Counterblow

by Ethan Jones

  Fang nodded. “I thought about warning you, but then I thought again.” He tipped his head at the phone.

  “That’s how they’re tracking you.”

  “Yes, and if I turned the tracker off, they’d know I know about them.”

  “Good move,” Javin said in a confident voice, but it didn’t sound as reassuring as he had hoped for. “Are they listening right now?”

  Fang cocked his head to the left, and his face wrinkled in a frown. “Do you realize what you’re saying, Pierce?”

  Javin nodded slowly. “I need to hear it, Fang.”

  “Well, hear it clearly: I’m not betraying you, my friend. No one is listening to our conversation.”

  Javin’s frown deepened. Whenever someone called him “friend,” it sent his alarm sensors blaring. He did trust Fang, as much as he needed to trust any asset. But the CIS operative didn’t trust the situation, the turn of events, which could be catastrophic. China didn’t trade off captured spies. It kept them rotting in jail for years if it didn’t execute them outright.

  “Okay,” Javin said and smiled at Fang. “I trust you. Sorry, I’m just a little edgy and paranoid; that’s all. Now, I’ve got to use the little boy’s room…”

  Fang gave him a confused look.

  Javin said, “The washroom. I need to go to the washroom.”

  “Ooooh, I see.”

  Javin stood up, took his rucksack, and kept his right hand close to his chest. He made a quick, almost imperceptible hand gesture to Fang, pointing toward the washroom.

  Fang didn’t seem to understand, so Javin mouthed the words, “Meet me in the washroom…”

  He returned a small nod.

  Javin stepped around the table, then whispered to Fang, “Leave the phone here.”

  He nodded again.

  Javin walked through the narrow hall and turned the silver knob of the door to the men’s washroom. Its grayish tiled floor was dirty, and there was little room outside the two stalls. No urinals and a small, chipped sink with a rusty-looking faucet.

  Javin checked the stalls.

  They were both empty.

  He positioned himself behind the door. Whoever entered the washroom wouldn’t be able to see Javin right away. If Fang came in waving a gun, Javin would have a split second to react…

  Chapter Seven

  Golden Duck Restaurant

  Northern Outskirts of Beijing

  China

  Javin counted the slow-moving seconds as he waited. Adrenaline was rushing through his body, and his senses became heightened. He heard footsteps down the hall, but no one opened the bathroom door.

  Then someone turned the knob.

  Javin readied himself to pounce at the first sign of danger.

  Fang took a cautious step through the doorway. He had no weapons in his hands. He turned his head to the right and saw Javin, who had placed a finger over his mouth.

  “What—”

  Javin crossed the short distance between them and cupped his hand over Fang’s mouth. “Quiet,” he whispered in his ear. “Turn around and face the wall.”

  Javin locked the bathroom door and began to search Fang.

  “Hey, wait, why?” he protested.

  “Shhhhh, just shut up, okay?” Javin whispered firmly into Fang’s ear.

  The CIS operative completed the pat-down. Fang was carrying his agency-issued, made-in-China QSZ-92 9mm pistol in his shoulder holster. He had no phones or wires on him, so Javin said, “Okay, turn around now.”

  Fang gave Javin a look full of disgust and disappointment. “You’re totally messed up, you know that?”

  Javin shrugged. “I do what I have to do to stay alive.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t betray you.”

  Javin nodded. “You might not, but the MSS could have bugged you, and you wouldn’t have a clue…”

  “You really think I’m that gullible?” Fang’s voice took on a sarcastic tone.

  Javin shrugged, but didn’t respond. He still wasn’t certain about Fang’s loyalty. He was clean, as far as the quick pat-down could tell. What if the MSS had stitched something under the collar of Fang’s jacket? What if he had a tracking device in one of his shoes? He shrugged. This will have to do.

  “Now what?” Fang spread out his palms.

  “We get out of here before they arrive.”

  “They’re already here.”

  Javin flinched. “Who?”

  “Just as you left, two goons appeared. Tall, dressed in gray suits.”

  “We can’t go back there. We’ll get out through the back.”

  “My car’s in the front.”

  “We’ll find another one. Hand me the gun.”

  “Why?”

  Javin grinned. “Why do you think? I’m unarmed.”

  “Then I’ll have no gun…”

  “You won’t need it. You’ll be driving.”

  Reluctantly, Fang handed the pistol to Javin. He cocked it and held it next to his thigh.

  Fang said, “No extra mags, but that’s double stacked. Thirty rounds.”

  Javin nodded. He was impressed with the firepower the small pistol packed. “Should be enough to get us out of here. Ready?”

  Fang shrugged. “I guess. My phone’s still back there at the table…”

  “Leave it. We’ve got to go.”

  Javin unlocked the door and looked at Fang. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Javin stepped into the hall and turned right, leaving the dining hall behind. He had taken only four steps when he heard shouting from behind. He didn’t turn his head, knowing it was the two goons ordering him and Fang to stop. Instead, Javin hurried his pace.

  He thought about the restaurant’s layout as he came to a door to his left. Yes, this should take us out. Before he could lean on the handle, Fang said, “No, that’s a closet. This way.” He pointed to another door, farther to the right, then stepped around Javin.

  Javin glanced over his right shoulder as he followed.

  A half-bald man in a gray suit was running through the hall behind them.

  Javin aimed the pistol at the men. “Bie guo lai. Bie guo lai!” Stay there. Stay there!

  Baldy froze and raised his hands. He said something to Javin, but he understood only the word “talk” and “bad.” I guess something bad will happen to me if we don’t talk. He shrugged. You happened, and that’s already bad.

  “Bie guo lai,” he shouted again, in a more forceful tone.

  “Let’s go,” Fang called at Javin.

  He jumped through the door leading to the back of the kitchen as Baldy went for something inside his jacket. A gunshot erupted, followed by another one.

  They’re very serious, Javin thought.

  He bolted behind Fang, who was about six steps ahead, running through a small maze of kitchen appliances and supplies. One of the cooks shouted at them. Another threw a spatula that missed Javin by a couple of inches. Something sprayed the back of his head, and he thought it was whatever the cook was stirring with the utensil.

  They came to the end of the kitchen, near a couple of large stoves. Fang opened a door and looked at Javin. “Hurry, hurry—”

  A gunshot cut off his words.

  Baldy or his partner had entered the kitchen.

  A second gunshot, and a bullet pinged against something metallic. Javin dropped to a knee, hiding behind the stove. He didn’t see the pair chasing Fang and him, but still fired a few rounds. He slid backward toward the opened door.

  Someone squeezed off a quick burst, and bullets ricocheted around him.

  Javin reached with the muzzle of his pistol and pushed a large soup pot off the stove. A yellowish liquid spilled all over the floor.

  He stood up as he reached the door and darted outside.

  Fang had broken into a sprint through the small parking lot. “Wait, hey, wait,” Javin shouted.

  He zigzagged among a few parked cars, then doubled his speed. Fang slowed down as he came near the inters
ection, and Javin caught up to him. “We need a car.”

  “Yes, there.” Fang pointed at a small mall with about ten stores to their left. “We’ll find something there.”

  Gunfire came from behind them, but no bullets whizzed over Javin’s head. Still, he ducked behind the nearest vehicle, then both he and Fang walked crouched for the next few meters, until they rounded the corner.

  “Come, come, let’s go.” Fang gestured for Javin to follow him across the busy street.

  “No, wait, you’ll get run over.”

  “I won’t.”

  He held up his hands and waved them at the nearest vehicle, a white van. The driver slowed down but didn’t stop. Fang was unfazed. He kept his hands up as he crept into traffic. The next vehicle, a silver sedan, slowed down considerably as Fang stepped in front of it. He kept walking to the next lane, stopping another sedan.

  Javin shook his head and followed the crazy Chinese operative.

  Thankfully, they both made it across the four-lane street without being run over.

  Fang sprinted toward the mall’s parking lot. A young woman was carrying two large paper bags full of her shopping. Considering the writing on the side of the bags—GAP and Converse—it had to be clothes or shoes. Apparently, she was going toward her vehicle.

  “That girl,” he said to Javin and pointed to the woman.

  Javin hated robbing an innocent woman of her vehicle, but there didn’t seem to be another way. The Chinese government had rigged all taxis for eavesdropping since the 2008 Summer Olympics. The official version of the story claimed it was one of the measures to enhance security for the Olympics. But the microphones installed in the vehicles could be remotely activated to record the passengers’ conversations at all times.

  He removed a wad of American dollars from his wallet. It was about a thousand dollars, not much, but all he had in his wallet. He had another two thousand dollars in his rucksack for emergencies. Hopefully, we can return the car…

  Fang walked at a discreet distance behind the woman.

  When she came close to her vehicle, she unlocked it.

  Javin saw the headlights flash on a blue SUV that looked like a Land Rover. It was relatively new, and it was worth much more than a thousand dollars. He shrugged. We’ll have to find a way to give it back to her.

  Fang couldn’t wait any longer. He darted toward the woman. She heard the footsteps and turned around. Before she had a chance to gasp, Fang placed his left hand over her mouth. “Don’t make a sound,” he said.

  The woman’s eyes doubled in panic and began to tremble as Fang pushed her against the SUV’s door.

  Javin stepped closer to her, boxing her between them. “Don’t worry. We won’t hurt you,” he said in a soft, warm voice. “We just need your SUV.”

  The woman gave him a perplexed look and tried to mumble something. Then she bit Fang’s hand still covering her mouth.

  “Ouch, that hurt,” Fang shouted. “Ni youdu ma?” Are you nuts?

  She screamed at the top of her lungs. “Jiu ming. Lai ren, jiu wo…” Help me. Someone help me…

  Fang raised his hand to slap the woman, but Javin grabbed him by the wrist. “No, we’re not going to hurt her.”

  “She bit me so hard…”

  “You’ll live.”

  The woman flinched, then looked at Javin.

  “Sorry, we just need the SUV,” he said softly. “Give us the keys.”

  The woman’s eyes went to the pistol still in his right hand. She nodded slowly and dropped the keys onto his palm without letting her hand touch his.

  Javin tossed them to Fang and offered the woman the wad of cash. “Sorry, it’s all I have now… But we’ll bring it back.”

  The woman looked at the money, then at Javin’s face. He wasn’t sure if she could understand him, but he tried. “Gei, zhe shi gei ni de.” For you, this is for you. “Na zhe, na zhe…” Take it, take it…

  The woman was still trembling and made no move.

  Javin placed them in her right hand. “Dui bu qi, dui bu qi.” Sorry, very sorry.

  “We have to go,” Fang shouted.

  Javin nodded and ran around the SUV.

  Fang had already started the engine.

  Javin jumped into the red-and-black leather passenger seat. The interior, especially the dashboard, was very similar to the Range Rover Evoque. He shrugged and buckled up, noticing the woman had left her phone, a new model Samsung, in the console between the seats.

  Fang threw the SUV in reverse. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He drove slowly through the parking lot. The vehicle pinged, because he hadn’t buckled the seatbelt, but Fang ignored it. “Do you see the men chasing us?”

  Javin looked over his shoulder. “No, I don’t. Maybe we lost—”

  The rear window erupted in a spray of glass, reminding them that the chase wasn’t over. In fact, it had just started.

  Chapter Eight

  Sky Mall Parking Lot

  Northern Outskirts of Beijing

  China

  “Where are they?” Fang shouted as he flattened the gas pedal.

  Javin twisted around to look back through the rear window. Most of the glass was shattered, but some fragments had remained. They reflected brightly the streetlights, and, because of the darkness in the distance, he couldn’t see anyone. “Don’t know. Can’t see a thing.”

  A round thwacked against the back of the SUV.

  Javin peered at the vehicles growing smaller and smaller as the SUV shot out of the parking lot. Fang turned the steering wheel hard, narrowly avoiding crashing into a car in their lane as he forced his way into the traffic on the two-lane street.

  No vehicle was coming up behind them.

  Not yet.

  Then a silver sedan darted through the rows of vehicles. It rounded the corner and fishtailed as it entered the street, barreling after the SUV.

  “Found them,” Javin said.

  He tapped the trigger, firing out the rear window. The sedan was about forty meters behind them, swerving in and out of the lane, avoiding oncoming vehicles. Javin’s bullets skimmed the front, kicking up sparks. One of the bullets struck the windshield, but didn’t shatter it. Unfazed, the driver didn’t slow down.

  “They’re getting closer,” Fang shouted. “Stop them.”

  “Do you want to fire?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  He aimed at the tires and squeezed off a short burst. Sparks flashed from the grille, but the car shortened the distance. A rifle appeared out of the front passenger window.

  “Incoming,” Javin said and slid down in his seat. “Get down, down!”

  Bullets hammered the SUV. Pieces of glass and plastic flew everywhere, raining down on their heads.

  Fang yanked at the steering wheel and made a right turn. The gunfire burst subsided as they entered another two-lane street.

  Javin looked over his shoulder as the sedan rounded the same corner. He aimed his pistol and fired single rounds. They all struck the car, but didn’t stop it.

  The hammering resumed. A few bullets pinballed around the underside of the SUV. One zipped over Javin’s head and pierced the windshield. He cursed and unbuckled his seatbelt. He crawled to the backseat and fired a quick burst.

  One of his bullets must have found the target: the front left tire. The driver lost control of the sedan, and it crashed into an oncoming van. A man jumped out of the sedan and aimed his rifle at the SUV, but Fang honked, then pulled hard at the wheel. He executed a dangerous maneuver, cutting into oncoming traffic and making a left turn, barely missing a taxi screaming from the opposite direction. The SUV drove into one of the narrow back alleys.

  Javin drew in a sigh of relief, but kept looking over his shoulder, expecting the shooters to reappear at the mouth of the alley.

  They didn’t.

  Fang made a right turn, followed by a left and another right. Then they came to another intersection, and he continued to drive east. />
  Only then did Javin crawl back into the front seat. He looked at the hole the bullet had pierced in the windshield and sighed again. So much for returning the SUV to that poor woman… He set the pistol in his lap and said to Fang, “You did very well back there. I think we lost them.”

  Fang’s face twisted in a frown of alarm. “Very well? It doesn’t matter. They know about me and our meeting…” His high-pitched voice had a tone of terror.

  “They knew about it even before. They tracked your phone.”

  “Yes, but I could have tried to explain that as meeting with a colleague. I could have said that you asked me for a favor, nothing illegal, something unethical, and I said ‘no.’ I could have still saved my career, my life, my family…” His voice began to tremble. “Now… now, everything is over… There’s no way out of this.”

  “Of course there is, Fang. You still have your life, your skills, your hope. You always wanted to jump ship, right? Always wanted a new, better life in America. Well, this just sped things up… Instead of months or years, you can do it in a matter of days…”

  “Really? Now that the agency is hunting me down? How can you even say that?”

  “I still haven’t told you about my proposal.”

  “Proposal? Do you really think I have time for your proposal when I’m running for my life?”

  “This will save your life and that of your fiancée, Xiulan.”

  Fang shook his head. “Don’t mention her name, Pierce.”

  “This deal will make you a ton of money and get you out of China. You can start a new life in America, anywhere you want…”

  Fang shook his head again and didn’t say anything.

  They drove in silence for the next few minutes. Fang took back streets and narrow alleys, avoiding the crowded streets. He drove north until they came to what looked like an industrial complex, with warehouses and bright yellow heavy machinery. He found an empty parking lot, away from the nearest store selling construction supplies, and turned off the engine. He shifted in his seat to face Javin and said in a low, thoughtful voice, “Okay, Pierce. I’m listening…”