Catalyst (Breakthrough Book 3) (10 page)

14

Wil Borger leaned back in his chair with a loud squeak.  His heavyset frame filled every inch of space between the armrests.  “That’s our man.”

Clay was studying the screen again, staring at the Chinese military photo ID.  It had taken most of the night, but they finally identified the individual on the Xian Y-20 who was transporting back what they suspected was the extracted genetic material.  If they were correct, the contents of that case could now be the most valuable item on the planet.  But, the real question was…
where was it now?

“Lieutenant Li of the Chinese Army.  Enlisted at the age of twenty-one.  Received a direct appointment to officer training after four years and has since then risen from Officer Cadet to First Lieutenant.  Pretty impressive.”

Borger nodded with arms crossed over his large belly, mostly hidden by a deep blue and white Hawaiian shirt.  “Awarded the Medal of Outstanding Service and the Medal for Outstanding Achievement.  What’s the Medal of Army Brilliance for?”

Clay shook his head.  “Not sure.”

“Well, one thing is for sure, this guy is highly decorated.”

“He is indeed.”

“So why have this guy Li escort the box home, almost nonstop on a secure military plane?  Anyone could have done that.  An honor thing maybe?”

“Possibly.  Both the Chinese political and military systems are highly class-based…but if you were trying to keep something quiet, especially something this big, would you pick one of the more recognized officers in the army?”

“Not unless I wanted someone to notice.”

“Right.  Then why would they want someone to notice?”

Borger shrugged.  “Maybe credibility.  As in ‘look what I have and you don’t.’ ”

“Maybe.  But then you’d have to worry about it being intercepted.”  Clay moved his chair closer.  “Bring up that picture of him deplaning in Beijing again.”

Borger complied and brought another image up on screen.  It was a satellite image, slightly grainier than the first, of Li walking from the giant Y-20 to a large hangar at the Tongxian Air Base in Beijing.

“Do you see any security around the hangar?” Clay asked.

Borger zoomed in.  “No.”

“And he’s moving quickly.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“So either the place was empty, which I doubt, or there was no show or display intended here.”

“Okay,” frowned Borger.  “Then we’re back to why pick someone that a lot of people on that base might recognize?”

Clay remained quiet for a long time.  Finally, the corner of his mouth curled.  “Trust,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“Trust,” Clay repeated, louder.

“Trust?”

“Trust.”  Now Clay was thinking out loud.  “Whoever brought it in was going to be noticed.  Especially on that plane.  That was unavoidable.  To keep it secure meant using the Y-20, which also meant attention.  There would be no way to avoid that…especially if it all had to happen
fast
.”

“So you give up anonymity for speed.”

“Exactly.”

“But why a hero Lieutenant then?”

“Because if you need it done fast, and you’re going to be seen, you better be damn sure you can
trust
the man bringing it!”

“Ahhh,” Borger replied, nodding his head.  “Someone you could trust not to screw you.”

“Right.”

“So, someone in the government was out to get the sample first, and used our friend Li to protect it.”

Clay shook his head again.  “Not just anyone in the government.  A politician wouldn’t use someone like Li.  A
military
man would.  A military man with a hell of a lot of clout to commandeer a new prototype like the Y-20.”

“So…now we find out who he took it to.  Someone in the military.”

“That’s right.  And someone who knew
exactly
what was happening in that jungle in Guyana!”

Borger smiled, then clapped his hands and rubbed them together.  “Our next challenge.”

Clay stood up and stretched.  “How about a caffeine break?”

“Nah, I’m good.  Just bring me another.”

Clay nodded and picked up the empty can of Jolt cola from Borger’s desk.  “Didn’t they make this stuff illegal?”

“That’s NOT funny!”

With a chuckle, Clay turned and left the dark room.  The sun was up outside, but without any windows, there was no indication of time in Borger’s “bunker.”  Once outside and into the light, Clay blinked and quickly made his way down the wide beige-colored hallway toward the stairs.

As he was walking, his cell phone rang in his pocket.  He retrieved it and looked at the small screen with a smile.

“Well hello, beautiful.”

“Good morning,” Alison’s voice sounded on the other end.  “How are you?”

“Not too bad.  How’s paradise?”

Alison stopped and looked around the parking lot of her research center from where she was standing.  The warm sun was well off the horizon and a refreshing breeze wafted through the palm trees overhead.  “It’s a beautiful morning.  I tried to call you last night but got your voicemail.”

Clay pulled the phone away and looked at it again.  He hadn’t noticed the small icon indicating a new message.  “I’m sorry.  I’m downstairs in Borger’s lab where there’s not much signal.  We’ve been tied up most of the night.”

“Most of the night?” Alison asked, a hint of concern in her voice.  “Did you get any sleep?”

“Not really.  I’m too nervous to fall asleep in Borger’s lab.  I’m afraid he’ll try to put something on my head and scan me.”

She laughed.  “Well, you must be exhausted.  I’m really sorry.”

Clay reached the top of the stairs and opened a door, stepping this time into a carpeted hallway.  “That’s all right.  Talking to you is perking me up.”  When he looked back at the phone, he also noticed Alison had used the special encryption application like he’d shown her.  The slight delay in their conversation confirmed it.

“You’re such a smooth-talker.  Almost as smooth as your friend Steve who showed up here yesterday, by the way.  And unannounced I might add.”

“Oh, right.  Sorry about that.  I meant to warn you.”

“Warn me is right,” she teased.  “We had a very interesting conversation.”

“Well, Steve’s an interesting guy,” Clay joked, pulling open the door to the small vending room.  The place was empty.

“I presume you know why he was here.” 

“I do.”  Clay closed the door behind him.  He promptly punched a button on the machine for his coffee, then reached over and opened the door of a refrigerator.  Inside were two cases of Jolt cola with a large piece of paper taped to the top.  On the paper was a scribbled message that read: “Do not drink!  Property of Wil Borger!”  Clay always wondered why Borger felt compelled to label his drinks when no one else on the floor would drink them.  “So,” he continued, “how did it go?”

“Probably not as well as Steve was hoping.  DeeAnn’s still having a pretty hard time.  She wasn’t very receptive.  But Steve didn’t push her too hard.  Oh, and speaking of DeeAnn, there’s something else I haven’t told you yet.  She’s leaving.”

“Leaving?”

“Yes.  She’s taking Dulce back to the Gorilla Foundation in California.  She’s been really shaken up by all this, and unfortunately, I can’t stop her.”

Clay sighed and pulled his coffee out of the dispenser.  He set it on the counter next to two cans of Borger’s Jolt.  “No talking her out of it, huh?”

“I’ve tried.  Believe me.  She’s going and there’s nothing I can do to change her mind.  I think there’s more going on with her than she’s telling me.”

Clay stared grimly at the wall.  “Then I guess our visit didn’t help matters much.”

“Uh, no.”

“I’m sorry, Ali.  We should have anticipated that.  We were hoping for a different reaction.”

“What’s happening, John?”

Clay grinned.  There was always something sweet in the way she said his first name.

“Things are happening pretty quickly here.  Some of our assumptions about South America and the Bowditch were not accurate.  And we’ve uncovered a few other surprises as well.”

“Steve said the man who kidnapped DeeAnn and Juan is dead.  Blanco.  And the person who killed him knows everything.”

“It looks that way.  But that’s only part of the problem.”  Clay wished he could tell her more, but he had to keep it to things in which Alison was already involved.  She had been there in Brazil with him, Caesare, and Borger.  She saw the same thing they had.  And she also knew about the plants the Chinese had found and were smuggling out of the jungle.

“So how were things left there?”

“DeeAnn stormed out, clearly upset.  But Steve didn’t push any further.  Instead, he visited the guys and played with Dulce a little before he and the other men left.”  She continued when Clay remained silent on the other end.  “Does this mean I’m not going to see you for a while?”

“Probably not.  I’m sorry.  Things look like they’re unraveling on us.  Without DeeAnn, our job is going to be much harder.  I’m sure Steve told you that we don’t have a lot of time.”

“He did.”  She tried to inject a little humor.  “Maybe I could call Admiral Langford and call in my favor.”

She was surprised when Clay laughed.

“I don’t think you want to waste it on me,” he replied.

“Oh, don’t kid yourself.  I’m saving it, but I’m definitely saving it for you.”

“Then let’s wait until your odds are better.”  Clay changed the subject back to DeeAnn.  “So listen, there’s a lot I can’t tell you, but I need you to try to work on DeeAnn for me.  Without her and Dulce, we’re going to have a pretty big problem.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

“Thanks.  Unfortunately, I need to get back downstairs.  Can I call you tonight?”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“What’s a good time?”

This time, he knew Alison was smiling on the other end.  “Anytime is a good time.”

“Okay.  I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“I’m holding you to it.  Bye.”

Clay hung up and glanced at his watch.  Caesare and the other SEALs should have already arrived and began their preparations in Dam Neck, Virginia.  They were running out of time and Clay hoped Alison could help bring DeeAnn around.  Finding that capuchin monkey was a long shot, even with DeeAnn and Dulce’s help.  Without them, it would be virtually impossible.

Alison may have appreciated that Caesare didn’t push DeeAnn too hard, but the truth was it was a courtesy.  They would avoid forcing her if they could.  But when it came right down to it, if Alison couldn’t persuade DeeAnn, the only option left would be to bring her by force.

15

It was past midnight and Clay was still peering at the brightly lit laptop screen.  Just a couple hours before, he and Borger had finally returned to their homes to rejuvenate with the help of a quick shower. 

After finding several vulnerable state-owned servers in China, Borger began the process of worming his way inside while Clay investigated something else.  A missing piece that continued to eat at him.

The Russian submarine Forel was still a mystery.  The sub was supposed to have been decommissioned a few years earlier.  However, since the CIA had classified the sub as a low threat, it fell off the radar of the Department of Defense and was replaced by newer R&D subs in Russia’s fourth and fifth generation classes.

Yet not only had the Forel mysteriously reemerged, it did so carrying a very different technology than originally outfitted.

Something wasn’t adding up.  Why would the Russians keep an old submarine when the majority of its fleet was more modern and advanced?  Clay suspected the capture of the Forel off the coast of South America had taken the Russians themselves by surprise.

But if the Russians found out what the Chinese were up to in Guyana and wanted to spy on them, they had better subs with which to do it.  All the evidence was quickly supporting Clay’s suspicion that the Russian government was
not
aware of the Forel’s rebirth.

He sat back in his chair, thinking.  The only light in the apartment came from the dining room chandelier above him.  The darkened living room on the other side of his table was clean and neat.  A leather couch and coffee table faced a broad, simply decorated wall with a wide flat-panel television fixed several feet above the fireplace.  Neither the fireplace nor the television had been used in months.

Clay’s eyes were still on his computer screen.  If the Forel had been “recommissioned,” U.S. intelligence would have found out, particularly if it was still in Russia, which suggested that it wasn’t officially recommissioned.  Especially according to the article Clay had just found. 

The article was two years old and posted by a relatively small Norwegian publication from a town just outside of Stavanger.  It appeared a small group of antiwar protesters had gathered outside a quiet shipyard.  They had demanded that the government stop aiding “the global war machine” by building warships for its allies, which typically meant Russia.  The group had caught wind of the construction of a warship being built in their small town.  Yet once some of the group members found their way into the locked building, what they found was not a warship at all, but a submarine.

The picture in the article was centered on the protesters and only captured a piece of the vessel behind them.  And from what Clay could make out, the dimensions appeared to be very close to those of the Forel.  The article failed to mention, and Clay already knew that Norway didn’t build submarines.  At least not officially.  In fact, the country’s own small fleet of just six submarines was assembled in Germany.  Finally, what the article did include was that the shipyard was privately owned and operated by a Russian conglomerate.

But the last piece still didn’t fit since the Forel was destroyed along with the Chinese warship near Rio de Janeiro.  Two boats on the same path and found in the same location.  The Forel was not an adversary as they’d originally thought, but an ally to the Chinese.  Slowly the pieces were lining up, but still kept bringing Clay back to the same question. 
Why were the Chinese Corvette and the Forel destroyed?

He glanced at his phone in front of him as the tiny screen lit up, followed by the familiar ring of an incoming call.  He reached forward and answered it.

“Hey, Wil.”

“Hi, Clay.  I wake you up?”

“No.  I was just sitting here wondering why we don’t talk more.”

Borger laughed on the other end.  “Good, because we may be in for another long night.  First though, I think we need to get the Admiral on.”

Langford logged in from his own computer and his face promptly appeared in a video window.  His short gray hair was still neat, indicating he hadn’t slept yet either.  On the contrary, his eyes seemed to blaze intently in the glow of his computer screen.

“What do you have?” he asked immediately.

Borger began typing on his keyboard.  “Sir, I think we have some answers, but unfortunately more questions too.” 

“Then let’s start with the answers.”

“Yes, sir.”  An image filled the rest of their screens as Borger shared a picture from his own computer.  It was a waist-high shot of a senior Chinese officer in uniform.  He looked to be in his early sixties with a tight haircut similar to the Admiral’s.  In the picture, the man looked relaxed with dark eyes focused on the camera. 

“This is General Wei.  Head of China’s PLA, or the People’s Liberation Army, and the man I believe our Lieutenant Li delivered the DNA samples to after he left South America.”

Both Langford and Clay leaned forward, studying the picture.

“How do we know?”

Borger displayed a second window on the screen, filled with numeric codes.  “I found the logs from Li’s cell phone carrier and traced them back to the day he arrived.  The triangulation from the cell towers isn’t as exact as GPS, but he was in the building of China’s Central Military Commission.  That I’m sure of.  I then searched and compared the coordinates until I found people whose phone locations were close to Li’s.  The most likely person out of that group was General Wei.”

“Admiral, it appears General Wei was the one in charge of the Guyana find.  I’ve found emails from him and others showing that he was giving the orders.  And get this, the initial discovery was made almost nine months ago.  It took them another six months to get there.”

“Plenty of time to gut a warship.”

“Right.  And from what I can tell, they pulled it off with surprisingly few people knowing about it.”

“Okay, so what happened to our briefcase?”

Borger frowned on screen.  “That’s a good question, sir.  I just finished plotting the General’s phone coordinates on a map.  It’s a little messy.”  A map appeared on the screen with thousands of blue dots all around or near the government center of Beijing.  “I can clean this up a little, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it.”

“Why is that?” asked Clay.

“Because the coordinates of his phone are much more interesting
after
Lieutenant Li delivered the case.”  Another map suddenly replaced the first.  One with fewer dots.  “You can see here that most of the dots, or coordinates, are almost on top of each other until this.”  He circled some of the outlying dots with his mouse.  “What this shows is that Wei left the building less than thirty minutes later on that day.  And judging from the distance and speed of the coordinates after his departure, he was probably in a car.”

Borger’s mouse highlighted a string of dots moving in one direction.  “This was his path until the tower lost signal.”

“What does that mean…he drove out of range?”

“I don’t think so, sir.  I think he turned off his phone.”