“If that were true, how could he have guessed Thayer had a son who’d grow up to be an American president, especially one with the last name of Castilla?”
Klein frowned. “For that matter, sir, how would the real David Thayer know about you? He knew he had a son, but he couldn’t know his widow would marry Serge Castilla.”
“That’s simple enough. If this man really is David Thayer, he could’ve simply put two and two together. He knew he had a son named Samuel Adams, and a close friend named Castilla. Spelled the way our family does, Castilla is hardly common. My age would fit exactly.”
“Of course, you’re right,” Klein admitted. “But what about the leaks?
Maybe we have a spy in the White House who told Beijing and this is one of their convoluted setups.”
The president shook his head. “I never tried to hide that Serge adopted me, but it wasn’t something that tended to come up in conversation. No one beyond my immediate family, not even Charlie Ouray, knows exactly who and what my birth father was and what happened to him. Not even you knew that. I didn’t want to trade on sympathy or embarrass my mother.”
“Someone always knows, and remembers, and has a price.”
“And you’re always the cynic.”
“It’s part of the territory.” Klein smiled thinly.
“I suppose it is.”
Klein hesitated again. “All right. Say we can’t be sure he’s not real.
He could be your father. If he is, what do you want to do?”
The president leaned back in his chair again, took off his glasses, and ran his big hands over his face. He sighed heavily. “I want to meet him, of course. I can’t think of anything right now that would make my jaded old heart sing the way that would. Imagine, my real father is alive.
Imagine that. Incredible. When I was a little boy, despite all my love for Serge, I used to dream about David Thayer.” He paused, his face filled with melancholy and long-ago loss.
He shrugged and waved a hand in dismissal. “All right. So that’s the dream. Realistically, what does the president of the United States want?
I want him out of China, of course. He’s an American. Therefore, he deserves the complete support of his country. As I would with any American who has been through the ordeal that he has, I want to meet him, thank him for his courage, and shake his hand. But that said, there are international consequences to consider. There’s The Dowager Empress, and there’s the potential of deadly cargo that it’s ferrying to a country that would like to destroy us.”
“Yessir, there is.”
“If we find the ship is carrying the chemicals and we have to board it, I can’t imagine the treaty will be signed. Certainly not this year, probably not until a new administration takes over. There’ll be more delays as the Chinese feel out the new Oval Office China policy. Thayer, given his age, will probably never get out.”
“Probably not, Sam.”
The president grimaced, but his voice was hard, unyielding as he continued, “And that can’t matter. Not for a second. If she’s carrying chemicals for weapons, the Empress must be stopped, or sunk if necessary. For the moment, we do nothing about this old man in China. Is that clear?”
“Absolutely, Mr. President.”
Chapter Four
The Air China jet from Tokyo flew in over the East China Sea and arced across the vast delta of the Yangtze River. Through his window, Jon Smith studied the green land, the dense buildings, and the haze that had settled like wisps of cotton in the low areas of what was one of Asia’s most powerful cities.
His gaze swept from the congested Yangtze River north to Chongming Island, as he silently grappled with the problem of the missing manifest and the alarming cost of its loss. When the jet landed at Pudong International Airport at exactly 1322 hours, he had come to no conclusion except that if the human-rights treaty were imperative, keeping more chemical weapons out of Saddam Hussein’s hands was probably even more so.
With their colleagues smiling around them, Dr. Liang Tianning escorted Dr. Jon Smith from the jet. Not large by Western standards, the terminal was ultramodern, with potted plants and a high blue ceiling. The ticket counters were packed with men in business suits, both European and Chinese, a symptom of Shanghai’s drive to become the New York City of Asia.
A few glanced at Smith and his companions, but the looks showed idle curiosity, nothing more.
Outdoors, a black limousine was waiting among the eager taxis. The instant they were seated in the rear, the driver pulled into traffic. He managed to dodge three taxis and two pedestrians, who leaped for their lives. Smith turned to see whether they were safe, while no one else paid the slightest attention, which said a lot about local driving customs. Also it gave him a clear view of a small, dark-blue car that appeared to be a Volkswagen Jetta. It had been parked among the taxis but was now directly behind the limo.
Was someone else expecting him — someone who had nothing to do with biomolecular science and was unsure whether he was who and what Dr. Liang said? The Jetta driver might simply be an ordinary Shanghainese, who had mistakenly parked among the taxis instead of inside the garage while waiting to pick up a returning friend or relative. Still, it was remarkable that the driver had chosen the identical moment to leave the terminal.
Smith said nothing about it to Dr. Liang. As the men discussed viral agents, the limo glided onto an express highway, heading west through the soggy delta, which was barely above sea level for the entire nineteen miles. Shanghai’s toothy skyline came into view — a new city, almost entirely the work of the last decade. First came the sprawling Pudong New District, with the needle-sharp point of the Oriental Pearl Tower and the squarer but also soaring eighty-eight-story Jin Mao Building. Expensive architecture with all the accouterments of luxury and high technology. Only a dozen years ago, this land had been a flat marsh that supplied the city with vegetables.
The conversation turned to plans for Smith’s visit as the limo continued through Pudong, under the Huangpu River, and into Puxi and the Bund, which until 1990 had been the heart of old Shanghai. Now a phalanx of glistening skyscrapers towered above the neoclassical business offices of the city’s colonial period.
At People’s Park, Smith had a close view of the cars, bicycles, and individuals who mobbed the streets, a sea of life on the move. For a few seconds, he paused to contemplate it all: The massive new construction.
The evidence of outrageous wealth. The tooth-to-jowl humanity. Shanghai was China’s most populous city, larger even than Hong Kong or Beijing.
But Shanghai wanted more. It wanted a prominent place on the world’s economic stage. It gave nodding obeisance to the past, but its interest was focused on the future.
As the limo made a right turn toward the river, Dr. Liang came close to wringing his hands. “You are sure, Dr. Smith, that you do not wish a room at the Grand Hyatt in Jin Mao Tower? It is a modern hotel, magnificent. The restaurants and amenities are beyond compare. You would be most comfortable there, I assure you. In addition, it is far more convenient to our Biomedical Research Institute in Zhangjiang, where we will go when you are settled. The Peace Hotel is historic, yes — but it is scarcely four star.”
Covert-One’s research people had informed him that there were only three Starbucks coffee shops in Shanghai at the moment, and all were on the Puxi side of the river, two not far from the Bund.
He smiled and said, “I’ve always wanted to stay at the old Peace Hotel, Dr. Liang. Call it the whim of a history buff.” The scientist sighed. “Then of course. Naturally.”
The limousine turned south onto the scenic street that skirted the river, with the Bund’s colonial buildings on one side and the Huangpu broad and flowing on the other. Smith gazed out at the row of stately businesses and houses that overlooked the river. Here was the heart of the old British Concession, which had established itself in 1842 and held convulsively to power for nearly a century, until the Japanese finally captured the city during World War II.
Dr. Liang leaned forward and pointed. “There is your Peace Hotel.”
“I see it. Thanks.”
