Page 54 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest

“I want repair crews under the boat in fifteen minutes. Sooner, if we can.”

28

Taiwan

“I’m here in the room now, sir.”

Agent Tu was a square-jawed senior operative in the Ministry of State Security. He stood by the unconscious woman’s bedside in a private suite in Taiwan’s premier hospital. Her dark red hair had been shaved off of one side of her thickly bandaged skull. IV tubes snaked into her tattooed arms.

The man’s boss, Peng De, was on the other end of the encrypted cell phone.

The woman had survived a horrific traffic accident, or so the incident had been reported by a compliant police commissioner. In fact, she and a companion had tried to kill Huang Tzu-ming, a senior executive with one of Taiwan’s largest shipping companies, by running his car off a high mountain road. But Agent Tu, Huang’s driver, was a world-class expert in advanced tactical driving. He not only avoided getting wrecked but turned the tables on their attackers, forcing the two would-be assassins into the rocky gorge in their stead. The male driver had burned to death, but the female passenger had been tossed from the vehicle, shattering her spine and crushing part of her skull but saving her life.

At least for now.

Mr.Huang, a Taiwanese native, was a primary conduit in China’s superchip and graphics processing unit pipeline—the most advanced,integrated, and specialized processors needed for AGI development. Both were banned for sale and export to mainland China by Taiwan, the world’s primary source for AGI semiconductors.

But the Taiwanese shipping executive had been secretly arranging for the illegal sale and transshipment of these critical components to Beijing for years. His efforts had provided China with tens of thousands of graphics processing chips and were responsible for sixty percent of China’s annual supply. He was a perfect target for the Guardians and was the reason why a half dozen MSS agents like Tu had been secretly assigned to Huang’s security detail.

“How is our friend Mr.Huang doing?” Peng asked.

“Broken collarbone, slight concussion. He’s already been sent home—under guard, of course.”

“And his home?”

“I’ve doubled security there. Cameras are all fully functional.”

“Excellent. And the woman?”

“She’s in a medically induced coma. Stable for now, according to the doctors.”

“How soon can you transport her?”

“Twenty-four hours at the earliest. I will have one of my people with her in the room at all times, and two more on the floor.”

“Is that sufficient?”

“There is a strong police presence throughout the facility. We have the complete support of the local authorities.”

Agent Tu was on a first-name basis with several of Taiwan’s senior police and intelligence community officials. Despite the patriotic outbursts of pro-independent politicians, many of Taiwan’s elite saw the writing on the wall and had already formed discreet alliances with the Chinese Communist Party to secure their futures when the island finally unified with the mainland.

“Last you reported, she had no identity,” Peng said. “Any progress on that front?”

“She erased all of her online records—social media, bank accounts, everything. But twenty minutes ago we finally confirmed her identity.”

“Excellent. How?”

“Four years ago, she completed an online DNA test for family history. She deleted her account later when she expunged her other records, not realizing we owned that database. It was easy enough to take a DNA sample from her in her current condition.”

“And what did you learn? And I don’t care if she’s six percent Cherokee Indian.”

“Emily Nighswonger, age twenty-nine. Former AI bioscience researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. She left the position eighteen months ago and hasn’t been heard of since, not even by her family. Presumed dead.”

“And the driver?”

“We were only able to lift partial fingerprints from his remains. But we’re certain his name is Aidan Scally, age thirty-seven, an assistant professor of physics at UC Berkeley currently on leave. He’s also ex–U.S. Army intelligence.”

“Guardians,” Peng hissed. “These people are Guardians.”