by Sam Masters
He grabs it and looks at the message.
His heart thumps and his spirits drop. This is a tough one. A get caught, get badly burned one.
He dresses quicker than he’s ever done and logs the Macs off. Libowicz’s work can wait.
He has more important matters to attend to.
63
Beijing
The first girl is still crying when Zhang throws her out of the hotel room.
He is not worried.
Her owner is waiting outside. An ex-army man who has been paid well for his troubles and will make sure she keeps her mouth shut. Even if he has to permanently close it.
And now the other one.
The one who started bravely defiant and then screamed so loudly that he had to gag her with a belt from a hotel robe.
The general tilts the dressing table chair she’s tied to and drags it across the vast bedroom to the bed. For a moment he puzzles about how to abuse and hurt her while she’s still thrashing around on the chair.
To his astonishment his mobile phone rings. He gave the strictest of instructions not to be disturbed.
There can only be one reason for it.
And it isn’t good.
He snatches if off the bedside table. “Yes.”
“General, it is Xue. I am in the Operations Room and have just received word from the presidential building—Xian is on his way over here. He has decided to make an impromptu visit.”
Zhang slams the phone down in fury. Xian means to catch him out. Visiting the Nian Command Center without informing him, intending to discuss it without him present—all this amounts to the ultimate military insult.
One he is not prepared to tolerate.
64
New York
JACKPOT
That was the one word message on Danny’s phone. But it was enough to turn his life upside down.
He deletes it.
Powers off the device.
Removes the SIM and dumps it.
He slips a leg over the wild black Kawasaki waiting outside his brownstone and rips up the peace of the early morning all the way down to Wall Street. He drops the phone in a trash can full of flies and plastic at the McDonald’s near the bottom of Broadway, turns into the garage of his building and makes his way upstairs.
The air-con inside the loft isn’t working, but it doesn’t matter. Danny’s too wired to notice, let alone care.
The young hacker logs on to his terminal and enters the complicated series of alphanumerical codes he set up to protect his machine and hide its identity.
Finally, he gets to the program that he left running.
Jackpot was the key word for what he’s been pursuing.
Danny feels tingles and shivers all over his body, an exhilarating biochemical cocktail of astonishment, excitement, and fear over what he’s about to get himself into.
This is a biggie.
A noise spooks him.
A door banging in the corridor.
He races to the spyglass on his entrance door. Sees a fat guy in a blue Adidas tracksuit trying to do stretches before going downstairs for a run. Any other day he’d have been happy with that, would have gone back to his desk without a care in the world.
Not today.
Not jackpot day.
He squints through the peephole until the jogger has lumbered out of view, then he chains the door and opens it a fraction. Enough to hear the lift bing and the car open up.
Danny stays motionless. Listens until he hears the doors close. He rushes back inside and locks his front door. Bolts it top and bottom. Heavy dead locks slam solidly across its middle.
He dashes to his window and stares into the street below. The loft was chosen specifically so he can see everything out on the sidewalk.
He waits patiently.
The fat guy in blue waddles out of the front of the building, arms already pumping, big ass swinging as he crosses the road and heads to the patch of park on Rector.
Danny relaxes and returns to his seat.
Now for the hard part.
Cracking the code that Jackpot has thrown up.
65
Beijing
General Zhang slams yet another door.
He storms his way down the spiraling metal stairs toward the command bunker where Project Nian is being run.
His face is contorted with anger when he enters the room.
President Xian is standing in conversation with Geng Chunlin, the Minister of State Security, and Lieutenant General Xue.
It amuses Xian to see how hot and flustered Zhang is. The horrible man must have been forced to abandon one of his dark pleasures in order to get here so quickly. “General,” he shouts across the room with a smile on his face, “I have decided Minister Chunlin should from now on be based here full-time. I want him to become an ‘independent’ observer, on behalf of the party. He will report directly to me and not to Xue.”
Zhang can feel he’s being outmaneuvered. Chunlin must have told Xian something about the failures in developing the mood pacifiers for the attack dogs. Now Xian is isolating him, making him feel exposed and undermined. “President Xian, may I speak privately with you?” He gestures to the corridor and the quiet, empty rooms that lie off it.
Xian nods his consent.
Zhang shoots the minister a look of pure contempt as he leads the way outside and into a room two doors down the corridor. A light comes on automatically as he enters. He waits until the heavy door swings shut behind his leader. “Mr. President, your unexpected appearance here—in the dead of night—makes me look foolish. I would have appreciated—”
Xian cuts him off. “You have fashioned your own foolishness, General.”
The rebuff stings and he finds himself answering with more anger in his voice than he knows prudent. “What has Chunlin said to you? It is clear he came to you and has spoken ill of me. We had a meeting and a differing of opinions. Words were said. Voices raised. I suspect he is now briefing against me because of that and the fact that I appointed Xue as operational leader.”
“You speak so much and say so little.” The president pauses, in order that Zhang can see the disappointment in his face. “You are the opposite of Minister Chunlin, a comrade who said nothing ill of your meeting, only that he was concerned about the running of Nian and felt he should be more involved. Those words were enough for me. Geng Chunlin is a man of honor and one I have trusted for many years. It was his sign to me that he had my interests and those of our party at heart. Now what of you, General? Can I trust you to respect my decision and behave as honorably to me?”
Zhang is wise enough to know that in every defeat there is an opportunity to be seized. A victor always wants to show mercy. He seizes his chance and bows his head apologetically. “You are my president and also the Chairman of the Central Military Commissions. If I have offended you, or in any way shown disrespect to you through my behavior, then I most humbly apologize. If you no longer think me worthy of serving you, then I ask you to call a meeting of the CMC and have them remove me.”
“You know that is not necessary. I seek to strengthen our bonds, not sever them.”
Zhang looks up at Xian like a repentant son. “Then I promise to work honorably with Chunlin, but I need your trust to do so. The time has come for Nian to be run as a military operation, not as a political threat. Let Chunlin and me punish the Americans for their defiance. Grant me the freedom to use all the ferocity we have available to quickly bring Molton to his knees and have him beg to you. If you cannot trust me to do that, then I humbly beg you to present my case to the CMC and relieve me of my duties.”
Xian keeps the anger from his eyes. Putting a dispute before the CMC would result in questions being raised over his own leadership and his ability to carry the support of the military. He has no choice
but to loosen the leash on Zhang.
“You have my trust.” He walks toward the door. “But guard it with your life. Because if you betray me, that is exactly the price you will pay.”
66
Beijing
It’s 2:00 A.M. when General Zhang returns to the Operations Room. He instructs Chunlin and Xue to follow him into an adjacent office.
Once the door is shut behind them he comes straight to the point. “President Xian and I have had a very pleasing discussion about the running of Project Nian.” His gaze falls like a black cross on Chunlin. “He has informed me of your concerns, Minister, and I am indebted to you for volunteering to be stationed in the Operations Room.” He nods to his trusted deputy. “Lieutenant Xue will keep you informed of all operational activity. You will be told of intended actions and the consequences of those actions.”
Zhang takes a breath and lets it inflate the smile on his balloonlike face.
“I have been informed by President Xian that as of this moment I now have complete military control of Project Nian.” He looks pointedly at Chunlin, “It is me—and me alone—who will decide what dogs are activated, when they are activated, and if—or when—any pacifiers need to be deployed to deactivate them.” He lets the words sink in. “Is that clear, Minister?”
Chunlin feels himself redden. “Yes, General.”
“Good.” He pulls the door open and holds it for Chunlin to pass through. “Can I give you a lift, Minister? I would hate anything to happen to you as you head home.”
67
Historic District, Miami
Ghost can’t sleep so he runs.
His big feet slap out echoes down deserted streets where many have only just gone to bed and where it’s still too soon for early risers to break out of their dreams.
The rhythm feels good. Hypnotic. Energizing.
His long legs strike a mechanical pace down the silent sidewalks out to the Freedom Tower at Miami Dade College and back again.
After the ten mile, hour-long jog he soaks in the shower. The pulse of hot water on his face and head stokes his engines and he feels ready for the day.
He towels dry and dresses in a cool brown linen and silk suit with light brown shirt and tan loafers, no socks. When he’s done, he sits in the kitchen and checks his e-mail and phone messages.
No word from Zoe.
She’d promised to mail him some research that she’d done and she hasn’t. He’s sure she must have gotten his late night text.
Now he regrets sending it. It was foolish and weak.
He reads the morning newspapers online and for breakfast cooks an egg-white omelette and forks it down with freshly squeezed OJ and thick black Colombian coffee. In the background is the constant chatter of CBS news. Like the print press, the bulletin is packed with stories about the dog attacks, about increases in strays on the street, and there’s a couple of people from an animal shelter in the studio with a pair of cute pups to adopt. The shelter owner says the stray problem has become so bad that they’re full-to-bursting and will have to euthanize any animal brought in if they don’t find a home for it within twenty-four hours. The studio fills with aaws and sighs.
Just after seven Ghost switches the set off and heads to the office.
The cleaners have been in, but the section being used as an Incident Room still stinks of burritos and beer. It used to be a crash area for cops working overnight shifts, and he guesses the smells will never go away.
He logs on to his computer and sees there have been two more dog incidents overnight. A tax official in Santa Rosa got bitten to death in his sleep. Fortunately for his wife, they’d had a falling out and he’d been banished to a spare bedroom. She managed to get herself and their child out of the condo before the Yorkshire terrier could attack them.
A Yorkie?
Ghost takes a minute to check the size of a terrier. From memory he knows it as a “toy” dog. A tiny, scraggy runt of a thing. The detail he finds online confirms it. They are tiny. Six to nine inches tall and only about seven pounds in weight. He can’t begin to think how a dog that small could become that dangerous.
The other incident seems more plausible. Over in Marion a stray bulldog has attacked a group of people coming out of a nightclub. It killed a twenty-six-year-old man and injured two women in their twenties.
Ghost sits back and weighs it all up.
From what he’s seen on the news and the statewide incident log in front of him, there have now been close to thirty dog bites and fifteen fatalities in Florida in the last three days. He walks over to a large electronic operations board in the corner of the room—the type that allows you to write on it then prints copies of whatever you’ve scribbled. You can also call up Internet pages and download data from police servers.
He splits the screen and on one side makes a list of the fatalities, starting with the most recent.
Sunny Budrys—Santa Rosa, Florida
Ken Egan—Marion, Florida
Fran Ennis, Josh Whitting, Clive and Susan Dixon—Merritt Island
Officer George Jennings —Montgomery Correctional Center, Jacksonville
Ellen McGonall, Pete and Lizzie Cooper—Lake Jackson
Kathy Morgan, Matt Wood, Alfie Steiner—Key Biscayne, Miami
On the other side of the screen he calls up a large map of Florida and marks in the locations of the attacks.
There seem no obvious geographic connections.
He ponders them again.
Santa Rosa is about as far north and west as you can get, while Merritt Island and Key Biscayne are a long way south and east. Jacksonville is back north and east, Marion more north and central, and Lake Jackson central but a bit south of Marion.
He takes a felt pen and marks them in.
They still mean nothing.
He adds the main nonfatal bites, the ones that needed surgery and resulted in dogs being destroyed. Big crosses now highlight Cape Coral on the southwest coast, Port St. Lucie back on the eastern seaboard, and Ghost—his namesake county, back up on the northwest tip.
Still nothing.
He goes back to his desk and e-mails a friend in the national crime statistics department to see if any other states are experiencing sudden rises in dog-related injuries and deaths, then goes back to the map.
The spread of locations irritates him.
If they were rape or murder scenes, he’d speculate on where the offender might strike next. Orlando. Tampa. Fort Lauderdale. The Everglades. Daytona Beach.
Those would be the most likely places. They are all tourist magnets, big centers with shifting populations made up of every nationality you can name.
He figures that for some reason the dogs have avoided these spots. But that doesn’t make sense. There are more of the animals out there than in any other parts of Florida, so if there’s a random virus, it should be showing in these places rather than down in Key Biscayne and remote places like that.
Jacksonville too.
He looks at the correctional center and sees it’s way north of the city center, out past the airport in Four Creeks State Forest. Jacksonville itself is the biggest city in Florida, with more than three-quarters of a million people living there and another half million within easy commuting distance.
But aside from the incident at the prison—no dog deaths or even bites.
The more he looks at the puzzle the more puzzled he becomes. In the hope of finding a little clarity, he focuses on the breeds that caused fatalities.
Bulldog
Yorkshire terrier
Labrador
German shepherd
Rottweiler
Wirehaired pointer
Pit bull/Staff mongrel
Aside from the Yorkshire they’re all big dogs. From previously Googling the Yorkshire terrier, he already knows it’s Miami’
s second most popular dog, just behind the German shepherd and ahead of the rottweiler.
His mailbox pings and he gets almost a childish rush of excitement when he realizes it’s a note from Zoe.
Sorry didn’t reply last night. Fell asleep after having drunk too much!
Attached is promised research, hope it helps.
Jude is away for a few days—how about I cook dinner for say 8pm?
Z
He mails her back.
Thanks for attachment. Dinner sounds great.
Have a good day x
Before hitting Send, he deletes the kiss. Then adds it again. Having put one on the text he sent last night, he thinks it would now be strange to leave it off.
Time slips by. Around 9:00 A.M. the office starts to fill up. First in is Sergeant John Tarney, a mountain of a twenty-eight-year-old, transferred from SWAT. There’s not a better guy to have riding shotgun on a hairy late-night bust, but he’s barely sociable before noon. JT needs coffee, pints of it, before he can even grunt out a good-morning.
Forty-two-year-old, Bella Lansing manages a brief hello, before darting to her desk and applying the makeup she rushed out of the apartment without putting on. She came into Special Ops from Vice, where she was a sergeant facing a disciplinary charge for kicking a pimp in his testicles after he asked her if she had a daughter he could have sex with.
Ghost grabs the empty coffee cup off his desk and heads to the pantry just as Annie Swanson appears from the main corridor. Gwen Harries is less than a yard behind her.
All the good feeling from his morning run completely disappears.
A CIA agent breathing down his neck is the last thing he needs.
68
Police HQ, Miami
Annoyed at being distracted from his research, Ghost settles Gwen Harries in a meeting room while he quickly pushes a pile of tasks his team’s way.
He asks them to chase up the crime statistics center for a reply to his early morning mail. Then he wants them to contact the FBI and the National Criminal Justice Reference Service and compile an overview of all dog attacks in the last month and last six months. Next on their to-do list is contacting animal shelters, health services, and the National Centers for Health Statistics at the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control.