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Tokaido brought up a two-week-old news article on his thirty-five-inch monitor. “Because there are no accompanying pictures with the data. The article simply stated that specially trained police officers had been assigned to the checkpoints around Beijing. We had no idea they were sending the equivalent of Chinese SWAT team members to stand around and check cars.”
Price nodded, although she would have made someone’s head roll if this had been a critical mistake. It sounded as though there simply hadn’t been a reason to follow up on a relatively innocuous bit of intel. Once again, she was reminded of the hazards of accepting things at face value, particularly when an item in question was on the other side of the world.
“This is flat-out ridiculous, Hal,” she said. “There must be something more we can do from here.”
As she spoke, Price noticed Kurtzman and Tokaido exchange a swift glance before returning their attentions to their stations.
“And that would be what?” Brognola popped two antacid tablets. “I can’t even joke about packing someone inside his suitcase, because he didn’t take one. When I say our hands are tied, our hands are tied.”
The two cyber wizards glanced at each other again and Price sighed. “What? If either one of you has anything pertinent to add to this conversation, now’s the time.”
Tokaido swept back his long hair before replying. “Well, China is one of the most heavily surveilled nations on Earth—”
“Yeah, behind only the US and maybe England,” Kurtzman added.
“Regardless, it is technically feasible to hack their systems and search for a particular face or build. It would even be possible to track said target’s movements throughout the city, allowing us to keep an eye on his movements and interactions.”
“Great, so we can see him get caught by the MSS or the military. There must be something more we can give him from here,” Price said. “Chinese hackers are battering at our firewalls every day. Surely you guys can do more than just get us a look through some cameras?”
Again the two men exchanged glances, then Kurtzman pushed his wheelchair back from his station and turned to face her. “Are you sure you want to continue down this path, Barb? We all know what the orders from Washington stated. So, what exactly would you like us to do?”
Price stared at the bearded computer genius for a few seconds, evaluating him and his question. It sounded as though he was trying to get her to drop it, but he was regarding her with a frank, open stare. She was pretty sure she knew what he was asking, but she had to kick the decision upstairs—in this case, to the man in the rumpled shirt standing next to her, before she could find out.
“Hal?”
He regarded her with a gimlet stare. “You’re the mission controller, Barb. How do you want to proceed?”
“We’re already providing data assistance as the situation develops. I want Bear and Akira to provide whatever mission-critical assistance they can to Striker without being detected.” She waited to see if either Brognola or Kurtzman had picked up on the discrepancy in the two sentences.
“Given the mission parameters, are we providing standard electronic antidetection?” Kurtzman asked. He was referring to the standard erasure that happened during stealth and infiltration missions, where the Stony Man cyber team removed all evidence that their operatives had been on site—altering vehicle logs, looping or deleting surveillance camera footage, deleting fingerprints on file or mug shots where necessary.
That was the lifeline Price needed. She grabbed it. “Yes, especially on this mission. Of course, you both will need to balance that aspect of this op with the mission-critical assistance.”
Kurtzman nodded, the hint of a smile playing around his lips. “Of course we will.”
Brognola held his gaze on Price a few seconds longer, then swiveled his head to look at Kurtzman and Tokaido. “You both heard the lady.”
The computer genius nodded once. “Understood. Now, if you’ll both excuse us—” he wheeled around to face his glowing bank of monitors “—we have work to do.”
“You will, of course, update us on the mission’s status as appropriate?” the big Fed asked.
“Of course. We always do,” Kurtzman replied without looking at him.
“Come on, let’s leave them to their work.” Price turned and headed toward the door, pausing there to make sure he was following her.
Outside, Brognola made sure to close the door to the Computer Room before turning to her. “Did what I think just happened in there happen?”
“That depends. And if you’d prefer to not get an answer you may not like, I’d suggest you not ask the question leading to it.”
“Barbara, you know I’m not against bending the rules when I think the circumstances warrant it.”
“And I can’t think of a better time for that to happen than right now,” she replied. “Aaron gave me the opening I needed to direct them to assist Striker without blowback. He also just gave us plausible deniability if we ever needed it.”
“You realize that if either of those two get caught sneaking around China’s computers, by the book we’d be forced to hang them out to dry, right?”
Price nodded. “Yes. But I don’t see that happening. First, Aaron and Akira are unmatched when it comes to breaking into enemy computer systems, no matter what country. And second, there is no way in hell I would let either of those two men go down as having done something perceived as illegal on my watch. I’ll fight for them every step of the way, if it ever comes to that.”
“Good, then we’re on the same page in that regard.” The big Fed glanced at the closed door a few feet away. “Not that I don’t appreciate what the guys are doing, but they didn’t have to go all cloak-and-dagger on us.”
“That’s what I love about this team, Hal. Everyone helps in the way they think is best.” Price smiled. “Come on. I’ll make us some decent coffee in the farmhouse. It’ll help distract me until the next update.”
“Agreed.” Brognola fell into step beside her as they headed down the hall. “You worried about Striker out there?”
“Yes,” was all she said.
Every time he leaves…
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_4d220bcf-6789-5ae1-a86a-bb7559061eb2)
Who knew it’d be so damn hard to find a car outside Beijing?
Bolan had put a couple of miles between himself and the checkpoint, staying off the main roads and avoiding anyone he saw coming his way. More than once that had necessitated ducking into the lightly wooded area near the smaller road he was traveling. One time he’d had to drop to his stomach in some tall grass as a trio of giggling girls dressed in what looked like school uniforms walked by a few yards away.
But the farther he got from the countryside, the closer he got to the more populated suburbs—and the harder it was to locate a suitable vehicle to steal. In the country, the only vehicles available were tractors and bicycles. In this area it wasn’t that there weren’t any around, it was just that vehicles were all under lock and key, kept in some kind of building, whether that was a cinder-block garage or a makeshift shack of tin panels.
While Bolan wasn’t worried about breaking into a place to steal a car, he wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible about it. It was hard enough being a six-foot-three-inch man in a country where the average height was five-seven. Add that he was a Caucasian, and it meant that any sighting of him doing anything illegal would be the kind of thing that would definitely stick in the minds of the locals.
The countryside had grown quiet again and Bolan resumed his approach toward a cluster of houses in the near distance. With luck, he could find something here to take him into the city.
The houses were simple, one-story structures with white walls and red-tiled roofs. A moped was parked outside the front doors of several homes. Keeping his head down and his cap brim low on his face, Bolan surreptitiously checked the driveways and lawns of each house as he passed.
A door slamming made him tense and he ducked behind a tree while casting around for the source of the noise. On the next block, a man in a short-sleeved shirt and black tie, and carrying a briefcase, trotted out of the largest house in the area—it had a small second story on it—and headed for his car, a medium-size, well-used sedan. Bolan looked closer and saw that the trunk was ajar, held shut by a length of white cord. Wherever the man was headed, it had to be somewhere more populated, where Bolan could acquire better transportation.
A shout sounded from the doorway and he looked back to see a heavily pregnant woman in a house coat holding what looked like a sheaf of papers in her hand. The man ran back to the doorway and snatched the papers, getting into a brief discussion with his wife, Bolan surmised. But his attention wasn’t entirely focused on them—he was moving toward the car.
The lightly forested grassy area he was creeping through ended in a small green hedge that led almost up to the back end of the sedan. With the couple still talking about something, the soldier crept along the hedge to the trunk, reaching it as the couple’s voices got louder. The rope securing the broken trunk was tied in a simple square knot. Bolan untied it in a few seconds. Now came the tricky part—opening it wide enough to get inside without attracting the couple’s attention. He carefully eased it open just enough for him to squeeze inside, folding himself around the small, bald spare tire and thanking the Universe that this guy didn’t keep his trunk full of crap.
Bolan had just gotten the trunk lid back down when he heard approaching footsteps crunch on the gravel driveway. Clenching one hand into a fist—just in case he had to subdue the guy—Bolan waited for the car to start moving, wondering if the man noticed that the back end of his car was a couple inches lower now. The car door opened then closed, and after a few seconds, Bolan felt the car begin to move underneath him.
He kept hold of the rope so he could keep the trunk from opening, yet still give himself enough of a space to view the outside. His initial suspicion had been correct—they seemed to be heading deeper into the city. Crammed like a sardine into the dusty, smelly compartment, this was by far the worst accommodation Bolan had found on his trip so far. The car had definitely seen better days, and once it accelerating to about thirty miles per hour, the rattling over the washboard road jarred his spine and ribs unmercifully. But he was making a lot better time, and wherever they ended up, it had to be a place with more possibilities than what he’d seen so far.
As long as he doesn’t get a flat tire, I’ll be fine, he thought as the car rattled and swayed onto a major arterial highway, giving Bolan hope that he would be able to find what he needed near the driver’s final destination.
An hour later the car creaked to a stop on a narrow side road. The driver spent a few minutes wedging his car in among rows of similar sedans, then got out and walked down the street toward whatever office building he worked in. Bolan gave him five more minutes—in case he forgot something in his car—then eased the trunk open and looked around.
He found himself in what looked like an anonymous business section on the outskirts of the city. The streets were lined with small shops selling everything from knockoff clothes to electronics. Pulling his cap low, Bolan checked his cash and hit the first electronics store he found.
Four stores, forty-five minutes, a lot of pointing and around fifty thousand yuan later, Bolan was set electronically, with four cheap smartphones, three small tablets, several items of clothing and a backpack to carry everything. The phones were burners; he would use each one for a day, then destroy it. The tablets were along the same lines. Changing access accounts would be a pain, but it definitely beat spending time in a Chinese prison for cyber espionage.
Finding the nearest cyber café, he got a cup of black tea and sat in an isolated corner to set up a phone and a tablet and log on to the internet. Despite being knockoffs, both devices worked well. Using an innocuous local provider and webmail account, Bolan sent a brief message confirming his safe arrival to an address that would send the message bouncing around the world until it arrived at a secure server outside the United States that could be accessed by the Stony Man team. Then he leaned back, sipped his weak tea and waited.
Seven minutes later a reply came, along with an encrypted data file. Bolan downloaded it, making sure he could save it to the tablet’s hard drive, then turned off his internet connection. Only then did he open the file.
Still aware that the local government could trace his downloads if they somehow got on his trail, Bolan opened the file only long enough to commit the information to memory, then trashed the data, overwriting it several times, hoping that nothing could be recovered. Once finished, he got up and headed outside to find a car, since he had to travel about five miles south-southwest in the next two hours to pick up a package.
Normally he would simply take a taxi to his destination. However, since his destination was in a disreputable part of town, Bolan didn’t want a driver to remember the foreigner he or she had dropped off in the area.
A light rain started to fall as he walked around looking for a suitable vehicle, something relatively small but able to carry a good deal, like a hatchback or a small truck. After casing several overcrowded parking lots, he happened on a small parking lot hidden by a high brick wall.
Inside were several small- and medium-size trucks, all several years old, including a few pickups that were exactly what he needed. Casting a quick glance around, Bolan strolled inside and up to the door to the nearest one. Three quick movements later, the door was open and he slipped behind the wheel.
The next part was trickier, but he’d hot-wired more cars than he could remember. In under a minute Bolan had the truck running was easing it onto the clogged street, where he immediately slowed to a crawl. He checked the time on his smartphone. An hour and a half remained before his meeting.
I just might make it in time, he thought as he leaned on the horn.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_0fc60ab5-abe4-539a-a794-431f766db012)
Baozhai Liao had found both success and difficulty in her relatively young life. But facing the man sitting across from her now was one of the most terrifying things she had ever done.
She had grown up on the far outskirts of Beijing, near enough to see the towering skyscrapers in the distance, yet far enough to realize at a very young age that if she ever wanted to get closer to them, she would need to find a way to do so by herself.
Growing up, her parents had been of little help. Her father was a small, local merchant, barely making ends meet by buying and selling whatever he could, and drinking up whatever profit he brought home. Her mother kept their tiny house, scrimping and saving to put food on the table and dreaming of the day when her husband would someday make a deal that would make them all rich. Baozhai slept in a cramped attic every night and dreamed of getting out of there as soon as she could.
But when the means to that end arrived, it wasn’t through any sort of brilliant business deal of her father’s. Several years earlier, the local government had come through one day and announced that their neighborhood was being rezoned for apartments and that all of the inhabitants had to move. However, they would receive compensation.
When they heard the amount—forty thousand yuan—the teenage Baozhai had felt something shift inside her. Before that day she had been a loyal family member, trying to do whatever she could to help her parents survive. But when she heard about the yuan her family would soon receive, she realized that the opportunity she had been waiting for had finally come.
Once the payment had been transferred to their bank, the next morning she had forged a withdrawal slip and her father’s signature and withdrew ten thousand yuan from the account. The bank teller didn’t even look at her twice, as they were all used to Huan’s daughter making deposits and withdrawals for her father.
But Baozhai didn’t take the money back home. Instead she had walked into the city, nervously clutching the worn satchel filled with bills, ready to make her own way.
She found a cheap room in the basement of a four-story apartment building, and hid the rest of her money, not trusting banks. Then she began looking for a job, and soon found one in a local restaurant. And it was there her luck turned again.
Baozhai’s mother had always doted on her only child, contrary to most Chinese families, which preferred sons. In particular, she had said that her daughter’s beauty could rival that of a princess. Well, apparently the man who stopped in for lunch one day thought so as well, for he gave her his card and told her to come by his office on her next day off. The company name on the card was for one of the largest modeling agencies in China.
Two days later Baozhai, wearing the best clothes she could buy in her neighborhood and made up as well as she knew how, walked into the offices of Dao International Models Management and handed the card to the well-coiffed woman at the front desk. Five minutes later she was sitting in a chair in Mr. Peng’s office, watching him watch her. He had her speak, then asked her to rise and walk across the room. Baozhai didn’t know what exactly he was looking for, but he apparently liked what he saw for he signed her to a contract and she started modeling two days later.
The next few years had passed in a blur of trips around the world, lavish parties, and meeting and mingling with the rich and famous from across China and beyond. Baozhai soaked up every bit of it and transformed herself from a meek, shy, lower-class girl into a sleek, polished model whose face made men desire her and woman envious.
To her, the funniest part was that she didn’t think she was all that attractive. The makeup artists and stylists performed miracles, transforming her from what she considered to be a plain girl into the graceful-looking, stylish woman who could sell cars, perfume or jewels with equal ease. But when the shoot was over and she wiped her face clean, the person staring back at her from the mirror was the everyday, ordinary Baozhai.
Everything had been going along perfectly—she had even arranged to repay her parents the ten thousand yuan “loan”—when tragedy struck. During a party to launch a new Chinese vodka, the company CEO had gotten very drunk and tried forcing her to have sex with him. Baozhai wouldn’t have any of it and had pushed him away—so hard that he had fallen into a glass table and severely injured himself.
The blowback was swift and severe. Neither company wanted the incident to become public, so they swept it under the rug and shunted aside any witnesses. Unfortunately that included Baozhai. Mr. Peng had retired by then, and the new head of the agency had been busy putting his own stamp on their lineup. The incident with Baozhai had given him the perfect excuse to fire her and, to ensure that she wouldn’t talk about why, he blackballed her among all the major modeling agencies.
Baozhai went from being the toast of the town to having nothing again. Locked out of her company penthouse, her Lexus taken back by the company, she was able to recover and use the funds she had saved to check into the Four Seasons while she figured out what her next steps were going to be.
And that was where she had met Zhang Liao.
Baozhai was far too worldly, or perhaps jaded, to believe in love at first sight, especially since she had seen other friends of hers in the modeling world get used, abused and discarded by men and women as often as the changing of the seasons. It was why she had avoided any sort of romantic entanglements during her modeling career, even though it brought accusations of being cold, a lesbian or just not “with it.”
But with Zhang, it was different. Divorced from the persona she had inhabited for years, Baozhai was free to be herself around him, unguarded, or perhaps less guarded. She knew his family—there was hardly anyone in Beijing who didn’t—and yet he was polite, friendly and approachable. They had first bumped into each other at the front desk, then again in the elevator. When their paths crossed at the restaurant that evening, Zhang insisted that it had to be fate and invited her to join him for dinner. Five minutes after sitting down, she realized why they were so good together—they were both from similar, isolating worlds, surrounded by sycophants and yes-men, and always not entirely sure whom to trust and whom to watch out for.
By the end of their superb meal, when he asked to see her again, Baozhai didn’t have to think about her answer.
She kept her previous life concealed for the first few months of their relationship—entertainment and politics were often a dangerous combination, and there was also the mystery of her sudden disappearance from the fashion world. She had vanished so cleanly that the media had no idea where she had gone. The tabloids spread rumors and pored over every “clue” they discovered. For her part, Baozhai read the international papers and laughed when she learned what had “happened” to her that day—she had gotten gender reassignment surgery, and was now working as “Bao” in men’s modeling; she had gotten hooked on drugs and resorted to pornography.
When she had revealed her former life, Zhang had smiled and said he’d already been aware of it—her background had been assiduously researched before their second date—and he simply figured she would tell him about it when she was ready. It was at that moment, with his trust in her revealed so easily and honestly, that Baozhai realized she was in love with him.
Their relationship progressed rapidly after that, and eight months after they first met, they were married, with their first child soon following. When Baozhai had gotten pregnant with their second, she had been concerned, but Zhang had told her not to worry. “There are rules for the majority of Chinese families, and there are rules for the rest of us,” he’d said with a smile. “But not the same rules for both.” True to his word, they hadn’t ever been bothered once by the government regarding their two children.
Zhang’s fortunes had seemed to continue climbing ever upward; trusted by people both inside and outside the bureaucracy, he ascended the political ranks with ease. But the higher he went, the more troubled he became. He grew more and more stressed, even drinking in the evening when he came home. He was always unfailingly kind and polite to his wife and children, and never raised his voice or laid a hand on them in any way. But he just as firmly refused to discuss what was causing him so much distress, despite Baozhai’s efforts to get him to confide in her.
It had all come to a head one night a few weeks earlier, when Zhang had finally spoken to her after the children were asleep. He told Baozhai enough to make her fearful for their safety; even though Zhang had assured her that she and their children were safe. But she knew better. Even in her world, she had seen men and women disappear after they had said the wrong thing, talked to the wrong person. Zhang thought his family connections would save him, that his lineage’s long, distinguished record of service to the nation would save him. But she knew he was wrong.
She had tried to warn him, tried to make plans to get out of the country. But by then it was too late. And when the man from the US Embassy had shown up at her door for her and their children, she’d known that even if the United States somehow managed to get her and her children out of the country, their life was over as she knew it.
Since the brave American’s—Carstairs was his name, she made a point of remembering—sacrifice for them had all come to naught, her next priority was to somehow protect her children. Baozhai was desperate to know where her husband was, but a colder, more rational part of her had pushed him to the back of her mind, simply because she had absolutely no idea where he was right now, but she did know where her children were.
That was how the men who questioned her every day were trying to break her—by limiting her interactions with her children. They only allowed her to see one at a time and only for about an hour each day. Baozhai could already see the toll this was taking on Zhou, her daughter, and Cheng, her son. Both quiet, polite children, Zhou was now spending hours each day playing that maddening game, and becoming more insolent and resistant during their time together, while Cheng was withdrawing further inside himself. If something didn’t change soon, she feared the emotional damage would have long-term repercussions—
“Mrs. Liao?”
The question jolted her back to the present, and the man sitting casually across from her. Despite herself, Baozhai was impressed with him. He was either military or had served, but hid it well enough to fool the average observer. Not so her—she had participated in far too many government parties to not recognize the type.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?”
He smiled. That was also his problem; he looked too damn affable. In her experience there were only two types of government people: humorless elder leaders or young men who thought they could change the world. Both could be easily corrupted, with the right leverage. This one didn’t fit into either stereotype.
He was handsome—not movie-star handsome, but an honest, regular face. He wore his hair short and neat—not buzzed, like many military personnel, but short enough. She figured he got it cut every other week. He was dressed well, not well enough to be on the take, but his suit was only a year out of date and his shoes were relatively new.
It was his eyes. His warm, inviting, brown eyes that were his most dangerous weapons. The majority of government men she had met often used their stares as a weapon, to intimidate, menace, demand. He had never raised his voice to her, never threatened her, never shouted. He just asked his questions in the same steady, inviting tone, and stared at her with those eyes that made her want to believe that he wanted to help her, that if she could just say the right things, just tell him what he wanted to know, then all of this messy business would go away and she and her children would be free to leave.
There were just two problems with that scenario.
“What can you tell me about your husband’s subversive activities with the Americans?”
First, other than the vague conversation they’d had had that one evening, she had absolutely no idea of the details of what her husband had been doing with the US Embassy. Any answer she would give would have been a lie, because Zhang hadn’t wanted to tell her—for her own protection. That omission was what was now keeping her here. Trapping her here.
But, of course, if she had known the truth, it wouldn’t have helped, either. Once she told them what she knew, she would be either sent to prison or killed. There was no way out of this, not for her.
Not for her children.
And yet, Baozhai clung to some faint yet slowly dying hope that she could find some way to protect her children. She understood that it was very likely that her own life was forfeit, but she would gladly sacrifice herself if her children wouldn’t suffer because of what their father had done.
But how could she make that happen? What could she possibly offer this genial, smiling man that could guarantee her children’s lives?
Baozhai sat straighter in the wing-backed chair and flashed her best smile—the one she’d honed on hostile reporters—on her interrogator. “I wish very much to help you, Major, but I am afraid that I cannot tell you what I do not know. My husband was very secretive about his business, and never discussed it at home.”
