by Ty Patterson
She cocked her head when a commotion sounded in the crowd. The last he heard as he was bundled into a van was her saying to the agents, ‘all birds are in the cage.’
Mikhail, one of the most lethal assassins in the world, was shackled to the floor with chains. He had never failed in a killing. No one knew of his second name and his face was known to only a handful.
His luck had run out.
* * *
Zeb and his team were in the White House, in Daniel Klouse’s office. Clare was there too.
They had arrived at eleven am and had been hushed to silence. There was live feed from several FBI cameras on a wall-mounted screen and a running commentary from their command center.
Zeb recognized Burke’s voice. She seems to be heading the takedown. He hid a smile when he sensed Broker’s pride. They had come across her on a previous mission and had helped her crack a case. That had put her on the fast track with the FBI. It had also brought her in contact with his friend.
She’d been unsure then. Whether it was one-sided. She had approached Zeb who had reassured her that Broker too felt the attraction. She made the move first and the relationship was still going strong.
Beth whooped at Burke’s all birds are in the cage. Flushed immediately when her sister kicked her leg. She put on a contrite expression which turned into a grin when the National Security Advisor winked at her.
‘Great work,’ he picked up a phone and congratulated the FBI Director. ‘Let Sarah know, oh, she’s with you? Can you put her on speaker?’
‘Sir?’ Burke’s voice came on.
‘Fantastic job, well done, Sarah. I heard not a single shot was fired. Not many people even realized what was happening.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
‘I have a few people here, with me.’
‘Hi, honey,’ Broker blurted, then groaned and covered his face with his hands.
The NSA laughed when she came back on the line after a meaningful silence.
‘I’ve got to go, sir.’
‘Of course. We didn’t hear any of that.’
‘You’re in trouble,’ Beth chortled under her breath.
‘Deep trouble,’ Meghan echoed.
Zeb waited for the mirth to die down. Looked at his boss, who evaded his eyes. Surely she realized they had work to do? Beth and Meghan had to uncover the secrets of the programs. There had to be a debriefing with Burke. And then there was Shuren, who surely knew by now that Hyde had been stopped.
They had to make plans for the Chinese spymaster-.
He sprang up instinctively when the door opened behind them. Like the previous time, he felt the force of personality even before he heard the President’s voice.
The Leader of the Free World went to the youngest team member. ‘Beth Petersen?’ he shook her hand, smiling warmly in that way that made people feel special.
‘Yes, sir…it’s an honor,’ she stammered.
‘And you must be Meghan,’ he greeted the sister. The President addressed each of them by name and when he came to Zeb, clasped both hands in his and said, ‘I’ve heard some stories.’
‘He insisted,’ Clare shrugged when the operatives turned on her.
‘Yes, I gave her no choice.’ President Morgan leaned against the NSA’s polished wooden desk and crossed his arms. ‘Clare’s briefed me on everything. I can’t thank you enough for what you have done. World leaders can’t –’
‘Sir,’ Zeb interrupted him. ‘The Agency’s a covert-’
‘I know, Zeb. No one’s going to know your names or your participation. The FBI, CIA, and a few international agencies, MI6, Mossad for example, will take credit. I will work with other government heads to make sure that story sticks.’
His face turned somber. ‘More than two hundred people have died around the world. All because of Hyde and these algorithms these people developed. We have temporarily halted trading in those stocks Ahmed mentioned to you. The FBI has opened a joint investigation along with the SEC. As for that joint security force…’ his face darkened. ‘I am going to confront the Chinese and Russian Presidents and also the Saudi King. I am going to play Ahmed’s recording to them. But you know what they will say.’
‘That they knew nothing of it,’ Beth chimed.
‘Correct. They’ll apologize profusely. They’ll say they will conduct investigations and guess what? Nothing will happen. Oh, sure. A few heads will roll, some folks will go to prison, but that will be for show. Saudi Arabia might even carry out some barbaric executions, but again those will be to save face.’
‘The G20 Summit is in two weeks,’ he continued. ‘I have spoken to the British Prime Minister, the German Chancellor and the French President. Our closest allies. They don’t know everything but they are with us on the messaging.’
‘Our democracies came this close to collapsing into anarchy.’ He didn’t hide his anger. ‘Someone has to pay for that.’
Here it comes, Zeb thought, sensing where the president was going.
‘I want you to send a message to the Chinese,’ he said strongly, his eyes taking them in. ‘We, our allies, our people, the nations around the world who have been affected…we aren’t going to take this lying down. We aren’t going to be manipulated. Take that last man out, Zeb. Take out Duan Shuren. Before the summit.’
‘Sir,’ the National Security Advisor broke the ensuing silence. ‘It’s quite possible he has already disappeared. That the Chinese government, disappointed with Hyde’s outcome, has arrested him.’
‘No, sir.’ Zeb spoke up. ‘Shuren is possibly the most dangerous spymaster in the world. The smartest. He would have covered himself. He would have a lot of dirt on his masters. He’s untouchable.’
‘No one’s untouchable, Zeb,’ the President said.
‘I meant for the Chinese, sir.’
‘Yes.’ The Leader of the Free World straightened as a soft knock sounded on the door. ‘Touch him, Zeb. Do more than that.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And Zeb?’ President Morgan stopped at the door and faced them. ‘Make it obvious, subtly, that it was an American act. And when the Chinese President calls me, I’ll deny that we had any hand in it.’
Chapter One Hundred Four
Zeb Carter was right.
Duan Shuren was not only alive, he was active.
On the ninth day from the destruction at Nevada Evergreen, he sat in his office in the International Commerce Center in Hong Kong. It was a hundred and eighteen story highrise. It contained a five-star hotel, the world’s highest swimming pool and bar and on its ninetieth floor, the spymaster had his office.
China Import and Export, read the discreet sign on the outside glass door. A visitor would see artifacts and antiquities, scattered around the office. Silk rugs, Ming Dynasty vases, sculpture and carpentry.
Shuren knew just enough of the pieces to convince a visiting customer that he knew his business.
Outside his office, assistants used to labor over their screens. They were intelligence analysts, software programmers, some of the best brains in the business. There was no one now, in any cubicle. He had no staff.
He had a few protection officers, but they were in his car, in the parking lot.
Carter. He was responsible for Shuren’s state.
The spymaster looked in the polished surface of his desk and flicked a straying hair back on his head. He was sixty-three, but looked a decade younger. Very few wrinkles on his face. His hair was greying but he had a full head still. He was trim, thanks to a two-hour workout each day. Ju-jitsu, mixed martial arts. Each week he spent an hour in the shooting range.
He had been a field agent. He had run missions. He had killed. He had turned agents in Britain and America. He had organized the theft of intellectual property. He had blackmailed high-ranking politicians and celebrities. There wasn’t anything he hadn’t done for his country.
His acumen and foresight had brought him to the top of the MSS. And then, he had carved out a depart
ment for himself. Clandestine operations that the Chinese Premier himself sanctioned under authority from the President.
Hyde had been the project he had been working on the longest. It would have been the pinnacle of his success. But now, he had nothing.
That wasn’t strictly true. He had his life. He was working on a few missions that would greatly help China, but no, they weren’t of the same scale as Hyde.
Shuren had known it was over when Nevada Evergreen was destroyed. Later, he had found that Ahmed had been captured. Until then, he had hoped that they could still keep Hyde going. That the combined force of the spurt of killings around the world, as well as in DC, would push the world to the very edge and make it receptive to the G20 announcement of the three leaders.
Carter had stopped him. Chernihiv, Indonesia, Colorado, Nevada, the American agent had been everywhere. How had he found out about those locations? The spymaster clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, closed his eyes and waited for the wave of rage to pass.
Ahmed. Once he had been captured, the end was near, but neither Shuren nor Yefremov had known that he was in American custody. Otherwise, they would have made alternate plans. The Russian was never heard of again. All that the spymaster knew was that the Nevada center was destroyed. Was Yefremov captured? Was he killed? There was no way of knowing. It was the same with the engineers in the American locations. For all he knew, Yefremov and the programmers were alive, spilling all their secrets to Carter.
Shuren toyed with a jade elephant on his desk and recollected a conversation in the Premier’s office.
* * *
The man was pale, seething. ‘The President got a call from President Morgan,’ he said as soon as Shuren had entered his office. He didn’t bother going through the customary formalities and that was when the spymaster knew it was going to be bad. ‘He accused China of interfering in their democracy. Not just theirs, but in countries around the world.’
‘Words,’ the spymaster scoffed.
‘THEY’RE NOT MERE WORDS!’ The Premier lost his composure. He was the head of government and reported to the most powerful man in China, the President. Didn’t Shuren know his place? ‘HE KNOWS EVERYTHING. HE TOLD EVERY DETAIL OF HYDE, MANY OF WHICH I DIDN’T KNOW. HE PLAYED A RECORDING OF SOMEONE CALLED AHMED WHO NAMED YOU.’
The spymaster kept a calm face. ‘I don’t exist,’ he told the Premier.
‘THE PRESIDENT SHARED A PHOTOGRAPH OF YOURS. HERE,’ he ran to his table, snatched a printout from his desk and shoved it under Shuren’s nose.
‘That’s very old.’
‘WHO CARES WHETHER IT IS OLD OR NOT? MORGAN KNOWS IT IS YOU BEHIND THIS. AHMED SAID IT WAS YOUR IDEA. YOU PROMISED!’ The premier, normally not a demonstrative man, wagged his finger in the spymaster’s face. ‘YOU SAID YOU COULD PULL THIS OFF. YOU PROMISED OUR PRESIDENT WOULD BECOME THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD. YOU ASSURED ME THAT WITH HYDE, CHINA WOULD RULE THE WORLD. NOW, EVERY COUNTRY KNOWS CHINA WAS BEHIND THE KILLINGS. THEY KNOW WE BOUGHT SHARES IN THEIR COMPANIES. THEY KNOW WE WROTE THOSE SOFTWARE PROGRAMS.’
‘We didn’t. Those were Russian programmers.’
‘WHO CARES!’ The head of government flung the photograph to the floor and stamped on it in fury. ‘That’s a small detail,’ he hissed. ‘President Morgan also spoke to the King of Saudi Arabia and the Russian President. He gave our leader and those two the same message. That he held our countries responsible and if we did not get back to him with acknowledgment of our role, he would expose everything.’
‘I thought you said other countries already know about our involvement.’
The Premier did something Shuren didn’t expect. He grabbed the spymaster by his lapels and shook him. It was a measure of his rage that he ignored all Chinese protocol, the unwritten rules of social interaction and proceeded to lay a hand on his visitor.
‘Shuren,’ spittle flew from his mouth, ‘I don’t think you realize how serious this is. President Morgan said tariffs go up on our country with immediate effect. That telcoms company will not be able to trade in the West. Every visitor to China will be investigated before a visa is granted to him.’
He was a smaller man than the spymaster but his anger gave him strength. He shoved Shuren back and wiped his mouth. He got hold of himself and when he spoke, his voice was steely.
‘Our President denied everything of course. What else could he do? He said any gesture by America would be matched by us. He also spoke to the Russian and Saudi leaders. They too denied their country’s involvement.’
‘Here we are,’ he said contemptuously, ‘you got a special budget for Hyde. You wanted a free hand, you got that. And you delivered only humiliation. You should know that President Morgan has said our President, the Russian and Saudi heads shouldn’t attend the G20 Summit.’
Shuren felt shock inside him but he hid it well. He wasn’t expecting that of the Americans.
‘You know what this means. You will be relieved of your duties. Your department is closed immediately. The President wants to know why you shouldn’t be arrested and face severe punishment.’
The spymaster knew what that meant. He would disappear. Tortured and killed, never seen or heard of again. It regularly happened to conspirators, enemies of the country, to traitors. Heck, he had made many people disappear himself.
He summoned a thin smile. ‘You know why. Because I made you and him. I got dirt on his political rivals and yours. I blackmailed party members for you. I have even killed for you. I know what your secrets are. Where the skeletons lie.’
‘Think before you speak. Choose your words carefully. You are talking about our President and me. You cannot cross us.’
Shuren knew what that meant, too. A kill squad would come to his house at night if he went against his leaders.
‘You think I have risen to this position without some insurance? If anything happens to me, all your secrets, his as well, will be leaked to American and British newspapers. Your mistress, his, both your secret accounts, the people you ordered me to kill, every little detail of what I have done for you. And if you think you can torture me and stop that leak, think again.’
The Premier stared at Shuren, his nostrils flaring. He pointed to the door. ‘Leave. You are no longer an employee of the government.’
‘That is not acceptable,’ Shuren began the negotiation.
* * *
The spymaster polished the elephant with a silk cloth and placed it back precisely where it was. At the right angle, the exact distance from the edge of his desk.
He knew he was lucky. A lesser man would have been killed. But because he had enough to sabotage the careers of the President and the Premier, he had survived, despite the fallout from Hyde.
He had stopped following the news ever since that meeting. He knew Western media was abuzz with rumors of Russian, Chinese and Saudi involvement in the world killings and in stock market manipulation. No one knew how that had leaked.
All three governments had denied any involvement. They had lodged formal complaints at their respective American embassies that their reputations were being tarnished.
China had handed over a secret report to the US State Department. It was a report of an internal investigation and blandly stated that the country had no role in the various events.
Shuren sighed. He got to his feet and went to the floor-to-ceiling glass panes of his office. He had a splendid view of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Bay. Highrises and densely populated buildings filled his eye. If he got to his toes and pressed his face to the glass, he could just about make out Stonecutter Bridge that spanned Rambler Channel, to his right.
The ground was far below. A thin ribbon of road, ant-sized vehicles plying on it.
Shuren had no fear of heights. He had no fear in his office. The entire building was clad in armored glass. It could withstand a grenade attack. Security was of the highest order. He was in one of the safest places in the world.
He pursed his lips and looked at the vessels in Ko
wloon Bay. At the speedboats and cruises in the channel ahead. An aircraft caught his eye. It was coming in from the west, over Stonecutters Bridge. Keeping low. He envied the freedom of the pilot and its passengers.
With a sigh he turned to his desk and to his mundane activities.
Chapter One Hundred Five
The Piper Cessna had the right permits. It belonged to an elite flying club in Hong Kong whose members were very high-ranking Communist Party members and officials in government. It was effectively, an untouchable institution. Law enforcement authorities didn’t dare to question the club.
The aircraft had filed the correct flight plan. It was commissioned by a research organization to study wind patterns around the city’s highrises.
The aircraft had a single pilot who steered the craft high above the channel after it crossed Stonecutters Bridge. It rose lazily, effortlessly in the air, flew over Kowloon Bay, skimmed the tops of several tall buildings and returned for a second pass.
A few tourists gawked at it from the waterfront. Choppers over Hong Kong were common. Private aircraft, less often seen.
Only the most observant or those with eagle eyes or with binoculars, would have seen a loading door open when the plane returned for its second pass. The aircraft returned for a third pass but this time, it rose high in the sky, twelve thousand feet over sea level and was a distant speck in the west.
* * *
The wingsuit jumper left the aircraft at that height. He was in freefall for three thousand feet after which he spread out his wings and his fall turned into a glide.
The suit flew eight feet forward for every three feet drop, its glide ratio.
‘You’re good,’ a voice in the jumper’s earpiece.
