“Would you believe the South Pacific?” She told him of Pitt’s suspicions about the ore carrier in Chile and his plans to protect the ship inbound from Australia.
“It’s carrying rare earth elements?”
“Yes. I think he said she was called the Adelaide, sailing from Perth.”
“You’re not going to join him, are you?”
“I considered it, but he’s leaving tomorrow. It’s probably a wild-goose chase, and frankly, I feel like I’m making some progress here.”
She slid the bio of Tom Cerny across the desk to him. “I’m not prepared to pronounce a leak in the White House, but look at Cerny’s background.”
Fowler read aloud a few of Cerny’s biographical entries. “Ex–Green Beret officer, served as military adviser in Taiwan, later Panama and Colombia. Left Army for a stint at Raytheon as a program manager for directed energy weapons programs. Later moved to Capitol Hill as a defense specialist. Served on the board of directors of three defense contractors before joining the White House. Married to the former Jun Lu Yi, a Taiwanese national. Operates a child education charity in Bogotá.” He set the paper down. “Interesting range of experiences.”
“He seems to have been in the vicinity of a few defense systems that the Chinese have duplicated,” Ann said. “The Colombia bit certainly caught my eye.”
“Worth looking into. I suspect you could make some discreet inquiries without raising any red flags.”
“I agree. I’m not ready to throw away my career by barging into the White House, but I’ll press the fringes a bit more. How are things going with your internal reviews?”
He shook his head. “I’ve double-checked every DARPA employee working on the program. To be honest, I haven’t found a single nugget of suspicious behavior. I’ll pass the files to you when I finish the interviews.”
“Thanks, but I’ll trust your review. Where are you headed next?”
“I figured on making site visits to our three largest subcontractors. Maybe you should join me? It would make the work go faster.”
“I’m thinking of looking at a few of the smaller subcontractors. These three caught my eye.”
“Too far down the food chain,” Fowler said. “They’d likely have only limited access to anything classified.”
“No harm in a little probing,” Ann said. “You know the saying about the blind pig finding the acorn.”
Fowler smiled. “Suit yourself. I’ll be around the rest of the day if you come up with any nuts to share.”
Late in the day, she got her next break. After more follow-ups with the FBI, she went back to her list of subcontractors. The first two companies were publicly traded, so she readily obtained background information on their businesses. But the third firm was privately held and required more digging. She found an article about it in an engineering periodical and rushed into Fowler’s office.
“Dan, take a look at this. One of the subcontractors, a firm called SecureTek, provides secure data lines for engineers in remote locations to share their work. Without having their own security clearance, they could gain access to private engineering work.”
“That’s probably harder to pull off than you think.”
“More interesting is this. SecureTek is part of a small conglomerate based in Panama that also owns a transportation company in the U.S. and a gold mine in Panama.”
“Okay, but I don’t see where that leads.”
“The company holds a minority interest in Hobart Mining. Hobart owns a mine in Australia called Mount Weld.”
“All right, so they’ve expanded their mining operations.”
“Mount Weld is one of the largest producers of rare earth elements outside of China. Dr. Oswald told me this morning how vital rare earth elements are in the Sea Arrow’s development—and how shortages have delayed the program. There could be a connection.”
“Seems a bit tenuous,” Fowler said, shaking his head. “What’s the motivation? The mine owner should be happy we’re buying what he produces, not cutting off one of his best customers. I think you’re letting Dirk Pitt lead you astray.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “It seems like we’re grasping at straws.”
“That happens. Maybe things will look different in the morning. I find exercise helps me in solving problems. Every morning, I take a run along the Potomac, and find it’s a great way to relax my mind. You should try it.”
“Maybe I will. Just do me one favor, will you?” she said. “Add SecureTek to the list of contractors on your site visits.”
“That I’ll be happy to do,” he said.
Ann took his advice and stopped at a health club on the way home and ran a few miles on a treadmill before grabbing a chicken salad to go at a café. She thought of Pitt on the way home and called him the second she entered her town house. There was no reply, so she left a lengthy message about her findings and wished him luck on his voyage.
As she hung up, a deep voice grumbled from the hallway.
“I hope you remembered to say good-bye.”
Ann nearly jumped out of her shoes. She wheeled around to see two large black men emerge from her darkened bedroom. She recognized the first man and began to tremble.
Clarence smiled coldly as he walked into the room and leveled a .45 at her head.
32
ZHOU XING HAD THE FACE OF A PEASANT. HIS EYES were set close together, his chin was almost nonexistent, and his nose listed to starboard from a long-ago fracture. A pair of jug ears and a pauper’s haircut completed the rural simpleton appearance. It was a countenance perfectly suited to the undercover intelligence agent. Aside from allowing Zhou to fit into almost any field situation, it habitually caused his superiors in the Chinese Ministry of State Security to underestimate his guile and ability.
At the moment he was counting on the same effect for a less sophisticated crowd. Wearing the worn and dusty clothes of an unskilled laborer, he looked like most of the inhabitants of Bayan Obo, a company town in Inner Mongolia that was itself worn and dusty. Zhou crossed a paved street bustling with trucks and buses and made his way to a small drinking establishment. Even from the street he could hear the voices inside. He took a deep breath, then pulled open a wooden door emblazoned with a faded red boar.
The scent of cheap tobacco and stale beer filled Zhou’s nostrils as he stepped through the door and scanned the confines with a practiced eye. A dozen tables filled the narrow room, occupied by a coarse and rugged assortment of miners off duty from the town’s open-pit mine. A fat, one-eyed barkeep poured shots behind an elevated platform lined with hard-drinking locals. The bar’s only decoration was its namesake, a stuffed and mounted boar’s head that was missing several tufts of fur.
Zhou ordered a baijiu, a grain alcohol that was the locals’ favorite, and slid onto a corner chair to study the clientele. Cloistered in groups of two or three, most were well on their way to numbing themselves from the day’s labor. He scanned from face to hardened face, searching for a suitable target. He found one a few tables away, a brash, loudmouthed young man, talking the ears off his silent, towering partner.
Zhou waited until the talker had nearly drained his shot glass before approaching the table. Pretending to stagger, he flung an elbow against the talker’s glass, sending it flying.
“Hey! My drink.”
“A thousand pardons, my friend,” Zhou said, slurring his words. “Please, come to the bar with me and I shall purchase you another.”
The young miner, realizing he had just scored a free round, rose quickly, if unsteadily, to his feet. “Yes, another drink.”
With a full ceramic bottle of baijiu in hand, Zhou was welcomed back to the table.
“I am Wen,” the man said, “and my quiet friend here is Yao.”
“I am Tsen,” Zhou replied. “You bo
th work at the mine?”
“Of course.” Wen flexed his biceps. “We didn’t build this strength by plucking chickens.”
“What is your job at the mine?”
“Why, we are the crushers,” Wen said with a laugh. “We feed the mined ore into the primary rockcrushers. They’re as big as a house and can mash a boulder the size of a dog down to this.” He balled his fist in front of Zhou.
“I come from Baotou,” Zhou said, “and am in need of work. Are there any jobs available at the mine?”
Wen reached over and squeezed Zhou’s arm. “A man like you? You are too scrawny to work in the mines.” He laughed, spraying a shower of saliva across the table. Then noting a sad look on Zhou’s face, he felt a touch of pity. “Men get injured, so they occasionally bring on replacements. But there will probably be a long line ahead of you.”
“I understand,” Zhou said. “More baijiu?”
He didn’t wait for an answer and refilled their glasses. The silent miner, Yao, peered at him through listless eyes and nodded. Wen raised his glass and downed a shot.
“Tell me,” Zhou said as he sipped at his drink. “I hear there is a black market mining operation at Bayan Obo.”
Yao tensed and looked at Zhou suspiciously.
“No, it all comes from the same place.” Wen wiped his mouth with a sleeve.
“It is not safe to speak of,” Yao said, breaking his silence with an earthy bellow.
Wen shrugged. “It all takes place beyond us.”
“What do you mean?” Zhou asked.
“The blasting, the digging, the crushing, that is all performed by the state operation that pays Yao and me,” he said. “It’s only after the crushing that other hands start dipping into the pot.”
“What hands are those?”
Yao slammed his glass down on the table. “You ask a lot of questions, Tsen.”
Zhou bowed slightly to Yao. “I’m just trying to find myself a job.”
“Yao’s just touchy because his cousin drives a truck for the operation.”
“How do they operate?”
“I guess they’re paying off some of the mine’s truck drivers,” Wen said. “At night, some of the trucks that haul the raw diggings to the crusher pick up a load of crushed ore and deposit it at a remote part of the mine. Then Jiang and his private fleet of trucks come in and haul it away. Hey, there he is now.” Wen waved over a squat, grit-faced man who had just stepped into the bar. The man moved with a determined swagger.
“Jiang, I was just telling my friend how you haul hot rocks from the mine.”
Jiang flung an open hand against the side of Wen’s head, nearly knocking him out of his chair. “You need to quit your babbling, Wen, or you’ll lose your tongue. You’re worse than an old woman.” He sized Zhou up, then regarded his cousin Yao. The big man faintly shook his head.
Jiang eased around the table and stood close to Zhou. He suddenly reached down, grabbed Zhou’s collar, and jerked the agent to his feet.
Zhou kept his arms at his sides and smiled harmlessly.
“Who are you?” Jiang said, his face millimeters from Zhou’s.
“My name is Tsen. I am a farmer from Baotou. Now, you tell me your name?”
Jiang’s eyes flared at his boldness. “Listen to me, farmer.” He held Zhou’s collar tightly. “If you ever want to tread the soil of Bayan Obo again, then I suggest that you pretend you never came here. You saw no one and talked to no one. Do you understand?”
Jiang’s breath reeked of smoke and garlic, but Zhou never flinched. With a pleasant grin, he nodded at Jiang. “Of course. But if I was never here, then I didn’t spend eighty yuan on drinks with your friends.” He held out an open palm as if waiting for reimbursement.
Jiang’s face turned red. “Don’t ever enter this bar again. Now, get out.”
He freed his grip on Zhou’s collar so he could punctuate the threat with his fist, but he was too close to throw a punch and he took a step back.
Zhou anticipated the move and scissored his foot behind Jiang’s, catching the back of the truck driver’s ankle. Jiang stumbled, but still unleashed a hard right as he fell back. Zhou moved left, absorbing the punch to his shoulder, then countered by shoving Jiang’s torso. Jiang lost his footing and fell backward, out of control.
Zhou kept a grip on him, driving him toward the table, where Jiang’s head smashed against the lip. He collapsed to the floor like a felled redwood, knocked out cold.
At the sight of his cousin’s takedown, Yao leaped up and tried to grab Zhou in a bear hug.
The smaller and more sober Zhou easily spun away, then launched a sharp kick to Yao’s knee. The big man buckled, allowing Zhou to deliver several lightning strikes to the head. A final blow struck his throat. Yao turned and fell to his knees, clutching his throat while overcome by a false sense of suffocation.
The bar fell silent, and all eyes turned to Zhou. Drawing attention to himself was foolish, but there were times he couldn’t help himself.
“No fighting!” the bartender shouted. But he was too busy pouring drinks to bother throwing out any of the culprits.
Zhou nodded at him, then casually picked up his glass of baijiu from the table and took a swig. The other patrons returned to their drinks and jokes, ignoring the two men on the floor.
Wen had watched the brief fight in a stupor, not moving from his chair. “You have quick hands for a farmer,” he stuttered.
“Lots of hoeing.” Zhou swung his hands up and down. “What do you say our friend Jiang buys us a drink?” he asked.
“Sure,” Wen slurred.
Zhou reached into the unconscious man’s pocket and took out his wallet. Finding his resident identity card, he memorized Jiang’s full name and address. He replaced the wallet, but not before retrieving a twenty-yuan banknote, which he handed to Wen. “You drink for me,” Zhou said. “It is late, and I must go.”
“Yes, my friend Tsen, if you say so.” Wen raised himself in his chair with some difficulty.
“See you at the mine,” Zhou said.
“The mine?” Wen asked. He looked up in puzzlement, but the little farmer from Baotou was already gone.
33
JIANG XIANTO, THE TRUCK DRIVER, CREPT OUT OF his apartment complex at half past seven the next morning. A bandage was plastered across his forehead, and he walked with rigid strides to try to minimize the spasms that shot through his skull with each step. Had he been less preoccupied, he might have seen his assailant from the Red Boar, seated in a Chinese-built Toyota parked across the street, reading a People’s Daily.
Zhou smiled to himself as he watched Jiang hobble down the street. He had felt no joy in flooring Yao the night before, but he felt no empathy toward Jiang. He had recognized Jiang’s type instantly, a hotheaded loser who tormented weaker men to make himself feel better.
The black market truck driver walked down the street to a crowded bus stop. True to form, Jiang bullied his way to the front of the line, then took one of the few remaining seats when the bus arrived. Zhou started his car and pulled into traffic, keeping the bus a few car lengths ahead.
By the time the bus stopped in front of a dilapidated apartment building at the southern edge of town, most of the passengers had departed. Zhou wheeled his car around a corner, parked behind a street vendor, and watched Jiang step off the bus. Pulling a brimmed hat low over his eyes, Zhou locked his car and followed on foot.
Jiang walked a little way down a side street, then turned into a trash-strewn alley. A morning breeze chilled the air, and Jiang zipped up his jacket as he reached a large fenced lot topped with rusty barbed wire. He stepped through a slit in the fence and walked past stacks of empty pallets that towered over the dusty lot. At the rear of the property, beneath a corrugated tin awning, stood five large canvas-covered trucks and
a battered pickup. Several rough-looking men stood around the trucks, drinking hot tea from paper cups.
“Jiang,” one of the men said, “did your wife brush your hair with a wok this morning?”
“I’ll brush yours with a tire iron,” Jiang said. “Where’s Xao?”
A tall man wearing a black peacoat stepped from between two of the trucks. “Jiang, there you are. Late again, I see. Keep this up and you’ll be back digging ditches.” He turned to the other men. “Okay, everyone, we’re ready to move.”
The men gathered around him as he pulled a folded paper from his pocket.
“We’ll be dropping the load at Dock 27,” Xao said. “I’ll take the lead truck, so follow me, as we’ll be entering through an auxiliary gate. We’re expected to arrive at eight o’clock, so let’s not have any delays.”
“Where will we stop for fuel?” asked a man with a threadbare wool cap.
“The usual truck stop in Changping.” Xao looked about for other questions, then nodded toward the trucks. “Okay, let’s get moving.”
Xao, Jiang, and three other men drifted to the large trucks, and the remaining men piled into the pickup. Jiang’s truck was at the end of the line. He climbed in and started the engine, which kicked to life with a cloud of black smoke. Adjusting the heater, he waited for the other trucks to exit the lot ahead of him. When the truck next to him pulled ahead, he shifted into gear and lurched forward, catching sight of a dark blur in the side-view mirror.
The trucks drove through an open gate attended by a burly bald man who carried a Russian Makarov pistol under his coat. When Jiang got to the gate, he mashed on the truck’s brakes. “Check the back!” he said, reaching out the window and slapping the side door to catch the guard’s attention.
The guard nodded and stepped to the rear of the truck. As he peered over the tailgate, he was greeted by Zhou’s boot slamming into his jaw. The blow sent him sprawling, yet he yanked out the Makarov even as he fell. He raised the pistol and aimed it toward the truck, but Zhou was already on him. The agent kicked the pistol aside, then dove forward and thrust his elbow into the guard’s jaw. The bone-on-bone collision emitted a muted crack, and the guard fell limp.
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