She gulped some water from a bottle on the nightstand, then answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” said the voice on the other end.
Caine.
“How do you like Eastern Europe?” she asked. “Did you visit that coffee shop I told you about?”
“The Coffee Tower? It was nice, but the line was too long. I went to Miit Cafe instead. Better espresso.”
“But not as nice a view,” she answered.
The code phrase confirmed he was not speaking under duress.
“I expected to hear from you by now.” She felt her pulse quicken. She thought about Bernatto and the last time she had seen him. It was in an abandoned chemical plant in Thailand. He was with his hired killer, a sociopath who had kidnapped her, who had nearly killed her. She had escaped. There was a gunfight. An explosion.
She had been injured. Her spine … her legs … They were responsible for—
She forced herself to calm down.
They could have killed you, she reminded herself. You’re still alive. And at least one of them is dead.
“There’s been a change of plans,” Caine said. “Things are … complicated.”
“Have you made contact with the target?”
“Yes.”
“Then why haven’t you delivered him to the rendition team?”
Caine was silent. A quiet hum buzzed on the line.
“Tom, what’s going on? Where is Bernatto?”
“I don’t have him.”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed, and she felt her jaw tense up. “Why not? What happened?”
“I let him go.”
“You what?” She spat the words into the phone. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Rebecca, something came up. New intel. I had to.”
“I … I don’t even know what to say. You told me you wanted to work with me, you wanted to do this freelance, on your own. And I let you do it on your terms, despite my better judgement.”
“Rebecca—”
“I’m telling the team to move in. I’m taking this operation out of your hands.”
“He’s not in Latvia anymore. I told you, I let him go.”
“Where the hell is he, Tom?” Her voice rose to a shrill howl.
“I don’t know. I found him once. I can find him again. This couldn’t wait.”
“What couldn’t wait? What intel was so important that it’s worth letting a monster like Allan Bernatto go free? You of all people … you know what this man did! You know what he did to you, what he did to—”
She paused. “What he did to this country,” she finished.
“Sean Tyler. Jack Tyler’s son.”
“Wait, what?” Rebecca’s brain whirled in circles. What the hell did Sean have to do with this?
“He’s being held in China. He’s part of a human rights organization, protestors.”
“What does that have to do with …”
“You knew, didn’t you?”
Rebecca bit her lip and wheeled herself over to the window. She looked down at the verdant green trees surrounding the Logan traffic circle. She felt the need to move. To run.
“Yes, I knew. It came up in the intelligence briefing. Why, what does all this have to do with Bernatto?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You have to ask? It’s classified, Tom!”
“That’s a load of crap.”
“Look, I offered to bring you in. I offered to clear your record, debrief you with the higher ups. I offered you your life back, but you wanted to stay on the outside. I guess I can understand that after what you’ve been through. But you need to understand … look, just because we have a history, that doesn’t mean I can break confidence and share restricted information with you whenever it’s convenient.”
Caine was silent.
A thought flashed through Rebecca’s mind.
“Tom, where are you?”
“I’m where I belong. On the outside.”
“You’re in China, aren’t you? What are you planning to do?”
“The PRC want to trade Sean for a renditioned asset in your possession. A Chinese hacker named Sun Wai Tong?”
“How do you know that?”
“So my intel is good. Well, at least I know where I stand.” His voice was terse, cold.
“Tom, listen to me. Don’t get involved in this. You’ll just make things worse. Let me handle it. I know how close you and Jack were, I know he was important to you. I knew you’d react to this emotionally. I’ve got the situation under control.”
“Not according to my intel. Sean is in danger. You know a guy named Lapinski? NSA?”
Rebecca felt her sore muscles tense. She remembered Ted’s reaction during the intelligence briefing. “Yes, I know him. He’s head of S32.”
Caine’s voice crackled on the other end of the phone. “Tailored Ops. The blackest of the black hats. Tong is in their custody, isn’t he?”
“They’re a bunch of computer nerds, Tom. What would they want with Sean?”
“It’s not Sean. It’s Tong. He accessed and released classified intel into the wild. The NSA can’t afford to cut Tong loose until they locate and contain the data. Lapinski has an asset in China, I don’t know who. Someone in their intelligence apparatus. An assassin … code name is Red Phoenix. They’re going to kill Sean to sabotage the exchange.”
“That’s crazy. The President approved all of this, the exchange is going to happen. It’s tied to his whole Global Environmental Accords, and the trade deal with China. Lapinski isn’t going to stand in the way of that. And where is this intel coming from? Bernatto?”
Caine didn’t answer.
“You don’t trust me, but you trust him?” Rebecca asked in a quiet voice.
“You know I don’t trust him,” Caine snapped. “But his intel checks out so far. I’ve verified that Sean is in China. You just confirmed the rest. There’s an exchange deal in place, and Lapinski is involved.”
“So you are in China,” Rebecca said.
Caine laughed, a soft chuckle. “Very good. You’re getting better at this.”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment. What are you going to do?”
She heard Caine take a deep breath on the other end of the line. “Jack saved my life. I watched him die, saw him bleed out right in front of me. With his dying breath, he asked me to take care of Sean. I promised him, Rebecca. And I broke that promise. I got so caught up in … everything, all the rest of this shit. I never even gave it a second thought.”
“Tom, what you went through, with Bernatto … I still don’t know everything. But I know you were tortured. I know you endured things most people couldn’t survive. You can’t blame yourself. You did the best you could.”
“No, I didn’t. But now, if there’s even a chance Bernatto’s intel is accurate … look, it’s better you don’t know.”
“Well. You really don’t trust me.”
“When this goes down, you’re going to need deniability.”
Rebecca knew it was pointless to ask him again. He would never tell her. “Let me do some digging on Lapinski. I’ll see if I can verify this asset you’re talking about. Can you at least sit tight until then?”
“No. I can’t. But I’d appreciate the help.”
She sighed. “How will I contact you?”
“I’ll be in touch. And listen. These Tailored Ops guys, they’re more dangerous than you think. Data is their lifeblood. They feed off it, and they’ll do anything to protect it. You know what their motto is?”
Rebecca repeated the words from memory. “Your data is our data. Your equipment is our equipment – any time, any place, by any legal means.”
A note of concern softened Caine’s voice over the phone. “I don’t think they put too much emphasis on the ‘legal’ part. Be careful.”
“I will.”
She was about to hang up the phone, but Caine spoke again. “Rebecca?”
“Yes?�
�
“I called you because I do trust you. I only trust you. You’re all I’ve got.”
“I … I’m sorry,” she stammered.
“No. I’m sorry. And I promise you, after this is over, when Sean is safe … the bastard dies.”
There was a click and he was gone.
Caine hung up the phone and brushed aside the curtain. Outside the spacious loft apartment, the night sky was dark and the air was thick with humidity. He looked down at the shadowed forms of the other buildings nearby, a cluster of grey concrete slabs. An array of neon signs and billboards topped each tower. Fourteen-foot-tall Chinese characters blinked on and off, lighting the hazy air with a soft, indistinct glow.
As he slid the phone in his pocket, he thought about Rebecca. It had been good to hear her voice, but he still felt a hollowness, an emptiness in his gut when he spoke to her. A longing.
Ever since his betrayal at the hands of Bernatto and the CIA, Caine had lived a life of detachment … on the run, always hiding, no close friends. No one who could be used against him.
Now, he found it difficult to let go of that life. Somehow, he was still adrift. He could not reattach.
He wondered if it was fear that held him back. Fear of what might happen to him. Or fear of what might happen to her?
No, said the voice in his head. The one he could never silence. Not fear. Guilt.
He remembered the last time he had seen her. The scars and wounds on her legs.
The chair.
He slid the curtain closed. Whatever it was he felt, fear or guilt, longing, or isolation, it didn’t matter. What he and Rebecca had shared, what they had given and what they had lost … that was in the past now.
These days, they were both just voices on the phone. That slim, faint connection was all he had, all that kept him from sinking into the bleak shadows of memory.
Jia’s rustling pulled him from his melancholy thoughts. He turned and watched as she collected a series of documents from a laser printer. The machine quietly hummed and spit out the final sheet. She stacked them in her hands and stepped over to the dining table in the center of the room.
The overhead lights were dimmed. She laid out the sheets of paper beneath the soft, circle of light they cast over the table’s surface. Caine walked over and stood beside her as she taped the sheets together.
“You found a map,” he said.
She turned and smiled. Her mischievous eyes twinkled in the dim light.
“Human Rights Now works with many other activist groups. We have a good relationship with a collective known as the Jade Enclave. They are, mmm, how should I put it? Skilled computer technicians.”
“Jade Enclave? Sound like hackers to me,” Caine replied with a sideways smile.
“I prefer the term ‘hack-tivists,’” she said. “They help us spread information, plan protests. And they warn us of government surveillance. They take great risks for us. Recently they were accused of hacking the Railway Bureau’s grid here in Beijing. It is said they caused a collision, on behalf of the Triads.” She shook her head. "But I cannot believe they would do such a thing. They are being framed; the Ministry wants to discredit them.”
Caine leaned over the table. “Well, guilty or not, looks like your friends came through.”
He slid the map closer and began scanning the architectural details. He mentally noted the placement of doors, stairwells, emergency exits … anything that his experience told him might be useful in an extraction.
“This building was once a hospital, years ago," Jia said. “Then it was purchased by a private security contractor for use as a black jail facility. They may have made changes to the structure, I can’t be sure—”
“This is the best we’re going to get,” Caine said, snatching the map off the table and rolling it up in his hands. “Every second we wait, Sean is in danger. I’m going to need our guests to point out his location. You should wait here.”
Caine walked out of the room and turned down a narrow hallway. Jia hurried after him. “Ding yixia, wait! What are you going to do?”
Caine ignored her, opening the door to a gleaming, modern bathroom. The two black guards lay struggling in a massive white tub. They were bound and gagged. Their bruised faces and tattered clothes were a strange contrast to the pristine white tile of the bathroom. Mole Face turned his head and glared with hatred at Caine as he entered the room.
Jia stopped at the door. Her eyes darted from the men to Caine. “Tom, these men are monsters, I know. But I can’t just stand by and watch you torture them. That’s not who I am.”
Caine turned and glared at her. Jia made a tiny gasping sound and took a step back when she saw the intense look in his eyes.
“I know,” Caine said. His voice had a metallic echo in the small, tiled room. “I told you to wait outside.”
He reached over the tub and turned on the water. The men continued to grunt and struggle. The water splashed onto their clothes and began to fill the basin. He spread the makeshift map out on the floor.
“Just stop! Think for a second,” she said, her voice tinged with concern. “You don’t even speak Chinese, how will they understand—”
“They’ll get the gist of it.”
Caine slammed the door shut, blocking out Jia’s words and her wide, staring eyes. The outside world no longer existed.
He allowed himself to sink, to fall into the bleak shadows.
You’re not falling, the voice inside him said. You’re just letting go.
Chapter Fourteen
David Fang scrutinized the small ivory tile he held in his hand. The white rectangle was engraved with a serpentine green dragon design. A small number adorned the upper left corner. It was a mahjong tile, and Fang had a decision to make.
To discard the tile was risky. He suspected Lewis, the player to his right, held a dragon in his stack of tiles. On the other hand, he had noted the tiles Lewis had discarded. He doubted the man had enough dragon tiles left to make a pong, or three of a kind.
He shrugged and set his tile down on the lustrous green felt of the gaming table.
Lewis was a Red Pole, an enforcer in the complex network of organized crime gangs known as the Triads. Fang had watched the man rise up the ranks, starting as a lowly Blue Lantern, just as Fang had himself. Blue Lanterns formed the street gangs, the breeding grounds for the Triads. They spent their time robbing fruit stands, or brawling with rival gangs. Now, Lewis was one of Fang’s most trusted lieutenants in his chapter of the powerful Lu Long Triad. He was fierce, loyal, and determined.
But he was not a subtle man.
Fang watched as Lewis licked his lips and surveyed the stack of chips in the draw pile. He snatched up Fang’s dragon tile and added it to his stack.
“Pong,” he cheered, flipping over his three dragon tiles to show the other players.
Fang smiled. “Well done, Lewis. Fortune favors you tonight.”
Wei Laiwai, a short, rotund man who sat opposite Fang, chuckled. His eyes rotated from Lewis to Fang from beneath thick, hooded eyelids. He ran a hand through the fringe of gray hair that surrounded his speckled scalp.
“Perhaps,” he rumbled in a deep voice. “But I suspect that will be the last dragon tile he sees for the evening. He played his hand too soon.”
The fourth man at the table, one of Laiwai’s bodyguards, exploded in laughter. His high-pitched giggle echoed off the vaulted gold ceilings and red-lacquered walls. The mahjong table sat in the center of the chamber. The lights above the table were the only source of illumination. A pair of massive, ornate gold doors were the only exit from the dark, cavernous chamber.
A towering bank of windows dominated the far end of the room. They overlooked the neon spires of the Shanghai skyline. The famous Oriental Pearl Tower was just off to the east. Its upper sphere lit up the night sky with purple light. The brilliant, colorful glow reflected through the glass and onto the faces of the men sitting at the table.
Statues and display cases
loomed in the shadows surrounding the table. The room's walls were solid red and decorated with Chinese scrolls. The ancient slivers of parchment depicted famous proverbs and legends. Fang had played here many times before. He often looked to the scrolls for inspiration as his luck in the game ebbed and flowed.
He repeated one of the mantras from memory. “Silence is a true friend, who never betrays.”
Lewis laughed. “Quoting Confucius eh? Ah, you’re right, Boss. I got excited. Revealed my hand too early.”
Fang smiled and looked down at his tiles. He arranged them in a new order and spoke in a soft but commanding voice. “At the risk of making the same mistake, Mr. Laiwai and I have a private matter to discuss. I’m afraid we must pause the game. You and his associate may wait outside.”
Lewis eyed Laiwai’s body guard with disdain. He stood up and turned to Fang. After a short, brief bow, he cupped his fist in his other hand and held both hands centered in front of his chest. “Shi de laoban! It is my honor to obey.”
The guard stood and made the same gesture to Mr. Laiwai. “I’ll be outside, sir.” He gave Fang an uneasy look from the corner of his eye as he followed Lewis out of the room.
There was a burst of wind and light from outside as the men stepped through the massive golden doors. The lobby outside was a skeletal framework of girders and beams. The construction was not yet finished. The lights of Shanghai blazed in the distance, and a cool breeze whipped through the building. It rustled the plastic sheets that hung between the girders. Then the doors slammed shut, and the cavernous room was once again dim and silent.
Wei Laiwai leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Now we see why you really invited me here tonight. I’m sure it wasn’t to watch me beat you at mahjong again!” Once again, the rotund man chuckled, but this time he stared Fang straight in the eye.
Fang ignored him and continued arranging his tiles. He took a sip from a glass of clear liquid that sat on the table. The beverage, known as Mijiu, was a rice-based wine. Fang licked his lips as the bittersweet liquid struck his taste buds.
Finally, he spoke. “I wish to speak carefully, Wei. We have known each other for many years. We fought each other as rival Red Poles, as we rose up in the Lu Long. But we have grown strong through peace. We have watched as others weakened themselves through stupidity and in-fighting. Squabbling over scraps, like packs of wild dogs.”
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