The Einstein Papers

CHAPTER 40

A warm wind blew the fall leaves from the carefully assembled piles the groundskeepers had raked outside the office of the Special Security Service in Maryland. Sandra Miles leaned forward across her desk. She handed the report detailing the theft of Enviorco's microbes to her partner, Chuck Smoot.

"Do me a favor and read through this before I file it with Allbright," Miles said. "And be sure and tell me what you really think." She began to check her E-mail while Smoot read.

Smoot read quickly through the seven-page report, then set it on the desk in front of him. "Reads good," he said, "but you left out any theory about what the people who stole the microbes might try to do with them."

"I did that on purpose. I'm not even sure who's in possession of them now," Miles said, "except that I'm reasonably sure it was the Chinese that had them stolen."

"Chinese government or Chinese gangs?" Smoot asked.

"No idea," Miles said.

"I can't see why the Chinese government would want them," Smoot hypothesized.

"Or the Chinese Triad gangs — unless they had someone who wanted to buy them," said Miles.

"We might as well start finding out," Smoot said. "Somebody's going to be assigned to retrieve or destroy those bugs. You can bet on that. I would also imagine Allbright will want more technical information about the microbes themselves."

"So you think the report is lacking?" Miles asked.

"There's a lot of questions left unanswered," Smoot said, "that's for sure."

"Technical Division can supply those," Miles said, rising. "I'm going to drop this off at Allbright s office."

"I'll go with you," Smoot said.

"But I thought you felt this report sucked," Miles said, smiling.

"It does," Smoot said, "but I know you, Sandra. And I know what you're up to."

"And what might that be?" Miles asked as the pair started off down the hall.

"You want to leave Allbright enough doubt so we have to continue to investigate and are assigned to the case," Smoot said as they rounded the corner.

"Little old me do that?" Miles said. "That makes it sound like I planned it." Smoot paused at the door before knocking.

"Only because you did."

Dick Allbright perused the report that was filed by CIA agent Jeff McBride and forwarded to the NIA. The report described his surveillance of the Carondelet and included photographs of the vessel. Allbright finished, then reached for the phone and dialed Benson's extension.

"General Benson's office."

"This is Allbright."

"Hold one minute, Mr. Allbright," Mrs. Mindio said sweetly. Benson was concentrating on the missing Einstein documents when Allbright telephoned. He was sitting at his desk with a pair of Special Security Service analysts, studying maps of the highways and rivers around Washington, D.C.

"Yeah, Dick, go ahead," Benson said.

"I just read a report from a CIA agent. He was watching a Chinese spy vessel disguised as a fishing boat. The vessel left Norfolk, Virginia, last night. The agent claims the vessel was steaming north."

"You think the vessel might be coming here?" Benson asked.

"It's worth checking out," Allbright noted.

"Makes sense. Combined with that call to the embassy the NSA intercepted, it's pretty obvious what's happening," Benson noted.

"You must be thinking what I'm thinking," Allbright said. 'The ship from Norfolk is being ordered north to pick up the courier who's holding the Einstein papers."

"Just might be. What is the name of the vessel the CIA man was watching?" Benson asked.

"The vessel is named Carondelet." Benson wrote the name down on a slip of paper.

"I'll call you right back, Dick. Let me see what I can find out." Benson dialed the number for the regional commander of the Coast Guard. His call was put through immediately.

"Commander Wright," the Coast Guard officer said.

"General Earl Benson. I'm the head of the Special Security Service. I have a priorityone request."

"How can the Coast Guard help you, General?" Wright said smoothly.

"I need to locate a ship named Carondelet. It left port in Norfolk last night steaming north."

"We can do that for you," Wright said. "Do you want us to detain the vessel after we locate it?"

"Not yet," Benson said. "I just need to know the Carondelet's current location."

"I can have a Coast Guard chopper off the ground from Virginia Beach in twenty minutes to start the search. Luckily, Chesapeake Bay is not the easiest place to hide. What's your number there, General? I'll call you as soon as we have a sighting." Benson recited his direct number to Wright.

"I should be able to get you an answer within the hour," Wright said. Tsing slammed on the brakes of the stolen car. Back in the trees, off the road, he'd spotted a tumbledown barn. He waited until there was no traffic, then turned off the main road and drove down a road long overgrown with weeds and underbrush. Tsing stopped at the side of the barn and climbed from the car. Glancing at the barn, he noticed that painted on the faded and flaking red paint of the barn was an advertisement for Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco. He could smell cut hay from a field nearby and he flicked his hand at a fly that was buzzing around his head.

Tsing pried open a side door to the barn. The barn was mostly empty. Several piles of trash were heaped in the far comer. Along one side, in a grain bin, was piled ears of corn, now almost petrified. He walked to the doors.

Tsing surveyed the main barn doors and found them secured with a cheap lock. Returning to his stolen car, Tsing retrieved a tire iron from the trunk. Back inside the barn, he slid the tire iron under the lock and popped off the rusty clasp. Leaning the full weight of his body against the barn doors, Tsing managed to wedge the doors open far enough. Then he got the car and drove it inside the barn. After closing the barn doors, he wiped his hands on his handkerchief, then made his way back to the road and started hitchhiking.

He caught a ride with a college student in a van, ending up in White Plains, Maryland, where he spent the night in a cheap motel. Near checkout time, he walked to a nearby diner. There Tsing ate a meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and creamed corn. For dessert he enjoyed a slice of chocolate cake and a cup of coffee.

A death-row inmate could not have ordered a better meal.

When he finished the meal Tsing walked out to the side of the road and began hitchhiking south on 1-301. A series of rides, the last in the back of a farm truck, brought Tsing to Bel Alton, Maryland, by late afternoon. Checking carefully to see if he was being followed, he slipped into the woods and made his way to a cove on the Potomac River.

Tonight Tsing was due to be extracted.

That same afternoon, Taft and Martinez stopped for coffee in a cafe just off 1-95. Ordering their coffees to go, Taft grabbed several sugars and two creamers and tossed them in the sack. Once back inside the car he handed the sack to Martinez.

"There's cream and sugar in the bottom of the sack. Why don't you hand me mine first, though," Taft said as he started the car and drove slowly through the parking lot. Martinez handed one of the black coffees to Taft, then dug around in the sack. "You didn't get any stirrers."

Taft set his coffee in the cupholder, then reached in his coat pocket and withdrew a folding knife, which he flashed open with a fluid motion. "Here, stir your coffee with my knife."

Exiting 1-95 for 1-17, Taft reached for his coffee in the cupholder. He snapped off the lid, tossed it in the rear of the car, and sipped the steaming liquid. Taft engaged the cruise control just as they drove past Camp A.P. Hill, then settled down in the drivers seat.

"I have some vacation time coming up. I think I'll put in a request for time off," Taft said as he blew across the cup to cool the coffee.

"Is this your retaliation for being pulled from the Einstein mission?" Martinez asked. Taft exited onto Interstate 301. The drive would take them through Port Royal north to the turnoff for Potomac Beach. He turned and looked at Martinez.

"Not really, though I am pissed off about that. It just seems stupid to me for us to be assigned to inspect construction projects. What do either of us know about construction or electronics or advanced sonar?"

"Not much," Martinez agreed, "but I do know one thing about this system."

"What's that?"

"It's got to be one of the only times in the history of the United States procurement that a project has been finished ahead of time."

"What is the contract completion date?" Taft asked as he took another sip of coffee.

"October 15th," Martinez noted.

"Two and a half weeks ahead of schedule," Taft said as he turned off toward Potomac Beach and began to look for the dirt road leading to the site. "Will wonders never cease." Commander Wright telephoned Benson forty-two minutes later. The Carondelet is anchored just north of the middle of the Potomac River near Point Lookout. Do you want me to have a cutter deployed to the area?"

Benson thought for a moment. "Okay. Can you keep your ship out of sight for now?"

"We can bring a cutter down from Baltimore and have it anchor around the point just out of view," Wright answered. "That way, if you need it, it's right there."

"That would be perfect, Commander. I'll order a few of my men down from Washington to observe the Carondelet from shore. For now, I just want to play a waiting game."

"It will take a couple of hours to move the cutter into position," Wright explained. "I'll call you back when she's in place."

Benson reached for the phone. "Have three agents drive to Point Lookout and set up surveillance on a ship in the Potomac named the Carondelet," Benson said to the deputy chief of operations. "I'm going to fax you pictures of the vessel now."

"You want a secure phone link to the observation team?" the deputy asked.

"Yes, and have them report to me every fifteen minutes," Benson said. On the lee side of the Carondelet, a canvas awning was stretched from the superstructure to an outboard-powered tender in the water ten feet away. Now safe from prying eyes, the Chinese mini-sub was lowered into the water by crane. The crew manning the minisub squeezed into the small opening at the top of the vessel. Once safely on board, the submarine pilot ran through a quick systems check. Finding all the systems functioning properly, he lowered the hatch, locked it in place, and began the slow journey upriver to extract Tsing.

Slipping through the water at a speed barely above that of a walking man, the submarine fought its way against a stiff current. Peering from a glass bubble in the bow of the submarine, Chief Pilot Ho Pei saw little of interest. The water in the Potomac was murky. Once, shortly after they left the Carondelet, the current had slammed a turtle against the glass dome. And just as quickly, the current swept the reptile away. The small submarine lacked advanced navigation aids, and the route to Tsing had been plotted into a handheld GPS unit. The information as to their location was relayed to Pei by his navigator.

"Way point," the navigator said in Chinese, stirring Pei from his daydream. Pei glanced at the sheet taped to the wall of the submarine. Checking his compass with great care, he steered another course heading.

The interior of the submarine was cramped. Pei sat upright in a small bucket seat, watching the water pass outside the glass bubble. Behind him, where the body of the submarine widened, were two seats facing to the rear. One held his navigator. The other one was for Tsing. Like a lumbering tortoise trying to find home, the tiny submarine continued upriver.

The setting sun painted the sky a fiery red as the crew of the Carondelet settled in to wait for the submarine s return. They had no idea they were being watched from shore. They had no idea a noose was being closed around the neck of the river. As the Chinese mini-sub was making the journey up the Potomac River, Dick Allbright, Sandra Miles, and Chuck Smoot sat in chairs across from General Benson's desk. Allbright was briefing Benson.

"I just received this report, General, and thought you should hear it immediately. Yesterday Agent Miles was dispatched to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. She was investigating the theft of a vat of oil-eating microbes from a laboratory," Allbright said.

'Through a roundabout series of circumstances, she believes she has uncovered evidence that indicates the theft of the microbes was a contract job paid for by someone of Chinese nationality. Once she explained her findings, I suspected it might be tied to the Einstein case. I thought it best you hear about it right now."

"What led you to the conclusion the microbes were stolen by the Chinese, Agent Miles?" Benson asked.

"My evidence is spotty, I admit, sir. It comes from one of the burglars, who is an admitted drug user. He identified the man that hired him as Chinese from the type of cigarettes the man smoked."

Benson smiled. "I guess it does pay to quit smoking," he said and leaned forward.

"What do you make of all this, Dick?"

"It ties in nicely with the trouble in the Middle East, sir. The Saudis are keeping a close rein on information about their troubles. However, a few hours ago the NSA intercepted radio transmissions from an oil-field worker to his superiors that seems to support the hypothesis that one of their fields was poisoned by a man-made biological."

"So this entire mess, the Einstein situation as well as the Middle East, could be all tied together," Benson said.

"You could make that argument, sir," Allbright said.

"I need some theories as to why the Chinese might want to poison the Saudis oil—

who stands to gain, strategic impacts, that kind of stuff."

"I'll get some people on it right away," Allbright said. Benson looked over at Miles and Smoot. "Agent Miles, I want you and Agent Smoot to investigate the bombings that are occurring in Israel. I'll call right now and have one of our jets made ready. I want you to leave for the Middle East immediately. If the bombings in Israel are being caused by the Chinese, maybe we can stop this war before it begins."

The trio rose to leave. "Work fast, you three. I have to brief the president tomorrow morning," Benson said as they left.