Jimn decided to grab a moment of fresh air. He walked down the hall to the soft-drink machine to buy a soda. He had been ordered by his handlers in Beijing to stay at the motel until he was contacted with further instructions, but that didn't require him to remain inside the room at all times, he thought.
After the soda I will order myself lunch to be delivered. Perhaps an American pizza. I think it's safe to celebrate the acquisition of the diaries at least, Jimn thought. Jimn walked down the hall to the soda machine. Finding he was short of the change he needed, he went to the office and asked the manager to break a dollar bill. Turning away from an episode of The People's Court, the man changed the bill without a word. As he exited the office, jingling the quarters in his hand, Jimn happened to glance toward his room. A man with his back toward Jimn was opening the door with a key. Jimn stared, not yet registering what he was witnessing.
The sound of an automobile horn in the parking lot broke Jimn's concentration. Now inside the room, the man ran out at the sound of his partners signal. Jimn, still standing near the office, watched as a second man got out of the car and began to run toward him. Both men held pistols in their hands.
They're here to kill me, Jimn realized instantly. Dropping the change, he turned and sprinted across the parking lot and into the street. Several cars swerved to avoid striking him as he dashed blindly across the roadway. Jimn knew that the killers had been sent by the Chinese government. He knew because he now recognized the man who had entered his room. Jimn had trained him himself.
Across the street from the motel, Jimn ducked as a bullet shattered a neon soft-drink sign on the side of a coffee shop fronting the road. As Jimn ran past the front door of the restaurant, which was filled with lunchtime diners, a second bullet struck and shattered the glass in a newspaper machine directly in front of him.
He raised his arm to cover his face. A spear of glass from the display window cut into his leg. A third bullet entered Jimn's back, nicking his lung. As the sound of the approaching sirens increased, Jimn continued to run. Exiting the restaurant's parking lot, he found himself at the edge of an open field along Newark Bay. He mounted the concrete breakwater that formed a wall along the water's edge and began running south. The sirens were almost upon them as one of the Chinese assassins stopped and carefully aimed. Squeezing the trigger, he watched as his round hit Jimn, flinging him into the dirty water of the bay.
The police now very near, the assassins disappeared into the shadows. For so blatant a shooting there were few witnesses. Jimn floated facedown in the filthy water, a trail of blood leaking from his body marking the spot, as the first police car pulled into the field next to the coffee shop.
CHAPTER 12
That same day, Taft leaned against the nondescript sedan he had checked out of the NIA motor pool earlier that morning. He was chewing on a stem of grass. They were parked two miles north of Potomac Beach, Virginia, along the Potomac River. The location was forty-seven miles south of the NIA offices. Tossing the stem of grass to the ground, he looked at his partner.
"I always enjoy fall," he said to Martinez.
"A little cooler and not so humid," replied Martinez.
"It always seems to be a time for reflection."
Martinez sat upright and slid off the hood of the sedan. "John Taft trying to be philosophical with me?" he said. "Will wonders never cease?"
"Every time I try to take our conversations to a deeper level you turn me away," Taft said sarcastically.
"Only because I know you so well," Martinez said. He began to walk across the dirt parking lot toward the river. "I'll leave any deep thinking to you. I just want a paycheck."
"What, and you think I'm motivated by a higher calling? I quit believing in this shit we do years ago." Taft kicked an aluminum beer can toward Martinez. "Put on your serious face, partner, it's time to be NIA secret agents," Taft said quietly as a man began walking toward them. "Let's just play along and get this over with. Then we can go grab something to eat."
"I still don't know how we got assigned this detail. This contractor could care less about our being here," Martinez said, watching the man approach.
"Benson has me on light work, remember? He's worried I've been working too hard—
claims I might burn out again."
"You must be from the NIA," the contractor said, stopping in front of the men. His head was crowned with a white hard hat. His lips were spread in a smile. Sticking out a slab-like paw, he shook hands with the pair. "Let's get you some hats and we can start the tour. I think you'll be impressed."
He led them to a construction trailer, where he found hard hats for Taft and Martinez. Stepping around a mud puddle, they walked toward the rivers edge. At the edge of a row of trees was a concrete building about the size of a four-car garage.
"The electronics that form the heart of this installation are still being sorted out, but let me give you the ten-dollar tour," the contractor said as he opened the door and led them inside. "It works like this. Sensors are buried underground, pointing toward the water. These, along with the set on the opposite shore, can completely cover the river with ease."
Several screens lit up and began to display readings from the multitude of sensors. The screens featured bar graphs as well as colored displays. A banner ran across the top giving a written assessment of anything that passed either on top of or below the water. Taft and Martinez watched the display with interest as a school of fish passed downstream.
"Is it fully automatic?" Martinez asked.
"Not yet. Eventually the signals will be sent to the NSA at Fort Meade and recorded on tape. Unless the river is breached by something the system determines to be dangerous, it will work silently and automatically. At start-up, however, we will have technicians here on site in case there's a problem."
"What happens if a submerged object tries to come up the river?" Taft asked.
"Increasing intensity alarms alert the NSA. Then they will immediately contact the Marine base at Quantico," the contractor said proudly.
"Looks like a good system," Martinez said.
"The software will be sorted out over the next few weeks. I'm sure we'll be able to meet the October 15th deadline without a problem," the contractor noted. "So, do we get a positive report?"
"I don't see why not," Taft said. "We'll fill our agency in on your progress. You don't have to follow us out — we can drop off the hard hats on our way."
"Fair enough," the contractor said, returning to his work. "I guess that's about it." Taft and Martinez returned the hard hats to the hooks on the wall of the trailer. Taft paused in the office long enough to fill a conical paper cup from the water cooler, slurp the cold liquid, then toss the wadded-up cup across the room into a trash can. Two points," he said as he opened the door and, followed by Martinez, exited the trailer.
The pair continued across the dirt to their company car. Taft slid behind the wheel and twisted the key as Martinez settled down in the passenger seat.
"Who came up with the idea that terrorists might try to take submarines up United States rivers?"
"Some asshole Senate subcommittee," Martinez answered. "They fear that submarines or pleasure boats with explosives attached or dragged behind could be brought up the Potomac. What will they think of next?"
"It figures," Taft said. "We could accomplish the same outcome with a metal net stretched across the river. Another waste of time and money."
"I think the general is just giving you a break after you made the world safe for scientists," Martinez said smugly.