by Brad Taylor
He rolled onto his back and embraced that he was going to die. He felt the weight against his legs shift when he moved. His head clearing more every second, his mind working to escape, he realized he shouldn’t have been able to feel anything if he was paralyzed.
He sat up and looked at his legs for the first time, seeing the body of his comrade lying over him. The head split open, the man’s brains layering his thighs, his tongue lolling from the mouth, the eyes open and staring at nothing.
Sanjar’s moment of revulsion was short-circuited by his survival instinct. He kicked the man off and stood, still woozy, still feeling the blow to his head.
A woman pointed at him, shouting something in Chinese. He raised his hand to shoot her and realized he was just pointing a finger. He staggered into the bushes to get away, running parallel to Nathan Road. He reached a public bathroom and went inside, sitting down on a toilet and pressing a hand to his head wound, trying to think.
He needed help. He dialed the general’s agreed contact number, but the call went immediately to voice mail. He stared at the phone in disbelief, then heard the police cars stop nearby. He staggered outside and began running to the west, putting distance between himself and imminent arrest. People began shouting and pointing. Pointing at him.
He jogged around the lily pond and dove into the bushes, ripping out a scrap of paper with the number to the general’s issued IRGC cell phone. He dialed it, then realized he was using the bait phone. No way could he link that with the general’s phone given by the cleric. He hung up before it connected, then realized the phone itself held enough incriminating information to damn him forever. He’d contacted three of the men on the new Quds team, including the dead man he’d just kicked off of himself.
He threw the phone into the bushes and activated the final cell he’d purchased near Sin Tat Plaza. Before he had a chance to dial, he saw an old man and woman waving at someone and pointing his way.
He broke out of the bushes, stumbling in a ragged jog. He saw police across the pond, near the grotto, and whirled around, heading toward the main entrance of the park, with everyone pointing his way and shouting. He rounded a corner on the path and saw a phalanx of police rushing toward him.
He sagged to his knees.
* * *
Elina hung up the phone and sat in silence, reflecting on her instructions. Leave again. Go somewhere else. The thought brought a sense of dread that was becoming all too familiar. She didn’t want to leave her hotel and go find another one. She’d not left this one since she’d met the contact yesterday and had grown used to the isolation. She’d lived on room service, the small “do not disturb” sign outside of her door a blanket of comfort.
She’d done her own cleaning, keeping her mind busy with daily chores as if she was still at home. Making the bed, washing the dishes in the sink before placing them back outside the door, folding the soiled towels ready for the exchange with the maid. An exchange that took no more than thirty seconds.
Now she would have to leave again, entering the claustrophobic mass of foreign humanity that was crammed on the island. She longed for the woods of her homeland. Longed to at least talk with someone whose primary language wasn’t Chinese.
She began packing, banishing the thoughts, a little ashamed at her weakness.
At least the mission is progressing. With any luck, she would be leaving this alien place for good in a day or two.
As instructed, she packed everything into a single carry-on bag, as that was all the ferry would allow. She left the few other belongings behind, hoping the maid would take them for her own use.
Downstairs, she had the concierge hail a taxi and give the cabby instructions. After a short drive, he stopped and pointed at the meter. She handed him more money than was necessary and said, “Ferry terminal? This is the ferry terminal?”
He nodded vigorously and made no move to help her with her bag. She stood on the street as he drove away, seeing that the terminal was very large.
What if I get on the wrong one?
She moved inside, and, after reading the confusing English on all the signs, she approached a counter and bought a ticket. She attempted to confirm it was the right ferry, but the man pointed toward a gangway and turned to the next customer. Realizing he was done with her, she walked toward the gangway. The farther she went into the terminal, the less it appeared anyone spoke English.
She saw the ferry was actually a double-decker hydrofoil, unlike the ones that simply crossed the harbor. The sight caused her nervous stomach to calm.
It has to be the right one.
She walked up the gangway into the lower deck, a large area with seating much like that of the coach section of an airplane, already full of people. She showed a man in uniform her ticket, written entirely in Chinese. He snatched the bag out of her hand and pointed toward a stairwell behind him. She said, “My seat is up there?”
He simply pointed again.
She said, “My bag?”
Irritated, he jabbed his hand toward the stairs, then piled her suitcase on top of a stack of others.
She walked up a short staircase and found that she’d been tricked into buying a first-class ticket. The room was laid out exactly like the one below, the only difference being the size and spacing of the seats. She grinned at how human nature was the same all over the world. She didn’t care about the cost, since it wasn’t her money.
She showed a second man her ticket, and he led her to a window seat. She settled in, staring out the glass to kill the forty-five minutes before the ferry departed.
The cabin filled up around her, with only one other westerner on her level. A female with dirty-blond hair sitting across the aisle and two seats up. Elina studied her, trying to guess where she was from.
Five minutes later, she felt a subtle shift. She glanced out the window and saw the pier sliding by, causing a spasm of fear. She looked at her watch. They were leaving twenty minutes early.
I’m on the wrong ferry.
She had seen a sign for Shanghai, but that had pointed to the other pier. She stood, walking to the front holding her ticket. The uniformed man pointed back to her seat. She said, “Macau? Ferry to Macau?”
The man became agitated, pointing again at her seat, but she’d had enough of the “inscrutable” Chinese.
“No, I’m not sitting down. Where is this ferry going?”
She felt someone pull on her shirt and turned to find the western woman trying to get her attention.
“This is the ferry to Macau. Is that where you’re going?”
American.
“Yes. I am. Thank you. It’s very hard to get anybody to understand you here.”
The woman smiled, a sincere, warm gesture, and said, “Boy, you aren’t kidding. It’s worse being a single female. They treat you like you don’t exist.”
Elina felt an instant connection and a compelling need to continue the conversation. Then she remembered why she was here. Where she was going.
Don’t get involved in questions you don’t want to answer.
She thanked the woman and sat back down, her heart stopping its rapid stutter, the fear now replaced with an emptiness that gnawed.
An hour later she’d docked in Macau and exited quickly, wanting to get away from the American lest she ask to pair up. The terminal in Macau was much poorer, showing the wear of time, which made her feel more at ease for some reason. She found a taxi in the swirling mass of people and managed to convey her destination. Shortly, she was in her new hotel room. Another Conrad Hotel. The room was exquisite, making her wonder if the Arab contact thought she could be bought. She dismissed the idea. In her limited engagement he had shown no indication that money would ever induce him to do anything. So there was no way he would believe such a thing about her.
Maybe just a little reward. He had to put me somewhere.
> She sat on the bed and turned on her cell, unsure how long she was supposed to wait. She received four text messages, startling her.
They were all from casinos welcoming her to the island. One after the other begging her to show up and win big.
Casinos? Is this the target?
She opened a hotel book and was surprised to see that Macau had become the number one gambling destination in the world, eclipsing even Las Vegas. She’d had no idea. She parted the shades of her window and saw a skyline in motion, with building after building under construction. Directly across the road was a monstrosity called the Venetian. An enormous building fronted by a man-made lake.
She booted up her tablet, got online, and Googled it, killing time.
Two hours later, after a dinner of room service, the standard “do not disturb” sign on the door, she gave up on meeting anyone that night. She stepped into the shower, exhausted by the day’s events.
She toyed with the massage head and leaned against the wall, letting the blast of water pummel her body, amazed at the technology. She bathed herself, then tried every setting, wondering if any of her friends had ever experienced such luxury.
Wearing a towel on her head and one around her body, she sauntered across the room, captivated by the view of the skyline in the setting sun. She leaned against the glass, watching the lights tinkle in the distance. A flash on the window caught her eye, and she realized it was her phone.
Picking it up, she saw a missed call. Immediately, she was brought back to earth. Back to the reality of why she was staying in such opulence. Deflated, she hit redial.
The man she knew as Malik answered and gave her instructions. She took notes and hung up. She had five hours. Five short hours before she entered the mission and left the opulence behind. She wondered again about her chosen path and how this would help her people. She was going to give all she had—her very life—and was unsure about Malik’s agenda. He seemed pure, but maybe he was being led down a path and using her as a result.
Nothing to do about it now but continue. What else could she do? Going home would garner her punishment, which she knew, given the pressure she’d felt to accept the mission, would mean her death. She held no illusions about the justice of the Islamists in Chechnya.
She dressed slowly, savoring every minute she had left in the room.
52
Kurt was doing all he could to keep from outright yelling at me through the computer screen, clearly on the verge of exploding about the actions at Kowloon Park.
I said, “Sir, it wasn’t our fault! They laid a trap, and we came close to triggering it. If it hadn’t been for Jennifer, we’d be in the custody of the Hong Kong police.”
“Jesus, Pike, I sent you there to develop the situation. Not get in a gunfight. Especially not get in a gunfight on Chinese soil. The council’s losing their mind right now. No telling what they’ll do when they hear this.”
The comment gave me pause. “What’s that mean?”
He backpedaled. “Nothing. It’s just that this virus threat is really scaring the shit out of everyone, and people are starting to wonder if the Taskforce is the correct tool. They want to go on war footing over it, to include punishing Iran preemptively.”
“What the hell are you talking about? They’ve been building a nuclear weapon for the last ten years and we’ve done nothing but blow a lot of hot air. Now we think they have a bioweapon and we’re going to nuke them? Who the hell is running the show back there? Jesus, give me some space to do what you pay me for. To figure this thing out.”
His next words sent a chill down my spine. “Are you alone?”
I turned and saw Decoy out of camera range. I motioned him out of the room and said, “Yeah, I am now.”
“Look, the president isn’t involved right now. He’s read on the vice president, and he’s running the show. Which means nobody is.”
I was amazed that the political world still had the ability to astound me with its stupidity. “Why is that? If this is so dangerous, the president should be front and center.”
Kurt said, “Well . . . believe it or not, the president has come down with the flu. A very bad case of the flu. They don’t want anyone to know, but he’s doing nothing but the public stuff that was already on the calendar. If it’s a private meeting, it’s postponed, which means he’s waved off on all Taskforce activities. He’s apparently getting briefed, but the doctor has ordered rest for at least two days. He’s put Vice President Hannister in charge.”
Phillip Hannister had been put on the ticket for domestic reasons in the last election. A genius at economics, he’d spent his entire career working with the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund. He was a wizard at domestic debates on the deficit and reducing the debt, but he was an idiot on foreign policy. Which was why he’d never been read on to Taskforce activities. He had no need to know.
And now he was in charge.
I said, “What’s that mean to us? I mean right now?”
“Nothing currently. I haven’t had a chance to brief them on your escapades. But it would help if you could give me some good news before he makes a decision we’ll all regret.”
“Well, I don’t really have any. I’m trying to track some phones to get some intel and I’m told you guys won’t play ball. I have Jennifer on a goose chase to Macau and have everyone else coming back here. These damn ten-minute phone pings aren’t working.”
I’d pulled in Retro and Decoy but let Jennifer run out her hunch, even thought it meant she’d be on her own in Macau. I was pretty sure getting on the ferry was stupid, but she seemed to think that nothing else explained the last cell ping.
I knew I had been right when she called after docking and said there were no males of Arabic descent anywhere on the boat. In fact, nothing of any suspicion whatsoever.
The final ping we’d received was in the general vicinity of the Hong Kong piers, and because we couldn’t get any drill-down, we’d had to use a little deductive reasoning. Jennifer had boarded the boat to Macau, and Decoy had boarded the next ferry across the harbor. Neither had panned out. The next ping had been dead, with no location.
Kurt said, “I hear you, but we aren’t going to start a war with China over this. We can’t dig into their network.”
I said, “Can’t, or won’t? I mean, you talk about how scared everyone is, then when I ask for a lock, I’m told that we’re afraid of someone over here suspecting we’re hacking their network. Who gives a shit about that? So they say we did it. If we stop a damn pandemic, they’ll give us flowers.”
Kurt looked down, then back at the camera. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
And I realized exactly what was going on. It wasn’t about someone suspecting a hack and a little bad press. It was because we were hacking them, and the additional scrutiny could flush that out. They were worried that my actions would blow some other top-secret covert operation.
I said nothing for a second, turning the implications over in my mind. I understood how hard such activities were, and the reluctance to risk the effort, but also that at the end of the day you needed to measure what was gained by acting versus what was lost by inaction.
“Sir, I hear everything you’re saying loud and clear. And I realize that’s not a Taskforce call. Not our operation. But someone needs to get a handle on the damn ten-meter target. This guy has a weapon that could potentially wipe out a third of the human race. Stack that against the intel we’re getting from whatever mission is going on.”
“I know. Give me something to work with.”
“I did! The damn phones, but we lost them.”
“Both? What about the other one at the Islamic center?”
“It ended up on the ferry piers as well, on the Kowloon side. By the time we staged, it was dead as well. I think they met up and no longer needed the phones. Other
than that, Knuckles got Ernie’s phone. He saw him get arrested, but the cops missed the phone he tossed in the bushes. It’s the same one we were already tracking. We’ll check it for forensics, but I’m sure it’s clean. That’s what they were using to bait us.”
Decoy entered the room. “Pike, I hate to interrupt, but Jennifer’s calling. She wants to know how many telecom companies are in Macau. She thinks maybe we’re using the wrong one for the pings.”
I turned from the computer and said, “This isn’t the United States, with a hundred different networks. Tell her to get back here. We’re going to need everyone to figure out a direction to go.”
Kurt said, “What was that about?”
“Jennifer. She wants to start pinging other networks on a fishing expedition.” As I said it, a horrible truth dawned. “Sir, does Macau have a different network than Hong Kong? Did your guys check that?”
I’d assumed that it would be the same telecom architecture, since the islands were so close together and it was Communist China terrain now. But it hadn’t always been that way. Macau had been turned over to the Chinese after Hong Kong, and long after an independent network would have been established.
I could tell he’d clicked on the same screw-up I had. “I don’t know. Stand by.”
I hollered out the door, “Start packing your things. Blood, check on the next ferry to Macau. Retro, get down there and recce the customs and transfer procedures. I want to know if they search bags or put anything through an X-ray. Decoy, call Jennifer back and tell her to stand by. Tell her to get us some hotel rooms in Macau.”
Decoy came through the door, dialing a phone. “What’s up?”
“I don’t think the phones are turned off. I think they just shifted to another network, and we were too stupid to ask the Taskforce to do the same.”
Kurt came on. “You get the tracks? They’re still active.”
My phone vibrated, showing one phone on the island of Macau and the other in the South China Sea.
On a ferry.
