Wall of Night (34 page)

China

Two hours after curling up in his bunk and dropping instantly asleep, Tanner was awoken by the Motorola's vibration alarm tickling his belly. He reached down, shut it off, then lay still for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the forest and taking stock of his body.

He was in pain. From his head to his feet, he felt every scrape, bruise, and ounce of impact his feet and knees had taken during his long run. Starting at his toes, he slowly worked his way up his body, contracting and relaxing the muscles and tendons and ligaments, testing them for injury. Aside from the pain—which he hoped would work itself out as he began moving—he seemed intact.

He rolled onto his belly, parted the branches, and peeked out.
All clear.
Pushing his pack ahead of him, he crawled out and rearranged the branches to a natural position.

He spent fifteen minutes stretching and warming his muscles until finally the pain began to subside and he could move without wincing. He had a quick breakfast of trail mix, jerky, a pair of Excedrin, and washed them down with a liter of water.

He checked his watch:
Time for another performance.

He pulled out the Motorola and dialed Yat Kwei, who answered immediately.
“Ni hao
!”

“It's me,” Tanner said. “You recognize my voice?”

“Yes, of course. Where are you?”

“In a minute. Did you get the papers?”

“I'm working on it. They should be ready by this afternoon. The ship I have in mind departs at six tonight.”

“Good. I'm going to need the time. I had to leave the train near Gaokan.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It's about fifteen miles north of Yingkou,” Tanner replied.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. Train stations make me nervous. I'll go the rest of the way on foot. I'll call you at three about the documents. Will you be coming yourself?”

“No,” Kwei said. “One of my associates. Don't worry, he knows nothing about you.”

“That's fine,” Tanner said tiredly, letting his voice crack. “I just want to get out of here.”

Tanner said good-bye and hung up. He strapped on his pack then started trotting north.

Yingkou

The Number Seventeen train sat beside the platform, hissing and steaming as the engine cooled. Mixed in with the still-disembarking passengers were a dozen plainclothes PSB officers.

He's not there,
Xiang thought. There wasn't a Caucasian face anywhere to be seen. Xiang felt himself flush.
Another damned trick
!
But what
?
There were two options: He'd jumped off the train somewhere between here and Xinqiu, or he'd never been aboard the train at all.

There was a larger concern also, Xiang realized. Though still hundreds of miles from the camp, Tanner seemed to be moving in that general direction. Did he know its location, and if so, how?
Irrelevant,
Xiang thought.
Assume he knows and act accordingly.

Eng had already argued that they should simply move Soong, but Xiang refused to consider it. He'd be damned if he was going to let Tanner make him jump through hoops.
Let him reach the camp,
if he can.
If he does,
I'll fill the forest with hunters and tracking dogs.
He won't last an hour.

Ten minutes later the train was empty. The PSB Officers boarded it, searched it from end to end, and found nothing. Behind Xiang, Eng walked up carrying a cell phone. “Sir?”

“What?”

“Headquarters got a call about an hour ago from a man named Yat Kwei.”

“So?”

“Kwei is a small-time racketeer; he deals in forged documents … immigration papers and the like.”

“How nice for him. Get to the point.”

“Kwei's been a stringer agent for us for the last twenty years. He got a call a few hours ago from a man claiming to be American. The man was looking for documents and passage aboard a ship.”

This caught Xiang's attention; he faced Eng, saw the smile on his assistant's face. “And?”

“The man claimed he was in trouble and that he needed to get out of the country. He told Kwei he was aboard a train bound for Yingkou—”

“You're joking.”

“No, sir.” Eng handed him the cell phone. “I've got Kwei's number.”

The conversation lasted five minutes. Grinning, Xiang hung up and tossed the phone to Eng. “He jumped off near Gaokan. He's smart, but not smart enough. Never trust anyone, and if you have to trust someone, make sure it's not a goddamned criminal! We've got him!”

“Gaokan is only fifteen miles away,” Eng replied. “With the helicopter—”

“No. He'll be calling Kwei this afternoon to arrange a meeting. We'll be there.”

Having not heard the howling of dogs since leaving Xinqiu, Tanner was starting to relax.

They'd bought his ruse, but for how long? Xiang was no dummy. Upon realizing he'd been duped, he and his team would return to Xinqiu, unravel his disappearing act, and start after him again.

How many tricks did he dare play?
Fool me once,
shame on you
;
fool me twice,
shame on me.
Tanner didn't care much about shame, of course, but for his plan to work, he had to keep Xiang guessing. Every misdirection and delay he could cause brought him a step closer to the camp.

From the start, Briggs had known his biggest handicap was his very goal. That Xiang had found him at all suggested he had inside information, which implicated either Bian or Hsiao—or both. While certain neither man had knowingly betrayed him, he was sure one of them had led Xiang to him. Bian was the most likely candidate. The old man's heart was in the right place, but Roger Brown had been right: Bian was an accident waiting to happen. If in fact Bian had been arrested, Briggs had to assume he'd given them everything—including why he was here.

He hoped Bian hadn't tried to hold out; he prayed they hadn't killed him.
But what was worse for Bian
?
he wondered,
Death or the
laogi? It was a question he might want to consider himself—though he doubted he'd be given a choice. If he were caught, Xiang would probably execute him on the spot and bury him in a shallow grave.

He kept his pace slow and easy—averaging four miles per hour—but before long this too became a challenge as the terrain grew hillier and the meadows and plains gave way to jagged ridges, deep valleys, and ever-thickening forests of spruce, walnut, and pine. The air was growing colder as well, and in some spots he could see crescents of snow clinging to the hillsides.

At noon he stopped to eat and catch his breath. A quarter mile away was a lake, and beside it, climbing away from the shore, train tracks. Any train attempting it would slow considerably during the climb.

He pulled out his map and traced the tracks north away from Xinqiu, mentally ticking off towns as he went: Wuhuanchi … Ping'an … Zhangwu—that sounded familiar.
Zhangwu
…
Though not completely sure, he seemed to recall seeing Zhangwu on the Xinqiu station's schedule board.

It was another big risk, but worth it, he decided. Even if time were not a factor, he couldn't run all the way to the camp; his body would shut down long before he got there.

Why walk when you can ride,
Briggs
?

Ninety minutes later he heard a train whistle in the distance. Beyond the curve of the lake, puffs of black smoke rose above the treetops.

Heart in his throat, Tanner watched the curve. If the train was all passenger cars, he was in trouble. One freight car was all he needed. If it happened to be hauling feather pillows, all the better … Despite himself, excited by the prospect of giving his feet a break, Tanner let out a laugh.

Led by its angled cow catcher, the gleaming black and red locomotive rounded the bend and started up the grade. Its whistle blew again, echoing off the valley walls. Tanner counted cars as they came into view: One … two … three, all passenger cars. Five more appeared … seven.

There
!
At the tail end were two top-loader freight cars and a caboose.

The train continued to slow, steel wheels grinding against the tracks as the engine struggled to negotiate the slope. As it drew even with him. Tanner pressed himself deeper into the grass.

Have to be fast
…
get along side quickly,
into the blind spot,
and go for the caboose.

The chugging of the engine was thunderous, wheels clanking.

At the right moment, he leapt up and sprinted up the slope. His feet slipped on the gravel. He fell to one knee, got up, kept running. He thrust out his arm and clamped it onto the step rail, then heaved himself onto the steps. He reached between the cars, grabbed the access ladder, then climbed up and into the top loader.

Washington,
D.C.

“Let's have it,” President Martin snapped. “General, what the hell happened up there?”

“What happened, Mr. President, is what happens anytime you aim a battle group at another nation's shores,” General Cathermeier replied. “They send out their ships and planes and it turns into a game of chicken. They were trying to warn us off—make sure we know they're not pushovers.”

“By crashing into one of our planes? That's absurd.”

The night before, a flight of four Russian Mig-31 Fulcrum fighters had come out and tried to buzz the battle group. That close to the Russian mainland, the group's commander had been expecting the visit and ordered the group's BARCAP—or Barrier Combat Air Patrol, in this case a pair of F-14 Tomcats—to intercept the intruders.

“At this point, it looks like an accidental bump,” Cathermeier said. “One of their pilots took it a little too far and misjudged his approach.”

“Not according to the Federation's foreign minister,” Martin growled. “They're claiming it was our fault! What the hell are they doing out there?”

He's crumbling,
Mason thought, seeing Martin with new eyes. Either the job was more than he'd bargained for, or he was starting to realize the deal he'd struck with the Chinese had been a terrible mistake. Mason suspected it was a combination of both. Martin had neither the temperament nor the character for the job.

Though Martin didn't know it, Mason, Cathermeier, and Dutcher had decided this meeting was his last chance to fix the situation before they moved on him. Not that it would matter in the end, Mason knew. Whether it was now or weeks from now, Martin had to go.

As planned, Bousikaris was absent from the meeting, having ostensibly gone to the dentist with a cracked molar. Martin alone would seal his fate.

Mason said, “Mr. President, we have the option to pull the group back, slow it down.”

“No.”

“It would give the Russians room to breathe.”

“I said,
no,
dammit! Dick, I'm getting tired of repeating myself around you. I'm the commander in chief. I'll decide when and if it's time to move the battle group. Now, General, tell me about this business with the Chinese airliners. When did this happen?”

“During the night. As best we can tell, there were four aircraft in the group, all Russian-built Antonov An-12s—we call them Cubs. They're troop and cargo transports designed—”

Martin rolled his hand. “Go on, go on.”

“About thirty minutes after the deadline expired, they lifted off from Hailar in northern China.”

“They didn't waste any time, did they?”

“No, sir. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the lead aircraft contacted Chita air control prior to crossing the border and identified the group as unarmed transports on an evacuation mission.”

“Evacuation? Of what?”

“Of the Chinese living in the Chita area, Mr. President. The Russians are claiming the opposite—that the planes never made contact and ignored repeated attempts to contact them.”

“Who's lying? Dick?”

“No way to tell,” Mason replied, but thought,
the Chinese,
of course.
“Any transcripts or recordings from either won't be accepted by the other.”

“Go on, General.”

“Getting no response to their hails, Chita scrambled a pair of Mig-23 Floggers to intercept the flight About sixteen miles north of the border—”

“In Russian airspace,” Martin clarified.

“Correct. The Floggers joined on the Chinese Cubs. They tried to establish radio contact; failing that, one of them pulled alongside the lead Cub and tried to establish visual contact. Here's where it gets fuzzy,” Cathermeier continued. “The Chinese claim the Floggers fired on them from behind, without any attempt to establish contact; the Russians claim the opposite, of course.

“Either way, there was an explosion on or near the one of the Cubs. It tipped over, went into a flat spin, and crashed.”

“From what altitude?”

“Twenty-five thousand feet. The Russians are looking for the site.”

“They won't find much,” Mason said.

“No shit,” Martin replied. “Well, I've been on the phone all morning with State. The Chinese are screaming bloody murder, and their ambassador is on his way over here as we speak. What I want to know from you two is, where's this going?”

It was a genuine question, Mason realized. Looking into Martin's eyes, he saw uncertainty and fear. Whether the man understood his own role in the unfolding disaster, Mason wasn't sure, but so far Martin was showing no signs of changing course.

Neither Mason nor Cathermeier answered Martin's question.

“I want an answer, gentlemen. Where is all this going?”

Last chance,
Mason thought. “Mr. President, it's my opinion that the Chinese are not going to back down. Whether we're seeing their true motives or not, I don't know, but the fact that they moved so quickly after the deadline is telling.

“Their position will be clear: Russian negligence has killed thousands of Chinese citizens; every step of the way, the Federation has refused to work with them to remedy the situation; and now, they have attacked an unarmed, clearly identified group of transports sent on a goodwill mission to rescue Chinese citizens.”

“Which might all be true,” Martin said.

“Perhaps,” Mason countered, “but I don't see it that way. As I said, it's my opinion this is just part of a larger plan for the Chinese. They're not going to back down until they get what they want, and they'll do whatever it takes to get there.”

“To what end? What larger plan?”

Mason shrugged. “Bottom line, Mr. President: I have two recommendations. Remain neutral in this—both militarily and diplomatically. And two, do whatever it takes to get both sides to step back and take a breath before it's too late.”

Martin looked to Cathermeier. “General?”

“I agree. If we don't take steps to cool the situation, it's going to escalate.”

Martin sighed heavily, then nodded. “That's all gentlemen. Stay close to your phones.”

Moscow

​The tirade had so far lasted twenty minutes and showed no signs of slowing.

From his chair, Ivan Nochenko watched Bulganin pace the room, one hand clasped behind his back, the other gesticulating wildly as he snouted.

Nochenko had seen him in such moods before, but this one had a different feel to it. Bulganin's speech, his demeanor, the very inflection of his words had a disconnected quality to them, as though he were summoning them by rote from some corner of his brain.

Earlier this morning Bulganin had ordered Pyotr to double his personal guards and to search the staff's belongings upon entry and exit of the building. Only at Nochenko's intercession had Bulganin excluded he and the rest of the members of the National Security Council.

Pyotr now stood behind Bulganin's desk, watching the room with a hawk's eyes.

“Let us review,” Bulganin said. “Not only are the Americans threatening our coast with their ships, but they've put soldiers on our soil, destroyed a port, and now, just hours ago, they downed one of our aircraft in international air-space.”

Defense Minister Beskrovny spoke up. “We're looking into that, Mr. President, but initially it appears to have been an accident.”

“Believe that if you like, Marshal,” Bulganin shot back. “What about the Chinese? It's not enough they accuse us of murdering their citizens, but now they invade our airspace on a so-called rescue mission. What kind of aircraft were they, Marshal?”

“Antonov transports. Unarmed and empty, it appears.”

“So it appears,” Bulganin repeated. “I wouldn't be surprised if they destroyed their own aircraft just to give themselves a reason.”

“A reason for what?” asked SVR director Sergei Fedorin.

“That's what I want you to tell me! Do you have any answers?”

“Not yet, Mr. President.”

And understandably so,
Nochenko thought. These incidents had occurred one on top of the next. There had scarcely been time to digest the information, let alone draw conclusions.

Even so, Nochenko was worried. Farfetched though it seemed, Bulganin's statement about the Chinese planes couldn't be discounted. All these events were related somehow; there was a pattern to them, but Nochenko had yet to piece it together.
Coincidence is the mother of deception.

Moreover, the events seemed to be keeping pace with one another—disastrous stepping-stones leading toward some unknown goal. Whatever that was, a theme was emerging: provocation and escalation. But who is the provocateur? China or the U.S.? Or both?

Nochenko broke in: “Mr. President, I have a suggestion.”

“Go on.”

“There's a trend of escalation going on. Whether intentional or unintentional, we can't be certain, but we must choose our next steps carefully. The best course is to not feed the fire. Let Minister Kagorin contact the Chinese ambassador and—”

“And what?” Bulganin snapped. “Grovel? Show them we're frightened? I don't think so. Frankly, I'm surprised at you. We've been
attacked
]
Am I the only one who sees that?”

Bulganin looked from man to man. “Am I alone in this, gentlemen? Do any of you care about the security of your country? If not, say so now, and I'll find someone to replace you. Anyone?”

No one spoke.

“Good,” Bulganin said, then clasped his hands behind his back and stood tall. “Here are my orders: Minister Kagorin, you will contact the Chinese ambassador; we will give them one more chance to moderate their position. Director Fedorin, these events are connected. I want to know how and why. Marshal Beskrovny, until further notice, I want interceptors patrolling our border with China day and night. I want the American battle group stopped before it comes within one hundred miles of our shore. Finally, I want every Military District from here to Vladivostok brought to full alert—including the Rocket Forces.”

Beskrovny stepped forward, his face drawn. “Mr. President—”

“That's an order,” Bulganin said.

“If we bring our nuclear forces to alert, the Chinese will reciprocate.”

“Let them. Perhaps it will scare some sense into them.”

Nochenko interrupted: “Vlad—”

Bulganin glared at him.

“Mr. President … Please reconsider.”

“I've made my decision. Marshal Beskrovny, are your orders clear?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“You will carry them out?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Bulganin rapped his desk with a fist. “Good. You're all dismissed.”