Strike Zone (28 page)

Cortend said nothing for a moment. “My father's name was Harold Bernkie. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Hardly,” said Rubeo.

For the first time since she had come to the base, Cortend smiled. “It shouldn't. In the 1950s, he was a very promising scientist. And then his name was linked with the Communist Party. He was blacklisted and couldn't get work. He's my father, so obviously I think he was a genius, but of course that really isn't for me to say. I only know that he eventually became an electrician. A very good one, in my opinion, though I suppose that too is neither here nor there. This hasn't been a witch hunt. I've been extremely fair.”

“That's a matter of opinion.”

Cortend shook her head. “No. I believe that you will find that I have been thorough, that I have been a stickler for details, and I have pursued any and all leads. Those were and remain my orders. As far as your Miss
Gleason goes, I never charged her with a crime or recommended any disciplinary action against her.”

“That's because your investigation wasn't complete,” said Rubeo. “Don't banter definitions around.”

“You are a scientist. You're precise in your work. I am precise in mine,” said Cortend. “No charges were filed against your coworker. I was here on an informal basis precisely to spare you and your people the ordeal of a full-blown inquiry. Believe me, it would have been ten times worse.”

“I doubt that is possible.”

Cortend took a long, labored breath. “I've been informed that there are explanations for what appeared to be omissions concerning the conferences. Given those explanations, I see no need to make any recommendation concerning her to the commander.”

Rubeo wasn't sure exactly what to say. He remained angry—extremely angry. This idiot had cost him one of the top scientists in the world, who even now refused to get out of bed, claiming to be sick.

“The data that you have gathered would appear to exonerate Dreamland completely,” said Cortend. “Coupled with the information about the aircraft's physical characteristics, it would appear very convincing.”

“You're not going to imply that we created it,” said Rubeo.

“I'm sure you're clever enough to do so,” said Cortend. “But no, Doctor, I don't believe that for a moment. And more importantly, there is no evidence suggesting that you did. There is no evidence suggesting that anyone at Dreamland is anything less than a dedicated and patriotic American. Good day.”

That was it? She was giving up?

She was giving up.

Truth and reason had won?

Truth and reason had
won
. The Inquisition was over.

Rubeo, unsure exactly what to say, turned and left the room.

Approaching Chiang Kai-shek Airport, Taipei
13 September 1997
0600

“A
RE YOU AWAKE?”

Danny Freah floated for a moment, caught in dream limbo between sleep and waking. He saw his wife, he saw the hard-assed Colonel Cortend, he saw two brown eyes staring down at him asking whether he was awake.

“Yeah,” he said, pushing up in the seat.

“The pilot is asking everyone to put their seat belts on,” said the stewardess.

“Oh. Thanks.” Danny smiled and pushed his head forward, as if trying to swim away from the back of the seat. Bits and pieces of the dream fluttered away, just out of reach of his conscious mind.

Jemma and Colonel Cortend—God, what a combination.

“It's beautiful from the air, isn't it?” said the woman next to him. Her name was Alice something-or-other, and she was a programmer for a computer firm who traveled a lot between LA and Asia.

No, she worked for a company that manufactured rubber boots. The programmer thing came from his dream.

“Yeah,” said Danny, leaning forward to see past her. Their arms touched and he felt a shock go through his
body; he jerked back, as if the touch had been something else.

“Temperature's only eighty degrees, Fahrenheit,” said Alice. “Humidity is supposed to be pretty low. I don't remember the percentage.”

“That's good.”

Danny avoided her eyes, inexplicably feeling guilty about sitting next to her, as if he were somehow being disloyal to his wife.

He'd spoken only briefly to the woman before falling asleep—the civilian flight had proven to be among the most comfortable he'd ever taken—and their conversation had hardly been intimate: he'd given his basic cover story, claiming that he was working for a banking company as a security consultant, and then spoke of New York City as if he lived there.

Which he did, since his wife had their apartment there.

Alice was a middle-aged businesswoman, nice enough, but not really attractive to Danny. He was impressed that even though she was white, her voice didn't have the forced tone white strangers sometimes took with him, the “I'm really not a jerk and please let me prove it by being nice to you” tone that the best-intentioned stranger sometimes betrayed. But no way was he having sexual fantasies about her, not even if she had been ten years younger and maybe twenty-five pounds lighter.

So why was he feeling guilty about Jemma?

Because he'd changed his mind about leaving the Air Force to run for Congress?

He had changed his mind, hadn't he? Even though he hadn't really thought about it.

The plane rocked slightly as it settled into its final approach. Danny felt his neighbor's arm jostle against his and once more thought of his wife. He was still thinking of her a few minutes later when they parked at the terminal and passengers began disembarking. He waited for the others nearby to clear out, then rose and pulled open the overhead compartment where his suit jacket and carry-on were. He took out his seatmate's as well.

“Thanks. Don't forget, if you need a guide, give me a call,” said Alice.

“Right,” said Danny. He gestured toward his shirt pocket, remembering that he had put her card there hours ago. She gave him a smile, then bumped her way toward the front of the plane with her heavy carry-on.

Danny's civilian sport coat was a little tight at the shoulders, and he felt the squeeze as he waited in the terminal to complete the arrival processing. He eyed the line behind him as he approached the clerk, professional paranoia suddenly kicking in. By the time he made it through the passport check his heart had started to beat double-time, and he sensed he was being shadowed. He turned left in the large hallway, then saw the row of limo drivers holding signs up for arriving passengers.

And there was Liu, holding up his placard as if he were a driver.

“Mr. Freah?” asked Liu as Danny stood in front of him.

The sergeant was of Chinese extraction, but even Danny could tell that he looked different from the other
drivers. He wore the right clothes, his short hair and smile seemed to fit, but there was something American about the way he filled the space—his shoulders rolled as he moved, as if he were a linebacker waiting for a blitz.

“This way,” said the sergeant, starting to the left.

“Should have insisted he take your bag,” said someone behind him.

It was Stoner.

“Hey,” said Danny.

“If you guys are going to play spy, you got to work on the routine,” said Stoner, moving ahead briskly.

Stoner had an overnight bag under his arm, as if he were an arriving traveler. In fact, Liu and Stoner had come up from Brunei the night before on a leased airliner, bringing along some of Dreamland's high-tech gear with them. They had landed at a military base, which allowed them to move their equipment in without much notice. Still, as a security precaution Liu had brought along only a few essential items, including a short-range communications unit that could upload surveillance information to Dreamland. Danny had more gear and men en route to Brunei in case things got more interesting.

The muggy outside air felt as if they'd stepped into a shower room, even though it was balmy by local standards. He followed as Liu and Stoner turned left, continuing past both the taxis and the rentals. A small blue Toyota darted through the lot and headed toward them as Liu stepped off the curb; Danny grabbed for his sergeant.

It was just their driver pulling up. Stoner smirked and got into the front seat; Danny and Liu took the back.

“Jack is from the American-Asian Business Coalition,” Stoner told them. “That's where he learned to drive.”

The driver, who looked no more than fourteen, turned and grinned. He seemed to be Chinese, though obviously in the employ of the CIA. Since America did not officially recognize Taiwan, there was no embassy; interests were handled at the American Institute. Danny gathered that the American-Asian Business Coalition was a “trade” organization that was one of several fronts used by the CIA in Taiwan.

“We have a few places to check out,” Stoner said. “I'd like to get started right away.”

“Fine with me,” said Danny.

“Satellite transmitter is in the trunk,” said Liu. “We ran a diagnostic on the way over. Sat phone connects without a problem.”

“Good,” said Danny. The phone and transmitter tied into the Dreamland system normally used by the Smart Helmets and Dreamland aircraft to communicate. The transmitter took information from a variety of sensors and sent it back to Dream Command for real-time analysis.

“Colonel Bastian is working on getting a Megafortress up here as part of the ASEAN exercises,” added Liu. “They want to keep the cover story intact, so he sent us ahead while he worked on it.”

“That's fine,” said Danny. The captain smiled to himself, thinking there was little need for a Mega
fortress, though it was just like the colonel to line one up. No self-respecting zippersuit could stand to see an operation under way without air support.

Danny reached into the bag for the viewer he'd brought from Dreamland. Shaped like a large pair of opera glasses, the device could present different “slices” of heat at a depth up to roughly one hundred meters. The information from these views would be analyzed by specialists back at Dream Command, who could use them to draw a diagram of a building's interior and what was going on inside. But the device's sensor plane had to be kept cool for it to work properly; he slid it into a bag that looked like a collapsible lunch bag and twisted a plastic container at the bottom that released liquid nitrogen into the cooling cells.

Danny also had a Geiger counter and radiation analyzer, which measured alpha, beta, and gamma radiation and could identify fifty-five isotopes. He also had a number of self-activated bugs, video spy devices, and motion detectors.

“First target is near Sungshan, the domestic airport not far from here,” said Stoner. “The others are in the south on the coast near Kaohisiung. We'll drive over to the site near the airport, look around. Then we'll arrange for a helicopter at the airport. All the easy spots have been looked at already by my associates, and I don't know how close we're going to get to the ones that are left on our list, so this may all take a while.”

Taipei
0805

W
ITH EVERY SECOND
that passed waiting for the elevator in the lobby of his grandfather's building, Chen Lo Fann felt the weight against his chest grow. He could not avoid his solemn duty to tell his grandfather that he had failed, even though the disappointment his grandfather would feel would surely hurt the old man as gravely as any injury he had ever felt.

Surely, his grandfather already knew that he had failed. The communists had not attacked the Americans or the ASEAN fleet, despite their rhetoric. Nor had they called off the summit.

The criminals were cowards at heart. That was why they picked on lesser nations instead of facing truly worthy opponents. Chen Lee no doubt knew this.

But that did not remove his grandson's duty to inform him.

Chen Lo Fann had rehearsed what to say for hours, thinking of it the whole way back to Taiwan aboard the helicopter, as if the right phrase might save him. But finally he'd conceded to himself that the words themselves were insignificant.

Professor Ai had taken the helicopter back with him, and offered to come along to talk to Chen Lee, perhaps thinking he could soften the blow. But Chen Lo Fann had politely declined. There were other things the professor must see to in Kaohisiung; facing the old man was Fann's duty.

The elevator opened. Chen Lo Fann stepped in.

He remembered jumping up to tap the button as a
child. The memory pushed down against his shoulders as the car slowly made its way upward.

The secretaries stared at him as he got off. Chen Lo Fann lowered his gaze toward the carpet, walking the familiar steps to his grandfather's office suite. The two security guards stepped aside as he approached, as if they didn't want to be polluted with his failure.

It wasn't his failure, it was the communists'. And most especially the treacherous president's, their supposed leader. A coward, a quisling, a traitor.

Chen Lee's secretary nodded. He could proceed.

Chen Lo Fann went to the door to his grandfather's office, his hand hesitating on the knob. He opened it with a burst of resolve; he would face his grandfather like a man.

Chen Lee sat at his desk, his back to the door, staring out the window. Chen Lo Fann stepped forward, waiting for the old man to turn around. He waited for nearly five minutes, until the clock struck the quarter hour.

“My plan has failed, Grandfather,” he said, no longer able to bear the weight on his chest. “The mongrels will not make war and the president will go ahead with his meeting.”

The old man said nothing.

Chen thought of what to suggest. Assassination had been debated; as desperate as it was, perhaps it was the best option now. The only option.

But there would be other traitors. The people to strike were the communists, the usurpers. Chen had suggested bombing the capital with the UAV, but they did not possess a strong enough weapon to guarantee the death of all the thieves.