Covert One 4 - The Altman Code Read Free

and trade concessions from the U. S., for which

the president had cajoled and arm-twisted a reluctant Congress, China

had all but committed to signing a bilateral human-rights agreement that

would open its prisons and criminal courts to U.N. and U.S. inspectors,

bring its criminal and civil courts closer to Western and international

principles, and release longtime political prisoners. Such a treaty had

been a high-priority goal for American presidents since Dick Nixon. Sam

Castilla wanted nothing to stop it. In fact, it was a longstanding dream

of his, too, for personal as well as human-rights reasons. “It’s also a

damned dangerous situation. We can’t allow this ship … what was it,

The Dowager Empress?” Klein nodded. “We can’t allow The Dowager Empress

to sail into Basra with weapons-making chemicals. That’s the bottom

line. Period.” Castilla stood and paced. “If your intelligence turns out

to be good, and we go after this Dowager Empress, how are the Chinese

going to react?” He shook his head and waved away his own words. “No,

that’s not the question, is it? We know how they’ll react. They’ll shake

their swords, denounce, and posture.
    The question is what will they actually do?” He looked at Klein.
    “Especially if we’re wrong again?”
    “No one can know or predict that, Mr. President. On the other hand, no

nation can maintain massive armies and nuclear weapons without using

them somewhere, sometime, if for no other reason than to justify the

costs.”
    “I disagree. If a country’s economy is good, and its people are happy, a

leader can maintain an army without using it.”
    “Of course, if China wants to use the incident as an excuse that they’re

being threatened, they might invade Taiwan,” Fred Klein continued.

“They’ve wanted to do that for decades.”
    “If they feel we won’t retaliate, yes. There’s Central Asia, too, now

that Russia is less of a regional threat.” The Covert-One chief said the

words neither wanted to think: “With their long-range nuclear weapons,

we’re as much a target as any country.” Castilla shook off a shudder.

Klein removed his glasses and massaged his temples. They were silent. At

last, the president sighed. He had made a decision. “All right, I’ll

have Admiral Brose order the navy to follow and monitor The Dowager

Empress. We’ll label it routine at-sea surveillance with no revelation

of the actual situation to anyone but Brose.”
    “The Chinese will find out we’re shadowing their ship.”
    “We’ll stall. The problem is, I don’t know how long we’ll be able to get

away with it.” The president went to the door and stopped. When he

turned, his face was long and somber, his jowls pronounced. “I need

proof, Fred. I need it now. Get me that manifest.”
    “You’ll have it, Sam.” His big shoulders hunched with worry, President

Castilla nodded, opened the door, and walked away. One of the secret

service agents closed it. Alone again, Klein frowned, contemplating his

next step. As he heard the engine of the president’s car hum to life, he

made a decision. He swiveled to the small table behind his chair, on

which two phones sat. One was red–a single, direct, scrambled line to

the president. The other was blue. It was also scrambled. He picked up

the blue phone and dialed.
    Wednesday, September 13.
    Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
    After a medium-rare hamburger and a bottle of Taiwanese lager at Smokey

Joe’s on Chunghsiao-1 Road, Jon Smith decided to take a taxi to

Kaohsiung Harbor. He still had an hour before his afternoon meetings

resumed at the Grand Hi-Lai Hotel, when his old friend, Mike Kerns from

the Pasteur Institute in Paris, would meet him there. Smith had been in

Kaohsiung–Taiwan’s second-largest city–nearly a week, but today was

the first chance he’d had to explore. That kind of intensity was what

usually happened at scientific conferences, at least in his