‘We got a text message to meet you,’ Connor replied.
The colonel narrowed his eyes. ‘At that office on Fangbang Middle Road?’
Subjected to his penetrating glare, Connor got the distinct feeling he was being interrogated. He nodded. ‘It turned out to be a trap.’
‘Yes, we suspected as much. Bugsy scoped out the site first. That’s why we didn’t show. But we did see you and tried to make contact.’
Connor now recalled the masked figure emerging from the demolition dust cloud. ‘That was you! We had no idea. Why wear the mask?’
‘The same reason you’re wearing one,’ replied the colonel, nodding at the grubby pollution mask still covering Connor’s mouth. ‘As Westerners in China, our faces stand out like balls on a cow. Even if we did blend in, Equilibrium’s reach is so extensive they’d soon track us down. So, if we’re to stay alive, we must keep a low profile at all costs.’
Peeling off Zhen’s mask, Connor asked, ‘But how did you find us? Shanghai’s not exactly a small place.’
‘We received a message too – from you,’ revealed Colonel Black. ‘I believe you were the bait for us. Since then Bugsy’s been keeping track of your movements.’
‘That was your drone!’ exclaimed Amir, clapping his hands at making the connection. ‘Oh, man, it’s super-cool. What’s the resolution of the camera?’
The corner of Bugsy’s mouth curled into a smile. ‘Sixteen-megapixel with 8K video capability at twenty-four frames per second.’
Amir’s face lit up. ‘Wow! Speed?’
‘Top velocity of seventy miles per hour,’ boasted Bugsy, ‘with a new-generation LiPo battery guaranteeing over sixty minutes of flight time. When folded, it’s not much bigger than a regular water bottle. The camera’s mounted on a three-axis gimbals stabilizer ensuring –’
‘Enough of the tech talk,’ snapped Colonel Black. ‘What I really want to know is what you two were doing outside the 1933 Building?’
Connor was once again subjected to a stare as cold and piercing as ice. ‘I was going to find Charley,’ he replied, wondering why the colonel was being so hostile. ‘Mr Grey is in Shanghai too. He’s threatened to visit her if I didn’t locate you. I’d just spotted her when you grabbed me off the street.’ He turned to Bugsy. ‘We need to go back and get Charley.’
‘No!’ said Colonel Black sharply.
Connor shot him an incredulous look. ‘Why not?’
The colonel studied Connor for several seconds as if judging whether he was trustworthy or not. Then, evidently satisfied, he replied, ‘Because you almost stepped into the wasps’ nest. The 1933 Building is Equilibrium’s Shanghai headquarters.’
Connor shook his head. ‘That can’t be right. It’s Charley’s spinal clinic.’
‘That may well be the case,’ said Colonel Black, ‘but it’s also the heart of Equilibrium’s operations, otherwise known as the Hive.’
Connor felt his stomach plummet. ‘We have to go back. Charley’s in danger!’
‘No, she’s the danger to us,’ corrected the colonel. ‘She’s the traitor.’
Connor was stunned into silence, the revelation hitting him as hard as the wrecking ball that had destroyed the Shanghai office block. It was as if he couldn’t breathe, all the air sucked from his lungs. It couldn’t be true. Charley couldn’t be the traitor. She was Alpha team’s operations leader. The first female Buddyguard recruit. She was his girlfriend! This had to be a mistake. But why would the colonel say such a thing if he didn’t believe it to be the truth? Connor’s mind reeled as the van sped along the ring road, his thoughts as chaotic and fleeting as the passing traffic.
‘Turn off here,’ the colonel directed Bugsy.
Taking the exit ramp from the ring road, the van headed into a run-down industrial zone – a potholed grid of crumbling concrete office blocks and vast decaying warehouses. Workers in dirt-stained overalls shifted wooden crates on and off delivery trucks that looked more like rust-buckets on wheels. Jagged mountains of scrap metal and broken household appliances littered the forecourts, while car parks were dump zones for wrecks of vehicles being stripped of their spare parts. Turning left down an empty side road, the van disturbed a feral dog scavenging through a pile of rotting rubbish. It limped off along a darkened alleyway strewn with broken bottles and plastic bags.
‘Nice neighbourhood,’ said Amir, eyeing a burnt-out vehicle and what looked like a flattened piece of roadkill in the gutter.
‘This is prime real estate,’ smirked Bugsy. ‘No CCTV, no police and no security means no surveillance.’
Passing beneath a flyover, the van approached a dilapidated warehouse. Half the corrugated roof had collapsed in and its upper tier of windows had been either shattered or boarded up. The brickwork was pockmarked and flaking; even the faded graffiti looked worse for wear. The van came to a halt in front of a large rusting metal shutter and Bugsy handed Amir a key. ‘Do the honours.’
Clambering out of his seat, Amir hurried over to the entrance. He unlocked a heavy-duty padlock at the base and rolled up the shutter. The van eased cautiously inside, then Amir brought the shutter down with a clattering bang that reverberated round the warehouse’s dank cavernous space.
Sliding open the van’s side door, Colonel Black jumped out. Connor followed, but the colonel insisted that the bound Zhen should remain in the back of the van.
‘Welcome to our top-secret base!’ said Bugsy with a wry smile. He swept his hand round the crumbling shell of a building – a vast, cold and gloomy void of dirt and discarded rubbish.
Amir laughed. ‘I can see why you keep it secret.’
Then, like a magician, Bugsy tugged away a dust sheet and revealed a workbench kitted out with computers, high-res monitors, surveillance equipment, drones, weapons and other essential gear.
Amir’s eyes widened, trying to take it all in. ‘Whoa! James Bond would be jealous of this set-up.’
Bugsy patted his student amiably on the shoulder. ‘There’s a cyber-market on Qiujiang Road, right under the elevated train tracks in north Shanghai, where you can buy almost anything – electronic processors, circuit boards, laptops, cameras, you name it. Legal or illegal, they’ll have it … for a price.’
As Bugsy gave Amir a rundown of the equipment, Connor stood in the centre of the warehouse, lost in a daze. He still couldn’t believe what the colonel had said. It didn’t make any sense. Not his Charley.
‘She’s no traitor!’ he shouted, his voice echoing off the warehouse walls and sounding more hollow and desperate than he liked.
Colonel Black rounded on him. ‘Believe me, she is. We didn’t discover the link between the clinic and the Hive until Bugsy hacked into their mainframe.’
‘So what if the clinic’s in the same place as Equilibrium’s headquarters? That doesn’t mean Charley’s one of them. They must be holding her against her will.’
Colonel Black folded his arms across his chest. ‘Did she look like a prisoner to you?’
Connor thought back to Charley on the building’s rooftop, to all appearances unguarded and untroubled. ‘I wasn’t close enough to tell. But Charley’s one of us – Alpha team’s ops leader and one of your first recruits!’
‘Which makes her all the more valuable to Equilibrium,’ the colonel replied coldly. ‘Haven’t you wondered how Equilibrium knows so much about Buddyguard? Not only did they find the classified location of our headquarters, but they were able to hack into our systems, compromising our security and taking control of our communications. They gained access to every active operation! All evidence points to an inside job – and the backstabbing traitor is your Charley.’
Connor didn’t know how to respond. Of course he’d suspected an inside job and had even voiced his concern to Amir. But never in a thousand years would he have imagined it to be Charley.
‘You must be wrong,’ he argued, his upset turning to anger. ‘Charley came to China to try out a pioneering therapy for her spinal injury. A once-in-a-lifetim
e opportunity. That was her only reason – her only motivation. The fact that the clinic’s in Shanghai, or that she left prior to the attack, is mere coincidence.’ He glared fiercely at the colonel. ‘After everything she’s sacrificed for Buddyguard, how can you even think of accusing her of betrayal?’
Colonel Black sighed. ‘If I can’t convince you, then perhaps this will.’ He beckoned Connor over to the workbench and flipped open a laptop. ‘Bugsy discovered this during his hack into Equilibrium’s mainframe.’
He ran a video file and Charley’s slim perfect face flickered on to the screen. Connor instantly felt a surge of protective love towards her. Laid back against a pillow, she looked relaxed, calm, almost dreamy. Her head was in bandages, so Connor guessed that the video had been recorded around the time she’d called him in Mexico.
‘How do you feel now?’ asked a voice off-camera, male, doctor-like and heavily accented.
‘Better,’ she replied with a smile.
‘The neuro-chip implantation went according to plan. Your physiotherapy begins tomorrow. Now, you must fulfil your part of the bargain.’
A slight frown creased Charley’s brow as the voice asked, ‘What is the location of the Buddyguard Headquarters?’
The frown faded and her eyes, wide and blue as a summer sky, looked unblinking into the camera. ‘Wales, Brecon Beacons … five miles north of Craig-y-nos.’
‘What’s the access code to your security login?’
‘Kerry4837#RIP.’
‘What security measures are there at Headquarters?’
Charley chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. ‘Perimeter alarms along the borders, hidden CCTV cameras at the gate, pressure detectors at ten-metre intervals beneath the ground, window sensors …’
Connor felt his heart sink as Charley reeled off each and every security feature.
Then the disembodied voice asked, ‘Where’s Connor now?’
A smile slid across Charley’s lips at the mention of his name. ‘On a mission in Mexico –’
Connor snapped the laptop shut. Swallowing back a bitter lump in his throat, he stared off into the far distance, tears welling up. Even though he’d seen the video with his own eyes, he still couldn’t believe it.
I don’t know what to believe at the moment … Charley’s own words in reference to Colonel Black came back to haunt him. He recalled her recent questioning of the Buddyguard organization, her growing distrust of the colonel, her frustration at no longer being the star recruit, and her vague and guarded responses whenever he asked about the spinal research group and how they’d contacted and selected her. In light of the fact that Charley had lost the use of her legs in a mission, it was understandable that she resented Buddyguard – but to the point of betrayal?
‘I realize how hard this must hit you, Connor,’ said Colonel Black. ‘I’ve only just accepted it myself. But we have an important mission ahead. Perhaps the most critical we’ve ever embarked upon. Dare I say, the future state of the world rests upon our shoulders. So I need your full focus and capabilities if we’re to succeed.’
Connor nodded numbly. Slumped in a rickety old office chair, Amir appeared to be equally shocked. His head was in his hands and his dark brown eyes glassy with tears.
‘You too, Amir!’ snapped the colonel.
Amir blinked, straightened and refocused on the colonel. ‘Yes, sir.’
Colonel Black patted the flash drive in his pocket. ‘The contents of this drive can expose and bring Equilibrium down. But, due to the extent of their power and influence, there’s only one person in the world I’d trust enough to act on information this sensitive – Stella Sinclair, Deputy Director of MI6. So we have to get the drive out of China and into her hands.’
‘Why not just email it to her?’ suggested Amir.
‘The files will never get past the Great Firewall of China,’ explained Bugsy. ‘A two-million-strong force of security officers monitor online activity, 24/7. With Equilibrium’s invisible grip on the government, the net will be shut down the instant the files are uploaded and a kill switch activated to destroy them. We’ll be left with nothing but an empty flash drive.’
‘What about using an encrypted VPN?’ asked Amir.
Bugsy shook his head. ‘Even Virtual Private Networks are controlled by the state, and through them by Equilibrium. We’ve no option but to physically take the files out of the country.’
‘How about approaching the British Embassy? Use a diplomatic bag?’ said Connor.
Colonel Black replied with a thin mirthless smile. ‘Equilibrium has even infiltrated the British Foreign Office. With agents in the Shanghai division, there’s no guarantee the flash drive will reach Ms Sinclair. The only sure-fire route is to hand it to her personally. As all the airports are being closely monitored, the plan is to take the bullet train from Shanghai to Hong Kong, then catch a boat to Singapore, before flying back to the UK.’
‘But what about the rest of the team?’ asked Connor.
Colonel Black’s expression hardened. ‘The flash drive is our only priority.’
Amir looked aghast. ‘But they’re in trouble! We need to save them – to do something at least.’
‘We are. We’re taking this –’ he pulled out the drive – ‘to MI6.’
Connor stared at the colonel. ‘But Mr Grey threatened to end their lives if I didn’t find you for him.’
‘You have.’
‘But he’s expecting me to call. What do you think he’s going to do when he discovers we’ve left the country?’
The colonel’s eyes turned stony. ‘As much as I hate to say it, sacrifices may have to be made.’
Connor was taken aback at the colonel’s hard-heartedness. ‘We can’t abandon them to that psycho assassin. Think about Jody, Gunner, Ling, Jason, Marc, Richie –’
‘We’re dealing with a ruthless organization,’ cut in Colonel Black. ‘This flash drive is the only leverage we’ve got. And it’s the best chance for their survival. Until it’s out of the country, all our lives are in jeopardy.’
‘And remember, Connor, they’re all bodyguards,’ said Bugsy. ‘Just like you and Amir, they’ve had hostage survival training. Coping mechanisms will be in place. They’ll be looking for any opportunity to escape. And if they’re all together they’ll be even stronger. Our job is to ensure their efforts aren’t wasted and to be there when they get out.’
With a heavy heart, Connor accepted the logic in Colonel Black and Bugsy’s argument, even though it didn’t feel right turning their backs on their friends like this. ‘OK,’ he relented with a sigh. ‘Let’s do it then.’
Bugsy cleared his throat. ‘There’s one small glitch in our plan. We need ID to purchase the train tickets. However, as soon as our names are entered into the system, Equilibrium will be on to us.’
From the back of the van, a voice piped up. ‘I can get tickets.’
‘What’s that?’ said Colonel Black.
Zhen poked his head out of the van’s side door, wrists and ankles still bound. ‘I said, I can get the tickets for you. My uncle works for the railway. No need for ID or passports. Even put them in Chinese names.’
Colonel Black looked at Connor. ‘Can we trust him?’
Zhen offered the colonel a mercenary smile. ‘Can you afford not to?’
Connor perched on the end row of a set of red padded seats, one among hundreds that lined the vast concourse of Shanghai Railway Station like a regiment of plastic soldiers on parade. A newly purchased pollution mask covered his face, and a baseball cap hid his spikes of brown hair. He kept his head bowed but his eyes up, constantly scanning the torrent of passengers flowing to and from the dozen or so platforms.
The bullet train to Hong Kong was due to depart in a little under ten minutes and there was no sign of Zhen. Connor exchanged an anxious look with Amir, who sat three rows over, facing the opposite way. He wore a pollution mask too, and a hoodie, to conceal his identity. He clasped his Go-bag to his chest, and his knee jittered nerv
ously. Bugsy was stationed a little way over to Connor’s right, browsing in a small newsagent’s while eyeing the crowd through his sunglasses. Ensuring their group was dispersed enough to avoid obvious detection, Colonel Black stood next to a drinks vending machine, mirrored shades and mask on. Between them they maintained a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree arc of surveillance in a bid to prevent anyone sneaking up on them unnoticed. Still, Connor felt horribly exposed and vulnerable. CCTV cameras covered every angle in the station and security guards roamed the concourse.
‘Anyone see Zhen?’ asked Colonel Black, his voice tense and impatient through the discreet comms units that Bugsy had kitted them out with.
‘Negative,’ replied Bugsy.
Amir shook his head.
‘He’ll be here,’ said Connor under his breath, placing all his faith in their Chinese guide.
‘You’d better be right,’ the colonel replied, glancing up at the departure screen. ‘We’re running out of time.’
Another minute ticked by.
‘I reckon the weasel’s bolted with our money,’ said Bugsy, angrily stuffing a magazine back into its rack. They’d handed over ten thousand yuan to cover the ticket price and the uncle’s ‘service charge’. It amounted to a small fortune for a teenage tour guide.
‘Or else he’s turned us in,’ said the colonel bitterly. He nodded in the direction of the terminal exit where a group of guards clustered. More were gathering near the opposite entrance.
Connor didn’t want to believe either scenario. During their rickshaw escape from Equilibrium’s agents, Zhen had proven loyal, brave and resourceful. He’d had the opportunity to walk away with three hundred yuan in his pocket at that time and hadn’t. Yet, after seeing the video of Charley divulging all Buddyguard’s secrets, Connor questioned whether he could trust anyone again. And ten thousand yuan was a lot of money.
‘Heads up, Connor,’ warned Bugsy.
A station security guard was wandering his way, randomly asking passengers for their tickets and proof of ID. Connor began to sweat as the guard drew closer and closer. Having neither ticket nor an ID he wished to declare for fear of alerting Equilibrium, Connor rose from his seat and turned to go, but bumped straight into another passenger –
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