13 Days to Die

by Matt Miksa

  The armed soldiers protecting the fort’s main gate had ushered the director through uncontested. She noticed one of the guards eyeing the green Zipcar logo on the side of her vehicle.

  “Mine’s in the shop. Shoddy alternator,” Allyson explained. She leaned in. “Don’t tell anyone I’m driving an import.”

  The young buck grinned, returned Allyson’s VECTOR credentials, and waved her through the checkpoint with a stiff salute.

  Fort Meade was a fortified city. Government offices and military training facilities sprawled over eight densely wooded square miles. There was even a residential neighborhood, complete with picket fences and cul-de-sacs—home to a population of nearly ten thousand. Newcomers could get lost navigating the vast compound, but Allyson knew where to find the black Audi. The employee parking lot.

  CHAPTER

  47

  Beijing, People’s Republic of China

  OLEN SNAKED THROUGH the narrow streets on a cherry-red Linhai. The scooter’s ultralightweight body maneuvered effortlessly through the gauntlet of curbside vendors selling counterfeit handbags out of dirty carts. A few reckless tourists—those daring enough to remain in Beijing during the pandemic—sifted through the merchandise, hunting for plastic treasure. There was something unsettling about women in surgical face masks clawing through piles of imitation Louis Vuitton.

  Olen twisted the scooter’s handle as far it would go, but the Linhai wasn’t built for speed. Jo’s Italian-made Vespa GTS 300 packed a heftier punch, and Olen struggled to keep pace. The doctor’s black hair whipped as she sped away, always just out of reach.

  Without warning, Jo braked in front of a three-hundred-year-old quadrangle home. A long white sheet hung loosely in its entryway, twisting and snapping in the breeze, swatting away unwelcome guests. An older woman sat on the stoop, puffing on a thin Baisha cigarette. She didn’t react to the motorcycle’s growling engine. Her shock of silver hair—cropped short along the sides and spiked on top—gave her a decidedly modern edge against the traditional architecture. She sat with impeccable posture, back arched, head tilted back, smoke spilling from her nostrils.

  “How many times have I told you, Zhinü, my sweetheart? Those wretched things aren’t safe,” the silver-haired woman chided in English as Jo dismounted from her scooter.

  Jo smoothed the tangles from her windblown hair. “This coming from a woman who’s two packs deep before breakfast.”

  “Take a deep breath, love. This is Beijing. Living here, we’re all two packs deep. Might as well enjoy it.”

  Jo smiled broadly. “Aunt Jin, you look absolutely radiant.”

  “It’s a new cream from Milan. You’d think they made it from crushed diamonds. The stuff’s ferociously expensive, but you can’t put a price on youth. You’ll understand one day, my darling.” Jin pulled back the loose skin around her left eye. She lifted her chin and angled her head to catch the most flattering light. A collection of gold bracelets jingled when she raised her arm.

  “So, what’s up?” In one graceful motion, the woman rose from the stoop and floated toward them. She kissed Jo on both cheeks as if they were European aristocracy. “I see you’ve brought me an American.” The woman inspected Olen with a playfully suspicious gaze.

  “What makes you think I’m American?” Olen asked.

  Jin reached out and squeezed one of Olen’s biceps. “You’re American,” she said confidently, her voice low and sultry. Olen shot a surprised look at Jo, who could barely conceal her amusement.

  * * *

  The moment Jo stepped into Jin Meihui’s home, a rush of childhood memories flashed in her mind like a flickering filmstrip. A scraped knee, the smell of freshly steamed dumplings, tearing into little red envelopes, her first kiss.

  Jo wasn’t sentimental, as a general rule. Jin had taught her to remain emotionally detached from material treasure. Nothing is permanent, Jin had warned, careful to add, Nothing except the trust and loyalty of family. The aphorism was intended to comfort a child who’d learned the pain of loss far too early, but the inescapable irony only cut deeper. Jin—the woman who’d taken her in, raised her after her parents’ death—wasn’t really her aunt. Jo had no family. But this modest residence, carved out of a centuries-old neighborhood, was the closest thing Jo had to a home. She’d always feel connected to it on some level. In this place, Jin Meihui had molded a miserable, dejected orphan girl into a confident, successful woman.

  “I’ve done some renovating,” Jin announced fleetingly as she led her visitors through a manicured courtyard and into the kitchen. She glided like a swan across a still pond. A milky wave of silk rippled in her wake.

  The feudal architecture of the quadrangle’s facade belied its ultramodern interior. The contrast was striking but not particularly unusual. For the past decade, wealthy real estate investors had been grabbing up historic hutong residences, only to gut their interiors and rebuild from scratch. Jo knew Beijing’s new upper crust craved the nostalgia of the old city—as long as they didn’t need to sacrifice the amenities of modern life.

  “Everything looks so different,” Jo said. She didn’t recognize the place. “When did you do all of this?”

  “You’ve been away for a while, my dear.”

  Jo felt a tinge of guilt. Over the past few years, her budding career had claimed whatever time her failing marriage hadn’t. She’d neglected the one person who had never let her down.

  “I’ve missed you,” Jo said apologetically. The doctor lowered herself into an egg-shaped chair. It was even more uncomfortable than it looked.

  Jin poured hot tea into three canary-yellow cups and placed one in front of each of her guests.

  “All right. Let’s cut the sentimental crapola,” Jin said sharply. “I don’t hear from you in three years, and then you pop in unannounced with an American puppy dog.” She glared at Olen. This time she wasn’t smiling. “You two screwing or something?”

  Jo’s cheeks flushed. “That’s none of your business.”

  Jin looked the American over, assessing his statuesque physique like an art dealer, then winked at Jo. “Attagirl.”

  Aunt Jin had a particular way of getting to the heart of a matter. She’d passed on the skill to her adopted niece as a necessity in their shared trade. More than just a maternal figure, Jin was also Jo’s mentor and colleague. On Jo’s sixteenth birthday, her aunt had offered her a job with the Ministry of State Security. It was an unusual gift, but one Jo had eagerly accepted. Following in her dead parents’ footsteps and joining the nation’s prestigious spy service had always seemed like her destiny.

  “The Q-Zone—” Jo began.

  “Was bunk. I know,” Jin blurted.

  “What do you mean, you know?”

  “Well, I surmise, at least. Blood River virus ravages the coast, and you’re sent to poke around some village in Timbuktu.”

  “Epidemiological surveys always begin at the outbreak site. If we don’t find the source—”

  “Yet here you are,” Jin interrupted. “The scientist sent to figure out the whole thing is drinking tea at my kitchen table.” Jin blew into her cup to cool the piping liquid. “Don’t get yourself down, honey. No one expected you to find anything out there.”

  “I see that now.” Jo’s thoughts flashed to the assassin writhing on the monastery floor seconds before the fireball consumed the building. “But that’s just it. I did.”

  “Did what, my dear?” Jin’s eyelids fluttered.

  “I found something,” Jo replied. She described the dead drop, the hypodermic needle, and even her ex-husband’s likely involvement in the engineering of the virus. Jo spoke with detached precision, as if delivering an intelligence briefing to a superior.

  “BRV45 is a weapon, and Ru built it,” Jo concluded.

  Jin set her empty cup on the table with a hollow tap. Throughout Jo’s revelation, her aunt had sipped calmly. Jo could sense her skepticism. Jin never took anything at face value. The old spy would need more compelling evi
dence to believe such a convoluted conspiracy.

  “There’s more,” Jo said. “Patient zero was NSB.”

  Jin snorted. “Oh, honey. You really have been living in quarantine.” Jin reached back and pulled a newspaper from the kitchen counter. She slapped it in front of her niece. The corners had curled from the lingering humidity. “That’s old news, Zhinü.”

  Written across the front page in bold Chinese characters was the headline Taiwanese Spy Source of Blood River Virus Outbreak. A grainy head shot took up most of the page above the fold. Even with the photograph’s slight blur, Jo recognized the man as Chang Yingjie, patient zero. The doctor’s forehead furrowed.

  “What’s the matter?” Jin asked. “Sounds like you’ve known about this for a week.”

  “That’s not it.” Jo slid the paper toward Jin. “The date.” She pointed to the article’s byline. “This story broke yesterday.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jin mumbled knowingly.

  “But we were attacked in the Q-Zone less than six hours ago.”

  “And the lab was destroyed, I presume. So you don’t have a sample of the original virus—the Taiwanese superweapon. Correct?” Jin asked.

  “The lab was bombed,” Jo snapped defensively. “We were lucky to have escaped at all.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jin blinked slowly, allowing Jo to compile the pieces herself. A good teacher never simply handed her student the answer.

  The doctor’s expression grew grim. “The PLA wouldn’t have destroyed the only evidence of Taiwan’s involvement,” Jo reasoned. “Especially not after the NSB connection went public.” The corners of Jin’s mouth formed a weak, sad smile.

  “And BRV45 spread beyond Dzongsar more than a week ago. Level three quarantine of the outbreak site was completely unnecessary,” Jo said. “There was nothing to contain. I tried to tell them that. I thought it was just a foolhardy overreaction. That the army was …” Jo shook her head, not wanting to believe it. “The army wasn’t trying to keep the virus inside Dzongsar Village. They were trying to keep me out, to stifle my investigation.”

  “Now, why on earth would the PLA want to do that?” Jin asked sarcastically. She poured herself another cup of tea.

  “It can only mean …” Jo started. “Taiwan wasn’t actually behind the attack, and the PLA knows it.”

  Jin tapped her spoon against the side of her porcelain teacup. The chime sounded like a game show bell.

  “But that doesn’t explain Chang,” Jo said. “Patient zero was unequivocally NSB. We identified him from his post in Sudan.”

  * * *

  Jin’s face turned stone-cold. She was reluctant to give any more hints with a foreigner in the room.

  The American boy spoke for the first time. “You know something, don’t you?”

  Jin smirked. “Muscles and brains.”

  Jo reached out and touched her aunt’s arm, imploring her to share more.

  “Chang Yingjie was NSB, you’re right about that,” Jin confirmed. “But he wasn’t spying for the Taiwanese.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jo replied. “You just acknowledged he was Taiwanese intelligence.”

  “Chang was spying for me, Zhinü.”

  Jo pulled her hand back, as if she’d touched a hot stove.

  “Oh, don’t look so shocked. You know what I do.” Jin twisted one of the silver spikes on her head, pinching the tip with a crunch.

  The reporter leaned forward. “You’re a mirror.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Jin said.

  Officially, her title was senior recruiter, but the designation wasn’t completely accurate. Jin didn’t pluck wide-eyed college students from the halls of Beijing University. That was child’s play. For more than thirty years, Officer Jin Meihui had specialized in something far more dangerous. She recruited double agents.

  Convincing an enemy spy to commit treason was a sophisticated procedure. It didn’t happen over small talk and sushi. Jin picked her targets with painstaking precision and only after conducting meticulous research. Sometimes she’d spend years cultivating a susceptible target. It wasn’t always obvious what the person really wanted. Money was a common motivator, but it was too ephemeral. When the cash dried up, so did the loyalty. Revenge worked better.

  Jin would single out a foreign intelligence officer whose talents had gone wholly underappreciated by his home country. All men had egos, and all egos could be manipulated. The best mirrors reflected not what was actually there but what someone wished was there, staring back at them. And Jin was a flawless mirror. She lured men with visions of power, respect, and stature. If she’d done her job correctly, her targets actually felt good about their seditious acts. One grateful man had bought Jin flowers. Another proposed marriage.

  “Chang hated the Sudan,” Jin explained. “New recruits always get lousy assignments. Heck, we all did. But Chang thought he deserved better. And so did I. Eight months ago, I convinced him to come over to our side. I instructed him to stay put at the NSB, for a time, and feed us information on demand. He leapt at the chance to screw the people who’d screwed him. Our resentful little mole.”

  “Then you must know why Chang went to Tibet,” the American asserted.

  “In fact, I don’t. I haven’t communicated with Chang since August.”

  “Did he get cold feet?”

  “On the contrary. Officer Chang loved being a double for Chinese intelligence. For once, he felt important and valuable. Unfortunately, he wasn’t either. At least not to the MSS.” Jin rose and moved to the kitchen sink to rinse her teacup. “Chang was too impatient. He wanted to be Jackie Chan. I needed him to sit tight and get a promotion or two. After a few months, his impetuousness worried me too much to continue. I was about to cut him loose.”

  “So, what happened?” the American pressed.

  “The PLA got news of my asset and started firing off RFIs.”

  “Requests for information,” Jo clarified.

  Jin eyed the American carefully. “Yes, they wanted intel from Chang, and as his handler, they had to go through me. It was a waste of time. I told them to come back in ten years. But one handsome lieutenant in particular just wouldn’t give up. I had already decided to dump Chang, so it made sense to hand him off and get the PLA off my back.”

  “Wait a second,” Jo said. “Chang was working for the Chinese army when he traveled to Tibet?”

  “Zhinü, there is more going on here than you or I will ever know. Look outside. See the foot soldiers marching in our streets? The People’s Liberation Army is in charge now. We don’t know who our friends are. It’s a dangerous time to be asking questions. I want to make sure you understand that.”

  Jin dried her hands on a threadbare dish towel—one she’d had since Jo was a child. She should’ve replaced it, but sometimes it made sense to hang on to things. Especially if they reminded her of simpler times, before she’d made so many mistakes, when she could still protect what mattered most.

  * * *

  Jo ran her palm across the newspaper, smoothing the crinkled page on the kitchen table. Everyone in China believed the Taiwanese government had unleashed a vicious biological weapon in Tibet. As soon as the story broke and Chang’s face appeared across every state-run media outlet, Jin would have recognized him and instantly known the truth. She knew patient zero was working for the PLA, and that meant the Taiwanese hadn’t attacked the mainland. The Blood River virus outbreak was an inside job, orchestrated in Beijing.

  “The PLA is responsible,” Jo stated bluntly. “Our own government did this.”

  Jin’s story was the final piece of evidence that revealed a sinister plot that had been months, maybe years, in the making. The 2PLA had wanted Jin to hand over Chang, but not for information. That was why his impulsiveness hadn’t deterred their interest. The army was simply looking for a body—someone who could turn up dead from an unknown disease and trigger a firestorm. Jin’s double agent, a Taiwanese intelligence officer, was the perfect pawn.

 
Jo had unwittingly played her part in the conspiracy. Her epidemiological team had identified patient zero and reported his NSB affiliation up the chain, and then all eyes had turned toward Taipei. President Tang of Taiwan had been beating the drum for independence, so everyone had assumed the bioattack was simply Tang making good on his campaign promises. He’d declare independence from China while the virus mired the mainland. Beijing would be too politically unstable to respond. None of that was true, of course, but when the media reported that patient zero was a Taiwanese spy, no one had believed President Tang’s denial.

  The plot had played out on the front pages of every global newspaper and even on the floor of the UN General Assembly. In China, people were watching the death toll rise every day, wondering how long they could hide from the Blood River virus. They were suffering, and they wanted revenge. The people had turned sharply against the floundering government in Beijing in favor of the army’s hawkish pledge of retaliation. Within a week, the nation had become ripe for political change.

  Jo had never imagined that the truth behind BRV45 would be so elaborate, so nefarious. The PLA hadn’t just exploited the crisis; it had manufactured the crisis in the first place. Within a week of the outbreak, the public was practically begging the army to step in. The PLA had overthrown the government without firing a single shot, and the people cheered.

  Jo’s logical mind worked to create order from the chaos—patient zero, the haphazard field lab in Dzongsar, the buried syringe, the bombing of the monastery. The PLA brimmed with megalomaniacs. Irrepressible ambition, boundless resources, dubious ethics—these were not unusual qualities in China’s leaders, but few possessed all three simultaneously. One man immediately came to Jo’s mind.

  General Huang Yipeng.

  “We have to tell President Li,” Jo said. “There must be something he can do. He can go to the United Nations, and—”

  Jin cut her off. “No one has seen the president for two days. The MSS believes he’s been assassinated. General Huang has turned Zhongnanhai into his personal palace. It’s over, my love.”