Bulganin held up a hand, silencing Beskrovny. “That’s enough! I’ve heard enough!” He began pacing. “Those bastards … those rotten, backstabbing bastards—”
“Mr. President,” Nochenko said.
“—attack us without provocation … Cowards!”
“Mr. President!”
Bulganin stopped. “What?”
“I agree, it looks bad, but we need to proceed cautiously—”
“Ivan, didn’t you hear? There are enemy soldiers on Russian soil! American soldiers!”
“Let the relief crews do their job. Let Marshal Beskrovny and Director Fedorin investigate the matter. If the Americans are responsible, they will pay, but we must be sure.”
Bulganin stared at him. “Can’t you see the obvious—any of you? They did this. They are responsible. They think I’m weak; they thought this was the perfect time to—” Bulganin stopped talking, closed his eyes for a few moments, then opened them, suddenly calm again. “Fine. Very well. Conduct your investigation. You have twenty-four hours to report back to me.”
Both Fedorin and Beskrovny nodded. “Yes, Mr. President.”
“In the meantime, I want two things from you Marshal Beskrovny: One, hunt down those soldiers. They must not be allowed to escape. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Second: I don’t want that battle group approaching our coast. Mark my words: None of this is a coincidence. You don’t see it, but I do. I don’t want them anywhere near our soil. If they try it, make them pay for every inch!”
53
Beijing
It was four a.m. when Tanner stepped off the bus two blocks from his hotel. He was exhausted and ready for a couple hours of sleep. When he awoke, hopefully Oaken would have the camp’s location.
He walked southeast through a maze of dark hutongs, lined with boarded-up vendor’s stalls and quiet courtyards. Aside from the occasional grunt of a pig or the squawk of a chicken, all was quiet.
Two hundred yards from the Bamboo Garden, he was turning onto Jiugulou when he caught a sudden whiff of cigarette smoke. A mental warning flag popped up. It was nothing concrete, but rather an intuitive punch in the stomach. Having learned the hard way, he’d come to trust the feeling.
He stopped, slowly stepped into a doorway alcove, and crouched in the shadows.
Two minutes passed. Abruptly, down the street in another alcove, the orange tip of a cigarette glowed to life. Just a local having a smoke, Briggs thought, but remained still nonetheless.
After another minute the cigarette glowed again. In those few seconds he caught the glint of olive-drab uniform pants with a red, vertical stripe: People’s Armed Police. Tanner’s heart filled his throat. What were the chances of a lone PAP officer stopping for a break in a darkened doorway just a hundred yards from his hotel?
They’d found him. A dozen questions swirled in his brain. Had Hsiao or Bian burned him? Had they been taken? Or was it something else, a mistake he’d made?
He continued to scan the street and slowly, one by one, he picked out another six men—two PAP officers and four PSB plainclothes—hidden along the street in front of the Bamboo Garden.
Six on this street, probably twice that many inside …
The ambush had to be a Guoanbu operation; only they could coordinate both the PSB and PAP like this. It would only be a matter of time before they began circulating his photo to the city’s local PSB stations—if they hadn’t already started. From there his alias and picture would trickle down to street level until every bus and cabdriver had it.
Get out, Briggs.
Moving slowly, he slipped back around the corner. Heart pounding, eyes darting into the darkness around him, he started walking west, forcing himself to keep an easy pace. Suddenly, a voice came out of the darkness of a hutong entrance: “Stop, sir!”
He stopped in his tracks. Don’t run. Wait.
“Sir, may I see your papers, please?”
He doesn’t know it’s me, Briggs thought. Still a chance.
Hands shaking, Tanner turned toward the voice. It was a uniformed PSB officer. Head tucked into his chest, Briggs patted his coat pockets. “Yes, Officer, I have them right here.” He took a step toward the man. “Yes, here they are …”
As the officer extended his hand for the papers, Tanner sent a straight punch into his solar plexus, then reversed his hand and slammed the butt of his palm into the man’s chin. The officer let out a gasp, then crumpled. Briggs caught him in a hug, then dragged him into the alley, and laid him down.
The thought of killing him flashed briefly through Tanner’s mind, but he dismissed it. It was unnecessary; alive or dead, the officer would be found within a few hours. The incident would be linked to him. Besides, Tanner thought, before this was over there was going to be plenty of mayhem to go around; there was no sense adding to it before he had no other choice.
He dragged the officer deeper into the hutong, stuffed him behind a cluster of garbage cans, then smoothed his clothes, stepped back onto the street, and kept walking until he reached Xitau, where he found another doorway and ducked inside.
He pulled out the Motorola, dialed Hsiao’s number. “Hello?” Hsiao answered groggily.
“It’s me,” Tanner said. “You recognize my voice?”
“Uh … yes. What—”
“How is everything?”
“What?”
“I said, ‘how is everything?’“
“Oh … everything is awful.”
He’s okay, Briggs thought. A standard “fine” response would have meant “trouble; go away.”
“And you?” Hsiao asked.
“The same. That makes two of us,” Tanner replied. This too was code: Don’t know about Bian; check, but use caution. “I’ll be in touch. Take care of yourself.”
“You, too,” Hsiao replied.
As the first hints of dawn were appearing on the horizon, Tanner stepped onto Deshengmen Avenue, flagged down a pedi-taxi—which was the last tier of transportation providers he felt would get his photo—and asked to be taken to the Ditan Gymnasium.
Once there, he walked west to Qingnianhu Park and followed the footpath around the lake to the visitor’s pavilion, a large, open-air amphitheater containing rest rooms, city map displays, and rental lockers. He found the correct locker, inserted his key, and opened the door.
Inside was a expedition-size, waterproof backpack. Thank God …
As promised, Brown and his people had deposited his cache.
Before leaving Washington, Tanner had given Mason a wish list of emergency items. Given not only the Guoanbu’s ultra-secret attitude toward the camp, but also the fact that Beijing had slowly but surely closing urban laogis in favor of more remote locations, he felt certain that sooner or later he’d find himself in the wilds of the Chinese countryside.
He took the backpack into a bathroom stall and took a quick inventory of the pack’s contents. Everything was there.
He stripped off his clothes and pulled on a pair of gray, cotton canvas pants, a matching anorak-type tunic, and a baseball cap, which he pulled low over his eyes, as was the current fashion in Beijing. He hefted the backpack over his shoulder and walked out.
Twenty minutes later he was aboard a rusty, single-speed bicycle he’d found leaning against a tree on Huangsi Boulevard, heading north toward the edge of the city. Head down, baseball cap over his eyes, he pedaled for an hour as the sun rose and throngs of fellow cyclers and taxis began filling the streets around him.
At nine he pulled into Shahe, a suburb twelve miles north of Beijing, leaned the bike against the first bench he saw, and walked on. He found the train station two blocks away and slipped into the bathroom, where he changed back into his regular clothes. A Westerner walking around dressed as a native was bound to arouse suspicion.
At the ticket window he bought tickets for three trains, each leaving within the next twenty minutes: O
ne to Chaoyang, another to Shanghai, and a third to Tianshui. Hopefully, if he didn’t draw attention to himself, there would be no witnesses to confirm which train he’d boarded.
Half mental coin-toss and half hunch that Soong’s camp lay somewhere to the north, Tanner chose the train bound for Chaoyang. As the speaker gave the last boarding call, he got up from his bench and boarded the last car.
Most of the seats were empty. A dozen or so people in peasant dress sat staring out the window or chatting quietly with their seatmates. No one gave him a second look. He found an empty row near the back and sat down.
He took a deep breath and leaned his head back. Almost out …
The loudspeaker above his head blared to life, made a clipped announcement in Mandarin, and then the train started moving. With each clack of the wheels over the joints, he felt himself relax a bit more.
He pulled out his phone, paused a moment to mentally organize his message, then dialed the number and waited. When he got the tone squelch, he punched in the code and hung up.
He glanced out the window, watching the countryside slip past with increasing speed.
Come on, keep moving …
Every mile he could put between himself and the city, the better chance he had of staying alive.
Back in Beijing, the PSB officer he’d disabled was found by a street sweeper. Twenty minutes after the call arrived, Xiang was on the scene. The officer was sitting against the hutong wall being attended by an emergency medical technician.
“What happened?” Xiang asked Eng.
“We don’t know yet; he’s just coming around. This close to Colson’s hotel, though—”
“Yes, it’s him,” Xiang said tiredly. There hadn’t been a mugging of a PSB officer in thirty years; this was not random. “Another hundred meters and he would have walked right into us!”
Xiang walked over to the officer and dismissed the EMT. Xiang questioned the dazed man for ten minutes, frequently having to repeat questions. “You’re certain you didn’t get a look at his face?”
“No, sir, I’m sorry. I asked for his papers and then … I don’t—”
“Did he seem nervous? In a hurry?”
“No, sir. He was just … walking.”
Very cool, this one, Xiang thought.
“It happened so fast … I was reaching for his papers and then … I woke up here.”
“Very well. Go to the hospital, have yourself checked.”
Xiang walked a few feet away, Eng trailing behind. “Where do we stand with the photo?”
“We’re distributing them now. The airport and all the train and bus stations are covered.”
“Widen it,” Xiang ordered. “I want every taxi driver to know his face. Someone has seen him. He’s only a few hours ahead of us; if we move quickly, we’ll have him before the day is out.”
CIA Operations Center
DDO George Coates happened to be in the center when Tanner’s message arrived. The duty officer called from the communications desk: “Mr. Coates, traffic on Pelican.” Pelican was the computer-generated code word for Tanner and the Beijing operation.
Coates walked over and scanned the message. “Goddammit, call Dick Mason. If Dutcher’s up there, have him come along.”
They walked in five minutes later. “Pelican,” Coates said, handing over the message. It read,
BURNED, CAUSE UNKNOWN. GONE TO GROUND. WILL CONTACT FOR STEERING.
BRAVO YANKEE.
“He’s safe at least,” Dutcher said. The “Bravo Yankee” sign off was what’s called a “no duress” signal. It was Tanner’s way of letting them know he was in fact free, and not being coerced into transmitting. “That’s the most important part.”
Dutcher meant it, but beyond that he felt events were quickly slipping away from them: China’s deadline was less than a day away and as they’d predicted, Bulganin wasn’t backing down; Jurens and his team, though safe for now, were stranded on Russian soil with no way to get out; and finally, he, Mason, and Cathermeier were still days away from being ready to confront Martin. If their plan was to succeed, one more coconspirator had to enlist.
The only good news—if it could be called that—had come from Columbia the day before: Kinsock and his crew were alive, but their position was perilous. Though wary of leaving the battle group with only one sub for cover, Cathermeier had ordered Cheyenne, another LA-class attack boat, dispatched toward the coordinates given by Columbia’s SLOT buoy.
Cathermeier was not hopeful. Unless Kinsock could get Columbia moving under her own power and into deeper water where Cheyenne could protect her, little could to be done for the boat until a rescue mission could be coordinated—itself a dicey proposition given her proximity to the mainland.
And now Briggs, Dutcher thought. On the run, alone and hunted by the Guoanbu, the PAP, and the PSB, he’d be lucky to get out alive, let along reach Soong.
“Yeah, he’s safe,” Mason agreed, “but for how long? How long can he last?”
54
Beijing
Xiang’s feeling that he knew his quarry had evolved into a certainty.
By noon, Colson’s picture had been distributed to every taxi and bus driver, to every train station, and to every PSB officer, from foot patrols to branch commanders. He’d disappeared. The coolness of the man, his ability to simply fade into Beijing’s background, reminded Xiang of another cat-and-mouse game he’d played with another agent twelve years ago.
Marshal Han Soong’s mysterious benefactor.
He picked up the phone and called for Eng. His assistant arrived a minute later. “Yes, sir?”
“Pull the case file from Soong’s defection.”
The file was exhaustive except when it came to Soong’s intermediary. They had one photo, a black-and-white half profile of a Westerner. Xiang laid it beside Colson’s passport photo and stared at them until both images were etched in his mind.
He closed his eyes and let the photos merge, using his imagination to rotate them, change the angles and lighting … He spent ten minutes like this, waiting for his subconscious to do the work.
Add a decade to the age, lighten the hair, give the face a beard …
Xiang’s reverie was broken by a knock on his door. “Come!”
It was Eng. “Sir, are you—”
Xiang silenced him with a raised finger.
It’s you, isn’t it? You came back for him, you stupid son-of-a-bitch. You came back …
“That’s him!”
“Who?”
“His name is Briggs Tanner—Soong’s long-lost friend.”
“How do you know his name?” Eng asked. “Soong never gave us—”
“My God, the arrogance! I’ll say this: He’s patient. Twelve years and he still came back.”
“How do we know that’s why he’s here? It could be anything—”
“No. Soong’s the reason.” Xiang’s phone rang and he snatched it up. “Yes?” He listened for a minute, then said, “I’m on my way.” He hung up. “We have a lead.”
“Where?”
“The Shahe train station. A ticket agent remembers seeing Tanner earlier this morning.”
Forty minutes later they arrived at the station.
The PSB officer who reported the sighting was waiting in the office. Sitting on a stool in the corner was an old woman in a ticket-agent apron. She glanced at Xiang, then cast her eyes downward.
“Tell me,” Xiang said to the PSB officer.
“She sold him three tickets: Chaoyang, Shanghai, and Tianshui. We’re questioning passengers who might have been here at the time, but so far we haven’t determined which train he boarded.”
“Smart move, buying three tickets,” Eng said.
“We’ll cover them all,” Xiang said. “Where are the trains now?”
“The Chaoyang and Tianshiu have already arrived. The Shanghai one is still en route.”
“Eng, have it stopped an
d searched.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then contact the PSB commandant in Chaoyang and Tianshiu and have them cover the stations. I want everyone questioned, from the ticket agents to the janitors. If Tanner was on one of those trains, someone had to have seen him. If need be, we’ll put people on every connection.”
Does he know where the camp is? Xiang wondered. No, he couldn’t. No chance.
Then where was he going? If anything, time and experience would have made Tanner wilier, more resourceful. He was moving with purpose, but what was it? Had the ambush at the hotel scared him off? Xiang doubted it. So, if he wasn’t running, what was he doing?
It didn’t matter, he decided. Before the day was out they would have him. Of course, he’d said the same thing twelve years ago. Tanner hadn’t been supposed to escape then, either. “Eng, assemble a search team. Call General Shiun at Fifteenth Army and tell him I want a company of his Dragons—”
“Paratroopers?”
“That’s right. And a pair of helicopters—Hinds. If Tanner manages to slip us again, we’ll hunt him down the old-fashioned way.”
Chaoyang
The loudspeaker above Tanner’s head blared to life again, made another curt announcement in Mandarin, then went silent. He was unable to decipher most of it, but caught the word “Chaoyang.”
He opened his map and did a quick calculation. Good. His ruse at the Shahe Station had bought him almost 220 miles. He was refolding his map when the vibration ringer on the Motorola went off. He pulled it off his belt and read the LED screen: Pager message. He punched up the message:
TRACK SUCCESSFUL.
CAMP AT 47° 35′N—° 27′E
GOOD HUNTING, STAY SAFE.
—W.O.
Briggs smiled. Bless you, Walt. He dialed the routing number, punched in the codes for “Message Received” and “In Transit,” then hung up, reopened his map and plotted the coordinates.
No, that can’t be right … He plotted them again, and came up with the same answer. Good God … His journey had just started.
Wall of Night Page 35