Vital Force (18 page)

The more difficult part had been swapping cars, since theirs had been shot up and the windshield destroyed. They had coordinated an exchange on the side of Interstate 205 just before it crossed over the Columbia River, and were now in a huge Crown Victoria. That didn't satisfy Fisher, since the car was purchased by mostly police departments or old folks.

As he suspected, the Asian woman had passed up the Portland International Airport exit and crossed the Columbia River into Washington.

“You won't catch her,” Cliff said from the back seat. “She's smart, man. Really smart.”

“Shut the fuck up, Cliff.” Fisher was still kicking himself for not dropping him off at the hospital. But, at the time, his partner, Agent Harris, had been in no condition to baby-sit the guy. Besides, he felt responsible for all that had happened. If he had caught on to Cliff Johansen sooner, none of this would have happened. That was one way to look at it. The other, and the one that would stand up in court, was that he couldn't have stopped Cliff for espionage until he had actually taken the Brightstar information. How was he to know that the guy would make a run for it? Most spies hung around for a while to make sure they would not arouse suspicion, or at least to squeeze more money out of their runners. But Cliff's motivation had been both money and sex. As it turned out, sex might have been just as important to him.

“I'm sorry, man,” Cliff said.

Fisher checked him out in the rearview mirror. “You're sorry all right. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I meant about your partner gettin' shot. I didn't think it would ever come to this.”

“It almost always comes to this,” Fisher told him.

A cell phone rang and Fisher picked it up from inside his jacket pocket. “Yeah.” He listened carefully and then said thanks before hanging up.

“How is she?”

“It wasn't about Harris,” Fisher said. He picked up the map and threw it to the back seat. “Here. Make yourself useful. Your partner is near Chehalis. We just passed mile marker fifty-nine. Do the math.”

“Hey, ya got me cuffed to the door back here. How the hell ya expect me ta. . .”

“Cliff.”

“Twenty-two miles.”

Fisher calculated that in his mind. She was traveling under the radar at sixty-four miles an hour. He was pushing the limit at eighty-two. That means. Damn, he hated those math problems.

“If she's going the speed limit,” Cliff said, “which I'm sure she is, then you'll catch her somewhere between Olympia and Tacoma. Unless you slow down for Olympia.”

“Shut up, Cliff.”

“Hey, you asked, Pal. I gotta piss, by the way.”

“Let's see,” Fisher said, “a man gets thrown from a car traveling eighty-two miles an hour. How far do his brains splatter?”

“Funny.” Then Cliff mumbled something under his breath.

Traffic started to pick up somewhat, but the fast lane remained fairly calm. Fisher only had to slow a few times until he flashed his brights behind a slow poke who lingered where he shouldn't. The biggest problem was the rain, which went from anywhere from a few sprinkles to a complete downpour without warning. Which it was doing right now, making it almost impossible to maintain speed.

“You're gonna kill us, Steve. Excuse me. Agent Fisher. Or whatever your name is this week.”

“Keep talkin' Cliff and I'll make sure you get a huge cell mate. I think you know what I mean.”

“Fuckin' A.”

“Exactly.”

That kept his mouth shut for a while. Fisher tried his best to concentrate, but the smell and the sight of Harris's blood lingered in his mind. He knew she would be all right, though. In fact, at the hospital, she had gotten out of the car herself and walked the last few feet to the emergency room, banging her hand on the roof of the Taurus and telling him to catch the bitch, before slamming the door. He could simply have the Asian woman stopped ahead. Set up a road block between two long stretches of highway where she would have no choice but to stop. That's what the Portland office had wanted to do, but Fisher had convinced them that they needed to know where she was going. Who she was working for. Nothing else mattered now.

“Why's she going to Seattle, Cliff?”

“Don't know. Maybe she likes Sea-Tac.”

“Maybe you like another punch in the mouth.”

“Damn. When did you become such a bad ass?”

“Maybe because I had to repress my masculinity for so long pretending to be a programmer.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

There was silence for a moment as the windshield wipers swished their music back and forth.

Finally, Cliff broke the quiet. “I didn't mean for this to happen. It just did.”

“Do you know what happens if the Chinese get this technology?” Fisher asked.

“I didn't think about that.”

“Think about it now. It would negate our laser superiority. If they sold the technology to Russia or any other country, we might as well scrap our systems.”

“And that's a bad thing,” Cliff said. “Maybe I should have posted it on the Internet. Then every country would have to get rid of their nukes. Maybe I'll still do it.”

“What do you mean?” Fisher glanced back through the rearview mirror.

“Nothing.”

“You have copies?”

Cliff was silent.

“You have copies,” Fisher repeated.

“Hey, Li never said it was an exclusive deal. I thought I'd make a little extra selling to the highest bidder.”

“You set up an Internet auction? You're fuckin' incredible. When does this happen?”

“You're a smart guy. Figure it out.”

When would be the moment of greatest worth? Fisher struggled with that as he passed a semi trailer that nearly knocked the Crown Victoria off the road. Once he got in front of the truck it came to him. “Right after a successful test,” Fisher said. Shit. The test of the new software in Alaska was tomorrow. They needed to stop the test. Or at least delay it.

Jake drove on into the night, while Chang Su slept in the passenger seat. They were just a few miles out of Dandong, a port city of some two million, across the Yalu River from Sinuiju, North Korea. Jake had chosen the city for a couple of reasons. First, nobody would expect them to go there. There was, after all, no large international airport. It was a port city of little concern to most. Also, Jake was hoping they'd be able to catch a regional flight that wouldn't attract much attention. On the down side, he knew, tourists had not started flocking there yet-at least not in numbers like those heading to Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Guilin, and Yangtze River cruises. He would stick out.

Su started to wake as the lights from the city started to pass by their windows.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Just outside of Dandong. I could use your help.”

“Sure.” She sat up in her seat. “What you need?”

“We need to find the airport.”

“There,” she said, pointing to a sign. “What time is it?”

Jake took the turn toward the airport. “Why?”

“If it's after ten, the airport will be closed.”

He pulled the car to the side of the road and stopped, the engine sputtering and almost shutting down. He ran his fingers through his hair and realized that it had been a long few days. He needed a place to sleep. A place to take a shower. And he needed a place that would not take his passport, or even care about his personal information. Better yet, he thought, he could use one of his additional passports. Since he moved to Austria a few years back, he had gotten a passport under that country. Nobody questioned an Austrian passport in Europe. But here, it would be a novelty that would be easily remembered. It would have to do, though. He was too tired to get original.

He put the car in gear and drove a few blocks to the Bravo Airport Hotel, a large European-style place. In an isolated part of the parking lot, the two of them found more appropriate clothes from their backpacks and checked in as a couple.

When they got to their room on the fourth floor, with a view of the airport, Jake realized there was only one bed, and it was not even a queen size.

“I guess I've got the floor,” Jake said to her.

Her eyes seemed dazed, as if she hadn't even considered the sleeping arrangements.

“You mind if I shower first?” he asked.

“That's fine.”

Jake got into the small bathroom and stripped from his clothes. He had been on the run for so long, he could only imagine how good the shower would feel.

Naked and standing under the hot water, he ran the soap over his body, the steam rising up in the small room. It was the first time since Beijing that he had gotten a spontaneous erection.

Seconds later, the shower curtain moved aside and Su stepped into the tub, completely naked. She didn't say a word, but her brows rose when she saw him like that.

She got wet and he rubbed the soap over her body, bringing her nipples to match his rigidity. When she first touched him, he thought he would explode. But he forced himself to wait. He had observed her for the last few days, imagining what she would look like under all those clothes. And now. His imagination had not done her justice. She was so perfect. Her skin was as smooth as jade, yet as warm as a hearth.

She shifted her head up to him and he wiped her wet hair to the side of her face, clearing drops of water from her dark eyes.

As their lips touched for the first time, he felt a spark within him that he had not felt in quite some time. They lingered like that, the water running down their heads.

He reached around behind her and lifted her to him.

Sliding down onto him, she gasped.

Together, as one, he helped her rise and fall onto him, until, as if they had synchronized the final act, she writhed with pleasure and he burst into her.

●

Much later, they lay in bed together, her head against his bare chest, the darkness broken only by a strip of light from the airport.

Jake had had time to think, trying his best to understand what had just happened. He knew that sometimes it was better not to find reasons for some things. Just accept them as they were. He hadn't had the normal hints that they were heading in this direction. Perhaps that was because they had both been focused on the job at hand and the long journey and the death of her friend in Harbin. Although he had been intrigued by her from the first moment they met, he also knew that working closely with someone in his world often clouded his judgment to the real task at hand.

“What you think?” she asked him, barely above a whisper.

“I'm glad you decided to join me.”

She turned her head to look him in the eye. “I meant about tomorrow,” she said. “I don't expect anything else. I needed.” She hesitated, her breathing slowed and her eyes shifting away from his. “I need to feel something good so I'm human again.”

He held her tighter. “I understand. You lost a good friend in Harbin.”

“You lost Armstrong,” she said, as if they were equal.

“True. But we barely knew each other. I feel responsible for his death, though. If I had called him, kept him informed, maybe he wouldn't have had to come looking for us.”

She put her hand on his mouth. “No. It was his job. You were doing him a favor. And, they would have caught us if he did not come.”

He held her hand. “I know. But first his brother dies in the Ukraine and now. . .”

“Not your fault.” Her voice was more serious now.

“Did you know Armstrong?”

She shook her head. “I knew about him, but I worked through a man in Shanghai.”

Jake already knew this. At least as far as he was told by Armstrong's man, Anderson.

“Now what?” she asked him.

“Are we talkin' about us or tomorrow?”

She laughed for the first time, and it was appealing. “Tomorrow.”

“Well, we have to get out of China. I have a friend in Korea. If we can get there, he can help us.”

Her smile turned to a gravity he had not seen in her.

“It'll be all right,” he assured her.

“Not all right. I have to leave my country for good.”

“You left for college.”

“Yes, but I came back. They might kill my family.”

Jake shook his head. “No. We'll plant a story. They'll think you're dead.”

She looked at him as if they had just conspired to an actual murder. “You can do that?”

“I can make sure it happens.”

Sighing deeply, she dug her face into his chest and wrapped her arm tightly around his back.

They lay there like that, her falling asleep first, and Jake wondering if he could get them out of the country and then out of Korea. He would have to make it happen. He had to get the shots he took to Alaska. Keep his promise to Armstrong.

Seattle, Washington

Parked on South Washington Street, a half a block back from the white Trooper, Fisher had watched Li jump out and climb a set of steps, going into an old brick building that appeared to be a mix of businesses and apartments. They were in the heart of the Pioneer Square section of downtown Seattle, a few blocks from Pike Street Market. Even at this late hour, nearly midnight, the streets were alive with people and cars.

A homeless man approached and knocked on Fisher's window. He powered the window down.

“Get lost,” Fisher growled at the man.

This didn't intimidate the guy, so Fisher pulled out his gun and pointed it in the man's face.

The man moved his head closer to the 9mm automatic. “Is that any way to treat your back up?” The man flipped his hand sideways, revealing an Agency I.D. “Just give me a five and send me on my way. I'll be across the street on that bench. We've got the back covered and two more out front. A couple.”

Fisher handed the guy a five and pushed him back from the car, closing the window.