by Brad Taylor
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.
53
Staring out her window on the fourteenth floor, eating her final bit of room service, Elina studied the purple neon monstrosity near her hotel, called, of all things, the Hard Rock Hotel. She had no idea why someone would give a hotel such a moniker. She had seen young Chechen men wearing T-shirts with the same logo and wondered if they had come from here. Maybe she’d find out, since her meeting was in a bar off the lobby. In fifteen minutes.
She studied the street in front of the hotel, looking for landmarks. Adjacent to the Hard Rock, she saw another large neon sign proclaiming CITY OF DREAMS. She Googled it on her iPad and found it to be nothing more than a shopping mall. Something that should be easy to ask directions for—and get her to the Hard Rock Hotel.
She placed her plate onto the room service tray and checked her phone for any new messages, halfway hoping there would be one announcing that the meeting was postponed. The phone log was empty. She placed it in her purse and left the room.
Reaching the lobby, she turned away from the main entrance and walked through a small level of shops, following the signs for the City of Dreams. Reaching the street, she saw the Hard Rock, the neon lights covering its tower flickering a multitude of colors in the night.
She reached the ornate entrance and studied the lobby bar, a sunken, dimly lit den filled with couches and overstuffed chairs. In the back, at a table for two, was Malik.
She paused, wondering if she was supposed to acknowledge him. He half stood and waved, a smile on his face.
He pulled out her chair, as if for chivalry, but she knew it was so that he could keep the chair against the window, allowing him to view the room.
His first words were a mass of information on what to say if she were ever questioned about this meeting. A false story that would provide an innocuous cover and lead away from the truth. He told her to repeat it back, and she did, respecting his attention to detail. Respecting how he had her welfare uppermost in his mind.
He said, “Did you have any trouble coming here?”
“No. Not really, other than the fact that nobody speaks English.”
He laughed and said, “So you’ve seen nothing strange? Nobody who looked like they were following you? Any western men that you’ve seen more than once?”
She wondered why he asked. “No, nothing like that. Is there something I should be aware of?”
“Yes. I believe there’s a team tracking me, and I want to make sure they never connect us. I can be forfeited, but you must remain in the shadows. Keep your eyes out.”
He reached beneath his seat and brought out a small black Pelican box made of hard plastic, the lid snapped shut. He placed it delicately on the table.
“This is the virus. It is very, very deadly. You took the vaccine, yes?”
She nodded, her eyes wide.
“Open this when you are back in your room. It won’t harm you but will kill anyone else who has the misfortune of contacting it. Inside is a glass syringe packed in several different plastic bags for protection. Next to the syringe is a rubber-stoppered vial with a cleansing solution. After you have injected yourself, put the needle into the solution
and draw it into the syringe, filling it completely up. Let it sit for a few minutes, then spray it down the sink. Use the rest of the solution to thoroughly wash the outside of the syringe.”
“Where do I inject myself?”
“Doesn’t matter. You only need a drop inside your bloodstream, and there’s much more than that in the syringe. Your arm or thigh would probably be easiest.”
She placed the box into her shoulder bag, then said, “What about the explosives? And the actual target? When will I get that?”
He smiled and held up his hands. “Wait, wait. We’re not through with the virus yet. I’ll provide that information when you need it, and I’ll provide you with the explosives. Don’t worry.”
She nodded, waiting on him to continue.
“After you have injected yourself, do not leave your room for at least twenty-four hours, maybe longer. The doctor indicated that initially you might be virulently contagious, as if you had no vaccine, but he was sure that would pass. The key will be your eyes. They will turn bloodshot. Very, very bloodshot. When that clears up, you can enter the population. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“When you do leave, remember what we talked about before. Use a hand sanitizer all the time, drink only bottled water, don’t eat anywhere that has silverware and plates to wash. Avoid anything that has the chance of spreading the virus.”
He passed across a thin envelope. “This is an open-ended round-trip ticket to the United States. You’ll also find a rental car and two hotel reservations. Land, get the rental, and begin driving. The first hotel is midway. The second is your destination. But not your target. You’ll have final instructions in the room. Keep your phone and check your e-mail account.”
She said, “What about my passport? Won’t I need a visa?”
“No. Your passport is from Latvia, correct?”
“Yes. It was the best country because they still have a large population that speaks Russian.”
“They’re on the United States visa waiver program. You don’t need one.”
