“Now, Dr. Stone,” commanded Walker.
Scott used a remote control to detonate the air-bag charges. The underwater explosions made hardly a sign, little more than a distant thump and a frothing eruption of bubbles. The shadow of the stealth bomber faded into the deep.
Finally, at a preset depth of two thousand feet, the main explosives detonated. At that depth, no debris from the bomber would find its way back to the surface. The Triple Seven Chase could not leave their skeletons in any recognizable form for deep-sea mappers to find.
Walker used the Illustro’s underwater sensors to confirm that the charges did their job. He nodded with satisfaction as the sonar showed the aircraft separating into hundreds of individual pieces, raining down into the abyss. The last remnant of the squadron’s first tactical mission made its final descent into Poseidon’s care. After ten years, he could rest a little easier.
Doc Heldner watched the sonar screen over Walker’s shoulder. “It’s too bad,” she said.
“What’s too bad, Pat?” asked Walker.
“That Nick and Drake weren’t here to see the fruits of all their labor.”
* * *
“Tell me again why we’re letting Joe tag along for this one?” asked Drake. “He’s too soft and pudgy for field work.” He and Nick sat in a white Pajero SUV just outside the corporate terminal of the Kuwait International Airport. They watched through the chain-link fence as a short, slightly round man with receding salt-and-pepper hair stepped out of a Bell commuter helicopter. Both of his hands were full, with a carry-on bag in one and an aluminum briefcase in the other. He crouched beneath the chopper blades and loped toward the terminal building.
“We need that cell phone interceptor for the stakeout,” Nick replied. “And you know how Joe is about field ops.” He put the Pajero in gear and pulled up to the passenger pickup zone. “The colonel wants to use this little milk run to build up some goodwill credit.”
Joe Tarpin clumsily shouldered his way through the terminal door, nearly smashing the glass with his metal case. The aging CIA agent had been the Triple Seven’s go-to man at Langley for more than a decade. Anytime Nick needed special equipment, satellite networking, or just someone to run interference with the deputy director, Tarpin took care of it. But his help came with a price. Like any agent who has been relegated to a desk, Tarpin longed to be back in the game. He constantly pestered Nick and Walker to let him join the team for their missions. Usually, the colonel appeased him by letting him in on need-to-know details, making him feel like a part of the op. This time, he had offered Tarpin a ride-along as well.
“The least he could do is hit the gym once in a while,” muttered Drake as he rolled down the heavily tinted window and waved the CIA man over.
“Is that you, Drake?” whispered Tarpin, setting his bags down and leaning close to the window. He lifted his shirt to wipe his sweaty brow, exposing his plump, hairy midsection.
Drake blanched at the sight. “If you don’t know that already, you’ve got to be the dumbest spook ever,” he replied. He thrust a thumb toward the backseat. “Get in.”
“Don’t mind him,” said Nick as Tarpin squeezed into the backseat. “He hasn’t had his latte this morning.”
A half hour later, Nick parked the Pajero a few cars down from the entrance to the Kuwait City Mortuary Facility. “And now we wait,” he said, settling in to his seat.
A CIA helicopter had flown out to the Illustro two days before. Along with their duffel bags, Nick and Drake loaded up the least damaged cadaver. Heldner had implanted a micro-transmitter beneath a lymph node in its groin, where a mortician would be unlikely to find it. The transmitter sent out two encrypted signals: a long-range GPS locator and a very short-range audio broadcast.
Under the cover of darkness, just beyond visual range from the Kuwaiti docks, Nick had pushed the body out of the chopper. A fisherman discovered it the next evening, and the Kuwaiti authorities had locked it in the morgue that night.
The Chinese Embassy opened at 8:00 A.M. That was an hour ago. The Kuwaiti mortician was not a busy man. With any luck, he had already called them.
“We should have stopped for coffee,” said Drake after twenty minutes with no activity.
“No, because then you would have to pee just as our target leaves the building,” countered Nick. “Don’t you remember what happened in Vienna?”
Tarpin looked up from the cell phone interceptor he had pulled out of his aluminum case. “What happened in Vienna?”
“Nothing,” Nick and Drake answered in unison.
“I mean, nothing important,” said Nick.
“Yeah, what he said,” added Drake.
Tarpin leaned back in his seat and raised his hands. “I’m just gonna leave that one alone.” Then his eyes shifted past the two operatives. “Wait, who is that?”
Nick turned to see an Asian man in a gray business suit stepping off the curb opposite the morgue entrance. He looked from side to side several times as he crossed the street, a little too much for someone just exercising good traffic safety. Nick positioned a camera on the dashboard to get some video. On the high-definition monitor in his lap, he could see a scar above the newcomer’s left eye. His features were hardened, and as he opened the door to the morgue, Nick could see a hint of a tattoo showing just above his collar. This wasn’t your average embassy attaché.
“That’s got to be our guy,” said Nick. “Turn it up. We need to hear this.”
Drake turned up the volume on the receiver. Amid the static, they could hear a few ambient sounds consistent with a morgue examination room: a few clinks and clanks, someone running a sink in the background, but nothing else broke the morbid silence for several minutes. Then, finally, they heard voices, steadily increasing in volume as the conversation moved closer to the transmitter.
“Yes, yes. He came in just last night,” said a man with a Pakistani accent. Consistent with much of their professional labor, the Kuwaitis preferred to import their morticians. “A fisherman spotted him near Al-Bidea. I’m afraid there’s not much left. Even the fingertips only gave partial prints, too much soft-tissue damage from prolonged exposure to seawater.”
“I understand,” replied the Asian man. “This is just a formality. I must look at the bodies and take a few photographs for the embassy medical staff. At this time, we have no reports of missing Chinese citizens here or anywhere else in the region.”
“He’s lying,” said Nick. “If no one at the embassy was interested in these guys, they could have had the mortician fax over the photographs.”
“Or they would have sent one of the medical staff instead of this stiff,” added Drake, and then caught himself. “Sorry. No pun intended.”
The mortician and the attaché milled around the body for a while with very little small talk, and then the conversation receded.
“Get ready, now the fun begins,” said Nick.
“Are you just going to leave your hardware in there?” asked Tarpin.
“Our micro-transmitters are one of Scott’s best innovations,” replied Nick. “They have a short life span; just a few days. With their last bit of juice, the batteries will release a compound that dissolves the capsules. You would have to know what you’re looking for to detect any trace of them. In a couple of weeks, even that wouldn’t help.”
Tarpin nodded, and then his eyes drifted over to the morgue entrance. He sat back in his seat. “Here he comes.”
The Chinese attaché got into a black sedan, several vehicles ahead of them. Nick waited for his quarry to make a turn at the end of the street and then pulled out to follow.
“Stay close to him,” said Tarpin. “We need to be within range for me to isolate his cell phone signal.”
“If I get too close, he’ll know we’re onto him, and then we won’t get anything,” countered Nick.
Suddenly, the attaché crossed two
lanes to the left and reversed direction.
“He’s onto us,” said Tarpin. He sank down in his seat as the sedan passed them on the other side of the road.
“No, he isn’t,” said Nick. “Sudden maneuvers are standard procedure for a Chinese agent. This guy is definitely more than just an attaché.” His grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“You might want to hold on, Joe,” said Drake, reading his team lead’s body language. “Here come the Gs.”
Nick waited for a gap in the oncoming traffic and then punched the accelerator and turned the wheel. The six-cylinder engine responded immediately, and the Pajero leapt over the median and into the opposing lane.
“Whoa,” said Tarpin, clutching his instruments. “Take it easy.”
Nick ignored the CIA man and continued the hard U-turn, aligning the SUV with the new traffic flow. He saw the black sedan a few hundred yards ahead. The attaché made another quick lane change and then turned right onto a side street.
“Look out,” said Drake. “He’s changing direction again.”
At the next side street, Nick saw an opportunity to intercept. It looked clear, except for one problem: the Arabic ONE WAY sign pointed in the wrong direction. He cranked the Pajero around the corner and floored the accelerator, hoping to reach the next cross street before another vehicle turned onto the road in front of him, nose to nose. His luck didn’t hold. With just a few car lengths to go, a light blue two-ton utility truck pulled onto the road.
“Hang on!” shouted Nick. He jerked the small SUV up onto the curb, narrowly splitting the gap between two parked cars. Two white-clad Kuwaitis jumped out of the way as he took out the plastic table they’d been sitting at. Tea splashed onto the windshield.
“Sorry!” Drake called out the window.
Safely past the truck, Nick hopped the Pajero back onto the road and skidded to a stop at the end of the street. Then he calmly turned right, pulled into traffic, and began weaving his way forward. Five cars ahead, he spotted the black sedan. “See, we’re back in business.”
“Right,” said Tarpin, relaxing his death grip on the seat in front of him. He leaned down and gingerly retrieved his equipment from the floor.
As Nick moved closer to their target, the attaché lifted a cell phone to his ear.
“You’re on, Mr. CIA,” said Drake.
Tarpin gave a handheld dish to Drake and indicated that he should point it at the sedan. Then he turned up the volume on his receiver. Instead of voices, they heard piercing digital noise.
“The signal is encrypted,” said Tarpin. “Wait. I can get it.” He pulled another small box out of the suitcase in the back and plugged it in to his receiver. After punching a few keys, the annoying squeals faded and voices came through.
“Ni de rén dou si le, jiangjun.”
“Wo xiang zhè yinggai búshì ni zuòde.”
“Oh great, Chinese,” said Drake. “We should have thought of that.”
“We did,” said Nick in a harsh whisper. “Shut up.”
Tarpin closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the radio. “He’s talking to someone at the embassy. They’re not even talking about the body. He’s telling a colleague when he will be back in the office.”
The voices ceased. Ahead, Nick could see the attaché put his cell phone away. He watched Tarpin through the rearview mirror. “I picked up a little Mandarin during an operation in Singapore,” he said. “I thought I heard the word ‘plan’ in there. What sort of plan were they talking about?”
Tarpin nodded. “I’m impressed. You heard ‘Wifàn you shénme dasuàn.’ They were talking about their lunch plans. In fact, here come the lunch plans now.” He pointed ahead at the Gulf Royal Chinese Restaurant. Just as he predicted, the sedan pulled into the parking lot.
“Seriously?” asked Drake. “It’s not even ten yet. And you’d think the guy could branch out with his culinary palate.”
“We’d still like the recording,” said Nick. “Could you digitize it before we head back to the States?”
Tarpin shook his head. “I’m sorry. This device doesn’t record. I can jot down a summary if you’d like.”
“You’re kidding,” said Drake. “You’re CIA; you guys record everything.”
Tarpin just shrugged.
Nick parked the Pajero across from the restaurant and waited. The attaché exited a few minutes later and returned to his sedan with two plastic bags full of Chinese food. He made no more phone calls before he reached the Chinese Embassy, where none of their surveillance equipment would help them.
“I guess that’s it,” said Nick. “Aside from confirming that our boys were Chinese, this was a complete waste of time.”
CHAPTER 14
Zheng’s attractive young secretary offered an elegant, almost imperceptible bow. “Will you require anything else, General?”
“No. Thank you, Ling. That is all.” Zheng waved her off, but he did not immediately return to his work. His keen eyes tracked Ling as she retreated from the grandiose office, her modest heels clicking sharply on the granite tiled floor. He assessed her. Not with the seedy gaze of lust, for he had no time for such base pursuits. No, he assessed her as he did every day, every time she entered his office. He analyzed her walk, her mode of dress, her hygiene. He searched for anything that might seem out of place. He searched for any indication that she might be a spy.
Ling was not privy to Zheng’s more delicate and important projects. She was, after all, a woman. But women could be cunning, particularly when driven by powerful men, and all of Zheng’s rivals were powerful. How long had she been with him? Four? No . . . at least five years now. Thus far, she had not failed him. There would be no mercy if she ever did.
Zheng sighed. For too long he had lived with one foot in the shadows, denying his true spirit to most of those around him. All of this espionage and intrigue was distasteful. One day, he would surround himself with men he could trust, countrymen who understood the meaning of destiny. Until then, he must constantly be on guard. To do any less would be to fail the very people from whom he hid his true self. They were his people, his province, his country.
Realizing that he’d been staring at a closed door for several moments, Zheng shook himself free of his thoughts and looked down at the papers on his desk. The vertical lines of text seemed to move about one another, black ink blended into ivory paper as the characters shifted and changed. He could not focus. The disquiet of his thoughts had put him out of the temperament for office work. He needed to relax. His spirit was above such fleshly pursuits as ogling young secretaries, but he did have one vice, and now he was in a mood to partake.
Zheng pressed the intercom button on his telephone. “Ling,” he called.
“Yes, General?”
“Send for Han.”
A half hour later, Han drove the sedan through the south gate of the Fuzhou military complex and turned toward the deep jade hills to the south of the city. At more than seven million and growing, the population of Fuzhou would soon rival or surpass most of the large metropolitan cities in China. Yet many of its citizens still rode bicycles and used the bus system. The people of Fujian knew the value of their beautiful province. They would not allow the pollution so prevalent in other provinces to destroy China’s Green Treasury. Zheng echoed their sentiments, but he would not deny himself the luxury of a long drive through one of Fujian’s sweetest forests.
The irony of his vice was not lost on Zheng: gliding through the ancient forest, drinking in the sweetness of the air, in a vehicle that left a trail of choking black exhaust in its wake. But were not exceptions made for exceptional men? Were not the sacrifices of the masses made to provide some measure of relief for their greatest leaders? The thousands of his beloved countrymen who abstained from driving afforded him these small respites from his otherwise constant struggle. A struggle that would one day bring them the unit
y they so richly deserved.
“We are close, Han, very close.”
“So, the mission was a success, General?”
“I have not heard, but I have no reason to suspect otherwise. Once my men return, we will have the last piece of the puzzle, and Tao can finally complete his work.”
Zheng fell silent once more. He cracked the window to take in the scents of pine, jasmine, and daffodils. He did not bother directing Han. His trusted servant would take him precisely where he wanted to go.
A few minutes later, Han pulled the sedan into a quiet clearing that overlooked the northern bank of the Fangshan reservoir. There, bracketed by towering redwoods, stood a small tree known as xi shu, the Tree of Joy. Zheng stepped out of the car to stretch his legs and regarded his favorite tree. It was not particularly impressive. It stood at less than half the height of the redwoods, it did not release any sweet scent, and its drab color could not compare to the jade of the cypress or the deep green of the pines. Yet its common appearance masked an incredible quality. The Tree of Joy had been used for medicinal purposes for time immemorial. For thousands of years, this species had cured colds, skin disorders, liver disease, and many other ailments, and now there were rumors that it held a cure for cancer.
Unfortunately, the Tree of Joy had been farmed almost to extinction over the last two centuries. Humans had squandered this amazing resource on common colds and foot fungus. Now that man’s understanding had finally caught up to the plant’s true potential, there were so few left that pressing forward might eradicate them from the earth.
Zheng closed his eyes and breathed deep the rich air beneath this holy tree. He reached out a hand and gently ran his fingers along the grain of the reddish brown bark. He could feel the sense of isolation, the loneliness. Its greatest brothers had long since given their lives for insignificant goals. Now it stood alone, a divine presence, hidden amid a sea of lesser reflections, waiting for the day when it would give life to the world. “I understand,” he said out loud.