Covert One 4 - The Altman Code (46 page)

Ready, he waited, overloaded and overheated, hoping it would not be
long. He was sufficiently uncomfortable that all he wanted was to get it
over with. Jump, fall, and land. Almost anything was better than this..

. even facing the black void outside the AWACS.

“Here we go.” The same crewman was back, tugging and checking his
equipment for proper attachment and functioning. At last, he slapped Jon
on the back. “Start breathing your oxygen. Watch that light up ahead.

When it flashes, slide open the door. Good luck.”

Jon nodded and did what he was told. As he fixed his gaze on the light,
he felt the compartment depressurize. When the light flashed, he slid
back the door. As the inky air sucked at him, he had one moment of
indecision. Then he remembered something his father had told him a long
time ago: Everyone dies, so you’re one hell of a lot better off to live
your life now than to look back and wonder what you missed.

He jumped.

Washington, D. C..

It was nearly noon in the nation’s capital, and the president was
working at his table desk in the Oval Office. He had received and
discussed the contingency war plans of the joint chiefs, from a mere
show of force against Taiwan by the Chinese to full-scale invasion of
the island nation and the unthinkable –a nuclear strike aimed by
mainland China at the United States.

President Castilla leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Under
his glasses, he rubbed the eyelids, then he clasped his hands behind his
head. He thought about war, about trying to fight a nation of 1.3
billion, give or take a few million the Chinese had probably lost or
never counted. He thought about nuclear weapons and felt as if he were
losing control. It was one thing to face off against small, poorly armed
nations and terrorists, homegrown or foreign, whose limit was to kill
thousands, and quite another against China, which had unlimited capacity
for mass devastation. He doubted China wanted war any more than he did,
but what was the difference between a submarine commander so angry he
was ready to fire a torpedo and an outraged hard-liner in a high place
with his finger on the nuclear trigger?

A light knock on his door preceded the head of Jeremy. “Fred Klein,
sir.”

“Send him in, Jeremy.”

Klein came in like a nervous suitor, eager but apprehensive. Both men
waited for Jeremy to leave.

“Why do I think you’ve brought me good news and bad news,” the president
said.

“Probably because I have.”

“All right, start with the good. It’s been a long day.”

Klein hunched in his chair, sorting everything in his mind. “Colonel
Smith is alive and well, and the original copy of the invoice manifest
Monagon tried to deliver to us has reappeared.”

The president sat up like a shot. “You have the manifest? How soon can
you get it here?”

“That’s the bad part. It’s still in China.” He detailed Jon’s report
from the time he was captured, his escape, and the phone call from Li
Kuonyi. “He had to tell the CIA team he was working for the White House,
but that’s all. Covert-One was never mentioned. A special, one-time
assignment again.”

“All right,” Castilla said grudgingly and scowled. “Now we know Ralph
Mcdermid is definitely in the middle of the whole thing. But it changes
nothing about the danger presented by the Empress.”

“No, sir.”

“Without the Flying Dragon manifest, we’re facing war. Li Kuonyi and
Mcdermid’s people are meeting in Dazu tomorrow morning?”

“No, sir. Tuesday morning. Before dawn probably.”

“That’s cutting it even closer, Fred.” The president looked at his
clock. “Brose says we’re down to hours. Our military’s standing poised
for trouble. What are you doing now to get the manifest?”

“At this moment, Colonel Smith is on his way back into China. He knows
Li Kuonyi by sight, and she knows who and what he is. She might deal
with him for asylum in the States.”

“He’s gone? I thought you said two mornings from now in China.”

“Something else came up. I sent him a day early.”

The president nearly exploded. “Something else\ What in hell could’ve
happened that’s so critical that it’s taken your focus from the
manifest!”

Fred remained calm. “It’s your father, Sam. And I haven’t shifted my
focus. A problem has appeared, and I think Colonel Smith can handle both
it and the manifest.”

“My father.” The president felt his stomach plummet. “What problem?”

“I’ve had a report from the prison that they’re moving him tomorrow
morning, their time. Our man inside doesn’t know why, but once Thayer’s
moved, our chances of freeing him anytime soon get very slim. My team
can’t possibly arrive early enough, so I came up with another plan. The
trouble is, it’s riskier. The only good thing in this mess is that Li
Kuonyi’s choice of location has handed us an opportunity to make
rescuing Dr. Thayer less risky. By sending Colonel Smith in early, I
increase our chances of success.”

The president was alarmed. “Not at the expense of our main goal, Fred.”

“No, Sam. Never. You know us better than that.”

“You, yes. Smith I’m not so sure about. He went in alone?”

“He won’t be alone, sir, but I don’t think you want to know more.

There’s likely to be a lot of deniability needed.”

“Tell me what you can.”

“We’ve got Chiavelli and a network of political prisoners inside the
prison, Smith outside, and some imported private help I mentioned that
you don’t want to know about, especially since they helped him earlier.

I’ve poured considerable U.S. greenbacks around, so–barring any more
disasters –we’ve got a good chance to break out Thayer successfully.

Then Captain Chiavelli will spirit him to the nearest border. At the
same time, Smith and the others will go to the Sleeping Buddha and lie
in wait.”

The president still seemed dubious. “All right. Smith has a place to
hide all day tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir.”

The president sat for a moment nodding, his mind somewhere else. “What
if the whole thing’s been a fraud? A trap? What if there are no illicit
chemicals?”

“Given everything we’ve learned, that’s improbable.”

“But not impossible?”

“In intelligence and international politics, nothing’s impossible. Not
as long as human beings are running things.”

The president was still focused somewhere far from the Oval Office. “Why
does anyone take this job? There’s a certain blind hubris in wanting
it.” Then his gaze returned to Klein. “I appreciate all you and Smith
are doing. This hasn’t been easy, and I doubt it’s going to get easy.

Hours, at the outside, and China so far away.”

“I know. We’ll do it.”

Absentmindedly the president’s hand pressed against his suit jacket.

Through the expensive cloth, he could feel his wallet. The smiling man
with the cocky fedora appeared in his mind. There seemed to be a
question in his eyes. He longed to ask him what it was. Instead, he
banished him.

Aloft over Sichuan Province.

The E-2C’s slipstream blasted Jon clear of
the Hawkeye in seconds, and, except for the brush of air against his
cheeks, he had the sensation that he was floating motionless in space.
Not moving at all. Still, he was falling at an incredible rate–more
than one hundred miles an hour.

In the nearly windless sky, he needed to know his altitude and what his
course toward the drop zone was. Battling the forces of air and gravity,
he raised his right wrist to look at the LED displays of his altimeter
and GPS unit. He was still twenty thousand feet up, directly on course.

The lack of wind was his best ally.

Fortunately, this was no precision jump, although there were mountains
no more than a few miles away. To know when to open the chute, he needed
to keep his eyes on the altimeter. As long as the wind remained calm, he
should be falling at the proper angle to hit the field dead center. Bad
use of words, he told himself. Call it “on target.”

He was feeling almost euphoric as he planed on his air cushion.

Abruptly, the GPS unit began to blink. It was a warning that he was off
course. Jaw tight, he maneuvered his falling body to alter the shape of
the air cushion, and he made a slow turn. The GPS unit stopped blinking.

Relieved, he was about to check the altimeter again when his wrist began
to vibrate. It was the alarm that warned he was nearing the vertical
point of no return. Once he dropped to that height, it would be too late
to open his canopy. His heart began to pound. He forced his body upright
and pulled the ripcord handle.

There was a momentary whispering of air above as the tightly packed
parachute unfolded. He looked up, hoping … and his body suddenly
lurched against the harness straps. The canopy was open, the harness had
held, and he was back on schedule.

All noise vanished. He threw the ripcord handle away. He swung gently
and floated downward, the black canopy flaring above. The GPS unit
reported he was slightly off course, and he corrected by pulling on the
steering lines. The one thing he must not do was collapse the canopy by
steering too wildly. Once steady on course again, he looked down and saw
lights closer than he expected. That always happened. The ground seemed
to rush up faster than you anticipated, because as you drifted, you had
no idea of your descending speed.

He looked down again. The lights came from windows in scattered clusters
of houses and villages. In the middle was darkness–a wide, black space.

That had to be his target area, at last.

He silently thanked the satellite photos of the Dazu area, all those
navy people who had calculated the drop, and the windless weather. He
jettisoned everything he could–oxygen tank, gloves, insulated flight
cap. But as the ground sped up toward him, it was still invisible.

Worriedly, he checked his altimeter. Still one hundred feet. A matter of
just a few seconds to impact.

When he saw the ground clearly–a plowed field as advertised–he felt
suddenly comfortable. He knew exactly what to do. He relaxed, spread his
feet apart, bent his knees, and hit. As his shoes sank into the soft,
broken earth, a dull wave of pain rolled through him, a legacy from the
beating this morning. He pushed the pain from his mind. He bounced up
slightly, settled back, caught his balance, and heaved himself upright.
The rich scent of the dark soil filled his mind. The canopy flowed
silently to the earth behind.

Alone in the night in almost the middle of the field, he listened. He
heard quiet insect sounds but not the distant noise of motors. The
Chengyu Expressway from Chongqing to Chengdu was somewhere close, but at
this late hour on a Sunday night, few cars would be traveling. Shadowy
in the distance, black stands of trees stood like sentries. Quickly, he
removed all his instruments and harnesses, stripped off the insulated
jumpsuit, gathered up the black chute, and used his entrenching tool to
bury everything, except the GPS unit. He had finished covering the cache
when he heard a faint noise, distant and metallic. As if two small
pieces of metal had bumped into each other.

He waited. Tense, straining to hear in the night. A minute. Two. The
faint noise did not occur again.

He unhooked his MP5K minisubmachine gun, removed the harness that had
held it stationary during his jump, and slung the weapon over his
shoulder. Next he dug a shallower opening and laid the entrenching tool
and harness inside. He used his hands to pile soil over it.

Brushing the dirt from his hands, he unslung the MP5K, read the GPS unit
to find his directions, and hooked it to his gun belt. At last, he
headed across the field toward the line of trees. They were a darker,
more ragged black against the lighter black of the night sky. As always,
he scanned around, watching the horizon, the distant lights, and the
tree line.

Within two minutes, he thought he saw movement at the edge of the trees.

Thirty seconds later, he dove onto his stomach, his submachine gun
grasped in both hands. He picked night binoculars from his gun belt,
snapped them over his eyes, and examined the row of timber. There was a
small structure inside the trees that could be a shed, a cottage, or a
house. It was too vague in the binoculars’ greenish light for him to be
certain. He thought he saw a farm wagon and a two-wheeled cart, too.

None of it moved. Nothing. Not even a cow or a dog.

Still, he had seen something. Whatever it was, it appeared to be gone.

He waited another two minutes. At last, he hooked the binoculars back
onto his gun belt. He checked the luminous dial of the GPS unit again,
climbed to his feet, and moved off.

Once more, he heard the noise. His throat tightened. Now he knew exactly
what it was: A pistol hammer had been cocked. As he hurried on, the
shapes seemed to rise from the field itself, as if from mythical
dragon’s teeth. Shadows encircled him. Shadows with weapons, all trained
on him. Crouched in the dark field, his MP5K ready in his hands, Jon
tensed to make a move, any move. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. The lads
are rather nervous.” He saw a stir in the dark ranks around him. They
had blackened faces but no uniforms. Instead, they wore baggy clothes
and close-fitting wool caps. In the same instant, he also realized that
the voice that had cautioned him in good British English was familiar.

Even as he thought all this, the ragged troops parted, and the speaker
walked through. “Someone named Fred Klein said you might care for help.”

There was a flash of white teeth as Asgar Mahmout smiled briefly and
continued forward, the same old AK-47 slung muzzle down over his
shoulder. He held out his hand. “Good to see you again.” Jon shook it,
and the Uighers closed in protectively, watching over their shoulders
for trouble. “Christ, man,” Asgar said, staring. “Your face looks like
dog vomit. What the devil happened to you?”