by Alex Ryan
During his trek from Discovery Bay to the pier at Mui Wo, he had crept through the backyards of a row of luxury homes, looking for a target of opportunity. Crime was virtually nonexistent in the wealthy enclave on Lantau, a fact he’d hoped to exploit. Along the way, he’d gotten lucky and found a house with the rear sliding-glass door open. The screen door had been shut, but a flick of the blade, a slit in the screen, and he was in. The homeowner had been fast asleep on the sofa in front of the TV with the volume plenty loud enough to mask Nick’s entry. He’d taken the man’s mobile phone from where it sat charging on the kitchen bar, had snagged one of two sweat shirts draped on a barstool, and, on his way out the door, had snatched the man’s reading glasses from the end table next to the sofa. Then he’d slipped silently back into the night.
An incomprehensible announcement in Chinese, followed by a garbled translation in broken English, told him that the six twenty ferry to Hong Kong Island was now boarding. Nick fell in behind a small group and moved through the turnstiles. He crossed the short boarding ramp to the ferry, which could easily carry ten times as many people on a busy weekday. His internal alarm was quiet; he didn’t see or feel anyone’s eyes on him. He drained the last of his coffee, handed his ticket to the man in a blue suit at the top of the gangway, and then stepped down onto the ferry deck. Most of the passengers stayed indoors on the first deck, so he moved up the double row of stairs to the second deck and then forward to the bow, where he took a position on the outdoor deck beside the wheelhouse. He looked out at the water and inhaled deeply through his nose.
The ferry sounded one prolonged, ear-piercing blast from the steam whistle atop the wheelhouse beside him—signaling to the world it was getting under way—and then pulled slowly and quietly away from the pier. Nick scanned the pier, parking lot, and coffee shop one last time: no one staring, no one phoning his departure to another team. Whoever had attacked the condo either assumed that he was dead, his body burned to ashes with the other Americans in the fire, or they had been unable to track his movements. He prayed for the former.
Leaning on the balcony railing, looking at the Hong Kong morning skyline, his mind drifted to Lankford. With considerable pain, he wondered if maybe Lankford had been right. He had been cavalier in Discovery Bay. He was no spy, that was true, but he knew better than that. Had his carelessness in wandering around Discovery Bay and NB North Plaza’s coffee shop and restaurants resulted in the safe house getting made? Was it possible that he was inadvertently responsible for Lankford’s death—not to mention the deaths of the other American operators and the innocent businessmen in the duplex next door?
The man asks for my help, and in exchange I get him killed . . . Fuck!
Now I have another teammate to mourn for a lifetime.
He was tired of death, tired of killing . . . tired of loss and guilt. He’d left the SEALs for this very reason. He’d come to China to find ways to make people’s lives better instead of finding ways to end them. He’d joined an NGO to replace violence and destruction in his life with charity and construction, but now here he was, immersed in violence and regret.
Again.
Is violence my fucking destiny?
He practiced his four-count tactical breathing until he had his emotions under control. Then he boxed the thoughts away. He needed to focus on the mission. Like it or not, he was on a mission, and that mission was to stay alive. Someone had disappeared Peter Yu; killed Yu’s girlfriend, Lihau; assassinated four CIA agents; and murdered a handful of innocent Chinese businessmen whose only sin was unwittingly renting half a duplex from the CIA. That same someone was also hell-bent on killing him, though he had thwarted that plan twice. If he couldn’t figure out who was the puppet master, then eventually his enemy would finish the job.
Nick rubbed his temples.
Think, damn it. Who could be responsible for this?
The hit on the safe house had government black ops written all over it, but last night’s assault in the heart of Discovery Bay was overkill, even for a very pissed-off Chinese government. As a former operator himself, he saw a glaring tactical-strategic disconnect. Too risky. Too messy. He tried to imagine Commander Zhang—cool, calculating, and cautious—briefing the Snow Leopards on last night’s op . . .
No way. Impossible.
He thought back to his last conversation with Lankford in the safe house. With his cover blown, Lankford admitted he was treading carefully—biding his time until his replacement could stand up a new operation with new agents and new NOCs. Lankford wasn’t out there poking the bear—quite the opposite, in fact.
But who else has the balls and the resources to go after the CIA with impunity if not the Chinese government?
When unmasked, the operator he’d shot last night had looked Chinese. That wasn’t proof of anything concrete, but it did tell Nick the assaulters were probably domestic. He hadn’t seen any markings or insignia on the dead man’s kit, collar, or shirtsleeves. Could they be mercenaries? Chinese mafia?
Maybe . . . but one thing is for certain: this all started with Peter Yu.
Nick looked at the stolen mobile phone in his hand. Right now, he felt more alone in the world than he ever had before. No SEAL teammates to watch his six. No Lankford waiting in the wings, a reluctant yet reliable ally just a phone call away. The gravity of his situation hit him. He was about to embark on a quest to unravel and end whatever the hell this was, and he would have to do it alone. Maybe the best thing to do was travel directly to the American embassy and get the hell out of China. He was long overdue to head home to Texas and see his family. But then who would stop the killing spree that Peter Yu’s snooping had set in motion? Something terrible was going on, but it was hidden just beneath the surface. He could feel it in his bones. His subconscious knew why he had nicked the phone, even if his conscious self didn’t want to admit it. He needed help.
He needed Dash.
He powered on the phone and dialed from memory.
Dash’s recorded voice came alive on the line in sweet, singsong Chinese. He didn’t understand a word, but he loved hearing her greeting because she sounded happy. After Beijing and what her psycho of a husband had done to her, she deserved to be happy.
He wondered, red-faced, if he was now about to fuck it all up.
The voice suddenly switched to English: “If this is Nick, leave a message and don’t stop calling until you get me.” Her voice had a smile in it, and he closed his eyes a moment, squeezing them tight after the beep.
He almost hung up, but the words came out like a stampede.
“Dash, it’s me, Nick,” he said. He opened his eyes and looked out at the silhouetted, fire-painted sky that was Hong Kong at sunrise. “We need to talk. I’m in trouble, and I could use your help. But don’t call this number. I’ll call you back in a few hours from another phone. I hope everything is going okay on your trip, and I . . .”
I what? Just say what were you going to say, you sentimental jerk.
“I missed not seeing you the other night. Anyway, please keep your phone on, and please don’t tell Commander Zhang that I called. Gotta go, bye.”
He ended the call and shifted his gaze from the sunrise to the dark eddies swirling in the water alongside the ferry. Then, with a sudden fury, he hurled the phone out into the bay. He watched it splash into the water and disappear into the black.
Disappear into the black . . . just like he was about to do.
CHAPTER 13
0625 hours local
Despite scrubbing herself raw in the hotel shower last night before going to bed, the fetor of death still clung to Dash. After bathing, she had liberally applied scented lotion to her hands, arms, and face, but it made no difference. The stink of rotten flesh and chemicals seemed to have seeped into her. Even now, hours later, she could still smell it.
God, what if it never goes away?
She inhaled deeply through her nose. Did she actually reek of corpse, or was she imagining it? Maybe it’s all in m
y head. She dragged herself out of bed and padded to the bathroom, suddenly compelled to brush her teeth.
She had worked late last night, pushing herself to finish the last of the autopsies so she wouldn’t have to go back. Working without Major Li had been both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because she wasn’t subjected to his persistent and abrasive scrutiny, a curse because completing the casework without him opened the door to the very post facto criticism and critique he loved to levy. In her opinion, Li lived and operated in the world of hindsight. With hindsight on his side, he was never wrong, and everyone else was.
By the time she’d made it back to her hotel room, it had been nearly midnight. After showering, she’d fallen asleep immediately, only to be awoken an hour later by a nightmare. In the dream, she was back on Tung Wan Beach, where the bodies had first been discovered. As she inspected the corpses with hacked-off noses and gaping holes for eyes, they reanimated en masse and dragged her, kicking and screaming, out into the surf, where they drowned her. When she woke, she was disoriented and gasping for air in the dark. It had taken her several seconds to realize where she was and that she was not drowning. After that, she’d tossed and turned in bed, haunted by a revolving carousel of gruesome imagery from her dream and what she’d witnessed in the autopsy suite over the last two days. She’d finally managed to fall back asleep around four AM. Two hours later, her alarm had gone off.
She rinsed her mouth and put her toothbrush away. Then she met her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She looked ghastly—thin and pale, with dark circles under her eyes. In the field, she almost never wore makeup, but today she needed it. She opened her travel makeup kit, used concealer under her eyes, and brushed some color onto her cheeks. Then she applied some lip balm. She sighed. What she really needed was twelve hours of sleep.
She hadn’t eaten anything yesterday. Autopsies and appetite were mutually exclusive. To make it through today, she’d have to break her compulsory fast. She was already feeling a little light-headed, and the day had just begun. She needed sugar.
And caffeine.
God, I could go for a bing and a cup of coffee right now.
She wandered out of the bathroom to dress for the day. As she shrugged off her nightshirt, her mobile phone chimed on the nightstand. Glancing at it, she saw that she’d missed a call while she’d been brushing her teeth. She didn’t recognize the number. It chirped again, and a pop-up indicated that she had voicemail. She played the message:
“Dash, it’s me, Nick. We need to talk. I’m in trouble, and I could use your help. But don’t call this number. I’ll call you back in a few hours from another phone. I hope everything is going okay on your trip. I . . . I missed not seeing you the other night. Anyway, please keep your phone on, and please don’t tell Commander Zhang that I called. Gotta go, bye.”
She sat on the edge of the mattress. The smile from hearing Nick’s voice—from hearing that he missed her—suddenly evaporated as the other more ominous elements of the message began to register: Nick was in trouble. Nick needed her help. Don’t call him back; he would call her. Don’t tell Commander Zhang that he’d called.
What the hell is going on?
Despite his instructions, she immediately redialed the number he’d called her from. The phone rang seven times, and the call went to voicemail. An unfamiliar male voice rattled off a recorded greeting in Chinese.
Definitely not Nick.
She ended the call and began pacing the room in her underwear. What kind of trouble was he in? Trouble with his job? Or something worse . . . trouble with the government? Had he lied to her about his identity? About his job? It wouldn’t be the first time a man she cared about had lied to her. It wouldn’t be the first time an American “friend” had lied to her. Maybe Nick had agreed to work for Chet Lankford. Maybe his assignment was to befriend her and deceive her, just like Jamie Lin had done.
She shook her head.
No, no, no. These are crazy thoughts, she chastised herself. Nick is not a spy. Since the day we met, he’s always been truthful.
Her phone chimed in her hand. She checked the screen and was surprised to read a text message from Commander Zhang:
Let me know when you’re up. Breakfast is my treat.
Much to discuss.
She texted him back:
I’m up. Whenever you’re ready.
She hadn’t heard from Zhang or Major Li since they’d abruptly left to go out on the Coast Guard ship, and she was curious to learn what they had discovered. She wandered over to the hotel dresser and pulled open the middle drawer to retrieve a clean outfit.
A loud, staccato knock on the hotel room door gave her a start.
Clutching her clothes to her chest, she walked to the door and looked through the security peephole. She saw Commander Zhang’s handsome face, huge and distorted through the fisheye lens. He was grinning.
“Hang on a second,” she shouted through the door. “I’m not dressed yet.”
“I thought you said you were ready,” he called back.
“I didn’t realize you were standing outside my door,” she laughed, dressing quickly.
“I hope you’re hungry,” he said.
“Famished. What did you bring me?”
“Bings and coffee . . .”
Smiling, she unlocked the security bolt and opened the door.
He handed her a paper sack and an insulated cup.
She made a show of inhaling the coffee aroma. “My hero,” she said, taking a tentative sip through the tiny hole of the plastic lid. Not too hot, not too cold . . . perfect.
Zhang smiled but made no move to enter her room.
“Come in,” she said, gesturing toward the room. “I don’t bite.”
“Are you sure? They have a café in the lobby.”
“It’s a big room. I have a sofa and a table,” she said, leading the way.
He shut and locked the door behind him and followed her to the sofa. She watched him make a quick-second survey of the room before he fixed his mocha-colored eyes on her.
“This is nice. Much better than the rooms on base,” he said. “Good decision to book here.”
She shrugged and retrieved one of three bings from the paper sack. “Just a place to sleep,” she said and took a giant bite of pastry. She angled the bag toward him, offering him to partake. “They’re delicious.”
He grabbed a pastry, took a bite, and set the sweet bun down on a napkin on the coffee table.
“You must have some news,” she said, chewing, “or you wouldn’t have tracked me down at six thirty in the morning. Did you find something out there with the Coast Guard?”
“A shipping container drifting below the surface, full of bodies.”
“What?” she gasped, nearly choking. “Were they like the others?”
He nodded solemnly.
Her stomach roiled at the thought of a shipping container filled with dozens of mutilated corpses. “How many bodies can you fit in one of those shipping boxes?”
“I don’t know . . . a lot.”
The obligation of having to conduct more autopsies hit her like a brick. “Did you recover the bodies?”
“Unfortunately, no. Things got complicated,” he said, shaking his head. “I almost lost a man.”
She could tell from the look on his face that he was holding back. Over the years, she’d become skilled at reading between the lines when talking to men. I almost lost a man was both a statement and an omission.
“Are you okay?” she asked, following her intuition.
“Yes, but it was close. We disturbed an air bubble in the container, and when it vented, the container sank, dragging us down with it. We barely made it out in time.”
She reached over and squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
He flashed her a cocky grin. “Just another day in the office.”
She shook her head at him and then looked down at her half-gobbled bing on the table. With the renewed talk of corpses, her
appetite was waning again. On top of that, she felt emotionally conflicted. On the one hand, she was selfishly relieved not to be receiving a new load of bodies for autopsy, and on the other, she was mortified at the scale of the organ-harvesting operation. Whoever was behind this was a sick, twisted, malevolent soul.
“But it wasn’t a complete loss,” he continued. “I managed to record the serial number on the side of the Conex box. The container is registered to Ya Lin Transport out of Macau, so I had one of my men run over to their office and start asking questions. The Logistics Officer at Ya Lin claims the serial number belonged to a container that disappeared from the loading docks at Haikou New Port on Hainan Island six weeks ago.”
“Do you believe him?”
“We made calls to the port authority at Haikou New, and the dock manager confirmed that a loss report was filed by Ya Lin thirty-one days ago for two containers. They searched the dockyard but never found them.”
“So it’s a dead lead?”
“I’m not sure. We’re going to stay on it. My men are having the terminal managers pull the cargo manifests for all vessels that embarked out of the Port of Hong Kong for three days before the bodies appeared on the beach. We’re going to cross-reference those lists with all customs bill-of-lading submittals and look for matches and mismatches.”
“You’re thinking that somebody stole that container, loaded it up with bodies, and tried to sneak it out in a shipment of legitimate cargo? That way, even if the container was discovered, the only documentation would point to Ya Lin.”
