Rising Tiger

by Trevor Scott

  “I can handle myself.”

  “And I can’t?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m just a lot harder to reach right now.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m just messing with you.”

  He almost forgot about her great sense of humor. Jake really missed his old friend. “What will you do now?”

  “I don’t know. Do you have any plans on taking on a partner?”

  He laughed. “My plans were to retire and go fishing. You see how that’s worked out for me. The bastards keep pulling me back into the game.”

  “I hope you charged them this time.”

  “Damn right. It’s all off books, of course. The money is filtered through a U.S. consultant group to one of my offshore accounts.”

  “Brilliant. But you know they’ll hang you out to dry if anything happens to you. Especially with Kurt Jenkins gone. And Toni.”

  Jake had tried his best to block out the murder of his old friend and onetime lover, Toni Contardo. But it was hard to do so, especially with the revelation at her memorial service that the two of them had had a child together over twenty years ago.

  “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to bring her up.”

  “You were friends also, Alexandra.”

  “I know.”

  There was a long silence. Jake stood and looked at himself in the full length mirror. His body was still relatively toned from simple push-ups and crunches. But his skin was blemished with scars from bullet and knife wounds over his long career. Many of those had happened with Toni in close proximity. Then he ran his hands through his longer hair, which was streaked now with gray against the darker locks. He was afraid to let his beard grow out completely for fear of looking like an old man.

  Finally, Jake said, “Are you serious?”

  “About?”

  “A partnership.”

  Without hesitation, Alexandra said, “Yes, of course. I love working with you.”

  “Then let’s do it. But we keep it informal. I don’t want anything I do to fall back on you.” He also didn’t want to put her in any more danger than necessary. There were still too many people who wanted Jake dead.

  “That sounds Wunderbar.”

  “What about your current case with the BND?”

  “My boss has told me to get over it. I can live with that.”

  “How would you like another road trip?”

  “You mean like the last time you almost got me killed?”

  Jake laughed. “So you know what you’re getting into.” He sat back on the bed.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Do you still have your Canadian passport?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then get your nice butt on the next flight out of Munich and fly to Singapore.”

  “Why Singapore?”

  “That’s where I’m heading next.” He explained a lead he had gotten from Jenkins before taking off from Costa Rica. “But I still have to talk to a man tomorrow here in Taipei.”

  “What about the files I sent to your server?” she asked.

  “You won’t be able to download them until after my system reset itself. We can download them when we meet in Singapore.”

  He worked out details on where they would meet in Singapore, and then they both clicked off their phones. Jake grabbed his laptop, opened it and got back into the files he had downloaded from the jump drive he had gotten from the Taipei banker before the guy was murdered. He really did need to get some help with the Chinese parts of these files. But what he could understand was what he had suspected. The deposits into various accounts had come from banks in Beijing and Shanghai. The so-called Chinese communists were quickly learning the tricks of capitalists. And he knew that Remington must have had something to do with this.

  He closed the computer, turned off the table light, and tried to get to sleep. But this new prospect of working with Alexandra had invigorated him. During their last time together, they had actually discussed this possibility. Yet Jake had no idea it would happen so soon, if at all. It had just been talk over beers and a camp fire.

  Then his mind drifted back to his current case. The banker had been killed because of the information he had transferred to Jake. Whatever was on his computer was damning enough to kill over, and that meant Jake was on the right track. He only wished he had spent some time talking with those two men in the alley earlier in the evening. But instead he had just gotten a few more bruises and a sliced arm on his leather coat.

  4

  Taipei, Taiwan

  Shangwei stepped off the Red Line subway car at the Jiantan Station, the clock on the wall reading just after one in the morning. Glancing to street level, he could tell that the Shilin Night Market was winding down, with many of the kiosk stalls closed down and others being broken down now. Within the hour, he knew, these streets would look just like all the rest in this north Taipei district. He had tried to catch up with his target, hoping the man would get off after a few stops. But he never did find the man with the hat.

  The commotion from the man getting murdered in the streets was long over, the blood quickly cleaned away as if nothing had happened there earlier in the evening.

  Shangwei found the western-style bar and wandered inside, taking a seat at the end of the bar. He pointed to the tap at the Taiwan Beer pull and the bartender started drawing a beer for him. His eyes scanned the bar mirror behind the bar for his contacts and he finally settled on the two men sitting at a booth, the man with the long dark hair with a stupid look on his face. Then he quickly glanced at his own image in the mirror. His hair was longer than normal and would have never passed inspection from his army days. The heads from the dragon and tiger poked out from his shirt collar like pets from a blanket, and he fought the urge to scratch again at the newest additions.

  Shangwei paid for his beer, drank the cold one down in a few long gulps, and then wandered back out to the street.

  A chill in the air forced him to pull the collar up on his peacoat, the wool irritating his fresh tattoo, and he shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

  After a block of walking, he could finally hear the two men getting closer behind him. When he came to a narrow passageway, he turned right and wandered into the increasing darkness. Without looking behind him, he could tell the two men did the same thing.

  Just ahead the passageway curved to the right. The perfect place for his encounter. He simply turned and waited for the two men to catch up to him.

  He waited in the shadows, knowing the two men would be forced to look into the light coming from the building behind him.

  The two Taiwanese men stopped and both tried to shade their eyes from the light with their hands.

  “Tell me what happened,” Shangwei ordered, trying to keep his Chinese dialect hidden.

  The Taiwanese man with the long hair switched to near perfect English. “We were forced to take out our target. He already gave the banking information to his contact.”

  That was interesting. Shangwei used English now as well. “What did the man look like?” He already knew this, but he didn’t want them to know that he knew.

  “Nothing special. He looked European.”

  “Not American? How do you know?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  “What language did he use?”

  Long hair shook his head. “We don’t know. He never said a word to us. And we were too far away to hear his conversation with the banker. I went to college in Oregon. But this man wore European clothes.”

  “What else about the man?”

  The other silent one nudged his friend with the long hair.

  “What?”

  Long hair finally said, “He knew some shit. We’ve both been trained in the martial arts and this guy moved like a damn ninja in the darkness. He had us both knocked out within twenty seconds.”

  Shangwei already knew this. “Did he take anything from you?”

  “Just our dignity,” long hair
said. “We had nothing to take. No identification, nothing.”

  “Good, good. Is that still the case?”

  Both men looked at each other. “Yes. Wait. I got a photo of the man on my phone.”

  Shangwei shifted his head side to side. “You could have said that in the beginning.”

  Long hair pulled out his phone, found the image, and handed his phone to his contact.

  The image was not very clear. It showed two men in the distance sitting at a table. He zoomed the image in and focused on the man on the right. He turned the phone toward its owner and said, “Is this the man that kicked your asses?”

  Both of them nodded their heads.

  “Consider yourself lucky to be alive. This man is a killer. Since he left you alive, I’m guessing either he liked you or you didn’t totally piss him off.” He looked at the mute man and asked, “Do you have a phone?”

  The quiet one shook his head.

  Shangwei kept the phone in his right hand and he reached inside his jacket with his left hand. “Good work. I’ve got something for the two of you.”

  Both men smiled until they saw the gun with the silenced barrel appear from the wool jacket. But neither of them had a chance to react. The first bullet hit the man with the long hair right between the eyes, dropping him instantly to the pavement. The second bullet went into the open mouth of the quiet man, sending a splash of blood and brain against the wall behind him. With both men on the ground, Shangwei pointed at their bodies and put two more rounds in each of their chests.

  The gun back in its holster inside his jacket, he then casually walked into the passageway and made his way out onto the main street.

  This was worse than he first thought. Following the western man with the hat from the meeting, he had never gotten a really good look at the guy. He could live with the death of the banker. The man had outlived his utility anyway. But now he had confirmed who was on the trail of Bill Remington. Jake Adams. And what he knew about the man was one thing—he was not only deadly, but he was one relentless bastard. Yet, Shangwei had a couple of things going for him. First, he knew that Jake Adams was on the trail. And second, he had a picture of the man with the dead banker just before the guy was stabbed to death. He just needed to transfer and send the image to the local police, who would shut down the entire island until they tracked down Jake Adams. He checked his watch and smiled at what he knew was coming next.

  Straits of Taiwan

  The sleek, stealthy Kang Dang class frigate cruised through the dark waters of the strait between the island of Taiwan and the mainland of the People’s Republic of China, ten miles south southwest of Ma-Kung Island, on the northern edge of the South China Sea.

  Since it was just after 0300, the bridge crew consisted of the officer of the deck or OOD, a young lieutenant, and three petty officers.

  When the first indication that something was wrong came across the radio, the lieutenant had two choices. He could either wake the captain or deal with it himself. He chose the latter.

  This French-built frigate was state of the art, with a beveled exterior that reduced their radar signature. Their mission consisted of keeping the Strait of Taiwan clear of enemy submarines and aircraft. They were armed with the Hsiung Feng II anti-ship missiles, and the new Tien Chien II, or Sky Sword II, surface to air missiles. They also had a 100 millimeter automatic gun. The older single barrel French 20 millimeter Modele F2 guns had been recently replaced with the six-barrel American 20 millimeter Phalanx System.

  In just a few seconds the potential danger changed from the curious aberration to the possible conflict. An incoming aircraft had been identified at a Russian-built Sukhoi Su-33, carrier-based fighter jet. It had to be from the carrier they had shadowed in the past few days in the South China Sea while patrolling near the Spratly Islands, a disputed area the Chinese would like to control exclusively for oil and gas exploration. But one of those islands had always been part of Taiwan.

  The officer of the deck got on the radio and tried his best to warn the incoming aircraft that they were in international waters. No response.

  “Sir we have an incoming missile detected,” the communications petty officer said quickly.

  “Arm the Phalanx System,” the OOD barked. “Helm hard to port. Deploy electronic countermeasures.”

  “Phalanx armed.”

  “Arm SAMs,” the OOD yelled.

  “Tien Chien armed, sir.”

  The 20 millimeter Phalanx cannon automatically locked on to the incoming missile and fired a long burst of bullets, filling the night sky with tracer rounds. Seconds later and the missile exploded within a mile off the port bow.

  A round of applause erupted from the crew.

  “Fire one missile,” the OOD demanded with resolve.

  Without hesitation, a missile erupted from a midship pylon lighting up the sky as the fire trail faded away from the frigate. Seconds later and the proximity guidance system exploded the Su-33, the explosion a brilliant conflagration of yellows and oranges and reds.

  The OOD paced back and forth on the bridge, questioning if he had done the right thing. But what other choice did he have? They were under attack.

  Within seconds the ship’s captain rushed through the inner hatch, a look of horror on his face.

  5

  Jake had a hard time sleeping after that late call from his old friend Alexandra. Eventually, he just got up early, took a quick shower and dove back into the data he had gotten from the Taipei banker.

  He had no clear path in Taiwan after the death of the banker. Sure he had been given the bank account information he was seeking, but he had a feeling this data would not be a smoking gun to the indiscretions of Bill Remington. Not to mention his current location. But the information had to be important nonetheless, considering the murder of the banker.

  Before leaving for the day, he encrypted the files and bundled them into a zip file before sending a copy to his old friend, Kurt Jenkins, the former CIA Director, asking for him to have a trusted agent translate it from Chinese. Jake knew Kurt would have someone to also analyze the data.

  Then Jake downloaded a copy of the files Alexandra had dumped onto his private server. Like every other file on his laptop, he encrypted these files into a folder. At least these he could read, since they were in either German or English. In fifteen minutes Jake could see why Alexandra had been looking into Kreuzwelt Industries. They were not only selling questionably vague dual-use weapons systems to the People’s Republic of China, but they were also getting ready to ship NATO-restricted weapons to the Chinese and a number of Middle East regimes who had no right to western arms. Alexandra wasn’t going to be happy to see this. Just for the hell of it, Jake also sent this encrypted file to Kurt Jenkins, along with a simple question: “Is this shit authorized?”

  Finally, Jake packed up his small backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and headed down the elevator to check out of the hotel. When he got down to the front lobby, he felt an immediate level of angst he had not experienced in quite some time. There was a lot of activity for seven in the morning.

  He went to the desk and was approached by a beautiful younger woman dressed in a nice brown uniform. But her face seemed full of concern. She was the same woman he had checked in with, and her English was perfect.

  Handing her the room card, Jake said, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sir.” But a tear crept from the corner of her right eye, which she immediately wiped away.

  Jake glanced around the lobby and saw that others were outright crying. “What’s going on?”

  The woman looked up from her computer. “You don’t know?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “The incident last night,” she started and glanced back at a manager before continuing. “One of our navy ships was attacked by a Chinese jet.”

  “I didn’t hear. What happened?”

  “The jet fired a missile but the ship was able to shoot it down before it hit the ship. Then the ship
shot down the airplane. Our leaders call it an act of war. China says it was an unprovoked attack of its aircraft in international waters.”

  Shit. This could turn quickly from a simple mistake into an all out war within hours. The communist Chinese were looking for any reason to take back Taiwan.

  Jake assured the woman at the desk it would be all right. Then he picked up his backpack and wandered out to the street, wondering if he had just lied to that pretty woman from Taipei.

  He found a taxi with a driver who spoke decent English, and he had the man drive around the city from temple to temple for the next hour. Jake would get out and take a photo of the outer structure and get back in to move on to the next place. This, of course, was a delay tactic and a ruse. What he was really doing was making sure he wasn’t being followed. Kurt Jenkins had set up a meeting with a trusted agent of his at the Taipei 101 tower for nine a.m. At one time this contact had worked as an officer with the Taiwanese National Security Bureau. Jenkins said the guy had been run out of the bureau on trumped up charges of corruption. He was eventually exonerated, but not before his reputation had taken a major hit. Now the man ran security for the tallest building in Taiwan, with foreign nationals from dozens of countries working in its 101 floors.

  Jake had the taxi driver drop him off out front, leaving his backpack in the trunk, and he told the guy to keep the meter running. He didn’t expect to be that long.

  Taipei 101 was the world’s tallest building from 2004 until 2010, when the Khalifa Tower in Dubai blew past anything ever conceived. Jake guessed the architects of these monstrosities had a major problem with the size of their Johnsons. Maybe that was why Germany had no really tall buildings. Taipei 101 held everything from Air China to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, along with the obligatory Starbucks in multiple locations.

  Jake was given special access by a security officer on the fifth floor to access an elevator that brought him to the 100th floor. All the tourist that came to this building ended up on a highly-controlled indoor observatory on the 98th floor.