The Altman Code

by Robert Ludlum

  “No, sir. Tuesday morning. Before dawn probably.”

  “That’s cutting it even closer, Fred.” The president looked at his clock. “Brose says we’re down to hours. Our military’s standing poised for trouble. What are you doing now to get the manifest?”

  “At this moment, Colonel Smith is on his way back into China. He knows Li Kuonyi by sight, and she knows who and what he is. She might deal with him for asylum in the States.”

  “He’s gone? I thought you said two mornings from now in China.”

  “Something else came up. I sent him a day early.”

  The president nearly exploded. “Something else! What in hell could’ve happened that’s so critical that it’s taken your focus from the manifest!”

  Fred remained calm. “It’s your father, Sam. And I haven’t shifted my focus. A problem has appeared, and I think Colonel Smith can handle both it and the manifest.”

  “My father.” The president felt his stomach plummet. “What problem?”

  “I’ve had a report from the prison that they’re moving him tomorrow morning, their time. Our man inside doesn’t know why, but once Thayer’s moved, our chances of freeing him anytime soon get very slim. My team can’t possibly arrive early enough, so I came up with another plan. The trouble is, it’s riskier. The only good thing in this mess is that Li Kuonyi’s choice of location has handed us an opportunity to make rescuing Dr. Thayer less risky. By sending Colonel Smith in early, I increase our chances of success.”

  The president was alarmed. “Not at the expense of our main goal, Fred.”

  “No, Sam. Never. You know us better than that.”

  “You, yes. Smith I’m not so sure about. He went in alone?”

  “He won’t be alone, sir, but I don’t think you want to know more. There’s likely to be a lot of deniability needed.”

  “Tell me what you can.”

  “We’ve got Chiavelli and a network of political prisoners inside the prison, Smith outside, and some imported private help I mentioned that you don’t want to know about, especially since they helped him earlier. I’ve poured considerable U.S. greenbacks around, so—barring any more disasters—we’ve got a good chance to break out Thayer successfully. Then Captain Chiavelli will spirit him to the nearest border. At the same time, Smith and the others will go to the Sleeping Buddha and lie in wait.”

  The president still seemed dubious. “All right. Smith has a place to hide all day tomorrow?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The president sat for a moment nodding, his mind somewhere else. “What if the whole thing’s been a fraud? A trap? What if there are no illicit chemicals?”

  “Given everything we’ve learned, that’s improbable.”

  “But not impossible?”

  “In intelligence and international politics, nothing’s impossible. Not as long as human beings are running things.”

  The president was still focused somewhere far from the Oval Office. “Why does anyone take this job? There’s a certain blind hubris in wanting it.” Then his gaze returned to Klein. “I appreciate all you and Smith are doing. This hasn’t been easy, and I doubt it’s going to get easy. Hours, at the outside, and China so far away.”

  “I know. We’ll do it.”

  Absentmindedly the president’s hand pressed against his suit jacket. Through the expensive cloth, he could feel his wallet. The smiling man with the cocky fedora appeared in his mind. There seemed to be a question in his eyes. He longed to ask him what it was. Instead, he banished him.

  Aloft over Sichuan Province

  The E-2C’s slipstream blasted Jon clear of the Hawkeye in seconds, and, except for the brush of air against his cheeks, he had the sensation that he was floating motionless in space. Not moving at all. Still, he was falling at an incredible rate—more than one hundred miles an hour. In the nearly windless sky, he needed to know his altitude and what his course toward the drop zone was. Battling the forces of air and gravity, he raised his right wrist to look at the LED displays of his altimeter and GPS unit. He was still twenty thousand feet up, directly on course. The lack of wind was his best ally.

  Fortunately, this was no precision jump, although there were mountains no more than a few miles away. To know when to open the chute, he needed to keep his eyes on the altimeter. As long as the wind remained calm, he should be falling at the proper angle to hit the field dead center. Bad use of words, he told himself. Call it “on target.”

  He was feeling almost euphoric as he planed on his air cushion. Abruptly, the GPS unit began to blink. It was a warning that he was off course. Jaw tight, he maneuvered his falling body to alter the shape of the air cushion, and he made a slow turn. The GPS unit stopped blinking.

  Relieved, he was about to check the altimeter again when his wrist began to vibrate. It was the alarm that warned he was nearing the vertical point of no return. Once he dropped to that height, it would be too late to open his canopy. His heart began to pound. He forced his body upright and pulled the ripcord handle.

  There was a momentary whispering of air above as the tightly packed parachute unfolded. He looked up, hoping . . . and his body suddenly lurched against the harness straps. The canopy was open, the harness had held, and he was back on schedule.

  All noise vanished. He threw the ripcord handle away. He swung gently and floated downward, the black canopy flaring above. The GPS unit reported he was slightly off course, and he corrected by pulling on the steering lines. The one thing he must not do was collapse the canopy by steering too wildly. Once steady on course again, he looked down and saw lights closer than he expected. That always happened. The ground seemed to rush up faster than you anticipated, because as you drifted, you had no idea of your descending speed.

  He looked down again. The lights came from windows in scattered clusters of houses and villages. In the middle was darkness—a wide, black space. That had to be his target area, at last.

  He silently thanked the satellite photos of the Dazu area, all those navy people who had calculated the drop, and the windless weather. He jettisoned everything he could—oxygen tank, gloves, insulated flight cap. But as the ground sped up toward him, it was still invisible. Worriedly, he checked his altimeter. Still one hundred feet. A matter of just a few seconds to impact.

  When he saw the ground clearly—a plowed field as advertised—he felt suddenly comfortable. He knew exactly what to do. He relaxed, spread his feet apart, bent his knees, and hit. As his shoes sank into the soft, broken earth, a dull wave of pain rolled through him, a legacy from the beating this morning. He pushed the pain from his mind. He bounced up slightly, settled back, caught his balance, and heaved himself upright. The rich scent of the dark soil filled his mind. The canopy flowed silently to the earth behind.

  Alone in the night in almost the middle of the field, he listened. He heard quiet insect sounds but not the distant noise of motors. The Chengyu Expressway from Chongqing to Chengdu was somewhere close, but at this late hour on a Sunday night, few cars would be traveling. Shadowy in the distance, black stands of trees stood like sentries. Quickly, he removed all his instruments and harnesses, stripped off the insulated jumpsuit, gathered up the black chute, and used his entrenching tool to bury everything, except the GPS unit.

  He had finished covering the cache when he heard a faint noise, distant and metallic. As if two small pieces of metal had bumped into each other.

  He waited. Tense, straining to hear in the night. A minute. Two. The faint noise did not occur again.

  He unhooked his MP5K minisubmachine gun, removed the harness that had held it stationary during his jump, and slung the weapon over his shoulder. Next he dug a shallower opening and laid the entrenching tool and harness inside. He used his hands to pile soil over it.

  Brushing the dirt from his hands, he unslung the MP5K, read the GPS unit to find his directions, and hooked it to his gun belt. At last, he headed across the field toward the line of trees. They were a darker, more ragged black against t
he lighter black of the night sky. As always, he scanned around, watching the horizon, the distant lights, and the tree line.

  Within two minutes, he thought he saw movement at the edge of the trees. Thirty seconds later, he dove onto his stomach, his submachine gun grasped in both hands. He picked night binoculars from his gun belt, snapped them over his eyes, and examined the row of timber. There was a small structure inside the trees that could be a shed, a cottage, or a house. It was too vague in the binoculars’ greenish light for him to be certain. He thought he saw a farm wagon and a two-wheeled cart, too. None of it moved. Nothing. Not even a cow or a dog.

  Still, he had seen something. Whatever it was, it appeared to be gone. He waited another two minutes. At last, he hooked the binoculars back onto his gun belt. He checked the luminous dial of the GPS unit again, climbed to his feet, and moved off.

  Once more, he heard the noise. His throat tightened. Now he knew exactly what it was: A pistol hammer had been cocked. As he hurried on, the shapes seemed to rise from the field itself, as if from mythical dragon’s teeth. Shadows encircled him. Shadows with weapons, all trained on him.

  Crouched in the dark field, his MP5K ready in his hands, Jon tensed to make a move, any move.

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you. The lads are rather nervous.”

  He saw a stir in the dark ranks around him. They had blackened faces but no uniforms. Instead, they wore baggy clothes and close-fitting wool caps. In the same instant, he also realized that the voice that had cautioned him in good British English was familiar. Even as he thought all this, the ragged troops parted, and the speaker walked through.

  “Someone named Fred Klein said you might care for help.” There was a flash of white teeth as Asgar Mahmout smiled briefly and continued forward, the same old AK-47 slung muzzle down over his shoulder. He held out his hand.

  “Good to see you again.” Jon shook it, and the Uighers closed in protectively, watching over their shoulders for trouble.

  “Christ, man,” Asgar said, staring. “Your face looks like dog vomit. What the devil happened to you?”

  Chapter

  Thirty-Five

  Monday, September 18

  Dazu

  After Jon gave him a brief rundown of his escape from Feng Dun and his killers, Asgar Mahmout shook his hand again in admiration. Meanwhile, Jon counted twenty Uighers, including Asgar. They wore that same odd mixture of colorful, baggy Uigher clothes and loose Western garb as in Shanghai. Most were cleanly shaved, while a few had thin, drooping mustaches like Asgar’s. They said nothing. Asgar explained they spoke bad Chinese and no English.

  Jon surveyed the field. The dark eyes of Asgar’s men were looking nervously all around. “We’d better get out of here.”

  Asgar spoke to them in Uigher. With Jon shielded in the center, the group moved off. To the left were fields of rice paddies, their watery surfaces reflecting like black mirrors in the starlight. Farther off were low mountains—purple inkblots against the night. That would be where the Buddha Grottos were carved, including the Sleeping Buddha, where Li Kuonyi would meet McDermid’s representative—probably Feng Dun.

  Asgar was beside Jon. “There’s an ancient legend about those mountains. The Han believed the peaks were goddesses who came down to earth and fell so deeply in love with it they refused to return to heaven. The Han have moments when they aren’t so bad. But don’t tell anyone I said that.”

  Jon asked Asgar, as the two kept pace through the quiet night, “How do you know Fred Klein?”

  “I don’t, chum, but it seems I know people who do. They relayed his message, along with considerable welcome cash in payment for said aid.”

  “Who do you know who knows Klein?”

  “A certain Russian engineer named Viktor.”

  “He contacted you for Klein?” Jon asked.

  “At first, yes. But this recent collaboration came about when I sent him a message from Captain Chiavelli, in the prison.”

  Now Jon understood. “You have contact with Uighers inside.”

  “The Chinese call them criminals. We call them political prisoners. In any case, they’re minor criminals with disproportionate sentences as compared to equally minor Chinese criminals.”

  “One man’s patriot is another man’s terrorist.”

  “Not quite that simple,” Asgar said, still making Jon feel the universe was slightly askew with the clipped Brit voice coming out of a Turkic-bandit mouth. “The crux of the matter is, does the action of the freedom fighter or terrorist benefit his cause and his people? If it doesn’t, then he’s simply an egomaniac, a fanatic for whom the ‘cause’ matters more than its goal. It’s a question I often ask myself, and I’m not always as sure of the answer as I’d like to be, especially about others who’ve worked across the border for a free East Turkestan their entire lives.”

  “I thought it depended on what was in the self-interest of the powerful nations.”

  “Ah, well. That, too, eh?”

  Directly ahead was the stand of trees, thicker and deeper than Jon had been able to perceive. As soon as the band reached the grove, they skirted to the left, alongside the rice paddies. The men turned on small flashlights. As always, Jon scanned everywhere. When he gazed up, he almost stopped. In the murky tree limbs were clumps that looked like gigantic nests of wasps or bees.

  “What are they?” he asked Asgar.

  “Bundles of unthreshed rice. The farmers store rice up there to protect it from mice and rats.”

  As they left the soft, plowed field, they broke into a lope and headed into what appeared to be the beginning of an arm of a forest. There were birch and pine and low bushes struggling to grow under a high, thick ceiling of leaves and needles.

  A few hundred yards inside, Asgar gave a whispered command, and three of the men turned back, heading for the edge of the trees where the crew had entered. Mahmout was setting up a perimeter defense. The rest rounded a rock cropping into a protected dell, where they settled into resting spots as if they had used this as a stopping place before. As three more split off to vanish among the dark trees, the rest leaned back, cradling their weapons, and closed their eyes.

  Asgar motioned Jon to join him. They sat near the remains of a fire.

  “After you left China,” Asgar told him, “we slipped away from the beach safely, too, but it was inevitable whoever was chasing us would figure out about the Land Rover full of crazy Uighers. We sent several of the ones with residence in Shanghai back to hide in the longtangs, and I brought the rest west, to lie low until things settled down again. It’s our longtime pattern, you see.”

  “So you were near here when you got the message about Viktor?”

  “Yes. My contact in the prison camp had sent word that this Russian engineer, Viktor, wanted to get an American agent named Chiavelli into the camp to talk to David Thayer.”

  Jon nodded. “Fred’s planning a lightning raid to rescue David Thayer.”

  “Not anymore,” Asgar said. “We inserted Captain Chiavelli with the help of some excessive bribes. His report about Thayer and the situation was favorable. However—we don’t know whether the prison governor got wind of the rescue, or it’s just incredibly bad luck—Thayer’s being transferred out tomorrow morning. Captain Chiavelli gave the news to our prisoners, and they got it out to me. I sent word to Viktor, who reported it to Klein. I know that, because Viktor gave me a return message from Klein.”

  “To meet me, right? That was why the sudden change of plans.”

  “Right. He wants you to help break out Thayer and Chiavelli. A great deal can go wrong, and he seems to feel your skills could be immensely helpful inside the farm.”

  “Inside?”

  “Exactly. If it’s necessary, we’ll have to sneak in. Then you, Chiavelli, and I will bring Thayer out. Of course,” he added cheerfully, “if it goes bad, you may have to shoot your way out, which is probably the main reason Klein wants you there. You’re the backup gun.”

  “Swell,” Jon
said. “What could go wrong?”

  “For one thing, a guard or two could decide to become unbribed.”

  Jon sighed. “Even better.”

  “Cheer up. This will be a cupcake compared to the assignment of some of my fighters. You see, once you’re out of the prison—without, one hopes, their knowing Chiavelli and Thayer are gone until morning roll call—the real trouble begins.”

  “Getting Thayer and Chiavelli out of China?”

  “That’s our job, and a doozy it is. There’s an old Chinese adage that says it all: ‘Close your eyes, spin in a circle, and no matter where you are or what time it is, when you look again, you’ll see a Han.’ The population’s so enormous that Westerners stand out like fish in the Taklamakan Desert.”

  “Then there’d better be no gunfire. It could play hell with my primary assignment.”

  “Klein’s aware of that. He said you should skip the diversion if you thought it’d damage your chances for the main mission.”

  “You’ll be with me on that operation, too?”

  “That we will,” Asgar said. “In force. We’ll get Thayer to the border, too.”

  “You have a place to stash me tomorrow?”

  He nodded. “You’ll be safe as a temple mouse.”

  “When do they want us at the prison?”

  “Our people inside should be ready now. The timing’s up to us. They’re waiting for our signal.”

  “Then let’s go. How far?”

  “Less than ten miles.”

  “Any other instructions from Klein?”

  “Other than making sure I knew your principal mission was to save the human-rights treaty and that we’re assured money and influence in Washington in exchange . . . no.” The expression on Asgar’s stoic face darkened. “Your White House wears blinders. All they’re thinking about is getting Zhongnanhai’s cooperation with the treaty. We won’t get anything more from them after that. We’re expendable, which doesn’t give us a lot of reason to help. But at the same time, your Klein realizes we have to, because of our own interests.”