LOCKED DOWN: (A NICOLE GRANT THRILLER, BOOK 1)

by Ed Kovacs

  “Yes, but the PLA has come to town,” interjected Green. “That's a very clear and vivid—some would say threatening—difference from the old days.”

  “The soldiers stay in their barracks,” said Zhao, holding his hands out palms up. “There's no marching around like the drunken Russians do in Red Square. Sure, the British troops left and the power now rests with China, but we want to maintain the status quo here. And we have for many years.”

  “I'd like to be sure about that before I committed to a two year project. Hong Kong has a very large and active democracy movement that rankles the Beijing leadership, as you well know. And China's military is causing all sorts of trouble these days—with Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, the Americans... claiming sovereignty over the entire South China Sea.”

  Unbelievable; Green was lecturing him about China's foreign policy.

  “Hong Kong's biggest worry regarding the Mainland is that there won't be enough designer bags for the local tai tais, the rich Hong Kong ladies, to buy! Wealthy Chinese were coming to Hong Kong and buying twenty or thirty bags at a time. Real bags, not fake ones. So all the famous brand name shops had to put some limit—only three bags per customer—or something like that. China has done nothing but pump even more wealth into Hong Kong,” he said emphatically. “There is nothing to worry about.”

  Zhao crossed back toward his chair and loomed over the architect. “I'm going to be the next president of China, and I'm not looking for a fight with the West or our Asian neighbors. Trust me. Hong Kong is simply too valuable to tinker with. It's a cash cow, a money-making machine! It's a major tourist destination, the number one financial center in Asia, and a gateway for trade. And I'm going to keep it that way.”

  Zhao was lying, of course. Hong Kong was no longer as important to Beijing as it had been fifteen years earlier; China was simply too wealthy now. Hong Kong was going to lose its autonomy, lose its freedoms, and lose its special status. This was inevitable. It was the open secret that most people didn't want to discuss. The process of chiseling away at Hong Kong's freedoms was proceeding, slowly but surely, and as president, Zhao had no intention of changing that. Hong Kong would be made an example of for the rest of China, to keep the entire population in line. Beijing could have it no other way. They would never tolerate freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to dissent and protest, freedom to have as many children as you liked, freedom to use the Internet without strict censorship—all freedoms Hongkongers now enjoyed but Mainlanders didn't.

  “You sound sincere,” said Green.

  Finally. Green had been acting like they were drafting a peace treaty, not a simple business deal. Time to deliver the “champagne close.”

  “I am sincere.” Zhao refilled both of their flutes with champagne, sat back down and placed his cigar in a crystal ashtray. He indeed was sincere; a sincere liar.

  “We're in the Pacific Century, Conner. I guarantee that you'll do very well riding the Chinese wave. I'll introduce you to a few important colleagues tonight at the charity reception. It will be no trouble arranging financing in the billions of dollars for your most cherished designs to reach fruition.”

  “That sounds delightful.”

  Zhao raised his champagne flute in a toast.

  “To our first Hong Kong project together.”

  Green clinked his crystal flute with Zhao's. “To our deal.”

  As they drank, an aide magically appeared with several copies of a contract and a golden, $50,000 USD Mount Blanc fountain pen.

  “It's the same document your lawyer sent yesterday, sir,” Zhao's aide said to Green.

  “Lovely pen,” said Green, as he signed the contracts. “May I keep it for good luck?”

  Greedy bastard. Zhao was already picking up the tab for Green's several thousand dollar-a-night Shangri-La suite, exactly one floor above the condo where they now sat. “It's my pleasure to gift it to you, Conner,” said Zhao, hiding his displeasure behind a smile and already calculating how he'd cheat the Canadian out of a hundred thousand American dollars as payment for the pen.

  ###

  The arrival of General Ma Ju provided a nice excuse for shunting Conner Green out the door. Ma was a close childhood friend, a trusted associate, and enjoyed carte blanche in terms of dropping in on Zhao Yiren at all hours. But since the issues they tended to discuss were of the most sensitive nature, they always spoke alone in a sitting area off the master bedroom that was swept for surveillance devices twice a day. The General had an extensive brief to give Zhao and had begun with the worst news first, that Grant and Hernandez were still at large.

  “Are you sure that one of them is the leaker?”

  “I found out this morning that the original leaker is already dead,” said Ma, slouched in an upholstered chair. “It was one of the drone pilots. Documents in his home showed he wanted the American president impeached for committing treason, since giving China the drone was an illegal technology transfer of highly sensitive equipment. But the pilot had no proof, only the experience of his personal involvement.”

  “Why did he wait two years to act?” asked Zhao.

  “He had a breakdown due to burnout, and became embittered with his government. This happens to some of the American drone pilots who are overworked.”

  “And Hernandez?”

  “Ten days ago, four days after the operation to eliminate the Omega Team members began, Hernandez's father-in-law warned him he was about to be killed.”

  “His father-in-law?” Zhao sounded somewhat incredulous.

  “Kate Rice failed to mention that to us, but, yes, his former father-in-law, William Snedeker is a retired deputy director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service. A man who obviously still maintains top-level relationships in Washington.”

  “How did Snedeker find out?”

  “Rice's people are waterboarding him to answer that,” said General Ma. “Also troubling is that the file she provided to us on Hernandez didn't indicate this family connection, nor did it provide details of his background and training as a covert operator.”

  “So Hernandez is our biggest concern.”

  “I'd say so. As you know, he contacted WikiLeaks in London a few days ago.”

  Zhao nodded. “Does he have any proof?”

  “Unknown,” said Ma.

  “And WikiLeaks?”

  “We eliminated their reporter in London, the person Hernandez contacted. But someone else was sent to Hong Kong in the dead woman's place. We should have a name any time, and we'll neutralize this person by the end of the day.” General Ma felt good. The briefing was going well. Zhao was asking the right questions and not bitching too much.

  “Hernandez must have something. WikiLeaks would want documentary evidence.” Zhao was still nursing the exorbitantly priced cigar and took a long puff.

  “If he has evidence, that's another serious breach from the American side. They can't seem to keep their house in order. Perhaps you should bring this up with Rice and demand they take strong action.”

  Zhao nodded. “As I think about it, Hernandez doesn't need hard proof. He can simply make a video claiming American spies helped me destroy Wang Hongwei and gave me the drone's navigational control code so I could steal it. He could say the death of all the crew members was my attempt to silence them after one of them tried to go public. In other words, all he needs to do is speak the truth. If WikiLeaks promoted that, it would infect Chinese media, and my many powerful enemies would feast on my carcass.”

  “If any accusations surfaced after you are elected president, you'd survive. Especially if the accusations came from a known American spy and assassin.”

  “I'm not so sure,” countered Zhao.

  “There's a chance you'd become a hero. We have carefully documented all of the intelligence you've gathered over the years from your CIA friend. I have no doubt we can 'sell' you as having been a deep cover spy for China, wringing secrets from your CIA l
over, all done in service to the Motherland. This, in fact, is true.”

  Zhao nodded, seeming to evaluate the statement. “That's correct, but don't forget our hackers supposedly took control of the American drone. That event helped leverage me to where I am now—the threshold of the Chinese presidency. But I've never presented evidence of how exactly we got the drone and haven't revealed which of our hackers was responsible.”

  “There's an assumption at the Fifty-seventh Research Institute that the best hacker, Oi Lam, hacked the drone. I must confess I fed fuel to the rumor.”

  “Arrange for this hacker to have a terrible accident. Handle this personally, perhaps tomorrow.”

  Ma blanched. “That would be... a pity. She's our best.” Ma didn't dare tell Zhao that Oi Lam was pregnant with his love child.

  “We have tens of thousands of good hackers. She can be replaced.”

  Ma squirmed in his chair and his face drained of color. “She's been my lover for more than a year.”

  The two men locked gazes. Ma felt the intensity of his longtime friend's stare boring in, probing for evidence of weakness or lack of resolve. Finally Zhao looked away, took another puff, and exhaled, watching as the bluish smoke curled upward and rolled in on itself. He studied the smoke as if searching for some revelation.

  “I'm well aware that you have many lovers, old bull. In many Chinese cities. This lover of yours, Oi Lam, can become a national hero in death.” Zhao watched as the last of the cigar smoke sank downward toward the floor and dissipated. Finally he turned back to Ma with fire in his eyes. “Make sure her apartment burns, or maybe create an explosion from leaky propane gas. That way we can claim the proof of her hacking was lost with her.” Zhao's tone made clear this wasn't a suggestion, but an order.

  Ma worked to maintain a blank expression and immediately replied, “I'll see to it.” Showing any hesitation would have caused Zhao to become suspicious and look into the matter himself. And that would ruin everything.

  “Now what about the American woman, Grant?”

  “I have her laptop right here.” Ma silently exhaled, relieved that the subject had changed. Putting Oi Lam out of his mind for now, he reached into the attaché case given to him by Li Shan and pulled out a thin HP laptop. “This is more good news. We've already copied the hard drive and our hackers tell me they'll break the encryption in a few hours. We have no reason to believe Grant possessed damaging information, but if she did, we'll have it soon.”

  General Ma set the laptop on the floor, leaning it against the attaché case next to his chair.

  “Sounds like there are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up in the next few hours,” said Zhao, darkly. “Make sure they get done, old friend. We all have too much to lose.”

  CHAPTER 10

  17:37

  General Ma remained alone in the alcove off the master bedroom in Zhao Yiren's condo using a secure phone to make numerous calls to Hong Kong authorities, seeking their low key, unofficial help in locking down the territory—Hong Kong was designated a SAR, Special Administrative Region, a semi-autonomous territory within the sovereignty of China, yet not a part of Mainland China. Any kind of official order to arrest or detain Hernandez and Grant would inevitably lead to questions being asked in Beijing.

  Zhao's staff members here in the condo would not disturb General Ma, nor would they enter the master bedroom unless summoned. Ma's role was duel, for right now his friend of over forty years was having a sexual tryst with a Western woman, and that kind of thing needed to be kept secret. Especially considering who this woman was. So staff assumed that Zhao and Ma were still in their meeting. General Ma had played the same role dozens of times and didn't mind that Zhao had descended down a tiny, secret staircase to another condo two floors below. He knew it would be a “quickie” because there were more meetings scheduled and a charity reception to attend later this evening.

  Ma was focused on urgent matters as he waited for Zhao to reappear, and completely forgot about Nicole Grant's laptop leaning against the attaché case that was out of his sight on the floor, tilted against his chair.

  ###

  Kate Rice lay spread-eagle on the conference table in the condo owned by Trans-National Corporation, two floors below Zhao Yiren's condo in the Island Shangri-La tower, and immediately below Zhao himself as he became more urgent in thrusting home his point. She didn't have to fake the orgasm since he had always made her come with great pleasure. Yes, there was exaggeration to vocalizing the sexual release, but the climaxes were real indeed.

  Trans-National was a dummy corporation with two locations in Hong Kong and was about thirteen shell companies removed from the Central Intelligence Agency. Rice always wore a wig and disguise when she came here. And a business suit. And black panties and bra, which always got ripped from her body early in the encounter.

  The CIA shrinks had explained to her why Zhao wanted her dressed in a certain way, and why he ripped off her undergarments and yanked her hair and squeezed her nipples so hard they bruised. She no longer cared about his subconscious need to debase powerful women. Their dalliances were coming to an end, with a new blue-eyed blonde handler already in place in Beijing who was ten years younger and trained to please.

  Rice had first “turned” Zhao almost eleven years ago. He'd begun providing classified information to her almost immediately. In the last four years, when it became clear that a CIA asset had a shot at becoming the president of China, Kate Rice's star rose as high as any NOCs star had ever risen in the agency's history. Convincing the American president to give Zhao the RQ-180 drone in order to cement his rise to the top hadn't been an easy sell. But ultimately, the idea of having a pro-Western friend of America who held the keys to the Chinese kingdom and was willing to share them with Langley was a shot that had to be taken. If Zhao became president, it was reasoned, war would be averted and untold lives saved.

  Rice didn't even feel terribly bad about all the recently murdered Americans who'd been on the drone op. The leakers or would-be leakers among them clearly deserved to die. As for the others, well, they'd willingly chosen a risky profession, she told herself, and sometimes the piper came calling. She reasoned they had to be sacrificed in order to avoid a much more horrible future. She gave no thought at all to the devastation caused to the innocent families.

  At age thirty-eight, Rice was a sixteen-year CIA veteran and had spent the last fourteen years undercover in the National Clandestine Service. She personally founded the charity, with CIA backing, as an espionage platform in Asia. She'd immediately known it had to be a children's foundation. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, lice-covered eight-year-olds made for the kind of ad copy that kept donations flowing and would grow the espionage tentacles of the organization.

  To help expand Kids First and by extension increase her stature within the CIA, Rice had taken it upon herself to sleep with prime ministers, heads of state, diplomats and bureaucrats. And having sex in the most exclusive hotel suites or the most luxurious villas with titans of commerce or world leaders was a validation of sorts that got her juices flowing. The charity's Asia success was so spectacular—Rice was a natural at recruiting agents and setting up productive spy nets—that the Agency allowed her to expand into Africa, South and Central America, and countries of the former Soviet bloc.

  As the CEO of Kids First she earned a cool million a year, and the Agency let her keep it. She'd become so valuable to the CIA they made a special deal with her; if she stayed undercover with the charity for one more year, they'd induct her into the SIS, the Senior Intelligence Service, a cadre of veteran CIA officers who were considered to be the cream of the crop. Being promoted into the ranks of SIS was exactly the kind of recognition and acknowledgment Rice secretly craved. She was already being promoted and given career-track advancement that would have been hers had she been progressing normally—transferring to different positions and assignments—in the clandestine service.

  Zhao's ascent to the Chinese presidency would be her cro
wning glory in one hell-of-a spy career in service to her country, and was the kind of grandiose achievement that Rice felt she deserved. Except she wasn't doing it for the United States, wasn't acting out of patriotism. Nor was she running a children's charity because she loved kids. She didn't dislike kids, she simply had no feeling for them one way or the other.

  Bad things happened to kids all the time, just as bad things had happened to her when she was a teenager in middle school. She'd been a fetching fifteen-year-old when her parents were killed in a car accident; the fallout destroyed Rice emotionally. The only “help” she got was to be placed into a series of foster homes where she'd invariably been sexually abused. She managed to survive three years of that, until at age eighteen she took on the world on her own terms. The pain-filled emotional wounds that had never entirely gone away filled her with a general distrust of people and made her emotionally independent. She became adept at covering up her true feelings and hiding behind false fronts. Ironically, her traumas made for a useful skill set within the clandestine service.

  A shrink in private practice had told her she was a socially skilled extreme narcissist who was good at changing into various roles as events demanded. Rice rejected the diagnosis. It was true that no one was close to her and never had been—at least not since the emotional traumas that befell her in middle school. It was also true that she was haughty and had a sense of entitlement, but so what? And yes, she was so success-driven; she only kept people around who had something to offer. When someone was no longer useful, they were deleted from her life. She considered it a recipe for winning.

  But a narcissist? Rice continually told herself—and many of her CIA colleagues agreed—that she was simply a hard-charging, Type-A overachiever.

  Washington D.C., after all, was a sewer filled with sell-outs looking out for Number One. Why should she be any different? So, yes, she was doing it all in service to herself and she'd damn sure do anything to get Zhao into the Chinese presidency, because his ascension guaranteed hers. As she thought about that, she climaxed.