The 22nd Secret (112 page)

“I don’t know. All I know is she’s there and they’re trying to find out from the State Department what to do with her. We need the President.”

“Right, I’ll call him now. He’ll meet with us as soon as I can get there, say 10 pm your time?”

“Okay with me.” Tom paused a moment. “Howard, I’m grateful she’s alive whether she was successful or not.”

“I think anyone who knows Patty would feel like you do. I don’t have the time now but I plan to have a good cry on the flight to Washington. God, I’m glad this is over with. See you tonight.”

“Right.”

At 10:30 Tom and Howard sat down with the President in his personal office in the residential part of the White House.

“You say you have some critical information about the Level 21 program, Dr. Woolum? I assume your presence, Mr. Walker, means this has something to do with Patty Lawrence?” The President asked.

“Well, yes and no. I’m sure you’re aware Patty Lawrence turned herself in at the Embassy in Beijing yesterday?”

“Yes, the Ambassador is waiting for instructions. He wants to know what to do with her.”

“That’s why we’re here.” Dr. Woolum paused for a moment. “I’d like to report a possible breakthrough in Level 21 Technology.” The story he told the President left him speechless for several minutes.

“I don’t know what to say, gentlemen. The decisions you and your associates made without proper authority–”

The president got up and began pacing back and forth behind his desk.

“I’m stunned that you would participate in something like this, Dr. Woolum. If something were to go wrong, the United States could be totally defenseless against a nuclear attack.”

“Totally defenseless against the destruction of the human race? When will it stop, Mr. President? Just because the Soviet Union collapsed doesn’t mean the world is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation. China, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, they all have nuclear capabilities. And why? What do these countries want from this power?

“India and Pakistan, that’s who we’re really afraid will actually try and use nuclear missiles,” the President said.

“Precisely, sir how will it all end?” Howard asked. “What the
hell
do we want with the ability to destroy the world ten times over? How long until something goes wrong? How long until someone makes a mistake or more likely commits an act of insanity?”

“But you, of all people, know there are proper channels. Bring your idea to Congress get proper authorization.”

“We would have never gotten it. The original Level 21 technology would have never gotten approval or been kept secret this long if it hadn’t been for Reagan. He had the guts. It was his authority that allowed us to set up this ultra-secret Level 21 missile defense system. And under that authority Patty Lawrence just installed the upgrade in China. You know most of this, sir. Besides, the only way to make this work – really the only way to make sure Level 21 was in the Chinese systems and functioning at all – was to send Lawrence in there. If you were her, how many people would you want to know? Know you were going to penetrate the Chinese missile security and upgrade the secret American Star Wars technology embedded in it?” Howard paused and caught the President’s eye, making him stop his pacing. “Sir, she put her life on the line to help free the world of the threat of a nuclear holocaust, at least for the next few years until someone figures out how to break into Patty’s program. At least
we think
that’s what’s happened.”

“You think? What does that mean, Dr. Woolum?”

“Well, we are assuming because Patty is in the Embassy she was successful. That was the plan she and Tom worked out. But without confirmation from her I’m just guessing.”

Howard glared at the President, who looked back at him blankly.

“Mr. President, would you call the Embassy and allow me to talk to Patty? I think we need to know right away what happened this last year in China.”

The President sat down at his desk and picked up the phone. “Get me the Ambassador in Beijing and tell him to have Patty Lawrence ready to talk with me.” He listened for a moment. “I don’t care what he’s doing. Just do it and make sure Lawrence is available.”

He hung up the phone.

“Dr. Woolum, as President I need to know how long until this new technology infects our systems. What are the chances the Chinese or someone besides your people will break it before we do?”

“Mr. President, we wanted to eliminate the possibility of some rogue nation or the Chinese, who think they could lose a few million people in a limited nuclear engagement from having nuclear capabilities, not strip the United States of its defenses. We estimate one, maybe two years, for it to spread as far as our remote sites in the southwest. They’ll be the last to be infected, but that’s not what’s really important. Sir, if the Chinese are the biggest threat to our lead in this technology, then we’re decades ahead of them. At least that’s what I think. Patty knows. She was there and worked with their best. If all they have is what she gave them, then we’re even further ahead. We need to get her out of China as soon as possible, Mr. President.”

Howard looked the President straight in the eyes. It was clear he had the President’s full attention.

“The expert on this technology, hell the only person I know in the whole world who understands it, is the person who developed it. And she’s sitting in your Embassy in Beijing. You need to stop thinking of her as a traitor and start thinking of her as the young woman who just freed the world from the possibility that India and Pakistan will nuke each other. Her life is in grave danger and she’s in the American Embassy in China waiting for us to rescue her.”

The phone rang and the president answered it on the first ring.

“Put him on.” There was a pause and the President looked impatient. “I understand you have Patty Lawrence?” Another pause. “I’m here talking with some men about that very thing. I understand you want to get her out of there as soon as possible and so do we. I’d like you to put her on the phone. Okay, I’ll wait.” The President handed the phone to Dr. Woolum.

“I’ll take that,” Tom said, reaching for the phone. “Patty?” There was a pause, “Patty… that you?”

“Yes…Tom? Oh, Tom. I’m so glad to hear your voice.”

Tom could instantly tell the difference in Patty’s voice. She was no longer the invincible woman he had talked with days before she left for Alaska. Her voice was frail and quavering.

“You okay, they treating you all right there at the Embassy?”

The President could see the concern in the eyes of both men as he began to realize the magnitude of what this small group of people had done, the incredible risk Patty Lawrence had put herself under for the future of mankind.

“I’m fine, all things considered. They give me anything I want to eat. You can’t imagine how wonderful a steak and fries are after eating rice for a year. Tom,” Pam paused to make sure he heard her correctly. “I want to come home.”

“I understand. You want to come home,” Tom repeated, noting that Patty was functioning at a very low level. If this ordeal had worn Patty down this much, what would have happened to a normal human under this pressure for so long? It was time for Pam Koller to take a long vacation.

“Oh, thank God,” Howard said. He raised his hands to his face and began weeping. The President concentrated on the reactions of the two men sitting in front of him. He realized it would be some time before the shock would wear off, and what he had learned in the past hour would sink in.

“Howard and I are here with the President now. We’ll get you home within 24 hours, all right? Things are going to move fast now. Have you had any contact with Bobby?”

“No, they keep me pretty much alone.”

“Okay, that’s good. I’m going to take charge of getting you out. Bobby’s good, maybe better than his Daddy, at least at this kind of thing. You can trust him. He’ll handle everything there at the Embassy. The President and I will handle everything at this end.”

“Did Henry make it?” Patty asked.

Tom paused a moment.

“I’m sorry, Patty. Bobby can tell you everything that’s happened since you left Alaska.” Tom could hear Patty break down in tears on the other end. “The next person you’ll see will be Bobby, I promise. He’ll understand what you’re feeling. See if they can get you a double quarter-pounder with cheese and some fries. Tell them to charge it to me, all right?”

Patty hung up the phone and collapsed on the floor of the ambassador’s office in the fetal position, crying.

Tom handed the phone back to the President, who softly set it down.

“What happened?” he asked. “What does all this mean?”

“Mr. President, ‘I want to come home’ was a prearranged signal meaning she was successful,” Tom said. “Of course, we don’t know all the details but if she had said ‘get me out of here’, we would know something went wrong.”

They were the first words she said when Jim Mitchell found her at the plane crash – get me out of here. Not even Jim could have remembered that. Only seconds earlier she regained consciousness, she was still strapped to the rear seat of the plane. It was out of instinct and loyalty to her cause that she said, without thinking, “get me out of here”.

“If she never made it to the Embassy,” Howard said. “Well, I guess we wouldn’t know what had happened. He composed himself and looked up at the President while wiping the tears from his eyes. Tom was more stoic. He patted Howard on the back. “There’s a young man at the Embassy who’s part of our group,” Tom said. “He’s been trained on what to do in the event Patty makes it there. His parents never married, but he and his father maintained a very close relationship. His father did a lot for him both financially and as a dad. His father was Henry Lo.”

“Lo, the traitor?” the President asked, before realizing that there was probably more to Henry Lo than what came out during the Congressional hearing.

“There’ll be time for this later, but I think I can speak for Dr. Woolum and the rest of our group. We want you to write down the truth about what has happened and have it sealed in the national archives to be opened at some future date. Someday the people of the world will know the sacrifices made by Patty Lawrence and Henry Lo.”

Howard shook his head in agreement.

The President thought for a moment.
If it were true, if the United States possessed the ability to rid the world of the threat of mass destruction, if we could maintain this lead, if more than half the resources of the world were no longer directed at insane military objectives.

“I’m going to include in this document my recommendation that Henry Lo and Patty Lawrence be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

At 9 am, the ever-present Chinese security men observed Bobby Chan walking out of the American Embassy dressed in an overcoat and dark business suit. He carried his diplomatic passport in his hand. He was accompanied by a middle-aged Chinese American woman who was recognized by security. She also was dressed for travel and had her diplomatic passport. They got in the waiting embassy limo and sped off toward the airport. Chinese security radioed their men at the airport, who causally observed the two well-known American diplomats enter customs.