The Altman Code

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Two Chinese men dragged a struggling peasant woman into the L-shaped room and flung her to the floor near where the man slumped in a chair, his hands tied behind, his face bloodied, his feet naked. The room was airless.

“Take a good look,” one told her in Cantonese. “When you’re questioned, remember — that’ll be you if you don’t answer.”

Dressed in loose pajama trousers and shirt, the peasant woman cowered on the floor and blinked in the way of someone who has not understood a word. The man shook his head, beginning to worry. He looked at his partner, and they left.

Randi heard the door lock behind them. Her black eyes flashed angrily, and her gaze swept over the room, analyzing it. The two wide windows, one front and one back, were covered by drapes. The morning light penetrated only in thin lines around them. She did not move, concerned she was being observed from somewhere. She studied Jon and the knots that tied him to the chair. Silently, she swore. Damn. They had him, too, and they had been tuning him.

She had stumbled into more than she or Langley had expected. Whatever Jon was working on this time, clearly Ralph Mcdermid was part of it.

Experience had taught her that when her almost brother-in-law showed up, something significant was likely involved.

Langley was rarely in the loop of whatever exactly Jon was doing. His employer must operate at the highest levels of the federal government, no matter how much he denied it. That meant the leaks Mcdermid had somehow orchestrated might be only the tip of some political or military iceberg. If she were right, her assignment took on a new dimension she would, for the moment, keep to herself.

Meanwhile, she had to hope her local team had realized by now she had been taken while staking out Ralph Mcdermid and his latest girl novelty, and that they were already mounting a rescue. On the other hand, she could not count on it.

She crumpled back against the floor as if overcome by fear. What she had to figure out was some way to escape so she could contact them. At the same time, she could not let them realize she and Jon knew each other or that she was a Langley spy, no matter what they did to Jon or to her.

As if hearing her thoughts, the door to the L-shaped room opened, and Ralph Mcdermid entered. The Altman CEO was followed by Feng Dun, but it was Mcdermid who stood over her.

He asked harshly in English, “Why are you following me? Spying on me?

You’d better talk, if you don’t want to rot in one of your government prisons.”

She forced her body to do nothing. She lay on the floor in her peasant disguise without moving a muscle, as if she understood no English and had no idea what he said or even that he was speaking to her.

Feng Dun kicked her in the ribs. She howled in protesting Mandarin and twisted to look up at the two men, an innocent peon cringing with fear.

“She’s not from this area,” Feng Dun told Mcdermid in English. “She’s speaking Mandarin from around Beijing or farther north.” He casually kicked her again and switched back to Mandarin to demand, “What are you doing so far from home, peasant? Why are you in Hong Kong?”

Randi howled once more, a small, aggrieved nobody being picked on by the powerful. “There is no work on the land of my father!” she screamed.

Then, weeping: “So I left for Guangzhou, but the money is better here.”

“What the hell is she saying?” Mcdermid said.

Feng repeated it. “It’s a common story. Millions leave the country to look for any kind of job in the cities.”

“Millions don’t end up following me. Why was she spying? For whom?”

Feng translated the question with a few twists of his own: “You were following Mr. Mcdermid most of the day. Did you think we didn’t see you?

Mr. Mcdermid is a very important man. Unless you want to be given to the police, who will put you in prison for the rest of your life, you’ll tell us who paid you and what he wanted you to find out.”

Ever since Feng and the two other men had surprised her, listening at the bedroom window in the garden of Ralph Mcdermid’s mansion, Randi had been thinking of what she could say that they would believe. A lot would depend on their level of paranoia. On how much Mcdermid had to hide, on how many enemies he had, and on how well he and Feng Dun knew those enemies.

She decided to try to evade a little longer. She would continue to act like a frightened, unsophisticated country woman, then give them the “mystery man” story. “I was only looking for money,” she whimpered. “The gate to the garden was open. I heard voices, and I went in to ask the rich foreigner for help.”

Feng Dun’s foot kicked so fast she did not see it move until it exploded in pain against her ribs.

She shrieked like a pig being dragged to slaughter. As she writhed on the floor, she managed to gasp, “My family must have money. I don’t earn enough in the factories to send to the village. I have to have more. And … and sometimes I have to steal. It was such a fine house … there’d be much money in such a house. There’d be beautiful things to take and sell … ”

“Stupid peasant!” Feng’s pale face flushed pink and contorted in rage.

“You followed him all day. You were spying on him. Probably for far longer!”

Randi gave her best cunning, groveling, pleading, terrified-nobody performance. She grabbed at Mcdermid’s ankles and blubbered up into his repulsed face.

Feng cursed in Mandarin, grabbed her by her pajama top, and dragged her away from Mcdermid. “Peasants! They pretend they’re being skinned alive if you bump into them. I’ll give her something real to howl about.” He spun around. In his soft voice, he spoke rapidly to the other two men.

“Get the electrodes and the blowtorch.”

His words were in Shanghainese, but Randi understood the dialect. Her mind reeled. She could stand torture as well as most, but resistance would almost certainly end up incapacitating her even if she were rescued or managed to escape. Still, there was one story they might believe completely: She would give them Jon.

He was already hurt. For all she knew, it could be serious. She steeled herself as she glanced at him. He sagged against his bindings, unconscious, not even moaning. She could do nothing for either of them if she, too, were badly injured. And she could do nothing for the Company and certainly nothing for America.

She would let them get their blowtorch, their electric devices, or whatever other horrors Feng Dun had in his torture arsenal. If they chose the electrodes, they would apply a nasty stun to her first, which she knew would leave no serious damage. She would not break and give them Jon until the second or third jolt. The longer she held out, the more they would believe what she told them. If they started with the blowtorch, she would have to gamble and give him up sooner. Blowtorches frightened her.

The two grinning men returned with their persecution tools. Reflex was a physical reaction beyond control of the mind. Only a split second after she had reacted did Randi realize Feng Dun had been watching.

He smiled again. “Light the blowtorch,” he told one of the men. To the other, he ordered, “Bring another chair. Take off her sandals.”

Ralph Mcdermid swallowed hard. “Is that really necessary―”

“Yes, Taipan,” Feng Dun’s voice had a harsh, irritated edge. “In matters of this importance, hands must get dirty. Even bloody.”

The second man grabbed a chair from a corner. Feng Dun picked her up by the shoulders. She sagged, but he lifted her as easily as if she were a straw doll. He dumped her onto the chair. The first man lit the blowtorch, while the second pulled off her sandals.

She shrieked again in Mandarin. “No! No! I’ll tell you. He hired me.”

She pointed at Jon, who still did not move against his ropes. “I was afraid to say it. You would hurt me as you’ve hurt him. But … that’s the man who did it. He paid me, told me to follow the gentleman there, and remember where he went, what he did, and who he talked to.

Everything the foreign gentleman did. I needed the money. My father and mother are old. They need medicine and food. Their house is old. It must be repaired. Please! Don’t hurt me!”

She chattered on as if terror had unleashed a flood of words. Mcdermid and the other men turned to study Jon as Feng translated. A look of understanding came over Mcdermid’s face. Randi could see belief in his eyes, saying to himself, Yes, of course. Why didn’t I guess that from the start?

Feng was not looking at Mcdermid. He was staring at Randi’s feet. He stepped closer, grabbed her hands, and turned them over to peer at the palms.

Distracted by Feng’s movements, and relieved that the blowtorch was not going to be necessary, Mcdermid said, “Feng? What is it?”

Feng dropped Randi’s hands, grabbed her chin, and tilted it up. He stared at her face, her eyes, her hair. His long fingers felt like steel nails against her forehead and scalp, and her stomach plunged.

She pulled back. “Owww! You’re hurting me!”

“Stay still.” Abruptly, the fingers dug into her forehead below the hairline. Her flesh-colored scalp and black wig peeled off in his hand, revealing the tight skullcap that held down her own hair.

“Feng!” Mcdermid’s broad face looked stunned.

Feng pulled off the skullcap, and her blond hair tumbled out.

His two musclemen gaped as if they had seen a miracle.

Mcdermid announced stupidly, “She’s not Chinese!” “No,” Feng said, without taking his gaze from Randi’s face, “she’s not Chinese.”

“But how did you—?”

“Her feet,” Feng said. “Rural people wear sandals most of their lives.

She doesn’t have the gap between her large toe and the others.” He studied her with a kind of admiration. “Her hands have been artificially coarsened and aged, probably with latex skin. The same kind of product gave her eyes an Oriental fold and shape. She’s probably wearing contact lenses, and there’s a subtle pigmentation on her skin from some kind of long-lasting skin dye. It’s a remarkable piece of intelligence tradecraft, the work of experts.”

Everyone in the room, except the unconscious Jon, stared at Randi the way they would at an exotic zoo animal.

Fear rushed through her. She thought fast. They would no longer believe her story that Jon had hired her. Feng had deduced that she worked for an intelligence agency. Nothing would change his mind about that now.

Whatever new lie she told must contain that admission. Sweating, she considered possibilities … what Feng and Mcdermid might believe..

what legend she had the skills to make credible.

“So,” Feng said in that ghostly voice that seldom varied, which made it all the more intimidating. “You aren’t Chinese, but you speak Mandarin as well or better than I do, and I’d guess Cantonese and Shanghainese, too, yes? Certainly English. You’ve understood every word we’ve said.

You’ve been ahead of us from the start. You’re highly trained by a large organization with global interests and the need for operatives who can speak foreign languages. Even our American friend there can’t speak Chinese. But he isn’t CIA, is he? A special person, perhaps, recruited for a special mission, but with a real Langley agent to work with him, yes? And, of course, that Langley agent would be you.”

Randi made a decision. She curled her lip and said in disgusted Russian, “Don’t insult me.”

Ralph Mcdermid took a half step back, his eyes wide as if he had been slapped across the face.

Feng Dun blinked.

“And you’re right about Colonel Smith,” she continued in perfect Russian. “He’s not CIA. What or who he is precisely, I know as little as you.” Give them a small confirmation. It could distract them. “But I’d like to know, too. It could prove useful to us later.” Mcdermid demanded, “What did she say?” When Feng translated, Mcdermid frowned angrily. “Why is a Russian agent following me?”

Randi switched to Russian-accented English. “The Altman Group isn’t the only arms dealer.”

“Russian intelligence is interested in doing business?” Mcdermid sensed profit. “Does the Kremlin want to work with us?” He had done good deals with Russia in the past, but recently Moscow had grown greedy, demanding a larger cut.

“In Russia today, life is good for few.”

Mcdermid studied Randi. He decided, “You’re not working for the government. You’re moonlighting for yourself or others. For one of your capitalist oligarchs, perhaps. Someone who wants to know what the Altman Group is doing for reasons of business utility.”

Randi gave a slow nod, as if reluctant to admit it. “We do what we must.

My father was GRU. One becomes accustomed to living well.”

GRU was the old Soviet military intelligence. Feng said, “Does this oligarch have a name?”

“Possibly.” She cocked an eyebrow and looked at Mcdermid.

Feng turned his head toward Mcdermid, too. Then he glared at her. “I don’t believe you. What weapons deal is Mr. Mcdermid making in Hong Kong that brought you here?”

“Stop, Feng.” Mcdermid saw dollar signs. Russia still had weapons many people wanted, particularly in the Third World. Although those dictators and self-appointed kings cried poverty, they managed to come up with the cash when it came to guns and ammunition. If this woman had access to a private store, which had probably been looted from the government’s dwindling supplies … “We need to talk.”

Feng remained focused on Randi’s face, searching it for something he could not quite pinpoint but seemed sure was there. Then he looked at Jon Smith. He had still not moved. Feng again considered Randi.

“Feng,” Mcdermid repeated.

The enforcer glanced at him, turned, and walked toward the door.

Mcdermid followed, after a reassuring smile at the moonlighting Russian agent with the business connections.

Chapter Thirty

In an inner office, Ralph Mcdermid’s cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket. “This is Mcdermid.” The polished voice said, “We need to talk.”

Mcdermid covered the mouthpiece. “I’d better take this,” he told Feng Dun.

“Very well. My people must eat anyway.”

Mcdermid nodded. “It’s been a long night. Get something downstairs. I want white toast and coffee. Cream and sugar. A Danish, if you can find one. Then we’ll talk more about the Russian.”

The footsteps of Feng and his men thumped down the wood stairs, while Mcdermid found a seat on a packing box that held adult toys for a sex shop on the street floor.

He returned to the phone. “I have good news for you.”

“What news?”

Mcdermid related the capture of Smith and the Russian agent. “This is the end of our major problem. All of the copies of the manifest are destroyed.” The voice on the other end said with relief, “Excellent. And did you give my information about the SEAL operation to Feng Dun to pass on?”

“Yes, it’s over. He made the connection to one of his people, who got the information to the sub’s captain. You hadn’t heard?”

“Not yet. It will be a pleasure to act surprised. The White House won’t try again, now that they know the Chinese will be watching for more attempts. Tell me about the Russian woman. You say she was spying on you? I don’t like the sound of that.”

Mcdermid filled him in. “We can make use of her perhaps. I’ll know more soon.”

“It’s interesting, but let’s keep our focus. I’m out on a limb on this.

We’d better bring it home.”

“You’re out on a limb? Consider my position. If I’m not worried, you don’t have to be.”

“What will you do with Smith?”

“Whatever we need to. That’s Feng’s province. But first, I want to find out for whom he works.”

“If anything happens, I know nothing about this.”

“Naturally. Neither do I.”

Cheered by their progress, Mcdermid hung up and remained sitting on the packing box, thinking about the new good fortune the Russian woman might have brought. Depending on what she was offering, it could be another billion in the long run.

As soon as she heard the door close, Randi bent to put on her sandals.

Her whisper was so low, so directed only toward Jon, that it would be inaudible from the door around the corner.

“Jon? Jon? I’m going to get you out of this. Can you hear me? Jon?”

“Of course, I can hear you. I’m not deaf, you know. At least not yet.” His speech was thick through his swollen lips. A hint of pain in the cheerful whisper. “Terrific work. I’m impressed.”

Relief rushed through her, mixed with annoyance. “You’ve been awake the whole time, damn you.”

“Now, now.” He tried to raise his head. “Only most of the time. I―”

Randi put a finger to her lips, shook her head, and signaled him to slump again. She stood up and walked around the bare room. She examined the floor, walls, and ceiling, as if searching for another way out. What she expected to find were listening devices and closed-circuit cameras, but there were no cameras and no recent changes in the walls that could conceal bugs.

Nothing hung on the walls, and there were no wall fixtures and no furniture other than the two straight chairs. She could not be completely certain there were no listening devices, but she did know there were no cameras.

She returned to her chair and said in a low voice, “Okay, they can’t see us, and I can’t find any mikes, but let’s keep it down, just in case.

How much did you hear?”

“Most of it. Giving me to them was masterly, probably the only story they would’ve believed. The Russian bit was positively brilliant. The peasant howling and crawling wasn’t bad either. I had no idea you had so much talent as a groveler.”

“Your approval warms my heart. But we’re still trapped here. Unless you want your feet fried to a cinder on your way to a shallow grave, we’d better figure out what to do when they come back.”

“I’m ahead of you. You were doing fine, so I had plenty of time to think. What do you know about the big guy with the crazy hair?”

“Feng Dun?”

“Yes, that’s the name I have for him, too.”

“He’s from Shanghai. A former soldier, guerrilla, and adventurer. Very undercover. Now he’s an enforcer for high-level businessmen.”

“Where’d he get that hair?”

“There are plenty of redheaded Han, probably from some long-ago minority they assimilated. I’d guess the white’s just an odd sign of his aging.

Now it’s your turn. While I was crawling around on the dirty floor, saving your bacon, what did you come up with to get us loose?”

“We jump ‘ and split.”

She was speechless at the inadequacy of that. “You’re kidding.”

“Think about it,” he said, the pain in the voice intensifying the more he spoke through his sore lips. “What else do we have? Are there more of them out there on the other side of that door?”

“They blindfolded me. Probably, but we don’t even know where we are.”

“Yes, we do. Or at least, I do. I’ve been listening, and even though I was blindfolded, too, I was able to figure out a few things. It’s morning now, probably late morning. I heard vendors’ voices, awnings being opened, and boat horns and whistles from the harbor. Plus, I think there was a rumble from underneath us, as if the subway runs somewhere near. I figure we’re in Wanchai again, in some back street not so far from the harbor.”

“From the look of this room, we’re in an old building,” Randi decided.

“And that means probably only one staircase — only one way out.”

Jon nodded. “Right, so our best shot really is to jump them. You can handle Mcdermid, right?”

“With one hand.”

“Use two. Just to be sure, not to mention fast.”

“Consider it done. We’ll need to be out of here in a hurry, before the others know what’s happening. But can you do it? You look seriously banged up.”

“I’ve felt better. The good thing is nothing’s broken, and I’ll rise to the occasion. The threat of death is a fine motivator to get a fellow off his duff.” She studied him and nodded. He had that determined look she had seen in him before. “You’re the doctor.”

“Get me loose, but leave the ropes on so it looks as if I’m still tied.” She undid the knots, her fingers fumbling as she hurried.

As she worked, he said, “They’ll ask you a lot more questions about your Russian contacts. What you’re after. What your arms dealer has to sell and wants to buy … all that. You’ve got to keep their attention, especially Feng’s.” She left the ropes entwined, so they would look tight. “Thanks for the advice. I never would’ve figured it out by myself.”

Jon ignored her sarcasm. “He’ll have his gun, of course. I intend to blind him.”

“Then you make damn sure you get him the first time.”

“I know. I―” They heard the key turn in the lock. Jon instantly slumped in the chair, careful not to move the nylon ropes. Randi resumed her nonchalant posture in the other chair, ready to do business with Mcdermid, if the price was right. Mcdermid appeared first. Feng Dun walked behind, not hurrying, his expression a mixture of suspicion and disapproval. He did not like the way Mcdermid was handling the Russian woman. He cared nothing about Mcdermid’s business, and, besides, he did not trust her. She was too glib. No one had yet asked her to prove that she was who she claimed to be. It was an oversight he intended to correct now. From under his nearly closed eyelids, Jon saw the questions on Feng’s face. And although the killer was distracted, he was watching Jon. Mcdermid walked directly to Randi. “All right, let’s talk about your people. We’re going to―”

“Hold it,” Feng announced. “First I’ll check the American.” He pulled Jon’s head up by his hair. Jon groaned, and he drooled saliva from his slack mouth. Without warning, Feng slapped him across the face. Jon gave a feeble flinch and collapsed so heavily Feng had to support his head with one hand while he used the other to tug on the nylon cords across Jon’s chest.

Randi felt her muscles tense with fear as she tried to maintain her casual slouch on the chair. Jon’s cords held. She had looped them several places, and Jon had expanded his chest to make them tight. When he relaxed, the loops would slip. Then he could work free unseen.

“Finished?” Mcdermid said impatiently. The Altman CEO did not wait for an answer. He returned his attention to Randi. “We … What’s your name, I can’t just call you the Russian.”

“Ludmilla Sakkov.” She nodded toward Feng Dun. “What’s his name?”

“You don’t need to know my name, Russian. If you are Russian,” Feng said, observing her closely from head to toe. “I once fought for the Russians ―”

At that moment, Jon leaped from his chair far more quickly than he had thought possible. Relaxing, feeling the cords slip, then lunging. The loops fell away, the chair clattered backward, and his right fist caught Feng Dun on the point of his jaw. The blow snapped Feng’s neck back and sideways, pinched his spinal column, and knocked him sideways where he would have pitched into Mcdermid, if Mcdermid had still been standing there.

He was not. Two powerful karate chops to the throat and the side of the head from the suddenly standing “Russian” had knocked Mcdermid to the floor, unconscious. Feng’s legs tripped on Mcdermid’s legs, and Feng slammed down onto his shoulder.

“Jon!” Randi shouted.

As Feng landed, he shook his head to clear it and reached under his jacket. They could see his pistol, but he had sprawled too far away for them to reach it with a kick. He rolled over onto his back, the gun in both hands, preparing for a target. At the same time, shouts erupted outside the room. Feet pounded to the door. Feng’s men.

They were trapped again, and they had fewer options.

“The window!” Jon said.

He spun, nearly fell over from a wave of pain, and ran straight at the drapes that covered the big window. He slammed through in a loud shattering of glass and splintering of old wood, and was gone, carrying the protective drapes with him. Without letting herself think, Randi followed.

The room had been on the third floor of a building from the thirties. A scream escaped Randi’s throat as she and Jon plunged down.

Jon and Randi flailed through the air, desperately grabbing at anything they could see as they plummeted. They smashed onto a heavy canvas awning.

Safe, they gazed with relief at each other, collecting their wits. The awning groaned. They scrambled toward the frame, trying to grab it. The steel supports resisted and bent.

As shouts sounded from the window above, the canvas ripped, dumping them toward the street again. But there was a second, shorter awning, shielding a window. They landed, slid off, and landed again — this time on the umbrella of an omelette vendor. Instantly, it collapsed, too.

They fell hard to the street, barely missing the omelette cart. As the vendor yelled, they lay stunned, reeling. Around them, businesspeople were preparing for the new day. Delivery trucks rumbled along the narrow street, parking on the curb, blocking the traffic so that only one lane could pass. Pedestrians stopped to stare at the European couple who had crashed into their midst, especially since the blond woman wore rustic country clothes. A babel of languages filled the air as they gathered, some pointing upward as they explained the unusual event.

Jon’s mouth and face were bleeding again, and there was a ragged tear in his trousers where fresh blood oozed up. He moved his arms and legs. He hurt everywhere, but nothing seemed broken.

Randi had landed on her back. Gasping, trying to breathe normally, she checked herself for injuries, for broken bones, for blood. Remarkably, she appeared to be unhurt.

They sat up, almost at the same moment. As the circle of the curious closed in, they exchanged another look of relief, this time mixed with exhaustion. Still, it was not over. Feng Dun and his men were probably already chasing down the stairs after them.

As they struggled to their feet, she told him, “There’s an alley.”

Jon nodded, unable to talk. They limped toward it, pushing people out of their way.

“Randi! Here!” CIA operative Allan Savage waved his arms from where he stood on the fender of a black Buick. His nondescript face was worried.

Two more members of Randi’s team were shoving their way toward them.

“Who’s this guy?” Agent Baxter wanted to know as he slung Jon’s arm over his shoulder and supported him toward the car.

“Don’t ask. Get him inside. Fast!”

With his peripheral vision, Jon saw Feng Dun burst through to the street next to an adult shop, his head swiveling as he looked everywhere. Three other men crowded out behind. All aimed weapons. When the crowd saw them, they screamed and ran.

Jon’s legs moved weakly, unable to hold him up. Randi tumbled into the back of the Buick. Agent Baxter threw Jon in after her.

Shots ripped the street. People continued to scatter, finding cover where they could. From the car, Allan Savage in the driver’s seat and a female agent in the back returned a withering fire from minisubmachine guns.

As Feng Dun and his killers dove back into the doorway, Savage ground the Buick’s gears and drove away, screeched around the first corner, and was gone.

The CIA safe house occupied a four-story building on Lower Albert Road in Central. The Buick drove into an alley behind the building, a cement wall slid open, and the car disappeared inside. The first floor had been gutted, the hidden garage installed, and the front area turned into an insurance office where people came and went all day, doing legitimate business.

The insurance agency made a small profit, which pleased the DCI in Langley well as the congressmen and senators on the oversight committees. On the second floor was the safe house’s first-aid room. An American-born Hong Kong doctor on Langley’s payroll examined their wounds and bruises and took X rays with a portable unit.

He declared Randi “one lucky little girl.”

Allan Savage and the others on the rescue team winced as they saw the scowl that appeared on Randi’s face, expecting the worst for the doctor.

But to their astonishment, she merely glared. The doctor, who had expected at least a smile of appreciation, was confused.

He turned hastily to Jon, who was a different matter. “That’s a nasty battering your face took, and you’re bruised around the ribs.” He muttered to himself as he took X rays of Jon’s injuries and was amazed to find nothing more than the severe bruising. “Still, you’re well beat up. I’d say you were out of action for a week … at least three or four days. You could get an infection from those facial wounds and the lacerations in your mouth.” “Sorry, Doc,” Jon told him. “Work to do. Clean me up and shoot me full of antibiotics. Painkillers sound like an attractive idea, too.”

After the doctor left, the crew provided lunch. Soup only for Jon.

Allan Savage apologized to Randi. “Sorry we were late, but Tommie tailed you fine until they got you to the street. That’s where she lost you.

She never saw exactly where they took you. We were combing the area building by building when you came flying out those windows. That was a damned risky way to escape. How’d you know how high you were and what was under the windows?”

“Don’t ask me.” Randi gave a toss of her head toward Jon. “It was his idea. I just followed.” She wolfed down eggs and bacon.

Jon shrugged. “I figured it was an older, lower building. Anyway, without weapons, and Feng Dun’s going for his gun and the rest of the gang damn near into the room, we didn’t have time to even grab our chairs and swing them. It was out the window or dead.”

There were awed looks all around.

The other female agent, Tommie Parker, said to Randi, “Who is this guy?”

“Meet Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, M.D. That’s Jon without an h. He’s a researcher for USAMRIID. What else he is remains open for speculation, right, Jon?”

“Randi sees conspiracies everywhere.” Jon grinned innocently. The painkillers were taking effect. Between them and the soup, he was beginning to feel much better. There were flesh-covered Band-Aids on his face, and his fat lip was hardly a pretty sight. Still, he figured he could look a lot worse. Now what he wanted was a few uninterrupted hours of sleep.

“So do we,” Allan Savage said, studying Jon.

Jon sighed. “I’m a doctor, a microbiological scientist, and I work at Fort Detrick for USAMRIID. Sometimes they send me on special assignments. Especially in cases of emerging viruses. Why don’t we leave it at that?”

Tommie frowned, her dark eyes suspicious. She had shoulder-length brown hair and a sweet, gamin’s face that Jon had decided hid shrewd intellect and a daring spirit. “What virus is emerging in Hong Kong, Colonel?”

“None. But there’s one inside China,” he lied, “and Donk & Lapierre’s medical division is investigating it. The government wants to know more.”

“Which government?” Tommie probed suspiciously.

Randi interrupted, “That’s the only thing about Jon I’m sure of — he works for our side.”

Jon had a retort ready to fling when the last agent from the Buick, Baxter, leaned into the first-aid room through an open door. “We’re picking up something on the phone bug we installed in Mcdermid’s office last night. A call just came in.”

They jumped up and ran out along the hallway and into a rear room crammed with electronic gear, machines, and instruments. Randi and Jon pushed through to stand close to a notebook computer from which a woman’s voice spoke with a slight accent. “You’re Ralph Mcdermid?”

Chapter Thirty-One

Ever since he returned to his penthouse office, Ralph Mcdermid had been alternately worried and angry. As he worked on a new agreement to acquire a troubled Asian investment firm in Hong Kong, his mind returned to the

morning’s debacle with Jon Smith and the woman. He was angry with himself for allowing the woman, who might not have been Russian after all, certainly not someone looking for a business deal, to play him so easily, and at Feng Dun, for underestimating Smith.

Still, the situation was hardly lost. It was true the pair was on the loose, and Jon Smith was dangerous, but little harm had actually been done. Smith still had no way to prove the Empress carried illicit chemicals. Feng would eventually find and kill him — he had the resources, even here in Hong Kong.

These thoughts reassured him. When his phone rang, he answered with his usual well-honed civility. “Yes, Lawrence?”

“A lady, sir. On line two. She sounds rather young, and … ah … attractive.”

“A lady? And possibly attractive? Well, well.” He was expecting no calls from any “lady,” and this made him feel even more optimistic. “Put her on, Lawrence. Put her on.”

He was straightening his tie as if she could see him when her voice appeared in his ear in slightly stilted English. “You’re Ralph Mcdermid?”

“Guilty as charged, my dear. Do we know each other?”

“Perhaps. You’re chairman and CEO of the Altman Group?”

“Yes, yes. That I am.”

“Your corporation is the owner of Donk & Lapierre?”

“We’re a financial group, and we hold many companies. But what—?”

“We’ve never met, Mr. Mcdermid, but I believe we’ll soon have occasion for that. At least figuratively.”

Mcdermid felt his bad temper returning. This sounded like no woman suggesting a tryst. “If this is business, madame, you’ll need to call my office, state what that business is, and make an appointment. If your concern is with Donk & Lapierre, I suggest you call them directly. Good day to you―”

“Our business is with The Dowager Empress, Mr. Mcdermid.

Believe me, you are wise to deal with us directly.” Mcdermid’s eyebrows rose. “What?”

“The Empress is a ship, in case you’ve forgotten. A Chinese cargo vessel en route to Basra. Its cargo is, we believe, of great interest to the Americans. Possibly to the Chinese also.”

“Tell me what you want, and we might be able to benefit both of us.”

“We’re delighted you’re ready to talk of mutual benefit.” He lost his temper. “Stop speaking in riddles! You’ll have to tell me far more to convince me I need to listen. Otherwise, stop wasting my time!” Attack, as he had learned personally over the years, was often the best defense.

“The Empress sailed from Shanghai in early September for Basra. In its holds are many tons of thiodiglycol for Iraq to produce blister weapons as well as thionyl chloride to produce both blister and nerve weapons.”

The woman’s quiet voice took on a sinister edge. “Is that sufficient, Mr. Ralph Mcdermid, CEO, founder of the Altman Group?”

Mcdermid found it difficult to speak. He pressed the recording button on the phone, signaled for Lawrence, and said carefully, “Precisely whom do you represent, and what do you want?”

“We represent only ourselves. Are you ready to hear our price and terms?” Lawrence entered the office. Mcdermid gestured for him to have the call traced. At the end of his patience, he snapped, “Who the hell are you, and why shouldn’t I hang up immediately?”

“My name is Li Kuonyi, Mr. Mcdermid. My husband is Yu Yongfu. As you no doubt recall, he’s the president and chairman of Flying Dragon Enterprises. He’s an intelligent man. So intelligent and farseeing, in fact, that he saved his company’s copy of the Empress’s invoice manifest. We have it with us.”

In the CIA safe house, the exclamation burst from Jon before he could stop himself, “Holy hell!”

All eyes turned to look.

Randi said, “Jon? You know what this is about?”

“Later,” he said, waving his hand. “Quiet. Listen.”

Mcdermid’s shocked silence had ended. He’d had enough. “Your husband burned the manifest and committed suicide. A tragedy, as we say. I

don’t know what your game is, but―” “You were told my husband had killed himself to save his family on the orders of my father and those far higher politically. You were also told he burned the manifest and shot himself in the head and fell into the river. All of that’s a lie. He burned a useless paper and fired his pistol, yes. He fell into the river, yes. But the bullets in the weapon weren’t real. What Feng saw was a charade. I know, because I staged it.”

“Impossible!”

“Has the body of my husband been found?”

“Many bodies are never found in the Yangtze delta.”

“Do you know my husband’s voice, Mr. Mcdermid?”

“No.”

“Feng Dun does.”

“He isn’t here.”

“You are, of course, recording this conversation?”

There was a pause. “Yes.”

“Then listen.”

A male voice came onto the line. “I’m Yu Yongfu, Mcdermid. Tell that traitor Feng that the last time we spoke I offered him a bonus. He told me of the death of the American spy, Mondragon, on Liuchiu Island and about a second American who escaped and was seen in Shanghai. Tell him that, unfortunately for him, my wife is my business partner, and I never withhold information from her. Never. It was she who advised me to keep the manifest safe, and she’s the one who orchestrated my ‘.”

Everyone believes she’s the smarter of us in all ways, but that’s not true. I’m rather intelligent myself — after all, I convinced her to marry me.”

Then the man was gone, and the woman returned. “Play that for Feng. Now you and I need to talk business.”

“Why doesn’t your husband do the talking, madame?”

“Because he knows that in this area, I am smarter and stronger.”

Mcdermid appeared to think about that. “Or he’s dead, and you played a recording.”

“You know better than that. Still, in the end, does it matter? I have the manifest, and you want it.”

“And what do you want, Madame Li?”

“Money for a new life far from China for my children, my husband, and myself, but not such an enormous amount that it would sting you more than a mosquito bite. I’m reasonable. Two million American dollars should be good for all of us.”

“That’s it?” He let sarcasm fill his voice.

She ignored it. “We’ll need travel and identity papers, as well as an exit visa. The best papers.”

He paused, rethinking his objections. “For that I get the manifest?” “That’s what I said.”

“And if you don’t get what you want?”

“The Americans and Chinese will receive the manifest instead. I’ll arrange for it to be put into their hands myself, just as I arranged Yongfu’s ‘.’ The original will go to Washington, and a copy will be sent to Beijing.”

Mcdermid laughed. “If Yu Yongfu is truly alive, he will know that’s impossible. It can’t happen. If by some chance it did happen, he’d be dead, and so would you.”

There was no humor in the woman’s steady tones. “That’s a risk we’re willing to take. Are you willing to risk the White House and Zhongnanhai receiving the manifest and what we know of the entire Empress story?”

Again Mcdermid hesitated. Life was full of surprises, many of them unpleasant. This was such a surprise and fraught with so many dangerous repercussions that he could not afford to dismiss this woman, whoever she might be. “And how do you propose we consummate this negotiation?”

“You or your representative will bring the money and the identity papers to us. We’ll give the manifest to you in return, once we have our payment.”

Mcdermid laughed again. “You think I’m a fool, Madame Li? What guarantee do I have the manifest will actually be turned over to me, or even that it still exists?”

“We’re not fools either. If we attempted such a deception, you’d indeed hunt us down. But you’re not a criminal who succeeds by fear. Once you have the manifest and we’re gone, your incentive to kill us will be far less. In fact, probably not worth the money, time, and trouble. Bad money after good, as they say.” “That’d require considerable thought.”

“Again, what does it matter? You have to do it.”

“Where would this exchange take place?”

“At the site of the Sleeping Buddha near Dazu. That’s in Sichuan Province.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow at dawn.”

“You’re in Dazu now?”

“Did you think I’d tell you so easily? Where we are is unimportant.

You’re undoubtedly having this call traced and will soon know anyway.

Develop patience. It’s a characteristic of the East that the West should adopt.”

Mcdermid needed to stall. First, to play Feng the tape and make sure these people were whom they claimed. Second, if they were bona fide, to give Feng a chance to find and eliminate them before any meeting. “Do you know what time it is, madame? If you’re as smart as you say, and if your husband truly is Yu Yongfu, then you’ll know I can’t possibly put together two million American dollars in cash and get to Dazu from Hong Kong so quickly. In addition, I’ll need to confirm your story with Feng.” There was what sounded like whispered consultation. These people were less assured than they sounded.

“You’ll come yourself? To China?” she asked.

He did not plan any such thing. “Madame, you can’t know Feng Dun very well if you think I’d trust him with two million dollars in cash.”

A momentary silence. “Very well. Two million dollars in cash, new identity papers, travel papers, and an exit visa. The Sleeping Buddha at dawn the day after tomorrow.” She hung up.

Lawrence popped his head around the door. He was grinning. “Got them.

They’re in Urumqi.”

It was deep into the night, and the marina on the Anacostia was mostly deserted. In his cloistered office, Fred Klein looked up at his ship’s clock for the tenth time in the last hour. He made a quick calculation: Midnight here would be noon tomorrow in Hong Kong.

Where the devil was Jon? He rocked in his desk chair, restless despite his exhaustion. From his years of experience, he knew there could be a thousand possible explanations for Jon’s disappearance — anything from clogged traffic to a subway breakdown or some bizarre natural occurrence. There was also the possibility that Jon had been discovered and shot to death. He did not want to think about it, but he could not stop himself.

He looked at the clock again. Where … His phone rang. The blue phone on the shelf behind his desk. Klein grabbed it. “Jon …?”

“I’m not Jon. I hope he’s not missing, whoever he may be.”

“Sorry, Viktor.”

Klein tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. He refocused.

Viktor Agajemian was a former Soviet hydraulics engineer, now officially Armenian but still living and working in Moscow. His firm was helping to build the mammoth Yangtze Gorges Dam project, and he had papers to travel anywhere in China. He was also one of Klein’s first recruits to perform occasional tasks for Covert-One in Asia, particularly in China.

“You made contact?” Klein asked.

“I did. Chiavelli says, and I quote, ‘ prisoner appears authentic.

Physical condition is good. General area rural, infrastructure bad, military installations few and scattered, and airfields primitive.

Potential resistance average-to-minimal. Estimated time: ten to twenty minutes, total. Escape is promising.’ That’s it, Fred. You planning to break the old boy out?”

“What do you think about an operation like that?”

“From what I saw, Captain Chiavelli may be right. On the other hand, I didn’t actually see the prisoner.”

“Thanks, Viktor.”

“Anytime. The money will arrive in the usual manner?” “You’d be told of any change.” Klein’s mind was already back on Jon Smith.

“Sorry to be crass, but times are not the best in Russia or Armenia.”

“I understand, Viktor, and thank you. You are, as always, the professional in everything.” Klein hung up, thinking that they might possibly have to use Captain Chiavelli’s report if … Where the devil was Jon?

He studied the clock. At last, he took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and sat staring at the blue telephone, willing it to ring.

In the CIA safe house, Jon turned on his heel. “I have to go.”

“Whoa, soldier,” Randi said. “You go nowhere until you tell us what this is all about.” Jon hesitated. If he did not explain, they would report to Langley and start digging. But how much could he reveal without disclosing everything? Not much, and this time there was no clever story to throw them off track. The resurrected wife of Yu Yongfu had supplied too many details, including the freighter’s illegal haul. He could say nothing more without hinting at what Li Kuonyi had not described — his mission.

“All right, I’ll level with you,” he said, “but I can’t reveal exactly what’s going on. The need-to-know is off the scale, and I have my orders. But I can tell you this much: I’m working for the White House.

They sent me because I happened to be in Taiwan at a scientific meeting and had the opportunity to get into China right away. It was a matter of convenience for them. The woman you just heard is the wife of someone who’s vital to the situation. Both she and her husband had disappeared.

We’d heard nothing about his being dead. I’ve got to get this new information to my chief immediately.”

“What was all that about a ship and a manifest?” Randi wanted to know.

“That’s what I can’t tell you.”

Randi stared into his eyes, searching for deception, but this time she could find none — just worry, which worried her. “Does what you’re working on have any connection to leaks of information from the White House?”

“Leaks? Is that your assignment? Is that why you’ve been following Mcdermid?”

“Yes. Your operation turned up Mcdermid, too?”

“Yeah,” Jon said. “I’ve got a lot to report.”

“I’d say we both do.”

Tommie, who had left the room, rushed back inside, swearing. “We were tailed. If you’re thinking of leaving, Jon, you’d better go out the side way, through the next building and the next. That will put you on a cross street.”

“Who is it?”

“Feng Dun and his people. They’re watching the street and the alley. The only good thing is they don’t seem to know exactly where we are.”

“Is that exit clear?” Jon asked. No safe house could exist unless it had two or three ways to escape.

“Not yet. You’d better wait.”

“You have a back room I can borrow? I need to report in.” Randi said witheringly, “You sure you want to risk it? The room might be bugged. We might hear something.”

Jon did not like keeping her in the dark any more than she liked being in it. He looked around at the CIA agents and offered his most ingenuous smile. “I trust all of you. Hell, you saved my butt. And I sure do appreciate the doctor and the food and the help getting out of here.

With luck, I’ll be able to return the favor.”

Randi glowered and shook her head. At last she heaved a dramatic sigh.

She hated it when he was being charmingly right. “You’re such a pain, Jon. Oh, very well. I’ll find you a place myself.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

The two men were alone in Mcdermid’s luxurious penthouse office, surrounded by museum-quality paintings and Ming Dynasty vases. Feng sat with his thick arms crossed, his broad face emotionless, in the chair opposite Mcdermid’s desk. “Smith and the woman have gone to ground.” Feng had ordered most of his men to pursue the pair after their escape, while others had stayed behind to question the crowd. That was how Feng had learned an American voice had shouted to the woman from the escape car. The voice had called her Sandy or Mandy or Randy.

“What the hell does that mean?” Mcdermid asked, barely able to contain his anger as he waited to play the tape of his conversation with Li Kuonyi.

“It means my men were able to track them to Lower Albert Road, where they disappeared into an alley.”

“Disappeared? What are they, shamans?”

“There’s obviously some kind of safe house on the street, and it has hidden entrances. My men are watching.”

“Are they CIA after all?”

“We still can’t find any affiliation to a known intelligence agency for him. We have only a partial name for her, not heard clearly. It could be a first or a last name. We’re checking our sources to see whether we can identify her. But provisionally, I suspect she’s CIA. What or whoever they are, they’ll reappear.”

Mcdermid had not counted on so many problems. Give him a sick company or an underperforming portfolio, and he was in his element. Better yet, show him a politician at loose ends or a defeated senator growing bored, and he would use them to pull in investment funds or to lobby a piece of legislation until it passed. For him, that was child’s play. The Empress cargo was something else. It was a deal so big it would crown all others.

Inwardly, he sighed. It was worth any amount of trouble. “Maybe. Forget Smith and the woman for now. Listen to this.” When the tape finished playing, Mcdermid’s usually smiling face was flushed with outrage. “Is that Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu?”

Feng Dun glanced uneasily around the penthouse aerie and nodded. “They fooled me.”

“They fooled you!” he exploded. “That’s all you have to say? You idiot.

Yu’s alive, and he still has the manifest! They switched documents so you’d see him burn something else, and his suicide was smoke and mirrors. That’s why he had to fall into the river, so you wouldn’t have a corpse. He used blanks, dammit. How could you be so stupid!”

Feng Dun was silent. Disgust for Mcdermid glinted in his eyes and then was gone. “It was the woman. I should’ve suspected. She’s the man in that family.”

“That’s all you have to say!” Mcdermid raged.

Feng shrugged and offered one of his marionette smiles to the outraged CEO. “What do you want, Taipan? Li Kuonyi tricked me. I’d guess she’s fooled many, including her own father. He believed Yu died, just as I did. We must see she doesn’t fool any of us again.”

“What we need is to get that manifest before the Americans do!”

“And we will. She called you first. That’s a good sign. She either doesn’t think the Americans will pay as much or she doesn’t trust them.

She won’t contact them unless she has no other choice.”

“How can you be so damn sure!”

“The Americans want good relations with China. Once they have the manifest, the crisis will be over, and she’s smart enough to know that if Beijing wants her husband and her returned so they can be punished, the Americans will hand them over. She’d rather have your money than rely on Washington to treat her kindly.”

Mcdermid’s anger cooled as he reflected on Feng’s explanation. “You may be correct. It’d be a greater risk for her and Yu. All right, I bought some time for you. Go to Urumqi and find them.”

Feng’s expression was close to a sneer. “I wouldn’t count on that, Taipan. Do you know where Urumqi is?”

“Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Chongqing. For all I care, the rest of your benighted country is a desert.”

“You aren’t far wrong.” Feng’s wooden expression had an edge of both mockery and admiration. “I told you Li Kuonyi was smart. Urumqi is in Xinjiang, at the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert. There’s little in China farther from Hong Kong, and it’d be impossible for you or me to get there before late tomorrow. But inside China, they can go almost anywhere from Urumqi in a few hours. There are two major cities near Dazu — Chongqing and Chengdu. They can fly into either, but so can I.

Still, they’ve made it twice as hard for anyone, even me, to find them.”

“But you’ll do it anyway, won’t you, Feng.” It was an order.

“I’ll fly to Chongqing immediately. Find them first or not, I’ll be at the Sleeping Buddha hours before the dawn meeting.”

“You intend an ambush?”

“Naturally.”

Mcdermid flared up again. “The woman will expect an ambush!”

“To expect is one thing. To prevent is another. I’ll plan well and make them wait for what they guess will come, or perhaps I will surprise them first.”

“Why would they bother to meet you at all?”

“If I’m right, they’re afraid of both Washington and Beijing. Sooner or later, Major Pan and his secret police will track them down. You and your money are the best chance for them and their children to survive in the manner they want. So yes, they’ll suspect. Which means they’ll try to safeguard themselves and whoever’s with them. But as Li Kuonyi said on the tape, they have no choice.”

“I hope you’re right this time.”

“They won’t trick me again.” His eyes seemed to darken.

“The woman’s been a step ahead of you since Shanghai.”

“That will make her overconfident.”

Mcdermid considered. He was not a physical man, but he was not weak either. He could hike to wherever this Sleeping Buddha was, and he could shoot. He had survived as a lieutenant in Vietnam, where lieutenants were food for pigs, and he had beaten Washington at its own game, becoming the ultimate insider. As he weighed everything, he decided the manifest was far too important to trust to Feng alone.

“We’ll both go,” he decided. “You leave tonight, and I’ll follow tomorrow night. Who’s your contact in Beijing?” Increasingly, Mcdermid wanted to know the identity of who had the clout not only to order a submarine to follow the John Crowe, but who could convince the sub’s captain to act upon unconfirmed information that SEALs were planning secretly to board the Empress.

Feng raised one eyebrow. “You don’t pay me for names. You pay me to get the job done.”

“I pay you to do whatever I damn well say!”

“No one pays me that much, Taipan.” There was scorn in Feng’s voice.

Mcdermid glared, while Feng’s expression was impassive. The Feng Duns of the world were minor players in Mcdermid’s mind — necessary but of limited use. He had employed such men on various projects for two decades, finding them among the globe’s underground of mercenaries, agents extraordinary, and assassins, who survived not only by wits and skill but by connections. If they wanted the next job, they avoided burning the last.

“The Altman Group has holdings in Chongqing,” Mcdermid said at last, dropping the subject for the time being. “Get me permission from your friend in Beijing to fly there on business. I’ll need the papers immediately, of course.”

“And the money?”

“I’ll arrange for it.”

“You’d give them two million?” Feng sounded almost impressed.

Mcdermid nodded. “We won’t fool Li Kuonyi without it. Besides, two million is nothing compared to what I’ll gain from success.”

“Aren’t you worried the cash will tempt me or my men?”

“Should I be?” Mcdermid studied him. “You’ll get a substantial bonus when this is over.”

“Your generosity is well known.” Feng’s soft voice was almost ghostly.

“I’ll prepare my team and arrange for your passage, Taipan.”

Mcdermid watched him leave the office. He had again heard the contempt in the use of the old honorific taipan.

Dennis Chiavelli sweated in the unseasonal heat of the early September afternoon as he chopped green heads of bok choy from their roots and tossed them into wheelbarrows that were being pushed up and down the long rows of vegetable fields by older inmates. The work was exhausting but mindless, and it gave him time to reflect on how fortunate he was to be a soldier behind enemy lines instead of a field hand breaking his back.

The light whisper seemed to carry on the breeze. Except there was no breeze. “They’re transferring the old man.”

“When?” “Tomorrow,” the guard said as he passed along the rows. “Early.”

“Where to?”

“Didn’t hear,” the guard said and was out of earshot, walking ahead, his old Type 56 assault rifle slung muzzle down from his shoulder.

What had happened? Had he made a mistake? Chiavelli chopped angrily at a bok choy. Had one of the guards betrayed Thayer? No, if that were the case, the old man would be gone already, and he, Chiavelli, would have been interrogated or killed. He remembered what Thayer had said: They’ve held me too long to admit they ever held me at all. With the human-rights accord actually possible, someone might have realized they still had at least one American prisoner. They were probably moving to isolate Thayer once more, storing him where he would never be found.

He must alert Klein. When the lunch signal sounded, the prisoners fell into line, and the guards marched the ranks to the dirt road where a pickup truck waited to feed them. Chiavelli stalled and fussed until he was able to drop in beside one of the Uigher political prisoners.

“I need to get word out,” he whispered. The Uigher nodded without looking at him.

“Tell your contact they’re moving Thayer tomorrow morning. Ask for instructions.”

Without acknowledging the request, the Uigher got his food and joined the other Uighers at the side of the road. Chiavelli took his meal to the shade of a stubby oak tree. As one of only two Westerners in the prison complex, no one wanted to eat with him. The risk of suspected contamination by outside political ideas was too great. His mind in a turmoil of rotten possibilities, he forced himself to eat. He doubted Klein would have time to set a rescue operation in motion, which left him with no choice but to bust Thayer out before morning himself.

At which point, he and Thayer would have to take their chances in the open country with the Chinese army after them and everyone else too frightened to help. He did not like those odds.

Hong Kong Alone in a back room of the CIA safe house, Jon called Fred Klein on a borrowed cell phone.

“Jesus, Jon! Is that you?” The relief in the Covert-One chief’s voice was palpable.

“Yes, alive, with quite a bit to report.”

“I’ll bet.” There was something different about Klein’s breathing. It was slightly uneven, ragged, as if emotion were interfering with the spymaster’s ability to talk. And then the moment was gone. He demanded with his usual brusqueness, “Tell me everything, from the beginning.”

Jon reported finding the arrogant note from “RM” at Donk & Lapierre, Feng’s capture of him, and Randi’s arrival in Feng’s interrogation chamber. “Ralph Mcdermid was there with Feng. Our escape was more flamboyant than I liked.” He described Randi’s investigation of the White House leaks, which was why she had been following Mcdermid, and the conversation between Mcdermid and Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu that all of them had heard over the CIA phone bug.

Klein bellowed, “They’re alive?”

“And with Flying Dragon’s original invoice manifest.”

Excitement pulsed in the Covert-One chief’s voice. “Dawn two days from now in Dazu?”

“Yes. Mcdermid pushed the meet back a day. I think he hopes Feng Dun can locate Li and Yu before then and grab the manifest.”

“Remind me to thank Mcdermid when we lock him up in Leavenworth. His time’s coming, believe me,” Klein vowed in his lowest growl.

“Can you get me to Dazu by then?”

“I’ll get you there. As for Ralph Mcdermid and the leaks, I was just recently informed about his role. Disgusting and apparently true.”

“How do you figure to get me back into China?”

“When was the last time you made a parachute jump?”

Jon was not sure he liked that question. “Four or five years.”

“What about a high-altitude jump?”

“Depends on how high.”

“As high as I can get you.”

“You’re going to whistle up a nice big plane for me?”

“If I can land it somewhere and not draw attention. Meanwhile, since Mcdermid’s there in Hong Kong, see whether you can turn up anything about him and the leaks and why he’s involved in a smuggling deal like the Empress. On your own and from the CIA. Might as well use them if we can.”

“You’re all cooperation.”

That earned a hoarse chuckle. “Glad to have you back, Jon. I missed our amusing repartee.” Klein broke the connection.

Jon went looking for Randi. Now that Mcdermid and Feng Dun were focused on retrieving the last invoice manifest, their interest in Randi and him would plummet. After all, what could he do without it? If he were careful, that meant he could return to his hotel, change his appearance, and pick up Mcdermid’s trail again until he had to head off to a refresher course in jumping.

He found Randi sitting in an office with Tommie Parker. “I have to leave now,” he told them.

“What about Feng Dun and his crew?”

“My bet is they’re gone.”

“Gone?” Tommie frowned.

Randi said, “He means to Dazu. They won’t care about us all that much now. Whatever the leaks were all about, whatever Jon is really working on, is in Dazu. Right, soldier?”

Jon refused to dance. “Close enough. I owe all of you, and Randi three times over. It isn’t the first time, probably won’t be the last, and I wish I could reveal more. But orders is orders.” Randi smiled reluctantly. “If there’s anything we can do to help, give us a jingle, and to hell with the DCI.” She looked him straight in the eyes. “Take care of yourself. I know you think you feel fine, but you look like you connected with a Mack truck.”

“Nice image.” Jon made his thick lips smile. “You, on the other hand, are untouched.”

She sat there in an office chair, lounging back, long legs crossed, blond hair a wild wreath around her sculpted face. He saw questions in her eyes, but worry for him, too.

“My job,” she said dryly. “Gotta keep the face malleable and primed to be disguised.”

“That’s the CIA for you. Ready to rock. Where’s this side exit?”

Tommie, who had been watching the exchange with amusement, said, “You won’t need it. You were right. They’re gone.”

“I’ll use it anyway. No sense pushing my luck.”

Fred Klein’s eyes snapped open. Instantly awake, he lay on the hidden Murphy bed in his dark office. The night in the marina outside was deathly still, the last boat, a battered seagoing trawler that had arrived at eleven p.m. from Bermuda, was snugged down, and its crew gone home.

The jangle of the phone sounded again. That was what had awakened him.

He had talked to Jon and fallen instantly asleep. He sat bolt upright, swung his legs over the edge, and lurched to his desk chair, still drugged with his first nap in thirty hours.

It was his blue phone. He grabbed the receiver. “Klein.”

“Your new office must be sumptuous for you to be so soundly asleep,” Viktor Agajemian said. The former Soviet engineer chuckled. “I’ve been ringing for two minutes, but I knew you’d be somewhere there, yes?”

“What does Chiavelli want, Viktor?”

“Ah, yes. We don’t exchange social calls anymore, do we?”

“Not at three a. m.”

“Good point. Very well, Captain Chiavelli tells me the merchandise is to be moved tomorrow morning. He doesn’t know where or why, but all indications are it’s not related to his mission.”

“Damn!” Klein exploded, fully awake now. “That’s the message?”

“Word for word.”

“Thank you, Viktor. The money will be in your account.”

“I never doubted it.”

Klein ended the connection, but he continued to hold the receiver, considering. So Chiavelli thought the order to move Thayer was either routine or connected to the human-rights treaty. Possibly, it was related to the Empress. In any case, it was a disaster. He could never have a civilian team, or even a military team, in place quickly enough.

He looked up at his ship’s clock. Yes, there still might be time for an alternate plan. He depressed the cradle of the blue phone and dialed again.

Hong Kong Jon had been right. He had observed the hotel long enough to know no one was watching him from outside — except, of course, the CIA agent Randi thought he had not seen at the safe house. You had to hand it to her.

She was a bulldog when she was on assignment.

Smiling conspiratorially about his all-night absence and battered appearance, the hotel staff welcomed him back. He left them to speculate and rode up to his room. Once alone, he went to the bathroom mirror, where he pulled off the Band-Aids from his face and studied his wounds.

He winced when he touched them, but they were all relatively superficial. He yearned for a shower, but settled for using the Jacuzzi in the bathtub.

He was soaking peacefully when his cell phone buzzed. It was in the pocket of the hotel robe, hanging within arm’s reach. He had left it behind when he had broken into Donk & Lapierre.

“Yes?” “You leave tonight,” Fred Klein told him.

“What do I do in Dazu for a day and a half? Pretend I’m a tourist? I thought we decided I’d be better off here, digging into what Mcdermid’s

« up to.

“That was three hours ago. There’s been a serious development.” He told Jon about Viktor Agajemian’s call.

“Can you get the extraction team ready that soon?”

“That’s where you come in, Colonel. You’re going to have to help Chialli get David Thayer out of prison.”

“Only two of us? How do we do that? Have you forgotten I don’t even speak Chinese?”

“Chiavelli does. There’s not time for me to explain it all. You’ll find out the details when you land. Can you leave now?”

“I’m in the bathtub. Give me twenty minutes.”

“Don’t bother to pack. I’ll send someone in to do that and check you out after you’re gone. A car will be waiting downstairs to take you to the airport. There’ll be gear and clothes inside. A navy jet will fly you to the carrier. Good luck.”

“What about …?”

But Klein had already broken the connection. With a groan, Jon rinsed off, climbed out, and dried himself carefully, avoiding the injuries on his face and the ugly contusions and welts on his body. The hot water and Jacuzzi jets had soothed the bruises, and he felt better. He dressed and left the room. All the way down on the elevator, his uneasiness grew. What was Klein sending him into now?

Chapter Thirty-Three

In her shortest, tightest, lowest-cut black sheath, Randi Russell turned every male eye at the British Consul’s party, and most of the female eyes, too, as she entered the glitzy throng. For a change, she wore no facial disguise, only a light touch of glamor-queen makeup. Still, her pale blond hair was swept elegantly upward, and her physical attributes tended to focus an audience’s attention, so she hoped her target — Ralph Mcdermid — would be sufficiently distracted to not recognize her.

She picked a glass of champagne from a passing tray and joined the only person she knew — an executive from a British firm that was an MI6 front.

He smiled at her. “Working or playing?”

“Is there a difference, Mai?”

“Worlds. If you’re playing, I can make a pass.”

“How sweet,” she smiled back. “Another time.”

He gave a sad sigh. “So I’m only your pimp tonight. Pity. All right, whom would you like to meet? And what’s your cover, by the way?” She told him, and he took her around the room, the eyes following. Soon, Mcdermid spotted her. He stared. She gave him a bold smile and continued her conversation with an older Chinese woman high in the local government.

“Would you kindly introduce me to your charming friend, Madame Sun?”

Mcdermid had come up silently behind Randi and touched her on the arm as he passed to address Madame Sun.

The older woman favored him with an indulgent smile while she advised Randi, “Be careful of this one, child. He’s a renowned charmer.”

“Mr. Mcdermid’s reputation precedes him,” Randi said.

“Then I’ll leave you to become acquainted.”

Mcdermid inclined his head to Madame Sun in a polite good-bye. When he focused again on Randi, she saw a momentary cloud pass before his eyes, as if he sensed something was not quite right.

She pouted, altering the structure of her face. “Your reputation does precede you, Ralph Mcdermid. May I call you Ralph?”

The cloud passed, and the lecher returned. Possibly a combination of her clear American English, the revealing dress, and the thoroughly Caucasian face.

He smiled. “What reputation would that be, my dear?”

“That Ralph Mcdermid is a powerful man in all ways.”

The flirtatiousness of that from a stunning woman made even Mcdermid raise an eyebrow, if not very far. “Exactly who are you, dear?”

“Joyce Ray. I work for Imperial Import-Export, San Francisco.”

“Or they work for you?”

“Not yet.”

Mcdermid laughed. “An ambitious woman. Well, Joyce Ray. I like you.

Shall we pass along the food tables and find seats? Perhaps outside?”

“I am hungry.” Randi gave it the double meaning, and she could see a pink flush rise an inch above his collar. He had bitten.

“Then off we go.” He gave her his arm.

They walked to the buffet table and carried their plates to a secluded corner of the patio. He told her a few carefully selected anecdotes about the Altman Group and learned in return that Imperial was a wholesaler with clients in major cities across America and branches in most countries. Also, that she was a vice president.

They got along famously, and she was working her way toward prying information from him, when he stiffened. There was a faint vibration beneath his dinner jacket. His cell phone.

“Excuse me a moment.” No smile. No endearment. She made no attempt to follow as he walked out past hibiscus and frangipani into the garden. Far too risky and obvious. In any case, it would not matter. He was gone less than thirty seconds. “I have to leave. Rain check, okay? I’ll call your company.” Before she could respond, he marched off. She waited until he was out the door. She followed, first on foot and then by car, always at a discreet distance.

She was still tailing him when he drove down into the parking garage of his office building. She waited then parked six cars away and watched him stand in front of the elevator, foot tapping. As soon as a car arrived, he stalked inside, and the doors closed. She climbed out and rushed to the elevator. The indicator went all the way to the top. The penthouse. What had brought Mcdermid here at such a late hour? She did not like it. On the other hand, perhaps she would learn something useful. She sprinted back to her car, skirt riding up on her thighs.

Inside, she switched on the portable link to the wiretap bug. She heard Mcdermid’s voice: “Okay, I’m in my office.”

“What’s so important that we had to talk?” A man’s voice. She did not recognize it. “Please don’t tell me you allowed Smith to escape.”

“I allowed nothing,” Mcdermid snapped, “but, yes, they escaped.”

“What do you mean, ”?” The voice was not young, not old. Calm, well modulated, and forceful. A certain projection to it. “He was helped by another agent. We think she’s CIA.”

“Think? Charming.”

“Don’t get sarcastic. We need each other. You’re a valuable member of the team.”

“I’ll stay that way only as long as I’m behind the scenes.”

“It’s not as bad as you think. In the end, neither Smith nor the CIA woman damaged us or our project.”

“That the CIA may have you under surveillance doesn’t concern you?” the voice demanded uneasily. “Even if it’s not related to our deal, they’ve traced at least some of the White House leaks to you. That should bother you one hell of a lot.”

“Realistically, the leaks are of little consequence to either of us. Until someone figures out exactly which ones I’m interested in and why, I’m not going to worry. Besides, we have far larger problems.”

“Such as?” Mcdermid hesitated. Then he delivered the bad news: “Yu Yongfu’s alive. So is his wife. Worse, they still have the Flying Dragon manifest.” There was a bellow of outrage. “This is your fault, Mcdermid.

Where are they? Where’s the damn manifest!”

“China.” A lengthy pause, as if he were controlling his shock. “How? You assured me the manifest had been burned!” Mcdermid sighed and explained the details. “The two million isn’t much, just coffee money, but I won’t pay it unless I have to.”

“It wouldn’t end there anyway, and there’s no guarantee we’d get the document. ” The shock was gone, replaced by an even inflection that was almost soothing. Definitely the man was a polished speaker and on-his-feet thinker. Probably accustomed to public appearances. She was beginning to believe he was a politician, someone accustomed to the necessity of diplomatic discourse that said nothing and revealed less.

But it was definitely not Secretary of the Army Jasper Kott, on whom she had eavesdropped in Manila. “How will you handle it?”

“The way they instructed, with a few surprises. Feng should be nearly in Dazu by now.”

“If Li Kuonyi is as intelligent as you say, she’ll expect him.” There was a thoughtful pause, and when the stranger spoke again, Randi realized she’d had an eerie feeling about him since she first heard his voice. She had heard him somewhere, perhaps not long ago. “I’m not at all sure you’re well advised to continue to use Feng.”

“There’s no time to replace him. Besides, he not only knows all the players now, he spent time in Dazu on some kind of operation. He has the kind of free movement in China that’s hard to find for a Westerner.” The voice said nothing, but its familiarity continued to resonate in Randi’s mind. Where? When?

Who was he? Mcdermid continued, “There may be another problem with Feng.

An unfortunately large one.”

“What?”

“He may not be working only for us.”

“Explain.”

“Just as I paid him to work for Yu Yongfu so he could report on his activities to me … I’m beginning to wonder whether he’s reporting on our activities to someone else. Someone in Beijing perhaps. Whoever it is must have either a lot of money or a lot of power. Otherwise, Feng wouldn’t bother.”

The voice was grim, alarmed. “You had him checked.” It was a statement not a question, and Randi realized one of her problems. This was the man’s private voice, sarcastic, dry. What lingered in her mind was a public voice, but she’d had contact with so many men in high government posts that her memory was overloaded with them.

“Thoroughly,” Mcdermid said. “We know he isn’t Public Security or the military. No, it’d be a private party.”

“One with an interest in the Empress?”

“That’s how I read it.”

“Very well. Do whatever you have to. 1 don’t want to know the details.

Just make sure the president doesn’t get the manifest.”

“You want the profit not the problems.”

“That’s our arrangement.”

Mcdermid’s words were sharp, a warning: “Your hands are as dirty as mine. If I go down, you do, too.” The phone slammed into its cradle.

In the Buick, Randi sat back and closed her eyes, running the voice through her mind. She attached faces to it. She tried it out in different environments. After a half hour, she gave up. The answer would come to her at some unexpected moment, she told herself. She could only hope it would be soon.

She dialed her cell. “Allan? You heard the new call?”

“Sure did,” Allan Savage said.

She told him about the familiarity of the voice. “Did anyone there recognize him?”

“I’ve heard him before, too. But I can’t place him, and no one here can either. But then, most of our guys are electronic geeks with atrophied recall systems who don’t know who the DCI is and think the Gipper’s still president.”

“Okay. I get the picture. See that the tape gets sent to Langley in the next pouch. Have the lab boys check it against other voice prints.”

“You want me to make our report?”

“No. I’m coming in.” She would talk to the DCI directly.

Beijing The night enclosed Wei Gaofan’s office in Zhongnanhai in soft darkness, with the lights of Beijing glowing above his walls, turning the starry sky a shining pewter gray. He stood in his doorway, staring out at his courtyard and the graceful willow tree and the groomed flower beds that usually gave him a sense of tranquility. Still, tonight he was heavy with distrust. He was called the ultimate hard-liner, as if it were an insult, but his was the vision that was pure. The Owl and his fellow liberals were politically blind. They were incapable of seeing what he saw. He pitied them, but at the same time, they were his ideological enemies. China’s enemies. They were forcing the country on an unnatural path that would do more than expose it to the world. Their way invited in the three contagions — capitalism, religion, and individuality. When his phone rang, he returned inside to his desk. The call had come in on his private line, known only to his network of cronies, proteges, and spies. He had a premonition of bad news. “Yes?”

Feng Dun’s tones were corpselike, confirming the premonition: “Yu is alive. It was the woman. She tricked me.” Wei inhaled sharply. “And the Flying Dragon manifest?”

“Li and Yu still have it. Yu never burned it.”

He reported in detail. Wei fell heavily into his chair. His stomach knotted, but he kept his voice steady. “Where are they?”

“Dazu. I’m on the road now. Heading there from Chongqing.”

“What are they doing?” Feng explained the call from Li Kuonyi to Ralph Mcdermid and the deal they made. “I’ll have Yu, Li, and the manifest in less than forty-eight hours.”

“You’re positive?”

“It’s hardly to our benefit for me to be unrealistic.” Feng’s voice had returned to its normal, whispery timbre.

This turn of events had shaken him, but already he was showing renewed confidence. In all the years Wei had employed Feng, he had never known him to lack self-assurance. If anything, the former soldier of fortune had an overabundance of it. But this was no small problem, and the political complexity of it would be beyond the grasp of most security experts. Feng had always been loyal to him, even when sent off to work for others so he could bring back information. But then, Wei had taken Feng with him as he had risen in government. Yu Yongfu would never have been able to do for Feng what Wei could. Likewise, neither could an American, even Ralph Mcdermid. For a former mercenary like Feng, it was an honor to work so intimately for a member of the Standing Committee, and the income was more than generous, especially when others paid him as well.

When Wei became general secretary, Feng’s future would be secure, too.

They were locked together, two ambitious talents who each had need of the other. “Do you want help in Dazu?” Wei asked. “Now isn’t the time to go off like a solitary desert wolf.” Feng hesitated. “If you have a trusted army commander in the area, his presence with a unit of troops could prove useful, if by some accident we’re detained by the local authorities.”

“I’ll arrange it. And Feng? Remember, Li Kuonyi is cunning. A dangerous adversary.”

“There’s no need to insult me, master.”

Those were apparently harsh words from an underling, but Wei accepted them with a smile of understanding as he hung up. Feng had definitely returned to normal. Like the wolf, hunger drove him, and he was ravenous for the two people who had made him look like an amateur. Now he was even more determined to bring home the wayward manifest. Wei gazed out his window at his garden again. The premonition of bad news persisted.

He had begun to suspect that Major Pan’s investigation into Colonel Smith and the family of Li Aorong had turned up more about the Empress than the major had written in his report to General Chu or that Niu Jianxing had communicated to the general secretary or the Standing Committee. At the same time, Wei was quietly lining up support on the Politburo and the Central Committee. It was an unfortunate possibility that he would have to eliminate Feng Dun and Ralph Mcdermid, as well as Li Aorong and his daughter and son-in-law to cover all trace of hard-line involvement in the Empress scheme. When Feng initially alerted him to Mcdermid’s plan, it had seemed a stroke of good fortune. But now he sensed danger. For a lifetime, he had survived and prospered by acting quickly and ruthlessly on what he sensed.

At the top of a ladder set against a courtyard wall inside Zhongnanhai, a maintenance mechanic completed his repair of one of the floodlights that illuminated Wei Gaofan’s garden. As he worked, he muttered under his breath at Wei Gaofan’s paranoia. Wei’s fear of assassination meant he would allow no shadows in his garden.

His impatience with the eminent member of the Standing Committee was at a higher level than usual, because he was not only a maintenance worker, he was a spy. He had used the directional microphone hidden in his toolbox to record the recent phone conversation inside Wei’s office and was now anxious to deliver the tape to his superior in the counterintelligence section of the Public Security Bureau. Besides, his replacement had arrived and was already raking dirt near Wei’s office.

His listening device was in his toolbox, too, which was sitting on a granite boulder, aimed at the office window.

The spy climbed down and carried his ladder and toolbox to a shed hidden by dense shrubbery so as not to detract from the manicured park. Once inside, he opened a compartment in the bottom of the toolbox and removed the miniature audiotape.

He put everything away and dialed his cell phone. “I have a recording.”

He listened. “Ten minutes, yes. I’ll be there.”

He switched off the cell, locked the shed, and hurried through the lush lakeside grounds to a guarded side door in the outer wall. It was used only by service workers.

The guard, who passed him out every night at the end of his shift, still insisted on seeing his ID. “You’re leaving late.”

“Command-performance repair for Master Wei. One of his damned lights went out, and he nearly had a stroke. Couldn’t possibly wait for morning.” It was only a partial lie. He himself had knocked out the floodlight so he would have a reason to sit up there for a couple of hours, recording conversations. There was a lot of political turmoil right now, according to his handler, and every phone call to and from Wei must be recorded. His job was to find excuses to be in a position to make the recordings.

The guard rolled his eyes. Wei Gaofan’s demands were well known. The guard stepped aside, and the worker walked into the street, turning away from Tiananmen Square. He pushed through tourists still strolling around the Forbidden City. Finally, he entered an old-fashioned tea shop, where he paused in the doorway. There was his handler. He was reading a newspaper at a table in the middle of the shop.

The maintenance man ordered a pot of low-grade Wu Yi and a packet of English biscuits. With them in hand, he walked to a table toward the rear. As he passed the man, he dropped his biscuits, bent, and picked them up. He continued on and sat.

Major Pan Aitu was in a hurry. Still, he finished his tea first and folded his newspaper before he left. The spycatcher walked two blocks to his car.

Once in the car, he picked the tiny cassette from inside his shoe and inserted it into a mini tape player. He listened to the entire conversation, stopping at points to rewind and listen again.

Then he leaned back against the headrest, frowning. The meaning was clear: Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu were not only alive, they had the invoice manifest of the Empress’s cargo that Colonel Jon Smith had come to China to find. The Shanghai couple were probably already on their way to Dazu, preparing to sell the document to Feng Dun on behalf of Ralph Mcdermid.

But in truth, Feng would take back the document and kill the couple for Wei Gaofan.

The implications of Feng’s report to Wei Gaofan were also clear.

Implications the Owl would be most interested to know. Wei Gaofan was personally involved in the Empress and its cargo.

Events had progressed to the point that he must come to a decision as to where his best interests lay. On one hand, Wei Gaofan already employed Feng Dun, had clearly been involved in the Empress and its cargo from the start, and would not likely welcome a counterintelligence agent such as himself, who knew too much.

On the other hand, the Owl — Niu Jianxing — who was obviously opposed to Wei Gaofan and his hard-line stance, knew nothing of these developments.

He would be most grateful.

Now Pan must go to Dazu, which was a considerable distance. When he got there, he would have to make the decision. He had done well in the new China, had no desire to return to the old, and all in all his best interests might indeed lie with the Owl.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Jon sat against the bulkhead of a high-flying Navy E-2C Hawkeye AWACS jet, his head resting back. It was nearly eleven p.m. The vibration of the aircraft’s engines hummed into his ears. The plane was totally blacked out, as it always was on a reconnaissance mission. But this was no ordinary recon.

Edgy with nerves, he wore his usual black working clothes, with his Beretta bolstered at the small of his back. A black insulated jumpsuit lay ready beside him. Since he would leave the plane at thirty thousand feet, he would need it. He had made hundreds of jumps, but never from such a height, and the truth was … it had been a long time since his last one. The navy personnel on the carrier had gone over the basics with him and thrown in a couple of tips.

He had oxygen equipment because he would free-fall to ten thousand feet before opening the chute. There was no war down there, at least not a shooting one, and no one would be watching and waiting … theoretically. The drop zone had been calculated carefully — created from satellite photos that were less than twenty-four hours old. Cloud cover was expected to be adequate. Winds were relatively mild.

Every technical precaution and preparation had been made. Now it was up to him to ready himself psychologically. He went over each step in his mind, looking for human error and unforeseen problems. He shook out his arms and legs periodically to keep his muscles loose.

A crewman came back. “Time, Colonel. Suit up.”

“How long?” “Ten minutes. Skipper said to tell you everything looks on the button.

Moon won’t be up for a couple of hours, weather’s holding, and no one’s locked onto us. All’s quiet, as they say. I’ll be back to test your equipment and give you the heads up. Remember, when you jump, make sure you don’t fall upward. That wild-and-crazy tail assembly of ours can chop you like salad greens.”

The crewman went away, chuckling at his own bad joke. Jon did not laugh.

He hooked his Heckler & Koch MP5K to three rings on the special harness that crossed his chest to hold it in place. He dabbed blacking onto his face, avoiding his wounds. He struggled into the insulated oversuit and gloves and zipped the suit closed. After buckling on the outer harness, he hooked on his two parachutes and attached his oxygen, altimeter, GPS unit, and other equipment.

Getting hot, he felt as if he weighed a half ton. He wondered briefly how troops dressed for full combat could even move and answered his own unspoken question: Because they had to. He remembered. He had been there himself.

Ready, he waited, overloaded and overheated, hoping it would not be long. He was sufficiently uncomfortable that all he wanted was to get it over with. Jump, fall, and land. Almost anything was better than this… even facing the black void outside the AWACS.

“Here we go.” The same crewman was back, tugging and checking his equipment for proper attachment and functioning. At last, he slapped Jon on the back. “Start breathing your oxygen. Watch that light up ahead.

When it flashes, slide open the door. Good luck.”

Jon nodded and did what he was told. As he fixed his gaze on the light, he felt the compartment depressurize. When the light flashed, he slid back the door. As the inky air sucked at him, he had one moment of indecision. Then he remembered something his father had told him a long time ago: Everyone dies, so you’re one hell of a lot better off to live your life now than to look back and wonder what you missed.

He jumped.

It was nearly noon in the nation’s capital, and the president was working at his table desk in the Oval Office. He had received and discussed the contingency war plans of the joint chiefs, from a mere show of force against Taiwan by the Chinese to full-scale invasion of the island nation and the unthinkable — a nuclear strike aimed by mainland China at the United States.

President Castilla leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Under his glasses, he rubbed the eyelids, then he clasped his hands behind his head. He thought about war, about trying to fight a nation of 1.3 billion, give or take a few million the Chinese had probably lost or never counted. He thought about nuclear weapons and felt as if he were losing control. It was one thing to face off against small, poorly armed nations and terrorists, homegrown or foreign, whose limit was to kill thousands, and quite another against China, which had unlimited capacity for mass devastation. He doubted China wanted war any more than he did, but what was the difference between a submarine commander so angry he was ready to fire a torpedo and an outraged hard-liner in a high place with his finger on the nuclear trigger?

A light knock on his door preceded the head of Jeremy. “Fred Klein, sir.”

“Send him in, Jeremy.”

Klein came in like a nervous suitor, eager but apprehensive. Both men waited for Jeremy to leave.

“Why do I think you’ve brought me good news and bad news,” the president said.

“Probably because I have.”

“All right, start with the good. It’s been a long day.”

Klein hunched in his chair, sorting everything in his mind. “Colonel Smith is alive and well, and the original copy of the invoice manifest Monagon tried to deliver to us has reappeared.”

The president sat up like a shot. “You have the manifest? How soon can you get it here?”

“That’s the bad part. It’s still in China.” He detailed Jon’s report from the time he was captured, his escape, and the phone call from Li Kuonyi. “He had to tell the CIA team he was working for the White House, but that’s all. Covert-One was never mentioned. A special, one-time assignment again.”

“All right,” Castilla said grudgingly and scowled. “Now we know Ralph Mcdermid is definitely in the middle of the whole thing. But it changes nothing about the danger presented by the Empress.”

“No, sir.”

“Without the Flying Dragon manifest, we’re facing war. Li Kuonyi and Mcdermid’s people are meeting in Dazu tomorrow morning?”

“No, sir. Tuesday morning. Before dawn probably.”

“That’s cutting it even closer, Fred.” The president looked at his clock. “Brose says we’re down to hours. Our military’s standing poised for trouble. What are you doing now to get the manifest?”

“At this moment, Colonel Smith is on his way back into China. He knows Li Kuonyi by sight, and she knows who and what he is. She might deal with him for asylum in the States.”

“He’s gone? I thought you said two mornings from now in China.”

“Something else came up. I sent him a day early.”

The president nearly exploded. “Something else\ What in hell could’ve happened that’s so critical that it’s taken your focus from the manifest!”

Fred remained calm. “It’s your father, Sam. And I haven’t shifted my focus. A problem has appeared, and I think Colonel Smith can handle both it and the manifest.”

“My father.” The president felt his stomach plummet. “What problem?”

“I’ve had a report from the prison that they’re moving him tomorrow morning, their time. Our man inside doesn’t know why, but once Thayer’s moved, our chances of freeing him anytime soon get very slim. My team can’t possibly arrive early enough, so I came up with another plan. The trouble is, it’s riskier. The only good thing in this mess is that Li Kuonyi’s choice of location has handed us an opportunity to make rescuing Dr. Thayer less risky. By sending Colonel Smith in early, I increase our chances of success.”

The president was alarmed. “Not at the expense of our main goal, Fred.”

“No, Sam. Never. You know us better than that.”

“You, yes. Smith I’m not so sure about. He went in alone?”

“He won’t be alone, sir, but I don’t think you want to know more.

There’s likely to be a lot of deniability needed.”

“Tell me what you can.”

“We’ve got Chiavelli and a network of political prisoners inside the prison, Smith outside, and some imported private help I mentioned that you don’t want to know about, especially since they helped him earlier.

I’ve poured considerable U.S. greenbacks around, so — barring any more disasters — we’ve got a good chance to break out Thayer successfully.

Then Captain Chiavelli will spirit him to the nearest border. At the same time, Smith and the others will go to the Sleeping Buddha and lie in wait.”

The president still seemed dubious. “All right. Smith has a place to hide all day tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir.”

The president sat for a moment nodding, his mind somewhere else. “What if the whole thing’s been a fraud? A trap? What if there are no illicit chemicals?”

“Given everything we’ve learned, that’s improbable.”

“But not impossible?”

“In intelligence and international politics, nothing’s impossible. Not as long as human beings are running things.”

The president was still focused somewhere far from the Oval Office. “Why does anyone take this job? There’s a certain blind hubris in wanting it.” Then his gaze returned to Klein. “I appreciate all you and Smith are doing. This hasn’t been easy, and I doubt it’s going to get easy.

Hours, at the outside, and China so far away.”

“I know. We’ll do it.”

Absentmindedly the president’s hand pressed against his suit jacket.

Through the expensive cloth, he could feel his wallet. The smiling man with the cocky fedora appeared in his mind. There seemed to be a question in his eyes. He longed to ask him what it was. Instead, he banished him.

The E-2C’s slipstream blasted Jon clear of the Hawkeye in seconds, and, except for the brush of air against his cheeks, he had the sensation that he was floating motionless in space. Not moving at all. Still, he was falling at an incredible rate — more than one hundred miles an hour.

In the nearly windless sky, he needed to know his altitude and what his course toward the drop zone was. Battling the forces of air and gravity, he raised his right wrist to look at the LED displays of his altimeter and GPS unit. He was still twenty thousand feet up, directly on course.

The lack of wind was his best ally.

Fortunately, this was no precision jump, although there were mountains no more than a few miles away. To know when to open the chute, he needed to keep his eyes on the altimeter. As long as the wind remained calm, he should be falling at the proper angle to hit the field dead center. Bad use of words, he told himself. Call it “on target.”

He was feeling almost euphoric as he planed on his air cushion.

Abruptly, the GPS unit began to blink. It was a warning that he was off course. Jaw tight, he maneuvered his falling body to alter the shape of the air cushion, and he made a slow turn. The GPS unit stopped blinking.

Relieved, he was about to check the altimeter again when his wrist began to vibrate. It was the alarm that warned he was nearing the vertical point of no return. Once he dropped to that height, it would be too late to open his canopy. His heart began to pound. He forced his body upright and pulled the ripcord handle.

There was a momentary whispering of air above as the tightly packed parachute unfolded. He looked up, hoping … and his body suddenly lurched against the harness straps. The canopy was open, the harness had held, and he was back on schedule.

All noise vanished. He threw the ripcord handle away. He swung gently and floated downward, the black canopy flaring above. The GPS unit reported he was slightly off course, and he corrected by pulling on the steering lines. The one thing he must not do was collapse the canopy by steering too wildly. Once steady on course again, he looked down and saw lights closer than he expected. That always happened. The ground seemed to rush up faster than you anticipated, because as you drifted, you had no idea of your descending speed.

He looked down again. The lights came from windows in scattered clusters of houses and villages. In the middle was darkness — a wide, black space.

That had to be his target area, at last.

He silently thanked the satellite photos of the Dazu area, all those navy people who had calculated the drop, and the windless weather. He jettisoned everything he could — oxygen tank, gloves, insulated flight cap. But as the ground sped up toward him, it was still invisible.

Worriedly, he checked his altimeter. Still one hundred feet. A matter of just a few seconds to impact.

When he saw the ground clearly — a plowed field as advertised — he felt suddenly comfortable. He knew exactly what to do. He relaxed, spread his feet apart, bent his knees, and hit. As his shoes sank into the soft, broken earth, a dull wave of pain rolled through him, a legacy from the beating this morning. He pushed the pain from his mind. He bounced up slightly, settled back, caught his balance, and heaved himself upright. The rich scent of the dark soil filled his mind. The canopy flowed silently to the earth behind.

Alone in the night in almost the middle of the field, he listened. He heard quiet insect sounds but not the distant noise of motors. The Chengyu Expressway from Chongqing to Chengdu was somewhere close, but at this late hour on a Sunday night, few cars would be traveling. Shadowy in the distance, black stands of trees stood like sentries. Quickly, he removed all his instruments and harnesses, stripped off the insulated jumpsuit, gathered up the black chute, and used his entrenching tool to bury everything, except the GPS unit. He had finished covering the cache when he heard a faint noise, distant and metallic. As if two small pieces of metal had bumped into each other.

He waited. Tense, straining to hear in the night. A minute. Two. The faint noise did not occur again.

He unhooked his MP5K minisubmachine gun, removed the harness that had held it stationary during his jump, and slung the weapon over his shoulder. Next he dug a shallower opening and laid the entrenching tool and harness inside. He used his hands to pile soil over it.

Brushing the dirt from his hands, he unslung the MP5K, read the GPS unit to find his directions, and hooked it to his gun belt. At last, he headed across the field toward the line of trees. They were a darker, more ragged black against the lighter black of the night sky. As always, he scanned around, watching the horizon, the distant lights, and the tree line.

Within two minutes, he thought he saw movement at the edge of the trees.

Thirty seconds later, he dove onto his stomach, his submachine gun grasped in both hands. He picked night binoculars from his gun belt, snapped them over his eyes, and examined the row of timber. There was a small structure inside the trees that could be a shed, a cottage, or a house. It was too vague in the binoculars’ greenish light for him to be certain. He thought he saw a farm wagon and a two-wheeled cart, too.

None of it moved. Nothing. Not even a cow or a dog.

Still, he had seen something. Whatever it was, it appeared to be gone.

He waited another two minutes. At last, he hooked the binoculars back onto his gun belt. He checked the luminous dial of the GPS unit again, climbed to his feet, and moved off.

Once more, he heard the noise. His throat tightened. Now he knew exactly what it was: A pistol hammer had been cocked. As he hurried on, the shapes seemed to rise from the field itself, as if from mythical dragon’s teeth. Shadows encircled him. Shadows with weapons, all trained on him. Crouched in the dark field, his MP5K ready in his hands, Jon tensed to make a move, any move. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. The lads are rather nervous.” He saw a stir in the dark ranks around him. They had blackened faces but no uniforms. Instead, they wore baggy clothes and close-fitting wool caps. In the same instant, he also realized that the voice that had cautioned him in good British English was familiar.

Even as he thought all this, the ragged troops parted, and the speaker walked through. “Someone named Fred Klein said you might care for help.”

There was a flash of white teeth as Asgar Mahmout smiled briefly and continued forward, the same old AK-47 slung muzzle down over his shoulder. He held out his hand. “Good to see you again.” Jon shook it, and the Uighers closed in protectively, watching over their shoulders for trouble. “Christ, man,” Asgar said, staring. “Your face looks like dog vomit. What the devil happened to you?”

Chapter Thirty-Five

After Jon gave him a brief rundown of his escape from Feng Dun and his killers, Asgar Mahmout shook his hand again in admiration. Meanwhile, Jon counted twenty Uighers, including Asgar. They wore that same odd mixture of colorful, baggy Uigher clothes and loose Western garb as in Shanghai. Most were cleanly shaved, while a few had thin, drooping mustaches like Asgar’s. They said nothing. Asgar explained they spoke bad Chinese and no English.

Jon surveyed the field. The dark eyes of Asgar’s men were looking nervously all around. “We’d better get out of here.”

Asgar spoke to them in Uigher. With Jon shielded in the center, the group moved off. To the left were fields of rice paddies, their watery surfaces reflecting like black mirrors in the starlight. Farther off were low mountains— purple inkblots against the night. That would be where the Buddha Grottos were carved, including the Sleeping Buddha, where Li Kuonyi would meet Mcdermid’s representative — probably Feng Dun.

Asgar was beside Jon. “There’s an ancient legend about those mountains.

The Han believed the peaks were goddesses who came down to earth and fell so deeply in love with it they refused to return to heaven. The Han have moments when they aren’t so bad. But don’t tell anyone I said that.” Jon asked Asgar, as the two kept pace through the quiet night, “How do you know Fred Klein?”

“I don’t, chum, but it seems I know people who do. They relayed his message, along with considerable welcome cash in payment for said aid.”

“Who do you know who knows Klein?”

“A certain Russian engineer named Viktor.”

“He contacted you for Klein?” Jon asked.

“At first, yes. But this recent collaboration came about when I sent him a message from Captain Chiavelli, in the prison.”

Now Jon understood. “You have contact with Uighers inside.”

“The Chinese call them criminals. We call them political prisoners. In any case, they’re minor criminals with disproportionate sentences as compared to equally minor Chinese criminals.”

“One man’s patriot is another man’s terrorist.”

“Not quite that simple,” Asgar said, still making Jon feel the universe was slightly askew with the clipped Brit voice coming out of a Turkic-bandit mouth. “The crux of the matter is, does the action of the freedom fighter or terrorist benefit his cause and his people? If it doesn’t, then he’s simply an egomaniac, a fanatic for whom the ” matters more than its goal. It’s a question I often ask myself, and I’m not always as sure of the answer as I’d like to be, especially about others who’ve worked across the border for a free East Turkestan their entire lives.” “I thought it depended on what was in the self-interest of the powerful nations.”

“Ah, well. That, too, eh?”

Directly ahead was the stand of trees, thicker and deeper than Jon had been able to perceive. As soon as the band reached the grove, they skirted to the left, alongside the rice paddies. The men turned on small flashlights. As always, Jon scanned everywhere. When he gazed up, he almost stopped. In the murky tree limbs were clumps that looked like gigantic nests of wasps or bees.

“What are they?” he asked Asgar.

“Bundles of unthreshed rice. The farmers store rice up there to protect it from mice and rats.”

As they left the soft, plowed field, they broke into a lope and headed into what appeared to be the beginning of an arm of a forest. There were birch and pine and low bushes struggling to grow under a high, thick ceiling of leaves and needles.

A few hundred yards inside, Asgar gave a whispered command, and three of the men turned back, heading for the edge of the trees where the crew had entered. Mahmout was setting up a perimeter defense. The rest rounded a rock cropping into a protected dell, where they settled into resting spots as if they had used this as a stopping place before. As three more split off to vanish among the dark trees, the rest leaned back, cradling their weapons, and closed their eyes.

Asgar motioned Jon to join him. They sat near the remains of a fire.

“After you left China,” Asgar told him, “we slipped away from the beach safely, too, but it was inevitable whoever was chasing us would figure out about the Land Rover full of crazy Uighers. We sent several of the ones with residence in Shanghai back to hide in the longtangs, and I brought the rest west, to lie low until things settled down again. It’s our longtime pattern, you see.”

“So you were near here when you got the message about Viktor?”

“Yes. My contact in the prison camp had sent word that this Russian engineer, Viktor, wanted to get an American agent named Chiavelli into the camp to talk to David Thayer.”

Jon nodded. “Fred’s planning a lightning raid to rescue David Thayer.”

“Not anymore,” Asgar said. “We inserted Captain Chiavelli with the help of some excessive bribes. His report about Thayer and the situation was favorable. However — we don’t know whether the prison governor got wind of the rescue, or it’s just incredibly bad luck — Thayer’s being transferred out tomorrow morning. Captain Chiavelli gave the news to our prisoners, and they got it out to me. I sent word to Viktor, who reported it to Klein. I know that, because Viktor gave me a return message from Klein.”

“To meet me, right? That was why the sudden change of plans.”

“Right. He wants you to help break out Thayer and Chiavelli. A great deal can go wrong, and he seems to feel your skills could be immensely helpful inside the farm.”

“Inside?”

“Exactly. If it’s necessary, we’ll have to sneak in. Then you, Chiavelli, and I will bring Thayer out. Of course,” he added cheerfully, “if it goes bad, you may have to shoot your way out, which is probably the main reason Klein wants you there. You’re the backup gun.” “Swell,” Jon said. “What could go wrong?”

“For one thing, a guard or two could decide to become unbribed.”

Jon sighed. “Even better.”

“Cheer up. This will be a cupcake compared to the assignment of some of my fighters. You see, once you’re out of the prison — without, one hopes, their knowing Chiavelli and Thayer are gone until morning roll call — the real trouble begins.”

“Getting Thayer and Chiavelli out of China?”

“That’s our job, and a doozy it is. There’s an old Chinese adage that says it all: ‘ your eyes, spin in a circle, and no matter where you are or what time it is, when you look again, you’ll see a Han.’ The population’s so enormous that Westerners stand out like fish in the Taklamakan Desert.”

“Then there’d better be no gunfire. It could play hell with my primary assignment.”

“Klein’s aware of that. He said you should skip the diversion if you thought it’d damage your chances for the main mission.”

“You’ll be with me on that operation, too?”

“That we will,” Asgar said. “In force. We’ll get Thayer to the border, too.”

“You have a place to stash me tomorrow?”

He nodded. “You’ll be safe as a temple mouse.”

“When do they want us at the prison?”

“Our people inside should be ready now. The timing’s up to us. They’re waiting for our signal.”

“Then let’s go. How far?”

“Less than ten miles.”

“Any other instructions from Klein?”

“Other than making sure I knew your principal mission was to save the human-rights treaty and that we’re assured money and influence in Washington in exchange … no.” The expression on Asgar’s stoic face darkened. “Your White House wears blinders. All they’re thinking about is getting Zhongnanhai’s cooperation with the treaty. We won’t get anything more from them after that. We’re expendable, which doesn’t give us a lot of reason to help. But at the same time, your Klein realizes we have to, because of our own interests.”

“I wouldn’t count Fred’s goodwill short. He won’t forget you, and geopolitics change.”

Asgar nodded without much conviction. “After the prison, where’s the second operation?”

“The Sleeping Buddha.”

Asgar was dubious. “That’ll be crowded damn soon after dawn any day.

Tourists and vendors, you know.”

“With luck, we’ll be in and out long before they arrive.”

“You care to give me a hint what we should prepare for?”

“An ambush and a different sort of rescue mission.”

“What are we rescuing?”

“The same document I failed to get in Shanghai.”

“Which is important to the human-rights treaty?” “Yes,” Jon said. “Now I have a question … Do you have an escape route set up out of China that I can use to get the document out, too?”

“More than one. You never know what the contingencies are going to be.

Dissidents and revolutionaries without exit plans are fools. Fortunately for us, resistance is very un-Chinese, so the Han aren’t good at handling it. Are we going to need a fast bunk?”

“Probably, yes.”

“I’ll alert my contacts.” He looked around at his men. Some were already snoring. Smart guerrillas, they slept when they could. “Let’s move.”

He circulated, waking them, speaking softly. They checked their weapons, took bandoliers of extra ammunition from boxes hidden among the rocks, and waited, prepared. A low whistle from Asgar brought the six pickets in with reports of everything quiet.

A gibbous moon hung just above the treetops. Asgar sent out his point men, nodded to Jon, and the remainder broke into two columns and moved deeper into the timber. Ten minutes later, the forest thinned, and they emerged onto a dirt road where a Land Rover, an ancient Lincoln Continental limousine, and a battered U.S. Army Humvee waited.

Jon raised his eyebrows in question. “That’s a lot of foreign horsepower for rural China.” Asgar smiled. “One’s a reluctant gift from a Tajik journalist, and the other two were midnight ” in Afghanistan. Amazing what you Yanks give to various warlords in and out of the Northern Alliance, and how careless they can be with their ill-gotten swag. Shall we saddle up?”

They climbed into the three vehicles, which cruised out in a caravan on the rough road, one after the other, beneath the broad, starlit sky.

Although the Uighers did not look like it, they behaved like a trained and highly disciplined unit, which encouraged Jon. They drove along a series of dirt roads past farmers, fields, and animals. In this part of China, Asgar explained, even a bicycle was a luxury. Most people walked long distances to see family and barter for goods. Consequently, there were few vehicles on the road or parked beside buildings. Still, there was evidence of people everywhere. The farmhouses came in clusters, in small villages, and in larger villages. Shacks offering barbering, food, and tea appeared periodically beside the road. Still, no one came out to see who was passing by so late. Whether in rural or urban China, it did not pay to be too curious.

“They probably wouldn’t report us if they did look,” Asgar told him.

“It’s not wise to attract attention from officials, even out here.”

Less than a half hour later, Jon saw the outlines of a chain-link fence and two guard towers in the distance. The drivers turned off their headlights. Asgar gave an order, and the vehicles rolled off into a stand of timber.

“The government won’t allow houses to be built any closer than a mile to the prison. We don’t want to be seen or heard by the guards, so we’ll park here.”

“And then?”

“It’s just like any military anywhere. We wait.”

The Chinese ambassador had demanded to speak with the president immediately. The matter was urgent, or so he said. Chief-of-staff Charlie Ouray took the request upstairs to the president, who was working on a bill in his overstuffed recliner, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.

Charlie noted that the president had moved a framed family portrait to the lamp table beside him. It was lying faceup. He must have been looking at it. Charlie had never seen the photo before. It showed the president as a gangly teenager in a football uniform, standing between his proud parents, Serge and Marian Castilla. All three were smiling, arms wrapped around one another. They had been a close family, and now Serge and Marian were both dead.

Charlie focused on the president. “Shall I tell the ambassador that he doesn’t get to make demands? I can soften it by saying you might be able to squeeze him in for a few minutes tomorrow. Maybe in the late afternoon.”

President Castilla considered the pros and cons. “No. Tell him, as it happens, I want to see him, too. Let him worry about what that could mean.”

“You’re sure, sir?”

“It won’t set a precedent, Charlie. We can let him cool his heels some other time to make the point. Right now, I want to hammer at the Empress and at the same time give a strong hint of willingness to work with the doves in Zhongnanhai to defuse the confrontation. We want that human-rights accord for a lot of good reasons.”

“Still, Mr. President, we can’t let him think―”

“That we don’t want an incident? Why not? If my theory’s correct, there are at least some on the Standing Committee who feel the same as we do.

Maybe we can pry confirmation out of our eminent ambassador.”

“Well―”

“Make the phone call, Charlie. He won’t browbeat me, you know that.

Besides, I’ve got some brickbats of my own. If what we believe is true — that there’s a power struggle going on over there — he’ll be just as uneasy and cautious about the whole situation as we are.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Half an hour later, Ambassador Wu Bangtiao walked into the Oval Office.

This time he wore a simple Western business suit, but his face was neutral, as if he were delivering a recorded message. The same mixed signals, but with more weight on the outrage this time.

“These intrusions into Chinese sovereignty are becoming intolerable!”

the tiny ambassador snapped, speaking this time in his perfect Oxbridge English. His tones held barely suppressed fury.

The president remained seated behind his desk. “You might care to go back out of the Oval Office, Ambassador Wu, and make a fresh entrance.”

Castilla caught a faint hint of a smile as Wu said, “My apologies, sir.

I fear I am so upset I forgot myself.”

The president refrained from saying Wu Bangtiao never forgot himself.

Bluntness had to be used judiciously. “I’m sorry to hear that, Ambassador. What is it that’s so upset you?”

“An hour ago, I received a communication from my government that our military in Sichuan Province reported a high-flying aircraft, identified by our experts as an E-2C Hawkeye AWACS of the type flown by your navy, had violated Chinese airspace two hours before. In light of your navy’s continued harassment of our cargo ship on the high seas, my government sees a pattern and strongly protests these incursions on our sovereign rights.”

The president fixed his hard stare on Wu. “First, Mr. Ambassador, the matter of the Empress violates no Chinese sovereign rights.”

“And the flyover? Would you know anything about that?”

“No, because I’m sure it never happened.”

“Sure, sir? But no categorical denial?”

“I’d be stupid to categorically deny what I know nothing about and which could have a perfectly reasonable explanation should it actually have happened. You say your military identified the aircraft as an AWACS? The area you speak of is quite close to northern Burma, where we have drug interdiction operations with, I believe, China’s full support.”

Wu inclined his head in acknowledgment. “A reasonable theory, Mr. President. However, we’ve also had a report there was a possible parachutist into Sichuan at nearly the same time. Near Dazu. Local authorities are investigating as we speak.”

“Interesting. I wish them success.”

“Thank you, sir. Then I’ll bother you no more.” Wu, who had not been invited to sit, started to turn toward the door.

“Not so fast, Ambassador. Please have a chair.” The president made his expression as stern as possible. But underneath the severity he felt a surge of optimism for the risk he was about to take. Wu Bangtiao had said not a word about the abortive SEAL raid on the Empress. That could mean only one thing — the Standing Committee knew nothing about the SEALs’ attempt. The warning to the Chinese sub had been delivered by one member or faction on the Standing Committee, while the rest were ignorant.

Wu hesitated, unsure of what the unexpected request signified, then smiled and sat. “You have another matter to discuss, Mr. President?”

“The matter of a Chinese submarine taking up a position perilously close to the frigate Crowe. A warship threatening the warship of another nation on the high seas? I believe that’d be considered an ” by any standards of international law.”

“A simple precaution. Balancing the power, you might say. All vessels have a right to be where they are. Under the circumstances, my government considered it had no choice. After all”—the faint smile appeared again— “we’re merely shadowing the shadower. A routine matter.”

“Now, of course, because of all this, you’ve revealed one of your secrets–

China has subs monitoring our Fifth Fleet. The Indian Ocean is the only place it could have come from so quickly.” A flat statement.

Wu’s careful eyes flickered. Perhaps it was annoyance that his overall negotiating position had been undercut by someone in Beijing. Still, he said nothing.

“We, of course, had always considered such surveillance a possibility, but now we have concrete confirmation. But be that as it may”—the president waved his hand—“I’m going to do something unusual. Something, I might say, not all my advisers agree with. I’m going to tell you why the Crowe is there. A few days ago, we received incontrovertible information that the Empress is carrying substantial quantities of thiodiglycol and thionyl chloride. I doubt I need to tell you what those chemicals can be used for.”

The president waited.

When the ambassador’s expression did not change and he made no comment, the president continued, “The quantities are substantial. In fact, so substantial that they could have no other purpose but weapons manufacture.”

Wu stiffened. “Another Yinhe? Really, sir, wasn’t once―”

The president shook his head. “That time, you knew for certain we were wrong. That allowed you to stonewall to the end and make us look like louts. It was a win-win situation for you. If we didn’t board, you appeared to have made us back down, scoring major points. If we did board, we’d be seen as reckless and arrogant. Since we boarded, you scored a coup on the international stage.”

Wu appeared stunned. “I’m shocked, Mr. President. We were simply supporting international law, then and now.” “Bullshit,” the president said pleasantly. “However, I’ve told you this for a reason — this time we believe Zhongnanhai doesn’t know what the Empress is really carrying and never has known. We think Zhongnanhai is totally uninvolved in the venture and was surprised by the appearance of the Crowe. Which means that when we do board, whatever else happens, your nation is going to look very bad at a time when trade with the rest of the world is one of your long-term, paramount goals.”

For a time, Wu Bangtiao sat silently, his steady gaze fixed on the president, obviously assembling his thoughts. When the words came, once more what they did not say carried the real meaning: “We could not permit such a gross violation as boarding a Chinese flag vessel in the open sea.”

No protest, no denial, no hedging, no bluster.

The president heard the unsaid. “Neither the United States, nor the world — including China — can risk chemical weapons of mass destruction in the hands of irresponsible regimes.”

Wu nodded. “Then, sir, we have an impasse. What do you suggest?”

“Perhaps concrete proof could break the impasse. The actual manifest.”

“Proof would be impossible, since no such cargo could come from China.

However, could such proof exist, my government would, in the interest of international law, have to consider it.”

“If it exists.”

“Which it cannot.” The president smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. That, I think, concludes our meeting.”

Ambassador Wu stood, inclined his head again, and walked from the Oval Office.

The president watched him go. Then he pressed his intercom button. “Mrs. Pike? Ask the chief of my secret service detail to come to the Oval Office.”

President Castilla sat in the shaded Covert-One office of Fred Klein.

“Your AWACS and Jon Smith were spotted outside Dazu. The local authorities are looking for him. At least that was what Ambassador Wu said.”

“Damn,” Klein swore. “I’d hoped that wouldn’t happen. Colonel Smith’s got a tough enough job as it is.”

“Why didn’t you use a B-2? The stealth properties would’ve been useful.”

“No time to get one from Whiteman. We had to go with what the navy had available. I’d have used a higher flying fighter, but we didn’t want to risk an ejection seat being found. How much did they spot?”

“All the ambassador said was the plane had been detected and a parachutist might have been seen coming down.”

“Good. That probably means they’re not even sure about the chute, and they haven’t come close to pinpointing his landing or found his equipment. With any luck, he’s on schedule.”

“With the help you had waiting that I don’t want to know about?”

“That’s the plan, and let’s say the Chinese wouldn’t like our ” any more than they would an all-American operation.”

The president related the rest of his meeting with Ambassador Wu. “We were right. Beijing knew nothing about the Empress until the Crowe showed up, which clued them in that something was wrong. I think when I named the chemicals, Wu was shocked. He’ll report to Zhongnanhai. How close are we to having that manifest?”

“I haven’t heard from Smith, but I didn’t expect to yet. Any word about the new leaker?”

“No, dammit. We’re looking. I’ve cut back every piece of information to only those who must know.”

From where they waited deep inside the small grove of trees, Jon could hear an occasional car or truck roar past on the distant toll expressway. A mile or more away in three directions, a few farmhouses still showed light. The tense breathing of the Uighers was a nervous rhythm in his ears, along with the slow beat of his own heart. A Uigher grunted as he shifted position. Jon moved, too, loosening his joints.

But from the prison camp itself, there was nothing. No sound, no movement.

Asgar peered at his watch. “Our two chaps should’ve been here by now.

Something’s not right.”

“You’re sure they were ready to leave?”

“Should’ve been. We’d better go in and take a check.”

“That sounds like trouble.”

“Should we abort?”

Jon mulled. He wanted to get David Thayer out of prison, but he was concerned about bringing hordes of police and military down on the area and frightening Li Kuonyi away from the meeting. Still, Asgar, Chiavelli, and he — working together — increased the chances of success.

Three armed professionals. Otherwise, it was just Chiavelli and Thayer, and Thayer had probably not fired a gun in a half century, if even then.

One way or another, the pair would attempt to escape tonight. If they got out but alerted prison authorities in the process, they would bring armed troops to the area.

The safest outcome was to help Thayer escape undetected.

Jon said, “Let’s find them.”

Asgar circulated among his people, telling them in a quiet voice what was happening and what he planned. He tapped three to accompany him and Jon, and the five slipped out of the woods. Bent and silent, they trotted across a newly planted field, where Jon’s bruised body ached from running on such soft soil, then through a shadowy orchard of ripening apple trees, where the firmer soil helped him recover.

With a signal from Asgar, they came to an abrupt halt and went to ground. Before them, to the left and right, extended an open space that had been cleared around the perimeter of the prison’s chain-link fence.

Rolled razor wire topped the fence. About ten yards deep, the open area was littered with dry clods of dirt. It was unplanted, unwatered, untrampled — a sterile no-man’s-land.

“I’m going to the fence,” Asgar whispered. “I’ll take―” “You’ll take me,” Jon said. “I want to let Chiavelli and Thayer know I’m here, and I can’t communicate with your men anyway. They can stay back and cover us.”

“All right then. Come along.”

Crouched, they tore toward the fence. Jon sweated from the strain on his sore muscles. Just as they reached it, a searchlight blazed on from the guard tower to their left. They dove to the dirt, their bodies pressed tight against the fence. Dust from the dry earth filled Jon’s nostrils.

He fought a sneeze, at last swallowing it.

Asgar’s whisper was little more than a vibration as the searchlight beam probed, passed over, and passed over again. “What the devil’s going on?

I’ve never seen them this alert.”

“Something’s spooked them.”

“Right. When that light gives up, we crawl west.”

In the darkened barrack room, David Thayer was seated at his plank table, packing a few keepsakes and papers into a waistpack.

Dennis Chiavelli held a small flashlight so Thayer could see what he was doing. The light illuminated Thayer’s thatch of white hair from beneath, making it glow like fresh snow.

“You okay to do this?” Chiavelli asked. “This could turn out to be a lot harder than we expect. You could be hurt or die. It’s not too late to change your mind.”

Thayer looked up. His faded eyes danced. “Are you insane? I’ve been waiting a lifetime. Literally. I’m going to see America again. I’m going to see my son again. Impossible! I feel like an old fool, but I can hardly believe this is happening.” Unembarrassed joy radiated from his wrinkled face.

Chiavelli jerked around toward the window. “What’s that?”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

But the old man’s hearing was bad. Chiavelli crossed to the window.

“Damn!” He peered out and cursed softly again.

“What is it?”

“The governor. He’s got a squad with him. They’re doing a barrack check.

Now they’re heading for the Uighers. My guess is our barrack is next.”

Thayer’s parchment skin paled. “What do we do?”

“Return everything to where it was.” Chiavelli sprinted back from the window. “Undress again and pretend to sleep. Hurry.”

Moving with amazing speed for a man of his years, David Thayer put the few keepsakes and papers back where they belonged, stripped off his outer clothes, and pulled his nightshirt down over his head. At the same time, Chiavelli yanked off his clothes and, wearing his underwear, slid into his pallet.

The noise of a door banging open into the barrack silenced them. Moments later, two guards entered the room, ordering, “On your feet.”

Both feigned sleepiness, and the guards pulled them roughly up from their pallets.

As the governor entered, he glared at Chiavelli and chided the guards, “Don’t be so rough on the old one.” He studied Thayer for a sign he had not been in his pallet. “You were asleep, prisoner Thayer?” “I was having good dreams,” he said irritably, his eyes half-closed.

“We need to search.”

“Of course.”

The guards investigated the cupboard, moved the pallets, and looked out the windows to see whether anyone was hiding. There was nowhere else to look in the bare room. The governor walked slowly around.

At last, he told Thayer, “You may return to sleep.”

As he left, the guards close behind, they heard him order, “Post a guard at each barrack. Conduct a pallet check every hour. The prison is locked down. There’ll be no work tomorrow, and no one enters or leaves. No one, until further notice.”

The governor marched out of sight. As the guards followed, someone closed the door.

Chiavelli hurried to the window. He stood there for some time. “He’s going back to his office, but he’s short a guard. He must’ve left one at the barrack door.”

“That won’t matter.”

“The bed check and lock-down will. We can’t leave tonight. Even if we managed to escape the farm, they’d be on us before we got five miles.”

David Thayer collapsed on a chair. “No.” His bony shoulders slumped. His face was a mask of despair. “Of course, you’re right.”

“The only good thing is they don’t seem to have connected it to us, and you won’t be transferred tomorrow. The lock-down’s saved you from that.”

Thayer looked up. “Now we wait. And hope. I’m used to that. Still … this time, it all seems much harder.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Between occasional, seemingly random sweeps by the searchlight beam, Jon and Asgar worked their way around the fence, sometimes crawling, sometimes trotting, always hunched over. Asgar knew where they were going, when to crawl, and when to chance moving faster. Suddenly, he dropped to his heels.

Jon pulled in beside him, squatting, too, and followed his line of sight through the fence to a low, square building set ten yards inside the chainlink enclosure. There was a double door in its rear wall, but no windows. From the big door, an unpaved drive ran to the fence and out to a road. Asgar said, “This is where they’ll come out.”

“What’s the building?”

“The kitchen and mess. We’ll stay here and hope like bloody hell we don’t have to cut our way inside. Those rear doors are for loading and unloading supplies. The important aspect of this piece of real estate is that there’s a blind spot between the doors and the fence — about ten feet wide— out of sight of the guard towers.”

“That’s a damn useful discovery.” They settled in to wait, again lying close to the fence. Jon focused on the double doors. Time seemed to stand still, and the night closed in. The noise of booted feet marching across wood walkways broke the silence. It was a heavy sound, threatening.

Jon frowned at Asgar. “What does that mean?”

“They’re marching away from the barracks toward the governor’s building and the guardhouse.” Asgar’s voice was barely audible. “There must’ve been an alarm, or perhaps the governor made a snap inspection. It doesn’t look good, Jon.”

“A lockdown?” “We’ll know soon,” Asgar said grimly. He found a loose pebble and lobbed it over the fence. It struck the ground with a tiny, nearly inaudible thikkk.

Jon still saw nothing move inside the prison, not even a shadow. Then he felt a sharp sting on his cheek. He had been hit by a return pebble. He picked it up.

Asgar nodded. “That’s the signal. They’re locked down. We’ll have to wait. With luck, twenty-four hours from now, everything will be normal again. The only good thing is they won’t transfer Thayer in the morning.

Of course, it’s possible the lock-down will last longer, maybe even a week.”

“I hope not, for all our sakes. Especially for Thayer’s.”

Charles Ouray entered the Oval Office quietly. “Mr. President? Sorry to disturb you.”

Late afternoon sunlight warmed the room and the back of the president’s neck. Castilla glanced up from the President’s Daily Brief. “Yes?”

“The DCI would like a word.”

The president took off his reading glasses. “By all means, bring her in, Charlie.”

Ouray returned with a woman in her early sixties. Not tall, she was on the heavy side, with short, efficient gray hair. Compact, she had a formidable chest and walked with a purposeful stride. Some who had faced her questions compared her to a light tank — quick, fast, and powerful.

“Have a chair, Arlene,” the president told her. “It’s always good to see you. What’s up?”

She glanced toward Ouray, who had taken his usual spot, leaning against the wall to the president’s right.

“It’s all right, Arlene. Charlie knows everything now.”

“Very well then.” She sat, crossed her ankles under her chair, and paused to compose what she was going to say. “Would you first bring me up to date about Jasper Kott and Ralph Mcdermid? Where do we stand with them? When do you want to reveal what we know?”

“Besides your people, the FBI’s watching, collecting information. Part of the problem is, what have they done that’s really illegal? Leaks of unclassified information aren’t. But once we can document their roles in the Empress mess, we may be able to get them on aiding illegal contraband. Or maybe Kott has leaked classified information to Mcdermid.

An investigation takes time, as you know. In any case, we’ll need strong evidence to convict them, so we don’t want to alert either yet. Now I’ve told you what I know. What about you? Have you learned something new?”

She nodded somberly. “A big clue to the new leaker’s identity. Mcdermid has been consulting someone else here in Washington. Another associate, we’ll say. Perhaps a partner. A man. Probably highly placed. Anonymous, so far.”

The president absorbed that. He repressed an outraged curse. “How do you know this?”

“We have a tap in Mcdermid’s Hong Kong office.”

For the first time in days, the president smiled. “There are times when I thoroughly enjoy the deviousness of the CIA. Thank you, Arlene. A sincere thanks. Your problem, I take it, is you haven’t been able to identify him yet?”

“Right. One of our agents in Hong Kong believes she recognizes the voice, but she hasn’t been able to place him.”

“Have you heard it?”

“The tape’s not good enough over the phone, but it’s on its way to Langly via courier.”

“When you place him, let me know. If none of your people can put a name to him, bring the tape here. Maybe someone in the White House will recognize him.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” She started to stand.

The president stopped her. “How are you doing otherwise with your investigation of Mcdermid?”

“We’ve found nothing yet for why he or Altman is involved in the Empress affair, except of course the obvious reason — financial profit from the sale of the chemicals.”

“All right, Arlene, thank you. I appreciate your work.”

“It’s my job, sir. Let’s hope this is over soon. It’s like a firecracker that’s on the verge of turning into a nuclear missile.” “Amen to that,” Ouray said from his wall.

“Good hunting,” the president said. “Keep me up to date.”

“Certainly, Mr. President.”

“See the DCI out, Charlie,” Castilla said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

When both had left, the president reached for the blue telephone to ask Fred Klein to drive over. He needed to let him know what the CIA had discovered — and what it had not. And he, too, wanted to take no chances with another leak.

A lemon-colored haze rested on the eastern horizon, signaling dawn. The aged limousine, Humvee, and Land Rover drove in a caravan five miles past rolling farmlands and wooded hills. The thin morning light grew warmer, sunnier. At last they pulled into a dark courtyard, draped in moist shadows. In the distance, the violet hills of Baoding Shan were beginning to transform into pale green. That was where the Sleeping Buddha was carved, where the all-important meeting with Li Kuonyi and her husband was scheduled. Jon studied the hills, wondering what the night would bring.

An old Soviet-made bus was parked in the courtyard, its motor running.

“What’s that for?” Jon asked as Asgar parked. The other vehicles pulled in alongside, and the drivers turned off their motors.

“Alani and her group expected to use it to transport David Thayer and Captain Chiavelli to the border. Their cover was as a group of Uighers heading home to Kashgar.”

“Sounds risky. Even with your makeup team, they’d never pass in daylight.”

“Wait here. I’ll show you.”

He crossed the dusty yard and spoke to the old Uigher behind the wheel of the bus, who immediately turned off the engine. He got out stiffly and followed Asgar’s men into the house.

Asgar beckoned Jon. “Come along.”

Inside, Asgar pointed to a pair of voluminous women’s garments like Afghan burkas, lying on a rustic wood table, one black and one brown.

“In Xinjiang, many of our women wear veils, but some go even more extreme and wear these monstrosities. We’ll dress Thayer and Chiavelli in them and sit them next to Alani because she’s tall. If they keep their knees bent, they should pass.”

“At least weapons can be hidden underneath.” The farmhouse looked old, with a worn wood floor and exposed timbers as beams. It was furnished with homespun tables, chairs, sideboards, and bureaus for hanging clothes. Through an archway stood a bedstead and a wood washstand, on which were a clay bowl and jug. He saw no sign of the Uighers, but the old bus driver sat at a bare table in a kitchen through another narrow arch. “Where do I sleep?” Now that he knew he had to wait until tonight, he was abruptly exhausted. Every muscle ached. The wounds on his face itched. He wanted to wash off the blackout cream, eat, and fall into any kind of bed he could find.

“There’s a hidden cellar. Plus, the barn has secret rooms behind the stalls. You want to sleep now or eat?”

“Eat. Then sleep.” Jon followed him into the kitchen where fourteen of his guerrillas were seated at another table, wolfing food, and women were cooking and putting full platters on both tables. Among the women was the pair of giggling makeup artists from the Shanghai longtang, who started giggling the instant they saw his face. They pointed him to the sink, where he used cool water and homemade soap that smelled of tallow to get the blackout goop off his skin. Feeling better, he sat at the table with the old man, who stared up from his food as if to ask, “What are you?” Then he shrugged and resumed eating. Asgar joined him, carrying a bowl of the same rice laced with mutton scraps, carrots, onions, and some kind of shelled bean, all held together by melted sheep-tail fat, which they had eaten in the longtang. He put it on the table with the other dishes. Famished from the long night and unrelenting tension, Jon took generous portions of everything. The thin-skinned dumplings and thick filling were delicious. The mutton kebabs were crisp on the outside, tender on the inside, and without any of the odor many Americans found unpleasant. As Jon ate, Asgar watched and shoveled food into his mouth, too. The moment seemed to bring out nostalgia in Asgar. He said ruminatively, “Uighers were nomadic sheepherders long before we settled into farming. Mutton is to us what seafood is to Japan, beef to the Argentine and States, and beef and mutton to the Brits. That was one thing I liked about England.

I could get good mutton, and if I were lucky enough to find the rare English-raised Southdown, ahhh … that was the best mutton I’d had since leaving home.” Jon used the bread to wipe his plate. “Not many people like English food as much as you do.”

“I loved it, old boy. Real English food. Lots of suet in the puddings and dumplings plus all the roasts, thick gravies, organ meats, and mutton. Maybe that’s why when so many Brits came here in the old days they seemed to understand us far better than the Chinese and Russians ever did or ever have.” When they finished, Asgar led him back out across the courtyard’s hardpacked dirt to a small house against the left wall. Inside, a solitary Uigher stood at a window overlooking the courtyard, his assault rifle resting on the sill. “We have sentries on all the walls, too,” Asgar explained as they passed. “What happens if you get a visit from Chinese authorities?”

“There’s an extended Uigher family that lives here and farms. We take cover, and they do the meet and greet. Everyone knows the family.” Jon followed Asgar down a cleverly hidden narrow staircase into a cellar illuminated by bare lightbulbs. Rows of pallets held sleeping men and women. Asgar pointed to the empty one next to his, lay down, and was snoring instantly. Jon stretched out, tensing and relaxing his muscles.

He told himself he felt better. In any case, he was certain he would feel better when he awoke. As he tried to drift off, his mind kept returning to the problem of David Thayer. The potential for trouble and failure at the Sleeping Buddha less than twenty-four hours away was enormous enough. Any glitch in the attempt to free Thayer could ruin the entire mission. He rolled over, tried one side then the other. At last, he fell into a restless sleep.

Beijing It was late morning, and usually the Owl would have been in his office at Zhongnanhai for hours by now. Instead, he worked at his desk in his home study. He was smoking one of his favorite Players cigarettes and putting his chop to security documents when his wife ushered in Ambassador Wu Bang-tiao.

The Owl immediately put down his cigarette and stood to greet him. For once, there was a broad smile on his face. The ambassador was an ally and friend, who owed his post in Washington, D.C. to the Owl’s influence and discreet lobbying. As his wife disappeared out the door and closed it, Niu said, “Welcome, my good friend.” He grasped Ambassador Wu’s small hand. “This is a surprise, especially considering the difficulties between us and the United States.” A slight rebuke in his tones: “Until I received your message this morning, I’d no idea you were returning.”

The ambassador acknowledged the admonition with a flicker of his eyes.

“I slipped into the country quietly, leader, because of the difficulties. I needed to consult with you privately about your wishes.

Naturally, I came directly from the airport, and I’ll return directly to the airport.” Niu’s shoulders tightened at the enormity of what would bring the ambassador here so covertly over such a long distance, but again he offered a rare smile. “Of course. Sit. Relax.” Wu sat, his back barely touching the chair. He made no effort to relax, and Niu had not expected him to. “Thank you,” Wu said. “May I speak frankly, leader?”

“I insist. Whatever we say will remain here.” Niu picked up his ashtray and walked around to sit in the chair beside the ambassador, again in an act of friendship. Still, he did not offer Wu a cigarette. That would be going too far. “Tell me.” He smoked. “I believe I’ve been delivering the messages to the American president exactly as you wanted … which was, and I’m sure still is … that China must stand firm against any invasion of our sovereign rights. At the same time, China doesn’t seek an incident or confrontation that might escalate beyond anyone’s control.” Niu simply nodded. With even the closest ally, verbal commitment was not the way until absolutely necessary. Wu gave his tiny smile in return. “The American president indicates he understands that.

As I’ve said before, he’s unusually subtle for a Westerner. He reads nuances. I detect sincere concern that the standoff could escalate into war. Unlike others, when he says he doesn’t want war, I believe he means it. He confirms that with word choice, emphasis, and etiquette.”

“Impressive.” Niu controlled his impatience.

“As unusual as that is for a Western head of government, he’s done something even more unusual: He’s revealed what he’s doing and why.”

The Owl’s eyebrows rose. “Explain.”

As the ambassador recounted the most recent conversation in the Oval Office about The Dowager Empress, Niu listened in silence, mulling uneasily. Suddenly he realized-what was disturbing him: The U.S. president had unwittingly given him the correct question to ask. If the United States did not want the confrontation, and China did not want it, who did? Why did it continue? At the moment, the crisis seemed completely unnecessary, almost as if it had not only been staged, but its escalation orchestrated.

He considered what he had learned from Major Pan, and he recalled the discussions of the Standing Committee. Among the hawks, Wei Gaofan again stood out. It was true that through the alliance with Li Aorong and Li’s son-in-law, Wei could expect to make a profit from the shipment. Perhaps he had been making profits from such shipments for quite a while. But was that Wei’s ultimate goal now that news of it had reached the upper levels of government in both China and the United States?

No. The Owl was certain Wei would sacrifice profit instantly if he could take China back into the past. At heart, Wei was an ideologue, a true hardline Communist who had never gotten over Mao, Chu Teh, or Tiananmen Square. To go back to those days was his dream. His sending the Zhao Enlai submarine to threaten the Crowe proved that. He would encourage the confrontation to escalate into violence to force his point. To win, he might even go to war.

The Owl remembered Confucius’s two definitions of disaster: One was “catastrophe,” the other “opportunity.” Wei had seen the discovery of the Empress’s true cargo not as a catastrophe but as an opportunity to achieve something far more important to him than money.

“The president asks,” Ambassador Wu continued, breaking into the Owl’s thoughts, “whether concrete proof, in the form of the actual invoice manifest, would be enough for you to defuse the situation with the Standing Committee. Would the committee allow Americans to board, perhaps in conjunction with our submarine crew, or, alternately, would the committee end the situation by ordering the cargo destroyed in such a way that the Americans could confirm it? In short, would you be willing to work with our people as President Castilla works with his, to end this dangerous problem?” Niu inhaled his cigarette thoughtfully. While Wei saw the past as the future, Niu was comfortable with the unknown, with a future based on ideals like democracy and openness. The choice was stark: If he did not risk all, Wei would win. On the other hand, if he risked all and won, Wei — the preeminent hawk on the Standing Committee — would be brought down by his own deeds.

“Leader?” the ambassador asked, his face concerned at the long silence.

“Would you like a cigarette, Ambassador?”

“Thank you. Yes, I’d like one very much.” A moment of gratitude softened the ambassador’s worried face.

The two men smoked companionably. Crucial decisions must not be rushed.

“Thank you for bringing me this news,” Niu said at last. “I haven’t been wrong in my choice of ambassador. Return immediately to Washington and tell President Castilla I consider myself a reasonable man, while, of course, continuing to warn of the dire consequences should any Americans attempt to board.”

Wu put out his cigarette and stood. “He’ll understand. I’ll convey your exact words.” They exchanged a determined look. With a rustle of his long coat, Wu left.

Smoking furiously, Niu jumped to his feet and resumed pacing. The Americans clearly did not have proof of the cargo yet. That was most disquieting. Proof was essential. He stopped in the middle of the floor, wheeled on his heel, and marched back to his phone.

Standing over his desk, he dialed.

As soon as Major Pan answered, the Owl demanded, “Tell me what you’ve learned.”

Without prompting, Pan revealed the taped telephone conversation between Feng Dun and Wei Gaofan. “Only one of the original invoice manifests of the Empress’s true cargo still exists — in the hands of Yu Yongfu and Li Kuonyi.”

Niu caught his breath and stubbed out his cigarette. “Yes. What else?”

“Ralph Mcdermid is going to pay two million dollars to buy it from them.” He described the arrangements at the Sleeping Buddha.

The Owl listened carefully, his mind accelerating as the fog that had obscured the situation evaporated: This was what the president wanted, and what he wanted … the objective proof. Wei Gaofan knew this and wanted the manifest destroyed. At the same time, the Shanghai couple — Yu and Li — were pawns, trying desperately to survive. Then there was the rich American businessman Ralph Mcdermid, who must also want a confrontation, although Niu was not sure yet exactly why or how far he would allow it to escalate. Mcdermid was willing to pay a small fortune to keep the manifest out of anyone else’s hands. The rat who ran among all three was Feng Dun … pretending to work for Mcdermid and Yu Yongfu while his ultimate allegiance belonged to Wei Gaofan.

Feng was filth. Ralph Mcdermid and Wei Gaofan were worse. All must be stopped before they reignited the Cold War or started a hot one.

Thinking rapidly, he listened as Major Pan finished his report. Pan’s willingness at last to hold nothing back told Niu that the spycatcher had finally committed his loyalty to Niu. In their culture, it was the ultimate compliment, and also the ultimate vulnerability.

Could he do less? “I understand, Major,” Niu told him. “Perhaps more than you realize. Thank you for your fine efforts. You are on your way to Dazu?”

“My flight leaves in twenty minutes.”

“Then understand this: Continue to observe and do not interfere unless there’s more trouble.” He hesitated a fraction of a second, weighing the enormity of the step he was about to take. “If trouble erupts, I authorize you to help Li Kuonyi and Colonel Smith. Either you or Colonel Smith must retrieve the manifest safely. It’s imperative.”

The silence was like a held breath. “Is that an order, master?”

“Consider it so. If it becomes necessary, show my written instructions.

You’re working only for me, and you have my full protection.”

There. It was done. Now there could be no turning back. It was he or Wei Gaofan — forward into the unknown future, or back to an unworkable past.

And it rested in the hands of others. He fought off a shudder. But there it was. A wise man knew whom to trust.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Jon awakened to a sense of claustrophobia, of bodies packed around like com in a can. He grabbed his Beretta, sat bolt upright, and swept the big semiautomatic through the dim illumination. And remembered where he was. The Uighers’ cellar. The air was pungent with body odors and warm exhalations, although only a half dozen fighters remained. All were sleeping. Everyone else had gone, including Asgar.

Heart still pounding, he lowered the weapon and checked his watch. The green glow of the dial showed 2:06 p.m. He had been asleep more than nine hours, which was astounding. He seldom slept more than seven.

He stood carefully and stretched. His muscles complained but not too loudly. His ribs ached. No sharp pains. His face felt fine. It would itch later, particularly when he sweated. Nothing fatal.

He padded to the steps. At the top, he raised the trap and climbed out into the satellite house. A new sentry stood guard at the window, while across the courtyard was movement in the main house’s kitchen. Fighting off a sense of urgency, of a need to get on with it, he strolled outdoors. Strolling was something he did infrequently, too.

The sun was warm, the sky porcelain blue, and a gentle breeze stirred the willows and cottonwoods. The chilies that had been laid out to dry on mats around the dirt courtyard were an encircling carpet of scarlet.

Their peppery scent filled the air, reminding him he was in Sichuan Province, famous for its spicy cuisine.

Asgar was in the kitchen, sipping a mug of hot tea with milk, English style. He looked up, surprised. “Are you mad? Why aren’t you still asleep?”

“Nine hours is enough, for God’s sakes,” Jon told him.

“Not if nine hours is spread over five days.”

“I’ve caught a few naps here and there.”

“Yeah, you look really rested. Solid as a sand devil. Check yourself in the mirror. With that face, you can go to All Hallow’s Eve without a mask.”

Jon gave a thin smile. “Is there a phone I can use? I don’t want to tempt fate in case someone around here is triangulating cell calls.”

“Next room.”

Jon found the telephone. Using the phone card Fred Klein had given him, he dialed Klein. It was yet another gamble. Public Security could be monitoring land lines, too.

“Klein.” Jon went into character: “Uncle Fred?” he said in halting English. “It’s been so long, and you haven’t called. Tell me about America. Does Aunt Lili like it?” Aunt Lili was code for possible monitoring.

“Everything’s fine, nephew Mao. How’s your assignment?”

“The first phase had to be postponed, but I can do it at the same time as the second phase.”

There was hesitation and a note of disapproval: “I’m sorry to hear that.

The second phase could be harmed.” Concerned, Fred was reminding him that at the first sign of serious trouble at the prison farm, they would have to scrub the rescue. The meeting at the Sleeping Buddha remained their first priority.

“Well, that’s worried me, too. I’ll just have to see how it goes.”

Another pause, this time as Klein shifted gears: “You must phone instantly when you have news. We can hardly wait. Did you find your cousin Xing Bao?”

“I’m in his house now.”

“That’s a relief. You must be enjoying each other, but this is costing you too much, Mao. I promise I’ll write a very long letter first thing tomorrow.”

“I look forward to it with pleasure, now that I’ve heard your honored voice again.” Jon hung up. Asgar called from the other room, “And?” Jon rejoined him. “The priority remains the same. As soon as we have the manifest, I need to call Klein to let him know.”

“Poor David Thayer.”

“Not if we can help it. We’ll do everything we can to get him out, too.

Did you go to the Sleeping Buddha?”

“Yes, we did a thorough recon.” He laid a deck of English playing cards on the table. “I left ten of my best people behind to keep watch. They have walkie-talkies. Get some food, and I’ll fill you in. Then we’ll play some two-handed poker. If you don’t know how, I’ll teach you.”

“Are you hustling me?” Asgar smiled innocently. “I picked it up at school. Strictly amateur.

Nice hobby, when one has time to kill.” For a moment, anxiousness and nerves showed in his expression. And then they were gone. “Okay,” Jon said. There was no way he was going to sleep more now anyway.

“Two-dollar limit, or whatever that is in your money. Straight poker. No wild cards. After I wash my face, I’m in.” Jon knew he was being hustled, but they had to do something to make the time pass. They had at least six hours to keep each other sane, before darkness arrived and they could begin their night’s work.

Fred Klein was puffing on his pipe angrily, and the special ventilation system was straining to clear the air, when President Castilla walked into his Covert-One office. The president sat. His large body was rigid, his shoulders stiffly square. His jowls looked like concrete. “You have news?” No greeting, no preamble. Klein was in the same bleak frame of mind. He put down the pipe, crossed his arms, and announced, “It took five of my best corporate and financial experts to ferret this out: The Altman Group owns an arms manufacturing firm called Consolidated Defense, Inc. As with many of Altman’s holdings, this one’s hidden behind a paper trail that boggles the mind — subsidiaries, associated companies, holding companies, satellite companies … you name it, the ownership winds through a quicksand intended to deceive. Still, the ultimate ownership is clear.”

“What’s the bottom line?” “As I said, Altman and Ralph Mcdermid own the majority shares in Consolidated Defense and reap its rewards.”

“This isn’t particularly new. Altman’s heavily invested in defense. Why do we care about Consolidated?”

“You’re going to think this is a digression, but it’s not: Let’s discuss the Protector mobile artillery system. It was a millimeter from final approval. Then you decided that in our new world of terrorists and brushfire wars, heavy artillery systems like it were outdated. Often totally useless.”

“The Protector crushes most bridges because it’s too heavy. It can’t be pulled out of the bog of a country road without major support. It certainly can’t be easily airlifted. It’s irrelevant or worse.”

“It’s still irrelevant,” Klein assured him. “But that was an $11 billion contract that just evaporated. Consider this, the Altman Group at last count had some $12.5 billion in investments. That’s serious money for a private equity firm. But Altman’s accustomed to making big money — more than thirty-four percent returns annually over the past decade, particularly through timely defense and aerospace investments.

On a single day last year, Altman earned $237 million. Impressive, right? Also dirty. Consolidated Defense is the army’s fifth-largest contractor, but they took Consolidated public only after the September 11 attacks, when Congress skyrocketed its support for hefty defense spending, and only after a massive lobbying effort by that golden Rolodex of theirs paid off in Congress’s initial approval of Consolited’s cornerstone weapon’s program … ” The president stared, his expression grim. “Let me guess — the Protector.”

“Bingo. The result was the $237 million bonanza.”

“And―”

“And now Altman’s assets will skyrocket billions and billions of dollars, if you and Congress approve the Protector and put it into production.” The president sat back, his mouth a thin line of disgust. “That bastard.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what Ralph Mcdermid’s been up to. It’s got nothing to do with the Empress directly. The whole thing was a setup to lead to nose-to-nose hostility between two continental giants with nuclear capabilities. If necessary, he’ll wheel and deal us into war to prove the United States needs the Protector. Either way, once we board the Empress and all hell breaks out, he’ll have proved his point. Congress will beg for the Protector, and he’ll get his $11 billion.”

The president swore loudly. “The only thing they didn’t walk away with, because I clamped a lid on it, was publicity that would’ve scared the bejesus out of the public and made it easier to win approval immediately.”

“The way I look at it, it’s damn immediate enough. All Mcdermid needs is for us to board the Empress because it’s about to go into Iraqi waters.”

“Oh, God.” The president heaved a sigh. “Everything’s on Smith’s shoulders. What have you heard from him?”

“He called, but he had to use code.” He paused. “I’ve got bad news, Sam.

They weren’t able to liberate your father last night. That’s China time.

Smith implied they’d try again tonight.”

The president grimaced. He closed his eyes and opened them. “Tomorrow morning, our time — that’s when they’ll do it?”

“Yes, sir. They’ll try.”

“He didn’t say anything more about breaking him out? Whether he has enough help? Whether he thinks he can do it?”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Why couldn’t he talk more?”

“I assume he was afraid to use his secure cell phone. Which meant he was on a public line that could’ve been monitored. It leads me to guess that the parachute sighting was hardly solid. The local authorities must not have located the parachute or any other evidence of insertion. With luck, they’re skeptical.”

“I hope you’re right, Fred. Smith is going to need all the good luck he can get, and so are we.” The president peered at the clock. “He’s got four hours left, the way I count it, before dusk.” He shook his head.

“Four very long hours for all of us.”

Dolores Estevez hurried across the Altman Building lobby and out the glass entrance into the city’s humid air and rushing people. Usually Hong Kong’s carnival atmosphere energized her. Not now. She joined a queue of pedestrians frantically waving for taxis. But as soon as she raised her hand, one pulled up as if by magic. She decided God must have a soft spot for well-intentioned but late travelers. She jumped in quickly. “The airport. Hurry.” The driver started his meter, and the taxi inched into traffic. They crawled for a few blocks, until the driver muttered in guttural Cantonese and swerved the vehicle into a narrow alley. “Shortcut,” he explained.

Before Dolores could protest, he accelerated, and they were halfway along it. She sat back nervously. Maybe he knew what he was doing. One way or another, she needed to reach the airport where the big boss was waiting, probably annoyed already. She was both terrified and excited by her new assignment — his official translator at someplace called Dazu in Sichuan. They wanted her because she could speak several dialects. She felt comfortable in Cantonese and Mandarin, although she had found the real thing in the field was not exactly the same as speaking in her graduate classes or in L. A.’s Chinese restaurants. She was also nervous about her English. No matter how hard she tried, she had not completely lost her barrio accent. She was still worrying when the taxi screeched to a halt near the end of the alley, the door opened, and strong hands pulled her out. Too frightened to struggle, she had a vague impression of seeing a fellow Latina who looked amazingly like her. She felt a sharp pain in her arm, and blackness enveloped her.

Ralph Mcdermid reclined in his seat aboard the opulent corporate jet reserved for his personal use, sipped his favorite single-malt Scots whiskey— over ice, no water — and glanced at his watch for the tenth time. Where was the damn translator? He fumed and was waving the steward for another single-malt when a breathless woman stumbled up into the cabin. Mcdermid eyed her with outrage that quickly became appreciation. She was clearly Latina, one of those with high cheekbones, long, lean faces, and touch of fiery Aztec in her eyes. Exotic.

“Mr. Mcdermid,” she said in English with more than a hint of L. A.’s South Central barrio. It was an accent he would have taken as a sign of lack of education and ambition in a man, but in a woman, it was charming. “I’m Dolores Estevez, your translator and interpreter. I apologize for being late, but they gave me terribly short notice. Of course, the traffic was impossible.”

Mcdermid detected a slight lisp. Better and better. Her body was magnificent in any ethnic or national category. Her name was delightful.

Dolores. He rolled it through his mind. When this was over, and they were back in Hong Kong, she would probably jump at the chance to please the uber boss.

“Completely understandable, my dear. Please sit down. There would be fine.” He nodded at the plush seat facing him. She smiled, all of a sudden shy. At first he smiled back, then he frowned. There was something … familiar. Yes, he had seen her before. Recently. “Have we met? In the office, perhaps.”

She beamed while shrinking back in the seat. Her shyness was refreshing.

“Yes, sir. A few times. Once yesterday.” A slight boldness. “I thought you didn’t notice.” “Of course, I did.” Still, as he smiled, he felt an uncomfortable twinge. Was every woman beginning to look familiar?

At that moment, the pilot poked his head into the private compartment.

“Is everyone aboard, sir?”

“Everyone, Carson. You’ve filed our papers and the flight plan?”

“Yes, sir. You’ll have about two hours aloft, all in all. Customs will hold you up some when we land, but your papers should get you VIP treatment. Weather looks smooth all the way.”

“Excellent. Take her up.”

As the steward arrived with his next whiskey, he offered a drink to his new translator. She crossed her legs with a flash of thigh. At that point, he decided he could do worse for companionship, and the prospect of having the manifest by morning made him feel like his old genial self. He rested his head back and gazed out the window. As the big jet rolled down the runway, he tried not to worry about what would happen.

Hell, he was willing to pay two million dollars for the manifest. Of course he would get it.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Jon and Asgar spent the daylight hours analyzing reports from the Uigher scouts and working through endless scenarios they might face tonight, interspersed with poker. Asgar ended up winning a few dollars, which Jon considered a donation to international goodwill. His thoughts never left the coming missions. He was determined to succeed at both, while Asgar, whose Uigher pride was involved, was equally eager to strike a blow for democracy and freedom in China.

Both worried about encountering what they had not envisioned. The thought of failure was impossible.

According to Asgar’s people, the usual rafts of visitors had come and gone around the Sleeping Buddha, enjoying the beauty and spiritual quality of the centuries-old art, while local vendors aggressively hawked postcards and plastic statues. A normal day. Thus far, there had been no sign of Me-Dermid’s people, nor of Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu, but the hills and mesas around the Buddha Grottos were largely open, so it was possible they could arrive unnoticed at any time, particularly after dark, hiking or riding in overland in vehicles or on horses, or disguised as tourists or vendors.

At the same time, the news from the prison was encouraging: The lockdown was over. No pallet check tonight, and tomorrow morning the prisoners would return to the fields. The harvest season had begun — cabbage, beets, bok choy, tomatoes, as well as the usual rice and chili peppers. Asgar figured that had played a large role in the decision. Once darkness had cloaked Dazu’s rolling hills and valleys, Jon, Asgar, and a dozen guerrillas drove to the prison and hid their vehicles as before. Now they and two of the Uigher fighters lay flat in cover across from the no-man’s land and chain-link fence. The prison yard appeared quiet. The mess hall was shadowy and still. The double doors in the rear wall were closed, the rutted dirt drive deserted. From the barracks, an occasional voice rose in mournful song or macabre laughter, but the governor and the guards made no showing. All of this information was vital, since the prison was still on medium alert. Jon and Asgar had decided they would improve the odds of a clean, quiet escape for Thayer and Chiavelli if they sneaked inside. They planned to take the same hidden route in which they hoped to bring them out.

Motionless, growing tense, at last they spotted movement. One of the double doors had opened and closed. Or had it? Jon stared, trying to pick out a shape, a form, anything. Then he saw it — a wraith low to the ground, a cross between a snake and a cat, scrambling through the ten-yard-wide blind spot to the fence. It was a small man in the usual drab prison uniform. He looked up at them once, spotted Asgar, and nodded.

Asgar nodded back and whispered to Jon, “It’s Ibrahim. Let’s cover him.”

Noise was an enemy tonight. The last weapon they would use was their guns, even though they had screwed on noise suppressors. It was a myth that “silenced” gunfire was silent. Although it was quieter than regular fire, each bullet still gave off a loud pop, like a low-grade firecracker. With luck, their hands, feet, knives, and garottes would be enough. Still, they raised their pistols, sweeping over the grounds, in case of the worst. Beside them, the two Uigher fighters did the same.

They must protect this man who was risking so much. Jon’s heart held a slow, steady beat, while tension fought to accelerate it. Ibrahim continued to scrape away the loamy soil until he had gone down what looked like a foot. Moments later, he raised a square of wood about three-by-three. He dove into the hole and vanished. Almost immediately, the dirt moved on the other side of the fence. It shifted, shook, and another wood panel arose. Ibrahim’s head popped out, disappeared again, and reappeared on the far side of the fence. The channel was clear. Asgar whispered, “Our turn.” He rose to a crouch and scuttled to the fence, with Jon and the two Uigher guerrillas close behind. Jon peered down into the hole. It was a deep depression that had been scooped under the fence and covered with the two wood squares that met just beneath the chain links. “Go,” Asgar said in a low voice. “I’ve got your back.”

Headfirst, Jon scrambled down, emerged on the prison side, and ran after Ibrahim to the mess hall, dirt flying from his clothes. He slid inside and turned to aim out his Beretta. The Uighers had replaced the wood on both sides of the fence and were pushing dirt back over. As Asgar ran to join Jon and Ibrahim, the remaining pair outside produced brushes and meticulously smoothed the dirt, making the night’s disturbance unnoticeable. When the last Uigher bolted into the mess hall, Ibrahim led them at a trot through the shadowy kitchen and deserted mess hall.

They peered out the windows. Moonlight illuminated wood walkways that united three large barracks, joined them with the mess hall, and branched out to other buildings, guaranteeing dry feet for the governor during rainy seasons. All the buildings were raised on three-foot posts, indicating the seriousness of the seasonal storms. There were no trees and no grass, just soil that had been packed hard by many feet. Two armed guards patrolled this area, rifles over their shoulders, yawning sleepily, perhaps because they’d had to patrol last night during the lockdown, too. Ibrahim consulted in a low voice with Asgar, who nodded and told Jon, “Be ready. When I say go, we run out to the right and slide under the barrack there.” Ibrahim waited until the guards were at the ends of their routes and their backs were turned. He and Asgar clapped each other on both shoulders in farewell, and Ibrahim raced out of the mess hall, but to the left. He made no attempt to be silent. In fact, his footfalls were thumps on the hardpan. Both guards revived from their walking doze and spun, rifles aimed. Each barked the same Chinese word, which Jon figured must mean “halt.” Ibrahim froze. His head dropped in fake guilt. The men approached warily. They relaxed when they saw his face. Their lips curled as they spoke mockingly in Chinese.

Asgar translated everything in a whisper:

“You stealing food again, Ibrahim?”

“Don’t you know you always get caught? What is it this time?”

The first guard searched the trembling Uigher and pulled a jar from inside his shirt. “Honey again. You know damn well that’s not for prisoners. We would’ve discovered it was gone, and then we’d have tracked it to you. You’re the dumbest inmate here. Now we’ve got to take you to lockup, and you’ll be talking to the governor in the morning. You know what that means!”

His head hanging lower, Ibrahim was marched to a small building at the far edge of the yard.

“What does it mean?” Jon asked, concerned.

“Detention for a week. Ibrahim’s an operator. It’s his contribution to the cause.” Asgar looked both ways. “Now!”

As Ibrahim disappeared inside, Jon and Asgar slipped out the front door, ran full speed to the right, and dove under the barrack. They clambered underneath to the other side, jumped out, ran again, and dove again, repeating until they were three barracks distant, in another part of the camp. They lay panting beneath the last one, peering out at another group of barracks. The most distant one from the fence where they entered was straight ahead.

Asgar breathed in deep gulps. Jon’s heart pounded, and his face itched.

But all he could think about was … in that barrack was David Thayer.

They studied the new area. Again, there were wood walkways uniting the buildings. Two more guards patrolled 180 degrees apart. As soon as the guards’ backs were turned, Asgar nodded, and they ran once more, this time lightly.

The barrack door cracked open without a sound, and a figure motioned them into the dark interior. He was in his early thirties, with a scar down his right cheek that looked as if it had come from a blade. The man put a finger to his lips, closed the door, and padded quietly off between pallets of snoring male prisoners. Shafts of moonlight from high windows illuminated the bleak, regimented scene, which looked as if it had sprung from some monochromatic moment in a Solzhenitsyn novel.

Jon and Asgar followed the prisoner to a door at the rear. He pointed at it and returned to his pallet. Jon and Asgar exchanged a look in the gloom, and Asgar gestured as if to say, “Your turn, if you want it.”

This was David Thayer’s cell. This last door in the last barrack in the compound. A man who had been declared officially dead for decades. Whose wife had remarried and died. Whose best friend had married her and died, too. Whose son had grown up without him. He had missed several lifetimes.

Jon opened the door eagerly. This man deserved more than pity. He deserved freedom and every happiness the world could offer.

Inside was a tiny room. Two men looked up from where they sat side by side on wood chairs. Each held a small, lighted flashlight, a hand cupping the beam. Jon could see little more. He and Asgar quickly closed the door behind them.

“Chiavelli?” Jon whispered into the dark.

“Smith?” asked a voice.

“Yes.”

The hands released the beams. The cell erupted in shadows and light.

Both men were fully dressed. The one who wore the usual prison shirt and trousers was younger — muscular, with a gray buzz cut and gray stubble on his chin. He immediately crossed the room and pushed aside the pallet in the corner.

The older one stood up, tall and rangy, with sunken cheeks and bony shoulders. He was dressed in a rumpled Mao jacket over loose peasant trousers, a Mao cap on his head. Under it was thick white hair and an aristocratic face that was riven with lines, not from the sun but from more than eighty years of life. Around his waist was a belt with a small pack. He was ready to travel. David Thayer.

Chiavelli said from the corner, “Asgar?” He was on his knees, where the pallet had been. “I could use some help.”

“Certainly, old man.” Asgar crouched beside Chiavelli, as Chiavelli explained what needed to be done. With their fingers, they worked loose and removed four-penny nails from the floor where Thayer’s pallet had been.

Meanwhile, a warm smile wreathed David Thayer’s wrinkled face. He extended his hand. “Colonel Smith, I’ve waited a long time for this.

Wish I could think of something profound to say, but my heart and mind are too full.”

“Actually, I was thinking the same thing, Dr. Thayer.” He shook the hand. It was dry, warm, with only a slight tremble. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. I mean that. We’re going to get you out of here. From this moment on, consider yourself a free man.”

“If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to meet my son.”

“Of course. The president sends his greetings. He wants very much to see you as soon as possible.”

Thayer’s smile widened, and his eyes shone. “I’ve hoped that for more than fifty years. Is he well?”

“From everything I know, he is. You have two grandchildren. Both in college. A boy and a girl. Patrick and Amy. You’ll be going home to a beautiful family.” Jon thought he heard a sob catch in Thayer’s throat.

“Let’s go!” Dennis Chiavelli called softly from the corner.

A panel of the wood floor was gone. It had been dropped down into the opening. David Thayer explained the Uighers had dug tunnels years ago, so they could move freely among the barracks.

Jon and Thayer hunched next to Asgar and Chiavelli, as Chiavelli explained urgently, “We go out as quickly and quietly as possible. Looks like the governor’s laid down the law about the guards getting too lax, so we have to be damned careful. If a guard hasn’t been bribed and tries to stop us, we jump him silently, without lethal force if we can, and we stash him, dead or alive, in the mess hall where he won’t be found until after roll call tomorrow morning. If our luck holds, they won’t figure out before then we’re gone.”

“We’d better be far the hell away by then anyway,” Jon said. He looked at Asgar. “All of that sound right?”

“With an emphasis on nonlethal. My people have to stay behind.”

Chiavelli frowned. “Why are they still here anyway?”

Impatience was written on Asgar’s face. He dropped feet first into the hole and took out a small flashlight. “If we pulled off a mass escape, the Han would come down on us and all of Xinjiang like the Great Wall.

It’s better we remain a bloody nuisance, and we pick our times and places to strike. Besides, we slip people in and out of the prison when we need to. The network here is useful. Come on. We need to move as if the devil were nipping our heels.”

Jon helped Thayer down into the opening. The moist, earthen hole had been scooped out into a tunnel about four feet high. They had to stoop, but it was a luxurious exit compared to Asgar’s tunnel back in the Shanghai longtangs. Chiavelli, the last down, reached up and pulled the sleeping pallet across the hole. He angled the wood panel back up into place and tweaked it to the side so it would hold.

“One of our people will fix it so it’s unnoticeable again,” Asgar explained.

They headed off, almost doubled over, Asgar in the lead. Following were David Thayer, Jon, and Chiavelli. Jon watched Thayer for signs of pain or exhaustion from the strain of the bent-over position, but if he felt either, he gave no indication. The dirt walls closed in around Jon, and a sense of suffocation threatened to overtake him. He kept his gaze on Thayer’s back. The tunnel writhed like a dragon’s tail, interrupted by rough-hewn wood supports and occasional openings in the top where more wood panels indicated another entrance into another building. No one spoke, although Chiavelli sneezed twice, muffling the noise in his hand.

At last, there was a cool stream of fresh air.

Asgar breathed, “We’re here.” As they stopped, he continued, “We’ll be coming up under the last barrack. After that is the mess.” He looked at his watch face. “Right now, there should be no more than one guard patrolling between us and the final barrack. I’ll handle him. If by any chance we’re surprised by a second, which is possible tonight, Jon takes him.” “What do I do?” Chiavelli asked, frowning, eager to help.

Jon said, “Your job’s to make sure Dr. Thayer stays safe.”

Thayer protested, “Don’t do anything special for me. I make it, or I don’t. I’m too old for anyone to risk his life.”

“You are old,” Jon said bluntly. “But that means you’ll make it harder on us if you try to do what you can’t.”

David Thayer said, amused, “So Captain Chiavelli becomes my bodyguard and my wet nurse. Poor Captain Chiavelli. It is a sad fate for such a brave man of action.”

“No worries,” Chiavelli assured him. “My pleasure.” “Here we go,” Asgar whispered.

The panel above their heads had been unsealed and left ajar, the source of the fresh air. Asgar pushed it out of the way, and they climbed up, one after the other, into the crawl space beneath the barrack. Thayer was awkward but made it. Chiavelli replaced the panel and brushed dirt back over it.

Jon and Asgar took positions under the edge of the building, where the dimly lighted yard stretched between it and the mess hall. As Asgar had predicted, a single guard patrolled in a sloppy circle, his assault rifle slung over his shoulder and his head down as if half asleep.

They scuttled backward to where Thayer and Chiavelli lay. Thayer gave Jon a questioning look, but Jon shook his head, his fingers at his lips.

They waited. The night air was chilly against their skin. The moon had retreated behind a gray cloud, and the shadowy prison took on an eerie, dangerous air. They waited tensely.

At last, the guard headed back in their direction. Again Jon and Asgar moved to the edge of the barrack. And waited. As the man’s feet moved past, Asgar sprang out like a mountain cat and smashed the butt of his pistol down onto the guard’s head. And it was over. Asgar started to drag the man under the barrack, where they would tie and gag him and smuggle him into the mess hall to hide.

Then it happened. A second guard marched out from around the next building. He saw Asgar bent over his collapsed comrade. For a long beat, the new guard stared, puzzled, his routine-dulled brain unable to comprehend and react. Abruptly, it penetrated. He grabbed his assault rifle, which was slung over his shoulder.

Just as he spun it over into his hands, Jon jumped out from under the barrack behind him and reached to clamp an arm around his throat. The man immediately slammed back the butt of the rifle. Jon saw it coming and dodged, but he lost his grip on the guard.

The man whirled around, aimed his rifle at Jon, and tightened his finger. At that moment, Dennis Chiavelli blasted out from under the barrack, racing shoulder down, like a battering ram. He crashed into the guard, pushing him a good six feet, while trying to yank the rifle from his hands. But the guard managed to pull the trigger.

The rifle fired. The noise was like a crack of thunder. It seemed to shake the buildings and explode up into the starry heavens.

Fear shot through Jon. “Hide him. Quick!” He kicked the guard in the chin, knocking him out.

At the same time, a voice shouted in Chinese, then another. There were questions in the voices. The old man straightened up onto his feet. He bellowed into the night, his voice strong. Jon had no idea what the words meant, but they were confident. The old man laughed, and there were responding chuckles in the distance.

“I told them I was an idiot,” Thayer whispered as they quickly bound, gagged, and blindfolded the two guards. “I said I nearly shot myself in the foot by accident and begged them not to report me.” He chuckled again.

“Nice save,” Jon said in a low voice.

“Jolly right,” Asgar agreed.

Chiavelli said nothing, merely smiled.

With the fear of being caught goading them, the four rushed the two unconscious guards toward the mess building. Two Uighers were waiting there, the door ajar. Inside, one of the Uighers asked Asgar a question.

Before Asgar could translate, David Thayer did: “They’re saying they’ll hide the guards, if we like. We should leave before the moon comes out again.”

Jon nodded. “Tell them yes. Thanks, Dr. Thayer. Okay, let’s get the hell out of here.”

At a trot, they retraced the path Ibrahim had led them on, from the mess hall to the kitchen and finally to the rear double doors where another Uigher beckoned them to hurry even faster. The moon, approaching full tonight, was still low as they trotted out into the blind spot to the fence where the Uighers on both sides had already reopened the passage.

Asgar swiftly crawled under, but David Thayer suddenly stopped. He stared out through the chain links as if in a trance.

Jon looked all around. The hairs on the back of his neck were starting to rise. They’d had fairly good luck so far. Now was not the time to test it. “Dr. Thayer? Your turn. You go next.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “My turn. Astounding. Truly astounding. I used to be a big Dodgers fan. I understand they’re no longer in Brooklyn.” He looked at Jon.

“They’re in Los Angeles now.” Jon pulled him toward the passageway. “The Giants left New York, too. They’re in San Francisco.”

“The Giants in San Francisco?” Thayer shook his head. “I’m going to have a lot to get used to.”

“Come on, sir,” Jon said. “Down you go.”

“It’s odd, but I’m reluctant. Foolish, aren’t I? My mind and heart are very full.” He straightened his spine. Years seemed to fall from him, and he stepped to the fence, dropped stiffly to his knees, and crawled under. Jon immediately followed, and Chiavelli once more protected their rear, gazing carefully all around.

“Can you run, sir?” Jon asked urgently.

Behind them, the Uighers were already covering the wood squares with dirt again. Ahead, Asgar was dashing across the open space toward the trees. Jon and Chiavelli helped Thayer to his feet and finally got him to run. The stars seemed particularly bright. Too bright. At last, when they entered the safety of the forest, Jon felt as if he had just won the gold ring on the biggest carousel. They had gotten the old man out of prison. Now the trick would be to keep him out, keep him safe, and get him to America.

They stopped in a grove so Thayer could catch his breath. Sweat streamed down his face, but he was smiling broadly. He pressed a hand to his chest and inhaled raggedly. “I never managed an escape before. I tried.”

They stood in a knot, sheltered all around by trees, waiting for him to recover, as they watched uneasily everywhere. An animal scurried away through the underbrush, heading north. Thayer never stopped smiling, even as he panted. His brown teeth were dark in his face. Some were chipped and broken. Two of his fingers were crooked, as if they had been broken but never splinted, so had healed wrong, perhaps after torture.

The heaving in Thayer’s chest slowed at last, and they ran on.

Chapter Forty

The mood in the tomblike situation room was tense. An electric tension that sapped at nerves already frayed. Throughout the morning, the assembled joint chiefs, service secretaries, National Security Adviser, secretaries of state and defense, the vice president, Charles Ouray, and the president himself had been discussing, sometimes heatedly, the rapidly approaching moment when a decision would have to be made whether to board the Empress and risk a military confrontation with China. After each had summarized his readiness, Secretary of Defense Stanton brought up the larger matter of long-range strategies and appropriations. It was then that General Guerrero had reiterated what he called the army’s obvious need to enlarge their quicker, lighter concept to include heavy weapons for sustained campaigns against strong forces over large areas. He cited several examples of weapons, including the Protector mobile artillery unit, as vital to be approved and put into production. “You’re alone on this today,” the president told him. “At the moment we have a crisis to face that none of that can help us with.”

The general nodded agreement. “Yessir, you’re right.”

The president turned to Admiral Brose. “What can you give us, Stevens, that’ll make the Chinese and their submarine back off before all hell breaks loose?”

“Not very much, sir,” the admiral admitted, his tone uncharacteristically gloomy.

Air Force General Kelly said, “For God’s sake, Brose, you’ve got the whole damned Fifth Fleet out there. One carrier-based Viking, or even a Hornet, should scare the crap out of them.”

Secretary Stanton chimed in, “Doesn’t the Crowe have antisub choppers, Admiral?”

“Yes, to both comments,” Brose said. “Or was it three? In any event, what you gentlemen seem to forget is that this isn’t a military question, it’s a political nightmare. We have far more weapons than we’d need if we could attack. Hell, barring advanced capabilities we’re not aware of on that sub, the Crowe can juggle the situation on its own on at least an equal basis. But attacking first is precisely what we can’t do. Isn’t that so, Mr. President?”

“In a nutshell,” the president agreed.

“So what I have to offer is a cruiser. I’ve got the Shilo steaming full tilt. If it can get there in time, that might scare them off.”

The president nodded calmly. This was to be expected and did not especially disturb him. His manner exuded quiet confidence, except for his right hand. The fingers drummed reflexively on the table in front of him. “Thank you, Stevens. All right, where do we stand? Our attempt to secure proof of the Empress’s potentially lethal cargo by using the SEALs failed. We can’t attack first, or we’ll lose what credibility we have left that we’re a nation that wants only peace and respects the rule of international law. I am, of course, still pursuing diplomatic avenues. But that pretty much exhausts our options, with one exception.” He paused to choose his words carefully, while his fingers continued their reflexive drumming. “Earlier, I mentioned an ongoing intelligence operation designed to secure proof of the cargo. I can report that I have high hopes of a successful conclusion to that effort, within hours.”

The buzz in the room was excited. Emily Powell-Hill asked, “How many hours, sir?”

“Can’t say for certain. You should know that the effort is inside China, and of course it’s risky. Plus, there are enormous difficulties in running a mission on the other side of the world as well as having to contend with the vast distances of China.”

“May I ask who’s making this effort, Mr. President?” the vice president asked. “I’m sure all of us would like to pray for their safety and success.”

“Sorry, Brandon, I’m not going to reveal that. I can tell you our man’s close to success, but how close I can’t be certain. Which leaves us faced with a simple, if potentially devastating decision. If I fail to hear from inside China in time, the Crowe will stop and board the Empress before it can reach Iraqi waters, which, in practicality, means before it enters the Persian Gulf. Exactly how many hours is that, Admiral Brose?”

The chairman of the joint chiefs glanced at his watch. “Seven, Mr. President. Give or take an hour.”

After a harrowing run through the forest, constantly looking over their shoulders, Jon, Asgar, the two Uigher fighters, and the two former prisoners reached the Uigher unit. A few minutes later, the entire group slipped out across the fields toward their hidden vehicles. They climbed aboard. With Asgar driving, Jon, Chiavelli, and Thayer took the limo, so Thayer would be more comfortable. Three other Uighers piled in back, their assault rifles bristling like porcupine quills. The rest of the Uighers divided themselves between, the Humvee and Land Rover.

With the limo in the lead, the team drove off at a sedate rate in an effort to attract as little attention as possible. At the same time, they watched all around for pursuit, aware of every light, every boulder, every possible threat.

Jon studied the luminous green dial of his watch. “Where’s Alani and her group? Aren’t they still supposed to escort Chiavelli and Dr. Thayer to the border?” “They’re at the hideout,” Asgar told him, his voice clipped, as if waiting for more trouble.

“Meaning, you want to give Chiavelli and Dr. Thayer a vehicle and some of your men to get them out of China?”

“That’s the plan.”

“No way. We don’t know how many men Feng or Li Kuonyi will bring. We need everyone. Besides, your people won’t get back in time. We’ll have to keep Chiavelli and Dr. Thayer with us until we actually walk into the mountains. Then we’ll stash them somewhere safe and pick them up again when we leave.” Asgar thought a moment. “Okay, makes sense. Besides, we’ll be able to use Chiavelli and perhaps Dr. Thayer. Can you shoot, sir?”

“A long time ago,” Thayer admitted from the backseat. “Exactly what’s this new mission?”

“We can’t risk you, sir,” Jon stated flatly.

“Absolutely not,” Dennis Chiavelli agreed.

“All right.” Thayer sighed. “But at least tell me what it is.”

Jon related the highlights of the meeting at the Sleeping Buddha, the goal, the stakes, and the danger.

“This is for the human-rights agreement?” Thayer asked, his wrinkles rearranged in a frown. “Then it’s vital. It’s one of the most important pieces of legislation of my son’s administration.” “Agreed,” Jon said. “These are global stakes.”

David Thayer took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose in a gesture Jon had seen the president make. Then he slumped back as if exhausted. He stared out the window, a half smile on his old face.

Jon turned around in the front seat so that he was facing forward again.

He glanced over at Asgar, and Asgar shot him a look of relief. Then both men resumed their careful watch for trouble. They drove past farmyards covered with rice grains spread out to be dried in tomorrow’s sun, just as the red peppers had been. Unhulled rice was everywhere, even piled against walls and fences, like brown snowdrifts. Handmade wood tools leaned against the walls, too. There were penned chickens and pigs and vegetable gardens. Heavy wood vegetable buckets often sat neatly at the end of a row. And, of course, there were water buffalo, heads dangling, muzzles almost touching the ground as they drowsed.

Time ticked slowly. Too slowly, increasing the tension. They drove into a village, and Thayer roused himself. The houses were more prosperous looking, roofed with blue-black curved tiles and boasting two or more chimneys. At the same time, the road became a pavement of large stone slabs that appeared to be hundreds of years old. Thayer told them he had been brought occasionally out to do work around here, because of his clerking skills.

“See the chairs at the edge of the pavement? This road is like an extended living room,” he said. “Villagers sit out here at tables to play cards, drink tea, and gossip. They lay their rice right on the pavement to dry, too, and bicyclists roll over it as if it’s not there. No one cares. To the Chinese, rice is ancient. It’s like the moon and stars. Nothing can destroy it.”

Jon turned back to check on the president’s father. His worn face still appeared tired, but even in the shadowy backseat, his expression clearly was happy. And he obviously felt like talking. A good sign.

“How are you feeling?” Jon asked.

“Odd. Strange. My emotions are jumpy. They’re like gremlins, impossible to control. One moment, I feel like laughing, the other like crying.

I’ve reached the age where I cry rather easily, I’m afraid.”

Jon nodded. “That’s normal. How are you physically?”

“Oh, that. I was a little tired for a while, but now I feel fine.”

“Were you ever tortured?”

Thayer frowned. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Again, the same gesture Jon had seen the president make. But as Thayer did it, Jon again noted the two broken fingers. He suspected there were other broken bones, too, out of sight under the old prisoner’s clothing. Ribs. An arm. Maybe a leg. No way to tell without a thorough workup. If they survived, the first order of business would be to make certain he had a physical.

Jon resumed his watch on the dark countryside.

Thayer gazed out the window, too. He was clearly enjoying himself, despite the danger and the stress inside the car. “The Chinese are a fascinating people. They’re constantly repeating myths and creating new ones. Once, when one of the Communists’ aqueducts was leaking badly in the mountains around here, they told the peasants living downhill that it was a new, scenic waterfall. That way they convinced them to keep working their farms, even when it wasn’t safe.”

“The Chinese culture entwines nature and myth,” Asgar agreed. “Did they survive?”

“Yes. The aqueduct was fixed in time.” Thayer continued, “Almost all of their natural phenomena have one or more legends. It’s a perfect tool to keep people ignorant. Science as we know it simply doesn’t exist out here. But it’s a beautiful way to live, too. They speak in a kind of poetry. A great tree is a transformed god. A rainbow is a cause for rejoicing. Heaven is alive on earth. But when that ignorance was transferred to Beijing, it caused a lot of problems.”

“Wasn’t Mao a peasant with barely an elementary school education?” Jon asked.

“Yes, and under him, other peasants ran the country. Some were actually illiterate. Couldn’t read the reports they had to put their chops to.

They knew little about mass production, factories, science, or even agriculture outside their own farming areas. Five years after Mao took over, the nation nearly starved to death because of ridiculous Politburo policies. In prison, we ate anything. Birds, insects, grass. After a while, there wasn’t a weed left or bark on the trees. A lot of us died.”

Thayer shrugged. “But that’s enough about that. Now that the impossible has become possible, I’ve got a reason to live long enough to meet what’s left of my family. I suppose I’m growing greedy, but I don’t care. Afterward, I can die in peace.”

While they had been talking, Asgar had been on his walkie-talkie, checking with the drivers of the two other vehicles. None had seen any tails or surveillance. There was urgency in their voices over the crackling machines as they kept watch and stayed in touch.

“We’ve had word from inside the prison,” Asgar reported over his shoulder. “They haven’t missed those two guards yet, and they don’t know you chaps are gone. Luck is with us so far.” His gaze returned to the road. The caravan was climbing into the hills.

The tension in the limo relaxed a shade with the news. Thayer described the area of Baoding Shan, where they were headed, and the Sleeping Buddha, where the exchange was to take place for the Empress’s manifest.

“Sometimes Baoding Shan is translated to mean Precious Summit Mountain, other times it’s Treasure Peak Mountain. Near the foot of it is where the Sleeping Buddha and other figures are carved into the rock, like at Mt. Rushmore. They’re painted, too.”

“I heard they’re a thousand years old,” Chiavelli said.

“Nearly,” Thayer informed them. “The ones around the Sleeping Buddha date back to the thirteenth century. Whoever planned the grotto had a real understanding of beauty. It follows the natural line of the cliffs.

They’re crescent shaped and solid rock, but around them is thick vegetation — trees, bushes, vines, flowers. Very green and lush. The cliff itself is part of a gorge.”

“Tell me what you think of the Sleeping Buddha as a site for an exchange,” Jon asked. Fred Klein had faxed him maps and descriptions.

Still, there was nothing like hearing it from someone who had been there.

“For Li Kuonyi and Feng Dun, it will be full of possibilities. For you, probably the possibilities will make it difficult, since you want to take the manifest from whoever ends up with it. The Sleeping Buddha is massive, but it’s in an overhang, and around it are a lot of different carvings, some of epic Buddhist stones. Many are at eye level, which means they’re good places to duck inside and hide. There are other statues in dark caves and carved temples around there, too.”

Asgar spun the wheel to miss a wild dog that had darted across the road.

“You’re absolutely right in every detail, Dr. Thayer. Couldn’t have given a better report myself. But how do you know all this?” he asked suspiciously.

“Our prisoners are sent to clean and repair the Buddha art. I was interested, so sometimes I was allowed to go, too. In Chinese culture, the old are respected simply because they’ve managed to live a long time, even if they are prisoners.”

At last, the trio of vehicles parked off in the trees. The Uighers jumped out and piled brush on the cars to camouflage them. Thayer walked around, stretching his legs, while Chiavelli accompanied him, keeping close watch.

“Time to go,” Jon told the two at last. He gave Chiavelli the limo’s keys. “Asgar’s written out directions to the hideout. If we’re not back by dawn, you’ll have to take him there yourself.”

“No problem. Then what?”

“Asgar’s sister, Alani, will smuggle you both to the best border.”

“Got it. Good luck.” Chiavelli looked at him a moment, understanding passing between them, and he ushered Thayer toward the limo.

As they climbed into the front seat, Thayer’s voice became shy. “Did you ever meet my son, Dennis? What can you tell me about him?” The captain’s answer was lost with the closing of the doors.

The Uighers finished camouflaging the limo. With weapons, flashlights, and maps, Asgar led them off onto a path filled with shadows and dark trees and plants that brushed against them. The fecund scent of growing things was all around them. One of the Uighers had been to the grotto, and he gave his opinions, which Asgar translated for Jon. Avoiding the usual routes, they climbed uphill single file, trying not to stumble on loose stones or fall against rocks into the brush.

As the trail flattened, Jon said, “Asgar, when we get near the Sleeping Buddha, we’ll stop just above and to the side. We’ll use the vegetation for cover.”

“You give the orders this time, my friend.”

“We’ll take positions where we can see anyone who comes down from the entrance steps as well as whoever stops in front of the Buddha. My intelligence agrees with what Dr. Thayer said — there are a lot of places to hide among the statues and carvings. That’s going to make our job even harder. Spread your men out so we can watch as much of the grotto as possible.”

“Sounds like a bit of a challenge,” Asgar said dryly. “How long do we have?”

“No way to know. The ” may end up being at dawn after all.”

“Daylight won’t be kind to us. If you’re planning to get the manifest out of China, we’d jolly well better be halfway to the border by sunrise.”

“I expect everything to blow up long before then. Daylight won’t be kind to them either.”

They lapsed into silence. The group kept their voices low and their footsteps careful as their path headed downhill. As Thayer promised, a riot of vegetation surrounded them. Above, the moon illuminated the tops of trees and bushes and created black, impenetrable shadows beneath.

Ahead waited the Sleeping Buddha, where Jon would face Feng Dun and Li Kuonyi once more, and where, one way or the other, the mission would end.

Chapter Forty-One

The communications technician turned from his radio controls. “It’s the Shilo, sir. They want our exact position now and our estimated position in ten hours.”

It. Commander Frank Bienas leaned over the radioman. “Send our present fix. I’ll work out the estimated. But tell them ten hours won’t cut it.”

Bienas sat down and went to work on the chart. The radioman sent the exec’s message to the approaching cruiser and leaned back to wait for the response. He stretched in his seat, nearing the end of his watch and aching from the long hours they had been putting in. Bienas continued to plot the Crowe’s projected course and finally sat back, too, shaking his head.

The radioman was listening on his earphones. He called over his shoulder, “Shilo says ten hours is the best they can do to get here.

They’re pouring on all they’ve got already.”

“You tell ‘ by then we’ll be in the Gulf, and that’s way too chancy.

They need to be here in under six, or they might as well go home and bake cookies.” Worried, he announced, “Anyone wants me, I’m on the bridge.” He made his way up and out to the dark deck and on up to the bridge, where Commander Chervenko had taken charge an hour ago.

When Bienas entered, Chervenko’s night binoculars were directed toward the distant running lights of The Dowager Empress. “She’s picked up a knot in the last hour. Like a dog smelling home.” “The Shilo says ten hours,” Bienas reported.

Chervenko did not turn or lower his binoculars. “Brose did the best he could. Trouble was, the Fifth Fleet’s too far south, and we’re moving away from them. They’ll never reach us in time.”

“Not much they could do we can’t anyway,” Bienas decided, sounding tough and optimistic.

“Except be twice as formidable.” The skipper was realistic. “What’s the sub doing?” “Holding steady. Hastings says he’s picking up what sounds like prepping for attack. There’s activity in the forward torpedo room.”

“They know we’re close to showdown time, Frank. We can’t let the Empress get into the Persian Gulf. We’d be vulnerable to land-based air attack, torpedo boats, you name it, and no telling who’d get enthusiastic and want to join the act. Tehran might decide their interests were involved, too, and then we’d have one hell of a swell party.”

Bienas nodded grimly. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the commander, staring out through the night at the running lights ahead as both ships sailed steadily closer to confrontation.

“There it is.” Asgar’s voice was low but full of uncharacteristic awe.

He and Jon stopped among the thick canopy of trees and heavy underbrush.

They had come to an opening slightly above and to the side, on the same flank of the mountainside as the carvings. Although they could not see the full scope of the thousands of pieces of rock art that extended hundreds of meters, the painted Sleeping Buddha itself and the statues around it spread before them in a breathtaking panorama, glowing in the candle-wax moonlight.

The other Uighers stopped to stare, too. The giant Sleeping Buddha reclined on his right side in the center of the horseshoe-shaped cliff.

Its back sunk into the cliff, the Buddha was more than a hundred feet long and almost twenty feet high, a rendition of Prince Sakyamuni sleeping the sleep of the Enlightened as he entered Nirvana. Puny next to him, life-sized statues of Bodhisattvas and period officials wearing hats stood in a stone stream so close they could touch him. Protected from the weather only by the rock overhang that David Thayer had described, the timeless Sleeping Buddha was in full, spectral view.

Where they had stopped was a good place to set up watch. Jon and Asgar dispersed the Uighers into the undergrowth and found positions for themselves near each other, to make issuing orders easier. Under a tree, they began the wait, which could be long or short. In either case, Jon kept his excitement under control. He had been close to taking the manifest before, and each time he had failed. He would get no other chance. He dismissed a shiver of anxiety and studied the display of carvings, memorizing it, so if either group arrived and hid, he would have the panorama firmly in mind. He could afford no more mistakes.

Other carved figures in various niches stretched around the stone crescent. Stone statues guarded the dark openings of caves. Low, painted steel fences separated most of the carvings from the public, which would arrive tomorrow morning. No one was around, not tourists, not vendors, not spiritual seekers, not police. The darkness stirred only with a light wind, small animals rustling away, and night birds flapping into hiding.

“When do you think someone’s going to appear?” Asgar kept his voice hushed. “Morning’s not so far away.” “No idea. As I said, the meeting was to happen by daylight, but my instincts tell me they’ll show up long before then.”

“Better be before the tourists.”

“I hope so. But Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu might want the cover of crowds.

Still, they must realize by now that Feng Dun will kill anyone in his way to get the manifest, so crowds won’t be much help. No, they’ll expect something underhanded from Feng, which tells me they’ll arrive early. Early enough to be here before Feng, so they can set a countertrap.”

But despite Jon’s carefully thought-out assessment, he was wrong. Less than a half hour later, there was movement at the top of the stone stairs on the other side of the Sleeping Buddha. Jon focused his night-vision binoculars. There were five men, three of whom Jon recognized from Hong Kong and Shanghai — part of Feng Dun’s gang. All were armed with what looked like British assault rifles. But Feng was not among them.

“Damn,” Jon breathed.

“What is it? Trouble?” Asgar stared through the night to where Jon was watching the men make their way down the stairs into the valley and the crescent of carvings.

“Feng Dun’s not with them,” Jon said. He stopped and stared. He swore.

“That’s one hell of a surprise.” As the five men continued downward, another man had appeared in the moonlight and started down, too, carrying a medium-sized suitcase. Ralph Mcdermid himself. “It’s Mcdermid. The big honcho we think masterminded the whole deal.”

“The muckity-muck himself? Isn’t that odd?”

“Maybe not. Feng’s gotten the manifest only once. He’s botched it every other time. Mcdermid might’ve decided to take no chances. He’s probably decided that Li Kuonyi and her husband would tend to trust him more. If the two million isn’t legitimate, they know he can’t stall and blame someone else to gain time. On the other hand, maybe he’s here because he no longer trusts Feng.”

“He might’ve bribed his people away from him,” Asgar said.

“Right. Still, I don’t like unexpected developments from the enemy. It usually means I’ve missed something.” The armed band continued to descend warily and in open order, looking as if they were guarding against an ambush. Mcdermid halted the group at least twenty feet above the grotto floor and motioned them to hide facing the Sleeping Buddha.

The Altman CEO used a bush for cover. Asgar said, “Looks as if Mcdermid expects Yu and Li to come down the stairs, too. He’d be able to confront them there.” If that was what Mcdermid had in mind, this time he was the one who was wrong. A burly man appeared first, walking alertly alongside the Sleeping Buddha in the moonlight. He came not down the stairs but emerged from somewhere to the Buddha’s right, from among the statuary, just as David Thayer had suggested was possible. Through Jon’s binoculars, he saw what appeared to be a 9mm Glock tucked inside the man’s waistband in front. Li Kuonyi followed onto the grotto walkway.

She stopped beside the burly man and gazed all around. She wore a sleek, black pantsuit and a high-collared hooded jacket against the chill of the mountain mists and carried an attache case, where the manifest likely was. Jon strained to see her face, but her high collar covered much of it, and her hair was hidden beneath the hood. Still, he had no doubt who she was. He would not soon forget the image of her drinking alone in the silent mansion in Shanghai. The man who walked close behind as if afraid to be alone was somewhere in his early thirties, with a boyish face and a slim, wiry body. A man who watched his weight and took very good care of himself. But not now.

Strain showed in his glazed eyes and furrowed brow. He looked dissipated and frightened. Days with little sleep had taken their toll on the man Jon suspected was Li Kuonyi’s husband, Yu Yongfu. He wore a crumpled Italian suit that was probably custom made, a wilted regimental tie loose at the throat, scuffed dress boots, and a wrinkled white-and-blue-striped shirt. He stayed close behind his wife, his gaze darting nervously into every shadow.

A fourth person — another man — glided out of the dark to join them. Jon did not recognize him. Slimmer, his eyes had an unnatural gleam, like a bipolar patient in a manic state. Clearly another enforcer and far more dangerous.

With Li Kuonyi in the lead, the four walked past the Sleeping Buddha and peered up the stone steps.

She set the attache case on the ground and called out in English, “Feng?

I know you’re there. We heard you. Do you have our money?”

Admiral Stevens Brose announced, “Three hours, sir.”

“Don’t you think I can count, Admiral!” the president snapped. He blinked and took a long breath. “Sorry, Stevens. It’s this waiting and not knowing what, if anything, is happening. We’ve been down to counting minutes before, but those were attacks initiated by an enemy, and all we could do was use everything we had to stop the attack. This is different. This is a confrontation we initiated, where we can’t use anything we have, and soon I’m going to have to give an order that could send us, China, and the rest of the world into a war none of us will be able to control. There’s someone in China who wants that, and he’ll be there to act — retaliate — as soon as we move on the Empress.”

They were alone in the situation room. The admiral had requested the meeting, and the president had thought it best to talk where no one else could hear them. All the high-ranking military and civilian defense personnel were already walking on nails, and the talkative West Wing staff was oddly silent, as if holding their collective breath.

“I don’t envy you, sir.”

President Castilla gave a humorless laugh. “Everyone envies me, Stevens.

Haven’t you heard? I’m the most powerful person on earth, and everyone wants to be me.”

“Yessir,” the admiral said. “The Shilo isn’t going to get there in time.”

“Then may God, and our man in China, help us.”

There was an electric pause as Li Kuonyi and her terrified husband waited for Feng Dun to appear.

Through his binoculars, Jon watched Ralph Mcdermid’s emphatic but whispered orders to his men. From the distance and in the green glow of night vision, Jon thought the Altman CEO was telling them to stand by, on no account to do anything without his signal.

Then Mcdermid stood up from beneath his bush and descended the stairs, smiling and carrying the suitcase.

He had nearly reached the bottom, when Li Kuonyi announced, “That’s far enough.”

“She’s speaking English,” Asgar noted.

“If her gunmen don’t know English, then it’s a good way to make certain they don’t really understand what’s going on,” Jon said.

“Who are you?” she asked Mcdermid suspiciously. “Where’s Feng Dun?”

“I’m Ralph Mcdermid, Mrs. Yu. I’m the one who’s going to pay you two million dollars.” He patted his suitcase.

Jon saw Yu Yongfu whisper in his wife’s ear. Her eyes widened, as if Yu had confirmed Mcdermid’s identity. “Is that the cash?” “Indeed, it is,” Mcdermid said. “Is the document in your attache case?”

With the toe of her shoe, Li touched the case. “Yes. But before you have any ideas about taking it from us by force with the men you’ve hidden up there, you should know the case is booby-trapped. I’ll trigger it the moment you make one wrong move. Is that clear?”

Mcdermid smiled at Li Kuonyi as if she were the most delectable woman he had ever seen. As if he enjoyed every moment of doing business with her, and Jon understood for the first time the false face Mcdermid showed the world was, to him, simply business. Even in pleasure, it was no doubt business. And, of course, all business was pleasure, a game to be won, the higher the stakes, the better. Life as transaction. It was an automatic reaction, like breathing.

“Perfectly,” he told her in his genial voice. “You’ll want to count the money, of course.”

“Of course. Bring it down here and return to where you are now.”

Mcdermid descended the final few feet, laid his suitcase flat on the ground, and climbed backward, never taking his gaze from Li and the three men, while above him his hidden gunmen waited with their assault weapons aimed.

A sense of excited expectancy radiated from the couple even from where Jon, Asgar, and the Uigher fighters watched from the hillside. The husband and wife glanced at each other, their eyes alight.

Li Kuonyi told Yu, “Examine it, my husband.”

His face eager, Yu squatted and unhooked the clasps on the suitcase. For a moment, Li Kuonyi and the two bodyguards took their eyes off the hill to watch the suitcase’s lid being raised. That was their mistake.

As if on signal, Feng Dun arose from the thick shrubs on the slope above where Mcdermid’s five men lay, an assault rifle in his large hands. He fired, and the long bank facing the Sleeping Buddha erupted in a barrage of automatic fire. The noise was volcanic, shattering the stillness of the night, as the bullets whined and screamed, hailing down on Li Kuonyi, her husband, and their two bodyguards. None had a chance.

Li Kuonyi’s throat was nearly severed, blood spouting as she fell. As bullets riddled his chest, Yu Yongfu surged up then collapsed over the suitcase. The beefy bodyguard was still trying to understand what was happening when he was cut down. Only the second gunman managed to get his pistol halfway out before he slammed back against the low steel fence in front of the Sleeping Buddha and catapulted over in slow motion, blood spraying out from bullet holes throughout his body.

On the hill between Feng’s men and the floor of the valley, the five who had arrived with Mcdermid lay dead in the undergrowth, too.

As the valley turned sepulchral with shocked silence, Mcdermid froze where he stood, his mouth open in shock. Feng and a dozen men burst from the bushes and spilled down the steps.

Ralph Mcdermid screamed, his face a deep, choleric red: “I told you to stay away! I told you I would handle it! What have you done, you idiot!” “What have I done, Taipan?” Feng said as he reached the corpses. “I’ve made certain the manifest will not fall into American or Chinese hands.

I’ve earned two million dollars. Perhaps most personally important, I’ve eliminated an insolent, worthless, rich American.”

As Feng fired a short burst from his assault rifle, Mcdermid’s eyes opened wide, as if in understanding. The bullets riddled his heart and flung him backward, arms outstretched. He fell, sprawled, on the stone walkway. Feng laughed, kicked away Li Kuonyi’s corpse, and grabbed the attache case.

On the hill above and to the side, Jon and the Uighers had had no time to stop the bloodbath. Asgar swore and waved to his men, who were already aiming their AK-47s at Feng and his killers.

“No!” Jon said instantly. “Tell them to hold their fire. Tell them to stay hidden!”

“He’ll get away with your manifest, Jon!”

“No!” Jon snapped. “Wait!”

Commander James Chervenko lay on his bunk in his quarters, but he was wide awake. He had left the bridge to Frank Bienas two hours before, with what he knew was the unneeded order to call him the moment there was a new development. In any event, to check in no later than 0400 hours. He had gone below ostensibly to sleep, although he had known from experience that was hopeless. Still, the semblance of normalcy helped calm the crew, and the time alone gave him an opportunity to think carefully about how best to handle the Chinese submarine.

When a call from the Shilo was put through, he took it instantly. The news was terrible: The Shilo was definitely not going to reach them in time.

“How long do you have, Jim?” Captain Michael Scotto asked.

“Less than three hours.”

“You at stations?”

“Not until I absolutely have to.”

A brief silence. “You’re cutting it fine.”

“It’s dark, and radar tells me they’re running on the surface. They can pick up our activity. I won’t be the one to pull the trigger until I’m ordered to.”

“It’s a risk. If they decide to start it … ” Scotto on the Shilo let the sentence trail off.

“I know, Mike. I’ll take that risk, but I won’t start it.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks. Get here as fast as you can.” They broke the connection.

Neither commander needed to say more. Each knew what was involved. In a naval engagement, anything could happen, and the Shilo might still be able to help. If not, it could pick up survivors, if there were any survivors.

Chervenko had barely closed his eyes to try to catch at least an hour of sleep, when his intercom came alive: “Sir, the sub’s diving. Sonar says they sound like they’re running fish in.”

Chervenko’s lungs tightened, and his stomach knotted. “On my way.”

He jumped up, splashed cold water on his face, combed his hair, straightened his clothes, put on his cap, and left the quarters. On deck, he stared aft but saw nothing.

On the bridge, Bienas nodded ahead toward the running lights of The Dowager Empress. “She’s picked up more speed. Close to her top fifteen.”

“The sub?”

“Sonar confirms she’s arming.”

“Moving in?”

“Not yet.”

“She will. Let’s go to stations, Frank.”

Bienas nodded to the specialist on the ship’s intercom.

He leaned to his microphone. His young voice quavered with nerves as he bellowed: “Battle stations! Battle stations!”

Chapter Forty-Two

Asgar waved his hand frantically to stop his Uighers from firing down the slope at Feng Dun and his men. Some wore Chinese army uniforms.

Jon stared, shocked, at the soldiers, while Asgar stared at him. “Are you mad, Jon? Feng’s going to get the money and your manifest!”

But Jon had been watching the events carefully. He shook his head, disgusted he had not seen the truth earlier. But then, neither Ralph Mcdermid nor Feng Dun had either.

“Doubt it,” Jon said. “It’s a trick. Has to be.”

Asgar was more confused. “A trick? What trick? Feng and his people murdered everyone, and now he’s getting away with your bloody manifest and two million dollars!”

Jon shook his head stubbornly. “No. Keep your men alert. Watch.”

Down in front of the great Buddha, Feng crouched before the attache case while his men stood at equal paces around, guarding, nervous excitement on their faces. Gingerly, Feng picked up the case. He weighed it in his hands. He tilted and rotated it carefully. Then he laughed and said something in Chinese. His people laughed, too.

Asgar explained, “He says there’s no bomb in it. It’s too light, and nothing heavy moves inside. He never believed there was a bomb. Li Kuonyi would never destroy her only real weapon.”

“He’s right about that.” As Feng prepared to open the lid, his men stepped back, not yet ready to trust. Feng lifted it and stared eagerly inside. Nothing happened. No bomb, no explosion. But Feng’s face twisted in a scowl. He shouted an oath and hurled the case away. It landed quietly in the brush. As Feng barked something in Chinese, Asgar looked at Jon, surprised. “It’s empty!” Jon nodded. “Had to be. As I said, Li Kuonyi produced another of her tricks.” There was no manifest at the Sleeping Buddha tonight. Down in the crescent, Feng jumped to his feet and strode to where Yu Yongfu still lay facedown over the suitcase of money. He kicked the corpse over onto its back and crouched. He licked his fingers and rubbed Yu’s face. Grimacing, he stared at his fingers. He shouted another curse. “What the devil is he doing now?” Asgar wondered. Cold eyes glittering with fury, Feng hurried to where Li Kuonyi lay on her back, staring up at eternity. He bent over and repeated the same ritual.

When he finished, he slumped on his heels, as if defeated. Then he sprang to his feet and spoke with disgust to his men. “So that’s it!”

Asgar stared at Jon as if he were a magician. “It was a trick. Li and Yu’s trick. It’s not them. Those poor people are impostors. Perhaps some of her fellow actors, that she hired. They and the two guards were sacrifices, scene decoration to make the real Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu’s ruse believable. But—?” “Yes,” Jon said. “But.” As he spoke, down below Feng hunched again and searched the dead woman. When he stood once more, he held a small object. “What the deuce did he find?”

“I’d guess a miniature microphone, receiver, and speaker. That’s how Li put on the charade, and why she was the only one who spoke.” In the valley, Feng seemed to realize the same thing. He raised his head and scanned the mountainside above the Sleeping Buddha. When he saw nothing, he whirled and barked more orders in Chinese. “He’s telling them―” Asgar began.

Jon jumped up, shouting, “Now we fire! Fire! Fire!” Asgar echoed the order in Uigher, and their part of the hillside erupted. All twenty-two assault rifles opened a blistering fire on Feng’s trapped men and soldiers.

The low sun of late afternoon probed through small gaps in the heavy drapes that shut off Fred Klein’s office in Covert-One’s new headquarters from the outside world. Still, the outside world loomed large in Klein’s office. His face, haggard from lack of sleep and missed meals, bristled with a ragged six-day growth of gray beard too rapidly turning white. His heavy, red-streaked eyes appeared permanently fixed on the ship’s clock on his wall. His head was cocked sideways in the direction of the blue telephone. Had there been anyone to see, they would have thought him paralyzed, hypnotized, in a trance, unconscious, or dead, because he had not moved in so long. Only his chest rose and fell slightly as he breathed. When the blue phone rang, he jerked alert and nearly fell from the chair as he grabbed the receiver. “Jon!”

“He’s not called?” the president asked.

Disappointment and tension radiated from his low voice. “No, sir.”

“We have two hours. Or less.”

“Or more. Ships can be unpredictable.”

“The weather in the Arabian Sea is calm and clear all the way to the Persian Gulf and on to Basra.”

“Weather isn’t the only variable, Mr. President.”

“That’s what scares me, Fred.”

“It scares me, too, sir.” Klein could hear the president breathing. There was a slight echo from the other end of the connection. Wherever he was calling from, the president was alone. “What do you think is happening? in … where is Colonel Smith?”

Klein reminded him, “Dazu, Sichuan. At the Sleeping Buddha.” The president fell silent. “They took me there once. The Chinese. To all those carvings.”

“I’ve never seen them.”

“They’re remarkable. Some are nearly two thousand years old, carved by great artists. I wonder what we’ll leave of use for those alive a thousand years from now?” The president was silent again. “What time is it there? At the Sleeping Buddha?”

“The same as it is in Beijing, Sam. China gerrymandered their time zones into a single one to make it convenient. It’s about four a.m. there.”

“Shouldn’t it be over? Shouldn’t we have heard? Not even a word about my father?”

“I don’t know, Mr. President. Colonel Smith knows the time frame.”

Klein could sense the president’s nodding. “Yes, of course he does.”

“He’ll do his best. No one’s best is better.”

Again the affirmative nodding somewhere in the White House, as if the president were sure it would all work out, although a large part of him feared it would not. “I have to get the manifest, and then I have to get a copy to Niu Jianxing in Beijing. But now it’s too late, isn’t it?

There’s no time to get even a copy to China and hope that’s enough to convince the hardliners. They’d laugh at a fax, or at a copy sent over the Internet. They could be too easily counterfeited. Or at least, if we’re right and there’s someone inside Zhongnanhai who wants war, there’s no way he’d have to believe anything short of the actual manifest.”

“Jon will think of something,” Klein said reassuringly. But he had no idea what that could be.

Neither did the president. “In an hour, maybe less, I’ll tell Brose to give the order. We’re going to have to board the Empress. I don’t see any way around it, dammit. You did your best. Everyone did their best.

All we can do now is hope and pray the Chinese back off, but I don’t see that happening.”

“No, sir. Neither do I.”

The silence was longer. The voice that finally came was sad, tragic: “It’s the idiocies and tragedy of the Cold War all over again. Only this time, the weapons are more advanced, and we may be standing alone. In two hours, we’ll know.”

At the base of the mountains, where the trail led up and over into the valley of the carvings, David Thayer slept, tired by the unaccustomed activity and tension of the night. Chiavelli watched the old man, the Chinese-made AK given him by Asgar Mahmout resting across his lap in the dark interior of the battered limo. He had been greatly impressed with Thayer’s ability to keep up and suspected that his exhaustion came less from activity than from tension.

The tension, especially here under the stifling branches and brush hiding them, of doing nothing but waiting was affecting even Chiavelli.

He found himself dozing, only to jerk awake to the beating of his own heart. He took longer and longer to distinguish between dozing and being awake each time he opened his eyes. This time, as he awoke with a painful whip of his neck, it was only seconds before he knew he was actually awake, and that the sound in his ears was not the pounding of his heart.

It was many feet walking on the road. Heavy feet, booted, and moving in an all-too-familiar rhythm. Marching feet, coming toward them.

David Thayer had heard them, too. “Soldiers. I know the rhythm. Chinese soldiers, marching.”

Chiavelli listened intently. “Ten? Twelve? A squad?”

“I’d say so.” Thayer’s voice was shaky.

“On the road, no more than five hundred yards away. A quarter of a mile.”

“We … we’re off the road,” Thayer decided nervously. “The brush and branches should hide us.”

“Maybe, but what are they doing here at this hour? It’s oh four hundred.

Four a.m. They couldn’t have discovered you’re missing, or there’d be an army out there. They wouldn’t be walking. No, these guys are after someone or something else, and I’ve got a bad feeling.”

That scared the old man, but he tried to hold up. “You think it’s about Colonel Smith and the Uighers’ mission. But how could anyone know? It’s more probable they have no connection at all to what’s happening at Baoding Shan.”

“Can we take the chance? Do nothing?” Chiavelli answered his own question: “Absolutely not. If they’re heading for the valley, they’ll blindside Jon, Asgar, and the Uighers.”

“We’ve got to help!”

“I’ll try to hold them here. At least, to slow them down.”

“What about me?”

“Stay here, keep quiet, and you should be safe. If I don’t come back, you’ll have to drive yourself to the Uigher hideout.”

Thayer shook his head. “Unrealistic. I haven’t driven anything in fifty years, Captain. And the last time I counted, two guns were always better than one. That hasn’t changed. You’re not protecting me by leaving me alone. Give me a gun. I haven’t fired a weapon in fifty years, either, but one doesn’t forget how to aim and pull the trigger.”

Chiavelli stared at the white hair, the parchment skin, the determined look. “You’re sure? The worst that’ll happen if they discover you here in the limo is they’ll send you back to the prison farm. Klein’s extraction team should be ready by now. It’s smart for you to stay here and keep your head down.”

Thayer held out his hand. “I have a Ph. D., Dennis. I’m officially smart.

Give me the gun.”

Chiavelli stared. Thayer seemed completely calm. There was a stray moonbeam that glowed through the brush. In its light, he could see Thayer’s eyes were smiling, as if mortality and death were longtime companions. Chiavelli nodded, understanding. Of course, the old man was right.

Chiavelli put Jon’s 9mm Beretta in the gnarled hand. The hand was steady. Then he opened the car door on his side, which faced away from the road, and cautioned Thayer to be quiet. They slid out through the camouflage covering and hid behind it. The moon was directly overhead.

They raised up enough to see the road was a luminous white ribbon and soon spotted Chinese soldiers approaching at a brisk march. There were ten soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, led by an infantry captain.

Chiavelli whispered, “How many men in a squad of PLA infantry?”

“I don’t know.”

They had no more time to think about that. Chiavelli took careful aim with the AK-47 and squeezed off a single shot.

The first of the marching soldiers cried out and dropped to the ground, holding his leg and writhing.

At the same time, Thayer held the Beretta in both hands and fired. The bullet struck the road twenty feet in front of the column, sending up a geyser of dirt. The nine soldiers jumped into the undergrowth, dragging their injured comrade with them. Seconds later, they returned a barrage of fire in the general direction of the limousine, but not directly at it.

Chiavelli whispered, “They don’t know where we are yet. They’re firing wild.” A voice barked in Chinese, and the gunshots ceased. Chiavelli and David Thayer waited. Sooner or later the soldiers would have to advance, but the longer they remained hidden, the better. Thayer’s face seemed flushed. Chiavelli had that heightened sense of reality combat always brought. A light sweat covered him. Another bark, and Thayer shuddered.

The nine rose in unison from the brush lining the road on both sides and charged, their moonlit white eyes searching for the enemy, and shooting as they came. Thayer leaned around the rear of the limo and fired three quick shots. His aim was better this time, and a cry of pain from the brush rewarded him. “Maybe we can drive them off,” he exulted, perhaps remembering all the pain of more than fifty years of captivity far from home. The soldiers dove for cover in a panic, leaving the man Thayer had hit trying to crawl from the road on his own. They were as poorly trained as everyone in the service had told Chiavelli to expect.

Obviously, they had no combat experience. He doubted whoever was barking orders would get them to charge again in a hurry. Chiavelli and Thayer stayed down, out of sight, counting the minutes and waiting. Time crawled. Twenty minutes, and still no attack. Good minutes, since they kept the squad away from the Sleeping Buddha. Then Chiavelli caught a silvery flash. Moonlight had reflected off something, perhaps the dial of a wristwatch. He had an uneasy feeling, then a sensation of sound and movement. Suddenly, the bushes seemed to be crawling toward them, not ten yards away. “Fire!” he whispered wildly. “Open fire, Mr. Thayer!

Fire!” His AK-47 on top of the car, he ripped off a long string of bullets as the Beretta screamed with gunshots next to him. But the angle was bad, and they had to stay up on their toes in order to see well enough to aim. Suddenly, two shots exploded into the limo. The hot smell of burned metal singed Chiavelli’s nose. Shots sounded from behind.

Voices shouted in Chinese. Thayer’s skin turned as ghostly white as the moon. “They’re telling us to freeze, drop our weapons and surrender, or they’ll kill us. We can still―” “Absolutely not. Forget it.” He had promised he would keep the president’s father safe, and a return to prison was better than being dead. As long as they both remained alive, he still had a chance of being able to continue to protect him. “We’ve held them a half hour at least. Sometimes a half hour can make all the difference.”

He gave the AK-47 a shove and let it fall on the far side of the limo.

He raised his hands high over his head.

Trembling, David Thayer dropped the Beretta and put his hands on the top of his Mao cap. His few hours of freedom had ended. “Alas,” he whispered.

The eight soldiers in front, supporting their two wounded, rose from the brush and advanced. They picked up the discarded weapons, grinning as two more soldiers appeared behind Thayer and Chiavelli. Apparently, there were twelve men in a PLA infantry squad.

The officer — a captain with his pistol out — stopped in front of them, speaking angrily. Thayer translated, “He’s asking who we are. He’s figured out we’re Americans. He … oh, God.” He glanced at Chiavelli.

“He wants to know whether we’re part of the spy team with Colonel Jon Smith.”

In the valley of the Baoding Crescent, Feng Dun’s surviving gunslingers and soldiers had taken cover and were beginning to return a weak, sporadic fire.

“Cease fire,” Jon told Asgar.

“You’re sure, my friend? Some are still alive and kicking. Shouldn’t we go down and mop up? At least, make sure that monster Feng Dun is dead.

I’m fairly certain I hit him.”

“No! Fan out and search the slopes wherever Li Kuonyi could have hidden but seen what happened. The survivors will run away now.”

“You think—?”

“She and Yu are up there somewhere with the manifest. Let’s find them.”

Asgar gave the order, urging his men to sweep through the vegetation at a dog trot, circling around Feng’s remaining men. “It’s less than an hour until dawn, and that firefight will have been heard halfway to Chongqing.”

“I know.” Jon trotted ahead over the difficult terrain. He looked left and right at the long Uigher line as they searched. He knew their chances were slight, plus time was running out. They had little time to locate Li and Yu, get the manifest, and somehow send it to Washington.

Suddenly, gunfire echoed from less than a hundred yards ahead. Jon wrenched his head around, staring at a spot directly above and to the left of the Sleeping Buddha. Gunfire from an assault rifle — and response from a single pistol.

“Hold it,” Jon called to Asgar. He crouched in the brush.

Asgar raised his hand to stop his fighters and lowered it palm down to tell them to go to ground and be quiet. He whispered, “What do you think, Jon?”

“Feng maybe?”

Asgar grimaced in regret. “We should’ve hied ourselves down to examine the bodies in the valley.”

“There wasn’t time. We had to try to get to Li Kuonyi first.”

“If it’s Feng, it seems we failed.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Motioning his men to move quietly, Asgar joined Jon. Minutes later, the line of Uighers approached a clearing. Asgar signaled to stop at the edge where they could retain cover. Jon nodded to their left. The clearing ended at the cliff above the crescent of carvings, where someone looking down would have a direct view of the valley as well as the slope and walkway in front of the Sleeping Buddha.

“Li Kuonyi could’ve seen everything from there,” Jon said.

Asgar sighed and nodded.

On their right, an assault rifle fired a short burst of three from a towering rock formation, where clusters of large boulders jutted above the trees and brush. It was some fifty yards from the edge of the cliff, overlooking the Buddha valley.

The gunfire was answered by a single pistol shot from a grove of trees closer to the edge, directly in front of where Jon, Asgar, and the Uighers hid. The bullet exploded sharp, deadly stone chips from the rock formation.

“Look,” Asgar said.

Only ten yards from the cluster of rocks, closer to where Jon and the Uighers watched, was a smaller rock group. A large tree had fallen across the boulders, and Jon saw movement behind it. As he studied it, the assault rifle squeezed off another short burst from its higher vantage point, detonating wood splinters from the fallen tree.

A low, mesmerizing voice Jon had hoped never to hear again said in English, “A neat trap, Madame Li. As good as any I’ve seen. Your hired hands killed many of my men, but — unluckily for you — failed to kill me.”

Li Kuonyi, her musical tones as calm as if she were greeting a visitor in her Shanghai living room, spoke from behind the fallen tree, protected from the rear by the rocks. “I also failed to get the money. I expect you have that, which makes me surprised that you returned.” Feng said, “I still need the invoice manifest, and I suspect, dear lady, you’ve run out of ammunition. You should be dead, and I’d have it, except for your friend over there in the trees. I wonder who he could be?”

Asgar whispered, “Why are they speaking English?”

“Damned if I know,” Jon said. “Maybe Feng’s got some men hidden somewhere that he doesn’t want to know what they’re saying.”

Li Kuonyi was mocking: “There are many things you don’t know, Feng.”

A man’s voice sounded nervously from next to her: “You should’ve kept the manifest when you had it, Feng. None of this would’ve happened. No one would’ve been hurt.”

“Ah? A pleasure to hear you again, boss. Foolish of me to believe you’d kill yourself, even for the future of your family. But, then, your salvation was Madame Li’s doing, wasn’t it? My mistake. I knew who the man was in your house long ago.” Li Kuonyi said, “You always did talk too much, Feng. Since you say you want the manifest very much still, we might be interested in the money in your possession.”

“All business as usual, Madame? The same arrangement as before, I trust.

Mcdermid’s two million in exchange for the manifest.”

“Of course.”

“Then we have a deal. Does the woman do all your talking now, boss? Ah, well, we can’t all be men.”

There was a scramble of movement in the smaller rock formation. Yu Yongfu stood up, red-faced, pushing away Li’s restraining hands. “I am as much―”

The savage explosion of bullets ripped down from Yu’s throat to his crotch. Blood sprayed black into the night. A furious return fusillade from the nearby grove nearly drowned out Li Kuonyi’s agonized scream.

In the silence, came a single word: “So.” Apparently untouched by the shooting from the grove, Feng paused, all banter gone from his voice as he continued, “Now you know my deal. Think hard, Li. Your friend’s pistol will run out of ammunition long before I do. There’s no two million dollars for you. I offer you your life. Throw out the case with the manifest, and you live.” Jon whispered fiercely, “Keep me covered. Don’t open up until you hear my voice or hear me shooting, unless you absolutely must.”

“What are you planning, Jon?” Asgar demanded.

“I’ll circle behind those rocks, climb over, and take Feng from the rear.”

“We could attack. There’s nearly twenty of us left.”

“It’d still be hard to dig a man with an assault rifle and plenty of ammo out of those rocks. We don’t know what other weapons he might have there, too. Maybe he’s got men as well. We could send Li into a panic if she thinks she’s got even more enemies, and the manifest could be destroyed. It’s too big a gamble.”

Before Asgar could protest again, Jon had slung his MP5K over his shoulder and disappeared back through the trees. As he circled, he had more than one reason for making the attempt to stop Feng Dun. To fire the angry fusillade at Feng, the shooter in the grove had come out from behind a tree, and he had seen her face. Randi Russell.

He had no idea how she had gotten here, but Feng was right. She would run out of ammunition before he did. And if the Uighers attacked, she could be caught in the crossfire.

Admiral Brose’s voice was steady over the bridge loudspeaker: “Give me the Empress’s position as of this minute, Commander.”

From where he stood on the dark bridge, Jim Chervenko could see the lighted bulk of the Empress sailing two miles off the Crowe’s port bow.

Appearing to move at her full speed, she was continuing on her steady course across the moonlit sea for the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf beyond, and Basra, Iraq. He nodded to Frank Bienas, who took the fix from the navigator and relayed it to the admiral.

“By our calculation, you have less than ninety minutes before she enters the strait,” the admiral said after a moment.

“That’s how we calculate it, too, sir,” Chervenko said.

“You’ve moved into position?”

“She’s two miles off our port bow.”

“The submarine?”

“Run her torpedoes in, and moved up with us. They have the Empress off their starboard, but they’re submerged half a mile closer, cruising behind her where they have a clear fix on us, too.”

“Your Seahawks are armed for antisubmarine and ready to launch?”

“Yessir.”

The admiral maintained his calm voice, but the series of questions he would never have normally asked a raw lieutenant in his first command, much less a decorated commander with years at sea, betrayed his nerves.

Brose seemed to read his thoughts. “Forgive me, Commander, it’s a nasty situation.”

“None nastier, sir.”

“The battle plan?”

“Move to stop the Empress. Send off the boarding detail. Keep the freighter between us and the sub, which will force her to come to our side where the choppers can get a clear shot. Otherwise, we play it as it lays.”

“All right, Commander.” A slight hesitation. “You’ll have the order to board within the hour. The Shilo should be there in three hours, give or take. I’ll try to give you air cover at the last minute, but the timing is difficult. Hold out as long as you can.” A hesitation again, as if reluctant to end the connection. Finally, a hearty, “Good luck.” The admiral was gone.

Commander Chervenko looked once at the clock above his command post, then again focused his night glasses on The Dowager Empress, plowing ahead through the bright moonlight and across the calm sea. Inside his grim mind, he was counting down.

Chapter Forty-Three

The night felt heavy around Jon, oppressive. He crept among the shadowy boulders of the giant rock formation, inching higher and higher. His special canvas shoes gripped the stony surfaces, while his night-vision goggles enabled him to follow crevices, rain channels, and ledges.

Sometimes he had no choice but to jump and scramble up the face of a boulder. Other times, a scrub tree allowed him to pull himself straight up.

“Time is wasting, Li,” Feng Dun said, his cool voice so close Jon expected to see him any second. “Your husband’s dead. Your bodyguards are dead. You’ve obviously run out of ammo. Your friend out there somewhere among the trees is alone and will run out of ammo soon, too, and then there’ll be no one to stop me. This is your chance. Toss out the attache case, and I’ll walk away.”

From her hiding spot, Li Kuonyi laughed bitterly. “And where would I go?

Without a great deal of money, how would I get myself and my children out of China? I might as well burn the manifest myself. I will, if you don’t leave.”

As her bitter voice talked, drawing Feng’s attention, Jon crawled faster up the rocks until he was sure he was higher than Feng.

Feng’s laugh was nasty. “Sorry, Madame Li. Only the Americans want the manifest untouched. Please feel free to burn it. If you don’t, I will.

But that won’t save you or help you escape China.” She suddenly understood. “Wei Gaofan, That’s who’s behind this! My father’s benefactor. My husband’s benefactor. He’s the one who must have the document destroyed. He’s the one you really work for!”

“Trusting us is your only chance. Otherwise, you know your fate.” Jon reached the highest rock. He unslung his MP5K, climbed silently over, and found a good position with his back against the top boulder. As a dark wind whistled around his ears, beneath him spread the mesa and Buddha gorge, a panoramic vista of shadows, vegetation, and monumental statues shining in the unearthly glow of moon and stars. Feng Dun was kneeling behind a boulder not twenty feet below. His assault rifle rested on a lip of rock, aimed toward where Li Kuonyi hid. Jon took off his goggles and stared down at the top of Feng’s head. His red-and-white hair seemed especially brilliant in the delicate light, the only spot of color in the black-and-gray rockscape. At the same time, Feng’s head was also a perfect target. With one satisfying bullet, Jon could shatter it like a melon. His trigger finger flexed. Simmering fury at the people Feng had killed himself or ordered killed knotted his chest … Avery Mondragon. Andy An. So many Uigher fighters. The pig Ralph Mcdermid.

Even poor Yu Yongfu. Then there was the violent conflict that was waiting to erupt out on the Arabian Sea. Jon fought to control his rage.

He said loudly enough for all to hear, “You’re not Madame Li’s only chance, Feng. Give it up. Surrender now, and you’ll live.” The advantage had flipped. For an endless second, Feng Dun did not turn. He did not move. Faster than the strike of a cobra, he whirled and dove to his right, heedless of sharp-edged rocks. His strange hair disappeared into shadow, while his face radiated outrage and disgust. At the same time, he fired his assault rifle, releasing a sweep of bullets that rushed toward Jon. Jon grunted with satisfaction. He squeezed off a single burst from the MP5K. The bullets slammed into the mercenary’s trunk, stopping his turn as if he had collided with a tank. The impact slammed Feng back against the boulders like a sack of rice. He recoiled forward, pitched over a smaller boulder, and rolled downward, starting a small avalanche. There was a moment of shocked silence. Across the clearing, Asgar and his Uighers burst into the open and surrounded the fallen tree and rocks where Li Kuonyi had taken refuge. Their weapons were aimed, but Asgar stopped their advance.

Excitement surged through Jon. The manifest was in reach again. They would have the proof, and he could phone Fred. The Empress could be stopped, its deadly cargo offloaded, and the crisis ended … if there was time. He sprinted down among the rocks, dodging and leaping obstacles, until he reached the clearing. He dashed to the Uighers at the fallen tree.

Behind the log, Li Kuonyi sat with her back against a rock. She wore a sleek, black pantsuit and high-collared hooded jacket identical to that worn by her double, dead in the valley. Hers was torn, disheveled, and stained with blood, apparently from her husband’s injuries. Her left hand gently cupped his dead face. Her right hand held a cigarette lighter, already in flame. She had no weapon, but the original invoice manifest lay open on top of her closed case, next to her right hand.

When she saw Jon, she smiled. “So? The American who wanted the manifest so many days ago. I should’ve realized.” “It’s over, Madame Li,” Jon told her. “Your husband’s dead. You have no one left to deal with but me.”

Her hand stroked Yu’s immobile face. It was a mask of marble, of death.

“He was a fool and a coward, but I loved him, and the deal remains the same. The two million American dollars and your Uigher friends to help me and my children leave China. In exchange, you get the undamaged manifest you have worked so hard for.” She paused, her gaze stony.

“Otherwise, I burn it.”

Jon believed her. He glanced at his watch. One hour and ten minutes. By now, the Crowe would have cleared for action, waiting only for the final order to board the Empress. There was little hope he could get the manifest to the president in time to send to Beijing — unless something had changed or would change. A storm. Other navy ships arriving. Another nation interfering. Anything to slow the ship’s arrival at the strait.

Too much had already been sacrificed for him to give up now, and too much was at risk not to make the final effort. “Did your men find the money?” he asked Asgar.

“They did. In a crevice near where Feng was shooting. Still in its suitcase. And it’s all there. Real money.”

“Give it to her.”

Asgar’s voice was suddenly tense, “I don’t think so, old boy.”

Jon glanced at the Uigher leader, and then turned again to see what Asgar’s gaze was focused on at the far edge of the clearing. His throat tightened. They did not need this. A line of eight men in the uniform of the People’s Liberation Army stood just inside the trees, their weapons aimed into the clearing. At them. The soldiers were too late to help Feng, but not too late to kill Asgar, Randi, and everyone else.

Every eye in the White House’s subterranean situation room was angled toward the head of the polished table, where President Castilla stared up at the wall clock.

“One hour, sir,” Stevens Brose said.

“Less,” corrected Secretary of Defense Stanton.

Vice President Brandon Erikson said, “We can’t wait, Mr. President.”

The president turned his gaze to Erikson. “They’re ready? The Crowe?”

“They’ve been ready for a full half hour,” Admiral Brose said.

The president nodded. Continued to nod. His gaze returned to the clock.

His face hardened. “Give the order.”

Instantly, the secure room galvanized into action. Brose snapped up the receiver of the telephone and issued orders.

Asgar made a quick motion, and the twenty Uighers spread out to face the eight soldiers across the clearing. They stared at one another, hands on weapons, pointing.

“We outnumber them better than two to one,” Asgar said in a rush, “but I don’t dare take them on. We don’t know how many more are nearby, and a firefight in which we kill a squad of PLA troops will guarantee Draconian reprisals against my guerrillas and all of Xinjiang. The payoff’s not worth the sacrifice. Sorry, Jon.”

Jon answered quickly if unhappily, “I understand.”

“If there are no more than we’re looking at, we can at least protect you as far as our hideout. My people there will help you get David Thayer out of the country.”

“Appreciate it. Thanks. Why aren’t they moving?” They were statues, armed and ready. An impenetrable line perhaps, but they could still be gotten around. They could still be shot. Why did they not fire first?

Were they afraid, because they were outnumbered?

“They’re not worried,” Asgar decided. “As I said, they may have more troops coming up.”

At that moment, Jon sensed motion on his other side. He spun on his heel. “Randi.”

Randi Russell appeared, her face grim. “What can I do?” Her blond hair was dyed black, and she wore a crumpled business suit. She, too, stared across the clearing at the silent Chinese soldiers.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Jon asked, but his heart was not in their usual banter. The troops would not wait much longer.

“I flew in with the late Ralph Mcdermid, may the bastard rest in hell.

He needed an interpreter.”

“Lucky for us and Li Kuonyi he did. You’ve been with us from the start?”

She nodded. “Lurking up here. After the bloodbath below, I spotted Feng moving in on the other two. So I opened fire to drive him into the rocks.”

“I owe you again.”

“Don’t mention it.” Trying to be light, but not succeeding. “This cargo manifest the woman has … that’s what you need?”

“Yes.” Jon gave her the highlights, concluding with the standoff in the Arabian Sea. “Mcdermid set the whole thing up with Li Kuonyi’s husband.

Somehow, a Chinese politico got into the act, too. God knows what’s going to happen, but it’s not good. Not for peace … not for the future … not for the world. Sorry you got caught in this, Randi.

Asgar’s right. He can’t risk the future of his people. There’s no time left to change anything anyway.” He turned to Asgar. “You and your fighters better get away while you can. If you can.”

“You’re not coming?”

“That’d only put you in greater danger. Uighers don’t have the world’s only superpower to protect them. We do.” He clapped him on the shoulders as he had seen Uighers do. “Take the two million. You can make better use of it than Li Kuonyi, the Chinese government, or us.”

“Sorry it worked out this way. Bad show all around, but perhaps we can do this again someday. Do it right.” Asgar gave a signal, and before Jon and Randi could blink, he and his men had stepped into the trees and vanished. Now there was no protection at all from the Chinese soldiers.

“Jon,” Randi said quietly, nodding at them.

They did not pursue the Uighers. Instead, they parted, and an officer stepped through the line, walking across the clearing toward them.

“That’s what they were waiting for,” Jon said. “A captain. Infantry, from the insignia,” Randi agreed. Jon, Randi, and Li Kuonyi stepped away from the fallen trunk. Kuonyi clutched the manifest in one hand, the cigarette lighter in the other. It was no longer alight. The captain’s expression was stern, his step authoritative. He glanced to the right, toward where the dead Feng Dun lay in his own blood. He slowed and stopped, his expression uncertain. A pudgy little man, also in the full uniform of the PLA, appeared from the rocks behind Feng. As the new man walked steadily toward the infantry officer, Randi whispered, “He’s wearing the insignia of the Public Security Bureau — internal security and counterintelligence.”

“Swell. The Chinese KGB.” Major Pan Aitu had watched the first act of the drama at the Sleeping Buddha from behind the statue of a ferocious dragon that guarded the entrance to the Cave of Full Enlightenment. As the action had progressed, he had circled around, following it. Night-vision binoculars had enabled him to study the band of Uighers who had attacked Feng Dun and his gangsters, including a few PLA soldiers, which had told him much. The clothes, faces, and weapons of the twenty-odd hillside guerrillas had made him smile his benign smile. Disciplined Uighers, with AK-47s. He had long since decided Colonel Smith had made his escape with the help of an unknown Shanghai cell of Uigher resistance fighters. Now they were here, too, where the elusive Feng Dun had murdered Yu Yongfu and the rich American, Mcdermid, to obtain the cargo manifest of The Dowager Empress. Could Colonel Smith be far away?

Pan’s admiration for Li Kuonyi’s cunning had increased ten-thousandfold.

But if Wei Gaofan were to be defeated, Pan would still need to intervene. The appearance of the depleted squad of infantry only confirmed his decision. Now as he stood before the captain, who was staring uncertainly at his PLA uniform, his rank, and his internal-security insignia, he said mildly, “I am Major Pan Aitu, Captain. Perhaps you know of me?” He looked the tall captain up and down. The captain regained some of his martinet air. He held his ground.

“Captain Chang Doh, and yes, I have heard of you, Major.”

“Then we can dispense with the preliminaries. You are, I believe, under the personal orders of a commander who’s a friend of Wei Gaofan. You’ve been unofficially detailed to aid Feng Dun, whom you can see is now quite dead. Under his completely illegal orders, you have lost PLA soldiers, both wounded and killed.”

The captain’s face went ashen. “I cannot speak of my orders, Major.”

“Oh? There are many more soldiers hidden among the trees under my command. At the same time, I myself have written orders to investigate and, if needed, prevent the activities of the late Feng Dun. To assuage any doubt, here are my papers.” He handed Niu Jianxing’s authorization to the captain.

The captain read slowly, as if he hoped the documents would disappear from his fingers. Unfortunately for him, the orders confirmed that Major Pan was operating in his capacity as a counterintelligence and internal-security officer for the member of the Standing Committee who was in charge of such operations. The captain, on the other hand, was in the weak position of being merely an infantry officer working for a personal friend of a member of the Standing Committee, who was not in charge of the military.

As Jon, Randi, and Li Kuonyi watched, the infantry captain returned Major Pan’s papers, took one step back, and saluted smartly.

“Looks as if the major’s won the argument.”

Li Kuonyi relit her lighter. “You can have the manifest before he gets here. I want passage to the United States for myself and my children and asylum. Otherwise, I burn it now.”

“No two million?”

She shrugged. “That was for my husband. I’m an actress, a good one. I’m already becoming known in America. I’ll earn my own millions.”

“Done.” Jon grabbed the manifest and the lighter at the same time, before she changed her mind.

When the major reached them, he smiled at Jon and introduced himself in English. “I’m Major Pan Aitu, Colonel Smith. It’s my pleasure to meet you at last. You’ve been most interesting to investigate. Unfortunately, there’s no time left. Give me the cargo manifest.” “No!” Randi said instantly. She snatched the lighter and flicked it on.

“I don’t know why you want it, but―”

Jon stopped her. “Turn it off, for now. There’s not enough time to get it to Washington anyway so the president can send it on to Zhongnanhai.

Let’s hear what our fellow agent has to say for himself.”

The diminutive major’s eyes flickered. He pointed to where the eight soldiers were disappearing into the trees. “They’re now under my orders.

Did you know that Captain Chang took two prisoners? One is an American captain, the other an old man. I can guarantee you, them, the two ladies here, and Madame Li’s two children quick passage to the United States.

We’re on the same side in this, Colonel.” “Why help Li Kuonyi?” Randi asked. “Let’s just say I admire the lady’s intelligence, resourcefulness, and artistry. I also admit that she’s a complication we don’t want. None of what’s happened can or will become public. In your country or in mine. But success is slipping away, even for me.” Jon considered. The major did not want the manifest destroyed. There was nothing more China could gain unless they did want the Dowager boarded.

A decision had to be made, and only he could make it. America had nothing more to lose and everything to gain. He asked the critical question: “Do you have a way to stop the cargo ship before it’s too late, Major Pan?”

“Yes.” He handed Pan the invoice manifest. The major turned on his heel, motioned them to follow, and ran across the clearing and through the trees to another open space where a helicopter waited, its motors silent. Pan spoke into a walkie-talkie. As they closed in, the rotors roared to life.

The moon was at its brightest as the John Crowe moved across the long, slow swells to close in on the Empress, still steaming ahead at full speed toward the Strait of Hormuz, which was faintly visible in the distance. The boarding party stood in the lee of the Crowe’s aft superstructure, armed, ready to lower the boats, ready to motor to the Chinese freighter. In the communications-and-control center, It.

Commander Frank Bienas paced, stopping every few minutes to lean over the shoulders of the radio, radar, and sonar specialists. He was peering at Operations Specialist Second-Class Baum’s radar screen, when Hastings on sonar boomed, “Sub’s moving!”

Bienas barked, “How fast?”

“Looks like full speed, sir.”

“Heading toward the Empress?”

“Sort of, sir, yes.”

“What the hell does ‘ of mean, technician?”

“It means she’s angling in toward the Empress, but her course’ll take her around the stern.”

“So they’re heading for our side, armed and ready?”

“Maybe, sir. I guess so.”

“Then say that, damn you!”

The shocked silence was broken by Hastings’s stiff words, “I can’t tell you where the sub’s headed, Commander. Only her speed and course.”

Bienas flushed. “Sorry, Hastings. I guess I’m kind of strung out.” “I guess we all are, sir,” Hastings said.

The executive officer activated the intercom to the bridge. “Jim? Looks like she’s coming to our side, full speed.”

On the bridge, Jim Chervenko acknowledged the message, his gut tight: “Okay, Frank. The moment she comes ‘, let me know.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Chervenko switched off the intercom and stared astern. Then he bent to the intercom again. “Sparks? Open a channel. Hail the freighter.” He straightened, watching the hard-driving freighter no more than a half mile away now.

The intercom squawked. “They’re not responding, sir.”

“Keep trying. Let me know when they do.” He pressed another switch.

“Ready, Canfield?”

“Yes, sir.”

Chervenko nodded to himself, recognizing the young lieutenant’s eagerness to go into battle. He remembered when he had been like that in what seemed now another world. “Put one across her bow. And Canfield?”

“Yessir?”

“Don’t hit her.”

A pause. “No, sir.”

Chervenko raised his night binoculars to focus on the fast-moving bow of the Empress. He listened to the five-inch fire and watched the geyser erupt no more than a hundred yards ahead of the bow. A rewardingly large splash. That should shake their shorts.

He counted: One, two, three, four … The intercom squawked again. “He’s responding,” the radioman said. “He’s demanding to know the meaning of our aggression.”

“Tell him to cut the crap, stop dead in the water, and prepare to receive a boarding party. Tell him I better not see even a tin can go overboard, or I’ll put the next round from the five-inch down his gullet.” Chervenko suddenly felt nervous. He studied the Empress again.

When it slowed, he let out a breath. So far so good. He was about to give the order to lower the boats, when there was another signal.

Frank Bienas’s agitated voice burst out: “The sub’s come around, Jim!

Submerged. Torpedoes in the tubes.”

There it was. Sweat broke out on Chervenko’s forehead. He bellowed, “Prepare for evasive maneuvers. Send off the Seahawks!”

Out of the corner of his eyes, he noted that the Empress was hardly moving. She was almost dead in the water, barely gliding ahead as she rose and fell on the swell. But the main target of his gaze was astern, where the telltale trail of a torpedo could appear any second.

He saw no torpedo. What he did see was a giant shape rising ghostly in the moonlight, a monster emerging from the depths.

It was the Chinese submarine. As Chervenko watched, incredulous, it moved slowly toward the Crowe five hundred yards astern and a few hundred yards closer to the stationary Dowager Empress.

The intercom announced, “He’s hailing us, sir!”

Chervenko’s eyebrows shot up to his officer’s cap. Now what? “Pipe him onto the bridge.” The stiff, vaguely angry voice said in stilted English, “Commander Chervenko, I believe. This is Captain Zhang Qian of the People’s Liberation Army submarine Zhou Enlai. I have received orders from Beijing to join you in boarding the outlaw vessel Dowager Empress to search for and destroy any and all contraband cargo. I am further instructed to place a crew aboard the vessel to sail it and its personnel back to China.”

Chervenko did not move. He stood there gazing out over the dark Arabian Sea, the intercom in his hand, and told his heart to stop thundering. It was over. Thank God, it was over. Someone had done their job. Someone… probably many … whose risks and sacrifices he could only imagine and whose names and faces he would probably never know.

“I’m at your service, Captain,” Chervenko said politely. “And, of course, once the contraband is destroyed, we will be pleased to escort the ship back to Shanghai. Wouldn’t want an outlaw vessel like this one to slip away or fall into someone else’s hands, now would we?”

Epilogue

The heads of the ten men seated around the ornate imperial table in the Zhongnanhai meeting room turned in unison to the door to the left of the general secretary. They watched as a slender man in the uniform of a lieutenant commander of the PLA navy entered. He whispered in the ear of the general secretary, and the secretary nodded. When the young officer left, the secretary explained, “We have good news. It’s over. The captain of the Zziou Enlai reports the boarding of the Empress by parties from the Zhou Enlai and the American frigate John Crowe. Many tons of contraband chemicals were found. The contraband is destroyed.

The officers of the cargo vessel are in our custody, and the ship is returning to Shanghai, escorted by the American frigate.” A murmur of both approval and relief traveled around the table. Wei Gaofan said, “A close thing, but must we allow an American frigate to escort our ship?”

“I expect,” the secretary said mildly, “the frigate captain insisted.

Under the circumstances, we can hardly protest.” His eyes were tiny points of black stone behind his thick glasses as he fixed his gaze on General Chu Kuairong at the far end of the table. “How could this have happened, General Chu? An illegal enterprise of such unimaginable danger conducted by our citizens under our very noses?” “I believe,” Niu Jianxing said, “I must be the one to answer that, Secretary.” Wei Gaofan interrupted angrily, “None of us can be expected to answer for all the failures of those who conduct actual operations.”

Niu did not look at Wei. He addressed the room in general. “Our colleague Wei appears to want to pass the culpability down to those least able to defend themselves.”

“I resent—!” Wei snapped.

The secretary cut him off: “If there’s an explanation, Jianxing, tell us.”

“There is,” Niu said quietly. “A simple explanation of various forces — a weak businessman, the greed inevitably fostered by free-market economics, the conspiracy of certain Western corporations, and the corrupt arrogance of a member of this very committee.”

As the Owl enunciated the last words, there was a shocked pause. Then the room erupted in outrage, protest, and shouted questions directed back at Niu.

Wei Gaofan, his temple-dog face choleric with rage, shouted, “Such a statement is tantamount to treason, Niu! I call for a vote of censure!”

“Which one of us are you slandering, sir!” Shi Jingnu demanded.

“It’s unconscionable!” called one of the youngest members.

“Unless,” the secretary said quietly, “Niu can prove his accusation.”

The room instantly was silent, questioning.

Someone muttered, “I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” General Chu growled, his unlit cigar rolling around his thin-lipped mouth.

Niu pushed himself away from the table and walked to the door. He opened it and beckoned.

Still in his PLA uniform, Major Pan Aitu marched inside. Niu escorted the pudgy spycatcher to the table and stood beside him. “Major, detail your investigation, if you please.”

In his gentle, completely expressionless voice, Pan laid out the conspiracy from Donk & Lapierre’s approach to Yu Yongfu with the contraband deal, to Li Aorong’s and Wei Gaofan’s involvement, until Jon Smith had at last handed the only existing manifest to Pan, who had faxed it from Dazu to the Standing Committee.

Wei Gaofan’s hard face paled. Still, he grumbled, “It seems, with the tragic death of Li Aorong only an hour ago, all those named by Major Pan are dead. Except for me, of course. I categorically deny―”

Pan gazed steadily at Wei. “Not all of them are dead, sir. Li Kuonyi— without father or husband — is alive. Many of Feng Dun’s men survived.

The captain of infantry is, of course, alive, as is your friend, the general, who sent the captain to help Feng Dun retrieve the manifest.

All have given me official statements.”

For a moment, Wei Gaofan did not move. His features seemed to melt, but his jaw clamped tight. “Niu Jianxing has forced them to lie!”

“No,” the secretary said thoughtfully, studying Wei as if seeing him for the first time. “There is only one liar here.”

The color suddenly returned to Wei’s face. “Niu Jianxing and the general secretary are destroying China,” he announced to his colleagues. “What Yu Yongfu did is an example of the disease they’d bring home to the People’s Republic. What I did was to awake you and the Party to what’s happening to the great Revolution of our fathers. Of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Chu Teh, Deng Xiaoping. I will not resign. I will leave this room with all those who agree with me, and we shall see who the Party supports!”

He raised his massive body onto his spindly legs and stalked to the door. For a moment, he stood there, the door half open, his back to his colleagues, waiting. No one followed.

The secretary sighed. “Tomorrow I’ll call for a vote of the Central Committee and the Politburo. You’ll be stripped of all posts, all prerogatives, and all honors. You’ll be expelled from the Party, Wei Gaofan.”

“Unless,” Niu Jianxing suggested, “you choose to do as Li Aorong told his son-in-law. But you must act quickly.”

“You could think of your family,” the secretary suggested, although his voice did not sound hopeful.

Wei continued to stand there silently. Finished, he nodded and walked out.

Four hours after the cargo of banned chemicals was discovered aboard the Empress and destroyed, Charlie Ouray invited Vice President Brandon Erson over to meet with the president. Then he ordered Air Force One led for a flight out to the West Coast, took a call from Ambassador Wu, who had just returned to the embassy on Connecticut Avenue, and headed downstairs to the situation room, where President Castilla was on the phone with his wife.

“It’s a pretty darn good ending, Cassie,” the president was saying. As soon as he saw Ouray poke his head into the room, he beckoned him inside. “You’ll be able to make it, darling? I’m sorry about your having to cancel the dinner in Oaxaca, but … yes, I know you’re as excited as I am. And the children? Wonderful! Wonderful! I’ll see y’all then.”

He hung up, beaming.

Ouray waited for the president to look at him again. When he did, he reported, “The ambassador called, Mr. President. He wanted officially to thank you, and he gave me a message for you from Niu Jianxing — the Owl.”

“That’s nice. What’s the message?”

“Niu sends his greetings and expresses hope that your health continues to be robust.”

The president burst out laughing.

“What?” Ouray asked. Puzzled, he watched the president laugh harder. He began to smile, then to chuckle as he replayed the message in his mind.

At last he held his sides, laughing, too. The merry sound filled the big, soundproof room, banishing the shadows of the last week.

“Oh, God.” The president wiped his eyes.

“Priceless,” Ouray agreed.

“We needed that. Robust. But from them, it’s a vote of confidence.”

“An expression of hope for the future.”

“Hell, Charlie. He figures he’s got me broke in, and he doesn’t want to have to go through it again anytime soon with someone new!”

Chuckling, the two men leaned back in their chairs.

Ouray observed, “Well, sir, I guess we can say the same about him.”

“True, true.” At last, Sam Castilla’s expression grew serious as his mind returned to the next task. “Just wanted you to know that Justice is getting ready to bring charges against Jasper Kott. It’s going to be a mighty big scandal.”

“Can’t brush it under the rug.”

“No, Charlie. Wouldn’t be right.” There was one more piece of business that had to be taken care of. He sighed, preparing himself. “Is the vice president on his way?”

“Better than that, he’s here.” Brandon Erikson entered the situation room with a broad smile on his handsome face. Behind him, the military aide closed the door. As always, his sable-black hair was brushed back impeccably, and his wiry body was encased in a tailored three-piece suit. He exuded his usual charm and energy. “My congratulations, Mr. President. A magnificent display of statesmanship.”

“Thank you, Brandon. It was a close thing.”

The vice president took his usual seat in the middle of the long table to the president’s right, directly across from Ouray. He nodded pleasantly to Ouray and focused on the president. “I won’t ask for the details of how you pulled it off, sir, but I suspect we have an unsung hero or two in our intelligence agencies.”

“There’s that,” the president agreed. “We also had a lot of help from inside China, particularly from a high-level politician. Our work with him gives me a lot of hope for our relations with China.”

Erikson grinned. “I suspect you’re being modest, Mr. President.” Sam Castilla said nothing.

The vice president blinked and glanced around the silent room that was essentially sealed from the rest of the White House. Not only windowless and soundproof, it was constantly swept for bugs and illicit cameras.

“Is everyone else late? I assumed we were having a post-crisis assessment session.”

The president studied Erikson’s face, looking for what he had missed.

“There won’t be anyone else, Brandon. Tell me, would your friend Ralph Mcdermid be as enthusiastic about our success as you are?”

Erikson looked from the president to the grim-faced Ouray and back again to the president. “I have no idea how Mr. Mcdermid would feel. I barely know the man.” “Really?” Charlie Ouray said.

Erikson did not miss the absence of his title or any of the other usual courteous forms of address for someone of his lofty position. His left eyebrow cocked. “Is something wrong, Mr. President?”

The president’s hand slammed down on the table. Ouray jumped. Erikson looked startled and a little afraid.

Castilla growled, “You know damn well what Mcdermid would’ve thought.

You know exactly which intelligence agents are unsung heroes.”

“That, sir, is preposterous!” Erikson retorted, as angry as the president. “I know―” He seemed to suddenly hear the president’s exact words. “He … would’ve thought?”

The president said curtly, “Ralph Mcdermid’s dead. Altman’s board of directors is right now running around like vultures with their heads cut off to come up with a plausible story to explain it. And it won’t help. Me-Dermid’s dirty deal is going to come out — I’ll see to it. They’ll be jumping ship faster than you can say Arthur Andersen.”

“Dead?” Erikson repeated, his expression shocked. “It’s going to … come out?”

“Your secret pal Ralph Mcdermid was shot to death in China,” Charlie Ouray told him. “Murdered, I’m told, by one of his own hired thugs.” The vice president blinked, recovered, and said cagily, “Horrible. How tragic. What was he doing in China? Some business deal, I expect.”

“Shit, Brandon,” the president exploded. “It’s over. You’ve been caught with your hands deep in other people’s pockets. I expect your resignation on my desk by morning!” He nodded to Ouray, who pressed a button under the table. Erikson sputtered, “My … my resignation―” Two disembodied voices filled the room, one of them the vice president’s: “Don’t get sarcastic. We need each other. You’re a valuable member of the team.”

“I’ll stay that way only as long as I’m behind the scenes.”

“It’s not as bad as you think.

In the end, neither Smith nor the CIA woman damaged us or our project.”

“That the CIA may have you under surveillance doesn’t concern you? Even if it’s not related to our deal, they’ve traced at least some of the White House leaks to you. That should bother you one hell of a lot.”

“I think that’s enough.” Ouray stopped the tape. “I’m sure Mr. Erikson recalls the rest.” Erikson’s hands were folded in his lap under the table. He blinked as if he did not know where he was. Then he drew a long breath. “I suppose I could claim that wasn’t me … ” The president hooted. Ouray rolled his eyes. Erikson nodded slowly. “All right, but doing favors for an important backer in a future presidential campaign, while possibly reprehensible, is hardly a crime, or all of us would be in prison. You may not like me now, Sam, and it’s certain you can shut me out of everything until your term ends, but I doubt you can force me to resign.” “It’s a lot more damning than that,” the president said. “If you recall the entire tape — made by the CIA, incidentally — you’ll realize you implicated yourself in an attempt to cause an armed conflict with China, in which American military personnel would no doubt have been killed. You also helped to ship illegal contraband. I believe some if not all of that skirts treason. It may be treason. Of course, Justice will have to make the ultimate decision about whether it’s actionable. Preliminary reports tell me you’re heading for criminal trial.”

Ouray pursed his lips. “I’d say it’s treason.”

Erikson looked from one to the other. “What do you want, Sam?”

“Don’t call me Sam. Not anymore. I told you what I wanted. You can claim ill health. Family responsibilities. You want to devote your time to exploring a campaign for president. That’d be partially true, anyway.”

“Is that all, Mr. President?” Erikson asked bitterly.

“Not quite. You can make a good show of exploring the possibility, but in the end, you won’t run for president, for senator, for dog catcher.

No public office ever again. Not ever, even if you’re not charged.”

“And if I choose to run anyway?”

“I’ll see to it you get no help from the party. Believe me, no one’s going to want to be even seen in the same room with you.”

Erikson’s expression hardened into stone. He stood. “You’ll have my resignation tomorrow.” He turned to leave, then turned back. “You know, I’m not quite as bad as you think. I never really agreed with your policy of weakening the military. I did only what I thought best for the country.” “Bullshit,” Ouray said. “You did what was best for Brandon Erikson.”

The president nodded. “And along the way, you lost your benefactor, too.

If the Altman Group survives, no one there will ever put you in their Rolodex again. You don’t fit the profile. In your case, mixing business and politics almost caused a war. That can really hurt a bottom line.”

The morning was warm and hazy with sunshine as the air force jet swept in over the Pacific. From a window, Jon studied the Channel Islands, ringed with tendrils of fog, and the rugged coast with its white sands and dramatic cliffs. The highly secure base extended over nearly one hundred thousand acres of manzanita and rocket launchpads, pampas grass and missile silos, on a wide shelf that jutted into the glistening ocean.

“We used to drive up here occasionally with Mom and Dad, to study the wildflowers,” Randi told him.

She had a window seat, while he sat across from her, on the aisle, where he could rotate and see out several windows. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

she continued. “There’s something about the sun and the ocean that I find endlessly appealing. If … when … I ever settle down, I’ll come back here. What will you do, Jon?”

About fifty miles southeast of Vandenberg was Santa Barbara, where Randi and her sister, Sophia Russell, had grown up. Santa Barbara was also where Jon had gone to lick his wounds and decide what to do with his life after the Hades virus had killed Sophia.

“Settle down?” he repeated. “You’re making me shudder. Why would anyone want to settle down?” “Why, indeed?” asked David Thayer. “Take it from me, people put too much stock in it. Footloose and fancy free, that’s my idea of life now.” He grinned, his crevices rearranging themselves in a face that shone with curiosity and eagerness. His thick white hair was combed neatly back, and he had new tortoiseshell frames for his glasses.

“Goodness, I’ve been settled down more than fifty years. I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life on the go.

The three smiled at one another as the jet touched down and sped along the runway. They were dressed in casual trousers and shirts supplied by the U.S. embassy in Beijing. David Thayer had been surprised by plastic zippers, which he had never seen. Velcro fascinated him. He had ripped open and closed the Velcro straps that fastened his new athletic shoes several times. He had never ridden in a jet. The air force pilot gave him a thorough tour of the cockpit, trying to explain how much of the craft was computerized these days until he finally realized Thayer had no real understanding of computers. Thayer assured him he would buy a book and figure it out himself. After Jon had reunited with Thayer at the embassy, Jon demanded he have a thorough physical exam. But Thayer did not want to take the time, explaining politely he would rather watch television, which was also new to him. Still, he was persuaded, and the doctor found healed bones indicating past traumas, what appeared to be an iron deficiency, an eye that should have cataract surgery soon, and obvious dental needs. Then Jon, Randi, and David Thayer had piled onto the jet, heading home to America. The events of the past week remained very fresh — raw — in Jon’s mind. That would not change for a long time.

When he returned to Fort Detrick, he would write a full report for Fred.

That often helped.

Jon had noticed that Randi had been studying the president’s father from the time she first met him. At last, as the jet rolled to a stop, she asked, “Aren’t you bitter, Dr. Thayer? They stole your life. Doesn’t that make you even a little bitter?”

He gazed back from the window, where he was leaning forward so he could see Air Force One clearly. “Of course I’m bitter, but I’ve got other things on my mind, too. There he is!” He pressed his face against the glass. “I see him! My son. My son. There’s my daughter-in-law! There are my grandchildren! I can’t believe it. They all came. They all came to see me!” His body trembled with excitement.

The jet stopped, and David Thayer unsnapped his belt and headed for the door. Jon and Randi did not move. As he waited for the stairway to be rolled up and the copilot to unlock the door, he turned and came back.

There were pink spots on his sunken cheeks. His eyes sparkled. He shook their hands, thanking them again.

“I hope you can understand, Ms. Russell.” He patted the top of her hand as he continued to hold it. He glanced back occasionally, eager for the door to open. “I never would’ve survived if I’d allowed myself to be full of hate every second. There were a few good things among the bad.

For instance, I learned the price for hubris was humility, and I learned I didn’t have all the answers. Still, if I could go back and change what I did that got me into that mess, I would. But since I can’t, I’m going to make the most of what time I’ve got left. The Chinese have a proverb that goes something like this: ‘ a caterpillar calls the end of life, wise men call a butterfly.’ ”

“That’s beautiful,” Randi said.

He nodded. “I know.” He squeezed her hand, punched Jon’s shoulder, and hurried back to the door. He glared at the copilot. “Are you ever going to open this damn thing?”

“Right now, sir.” He spun the lock, and the pneumatic door lifted and swung out.

The stairwell was there. The old man moved onto it without another look back. Jon and Randi watched him descend and brush away an aide who obviously had planned to escort him over to Air Force One. The president, his wife, son, and daughter were waiting in its shade. Thayer moved straight toward them about ten steps and suddenly stopped.

“Look at his face,” Randi said.

“He’s afraid,” Jon agreed.

“It’s hit him all at once. He doesn’t know whether they’ll like him.”

“Or whether he’ll like them. Whether he can live such a different life.”

The president and his family gazed at one another, some sort of message passing among them. Without a word, they hurried across the tarmac to Thayer. He slowly opened his arms. The president reached him first, stepped into his embrace, and wrapped his own arms around him in return.

They held each other a long time. The president kissed his father’s cheek. Soon everyone was there, too, talking, laughing, introducing themselves, hugging.

As their jet backed up, Jon and Randi turned away from the windows.

“Back to Washington,” she said with a sigh.

“Yes. It’ll be good to go home for a while.”