the Empress would encourage her suspicions about his Covert-One activities. He needed to tell her something plausible. She might not believe him, but she would be in no position to accuse him of lying. He decided the same story he had given Charles-Marie Cruyff would have to do.

As she led him through a dim maze of cellar rooms, he explained, “I was at a biomedical convention in Taiwan for Fort Detrick when I ran into a fellow from Donk & Lapierre’s field lab in China. What he described was intriguing, so I caught a flight to Hong Kong, hoping to get permission to take a look at his work. The lab’s honcho, Cruyff, sent me to Mcdermid, who I guess is his boss. Mcdermid’s been impossible to pin down, so I tailed him and stumbled into this hornet’s nest.”

“Right.” Randi shook her head. “And I’m here for the noodles.” He thought he heard her chuckle. He said, “Far be it for a humble scientist to inquire into a CIA field operation.”

“You always hang around office mezzanines in a Hawaiian shirt, straw hat, and running shoes, when you want a professional, scientific favor?

Probably for the same reason you carry a Beretta and extra ammo. Oh, gosh, wait a minute. I’ll bet you planned to put a gun on him to convince him to be nice.”

So she had either been watching him deliberately, or they had crossed paths because of the similarity of their missions. “In case you haven’t noticed,” he said blithely, “Hong Kong’s miserably hot. Of course I wear Hawaiian shirts. As for the Beretta … remember, my final destination was mainland China. I arranged with the Pentagon for permission to carry, because the field lab’s in a remote area — bandits and all.”

He had managed to turn her suspicions into an innocent story. In fact, all of it could be true. But he knew her well; she would not drop this.

She would find harder, more probing questions. It was time to distract her and to get out of the building.

He nodded at cement stairs ahead. “Those for us?”

“Clever of you.”

Again, she led the way, bending so her tall hat did not catch on the low ceiling as she climbed. At the top, she pushed open a slanting door and slid out. He followed, lowering it quietly behind. She was already moving away. He fell in beside her. They were in a narrow alley that smelled of urine and charcoal. Moonlight reflected off the grimy brick-and-stone walls.

Five minutes later, they were in a taxi heading back toward Central.

“Where do I drop you?” Randi asked. She pulled off the hat, shook out her black wig, and sat back.

“The Conrad International,” Jon said. “Listen, everything I told you was true, but there’s a little more―”

“What a surprise, dearie.”

He shot her a look. “USAMRIID thinks there’s something fishy going on at Donk & Lapierre’s Chinese lab. Maybe they’re conducting research, doing experiments that’d be illegal in the States, and putting government grant money intended for basic research into applied research to develop commercial pharmaceutical products.”

“I expected something like that. So you’re here investigating?”

Jon nodded. “I won’t ask exactly what the CIA’s interest in Mcdermid is, but maybe we could share anything we find not directly related to our own assignments.”

Randi turned away, looking out the window. She was smiling. Despite all the baggage between them since her sister’s death, she liked Jon. She enjoyed working with him. She turned back, still smiling. “Sounds like a good thing. Okay, soldier. Whatever I turn up that I can’t use, I’ll tell you. And vice versa.”

“Deal.”

The taxi stopped at his hotel on Queensway. As he got out, he turned back to ask, “Where do I contact you?”

“You don’t. I know where you are. If anything changes, leave a message at your hotel’s front desk addressed to Joyce Ray.”

Despite the proposition he had offered her, he wanted very much to know what the CIA’s connection to Mcdermid and the Altman Group was. He would ask Klein to check into what Langley was up to, which meant he would have to let Randi go her own way for now.

“Fine,” he said. “Keep in touch.”

She was still smiling as the taxi pulled away into traffic.

Chapter Twenty-Four

In his bedroom, the president was still buttoning his shirt when Jeremy knocked and spoke through the door, “Director Debo, sir. She says it’s urgent. Would you like to take the call?”

One more emergency was not what he needed. “Of course. Put her through.”

The Director of Central Intelligence, Arlene Debo, had been appointed to the position by the previous administration, and he had kept her on, despite her affiliation with the opposition party, because he trusted her. She was very good at the job.

Her voice was just below strident, her natural tone. “Mr. President, my people ran the statistics on the leaks. The vast majority of them are related one way or another to defense and military matters. Did you know that?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because I instructed our agents to concentrate most heavily on the area on and around the joint chiefs, and it’s paid off with our first hit.”

The president sat down on the edge of his bed. “Who?”

“Secretary of the Army Jasper Kott.”

“Kott? Kott himself? Are you sure?” He was shocked.

“He went to Manila on somewhat questionable army business, so we put an agent with him. Sure enough, he slipped away in civvies and went into the city to what appeared to be a pleasure trip to a brothel where our agent was unable to follow. However, she’d had the foresight to contact our station chief, and he had a man there quickly, who went in as a customer. He learned Kott had insulted the house by not being there for ‘fun.’ He was meeting a man and reporting on your recent military budget session.”

The president frowned. “What man?”

“Ralph Mcdermid, CEO of the Altman Group.”

“Mcdermid? My God. He was telling him about our budget discussion?”

“Indeed, Mr. President.”

“Insider trading?”

“We don’t know yet, but we’ll find out. Our agent and her team are shadowing Mcdermid now, too, as we speak.”

“Keep briefing me, Arlene. Thanks.”

“My job, sir.”

After hanging up, he finished dressing, his forthcoming breakfast with the vice president far from his mind as he pondered the possible motives for Secretary Kott’s deceit and Mcdermid’s involvement. Was it simply extremely bold economic espionage to gain a business advantage … or something else?

Few people knew the White House had two family dining rooms — one in the northwest corner of the main floor and the other upstairs in the private quarters, remodeled with a small kitchen originally for Jack and Jackie Kennedy in 1961. Like Jack Kennedy, Sam Castilla preferred to keep the upstairs one private for his family, too. He and Cassie could sit around with uncombed hair, still in their bathrobes, drink coffee, and read the Sunday papers without worrying about being disturbed except under the most unusual emergencies.

Still, he liked this family dining room on the first floor, too.

Although it had a vaulted ceiling and was furnished with solemn Hepplewhite and Sheraton pieces, it was small relative to other White House rooms, and the fireplace and yellow walls gave it warmth and intimacy. This morning, it smelled pungently of chiles and cheese. He had invited Vice President Brandon Erikson for breakfast to discuss his coming trip to Asia.

The vice president forked a mouthful of scrambled eggs, New Mexico style, and nodded with appreciation. “What do you call them, sir?”

“Huevos jalapenos, one of Celedono’s best recipes,” President Castilla said. “And you don’t have to be so damned formal here, Brandon. This is us having breakfast so we can talk about your trip east, not some official briefing.”

“Being in the White House tends to make things formal.” The vice president had an easy smile and a smooth voice. “Some think that and worse. I remember Harry Truman called it the big white jail, and William Howard Tail said it was the loneliest place in the world. But I tend to agree with Jerry Ford. He claimed it was the best public housing he’d ever seen. I like that.”

“The place does inspire awe.” The president examined the vice president’s handsome face, the perfectly barbered cheeks, the thick black hair that made him look a good ten years younger than his forty. He had the kind of manly Hollywood good looks that attracted women and encouraged trust in men. A valuable political combination. Since this was their last term, and the party was increasingly focused on Erikson as its next presidential candidate, Castilla decided to have a moment of fun. “You planning to live here, too, Brandon?” Erikson chewed, his eyes closed. When he opened them, he sighed with appreciation. “These are some fine eggs. Please give my compliments to Celedono. Of course, Sam, I’d be a fool to be working my tail off if I didn’t have a few ideas. Might be pleasant to have a shot at seeing what I can accomplish.”

“You did plenty in the congressional elections. You were everywhere at once. We appreciated that. You’ll have a lot of IOUs to call in.” Erikson smiled wider. “Especially since so many of our candidates won. I’m proud of that.” Brandon Erikson knew the political score. It was one of the prime reasons Castilla had wanted him on his ticket. Now it was Erikson’s chance, and Castilla figured he had earned it. “You have enough money? You know the opposition’s been filling their war chest for eight years, just waiting to make a roaring comeback. They’ll throw everything at you, including the sidewalks of New York. And if I’m right about who your opponent’s going to be, you’re facing one of the nation’s largest family fortunes.” For the first time, the vice president showed uncertainty. The cost of not just running but winning a national campaign had become obscene.

Candidates spent more than half their time on the telephone or at fundraisers, convincing donors to empty their pockets, instead of working on issues.

“I’ll be ready,” the vice president vowed. Ravenous ambition was naked on his face, then vanished.

For a moment, Sam Castilla was sent back into the past, to his beginnings as a young congressman in New Mexico, with no money, no name, and no connections. Serge Castilla had said, “Be careful what you dream, son. No one’s going to give it to you. If your dream’s expensive, plan on paying for it yourself.”

He saw Serge — the man he had always called Dad — smile knowingly, his desert-bleached eyes amused, his dark skin a cobweb of wrinkles. Serge had understood him well. He wondered what kind of advice David Thayer would have given. Whether he was as wise and kind. What kind of man he had aged into. For an instant, he was furious at being cheated of his biological father, and then he felt the deep sadness that must be David Thayer’s. To have been in captivity for a half century, kept from everyone and everything he loved, from his own dreams and ambitions …. What kind of personal hell had Thayer been through?

He pulled himself back to the present. “You know you have my complete backing, Brandon. Now I’d like your input. As I recall, you’re visiting Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.”

“We’re trying to keep it flexible, of course. The political situation is so dicey in those areas that I might stop in Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia, too. With all the terrorist threats, the State Department has some arm-twisting in mind for me.”

“Sounds good. We have to keep working on this on all fronts.”

“Exactly―”

The door of the dining room opened, and Jeremy’s head appeared around it. The president’s personal assistant would never have interrupted a breakfast with the vice president unless the matter was urgent. “Admiral Brose, sir. He needs to see you immediately.”

Castilla shot a rueful smile at the vice president. “Okay, Jeremy, send him in.”

The vice president took a final mouthful of eggs. “If you don’t mind, Sam, I’d like to stay. Keep myself informed, although I’m sure I’m not going to be needed.”

Castilla hesitated. There was still part of him that wanted to hold the situation under wraps. He nodded. “Tactful and accurate. Stay put and pour yourself some coffee.”

The door opened all the way, this time to admit the imposing bulk of Admiral Stevens Brose in full uniform. He saw the vice president and stopped.

“It’s all right, Stevens. The vice president’s feet are already wet. I’m guessing the situation with the Empress must be what’s brought you here so early.”

“It is, Mr. President. I’m afraid―”

Castilla waved to a chair at the table. “Sit. Have some coffee before we plunge into the quagmire.”

“Thank you, sir.” The chair creaked as the outsized chairman of the joint chiefs sat, poured, and drank. Then: “The Crowe’s got a Chinese sub on its tail.”

“Hell and damnation!” the vice president breathed.

The president simply nodded. “We expected something, Stevens.”

“Yessir, we did. But this is bolder than I figured from what I heard of your meeting with the ambassador.” “I agree,” Castilla said. “A submarine threatening a frigate that’s threatening a cargo ship doesn’t leave a great deal of wiggle room for anyone.” Erikson asked, “How powerful is a Chinese submarine, Admiral?”

Brose’s brow furrowed. “That’d depend on its class. Commander Chernko on the Crowe has some experience with Chinese subs from when he served in Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 75 around the Taiwan Strait. He and his sonar technician think the sub’s an old Han class. That’d be logical, since the majority of their operational subs are Hans. But it could be the more powerful Xia back at sea once again. It’d almost certainly be modified and updated … or even a new class, launched in secret. We know they’ve been working on a better boat for years.” Erikson pressed, “But what’s their power like?”

“The Crowe should be able to handle a Han on its own, although you never know for sure what upgrades there could be. With the Xia, it’s hard to say. We know little about it except that the design’s had problems and that it’s definitely stronger than the Han class. If it’s a new class, then the Crowe’s in a bad way, playing Russian roulette.”

Erikson looked worried as the president asked the admiral, “You have some ideas about why the Chinese’s reaction is so big?”

“Beyond muscle flexing for internal consumption, no, sir. They could be trying to show us they’re stronger now than at the time of the Yinhe and eager to challenge us in the international arena.”

The president frowned. “Demanding respect, you might say.”

“That’s it, sir,” Brose said. “Maybe it’s a hint to our allies to beware, too.”

“Probably an effective hint,” the president added grimly. He drank coffee. “Of course, it could be that someone there overreacted.”

“A mistake?” Erikson considered. “That’s really frightening, Sam.”

“What if it’s deliberate? What if it’s some Standing Committee hardliner who wants to scare his own people by escalating the confrontation?”

Brose exhaled. “That’d mean there’s a power struggle inside the walls of Zhongnanhai.”

The president nodded. “If that’s so, the Empress could become the line in the sand between the factions. With us in the middle, too, the situation could turn catastrophic.”

“With fingers on the buttons, the world would end up in the middle.”

Brandon Erikson shook his head worriedly. “In the Cuban missile crisis, you remember, the Soviets sent subs to shadow our blockade ships. One of their skippers was so furious he gave the order to prepare to fire a torpedo into us. The other Soviet commanders had to talk him out of it.

That was far too close for anyone’s comfort, on either side of the Cold War.”

“It can happen,” Brose admitted. “Chervenko’s a steady man, but you never know what strain will do. Truthfully, I’m more worried about the Chinese sub commander. God knows what in hell’s going on in his mind.”

The trio lapsed into anxious silence.

At last, Brose grunted and heaved a sigh. “What do you want to do, Mr. President?”

“Is the Chinese sub making any aggressive moves?”

“Chervenko says not.”

“Then we continue exactly what we’re doing.”

“There’s not a lot of time left, sir.”

“I know.”

Vice President Erikson said, “It’s getting to the brink, Sam. Isn’t it time to inform the country? The cabinet. Congress. The people? They should know what we’re facing and against whom. We have to be prepared for the worst. We have to prepare them.”

The vice president and admiral studied the president where he sat at the table, his eyes staring at something only he could see.

At last, he nodded unhappily. “I suppose you’re right. But we’ll bring in only the cabinet and Congress for now. Brandon, talk to our key people on the Hill. I’ll convene the cabinet. When it’s time to alert the public, I’ll let you know. But not right now. Not yet.” The vice president said, “Are you sure it’s wise to leave them uninformed? If this thing blows up in our faces, it won’t look good for you.”

“There’ll be a war of words before anyone shoots.”

“And if there isn’t?” Erikson pressed.

“That’s why I get paid to stay up all night with a bellyache, Brandon.

To take the risk. I won’t cry wolf until I see an actual one. That’s a dangerous game that wears people down so that after a while they no longer listen to warnings. When I cry wolf, it’s because there’s a real damn wolf, dripping fangs and all. That way I know people will listen.”

Admiral Brose agreed. “That’s how I’d play it, Mr. President. Better we concentrate on facts and evidence.”

The worldwide headquarters of Donk & Lapierre was a four-story brick building built in 1610 in the usual Flemish step style. Because it was convenient to her apartment — just north of the Meir and not far from the Grote Markt, the Kathedrale, and the Schelde River — Dianne Kerr decided to walk to her appointment with Louis Lapierre, chairman and managing director. The receptionist immediately sent her up to the top floor.

There an excited young man hurried to greet her. “Mademoiselle Kerr, what an honor. I read your novel Marionette with great interest. I’m Monsieur Lapierre’s private secretary, and he is eager to speak with you. Please come this way.”

The corridors of the old building were narrow, but the ceilings were high, graced by tall windows. The same was true of Louis Lapierre’s private office. It was relatively small — heating was a problem in the seventeenth century— but high-ceilinged, with tall windows, a handsome fireplace, and a view across Antwerp’s vast docks.

The managing director himself was small and slender, with an Old World elegance in dress and manner. “Ah, Mademoiselle Kerr,” he said in meticulous English with only the slightest French accent. “I have, of course, read your books. They are, shall we say, most exciting. Such adventures, such intrigue, such deviousness, and so vivid. I particularly enjoyed The Monday Men. How could you know so much about assassins? Surely you were a covert operator yourself?”

“No, Monsieur Director,” Kerr said modestly and completely inaccurately.

One did not talk about being MI6. That credo had been broken in recent years, even by some of those whom she had thought trustworthy.

Fortunately, most still adhered to the code. Besides, for an adventure novelist, it was probably wise not to invite speculation as to the possible truth of her plots.

Lapierre laughed. “I doubt that, Mademoiselle Kerr, but please sit and tell me the purpose of this visit.”

Kerr chose a wood-and-brocade Flemish chair. It was thoroughly uncomfortable. “In a single word, research.”

“Research?” Lapierre arched an eyebrow. “You are planning a thriller about Donk & Lapierre?”

“An adventure novel concerning the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century China trade. I thought it would be interesting to do something historical for a change. Your company’s renowned, of course. I believe the original Jan Donk Importers had their start even before then.

Correct?”

“Quite true. You wish, then, to examine our archives?”

“With your permission.”

“Of course, of course. Our directors enjoy the right kind of publicity.

They will be delighted.” Lapierre smiled and then appeared to have a sudden thought that concerned him. “But are you aware that our archives — in fact, all of our records up to today — are here in this building?”

Kerr acted startled as she lied smoothly, “No, I didn’t. You mean … they’re still active? All of them, back to the sixteenth century?”

Lapierre nodded. “Of course, early records were few, and trade was far simpler then. Those from the twentieth century prior to the last five years are on microfilm.”

Kerr frowned. “That creates a bit of a problem. I mean, you can’t very well have me bumbling around in your files during business hours, can you?”

“Actually, the archives are set off by themselves, so that is not the problem. No, the trouble comes from another direction. We no longer let independent researchers in. In fact, the last time we did officially was a decade ago, and of course, he had lied to us. He was actually searching for the company’s collusion with the Nazis―”

“And, of course, there was none,” Kerr echoed. “Not a shred of evidence.”

“Exactly. But as soon as the world learned he suspected that there was.

..” He did not finish the sentence.

“It must have been very bad for business. So the problem is that you’re willing to let me do my research, but you’d rather not let anyone know of it until I can credit the company generously in the novel?”

“Yes, yes. I am pleased you understand. We have had success in the past with allowing a few select researchers in at night to work after hours.

Would you be willing to do that?”

“Well … ” Kerr considered. “I suppose I can change my schedule. I am excited about the early history of Donk & Lapierre.”

“Very well. Then it is done. Our security will be alerted. I, myself, often work late. You must take no documents from the building though.

Our archivist will show you around so you can orient yourself and learn how to properly handle the oldest papers.” Kerr smiled. “Very gracious of you. How can I do anything but accept gladly?”

“When would you care to start?”

“Would tonight be too soon?”

“Tonight?” For a moment, there was a flicker of doubt in Lapierre’s face. “Of course. I will instruct my assistant to give you a letter and a badge. He will introduce you to the archivist, too.”

Dianne Kerr stood. “You’re most kind. I promise to not get in your way.”

“I trust you completely.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dianne Kerr presented herself at the locked front doors of Donk & Lapierre precisely at eight p. m., casually dressed in black jeans, a black turtleneck, black cotton socks, navy-blue running shoes, and a tan leather jacket.

She carried a briefcase.

The guard at the door nodded. “Good evening. Mevrouw Kerr, is it?” His English had a heavy Dutch accent.

“That I am.” She showed the letter and her badge.

“You will hang the badge around your neck, please, and open your briefcase.”

She opened it, revealing yellow writing pads, Post-it notes, a French dictionary, a Dutch-Flemish dictionary, current world almanac, and ballpoint pens.

The guard nodded. “A writer’s tools, /a?”

“Nothing changes.” Kerr smiled.

Once inside, she climbed to the top floor, where the archives were housed. Besides the chairman’s office, the archives were the only other occupant. Cavernous, filled with filing cabinets, the room smelled faintly antiseptic. The ventilation and temperature-control system burred softly in the background. According to the archivist, the system was oversized and had special filters to keep the air clean, which helped to preserve the documents.

Kerr took out a yellow writing pad and carried the very first handwritten file of Jan Donk Imports to a narrow table lined with rows of tall wood chairs. The documents were grayed and fragile. Handling them carefully, she read and made notes.

Four hours later, Monsieur Lapierre himself was finally gone, security had finished its midnight rounds, and the building was as silent as a vault. Kerr opened her briefcase once more and pressed a brass fitting.

A hidden compartment opened, and she extracted a miniature camera and a pair of thin, latex gloves. As she pulled on the gloves, she strode to the other end of the archives, to the last file cabinet, which housed current correspondence and reports.

It was fastened with a combination lock.

Kerr pressed her ear to the lock and turned the dial. She could feel its guts through her fingers … the faint click as a tumbler fell, then another, and another. Her heart rate accelerated, and the lock opened.

She thumbed through the folders until she found her target: Flying Dragon Enterprises, Shanghai. Looking quickly around, she removed the file. As she examined each paper inside, every tiny sound in the old building made her pause.

When she found the right document, a ship’s manifest, she allowed herself a quick smile of relief. She had no idea why it was wanted, but she was often able to uncover the reasons for her assignments eventually. Perhaps this one would give her the basis for another thriller. She photographed it, put it back into the file exactly where it had been, returned the file to the cabinet, and relocked it. Removing her gloves, she hurried back to her briefcase.

She packed it quickly and studied the archive room one last time to be sure she had left not the slightest trace. At last, she turned off the lights and headed for the door.

On the first floor, she made enough noise to alert the dozing security guard.

“You are finished, Mevrouw Kerr?”

“For tonight. There’s only so much reading and scribbling one can do.”

The guard chuckled and crooked his finger. Kerr opened her briefcase, and he leafed through her voluminous notes, made sure there were no original documents, nodded, and shut the lid. “You go home now?”

“I think an ale or two and then to bed.”

“Ja, goede nacht.”

Outside, Dianne Kerr smiled to herself. She would, of course, return at least twice more, to make certain her legend was believed. She did not stop for the two ales. Instead, she went straight home to her darkroom, where she developed the microfilm, made an eight-by-ten print, and faxed it to Washington. A fine night’s work for a desk-bound novelist, extremely well paid, and without a trace. With the possibility of further adventure tomorrow night, to steal the actual document and leave behind a meticulous copy so difficult to discern from the original it could pass for years undiscovered.

As usual, Fred Klein slipped into the West Wing through the kitchen staff entrance, from where the secret service whisked him straight up to the residence.

In the Treaty Room, President Castilla sat on a sofa, morosely contemplating his coffee. He looked up as soon as Klein entered. “You look as bad as I feel. Didn’t the fax come?”

Klein closed and locked the door. “Worse. It came. It’s not what we need. Antwerp has the fake manifest on file, too.”

Castilla swore. “I’d really hoped … ” He shook his head. “So we have nothing from Baghdad, Basra, or Antwerp.” He paused, thinking. “Maybe there’s been a mistake. Why would your operative bother to send the fake? Didn’t he know it was fake?”

“She. No, sir, she didn’t. I couldn’t tell her exactly what was in it, or why we wanted it, because she’s European operating in a European city. If something went wrong, if she were caught or said something… there was too much risk someone would find out about the Empress crisis. In Iraq, it didn’t matter. They already know why we want the manifest, and they’re not going to leak what we’re up to, because they want the chemicals.”

The president sighed. “Some days staying in bed sounds like an attractive idea. The news seems to be getting worse and worse. Sit and have some coffee with me, Fred.”

As Klein settled in next to him, the president poured and handed him a steaming cup. “Over at Bethesda, they tell me I have to cut down on my coffee. Even Cassie’s getting on me about it. But to hell with all of them. They don’t have this job.” “No,” Klein said, chewing on the mouthpiece of his empty pipe. “They don’t. You said something’s happened.” He removed the pipe long enough to drink.

Castilla took a defiant gulp. “The Chinese have upped the ante. This time they’ve sent force, not words — one of their submarines to chase the Crowe.”

Klein’s eyebrows rose above his wire-rimmed glasses. “But they haven’t attacked?”

“No, and neither have we.”

Klein took out his pipe and turned it in his hands, ignoring the coffee.

“Where did they get the sub, Mr. President? Where did it come from so quickly? Not the Taiwan Strait, or Hong Kong, or even Hainan Island.

That’s too much distance from the Crowe. The sub had to have been on station in the Indian Ocean, more likely the Arabian Sea itself.”

The president straightened. He swore. “You’re right. They must have subs watching the Fifth Fleet.”

Klein nodded. “And now, one’s been sent to let us know someone in Beijing wants to crank up the confrontation, escalate the threat.”

“Agreed. My take is that it’s a power struggle inside the walls of Zhongnhai.”

“Makes sense. But is it the whole Standing Committee? Maybe even the Politburo itself?”

“It’d help to know.”

“Nothing any Covert-One associate or asset has turned up indicates it,” Klein said. “Of course, the Chinese are keeping the situation under wraps, just as we are. There hasn’t been a mention of the Empress by their press.”

“So is your advice to prod, watch, and wait? Continue our threat and pretend theirs isn’t there?”

“For now, yes. Later, you’ll have the proof, or you’ll have my resignation.”

The president’s eyes grew icy. “That’s not good enough, Fred. What progress have your people made?”

“Sorry, Mr. President. Must be getting old. This one’s wearing me down.

Too many intangibles.” Klein crossed his arms, the stem of his pipe sticking out from his fist. “First, we’re certain the Belgian co-owner of the Empress knows there’s contraband in the cargo. Second and probably even more important” —he paused to make certain the president saw that he saw how important this was—“the Belgian company is wholly owned by the Altman Group. It looks as if their chair and CEO, Ralph Mcdermid, might have his fingers stuck deep into the affair.”

“Ralph Mcdermid again?” The president’s voice rose. “Mcdermid isn’t just chair and CEO, he is the Altman Group. He founded it, built it into one of the largest financial empires the earth’s seen, and he did it in less than two decades. My God, he’s got one of my predecessors working for him plus cabinet secretaries from the last four administrations, former FBI and CIA directors, congressmen, senators, and a few ex-governors.”

Klein knew all of this. He controlled his patience until the president finished. “Yes, sir. You said ‘.’ Is Mcdermid involved in something else?”

The president took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose as if fighting off a headache. “The White House leaks.” He repeated Arlene Debo’s report about the secret meeting in Manila between Mcdermid and Secretary of the Army Jasper Kott. “You think there may be a connection between the leaks and the Empress situation?”

“We’d better find out. What I don’t understand is why Mcdermid would involve himself in something like the Empress’s cargo. He’s making a fortune already. His company’s filthy rich. So why risk so much for one shipment of chemicals? He’ll make an obscene profit, but that’s nothing new. It makes damn little sense to me.”

“One load of contraband hardly seems worth it,” the president agreed.

“Maybe Mcdermid’s been conducting various illegal operations for a while. He could be one of those types who’s always looking for the next thrill, and the more outside the law he goes, the higher the emotional payoff.”

“Or maybe some of his companies are in trouble, and he’s figured out a way to ease debt by backing illegal ventures like the Empress. He sure won’t have to pay taxes on it.”

They sat in worried silence, trying to see an answer. Finally, the president decided, “I don’t recall any company that approaches Altman’s success in the wholesale conversion of former high government rank to gigantic profits. But then, business and politics have always gone hand in hand. Throw in the military, and doesn’t that remind you of Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about allowing the military-industrial complex to grow too influential, that there was a danger it’d run amok?”

“It reminds me, yes, and not happily,” Klein agreed. “A former Altman employee told my researcher that the company’s code is: Mix business and politics correctly, and they pay exceptionally well”

“Sounds like an understatement. But maybe that’s the answer. That could be what Mcdermid’s up to. For him, there’s no ceiling to wealth. He can never have enough. He’ll make a quick financial killing on the Empress and go looking for his next conquest.”

Randi Russell told the taxi driver to circle the block, and when they again drew abreast of the entrance to the Conrad International, she told the driver in fluent Mandarin, “Stop here.” Jon had been looking all around casually, as if checking for a tail or stakeout. As she watched, he turned on his heel, apparently satisfied he was clean, and walked into the hotel’s glittering lobby. She continued to survey the area until she spotted the Chinese street vendor standing behind his cart in a shadow, a cell phone in his hands, speaking urgently as he, too, observed Jon disappear. Just what she had suspected. Mcdermid’s troops were continuing to surveille Jon. She did not believe Jon’s story for a second, but at least he was out of her way for the night. As she told the driver to take her back to the building that housed the Altman offices, she dialed her cell. “Savage,” the voice answered. “Did you pick up Mcdermid?” she asked, her hand cupped around the cell’s mouthpiece. “Sure did. Tailed him around the daisy chain and right back to his office building. He’s gone up to the penthouse.”

“Is our team in place?”

“Affirmative.”

“I’m on my way.” When they reached it, she paid the driver and walked up to a black Buick sedan, carrying her conical hat. She opened the door and dropped into the front passenger seat. “I’ll take it from here, Allan. You get indoors and watch for Mcdermid’s chief shark. When you see him, tail him.” Short and heavyset, Allan Savage was no one’s image of a CIA agent, but that was to his advantage. He nodded, climbed out of the car, and crossed the traffic to the high-rise. Randi slid over and settled behind the wheel to wait. Her phone beeped. It was Allan.

“Already?” she asked. “Mcdermid must’ve forgotten something. He’s on his way back out.” Randi clicked off and watched as the CEO hurried from the building. As he arrived at the curb, so did his black limousine. The chauffeur ran around to open the rear door. As the limo drove away, Randi made sure she and the Buick were close behind.

The limo wound up into the dark hills toward Victoria Peak. Here the houses were large and impressive, and the city’s lights spread out below in a shimmering minuet across the great harbor, the outlying islands, and the dazzling Kowloon peninsula. The glitter dimmed farther north in the New Territories but continued even into mainland China, where Guangzhou glowed on the horizon.

The limo pulled into the driveway of an older, Chinese-style mansion that overlooked Repulse Bay. As Randi watched, Ralph Mcdermid dismissed the limo, and a slim young woman ran out of the mansion to greet him.

Arm in arm, they strolled into the house.

Randi clicked on her cell phone. “Looks as if he’s gone to roost. If we’re lucky, we’ve got a couple of hours. Put Berger on. Ham, you have the equipment?”

“In our hot little black bags,” electronics expert Hamilton Berger said cheerfully. “As soon as the honcho assistant trots away, we’re in the phone-bug-planting business.”

“Be careful. We’re not dealing with some dumb embassy this time.”

“He’ll never find a thing.”

“Good. I’ll hang on to Mcdermid. He’s a busy boy.”

“Call you when the bug’s in, and we’re out.”

“Can’t wait.” Randi ended the call and took a thoroughly American turkey-and-cheese sandwich from inside her clothes. As shadows did a ballet of lust on the other side of Mcdermid’s drawn drapes, she ate and wondered what Jon really wanted from Mcdermid.

From the corridor outside Donk & Lapierre, bright light fell across the dark, empty desk in the company’s lobby, where the exotic Chinese receptionist had sat. Jon relocked the door behind him and stepped lightly past the shadowy desk to the inner doors. After he had slipped out of his hotel through the back way, he had hailed another taxi that had brought him back here.

Dressed again in his dark work clothes, he listened. There were no sounds inside, and he saw no light. The offices appeared as deserted as he had hoped.

The door was unlocked. He stepped inside and padded along the Delft blue carpeting, pausing to listen at each office, until he reached the ebony door of managing director Charles-Marie Cruyff. This sanctum was defended by a pair of heavyweight locks. After five attempts with different picklocks, Jon finally opened both and pushed the black door into the office. Enveloped in murky silence, he switched on his pocket flashlight. His gaze swept over the ultramodern sofa, Cruyff’s mahogany desk and ship models, the ship models on the walls, to the wall safe to the left of the desk. He crossed quickly to it. Cruyff had glanced involuntarily at the safe when Jon had mentioned working with Chinese companies. He hoped that meant there was something important in there about the Empress. Particularly, he hoped it was the real manifest. The safe was compact, with a simple combination lock — just what he remembered. Klein had supplied him with a small electric drill. It made a low, steady whirr as the state-of-the-art bit bored into the steel.

When he had drilled four holes, he packed tiny amounts of plastic explosive into each and connected them across the knob of the lock to a miniature blasting cap. Working quickly but carefully, he covered the safe with a sound-deadening pad, moved back behind the desk, and paused, listening to the pounding of his heart. He turned the handle on the miniature detonator. The explosion was muffled but loud enough to be heard as far away as the reception area. His Beretta ready, he listened.

When five minutes passed, he holstered the Beretta and returned to the safe. The door had swung open an inch. He pulled it farther open, removed all the documents, and carried them to Cruyff’s desk, where he quickly examined them. And stopped at the fifth. It was the letter that must be the one that had prompted the reply he had found in Yu Yongfu’s safe in his Shanghai mansion. A letter addressed not to Jan Donk, but to Managing Director Charles-Marie Cruyff of Hong Kong. It was signed by Yu Yongfu, president and chairman of Flying Dragon Enterprises. More important … it was cc’d to Ralph Mcdermid, president and CEO of the Altman Group. Riveted, he continued to read to the bottom of the page.

Nothing interesting … although an envelope had been stapled to the corner. He checked it — a Donk & Lapierre business envelope with a handwritten notation:

Bxtsrn invoice, The, Dortagcr Emprejs After all this time … all the deaths … This was it! Fingers trembling with eagerness, he pulled open the envelope, yanked out a single sheet of stationery, and unfolded it. On it was writing that matched the writing on the envelope, but there was no manifest. As a hot bolt of rage shot through him, he stared at the note:

You’ve wasted your time, Smith. you. didn’t really believe, I’d leave, anything so important somewhere, you could find it so easily? I’ve destroyed the manifest. You’re, next.

It was signed with the initials RM. Ralph Mcdermid. Arrogant bastard.

He had known! How—?

As he thought that, Jon froze and looked up. You’re next. “Good evening, Colonel Smith.” The whispering voice came from the open office door. The office’s overhead light flashed on. Feng Dun stood just inside the doorway, his mottled red hair shining in the light. His expression was grim, but a small smile of genuine satisfaction played at the corners of his mouth. He held a mini Uzi aimed at Jon. As they stared at each other, Feng gestured behind him. Four armed men ran past and spread out across the office.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The faint click of the Westminster wall clock sounded in Niu Jianxing’s ears before it struck the half hour. His alert gaze darted around his study in the courtyard house at the edge of the old Xicheng district, mirroring the churning of his mind. Dispatching the submarine Zhou Enlai to menace the American frigate was a move of such colossal stupidity, so criminally dangerous, so completely counterproductive to China’s interests and the very existence of the People’s Republic that he was beside himself with disgust and fury.

The fire in his eyes would have shocked his colleagues, whom he had taught to expect the sleepy Owl of Party and government meetings. This alert, energetic man was the unleashed Niu. Like a tiger, he prowled his study, grappling with what he was beginning to understand. Although Wei Gaofan had covered himself well, now there was little doubt in Niu’s mind that it was Wei who was behind the decision to send the sub.

This stupid move not only revealed to the Americans that the Chinese navy had been shadowing their Fifth Fleet, it astronomically increased the danger of a disastrous confrontation over the Empress.

When Major Pan had first reported his suspicions about Jon Smith, Li Aorong’s connection to the Empress had made the Owl suspect Wei Gaofan might be guilty of corruption, since Li was Wei’s protege, and Li did not go to bed without Wei’s blessings. It seemed both men planned to make a small fortune on the cargo. Wei would not be the first Zhongnanhai official to succumb to private greed. But the Zhou Enlai’s new assignment had turned that assumption inside out. It was too easy an answer, too obvious. Hands clasped behind his back, the Owl turned on his heel and marched across his study again, each foot hammering home his revulsion and rage. Now he knew it must be that snake Wei who had turned against the human-rights accord. Wei was sabotaging it, and — worse — it was only part of his infidelity. In fact, Wei intended to cause an incident with the United States of such magnitude that it would turn the clock back to the Cold War … to the building of new weapons of mass destruction … to societal controls that would lead to catastrophes like the Cultural Revolution … to an isolated China putrefying in its own recycled bitterness. That was what Wei was after, Niu decided, disgusted and afraid. Not greed for money; greed for power.

When a tap sounded at the private rear door of his study, the Owl hurried to it with an alacrity that was in sharp contrast to his sixty years. He unlocked the door to admit Major Pan. “Come in. Come in.” He impatiently motioned the agent to sit facing his desk. Nervous, the major lowered his pudgy body onto the wood chair and perched like a wary bird, ready to fly. Summonses to drive to Beijing from Shanghai in the middle of the night always made Pan nervous. Especially a summons from a member of the Standing Committee. Niu resumed pacing. “What progress have you made in the matter of the American agent and The Dowager Empress?”

“Not much, master.” Pan craned his neck, watching Niu’s progress around the room. “The storm has passed, leaving little sign behind. We’ve had to release Li Aorong. He continues to insist he knows nothing about his son-in-law’s business activities, or where he and his daughter have disappeared.” Niu stopped and stared. “You had to release him? Why? If it were some legal technicality, I can―”

“No legal technicality.”

“Then what?”

Pan chose his words carefully. “I believe the question was raised to General Chu as to the propriety of holding Li without arresting him.”

“A routine policy in a national security matter was questioned? Of General Chu? Absurd. Who asked such a question?”

“I believe the Central Committee.”

Niu frowned. General Chu had run up against the Central Committee, a bad position. Still, the general should have informed him of the order. Now Niu would have to watch the general carefully, too, to make certain where his loyalties lay.

Niu returned his thoughts to the major, repressing his anger and frustration. He had momentarily forgotten Pan’s reluctance to reveal anything that could indicate a definite view of a subject not directly connected to his official duties. Pan protected himself, which was one reason he had held his position in Public Security so long.

But Niu no longer had time for such niceties. The Empress would arrive in Iraqi waters Wednesday morning. It was already after midnight Sunday.

“Meaning Wei Gaofan?” he asked bluntly. “I know my colleagues, Pan. Tell me. It will go no farther than this room.” Pan hesitated. At last he said cautiously, “I believe that could be the name General Chu indicated.” A hint of hope crept into his voice as he continued, “Should I rearrest Li Aorong, sir? I could put him under house arrest. At least we would know where he was.” “No!” Niu said instantly. Then he tempered his tones. “That would not be productive.”

The last thing Niu wanted was to alert Wei to his suspicions, or to suggest to Pan that there was more here than a simple counterintelligence investigation. “For now, Major Pan, continue to keep him under surveillance. You are still watching him, are you not?”

Pan gave a slow nod, his gaze warily on Niu.

The nod was so small that Niu had the impression the major hoped it might be overlooked. Niu interpreted it to mean that Wei Gaofan had leaned harder on General Chu than Pan had suggested, which meant Pan was continuing to watch Li Aorong on his own initiative. General Chu did not want to know what Pan was doing, but at the same time, he wanted Pan to make progress.

Niu had believed for many years that this was the way Pan operated and why he was unusually successful — careful not to actually break orders, but bending them to get results. It was what Niu needed now, and one of the reasons Pan was valuable.

“Good,” he told him, resuming his pacing. “Continue exactly as you’re doing.”

“Yes, sir.” Major Pan nodded sagely, well aware that Niu was telling him to keep his name out of it also.

“What else do you have for me?” Niu asked.

“We’ve been examining Yu Yongfu’s business operations, but there seems to be nothing revealing there about Colonel Smith.”

“What about Yu and his actress wife? Do you have any leads?”

“Not as yet.”

Niu returned to his desk chair and sat. “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Li Kuonyi several times. She’s a clever woman and a good mother.

If she can’t be found, I’d suggest that perhaps she doesn’t want to be.

Which would mean she and her husband might be, how do you say it, ‘ the run’?”

“That had occurred to me,” Pan acknowledged.

“If not, could her father have spirited her away so she’d be unavailable to discuss her husband’s affairs?”

“That, too, master.”

“Or maybe she’s being hidden by powerful forces?”

Pan did not want to discuss that possibility, but at the same time he did not deny it was an option.

“Have you found evidence of anyone else being part of the Empress venture?” the Owl continued.

“Only the Belgian company I spoke of — Donk & Lapierre.”

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

“But you wouldn’t rule it out, Major?”

“I rule nothing out in an investigation.”

“An admirable trait in a counterintelligence officer,” Niu said.

From the moment Pan had entered his office, Niu had been assessing the spycatcher’s position on everything they discussed, but had found it, as always, nearly impossible to be certain. His gaze remained impassive, and his soft face neutral and unsmiling. Still, Niu had no choice but to use Pan, if he wanted to uncover what he needed.

“Continue your investigation as you see fit, but from now on report to me first. I must know all there is concerning the voyage of the Empress, particularly its cargo, and about everyone involved in the transaction. Within the country or abroad.”

“First? In case General Chu should ask questions at some point, may I have that in writing, sir?”

There it was. The agent was covering his back again. Niu almost smiled.

On the other hand, such caution had enabled Pan to survive in a job that was perilous for many reasons and from many directions. The difference between an excellent technician like Pan and a leader was exactly the willingness to take large risks. Pan was no gambler.

At the same time, the Owl was beginning to believe that his lifetime of work for China … his stubborn commitment to his country’s growing into an important and friendly world power … was in jeopardy. To save both his vision and his nation, he would chance anything he must.

“Of course, Major,” Niu said smoothly, “but you must not reveal it unless absolutely necessary. Is that understood?”

“Completely, sir.”

Without another word, Niu wrote a letter authorizing Major Pan Aitu to be his official agent, who must report first to him and to no other.

With a quiet thrill and a moment of nervousness, the spycatcher watched.

As soon as the paper was in his hand and then into his pocket, he slipped out the way he had arrived — through the back door.

It was after one o’clock. He paused in the dark and shivered. Winter’s early chill was beginning to touch Beijing. He was puzzled. For some reason, Niu Jianxing suspected Wei Gaofan of at least corruption … possibly more. He himself suspected Wei of some connection to the Empress and was relieved to be under orders from Niu Jianxing at last.

But not too far under.

He hurried to his car. He must return quickly to Shanghai. There was much to be done.

His eyes snapped open to a pitch-black room. The air stank of droppings and dirt. Somewhere, a rat scurried away. Jon involuntarily shuddered as he listened for the high-pitched chatter and the sharp-clawed click of the horde of rats he imagined circling in the dark. But there was no noise. No rats, voices, traffic, cries of night birds … A pinpoint of light appeared ahead. He had to look up to see the tiny beam. It felt warm, even hot, on his face, but he knew that was an illusion built on hope. An illusion and a spatial delusion caused by the absolute darkness, with no point of reference, no sense of dimension, everything flat black. Except the tiny beam that was real, and by concentrating on it hard enough, moving his head, and opening and closing his eyes, he finally brought it and the room into focus.

He was in a chair, his legs bound at the ankles. Someone was tying his hands behind him, roughly. Nylon rope burned through his skin. The point of light was not a crack in the walls or ceiling, but a reflection from a corner off a small metallic silver box attached high on the wall. A reflection of light from around the corner, in front of Jon and to his left. This room was L-shaped, and Jon was tied to the chair at the rear of the L’s long arm.

Oriented now, he felt better. A wave of something close to euphoria washed over him as if he were on solid ground again, a part of the world— and then it all came back … his excitement that he had finally found the invoice manifest, the note from “RM” that not only showed that the manifest was gone but revealed the dangerous depths of the Altman founder’s arrogance … the lights flashing on, Feng Dun and his killers … He had been guilty of one of the oldest mistakes in the world — so involved he had dropped his guard. Now it was not the knowledge that he would likely die that bothered him, because that was always there in black work. You knew it could happen. It would not, of course, you told yourself. But it could. What shook him was the failure. The president was left to face a deadly confrontation with no acceptable options.

Jon hardly heard the door open around the corner of the L A light flared on overhead, momentarily blinding him. Someone left, and someone else arrived. When his eyes adjusted, Feng Dun stood alone in front of him, scowling.

“You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, Colonel Smith. I don’t like people who cause me trouble.” His whispery voice was measured, his manner unhurried. As he stepped closer, his movement was fluid.

“That’s strange hair,” Jon said. “Especially for a Han. The white makes it even odder.”

The blow smashed into his face, spinning him and the chair over backward. His head slammed against the floor. In the split second between the impact and the pain, he realized Feng had been so fast he had not seen his hand move. Then violent pain overtook him, and he felt blood run hot and sticky down the side of his face. For a few disorienting seconds, it seemed as if he had floated out of the room.

When his vision cleared, and the pain receded, two men he had not seen were lifting his chair back onto its legs. Feng Dun’s face was inches away, staring at him. His eyes were such a pale brown they appeared to be empty sockets.

Feng said, “That gentle tap was to focus your attention, Colonel. You’ve been skilled and intelligent. Don’t be stupid now. We won’t waste time discussing who and what you are. The question that interests me now is who do you work for?”

Jon swallowed. “Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, M. D., United States Army Medical Research Institute … ”

The blow was little more than a slap this time, snapping his head sideways, but drawing blood again, and leaving his ears ringing.

“You appear on no American intelligence roster we’ve found. Why is that?

Some secret section of the CIA? NSA? Maybe the NRO?”

His lips were swelling, making his speech thick. “Take your pick.”

The hand crushed the other side of his face, the room disappeared again, but the chair did not move. Dimly he realized the job of the two other men was to keep him upright as Feng beat him.

“You’re not a conventional agent,” Feng told him. “Who do you report to?”

He could not feel his lips move and did not recognize his voice. “Who are you? You’re not Public Security Bureau. Who thinks I’m not CIA, NSA?

Mcdermid? Someone inside …?”

The two fists struck seconds apart, a perfect combination, and as searing, crushing, swelling pain overwhelmed him and merciful blackness washed toward him, his brain told him the man had been a prizefighter, a professional, and he hit much too hard … hit too hard … hit too… hard … Ralph Mcdermid stood behind Feng Dun. “Damnation, Feng. He’s not going to tell us anything if he’s unconscious, now is he?”

“He’s strong. A big man. If we don’t hurt him, make him afraid not only of pain and death, but of me, he’ll tell us nothing.”

“He’ll tell us nothing if he’s dead.” Feng smiled his wooden smile. “That’s the fine print, Taipan. If he doesn’t believe we’ll kill him, he’ll say nothing. But if he’s dead, he can’t say anything. One must find the balance. My job is to convince him I’m so savage and reckless that I’ll kill him by accident, not realize my own brutality, and get carried away on a euphoria of inflicting pain.

Yes?”

Mcdermid flinched, as if suddenly afraid of Feng himself. “You’re the expert.” Feng noted the fear and smiled again. “You see? That’s the reaction I need from him. We’ll find out nothing until he can hardly move his mouth to talk. Just enough pain so he can barely think, but not so much that he can’t think.”

“Possibly less physical methods?” Mcdermid said uneasily.

“Oh, there’ll be those, too. Don’t worry. I won’t kill him yet, and he’ll tell us whatever you want to know.”

Mcdermid nodded. Besides being a shade afraid of Feng’s unpredictability, he was concerned about Feng in other ways. He had a feeling the big ex-soldier was sneering at him the same way he had sneered at his other employer — Yu Yongfu. At the time, Feng’s insults had not been noteworthy, since he was reporting on Yu to Mcdermid. But later, when Feng demonstrated the clout necessary to have a submarine sent to shadow the USS John Crowe, Mcdermid started to worry.

At that point, what had been murky became clear: Feng had serious military or national government connections far above what appeared to be his station in life. As long as those resources were doing Mcdermid’s bidding, Mcdermid was more than happy to pay Feng a fortune and overlook his rudeness. Still, Mcdermid had not risen to be one of the most powerful money men in the world by missing the obvious. Feng was connected. Feng was dangerous. Mcdermid still had him under control, but for how long, and what would be the price to keep him there?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The cabinet meeting was behind him, and Congress had been alerted to the brewing crisis with China. Carrying a mug of coffee, the president again sat at the head of the long table in the windowless situation room. The joint chiefs and his top civilian advisers had found their chairs, shuffling papers and conversing in hushed voices with their aides.

The president barely registered their presence. Instead, he was thinking about the millions across the country innocently going about their business who, if the new situation leaked, would hear about a possible war with China. Not a sportsmanlike excursion watched on TV, like Monday Night Football. Not an undercover battle against terrorists or a small conflict in a small country where fewer Americans would die fighting than died in traffic accidents on a holiday weekend. Not just any war. A real war … a big war … one that would detonate like a volcano and continue night and day, day in and day out. The dead would be their sons and daughters, or their neighbors or themselves, all returning home in body bags. China.

“Sir?” It was Charlie Ouray.

The president blinked and noted all the solemn and stern, or angry and anxious faces on both sides of the long table. They were watching him.

“Sorry,” he told the room. “I was seeing the ghosts of war past and war future. I didn’t see war present. Can any of you?”

The river of faces reacted each according to who and what he and she was. Shock that he, their commander in chief, would be defeatist. Fear of what could be coming. Resolve … neither afraid nor fierce but quietly determined. Solemnity at the magnitude of the unknown, near and far. A few with the gleam of “great” things in their eyes, of honor and awards and a place in history.

“No, sir, not really,” Admiral Brose said quietly. “No one can, and I hope no one ever has to.”

“Amen,” Secretary of Defense Stanton intoned. Then his eyes glittered.

“That said, now we prepare. War with China, people. Are we ready?”

The deafening silence was an answer no one in the hushed room could mistake. The president looked at his coffee and had no taste for it.

“If I may speak for my colleagues with the navy and air force,” Army Chief-of-Staff Lieutenant General Tomas Guerrero declared, “the answer is, not really. We’ve been planning, training, and preparing for the exact opposite. We need―”

Air Force General Bruce Kelly broke in, “With all respect, I disagree.

With some exceptions, the bomber force is prepared for any war. We do need to rethink our advanced fighter force, but for the immediate future, I see little problem.”

“Well, dammit, we’re not ready,” Guerrero countered. “I’ve said it before, and I say it now, the army’s been stripped of the bone and muscle it needs for a long, tough, nose-to-nose war over a vast area against a giant population, a mammoth army, and a national will to fight.”

“The navy―” Admiral Brose began.

“Gentlemen!” National Security Adviser Powell-Hill protested from her seat at the opposite end of the table, facing the president. “This isn’t the time to bicker about details. The first action we have to take is to prepare the complete readiness of what we do have. The second is to get cracking on what we need.”

“The first action,” the grave voice of the president brought instant silence, “is to prevent this confrontation from happening at all.” He moved his adamant glare from face to face, one by one, until he had circled the table.

“There will be no war. Period. None. That’s the bottom line. We do not fight China. I’m convinced that cooler heads over there don’t want war.

I know we don’t, and we have to give those cooler heads a chance.” His gaze arced around the table in the opposite direction, as if telling them, one by one again, that he knew damn well some of them — and a lot of their high-paying constituents — would like nothing more than an expensive, thrilling hostility, and telling them, and their special constituents, to forget it. “This confrontation has a solution.” His tone left no room for argument. “Now, what are your ideas about what that solution is?” Their blank faces reminded him of a roomful of New Mexican ranch barons who had just been told to find ways to double the water allotments for the Navajo and Hopi reservations. “I suppose,” Secretary of State Padgett offered, “we could ask for a secret, top-level summit to discuss the matter face to face.” The president shook his head. “A meeting with whom, Abner? The Zhongnanhai leadership will likely not want it to seem as if there’s anything to talk about — not without calling the whole Central Committee into session and then getting at least an eight-to-one majority on the Standing Committee to approve it.”

“Then send them a message they can’t miss,” Guerrero suggested. “Approve the appropriations for the air force’s new fighter, a bigger and longer-range bomber, and the army’s Protector artillery system. That will get their attention. Probably scare the shit out of them and get them to a summit, too. Yes, with that threat hanging over them, I’d think they’d jump for a summit in a nanosecond.” A murmur of approval flowed around the room. Even Secretary Stanton failed to object. He looked concerned, his face ashen, as if his resolve for the smaller, quicker military had been shaken badly. Vice President Erikson demurred, “I’m not sure that’s the right message to be sending, General.

It could escalate matters rather than pacifying them.” Stanton regained some of his confidence. “Whatever we do will in all probability heighten the problem, Brandon, even if we do nothing. Too little could be construed as weakness; too much as threatening. I think some show of force, resolve, and readiness could make them hesitate to push us too hard.” Erikson nodded reluctantly. “You could be right, Harry. Perhaps a simple approval of already existing weapons systems wouldn’t be too strong.”

“Do we really want to return to a policy of mutual deterrence?

Something that could drag on for years and drain both national economies?” the president asked. “Make China hunker down behind its Great Wall again with its missiles bristling just when we’re making progress?”

Admiral Brose’s voice boomed out over the geopolitical debate. “I think what the president might find most effective is a smaller solution to the immediate tactical problem. How do we prove what the Empress is carrying?”

The blank looks reappeared on the faces of the gathered military and civilian brains.

“That’d be nice,” President Castilla agreed mildly. “You have an idea how to accomplish that, Stevens?”

“Send a crack team of SEALs from the Crowe to perform a clandestine recon of the Empress’s cargo.”

“Can that be done?” Vice President Erikson wanted to know. “On the high seas? From and to moving ships?”

“It can,” Brose assured him. “We have special equipment and trained teams.”

“Safely?” Secretary Stanton worried.

“There’d be risk, naturally.”

“Of failure? With casualties?” Abner Padgett of State asked.

“Yes.” “Of discovery?” Erikson pressed.

“Yes.”

Secretary of State Padgett shook his head violently. “An overt act of invasion, even aggression, against Chinese territory on the high seas?

At that point, we’re inviting war.”

Everybody nodded, solemnly or vigorously, in agreement, while the president took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “How much risk of discovery are you talking about, Admiral?”

“Minimal, I’d say. With the right team, under the right leader who’d understand that his people could not — under any circumstances — be discovered. To abort first no matter what the danger to the team.”

The president sat silently, his eyes distant, thinking again about the millions of people across the country who might soon be nervously watching TV or listening to the radio with one eye and one ear on the alert as they went about their daily lives, which most were rightly loathe to sacrifice for an unnecessary war.

His military and civilian advisers turned their collective gaze on Chief Staff Charlie Ouray as if he could read what was happening inside President Castilla’s mind.

“Sir?” Ouray said.

Castilla gave a small nod, more to himself than anyone else. “I’ll take that under consideration, Stevens. It offers a possible solution.

Meanwhile, I need to inform all of you that for some days we’ve been pursuing an intelligence operation that could solve the entire situation.” He stood. “Thank you all. We’ll meet again soon. Until then, I want everyone to get your sectors ready. Send me a report about how you envision handling China and how and when you’ll be completely ready for a full-scale conflict.”

In the passenger compartment of his private Mercedes limousine, Wei Gao-fan savored both his Cuban Cohiba and his recent success over Niu Jianxing. With the Zhou Enlai flexing its torpedoes, and the American frigate Crowe polishing its missiles, Niu, the reformer — in Wei’s mind, “reformer” meant appeaser, revisionist, and capitalist — was going to find few on the Central Committee receptive to his demeaning “human-rights” treaty, or, in the end, the disastrous direction Niu intended to take China.

The Mercedes was parked on a side street in the Changning district.

Separated from his bodyguard in the front seat by a panel of bulletproof glass, Wei studied the area, where lights showed from windows, the street’s only illumination. He was waiting for his chauffeur and second bodyguard to return from their assignment.

Wei did not like loose threads or unresolved issues. Li Aorong and his daughter were both, and they needed to be swept up and disposed of.

Until they were, he would not feel secure. His plan had risks, and while Niu Jianxing was many things Wei disliked, a fool was not among them.

The other members of the Standing Committee could be brought back to their senses once the Owl was silenced.

Abruptly he straightened. There were footsteps in the night, approaching the limousine. The front door of the Mercedes opened, and his chauffeur and chief bodyguard slid in behind the wheel next to the other bodyguard. Wei watched his chauffeur pick up the intercom.

His voice sounded clearly from the rear speaker as he reported: “Master Li is in his house, as he said, but I saw no evidence of the daughter having been there recently, master. Her children were asleep with their nanny in a separate cottage.”

“You searched everywhere?”

“The potion knocked the old man into deep sleep. The children and the woman were already asleep. The grounds and buildings were otherwise deserted. I was able to investigate thoroughly, as you instructed.” The chauffeur turned his head to look back through the one-way glass as if he could see Wei. He was frowning. “There was something else.”

“What?” Wei tensed.

“Public Security Bureau people. Major Pan Aitu himself and a team.”

“Where?”

“Lurking outside. Some in cars. Very discreet.”

“Watching the house?”

“Or Li Aorong.”

Probably both, Wei Gaofan thought to himself. He shifted uneasily in his seat. Pan would never dare act against his interests … unless someone else were backing him. Niu? It was possible Niu had discovered that Wei had used pressure to have Li Aorong released from Public Security custody. He shook his head angrily, thinking. Yes, this smacked of further interference from the dangerously liberal Niu.

His cell phone buzzed so loudly he ducked below the windows as if he had been fired upon, forgetting his bulletproof safety. He recovered at once and straightened, annoyed at how tense he was.

He jammed his cell phone button and barked, “Wei here.” “We have Jon Smith,” Feng Dun said.

Wei’s anger evaporated. “Where?”

“In Hong Kong.”

“Who does he work for?” “He hasn’t told us — yet.”

“Did he get proof of the cargo and send it to Washington?”

“There’s no more proof, so nothing could be sent.” Feng described the American’s capture and the note Mcdermid had left in the envelope in the safe after he had shredded the manifest.

Wei’s mood improved dramatically. He did not approve of Mcdermid’s theatrical insult, but it did no harm to Wei. “Be quick with your questioning. Find out from Smith what the Americans know and eliminate him.”

“Of course.”

Wei could see Feng’s smile that was like no human smile, but one pasted on a wooden dummy. Feng was his man. Still, he repressed a shiver, clicked off, and sat back to consider this new information: Now Niu Jianxing would have no proof of the Empress’s cargo. Niu’s cooperation with the Americans would be impossible, and he had nothing at all to take to the Standing Committee.

Yes, the Empress would sail on to Wei’s profit, as other ships with other illicit cargo had before … or the situation might still explode to his even greater profit. He laced his fingers across his stomach, pleased, as if he had just feasted on pheasant and honey.

In the upstairs Treaty Room, the door was locked, and President Castilla and Fred Klein were standing shoulder to shoulder at one of the windows, gazing down at the White House grounds. The president described the day’s meeting with his military and civilian advisers.

Klein said, “You may have to use Admiral Brose’s suggestion for a SEAL recon mission.”

The president glanced at the Covert-One chief. A great black cloud seemed to hover over him like a thunderstorm gathering over White Sands.

“What’s happened?” There was a heaviness to the words, a weariness that carried the entire weight of the last four days. Resigned. Expecting the worst.

“We may have lost Colonel Smith.”

“No.” The president inhaled sharply. “How?”

“Have no idea yet. The last time we talked, he was heading off to break into Donk & Lapierre in Hong Kong.” Klein related Jon’s earlier activities— surveilling Ralph Mcdermid as he took the subway to the Wanchai district, the trap inside the office building, and Jon’s escape with Randi Russell.

“Agent Russell?”

“Yes. Remember, she’s the one Arlene assigned to follow Kott to Manila, where he had that clandestine meeting with Ralph Mcdermid.”

“Of course. Then what happened?” “Jon asked for additional supplies and equipment to help him search Donk & Lapierre’s offices. The entire operation there should’ve taken less than an hour. Ninety minutes, tops. And now he’s missing.”

“If there was a last copy of the manifest at Donk & Lapierre, Fred — it’s gone?”

“If Jon’s gone or caught, the manifest is, too.”

The president looked at his watch. “How much longer do you give him?”

“I’ve got local Covert-One people out looking. Two … three hours, then I send out a dragnet. It’s always possible he was captured and is being interrogated. That he’ll be able to hold out. That the locals will find and free him. But … ”

“But the manifest might still be gone.”

“Yes, Sam. Probably is gone.”

“And Colonel Smith might be dead.”

Klein gazed down at his shoes. His voice was tight. “Yes. God, I hope not. But yes.”

The president nodded. He heaved a sigh. “All right, we’ll find another way. There’s always a way, Fred.”

“Yes, of course.” Neither said more, their silence acknowledging the lie in their optimism.

At last Klein said, “I’d like to know everything the CIA has learned from Agent Russell and her people.”

“I’ll call Arlene.”

Klein nodded, almost to himself. “Perhaps it is time to attempt that SEAL mission. If it’s successful … if they find the chemicals, take over the ship, and dump it all overboard without the submarine’s knowing … that solves the whole problem, and it wouldn’t matter―”

“That the manifest was gone and Smith was dead? Is that what happens to all men who have to do your job?”

Klein seemed to deflate. Then his head raised, and his gaze was steady.

“I had in mind the total loss of the manifest, Mr. President, not Jon’s death. But, yes, I expect that, sooner or later, it does happen to all of us.” “Spymasters,” the president said quietly. “It must be horrible.”

“I’ve brought you very bad news. I’m sorry, Sam.”

“So am I. So am I. Thank you, old friend. Goodbye.”

After Klein left, the president continued to stand in silence. He knew what he had to do, but he neither wanted to nor was comfortable with it.

He had never been at ease ordering people to risk their lives for their country, as much as he knew that was what they expected to do, what they had signed up to do, what he had done when it was his turn long ago. He had fought in his own war, and he knew no one signed up to die.

His sigh was more like a deep breath. He picked up the phone again.

“Mrs. Pike? Get me Admiral Brose.”

Moments later, his phone rang.

The admiral’s deep voice appeared in his ear. “Yessir, Mr. President.”

“How soon can you put that SEAL team on the Crowe?”

“They’re on the Crowe now, sir. I took the liberty.”

“Did you? Well, I expect you’re not the first field commander who’s done that to a president who hasn’t made up his mind.”

“No, sir, I wouldn’t think so. May I ask if you have made up your mind?”

“That’s why I called.”

“Are we go, sir?”

“Yes. We’re go.”

“I’ll transmit the order.”

“Don’t you want to know why, Stevens?”

“That’s not my job, Mr. President.”

The president hesitated. “Right again, Admiral. Keep me posted.”

“What I know, you’ll know.”

As the president hung up, a quote he had read once years ago in a biography of Otto von Bismarck came to mind. Something like … a person’s moral worth begins only at the point he is willing to die for his principles. He was not risking his life for his principles, but he was risking his future, which was not all that important, and the future of his country, which was. That might not be a full commitment for those stern and demanding old Prussian squires, but it weighed heavily enough for him.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Tension was wearing on the small cadre of officers of the USS John Crowe. This was far from an ordinary military emergency, which often turned out to be a false bogey, a lost craft, or a mechanical failure.

One mistake, and they could cause not only their own deaths but war.

In the communications-and-control center, the calm commander, James Chervenko, broke the radio connection with Admiral Brose back in Washington. His eyes, narrowed by decades at sea, had become laserlike slits of intensity as he had listened to Brose’s orders.

He removed his headset and turned to It. Commander Gary Kozloff. “You’re go.”

“Right,” Kozloff acknowledged. No surprise. He had guessed. “Chopper prepared?” Kozloff was one of those extraordinary SEALs who was all muscle and brains. Long, lean, and fiercely proud of his work, he crackled with purpose. His presence seemed to fill communications-and-control, giving momentary reassurance to everyone around.

“Ten minutes.”

“We’ll be ready.”

Chervenko nodded as if to say that was to be expected. “Remember, Commander, the overriding mission protocol is total secrecy — you were never there. The first hint you might be discovered, you’re gone.”

“Yessir.”

“We’ll keep close tabs on the sub and the Empress. If anything looks hinky, I’ll radio to abort. Keep your communications on at all times.”

“Will do, sir.”

“Good luck, Gary.”

“Thanks, Jim.” Gary Kozloff gave a short smile. “Nice night for a swim.”

On the shadowy deck, Kozloff’s team of four SEALs were suited and ready, waiting for the order. When Kozloff reappeared, they jumped expectantly to their feet. He nodded, and they did a final check of their equipment.

“You have your magnetic climbing gear?” It would be critical tonight.

When the air resonated with “aye, sir,” he said, “Let’s hit the chopper.” They made their way aft to the SH-60 Seahawk. Silhouetted against the starry horizon, it looked like a giant, menacing bird. The wind was light, carrying the scents of diesel and salt water. Inside the Seahawk, attached to its lowering rig, was a special Combat Rubber Raiding Craft (CRRC) Zodiac, already loaded for the operation. The five SEALs climbed aboard the chopper, the rotors erupted into full power, and the great craft rose into the night and banked left. No lights showing, it quickly melded with the darkness as it circled out of sight toward the Empress, ten miles ahead. The air around them thundered with the chopping blades. As his ears grew accustomed to the noise, It.

Commander Kozloff watched the reflections of the moon and stars off the rippled sea below. He was worried, and that was unlike him. If you prepared properly, you knew you and your team would execute well. That was the only guarantee anyone got. But this time, they were using the new, small Zodiac and the new climbing equipment designed specifically for a helicopter-delivered, clandestine boarding operation on a fully moving ship at sea. They knew their equipment, but there had been no time to practice the usual varied and complicated scenarios. He had the highest confidence in himself and his people. You could not be a SEAL otherwise. Still–

Abruptly, Kozloff brought his concentration back to the scene below.

They had reached the Empress and were hovering over it, as planned. The freighter was going about ten knots. Kozloff could see cargo, a partially lighted deck, and the usual ropes, gear, and hold covers.

There were three Chinese sailors — impossible to tell on this commercial freighter which one or ones were officers, if any — on the open bridge.

The trio were gazing up at the helicopter, expressions angry, and he worried again. Would they dive for cover while their ship fired? The plan was for the chopper to appear to be doing recon and then close-up surveillance. Innocent, not deadly. He waited, aware his men were also studying the bridge below, concerned about how the Chinese would react.

As two continued to glare up, the other got on the horn. In response, the helicopter swung left and right, as if waving … or doing a nautical nose-thumbing. The Chinese sailor broke his communications link, threw back his head, bellowed what was probably a string of obscenities, and shook his fist at the chopper. Kozloff liked that — the sailors had bought the surveillance ruse and expected nothing more dangerous from the Seahawk. As his SEALs chuckled, his spirits lifted.

The Seahawk resumed full speed and banked in such a wide arc away that they lost sight of the freighter. “Ready?” the pilot called into Kozloff’s ear receiver. Kozloff looked at his men. They gave him a thumbs-up. He barked into his pinpoint mike, “Ready. Take us down.” The Seahawk swept low to the swell of the open sea and hung there, vibrating. The SEALs pushed the Zodiac out the side hatch, and the lift operator lowered it to the surface. The SEALs hooked to the lift and went over the edge, one by one, and dropped into the water. For an instant, Kozloff had the usual double reaction — shock at the feeling of suspension that the water gave, and relief to be where he felt so at home. As the Zodiac bounced on the undulating sea two dozen feet away, Kozloff struck out in a crawl, pulling the water. It was black, impenetrable, but he did not notice. Focused on the operation, he clambered aboard, the others following. He started the electric outboard, and soon they were speeding toward the oncoming Empress. This was the safest direction to approach, where they ran less risk of being sucked into the ship. It was also faster, since the Empress was headed directly toward them. When the Empress came into view, the chopper was sweeping over it again, a noisy diversion. Kozloff studied the cargo ship, calculating and adjusting the Zodiac’s direction so that it would run parallel, not dead on. At just the right moment, he would turn hard to the right.

Protected by the darkness and the aerial insult of the helicopter, he would pilot the Zodiac to the Empress’s side, where his people would hook silently to the hull with the magnetic mooring. If all continued to go well, they would use the magnetic climbing gear to swarm up to the dark forward deck, where they would begin their critical search.

On the USS John Crowe, Commander Chervenko watched the Seahawk settle down onto its helipad in a perfect landing. He ducked under the still-turning rotors and ran toward the door. “Everything go okay?” he shouted to the pilot.

“Great, sir! They’re there.” Chervenko gave a brisk nod and hurried back down to communications-and-control. As he entered, his gaze instantly went to OS2 Fred Baum, who was concentrating on the radar screen. “Can you pick up the Zodiac, Baum?”

“No, sir. Way too small.”

“Hastings? You hearing anything?”

“Only the Empress’s screws and that sub that’s dogging us, sir,” Sonar Technician First-Class Matthew Hastings said.

“No one can pick up that electric motor behind the noise of the freighter.” Chervenko pursed his lips with satisfaction. “Good. Maybe our boys will pull it off.” He turned to leave and thought better of it.

“Keep alert. Watch for anything funny the Empress does, and―”

“Sir?”

Hastings at sonar was listening intently. His voice rose. “The sub. That Chinese sub is moving in fast! Real fast! She’s closing in on us!”

Chervenko grabbed an earphone and listened. The submarine was definitely approaching at full speed. “Anyone got anything else?” Another technician called out, “They’re arming torpedoes, sir! Running them in!”

Chervenko whirled to the radioman. “Call the abort! Abort!” The communications technician bent to his mike and yelled, “Abort! Abort!

Abort!”

The Zodiac pounded through the sea to within only a few feet of the towering steel side of the Empress. For the SEALs, it was like looking up at a skyscraper, except that the skyscraper was moving at a fast clip, while they were moving toward it and trying not to be sucked in, caught in the turbulence, or slammed against the side. Disorientation and surprise twists from the sea killed many. Still, Kozloff was accustomed to disorientation, and his brain was well trained to calculate exactly how to approach the looming freighter most safely, without cracking up against it.

He inched the Zodiac closer. Cold spray hit his face. The stink of oil and metal was oppressive. Without needing an order, the SEAL who was responsible leaned far out and clamped the magnetic docking device to the Empress on the first try. Water surged up over the Zodiac’s sides, drenching them. At the same time, the point SEAL activated his magnetic hooks and began to climb, a spider scaling a monolith. Soon the next SEAL climbed, then the next.

Kozloff watched proudly. The safety of night … the diversion by the chopper … the nearly perfect anchoring … everything told him that this vital operation was going to be successful.

He allowed himself a smile as he activated his magnetic climbers and attached them to the hull. Instantly he felt the pull, the sense of safety. The damn things really worked. He launched upward, just as the first SEAL reached the ship’s deck.

Suddenly his minireceiver screamed in his ear, “Abort! Abort! Abort!”

With a wrench of his gut, he forced himself to reverse his drive to push onward. He made himself believe the incomprehensible: Success was withdrawal.

He flipped the switch, opening the line to his men. “Abort! Come back!

Abort, dammit. Abort! Get your asses back down here on the double!”

The men dropped down the wall, sliding quickly by reducing the magnetism in their hand-hold and foot-hold units. He worried about the top man, who had disappeared onto the ship. From the Zodiac, he stared upward, unconsciously holding his breath. Where was his point man?

When the point SEAL appeared, he was like a fireman on a greased pole, dropping straight down the hull, his expression pissed and trying to hide it. As soon as his feet touched the Zodiac’s side, one SEAL yanked him aboard, while another released the magnetic anchor. Kozloff turned the boat away from the freighter, fighting waves and the drag of the sea that tried to suck the Zodiac into the ship’s screws.

His people watched the hulking Empress without talking. They could still be seen.

When no searchlight appeared, Kozloff took a deep breath of relief. The only good thing as far as he was concerned was at least that part of their mission was successful — The Dowager Empress had not spotted them.

As he accelerated back toward the Crowe, the Empress thundered onward, leaving the Zodiac to pitch and yaw in the rough wake. Now that they were safe, his men began grumbling.

“What in hell happened?” asked the point man.

“We could’ve made it!” complained the anchor man.

Kozloff silently agreed, but he was also commander. “Orders, people,” he said sternly. “We had orders to abort. We don’t question orders.”

Commander Chervenko leaned over the shoulder of Hastings, listening to the submarine. He stiffened as he heard the enemy vessel slow. Had he heard right?

Hastings swallowed. “The sub’s easing up, sir. Falling back.” The radioman called, “Bridge says the Zodiac’s home. It’s signaling off the starboard bow. Commander Bienas says he’s slowing to pick up the SEALs.”

His voice radiating relief, Hastings added, “Looks like the sub’s dropping back to its original position behind us, sir.”

Chervenko inhaled. It was the most emotion he allowed himself in front of his men. He was drained by the last few hours. As he looked around at the tight faces, he knew they were even more so. At least he had years of experience under his belt buckle. “All right, let’s figure out how in hell that sub knew to threaten us just when our SEALs were about to board the Empress. Hastings?”

“No way they picked up the Zodiac or the Seahawk on sonar, sir.”

“The Empress saw the Seahawk hovering,” OS2 Fred Baum suggested. “They put two and two together.”

“That could’ve been it,” Chervenko agreed. “Good work everyone. Keep your eyes and ears open. Call me if there’s anything else.”

As Chervenko hurried down to his quarters to report to Washington, he knew there was no way The Dowager Empress could have detected the unloading of the SEAL team far ahead in the nighttime ocean. The Empress knew they had been hassled by the Seahawk, but that was all. The only way the Chinese sub would have known to move ahead to threaten the Crowe so the SEAL raid was stopped was if they had been warned in advance.

Someone had warned the Chinese submarine. Someone in Washington.

The president stood at the windows of the Oval Office, looking out over the Rose Garden, his back to the distraught Admiral Brose. “They failed?”

“The Chinese sub moved in.” Brose’s voice was wooden. “It loaded and armed torpedoes. Commander Chervenko thinks they knew the raid was coming and guessed the chopper overfly was the start.” “Someone here warned them?” “That’s how it looks.” The admiral’s remark suggested the president might know more than he did. The admiral had not been included in the recent information about the leaks. No one but the DCI and Fred Klein were tight in the loop.

“All right, thank you, Stevens.”

The admiral stood, but he did not leave. “What now, sir?”

The president turned, his hands clasped behind, his tall figure framed in the window. “We go on as before. Make sure all the services are ready and that we have a strong presence in Asian waters on a war footing.”

“Then, Mr. President?”

“Then we wait for China’s move.”

“The Empress should reach Iraqi waters Monday evening our time. Tuesday morning theirs.” Brose’s hard gaze fixed on the president. “Today’s Saturday, so we’re talking just one and, maybe, a half days. Things were bad enough when we still had almost a full week.”

“I know, Admiral. I know.”

The admiral heard the unspoken criticism and nodded slowly. “My apologies, Mr. President.”

“No apology needed, Stevens. Go see that your people are taken care of.

Were any hurt?”

“We don’t know yet. When I talked with Chervenko, the Crowe hadn’t picked them up yet. I thought you’d want to know about the abort as soon as possible.”

“Yes. I did. Thank you.”

When the admiral left, President Castilla remained standing. At last he let out an agonized sigh. He picked up his blue phone, the direct, scrambled line to Covert-One headquarters.

Fred Klein answered immediately. “Yes, Mr. President?”

“The SEALs had to abort.” The president repeated Brose’s report. “The Chinese were warned. Commander Chervenko is sure.”

“Was it Secretary Kott?”

“No. I sent him on a special mission to Mexico to keep him out of Washington. He’s completely off the page, and the CIA’s watching him, just to be sure.”

The president paused, feeling again his outrage and disgust at Kott’s misuse of power. His leaks had caused devastating damage, and the president intended to hold him accountable. But not yet. It was too early to tip his hand.

He continued, “I’ll tell Arlene Debo that a leak here in Washington may be the source for the sub’s aggression on the Crowe. Obviously, we can’t lay that one on Kott. Have you heard from Jon Smith?”

“Afraid not,” Klein told him. “Another hour, I activate my people.”

“We’d better both pray they find him and the manifest. He’s our last chance.”

“What does Arlene say about Mcdermid? Any news from Agent Russell?”

“More bad news. Russell has disappeared, too.”