Lethal Circuit (Michael Chase 1)

by Guignard, Lars

  Fortunately, in addition to being strong, Huang was a very thorough man. An earlier request to monitor the Greater Shenzhen Special Economic Zone for encoded satellite transmissions had resulted in two hits. One came from a known MI6 safe house in the Lo Wu border area, but the other, which Huang had just received word of, appeared to originate from a residential development far from the center of town. It was this transmission which interested Huang because to date there was no record of the use of such a device at that locale. And though Huang had no hard proof that the American was behind the transmission, absent any other leads he was well aware that he’d be foolish to ignore the matter. And so, without further ado, Huang hurried into his Ministry issued sedan, commanding his subordinates to follow.

  • • •

  AN ELEVATOR CARRIED Kate and Michael up to Chen’s fifth-story apartment. Upon reaching the top floor, Kate led Michael past two doors to apartment 534. Kate knocked at the door, but as expected there was no answer. There appeared to be no peepholes in the doors, so there was little chance of being seen by a neighbor. Still, she covered her hand with her sleeve and reached up to loosen the light bulb in the wall mounted sconce. The darkness afforded her the privacy to pull out a simple lock pick which she held between her teeth. She then handed Michael a pair of latex gloves which he stared at for a moment before pulling on. Kate followed suit, pulling on her own gloves before going to work with the lock pick, the only real sound the noise of traffic on the expressway behind them. Less than five seconds later, they were in.

  It was darker inside than out. Glock in one hand, Maglite in the other, Kate immediately checked for a security system, but found none. The wall where such a keypad was generally mounted was bare. Kate then shut the door behind them leaving Michael to stare into the full height decorative mirror at the end of the corridor. Kate put a finger to her mouth and motioned with the Glock. Michael realized that she was about to clear the area and didn’t presume to follow. Instead he stood at the ready, listening to Kate move through the rooms. There weren’t many of them and it didn’t take long. By the time Michael had estimated that the apartment probably consisted of a galley style kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and two baths, she was back.

  “Nobody here.”

  “Probably why he has that big mirror. So he doesn’t get lonely.”

  “It’s a feng shui thing,” Kate said. “The Chinese don’t like dead ends. They trap Sha Chi.”

  “Sha who?”

  “Sha Chi. Bad energy.”

  “From the vibe I’m getting the mirror didn’t work.”

  Michael continued down the hall into the living room. Even in the shadows, everything about the place screamed bachelor pad. A shiny black leather couch did time alongside two jade end tables and a fake electric fire burning in the hearth. The walls were covered in gaudy prints, Chinese landscapes and the like, a set of beaded curtains covering what looked like a sliding glass door to the balcony. The curtains were printed in a tropical beach scene, a scantily clad woman bent longingly over a mai tai. The illustration was so evocative, Michael could have sworn that the woman was gyrating, the palms ruffling in the breeze above her. It took Michael a moment to realize that the woman actually was moving, a breeze blowing at the long strands of beads.

  “I thought you checked the place.”

  “I did. The sliding door is locked.”

  “Then why’s island girl hulaing?”

  Kate put a finger to her lips and moved silently toward the sliding glass door, Glock at the ready. As she tried the door Michael could clearly see it was latched from the inside. Keeping her Maglite low, she flashed it outside onto the balcony, circumscribing an arc around the apartment before she stopped cold.

  Kate mouthed a single word. “Window.”

  Michael followed the beam of light to the wall behind the couch. There was a window all right. And it was open. Michael hadn’t seen it at first because it was hidden behind a printed pull down blind, but now with the breeze ruffling the blind, there was no mistaking it. It was small, probably two by two, with an oxidized aluminum frame and the screen popped out. Just the right size for a person to enter or exit the space. Michael stepped around the couch to get a closer look, but caught his toe on an obstacle in the darkness, lurching across the heavily padded floor before regaining his balance.

  “Are you all right?”

  Michael stared down at the floor for a long moment. “I’m fine,” he finally said.

  “Then what is it?”

  Michael returned his gaze to the base of the couch where a familiar man lay on his side, a bullet hole in his forehead, blood draining from the exit wound onto the heavy carpeting.

  “Chen,” Michael said. “He’s dead.”

  13

  IT WASN’T THE first time Michael had seen a dead man, and he was certain it wouldn’t be the last, but the way Kate whipped through Chen’s bedroom drawers disturbed him just the same. Chen had been a bad apple, that much was sure, but something about the situation still called out for a modicum of respect, or so Michael felt. Kate, however, was more practical in such matters. Emptying the final drawer, she moved onto the closet, sweeping the clothes within it away as if she already had an idea what she was looking for — something big.

  “Did you search his pockets?”

  Michael held up a car key. “No wallet, just this.”

  “Keep it,” Kate said. “We may need it later.”

  “You want to tell me what it is you’re looking for?”

  “Your dad marked Chen as a player. The factory’s coordinates confirm that. The question is why?”

  Michael stepped back into the living room where the breeze continued to blow in from the open window, undulating the bead curtain girl under her plastic palm.

  “Might as well be asking her,” Michael said.

  “Lot of good that will do.”

  But Kate must have thought there was something to Michael’s suggestion because she opened the sliding glass door, continuing out onto the patio.

  “Same as before. One slightly rusted garden set, floral table cloth, no umbrella.”

  Michael stepped onto the small balcony behind Kate. A metal railing enclosed the six-by-twelve-foot concrete deck. There was a gap of maybe four feet and immediately to the right sat Chen’s neighbor’s balcony, identical in every respect to Chen’s except the end of the corridor running along the perimeter of the building sat adjacent to it. Michael peered down at the patio table. Like Kate said, a long floral table cloth was draped over it, its legs reaching down to the concrete below, four dirty upholstered chairs pulled around. Michael turned back to the door. Then, something, he wasn’t sure what, made him take a second look at the table. It was hard to see in the low light, but the surface of the table wasn’t level, it was almost convex, sloping down from a higher center. Michael put his hand down on the table. He was right about the incline. You’d be hard pressed to balance a Margarita on it.

  “What?” Kate said.

  “Nothing,” Michael replied, still staring at the table. And like that Michael lifted up, pulling the cloth up from the table like a magician revealing a cage of tigers. Only there wasn’t a tiger in this cage. There was a top.

  • • •

  THE OBJECT SAT cradled within the rusty patio furniture legs exactly where the table top should have been. It was a metallic capsule approximately four feet in diameter, turned out like an oversized version of the retro children’s toy. The capsule had engraving around its perimeter, and a bulb at its base, again like a toy top. Except this top had obviously been exquisitely crafted out of some very expensive metal — platinum or the like. All in all, the thing sitting there between the cheap patio furniture legs was the equivalent of looking at a Ming vase in a dumpster. It just didn’t fit.

  “It matches the blueprint,” Kate said.

  “The blueprint was an airplane.”

  “Not all of it,” Kate said.

  Michael rapped the capsule ligh
tly with his fist. It rang hollow. “Good. I’m glad that’s settled. For awhile there I thought you were actually going to keep me in the loop.”

  Kate took a breath. “I’m not a hundred percent on this, but my best guess is it’s an original scale model of the Horten’s power plant — the cold fusion reactor your father and I were looking for.”

  “That some dead guy is using for patio furniture?”

  “Like I said, I’m not a hundred percent. But I will be.”

  “How?”

  Kate placed her fingers under the lip of the capsule and lifted. “Take an end,” she said.

  UPON DETERMINING THAT the Shenzhen Riviera Condominiums were the source of the encrypted transmission, Captain Huang had had its residents run through the Ministry databases. As he suspected they had come back with a hit: a person of interest by the name Hao Chen. Huang had been an agent in China’s state security agency for long enough to know that its person of interest designation could mean anything from Chen being a potential dissident to a successful capitalist to an outright spy. That information would be shared on a priority basis. Regardless, what was relevant now was that Chen was a reasonable starting point in his search for the American.

  It was for this reason that Huang now stood silently outside Chen’s unit. Construction drawings courtesy of Shenzhen’s central planning department indicated that the only entrance and exit from Chen’s inner top floor unit was the front door. To be safe, however, Huang had deployed a team to the underground garage and a team to the outdoor fire escape. He kept his two remaining men with him. Confident that the exits were covered, he now listened for any sign of movement inside the condominium. When none was found, Huang took the direct approach. He rang the bell.

  MICHAEL FROZE AS the roar of an ocean wave rushed through the room. He reflected that either Chen’s apartment was a lot closer to the beach than he thought or they had a problem. Following the synthesized roar to a doorbell mounted above the front door confirmed the second scenario. They now stood within a few feet of the front door, the capsule held between them. Kate lifted a hand, balancing the load which Michael estimated to be about sixty pounds on her thigh. She indicated that they should wait before proceeding forward. There was an interminable pause. And then the doorbell rang again.

  HUANG DECIDED HE was done announcing himself. He motioned to the two men behind him, one of whom was carrying a police issue close quarter battering ram. A single hit from the device would easily breach the exterior door. Huang’s subordinate moved into position, but Huang took the compact battering ram from him. He wanted no mistakes and he trusted only himself not to make them. Huang stepped to the side of the door, preparing to throw his full eighty kilogram body weight behind the ram, his two sub-agents at the ready behind him. Then he silently counted down from three with his fingers. Huang’s last finger came down, and he let loose with the ram, a loud crash echoing throughout the hall.

  BUT MICHAEL AND Kate barely heard it. They had reversed course from the front door and were now passing the capsule over the gap to the neighboring balcony. Michael caught a glimpse of their pursuers’ shadows through the beaded curtain, but had shuffled over the railing onto the next balcony before they got much closer. They shuffled over one more balcony wall and found themselves in the adjoining outer hall. Not a terribly secure way of designing a building, Michael thought, but it probably worked well for amorous couples in need of a quick escape. The outer hallway was clear and Michael found himself calculating the odds that the elevator was still on their floor. Fortunately, the math was with them and twenty seconds later they found themselves on the garage level, Kate jamming open the stainless steel face panel covering the elevator buttons with her Swiss knife.

  “GET THE CAR,” Kate said.

  Michael hit Chen’s key fob, a shiny blue and white Mini Cooper chirping back at him from the parking lot. Michael dropped his end of the capsule and strode a dozen steps, slipping into the driver’s seat and cranking the engine. Chips of concrete began to explode around him before the motor even caught. It was automatic gunfire. A team of men had made it down into the garage and now held a bead on Michael from the opposite wall. Michael did the first thing that came to mind. He ducked down low in the Mini and threw it into reverse, motoring the little car backwards toward the open elevator. Michael hit the trunk release as he squealed backwards on the slickly polished concrete floor. Shots rang out, reverberating off the concrete walls one after another, but Michael refused to look up. Instead he stared straight back through the open hatch, pounding on the brakes just before impact with the elevator.

  The Mini hit with a crash, buckling in the rear hatch, but Kate knew this was her moment and she took it. Stepping away from the elevator wall, she fired two carefully aimed shots, scattering Huang’s men. She then picked up the metal capsule with one big hernia inducing heave and shoved it into the rear of the Mini, diving in over it.

  “Drive!”

  Michael needed no further encouragement. Slamming the car into gear, he took advantage of the lull to screech around one pylon and then another and up the exit ramp. Sparks flew as the Mini’s chassis bottomed out, hitting the rise to ground level at speed. There was an enormous bump, followed by the grating of metal on concrete, and like that they were out of the garage. But they weren’t out of the woods. Because even as they raced past the guard gate, Michael saw their pursuers sprinting toward their vehicles. Whoever they were, they weren’t giving up.

  14

  MICHAEL PLOWED THE beat up Mini through the Chinese night with no idea where he was going, but every intention of getting there fast. Already he could see headlights gaining on them in his rearview mirror.

  “Who are they?”

  “By the looks of them, I’d say someone official, probably Ministry.”

  “Ministry of what?”

  “State Security. China’s CIA. Turn here.”

  Michael could barely see the turn off for the fields, but he responded to the cold confidence in Kate’s voice with laser precision. The rear end of the Mini swung around and a second later they were flying along the rutted washboard gravel of the tiny service road. Kate didn’t have to tell him to turn off the headlights. He did so instinctively, using the moon to guide him.

  “Why are they after us?”

  “You tell me, Sherlock. We just robbed a dead guy.”

  “They didn’t know that.”

  “Look, I don’t know how they found us or what they want, but it doesn’t make any difference now,” Kate said, staring down the road. “The airport is less than a mile north of here.”

  “So?”

  “So punch it.”

  Michael hit the accelerator, actually getting air off the next rise in the dirt road. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he could see the headlights relentlessly following. Ahead, the lighted airport control tower came into view. He floored the Mini over another bump and as his head hit the roof he could just make out the blue lights of the taxiway. It looked like metal far ahead, metal glinting off the poles of a chain link fence.

  They flew over another rise and now Michael was sure of it. The road dead ended in a meandering concrete drainage ditch bordered by a chain link fence, several feet of barbed wire rimming the top. On the left side of the road a gravel ramp extended to the east. It was clearly the beginning of a bridge over the drainage ditch but the forms were empty and the concrete had yet to be poured. Idle road making equipment sat in the shadows. To the right there was nothing, just the long expanse of fence and ditch, the groomed expanse of the airport beyond. Michael glanced behind him. Their pursuers were still gaining. His seat belt was secured. He looked over at Kate and saw that hers was too.

  “Is there a good reason we’re going to that airport?”

  “Staying alive is good, right?”

  Michael didn’t like where this was going. But he figured he’d like being perforated by bullet holes less. So he made a choice. A choice that would have seemed insane just a short w
hile ago. “Open your window, pull back your seat, and button up your Daisy Duke’s.”

  “Michael,” Kate said calmly. “I want you to stop the car and let me drive.”

  “It’s not driving when your wheels leave the ground.”

  Michael stomped on it and the tiny blue car gave what little it had left. Michael knew that what he was about to do was not without risk. For one thing, the drainage ditch was no rut in the road. It was at least forty feet across. For another, the gravel ramp ran at a rough forty-five degree angle to the fence. It was pointing in the right direction to cross the bend in the ditch, but it was a stretch to think the little car would make it up the ramp and over the chain link. Plus, it wasn’t like Evel Knievel was his uncle. Michael knew he could drive. But he had no idea if he could fly.

  Short of surrendering though, Michael didn’t see a lot of options. So he hit it, hammering the gravel ramp at as oblique an angle as seemed prudent. The Mini’s bumper hit first plowing through the gravel like an upended dustbin before the front wheels gained traction and dug into the dirt. It was all momentum from there. Michael would have liked to think it had something to do with skill, but at that point they were a projectile. A projectile in need of a target.

  Michael wasn’t sure exactly when they left the ramp behind them. He did notice that they had a good view of the airfield from up there. And then an eerie calm replaced the sound of rubber on gravel. They were airborne. But the weightless sensation didn’t last long. It was a second, maybe more, before Michael saw the glint of barbed wire in front of him. He thought they were going to clear it. He hoped that they were going to clear it. He prayed as much. But then he heard the tug of barbed wire on the grill work as it took hold of the little car, pulling her back to Earth. And WHAM! A fraction of a second later they were plowing through the chain link as it levered downward like a too stiff shock absorber guiding them to terra firma.