"Then, early this morning we received this communiqué from the American authorities…" He laid the piece of paper in front of Bogner. It was written in Chinese characters.
Bogner glanced at it and pushed it back across the table.
Le Win Fo understood. "Sorry," he said, "my young associate knows no English."
Bogner took another sip of tea. He was wearing dry clothes and the chill was fading.
"We received this at 0800 hours. It states quite clearly that we are to inform you that your associates have reason to suspect that your colleague, Colonel Driver, may be an agent for the Russian government."
Bogner shook his head. "If you had told me this yesterday, I wouldn't have believed you. He's a twenty-year man in the Air Force, not to mention the fact that he's been a test pilot on the F-117. He served with distinction in Vietnam and"
Le Win Fo reached for his pipe. "We see only the veneer of a man. We do not know what is in his heart."
"It sure as hell would explain what happened last night," Bogner admitted. He watched Le light his pipe and waited for Hua's nephew to go on.
"Throughout the night we have monitored the transmissions from Danjia. At first there was atmospheric interference because of the storm. Much of our information about what happened during that first hour is fragmented. But we know that your friend Driver managed to take off about daybreak. Shortly after that, he was pursued by two of Colonel Quan's aircraft. What happened during that time is also obscure. However, we were able to monitor the transmissions between the returning aircraft and the Danjia tower."
Bogner leaned forward.
"One of Quan's pilots reported that the Russian plane crashed in the vicinity of one of the Anxi Atolls. Which one, we do not know."
"Verified?" Bogner asked.
Le shook his head. "He reported that the Russian plane was flying very low because of the storm. He indicated he was within twenty-five nautical miles and trailing the aircraft when the heat and noise monitors shut down."
Bogner nodded. "It's possible. He could have had him on his E-system if he was flying right down his tailpipes. Otherwise his radar wouldn't have been picking him up."
"I must ask you," Le said, "what about the man, Schubatis?"
"We got him out, all right. The problem is, he was on board the Covert when Driver took off."
Le sighed. "What will you do now?"
"I wish to hell I knew. As far as I'm concerned, we don't know anything for certain. Quan's men aren't dead certain the Covert went down. Bottom line, we don't know if there still is a Covert, and we don't know whether Driver and Schubatis are alive."
"There is more," Le continued. "At approximately 0800 hours, Quan dispatched one of his gunboats to Anxi for verification of the pilot's report. If and when they report in, we will know."
Bogner stood up and walked to the room's only window. The sun was shining and the fog had completely dissipated. He turned back to Le. "What did you tell me about Anxi? Isn't that where you said you fly political refuges and arrange to have them picked up by the Taiwanese government?"
Le Win Fo nodded. "It can be arranged only when there is a Nationalist freighter in the area."
"How do you do it?"
"We fly only at night."
"Then you can fly me there," Bogner concluded.
"It is very risky. The night skies are full of Komiskos and there will be Quan's gunboats. Until they find Han Ki Po's assassin, the patrol efforts will be doubled."
Bogner sat down again and poured himself another cup of tea. "Under the circumstances, I don't have a helluva lot of choice. I can't wrap this thing up until I know what happened to that plane and Schubatis."
Le Win Fo was distracted by a knock on the door. When he opened it he was confronted by two of the children from the orphanage.
"Father Le," the older one pleaded, "come quick. Little Yu claims he found a man's body."
"Where?" Le Win Fo asked.
"Hurry, Father, Yu says the man is still alive."
Chapter Thirteen
From the wheelhouse of the Fange gunboat, Lieutenant Yew watched as Captain Shin slowed the craft to a near idle for the deployment of the trailing sonobuoys. One of Shin's men scurried topside near the radar, another took up position at the stern near the radar gear and winch, and a third scanned the area off the port side from the Fange's gun turret.
"You are certain this is the place?" Shin asked. He was a hollow-chested man with a hawk nose and sharp eyes. In the last two hours he had exhibited his mastery of several different dialects. So far, he had lived up to Quan's assessment that with seventeen years of service he was the most experienced of Danjia's patrol captains.
Yew unrolled the chart and pointed to the spot where Feng indicated he had had the last indication of the Russian aircraft. "This is the areaif Captain Feng is correct, it should be somewhere just east of this atoll."
"The waters in this part of the Gulf are shallow," Shin confirmed, "but unless we have exact coordinates, it will be difficult to locate."
Yew rerolled his chart, climbed down from the wheelhouse, and worked his way toward the stern. Admittedly, he had no concept of the difficulty in locating something as small as the downed Covert in so large a body of water. If Captain Feng said it was offshore of one of the atolls, then that was where it should be. Instead Yew looked up at the clear blue Gulf of Tonkin sky and marveled that just a few hours after the fact there was no trace of the previous night's violent storm.
From where he stood on the stern, he could hear Shin order deployment of the trailing sonar and the confirmation by one of the crew that the task had been accomplished. In rapid succession he heard the man operating the apparatus read off a series of depth reports and relay them up to his captain.
In the distance Yew could see the horseshoe-shaped inlet of the atoll leading into what appeared to be little more than a rocky outcropping of boulders and a few sparse trees, with no sign of habitation. From the inland province of Hunan and the small village of Zunyi, Yew new nothing of the sea, only that Tonkin represented a very small part of it.
He walked forward again as Shin directed the Fange's helmsman to begin a crisscross pattern sweeping back and forth across the mouth of the inlet.
"These islands," Yew asked, "are inhabited?"
Shin continued to scan the horizon. He answered without looking away from the helm. "On occasionbut only by the Vietnamese. They have never been successful in their efforts to establish a permanent colony. The land is mostly rocks held together by a few grains of sand."
Yew scanned the atoll's interior with his binoculars. "I believe I see a structure of some sort."
Shin laughed. "You see what is left of the last settlement attempta few abandoned houses and a building that was used for stores during their war with the Americans thirty years ago. The atolls proved useless because of the shallow waters and the danger of the reefs."
Yew continued to scan the featureless landscape, intrigued by the emptiness and the land's lack of purpose. If the nature of their mission had not been so urgent, he would have urged Shin to allow them to explore the tiny island.
"I'm picking up something, Captain," the sonar man shouted.
Shin ordered the Fange to come about while the man verified his contact. At that point the Fange was heading due north. "There it is," the man reported, "in the shallows, 270.4 degreesdue west. I'm getting a steady reading."
"Distance?" Shin demanded.
"Two point four kilometers."
The Fange turned again to the west, sprinted a short distance, only to have Shin slow it to a near idle again. He instructed the young lieutenant to look in the water on the starboard side.