The trucks moved off slowly, fighting their way through the thickening city traffic. They looped around the west side of Beijing to avoid the worst of the congestion and continued southeast. It took the better part of two hours before they reached the port city of Tianjin. Xao led the trucks through a maze of streets to the center of the large commercial docks.

They reached an old dockside warehouse and pulled down a side alley. Two men appeared from the shadows and accepted a sack filled with yuan that Xao passed out the window. A gate opened at the end of the alley, and the trucks rumbled through, entering a cavernous warehouse that opened to a dock on the far side. The trucks drove through the building and stopped beside a moderate-sized freighter whose lights illuminated the pier.

A large conveyor system stretched from the dock to an open hold on the ship, and Xao backed his truck to the end of it. A work crew appeared with shovels and began emptying the truck’s load of ore. As Zhou watched from the end of the line, he realized he’d seen all he needed. He slipped out the passenger door and crept toward the back of the truck.

A deck officer from the freighter, who was standing on the dock checking the ship’s lines, glanced over at Zhou. Playing the part of a tired driver, Zhou stretched his arms and yawned as he stepped toward the officer.

“Good evening,” he said with a slight bow. “A fine ship you have here.”

“The Graz is old and tired, but she still plows through the sea like a hefty ox.”

“Where are you headed?”

“We do a cargo swap in Shanghai, then we’re off to Singapore.”

He looked at Zhou closely under the lights, noticing a damp streak of red on the sleeve of his jacket.

“Are you okay?”

Zhou glanced at the blood and grinned.

“It’s transmission fluid. I spilled it, adding some to the truck.”

Zhou saw Xao’s truck was finished unloading and the next truck in line was moving to take its place. He nodded at the officer and smiled. “Have a safe voyage,” he said, turning his back on the loading operations and walking away.

The officer looked at him oddly. “What about your truck?”

Zhou ignored the query, sauntering away from the dock until he vanished into the night.

34

THE SEA ARROW’S PROPULSION MOTOR LOOKED like a stretch limousine driven through an oversized tire. The limousine part, in fact, was a rectangular induction housing that drew in water and expelled it through a trio of gimbaled exhaust outlets in the back. Just forward of it, at the motor’s midpoint, a donut-shaped nacelle contained the sophisticated jet pump that could push the submarine to high speeds. The entire motor was coated in a slippery black substance, which deflected water and gave the entire device a cold, futuristic appearance.

High overhead lights shined starkly on the prototype propulsion motor as a crane lifted it from its floor blocks and placed it on a large flatbed trailer. An army of workmen secured it with steel cables and covered it with canvas tarps. A semi-truck, operated by a company that specialized in hauling secure freight, was backed in and hitched to the trailer.

It was half past six in the morning when the truck pulled out of the Naval Research Laboratory’s facility at Chesapeake Beach, Maryland. As it drove inland from the bay, the surrounding woods and fields were damp with morning dew, while a leaden sky obscured the sunrise.

“What’s our ETA to Groton?” the codriver asked, suppressing a yawn.

The truck’s driver glanced at his watch. “The GPS says seven hours. Probably longer if we don’t beat the worst of the Beltway traffic.”

In the lightly populated region of southern Maryland, the early-morning traffic leading toward Washington was almost nonexistent. As they rounded a sweeping curve, the two men noticed a wisp of black smoke rising ahead. When it became apparent that the smoke originated from the road, the driver downshifted.

“Is that a car on fire?” his codriver asked.

“I think so. Looks like some old clunker.”

It was in fact a twenty-year-old Toyota Camry that had been severely wrecked at some point in its life. Now it sat in the middle of the road on four bald tires, flames sprouting from beneath its crumpled hood.

The truck driver eased the flatbed to a stop a few yards away and searched the road for victims. A white van was pulled off the road a short distance ahead, but there were no signs of life around it or the burning car.

“We better call this in,” the driver said as his partner reached behind the seat for a fire extinguisher.

A crash jarred them out of their seats as the head of a sledgehammer burst through the passenger-side window. A gloved hand thrust through the shattered glass and dropped a smoking canister of tear gas in the cab.

In an instant, the truck’s interior was filled with an acrid white smoke that made the men gag. Their eyes burned as if hot lava had been poured under their lids, and they groped for the door handles to escape the agony.

The driver made it out first, leaping from the cab onto the roadway. A man wearing a ski mask zapped him with a stun gun, sending him to the ground, convulsing. On the other side of the truck, the codriver had managed to pull out his gun as he exited the cab. But with his eyes clenched shut from the gas, he failed to see the second assailant strike him with another stun gun.

A third man, wearing a gas mask, climbed into the cab and hurled the still-smoking canister out into an adjacent field. He slid behind the wheel and jabbed a knife into the cab’s headliner. He pulled away the fabric until spotting a wire, which he deftly sliced, disabling the roof-mounted GPS transmitter that allowed the shipping company to track the vehicle. Jamming the truck into gear, he eased it forward until its broad chrome bumper kissed the burning car. Then he floored the accelerator while nudging the steering wheel to the right. The torque-strong truck brushed the Toyota aside like an insect and flipped it into a ditch.

Straightening back onto the small road, the new driver shifted gears and lowered his side window. Within seconds, the last remnants of gas had been flushed out. Pablo pulled off the uncomfortable gas mask and tossed it on the seat beside him.

He glanced at his watch and smiled. In just two minutes he had taken one of America’s most secret technologies. He pulled out a cell phone, dialed a long string of numbers, and smiled, thinking about his payoff to come.

35

PABLO DROVE THE LONG FLATBED ANOTHER MILE before maneuvering it off the highway and onto a small dirt road. The narrow, rutted track crossed a large pasture dotted with sleepy-eyed cows. A half mile in, the road passed a large pond, then ended at an abandoned farm just beyond.

The charred remnants of the farmhouse were still visible, scorched by a fire decades earlier. Nearby, a large weathered barn leaned to one side as if the next nor’easter would send it tumbling. Pablo drove to the barn and guided the truck into an opening at one end of it.

Inside he found a high stack of freshly cut bales of hay guarded by a mini forklift. At the opposite end of the barn stood another semi-truck cab. He pulled the flatbed alongside the bales, parked the truck, and climbed out to examine the object under the tarps.

A few minutes later, the white panel van pulled in, and two large black men jumped out.

“You take care of the drivers?” Pablo asked.

The first man nodded. “Clarence cuffed them together around a big oak off the highway. Some farmer will find them in a day or two.”

“Good. Now, let’s get to work. I’m on a tight schedule.”