Less than twenty seconds later Alvarez left Mission Control. A minute after that the code was relayed through two commercial communications satellites and back down to an encrypted mobile device in Guanxi Province, China.
Chapter 51
Some of Michael’s dad’s lessons weren’t lessons at all. Like when he taught Michael about family. Family was everything in the Chase home. Even if their home was unconventional. Mom ran most of the show because Michael’s dad had a pretty intensive travel schedule. But when Michael’s dad was there, he was all there. They did things together. They hiked. They swam. They went on family trips. Once, Michael remembered, his dad flew back overnight from Japan, just to see him play Lacrosse. Michael didn’t think he was flying that far just to see him at the time, but when he woke up the next morning, his father was gone. His mom explained that his dad had a very important job to do, but Michael was more important than the job, and he wanted to be there for the game. It was the same thing when Michael broke his leg skiing. His dad was there the next day. Ditto for when he got his appendix out. So even though his dad couldn’t be there all the time, he was there when he needed him. Always. And Michael knew that he would always be there for his dad too. Whatever it took.
***
Kate hung up the phone. Tung’s man had left it plugged into the dash of the truck and though convenient, Michael was certain it wasn’t secure. Kate, however, didn’t seem overly concerned.
“My people gave me the coordinates of a meeting place not far from here,” Kate said. “A reservoir about ten minutes up the road. They’ll meet us there.”
They had been driving through the night for over half an hour now. There had been no talk of Ted’s betrayal and no talk of what was to come. Kate seemed to have retreated inward and though Michael didn’t mind the silence, it did nothing to set his mind at ease. A satellite was falling out of the sky and he was anxious. Anxious that he would have blood on his hands. Anxious that he had come all this way to fail. And anxious that he would never find out what had happened to his father. For the tenth time in as many minutes Michael hung his wrist out the window to get a signal lock. His GPS indicated that they were still headed southwest toward Vietnam.
“What then?” Michael said.
“What do you mean?”
“You said that if we found the Horten there was a chance we’d be able to communicate with that flying bomb up there. Well, we found the Horten. When we get to the reservoir what happens? What then?”
“They said they’d update us as the situation developed.”
“Is that it?”
Kate could see the pleading in Michael’s eyes. “They said they had information. Information regarding your father.”
Michael was silent for a long moment. “What kind of information?”
There was no reply.
“I said, what kind of information?”
“I don’t know, okay? Ow!” Kate screamed grasping her ear. A high pitched hum filled the cab. Working her thumb and finger into her left ear, Kate managed to pull out something that looked like a wax ball. “It’s a sub aural receiver. Standard issue. The water in the cave must have shorted it out.”
Kate started to put the receiver back into her ear when a tinny mechanical monotone began echoing a series of numbers as clear as a bell.
“5-6-9-1-2-3-6-8-1-4-6-6-1-7-2-4-3.” The numbers stopped.
“Was that what I thought it was?” Michael said.
“The clear-code,” Kate said. “My people are telling us there’s still a chance we can keep that bird in the sky.”
Chapter 52
Huang was well aware that his operation had careened dangerously off track. He had no doubt that many of his men had been killed, others had been taken prisoner, and his objective, the Horten’s unique reactor, had been snatched from his grasp. But none of this meant that the mission was lost. Not yet at least. He still had good intelligence on the American efforts to destroy the satellite. More important than that however, he believed he knew who the gunmen were. Even before setting out, he had been warned that a particular Triad organization might have a vested interest in the Horten. And now, given the evening’s events it was obvious that the warning had held true. Huang had seen the Horten barged out of the blasted cave and down the river with his own eyes. Now it was time to do something about it.
Still in possession of his secure Motorola, Huang’s first action had been to contact Guilin station. From there a Bell 460 helicopter armed with an M27 mini-gun had been dispatched to pick him up. He had then made a second call to place informants on all the riverbank landing points for a hundred kilometers south of Yangshuo. Huang knew it would be suicide for the Triad to travel the river in the light of day. They would be seen and hence had no choice but to leave the river before daybreak. And given that there were no rail lines within convenient reach, to leave the river meant a tractor trailer large enough to transport the Horten.
In a stroke of good fortune, Huang’s quick response to the situation had already garnered a hit — a suspicious truck had left the river following the old Guanxi highway south. Satellite services had since that it was carrying a wing shaped load approximately twenty meters in length. What this told Huang was that he had effectively reacquired the Horten. And even as he tried to not be unduly influenced by the optimism welling within him, he felt his pulse quicken. The American spy wouldn’t get by him again.
Chapter 53
The last mile or so had been uphill. Michael and Kate had turned off the main artery onto a dirt road leading into the hinterland. The road had deteriorated to the point where it was little more than a dirt track. Then, that too had given way, leaving them in a rolling meadow surrounded by karsts. Michael stopped the truck, checking the coordinates Kate had given him against his GPS. They were there. An emerald-shaped reservoir, indistinguishable from a natural lake, lay just below them. They were alone up here, or at least they appeared to be.
“You say we’re going to meet your people here?”
“That’s what they said.”
Michael knew that time was running out. And he knew he had a mission to complete. But he also knew that this was the moment he had been waiting for; his single best chance to finally learn what had happened to his father. He would be a fool to turn his back on that opportunity now. Michael decided he could manage the risks. Leaving the headlights on, he pulled the keys from the ignition and followed Kate out of the truck and down the bank to the water’s edge. Given the course of the last few hours, he was well aware that the bucolic beauty around him could erupt into a blood bath within seconds and as such he did everything in his power to remain vigilant.
“They said wait?”
“Wait and they’d meet us here,” Kate said.
Michael glanced at his watch. The cicada’s song carried over the cool lake breeze did little to calm him. If he had to wait much longer, it would all be over.