But then Cole’s hand touched Collins’ arm again, giving him the signal to slow down; a larger vessel had appeared on Cole’s screen, moving into the same channel.
Collins did as instructed, throttling back, positioning the SDV so they could look at the hull through their goggles.
It was a large vessel, but not large enough to be a container ship. Cargo ships would be headed for Tianjin anyway, and Cole guessed it would be another local fishing trawler.
Cole and Collins watched as the hull slid close past them, breaking through into the inlet in front of them, and then Cole touched the pilot’s arm again and nodded his head, pointing to the stern of the fishing vessel.
Collins nodded, understanding Cole’s intention, and increased speed, slipping in right behind the fishing boat to follow in its wake.
Despite the dark night, one of the dangers of an SDV insertion — especially in the narrower channels as they began to work their way inland — would be people noticing the tell-tale bubbles produced by the ship’s movement and its open-circuit breathing systems. By following in the wake of the fishing boat, they would not only disguise their visible presence, but would also blend in with the vessel on any sonar system which might be monitoring the Chinese coast.
Collins matched his speed perfectly, following the trawler into the Beitangkou inlet just ten feet from its stern, unseen within the murky depths of the bay.
Cole smiled with satisfaction.
They had made it; they were now inside the Chinese mainland.
Now they just had to get to Beijing.
Yuan Ziyang mopped his sweaty brow, wiping moisture from his eyes so that he could see the road ahead.
Damn the CIA.
He was driving his delivery truck down the S30 highway from Beijing, en route to some sort of rendezvous at a very specific place on the Changshen Expressway. He had been told to be in position next to where the expressway crossed the Yongding New River by four o’clock in the morning, forty-five minutes before first light. He would meet six people there, and take them into the back of his truck for the return journey north to Beijing.
Who they were, or what they were doing here, Yuan didn’t know. In fact, he didn’t want to know. The less he knew, the less he could tell anyone if he was caught.
And didn’t the CIA realize how likely it was that he would be caught?
The city — indeed, most of northeastern China — was in full lockdown. General Wu was claiming that life was proceeding as normal under military rule, but Yuan knew better — there were increased guard units all over the place, and restrictions on mobility were being enforced day and night. Especially at night.
He’d told the man from the embassy that the odds were against him being allowed out of the city at all, but he’d been told to stop worrying and to just get on with it. If only he could be so confident, Yuan thought unhappily as he shielded his eyes from the headlights of oncoming traffic, every time terrified that it was the armed police.
But it never was.
And leaving Beijing hadn’t been quite so fraught with danger as he’d initially feared; he had passed unmolested through the manned checkpoints, allowed to go on his way with not so much as an eyebrow raised in suspicion.
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be stopped though, and he tried to remember again what he would say if the security forces pulled him over. At the minute he didn’t even have anyone else aboard, but he didn’t want to alert anyone by seeming nervous. He breathed deeply, going through his cover story once again in his mind.
The thought of the money helped calm his nerves, he had to admit. He wasn’t a man driven by strong moral convictions, providing information and assistance to the ‘enemy’ due to some sort of ingrained sense of right and wrong; nor was he a candidate for blackmail, another easy way to recruit agents. In fact, he led a fairly quiet and innocuous life.
But the one thing he was, was greedy. He saw how the more well-off citizens of Beijing lived, the things they had, and he wanted the same for himself and his family. He already had access to western satellite television, which made him crave even more things. And as a lowly delivery-truck driver, how else was he ever going to be able to afford those things except through betraying his country? And the CIA paid well.
He almost missed the flashing lights ahead of him, his mind filled with the images of hundred-yuan banknotes.
But then the sirens sounded, and the situation soon became all-too real.
There was a roadblock up ahead, three police cars strung out across the highway flagging down passing vehicles. Yuan’s truck was just one more, and yet his mind started screaming at him with insistent fury.
They know! They must know! Crash through them! The truck’s bigger than the cars, you can do it! Go!
For a few terrible seconds, Yuan was actually going to do it — drive right through them, crash through the police cars and high-tail it out of there with the gas pedal pushed all the way down to the floor.
But then sanity resecured it grip on him and his foot went instead to the brake, easing the truck in to the side of the road as he struggled to breath, to control his racing heart rate.
He wound down his window as an armed patrolman came up to the side of his truck, and Yuan’s hand went reflexively to the small revolver he’d hidden under the cushion of his seat; ludicrously underpowered compared to what he faced, but a source of comfort nevertheless. Unless they search the cab, he thought suddenly, pushing the gun back under the seat cushion as far as he could, presenting both hands on the wheel. He tried to smile but stopped himself; the cop might think something was amiss if he started to act strangely.
‘Your papers?’ the cop asked, and Yuan relaxed ever so slightly; despite the presence of the assault rifle in the man’s hands, his attitude was bored, lethargic, typical of someone in the middle of an enforced night-shift.
Yuan nodded and pulled his papers from the glove compartment, handing them over smartly.
The policeman looked them over with no real interest, jotted something down in a notebook, then raised his eyes to Yuan’s face, regarding him with sudden interest.
‘You are…sweating?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Is something perhaps the matter?’
Yuan’s hands went to his face, his neck, felt how the sweat was dripping over him and smiled feebly before he could stop himself. ‘It’s this damned summer heat,’ he said, ‘I can’t stand these close nights, so stifling. I’ve had a bit of a fever too.’ Stop talking, he willed himself; talking too much was always a sure sign that someone was lying or hiding something.
‘Are you working?’ the cop asked next, and over his shoulder Yuan could see his two armed colleagues looking over at them, wondering what was taking so long. If this didn’t end soon, they would probably head on over this way too.
‘Yes,’ Yuan answered, ‘taking a delivery over to Tianjin.’
‘What are you delivering?’
‘Electronics.’
‘What kind?’
‘Televisions, DVD players, that sort of thing.’
The cop nodded, eyeing him with interest.
‘Get out,’ he said finally, ‘open her up.’
Yuan’s pulse jumped even higher and he concentrated hard on his breathing. It was going to be okay; there were electronics in the back, the company he worked for was legitimate even if the delivery destination itself was a CIA cover. But there was nothing to worry about; the people he was supposed to pick up weren’t even in the back yet. Everything was above board. Yes; he had nothing to worry about.