Part 58 (1/2)

”You're right,” Simbal said into the silence. ”Kam Sang is what it has been about from the beginning.”

”What do you mean?” Jake asked.

”Kam Sang was the reason Donovan brought me into this. Two of his agents went underground in the diqui. They were killed, but just before that they managed to report to Donovan that the diqui was interested in the Kam Sang project.”

Jake nodded. ”That's why. And now you know where Donovan's interest in Kam Sang comes from.”

”Daniella Vorkuta?”

”Right,” Jake said. ”Vorkuta again.”

Simbal s.h.i.+fted his position. ”But what is it exactly that was discovered at Kam Sang?”

The green bower dripped all around them. The jungle, weeping with moisture, fell away from them in a hard line. It devolved here and there, as it descended in raggle-taggle fas.h.i.+on, into rocky scree upon which great black birds sat, cawing.

Theyalong with perhaps a score of Shan warriorshad come some fifteen kilometers from the tiny village of the tribe loyal to Simbal. In that time, they had ascended perhaps a further five hundred meters. The air now had about it the tang of ozone that scoured the back of the throat and tended to sear the inside of the nostrils. One had to be in good shape here or the relative scarcity of oxygen would inordinately tax the cardiovascular system.

”We're very near,” Jake said. ”According to Uncle Tommy.”

The storm had not blown over, merely seemed to be taking a breather. But, for now, at least, the air was calmer than it had been for the past twenty-four hours. The two dozen or so Shan soldiers were grouped loosely through the small clearing. Simbal had set guards every fifty meters at a one-hundred-meter perimeter.

”We're into General Kuo's territory now,” he said. Wisely, he saw no point in pressing the Kam Sang issue. Deeds not words, he had learned in the Shan, were the only basis of trust. ”He's the head man all over these parts,” he said. ”Very bad dude.”

”We're going to have to go right down his throat then.” Jake pointed. ”a.s.suming Uncle Tommy was giving me the straight goods.”

Through the dense foliage within which they crouched they could just make out patches of a structure.

”Looks like an opium factory,” Jake said, sniffing the air.

”Bingo. Maybe the biggest one in the Golden Triangle. Kuo's the only one fanatic enough about security to keep his factory at his base of operations. The other generals like to take it down the mountain before refining it.” Simbal s.h.i.+fted his position. ”We haven't got the firepower, you know,” he said. ”Kuo's men will chew us up and spit us out.”

”I don't give a s.h.i.+t about General Kuo,” Jake said. ”I wasn't thinking about taking your Shan soldiers with me.”

”You mean just us, don't you?”

Jake looked at him. What did he really know about this man? At the killing ground, Fo Saan said, trust no one. ”That's entirely up to you,” Jake said.

Simbal waited a minute. ”You're a hard one, aren't you? What do you think you're trying to prove?”

Jake kept his eye on the opium factory. It was important to get a sense of the minute-to-minute movement around the site.

”You've got a bad att.i.tude, you know that?” Simbal tore a bit of fern in two. ”That's going to get you killed one of these days.” He jerked his head in Bliss's direction. ”I hope you've provided for your lady love, *cause she's going to need some comfort after you're gone,”

”Do you always talk so much?”

”Only when I have something on my mind.”

”Okay,” Jake said, ”you've done your duty. Feel better now?”

”That wasn't for me, buddy,” Simbal said. ”It was for your benefit.”

Jake said nothing. In five minutes he had counted no less than forty Shan at the factory. Not a good sign.

”What we've got to do,” Jake said, ”is find some way in and out of there.”

Simbal snorted. ”How about a couple of pine boxes. That's the only way we're coming out of that fortress if you insist on doing a duo number. Unless maybe you've got a couple of those miniaturized nuclear warheads we could lob at them.”

”You'd better go to a movie for that,” Jake said. ”We're not likely to get any help here.”

At that moment they heard voices raised, quickly stifled. They left their position, went back through the jungle.

They saw a man standing on the periphery of their makes.h.i.+ft camp. He wore a bush jacket over a buffalo plaid flannel s.h.i.+rt, Nike sweat pants and Eddie Bauer hiking boots. On his head was the kind of expedition fedora Harrison Ford made famous in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Bliss, who had been given a spare AK-47 from one of the Shan, had it trained on him. ”I found him lurking in the underbrush,” she said, when she heard them approach.

”Jesus,” Simbal said, ”what the h.e.l.l are you doing here, Rodger?” There was no reason to let him know he had been expected.

Rodger Donovan put his hand out and gingerly pushed the muzzle of the submachine gun aside. ”Time for a little vacation from Was.h.i.+ngton,” he said, coming up to them. Turned his head. ”h.e.l.lo, Jake. I haven't see you in a while.” He redirected his gaze. ”The information you gave the Cuban was quite detailed. From that, I gather you never expected me to make it out of my director's chair.”

”You're not a field man, Rodger,” Simbal pointed out.

Donovan frowned. ”Have I dressed wrong?”

Simbal laughed. ”If only this were a movie set.”

”Never mind that,” Donovan said, ”I'm here, aren't I? Now I want an update on the diqui.” He saw the look pa.s.s between Jake and Simbal. ”I must've missed plenty since you're here, Jake. What's your interest in this?”

”What happened, Donovan,” Jake said, ”things get a little bit too hot for you back home?” ”Meaning what?”

”Meaning this,” Simbal said, thrusting the sheaf of incriminating evidence at him.

Donovan took it and slowly went through the doc.u.ments. ”What's this supposed to be?” he said.

”Your epitaph,” Jake told him. He handed over the photograph, gave a silent prayer that Simbal would not get carried away and mention Apollo.

Donovan looked down at Daniella Vorkuta's slightly blurred face. ”Not a very good likeness,” he said.

”And you should know,” Simbal said archly. ”You know what your mistake was, Rodger? Hanging that d.a.m.ned Seurat in the office. If you'd left it at home, you'd be okay now. But Max saw it and knew it for the real thing right off. He'd seen it before, you see. At an auction in Paris. He was there when it was sold. To a KGB lieutenant named Daniella Vorkuta.”

”I see,”

” *I see'? ” Simbal cried. ”Is that all you have to say?”

”You're Chimera,” Jake said. ”You're Vorkuta's mole. You always were.” He was trembling visibly. ”You set me up to kill Henry. My best friend, my mentor. You”

He leapt at Donovan, who threw up his hands to ward off the attack. Simbal jumped between the two, turning toward Jake, pus.h.i.+ng him back. ”Stop it!” he shouted. ”Jake, that won't solve anything!”

Jake thought of the moment in time when he had first met Henry Wunderman. The man had come to Hong Kong to seek him out. Tell me, he had said, why are you still on this rock, running errands for the Triads? Because I'm half Chinese, a very young Jake had said. And if you were fully Chinese? Wunderman had asked. I'd find a way to make the Triads work for me. Wunderman had smiled. Suppose I can show you a way to do that, he had said. Would you be interested? Jake sure was. And then Wunderman had said to him, This also might be the way to find out what happened to your father. Wunderman hadknown that about him: Jake's secret desire. ”There's Henry's death to be accounted for,” Jake said at length.

”And your guilty conscience,” Simbal said.