The Altman Code c-4

by Robert Ludlum

  Smith was doubtful as he listened to the voices and heavy feet walking on a wood floor. They sounded even closer.

  But Mahmout showed no more interest. “Our hole is the only way any of them can find us. No one will notice it.” He had decided where their pursuers were, and he trusted his security. He pulled out more food, carried everything to two microwave ovens, and turned them on. As their dinner heated, he found two bottles of ale and sat at the table.

  He pointed to the second chair. “Trust me, Colonel.” The voices and feet continued to sound, but no one had appeared, and Smith was hungry. He sat, facing Mahmout, who opened bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale and poured them into common English pub imperial pint glasses, etched crowns and all.

  “Cheers and safe passage.” Mahmout raised his glass and cocked his head as if entertained by Smith’s nervousness.

  At last Smith shrugged. His throat was tinder dry from all the running.

  “What the hell. Bottoms up.” He drank deeply.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mahmout put down his glass and wiped foam from his mustache. “You should give us more credit, Colonel. This is as safe a house as any that your CIA maintains.”

  “Who’s us, and why do you have two names? One Chinese and one something else?”

  “Because the Chinese insist the land of my people is in China, so I must therefore be Chinese and have a Han name. Us are the Uighers.” He pronounced it weegahs. “I’m a Uigher from out in Xinjiang. Actually, a half Uigher, but that’s a technicality important only to my parents. My real name is Asgar Mahmout. At the metro, they called you Colonel Smith, and you obviously have military training. Do you have other names as well?”

  “Jon. Jon Smith. I’m a medical doctor and scientist who happens to be a military officer. And what the hell is a Uigher?”

  Mahmout took another gulp of ale and gave a wry smile. “Ah, Americans.

  You know so little of the world, so little of history, even, sadly, sometimes your own. Charming, energetic, and ignorant — that’s you Yanks.

  Allow me to enlighten you.”

  It was Smith’s turn to smile. He drank. “I’m all ears, as we ” say.”

  “Gentlemanly of you.” His voice rose with pride. “The Uighers are an ancient Turkic people. We’ve lived on the deserts, mountains, and steppes of eastern Central Asia since long, long before your Christ.

  Long, too, before the Chinese worked up the nerve to escape their eastern river valleys. We’re distant cousins of the Mongols and closer cousins of the Turks, Uzbeks, Kirghiz, and Kazakhs. We had grand kingdoms once — empires like you Americans hunger for now.” He circled his hand dramatically above his head, an imaginary sword in it. “We rode with the great Khan and with the legendary Timur. We ruled in Kashgar and owned the fabulous Silk Road that Marco Polo raved about on his visit to the Khan’s grandson, who by then, of course, had beaten the pompous Hans and taken over China himself.”

  He drained his ale. His voice was grim as he continued, “Now we’re the slaves, only worse. The Chinese force us to take Han names, speak Han, and behave like Han. They close our schools and refuse to teach us in anything but Han. They send millions of their own to populate our cities, destroy our way of life, and drive us from our farms into the desert or the high steppes with the Kazakhs, if we wish to survive as a people. They don’t let us pray to Allah, and they demolish our historic mosques. They’re stamping out our language, customs, and literature. My father was Han. He dazzled my mother with his money, status, and education. But when she refused to abandon Islam, to raise me and my sister as Han, to leave Kashgar for the pestilence of the Yangtze valley or the swamps of Guangzhou, he abandoned us.”

  “That must’ve been rough.”

  “Ghastly, actually.” He went to the refrigerator for another ale. He gestured, silently asking whether Smith wanted one, too.

  Smith nodded. “And your Brit accent?”

  “I was sent to England.” He brought the brown ales to the table and poured. “My mother’s father felt a Western-educated man would be useful.

  My people despair when I’m arrested.” He shrugged.

  “You studied in London?”

  “Eventually, yes. Public schools, then the London School of Economics.

  My education might seem rather useless here.” The microwaves sounded, announcing the food was ready. He brought the steaming platters and bowls and sat down again.

  “They want you ready to lead, if they ever get free. I assume you’re not the only one sent away to be educated.”

  “Of course not. There have been several dozen of us over the years, including my sister.”

  “Does the world know about you Uighers? What about the United Nations?”

  Asgar heaped stewed mutton cubes, onions, peppers, ginger slices, carrots, turnips, and tomatoes onto his plate, and Jon did, too. From the large bowl they took handfuls of a thick fried rice dish with more carrots and onions. As Asgar ate, he dipped the cubes of mutton into the dark liquid in the smaller bowl and accompanied it with one of the crisp pancakes, held like a slice of bread.

  Jon imitated him and found the food spicy and delicious.

  “The U. N.?” Asgar said between mouthfuls. “Of course, they know about us. But we have no standing, while China has an embarrassment of it. We want our land for growing crops and grazing our animals. China wants it because it’s rich. Oil. Gas. Minerals. You like the mutton?”

  “It’s delicious. What do you call the crisp flat fried bread?”

  “Nang.”

  “And the rice?”

  Asgar chuckled. He laughed a lot for someone who spoke so bitterly.

  “It’s called ‘ eaten with the hands.’ ” He shrugged. “It’s always been the same for all the peoples of Central Asia. We rode west because we were poor and wanted better land and opportunities. We were fierce, and we had great leaders. Our time passed with the centuries — too much petty bickering, too many small leaders with small kingdoms led by smaller and smaller minds. Eventually the tide flowed back on us in the eighteen hundreds, as it always does with any people, sooner or later.”

  He peered at Jon over his glass. “Remember that, American.”

  Jon gave a noncommittal nod.

  Asgar took a slow drink of the ale. “First there were the Russians with their eyes on India, but glad to pick us up along the way. Then the Chinese came, because they considered our lands their lands. Finally, it was the British, protecting ” India. They called it the Great Game, and you’re wagering on it again. The only difference for us and most of the world is that it’s the Yanks now, not the Brits.”

  “And you Uighers? What are you doing?”

  “Ah, now you’re asking the crucial question. We’re taking back our country, of course. Or, since we never had a ” in the European sense, only a people, we’re taking back our land.”

  “This is your underground?”

  “You might say. Not many of us at the moment, but more every day in I I

  Xinjiang, across the border in Kazakhstan, and other places. We’re only a resistance, a nuisance, alas. Just ambushers, saboteurs, and bandits.

  We harry the Han. The Han claim there’s only some seven or eight million of us. We say we’re thirty million. But even thirty million on horses and pickups can accomplish little against a billion with tanks.

  Nevertheless, we must resist. It’s our nature, if nothing else. The result is, we’ve become an ‘ region.’ That’s meaningless in the larger picture, of course, especially with Urumqi already a Han Chinese city, but it shows we have them worried enough to try to bribe us.”

  Jon helped himself to seconds. “That’s why you told Mondragon about the old man who says he’s our president’s father, right?”

  Asgar nodded. “Who knows whether he is? In any case, he’s still an American that the Chinese have held secretly for almost six decades. We hope that will call fresh attention to China’s miserable human-rights record and its systematic destruc
tion of its minorities, particularly those of us who are totally non-Chinese. We live a lot closer to Kabul and New Delhi than we do to Beijing.”

  “Especially if he really is the president’s father.”

  “Especially.” Asgar smiled, his white teeth flashing again.

  Jon finally pushed his empty plate away and picked up his ale. “Tell me about this old man. Where is he?”

  “In a prison near Dazu. That’s about seventy of your miles northeast of Chongqing.”

  “What kind of prison?”

  “It’s more like a protected farm. It houses mostly political prisoners being ‘,’ petty criminals, and old men considered minor escape risks.”

  “Low security?”

  “By Chinese standards, it’s low. It’s completely fenced and heavily guarded, but the prisoners are in barracks not in cells. There’s little interaction with the outside world and few visitors. The old gentleman who says he’s David Thayer has some privileges, like a room in the barracks with only one cell mate, some books, the newspapers, and a special diet. But that’s about all.”

  “How did you manage to get his story?” “As I told you, a lot of the prisoners are political. Some are Uighers.

  We have an activist network and information grapevine inside for outside news. Thayer heard about the human-rights treaty, knew our people are against the Chinese and could get word out, and so he told them who he was.”

  Jon nodded. “What information do you have about his history?”

  “Not much. Our people say he keeps to himself and talks little, especially about his past. There’d probably be big trouble if he did.

  But from what he did say, he’s been in prisons from maximum to minimum over the years, depending on Beijing’s power fights and new theories. It sounds to me as if they moved him around a lot to keep him isolated and hidden.”

  It sounded logical, and it gave Smith enough to report to Fred Klein as soon as he could get out of the country. But his inability to speak Chinese gave him few options. Without help, he was essentially limited to the usual avenues of foreign visitors entering and leaving the country — international airports, a few passenger ships, and fewer trains. With Public Security looking for him, as well as the mysterious group from the island, those exits would be shut down like vaults.

  Asgar had been watching. “What do you think the American government will do about David Thayer?”

  “Depends on the president. If I had to guess, I’d say that right now, with the treaty so close to being signed, nothing. He’ll tend to wait until the treaty’s a reality, then he’ll bring up the subject of David Thayer to China’s leaders.”

  “Or maybe leak it to the newspapers to put pressure on Beijing?”

  “Possibly,” Jon agreed. He considered Asgar. “That’s what you want, isn’t it — publicity?”

  “Absolutely. We need to be on the world’s stage along with everyone else. What if the treaty isn’t signed?”

  “What makes you think it won’t be?”

  “Logic. Mondragon didn’t have to sneak off to Liuchiu Island to tell your people about David Thayer. No, he had something he had to deliver, right? You were there to take the delivery. But he was killed and you escaped— and came straight back to Shanghai. That tells me the attackers got what Mondragon had, and you’re trying to find it again.

  The whole thing smells like trouble, and the stench soars when the treaty’s figured into it. After all, it’s the most important matter between the U.S. and China at the moment.”

  “Let’s say you may be partly right. If so … if the president were absolutely sure the treaty was down the drain, he might send a crew to get Thayer out.”

  “That’d be sure to make the headlines blister. Outraged Chinese and Americans.”

  “But if I don’t get word to my people about where Thayer is, none of it’s going to happen. It won’t help you or your people at all. Can I use my cell phone safely?”

  “Bad idea. By now, Public Security must’ve rigged a way to triangulate wireless in and out of here. There are so few cell phones in the longtangs that it’d be worth their while to track every call, especially since they seem hell-bent to find you.”

  Smith considered. “A pay phone would do, if you can get me out to one.

  I’ll say nothing revealing.”

  “If I manage it, do you have a plan?”

  “The Seventh Fleet’s always close to China. That means I’d need your help to get to the coast for a pickup, too.”

  Asgar stared, pursed his lips, then stood without speaking. He gathered dirty dishes and carried them to the sink.

  Jon picked up a load and joined him.

  At last, Asgar asked, “Will your government guarantee David Thayer’s story is told, one way or another?”

  “I doubt it. I expect they’ll do what they consider to be in U.S. national interest.”

  “It’s in international interest to show what China is … for what that means for Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as for Urumqi and Kashgar.”

  “If that’s the case, they’ll make sure the world hears, but they’ll give no guarantees first. On the other hand, if I can’t relay what I’ve learned to my boss, nothing at all gets out.”

  Asgar continued to stare. His eyes were hard, black marbles. “I don’t think so. You’re not that important. No single agent can be, right? But maybe you’re important enough that if you don’t get back to your chief, they’ll be slowed down, looking for you. We wouldn’t like that.”

  Jon met his gaze. “I can see how that would be bad for you.”

  The Uigher held his stare another moment, as if boring deep into Smith to see what he was made of. Finally, he went to the sink and poured in dishwashing liquid — Palmolive — and turned on the hot water, watching the suds rise. “It won’t be easy, Colonel. China is a tight, homogenous country, especially here in the east. In the countryside, it’s worse.

  They seldom see foreigners, Uighers, or even private autos. Just a Land Rover will draw plenty of attention.”

  “You seem to get around all right.”

  “That’s because we’re in Shanghai. Shanghai’s not like most of China.

  It’s not even like Beijing. Shanghainese are more Westernized, always have been. Not much makes them stare. But a car full of Uighers out in the boondocks will get plenty of interest. Add Uighers and a Caucasian traveling together, and the police will hear of it. Their interest may be large enough to alert Public Security.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Asgar considered. “We make you a Uigher.”

  “I’m too tall. My eyes are the wrong color and shape.”

  “Most Uighers hardly have the Oriental fold at all when we get past our teens. We’re Turkic.” He studied Jon’s features and build critically.

  “You’re definitely large. It’s all that healthy American food. But we can darken your skin and add wrinkles. You’ll have to squint. Then we’ll dress you in some of our traditional clothes, sit you in the middle of a few of us, and scrunch you down. You’ll pass, as long as no one examines you too closely.”

  “Perhaps. Where do you plan to go on the coast?”

  “Somewhere south, not too far.”

  “I’ll need to have coordinates for the pickup.”

  “Understood. But first I’ll talk to my people. We must decide how many of us we’ll need, what vehicles we’ll use, the safest place for you to make contact, and the best route to get there.”

  “When do we go?”

  “Tonight. The sooner the better, while their security people are consulting higher authority and milling around, talking to each other.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Not yet. First, the women will make you a Uigher, while the rest of us make plans. Wait here, Jon. I’ll be back.”

  Left alone, Jon walked around the small, four-room hideout. There were twelve packed-together sleeping pallets, one bathroom, two more refrigerators, and four microwaves. Large, well prov
isioned, and comfortable. As he inspected, he realized the voices and boots that had been so close less than an hour ago were gone. The security police had moved on, at least for the time being. There was nothing now but silence … silence everywhere, outside and inside the windowless rooms.

  He did not like it. Public Security had given up a little too quickly, a little too easily. Why? Either they had been ordered to treat his presence in China as a delicate matter with potential international complications, which meant they were suspicious but not certain he was more than a simple visiting scientist. Or they were waiting outside the longtangs, hoping he would show himself. Or … they had been making a show with no intention of catching him because they already had him — because Asgar Mahmout and his supposed Uighers were actually working for or with the Public Security Bureau. Which would explain Asgar’s casual questions about the human-rights treaty.

  If that were the case, was he already trapped in these sealed rooms, or would they continue to string him along in hopes of learning exactly what he was doing? He paused, mulling. He decided they would want to pretend to help him, because arresting him would be an international incident if they could not show what he was after. On the other hand, if the whole thing were a cat-and-mouse charade, it gave him a chance.

  Chapter Twelve

  Friday, September 15.

  In the cramped office he used in police headquarters at 210 Hankou Lu near the Bund, Major Pan Aitu scowled through his horn-rimmed glasses at a file on his desk. There was nothing especially wrong or unusual about the file of the common street criminal he would testify against later in the day; it was simply that a scowl was Pan’s habitual expression when alone. The gentle voice and benign smile were entirely for public use, as were the soothing conservative suits and happy bow ties, all designed to mesmerize the mouse in front of him. His round joviality was a sham, too. There was muscle beneath the fat — hard, trained muscle.

  Dressed in a black leather car coat, military brown safari shirt, and black denim jeans, he had the glowering aspect of a menacing dwarf dredged from the depths of the earth. He was still bent over his files, working, when a single knock preceded the entry of his chief, General Chu Kuairong.