by Fritz Galt
He opened his eyes. He was careening on the edge of a cliff.
There was a strong gust of wind as he and the inter-city bus swept past each other.
He eased back into his lane. The passengers were stone silent.
Leafy subtropical trees encroached on his path from both sides. Blinding sunlight flashed between the leaves onto his dusty windshield. But he saw the green shirt again.
Frantic fingers clawed at him from behind.
“Stay put,” he ordered.
He pushed the accelerator and the passenger fell back in her seat.
He squinted. Flickering in the dappled sunlight, Leng Shi-mung’s Taiwanese half-brother weaved in and out of traffic, seemingly oblivious of him.
“Fine. Don’t make me push this crate any faster.”
A five-ton bus and a fifty-pound scooter differed greatly in maneuverability. The scooter blithely passed two more cars.
Mick gritted his teeth. He pulled into the oncoming lane once again. Tilted downhill, he accelerated quickly and passed the pair of cars. Suddenly he faced a blind curve. He had to take a chance.
“Hold on tight,” he shouted.
He braked lightly to avoid flying off the cliff. A body tumbled into the stairwell.
A car sped toward him, straight for his front bumper.
Before Mick could react, the car swerved into the lane where Mick was supposed to be. Unfortunately, the two cars Mick had just passed were still in that lane. He heard a squeal of tires as the car pulled back into its own lane, accompanied by the blare of horns.
That was too close.
Mick eased back into the right lane. The motor scooter raced just ahead of him. The horns must have alerted the man because he looked over his shoulder for the first time.
Mick had seen him knife a taxi driver. Once he learned he was being followed, there was nothing the guy wouldn’t do. Mick edged within inches of the scooter’s license plate. “Let’s see how cheap your life is.”
His driving must have unnerved the man and he eased aside to let him pass.
“Fat chance,” Mick said, ramming into the scooter’s chrome exhaust pipe. The man turned and his eyes grew large when he saw the expression on Mick’s face.
Blue smoke suddenly billowed from the scooter’s tailpipe, and he accelerated down the hill.
“Here we go again.”
Women screamed.
It wasn’t Mick’s job to stop crime in foreign lands. Even in America, a private citizen witnessing a murder wouldn’t risk his life to pursue the killer. But he wasn’t stopping a simple crime and he was no private citizen.
Because he had been hiding in a crowd at the cemetery, he had barely seen the assault. The young cabby had stepped out of his taxicab to confront Leng’s half-brother, who in turn tried to placate the man. Heated words were exchanged. Leng’s half-brother then drew a knife, coolly stabbed the cabbie in the chest and pushed him back into the cab.
Had it been a personal dispute or a gangland slaying, he might have been appalled, but he wouldn’t have responded.
However, Mick had just watched the killer, a captain in Taiwan’s military, conspire with his half-brother, a high-ranking Communist official, and his suspicions had been aroused.
The wide steering wheel moved easily in his hands. At that speed, the heavy tour bus had the agility of a car.
He was gaining too rapidly on the scooter, so he downshifted to slow down. The engine complained, but their speed reduced.
They were approaching a major turn-off.
Rather than continuing along the road and curving to the right into more woods, the motor scooter suddenly veered sharply and plunged down a steep back road toward the city.
It wasn’t an easy turn for a bus, but Mick yanked the wheel hard left. The blacktop was nearly liquid in the midday heat and his wheels slipped. He glanced in his rearview mirror. Passengers gaped outside as windows slammed shut in their faces.
The momentum of the bus had taken control, and Mick’s efforts were secondary. At last, his rear wheels fishtailed into alignment.
Then he saw it. A line of cars was approaching the intersection from the back road. Getting by them would be a tight squeeze for a small vehicle and nearly impossible for a bus.
Mick had to gun the engine. Only a burst of speed would give him the pinpoint accuracy he needed.
So he shot down the hill between oncoming cars and a drop-off to disaster.
Drivers’ eyes opened wide in alarm.
Women screamed.
Metal ground against metal. Glass broke.
His rear right tire rumbled over gravel, then spun mid-air.
Light flashed through the trees, piercing his eyes. He clenched his teeth and tried to slow time down. Just like his days as a half-back in high school, he headed for the opening.
At last the cars were behind him, albeit as a mangled wake of debris. He checked his side mirror. There were no bodies in the street.
He had no time to let out his breath. He was going too fast.
The road became a series of hairpin turns. The air had become thick with the reek of vomit and urine and burned out brakes. He used the curves to slow his momentum.
When the road finally straightened, the scooter was no longer in sight.
Damn. Mick accelerated down the straightaway and glanced at his dashboard.
He had a CB radio.
He grabbed it and licked his lips, then pressed the button.
“Attention. Attention,” he shouted in Chinese. Other voices cleared off the channel. “Taxi driver murdered in Peitou. Killer is entering Shi Pai. Please help detain motorcyclist in green shirt. Stop him at all costs.”
“Green shirt. Green shirt,” he heard other drivers shout over the channel.
When Mick reached the first traffic circle in Shi Pai, he slammed on the brakes. He had entered a market district of restaurant carts, vegetable vendors and shoppers roaming the streets. The green shirt was nowhere to be seen.
Had the killer turned off the mountain road?
Just then Mick caught a scooter shooting past the enormous Veteran’s Hospital. The driver had a green shirt. Cars braked and skidded as the scooter swung in and out of its lane.
Mick caught a glimpse of the man’s face pressed forward like a fascinated child. It was Leng’s half-brother.
He grabbed the CB. “Just passing Veteran’s Hospital. Killer in green shirt on scooter heading west.”
Two yellow cabs roared past his bus, having spotted the scooter. More excited voices filled the airwaves.
Mick put the bus in gear and took up pursuit. From his elevated position, he could make out the scooter turning down an alley.
He had no prayer of wedging his bus in there. But the two taxis made the turn.
Mick leaned on his horn, pressed the accelerator and kept pace with the scooter and two taxis on a parallel street.
People flew out of his way. Boiling oil spilled from overturned carts. Watermelons rolled off stands. Oncoming traffic swerved onto the sidewalk.
Additional yellow cabs sped ahead of Mick, creating a hole in a traffic intersection. Mick angled for the opening. Two frantic hands reached around his throat.
Pushing against the bus’s horn, he stretched back in his seat to reduce the pressure on his windpipe. He burst into the intersection. Cars streamed in from both sides.
The scooter merged into the intersection from the left. The taxis in front of Mick headed it off. The scooter veered toward downtown Taipei and squeezed between a loudspeaker truck and a van.
The other taxis split around the truck and van.
Choked by the hands around his neck, Mick steered for an empty traffic lane. He continued to swerve trying to loosen the grip around his throat.
The scooter couldn’t outpace the taxis for long. On the horizon, Mick spotted no fewer than a dozen more taxis converging on them.
Several of the oncoming cabs turned and stopped broadside to block the motor scooter’s lane.
Mick honked. Everyone honked.
Drivers in the parked taxis saw the mass of vehicles descending on them and tried to pull out of the way. Tires spun. Metal screeched against metal as several speeding taxis bashed into the roadblock.
Mick slammed on his brakes, and the woman who was trying to gag him crashed over his shoulder. Her heels penetrated the windshield and she was stuck there.
Unable to see over the upturned form, he stood on the brakes. The bus squealed to a crooked halt at the side of the road.
“Cripes,” he croaked.
The scooter was still free. Beyond the bleeding torso that was heaped on his steering wheel, he saw Leng’s defiant half-brother and nearly twenty taxicabs launch up a ramp onto an expressway.
He checked his rearview mirror. The bus appeared to be empty, until he saw all the bodies scattered on the floor.
“What have I done?”
Chapter 10
Through her office window, Natalie heard car horns and the wail of police sirens. Every car in Taipei must have been on the road.
She tried to concentrate on the potential fallout of her speech. Would the press pick up the story?
At last she pushed a button on her TV remote and caught the beginning of a local newscast. The top story was about some murderer on the loose.
She wasn’t featured in any of the other headlines.
Thank God. She hit the off button and the television went black.
The honking only grew louder. Was it a demonstration? What were people protesting this time? Maybe they were taxi drivers supporting another pirate radio station. Recently, owners of popular but illegal radio stations had used all sorts of tools to summon support whenever the government tried to seize their equipment.
She heard a knock on the door, and Michelle Pan, her tall, graying secretary, entered swiftly. She apologized and ushered in a visitor.
Natalie realized at once who it was.
Professor Lien stumbled into the room and leaned against a chair to catch his breath.
“Please, professor. Sit down.”
He bowed and fell with exhaustion into the armchair across from her.
He double-checked that the office door was closed before he spoke. “I’m not paranoid. But there are people who shouldn’t see me here.”
“Do you mean Americans?”
“Yes, even some of you.”
She was intrigued. “Have you ever been to the institute before?”
He wheezed and coughed, then passed off the question with a wave of the hand. “Many times.”
She was surprised, but said nothing. AIT was a closely guarded building. They only admitted people by invitation, and even then, only into public areas.
“Let me get straight to the point,” he said, finally catching his breath. “I have put your brother-in-law Alec in grave danger. I wasn’t certain of this until this morning.”
“What sort of danger?” She tried to imagine what kind of danger a scuba diver might have in a tropical sea. The professor had no idea what true dangers Alec had encountered in his short, illustrious career as a spy.
With a deep breath and a nervous twitch in his eye, the old man studied the long vines of a philodendron hanging in the sunlight that streamed through her window. “The extent of infiltration is only now coming clear,” he said at last.
“Communist infiltration?” She sat up. “Where? At your university?”
“Communist infiltration is everywhere.”
“We all know the PRC has placed agents all over the island. But relations are beginning to thaw.”
“I know that this isn’t your area of expertise,” he said confidentially. “And many people look the other way, but I must appeal to your open mind.”
“Okay, my mind is open.” She leaned back again and secretly scanned the economic cables waiting on her desk.
The professor began. “I’ll give you the standard examples. Since 1989, Taiwan has become an open society. The shores are no longer patrolled by the military. They are guarded by the police. Elections are open to whoever can afford to campaign. The military is corrupt. Our defenses are weak.”
“But democracy doesn’t necessarily lead to a weak defense,” she countered. “Your military is among the best equipped in the world.”
“What good is a brick wall when the intruder is already inside?”
“You sound like the old politicians.”
For several months, reactionary forces within the ruling party had promoted the idea that Taiwan’s defenses were insufficient. Natalie had written the argument off as an election ploy. Old ruling party diehards had already scored resounding successes at the ballot box by instilling fear and a sense of vulnerability in the public.
“No, I’m not speaking for the old politicians,” he said. “I’m not talking about armies of communists in our midst.”
“I’m sorry. I thought that’s what you were getting at.”
“No. I might be old, but I’m no politician. I’m talking about something that goes far deeper than that. So pervasive that I can’t calculate its impact. So mysterious that I can’t fathom their plans. I can only see one small part, and I must report it to someone who will listen carefully.”
“Of course.” Now she was sure he was cracked.
He fingered his visitor’s badge. “You’d be surprised by how close-minded people can be, even in this building.”
Of course, she was acutely aware of her husband’s unhappiness with members of his own section. It was true, closed minds and inertia were big problems.
“Therefore, I appeal to you. And your husband,” he added pointedly. “I placed Alec in a university department where I have long suspected trouble. The team has received funds from some unlikely sources. Shall we say from overseas Chinese, but not through the Bureau of Overseas Chinese Affairs. The department’s grants come directly from individual contributors overseas.”
“And what’s the research project?”
“That’s the unusual thing. The funds have purchased normal experimental equipment. At least normal for the field. They’ve bought several boats and a dive platform and built a type of robot that maps the ocean floor.”
“To study what?”
“Undersea volcanoes.” He looked perplexed.
She waited for him to continue.
“Why would these contributors find this particular project so interesting?” he wondered aloud. He seemed at a loss to explain it.
“I can’t even imagine,” she said at last.
“This morning, the project began.”
“I heard he’s on Orchid Island.”
“That’s right, to monitor the project’s activities.”
“To monitor it? I thought he was doing research. Professor, is Alec aware that he’s supposed to be monitoring something?”
“Of course not. I’ve only raised questions in his mind about the contributors. The rest is up to him to discover.”
Given the ethereal quality of their conversation, Natalie wondered if the professor had inhaled too many unstable chemicals in the laboratory.
He looked at her and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I only hope that he’s aware that the time has come. The secret operation, whatever it is, is underway.”
She tried to put the pieces together. What did Alec know? The professor was altogether too enigmatic for her. “Why did you suddenly realize the danger he’s in?”
“I read in the morning paper that a man attacked Alec yesterday afternoon.”
“Someone attacked Alec?” That was news to her.
The professor nodded solemnly.
“Who attacked Alec?”
“A man from Fujian Province.”
“Chinese?”
“No longer. He’s dead.”
“How did it happen?”
“The man fell off a cliff on Yangmingshan. Apparantly, Alec pushed him.”
She swallowed hard. “Alec killed a man from China?”
P
utting the pieces together, she suddenly saw the larger picture. Alec’s project was being mysteriously funded, and just as it began, a man from China was sent over to kill him.
Okay, so this was serious.
Mick entered his apartment on the seventh floor of the Dragon Gate building in Tianmu and locked the door. Sunlight drenched his television, so he drew the curtains before clicking it on.
On the screen, a shoulder-mounted camera stumbled through a cordoned-off police area at the Eternal Sun Cemetery. The blood-soaked legs of the cabby hung out of the taxi. The red sports car was nowhere in sight. A camera caught a woman throwing herself onto the ground in front of the cab. Another person, an older man, seemed to have fainted, but was now shouting about “heaven” and “ghosts.”
The scene switched to a distant view of downtown Taipei. A sea of yellow cabs engulfed a lone, riderless motor scooter.
“The mystery murderer has disappeared as if by magic,” the announcer said.
Somehow the man on the motor scooter had eluded over fifty taxicabs. Turning a corner, the taxis had found only the scooter in the middle of the road with no rider in sight.
“Perhaps,” the announcer speculated, “the murderer slipped into a nearby garment shop and changed his apparel.”
The broadcast closed with a shot of the cemetery behind the murdered man’s cab. A voice-over conjectured that perhaps the ghosts had spoken angrily that day.
Mick muted the volume and leaned back against the couch. His throat still ached from the fingers tugging at his windpipe.
Even though the news circus ended and everyone would forget about the chase, he still wanted to know more about Leng’s brother, the killer in the green shirt.
He crossed the living room to his telephone. In the dim light, he punched in a familiar number.
“Wei?”
“Hello, Admiral Shi. How would you like to play a round of golf tomorrow?”
The old admiral grunted. “Sure, Mick, if you can stand the competition.”
“I’ll risk it.” He knew that Bronson Nichols would approve of the low-key event.