by Lee Goldberg
P. J. was right, Ian thought. This was how to shoot action.
Margo struggled to steer from her cage on top of the taxi. It wasn’t easy. It was like trying to drive a speeding barstool. She wrenched the wheel, swerving around a truck in front of her and sliding into the right lane, putting the taxi between a bus in the center lane and the K-rail that divided the street.
Sparks flew as the taxi scraped the K-rail. There was an earsplitting screech of metal on metal, setting off another spray of sparks, as the camera platform grazed the bus. The seat belts dug into Ian’s flesh, saving him from falling into the road and under the bus’s tires. Mei screamed loud enough to startle Margo, who veered hard to the left, sideswiping the bus again.
The taxi hurtled down the road, pinned between the K-rail and the bus, setting off a shower of sparks on both sides, just as scripted. It was a beautiful shot, one that even Ian could appreciate despite his fear that the platform he was on would break away.
Mei leaned over the front seat, clutching the steering wheel and pretending to steer the runaway taxi as it blasted into a busy intersection full of traffic.
Margo weaved around the cars in front of her but steered too wide, plowing into a taxi and smashing it into a van in the next lane.
“What the hell?” Larry Steinberg yelled into P. J.’s ear. “That wasn’t in the script.”
“So what?” P. J. said. “Look at the shock and fear on Mei’s face. It’s gold.”
“Smashing those cars wasn’t in the budget.”
“It is now.” P. J. picked up a remote-control unit for igniting the squibs—the firecracker-like explosives that were planted in the taxi to mimic bullet strikes—and got ready for action.
Assassin #1 surged forward on his black motorcycle, firing blanks at the speeding taxi in front of him. That was P. J.’s cue to press one of the buttons on his remote.
The squibs exploded, creating the effect of bullets riddling the taxi. Mei ducked for cover as the rear window shattered, showering her with fake glass. Her scream, however, was real.
Ian felt like he wasn’t there, even though he was strapped to the side of the hurtling taxi, because he was experiencing it all through the camera. He was an observer trying not to miss out on anything cool.
And he wasn’t. He was getting it all. He was getting so into being the cameraman, and doing the best job that he could, that he almost forgot the real reason why he was there.
Most of the operatives in the Ordos command center were watching the car chase because it was exciting stuff. But Yat Fu was watching the Straker production crew at the base camp. Everybody on the crew was huddled around the director and his monitors, trying to catch a glimpse of the action . . . except for two people who were nowhere to be seen.
“Where are Ludlow and French?” Yat said.
Margo steered for the right rear bumper of the car in front of her, clipping it and spinning sideways in front of Assassin #1. The motorcycle T-boned the car and went cartwheeling over it into traffic, the stuntman landing on an inflatable cushion out of sight of Ian’s camera. The assassin’s spectacular demise happened outside of Mei’s window, with her in the foreground, as the taxi sped past. It was a great shot.
P. J. shouted with glee: “That’s the money!”
“It sure the hell is,” Larry muttered beside him.
“Sit up, Mei,” P. J. ordered. “Grab the wheel. Save yourself.”
Mei rose up, reached over the front seat, and grabbed the steering wheel again, acting like she was fighting to regain control of the speeding taxi.
The stuntman playing Assassin #2 charged forward on his black motorcycle, gun out and firing at Mei, who ducked from the exploding squibs and wrenched the wheel hard, matching Margo, who did the same thing.
The taxi swerved around a car and straight into the cross traffic of a busy intersection . . . and into the path of a rampaging eighteen-wheel truck. But the taxi squeaked through and the eighteen-wheeler roared by behind it, just as scripted, creating a wall in front of the pursuing motorcycles.
That’s when Margo figuratively threw out the script and began following the one that Ian had written the previous night. Instead of going straight, like she was supposed to, she made a sharp, tire-squealing left turn and rocketed toward the barricade of wooden sawhorses.
“Where the hell are they going?” Larry yelled.
P. J. had no idea and didn’t care. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen. It didn’t get more visceral than this.
Ian flicked the switch that turned off the cameras on the taxi, killing the video feed, and braced himself for impact.
Cops and civilians scrambled out of the way an instant before the taxi smashed through the sawhorses, batted aside the parked police car, and burst into traffic in a busy intersection, where nobody was following a script.
The driver of a real red-and-white taxi slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting Ian’s camera platform and got rear-ended by another, identical taxi.
Ian waved his thanks and apology to the driver as Margo threaded through westbound traffic toward the elevated West Kowloon Highway that ran north along the coastline to the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals.
“What is going on?” Mei yelled and turned to her cameraman for an answer.
Ian held up a piece of paper that read:
Be quiet. You’re defecting.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Classified Location, Kangbashi District, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China. July 4. 12:55 p.m. China Standard Time.
“The stunt vehicle has gone rogue and we’ve lost the audio and video feeds from it,” Pang Bao said, stating the obvious in case anybody in the control room didn’t understand what they just saw.
But they were still able to visually track the distinctive vehicle on the big screen using the satellite, storefront, and traffic cameras along the streets. It was clear to Yat Fu what was happening and he had to admire Ian Ludlow’s audacity.
“Wang Mei is running. Ludlow and French are with her,” Yat said. “Tell all of our units to move in and apprehend them.”
Margo snaked around the cars in front of her, scraping past many of them with the now-jagged edge of Ian’s camera platform, which stuck out way too far in the narrow lanes. She hoped Ian was holding on tight because she didn’t have time to drive gracefully. She floored it for the tangle of freeway overpasses ahead.
“What’s happening? Where are you?” P. J. demanded over the speaker in the taxi and in both Ian’s and Margo’s helmet speakers. “Where are you going? And why the hell aren’t the cameras on?”
Nobody answered. Instead, Mei turned off the microphone transmitter clipped to her belt and the radio on the dashboard.
Now the entire production was deaf and blind to what was happening. But there were still people watching from afar.
The spy satellite’s camera followed the stunt taxi until it disappeared under the West Kowloon Highway overpass and didn’t reemerge on the other side.
Yat Fu swore to himself. He knew that Lin Cheung Road ran parallel, and often underneath, the elevated freeway for miles, with long stretches that were completely hidden from view from above. But there were cameras everywhere in Hong Kong.
“Show me the cameras under the freeway and on Lin Cheung Road,” Yat demanded.
“I’m accessing them all,” Pang Bao said.
Dozens of camera views appeared on the big screen, creating a massive checkerboard of video squares. Not one of the feeds showed the distinctive stunt taxi, even though only seconds had elapsed since it was last seen.
How was that possible?
The warehouse under the freeway was empty except for a red-and-white Toyota taxi that Susie had parked there early that morning. Margo pulled up beside the taxi and stopped the car.
Ian unbelted himself, took off his helmet, and got off the camera platform, his legs shaking so much he was afraid he might fall.
Mei got out of the stunt taxi and marched around the front of t
he car to confront him. He saw the shock of recognition on her face. She hadn’t been expecting to see him.
“You’re a spy?” she said.
“He’s not, but I am.” Margo climbed down from the cage and took off her helmet, revealing her face to Mei.
“I just write about them.” Ian took Mei by the arm and rushed her over to the taxi. “You two get in the back. I’m driving now.”
Mei and Margo got into the back seat. Ian got behind the wheel. There was a baseball cap and sunglasses on the dashboard. He put them on just in case his face might be briefly visible to any traffic cameras, started the taxi, and drove out of the warehouse.
Ian turned onto Lin Cheung Road and headed northbound, merging into the flow of traffic and dozens of other identical taxis.
There was total silence in the Ordos control center as everyone stared at the videos feeds on the big screen. All they saw was the typical stream of Hong Kong traffic. The stunt taxi was gone.
“We’ve lost them.” Pang Bao just had to state the obvious, but this time it sounded less like a statement to Yat Fu than a recrimination.
Yat massaged his brow. “I want every operative we have in Hong Kong looking for that stunt taxi. In the meantime, we need to seal the city. Air, land, and sea. We can’t let them leave China with Wang Mei and what they know.”
“We don’t know what they know,” Pang said.
“That’s the danger, isn’t it?” Yat Fu said.
But that wasn’t the danger that he was truly worried about. He was afraid of the reaction of his masters in Beijing if Wang Mei slipped out of China while under his constant surveillance.
Ian continued north on Lin Cheung Road, then west on Mei Ching Road, and then onto Container Port Road, which ran alongside an immense field of thousands of multicolored shipping containers. The forty-foot-long steel boxes were stacked side by side, six or eight containers high, within a system of rubber-tired gantry cranes that looked like enormous rolling staples.
He took a slip of paper out of his pocket and checked Susie’s directions. He drove into the hedge maze of shipping containers, checking the numbers on the aisles and on the containers, until he found the one he was looking for and idled in front of it. The container was on the bottom of a tall stack.
“We go on foot from here,” Ian said. He opened the glove box and handed them each a tiny Maglite flashlight. “Take these.”
“What do we need these for?” Mei asked.
“You’ll find out soon,” Ian said. “But first we have to stash our ride.”
Margo and Mei got out. Margo opened the container, which was empty, and Ian drove the taxi inside.
He got out of the car, helped Margo close the container, and then, following his sheet of directions, hurried with Mei to a lone container where Susie was waiting for them with her upbeat publicist smile.
“Right on time,” Susie said. “But we still have to hurry.”
She opened the container to reveal a motor home inside with California license plates.
“Is that Damon’s rolling mansion?” Mei asked.
“Yes, it is,” Susie said. “We moved it into a ventilated container.”
Ian waved Mei and Margo inside the container. “Get into the motor home and buckle up.”
They went in. He turned to Susie. “Thank you for everything.”
“It’s my job,” she said. “Bon voyage.”
Susie waited for Ian to get into the motor home and then closed the doors to the shipping container, locking them inside and plunging them into pitch darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Ian, Margo, and Mei turned on their flashlights, illuminating themselves and Damon’s spacious motor home. Their flashlight beams played over the marble floors and countertops, leather furniture, and even a crystal chandelier. If Ian survived, he was definitely moving out of the Oakwood.
He eased into the driver’s seat and found his seat belt. Margo and Mei sat in matching captain’s chairs and belted in. Only a few seconds of silence passed and then they heard what sounded like a large truck approaching.
Something heavy landed on top of the container with a loud thunk, followed by the metallic snap of things locking into place. Mei gripped her armrests, anticipating what was about to happen.
The three of them remained quiet as the container was picked up by a gantry crane, transferred to a cargo ship, set gently down on deck atop a stack of other containers, and automatically secured into place with locking cables for the voyage. There were no more noises for a few more minutes and then they felt the smooth motion as the cargo ship moved away from the dock.
“I can’t believe you got me out,” Mei said. “How did you come up with this scheme?”
Margo said, “We decided to use our disadvantages to our advantage.”
Ian gave Margo a look that she didn’t see in the dark and then explained: “You were being watched constantly and the only time you didn’t have bodyguards at your side was when you were on camera. So if we were going to escape, it had to be while you were filming. Once I accepted that, the rest of the plan fell into place. But that also meant we had to work within the limitations of whatever scenes you were shooting.”
“Lucky for us, it was a car chase,” Margo added.
“The great thing about the car chase was that the streets were closed to traffic, and everybody, including anybody working for Chinese intelligence, was held back by the police,” Ian said. “That gave us a clear path.”
“Most of the way,” Margo said. “But after we left the controlled street, the challenge was ditching the car in a hurry and blending in to avoid surveillance.”
“It’s a good thing I was driving a runaway taxi in the script,” Mei said, “and not a Ferrari.”
“It was also thoughtful of Damon to have his motor home sent to Hong Kong by sea,” Margo said. “This will be more comfortable for us than an empty container with a couple of buckets for toilets.”
“All we had to do was move the motor home to a ventilated container, find the first cargo ship leaving the port, and get our container on it,” Ian said. “Susie and her CIA colleagues in Hong Kong handled that.”
“Where are we going?” Mei asked.
“Singapore,” Margo said. “And from there to the United States.”
“It’s a three-day journey but we have all the comforts of home,” Ian said. “There’s food, water, and even some candles to conserve the motor home’s battery power.”
“I hope there’s Dramamine,” Margo said. “I get seasick.
Kangbashi District, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China. July 4. 9:49 p.m. China Standard Time.
The ghost city was even more desolate at night, when most of the hollow structures disappeared into the darkness. Only the towers showed vaguely within the blackness. Blinking blue lights, strategically placed on top of the high-rises and within selected floors, etched loose, dotted outlines of the monoliths against the dark sky to prevent a wayward aircraft from smashing into them.
The streets were lit, but only enough to create sporadic pools of light amid long stretches of near complete darkness. Yat Fu liked to move in the shadows, avoiding the light, turning his nightly solitary strolls into a conscious metaphor for his work. But tonight, he wasn’t alone. Pang Bao emerged out of the blackness into the pool of light ahead of him.
Yat Fu stopped on the periphery of the light, remaining mostly in the shadows. “Any sign of them?”
“We found the stunt car in a warehouse under the freeway. They must have had a second vehicle waiting for them.”
Yat had already surmised as much. “We need to find out where they are hiding.”
“You’re assuming they are still in China.”
“They’re still here. Has Wang Jing revealed anything to our interrogator?”
“She’s in a cell in Beijing,” Pang said. “I’m told she’s not talking.”
Yat wasn’t aware that Wang Jing had been taken to Beijing. He’d assumed she was
taken to the same basement in Hong Kong where the bird market vendor and his granddaughter had been tortured to death. He was more troubled, though, by Pang’s choice of words and the hint of contempt in his voice.
“What else were you told by Beijing?” Yat Fu asked.
“This incident in Hong Kong is a distraction that comes at a critical juncture in the longest-running and most expensive covert operation our country has ever undertaken.”
“No one knows that better than me,” Yat said, stepping into the light. “I played a decisive role in conceiving it and have been leading the intelligence aspect from the start.”
“Beijing appreciates your loyalty and long years of service.” Pang took out a silenced Glock from behind his back and shot Yang Fu in the forehead. The old man fell backward, the darkness enveloping him. “But they’ve lost confidence in your ability to see this program to fruition.”
Pang unscrewed the suppressor from the gun. Yat Fu was a great man once but had probably been deftly masking his cognitive decline for some time, a common occurrence among highly intelligent men who recognize, but are unwilling to accept, the early symptoms of a serious neurological disorder. At least that was the prevailing theory in Beijing for the aberrant behavior of a man who was considered, until these last few days, a brilliant and visionary espionage strategist. It was certainly how he would be remembered within the Ministry of State Security.
He turned his back on Yat Fu, leaving the body to be collected by a cleanup team, and walked back to the office, mulling over what his superiors thought of the folly in Hong Kong. They didn’t believe that Warren Fung or Wang Mei had presented any sort of intelligence threat. Whatever information they had was of little value.
