The Altman Code

  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 attaché 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!”

  The Arabian Sea

  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 Shiloh was put through, he took it instantly. The news was terrible: The Shiloh 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 Shiloh 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 Shiloh 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

  Dazu

  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 attaché 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 imposters. 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.

  Monday, September 18

  Washington, D.C.

  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 u
npredictable.”

  “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 hard-liners. 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.”

  Tuesday, September 19

  Dazu

  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-47 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 ar
ound 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.”