Soar

by John Weisman

  “LET’S SEE where the hell we are.” Sam unlatched the Velcro flap of his deep thigh pocket and fumbled past the pock-etknife and the spare change until his hand closed around the Visor Handspring with its attached GPS module. He pulled the PDA out, snapped the cover off, switched it on, and watched as the screen came to life.

  The Visor was indicative of how cavalier Langley was these days when it came to supporting operations that put human beings on the ground in denied areas. The damn thing had been handed to him in London with dead batteries. If he hadn’t taken the time to test it before stowing it, they’d be sitting out here with no way of knowing where the hell they were.

  It was lucky they had the GPS, because the Agency’s classified maps certainly hadn’t helped get them where they had to be. The Western China branch chief in London—a white-haired former executive secretary from the moribund Division of Administration whose London posting was her first overseas assignment—had actually demanded that Sam sign a security document before handing over six three-foot-by-four-foot tactical charts stamped secret, on which Sam would plot the team’s infiltration and exfil, as well as contingency plans in case they were discovered in flagrante delicto.

  Except, after Sam had spent seven precious hours working with the highly detailed l:100,000-scale documents (and been amazed at how primitive the road system appeared, given the escalating number of tourist buses working their way along the Silk Road these days), he happened to look at the fine print on the bottom left-hand corner of one of them. It was dated 1985. Then he checked the others. None was more current than 1992. The bloody things were a decade-plus old. Obsolete, outdated, and useless. So he’d summoned the branch chief to the safe house, returned the maps, and shredded his release form. Then he checked the phone book, located a travel-book store on Long Acre, and hiked the mile and a half from his hotel to Covent Garden.

  Sixty pounds sterling later, Sam had purchased half a dozen commercial road maps and Lonely Planet guidebooks that showed all the new highways. (Like, for example, the very one they’d used this morning, which had originally been built in 1998 as a north-south military conduit and was nowhere to be found on the CIA’s oh-so-secret chart.)

  SAM CHECKED the handheld’s screen. They were within a half mile of the coordinates he’d programmed into the GPS unit.

  He took a reading, showed the screen to Kaz, who, fist clenched, pumped the warm air with his right arm. “Right on course, Pops.”

  “That’s the good news.” Sam swung the camera off the ground and onto his shoulder. “The bad news is that we’ve got to head southeast,” he said, his jaw thrust toward the intimidating dunes towering over them like tsunami. Then his voice took on a forcedly optimistic tone. “What the hell, it shouldn’t take us more than an hour.”

  The White House Residence.

  2331 Hours Local Time.

  PRESIDENT PETER DE WITT FORREST set his mug of decaf down on a coaster emblazoned with the presidential seal and turned to face his national security adviser as she came into the residence’s sitting room.

  “Johnny, give us a minute, will you?” He waved the Secret Service agent out, waiting until the door closed behind the young man’s broad back. Then he rolled his shoulders and cracked his left-hand pinkie knuckle joint. “What have we heard from the team, Monica?”

  Monica Wirth, who’d gone on to Georgetown law school after eight years as a Ph.D. CIA analyst, had worked on national security issues for Pete Forrest since he’d been elected governor of Virginia back in the mid-1990s. So she read his body language well enough to know that whenever the Leader of the Free World tried to mask tension, he cracked the finger joints on his left hand.

  “Nothing, Mr. President. We’ve heard nothing because they’re maintaining radio silence until the job’s completed.”

  “But they’ve been sending progress reports all along, haven’t they?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So why can’t they update us now?”

  “They’ve been using steganography to throw the Chinese off-track, Mr. President.”

  Pete Forrest blinked. “Steganography?”

  “The communications officer has been sending digital pictures to an accommodation address in London on a daily basis,” Wirth explained. “A sort of visual ‘progress report’ on the travelogue they’re supposed to be making. The team’s reports are embedded in the images. That’s steganography.”

  “Hmm.” Pete Forrest pulled on his left thumb until the joint popped. “But when they’re in the clear, Monica …”

  “When they get to Yutian they’ll telephone the accommodation address in London and acknowledge.”

  The knuckle joint of the president’s middle finger popped audibly. “But they do have a phone, don’t they?”

  “Yes, Mr. President, they’re carrying a cell phone. But the team leader doesn’t want to use it until they’re in the clear.”

  “So we won’t get word until they’re where? Yuti-something, wasn’t it you just said?”

  The National Security Council staff had, as always, made sure she was as prepared as he. “Yutian, Mr. President.” She took a quick peek at the three-by-five card in her left palm then slipped it into the pocket of her black pantsuit jacket. “It’s an old caravan way station on the Silk Road.”

  Craack. “How long before they get there?”

  His apprehension was contagious, and she began to pace behind one of the two facing Empire couches—four nervous steps followed by a quick reverse of course. “Tomorrow, sometime. They’re scheduled to implant the devices today. Then it’s a three-hundred-kilometer trip south on that new connector road, followed by another hundred on the main east-west road. And of course they have to stop and shoot video from time to time.”

  “Video,” he repeated absently, and cracked the ring finger on his left hand.

  The president had been anxious about this operation from the very start. Not that he’d ever wavered. The mission was critical to the nation’s immediate national security interests. Immediate because in just over six weeks he was scheduled to sign a nuclear treaty at a summit in Beijing. But there was no way Pete Forrest was going to affix his signature to the document unless there was a way to verify beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Chinese weren’t cheating by setting off ultra-low-level tests deep within the hundreds of miles of tunnels they’d dug over the last half century in the sandy flats around the Lop Nur test site’s prehistoric dry lake bed.

  For maddening reasons Pete Forrest couldn’t begin to fathom, none of the National Reconnaissance Office’s current generation of satellites had the capability to distinguish an explosion that measured less than half a kiloton from a seismic anomaly. The president had a hard time with that, because a half-kiloton explosion is the equivalent of blowing a million pounds of TNT all at once. Which, as he had complained loudly to the director of central intelligence, who’d presented him with the bad news, makes for one hell of a seismic anomaly.

  Worse, he’d been told there was no way NRO would be able to get an ultra-low-range-capable bird launched in less than three years. The existing ground sensors, which were located on the high mountain ranges of the Kazakh-Chinese border, had been designed to record the twenty-to eighty-kiloton underground tests the Chinese had performed in the mid-and late 1990s—tests that all measured 4.5 or above on the Richter seismic scale.

  But according to the latest analysis, the current Chinese nuclear program was being directed more toward mini-yield tactical weapons than multi-megaton warheads. Which meant that the United States was essentially blind if Beijing decided to secretly test tactical nukes of a half kiloton or less. The president had concluded the only way to guarantee the Chinese weren’t cheating was to insert new ground sensors close enough to the tunnels to pick up the faintest of seismic readings emanating from the Lop Nur test site.

  Which required a human element to infiltrate across China’s border and place the devices covertly. And so, a little over two months ago, he�
��d signed the finding that set the operation in motion, even though he knew he’d be risking a confrontation with the Chinese, as well as putting American lives in danger. It was his job as commander in chief, and he didn’t have to like it—he just had to order it done.

  Still, commonsense, straight-ahead grit was characteristic of the man. Unlike the great majority of future politicians of his generation, Peter DeWitt Forrest had volunteered straight out of Yale to serve in the Army—one of only eight from his class who would serve in the military. He’d qualified for jump wings and seen combat as a platoon commander in Vietnam, where he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. And he had returned from that mishandled war with deeply rooted beliefs about the use of force, and—just as important—about the quality of leadership.

  Pete Forrest came away from Vietnam convinced the only difference between good leadership and poor leadership is whether the lives that leadership spends are well spent or squandered. In Vietnam, he saw too many squandered lives. It was those ghosts that shaped, tempered, and focused his modus vivendi.

  As a banker and credit-card entrepreneur who’d once ranked sixty-seventh in the Forbes 500, he’d always demanded that those who worked for him be tough but fair. The hallways of Pete Forrest’s corporate headquarters were filled with posters promoting character and integrity. He demonstrated loyalty to his employees just as he demanded loyalty from them by sharing the company’s considerable wealth based on their performance, just as his remuneration was based on his own. Later, as governor of Virginia, he’d always tried (and most of the time succeeded) to be guided by a moral compass, as opposed to the amoral political pragmatism fashionable in the 1990s.

  Perhaps most important, he never forgot the lessons he’d learned from his brothers-in-arms on the battlefield. Which was why Pete Forrest had taken a silent vow in the same breath with which he’d boldly affirmed the presidential oath. His hand on the family Bible, he swore to himself that as the nation’s commander in chief he would try never to squander a single American life.

  And so, before putting Americans in harm’s way, Pete Forrest always took the time to consider the hard question of whether he was about to spend lives or squander them. If he determined it was going to be the latter, he found an alternative solution, no matter that it might be politically unpopular. But if it was the former, he never hesitated. Which was why, if the four CIA officers he’d put in jeopardy didn’t return from China, he’d be able to live with the fact that he had ordered them to their deaths. Their lives would not have been squandered, but spent in the pursuit of Duty, Honor, Country, just as so many other lives, snuffed out on Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc, on Mt. Suribachi, at A Shau and Plei Me and Mazār-e Sharif, had been spent, in the pursuit of Duty, Honor, Country.

  PETE FORREST dropped onto one of the drawing room’s couches and stretched out his long legs, watching as his national security adviser did the caged-tiger thing. “Grab a seat, Monica, you’re making me itchy.”

  Immediately, she dropped onto the couch opposite his. “I’m sorry, Mr. President.”

  He eased up a bit. “One of the perks of this job is that people tend to do things when you ask ‘em to.” Then his face grew serious. “So, bottom line: we won’t know anything concrete until tomorrow.”

  The national security adviser’s hands formed a steeple. “Well,” she said, “we’ll know when the sensors have been activated, because they’ve been programmed to transmit a baseline reading.”

  “I want to be notified as soon as that happens.”

  “I’ve already had the word passed to the operations center at Langley,” she said. “The duty officer knows she’s to give you a call immediately.”

  “Good.” The president cracked another knuckle. “She knows not to be shy—no matter what time?”

  “I made that abundantly clear, sir.”

  He nodded affirmatively. “Good.” The president stood up and stretched. “Then get out of here, Monica. It’s past midnight. Go home. Get some rest. Like you said, nothing’s going to break until tomorrow.”

  “I think I’ll just grab a combat nap in my office, sir. If you need me for anything—”

  “I know the extension, Monica.” He gave her shoulder a gentle nudge toward the hallway. “Go.”

  2

  West of Yengisu, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China.

  1248 Hours Local Time.

  IT WAS FINALLY SHOW TIME. Using what appeared to be two audio cables, Kaz ganged the video camera’s spare batteries together. Then he uncoiled a ten-foot-long, double-male-ended video cable and plugged one end of it into the batteries.

  As he did this, X-Man was pulling the zoom lens out of its case. He handed it gingerly to Dick Campbell: “Hold this.” Then he turned the two-foot case upside down, reached inside, released the false bottom, and withdrew a small, cylindrical motor about the size of a soup can.

  He handed the motor to Sam, who cradled it in his arms as gently as if it were spun glass. Next, as the communicator replaced the zoom lens, X-Man slipped the tripod out of its case. Using a pair of Allen wrenches, he disassembled the tops of the three legs from their hinges, removed the three support straps from the bottom leg collets, and snapped the pieces together, forming a four-foot six-inch drill shaft. He tipped one of the tripod legs over and unscrewed its spiked foot, which he reversed, revealing a drill bit. The bit snapped into the bottom of the shaft and locked into place with an audible click.

  With Sam holding the power unit, the shaft was quickly attached by using a second spiked foot and locked tight with a pair of Allen bolts. As X-Man completed the drill shaft, Kaz was unscrewing the angled pan and slide-tilt head locking handles from the camera platform head. These he screwed into tapped receivers on either side of the power unit.

  Sam checked his watch. The drill had taken less than five minutes to assemble. He looked over Kaz and X-Man’s handiwork. It sure was ugly, looking like the illegitimate offspring of a Dremel tool on steroids and the core-sample drills used by NASA’s Apollo lunar landing teams back in the 1970s. But it was also cannily, intricately, wonderfully ingenious. Designed, no doubt, by an engineer who’d been well inculcated in Goldbergian rubric.

  Kaz hefted the drill, tested to make sure the connections were secure, and then pronounced it acceptable. “Let’s test it.”

  The communicator handed the male end of the video cable to Kaz. “Insert Tab A into Slot B,” Kaz said as he screwed the connector home. He manipulated the switch on the motor’s top side, and the drill began to turn. “All right!” Kaz gave a thumbs-up to the rest of them and looked in Sam’s direction. “If Pops here will be so good as to verify our position, we’ll set the first of these babies so we can start getting home.”

  Reflexively, Sam checked the digital watch on his left wrist again. It was well past midday. They’d been out for more than four hours now. They probably had more than an hour’s work to do setting the sensors, then burying the drill, followed by a two-and-a-half-to three-hour trek back to the Toyota. That would mean they’d be traveling at night. He didn’t like the idea. The Chinese increased their patrols at night.

  The White House Residence.

  0448 Hours Local Time.

  A LIGHT SLEEPER, Pete Forrest heard the start of the distinctive ring, rolled to his right, and reached for the secure phone before the instrument completed its first cycle. “Yes?”

  “Mr. President?”

  “Yes.” He sat up, hooking the phone receiver between his neck and shoulder and squinting at the red numerals of the digital clock, which read 04:49.

  “This is Carrie at the Operations Center, Mr. President.”

  “What’s the news, Carrie?”

  “Signal received, Mr. President. Loud and clear.”

  Pete Forrest exhaled audibly. “Good. Anything else to report?”

  “No, sir, nothing else.”

  “Okay, then. Thank you.”

  “Good night, Mr. President.”

  “Good night, Ca
rrie.” He replaced the receiver in its cradle, then reconfigured the pillows on his side of the bed into bolsters. Forrest sat upright, his head touching the headboard rail, and stared into the darkness.

  Next to him, his wife, Jennifer, stirred, semiawake. “Anything urgent?” she murmured.

  “Just an update on something, sweetie,” he said. “Nothing critical. Go back to sleep.”

  She purred and rolled over. Idly, he stroked her shoulder. Then he cracked all the finger joints on his left hand, clasped both hands behind his head, and stared into the darkness. They’d done the job. God bless them. He’d have the team to the residence when they got back. Get to know them a little bit. Ask them about China. Listen to their stories. Let them know how much he appreciated what they’d done for the country.

  But first, they had to get out. And exfiltration, Pete Forrest knew from his own combat experience, was the most dangerous part of every mission.

  14 Kilometers north of Tazhong, Xinjiang Autonomous

  Region, China. 2245 Hours Local Time.

  SAM SAW THE BIG TRUCK blocking the highway only because he was playing with his night-vision monocular. They were driving, as was the habit in this part of the world, with running lights. So his device hadn’t been blinded by the Toyota’s headlamps.

  They came over a gentle rise in the road, and there it was—straight ahead, maybe a mile away. “Shoazim—sür’ätni astiliting, sür’ätni astiliting—slow down, slow down,” he ordered. The Toyota eased to a crawl on the darkened highway. They drifted off the rise, and the truck disappeared from Sam’s view.