"Don't shoot, I'm a British citizen. My passport is in my shirt pocket," Leeds shouted. The Chinese officer pulled Leeds to his feet and pushed him toward another soldier, who began to lead him toward a waiting jeep.
"Wait," the officer shouted in Chinese seconds later. He walked over to the archaeologist and lifted Leeds's boot as if he were inspecting a horse's hoof. "Clark's-London," he said in English as he slapped his hand against the side of Leeds's head.
Leaving the doors open on the Land Rover, the officer loaded the pair into the back of the jeep, then sped off to the checkpoint. Hundreds of Chinese peasants, carrying caged ducks, vegetables, and grain to trade, filed around the open doors of the now abandoned truck. They continued on their way to Lanzhou as if nothing had happened. The helicopters carrying Jimn and Yibo were still 150 miles from Urumqi when the radio call came from the checkpoint near Lanzhou.
"It seems our troops have captured the pair in Lanzhou," Jimn radioed Yibo.
"The raft and set of footprints must have been a decoy after all," Yibo said. "What would you like me to do now?"
"Fly to Anxi and refuel, then return to the weapons laboratory and take over security. I'll go to Lanzhou and make the identification," Jimn answered.
"As you wish, sir," Yibo said quietly.
As the helicopter carrying Yibo turned and headed west, something still weighed heavily on his mind. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his subconscious he had the nagging feeling that he was traveling farther from their prey. Scrunching down to sleep in the noisy helicopter, he banished the unwanted thoughts.
It was only a gut feeling. And besides, Jimn, not he, was in charge. Hiking three miles west to skirt the town of Urumqi while carrying a Chinese physicist is not as easy as it sounds, Taft thought to himself. As evening turned to night, Taft stopped to catch his breath on a small hill above an abandoned farmers shed. He checked his coded notes once again, and searched his memory for the aerial photograph he had studied. Comparing the landmarks on the ground with the ones in his head, he concluded he was in the right area. In a grove of trees covered with brush, Tart left Choi and crept carefully down the hill. From outside the shed he heard no sound. He slipped through its ramshackle door, then flicked on a small penlight he carried clipped to his shirt pocket. There his chariot sat as planned. Perfect, Taft thought to himself. I just might get out of China alive. He rubbed his hand over the smooth leather of the saddlebags and smiled.
It was time to start the last leg of the trip to freedom.
The sharp sting of the leather glove across Deng Biao's face brought him from his stupor. "Once again you tried to desert your country for the West. You are a traitor and a thief," the interrogator shouted.
"What are you talking about? I'm an archaeologist with Beijing University. I'm working on a dig near Xining," Biao said in Chinese.
"Liar," the interrogator said, again striking Biao across his cheeks.
"You little fucker," Biao said in English. "What did he say?" the interrogator asked the English interpreter.
"He said he doesn't know what this is all about," the interpreter said, sickened by the sight of violence and beginning to believe Biao was telling the truth. Two doors down the hall, Malcolm Leeds was being treated with slightly more civility. "Why did you kidnap Li Choi?" the interrogator asked.
"Who's Li Choi?" Leeds asked.
"Please don't play dumb with me, Mr. Leeds," the interrogator said coldly.
"I'd like to see the British consul," Leeds said, his anger rising.
"In time, in time," the interrogator said as he slammed the door to the cell and walked down the hall to speak with Biao's interrogator.
CHAPTER 9
Martinez wiggled around in the chair to find a comfortable position. The oak armchairs in the Archives Department of the FBI were about as soft as a boulder. The light was dim in the reading room, but at the far end of the twenty-foot-long, thirty-year-old conference table, Martinez could see that the agent assigned to watch him as he searched the files was nodding off.
Martinez was reading the field reports from the FBI agents that followed Einstein. He was trying to determine why China kidnapped Choi, a student applying for asylum who was an expert in obscure Einsteinian physics. The reports spanned ten years, from 1945, when Hoover had first ordered the surveillance, to 1955, when Einstein passed away in a hospital in New Jersey.
The reports contained little of interest. One event, a report of Einstein shaking off his followers in the summer of 1945, shortly after the surveillance began, was interesting. The only other report Martinez found useful was a report of an intercepted telegram destined for physicist Niels Bohr, while Einstein was dying. The surveillance in between those two events seemed to be as worthless as a bowling ball without holes. Martinez slid the aging oak chair back from the table, creating a clatter in the silent room. "I'll need copies of these two reports," he said to the agent, who had awakened with a start. He handed the agent a sheet of paper with the file numbers written in pencil.
"It usually takes about thirty to forty-five minutes," said the agent, stifling a yawn. Martinez handed the agent a card that contained only telephone numbers. He circled the correct one with his pencil. "Could you have your people fax the reports to my office? I'm running on a tight schedule."
"Sounds fair," the agent noted, taking the card from Martinez.
"Thanks for your help," Martinez said as he strode from the room. Black leather helmet and fake Fu Manchu mustache masking his features, Taft nudged the shifter with his toe into fourth gear, then twisted the throttle wide open. The black Chinese-made motorcycle sped up, a staccato popping coming from the exhaust pipe. A cloud of dust trailed behind as Taft drove down the dirt road. To his right, Choi sat in the sidecar, head lolling from side to side. He was still in a deep stupor and, with luck, would remain so for some time.
The night was clear and cool. The dim yellow beam from the cycle's headlight shared illumination duties with the full harvest moon. Taft glanced down at the odometer. Three hundred miles to go. At the current rate of speed they would cross the border around four in the morning. He leaned to one side to bank the motorcycle around a curve. Two hours later, and 222 miles north-northeast of Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, a chill wind carrying the cold of a thousand northern nights swept through the open rear cargo door of a U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules sitting on a dirt field one mile from the Chinese border. A pool of light from inside the plane puddled on the ground outside. Blowing across the steaming cup of coffee, the pilot of the C-130, Dewey Brable, took a sip of the hot liquid, then set it on the rear ramp and lit a Marlboro cigarette.
"Feels strange to be inside the Soviet Union," Brable said to Taft's boss, Retired General Earl Benson, who stood smoking a cigar alongside the ramp.
Benson chose not to answer. Instead he shouted into the plane to the radio operator,
"What's their location now?"
Checking his direction-finding set mounted alongside the radar, the air force lieutenant measured the distance with calipers and shouted back, "Under two hundred miles, sir."
"Good," Benson said.
"How did we receive permission to land here?" Brable asked Benson.
"The Commonwealth of Independent States is our ally now," Benson said.
"Any chance of you telling me what agency you work for?"
"No chance in hell," Benson said, smiling. "Now, where did you get that coffee?" Jumping from the helicopter while its main rotor was still turning, Jimn raced into the security building in Lanzhou. Walking quickly down the hall toward the interrogation room, his polished black boots tapped out a muted staccato. He stopped at the door to the room containing Deng Biao. Motioning to the guard to move, Jimn opened the door. It took him only a second to make the identification. He stared at Biao, then the interrogator, before speaking in a cold voice. "This had better not be the person you think is Choi."