The Einstein Papers

CHAPTER 34

It was six minutes past three in the morning when the truck carrying Chup Cho-Sing and his assistant pulled to its final stop, an oil pumping station deep inside Saudi Arabia. Cho-Sing walked among the tangled mess of piping until he found the spot he was looking for, then ordered his assistant to dig down into the soft sand. Once the hole was sufficiently deep, he motioned for the assistant to help him carry one of the tanks from the back of the truck. Burying the tank in the hole, he connected a hose from the valve stem fitting directly to a pressure release valve, then stood back and admired his work.

"Wellhead number 6. That completes this operation," he said to his assistant. "The light of day will soon be upon us. Do you want to sleep? I can handle the first leg of the drive back to the Gulf of Aqaba."

The assistant nodded wearily. He raised a broom in his hand. "I will erase our footprints as before," he said as he began sweeping.

Cho-Sing walked back to the truck and reached under the seat for a package. Removing the nylon pouch he removed the clip and checked to make sure it was loaded. Cocking the weapon to load a round in the chamber, he placed it in his front pants pocket and walked back toward the wellhead. Cho-Sing felt no remorse for what he was about to do. He calmly waited until the man had finished sweeping.

The assistant's head was bent over, sweeping the last spot of sand when the slug from the silenced pistol pierced the base of his skull, killing him instantly. Cho-Sing dragged the man off a short distance and tossed the body in a gully. Soon the sand crabs would come by land and the vultures by air. In less than a week, the bones would be picked clean. The assistant's body would never be found.

"Well, that about does it," George Butler said.

Though the murders Butler finally disclosed had been committed in Port Isabel, the chief of police, Anthony Hill, knew his small department was ill-equipped to handle the investigation. In the first place, Hill had no bodies. In the second place, he presided over a force of three, not including the dispatcher. He had been less than excited when the assistant district attorney in Brownsville explained the case. Hill decided to call his friend, who was the chief of police in McAllen, for advice.

"I heard about it," the chief in McAllen said after Hill explained. "A deal was cut with the perp. He came clean for a deferred sentence. Your murder is supposedly tied to a theft that occurred here in McAllen. I'll tell you what, Tony. I recommend you do what I did."

"What's that?" Hill asked.

"Turn it over to the Texas Rangers," the chief in McAllen said easily. "One of the rangers is already here. Do you want me to send him down there?"

"Could you?" Hill asked.

"No problem," the chief said as he hung up.

That afternoon, when the ranger filed his first report about the theft of the microbes, a computer copy was forwarded to the Special Security Service as required. The report from Texas ended up in the Terrorist Technology Division.

NIA Special Agent Sandra Miles began to read the report with interest. Jeff McBride shook the rain off his camouflaged rain slicker before entering his hotel room. He hung the dripping coat on a hanger and began to towel off his sopping hair. When McBride had joined the CIA just out of college, he never thought his assignments would be so boring. He had watched the Carondelet patiently for three days as it sat in port in Norfolk. Now that the ship had steamed from port, his assignment was finished and he could return home. With a loud sneeze he added the last notations to the ongoing report on his laptop, then plugged it into the phone line and faxed it to the CIA headquarters in Langley.