“You’re not going to join him, are you?”

“I considered it, but he’s leaving tomorrow. It’s probably a wild-goose chase, and frankly, I feel like I’m making some progress here.”

She slid the bio of Tom Cerny across the desk to him. “I’m not prepared to pronounce a leak in the White House, but look at Cerny’s background.”

Fowler read aloud a few of Cerny’s biographical entries. “Ex–Green Beret officer, served as military adviser in Taiwan, later Panama and Colombia. Left Army for a stint at Raytheon as a program manager for directed energy weapons programs. Later moved to Capitol Hill as a defense specialist. Served on the board of directors of three defense contractors before joining the White House. Married to the former Jun Lu Yi, a Taiwanese national. Operates a child education charity in Bogotá.” He set the paper down. “Interesting range of experiences.”

“He seems to have been in the vicinity of a few defense systems that the Chinese have duplicated,” Ann said. “The Colombia bit certainly caught my eye.”

“Worth looking into. I suspect you could make some discreet inquiries without raising any red flags.”

“I agree. I’m not ready to throw away my career by barging into the White House, but I’ll press the fringes a bit more. How are things going with your internal reviews?”

He shook his head. “I’ve double-checked every DARPA employee working on the program. To be honest, I haven’t found a single nugget of suspicious behavior. I’ll pass the files to you when I finish the interviews.”

“Thanks, but I’ll trust your review. Where are you headed next?”

“I figured on making site visits to our three largest subcontractors. Maybe you should join me? It would make the work go faster.”

“I’m thinking of looking at a few of the smaller subcontractors. These three caught my eye.”

“Too far down the food chain,” Fowler said. “They’d likely have only limited access to anything classified.”

“No harm in a little probing,” Ann said. “You know the saying about the blind pig finding the acorn.”

Fowler smiled. “Suit yourself. I’ll be around the rest of the day if you come up with any nuts to share.”

Late in the day, she got her next break. After more follow-ups with the FBI, she went back to her list of subcontractors. The first two companies were publicly traded, so she readily obtained background information on their businesses. But the third firm was privately held and required more digging. She found an article about it in an engineering periodical and rushed into Fowler’s office.

“Dan, take a look at this. One of the subcontractors, a firm called SecureTek, provides secure data lines for engineers in remote locations to share their work. Without having their own security clearance, they could gain access to private engineering work.”

“That’s probably harder to pull off than you think.”

“More interesting is this. SecureTek is part of a small conglomerate based in Panama that also owns a transportation company in the U.S. and a gold mine in Panama.”

“Okay, but I don’t see where that leads.”

“The company holds a minority interest in Hobart Mining. Hobart owns a mine in Australia called Mount Weld.”

“All right, so they’ve expanded their mining operations.”

“Mount Weld is one of the largest producers of rare earth elements outside of China. Dr. Oswald told me this morning how vital rare earth elements are in the Sea Arrow’s development—and how shortages have delayed the program. There could be a connection.”

“Seems a bit tenuous,” Fowler said, shaking his head. “What’s the motivation? The mine owner should be happy we’re buying what he produces, not cutting off one of his best customers. I think you’re letting Dirk Pitt lead you astray.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “It seems like we’re grasping at straws.”

“That happens. Maybe things will look different in the morning. I find exercise helps me in solving problems. Every morning, I take a run along the Potomac, and find it’s a great way to relax my mind. You should try it.”

“Maybe I will. Just do me one favor, will you?” she said. “Add SecureTek to the list of contractors on your site visits.”

“That I’ll be happy to do,” he said.

Ann took his advice and stopped at a health club on the way home and ran a few miles on a treadmill before grabbing a chicken salad to go at a café. She thought of Pitt on the way home and called him the second she entered her town house. There was no reply, so she left a lengthy message about her findings and wished him luck on his voyage.

As she hung up, a deep voice grumbled from the hallway.

“I hope you remembered to say good-bye.”

Ann nearly jumped out of her shoes. She wheeled around to see two large black men emerge from her darkened bedroom. She recognized the first man and began to tremble.

Clarence smiled coldly as he walked into the room and leveled a .45 at her head.

32

ZHOU XING HAD THE FACE OF A PEASANT. HIS EYES were set close together, his chin was almost nonexistent, and his nose listed to starboard from a long-ago fracture. A pair of jug ears and a pauper’s haircut completed the rural simpleton appearance. It was a countenance perfectly suited to the undercover intelligence agent. Aside from allowing Zhou to fit into almost any field situation, it habitually caused his superiors in the Chinese Ministry of State Security to underestimate his guile and ability.

At the moment he was counting on the same effect for a less sophisticated crowd. Wearing the worn and dusty clothes of an unskilled laborer, he looked like most of the inhabitants of Bayan Obo, a company town in Inner Mongolia that was itself worn and dusty. Zhou crossed a paved street bustling with trucks and buses and made his way to a small drinking establishment. Even from the street he could hear the voices inside. He took a deep breath, then pulled open a wooden door emblazoned with a faded red boar.

The scent of cheap tobacco and stale beer filled Zhou’s nostrils as he stepped through the door and scanned the confines with a practiced eye. A dozen tables filled the narrow room, occupied by a coarse and rugged assortment of miners off duty from the town’s open-pit mine. A fat, one-eyed barkeep poured shots behind an elevated platform lined with hard-drinking locals. The bar’s only decoration was its namesake, a stuffed and mounted boar’s head that was missing several tufts of fur.

Zhou ordered a baijiu, a grain alcohol that was the locals’ favorite, and slid onto a corner chair to study the clientele. Cloistered in groups of two or three, most were well on their way to numbing themselves from the day’s labor. He scanned from face to hardened face, searching for a suitable target. He found one a few tables away, a brash, loudmouthed young man, talking the ears off his silent, towering partner.

Zhou waited until the talker had nearly drained his shot glass before approaching the table. Pretending to stagger, he flung an elbow against the talker’s glass, sending it flying.

“Hey! My drink.”

“A thousand pardons, my friend,” Zhou said, slurring his words. “Please, come to the bar with me and I shall purchase you another.”

The young miner, realizing he had just scored a free round, rose quickly, if unsteadily, to his feet. “Yes, another drink.”

With a full ceramic bottle of baijiu in hand, Zhou was welcomed back to the table.

“I am Wen,” the man said, “and my quiet friend here is Yao.”

“I am Tsen,” Zhou replied. “You both work at the mine?”

“Of course.” Wen flexed his biceps. “We didn’t build this strength by plucking chickens.”

“What is your job at the mine?”

“Why, we are the crushers,” Wen said with a laugh. “We feed the mined ore into the primary rockcrushers. They’re as big as a house and can mash a boulder the size of a dog down to this.” He balled his fist in front of Zhou.