He gave the AK-47 a shove and let it fall on the far side of the limo. He raised his hands high over his head.
Trembling, David Thayer dropped the Beretta and put his hands on the top of his Mao cap. His few hours of freedom had ended. “Alas,” he whispered.
The eight soldiers in front, supporting their two wounded, rose from the brush and advanced. They picked up the discarded weapons, grinning as two more soldiers appeared behind Thayer and Chiavelli. Apparently, there were twelve men in a PLA infantry squad.
The officer—a captain with his pistol out—stopped in front of them, speaking angrily. Thayer translated, “He’s asking who we are. He’s figured out we’re Americans. He . . . oh, God.” He glanced at Chiavelli. “He wants to know whether we’re part of the spy team with Colonel Jon Smith.”
In the valley of the Baoding Crescent, Feng Dun’s surviving gunslingers and soldiers had taken cover and were beginning to return a weak, sporadic fire.
“Cease fire,” Jon told Asgar.
“You’re sure, my friend? Some are still alive and kicking. Shouldn’t we go down and mop up? At least, make sure that monster Feng Dun is dead. I’m fairly certain I hit him.”
“No! Fan out and search the slopes wherever Li Kuonyi could have hidden but seen what happened. The survivors will run away now.”
“You think—?”
“She and Yu are up there somewhere with the manifest. Let’s find them.”
Asgar gave the order, urging his men to sweep through the vegetation at a dog trot, circling around Feng’s remaining men. “It’s less than an hour until dawn, and that firefight will have been heard halfway to Chongqing.”
“I know.” Jon trotted ahead over the difficult terrain. He looked left and right at the long Uigher line as they searched. He knew their chances were slight, plus time was running out. They had little time to locate Li and Yu, get the manifest, and somehow send it to Washington.
Suddenly, gunfire echoed from less than a hundred yards ahead. Jon wrenched his head around, staring at a spot directly above and to the left of the Sleeping Buddha. Gunfire from an assault rifle—and response from a single pistol.
“Hold it,” Jon called to Asgar. He crouched in the brush.
Asgar raised his hand to stop his fighters and lowered it palm down to tell them to go to ground and be quiet. He whispered, “What do you think, Jon?”
“Feng maybe?”
Asgar grimaced in regret. “We should’ve hied ourselves down to examine the bodies in the valley.”
“There wasn’t time. We had to try to get to Li Kuonyi first.”
“If it’s Feng, it seems we failed.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Motioning his men to move quietly, Asgar joined Jon. Minutes later, the line of Uighers approached a clearing. Asgar signaled to stop at the edge where they could retain cover. Jon nodded to their left. The clearing ended at the cliff above the crescent of carvings, where someone looking down would have a direct view of the valley as well as the slope and walkway in front of the Sleeping Buddha.
“Li Kuonyi could’ve seen everything from there,” Jon said.
Asgar sighed and nodded.
On their right, an assault rifle fired a short burst of three from a towering rock formation, where clusters of large boulders jutted above the trees and brush. It was some fifty yards from the edge of the cliff, overlooking the Buddha valley.
The gunfire was answered by a single pistol shot from a grove of trees closer to the edge, directly in front of where Jon, Asgar, and the Uighers hid. The bullet exploded sharp, deadly stone chips from the rock formation.
“Look,” Asgar said.
Only ten yards from the cluster of rocks, closer to where Jon and the Uighers watched, was a smaller rock group. A large tree had fallen across the boulders, and Jon saw movement behind it. As he studied it, the assault rifle squeezed off another short burst from its higher vantage point, detonating wood splinters from the fallen tree.
A low, mesmerizing voice Jon had hoped never to hear again said in English, “A neat trap, Madame Li. As good as any I’ve seen. Your hired hands killed many of my men, but—unluckily for you—failed to kill me.”
Li Kuonyi, her musical tones as calm as if she were greeting a visitor in her Shanghai living room, spoke from behind the fallen tree, protected from the rear by the rocks. “I also failed to get the money. I expect you have that, which makes me surprised that you returned.”
Feng said, “I still need the invoice manifest, and I suspect, dear lady, you’ve run out of ammunition. You should be dead, and I’d have it, except for your friend over there in the trees. I wonder who he could be?”
Asgar whispered, “Why are they speaking English?”
“Damned if I know,” Jon said. “Maybe Feng’s got some men hidden somewhere that he doesn’t want to know what they’re saying.”
Li Kuonyi was mocking: “There are many things you don’t know, Feng.”
A man’s voice sounded nervously from next to her: “You should’ve kept the manifest when you had it, Feng. None of this would’ve happened. No one would’ve been hurt.”
“Ah? A pleasure to hear you again, boss. Foolish of me to believe you’d kill yourself, even for the future of your family. But, then, your salvation was Madame Li’s doing, wasn’t it? My mistake. I knew who the man was in your house long ago.”
Li Kuonyi said, “You always did talk too much, Feng. Since you say you want the manifest very much still, we might be interested in the money in your possession.”
“All business as usual, Madame? The same arrangement as before, I trust. McDermid’s two million in exchange for the manifest.”
“Of course.”
“Then we have a deal. Does the woman do all your talking now, boss? Ah, well, we can’t all be men.”
There was a scramble of movement in the smaller rock formation. Yu Yongfu stood up, red-faced, pushing away Li’s restraining hands. “I am as much—”
The savage explosion of bullets ripped down from Yu’s throat to his crotch. Blood sprayed black into the night. A furious return fusillade from the nearby grove nearly drowned out Li Kuonyi’s agonized scream.
In the silence, came a single word: “So.” Apparently untouched by the shooting from the grove, Feng paused, all banter gone from his voice as he continued, “Now you know my deal. Think hard, Li. Your friend’s pistol will run out of ammunition long before I do. There’s no two million dollars for you. I offer you your life. Throw out the case with the manifest, and you live.”
Jon whispered fiercely, “Keep me covered. Don’t open up until you hear my voice or hear me shooting, unless you absolutely must.”
“What are you planning, Jon?” Asgar demanded.
“I’ll circle behind those rocks, climb over, and take Feng from the rear.”
“We could attack. There’s nearly twenty of us left.”
“It’d still be hard to dig a man with an assault rifle and plenty of ammo out of those rocks. We don’t know what other weapons he might have there, too. Maybe he’s got men as well. We could send Li into a panic if she thinks she’s got even more enemies, and the manifest could be destroyed. It’s too big a gamble.”
Before Asgar could protest again, Jon had slung his MP5K over his shoulder and disappeared back through the trees. As he circled, he had more than one reason for making the attempt to stop Feng Dun. To fire the angry fusillade at Feng, the shooter in the grove had come out from behind a tree, and he had seen her face. Randi Russell.
He had no idea how she had gotten here, but Feng was right. She would run out of ammunition before he did. And if the Uighers attacked, she could be caught in the crossfire.
The Arabian Sea
Admiral Brose’s voice was steady over the bridge loudspeaker: “Give me the Empress’s position as of this minute, Commander.”
From where he stood on the dark bridge, Jim Chervenko could see the lighted bulk of the Empress sailing two miles off the Crowe’s port bow. Appearin
g to move at her full speed, she was continuing on her steady course across the moonlit sea for the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf beyond, and Basra, Iraq. He nodded to Frank Bienas, who took the fix from the navigator and relayed it to the admiral.
“By our calculation, you have less than ninety minutes before she enters the strait,” the admiral said after a moment.
“That’s how we calculate it, too, sir,” Chervenko said.
“You’ve moved into position?”
“She’s two miles off our port bow.”
“The submarine?”
“Run her torpedoes in, and moved up with us. They have the Empress off their starboard, but they’re submerged half a mile closer, cruising behind her where they have a clear fix on us, too.”
“Your Seahawks are armed for antisubmarine and ready to launch?”
“Yessir.”
The admiral maintained his calm voice, but the series of questions he would never have normally asked a raw lieutenant in his first command, much less a decorated commander with years at sea, betrayed his nerves.
Brose seemed to read his thoughts. “Forgive me, Commander, it’s a nasty situation.”
“None nastier, sir.”
“The battle plan?”
“Move to stop the Empress. Send off the boarding detail. Keep the freighter between us and the sub, which will force her to come to our side where the choppers can get a clear shot. Otherwise, we play it as it lays.”
“All right, Commander.” A slight hesitation. “You’ll have the order to board within the hour. The Shiloh should be there in three hours, give or take. I’ll try to give you air cover at the last minute, but the timing is difficult. Hold out as long as you can.” A hesitation again, as if reluctant to end the connection. Finally, a hearty, “Good luck.” The admiral was gone.
Commander Chervenko looked once at the clock above his command post, then again focused his night glasses on The Dowager Empress, plowing ahead through the bright moonlight and across the calm sea. Inside his grim mind, he was counting down.
Chapter
Forty-Three
Dazu
The night felt heavy around Jon, oppressive. He crept among the shadowy boulders of the giant rock formation, inching higher and higher. His special canvas shoes gripped the stony surfaces, while his night-vision goggles enabled him to follow crevices, rain channels, and ledges. Sometimes he had no choice but to jump and scramble up the face of a boulder. Other times, a scrub tree allowed him to pull himself straight up.
“Time is wasting, Li,” Feng Dun said, his cool voice so close Jon expected to see him any second. “Your husband’s dead. Your bodyguards are dead. You’ve obviously run out of ammo. Your friend out there somewhere among the trees is alone and will run out of ammo soon, too, and then there’ll be no one to stop me. This is your chance. Toss out the attaché case, and I’ll walk away.”
From her hiding spot, Li Kuonyi laughed bitterly. “And where would I go? Without a great deal of money, how would I get myself and my children out of China? I might as well burn the manifest myself. I will, if you don’t leave.”
As her bitter voice talked, drawing Feng’s attention, Jon crawled faster up the rocks until he was sure he was higher than Feng.
Feng’s laugh was nasty. “Sorry, Madame Li. Only the Americans want the manifest untouched. Please feel free to burn it. If you don’t, I will. But that won’t save you or help you escape China.”
She suddenly understood. “Wei Gaofan. That’s who’s behind this! My father’s benefactor. My husband’s benefactor. He’s the one who must have the document destroyed. He’s the one you really work for!”
“Trusting us is your only chance. Otherwise, you know your fate.”
Jon reached the highest rock. He unslung his MP5K, climbed silently over, and found a good position with his back against the top boulder. As a dark wind whistled around his ears, beneath him spread the mesa and Buddha gorge, a panoramic vista of shadows, vegetation, and monumental statues shining in the unearthly glow of moon and stars.
Feng Dun was kneeling behind a boulder not twenty feet below. His assault rifle rested on a lip of rock, aimed toward where Li Kuonyi hid. Jon took off his goggles and stared down at the top of Feng’s head. His red-and-white hair seemed especially brilliant in the delicate light, the only spot of color in the black-and-gray rockscape.
At the same time, Feng’s head was also a perfect target. With one satisfying bullet, Jon could shatter it like a melon. His trigger finger flexed. Simmering fury at the people Feng had killed himself or ordered killed knotted his chest. . . . Avery Mondragon. Andy An. So many Uigher fighters. The pig Ralph McDermid. Even poor Yu Yongfu. Then there was the violent conflict that was waiting to erupt out on the Arabian Sea. Jon fought to control his rage.
He said loudly enough for all to hear, “You’re not Madame Li’s only chance, Feng. Give it up. Surrender now, and you’ll live.”
The advantage had flipped. For an endless second, Feng Dun did not turn. He did not move. Faster than the strike of a cobra, he whirled and dove to his right, heedless of sharp-edged rocks. His strange hair disappeared into shadow, while his face radiated outrage and disgust. At the same time, he fired his assault rifle, releasing a sweep of bullets that rushed toward Jon.
Jon grunted with satisfaction. He squeezed off a single burst from the MP5K. The bullets slammed into the mercenary’s trunk, stopping his turn as if he had collided with a tank. The impact slammed Feng back against the boulders like a sack of rice. He recoiled forward, pitched over a smaller boulder, and rolled downward, starting a small avalanche.
There was a moment of shocked silence. Across the clearing, Asgar and his Uighers burst into the open and surrounded the fallen tree and rocks where Li Kuonyi had taken refuge. Their weapons were aimed, but Asgar stopped their advance.
Excitement surged through Jon. The manifest was in reach again. They would have the proof, and he could phone Fred. The Empress could be stopped, its deadly cargo offloaded, and the crisis ended . . . if there was time. He sprinted down among the rocks, dodging and leaping obstacles, until he reached the clearing. He dashed to the Uighers at the fallen tree.
Behind the log, Li Kuonyi sat with her back against a rock. She wore a sleek, black pantsuit and high-collared hooded jacket identical to that worn by her double, dead in the valley. Hers was torn, disheveled, and stained with blood, apparently from her husband’s injuries. Her left hand gently cupped his dead face. Her right hand held a cigarette lighter, already in flame. She had no weapon, but the original invoice manifest lay open on top of her closed case, next to her right hand.
When she saw Jon, she smiled. “So? The American who wanted the manifest so many days ago. I should’ve realized.”
“It’s over, Madame Li,” Jon told her. “Your husband’s dead. You have no one left to deal with but me.”
Her hand stroked Yu’s immobile face. It was a mask of marble, of death. “He was a fool and a coward, but I loved him, and the deal remains the same. The two million American dollars and your Uigher friends to help me and my children leave China. In exchange, you get the undamaged manifest you have worked so hard for.” She paused, her gaze stony. “Otherwise, I burn it.”
Jon believed her. He glanced at his watch. One hour and ten minutes. By now, the Crowe would have cleared for action, waiting only for the final order to board the Empress. There was little hope he could get the manifest to the president in time to send to Beijing—unless something had changed or would change. A storm. Other navy ships arriving. Another nation interfering. Anything to slow the ship’s arrival at the strait.
Too much had already been sacrificed for him to give up now, and too much was at risk not to make the final effort. “Did your men find the money?” he asked Asgar.
“They did. In a crevice near where Feng was shooting. Still in its suitcase. And it’s all there. Real money.”
“Give it to her.”
Asgar’s voice was suddenly tense,
“I don’t think so, old boy.”
Jon glanced at the Uigher leader, and then turned again to see what Asgar’s gaze was focused on at the far edge of the clearing. His throat tightened. They did not need this. A line of eight men in the uniform of the People’s Liberation Army stood just inside the trees, their weapons aimed into the clearing. At them. The soldiers were too late to help Feng, but not too late to kill Asgar, Randi, and everyone else.
Monday, September 18
Washington, D.C.
Every eye in the White House’s subterranean situation room was angled toward the head of the polished table, where President Castilla stared up at the wall clock.
“One hour, sir,” Stevens Brose said.
“Less,” corrected Secretary of Defense Stanton.
Vice President Brandon Erikson said, “We can’t wait, Mr. President.”
The president turned his gaze to Erikson. “They’re ready? The Crowe?”
“They’ve been ready for a full half hour,” Admiral Brose said.
The president nodded. Continued to nod. His gaze returned to the clock. His face hardened. “Give the order.”
Instantly, the secure room galvanized into action. Brose snapped up the receiver of the telephone and issued orders.
Tuesday, September 19
Dazu
Asgar made a quick motion, and the twenty Uighers spread out to face the eight soldiers across the clearing. They stared at one another, hands on weapons, pointing.
“We outnumber them better than two to one,” Asgar said in a rush, “but I don’t dare take them on. We don’t know how many more are nearby, and a firefight in which we kill a squad of PLA troops will guarantee Draconian reprisals against my guerrillas and all of Xinjiang. The payoff’s not worth the sacrifice. Sorry, Jon.”
Jon answered quickly if unhappily, “I understand.”
“If there are no more than we’re looking at, we can at least protect you as far as our hideout. My people there will help you get David Thayer out of the country.”