Covert One 4 - The Altman Code (8 page)

As it turned out, Flying Dragon was the only shipping company. As they
drank their coffee, they hurried through the directories of the other
office buildings on the block. They found four more companies that could
have ties to global transportation. Then they found a street vendor who
sold jianing, an egg and green-onion omelette folded over chili sauce.

This time, Andy bought.

As soon as they had finished their omelettes, Smith was on the move
again. “Time to check the last Starbucks.”

It proved to be in a shopping center in the new business development
zone around Hongqiao Airport on Hongqiao Lu. There were no companies
connected to shipping nearby, and Smith told Andy to drive back to the
hotel.

“Okay, we’ve got five possibilities,” Smith said, all close enough to
the second Starbucks for an informant to use it as a place to pass his
information on to Mondragon. How good are you on a computer?”

“How good was Grant at winning battles?”

“Access the five companies on the Internet, and look for the name Zhao
Yanji among their staff.”

“Consider it done.” They drove on. As they neared the Bund, Jon said,
“Is there another way into the Peace Hotel besides the front and
employees’ entrances?”

“Yeah. Around the corner on an intersecting street.”

“Good.

Take me there.” As Andy drove through a dizzying tangle of thoroughfares
and alleys, Smith looked him up and down. “You’re almost my height. Your
pants should be long enough, and that leather jacket of yours is big
enough for a buffalo. With your Mao cap, I’ll pass for Shanghainese,
unless someone gets too close to my face. You’ll be a scarecrow in my
suit, but you don’t have to wear the jacket.”

“Thanks. I think.” As they approached the hotel, Smith told Andy where
to park. He struggled out of his clothes in the small car. Andy turned
off the motor and did the same. The leather jacket was fine on Smith.
The trousers were an inch short, but they would do. He pulled the Mao
cap down almost to his eyes and stepped out of the Jetta. He leaned down
to the open window. “Do that research, have an early dinner, and pick me
up here in two hours.”

Andy brightened. “That’s too soon for shows or club hopping. What’s our
gig?”

“You don’t have a gig. You’re waiting in the car. I’m going to do a bit
of breaking and entering. How much’ll depend on what you find out.”

“I can help on the b and e, too. I’m a cat.”

“Next time.” Andy frowned, disappointed. “I’m not the patient sort.”

“Work on it.” Smith liked the interpreter. He grinned and walked off.
The noise was clamorous, the streets as always mobbed. He saw no one
tailing, but he took no chances. Blending into the surge of
Shanghainese, he let the throngs carry him toward the Bund. Only when he
reached the doors to the hotel did he push his way free and stride
inside. At dusk two hours later, purple light enveloped Shanghai, and a
sense of Asia’s lush beauty softened the hard-edged skyline. Andy An
paused his car to let Smith off a block from the building that housed
Flying Dragon Enterprises, International Trade & Shipping. Since most of
the night’s action had already headed off to Old Town, the French
Concession, and Huangpu, the street was very different now, half
deserted.

Andy’s research had made the target definite: Zhao Yanji was the
treasurer of Flying Dragon, which was housed in the high-rise directly
across the street from the second Starbucks they had visited that day.

It made sense to Smith. A clandestine seller of highly sensitive
material who conducted sales during working hours would want to be away
from his or her job as short a time as possible and on a believable
errand, such as getting coffee at a nearby Starbucks. If Zhao Yanji was
that person, he had a perfect outlet at the obviously popular Starbucks.

If all went well, Smith would be back in plenty of time for dinner at
nine o’clock with Dr. Liang and his fellow scientists. If events went
against him … well, he would deal with that, too.

As the Jetta plowed off into the twilight, Smith walked toward the
highest office building, covertly watching everyone and everything. He
was dressed in a black sweater, black jeans, and soft-soled, flexible
shoes. On his back was a light pack, also black. He looked up. The
building that housed Flying Dragon blazed with light, a contributor to
the city’s dazzling night skyline. Across the street, the Starbucks was
still open, a scattering of coffee drinkers sitting at the small round
tables in a hyperrealistic display reminiscent of an Edward Hopper
painting. The air had that faint diesel odor of all cities, with touches
of Asian spices and garlic.

Through the high-rise’s plate-glass windows, Smith saw a single
uniformed guard, dozing behind a security desk in the lobby. Smith might
be able to slip past, but the risk was unnecessary. The modern building
should have all the customary features.

He continued past to the driveway that led down into a lighted, but
closed garage. About ten feet beyond the ramp was an exit door to the
fire stairs. Just what he needed. He tried it. It was locked from
inside. He used the picklocks disguised as surgical instruments he
carried in his medical kit. The door opened on the fourth try.

He slid inside, closed it quietly behind, returned the picklocks to his
backpack, and listened in the empty stairwell. It stretched upward out
of sight. He waited two minutes and began climbing. His soft-soled shoes
made little sound. Flying Dragon Enterprises was on the eighth story.

Twice he froze, remaining motionless as a door opened somewhere above
and footsteps reverberated.

At the eighth floor, he took a stethoscope from his backpack and used it
to listen through the door. Satisfied there was neither sound nor
movement on the other side, he pulled open the door and stepped into a
green-carpeted, white-walled waiting area decorated in ultramodern
chrome, glass, and suede.

A wide corridor, with the same white walls and emerald carpet, led to a
cross corridor of double doors–some of glass and others of polished
wood. The corridor stretched in both directions. Flying Dragon
Enterprises turned out to be the third set of double-glass doors. Smith
glanced in casually as he passed. There was a lightless reception area.

Behind it was a large, lighted office of long rows of empty desks, with
a wall of windows behind the desks. Solid doors lined the inner walls
right and left.

On his third pass, he tried the entrance doors. They were unlocked.

Eager but wary, he slipped inside and wove soundlessly among the
furniture to the solid door in the far corner. The door was marked in
both Chinese and English gold lettering: yu yongfu, president and
chairman. No light showed beneath the door.

He slid inside and, using the illumination from the open doorway,
crossed to a large desk. He switched the lamp there onto low beam. The
small column of yellow light gave the office a dim, ghostly affect that
would not be evident down on the street.

He closed the outer door and surveyed the room, impressed. It was not a
prized corner office, but it was so mammoth that its size more than
compensated. The view was pure prestige, too–sweeping from the river
and the towers of Pudong to the historic Bund, northeast Shanghai across
Suzhou Creek, and finally back to the river as it curved east and headed
downstream to the Yangtze.

The most important piece of furniture to Smith was a three-drawer filing
cabinet, which stood against the left wall. There was also a white suede
sofa with matching armchairs, a glass Noguchi coffee table, a wall of
leather-bound books to the right, original Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol
paintings here and there, and a panoramic photo of
turn-of-the-nineteenth-century British Shanghai. The desk itself was
mahogany, and enormous, but in this office seemed small. The office told
a story: Yu Yongfu, president and chairman, had made it big and gaudy in
New China, and he wanted everyone to know it. Smith hurried to the
cabinet. It was locked, but his picks made short work of it. He pulled
out the top drawer. The folders were filed alphabetically –in English,
with the words duplicated in Chinese. Another of Yu Yongfu’s grandiose
affectations.

When he located the file for The Dowager Empress, he exhaled. He had
been holding his breath without realizing it. He opened the file right
there, on top of the cabinet, but all he could find were useless
internal memos and the manifests of old voyages. His worry growing, he
kept at it. Finally, with the last document, there it was–the manifest.

His excitement dimmed as he studied it. The dates were right, as were
the ports on both ends of the journey, Shanghai and Basra. But the cargo
was wrong. It was a list of what the freighter allegedly
carried–radios, CD players, black tea, raw silk, and other innocent
freight. It was a copy of the official manifest, filed with the export
board. A smoke screen. Angrily he returned to the cabinet, searching
through the other file drawers, but found nothing more that related to
the Empress. As he closed and relocked the cabinet, he grimaced. He
would not give up. There must be a safe somewhere. He scanned the huge
office and considered what sort of person would create it–vain,
self-congratulatory, and obvious. Of course. Obvious. He turned back to
the filing cabinet. Above it hung the panoramic picture of old British
Shanghai. He lifted the framed photo from the wall, and there it
was–the safe. A simple wall safe, with no time lock or any other
advanced electronics he could see. His picklocks would … “Who are
you?” demanded a voice in heavily accented English. He turned slowly,
quietly, making no provocative move. Standing in the gray light of the
doorway was a short, heavy Chinese man who wore rimless glasses. He was
aiming a Sig Sauer at Smith’s belly.

Beijing Night was one of Beijing’s best times, when the slow
transformation from terrible pollution and gray socialist lifestyles to
unleaded fuels and cutting-edge fun was apparent in pockets of vibrant
nightlife under a starry sky that was once impenetrable through city
smog. Karaoke and solemn band music were out. Discos, pubs, clubs, and
restaurants with live music and fine food were in. Beijing was still
firmly Communist, but seductive capitalism was having its way. The city
was shrugging off its dreariness and growing affluent.

Still, Beijing was not yet the economic paradise the Politburo
advertised. In fact, ordinary citizens were losing their fight against
gentrification and being forced out of the city, because they could no
longer afford the cost of living. It was the dark side of the new day.

This mattered to the Owl, if not to some of the others on the Standing
Committee. He had studied Yeltsin’s failure to stop Russia’s greedy
oligarchs and the near-destruction of the Russian economy that resulted.

China needed a more measured approach to its restructuring.

But first, the Owl had the human-rights treaty with the United States to
protect. It was critical to his plans for a democratic, socially
conscious China.

Tonight was a special meeting of the nine-member Standing Committee.

From under his half-closed eyes, he studied the faces of his eight
colleagues at the ancient imperial table in the Zhongnanhai meeting
room. Which man should concern him? In the party and, therefore, in the
government, a rumor was not merely a rumor–it was a call for support.

Which meant one of the solemn older men or the smiling younger ones was
reassessing his position on the human-rights agreement, even as Niu
waited to make his report.

Half blind behind his thick glasses, their leader–the august general
secretary –was unlikely to resort to spreading a rumor, Niu decided. No
one would oppose him openly. Not this year. And where he went, his
acolyte from their days in Shanghai would always follow. That one had
the face of an executioner and was too old and too committed to his boss
to ever be secretary himself. He had no reason to bother with fighting
the treaty.

The four beaming younger men were possibilities. Each was assembling
backers to strengthen his power base, but at the same time all were
modern men and, as such, strong proponents of good relations with the
West. Since the treaty was important to the current U.S. president,
persuading them to reverse their support would be difficult.

That left two potentials, one of which was Shi Jingnu, with the fat,
grinning face of the silk merchant’s clerk he once was. To paraphrase
Shakespeare, he smiled and smiled but was a villain. The second
possibility was bald, narrow-eyed, never-smiling Wei Gaofan, who as a
young soldier had once met the incomparable Chu Teh and never moved
beyond that moment.

The Owl nodded to himself inside his own sleepy smile. One of those two.
They were old guard, fighting to maintain power as the specter of
irrelevance breathed chills down the backs of their ancient, wrinkled
necks.

“Jianxing, you have not commented on Shi Jingnu’s report?” The general
secretary smiled to show he knew the Owl was not sleeping.

“I have no comment,” the Owl–Niu Jianxing–said.

“Then do you have a security report to make?”

“One matter came up today, Chairman,” Niu said. “Dr. Liang Tianning, the
director of the Shanghai Biomedical Research Institute, invited an
eminent American microbiologist, Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, M. D., to
visit his institute and speak to his researchers. He–”

Wei Gaofan interrupted, “When did the Americans begin to give military
rank to scientists? Is this another example of the warmongering of–”

“The Colonel,” Niu snapped back, “is a medical doctor and works at the
United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, a
world-renowned Level Four installation similar to our biomedical
establishments in Beijing and Shanghai.”