The Altman Code Read online

  “That is agreeable. We will be here.” Liang smiled and nodded understandingly. But there was an edge to his voice as he added, “We will not keep you up too late, Dr. Smith. That is a promise.”

  Was there suspicion behind the words and the smile? Or was Dr. Liang simply losing patience? For a simple scientist, he seemed to inspire a little too much fear in the desk clerk. Smith was acutely aware he might have raised his colleague’s doubts by putting him off in Taiwan, then seeking him out a few hours later, and, finally—no matter how subtly he had tried to make the invitation seem to come from Liang—hinting he would not turn down an immediate invitation. But with the time pressure, he’d had to take the risk.

  Suspicious or not, the scientist was at least smiling when he left. Smith watched through the glass doors as he stopped at the limo. The driver appeared from somewhere and spoke swiftly and urgently. Both got in, and the limo sped away.

  The bellman had taken his suitcase. Smith rode the elevator up to his floor and found his room, still contemplating Dr. Liang, the limousine driver who had inspected an engine that had given no indication it needed inspecting, and the dark-blue Jetta. His bag was waiting, and the bellman was gone—tipping was frowned upon in the People’s Republic, although, as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, it was a custom more honored in the breach than in the observance.

  The room was everything Dr. Liang had promised. As large as a small suite in most modern American or European luxury hotels, it was atmospheric, with a king-sized bed and side tables recessed in a wood-paneled alcove lighted softly by antique table lamps. There was also a cozy sitting area with armchairs and coffee table, a leather-inlaid desk, green ivy plants, and a full bathroom behind a paneled wood door. With the chintz prints and piecrust tables, it looked very British. The windows were expansive, but the view was far from spectacular—neither the river, Pudong, the two suspension bridges, nor the Bund. Instead, Smith looked out on the older, lower office buildings and residences of the millions who staffed, fed, and operated the great city.

  Smith checked inside his suitcase. The all-but-invisible filament he’d had installed in the interior was unbroken, which meant no one had searched it. He decided he must be too jumpy, probably overreacting. . . . Still, somewhere out there was the true manifest of the Empress as well as the people who had created it and the people who had stolen it from Mondragon. They might or might not be the same group. In any case, he was reasonably certain some had seen him close enough that they would recognize him again. By now, they might already know his name.

  At the same time, all he had was a short glimpse of the big, tall leader of the attackers—a Han Chinese with unusual red hair—and a meaningless name scribbled on a coffeehouse napkin.

  He was just starting to unpack when he heard footsteps in the corridor. He slowed, listening. The sounds stopped outside his door. His pulse accelerating, he padded across the room and flattened against the wall, waiting.

  As Dr. Liang Tianning entered the biomedical center, the staff secretary nodded toward his private office. “There’s a man waiting, Dr. Liang. He said he came to talk to you about your phone call. I . . . I couldn’t keep him out.” She looked down at her hands in her lap and shivered. She was young and shy, the way he preferred his secretaries. “I don’t like him.”

  Dr. Liang admonished her. “He is an important man. Certainly not one you should dislike so openly. No phone calls, please, while he is here. You understand?”

  She nodded, still looking down.

  When Dr. Liang entered his office, the man was leaning against his filing cabinet, across from the desk. He was smiling and idly whistling, like a mischievous little boy.

  Dr. Liang’s voice was uneasy. “I don’t know what I can add to what I reported over the telephone, Major Pan.”

  “Possibly nothing. But let’s find out.”

  Major Pan Aitu was small and pudgy, with soft hands, a gentle voice, and a benign smile. He wore a conservative gray European suit, clip-on floral bow tie, and horn-rimmed glasses. There was nothing about him to frighten anyone, until you looked behind the glasses. The eyes were completely unresponsive. When he smiled, the eyes did not. When he conversed in his quiet voice, the eyes did not animate or listen. They watched. They looked at you, but they did not see you. It was impossible to say at any given moment what they did see.

  “Explain what has alarmed you about this Dr. Jon Smith,” Major Pan said. “Has he been asking questions?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that.” Liang fell into his desk chair. “It is only that in Taiwan he was so eager, and then when we have arranged an immediate visit to the research center here, he is quite suddenly too tired. He says that tomorrow would be better.”

  “You don’t think he’s tired?”

  “In Taiwan, at the conference, he did not seem tired. At the airport in Taipei, he was quite eager.”

  “Explain to me exactly what happened in Taiwan.”

  Liang described his approach to Smith, his invitation to dinner with himself and his colleagues from the institute, and Smith’s excuse and suggestion another time would be good.

  “You thought he had no other engagement that night?”

  Dr. Liang clicked his teeth, considering. “He was . . . well . . . evasive. You know how you can sense when someone has been taken by surprise and is quickly thinking of a polite way to refuse?”

  Major Pan nodded, as much to himself as to Liang. “That’s when you left it that you’d contact him for a more convenient occasion to confer about your biomedical matters?”

  “Yes.” There was something about Major Pan—perhaps the way he always seemed to be waiting—that compelled people to say more. “It seemed the right thing to do. His work at USAMRIID is important. We are anxious to understand what they are doing. Perhaps there is something there to aid our own research.”

  “He is, then, a legitimate scientist?”

  “A fine one.”

  “But also an officer in the U.S. Army?”

  “I suppose so. A colonel, I believe.”

  “A lieutenant colonel,” Major Pan corrected absently, his expressionless eyes turned inward, as he thought. “I have studied his record since your call. There are, shall we say, odd occurrences in his past.”

  “Odd? How?”

  “Gaps. They are usually explained in his record as ‘leave time,’ which is military vocabulary for a holiday. A vacation. One occurred after the death of his fiancée from a virus she was working with.”

  “Yes, I know that virus. Frightening. Surely an absence is understandable after such a cruel misfortune?”

  “Possibly.” Major Pan nodded as if he had really heard, but his eyes said his mind was somewhere else. “You did not see Smith again last night?”

  “No.”

  “But you attended various talks and meetings?”

  “Of course. It was why we were there.”

  “Would you have expected that he’d be around, too?”

  “Yes.” Liang frowned. “There were two in particular. One by an American colleague, and another by a personal friend of his from the Pasteur. But remember, he did tell me he was in meetings late into the night. There were many to choose from.”

  Major Pan considered. “It was the next morning that he suddenly approached you to come to Shanghai to visit your institute?”

  “Well, not in so many words. But I would say . . . he made it quite clear he would be interested in an immediate invitation.”

  “How so? How did he happen to be with you this morning?”

  Dr. Liang thought. “He joined us for breakfast. Usually he ate with his friend from the Pasteur. During the meal, he casually mentioned he would like to see our facility and speak to us about USAMRIID’s work. When I said I could certainly arrange it in the near future, he became regretful, suggesting it was difficult for him to travel so far, which meant he was rarely in Asia. At that point I, of course, suggested that since he was so close, why not now?”

  “A
nd he liked the idea?”

  “He hemmed and hawed, but I could see it appealed to him.”

  The major nodded to himself again. He abruptly slid off the filing cabinet and was gone.

  Dr. Liang stared at the closed door of his office, wondering what had happened. He was certain he had reported everything by phone to the Security Bureau, as he was required to do after every trip outside China. Why had Major Pan come here, and what could he have learned just now that made him leave so suddenly? The major had a reputation as a man who succeeded in his work where everyone else failed. Liang shook his head, feeling a disorienting chill of fear.

  Beijing, China

  The highly secure conclave of Zhongnanhai stood in the shadow of the legendary Forbidden City in central Beijing, where China’s emperors and empresses once played and governed. For centuries, Zhongnanhai was the imperial court’s pleasure garden, where horse races, hunts, and festivals were held for nobility and their retainers on the green banks of two lakes. In fact, Zhongnanhai meant “Central and Southern Lake.”

  After the Communists captured the country in 1949, they moved into the vast complex and refurbished and remodeled the pagoda-roofed buildings. Today, Zhongnanhai was alternately revered and reviled as the all-powerful national seat of Chinese government—the new Forbidden City. Here the Politburo, which numbered twenty-five, held forth in regal splendor. Although ultimate authority rested with them, the truth was that it was the Politburo’s Standing Committee that really ruled. They were the elite of the elite. Recently, the Standing Committee had been increased from seven members to nine. Their decisions were rubber-stamped by the Politburo and implemented by ministries and lower-level departments.

  Many lived on the highly secure grounds with their families, in traditional courtyard-style estates of several buildings, surrounded by walls. Top staff members did, too, in apartments far more comfortable than most of those available outside, in the metropolis.

  Still, this was not the White House or 10 Downing Street or even the Kremlin. Secretive, media-averse, Zhongnanhai showed on few tourist maps, even though its general office address at 2 Fuyoujie was printed clearly on Communist Party stationery. Surrounded by a vermillion-colored wall like the one that had once shut the old Forbidden City off from the world, the compound was so well designed that seeing in or over the high walls from anywhere in Beijing was impossible. Ordinary Chinese were not welcome. Foreigners even less so, unless they were ruling heads of state.

  Some of this pleased Niu Jianxing, but not all. Although he was one of the elite Standing Committee and worked in Zhongnanhai, he chose to live outside it, in the city itself. Instead of being decorated with ornamental scrolls, dragons, and photographs, his office was spartan. He believed in the basic socialist principle of from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. His physical needs were simple and unpretentious. His intellectual needs were something else again.

  Niu Jianxing leaned back behind his cluttered desk, entwined his fingers, and closed his eyes. He was still within the circular pool of light cast by his old desk lamp. It glared on his sunken cheeks and delicate features, which were partially hidden behind tortoiseshell glasses. The harsh light did not appear to bother him, as if he were so deep in concentration he did not know there was any light at all, as if nothing disturbing could exist in the tranquil world inside his mind.

  Niu Jianxing had become a very important man by acquiring power step by clandestine step. Ever since entering the party and the government, he had found repose to be a great aid to concentration and correct decisions. He would often sit silently like this at Politburo and Standing Committee meetings. At first, the others had thought he was asleep and had dismissed him as a lightweight from the countryside of Tianjin. They talked as if he were not there—in fact, as if he did not exist at all—until it became clear, to the permanent regret of a few who had spoken too freely, that he heard every word and usually had their problems solved or dismissed before they could even articulate them.

  After that, his admirers nicknamed him the Owl, a catchy name that spread through the ranks and made him someone to be remembered. A savvy politician as well as tactician, he had made it his personal chop.

  At the moment, the Owl was pondering the disquieting rumor that some of his colleagues on the Standing Committee had second thoughts about signing the human-rights agreement with the United States he had worked so hard to negotiate. He had spent the morning putting out feelers to identify who those backsliders might be.

  Strange that he’d had no warning of such serious dissension. This concerned him, too, hinting as it did of an organized opposition waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves and kill the treaty. Now that China was entering the capitalist world, it was inevitable that some in government would be determined to destroy it to preserve their own dominance.

  A light knock yanked him from his reverie. His eyes snapped open. His windows were shuttered against the bright Beijing day and the magnificent gardens of Zhongnanhai. The years had taught him the importance of his secluded office. The single knock came again—one he recognized only too well. It always signaled trouble.

  “Come in, General.”

  General Chu Kuairong, PLA (Ret.), marched into the cloistered room, took off his hat, and sat. Hunched forward in the hard wood chair that faced the desk, he had a scarred face, thick shoulders, and barrel chest. His tiny eyes were sunk in deep, wind-and-sun creases. They squinted at Niu as if looking through the raw desert sunlight. His shaved head reflected like polished steel in the circle of light from the desk lamp. In his medal-bedecked uniform, he resembled some old Soviet marshal, contemplating the destruction of Berlin in World War II.

  Only the thin cigar clamped between his teeth spoiled the image. “It’s the spycatcher.”

  “Major Pan?” The Owl hid his impatience.

  “Yes. Major Pan thinks Dr. Liang could be jumping at shadows, but he’s not sure.” General Chu was the chief of the Public Security Bureau, one of the organs under the Owl’s control. Major Pan was one of the general’s top counterintelligence operatives. “It’s possible Colonel Smith is a spy who’s maneuvered an invitation for a specific purpose. Perhaps scientific espionage.”

  “Why does Major Pan think that?”

  “Two things. First, there are some oddities in Smith’s paper record. Brief, more-or-less unexplained periods away from his lab at USAMRIID. It turns out that Smith is more than a medical doctor or scientist. He has far more combat and command training than most pure scientists even in their military.”

  “What’s the second thing?”

  “Major Pan has a ‘feeling’ about him.”

  “A feeling?”

  General Chu blew a neat circle of rich cigar smoke. “Over the years that I’ve been running the security forces, I’ve found Pan’s ‘feelings’ are based on his experience and are therefore often accurate.”

  Of the many agencies under his charge, Niu liked the Public Security Bureau least. It was an octopus with fangs and claws—an enormous, covert bureau with far-ranging police and intelligence power. The Owl was a builder, not a destroyer. In his position as bureau minister, the decisions he sometimes had to approve, or even make, were distasteful.

  “What does Major Pan propose?” he asked.

  “He wants to keep a close eye on this Colonel Smith. He wants authorization to surveil him and to hold him for interrogation if he does anything remotely suspicious.”

  The Owl closed his eyes again, mulling. “Surveillance is probably wise, but I want concrete evidence before authorizing interrogation. These are sensitive times, and at the moment we’re fortunate to have an American government peculiarly disposed toward peace and cooperation. We’d be fools not to take advantage of this rare occasion.”

  General Chu blew another cloud of smoke. “Pan suggests there may be a connection between Smith’s sudden interest in visiting Shanghai and the disappearance of our agent in the same city.”

>   “You still have no knowledge of exactly what your man was working on?”

  “He was on vacation. We think he must have stumbled onto something that made him suspicious and was checking it out before reporting in.”

  The last situation the Owl wanted was a confrontation with the United States. It would cause a public furor in both countries, posturing by both governments, tie the U.S. president’s hands when it came to the human-rights agreement, and cause the Standing Committee to listen to the hard-liners on the Politburo and Central Committee.

  But the prestige and security of China were more important than any treaty, and a possible spy in Shanghai and a missing internal security agent were matters of sober concern. “When you know the answer, come to me,” Niu ordered. “Until then, Major Pan has the authorization to watch Smith closely. Should he feel it is time to detain him, he will need to convince me.”

  The general’s small eyes gleamed. He blew another perfect smoke circle and smiled. “I’ll tell him.”

  Niu did not care for the look in the old soldier’s eyes. “Make sure that you do. I’ll report Pan’s suspicions and actions to the Standing Committee. Pan and you, General, will answer not only to me, but to them.”

  Chapter

  Five

  Shanghai

  Smith’s spacious room in the Peace Hotel was suddenly claustrophobic. Pressed flat against the wall next to the door, he listened for the footsteps to move. Instead, there was a knock. It was as faint as the footsteps had been. Smith did not move. There it was again—a light tapping, now insistent, nervous. Not a bellman or a maid.

  Then he knew. “Damn.” It had to be the interpreter Fred Klein had arranged. He opened the door, grabbed a tall, thin, Chinese man by the front of his oversized leather jacket, and jerked him into the room.

  The fellow’s blue Mao cap flew off. “Hey!”

  Smith seized the cap in midair, heeled the door closed, and glared at the skinny man who struggled while at the same time looking aggrieved.