“Out of sight maybe, but they’ll know she’s there. Their radar will pick her up.
If they’re carrying contraband, their captain at least should know.
He’ll be keeping his crew hyperalert.”
“Can’t be helped. That’s the situation until I have absolute proof. If things turn rocky, I expect you and your people to not let them escalate into a confrontation.”
“We have someone getting confirmation?”
“I hope so.” Brose pondered. “She loaded up the night of the first, late?”
“That’s my information.” Brose was calculating in his mind. “If I know the Chinese and Shanghai, she didn’t sail until early on the second.” He reached for the phone at his elbow, glanced at the president. “May I, sir?” Samuel Castilla nodded.
Brose dialed and spoke into the phone. “I don’t care how early it is, Captain. Get me what I need.” He waited, hand again running back over his short hair. “Right, Hong Kong registry. A bulk carrier. Fifteen knots. You’re certain? Very well.” He hung up. “At fifteen knots, that’s eighteen days, give or take, to Basra with a stop in Singapore, which is the usual course. If she left around midnight on the first, she should arrive early in the morning on the nineteenth, Chinese time, at the Strait of Hormuz. Three hours earlier Persian Gulf time, and evening of the eighteenth our time. It’s the thirteenth now, so in five-plus days she should reach the Hormuz Strait, which is the last place we can legally board her.” His voice rose with concern. “Just five days, sir.
That’s our time frame to figure out this mess.”
“Thanks, Stevens. I’ll pass it on.” The admiral stood. “One of our frigates would be best for what you want. Enough muscle, but not overkill. Small enough that there’s a chance she’ll be overlooked for a time, if the radar man’s asleep or lazy.”
“How soon can you get one there?” Brose picked up the phone once more. This time, his conversation was even briefer. He hung up. “Ten hours, sir.”
“Do it.”
Liuchiu Island, Taiwan By the green glow of his combat watch, agent Jon Smith read the dial once more– 2203–and silently swore. Mondragon was late. Crouched low in front of the razor-sharp coral formation that edged the secluded cove, he listened, but the only sound was the soft surge of the South China Sea as it washed up onto the dark sand and slid back with an audible hiss. The wind was a bare whisper. The air smelled of salt water and fish. Down the coast, boats were harbored, motionless, glowing in the moonlight. The day tourists had left on the last ferry from Penfu. In other small coves up and down the western coast of the tiny island, a few people camped, but in this cove there was only the wash of the sea and the distant glow of Kaohsiung’s lights, some twenty kilometers to the northeast. Smith checked his watch again–2206. Where was Mondragon? The fishing boat from Linyuan had landed him in Penfu harbor two hours ago. There he had hired a motorcycle and driven off on the road that encircled the island. When he found the landmark described in his directions, he hid the cycle in bushes and made his way here on foot. Now it was already 2210, and he waited restlessly, uneasily.
Something had gone wrong. He was about to leave his cover to make a cautious search when he felt the coarse sand move. He heard nothing, but the skin on his neck crawled. He gripped his 9mm Beretta, tensed to turn and dive sideways to the sand and rocks, when a sharp, urgent whisper of hot breath seared his ear: “Don’t move!” Smith froze. “Not a finger.”
The low voice was inches from his ear. “Orchid.”
“Mondragon?”
“It’s not the ghost of Chairman Mao,” the voice responded wryly. “Although he may be lurking here somewhere.”
“You were followed?”
“Think so. Not sure. If I was, I shook them.” The sand moved again, and Avery Mondragon materialized, crouching beside Smith. He was short, dark-haired, and lean, like an oversized jockey. Hard-faced and hungry looking, too, with a predator’s eyes. His gaze flitted everywhere — around the shadows of the cove, at the phosphorescent surge of the sea on the beach, and out toward the grotesque shapes of coral jutting like statues from the dusky sea beyond the surf. Mondragon said, “Let’s get this over. If I’m not in Penfu by 2330, I don’t make it back to the mainland by morning. If I don’t make it back, my cover’s blown.”
He turned his gaze onto Smith. “So you’re Lieutenant Colonel Smith, are you? I’ve heard rumors. You’re supposed to be good. I hope half the rumors are true. What I’ve got for you is damn near radioactive.” He produced a plain, business-size envelope and held it up. “That’s the goods?” Smith asked. Mondragon nodded and tucked it back inside his jacket. “There’s some background you need to tell Klein.”
“Let’s get on with it then.”
“Inside the envelope’s what The Dowager Empress is really carrying. On the other hand, the so-called official manifest — the one filed with the export board — is smoke and mirrors.”
“How do you know?”
“Because this one’s got an invoice stamped with the ”—the personal Chinese character seal — of the CEO, as well as the official company seal, and it’s addressed to a company in Baghdad for payment. This manifest also indicates three copies were made. The second copy is certainly in Baghdad or Basra since it’s an invoice for the goods to be paid for. I don’t know where the third copy is.”
“How can you be sure you don’t have the copy filed with the export board?”
“Because I’ve seen it, as I said. The contraband isn’t listed on it. The CEO’s seal is missing.” Smith frowned. “Still, that doesn’t sound as if what you’ve got there is guaranteed.”
“Nothing’s guaranteed. Anything can be faked — character seals can be counterfeited, and companies in Baghdad can be dummies. But this is an invoice manifest and has all the correct signs of an interoffice and intercompany document sent to the receiving company for payment. It’s enough to justify President Castilla’s ordering the Empress stopped on the high seas and our boys taking an intimate look, if we have to.
Besides, it’s a lot more ‘ cause’ than the rumors we had with the Yinhe, and if it is fake, it proves there’s a conspiracy inside China to stir up trouble. No one can blame us, not even Beijing, for taking precautions.” Smith nodded. “I’m convinced. Give it to?”
“There’s something else.” Mondragon glanced around at the shadows of the tiny cove. “One of my assets in Shanghai told me a story you’d better pass on to Klein. It’s not in the paperwork, for obvious reasons. He says there’s an old man being held in a low-security prison farm near Chongqing — that’s Chiang Kaishek’s old World War Two capital, “Chungking’ to Americans. He claims he’s been jailed in one place or another in China since 1949, when the Communists beat Chiang and took over the country. My asset says the guy speaks Mandarin and other dialects, but he sure as hell doesn’t look Chinese. The old man insists he’s an American named David Thayer.” He paused and stared, his expression unreadable. “And, hold on to your hat … he claims he’s President Castilla’s real father.” Smith stared. “You can’t be serious.
Everyone knows the president’s father was Serge Castilla, and he’s dead.
The press covers that family like a blanket.”
“Exactly. That’s what caught my interest.” Mondragon related more details. “My asset says he used the exact phrase, ‘ Castilla’s real father.’ If the guy’s a fraud, why make up a yarn so easily disproved?” It was a good question. “How reliable is your asset?”
“He’s never steered me wrong or fed me disinformation that I’ve caught,”
“Could it be one of Beijing’s tricks? Maybe a way to make the president back off about the human-rights accord?”
“The old prisoner insists Beijing doesn’t even know he’s got a son, much less that the son’s now the U.S. president.”
Smith’s mind raced as he calculated ages and years. It was numerically possible. “Exactly where is this old man being?”
“Down!” Mondragon dropped flat to the sand. Heart racing, Smith dove behind a coral outcrop as shouts in angry Chinese and a fusillade of automatic fire hammered from their right, close to the sea. Mondragon rolled behind the outcropping and came up in a crouch beside Smith, his 9mm Glock joining Smith’s Beretta, aiming into the dark of the cove, searching for the enemy. “Well,” Mondragon said gloomily, “I guess I didn’t shake them.”
Smith wasted no time on recriminations. “Where are they? You see anything?”
“Not a damn thing.” Smith pulled night-vision goggles from inside his windbreaker. Through them, the night turned pale green, and the murky coral formations out in the sea grew clear. So did a short, skinny man naked to
