even half an hour of sleep, he would be better able to focus on everything he needed to achieve.
He arrived in Columbus shortly before dawn. Using the last of his sterile cell phones, he called a Chinese asset named Wei Yin and gave him a code word. When he arrived at Yin’s home in Dublin, a suburb just outside Columbus, the paunchy, middle-aged Ph.D. with glasses and thinning hair was waiting for him. He was sitting in a darkened downstairs window. As Cheng pulled into the driveway, Yin pressed the garage remote, the door opened, and Cheng drove in. Yin then pressed the button again and closed the door behind him.
They said few words. They were not friends. Theirs was purely a business relationship.
Yin was rusty and uncomfortable. He had not provided sanctuary for a Chinese operative in twenty years. His primary function in the United States was espionage. As a research fellow at the Battelle Memorial Institute, a leading science and technology development company, he had access to a wide array of sensitive and important American projects.
Forgetful of what the specific protocol was, Dr. Yin fell back on his upbringing. He offered his visitor tea and something to eat. Cheng accepted both.
As the doctor cooked a traditional Chinese breakfast, he used Yin’s computer to “link surf” the Web. He knew how the NSA’s sophisticated algorithms worked and he was careful not to conduct key word searches about what had transpired in Nashville that might be picked up and flagged. He merely clicked from one link to another, trying to zero in on what he wanted.
From what he could tell, the authorities didn’t appear to know who was behind the death of the police officer or the storage facility fire. That, or they weren’t making anything public.
There was also no mention of the murder of Wazir Ibrahim or Mirsab, the engineering student assigned to the Nashville cell. While that was a good sign, he was wise enough to know that just because the information was not in the press didn’t mean the authorities were unaware. He would have to proceed with an abundance of caution. Disguising himself wouldn’t be a bad idea either, especially considering everything that had happened in Nashville.
He knew the CCTV system had been taken offline, so there would be no record of his having been there, but the officer’s behavior still bothered him. It was too aggressive, almost as if he suspected something bad was happening. Perhaps Cheng was making too much of it, but he didn’t think so. He was worried that somewhere, dots were being connected.
After breakfast, Yin asked what else the visitor needed. Cheng wanted to lie down for a few minutes, then to shower and change. There had been no time to return to the hotel in Nashville for his belongings. Not that it mattered. There was nothing in the room, nor in his suitcase, that was incriminating. He planned to contact the hotel, check out over the phone, and have them FedEx the bag to the poultry plant in Nebraska. Then, all he would need was a new vehicle. That was where Yin had come in.
Cheng was to collect the princelings and transport them to the Second Department’s asset known as Medusa. To do that, he was going to need an appropriate vehicle. He wanted a low-key minivan, preferably white or silver, with tinted windows. He would be covering a lot of ground over the next thirty-six hours and the vehicle had to be completely reliable.
After Cheng had showered and changed into the clothes Yin provided, the research scientist drove his visitor past multiple Columbus used car lots until the man identified the vehicle he wanted. When the lot opened forty-five minutes later, they test-drove it, and Yin bought and registered the van using one of the false identities and the cash he maintained in case of emergency. Cheng instructed him to submit a request to the Second Department for reimbursement.
More an academic than a field operative, the mild-mannered Yin had been anxious to be rid of his surprise guest the moment he had arrived. After the van had been purchased, his visitor told him he would be responsible for disposing of the stolen Toyota sitting in his garage. Yin wasn’t looking forward to driving it to a bad part of town and leaving it running, in hopes that someone else would steal it, but if that’s what was required of him, that was what he would do. Anything to hurry