by Alex Ryan
She glanced at Nick.
He nodded.
“Now I suggest everyone put their guns away, so nobody accidentally gets shot.”
Zhang hesitated a beat but then holstered his weapon. Lieutenant Chung followed suit.
“Much better.” Then, striding off toward the dim light down the tunnel, she added, “Now, if you boys would follow me, please.”
After a hundred meters, they reached a section of tunnel brightly lit overhead by regularly spaced yellow halogen lights. Fifty more meters and the tunnel joined a hub where other tunnels and hallways connected. This was the spot, she remembered, where Gang Jin’s enforcers met them the last time they forayed into the Underground. She stopped, halting the group in the middle of the domed junction. Two dark side passages intersected their tunnel: one on the left, one on the right. In her peripheral vision, she saw movement. Two men, dressed in black fatigues and bearing submachine guns, stepped out of the shadows and greeted them at gunpoint.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Dr. Dazhong Chen, and these are my colleagues. We would like to speak with Gang Jin.”
The sentry on the right eyed her with suspicion, then glanced at Nick, Chung, and Zhang in turn. She saw a flash of recognition in his eyes, then the corners of his mouth curled up into something resembling a smirk.
“I remember you,” he said in Mandarin. His eyes flicked to Nick. “And him.”
He said something to the other sentry, and both men laughed.
“What’d he say?” Nick whispered.
“I’d rather not translate,” she said.
The sentry keyed the radio microphone clipped to his shoulder and requested an audience with the Mayor. The reply came back after a short delay, with Gang Jin’s voice on the channel: “Bring them to me.”
The lead sentry faced the group and said in stilted English, “No weapons.”
Zhang sniffed and narrowed his eyes at the hired gun. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay, then you stay,” the sentry said.
Zhang sighed, and he and Chung handed their weapons over to the guard.
A moment later, two more men dressed in matching black fatigues emerged from the far tunnel. These men were also armed, but their rifles were slung casually across their torsos. They approached the first two sentries and chatted in clipped, rapid Chinese. The collected pistols changed hands, and then one of the newly arrived sentries motioned for Dash and the others to follow him.
The sentries led them to what Dash remembered to be Gang Jin’s “city center.” Upon reaching the reinforced steel door, one of the sentries entered a code into a wall-mounted security keypad. An LED light blinked green, and the magnetic door lock clicked open. The guard turned to her and nodded with his head for them to enter. She looked at Zhang for one final wordless reminder: Remember, this is my show. You promised to be good.
He met her gaze: I’ll behave, I promise.
Taking the lead, she stepped into Gang Jin’s operations center and was relieved to be greeted by a genuine, albeit cautious, smile from Beijing’s underworld boss. He looked the same as the last time she’d seen him: clean-shaven, neatly trimmed hair, and dressed in a dapper, expensive Italian suit.
“Two unexpected visitors in one day,” Gang Jin said, his hand on the back of a chair facing away from them. “What are the chances?”
On that cue, the chair swiveled, and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of the man sitting in it.
“Lankford?” Nick mumbled, eyes wide with disbelief.
The CIA man flashed them both a wry grin. “Surprise.”
CHAPTER 22
The Underground City
“How is this possible?” Nick said, staring, mouth agape, at Lankford. “You were in the safe house when it blew up.”
“Actually,” Lankford said, getting to his feet, “I made it out before you. I saw you egress, but I couldn’t call to you. I tried to catch you in the woods, but I’m old and fat, and all you SEALs are fucking ironmen . . .”
Nick stepped up and pulled the CIA man in for a brotherly hug. “I’m glad you made it out, bro.”
“Me too, Nick,” Lankford said, clasping an arm around Nick’s back. “Me too.”
“How is it that you’re here? And why didn’t you reach out to me sooner?”
“I wanted to contact you, believe me, but I wasn’t about to make the same mistake three times,” he said with a sardonic smile. “What happened in Discovery Bay convinced me that our entire operation was blown. I couldn’t trust my network, and I certainly couldn’t trust cyberspace. I assumed you’d come to the same conclusion, and when you did, I knew you would find your way here. If you made it out of Hong Kong alive, then it could only mean that some of my spooky ass had rubbed off on you.”
Nick laughed and stepped back to get a read on everyone else’s reaction to Lankford’s miraculous resurrection. Zhang looked dubious, Dash appeared relieved, and the Mayor of Beijing’s Underground City was grinning large—hiding whatever his true feelings were on the subject like the chameleon that he was.
“This is quite the unexpected reunion of old friends today,” Gang Jin said to the group before his eyes settled on Zhang and Chung. “Except, I don’t believe we’ve met before—”
“I am Commander Zhang, and this is Lieutenant Chung, of the Snow Leopard Commando Counterterrorism Unit headquartered here in Beijing,” Zhang said. Nick watched Zhang’s eyes survey Gang Jin’s operations room, which was not unlike a military tactical operations center. Half a dozen workstations—each with its own computer, flat-screen monitor, and phone—formed a half oval. The half oval faced a large flat-screen TV monitor mounted on the far wall, the screen divided into eight squares—four to a row—displaying different CCTV feeds of underground passages and cavernous rooms. He could tell from his expression that Zhang was not pleased with what he saw.
The Mayor’s gaze flicked to Dash, and for a fleeting instant, Nick saw wounded betrayal in the underworld kingpin’s eyes. Dash smiled at the Mayor, her eyes reassuring and kind.
“Don’t worry, Commander Zhang and Lieutenant Chung are not here in an official capacity.”
“Which means you do not have squads of Snow Leopards standing by at entry points around Beijing to storm the Underground City?” Jin said.
“Not today,” Zhang said, his face stoic.
Nick winced. Of all the responses the Snow Leopard Commander could have given, that was probably the most inflammatory and dangerous.
“Ah, I see,” the Mayor said, smiling wryly. “This is a scouting mission in preparation for your assault to take down the empire I’ve built.”
“If I’d wanted to arrest you, Jin, I would have already seen it done. We’ve known about your—”
Glaring at Zhang, Dash cleared her throat loudly. “Sorry to interrupt, but as I was saying, the reason we’re here is because we have a serious problem, and we could use your help.”
“And what problem is that?”
“As I’m sure Mr. Lankford already alluded to, someone is trying to kill us.”
“Hmm,” Gang Jin said, rubbing his chin theatrically. “Now, that is a problem.”
“We were hoping that given your particular network of contacts, you might have heard something,” Nick said.
“Mr. Lankford already explained to me what happened to Peter Yu and how the retaliation began immediately after Nick arrived in Xi’an to investigate his death.”
“That’s correct,” Dash said. “But there’s more to the story. Commander Zhang and I were also investigating Peter Yu’s death, but Yu is not the only victim. There are dozens and dozens of victims, including one of our team members—Major Li of the People’s Liberation Army, who was murdered at the Port of Hong Kong. We believe all these murders are linked to the biotechnology company Nèiyè Biologic, located in Xi’an.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” the Mayor said. “But I know nothing of this company. Nor have I heard of any contracts being issued on any of you.”
Nick pursed his lips. It had been a reach, but he had hoped that the Mayor would have information on both Nèiyè Biologic and the men trying to kill them. If they were involved in illegal organ harvesting and sales, then it wasn’t crazy that the underground mayor’s enterprise would have had dealings with Nèiyè. He searched the man’s face for any signs of insincerity but found none of the typical tells of deception. He turned his gaze to Dash; he’d seen this look before—she was already working on an alternate plan.
“In that case,” she said plainly, “what if I told you I wanted to buy a human liver on the black market for transplant?”
“Then, Dr. Chen,” the Mayor said, the corners of his mouth turning up, “I would tell you that this is a problem I can help you with.”
“What if I told you I wanted the liver immediately and that I didn’t have the time or inclination to languish on some waiting list?” Dash asked.
The Mayor smiled at Dash, ignoring the others as if he was having an intimate conversation with the beautiful scientist. “If you’re in a hurry, you will have to pay more.”
“Money is no object.”
“Do you have a moral objection to a compulsory donor?” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“Of course not,” she said, still playing the game. “Oh, and did I mention that I want the organ to be a perfect match?”
“In that case,” he said, shrugging, “now we’re talking business.”
She looked at Nick, and he knew where she was going with this.
“In the last several months, have any new players emerged in the market?” Nick asked.
The Mayor nodded. “Yes, and this player has been very, very busy.”
“Why?”
“Because, Nick, they are offering designer organs.”
“By designer organs, do you mean organs that are genetically modified in a manner so they are not rejected by the recipient?” Dash asked.
“Such a clever girl,” Jin said. “Always one step ahead.”
Dash ran her fingers through her hair. “Now this is finally all beginning to make sense,” she mumbled. “I think I know what they’re doing.”
“Know what who is doing?” Zhang asked her.
“I’ll explain in a minute,” she said and looked back at Jin. “Do you happen to be in contact with this new player?”
The Mayor laughed. “Oh, Dazhong, when it comes to the black market, I’m in contact with all the players.”
“Can you set up a meeting for us?” Zhang interjected.
“For you, Commander Zhang, no,” Jin said, wagging a finger. “For the lovely Dazhong, maybe. The people who sell these organs are very sophisticated and very, very cautious. This is not something that happens in five minutes. There is a vetting process. And these organs do not come cheap.” He turned back to Dash. “What do you intend to do with this liver?”
“The truth is, we don’t actually intend to buy a liver. I believe the people responsible for the genetically modified organ trade are the same people responsible for the murders we’re investigating and the same people who are trying to kill us. If we follow the money, I’m certain it will lead to Nèiyè Biologic.”
“And when it does,” Nick interjected, “we’re going to take them down.”
Jin laughed loudly at this. “I appreciate your honesty, so let me give you some in return. The black-market organ business, while only a small piece of my operation, is a very profitable one. By helping you, I’m destroying a lucrative revenue stream. What incentive do I have to do this?”
“Three days ago, dozens of corpses washed up on Tung Wan Beach,” Dash said. “It was all over the news.”
“I saw the reports,” Jin said. “Tragic.”
“What you didn’t hear in the news reports is that all these people were victims of illegal organ harvesting. I know this because I performed the autopsies.” She pulled out her mobile phone, and Nick watched as she scrolled through her camera roll. She found the digital photographs she was looking for and handed her phone to Jin. The gangster’s eyebrows arched, and his jaw tightened at the graphic images. “They were all young and healthy,” Dash continued, “robbed of their eyes, hearts, lungs, kidneys, and livers. They were not willing donors, Jin. Let me be clear: these young men and women were kidnapped and then murdered for their organs.”
“But this doesn’t make any sense. I was told by my contact that these organs are custom grown in a laboratory to match the DNA of the buyer,” Jin said, shaking his head at the grotesquery on display.
“Now the puzzle pieces are finally starting to fit together,” Dash said, growing excited. “During Nick’s investigation in Xi’an, he met with Peter Yu’s girlfriend. She claimed to work as a researcher at Nèiyè Biologic and told Nick her area of expertise was using CRISPR for genetic engineering. If what she said is true, then maybe Nèiyè Biologic is modifying the stolen organs after excision, using CRISPR to match the recipient’s alleles to ensure major histocompatibility complex matching.”
“You’re losing us, Dash,” Nick said.
“Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself,” she said, turning to the group like a professor teaching class. “To appreciate why any of this matters, you have to understand the postoperative challenges associated with organ transplant. When someone needs an organ transplant, donor organs are screened based on blood type and other physical criteria until the best match is found for the recipient. But no matter how good a match an organ might be, postoperative rejection is a constant threat, because the DNA in the donor organ tissues can never perfectly match the DNA of the recipient. They are, after all, tissues from two different people. Consequently, organ recipients typically must remain on a cocktail of immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives so their immune systems don’t attack and destroy the transplanted organ.”
“I can’t imagine that taking immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of your life is a good thing,” Nick said.
“It’s not. The antirejection protocol is very hard on a body. The side effects can include low white blood cell count, anemia, liver inflammation, pancreatitis, kidney toxicity, diabetes, hypertension, gout, and the inability to fight infections. In other words, organ transplant is not a Holy Grail solution. The net result is typically life extension, but not without cost. In many cases, the patient is simply trading one set of problems for another.”
“Why not just grow an organ in a laboratory like Jin said?” Zhang asked. “Why go through the trouble of stealing organs and modifying them in the laboratory?”
“If they could do this, they would. Some progress has been made in what’s called the ‘seed and scaffold’ approach to growing simple tissue structures like cartilage and skin,” Dash said, “but for organs like the pancreas, liver, and kidneys, the technology does not exist. These organs are complex systems that have metabolic needs and must be tied into the body to function and flourish. They do not survive long outside of the body.”
“So how is Nèiyè Biologic changing them to match the host if not in a lab?” Nick asked.
“CRISPR is like a cut-and-paste editing tool on a word processor, except instead of modifying lines of text, it is modifying sections of DNA code.” She took a deep breath. “This is only a working theory, but I think they are transplanting the organs into the new host and then using a CRISPR protocol to cut and paste the host’s histocompatibility alleles in place of the donor alleles to achieve compatibility over a short period of time, thereby rendering the need for immunosuppressant drugs moot.”
“Wait a minute,” Nick said, scratching his beard. “So you’re saying that if Lankford gave me his liver, when they put it in, it’s one hundred percent Lankford’s cells, but when they use this CRISPR stuff on it, magically they transform into Nick Foley’s cells?”
“They are not changing everything over, just the proteins necessary to prevent an autoimmune response, but basically your analogy is correct.”
“Jesus,” Lankford said. “This is one hell
of an operation they’ve got going on. What do you estimate the market for this sort of thing could be?”
Nick looked to Dash for an answer, and she shook her head. “I have no idea, but what I can tell you is that if this approach is working, the number of candidates for organ transplant would skyrocket, thereby creating a strong demand for organ donors.”
“Why is that?”
“Because right now, the best candidates for organ transplant are people who are young and healthy. As I said, the postoperative immunosuppressant drug protocol is hard on a body, especially so for the elderly. To remove that requirement would provide a dramatic opportunity for life extension for the aged population.”
“You said that this ‘new player’ in the black-market organ trade is charging a higher premium for their organs,” Nick said, looking at the Mayor. “How much higher, say, for a kidney?”
“A regular kidney sells for around one hundred thousand US dollars. The genetically modified one is going for three hundred thousand,” Jin said, still thumbing through the autopsy images on Dash’s phone.
“I think that tells us something about the clientele. The only people who can afford these organs are the affluent. What can you tell us about clients you’ve made connections for?” Lankford asked Jin.
But Jin ignored him, his attention fully devoted to an image on Dash’s phone. “How is this possible?” he muttered under his breath.
Nick leaned in to see what Jin was looking at.
“How is what possible?” Dash asked.
“I think that girl was one of mine.”
“What do you mean, ‘one of yours’?”
“That tattoo—a curled dragon devouring its own tail—is very distinctive. A girl who worked in Club Pink had a tattoo just like that on the inside of her forearm. She was a runaway and ended up here. She told me she wanted to be a doctor someday. I told her I would help her get into university if she could stay drug-free for three months.”
“What happened to her?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know. She disappeared. She’s been gone about a month. The Underground City has a transient population. Runaways move around more than others,” he said.
