Sliding his chair back from the table, he rose and walked from the room. Thirty minutes later, Sun Tao, head of the Social Protection Department, or SPD, Chinas secret police, entered the prime ministers outer office.
He waited as the male secretary rang the inner office, then motioned to Tao.
"You may enter, sir."
Tao proceeded to the inner office, then across the room to the prime ministers desk near the window and placed the two reports on the desk. He waited until a young Chinese girl, no more than twelve years of age, finished polishing the prime minister's nails and packed her manicure tools into a leather case. She left the office soundlessly.
"Records showed there were nearly forty British citizens working or studying in the western desert. Enough, it would seem, that one might be the man helping Choi. There are, strangely, no Americans in the area." Tao paused, waiting to see if the prime minister would ask him to sit.
"Continue," the prime minister said to the still-standing Tao.
"As to the deployment of United States armed forces, the closest to China appear to be in the Philippines and Thailand, which both hold sizable contingents of American troops."
The prime minister nodded. "I think the tracks the security guards spotted going west are designed to mislead our searchers," he said, glancing at his fingernails. "Three men must have infiltrated Qinghai. Two are leading us astray to the west, while one is leading Choi south as we speak. The kidnappers of Choi have no one that can help them to the west." The prime minister reached down and picked up a gold pen and rolled it between his fingers. "Choi and one of the others are probably going toward Hong Kong," the Prime Minister said quietly to Tao. "It would have to be. What single man would be stupid enough, or skilled enough, to infiltrate one of our most secure facilities and then steal off like a thief in the night?" The prime minister paused again. "Have the border with Hong Kong secured. If there are no Americans nearby, it must be the British working for the Americans. Next have the location of all the Brits verified. Whoever is not where he should be, is either with Choi or knows where he is."
"Immediately, sir," Tao said.
The prime minister's thinking was flawed. His mind was preoccupied with thoughts of a coming war.
By the time Jimn and the tracking dogs arrived and followed the scent to the railroad bridge, it was late afternoon. Climbing back aboard the pair of helicopters, Jimn and Yibo ordered their pilots to fly west along the tracks. They had traveled but a few miles when Jimn radioed Yibo.
"I just received a scrambled call from Beijing," Jimn said. "I've been ordered to move our search south."
"Shall I fly back to Qinghai, refuel, and search to the south?" Yibo asked Jimn.
"No," Jimn said, "you go ahead and follow through on the search west." A single hound was still on Taft's tail. He would prove hard to shake.
"Li, wake up," Taft said, shaking Choi's arm.
Choi came slowly out of his slumber. "That pill …" he said slowly.
"It's not the pill that's affecting you — its the stress of the escape. Your body is simply not accustomed to so much excitement," said Taft.
Choi struggled to sit upright. He saw Taft staring at the GPS and the plastic-covered map. Taft marked a spot on the map with a grease pencil and put it away. Next he removed two food packages from inside.
"Eat," Taft said as he tossed one of the packages to Choi. Choi stared at the printed labeclass="underline" Sesame Chicken. Americanized Chinese food.
"My own selection," Taft said. "Mix water in the pouch, it's not too bad." Choi nodded, took the offered canteen, and began to mix his meal. He would have preferred American food. He developed quite a taste for hamburgers and hot dogs while attending school in California. Still, he knew that his American rescuer had made a gesture of respect toward him and he began eating the mock Chinese food without complaint.
"Where are we now?" Choi asked as he finished the pouch and tossed it from the train.
"We'll soon be in Urumqi. That's where these particular tracks end," Taft said as he rummaged in the pack. "Pudding?" Taft continued, tossing a tin to Choi, who caught it.
"If we are captured I want you to know I won't talk. They can torture me but it won't work," Choi said as he began spooning the pudding from the tin.
"Mighty white of you, but you've been watching too many spy movies," Taft said as he tossed his empty can of pudding from the open door of the railcar. "Nowadays, we're being trained to tell our captors everything. Torture has just become too advanced. In time they'll get whatever they want out of you, anyway."
"So you just tell them everything you know?" Choi asked incredulously.
"Then we swap agents later. It's considered bad sport to torture the enemy to death. The trick is to know only enough to complete your phase of the mission. Then, if you tell them everything, you jeopardize no one else. At least that's how it works in theory. Just for example, I don't know who else is helping us today — if there even is someone," Taft said. "And I wasn't told a whole lot about you or even why I was assigned to liberate you."
"So if we're caught I should tell them everything?" Choi asked.
"Except what I just told you." Choi stared at Taft in confusion. "You need to work on your sense of humor," Taft said, smiling. "We're not going to get caught."
"But if we do," Choi said.
"This time the rules are a little different," Taft said, rising and staring out the open door of the railcar at the passing countryside. His back to Choi, his voice suddenly adopted an icy tone. "You can't be taken alive, Li. I'm sorry." Choi sat silently as the words washed across him. He had been rescued from hell only to stare death in the face.
A late afternoon haze lay over the railroad tracks leading to Urumqi as the Chinese helicopter sped west. The sun would soon drop below the horizon, making the search that much more difficult.
"Chang," Jimn shouted into the radio of the helicopter now speeding south.
"Yes sir," Yibo answered.
"I have called ahead to Urumqi. They are assembling men to search the train as soon as it reaches the rail-yard."
"That should prove if the prime minister is right," Chang said.
"Let's hope," Jimn said as the radio went dead.
CHAPTER 8
A man carrying a British passport bearing the name Malcolm Leeds steered a dark blue Land Rover around an ox partially blocking the dirt road. Four weeks into a scheduled six-week archaeological dig near Xining, the isolation of the remote site appeared to be wearing on Leeds's spirit. He needed a city, needed it badly.
So far, the archaeological work had proved to be extremely important, a crude stone temple from the Yuan dynasty, the time of Kublai Khan, had been located and excavations were slowly proceeding.
Inside the first hallway to be cleared the archaeologists had found indications that the Mongols, who had built the temple, had traveled farther than previously thought. Muslim religious markings adorned the walls of the hallway, and what the archaeologists now believed was a crude map showing the world as far away as the Middle East was located on a thick slab of stone with supports like a table.
"Will the hotel in Lanzhou have television?" Leeds asked Deng Biao, his Chinese assistant on the dig who was seated in the passenger seat of the Rover.