Deadly Payload

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“Save it,” Mahmoud told the Mossad commander, putting a calming hand on his shoulder. “We should get out of the cave.”

McCarter looked at Manning. “Got a good withdrawal route?”

“Two. The other would take us right down the throats of the advancing force,” Manning stated. “But all have cover against that Predator up top.”

McCarter looked at the horizon. “We’ll take that route.”

“You’re going to hold them off?” Reiser asked. “No. We’ll all withdraw.”

“Actually, we weren’t intending on holding them off,” James said, knowing his commander. “We’ll knock a few answers out of those chumps.”

“He’s right,” McCarter said. “We might have a chance to interrogate an enemy prisoner or three.”

“He never takes the easy route,” Manning added. “You two withdraw and go on to your phase of this operation. We’ll contact you if we learn anything.”

Mahmoud nodded. “Allah be with you, my friends.”

McCarter’s eyes narrowed, a mirthless grin tightening his lips. “God’s going to sit this one out. We’ve got the devil’s work to do, mate.”

C APTAIN Z ING H O , a North Korean officer, heard the American woman’s voice on the phone and took a deep breath, his stomach flip-flopping. It had been a while since a mysterious warrior had given him a new lease on life, saving him from a massacre in an illegal chemical weapons lab. The tall man in black protected him, and later, a group of computer hackers smoothed over all the wrinkles left by association with Major Huan. Now, as a military attaché in the North Korean consulate in Beijing, he had been contacted by the tall warrior’s allies, given access to a fistful of information.

“We need to make certain that cool heads prevail here,” the woman said to him. “The documents in your e-mail will help with that.”

“North Korea, being the voice of reason?” Ho asked.

“It’s a long shot. Just present it to the ambassador,” Barbara Price informed him. “You know that Ambassador Chong is a good man. So do we. He could do a lot to defuse the situation.”

Ho nodded. “Nobody wants China to go to war with the British and American fleets over Taiwan. Too much chance of things going nuclear. And we’re right in the backyard in case a few megatons fall short.”

He paused for a moment. “But, won’t your contacting me show up on the Chinese government’s radar?”

“You know that deal with the search engine and the Chinese government?” Price asked.

“You’re kidding me,” Ho said.

“Nope. Putting the blocks on those searches also gives us a lot of wiggle room for covert communication. The same scrambling encryptions are protecting every e-mail and Internet broadband phone communication that we are putting through,” Price answered.

Ho took a deep breath, feeling safer now. “You arranged that?”

“More of taking advantage of a blind spot,” Price told him.

Ho looked at his printer. Sheets piled up in the output tray. Even at eight pages a minute, it seemed to take forever. “Tell your man…thanks again.”

“He doesn’t do it for the gratitude,” Price explained. “But when I see him again, I’ll let him know.”

“Provided the world doesn’t turn into a smoking crater,” Ho muttered.

“The documentation you have will go a long way toward cooling that off,” Price returned.

With the overview finished and a CD-ROM burned containing actual records, Ho was ready.

“Thanks,” Ho said.

“If this works, thank you,” Price countered.

Captain Ho popped the CD from his drive, took the overview document and headed for Ambassador Chong’s office.

“W ITH THE N ORTH K OREANS confirming the information we’ve sent our contacts in the Chinese intelligence community, we might actually pull this off,” Price said hopefully.

“Taiwan is a tempting prize,” Kurtzman stated. “The hard-liners who want all of China unified will be hard to dissuade.”

“We just have to keep playing the back alleys,” Price answered. “Keep hitting the Red Chinese with reason until they back down from their urge to hit the Nationalist Chinese for retaliation.”

“Reason has rarely been an effective tool against invasion,” Kurtzman replied. “If an administration is gung ho and ready for battle, almost nothing slows it down. For every war that we pulled the plug on, another took place somewhere else.”

“So just because we have misses, we’re supposed to give up?” Price asked. “We didn’t shut down because we couldn’t prevent the Towers from falling. And we didn’t give up because the President ignored our recommendations of force application in Iraq. We just keep plugging to save the world, whether it wants it or not.”

“I’m not saying to throw in the towel,” Kurtzman said. “I’m just not counting on this to be resolved by common sense, which isn’t as common as you’d think.”

“We’ve made a difference before. It’s what we do. Batting a thousand isn’t possible, but humanity’s still here.”

Kurtzman nodded. “You’re right, Barb.”

“How is everything on the files we pulled out of Phoenix’s haul?” Price asked.

“Hunt’s going through it. He’s thorough, and there’s a lot of herrings and worms crawling around in there,” the computer wizard explained. “It’s not going quickly, but he’s pulling clues out of the drive.”

“I just thought he was slow,” Price said with a wink and a grin.