The Einstein Papers (30 page)

“This is not a drill. We are live fire. Remove pins and arm the weapons.”

Silently the specialists saluted and continued their tasks. Saud climbed up the ladder to the cockpit and waited as his crew chief unhooked the ladder. Moving to the front of the jet, where Saud could see him, the crew chief signaled that it was clear to start the plane s engines. A hum was followed by a whirring sound that gave way to buzzing, then a blast as the jet fuel ignited and spun the turbine.

The crew chief motioned for the front door of the hangar to be opened. Set on hydraulic rams, the door shot up and locked in place. At a signal from the crew chief one member of the weapons specialist team pulled the chocks from the wheels of the jet then ran to the far walls to stay clear of the jet blast. With a salute from his crew chief General Saud edged the throttles forward on the jet. The plane rolled across the hangar floor, through the door and down a slight rise. Gaining speed quickly, Saud lifted into the air. The entire process from telephone call to liftoff had lasted but a few minutes.

Once airborne, General Sultan Saud banked his British-made Tornado fighter to the left and dropped low over the desert. Cruising at an altitude of less than one hundred feet, he had to be aware of his terrain. Far off in the distance he could just make out the thin metal ribbon that was the pipeline.

“I have a visual on the pipeline. Go or no go?”

“It’s a go,” the control tower at the military city said.

Flicking his fire control button, Saud activated his weapons system. He watched as the image of the pipeline appeared in his heads-up display. General Saud carefully aligned the crosshairs until the pipeline was framed in the display. As soon as the light indicator flicked green, showing the missiles had locked on the target, Saud pushed his firing button with his thumb.

Twin Phoenix missiles streaked from his wingtips. On impact they blasted a ten-yard hole in the pipeline. Saud passed over the pipeline and reviewed the damage. Banking again, he observed a replay of the missile strike through film shot from his wingtip cameras. There was no oil visible on the ground.

He banked again, passing over the hole in the pipeline and stared at the ground one last time. No oil was being spilled on the ground from the jagged hole.

“I’m still dry,” Saud radioed back to his base. “I’m moving twenty miles farther down the line. I’m down to two missiles. If I don’t strike oil this time, alert the ready one plane to lift off.”

“Roger that, General,” the air traffic controller said. “Ready one to stand by.”

Banking again, Saud pushed his throttles forward and flew farther down the pipeline. Once the pipeline was framed in his heads-up display he, stared at it for a moment, then climbed straight in the air.

Arcing around in a 7 G-force turn, Saud again lined up perpendicular to the pipeline. Pushing his firing button with his thumb he loosed a single high-explosive missile. Saud broke left to avoid the shower of burning oil and smoke. The charge blew a hole in the pipeline ten yards wide. A cloud of black smoke rose high in the air.

With a single missile remaining, General Sultan had struck oil.

In Israel, defense forces began to search the homes of suspected Palestinian terrorists as the bombings continued. In Tel Aviv, the explosion of a bomb outside a department store killed ten Israeli citizens. In Jerusalem, an Islamic religious service was interrupted by the blast of a bomb. Eighteen Palestinians were killed and wounded. The Israeli prime minister declared a state of emergency and suspended travel between cities.

The mobilization of American forces to the Middle East moved swiftly. U.S. Air Force planes were ferried from Japan, Korea, Diego Garcia, Guam, and Taiwan to bases in the region. Army and Marine units were deployed from Asia, Europe, and the United States. The ready response troops landed at a base in Sudan, just across the Red Sea from the conflict, and began to set up camp. The U.S. Navy ordered the Seventh Fleet redeployed from the South China Sea and the Philippines. The ships of the fleet began racing toward the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea while vessels from Norway, Great Britain, and Italy were ordered to the Mediterranean.

In Beijing, Tao arrived for his meeting with the prime minister.

“Our plan is working perfectly,” Tao noted. “The U.S. Navy is steaming toward the Middle East just as we had planned.”

“And the Einstein papers?” the prime minister inquired.

“We should have them in our possession in the next twenty-four hours. The courier has made contact and the plans for extraction are in motion.”

It would take a miracle now to save Taiwan.

A warm wind blew the fall leaves from the carefully assembled piles the groundskeepers had raked outside the office of the Special Security Service in Maryland. Sandra Miles leaned forward across her desk. She handed the report detailing the theft of Enviorco’s microbes to her partner, Chuck Smoot.

“Do me a favor and read through this before I file it with Allbright,” Miles said. “And be sure and tell me what you really think.” She began to check her E-mail while Smoot read.

Smoot read quickly through the seven-page report, then set it on the desk in front of him. “Reads good,” he said, “but you left out any theory about what the people who stole the microbes might try to do with them.”

“I did that on purpose. I’m not even sure who’s in possession of them now,” Miles said, “except that I’m reasonably sure it was the Chinese that had them stolen.”

“Chinese government or Chinese gangs?” Smoot asked.

“No idea,” Miles said.

“I can’t see why the Chinese government would want them,” Smoot hypothesized.

“Or the Chinese Triad gangs-unless they had someone who wanted to buy them,” said Miles.

“We might as well start finding out,” Smoot said. “Somebody’s going to be assigned to retrieve or destroy those bugs. You can bet on that. I would also imagine Allbright will want more technical information about the microbes themselves.”

“So you think the report is lacking?” Miles asked.

“There’s a lot of questions left unanswered,” Smoot said, “that’s for sure.”

“Technical Division can supply those,” Miles said, rising. “I’m going to drop this off at Allbright s office.”

“I’ll go with you,” Smoot said.

“But I thought you felt this report sucked,” Miles said, smiling.

“It does,” Smoot said, “but I know you, Sandra. And I know what you’re up to.”

“And what might that be?” Miles asked as the pair started off down the hall.

“You want to leave Allbright enough doubt so we have to continue to investigate and are assigned to the case,” Smoot said as they rounded the corner.

“Little old me do that?” Miles said. “That makes it sound like I planned it.”

Smoot paused at the door before knocking.

“Only because you did.”

Dick Allbright perused the report that was filed by CIA agent Jeff McBride and forwarded to the NIA. The report described his surveillance of the Carondelet and included photographs of the vessel. Allbright finished, then reached for the phone and dialed Benson’s extension.

“General Benson’s office.”

“This is Allbright.”

“Hold one minute, Mr. Allbright,” Mrs. Mindio said sweetly.

Benson was concentrating on the missing Einstein documents when Allbright telephoned. He was sitting at his desk with a pair of Special Security Service analysts, studying maps of the highways and rivers around Washington, D.C.

“Yeah, Dick, go ahead,” Benson said.

“I just read a report from a CIA agent. He was watching a Chinese spy vessel disguised as a fishing boat. The vessel left Norfolk, Virginia, last night. The agent claims the vessel was steaming north.”

“You think the vessel might be coming here?” Benson asked.

“It’s worth checking out,” Allbright noted.

“Makes sense. Combined with that call to the embassy the NSA intercepted, it’s pretty obvious what’s happening,” Benson noted.

“You must be thinking what I’m thinking,” Allbright said. ‘The ship from Norfolk is being ordered north to pick up the courier who’s holding the Einstein papers.”

“Just might be. What is the name of the vessel the CIA man was watching?” Benson asked.

“The vessel is named Carondelet.” Benson wrote the name down on a slip of paper. “I’ll call you right back, Dick. Let me see what I can find out.”

Benson dialed the number for the regional commander of the Coast Guard. His call was put through immediately.

“Commander Wright,” the Coast Guard officer said.

“General Earl Benson. I’m the head of the Special Security Service. I have a priority-one request.”

“How can the Coast Guard help you, General?” Wright said smoothly.

“I need to locate a ship named Carondelet. It left port in Norfolk last night steaming north.”

“We can do that for you,” Wright said. “Do you want us to detain the vessel after we locate it?”

“Not yet,” Benson said. “I just need to know the Carondelet’s current location.”

“I can have a Coast Guard chopper off the ground from Virginia Beach in twenty minutes to start the search. Luckily, Chesapeake Bay is not the easiest place to hide. What’s your number there, General? I’ll call you as soon as we have a sighting.”

Benson recited his direct number to Wright.

“I should be able to get you an answer within the hour,” Wright said.

Tsing slammed on the brakes of the stolen car. Back in the trees, off the road, he’d spotted a tumbledown barn. He waited until there was no traffic, then turned off the main road and drove down a road long overgrown with weeds and underbrush. Tsing stopped at the side of the barn and climbed from the car. Glancing at the barn, he noticed that painted on the faded and flaking red paint of the barn was an advertisement for Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco. He could smell cut hay from a field nearby and he flicked his hand at a fly that was buzzing around his head.

Tsing pried open a side door to the barn. The barn was mostly empty. Several piles of trash were heaped in the far comer. Along one side, in a grain bin, was piled ears of corn, now almost petrified. He walked to the doors.

Tsing surveyed the main barn doors and found them secured with a cheap lock. Returning to his stolen car, Tsing retrieved a tire iron from the trunk. Back inside the barn, he slid the tire iron under the lock and popped off the rusty clasp. Leaning the full weight of his body against the barn doors, Tsing managed to wedge the doors open far enough. Then he got the car and drove it inside the barn. After closing the barn doors, he wiped his hands on his handkerchief, then made his way back to the road and started hitchhiking.

He caught a ride with a college student in a van, ending up in White Plains, Maryland, where he spent the night in a cheap motel. Near checkout time, he walked to a nearby diner. There Tsing ate a meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and creamed corn. For dessert he enjoyed a slice of chocolate cake and a cup of coffee.

A death-row inmate could not have ordered a better meal.

When he finished the meal Tsing walked out to the side of the road and began hitchhiking south on 1-301. A series of rides, the last in the back of a farm truck, brought Tsing to Bel Alton, Maryland, by late afternoon. Checking carefully to see if he was being followed, he slipped into the woods and made his way to a cove on the Potomac River.

Tonight Tsing was due to be extracted.

That same afternoon, Taft and Martinez stopped for coffee in a cafe just off 1-95. Ordering their coffees to go, Taft grabbed several sugars and two creamers and tossed them in the sack. Once back inside the car he handed the sack to Martinez.

“There’s cream and sugar in the bottom of the sack. Why don’t you hand me mine first, though,” Taft said as he started the car and drove slowly through the parking lot.

Martinez handed one of the black coffees to Taft, then dug around in the sack. “You didn’t get any stirrers.”

Taft set his coffee in the cupholder, then reached in his coat pocket and withdrew a folding knife, which he flashed open with a fluid motion. “Here, stir your coffee with my knife.”

Exiting 1-95 for 1-17, Taft reached for his coffee in the cupholder. He snapped off the lid, tossed it in the rear of the car, and sipped the steaming liquid. Taft engaged the cruise control just as they drove past Camp A.P. Hill, then settled down in the drivers seat.

“I have some vacation time coming up. I think I’ll put in a request for time off,” Taft said as he blew across the cup to cool the coffee.

“Is this your retaliation for being pulled from the Einstein mission?” Martinez asked.

Taft exited onto Interstate 301. The drive would take them through Port Royal north to the turnoff for Potomac Beach. He turned and looked at Martinez.

“Not really, though I am pissed off about that. It just seems stupid to me for us to be assigned to inspect construction projects. What do either of us know about construction or electronics or advanced sonar?”

“Not much,” Martinez agreed, “but I do know one thing about this system.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s got to be one of the only times in the history of the United States procurement that a project has been finished ahead of time.”

“What is the contract completion date?” Taft asked as he took another sip of coffee.

“October 15th,” Martinez noted.

“Two and a half weeks ahead of schedule,” Taft said as he turned off toward Potomac Beach and began to look for the dirt road leading to the site. “Will wonders never cease.”

Commander Wright telephoned Benson forty-two minutes later. The Carondelet is anchored just north of the middle of the Potomac River near Point Lookout. Do you want me to have a cutter deployed to the area?”

Benson thought for a moment. “Okay. Can you keep your ship out of sight for now?”

“We can bring a cutter down from Baltimore and have it anchor around the point just out of view,” Wright answered. “That way, if you need it, it’s right there.”

“That would be perfect, Commander. I’ll order a few of my men down from Washington to observe the Carondelet from shore. For now, I just want to play a waiting game.”