White Jade (The PROJECT) (17 page)

"
Is that the translation you
'
re working on? What
'
s it about?
"

"
Yes. It
'
s an old Sanskrit text on medicine. Nothing very earth shaking.
"

"
You always were a whiz at that kind of thing. Working right from the source. I had enough trouble researching the information that was already translated.
"

Carter
felt
dizzy. The light was fluctuating. Cathy
looked
at
him
.

"
I don
'
t feel very well,
"
Selena said.

"
Can I get you anything?
"
said Cathy.

Selena
'
s wine glass slipped out of her hand and dropped to the floor. The wine spread in a widening stain over the carpet.
Nick
tried to get up, but
his
legs
turned to rubber and he crashed to the floor.
His
vision blurred. The last thing
he
heard was Cathy Chen telling Selena she was sorry.

Chapter Twenty-
F
ive

"
Nick. Nick.
"
Ronnie
'
s voice was urgent.
"
Nick! Wake up.
"

He
opened his e
yes
. He
had a hell of a headache. Ronnie bent over
him
.

"
Where
'
s Selena?
"

"
She
'
s okay, she
'
s awake, just not feeling so good. Jesus, Nick, I thought you were dead when I came in.
"

Suckered and drugged.
He
remembered the odd taste in the wine.
He
got to
his
feet and a blacksmith shop
opened up
inside
his
head.

Ronnie helped
him
to the couch where
a white-faced
Selena was sitting with her eyes closed.

"
You all right?
"
Carter
touched her arm.

"
I think so. What happened?
"

"
We were drugged. Your friend slipped it into the wine.
"

"
Nick, I
'
m sorry. I can
'
t believe this.
"

He
looked around. Selena
'
s computer was gone.
Nothing else seemed out of place
The drugged bottle of
"
really good stuff
"
sat half empty on the coffee table..

"
Not your fault, don
'
t be sorry. How could you know she would do this?
"

"
Why would she drug us?
"

"
She
took
your computer. She must be an agent for Wu. Nobody else would know you were working on the book.
"

Selena looked stricken.
"
T
he whole book was on that computer. That means they have it, Yang
'
s got what he wants.
"

"
Then maybe now they
'
ll leave us alone. Don
'
t worry about it. We
'
ll figure out what to do. I
'
ve got to call the Director.
"

"
I
'
ll do it.
"
Ronnie placed the call. Harker wasn
'
t going to be thrilled at the news. After a minute Ronnie hung up.

"
The word
'
s out on Chen. I gave her description and we
'
ve got security tapes we can pull from downstairs. We
'
ll find her.
"

"
How long were we out?
"

"
Not long. I checked back about half an hour after I went next door. When you didn
'
t answer, I let myself in.
"

"
That bitch.
"
Selena was furious.
"
I thought she was my friend. She
was
my friend. I
'
d like to get my hands on her right now.
"

"
We
'
ll get her
,"
Carter
said
.
"
I wonder how Wu knew we were in
Washington
? The last the Chinese saw of us, we were buried in that mine.
"

"
That
'
s something we
'
re going to have to find out.
"
Ronnie went to the kitchen
and
brought back two glasses of water.

"
Drink up. Guaranteed, no drugs.
"

Carter
woke in the middle of the
night. The bedroom door was partly open
. He
heard
muffled sobbing
coming from the living room. Selena was sitting on the couch, her head in her hands.
He
was about to go to her when something stopped
him
.
He knew about grief.
Sometimes
it
needs to be a private thing.

He
went back to bed, but it was a long time before
he
fell asleep.

He
dreamed of Megan. 

Megan
was across the street, waiting for a bus.
He
waved, but she didn
'
t seem to see
him
. Endless streams of cars roared by and
he
couldn
'
t get across to her.
He
saw the bus coming and she still hadn
'
t seen
him
.
He
call
ed
her name but no sound came out.

Then
he
was standing next to her. She looked at
him
, shook her head, a sad expression on her face.

"
There
'
s no point in waiting, Nick.
"

"
Waiting for what?
"

"
For the bus. See?
"

She pointed at the large, black bus bearing down on
them
. The destination sign said AIRPORT.

T
he driver
was visible
through the windshield. He was faceless and he had a grenade in his hand.

"
Where are you going,
"
Nick
said.

"
There
'
s no point in waiting.
"

Then
he
was back in the village, feeling the rifle kick back against
his
shoulder, one, two, three times, watching the grenade come toward
him
, watching a child die.

He
woke soaked in sweat, heart pounding,
his
mind filled with thoughts of loss.

Chapter Twenty-
Six

Next morning Harker was dressed in her trade mark black pants suit.
S
he
wore
gold and ruby hanging earrings, a wild variation for her.

"
How are you feeling, Nick?
"

"
Like I
'
ve got a world class hangover.
"

"
I
'
m wondering how they knew you were here, and how they found you.
"

"
It would have been easy enough. They had my name. I just didn
'
t believe they were after us. They had to think we were killed in the mine.
"

"
I agree. So how did they make the jump back to
Washington
?
"

"
Someone must have told them Selena was here,
"
Ronnie said.
"
They could have tracked her to Nick
'
s.
"

The Director tapped FDR
'
s pen on her desk, thinking things through.

"
Not many
people knew you were here
. The people in this room. The FBI. No one else is in the loop at this point.
I
t must be the FBI.
"

"
A mole at the Bureau?
"

"
Has to be. Someone told Wu you were alive and here in
Washington
. Sending your friend was smart, Selena, you would never suspect her.
"

Carter
rubbed
his
bandaged ear.
"
They have Selena
'
s computer and that means they have the book. It
'
s what they
'
ve been after all along.
"

"
We can
'
t do anything about that now. Selena, how far did you get?
"

"
I translated all of the Sanskrit and
I have good assumptions about some of
the Linear A.
It's an unbelievable story.
"

"
How so
?
"

"
The first part is
a treatise on the immune system and circulation of the blood and
has part of
a formula for creating an elixir of immortality.
Nothing we didn't know.
Some information needed to complete the formula is missing. There
'
s a reference to a second book called
'
The Silver Garuda
'
that has the rest of it.

"
The formula isn't
what's important
.
If the book is true, it changes history. It says
the
First Emperor
is
n
'
t buried at Li Shan.
It claims h
e was taken to
Tibet
, where an order of priests w
ould
give him the secret of immortality. The text says the secret is thousands of years old.
"

"
You
'
re kidding
,
"
Carter
said.

"
T
hat
'
s what it says. It has a map showing where the emperor was
supposedly
taken. It
'
s
near
Mount
Kailash
in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
"

Harker was toying with her pen again.
"
How do you evaluate the historical material? Is there any truth in it?
"

"
I don
'
t know, but if it
'
s true the emperor isn
'
t in Li Shan and someone found his real burial site, it would be a fantastic archeological and cultural discovery. Emperor Huan
g was obsessed with immortality. He would have done anything to obtain it. Maybe he built his tomb to throw his enemies off track.

"
One of the ingredients of the elixir is the powder of
'
burning
silver
rocks
'
. The computer confirmed that those rocks must be very high grade uranium ore.
Ore
like that
w
ould impact China
'
s nuclear weapons production.
"

Harker
'
s pen drummed away on her desk.
"
Yang
might
want the book to find out where those priests got their supplies.
But h
ow would he know
that
? We just translated it and no one read it before.
"

"
If he has the
companion book
,
"
Carter
said,
"
he
'
d know your book
would
have what he
'
s looking for. Did you find out where these rocks
came from
?
"

Selena brushed a lock of hair from her forehead.
"
No. But directions can be found where the emperor was taken. That location is
marked
on the map.
"

"
How accurate is the map?
"

"
The names of the landmarks are archaic
and w
e
'd
need to find modern equivalents.
Mount
Kailash
is unmistakable. It shouldn
'
t be hard. That part of the Tibetan Plateau is fifteen thousand feet high and barren. There
'
s not much there except yaks and a few villages.
"

"
We can pin down landmarks with satellite imagery and GPS,
"
said Harker. She made a note.
"
We
'
ll get that today. In the meantime, how shall we handle the FBI? Nick, you know
Jordan
. Is he our mole?
"

"
I can
'
t see that. He
'
s dedicated. I don
'
t think he
'
s the one.
"

"
Then we need to bring him up to speed. We have to inform the FBI we think there
'
s a leak. Steph, how are you coming with those risk scenarios?
"

"
They
'
ll be finished this morning.
"

"
Good.
W
e
'
ll meet with
Jordan
this afternoon. Anything else?
"

No one had anything to add.