Twitching with fear, the interrogator said in a rush, "I was not the one to make the identification. I'm only handling the questioning."
"And what did you find out?" Jimn asked.
"He claims to be an archaeologist."
"He may be — because he sure as hell isn't Choi, you stupid ass," Jimn screamed. He walked to a nearby cell and looked at Leeds. "Where were you night before last?"
"I was having dinner with the mayor of the town of Xining. You can call him and verify this," Leeds finished.
"Where did you purchase your boots?"
"I bought them in Hong Kong. The British army swears by them." Storming from the room Jimn ran to a telephone to check with the mayor of Xining. When Leeds's story checked out, Jimn telephoned the prime minister. Twelve minutes later two Chinese fighter jets blasted from the runway at the Lop Nur Nuclear Weapons Testing Center and streaked toward Urumqi. At the same instant, refueled and parked in front of the Advanced Weapons Facility, Yibo was unbuckling himself from the passenger seat of the helicopter when the call came through from Jimn.
"We've been had," Jimn said. "Fly west to Urumqi like we'd planned." The pilot and Yibo immediately lifted off from the base in Qinghai and flew west. In the confusion that had been generated, the Chinese troops dispatched to search the train in Urumqi were ordered to stand down and return to their barracks. The cargo train Taft and Choi had ridden was already in Urumqi and being unloaded. To search the train for Choi would be pointless — it was, by now, almost empty.
"A transport plane is arriving," Jimn informed the ground commander. "Load the troops aboard."
Flown west to a landing strip near Yining, they were divided into search teams to patrol the border with Kazakhstan.
The Chinese prime minister, angered he had been fooled, ordered two converted cargo planes that were equipped with sophisticated sensors detecting both heat and movement, to fly from their base near Chengdu. With in-air refueling, they could be over the ChinaKazakhstan border in two hours. The instruments on board were capable of detecting and cataloguing the presence of life down to the size of a turtle. If the troops somehow missed Choi, the sensors wouldn't.
The net around Taft and Choi was finally being pulled tight.
"I'm picking up a couple of fast movers in the area," the air force radar operator aboard the C-130 said as he adjusted the radar definition. "Twin MIG-29 knock-offs. In addition I have two Chinese cargo planes on a course for the border. They're two hundred miles out," the radar operator said as the blips on his screen became more defined, "and it looks like a lone helicopter as well."
"They've seen through the diversion in Lanzhou. They're on to them," Benson noted.
"General, I'm receiving a secure transmission," the radio operator shouted from the rear of the plane. Benson walked forward and received the slip of folded paper. Overheads reveal twin Chinese prop planes inbound from Chengdu, ETA two hours maximum. Intelligence suggests they are bloodhounds.
Our satellites have recorded the bloodhounds leaving their base, Benson thought to himself. God help Taft now. Feeding the strip of paper into a shredder, he stood quietly for a moment.
One hour and thirty minutes later, the jet carrying Jimn from Lanzhou touched down at the deserted airport in Yining. A single jeep sat on the runway, awaiting his arrival. Jimn bolted down the ramp from the jet and climbed into the passenger seat.
"What is the status of the search?" he said to the driver without preamble.
"The troops are in position at the border as you ordered. The fighter jets ordered to watch overhead have reported nothing as yet. Sensor-equipped planes are due within thirty minutes," the driver, a captain in the Chinese army, said as he put the jeep in gear and drove away from the jet.
"Take me to the border," Jimn said.
"Right away, sir," the captain said as he shifted through the gears. Twenty miles from the Chinese border with Kazakhstan, Taft switched off the motorcycle's headlight at the sound of a helicopter passing overhead. Pulling to the side of the road, he waited until the sound of the rotor blades faded in the distance. He was just about to pull back onto the road when a pair of jets roared close overhead.
"When it rains it pours," Taft muttered as the jets flew past. Checking his map by the light of the moon, he measured the distance to the dry creek bed where he would turn off the road. Less than two miles. Slamming the motorcycle in gear he twisted the throttle and pulled back onto the road.
"In light of what has happened, there's no way I would feel comfortable continuing the dig," Leeds said to Biao outside the police station where the men had just been released.
"I understand how you feel," Biao said quietly.
"I have radioed the Xining site. They will ship my luggage. I'm leaving immediately for Hong Kong, where I'll catch a flight home," Leeds said quickly as he stood by the cab that would take him to the airport.
"I apologize for the trouble." Biao said. "I only hope your university will not completely pull out of this project.
Leeds shrugged — he could care less.
Jimn shouted orders into his hand-held radio as the jeep bumped along the border. Brush and trees grew thickly on the Russian side, obscuring the view. Chain-link fencing, erected by China in years past, ran from the border crossing outside Yining one mile to the north and south. With the current tension between China and the former Soviet Union, the checkpoint crossing was closed up. The road was covered with concrete barricades. On the Chinese side of the border the land was open. The brush and trees were burned off every odd-numbered year to stem the rising tide of smuggling.
"Chang, do you read me?" Jimn said into the radio.
After a pause of almost a minute, Yibo answered. "This is Yibo."
"Watch the fence line closely from the air. I will start driving south."
"Very good, sir," Yibo said. He ordered his pilot to began sweeping back and forth high above the fence.
On orders from their commanding officer, the Chinese troops that had been assembled formed a human wall and began to walk from the fence line east through the burned-out wasteland. They carefully searched the ground for tracks. High overhead, the jets could see little as they passed at two hundred miles an hour. The sensor-equipped planes were still miles away. They would arrive moments too late to help.
Taft stopped the motorcycle and hastily covered it with brush. He walked a short distance away into the woods. Using a pair of infrared binoculars he stared silently at the line of troops to the south of the fence line. His planned crossing point was thick with Chinese troops. Hoisting Choi over his shoulder like a sack of cement, Taft crept close to the border. He would have to alter his plan.
Keying his tiny portable radio unit he gave the signal.
"Three beeps on 750 megahertz, General," the air force radar operator shouted from the cockpit of the C-130.
"Give me an update," Benson said to the radar operator.
"Two cargo jets, one hundred miles out. Two fighters are still loitering above the scene. The helicopter is upwind, near the fenced portion of the crossing. It seems to be patrolling the fence line."
"What's on the radio?" Benson asked.
An air force radio operator, specially selected for this mission because he was fluent in Mandarin answered. "The Chinese troops have been ordered to patrol around the scheduled crossing point."
"How far is our man's signal from the border?"
"Less than five hundred yards," the radar operator answered, his eyes fixed on the flashing light on his display screen.