LOCKED DOWN: (A NICOLE GRANT THRILLER, BOOK 1)

by Ed Kovacs

  Hernandez glanced at his watch. Any minute now. He could tell by the body language of the plainclothes security man that some pronouncement had just come over the guy's comm-link. Zhao was on the move. When the moment came to fire, he'd play allegro so that even the guard nearby wouldn't hear the shot.

  There was a slim chance he might even get out alive. Even if he didn't, this assassination would collect a blood debt owed to the Hernandez family. He stared at the tablet and subtly moved the briefcase so it sighted on the most likely kill zone. He was incredibly focused, playing piano while at the same time aiming the weapon, when a hand touched his shoulder, causing him to butcher a slew of musical notes as his whole body jerked.

  The security man looked over toward the musical miscue as Nicole Grant leaned down and kissed Hernandez on his cheek like an old friend. “It was your walk,” she whispered. “I recognized it when you approached the piano.”

  Somewhat stunned, Hernandez turned to see a dark-haired beauty slide in next to him on the piano stool. Grant? Damn, she's learning fast. He couldn't see her eyes through the dark glasses, but saw her turn slightly toward his briefcase.

  “Zhao is about to walk through the lobby below us, and here you are playing the piano with a briefcase I've never seen before.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” he said, and he meant it.

  “No,” she said firmly and without hesitation. Grant glanced at the nearby security man and smiled. She appeared centered and focused. “Why did you blow off our meeting at the wine bar?”

  “Sorry, but that was unavoidable. You got the cell phone?”

  “Yes, and it appears you're anything but dead.”

  “This isn't the time,” he said, almost growling.

  “I know a better way to beat them than to kill people in a hotel lobby.”

  “Then you've got about five seconds to make your case.”

  “I've kept the audio file alive on the Darknet,” she said quickly. “The digital key is on my laptop at home. We can use the key to request the file on Darknet, and that gives us the recording, exposing Zhao and proving he was complicit with American intelligence.”

  Hernandez almost blanched. He quickly calculated the potential value of such a file, if it indeed existed. “You said you didn't listen to the audio file.”

  “I lied. As the op went down I didn't listen, but a week later I did. It's incriminating, dangerous information and that's why I've kept it alive on the Darknet.”

  “Doesn't sound like something you would do,” he said, suddenly doubting her.

  “It's true. Remember, a file sent to the Darknet is only good for maybe a month if no one uses the key to request it. Pieces of the file sort of drop off and the file becomes corrupted. So I wrote an insanely encrypted script that requests the file from the Darknet. It throws out a random request every few days, but doesn't actually download anything. The data is received, then deleted. My program was designed to keep the audio file fresh, because the Darknet systems see that the data was requested.”

  Hernandez's eyes drilled her, trying to fathom whether she was telling the truth.

  “We can get the audio file. If we go public with what you have and what I have—”

  “Going public isn't so easy. The American mainstream press won't touch this.”

  “Probably not, because they're part of the establishment. But WikiLeaks will.”

  “I already told you to forget about—”

  “I met the WikiLeaks researcher who was sent here to replace the dead woman.”

  “What dead woman?”

  “Helen something. Bennet, I think. You were supposed to meet her, right? She had an accident in London. And we know all about deaths from accidents, don't we?”

  “Yes, we do.” His mind flicked to a bad memory for a moment. He glanced at Grant. She'd collected some good intelligence in a very short period of time.

  “Anyway, there's a brave, very determined young lady named Rena Musaad who's been hanging out in the wine bar since she got here, hoping to meet with you.”

  Hernandez considered the situation. “I was supposed to meet Bennet there yesterday, but she didn't show. That girl Rena introduced herself, but I pretended I was a Brazilian tourist.” So the young woman he'd avoided meeting with in the bar really was from WikiLeaks, thought Hernandez. Interesting. But that didn't change the fact that he'd gone to a lot of trouble and expense to set up this hit in the Shangri-La. It wasn't every day you get a clear shot at a soon-to-be world leader. And he had other very good reasons for wanting to personally kill Zhao. “There's going to be pandemonium here in a second. Head down to the mall, then take the escalator up to Hong Kong Park. I'll meet you at the statue.”

  “Get me someplace that has a secure phone and T-3 Internet speed. We can get the whole cancer, not just one piece of it,” she said quietly.

  He was silent for a moment. “I have a personal investment in killing Zhao,” he said with a deadly quiet.

  “An investment?”

  “Why do you think I came to Hong Kong? I didn't come for you; I learned you were here after I arrived. I came here to kill Zhao. I came for this very moment that you're trying to spoil.”

  Nicole blinked. “Well I have a selfish, personal investment, too. It's called wanting to stay alive.”

  “I didn't come for myself, I came for my brother. They killed my brother!” he whispered, struggling to reign in his rage. “My younger brother Willie was part of the security detail in Pomona. He 'fell' in front of a train at Foggy Bottom Metro Station in D.C. ten days ago. The security video conveniently wasn't working that day.” Ron Hernandez had a very strong emotional investment in shooting Zhao Yiren dead right damn now.

  Grant sat there looking flabbergasted. “Your brother?” She lowered her head as if she was having a hard time taking everything in. “I'm... so sorry. I can't imagine how you must feel.”

  “No, you can't. Now move out,” he practically hissed.

  She hesitated. “I will if you tell me that killing Zhao will bring your brother back,” she said unflinchingly.

  Hernandez fought a wave of emotion as he worked hard to focus on playing the song. He'd already lost the sight picture on his tablet of the kill zone.

  “If you want revenge, be smart about it,” she insisted.

  “I'm about to waste the Chinese bastard behind it all. Give me a little credit for being smart.”

  “It's not just Zhao we want,” said Nicole, practically pleading. “We want the actual killers. We want the American co-conspirators. Every last bureaucrat or politician who signed off on this travesty. And there's something else I want.” She took off the sunglasses as her eyes moistened. “I want to live. I want to see my mom again. I want to get married and have children and grow old with my husband. I want you and me to walk out of here together and figure this out. But I know that if you do what you came here to do, it'll be over for me, for you.”

  Hernandez glanced at her. “It's already over for me, Grant. Willie was in Pomona because of me, I talked him into taking the security job so we could spend some time together. How can I ever face his wife, his little kids? He'd dead because of me. I destroyed my own family.”

  She hung her head. “I'm so terribly sorry. Do what you have to do, but I'm staying, I have nowhere to go.”

  Hernandez briefly closed his sorrowful eyes. He looked empty, like a man torn fifty different ways. What had been so certain mere moments ago was now questionable. And once again it was due to Grant. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw Zhao's entourage enter the lobby below. It was now or never, he still had time. He reacquired the sight picture and watched on screen as Zhao entered the kill zone. Zhao paused to shake someone's hand—he had the Chinese leader in the crosshairs of the video gun sight. He eased his foot off the piano pedal and placed it above the remote firing switch on the floor.

  He shot a look at Grant; she wasn't going anywhere. Damn it all to hell. Whacking Zhao had seemed like the best move he coul
d make. The bastard certainly had it coming. And it would rob the gutless wonders on the U.S. side who had approved of this nasty business of their prize. They'd be complicit in the deaths of almost twenty Americans, for nothing. Net gain: zero; technology loss: substantial; human cost: incalculable. Not that he thought the sleazeballs would lose a night's sleep over it.

  But now... what if she was right? What if they could make everyone pay?

  Hernandez took a deep breath and let out a long exhale...

  ...but he just watched the tablet screen as Zhao exited the hotel unharmed. The nearby security man bounded down the stairs without giving him a second look.

  Hernandez turned off the tablet and stopped playing. He lowered his head and stayed silent for a full minute as he tried to clear his thoughts, tried to see his next step. Willie was a former Marine, and when things were difficult, he'd often spouted the mantra “Improvise, adapt, and overcome.” The motto now flooded Hernandez with a sense of purpose.

  Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

  He cast a quick look at Grant. She didn't say anything, she just sat with him.

  Finally, he reached down and carefully retrieved the remote firing switch from the floor. “There's a CIA front company in One Pacific Place, the high rise just across the way,” he said, his voice finding strength. “It's a field office and has everything you need. I used it when I operated out of Hong Kong five years ago.” He checked his black-faced Suunto watch. “Our timing is good, if they've kept the same schedule.”

  “You want to break into a CIA facility?” she asked.

  “Do I want to? No. But if we ring the buzzer, I don't think they'll open the door.”

  CHAPTER 13

  18:10

  As evidence that not all Hongkongers got around on foot or via the Metro, the above-ground streets and underground parking levels were choked with vehicle traffic at Pacific Place. Couples on dates, young people headed for the movies, families stopping in for dinner, local shoppers, and out-of-town hotel guests coming and going kept the complex, which was open until midnight, busy in a city that always seemed to be fully engaged. A large outdoor wedding was about to take place on the plaza between the Marriott tower and the One Pacific Place tower and just off the curving road that connected all four towers.

  With the tension of the Shangri-La lobby behind her, Grant relaxed a little. She thought they fit in perfectly as she and Hernandez skirted the wedding crowd. She let him lead her toward a green and white sign indicating a stairway that threaded down into the bowels of Pacific Place. She’d felt tremendous relief that Hernandez refrained from shooting Zhao, and linking up with him had given her a huge jolt of renewed hope. She felt horrible that his brother had been murdered and knew Hernandez was saddled with guilt over the death. But right now she wanted some answers.

  “You haven't explained why you stood me up.”

  “Jaffir and I had a problem with the gun in this briefcase I'm holding.”

  The temperature cooled as they descended a damp concrete stairwell, and she digested the fact that he'd abandoned her in order to prepare for a kill. “Who's Jaffir?”

  “You'll meet him in a minute. We worked together in Pakistan.”

  “What kind of work?”

  The look he gave her suggested it wasn't her business to ask, but he answered, anyway. “Jaffir graduated from Caltech. He got his citizenship and spent ten years working for the Company in the Technical Services Division.”

  “Technical Services?”

  “They provide gear, gadgets, documents, and weapons to officers in the field.” He tapped his eyeglasses. “Like these glasses I wear that defeat facial recognition software. Anyway, Jaffir resigned to escape the Langley bureaucracy and went independent. In Pakistan we contracted with him as a facilitator, procurer, engineer, forger, make-up artist, burglar, and gunsmith. He's also a demo man, gourmet, and is trained as a combat medic. Plus he's not a bad singer. And that's the short description. The guy is brilliant. As a field operative, I can tell you he provides the best support I've ever seen, by a long shot. Every American and many Western spooks operating in Islamabad used Jaffir.”

  Hernandez opened a steel door and they entered an underground parking lot on Level LG1 below One Pacific Place, not far from a service elevator. Dozens of trucks and vans making deliveries or providing maintenance or repair services to clients in the tower sat parked all around. Hernandez scanned the area then motioned her forward.

  “So what happened?” she asked, quietly.

  “ISI, Inter-Services Intelligence in Pakistan is heavily infiltrated with Islamists sympathetic to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. And with America-haters. They learned what Jaffir was doing and targeted him for death. Our government turned its back on him because helping him would have angered certain factions of the Pakistan government. Anyway, I got him and his family out and set them up here in Hong Kong. So now he performs the same kind of services to Western and other friendly intelligence agencies on a freelance basis. For instance, he'll have a Canadian passport for you, driver's license, working credit cards and so on in a few more hours.”

  “But... you left me to fend for myself.”

  “You think I abandoned you?” He locked his eyes onto hers. “You took my cell phone from the sommelier. So we used the phone to track you. We even had Jaffir's daughters following you for a while. They enjoyed the window shopping.”

  Nicole didn't like the fact she'd been so easily manipulated, and flashed him a challenging look. She'd practically had a meltdown, but he'd just been toying with her.

  “Look, it was something of a test,” he said. “I needed to know what you would do, how you'd react to being on your own. You passed with flying colors.”

  Before she could respond he turned away and walked off through the parking lot, threading amongst all the trucks. He seemed to be avoiding security cameras mounted on the cement walls.

  “I could have walked right into the hands of the Chinese,” she said sharply, as she caught up to him.

  “But you didn't. And it's not just the Chinese we're avoiding. We need to learn who the Americans are in this little game. That's part of the reason why we're busting our way in to the Dragon's Lair.”

  Nicole wasn't placated by his explanations and pursed her lips unhappily. He stopped next to a DHL delivery van and cut her a look. “Grant, you're the one who wanted to work together. And since there's no time for pouting, let me paraphrase General Patton: 'Lead me, follow me, or get the hell out of my way.'”

  Her eyes narrowed. She didn't like being dressed down so brusquely. Yes, she desperately needed him, but she also needed a level playing field. After a moment, she locked him with her hazel-flecked green eyes into a stern gaze. “I'm going to amend the general's directive: I won't lead or follow you, but I'll walk side-by-side. Agreed?”

  He regarded her for a moment. “Sure you can keep up?” He set off with long strides, snaking his way through a maze of trucks. She scrambled to stay next to him.

  “I'm assuming this Agency field office we're going to has redundant biometric security controls.” She wanted him to understand that she had plenty to contribute. In fact, she felt a strong need to prove her worth to their newly formed partnership. “Facial recognition, iris scan, and finger vein scan.”

  “Forget facial recognition, you can defeat it with something as simple as cell phone video of a person with access, so the Company stopped using it. To get in we're looking at a smart card, iris scan, and finger vein scan. Plus an armed guard just inside the door. Unknown if there will be additional personnel present.”

  “Iris scans can be spoofed, but there is no way to defeat a finger vein scanner unless I can intercept the signal from the scanner itself.”

  “The scanner will be hard-wired, so you can rule that out,” he said.

  “Then I could try hacking into the command center, but that would take—”

  “Way too much time. So we have to defeat the finger vein scanner.”

&nb
sp; “There's no way I'm aware of to do that. You can't just cut off someone's finger and use it like you could with a fingerprint scanner.''

  “There's a way,” he insisted. “But it will take an extra twenty minutes that we don't have, because, believe me, our shelf life here at Pacific Place might expire any second.”

  Almost as if on cue, a truck door slammed from about twenty yards off to their right. They stopped in their tracks and silently watched as a uniformed repairman wheeled a hand dolly loaded with plastic tubs toward the elevators.

  She'd been holding her breath, so she let out a long exhale, then regarded him with a penetrating stare. “Two years ago, I thought you were a desk jockey. A middle management burnout case. I felt sorry for you.”

  He looked at her but said nothing.

  “How do you know how to kill people with mini-drones or to defeat finger vein scans? How did you know Zhao would be leaving the Shangri-La at exactly the right time? A gun in a camcorder, a gun in a briefcase. Who are you really?”

  He didn’t answer, just motioned for her to follow. They stopped behind a white Isuzu reefer truck from which they still had a good view of approaching vehicles.

  “Hernandez,” she said, with an edge to her voice. “I don't care if you are some super spook or assassin who's been to hell and back. No more games, no more tests. Shoot straight with me, or I'll take my chances alone.”