by Fritz Galt
Sullivan moved the trackball over to the image library and found an old image of Liang from a newspaper clipping. The grainy photo was roughly the same dimension as that morning’s photo taken by the immigrations agent. He aligned the two windows and compared the face of the Liang he knew with the man claiming to be Leng.
“Close,” the technician breathed over his shoulder.
Sullivan was impressed. The nose was radically thinner with a higher bridge and the face was measurably slimmer. “It looks like plastic surgery on the nose and orthodontics on the jaws.”
The technician scratched his head. “Better send it over to forensics for verification.”
Sullivan made a mental note to do that. Forensics could compare the metrics that uniquely identify each individual despite plastic and reconstructive surgery.
But he didn’t want to lose track of “Mr. Leng” in San Francisco. And he had no time to lose. He switched to another computer and within a minute pulled up all passenger lists, of both domestic and international flights, containing the names Yu and Leng in the past twenty-four hours. Not only did the flight from Beijing show up, but also a flight from San Francisco to Denver. He checked that flight’s departure time. It was already in the air.
He picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory, that of Gary Norton, the CIA’s Director of Operations.
“What is it, Igor?”
“I need to request an FBI swoop on Denver International Airport in the next few minutes.”
“What’s happening?”
“It’s a Chinese terrorist.”
“A what terrorist?”
“I’m telling you,” Sullivan insisted. He was fully aware that his request went against all prevailing wisdom concerning the Chinese. “It’s the Chinese president’s grandson, a known killer.”
“You want the FBI to arrest the Chinese president’s grandson? Are you out of your mind?”
Sullivan closed his eyes. His request might not fly. The Attorney General had recently installed an entirely new group of outsiders in the top ranks of the FBI, and they might be unfamiliar with recent cases, even high profile successes scored by the CIA.
“You’ll just have to take my word on this, sir.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Gary said. “I’m meeting with the FBI Director late this afternoon. If I get a chance, I’ll bring it up, see if it sparks some interest. But I can just imagine what he’ll say.”
It wasn’t hard to pick up on Gary’s cajoling tone. Sullivan set down the phone. His whole momentum had come to a juddering halt.
He was going to have to step on toes. Diplomatic feathers would be ruffled. Politicians’ noses would be bloodied. Agency figures would have his claw marks running up their backs. But he would pursue Liang every way he knew how. This guy was supposed to be dead.
He glanced back at the screen with the new image of Leng and the news photo of Liang. Could he be wrong? Could May be mistaken? Could the caution and inertia of the Agency be justified?
He dragged the two images into one document to email to the forensics lab. They would have the final word on whether he was dealing with a madman who had previously plotted to take over China or if he was just a businessman trying to seal a deal in Denver.
The fact that the person of interest had entered the homeland alongside May’s father was a strong indication that he was who May said he was. But the fact that Liang had already died and that May hadn’t personally identified him was unsettling.
He clicked the button that sent the document off to forensics. That could take a full day, and he needed more assets on the ground than May and Jade. He needed someone with all the skills necessary to track Liang down and reveal his motives.
He needed Brad.
Chapter 7
Brad’s train car thumped along the tracks with unswerving purpose.
“Get over it, buddo,” Earl droned from the lower berth of the soft sleeper. “She left you.”
He tried to ignore Earl as they rode back to Beijing. But he couldn’t avoid the reality that would face him at the end of the line. May would have already left the country. Why? Because of him?
Suddenly, he felt a vibration in his jeans pocket. He leaned over on one elbow and pulled out the cell phone. “Wei?”
“I’m trying to reach Brad West,” the deep voice said.
“Dad!”
“Brad? Was that you speaking Chinese?”
“Well…” Brad hung his head with embarrassment. It was no secret that a wide chasm existed between him and the Chinese language.
“Listen up,” came the distant voice amidst the racket of people shouting commands. “We believe that your old foe Liang Jiaxi is still alive.”
“That couldn’t be.” Brad was confused. His thoughts flashed back to Liang’s fighter jet taking off for Thailand, never to land, and never to return. “He couldn’t have survived.”
“It was May who informed me. Liang just arrived in the United States. I couldn’t believe it either, but I had to check it out.”
“And?”
“We reviewed passengers entering the country through San Francisco. And I’ve got a closed circuit monitor showing someone looking a lot like him entering the country at 6:40 this morning.”
Earl kicked his mattress from below and whispered, “What is it?”
“Liang’s still alive,” Brad said. The very thought of that vengeful monster roaming the earth again made his blood run cold. He had a long history with Liang and had spent most of that time trying to avoid, evade and otherwise disentangle himself from that creep, the pride of the Chinese military, the grandson of the President of China, and May’s former lover. But in the end, their fates were inextricably bound together.
For one thing, they were both deeply infatuated with May. Brad could respect that, except that once Brad had shown her a better way, May wanted nothing more to do with Liang. Vying for her affections had pitted the two rutting bucks against each other in what Brad had thought at the time was a fight to the death.
For another thing, there was the unavoidable fact that Brad had foiled Liang’s plans to take over China. In a scheme to poison his grandfather and drown the Politburo leaving himself as sole heir to power, Liang had had only one impediment—Brad.
Brad had not only crushed Liang’s dreams. The last Brad knew, Liang had been shot down over Thailand trying to escape.
Theirs was a long, shared history that Brad didn’t care to repeat.
“Now, here’s how I want you to help,” his father continued over the phone. “I’ve alerted the FBI, but it will be a day or so before they can get organized. I’m not even sure if they’ll take on this case. In any event, we don’t have the luxury of time.”
“Send out operatives.” Brad could imagine agents in trench coats spreading out across Fog City to track Liang down.
“We can’t. The law doesn’t allow the CIA to operate on our soil.”
Brad knew that.
“I thought you might volunteer,” his father said, his voice less certain than before. “After all, you are our best hope.”
“Me? Your job is to save me from Liang, not throw me at him.”
“Fortunately for you, I don’t think he’s after you. I thought you might come and track him down in the States.”
Brad thought about gum shoeing around San Francisco until he found Liang. Then what?
“Otherwise, it’s entirely up to May.”
“What does she have to do with this?”
There was a long pause on the other end. “There’s something I neglected to tell you. Liang has May’s father with him.”
“So that’s why May is going there.” What a huge relief. She wasn’t leaving him; she was tracking her dad down.
“I don’t see why you’re so happy about it, given the danger she’ll face.” Then Sullivan added, “At least she has Jade with her.”
“Well, you can count on me,” Brad said at last. “If you don’t mind, I’ll tap into th
ose funds that the Agency made available.”
“Be my guest. But a word of caution. You’ve been in Liang’s crosshairs before.”
Brad nodded in full appreciation of that fact. Not only had he foiled Liang’s plan and tried to punch his lights out, he had stolen Liang’s girl.
“I want you to stay safe,” Sullivan said. “And that’s an order.”
“How can you expect me to walk into a buzz saw and stay safe?”
“I suppose I can’t.”
“But I do intend to remain alert,” Brad said. All those vehicular accidents, shootings, poisonings and explosions were too fresh in his memory. “Over and out.”
He clicked the phone off and leaned over the edge of the bed. “I’ve got to get to the States. Liang’s there.”
Still flat on the bunk below, Earl sucked in his breath. “What does Sully think you can do?”
“He thinks I’m the best asset he has for finding Liang and putting him out of commission. After all, my father’s hands are tied. The CIA can’t operate within the country’s borders.”
“So you’re going back to the States to face a certain and gruesome death at the hands of a madman who intends to take over the world.”
“Maybe I’ll run into May while I’m there.”
“Forget about May! Save your skin first.”
“But she’s stuck in my mind like a tune that won’t go away.”
“Maybe your iShuffle is stuck.”
“Nope, Skeeter. She’s the real thing. If only I could get her to sit still for a minute, she might marry me.”
Earl’s voice took a far-off, mystical tone. “So much for saving the world.”
“That, too.” Brad lay back and stared at the metal ceiling. Earl was right. His priorities were all screwed up. “By the way, my dad said she took Jade with her.”
There was a thud as Earl’s feet hit the floor. “You’re kidding.”
“It’s the honest truth. She’s left you, Skeeter. And she didn’t even call.”
“Why would she do a thing like that?”
Her silence did seem strange, even to Brad. After all, Jade and Earl were happily shacked up in Beijing except for her occasional covert trip to Moscow or his infrequent expedition into Asia’s hinterland.
“If you love her, let her go…” Brad began to sing.
“Shut up, will ya? I’ve gotta think.”
Suddenly someone was knocking on the door to their train cabin.
“Did you order room service?” Brad asked, and leaped to the floor.
“No. Don’t open it,” Earl said. “They’ve already punched our tickets and taken our passport numbers down. I’ll ask who it is.”
The knock came again, this time more adamant. An uneasy feeling crept over Brad. He looked around the cabin for some weapon to use in self-defense. There was a nice little vase with a long-stemmed rose.
Earl yelled a question through the door, but that only served to make the unbidden visitor angry. A man on the other side yelled something back.
“What did he say?” Brad fingered a doily for its defensive potential.
“He isn’t making sense. I don’t even know what language he’s speaking. It’s some dialect.”
The door began to bend inward. The lock was designed for privacy, not protection.
“Who could it be?” Earl asked.
At that moment it all came clear to Brad. “It’s got to be Liang’s men. And that goon on the chairlift was no freak accident, either. If Liang hates anybody’s guts, it’s mine.”
Earl gave him a cockeyed look. “He’s got a good case.”
“Whose side are you on anyway?”
“Maybe you’re taking this a little too personally,” Earl said. “How would he even find us?”
“Maybe he got to May or Jade.”
Earl leaned his considerable weight against the door. “No. How would he know that we were on this train?”
Brad glanced at the cell phone in his hand. The screen was flashing and it began to vibrate. He looked at his friend in confusion.
“They GPS’d us!” Earl suddenly exclaimed. “They tracked us down by our phones. Quick, throw them out the window.”
“What good will that do?”
“Just do as I say.” Earl tossed him his cell phone.
Brad yanked the curtain aside, pulled the window down, and threw the two cell phones into a weedy ditch alongside the tracks. As the wind whipped his hair in his eyes, he sized up the space through the open window. “D’you think we could fit through here?”
Earl looked at his chubby belly, then at the door’s hinges about to pop out. “Let’s give it a try.” He charged across the small room and hurled himself at the window. Within seconds, he had managed to thrust an arm and leg out the narrow opening. Brad gave him the extra shove he needed, and Earl swung outside. His ponytail came loose and his dark hair streaked across his face.
The door behind Brad burst open. He didn’t turn to look. With one long stride, Brad was standing on the table beside the window. Then, with another step, he was out the window and hanging by his fingers to the top of the glass.
The setting sun glared against the windowpane. Inside the train, he made out a soldier. The gaps in the man’s teeth told him it was the soldier from the chairlift.
Brad cast about looking for his friend. Had Earl fallen off the train? Then he caught sight of a leg easing over the top of a ladder beside the window. Earl had found a way onto the roof of the train.
Brad edged over to the ladder and hooked it with his right foot. Just as he was reaching for the ladder with his hand, the butt of a rifle smashed down on the knuckles of his left hand.
His entire arm recoiled under the blow. Glass cracked and splintered. A white-hot pain set in. It was all Brad could do not to let go of the ladder. He didn’t want to see the other end of the rifle, so he winced hard and clambered upward just as the ugly black hole of the muzzle pointed out the window.
Earl grabbed him from above and began to haul him up by his coverall straps.
The rifle went off, and Brad felt his boot twist and nearly fly off his foot.
“That was a bullet,” he said in shock.
He lunged for the roof and made it. The cold metal surface felt good under his cheek. Earl crouched over him, panting. Within seconds, the unstoppable assailant would appear over the top of the ladder and fire at them, execution style.
Earl pointed to the ladder. “We can detach it,” he shouted in the wind.
The two fell on a pair of rusty nuts fastened to bolts that held the ladder up. Below them, an arm and leg extended from the window. Ten turns of Brad’s bolt didn’t free the ladder.
The entire soldier was outside the train and hanging from the cracked pane of glass.
Ten more increasingly difficult turns, and the damned ladder still hung by a thread.
His rifle slung over one shoulder, the soldier gained a foothold on the ladder.
Another few turns and the bolt became completely stuck in rust. The train tossed Brad around like a trampoline. He grabbed the nut with both hands and focused all his strength for a final turn.
The bolt came free. “I’ve got it.”
Earl held his bolt up, too.
Brad reversed his position on the roof and kicked at the top rung of the ladder just as the soldier appeared. The man’s weight caused the ladder to swing away from the train car. He reached out to Brad in a last-ditch effort to catch himself. Brad kicked the fingers off his boot. The ladder tilted away and there was a scream. Brad couldn’t bear to watch the rest.
He caught the glint of metal just overhead. “Hit the deck!”
They flattened themselves just in time to avoid being splattered all over a bridge. Brad took the opportunity to peer over the edge of the car. The ladder had swung to the ground and was ripped off by the cement abutment of the bridge. Their assailant was nowhere in sight.
“Dude, you really had it in for that guy,” Earl said.
“It was either him or me.” Brad felt a slight pang of guilt. He’d never killed a man before, and it didn’t feel good.
He eased back to the center of the roof, only to be hammered from below. At first it felt like a sledgehammer pounding upward against the thin surface on which he lay. But then he saw round holes appearing. The roof was fast becoming a sieve.
It took Brad several seconds to realize that bullets were ripping up the metal, mere centimeters from his face. “He’s alive, and shooting at us through the roof!”
Several more rounds tore the metal apart in front of his buddy’s face. Earl squirmed off his belly and made for the forward carriage.
“God help us,” Brad moaned.
Separated by gunfire from his friend, Brad scrambled on all fours in the opposite direction toward the rear of the car.
How he’d ever find May was a mystery, now that she had stolen off to America. And how he’d ever meet up with Earl was a growing question.
But how to survive the mad gunman was foremost on his mind.
Chapter 8
Despite all the passengers milling around Denver International Airport, nobody turned to Liang or Dr. Yu with any sign of recognition. After a long flight to San Francisco, then another leg over the Rocky Mountains, Yu was amused to think that Liang’s plans were coming unraveled.
“We’ll go through Security first.” Liang took Yu on a moving walkway into the nation’s fifth busiest airport.
They reached the people-mover train headed for the main terminal and still hadn’t run into Liang’s contact. That was a good thing. Yu would be happy to scrub the entire mission. He watched tiny fans spin in the turbulence caused by the underground train whooshing past. When the ride ended, they followed the crowd up an escalator to the terminal.
At Baggage Claim, they were met by more unfamiliar faces. Some were all business, others were tanned and relaxed, still others were flabby and sweating. Americans were almost as diverse as the Chinese.
Baggage from the San Francisco flight arrived as advertised, and several hale and hearty passengers collected skis and snowboards for late spring skiing.
