The Altman Code

by Robert Ludlum

  Then the man was gone, and the woman returned. “Play that for Feng. Now you and I need to talk business.”

  “Why doesn’t your husband do the talking, madame?”

  “Because he knows that in this area, I am smarter and stronger.”

  McDermid appeared to think about that. “Or he’s dead, and you played a recording.”

  “You know better than that. Still, in the end, does it matter? I have the manifest, and you want it.”

  “And what do you want, Madame Li?”

  “Money for a new life far from China for my children, my husband, and myself, but not such an enormous amount that it would sting you more than a mosquito bite. I’m reasonable. Two million American dollars should be good for all of us.”

  “That’s it?” He let sarcasm fill his voice.

  She ignored it. “We’ll need travel and identity papers, as well as an exit visa. The best papers.”

  He paused, rethinking his objections. “For that I get the manifest?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “And if you don’t get what you want?”

  “The Americans and Chinese will receive the manifest instead. I’ll arrange for it to be put into their hands myself, just as I arranged Yongfu’s ‘suicide.’ The original will go to Washington, and a copy will be sent to Beijing.”

  McDermid laughed. “If Yu Yongfu is truly alive, he will know that’s impossible. It can’t happen. If by some chance it did happen, he’d be dead, and so would you.”

  There was no humor in the woman’s steady tones. “That’s a risk we’re willing to take. Are you willing to risk the White House and Zhongnanhai receiving the manifest and what we know of the entire Empress story?”

  Again McDermid hesitated. Life was full of surprises, many of them unpleasant. This was such a surprise and fraught with so many dangerous repercussions that he could not afford to dismiss this woman, whoever she might be. “And how do you propose we consummate this negotiation?”

  “You or your representative will bring the money and the identity papers to us. We’ll give the manifest to you in return, once we have our payment.”

  McDermid laughed again. “You think I’m a fool, Madame Li? What guarantee do I have the manifest will actually be turned over to me, or even that it still exists?”

  “We’re not fools either. If we attempted such a deception, you’d indeed hunt us down. But you’re not a criminal who succeeds by fear. Once you have the manifest and we’re gone, your incentive to kill us will be far less. In fact, probably not worth the money, time, and trouble. Bad money after good, as they say.”

  “That’d require considerable thought.”

  “Again, what does it matter? You have to do it.”

  “Where would this exchange take place?”

  “At the site of the Sleeping Buddha near Dazu. That’s in Sichuan Province.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow at dawn.”

  “You’re in Dazu now?”

  “Did you think I’d tell you so easily? Where we are is unimportant. You’re undoubtedly having this call traced and will soon know anyway. Develop patience. It’s a characteristic of the East that the West should adopt.”

  McDermid needed to stall. First, to play Feng the tape and make sure these people were whom they claimed. Second, if they were bona fide, to give Feng a chance to find and eliminate them before any meeting. “Do you know what time it is, madame? If you’re as smart as you say, and if your husband truly is Yu Yongfu, then you’ll know I can’t possibly put together two million American dollars in cash and get to Dazu from Hong Kong so quickly. In addition, I’ll need to confirm your story with Feng.”

  There was what sounded like whispered consultation. These people were less assured than they sounded.

  “You’ll come yourself? To China?” she asked.

  He did not plan any such thing. “Madame, you can’t know Feng Dun very well if you think I’d trust him with two million dollars in cash.”

  A momentary silence. “Very well. Two million dollars in cash, new identity papers, travel papers, and an exit visa. The Sleeping Buddha at dawn the day after tomorrow.” She hung up.

  Lawrence popped his head around the door. He was grinning. “Got them. They’re in Urumqi.”

  Saturday, September 16

  Washington, D.C.

  It was deep into the night, and the marina on the Anacostia was mostly deserted. In his cloistered office, Fred Klein looked up at his ship’s clock for the tenth time in the last hour. He made a quick calculation: Midnight here would be noon tomorrow in Hong Kong.

  Where the devil was Jon? He rocked in his desk chair, restless despite his exhaustion. From his years of experience, he knew there could be a thousand possible explanations for Jon’s disappearance—anything from clogged traffic to a subway breakdown or some bizarre natural occurrence. There was also the possibility that Jon had been discovered and shot to death. He did not want to think about it, but he could not stop himself.

  He looked at the clock again. Where . . .

  His phone rang. The blue phone on the shelf behind his desk. Klein grabbed it. “Jon . . . ?”

  “I’m not Jon. I hope he’s not missing, whoever he may be.”

  “Sorry, Viktor.”

  Klein tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. He refocused. Viktor Agajemian was a former Soviet hydraulics engineer, now officially Armenian but still living and working in Moscow. His firm was helping to build the mammoth Yangtze Gorges Dam project, and he had papers to travel anywhere in China. He was also one of Klein’s first recruits to perform occasional tasks for Covert-One in Asia, particularly in China.

  “You made contact?” Klein asked.

  “I did. Chiavelli says, and I quote, ‘Old prisoner appears authentic. Physical condition is good. General area rural, infrastructure bad, military installations few and scattered, and airfields primitive. Potential resistance average-to-minimal. Estimated time: ten to twenty minutes, total. Escape is promising.’ That’s it, Fred. You planning to break the old boy out?”

  “What do you think about an operation like that?”

  “From what I saw, Captain Chiavelli may be right. On the other hand, I didn’t actually see the prisoner.”

  “Thanks, Viktor.”

  “Anytime. The money will arrive in the usual manner?”

  “You’d be told of any change.” Klein’s mind was already back on Jon Smith.

  “Sorry to be crass, but times are not the best in Russia or Armenia.”

  “I understand, Viktor, and thank you. You are, as always, the professional in everything.” Klein hung up, thinking that they might possibly have to use Captain Chiavelli’s report if . . . Where the devil was Jon?

  He studied the clock. At last, he took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and sat staring at the blue telephone, willing it to ring.

  Sunday, September 17

  Hong Kong

  In the CIA safe house, Jon turned on his heel. “I have to go.”

  “Whoa, soldier,” Randi said. “You go nowhere until you tell us what this is all about.”

  Jon hesitated. If he did not explain, they would report to Langley and start digging. But how much could he reveal without disclosing everything? Not much, and this time there was no clever story to throw them off track. The resurrected wife of Yu Yongfu had supplied too many details, including the freighter’s illegal haul. He could say nothing more without hinting at what Li Kuonyi had not described—his mission.

  “All right, I’ll level with you,” he said, “but I can’t reveal exactly what’s going on. The need-to-know is off the scale, and I have my orders. But I can tell you this much: I’m working for the White House. They sent me because I happened to be in Taiwan at a scientific meeting and had the opportunity to get into China right away. It was a matter of convenience for them. The woman you just heard is the wife of someone who’s vital to the situation. Both she and her husband had disappeared. We’d hear
d nothing about his being dead. I’ve got to get this new information to my chief immediately.”

  “What was all that about a ship and a manifest?” Randi wanted to know.

  “That’s what I can’t tell you.”

  Randi stared into his eyes, searching for deception, but this time she could find none—just worry, which worried her. “Does what you’re working on have any connection to leaks of information from the White House?”

  “Leaks? Is that your assignment? Is that why you’ve been following McDermid?”

  “Yes. Your operation turned up McDermid, too?”

  “Yeah,” Jon said. “I’ve got a lot to report.”

  “I’d say we both do.”

  Tommie, who had left the room, rushed back inside, swearing. “We were tailed. If you’re thinking of leaving, Jon, you’d better go out the side way, through the next building and the next. That will put you on a cross street.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Feng Dun and his people. They’re watching the street and the alley. The only good thing is they don’t seem to know exactly where we are.”

  “Is that exit clear?” Jon asked. No safe house could exist unless it had two or three ways to escape.

  “Not yet. You’d better wait.”

  “You have a back room I can borrow? I need to report in.”

  Randi said witheringly, “You sure you want to risk it? The room might be bugged. We might hear something.”

  Jon did not like keeping her in the dark any more than she liked being in it. He looked around at the CIA agents and offered his most ingenuous smile. “I trust all of you. Hell, you saved my butt. And I sure do appreciate the doctor and the food and the help getting out of here. With luck, I’ll be able to return the favor.”

  Randi glowered and shook her head. At last she heaved a dramatic sigh. She hated it when he was being charmingly right. “You’re such a pain, Jon. Oh, very well. I’ll find you a place myself.”

  Chapter

  Thirty-Two

  The two men were alone in McDermid’s luxurious penthouse office, surrounded by museum-quality paintings and Ming Dynasty vases. Feng sat with his thick arms crossed, his broad face emotionless, in the chair opposite McDermid’s desk. “Smith and the woman have gone to ground.” Feng had ordered most of his men to pursue the pair after their escape, while others had stayed behind to question the crowd. That was how Feng had learned an American voice had shouted to the woman from the escape car. The voice had called her Sandy or Mandy or Randy.

  “What the hell does that mean?” McDermid asked, barely able to contain his anger as he waited to play the tape of his conversation with Li Kuonyi.

  “It means my men were able to track them to Lower Albert Road, where they disappeared into an alley.”

  “Disappeared? What are they, shamans?”

  “There’s obviously some kind of safe house on the street, and it has hidden entrances. My men are watching.”

  “Are they CIA after all?”

  “We still can’t find any affiliation to a known intelligence agency for him. We have only a partial name for her, not heard clearly. It could be a first or a last name. We’re checking our sources to see whether we can identify her. But provisionally, I suspect she’s CIA. What or whoever they are, they’ll reappear.”

  McDermid had not counted on so many problems. Give him a sick company or an underperforming portfolio, and he was in his element. Better yet, show him a politician at loose ends or a defeated senator growing bored, and he would use them to pull in investment funds or to lobby a piece of legislation until it passed. For him, that was child’s play. The Empress cargo was something else. It was a deal so big it would crown all others.

  Inwardly, he sighed. It was worth any amount of trouble. “Maybe. Forget Smith and the woman for now. Listen to this.” When the tape finished playing, McDermid’s usually smiling face was flushed with outrage. “Is that Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu?”

  Feng Dun glanced uneasily around the penthouse aerie and nodded. “They fooled me.”

  “They fooled you!” he exploded. “That’s all you have to say? You idiot. Yu’s alive, and he still has the manifest! They switched documents so you’d see him burn something else, and his suicide was smoke and mirrors. That’s why he had to fall into the river, so you wouldn’t have a corpse. He used blanks, dammit. How could you be so stupid!”

  Feng Dun was silent. Disgust for McDermid glinted in his eyes and then was gone. “It was the woman. I should’ve suspected. She’s the man in that family.”

  “That’s all you have to say!” McDermid raged.

  Feng shrugged and offered one of his marionette smiles to the outraged CEO. “What do you want, Taipan? Li Kuonyi tricked me. I’d guess she’s fooled many, including her own father. He believed Yu died, just as I did. We must see she doesn’t fool any of us again.”

  “What we need is to get that manifest before the Americans do!”

  “And we will. She called you first. That’s a good sign. She either doesn’t think the Americans will pay as much or she doesn’t trust them. She won’t contact them unless she has no other choice.”

  “How can you be so damn sure!”

  “The Americans want good relations with China. Once they have the manifest, the crisis will be over, and she’s smart enough to know that if Beijing wants her husband and her returned so they can be punished, the Americans will hand them over. She’d rather have your money than rely on Washington to treat her kindly.”

  McDermid’s anger cooled as he reflected on Feng’s explanation. “You may be correct. It’d be a greater risk for her and Yu. All right, I bought some time for you. Go to Urumqi and find them.”

  Feng’s expression was close to a sneer. “I wouldn’t count on that, Taipan. Do you know where Urumqi is?”

  “Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Chongqing. For all I care, the rest of your benighted country is a desert.”

  “You aren’t far wrong.” Feng’s wooden expression had an edge of both mockery and admiration. “I told you Li Kuonyi was smart. Urumqi is in Xinjiang, at the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert. There’s little in China farther from Hong Kong, and it’d be impossible for you or me to get there before late tomorrow. But inside China, they can go almost anywhere from Urumqi in a few hours. There are two major cities near Dazu—Chongqing and Chengdu. They can fly into either, but so can I. Still, they’ve made it twice as hard for anyone, even me, to find them.”

  “But you’ll do it anyway, won’t you, Feng.” It was an order.

  “I’ll fly to Chongqing immediately. Find them first or not, I’ll be at the Sleeping Buddha hours before the dawn meeting.”

  “You intend an ambush?”

  “Naturally.”

  McDermid flared up again. “The woman will expect an ambush!”

  “To expect is one thing. To prevent is another. I’ll plan well and make them wait for what they guess will come, or perhaps I will surprise them first.”

  “Why would they bother to meet you at all?”

  “If I’m right, they’re afraid of both Washington and Beijing. Sooner or later, Major Pan and his secret police will track them down. You and your money are the best chance for them and their children to survive in the manner they want. So yes, they’ll suspect. Which means they’ll try to safeguard themselves and whoever’s with them. But as Li Kuonyi said on the tape, they have no choice.”

  “I hope you’re right this time.”

  “They won’t trick me again.” His eyes seemed to darken.

  “The woman’s been a step ahead of you since Shanghai.”

  “That will make her overconfident.”

  McDermid considered. He was not a physical man, but he was not weak either. He could hike to wherever this Sleeping Buddha was, and he could shoot. He had survived as a lieutenant in Vietnam, where lieutenants were food for pigs, and he had beaten Washington at its own game, becoming the ultimate insider. As he weighed everything, he decided the ma
nifest was far too important to trust to Feng alone.

  “We’ll both go,” he decided. “You leave tonight, and I’ll follow tomorrow night. Who’s your contact in Beijing?” Increasingly, McDermid wanted to know the identity of who had the clout not only to order a submarine to follow the John Crowe, but who could convince the sub’s captain to act upon unconfirmed information that SEALs were planning secretly to board the Empress.

  Feng raised one eyebrow. “You don’t pay me for names. You pay me to get the job done.”

  “I pay you to do whatever I damn well say!”

  “No one pays me that much, Taipan.” There was scorn in Feng’s voice.

  McDermid glared, while Feng’s expression was impassive. The Feng Duns of the world were minor players in McDermid’s mind—necessary but of limited use. He had employed such men on various projects for two decades, finding them among the globe’s underground of mercenaries, agents extraordinary, and assassins, who survived not only by wits and skill but by connections. If they wanted the next job, they avoided burning the last.

  “The Altman Group has holdings in Chongqing,” McDermid said at last, dropping the subject for the time being. “Get me permission from your friend in Beijing to fly there on business. I’ll need the papers immediately, of course.”

  “And the money?”

  “I’ll arrange for it.”

  “You’d give them two million?” Feng sounded almost impressed.

  McDermid nodded. “We won’t fool Li Kuonyi without it. Besides, two million is nothing compared to what I’ll gain from success.”

  “Aren’t you worried the cash will tempt me or my men?”

  “Should I be?” McDermid studied him. “You’ll get a substantial bonus when this is over.”