Red Dragon

by Jerry Pournelle

  "We're down," I told Sam. I didn't really want to talk to anybody. I haven't made that sloppy a landing in ten years, and my ears were burning. At least we hadn't bent anything. "It's over."

  "Thanks be to God," de la Torres muttered. He opened the canopy and looked around as if he didn't believe he was safe, and I realized he'd been scared stiff the entire time we were in the air. When he got down he gave me a silly little smile.

  Shearing was waiting in the camper. Janie was with him, and he told me they had Beverly Henderson in the panel truck with another guy I hadn't met, although nobody explained what the hell the girls were doing out there. Nick was still moving things around on maps. The map spread out on the dinette table of the camper was an auto club road map, and there were a couple of gas company maps tossed over to one side as if they'd examined them all and picked this one as the best. None of them showed any terrain features.

  "You have a better map of this area?" Shearing asked.

  "There's the air navigation chart," I told him. "It's got terrain and more roads than this one. Want me to go get it?"

  "Let Peters go after it. Manny, you want to go out to the plane and find the chart?"

  "Yes, sir." Peters was one I hadn't seen before, a thin sort of guy who looked like he'd blend into any crowd, and I couldn't remember anything outstanding about him as soon as he was out of my sight, which is probably the way he'd want it. In his business a memorably handsome profile would be a liability. After he went out there was room to stand by Janie, but she was all business, concentrating on the map, a one hundred per cent government agent.

  "What in hell are they doing way out here?" Shearing asked.

  "We saw nothing to tell us," Sam answered. "It appears that our information about their intentions is incorrect."

  "No." Shearing was definite. "The Henderson girl told Janie the same thing. They intend to get out of the country fast, possibly tonight. It was one reason she didn't want to be separated from Vallery.

  She was afraid they'd take him with them."

  "No chance of that," Janie said. "Unless they start from Bakersfield. Does Paul know about that?"

  "I know Vallery probably stayed in the other car, the original one," I said. "What's this about Bakers-field?"

  "We lost them in that goddamn city," Nick answered. "We had to hang way back, there was only the one car to follow them with and no electronics to guide us, and we lost them." He cursed under his breath.

  "Better to lose them than scare them off," Shearing commented. "But our immediate interest is this group out here. Show me on this map where they are."

  I looked at it and shook my head. "Hard to do with any accuracy. It doesn't even show the blacktop road they turned off on, much less the dirt track they took after that. They're right in here, somewhere," I added, indicating a spot, "but I wouldn't want to stake much on exactly where." Peters came in with the air navigation chart, and I looked that over. The scale was better than the auto club map, and it did show hills and the blacktop road. "OK. Here's the little finger of the Temblors that comes down into the valley . . . . They're on the flatlands, just south of the tip of it. But this damn chart only shows one-thousand-foot contour lines and the ridge peters out gradually, it's not a cliff behind them as you might think from looking at this, although it is a steep hill."

  Shearing studied it closely. "Any signs of roads in the hills behind them?"

  "Yes, sir. You can see the blacktop road that goes past their camp angles off to the right here. Not far from where it turns there's a dirt and gravel track that climbs up into the hills and runs south along the ridge behind them, maybe a mile from them and oh, nearly a thousand feet above their level give or take a couple of hundred. It doesn't show on this chart."

  "But to get to that road you'd have to go past their camp?"

  "From this end. I don't know where the other end connects. Maybe nowhere."

  "Could you get from that road to their camp without being seen?"

  I thought about that one for a while. "A good woodsman might if he was careful. It's pretty rugged out there, chaparral and greasewood, and it gets steep in places. It wouldn't be easy."

  Shearing eyed his cigarette as if he'd got a taste of something bad. "I see. Well, you're one of our experts on the wide-open spaces. Sam and Nick have some experience creeping around through the weeds, but the rest of my people are strictly city boys."

  "You have been known to work in some very rough country," Sam reminded him.

  "Thanks. But I'm due to catch an airplane out of Bakersfield in about an hour. Washington wants me." Shearing grimaced. "No choice. I'm supposed to brief the National Intelligence Board about this operation first thing in the morning. I tried to point out to the deputy director that we hadn't finished it, but . . . ." He lit a fresh cigarette while we all looked at him. "I could hardly tell them that my senior people are incompetent and the mission will fail if I'm not actually present, could I? Sam, you're in charge, let's see what we can make of this before I go."

  "Yes, sir. As Paul says, they are in an old oil driller's barracks some three miles from the highway, two from this unused blacktop road. The country around them is very flat, a man on one of those derrick towers could see for miles. Behind them is a finger of the hills as you see on the map, and within a quarter mile the country is very rough. They are in a splendid place, it will be very hard to get close to them."

  "And you definitely saw an Oriental in the car. Did you recognize him?"

  "I have been trying to think, señor. I believe it was Bruce Ching, but it is hard to be sure. He walked like a young man and I would say he was young except that once I knew a Japanese forty-five years old who I thought well under thirty. He was carrying a large paper bag which obscured part of his face, I could not be sure. If I had to say, I would guess that it was Bruce Ching."

  "Did you see the man at all, Crane?"

  "No, sir. I was flying the plane. Sam had the binoculars."

  "We'll assume it was Bruce Ching, and that they were in a hurry about something and started the interviews in the car. Now the question is, can we assume that Doctor Li Kun is in that oil camp?"

  Sam thought about it a second. "It is reasonable. It was our assumption that they would leave the country together and we have no reason to believe otherwise."

  I interrupted the dialogue. "Am I supposed to know what you're talking about? Because I don't. Who are Bruce Ching and Li Kun?"

  Shearing looked at me intently, took a deep drag from his Camel and looked at me again. "It might be sensible to tell you," he decided. "We may need your advice before the night is over." He scratched his head, took another puff. "Bruce Ching is an American-born Chinese. A very brilliant young man. He was at Cal Tech, where he learned a lot about physics, specializing in rockets. After that he was at the Rand Corporation where he became an expert on defense against ballistic missiles. When he had learned enough about it, he defected to China. You understand, he had a top-secret clearance. There was no reason to suspect him, or at least the Bureau detected none." He looked around. "Peters, can you make coffee in this thing?"

  "Yes, sir, I'll put on a pot."

  "Thanks. Dr. Li Kun is a naturalized American citizen about sixty years old. When the communists took over China, his expressed sentiments were with the Taiwan government. He worked during World War II with Doctor Ch'ien Hsuehshen, who was also born in China. Have you heard of Ch'ien?"

  "No, sir."

  "Not many remember him outside the intelligence professions. Ch'ien took a Ph.D. from MIT in the Thirties, and was director of the rocket section of the U.S. National Defense Scientific Board during the war. We sent him to Europe to study the German rocket program as soon as it was safe. After that he was the chief research analyst for JPL and a professor at Cal Tech. An important man in our defense effort, you will understand. In 1950 he decided to go to China. He got away in 1955, and some important people credit him with the development of Peking's nuclear weapon." There wasn
't any humor at all in Shearing's smile.

  "And this Dr. Li Kun is pulling the same stunt?"

  "Precisely. Li Kun has some rather up-to-date knowledge, and our superiors in Washington would just as soon he didn't take it to Peking. Bruce Ching was a student of his, and we know they sent Ching back to the U.S. to get information on the latest developments in ballistic missile interception. It seemed natural that he'd help his old friend get out of the country. We've followed the one to the other, or think we have."

  "Yeah, OK, I get that. But now you've got Ching. He's out there pumping Steen for the information he wants. What's wrong with just going in and getting them? Their little desert hideaway may be great for keeping people from sneaking up on them, but they aren't likely to get away very easily. No place to go."

  "We do not know that Dr. Li is there," Sam answered. "We are not even sure of Bruce Ching, although that is a reasonable guess. I would like to get closer with a good telescope, but they have chosen their base carefully. It does not seem possible without alarming them."

  "Yeah. OK, I see the problem. I guess there's nothing to do but wait them out, is there?"

  Shearing shrugged. "I suppose not. Unfortunately, our people in Mexico are certain that both Ching and Li will show up there quite soon, and elaborate preparations have already been made to get them out of Mexico. If they once get there, intercepting them will be nearly impossible. Maybe I should have sent you down, Sam."

  "Perhaps. But they have been very careful there, and we would have to work very fast."

  Nick had been listening to us idly. He was wearing the earphones and hush-mike he'd had in Los Angeles. Suddenly he held up a hand for silence, concentrated for a second, and moved the mike aside. "We may have to work fast here, too. The boys out on the road say an airplane just landed in the desert, right where you say that oil camp is."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nick talked some more, then turned his set off. "From their description, that's a Piper Cherokee. About seven hundred miles range. I think we know why they came out here now."

  Nobody else said anything. I nodded. "Yeah. When you stop to think of it, this is a pretty good place to bring a plane in and out. Your people in Mexico were right, they may be headed down for tonight. Maybe right now. You better go in and get them, or call the Air Force or something."

  Shearing crushed out his cigarette and snarled. "Goddamn it. OK, we thought they'd use a plane, but I didn't really think they'd work so fast. Come on, Sam, make a suggestion."

  I couldn't see why my idea about the Air Force was wrong, but then I wasn't sure why they didn't just go in and get them anyway. We seemed to have enough firepower. De la Torres was studying the map closely.

  "They will have to refuel, I think. And it is getting dark, will be dark soon. Will they fly out immediately?"

  He seemed to be asking me as the local expert on airplanes, which was quite a compliment after my landing. "Well, it's pretty hot out there. They've presumably got the pilot, Ching, Li Kun, Steen, and Hudson, if they're not leaving anybody behind. That plane wasn't meant for more than four passengers, five overloads it pretty good. The only place to take off would be that dirt road, and there's transmission lines across it . . . Let's see, it faces crosswind, almost downwind . . . . You know, if it was me, I wouldn't try to get out on that short a runway until it cools off quite a lot."

  Janie asked the question, although I don't know if any of them knew. "What does the temperature have to do with it, Paul?"

  "Air's thinner when it's hot. Twenty degrees can make a lot of difference when you've overloaded your plane on a short runway. Understand, without the check sheets for that plane I'm just guessing, but I think I'd want to wait a while. Why not wait anyway? They'll try to cross the border at night, won't they?"

  "It seems reasonable," Shearing decided. "Now the question is, where do we go from here? I can't go in after them. If that's Bruce Ching in there, we want him to get out. To make this mission come off right, Li Kun and Hoorne must not leave the country, and Ching has to get out without it looking like we wanted him to."

  I whistled. "That's a tall order. No wonder you don't want the Air Force."

  Shearing was still thinking. He puffed away on a cigarette, drank the coffee Peters had put in front of him, went back to the cigarette. We all watched him. While he worked on his problem I wondered why he wanted Ching to get out. Finally he looked at the map again. "OK. Paul, can you land that airplane on the road above them?"

  "Archk?" I think that's what I said. It was a strangled gasp of some kind anyway. "With a hell of a lot of luck, just maybe. That ship's a sailplane, Mr. Shearing. She's got a wingspan of almost sixty feet, a hell of a lot wider than most roads. You saw how sloppy I was getting her down out there with a full runway. Besides, she's out of fuel."

  "No, the boys were filling her when I got the maps," Peters said. I gave him my best look, but he didn't melt and run down the cracks in the floor.

  "Take Sam up there while there's still enough light to land," Shearing barked. "We'll look for the other end of that road and try to get some reinforcements behind you by car. Go on, get moving. And now you've had practice, make it a decent landing."

  "But—but what in hell do we do when we get up there?" I asked. "Not to mention the fact that the chances are we don't get there in one piece."

  "Sam can tell you. You have everything you need?"

  De la Torres nodded. "In the airplane already." He turned to me. "Señor, I am not anxious to go up with you again, but what else is there? Only you can fly that craft, and do you know of any other way we can get close enough to them to attempt our mission?"

  They were all looking at me again, Sam, Nick, Harry Shearing, Peters. But this time they had an added attraction. They had Janie. Then they weren't looking at me anymore, they were starting out of the camper, with Shearing right behind giving last-minute instructions, and I was alone.

  There wasn't any trouble getting the ship off the ground. She liked to fly, and we didn't need much of the runway. I was still muttering to myself as we circled over the hills, came in low above the treetops to skim along that ridge, looking for the stupid road.

  "If I pile this thing up, they're going to know somebody's up here." I told Sam. "You think of that?"

  "What is there to think? If they are alarmed, Shearing will have to do this some other way. But it would be best for all of us if you did not pile it up."

  I swiveled around to get a look at him, just in time to see him hide that little half smile of his. OK, if he could play that stiff upper lip routine, so could I. I wonder how many people have done damn fool things because they're more afraid of somebody grinning at them?

  It didn't really look so bad when we cruised over the road. Sagebrush and weed grew right up to the edge, but there was clearance, the trees were higher up. The problem was that the road wasn't straight. It ran along the ridge, not really a road anyway but a gravel track. I couldn't see any ruts, but the wiggles in it scared hell out of me. Just as I was about to give up, we came to a stretch that would just barely do it if I worked everything right.

  I cruised along, maybe fifty feet high, memorizing the landmarks on the approach, then climbed for altitude. Flying that airplane was a weird experience anyway. With that whisper-quiet engine my hands thought this was a sailplane, not a powered craft. I got up high enough for our turn, staying out of sight of the oil camp below us, and brought her around.

  "Who's the patron saint for this kind of stunt?" I asked.

  "San Juan Capistrano is supposed to have levitated on several occasions, although he is not the official to whom aviators usually pray," Sam answered promptly.

  "Levitation. Well, he's our man, then. This is as close to it as we'll ever come. Besides, we may just need the real thing before we're down. Reserve me a couple of candles for him if we make it, will you?" I got lined up with the approach. "Now. You see that handle on your left? Not the throttle, the other one, the big lever?"
<
br />   "Yes."

  "Get hold of it. When I say 'now,' yank back on it all the way. You got that? But for God's sake don't do it until I say so. Comprende!"

  "Si. Ich verstehe."

  It took a second for that to register and before I had time to laugh I was too busy. Once again I lined her up, brought her to where I thought we were about a foot over the road, eased her a bit lower. The end of my straight stretch was coming up too fast.

  "NOW!"

  As Sam hauled on the spoilers, I gave her some throttle, keeping her level. We dropped the last foot to the road, bounced along, slowing rapidly, the feathered prop. and brakes doing the job. There was still fifty feet of reasonably straight road ahead of us when we came to a stop.

  "We make a good team," Sam grinned. "If you can guarantee that in future you can do that well, I will fly with you anytime."