The Altman Code c-4 Read online

  The Altman Code

  ( Covert-One - 4 )

  Robert Ludlum

  Gayle Lynds

  On the dark waterside docks of Shanghai, a photographer is recording cargo being secretly loaded when he’s brutally killed and his camera destroyed. Two weeks later, on the dangerous high seas, the U.S. Navy covertly tracks a Chinese cargo ship rumored to carry tons of chemicals for Saddam Hussein to create new biological weapons. The president cannot let the ship reach Iraq. At the same time, he doesn’t want the navy to attack and board it either, because decades of negotiations with China have at long last yielded a landmark human rights agreement that China is willing to sign. Fighting to keep the agreement on track, the president orders the head of Covert-One to find proof of what the Chinese ship is ferrying. Under cover of a medical conference, operative Col. Jon Smith is sent to Taiwan to rendezvous with another agent who has acquired the ship’s true manifest. But the second agent is murdered, the proof is destroyed, and Smith is left only with a verbal message-the president’s biological father is still alive, held prisoner by the Chinese for fifty years. Racing against the clock, Smith uncovers the truth about the ship, a truth that probes the deepest secrets of the Chinese ruling party and reveals a terrifying cabal whose diabolical plan thrusts the world to the very brink of war.

  Robert Ludlum, Gayle Lynds

  The Altman Code

  PROLOGUE

  On the north bank of the Huangpu River, giant floodlights glared down on the docks, turning night into day. Swarms of stevedores unloaded trucks and positioned long steel containers for the cranes. Amid the squeals and rasps of metal rubbing metal, the towering cranes lifted the containers high against the starry sky and lowered them into the holds of freighters from across the world. Hundreds streamed in daily to this vital port on China’s eastern coast, almost midway between the capital, Beijing, and its latest acquisition, Hong Kong.

  To the south of the docks, the lights of the city and the towering Pudong New District glowed, while out on the swirling brown water of the river itself, freighters, junks, tiny sampans, and long trains of unpainted wood barges jostled for position from shore to shore, like traffic on a busy Paris boulevard.

  At a wharf near the eastern end of the docks, not far from where the Huangpu curved sharply north, the light was less bright. Here a single freighter was being loaded by one crane and no more than twenty stevedores. The name lettered on the freighter’s transom was The Dowager Empress; her home port was Hong Kong. There was no sign of the ubiquitous uniformed dock guards.

  Two large trucks had been backed up to her. Sweating stevedores unloaded steel barrels, rolled them across the planks, and set them upright on a cargo net. When the net was full, the crane arm swung over it, and the cable descended. On its end was a steel hook that caught the light and glinted. The stevedores latched the big net to the hook, and the crane swiftly lifted the barrels, wheeled them around, and lowered them to the freighter, where deckhands guided the cargo down into the open hold.

  The truck drivers, stevedores, crane operator, and deckhands worked steadily on this distant dock, fast and silent, but not fast enough for the large man who stood to the right of the trucks. His sweeping gaze kept watch from land to river. Unusually pale-skinned for a Han Chinese, his hair was even more unusual — light red, shot with white.

  He looked at his watch. His whispery voice was barely audible as he spoke to the foreman of the stevedores: “You will finish in thirty-six minutes.”

  It was no question. The foreman’s head jerked around as if he had been attacked. He stared only a moment, dropped his gaze, and rushed away, bellowing at his men. The pace of work increased. As the foreman continued to drive them to greater speed, the man he feared remained a looming presence.

  At the same time, a slender Chinese, wearing Reeboks and a black Mao jacket over a pair of Western jeans, slid behind the heavy coils of a hawser in a murky recess of the loading area.

  Motionless, almost invisible in the gloom, he studied the barrels as they rolled to the cargo net and were hoisted aboard The Dowager Empress. He removed a small, highly sophisticated camera from inside his Mao jacket and photographed everything and everyone until the final barrel had been lowered into the hold and the only remaining truck was about to be driven away.

  Turning silently, he hid the camera inside his jacket and crab-walked away from the brilliant lights until he was wrapped again in darkness. He arose and padded across the wood planks from storage box to shed, seeking whatever protection he could find as he headed back toward the road that would return him to the city. A warm night wind whistled above his head, carrying the heavy scent of the muddy river. He did not notice. He was exultant because he would be returning with important information. He was also nervous. These people were not to be taken lightly.

  By the time he heard footsteps, he was nearing the end of the wharf, where it met the land. Almost safe.

  The large man with the unusual red-and-white hair had been quietly closing in, taking a parallel path among the various supply and work sheds. Calm and deliberate, he saw his target tense, pause, and suddenly hurry.

  The man glanced quickly around. To his left was the lost part of the dock, where storage and seagulls found their haven, while on the right was a pathway kept open for trucks and other vehicles to go back and forth to the loading areas. The last truck was behind him, heading this way, toward land. Its headlights were funnels in the night. It would pass soon. As his prey darted behind a tall pile of ropes on the far left, the man pulled out his garotte and sprinted. Before the fellow could turn, the man dropped the thin cord around his neck, yanked, and tightened.

  For a long minute, the victim’s hands clawed at the cord as it tightened. His shoulders twisted in agony. His body thrashed. At last, his arms fell limp and his head lolled forward.

  As the truck passed on the right, the wood dock shuddered. Hidden behind the mountain of ropes, the killer lowered the corpse to the planks. He released the garotte and searched the dead man’s clothes until he found the camera. Without hurrying, he walked back and retrieved two of the enormous cargo hooks. He knelt by the corpse, used the knife from the holster on his calf to slash open the belly, buried the points of the iron hooks inside, and sealed them there by winding rope around the man’s middle. With alternating feet, he rolled him off into the dark water. The body made a quiet splash and sank. Now it would not float up.

  He walked toward the last truck, which had paused as ordered, waiting, and climbed aboard. As the truck sped away toward the city, The Dowager Empress hauled up her gangway and let go her lines. A tug towed her out into the Huangpu, where she turned downriver for the short journey to the Yangtze and, finally, the open sea.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Tuesday, September 12.

  Washington, D.C.

  There was a saying in Washington that lawyers ran the government, but spies ran the lawyers. The city was cobwebbed with intelligence agencies, everything from the legendary CIA and FBI and the little-known NRO to alphabet groups in all branches of the military and government, even in the illustrious Departments of State and Justice. Too many, in the opinion of President Samuel Adams Castilla. And too public. Rivalries were notoriously a problem. Sharing information that inadvertently included misinformation was a bigger problem. Then there was the dangerous sluggishness of so many bureaucracies.

  The president was worrying about this and a brewing international crisis as his black Lincoln Town Car cruised along a narrow back road on the northern bank of the Anacostia River. Its motor was a quiet hum, and its tinted windows opaque. The car rolled past tangled woods and the usual lighted marinas until it finally rattled ove
r the rusted tracks of a rail spur, where it turned right into a busy marina that was completely fenced. The sign read: anacostia seagoing yacht club private. members only.

  The yacht club appeared identical to all the others that lined the river east of the Washington Navy Yard. It was an hour before midnight.

  Only a few miles above the Anacostia’s confluence with the broad Potomac, the marina moored big, open-water power cruisers and longdistance sailing boats, as well as the usual weekend pleasure craft.

  President Castilla gazed out his window at the piers, which jutted out into the dusky water. At several, a number of salt-encrusted oceangoing yachts were just docking. Their crews still wore foul-weather gear. He saw that there were also five frame buildings of varying sizes on the grounds. The layout was exactly what had been described to him.

  The Lincoln glided to a halt behind the largest of the lighted buildings, out of sight of the piers and hidden from the road by the thick woods. Four of the men riding in the Lincoln with him, all wearing business suits and carrying mini-submachine-guns, swiftly stepped out and formed a perimeter around the car. They adjusted their night-vision goggles as they scanned the darkness. Finally, one of the four turned back toward the Lincoln and gave a sharp nod.

  The fifth man, who had been sitting beside the president, also wore a dark business suit, but he carried a 9mm Sig Sauer. In response to the signal, the president handed him a key, and he hurried from the car to a barely visible side door in the building. He inserted the key into a hidden lock and swung open the door. He turned and spread his feet, weapon poised.

  At that point, the car door that was closest to the building opened. The night air was cool and crisp, tainted with the stench of diesel. The president emerged into it — a tall, heavyset man wearing chino slacks and a casual sport jacket. For such a big man, he moved swiftly as he entered the building.

  The fifth guard gave a final glance around and followed with two of the four others. The remaining pair took stations, protecting the Lincoln and the side door.

  Nathaniel Frederick (”Fred”) Klein, the rumpled chief of Covert-One, sat behind a cluttered metal desk in his compact office inside the marina building.

  This was the new Covert-One nerve center. In the beginning, just a few years ago, Covert-One had no formal organization or bureaucracy, no real headquarters, and no official operatives. It had been loosely composed professional experts in many fields, all with clandestine experience, most with military backgrounds, and all essentially unencumbered — without family, home ties, or obligations, either temporary or permanent.

  But now that three major international crises had stretched the resources of the elite cadre to the limits, the president had decided his ultrasecret agency needed more personnel and a permanent base far from the radar screens of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Hill, or the Pentagon. The result was this “private yacht club.”

  It had the right elements for clandestine work: It was open and active twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with intermittent but steady traffic from both land and water that followed no pattern. Near the road and the rail spur but still on the grounds was a helipad that looked more like a weed-infested field. The latest electronic communications had been installed throughout the base, and the security was nearly invisible but of cutting-edge quality. Not even a dragonfly could cross the periphery without one of the sensors picking it up.

  Alone in his office, the sounds of his small nighttime staff muted beyond his door, Klein closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his longish nose. His wire-rimmed glasses rested on the desk. Tonight he looked every one of his sixty years. Since he had accepted the job of heading Covert-One, he had aged. His enigmatic face was riven with new creases, and his hairline had receded an inch. Another problem was on the verge of erupting.

  As his headache lessened, he sat back, opened his eyes, put his glasses back on, and resumed puffing on his ever-present pipe. The room filled with billows of smoke that disappeared almost as soon as he produced them, sucked out by a powerful ventilating system installed specifically for the purpose.

  A file folder lay open on his desk, but he did not look at it. Instead, he smoked, tapped his foot, and glanced at the ship’s clock on his wall every few seconds. At last, a door to his left, beneath the clock, opened, and a man with a Sig Sauer strode across the office to the outer door, locked it, and turned to stand with his back against it.

  Seconds later, the president entered. He sat in a high-backed leather chair across the desk from Klein.

  “Thanks, Barney,” he told the guard. “I’ll let you know if I need you.”

  “But Mr. President―”

  “You can go,” he ordered firmly. “Wait outside. This is a private conversation between two old friends.” That was partly true. He and Fred Klein had known each other since college.

  The guard slowly recrossed the office and left, each step radiating reluctance.

  As the door closed, Klein blew a stream of smoke. “I would’ve come to you as usual, Mr. President.”

  “No.” Sam Castilla shook his head. His titanium glasses reflected the overhead light with a sharp flash. “Until you tell me exactly what we’re facing with this Chinese freighter — The Dowager Empress, right? — this one stays between us and those of your agents you need to work on it.”

  “The leaks are that bad?”

  “Worse,” the president said. “The White House has turned into a sieve.

  I’ve never seen anything like it. Until my people can find the source, I’ll meet you here.” His rangy face was deeply worried. “You think we have another Yinhe?”

  Klein’s mind was instantly transported back: It was 1993, and a nasty international incident was about to erupt, with America the big loser. A Chinese cargo ship, the Yinhe, had sailed from China for Iran. U.S. intelligence received reports the ship was carrying chemicals that could be used to make weapons. After trying the usual diplomatic channels and failing, President Bill Clinton ordered the U.S. Navy to chase the ship, refusing to let it land anywhere, until some sort of resolution could be found.

  An outraged China denied the accusations. Prominent world leaders jawboned. Allies made charges and countercharges. And media around the globe covered the standoff with banner headlines. The stalemate went on for an interminable twenty days. Finally, when China began to noisily rattle its sabers, the U.S. Navy forced the ship to stop on the high seas, and inspectors boarded the Yinhe. To America’s great embarrassment, they uncovered only agricultural equipment — plows, shovels, and small tractors. The intelligence had been faulty.

  With a grimace, Klein recalled it all too well. The episode made America look like a thug. Its relations with China, and even its allies, were strained for years.

  He puffed gloomily, fanning the smoke away from the president. “Do we have another Yinhe?” he repeated. “Maybe.”

  “There’s ” remotely, and ” probably. You better tell me all of it. Chapter and verse.”

  Klein tamped down the ash in his pipe. “One of our operatives is a professional Sinologist who’s been working in Shanghai the past ten years for a consortium of American firms that are trying to get a foothold there. His name’s Avery Mondragon. He’s alerted us to information he’s uncovered that The Dowager Empress is carrying tens of tons of thiodiglycol, used in blister weapons, and thionyl chloride, used in both blister and nerve weapons. The freighter was loaded in Shanghai, is already at sea, and is destined for Iraq. Both chemicals have legitimate agricultural uses, of course, but not in such large quantities for a nation the size of Iraq.”

  “How good is the information this time, Fred? One hundred percent? Ninety?”

  “I haven’t seen it,” Klein said evenly, puffing a cloud of smoke and forgetting to wave it away this time. “But Mondragon says it’s documentary. He has the ship’s true invoice manifest.”

  “Great God.” Castilla’s thick shoulders and heavy torso seemed to go rigid against his chair. “I don’t know
whether you realize it, but China is one of the signatories of the international agreement that prohibits development, production, stockpiling, or use of chemical weapons. They won’t let themselves be revealed as breaking that treaty, because it could slow their march to acquiring a bigger and bigger slice of the global economy.”

  “It’s a damned delicate situation.”

  “The price of another mistake on our part could be particularly high for us, too, now that they’re close to signing our human-rights treaty.” In exchange for financial 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.”