Boles smiled. “I assume you mean in China.”
The Chief of Staff raised his brows in agreement.
“We hired Jake Adams to look into the matter.”
Oestreich thought for a moment and sipped his wine. “That name sounds familiar.”
“It should,” Boles said. “When we were at Defense, he saved our collective asses in Kurdistan and the Ukraine.”
“Right. Caught them with that biological agent and killed a rogue Agency officer in Odessa.”
“Well, I understand the officer killed himself, but, yeah, that’s the guy.”
“Wasn’t he also the guy who caught the Hungarians and that German company ripping off some computer technology from the Joint Strike Fighter?”
“Yep.”
“Looks like you got the right guy.”
General Boles glanced around the room, acknowledging a senator from Colorado with a nod. “I’m not sure about this.”
“What. Why not?” The Chief of Staff moved closer, his voice a mere whisper. “The Chinese stole our laser technology. Don’t forget that. And they did it while we were both at Defense. I don’t think I need to remind you of that.”
“Is the President aware of this?”
Oestreich’s expression flashed from a fake smile to anger and then back to a smirk. “Does it matter?”
“It does to me,” the general said.
“We have complete deniability on this,” Oestreich assured him. “Adams gets caught and he has no tie to the administration. He’s just a curious tourist.”
“So, we hang him out to dry?”
“This is what he does for a living. He knows the score.”
Boles grabbed the Chief of Staff on the forearm. “He was an Air Force officer who worked for me at one time.”
Oestreich looked down at the general’s hand, which slowly removed. “We’ll do what we can behind the scenes, but push comes to shove and we deny any knowledge. You knew that going in.” The Chief of Staff patted his old friend on the back and started to leave. “You better hope he’s as good as you say he is.” And now louder, Oestreich said, “You have a good time tonight, Wayne.” He smiled and walked away.
The general was steaming inside, but he maintained his composure as he walked about the room with his empty glass. When a waiter came around now, the general put his glass down and picked up two in exchange.
“This friend of yours,” Li said, peering sideways at Cliff Johansen from the front seat of her Isuzu Trooper. “Does he know we’re coming?”
They had been driving from the Bay Area since dawn, picking up Interstate 5 in Sacramento, and would soon turn onto Highway 97 toward Oregon.
“He has no idea.” Cliff was reading a technical manual on internet servers. “Like I said, though, we’re old college friends.”
“I think I should stay in a hotel,” she said.
Cliff was thinking he would rather she come to his friend’s house with him. She was gorgeous, and all through college neither of them had dated anyone close to her quality. In fact, they both could have counted their total dates on one hand.
He looked over at her. “It’s only a couple of days.”
“One night,” she said emphatically. “You get what you need and we move on.”
“Part of it,” he corrected her. “We get part of it, you transfer the money, and then we go for the rest.”
She shook her head. “We transfer part of the money.”
“Well…right.”
Cliff thought about his plan as he watched her drive down the road. He wanted to soak as much time as he could with her, for he knew that once she got what she wanted, and she had no more use for him, she was gone. That would be hard for him to take. God she was a hottie. He also knew that he would probably not ever return to Brightstar. Although he had called in sick while driving north, it would be nearly impossible for him to look those people in the eye again after what he had taken. He kept telling himself it was only data and pixels. But deep down he knew it was far worse than that. And his likelihood of being caught? Damn near zero. That brought a smile to his face. The old hacker in him.
Two cars back on the freeway was a brown Ford Taurus driven by the man Cliff Johansen had come to know in the past six months as Steve Lempi, programmer for Brightstar’s Group Five. A man who was actually special agent Drew Fisher with the Agency’s internal operations division.
Fisher checked his watch. Damn. He was late. Although he had already called in sick to Brightstar, he had not talked with his supervisor from Portland in two days.
He picked up his cell phone and punched in a number.
“Yeah, it’s me. Our little rabbit’s on the run.” He hesitated long enough to pass a car, while still keeping one car between him and the Trooper.
“I don’t know where he’s going. We just passed through Redding heading north. He has friends in Eugene.”
They were passing now through the Shasta Lake area. “Damn, this is pretty up here. Shasta Lake. Right, I remembered his friend in Bend. You think he’s heading there?”
He drove across a high bridge and through a narrow mountain pass. “Right. I’ll appreciate the help.”
If they turned onto north Highway 97 at Weed, then he’d know they were going to Bend, Oregon. If they stayed on I-5, it would be Eugene. Either way, he had it covered.
10
The night train from Beijing lumbered slowly into the Huanggutun Railway station on the western edge of the city, the sun still an hour or so from rising.
Jake Adams opened his eyes and shifted in his seat. He was in a compartment with seven other people, early in the evening speaking a language he didn’t know, and eventually drifting off to sleep and speaking only the universal language of snores and heavy breathing. He had not slept much, though.
After his meeting with Steve Anderson, the think tank wonk, he had gone back to his hotel room and looked through the information. Most he had memorized and destroyed, and the rest he carried in a small backpack, which sat now at his feet.
He was to meet an agent in Shenyang, who would take him north to Harbin on the old Russian Manchurian Railroad. The next day they would travel to an undisclosed location in the northern frontier.
The train came to a halt and Jake waited for the others to leave before picking up his small backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. He glanced out the window, saw people waiting on a platform, bundled and their breath flowing in plumes of white, and realized he had only his lined leather jacket with him. Obviously not enough for this weather.
He wandered out and down the corridor, through the cheaper seats that would have made the airlines look lavish and comfortable, and then exited toward the main train station.
Immediately, cold air rushed toward him, as if he were in a wind tunnel. He quickened his pace.
Once inside the main building, he shifted his eyes at the high ceilings, and then made his way through a sea of people toward the train schedule board that took up nearly one entire wall. He was to stand there viewing the schedule until his contact approached him with the pre-determined signal. He hated this, not knowing the name of his contact or what he’d look like. Only the discussion would reveal the true contact. And that bothered him. He could be standing there like an idiot for hours.
“Harbin is nice this time of year,” came a soft voice from behind. Nearly perfect English. But something unexpected.
He hesitated to turn around. “Isn’t it a little cold this time of year. I heard it was like Siberia.”
“Mr. Adams,” the voice said. “We must go. Our train leaves in ten minutes.”
He turned now to view a young woman of perhaps twenty-five. She was nearly five-six, with the most stunning facial features he had seen since his arrival in China. She embraced him firmly like a long-lost lover, and he did the same, lingering and perhaps wishing it were true.