They began talking away. After a few minutes Cathy broke out the bottle she'd brought with her.
"Let's open this. I know you appreciate wine and this one is supposed to be excellent. It's Australian. They're making some really good stuff now."
Nick got out an opener, some fresh glasses, and pulled the cork. Cathy poured. She held up her glass.
"Money, health, love and time to enjoy them. Here's to you."
They clinked glasses. The wine was good, full bodied and smooth, with an underlying taste Nick couldn't pin down. They moved into the living area and sat down, carrying the glasses.
Cathy glanced over at Selena's laptop, still open on the desk.
"Is that the translation you're working on? What's it about?"
"Yes. It's an old Sanskrit text on medicine. Nothing very earth shaking."
"You always were a whiz at that kind of thing. Working right from the source. I had enough trouble researching the information that was already translated."
Carter felt dizzy. The light was fluctuating. Cathy looked at him.
"I don't feel very well," Selena said.
"Can I get you anything?" said Cathy.
Selena's wine glass slipped out of her hand and dropped to the floor. The wine spread in a widening stain over the carpet. Nick tried to get up, but his legs turned to rubber and he crashed to the floor. His vision blurred. The last thing he heard was Cathy Chen telling Selena she was sorry.
Chapter Twenty-Five
"Nick. Nick." Ronnie's voice was urgent. "Nick! Wake up."
He opened his eyes. He had a hell of a headache. Ronnie bent over him.
"Where's Selena?"
"She's okay, she's awake, just not feeling so good. Jesus, Nick, I thought you were dead when I came in."
Suckered and drugged. He remembered the odd taste in the wine. He got to his feet and a blacksmith shop opened up inside his head.
Ronnie helped him to the couch where a white-faced Selena was sitting with her eyes closed.
"You all right?" Carter touched her arm.
"I think so. What happened?"
"We were drugged. Your friend slipped it into the wine."
"Nick, I'm sorry. I can't believe this."
He looked around. Selena's computer was gone. Nothing else seemed out of place The drugged bottle of "really good stuff" sat half empty on the coffee table..
"Not your fault, don't be sorry. How could you know she would do this?"
"Why would she drug us?"
"She took your computer. She must be an agent for Wu. Nobody else would know you were working on the book."
Selena looked stricken. "The whole book was on that computer. That means they have it, Yang's got what he wants."
"Then maybe now they'll leave us alone. Don't worry about it. We'll figure out what to do. I've got to call the Director."
"I'll do it." Ronnie placed the call. Harker wasn't going to be thrilled at the news. After a minute Ronnie hung up.
"The word's out on Chen. I gave her description and we've got security tapes we can pull from downstairs. We'll find her."
"How long were we out?"
"Not long. I checked back about half an hour after I went next door. When you didn't answer, I let myself in."
"That bitch." Selena was furious. "I thought she was my friend. She was my friend. I'd like to get my hands on her right now."
"We'll get her," Carter said. "I wonder how Wu knew we were in Washington? The last the Chinese saw of us, we were buried in that mine."
"That's something we're going to have to find out." Ronnie went to the kitchen and brought back two glasses of water.
"Drink up. Guaranteed, no drugs."
Carter woke in the middle of the night. The bedroom door was partly open. He heard muffled sobbing coming from the living room. Selena was sitting on the couch, her head in her hands. He was about to go to her when something stopped him. He knew about grief. Sometimes it needs to be a private thing.
He went back to bed, but it was a long time before he fell asleep.
He dreamed of Megan.
Megan was across the street, waiting for a bus. He waved, but she didn't seem to see him. Endless streams of cars roared by and he couldn't get across to her. He saw the bus coming and she still hadn't seen him. He called her name but no sound came out.
Then he was standing next to her. She looked at him, shook her head, a sad expression on her face.
"There's no point in waiting, Nick."
"Waiting for what?"
"For the bus. See?"
She pointed at the large, black bus bearing down on them. The destination sign said AIRPORT.
The driver was visible through the windshield. He was faceless and he had a grenade in his hand.
"Where are you going," Nick said.
"There's no point in waiting."
Then he was back in the village, feeling the rifle kick back against his shoulder, one, two, three times, watching the grenade come toward him, watching a child die.
He woke soaked in sweat, heart pounding, his mind filled with thoughts of loss.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Next morning Harker was dressed in her trade mark black pants suit. She wore gold and ruby hanging earrings, a wild variation for her.
"How are you feeling, Nick?"
"Like I've got a world class hangover."
"I'm wondering how they knew you were here, and how they found you."
"It would have been easy enough. They had my name. I just didn't believe they were after us. They had to think we were killed in the mine."
"I agree. So how did they make the jump back to Washington?"
"Someone must have told them Selena was here," Ronnie said. "They could have tracked her to Nick's."
The Director tapped FDR's pen on her desk, thinking things through.
"Not many people knew you were here. The people in this room. The FBI. No one else is in the loop at this point. It must be the FBI."
"A mole at the Bureau?"
"Has to be. Someone told Wu you were alive and here in Washington. Sending your friend was smart, Selena, you would never suspect her."
Carter rubbed his bandaged ear. "They have Selena's computer and that means they have the book. It's what they've been after all along."
"We can't do anything about that now. Selena, how far did you get?"
"I translated all of the Sanskrit and I have good assumptions about some of the Linear A. It's an unbelievable story."
"How so?"
"The first part is a treatise on the immune system and circulation of the blood and has part of a formula for creating an elixir of immortality. Nothing we didn't know. Some information needed to complete the formula is missing. There's a reference to a second book called 'The Silver Garuda' that has the rest of it.
"The formula isn't what's important. If the book is true, it changes history. It says the First Emperor isn't buried at Li Shan. It claims he was taken to Tibet, where an order of priests would give him the secret of immortality. The text says the secret is thousands of years old."
"You're kidding," Carter said.
"That's what it says. It has a map showing where the emperor was supposedly taken. It's near Mount Kailash in the Tibet Autonomous Region."
Harker was toying with her pen again. "How do you evaluate the historical material? Is there any truth in it?"
"I don't know, but if it's true the emperor isn't in Li Shan and someone found his real burial site, it would be a fantastic archeological and cultural discovery. Emperor Huang was obsessed with immortality. He would have done anything to obtain it. Maybe he built his tomb to throw his enemies off track.