Covert One 4 - The Altman Code (56 page)

There’s no time to get even a copy to China and hope that’s enough to
convince the hardliners. 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 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 around 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.”

He gave the AK-47 a shove and let it fall on the far side of the limo.

He raised his hands high over his head.

Trembling, David Thayer dropped the Beretta and put his hands on the top
of his Mao cap. His few hours of freedom had ended. “Alas,” he
whispered.

The eight soldiers in front, supporting their two wounded, rose from the
brush and advanced. They picked up the discarded weapons, grinning as
two more soldiers appeared behind Thayer and Chiavelli. Apparently,
there were twelve men in a PLA infantry squad.

The officer–a captain with his pistol out–stopped in front of them,
speaking angrily. Thayer translated, “He’s asking who we are. He’s
figured out we’re Americans. He … oh, God.” He glanced at Chiavelli.

“He wants to know whether we’re part of the spy team with Colonel Jon
Smith.”

In the valley of the Baoding Crescent, Feng Dun’s surviving gunslingers
and soldiers had taken cover and were beginning to return a weak,
sporadic fire.

“Cease fire,” Jon told Asgar.

“You’re sure, my friend? Some are still alive and kicking. Shouldn’t we
go down and mop up? At least, make sure that monster Feng Dun is dead.

I’m fairly certain I hit him.”

“No! Fan out and search the slopes wherever Li Kuonyi could have hidden
but seen what happened. The survivors will run away now.”

“You think–?”

“She and Yu are up there somewhere with the manifest. Let’s find them.”

Asgar gave the order, urging his men to sweep through the vegetation at
a dog trot, circling around Feng’s remaining men. “It’s less than an
hour until dawn, and that firefight will have been heard halfway to
Chongqing.”

“I know.” Jon trotted ahead over the difficult terrain. He looked left
and right at the long Uigher line as they searched. He knew their
chances were slight, plus time was running out. They had little time to
locate Li and Yu, get the manifest, and somehow send it to Washington.

Suddenly, gunfire echoed from less than a hundred yards ahead. Jon
wrenched his head around, staring at a spot directly above and to the
left of the Sleeping Buddha. Gunfire from an assault rifle–and response
from a single pistol.

“Hold it,” Jon called to Asgar. He crouched in the brush.

Asgar raised his hand to stop his fighters and lowered it palm down to
tell them to go to ground and be quiet. He whispered, “What do you
think, Jon?”

“Feng maybe?”

Asgar grimaced in regret. “We should’ve hied ourselves down to examine
the bodies in the valley.”

“There wasn’t time. We had to try to get to Li Kuonyi first.”

“If it’s Feng, it seems we failed.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Motioning his men to move quietly, Asgar joined Jon. Minutes later, the
line of Uighers approached a clearing. Asgar signaled to stop at the
edge where they could retain cover. Jon nodded to their left. The
clearing ended at the cliff above the crescent of carvings, where
someone looking down would have a direct view of the valley as well as
the slope and walkway in front of the Sleeping Buddha.

“Li Kuonyi could’ve seen everything from there,” Jon said.

Asgar sighed and nodded.

On their right, an assault rifle fired a short burst of three from a
towering rock formation, where clusters of large boulders jutted above
the trees and brush. It was some fifty yards from the edge of the cliff,
overlooking the Buddha valley.

The gunfire was answered by a single pistol shot from a grove of trees
closer to the edge, directly in front of where Jon, Asgar, and the
Uighers hid. The bullet exploded sharp, deadly stone chips from the rock
formation.

“Look,” Asgar said.

Only ten yards from the cluster of rocks, closer to where Jon and the
Uighers watched, was a smaller rock group. A large tree had fallen
across the boulders, and Jon saw movement behind it. As he studied it,
the assault rifle squeezed off another short burst from its higher
vantage point, detonating wood splinters from the fallen tree.

A low, mesmerizing voice Jon had hoped never to hear again said in
English, “A neat trap, Madame Li. As good as any I’ve seen. Your hired
hands killed many of my men, but–unluckily for you–failed to kill me.”

Li Kuonyi, her musical tones as calm as if she were greeting a visitor
in her Shanghai living room, spoke from behind the fallen tree,
protected from the rear by the rocks. “I also failed to get the money. I
expect you have that, which makes me surprised that you returned.” Feng
said, “I still need the invoice manifest, and I suspect, dear lady,
you’ve run out of ammunition. You should be dead, and I’d have it,
except for your friend over there in the trees. I wonder who he could
be?”

Asgar whispered, “Why are they speaking English?”

“Damned if I know,” Jon said. “Maybe Feng’s got some men hidden
somewhere that he doesn’t want to know what they’re saying.”

Li Kuonyi was mocking: “There are many things you don’t know, Feng.”

A man’s voice sounded nervously from next to her: “You should’ve kept
the manifest when you had it, Feng. None of this would’ve happened. No
one would’ve been hurt.”

“Ah? A pleasure to hear you again, boss. Foolish of me to believe you’d
kill yourself, even for the future of your family. But, then, your
salvation was Madame Li’s doing, wasn’t it? My mistake. I knew who the
man was in your house long ago.” Li Kuonyi said, “You always did talk
too much, Feng. Since you say you want the manifest very much still, we
might be interested in the money in your possession.”

“All business as usual, Madame? The same arrangement as before, I trust.