You can say that again, she thought.
“Either way, the test is going as scheduled. So, let’s go over this plan so we can catch a few winks before it begins.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
14
Early the next morning, Chen exited Highway 101 onto California Boulevard in San Luis Obispo and drove between towering palm trees onto the campus of California Polytechnic State University. It wasn’t her first time visiting the campus, but it was her first time doing it under such urgent circumstances. Normally, she would have had more time to conduct a thorough surveillance of the area before making the drop. But that just wasn’t in the cards.
She reached a three-way stop bordered by green crosswalks and the words “CAL POLY” painted in white, and she steered the Jeep to the right onto Campus Way. The sun was still hidden behind the nearby Santa Lucia range, and the early morning fog had yet to burn off. Between the weather and most of the student body being gone, the college campus was eerily quiet at that hour, making her task all the more difficult.
Cresting the hill on Campus Way, Chen saw the University House shrouded by trees in the distance and turned left to park in a spot reserved for staff at the bottom of the hill. Before exiting her Jeep, she opened the calculator app on her smart phone and again entered the passkey. She tapped on “Receive” and waited for the device to connect with the satellite network overhead. When she read the resulting message, she sighed with relief.
NO NEW MESSAGES.
Maybe he had gotten the hint. She returned to the main menu and tapped out the reply she had been formulating all night. It would put the Marine at risk, but if what he had said was true, she would rather risk compromising her asset than allow the Americans to learn their newest fighter aircraft had been exploited. When she finished composing the message, she reviewed it and tapped on “Send,” waiting for the progress bar to fill before slipping the phone in her pocket.
Climbing down from the Jeep’s driver’s seat, Chen took a moment to stretch her road-weary frame, then crossed Perimeter Road to pass between the natatorium and an abandoned structure in Mission Revival style known as the Powerhouse. With her head held high, she scanned the road and continued past Crandall Gymnasium and the Engineering West building to reach the southwestern corner of Dexter Lawn.
Chen paused and examined the green space for hidden observers, ensuring she was alone before she exposed herself. Seeing nothing out of place, she stepped out and strolled onto a wide, red brick walkway on the near side of the lawn. She moved with deliberate nonchalance, but her eyes never stopped scanning. Trash can. Bench. Tree. She glanced briefly at each location, searching for the signal.
There.
When she saw it, she forced herself to continue walking at the same pace. Six inches into the grass on the left side of the path was a plastic fork stuck into the ground with its tines facing upward. Had the prongs been buried into the dirt, she would have known the primary dead drop location had been compromised and would have made a lap around the campus looking for an alternate signal site. Had it been any utensil other than a fork, she would have turned around, returned to her Jeep, and abandoned the drop.
But the signal was what she had expected.
Dead drop location clear.
She continued strolling along the walkway until she had pulled even with the seventy-five-foot coast redwood in the middle of the lawn. There, she turned and crossed the manicured grass, headed directly for a concrete bench on the opposite side. It felt good being free from the confines of the Jeep, and she enjoyed the brief reprieve as she breathed in the fresh air and scanned the surrounding buildings for interlopers. Just before reaching the bench, she knelt to tie her shoe and surreptitiously surveyed the length of the lawn and the path behind her.
A flash of movement near a sycamore caught her attention. She untied and retied her shoe, focusing on the spot at the west edge of the lawn until satisfying herself that it had been nothing more than the wind. She was alone. She turned and sat on the bench, then slipped the memory card from her pocket and reached under the front edge to insert it inside a hollowed-out nook. With the drop complete, she leaned back and took a deep breath of the fragrant air with satisfaction before standing to resume her leisurely circuitous route around Dexter Lawn.
She had been on campus less than twenty minutes, but already the coastal overcast was beginning its slow retreat back to the sea. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day and was a small consolation prize for having to spend the next several hours behind the wheel. She was exhausted but couldn’t rest until she had returned to Long Beach and notified Mantis she was in position for the evening’s operation.
Only this time, I’ll do it myself, she thought.
She glanced up at the redwood as she circled around to the south side of the lawn, then resumed looking for anybody who might have witnessed her completing the dead drop. But she had been careful. She hadn’t spotted a tail during her drive north from Long Beach, and she hadn’t seen a soul on campus. She had only one more task to complete before she could leave.
Nearing the signal, she bent over and scooped up the fork, carrying it to the nearby trash can at the end of the walkway as her countersignal that the drop had been loaded. Though she hadn’t seen anybody who might have witnessed the act, she reasoned that if they had, they would have just assumed she was your typical California co-ed, removing litter from the green space.
But she was alone. She felt it.
She deposited it into the receptacle, then turned at the Engineering West building and continued at a relaxed pace for her Jeep.
Despite the comfort of the BMW sedan, Rick was exhausted from maintaining his tail throughout the night. After Air One had departed station to return to the Long Beach airport, he closed the distance to within five car lengths. Maintaining his visual on the Jeep took priority, and it was a nerve-racking drive north on Interstate 405 through Los Angeles. But by the time his quarry merged onto Highway 101 north of the Santa Monica Mountains, he had perfected his technique.
He thought of it like casting and drifting, setting the bait and letting the current carry him toward his target. He weaved in and out between cars and blended in with the surrounding traffic, at one point even passing the Jeep Wrangler and exiting the freeway before rejoining several car lengths behind. His only goal had been to keep his movement as random as possible to avoid her detecting a pattern and making him. The technique worked until the traffic thinned out, leaving his BMW as one of only a handful of cars remaining on the road.
In spite of the challenging conditions, he had managed to maintain his visual on the Jeep until she turned onto California Boulevard in San Luis Obispo. After driving only a few blocks, she quickly turned down a side street and came to a stop alongside the curb. It was a classic countersurveillance technique and only the first since leaving Long Beach. To Rick, that meant she was nearing her destination.
He kept his speed constant and drove past the side street, only looking at the Jeep from the corner of his eye. Her brake lights were still illuminated, which meant she hadn’t turned off the ignition and intended to continue driving. He drove another four blocks before turning into an apartment complex parking lot where he doused his lights and waited to see if the Jeep returned to the main road. After several minutes, his patience was rewarded, and he spotted the blue Jeep continuing toward the campus. He breathed a sigh of relief.