Vital Force

by Trevor Scott

  “You say he knows you’re coming? Maybe we missed him at the train station. Let’s check it out.”

  She held his arm, stopping him. A car rounded the corner from behind, its lights shining on them. She wrapped her arm around his waist and pulled him to her. The car drove slowly down the block and turned right.

  Now Jake was starting to believe her that something was wrong. There had been two men in that car, trying their best not to glare at the two of them.

  “Now,” she said, separating from him and crossing the street.

  They entered a dark stairwell from the street and started climbing the cement steps. Slowly. Methodically. Jake checked his back with each step.

  At the top of the stairs, she stopped and gazed down the dark corridor, lit only by a single bulb about halfway down. Jake noticed the concern on her face, even more so than when the police checked the train earlier in the day.

  She reached inside her coat and then shook her head, realizing her gun was gone.

  They stepped forward quietly.

  “Which apartment?” Jake whispered.

  She nodded her head toward the door on the left. Almost knocking with her leather-gloved hand, she hesitated and tried the door latch. The door swung in.

  She gasped with the sight of the trashed room. There were papers and items of clothing strewn about the floor. Seat cushions were ripped apart. And it was worse when she hit the light.

  There in the center of the floor, naked, lay a man on his stomach. His body was bruised and cut, with a pool of blood seeping from each side of his upper torso.

  Su immediately wept, but tried her best to hold back her pain. Keep from crying out. Setting her backpack on the floor, she knelt down at the man’s side, her hand over her mouth.

  “Su, we’ve gotta leave,” Jake urged softly. “Let’s go.”

  She said nothing, her face turning from anguish to shock.

  Jake grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. He slung her bag over one shoulder and led her into the corridor with his free hand.

  Just then he heard tires screech to a halt outside, followed by doors opening.

  Glancing about the hallway, there was only one choice. They had to run to the end of the hall.

  “Come on,” he said to her firmly.

  Together they lumbered down the corridor. Jake hit the light as he passed, smashing it to the floor.

  At the end of the hall, there was another stairway. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Jake heard the sound of footsteps running outside. He swung her backpack around and caught the first man in the face, knocking him back into the next man and back outside. Then Jake rushed them, kicking one in the face as he tried to rise.

  Jake led her down the street and quickly turned right down an alley. Her expression had changed from pain and sorrow to anger. Determined now, she took her backpack from Jake and slung it over her shoulders.

  “This way,” she said, decidedly.

  She went down a narrow passageway and eventually they slowed their pace to silence their movement.

  Soon they reached a park along the Songhua River and headed toward downtown. Before exiting the other end of the park, Su stopped and went to her knees in the snow alongside a patch of bushes. She cried and hid her face from Jake’s view.

  “You were close?” Jake asked, his hand on her shoulder.

  She didn’t answer. He looked around and realized they had left tracks in the snow.

  “Listen, Su,” he said. “We’ve gotta get out of town. That was a major set-up.”

  Finally she spoke. “Why?”

  Jake gently squeezed her shoulder. “Someone wanted you in custody. Out of the way.”

  “But it makes no sense,” she said, weeping. “All they know is we’re friends from college.”

  “You’ve been compromised,” Jake said.

  She glared up at him. “I killed him,” she muttered.

  “No.”

  “I did. I got him into this in college.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  She shook her head.

  Damn it. They needed to move fast before the police had a chance to close off the city. He pulled her roughly from the ground and shook her.

  “I need you right now,” he said sternly. “Now get your ass in gear and move it.”

  She looked as if he had just slapped her in a Buddhist temple. But she did what he said.

  Together they moved toward downtown. When they got to a main road, they picked up a bus that brought them toward the train station. They watched with horror as they approached the station. There were three cop cars lined up outside, with officers watching the front door.

  Jake had no intention of jumping on a train anyway, but his plans would have to change nonetheless. They continued on the bus for a while until they reached an area with many bars and restaurants. They got off and stood for a moment alongside the street.

  “Now what?” Su asked.

  “There.” Jake shifted his eyes toward the cab parked a half a block away.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Just keep your ears open.” Jake tried to remember a map he had viewed on the train before entering the city. “Make up an address along Anguo Street. Make it out a ways.”

  She nodded and they got into the cab.

  The cabbie considered him with interest. Apparently he wasn’t used to seeing Americans. He pulled away and seemed to be flying through the nearly empty streets.

  It wasn’t long before they caught up with Anguo Street, which connected the southwest section of town to the downtown.

  When they had reached an area that was mostly smaller buildings, the cab pulled over to the side of the road.

  Su started to get out, but Jake stopped her. Instead, he got out on the driver’s side, opened the driver’s door and pulled the man to the street. Then, with the car still running, Jake jumped in and sped away.

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, Jake watched Su in the back, stunned and shaking her head.

  “You’re crazy,” she said. “He got a good look at you.”

  Leaving her backpack behind, she climbed to the front seat.

  “Nah. We all look alike.” Besides, he had a feeling the cops knew exactly who they were look for now. Jake took it slow, remembering from his map that there should be a road ahead that led toward the main north and south highway in Manchuria.

  “What about me?” she asked.

  “They already know what you look like. You were set up big time.”

  She thought hard. “But why?”

  “Your friend must have given you up.” As soon as he said it, Jake regretted having done so.

  “Bullshit!” The word came from her mouth, but she made it sound more like a French soup than an expletive.

  He couldn’t help but laugh to himself. But she still caught him.

  “You think it’s funny my friend is killed?”

  “No. I’m sorry. It’s just the way you say Bullshit.”

  The road ahead looked about right, so Jake turned right onto it and picked up speed.

  Time to heal the situation. Jake said, “I am truly sorry about your friend. And, we can’t be sure he gave you up, but he was obviously tortured. I certainly couldn’t blame him if he did.”

  She considered that. “Doesn’t matter. It’s over.”

  “What’s over?”

  “Our job,” she said, defeated. “You might as well go back to Beijing, catch a flight back to Europe.”

  Jake smiled. “You obviously don’t know me very well.”

  She shrugged. “They say you pig-headed and...what’s that word? Obstacle? Obnoxious? No, that’s not it.”

  “Maybe...”

  “No I’ll get it. Give me a second.” The wheels were turning fast now. “Obsessed. No.”

  Jake found the main highway and headed in the direction of Qiqihar. He wasn’t sure if they should stay on the main road, but for now it was the fastest way out of town.

  “Obstina
te,” she said proudly. “That’s the word.”

  “I’ve been called worse,” he said. “Still, we’ve gotta assume they know about you. Your friend didn’t know about me, right?”

  She shook her head.

  “But it won’t take the cops long to figure it out. The cop on the train got both of our names. If he’s got a halfway decent memory....”

  Her concern registered again on her expressive face.

  All the more reason to get the hell off the main road, Jake thought. First, he’d need to figure out if their mission was remotely possible now. If her friend had given up Su, he could have just as easily told them that he would be driving her to the remote location. Hopefully that’s all he had known.

  ●

  Outside the contact’s apartment, police cars had blocked off the street and two men were carrying the man out on a stretcher, down the front steps and into an unmarked military van.

  Leaning against a police car, bundled in a parka, the bald man cast his gaze on an army colonel in a green wool uniform standing before him.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the colonel said, his eyes and head nodding toward the street.

  The bald man laughed, his voice echoing against the apartments, breaking the silence of night. Then his disposition changed to a determined stare.

  “You are the Fool on the Hill,” the bald man said. “I am the Walrus. Goo goo g’ joob.”

  The colonel looked at him like he was insane.

  The bald man continued, “It doesn’t matter. Luckily I don’t depend entirely on you.” In fact, he did not depend on the colonel at all, or anyone else in the military of incompetents. But he knew he would need them eventually, when his plan came to full fruition. So, even though he did not like it at all, he would have to appease this colonel. For now.

  The bald man moved off of the police car and put his hand on the colonel’s shoulder board, running his fingers through the stars. “Let’s sanitize the apartment. He was a troubled young man. Suicidal, in fact.” Then a smile came to his face and a chuckle turned in to a full guffaw.

  15

  Bend, Oregon

  It was Friday morning and Special Agent Jane Harris stood at a table in the downtown branch of the Bank of the Pacific, pretending to fill out a form, and taking her time about it. Sitting at a small table a short distance away, Cliff Johansen and the Asian woman talked with a bank official. But she was just out of ear shot.

  Moments later, Cliff signed something and then went with the banker into the vault. The Asian women glanced about the room, checking her watch every now and then.

  Harris knew she couldn’t stay there much longer. She was being too obvious. She had to move. Picking up some literature on a bank credit card, she went to an open teller and asked her a few questions about their current rates. Then she smiled and left, returning to her vehicle parked half a block from the Trooper.

  “Well?” asked agent Drew Fisher. “What’s up?”

  “The two of them talked for a moment with a banker and then Cliff went into the vault without her.”

  “Probably a safe deposit box.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “What else?” he asked her.

  “Current Visa rates are nine percent. I might apply.”

  He gave her a callous look.

  “All right. Give me a break. It’s not like I got much sleep in this beast of a Blazer last night. Cliff did fill out some paperwork.”

  “Wire transfer?”

  “Could be.”

  “I’ll call and have that traced.”

  “What about probable cause now?” she asked. “Last night...”

  He waved her off. “You wanna sleep in here again?”

  “Carry on.”

  He called Portland and initiated a trace. Just as he got off the phone, he noticed Cliff and the woman departing the bank.

  “Here we go,” Fisher said.

  Agent Harris started the engine and waited for them to pull out.

  ●

  Li was behind the wheel of the Trooper and Cliff sat in the passenger seat, squirming about nervously.

  “You act like we just robbed the bank,” she said, checking the rearview mirror as she pulled out into traffic. “You should be happy. You’re half a million richer.”

  Cliff sighed with her words, as if he had finally just realized what she was saying. On one point she was correct. He did have more money. But he was now also culpable for a crime. He had stolen from his country and sold the data to this woman who worked for...well, that was the problem. He assumed it was the Chinese government, but it could have been the Taiwanese, the Koreans, North or South, or even some terrorist group. And the DVD he had just given her was useless without his encryption codes.

  They made their way toward the Parkway that led out of town. She turned North toward Redmond and picked up speed, keeping her eyes on the rearview mirror.

  “What’s the matter,” he asked her.

  “I think someone’s behind us.”

  “A tail?” He looked over his shoulder and saw at least five vehicles. “Which one?”

  “Turn around,” she said. “Don’t want them to know we know.”

  A moment later she looped around and picked up Highway 20 toward Sisters. But the Blazer with the two people were still there.

  Cliff leaned forward and looked into the right outside mirror. “The Blazer?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She passed a long line of cars before the highway turned from four lanes to two. Now there would be a little cushion.

  The road quickly became a series of curves that would not allow passing.

  “Listen,” Cliff said, “what difference does it make? So we’ve got a tail. What do they have on us?”

  She glanced sideways at him, a look he had not seen in her before. What was it? Desperation? Concern?

  When she spoke, her words were measured. “We have the DVD you just gave me. We have the transfer of money you just got. We have you not showing up for work for the last two days. And, how we sure you not get caught sending data to yourself?”

  That was the only thing he was sure of, but she was right about the rest. Well, not the money. For, although she had transferred the money to his local account, he had set it up days ago to have all of his transactions, however small or large, split into fractions of one hundred. So, a transfer of one dollar would look like one cent. Subsequently, a transfer of five hundred thousand, would end up as one hundred transfers of five thousand each, keeping it well under the ten thousand dollars that would send up flags with the Feds. He smiled now thinking of his own genius. Not only would the incoming money be fractionalized, it would immediately shift before the end of business to five other accounts in various sheltered countries. And, over a period of a few days, the money would again collect in a single account in Liechtenstein.

  “What so funny?” she asked him.

  “Nothing. This is just getting so cloak and dagger. It’s pretty cool.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  When a passing lane came up, she sped up and started to pass a slow-moving camper trailer. But then she slowed down when she was even with the camper. Just before the passing lane was about to end, she jammed the gas and passed the truck and camper, barely making it with the oncoming traffic honking at her. Now the line of cars, with the Blazer at the end, would be even farther behind.

  She sped up and rushed toward the small town of Sisters.

  ●

  “Damn it,” said special agent Harris. “She’s on to us.”

  Agent Fisher had his hand on the dash. “Looks like it.” He pulled out a map from a side pouch and opened it to their current location. “Shit. The road splits in Sisters to one twenty-six and two forty-two. Which way will they go?”

  “No. The McKenzie Highway, two forty-two, is closed until June or July. But that’s not the big problem. Look down the road a ways. Twenty splits to twenty-two toward Salem, they could stay on
twenty toward Corvallis, or they could shoot down on one twenty-six to Eugene.”

  Fisher let out a heavy sigh. “Fuck. I’m gonna guess Eugene, since Cliff has another good friend there and he went to college there. But we need to get some help on the road from our friends.” He pulled out his cell phone and punched in a Portland number.

  He talked for a while, making sure there was a state patrol car watching for a white Trooper with California plates on Highway 22, Highway 20, and Highway 126, prior to any turn-offs. Once that was set, he made sure they had a Eugene police unit sitting on Cliff’s friend’s place there.

  “Well?” she asked. “Now what?”

  “We bust our ass to Eugene. We’ll get no Agency help there. The entire office is in Portland at an organized anarchist rally.”

  “That’s right. I was supposed to be there, but got pulled off for this gig.”

  “You can thank me any time,” he said. “Oh yeah, we’ll need to change cars in Eugene. You don’t find that strange?”

  “Changing cars?”

  “No. Organized anarchists. Kind of a contradiction.”

  She smiled. “Guess so.”

  They pushed on ahead, passing as many cars as they could at each opportunity.

  16

  Northern Manchuria

  Jake had driven the taxi most of the night to Qiqihar. Since it had been so cold, with the heater barely working, they had been forced to keep their gloves on for the entire trip, which made it easy to clean up before dumping the car in front of a park some six blocks from the train station. They would have left no fingerprints.

  Now they were on a rickety old train used mostly by locals or the military, judging by all those in uniform, heading farther north into the hinterlands bordering Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and Russia just a short distance over a mountain range.

  Although the train traveled along a river valley, mountains rose up from the east and west and seemed to be drawing to a close ahead, Jake noticed. There were no private compartments on this commuter, only rows of shabby chairs.

  The sun was rising and Su sat next to him, her head against his shoulder. She woke now and noticed Jake watching her.

  “Where are we?” she whispered to him.