The Altman Code

by Robert Ludlum

  “I’m here on behalf of the surgeon general of the United States to consult with Donk & LaPierre’s biomedical subsidiary on mainland China and its research into hantaviruses.” He showed his USAMRIID credentials and flashed a fake letter from the surgeon general’s office. “Mr. Cruyff downstairs sent me up to talk to Mr. Aguinaldo.”

  The receptionist’s eyebrows raised, impressed. She studied the surgeon general’s signature and looked up. “I’m sorry that Mr. Aguinaldo isn’t here to receive you, sir. Perhaps Mr. McDermid can help. He’s chairman and CEO of the Altman Group worldwide. He’s a very important man. Perhaps you could speak with him?”

  “McDermid is here?” Jon said, as if he knew the CEO and chairman personally.

  “On his annual visit,” she said proudly.

  “McDermid will do. Yes, I’ll see him.”

  The woman smiled again and opened her interoffice line.

  Lawrence Wood stepped inside the elegant penthouse office of Ferdinand Aguinaldo, head of Altman Asia.

  “What is it, Lawrence?” Behind the big desk, Ralph McDermid stretched and yawned.

  “The receptionist says a Dr. Kenneth St. Germain has arrived with a letter from the U.S. Surgeon General. He wants to see Aguinaldo. He says Cruyff down at Donk & LaPierre sent him up, and she wonders if you’d care to meet the man, since he has such good credentials.”

  McDermid said, “Tell her I’ll be free in fifteen minutes.”

  Wood hesitated. “Cruyff couldn’t have sent him.”

  “I know. Just give her the message. On the other hand, I’ll do it myself.”

  “As you wish.” Wood frowned and returned to his outer office.

  McDermid touched his intercom button. He was feeling more cheerful. With the strange arrival of Jon Smith, things were looking up. “I’d be delighted to see Dr. St. Germain,” he told the receptionist. “Ask him to give me fifteen minutes, and then I’ll be down.” As she gave her usual pert reply, he severed the connection and dialed his man, Feng Dun. “Where are you, Feng?”

  “Outside.” Again Feng cursed Cho, the assassin chosen for the night. He had failed to eliminate Smith, and his corpse had not been discovered in time to send a replacement. “My men saw him go in. Did he return to Donk & LaPierre?”

  “No. He’s up here in the penthouse lobby. He wants to see me.”

  “You?” A moment of shock. “How does he know you’re even in Hong Kong?”

  “One wonders. I’m fascinated. I think we’re lucky he survived your killers. I want to learn more about this unusual doctor’s sources.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  Beijing

  To Major Pan Aitu, the small office of Niu Jianxing—the legendary Owl—was intriguing. As ascetic as a monk’s cell, it had unadorned walls, shuttered windows, a worn wood floor with no rug, a simple student desk and chair for the master himself, and two wood chairs for visitors. At the same time, the desk and the floor were clogged with haphazard piles of files and documents, ashtrays stinking with masses of half-inch butts of the English cigarettes that were Niu’s one indulgence, stained tea mugs, food-encrusted paper plates, and other detritus that indicated his days were long and intense. It was a contradiction that mirrored the man himself.

  As a longtime intelligence agent, Major Pan was an astute reader of the intricate maze of individual psychologies, and so he enjoyed himself while Master Niu continued to read the report he had been bent over when Pan arrived. The only sound was of Niu’s turning over sheets of paper.

  Major Pan decided the office displayed the serenity of the solitary thinker, as well as the cluttered turmoil of the man of action, fused together in the same person. Yes, the Owl was a throwback to those giants who had founded and led the revolution. Poets and teachers who became generals. Thinkers who were forced by the necessity of history to brawl and kill. Pan had known only one of those revered ones—Deng Xiaoping himself, in his extreme old age. Deng had been but a young general back in the idealistic years between the Shanghai Massacre and the Long March. Major Pan did not like many people. He found it a waste of time. But there was something about Niu Jianxing that appealed to him.

  Niu, true to form, broke the silence without looking up, a hint of rush in his voice. “General Chu tells me you have a report he would have you give me directly.”

  “Yes, sir. We thought it best, considering your request for information on the cargo ship.”

  “The Dowager Empress, yes.” Niu nodded down toward his paperwork. “You have what I want?”

  “I may have some of it,” Pan said, cautiously. He had learned to use extreme care when making claims or promises to leaders of the government, especially to those on the Standing Committee.

  Niu Jianxing looked up sharply. His decidedly unsleepy eyes were hard points of coal behind his tortoiseshell glasses. His sunken cheeks and delicate features showed displeasure. “You don’t know whether you have it, Major?”

  The intelligence agent felt a moment of emptiness. Then: “I know, Master Niu.”

  The Owl sat back. He studied the small, pudgy Major Pan, his little hands, his appeasing voice, his benevolent smile. As usual, Pan was dressed in a conservative Western suit. He was the perfect operative—slippery, anonymous, clever, and dedicated. Still, for all that, Pan was also a product of the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, and a too-rigid system that left little room for the individual. Plus, there was the five-thousand-year history of China that valued the individual even less. If Niu continued to push for a yes-or-no answer, the spycatcher would say no rather than give a positive statement that could be construed as a declaration of success. If he were to know everything Major Pan had learned about the Empress before the Standing Committee met later today, he would have to let him tell it his own way.

  Niu repressed a sigh of frustration. “Make your report, Major.”

  “Thank you, master.” Pan explained who Avery Mondragon was and described his disappearance the day before Jon Smith arrived in Shanghai.

  “You believe this Mondragon is, or was, an American intelligence agent?”

  Pan nodded. “I do, but not an ordinary one. There’s something unusual about the Americans involved in this case. They act like undercover spies, yet they’re not spies. Or at least not affiliated with any of the intelligence agencies we know of in the United States.”

  “That would apply to Colonel Smith—the doctor and scientist—also?”

  “I believe so. His scientific work isn’t a cover. He really is a medical doctor and scientist. At the same time, he appears to be using his specialty as a cover.”

  “Interesting. Are these American operatives private? Perhaps working for a business or an individual?”

  “It’s possible. I will continue to seek an answer.”

  Niu nodded. “It may be of little practical significance. We shall see. Go on, Major.”

  Pan warmed to his report. “A cleaning woman discovered the body of a man named Zhao Yanji in the office of the president of Flying Dragon Enterprises in downtown Shanghai. Flying Dragon is an international shipping company with connections in Hong Kong and Antwerp.”

  “Who was Zhao?”

  “Flying Dragon’s treasurer. Not only is he dead, the company president is missing, as is his wife. The president’s name is Yu Yongfu. His wife is Li Kuonyi.”

  “The beautiful actress?”

  “Yes, sir.” The major related the rapid rise of her husband into wealth and power with the apparent help of her father, the influential Li Aorong.

  The Owl did not know Li Aorong personally but by reputation. “Yes, of course. Li is high up in Shanghai’s municipal government.” What he did not say was that Li was also the protégé of Wei Gaofan, one of his hard-line colleagues on the Standing Committee. All things considered, Wei was the most powerful of all the hard-liners, and Li Aorong’s politics were identical to Wei’s.

  “Yes,” Pan acknowledged. “We spoke with Li. He has no explanation for the murder
of Zhao or the disappearances of his daughter and her husband. But—” Pan moved forward, perching on the edge of the straight chair, as he explained about An (“Andy”) Jingshe, the young interpreter who had studied in the United States and who was seen in Colonel Smith’s company. Later, Andy was found shot to death in his car. “That is, so far, what we know.”

  The Owl’s expression was somber behind his large glasses. “An American in Shanghai disappears. Colonel Smith arrives the next day. The treasurer of a shipping company is murdered. The president of that company and his wife vanish. And an American-educated Shanghainese interpreter is killed that night. Is that your report?”

  “With the addition that when we finally located Colonel Smith again, he evaded us, fled, and has apparently gotten out of China altogether.”

  “We can speak of that later. When does my request for information about the cargo ship, The Dowager Empress, appear in your report?”

  Pan sat back, chastised. “Flying Dragon Enterprises is the owner of the Empress.” He should have said that earlier.

  “Ah.” Niu’s chest tightened. So that was the connection. “You have formed an opinion of these events?”

  “I think that after Yu Yongfu acquired Flying Dragon, his treasurer discovered something he didn’t like, something that concerned the United States. He leaked it to Mondragon, who took the information to the Americans. Or tried to. Something went wrong. Mondragon was most probably killed and the information lost. Smith was sent in to retrieve it. Also, it seems to us that Andy Jingshe was an American asset assigned to guide and interpret for Smith.”

  The minister pursed his lips, thinking. “Therefore . . . people in our country—not our security forces—are willing to go to extremes to stop the Americans in their quest, whatever that quest is. The information the treasurer discovered, and Smith’s attempts to find it again, led to the death of the treasurer, the disappearances of Yu Yongfu and his wife, and the murder of the interpreter.”

  “Something along those lines, sir. Yes.”

  Niu’s sense of foreboding increased. “What do you think the treasurer found at Flying Dragon that has ignited this dangerous uproar?” He reached for a cigarette.

  “I had no thoughts about that until you asked for information about the Empress. That was when I learned she was part of Flying Dragon’s fleet. I don’t know what prompted your inquiry, but the connection to the case of Colonel Smith can’t be a coincidence.”

  “I asked for information about the freighter, its destination, and its cargo. Which is everything there is to know of such a ship.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He lit his cigarette and inhaled uneasily. “What have you found?”

  “The destination is Basra. It’s scheduled to arrive in the gulf in approximately three days.”

  “Iraq.” Niu shook his head. He did not like that news. “What’s the cargo?”

  “According to the manifest on file, it’s carrying DVDs, clothing, industrial products of various types, farm implements, agricultural supplies—the usual load one would expect to be going to Iraq. Nothing special. Certainly nothing that should interest the Americans.” As the counterintelligence agent concluded, he watched the Owl with a question in his eyes.

  “Yet the Americans are interested. Very interested,” Niu said, turning the question back on Pan. He was not about to inform the major of the emergency that was brewing about the freighter. Thus far, only the Standing Committee and Ambassador Wu in Washington knew. He hoped to resolve it before it exploded into a crisis. “You have a thought about all of this, Major Pan?”

  “If, as I now suspect, the Empress is involved, it can be only because of the cargo.”

  “Therefore, you think the official manifest filed by Flying Dragon is false, and the Americans know this.”

  “What other conclusion could there be?”

  The Owl inhaled. He blew out smoke. “Did Colonel Smith get what he came for?”

  “That we don’t know.”

  “That is what I must know, Major. Immediately.”

  “We will find Yu Yongfu, question his father-in-law, and investigate Flying Dragon.”

  Niu nodded. “Now tell me how Colonel Smith evaded you a second time, without speaking our language or having been in China before, and then escaped the country . . . after his interpreter was killed?”

  “We think he had help from a cell of the Uigher resistance. My people are searching for them now, but they hide among the old longtangs, as hard to catch as rats in a sewer. The police don’t take them seriously enough, largely because they’re so few. Consequently, they’ve gone unregulated. Like the rat, they’re smart, adaptable, and determined.”

  “Obviously there aren’t as few as we’d like,” Niu said. “How did they help Smith?”

  “They took him into the longtangs and hid him, and then they managed somehow to get him out again. After that, we have only hints. A police roadblock recalls letting a party of Uighers in a Land Rover pass through. Two of the Uighers had long-standing residence papers for Shanghai, and anyone with official passes like that, of course, can move about freely. Later, many shots were heard on a Huangzhou Bay beach between Jinshan and Zhapu. And this morning, one of our patrol boats reported a submarine identified as American surfaced offshore soon after the gunfire ceased.”

  Niu was silent. He smoked. At last, he nodded. “Thank you, Major Pan. Continue the investigation as a top priority.”

  Major Pan looked reluctant to leave, as if he wanted to resolve all of these questions here and now, but he was also a well-trained government man. He stood up, his stubby body erect.

  He straightened his European suit jacket. “Yes, sir.”

  Niu put out his cigarette as the agent closed the door behind him. He leaned back and rocked on the back legs of his chair. He contemplated the question of what was so important that the Americans would risk not only sending a submarine within a few thousand yards of China’s coast, but dispatching a guided-missile frigate to shadow the Empress. The situation had a sour taste.

  Shaking his head with worry, he thought about the gunfire on the beach and about the ambitious Li Aorong, who apparently had helped his son-in-law to great business success. Then Niu contemplated what he could not tell Major Pan, or General Chu Kuairong, or anyone else in the government or the Party: He was secretly making every effort to open up China to all of the opportunities the world offered.

  Melancholy swept over him. He remembered how, when he was a young man, Chairman Mao had spoken eloquently of his yearning for the open, simple days before 1949, when all he had to do was write poetry and fight the enemies of China. After that, he was trapped in the hidden, dirty, and convoluted machinations of governmental interests and power.

  What Niu wanted at the moment—the signed human-rights agreement—could lead to a better life for everyone. Still, he suspected the treaty had far more opponents in the public sector than it did supporters. But then, that was because so many high officials were opposed . . . on both sides of the ocean.

  Hong Kong

  A polite smile on his face, Jon Smith settled into one of the high-backed chairs in the penthouse lobby outside the Altman office suite. He had heard Ralph McDermid tell the receptionist he would see him. As he waited, he clicked open his attaché case as if to check his notes.

  Abruptly, he slammed the lid closed and jumped up. “Damnation! I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to swear, miss. I must’ve left my notebook down at Donk & LaPierre.” He glanced at his watch and then at the polished grandfather clock that stood in a corner. “McDermid’s coming to meet me in fifteen minutes. I’ll be back in ten.”

  Before she could protest, he ran, carrying his attaché case to the elevators. He punched the button and stepped into the car, which was empty. As the doors closed, he smiled and waved back at the startled woman. He had little time and silently urged the elevator to hurry. He got off two floors below and rushed along the corridor until he found a public restroom. Once inside
a stall, he peeled off his outer suit and put on the light-blue seersucker sport jacket, the blue canvas running shoes, and the collapsible Panama hat from his attaché case. With his gray slacks and Hawaiian shirt, he had the gaudy appearance of an American tourist with more money than taste. He packed the suit into the attaché case, and the attaché case into his backpack. He put on the backpack and slipped out the door.

  Thinking about what he suspected he would find, he stepped onto a different elevator and faded into the rear as businesspeople entered and left at several of the floors, heading down. When the car at last reached the mezzanine, he pushed his way through the packed passengers, who were continuing down to the lobby.

  He got off the elevator. The inner wall of the mezzanine was lined with glass doors into expensive boutiques, travel agencies, and office shops. The outer wall was no wall. It was a marble parapet that rose to waist height, interspersed with thick pillars supporting the floor above. The parapet overlooked the vast lobby. Jon stood in the cover of a pillar, where he could see the marble stairs that swept up to the mezzanine, the bank of elevators, and the building’s entrance.

  Jon waited impatiently. Suddenly the man he had hoped to see was there—the big Chinese who had led the attack in Shanghai. Feng Dun. He was pushing in through the lobby’s glass doors, followed by three men Jon also recognized. For the first time, he got a good look at Feng: He was so pale his skin seemed to be bloodless. His close-cropped hair was a light red with patches of stark white. He was shorter than Jon had thought when he saw him in the dark. Still, he was tall for a Han, maybe six-foot-three, and muscular—not an ounce more than two hundred pounds. He paused just inside the doors and surveyed the lobby as if searching for something—or someone.

  Ralph McDermid put his patented genial smile on his face and walked out of the private penthouse elevator. He paused to gaze around the reception area for Dr. Kenneth St. Germain.