Targeting the Telomeres, A Thriller

by R. N. Shapiro

  The drone flies 100 yards, over the twelve-foot-high rust-colored masonry walls surrounding the residence on all four sides, lined on the inside with well-groomed hedges. Ryan rules out scaling the wall for his operation; he’ll have to gain access through some kind of ruse. Another 150 yards, and the drone reaches its target. Ryan positions it over the rear of a main residence building, which takes up at least half an acre, and watches a guard emerge and walk the entire perimeter. Then he propels it a hundred feet in the air above the front of the building. A second guard is standing in the front of the building; Ryan dips the drone down another 50 feet and zooms in to find a holster holding what he assumes is a pistol on the guard’s right hip. He returns the drone to its original height in the sky to watch the traffic. At 5:10 p.m. a Mercedes SUV pulls up to a pair of black metal electronic gates—the only opening a car will fit through. The other black metal gate, more like a tall door, appears to require the use of a keypad. The driver places a keycard reader into a slot and the large gates swing open from the center, moving inward. The tinted windows make it impossible for Ryan to see the occupants, even with the camera zoomed in.

  Ryan flies the drone back and lands it in the plastic base that he returned to the sidewalk. Moments later his gear is stashed in the rental and he pulls away.

  Around 10:15 the same evening, Ryan changes his disguise in the back of the car. He trades in his utility worker outfit for khakis, loafers, and a white lab coat with a Chinese name and logo embroidered on the front right side. He drives the small rental SUV about a mile and parks it on the street in front of the morgue, about a half a block from Beijing’s largest hospital complex. Ryan enters the morgue through a service door and carries a small soft-sided cooler down a long hallway and flight of stairs into the basement. An elderly woman in a gray uniform and shoes with thick soles slaps a well-worn mop against the terrazzo floor, unaware of Ryan’s presence. He ducks into another corridor before she sees him, relieved that there are no surveillance cameras mounted on the walls or in the ceiling. He continues down the hall until he finds what he's looking for—a room with large metal drawers holding the deceased. Within 5 minutes he is done, and exits the morgue without being detected.

  Beijing’s population in 2017 was estimated at 21.7 million people. That many people require a massive governmental infrastructure to support them, including many fire stations and rescue squads. For his third casing mission, Ryan chose the Han Lo fire and rescue station, not randomly, but because it is one of the newest in Beijing and boasts the latest in rescue technology.

  Once Ryan arrives, he hunkers down behind some neatly stacked boxes of supplies with a nice vantage point of the entrance on the side of the facility. His interest lies not in the enormous firetrucks outfitted with hoses and ladders, but rather the paramedic’s vehicles. This particular station appears to have three small modified vans, like mini ambulances, he thinks. I need to see one of them in action.

  An hour passes before two paramedics—one female, one male—trot over to one of the vehicles, jump in, and pull out onto the city street, lights flashing and siren wailing. Ryan emerges from his hiding place and takes up pursuit. They park in front of an apartment building and run in without ever accessing the back of the little ambulance for a gurney, which disappoints Ryan. Within 15 minutes they emerge with their utility bags slung over their shoulders; apparently this call didn’t require transporting the patient. The female driver pushes a button on a key fob as they approach the vehicle. He needs to share this intel with Liza, and propose the expanded role he has in mind for her.

  Chapter 96

  Reunion

  According to the map in Amanda’s hand, she’s within two blocks of the hotel. She checks the time on her phone—10:55—and a new text message arrives:

  Room 814. Two hard knocks on the door. -L

  As she makes a right-hand turn, she looks halfway down the block and sees the English translation below the larger Chinese lettering on the hotel sign: Vista Hotel. On the opposite side of the street, Amanda walks past the double doors of the main entrance and continues about 20 more yards, casually looking over her shoulder. She spends another 30 seconds or so pretending to look in a couple store windows as she surveys the other people on the sidewalk around her and near the hotel.

  Seeing nothing suspicious, she jaywalks across the street, enters the hotel, and walks toward the chimes of the elevators. A couple with three kids are already waiting. She lets them take the first elevator and politely declines their offer to join them by shyly shaking her head. She enters the next elevator alone and exits on the eighth floor, checks the signs, and makes her way to the room.

  Before knocking, she leans close to the door but doesn’t hear anything from the other side. She raps on it twice, as directed. Seconds later the door swings open.

  “Amanda, sorry about the change in plan,” Liza says, not smiling and holding her hands behind her as she backs up to let Amanda in.

  Amanda takes a few steps forward. “You must be Li—.”

  As the door swings closed a man appears, training his pistol with both hands directly at Amanda, who pivots and grabs for the doorknob. A familiar female voice makes her pause and turn once again toward the interior of the room.

  “Take your hand off the knob and put both of them in the air.”

  “Britt? Where’s Ryan? Why…are you…even doing this?”

  Brittney Hayes doesn’t answer as she begins to pat down Amanda. She removes the pistol in her hoodie pouch and stuffs it in her rear jeans pocket. Next she locates the KA-BAR knife. Sliding it out of the sheath she sees the traces of blood along the tip.

  “Looks like Agent Down-Low here has used this knife already—and recently,” Britt says to her colleague, walking away from Amanda and placing the knife on the round table in the suite. “Ryan has a standing invitation like yours, we should be seeing him soon. Then we can shut down whatever the hell you two are planning. I was hoping you would’ve learned something from the previous stunt you tried to pull with David a couple years ago in New York.” Britt and Amanda have some serious history together, though neither plan to reminisce at this time.

  “Sorry, Amanda, she sent you those text messages, not me, they took my phone and—” Liza starts to explain from her seat on the couch, her hands zip-tied behind her back.

  “Liza, shut the hell up,” Britt interrupts.

  “—And they snatched me before I could place the mark,” Liza finishes.

  “I have to restrain you. Have a preference of front or back?” Britt approaches Amanda. “Solarez tells me you’re quite the lethal weapon now, what with your Quantico training and personal training with Ryan.” Amanda eyes Britt’s colleague with the gun still trained on her, and any thought of an evasive maneuver vanishes.

  “I’m not telling you anything. Why are you trying to stop us?”

  “Because we’re not gonna let you blow up U.S.-Chinese relations. Tell me what you and Ryan have planned. You owe it to Solarez, and me too, for that matter. If we know what you’re up to, perhaps we can work together.”

  “C’mon, really? You know I’m here for Justin. Maybe my dad too.”

  “Partial disclosure doesn’t cut it. But you’re right, we already figured that. Tell us everything, and maybe we can provide some support.”

  “We’re not gonna interfere with the summit.”

  “If you’re not willing to cooperate, Solarez will order me to detain you until the summit’s over.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “Maybe after Ryan gets here. Oh, and here’s your meds, compliments of Solarez. Do you have a supply of them with you?” Britt tosses a couple small bags containing various-colored pills onto the coffee table.

  “Nope, had to leave them behind. We had a few problems, and I had to lighten my load.”

  “What are those for? Are you sick?” Liza asks from the couch.

  “Telogurl 13 has some special genes,” Britt says, surprised Liza has no id
ea about Amanda’s tweaked telomeres.

  “Wait, how did you know that phrase?” Amanda asks Britt.

  “Every communication your dad had with you, or anyone else, has been reviewed since he vanished. Once we realized Ryan met with Liza in South Beach, we tracked her to China, and well, you get the rest.”

  “Her dad? Now I’m even more lost.”

  “Obviously, they didn’t fully brief you, Liza, and I have no intention of doing it either.” Britt looks down at her mobile phone.

  12:30 p.m. and Ryan is still a no-show. Britt confers with her colleague in a whisper on the other side of the suite. “Where the hell is Ryan?” She asks him.

  “Don’t know. Could he have been tipped off?” He answers.

  Liza chimes in sarcastically from across the room. “How about some lunch, and maybe a decent movie on the TV? Looks like we’re gonna be here a while.”

  “Ryan either got a better offer or was detained. Liza, you may need to send him another text,” Britt replies cynically, returning the barb, they both know any text will really come from Britt posing as Liza.

  The agent working with Britt begins changing channels on the television. He comes across a Chinese news station and Liza swears she glimpses a picture of Amanda.

  “Wait, go back to the last station.” Liza says. Amanda’s face appears in the top right corner of the screen as the reporter talks to a teen girl. “Um, we have a problem, Amanda. You're being featured on a Chinese news show. Any idea why?" Liza asks.

  Amanda looks at the screen too. "Oh crap, that's An Ling."

  "Mind explaining?"

  Amanda leans her head against the wall behind the bed and looks at the ceiling, thinking.

  Liza listens to the teenage girl and translates. "She’s saying, 'I met this girl and she said she was an American college student sightseeing in China and was excited about seeing the Great Wall. But, she wasn't a student.' Now she’s saying she thought you were going to kill her, but instead you locked her in the trunk of a car.”

  "I had a feeling she’d talk, I mean she’s only 15. I met her on the bullet train.” Amanda says.

  “There’s more to her story than that,” Britt says, after listening to the last part of the interview.

  Amanda doesn't want to explain why she locked An Ling in a car trunk, and no one pushes the issue.

  “Amanda, at some point you will be explaining your master plan to Solarez.” Britt says. Amanda says nothing.

  “How about that movie now?” Liza again requests.

  Britt’s colleague surfs through the Chinese stations again.

  “Stop right there,” Liza barks all of a sudden. It’s an older American movie with subtitles.

  “Hey, Freaky Friday. I love Jamie Lee Curtis. And I love strange juxtapositions.”

  Chapter 97

  Balcony

  It’s about two hours before dawn. A man in all black slinks across a balcony, then leaps several feet over the railing onto the balcony of the next hotel room. He checks for witnesses of his leap down on the ground but there are only the headlights of an occasional vehicle on the street eight floors below him. Striking before sunrise has helped him remain undetected, but the blackout drapes drawn for the night in the room afford him no view inside. He presses his left palm on the sliding glass door to see if it's locked. To his surprise, it moves a millimeter or two.

  A light sleeper ever since the plane crash, Amanda senses something. She opens one eye and see a couple slivers of light along the edge of the window near the bed where she, and she assumes Britt, lay. Before the lights were turned out for the night, Britt had propped herself up on two pillows with her pistol in her hand; her partner had left at midnight and Liza laid across the couch she had been occupying all day.

  Suddenly a flashbang grenade illuminates the entire room in a flood of blinding white. Britt raises her pistol and points it directly at the outline of the figure standing inside the partially opened balcony door. Ryan’s gun is also pointed at Britt as he declares his identity in hopes of avoiding shots being fired.

  “It’s Ryan!” Liza gasps from the sofa.

  In an attempt to take advantage of the confusion, Amanda launches herself across the bed with her tied hands in front of her to deflect Britt's pistol, but her plan fails. Shocking pain sears through her right shoulder, and both she and Britt go tumbling off the bed to the floor.

  "Amanda, move away from her!" Ryan leaps on top of the bed and points his pistol down at the two of them tangled together in the gap between the wall and the bed.

  "She's CIA! I know her!"

  "I don’t care who she is, she was going to shoot me! Put both your hands where I can see them!"

  Britt complies and Ryan leans over the foot of the bed and picks up her weapon.

  "Amanda, are you hit?"

  "Yeah, my shoulder."

  Ryan flips on the light. Blood seeps through Amanda’s T‑shirt.

  "Amanda, if you can, get up and move off of her slowly." He keeps his pistol trained on Britt as Amanda inches off of her, trying not to wince in pain.

  “We weren’t going to harm them, we just need to know what you’re planning,” Britt explains.

  Liza now stands beside Ryan. "They detained me, figuring they could use me to catfish you. She’s got other agents working with her too. How’d you know the text wasn’t from me?”

  “Tell ya later. Let’s get her restrained and triage Amanda first.”

  Ryan orders Britt to roll over onto her stomach. He zip-ties her arms behind her back and places a pair of ankle-cuffs around both of her ankles, leaving only a few inches of chain between her legs. He lifts Britt by her belt with one hand and drops her on the bed, then takes his knife from its holster and cuts the zip ties off Liza and Amanda.

  “Where are the other agents, and how are you communicating with them?" Ryan asks Britt, but she remains silent.

  "Look, something tells me we need each other," Ryan tries again, “and we might need someone to tend to this wound."

  He leans over and inspects Amanda's shoulder, where there appears to be one entrance wound. "Can you pull that top out of the way so I can get a better look?”

  Amanda slowly peels her shirt off her shoulder using her left hand. There's a puncture wound a few inches down from the top of her right shoulder, but there's very little fresh blood.

  "I told you before, I don't bleed." Amanda says before Ryan can comment.

  "I remember now. Can you move your right arm?"

  Amanda lifts her right arm almost level with the top of her shoulder.

  "I get some pain right about there. I’ll be fine.”

  "Can you fire a weapon?"

  "I don't think that'll be a problem."

  “If you can wait an hour, I know we can get medical help without drawing attention.”

  "I told you, I won’t bleed out. Britt, what’s the surveillance situation in the lobby?"

  “It’s not even 6:30, he’s not out there yet."

  "Where’s he staying? The next room, down the hall?" Ryan asks her.

  Britt remains silent, so Amanda tries again. “It's not like we're enemies, Britt. I'm here to get my brother back, and my dad too. We might not be on exactly the same page, but come on.”

  Britt relents. "He's based here in Beijing. He sleeps in his own apartment.” She turns to Ryan. “We can get her seen by a trustworthy doctor. To let her leave here without getting medical care is bad planning. You don't have any idea what type of internal bleeding she has.”

  "Don't listen to her. We need to get out of here before they throw us in some U.S. Embassy holding cell and send us back to the U.S. Who knows what they’ll charge us with,” Liza interjects.

  "The best thing would be for all three of you to let me extricate you out of Beijing in one piece. If the Chinese get a hold of you, you’ll either all be dead or rotting away in a Chinese labor prison. I'm your best opportunity to get outta here alive.”

  "Let's talk, Ty." Liza motio
ns to Ryan and the two of them step away.

  "Amanda, keep an eye on her."

  Britt sits up on the side of the bed and looks at Amanda standing in the center of the room, training Britt’s pistol back on her.

  Brit whispers, “Amanda, you need me, but I don't need you."

  "What the hell does that mean? I probably saved your life. I think you and I are finally even now. I’m going to get my brother back, whether you help us or not."

  "You’ll never get out of China alive. That's where I come in. I can get you out."

  "How?"

  “Through an embassy, although not necessarily ours. We have friends here, and sometimes we extricate through a friendly embassy. Just how are you planning to get your brother back anyway? The North Korean prime minister is—"

  Amanda cuts her off. "Prime minister? You mean dictator."

  "Who cares what we call him. I don't know what you’re up to, but if you disrupt his meeting with the president today, you'll never have our support again. We’ll disown you, and you’ll probably get executed by the Chinese.”

  Liza and Ty emerge from the bathroom.

  "Amanda, I need to talk to you a moment," Ryan says, and Amanda joins them.

  "Do you think we can trust her at any level?"

  "She helped me get through a lot stuff after the jet crash. She was basically embedded with me the entire time. She says she can get us out of Beijing using embassy contacts, which’ll be easier than working our way to south China. "

  “They may have the means to get us outta here, but they won’t approve any part of our plan. Trust me, I know how they work. I can get you the medical care, and get us in the compound.” Ryan says.

  "How?”

  Ryan whispers his plan out of Britt’s earshot, including how Liza will be critical.