Tan Lily furrowed her brow, likely wondering what any of this had to do with her.
“We were successful in stopping the operative, but we lost our only lead on the sailor known as KMART.”
“So, KMART is still out there,” Jax said.
Punky nodded. “I’ve spent the last year trying to track him down but have only managed to uncover more Chinese operatives on American soil. The latest — and most promising — is one in the San Diego area known as SUBLIME. The frequency of his communications has increased lately and mention what I believe to be the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan.”
Tan Lily lifted her hand off the desk. “What does any of this have to do with me?”
Punky glanced over at Jax before answering. “The last several messages have mentioned the university.”
Jax closed his eyes in a sign of exaggerated frustration. “As a target?”
“The messages are encrypted, and the NSA has only been able to provide partial transcripts, so we can’t see it in context,” Punky said to the CIA officer, almost ignoring the doctor. “But given the doctor’s specialty and what you just told us, I think it’s safe to say that the Ministry has targeted her.”
“For what?” Tan Lily asked.
Punky turned back to her. “I don’t know. Maybe to finish something your husband started? A synthetic bioweapon, maybe?”
Tan Lily shook her head. “The whole reason Shen Yu remained behind in China was to stop them from developing a viable weapon. He wouldn’t have helped them achieve success in such an endeavor. He just wouldn’t.”
But Punky could see the wheels spinning behind Jax’s brown eyes. “What if he did help them? What if he got them close and now they need someone with his same skill set to complete the weapon?”
The doctor straightened her back and sat tall. “I wouldn’t do it,” she said, matter-of-factly.
But Jax was on a roll. “What if they found some leverage to use? Like your husband?”
She shook her head, but Punky saw her eyes glisten with the advent of tears. “When my daughter and I fled China for the United States, I knew there was a good chance I would never see him again. We both understood the risks involved.”
Punky could tell Tan Lily loved her husband, but she agreed he probably wasn’t sufficient leverage to convince her to complete the engineering process on a synthetic bioweapon. There had to be something or somebody else that meant enough to convince Tan Lily to betray the very reason she had fled China with her…
“Did you say you had a daughter?”
Tan Lily nodded almost as if Punky had asked her about something more pedestrian, then her eyes grew wide as it dawned on her. She looked at Jax and saw the same worried look on his face.
“Where is she?” Jax asked.
“At school.”
He jumped up. “We need to go.”
Punky broke out in gooseflesh when she realized that Tan Lily’s little girl was defenseless at school while she and Jax bickered over whose mission took priority. They would have time to figure out what the Ministry of State Security wanted with Tan Lily later. What mattered right now was that they moved the doctor and her daughter somewhere safe.
“Do you have somewhere you can take her?” she asked Jax, then stood and fished for her car keys.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get her daughter.”
“Not without me,” Tan Lily said, already out of her seat and moving toward the door.
“I’ll take her,” Jax said, moving to escort the doctor.
Punky relented. “Fine. Call ahead to the school and have them pull her out of class to wait for you in the principal’s office.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Tan Lily yanked open her door and raced through the hall toward the elevator with Jax hot on her heels. Punky hesitated for only a moment as her mind scrambled to make sense of things. If the doctor really was at risk, then maybe her investigation into SUBLIME was more important than merely using it as a lead into discovering KMART’s identity. Maybe there was another attack afoot, and the doctor was the key to preventing it.
Jax and Tan Lily disappeared into the elevator, and she waved them on when Jax made a move to hold the door. “Get to her daughter,” Punky shouted. “Then call the Southwest Field Office, and they’ll patch you…”
The door closed.
Punky stabbed at the call button and anxiously waited for the elevator to return and carry her to the ground floor. When it did, she found herself bouncing with nervous energy, as if she were in a race against an invisible opponent. And that opponent had a head start.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered, watching the floors tick down at an agonizingly slow pace.
When she reached the lobby, the doors opened, and she ran outside and turned toward Gilman Drive and her frostbite-blue Dodge Challenger in the parking lot across the street. She saw Jax’s Audi S3 sport sedan pull a U-turn away from the curb and head east.
Then she saw a matte gray Audi sport wagon pull out behind them.
10
Guo Kang cursed when he saw the doctor exit the Medical Teaching Facility with a tall man he had never seen before at her side. He hadn’t expected getting to Tan Lily would be easy, but he never thought she would have a personal protection detail either. And there was no question about it — the man next to her knew his business.
He watched the man tuck her into the passenger seat of an Audi S3 sport sedan, then get behind the wheel. He made a phone call and checked his surroundings before pulling away from the curb and making a U-turn to head east on Gilman Drive. Guo Kang hesitated for only a second—Who is this guy? — before putting his sport wagon into gear and pulling out behind them. If the General’s target package was accurate, the doctor and her protector would most likely be headed to retrieve her little girl from Torrey Pines Elementary School.
Guo Kang felt the engine’s restrained power purring like a snow leopard as he turned the corner and passed an idling campus bus. He was in no hurry and knew it was best to hang back to avoid detection, but he was comforted by the knowledge he had the horsepower available if he needed to hasten the hunt. So what if they reached the little girl? It would only make his job that much easier if both were in the same place.
He followed his quarry south toward La Jolla Village Drive, observing the way the S3 maneuvered in and out of traffic with practiced precision. The man had obviously been trained in evasive driving, and Guo Kang couldn’t help but wonder who was behind the wheel. FBI? Local law enforcement? He was certain he and the General had done nothing to alert authorities to their activities, but the imposing man driving the sedan was evidence to the contrary.
The Audi S3 turned left onto La Jolla Scenic Drive just as the light turned red. Guo Kang coasted to a stop. He knew that Torrey Pines Elementary School was only a short drive through a residential area filled with mid-century modern homes adorned with red tile roofs. But the best part was that there was only one way in and one way out. The doctor would not escape him.
Guo Kang pulled out his cell phone and opened the Signal app to send a simple six-character alphanumeric message to the Generaclass="underline" 6o%fe3. The code didn’t quite portend disaster, but it indicated the need to speak with the General immediately.
His phone rang ten seconds later, and he answered the encrypted call with a tone of reverence. “General.”
“What is it?”
“The doctor has left her office for the girl’s school.”