Day Zero

by Marc Cameron

  Bowen had been around long enough to know that the big world was really a very small place. Whatever it was that was going on in the highest levels of government, it was very likely related to that group’s bloody adventures in Japan.

  Bowen needed backup, but he wanted someone who wasn’t committed to the wrong side. He had no doubt Ronnie could handle herself in a confrontation, but his chivalrous bones couldn’t bear the thought of exposing any woman, even one as tough as Garcia, to the likes of Joey Benavides—or what he planned to do to him.

  Chapter 43

  Global Flight 105

  Tang clutched the end of his armrest in a death grip, turning his knuckles white. He closed his eyes and worked to slow his breathing. There was little else he could do.

  Intermittent turbulence and an overly cautious pilot kept everyone in their seats for nearly an hour after the aircraft reached its cruising altitude. Unable to keep still, Tang snatched the phone from the cubby beside his seat and checked the clock, like he’d done every two minutes for the last half hour. The window of opportunity was slamming shut before his eyes and he was powerless to fight it.

  It was imperative that the plane be brought down over the Bering Sea. Apart from the fact that the icy waters would ensure there were no survivors, an investigation over international waters made it much more likely that the Americans would find the necessary clues regarding the cause of the plane’s destruction. The Russians were far too cozy with Beijing to let the US find out Chinese operatives were behind the crash if Global 105 went down over Russian soil. There was too great a risk the investigation would be mired in the black hole of Kremlin bureaucracy and the whole thing would simply be written off as another unexplained aviation disaster. That was all good food for conspiracy theorists, but useless for Tang’s purposes—or the purposes of the man from Pakistan.

  If the death of his daughter was to matter, the device had to be deployed within the next ninety minutes. It would take half of that to assemble—leaving very little room for error.

  Virtually chained in place by his seat belt, Tang turned to check on his wife. Her seat nearly all the way back, she hummed softly to herself, facing the window. For months, through all his begging and pleading, she’d been silent as a stone—and she chose now to show her emotions. He recognized the song immediately as one they used to sing to Mei Li, their little girl.

  Over the last hour he’d watched her come undone before his eyes, thawing from her two-year emotional freeze. It would not last, he was certain of that. The American girl had touched a delicate nerve. That was all. All too soon, Lin would slip back into her miserable trance. Their daughter was dead and no saccharine-sweet words of clumsy Chinese from a guizi child would do anything to bring her back.

  Lin’s humming grew louder until it threatened to fill the quiet cabin of the aircraft. Tang watched in horror as a smile crept across the reflection of her face. This newfound flash of happiness, this . . . counterfeit joy, made him want to slam her head against the wall.

  Oblivious to his inner turmoil, she turned on her side, looking at him as she used to when they talked together in bed. “I worry for that little one if we continue,” she whispered.

  Tang’s mouth fell open, dumbfounded. “What do you mean if we continue?” he hissed. “We have no choice but to continue.” He’d thought she might feel pity for the American child, but he never dreamed she would consider not following through with the plan.

  Lin studied him without blinking for a long moment. Wispy lengths of hair, thin and dull from her two-year diet of little but tea and crackers, fell across gaunt cheeks.

  Heavy turbulence continued to creak the giant aircraft, reminding Tang that he was trapped. It felt as if they were riding over a badly maintained road.

  “Mei Li is dead,” Tang said, as though he were telling her for the first time. Tears welled in his eyes, running down his face. Rage and despair clutched at his throat, threatening to strangle him. He leaned closer so the other passengers could not hear their exchange. “Do you hear yourself? She is dead. Are you ready to forget so quickly?”

  “How dare you ask me that?” Lin’s nostrils flared. “I have done nothing but think of her since she died.”

  Tang took a deep breath, speaking the unthinkable.

  “And what of our other child?” He knew the mention of their son was akin to stabbing his dear wife in the belly. But it had to be done. “Do you grieve for him as well?”

  She shook her head, begging him not to continue.

  “Do you remember how you assured me that it was foolish to pay the fee that would have allowed us to have a second child? You and your gaggle of friends . . .” He spat the words. “Those leftover women who were not smart enough to find a husband, but plenty wise enough to be absolutely certain the government had moved beyond such barbaric notions as the One Child Policy. So you used the life of my unborn son to make a stand and show the world that Chinese women are free to choose—”

  “Stop it,” she mouthed the word on a quiet breath.

  “Do you not remember the two army hags who dragged you in the back room during your doctor’s office visit and forced you to endure an abortion and sterilization—to make an example out of us? And then influenza took Mei Li, leaving us childless—all because you were much too progressive to pay the small government fee.”

  “You are not human. . . .” Tears pressed through her lashes. “I know I am to blame.”

  A porcelain chime pinged over the intercom. Finally, the seat belt sign above winked out. Tang wiped his nose with the back of his forearm and took a ragged breath. He looked up to see other passengers reading books or watching movies—ignoring what they thought was a marital spat.

  “No,” he said. “The blame lies with government thugs who trample the weak.” He gave his wife a reassuring pat on the arm. She was better now, he could tell. Back to her old self, ready to do what she knew needed to be done. “Do you still believe it is time to pull down the powerful who have caused this great harm?”

  Lin swallowed back a sob, giving a halting nod, like a child submitting to some horrible medicine. “What do we know of America and all the people on this plane?”

  “I could not care any less about America,” Tang whispered through clenched teeth. “You know that. But I will see China’s government punished.”

  “Even if that means killing me?”

  “Without question,” Tang said, too quickly.

  Lin rolled thin lips inward until they turned white, biting her words. He may as well have slapped her. When she finally did speak, she sounded weary, laden with the weight of abject grief.

  “Then I am your wife and I support you. There is nothing else to say.”

  Tang took a quick breath through his nose, composing himself.

  “Very well,” he said. “I will go meet the others.” He touched her arm again, more tenderly this time. He knew he’d been much too harsh, but it had to be done. Soon, their misery would be over and the great and powerful would begin to pay for their sins.

  Chapter 44

  Quinn glanced up from his motorcycle magazine to find Mattie hunched forward over her tray table. Her tongue stuck out of the gap where her front tooth should have been. Her red marker moved across the paper in rapt concentration. It had been forever since he’d been able to sit back and watch her play or draw.

  Most parents were prejudiced when it came to the talents and intellect of their children—but Quinn was absolutely certain Mattie was a prodigy. She could already suss math problems Quinn would have found difficult in junior high. Quinn was a linguist himself, fluent in four languages besides his native tongue. The fact that his little girl’s Chinese was already better than any of her nonnative teachers flushed him with pride. She’d inherited his ear for languages, but her gift for music came from Kim. Mattie had played the violin with the Anchorage Youth Symphony when she was only six. She’d been working on Vivaldi recently and now hummed the bouncing “Spring” concerto
from The Four Seasons as she put the finishing touches on the art project. Finished, she held it up for her dad to see.

  She grinned, showing off her picture and her missing front tooth.

  Quinn shook his head in disbelief. It was one thing to speak passable Chinese at seven years old, but Mattie already knew many of the intricate symbols that comprised Chinese writing. In bright red marker, she’d drawn a good luck symbol comprised of two identical characters side by side, known as “double happiness.” Common in China, it was not something many little girls in America would be familiar with.

  “This is incredible, Sweet Pea,” Quinn said, genuinely impressed.

  Mattie beamed. “I drew it for that lady.” She unbuckled her seat belt and slid off the edge of her seat. “I’m going to go give it to her.”

  “Hang on now.” Quinn put a hand on her arm. “I don’t want you running all over the plane by yourself.”

  “But, Daddy.” She threw her head back and groaned. Yep, there was a lot of Kim in this girl. “She was so sad.”

  “We’ll give it to her when we land,” Quinn said. The idea of letting his daughter out of his sight so soon after getting her back made his stomach ache.

  “But it’s still hours until we land,” she said. “You don’t want her to be sad for hours when I could make her happy now.”

  “Mattie—”

  “This airplane is one big adventure.” She stopped the whining and turned on the charm, batting her blue eyes—another Kim maneuver. “You would have wanted to explore a little bit when you were younger.”

  Quinn thought of how he and Bo would have had every bin and bulkhead mapped out by now if they’d been able to travel on such an airplane when they were boys. Still, the last behaviors he wanted his daughter to emulate were those set by him and his brother.

  “There are some bad people in the world, sweetie.” She’d been through enough to know it, but he reminded her anyway. That’s what fathers did.

  She nodded but came back with a counterargument of someone twice her age. “Dad, all the people on this plane had to go through the X-ray thing already. Don’t worry so much.” She looked back and forth, and then leaned in closer, whispering. “Besides, you already trusted me with the big fat lie about our names.”

  Quinn couldn’t help but wonder what she was going to be like at fifteen.

  Carly, the blond flight attendant, came by with a cup of coffee for a woman across the aisle. Mattie tugged on her apron before she could walk away.

  “It’s safe for me to walk up front and give a present to someone, isn’t it?” she asked, again with the eye batting.

  To her credit, Carly shot a glance at Quinn before answering. “Whatever your dad thinks.” She looked down at the book on the tray next to Mattie’s drawing. “Lemony Snicket! I just love those books.”

  Mattie smiled, proud to be reading a chapter book. “I’m almost finished with it.”

  The flight attendant’s eyes opened wider when she noticed the drawing. “Is that Chinese?”

  “A card for my friend,” Mattie said. “Shungx. It means ‘double happiness.’ ”

  “How old are you?” Carly gasped, genuinely impressed.

  “Seven,” Mattie said.

  “That’s amazing.” Carly gave her a conspiratorial look that said she thought a little girl this intelligent should probably be given a tiny bit of latitude.

  “Okay,” Quinn said. “But I’m coming with you.”

  Mattie stuck out her hand like she was going to push him back in his seat. “No!” she said. “You scared her last time. Just let me give her the card and I’ll come right back.”

  Quinn sighed, anxiety over his little girl’s safety wrestling with the fact that he just might be a little overprotective.

  “She’ll be fine,” Carly mouthed so Mattie couldn’t see her.

  “All right,” Quinn said. “But don’t stay too—”

  Mattie was up and gone before he could finish his sentence.

  “She’s precious,” Carly said, gazing toward the front of the aircraft.

  “Thanks.” Quinn nodded. “You have kids?”

  “My husband and I are trying,” she said. “But with his schedule and mine, it’s hard to get together long enough to . . .” She blushed and her voice trailed off. “Sorry, definitely TMI. Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m fine,” Quinn said, eyes boring holes in the curtain where his daughter had just disappeared. Mattie was right. There was very little to fear on board a commercial aircraft, but that didn’t matter. Quinn was what he was, and that wasn’t likely to change. He felt sorry for her dates when she got to be a teenager. Lucky for them, he probably wouldn’t live that long.

  Chapter 45

  The others met Tang at the forward lavatories on the upper deck as soon as they were free to move around. Each carried two spare camcorder batteries in their pockets. Seen as normal Ni-Cad batteries under X-ray examination, they were able to power a camcorder for a short time if TSA had asked to turn the thing on. The bulk of their interiors was dedicated to the storage.

  Apart from the detonator, which was still in Lin’s possession, the device would be comprised of two ingredients. When mixed together and stuffed into Ma Zhen’s ingeniously shaped carrier, these ingredients would become exponentially greater in power than the sum of their parts.

  The men disappeared one by one into the lavatories, carrying out a surreal ballet as they retrieved their portion of the bomb components, and then passed it over to Ma. Each face had the silent resolve Tang had seen in the countenance of Tibetan monks who had set themselves on fire to protest Chinese policies. They knew what they were doing and were determined to do it right. Even Gao, the piggish tough, who’d become the de facto security man for the group, had a sweet earnestness about him as he stepped into the lavatory for his turn in the process.

  The stress of waiting wore heavily on everyone. Hu’s hands shook, Gao’s eye twitched, and Ma snapped angrily at the slightest question or suggestion. Tang had to force himself to calm after the panic brought on by Lin’s recent bouts of faux happiness. This was no time to lose focus.

  The device was relatively small, capable of bringing down the plane only if placed in the correct location. If it went off early, while it was being assembled, Tang and the other ran the risk of doing little damage but to themselves. If they lived through the explosion, they would be badly maimed prisoners of the United States government for the rest of their miserable lives—if they weren’t beaten to death first by angry passengers.

  Hu, Ma Zhen, and Tang carried the primary explosive, a compound known as PETN. Experts sometimes pronounced it “petin.” It was an acronym for pentaerythritol tetranitrate, in the same chemical family as nitroglycerin. An ingredient of the commercial plastic explosive Semtex, PETN had been around since before World War I. It was more stable than some of its sister compounds and its quality of giving off a very low vapor trail made it a favorite for terrorists to try to tuck into all sorts of interesting places like Richard Reid’s shoe or Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underwear.

  Gao’s batteries carried the second component, the powdered metal that would add heat to the PETN’s explosive power. Altogether there was a scant twelve ounces of material—just enough to fill a soda can. According to Ma Zhen, twelve ounces would be plenty.

  Ma had chosen PETN for its shattering force—known as brisance. And unlike the Shoe or Underwear bombers, who had tried to use conventional fuses or liquid igniters, Ma had designed an actual electric shock detonator, utilizing the flash attachment from a large DSLR camera.

  Once assembled, the device would be marginally larger than the shoe bomb Reid had tried to use on the Paris to Boston flight. In theory, the pressure differential outside the aircraft would help rip a hole in the fuselage—but the man from Pakistan did not want to depend on theory. Ma Zhen had added another component to his device that would double its effective power—something they wouldn’t have to smuggle because they
could easily get what they needed once on board the plane: water.

  Once it was well mixed, Ma would pour the PETN and powdered metal into a flat, plastic case that resembled a mini tablet computer. This slightly malleable explosive tile would be nested between two plastic hip-pocket water flasks, one concave and one flat, each roughly the same dimensions as the tablet.

  The resulting shape charge would turn the water in the concave flask into a liquid blade, slicing like butter through the thin metal fuselage of the Airbus. Pressure differential would do the rest, sucking loose objects and people out the gaping hole. Tang wanted his wife sitting as close as possible to the initial explosion, mercifully sparing her from the long minutes of terror and panic as the plane fell from the sky.

  Eyes closed, with her seat almost fully reclined, Lin heard a rustling beside her. She thought Tang had returned and ignored the sound until she heard a different voice, higher and more tentative. For a fleeting moment she thought it was her daughter, Mei Li. Her heart swelled, but when she turned, it was the little girl with blue eyes from the airport.

  “Mattie, right?” Lin pushed the button on her armrest so her seat slid upright.

  The child nodded, smiling wide enough to show her missing front tooth. Her face glowed because Lin had remembered her name.

  “You should not be here.” Lin craned her head to look up the aisle, terrified of what her husband would do if he came back to find her speaking with this little one. “Where is your father?”

  “Reading a motorcycle magazine and worrying about me,” Mattie said, still grinning. “I made you something to cheer you up.” She handed her a piece of carefully folded notebook paper.

  Lin opened it up to find the symbol Shungx–double happiness—drawn in Mattie’s youthful hand and colored with a red marker. She held it to her chest.