Kaplan made no comment.
“At least you don’t deny the facts. We can play all the games you like. At the end of the day, you have something we want—why be coy about it?” Cheng pointed a finger at Kaplan. “Zero’s secrets are inside your head. We need the means to unlock them.”
“Good luck with that,” Kaplan said. “You believe one man can store all the information about something as complicated as Zero? It doesn’t work like that, Cheng.”
“You are not the mild peasant you pretend to be. In your head you carry the encryption codes that ultimately control Zero. Plus much more. They are what we need and, Kaplan, my friend, you are going to give them to us. As well as much of the design for the platform.”
“No. I won’t. Coercion will not make me talk.”
“Time will tell, Kaplan. Keep this in mind. We are prepared for what you would term ‘the long haul.’ We are not worried about a few weeks. Even a few months. We have great patience and you will find we are extremely persistent people. So we may be in each other’s company for a long time, Saul Kaplan.”
Bolo beckoned Cheng. They stood together, speaking quietly, until Bolo left the room and Cheng returned to his seat in front of Kaplan.
“Bolo tells me our transport will be here shortly. Then it will be time to leave. We have a long journey ahead of us, so prepare yourself for that.”
Bolo reappeared, pushing a wheeled trolley that held the tea and coffee Cheng had asked for. He placed the trolley so Cheng could reach it, and returned to his seat across the room, taking with him a mug of something hot.
Cheng poured for them both and passed a cup to Kaplan. When they were served, Cheng sat back, delicately sipping his tea and watching Kaplan closely.
“Despite our political differences, I am truly in awe of what you have done, Kaplan. The Zero Platform is a wonderful creation. And the assimilation of Major Buchanan into the machine? Truly ahead of its time.”
“Perhaps if you had asked nicely we might have given you the information, rather than you trying to steal it.”
Cheng laughed. It was a pleasant sound of genuine amusement.
“Somehow I do not think so. America wishes to keep Zero as its own. And I can understand that. The platform is unique. America will not want to share it.”
“So China must take it?” Kaplan chided.
“We cannot allow your country to dominate space. To put it bluntly, Kaplan, we must have our Zero, albeit by proxy, and I make no excuses for that.”
Kaplan emptied his cup and leaned forward to refill it.
“You understand people will be looking for me.”
“That doesn’t exactly surprise me. We have embarrassed them by taking you. The Air Force will search high and low. And the police. It is to be expected. They will not find you. Be aware that the tracking device fitted to your car was disabled before it left the base.”
“You have someone working for you there?”
“Of course. You do not think we did all this by good fortune? We had help—paid help. Our way to success.”
“You sound confident.”
“Soon we will be gone from this place and out of the country.”
“To where?”
“Good try. Let me say our destination will not be where you might expect.”
“A mystery tour?”
“In a manner of speaking, Kaplan.”
Saul Kaplan studied Cheng’s expressionless face—bland, calm, giving nothing away. The word inscrutable came into Kaplan’s thoughts. The man was not going to give anything away. Kaplan decided there would not be any profit in pushing his line of questioning. Cheng would tell him when he was ready and not before. He drank his coffee and relaxed as much as he was able.
With their conversation lapsing, Cheng made his excuses and rose from his chair. He spoke briefly to Bolo before he left the room.
Left alone to consider the situation, Kaplan allowed a train of thought to grow. He was thinking about the small tracking unit implanted in his shoulder. It was something Kaplan had devised and had implanted early in the Zero development as a safeguard for himself. Not generally broadcast outside the upper chain of command, he was confident no one except a small group knew about it. Tested on a regular basis, the unit had always worked as expected. If it was transmitting its signal, it should have been registering back at the base. If that was the case, the AF should have been able to pinpoint his position by now.
So where were they?
Why hadn’t there been a rescue attempt?
Kaplan reached over his shoulder, fingers probing the slight bump in his flesh that told him the implant was still in place. So why hadn’t the Zero Command picked up the signal?
Was he already too far away?
He knew the unit had an extremely powerful range. He had built the thing himself and knew its capabilities.
So why had it not worked?
Had it malfunctioned? Been damaged in some way?
Kaplan didn’t have answers for his own questions.
That worried him. He liked to be in control of his own destiny. Right now that seemed to be way off.
All right, Saul, work this out piece by piece if you can. They waylaid your car, shot Steven and... He recalled a paralyzing sensation as something was thrust against his body...a searing jolt that threw him into spasms, left him sprawling across the rear seat, barely aware of rough hands dragging him from the car... A sharp jab as something was thrust into his neck and then a hazy sensation before he lapsed into unconsciousness... Nothing, then, until he woke here, with the man called Nan Cheng...
Kaplan’s thoughts went back to the something that had incapacitated him in the car. The jolt that had stunned him—and it came to him in that moment. The shock. Damn it, an electric shock. A Taser. They had hit him with a Taser. The electric surge had engulfed his body. Stunned him...with enough voltage to have knocked out the signal from his implant. That had to have been what happened. Cutting through the signal and leaving him without his tracking device. The realization dismayed Kaplan. His link to Zero Command was wiped out.
The only question—would the signal come back, or was he even more isolated than he had imagined? He had no way of knowing whether the interruption was permanent, the cell damaged irreparably. Could it reset itself and start sending out the pulse again?
That was all Kaplan knew. Everything else was out of his hands. Until—or if—the situation changed, he was going to have to deal with whatever came his way. It was not what he would have chosen. Choice didn’t come into it at the moment.
He was in the hands of the Chinese, and what they wanted did not promise him a comfortable future.
He found himself wondering where they would take him. The way Cheng had spoken suggested somewhere other than China. At least, that was what Kaplan had surmised. He could be mistaken. Kaplan admitted he was still not fully recovered from the drugs that had been administered, so perhaps he had heard incorrectly.
Kaplan decided there was no use taxing his brain. He would no doubt find out soon enough. It wasn’t the destination that concerned him as much as what might be waiting for him at the other end. As Cheng had said, the Chinese wanted Zero. Its secrets. He began to realize they would go to any lengths to gain that information, and as determined as he was not to give his secrets away, he knew he might not succeed. He would resist for as long as he could, but if they employed extreme methods to strip away his resistance, there was no guarantee he would not give in.
He comforted himself with the knowledge that he would be missed by now. That would have galvanized Zero Command to start looking for him. And they would not give up. If there were any clues as to his disappearance, they would be followed.
Kaplan thought about Claire Valens. The young woman possessed a stubborn nature, which would not allow
her to rest as long as he was missing. If the chance existed, she would find him one way or another.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The news McCarter had received earlier had come from Stony Man: the feedback from Able Team had pointed to a Chinese connection. As he relayed the basic information to Claire Valens, he saw the flash of vindication in her eyes.
“If you think it will make you feel better, love, go ahead and say I told you so,” McCarter said.
Claire Valens only smiled briefly at the Briton. Being proved right in this instance gave her no sense of victory. She felt only dissatisfaction. Disappointment that the security protocols in place had not prevented Kaplan’s kidnapping. She was the one charged with keeping things safe at the base and watching out for Saul Kaplan’s safety. She had let him down, let herself down. Things had been going so well at Zero Command and now everything had blown up in their faces—her face, to be correct.
“Damn,” she said. “We got complacent. Too sure of ourselves. It was all going smoothly...”
“Hey, Claire, kicking yourself isn’t going to do any good,” McCarter said. “Only way out of this is to find Kaplan and bring him home. We’re here to help. Not point the finger. Things go wrong. It’s the way of the world.”
“And so there we have the motto for the day,” James said. “‘Things go wrong. It’s the way of the world.’ Just hearing it makes me all warm inside.”
Despite her mood, Valens couldn’t hold back a smile.
McCarter took out his sat phone and connected with Stony Man again.
Brognola answered the call. He listened while McCarter told him what they needed.
“We’re already on it,” the big Fed said. “Bear has the team checking out every Chinese connection they can think of. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will come up with a name or a location.”
“If we assume the Chinese do have Kaplan, they’re going to want him out of the US,” McCarter said. “Somewhere they can work on him in peace and quiet. Last thing they’ll want is to keep him where they could encourage interference.”
“That could mean taking him directly to China—or some other isolated place. If that happens,” the big Fed grumbled, “our chances of getting to him are thinner than I’d like to guess at.”
“Maybe they figured on that,” McCarter said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning they may take him somewhere other than China. The information from Jui Kai suggests our Colonel Chan is making a trip out of the country.”
“Thanks for coming up with that suggestion,” Brognola said. “I’ll check with Bear to see how they’re getting on and get back to you if there’s anything to tell.”
* * *
BROGNOLA PUT THE phone down. He leaned back in his chair and found himself staring up at the ceiling. It was out of frustration more than anything. Gazing at the ceiling tiles didn’t change a thing.
“Well, hell, that isn’t going to tell me the secrets of the universe,” he muttered.
A gentle cough caught his attention. Barbara Price was standing in the open doorway to his Farm office, a bemused smile on her lips.
“Don’t ask,” he said.
“I was on my way to the Annex. You want to join me?”
“Going there myself.” Brognola pushed to his feet. “Right now I feel like taking a long drive into the countryside and just playing hooky.”
As they headed down the corridor Price noted, “But you won’t.”
“You know me too well, Miss Price.”
They took the electric rail car that whisked them to the below-ground facility that housed, among other things, the Farm’s blacksuits’ communication center and the War Room. And, of course, the Computer Room where Kurtzman and his computer geniuses worked their cyber magic.
“What are your thoughts about the Zero problem?” Price asked.
Brognola glanced at her. “Right now, not happy ones.”
The low, almost inaudible hum of the electronic equipment inside the Computer Room enveloped the pair as they stepped inside.
Each member of Kurtzman’s team was busy at their workstation. Each station was complemented with a full state-of-the-art computer setup and an ultra-high-speed internet connection—all linked to a central hub that facilitated information-sharing.
Price looked at a number of the large wall monitors displaying real-time assessments of global hotspots thanks to the Farm’s exclusive-use satellite. Another dedicated monitor scrolled data from a national TV news channel. She knew the cyber team was keeping 24/7 tabs on world events, searching for anything that might trigger a lead for any of the incidents the Farm’s teams were pursuing.
Huntington Wethers, a distinguished black man who resembled a college professor rather than a member of the Stony Man cyber team, glanced up at Brognola and Price. A former UCLA cybernetics professor, Wethers had been recruited by Aaron Kurtzman for his expertise in computer science.
“We might have that link you’ve been looking for,” he told the big Fed.
“The words I love to hear,” Brognola said.
Wethers’s fingers moved across his keyboard and one of the wall monitors was immediately filled with images.
“Colonel Xia Chan,” Wethers said. “Best picture we have of him. Caught when he was attending military exercises in Hunan province about four months ago. Info says Chan has been building a tight little group around himself. Some special project he’s involved with.”
Wethers brought up other images, detailing each man as he appeared.
“There’s a face only a mother could love,” Price said.
“Yang Zhou,” Wethers announced. “Security head for Chan. He’s a hard man according to our asset. One of his assignments has been trying to run down the two Chinese who defected at the end of the original Zero affair. If you recall, they ran off with a large amount of Chinese money.”
“Probably way off the grid by now,” Brognola conceded.
“Information is that Zhou hasn’t had much luck finding these men,” Wethers continued. “Coming up to date, we also have this.” He brought up a recent image of another Chinese individual. “Kam Ho. Resides here in the US. All legitimate as far as documentation goes. He’s into real estate. Has his own company. According to bank statements, he’s well-off. Now, his background is a little vague, but he’s been checked out by security agencies and they can’t fault him. Not sure where the money originally came from to set him up. It just shows up. He has a great deal.”
“Real estate must be paying off,” Price said.
“Not that well.”
“So why is he of interest?” Brognola asked.
“Because he was tagged talking to this man.” Wethers brought another image on-screen. “About two months ago Kam Ho was spotted in conversation with Nan Cheng, who happens to be one of Xia Chan’s subordinates. Ho met Nan Cheng at an open house gathering for a new housing project outside Washington. It appears our friend Ho was one of a number of Realtors invited to the gathering—him being a well-known businessman.”
“A clever way to meet someone, under the pretext of discussing house selling,” Brognola said.
“Maybe Colonel Chan wants a vacation home by the sea,” Price said facetiously.
“Or maybe they were discussing somewhere they could keep an unexpected houseguest under wraps.” Brognola shrugged. “Just a thought.”
“Can you get into Ho’s property list?” Price asked. “To see if there’s—”
“Already running that down,” Carmen Delahunt called out from her station. “We’re checking all sales and rentals after the date Ho and Cheng had their little bonding session.”
The vivacious redhead, former FBI, was the third member of Kurtzman’s team. Smart as she was attractive, Delahunt was an intuitive and dedicated in
dividual, her previous life as an agent leaving her with skills she had enhanced under Kurtzman’s tutelage. She had insight that often surprised her cyber companions.
“What does your intuition tell you?” Brognola said.
“I’ll put my money on a lease,” Delahunt admitted. “Short-term. Once the operation is over, Ho can clear the house and put it back on the market. Make sure there’re no indicators left behind. On the surface it all looks aboveboard.”
“We all agreed on that?” Kurtzman said, returning from topping up his acid-scarring brew of thick, black coffee. He rolled his wheelchair up to his station, swinging it around to face the room. “For now,” he said, “we concentrate on tracking down property Ho has handled. Split between the four of us, it shouldn’t take long.”
“Makes sense,” Brognola said, turning to leave the room. “Keep me in the loop. I need to talk to the teams.”
“Man’s concerned,” Kurtzman noted after Brognola had left.
“He probably feels frustrated,” Price said.
“Join the club,” Kurtzman conceded. “If we have the Chinese involved in Kaplan’s abduction, which is looking more likely by the minute, it’s a given the whole thing concerns Zero.”
“I’d hoped they had backed out after the last time,” Delahunt said.
“The Chinese have long memories,” Wethers argued. “And they are long on going for what they want. Zero caught their attention big-time. It’s been on the cards that they might deal themselves in for a second try.”
“Using Saul Kaplan as their way in,” Delahunt said.
“Okay, people,” Kurtzman said, “let’s keep looking. There has to be something in cyber space that we can use.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
While Bolo held Kaplan in a powerful grip, Cheng administered more drugs. They didn’t take effect immediately, so Kaplan was able to watch with interest when Cheng came back into the room about thirty minutes later and stood beside Bolo, quietly speaking with the man. Bolo nodded, stood and crossed over to where Kaplan sat.
“Up,” he said, gesturing with his large hands.
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