SixtySince Machuzak’s first admonition a lifetime ago, D’Abro’s sweater and passport have never rested beyond arm’s reach, and this time when his call reaches her she beats him and Slava to Bergstrom. By the time, twenty hours later, the three stagger into Hefei airport, Jikang Xiu, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Plasma Physics, greets them with visas in hand and waves them through passport control. They declare nothing.
From the windows of the limo hurtling toward the lake, the large, spacious city remains a blur except for a pair of golden arches, a Hilton and a variegated stream of rickshaws, tricycles, ox carts and Mercedes. They have arrived at China’s Daejeon, science city, but four times the size of its Korean rival. Halfway across the bridge to the penin
