But suddenly it was clear: we hadn’t dodged the bullet at all.
Then, without any further information I understood. I’d become obsessed with the idea of a detonator. But the incendiary device had been activated by a pre-set timer. Sure, the detonator I’d taken might’ve been real. But if it was, it was just an override.
‘Nobody’s doing anything,’ came Vann again. ‘I’m gonna shoot down the door. I’ll either be shot myself, or the emergency services on standby will follow. Good luck, Saul.’
I knew that was the last I’d hear from Vann for the foreseeable future: if he wasn’t shot, he’d be arrested. I just had to hope to God he’d manage to save some lives.
‘It’s no goddamn use,’ said Ellen, with haunting calm. ‘Those kids – they’re fucked.’
I could see them now. Trapped and immobile and in insane, screaming agony as molten paint dripped on their faces. In terrible, blinding, mortal fear, as they watched through the thickening hydrogen cyanide smoke, the roof above them shudder.
As these images rose in my mind, the anger took over. Anger at the injustice – at my own powerlessness. So much so, it seemed for a second I couldn’t breathe or think or see.
This was more than just an attack on innocents. This was an attack on the freedom to protest; the freedom to speak against tyranny. An attack on democracy.
And that was intolerable.
But not only was the attack traumatic in its own right, it also – in one awful blow – smashed down that self-defensive floodgate in my head keeping my traumatic memories at bay; memories of atrocities I’d tried and failed to prevent. And all at once, my mind was swimming in agonies of the past. Agonies that forced me to acknowledge that getting involved in these high-stake situations – though I’d been conditioned to crave them – so often takes a cataclysmic personal toll.
This attack wasn’t personal, but the pain it caused was. And every fiber of my being wanted vengeance. No ordinary vengeance, either – but bloody, brutal retribution. Because Yuelin had tipped me over the edge, and now the hatred was no longer just flowing one way.
I was lusting for her blood with a dark, insane, magnetic hatred. Hungering to make her suffer like she’d never suffered before.
And even as I acknowledged that this hatred made me more vulnerable, more liable to make mistakes, I couldn’t suppress it. It was involuntary. All-encompassing.
I thumbed on the car radio. Already, it was breaking news: confusion at the Chinese Consulate. But it didn’t elaborate. Details to follow.
‘So what the hell do we do?’ said Ellen.
I looked at her hard. This powerful, conscientious, never-say-die woman had been ground mercilessly down. And to see this not only redoubled my anger, but also mingled it with exquisite sadness.
But it also gave me a sudden sense of purpose. At that very second, an unspeakable tragedy was unfolding. But in fact, that made it all the more necessary to come back stronger. And it was my responsibility to make Ellen see that.
‘The Consulate – it’s out of our hands. But the worst thing we can do now is lay down and die.’ I hit the steering wheel with my palm. ‘No, we need to fight back. Because as things stand, Yuelin’s not only done all this, but she’s getting away with it, too.
‘But more than that, she still has the capacity to do more. We have no idea what other horrors she has lined up. And, more disturbingly, no idea what she plans to do with the technology. And so we can’t give up. We can’t.’
Ellen said nothing. Rallying her spirits wasn’t going to be so easy: she needed more time. She just looked at me with sad, painful eyes.
And I knew what was in her mind – because it was in mine, too. The faces of those young protestors we’d seen in the photo. Faces that would be seared in my mind forever.
* * *
‘Hopefully the fact we haven’t heard from Scott means he’s made progress with that confession,’ I said, as I turned right off 6th and onto Bryant – a one-way, four-lane thoroughfare just round the corner from Stillman.
I squeezed the gas, glanced in my mirrors.
In the left wing mirror, in a black Chevy behind and to the left, were two familiar faces. The guys who’d abducted Ellen in LA. Immediately, my gut lurched.
‘Get in the brace position,’ I screamed at Ellen.
She did.
Next second, it happened: their car swerved, driving their front bumper into our left rear tire. And then they kept on piling into us.
The Precision Immobilization Technique. A short, sharp method to stop a target vehicle, employed by law enforcement for decades. Because unlike on the big screen, where a car can be battered into oblivion, and still roll along just fine, in reality, a well-placed nudge is all it takes to throw a car out of control. In fact, if the target car’s traveling over thirty-five mph, it’s considered a lethal technique, since there’s a strong chance the target car will flip over.
But that’s not an exact figure. And I was going thirty-three.
But of course this method made perfect sense. Orchestrate a shooting on a busy city street, and you put yourself in the spotlight and compromise deniability. But this was a hit-and-run. An attempt to take us out while making a speedy getaway. And while it was worlds apart from the meticulous plans this team had already carried out – clearly they’d decided to take greater risks to eliminate us – it was essentially still an attempt to preserve deniability.
All this raced through my head in the couple of seconds they were thrusting into my back-wheel. And as our car’s rear lurched violently to the right, and our heaping chunk of metal then went careering leftwards across the road – all in what felt like insane slow-motion – I knew we were in the lap of the gods.
The Chevy tore away. A van broke hard to avoid smashing into us. Then, out of dizzying nowhere, a wall came up fast…
A bone-jolting hit. An explosion of air-bags. A ringing in the ears. The stench of burnt metal and rubber. Blood everywhere.
A moment later, the air-bags deflated. I looked to Ellen. She was unconscious. Her nose broken, and bleeding freely.
I focused my eyes beyond the shattered windscreen. To my confusion, we appeared to be inside. I was looking at what appeared to be, ironically, an automotive repair shop.The next instant, I understood. By a mad stroke of luck, we hadn’t hit a wall: we’d smashed through a roll-up metal door. The front three-quarters of the car had broken through, while the back quarter was still outside. And given the black smoke rising off the car, I reckoned that from the outside, onlookers would be unable to make-out the aftermath.
I had to haul ass. Authorities would turn up imminently. What’s more, while I felt confident Yuelin’s men had been attempting a hit-and-run, I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t follow up with a further attack.
I tried to pop my seat-belt, but the lock was jammed; so I tugged the Swiss Army knife out of my pocket, and sliced through the belt.
Ellen’s belt, on the other hand, popped out easily. But her door was crippled shut: her side had taken the bulk of the impact. So I swung open mine, scooped her into my arms – my body screaming in protest – and hauled her out of the car.
Immediately, I looked back at the car, and could see that nobody outside could see in: the hole in the roll-up door was no larger than the car itself, and the thick smoke obscured things further. I trotted to the other side of the space where there was a locked wooden door, and laid Ellen on the floor. Then I took out my Walther, shot the lock, and booted open the door. Beyond, to my enormous relief, was an empty service road.
My first instinct was to leave. But then suddenly I realized I was missing a trick; so I left Ellen a moment, turned back to the car, and – taking aim at where I knew the gas tank was located – squeezed the trigger from maybe fifty yards off.
The first bullet was sucked ineffectually into the smoking hulk. I readjusted, shot again. Still, no cigar.
But then, the third bullet hit home with an explosion of ignited gas that knocke
d me back two steps, and winded me good.
I knew it was a wise move. Not only because, in the short term, it’d slow anyone who wanted to pursue us inside. But also because it’d throw Yuelin off my scent – she’d probably assume the explosion signified our deaths. And even if she was more cautious, the forensic investigation of the car would take the authorities hours, so Yuelin would at the very least be left in the dark as to our status.
I took a second to catch my breath. Then I turned, again scooped Ellen into my arms, and hustled outside.
I trotted along the small service road at right angles to the building. When I’d put a hundred yards between us and the building, I laid Ellen down once more.
I ripped off her sleeve, and used it to wipe away blood. Then I checked her breathing, and whether she had any broken bones. Miraculously, apart from the broken nose, she was fine on both counts.
Because of the state her side of the car had been in I knew that Ellen had cheated death by a whisker. And whereas I’d survived because of where I’d been sitting, Ellen had undoubtedly survived only because she’d adopted the brace position.
The smallest margins separated life and death.
But though this was a huge relief, I needed her conscious. While a roughed-up pair could go under the radar in San Fran, a guy carrying an unconscious woman wouldn’t get far.
I rolled her onto her side, and bent her legs so her knees were at right angles with her hips, and moved her head back to open her airways.
Then I prayed. Prayed and prayed she’d come to.
Seconds passed. Then minutes. Tension built in my chest. Then suddenly she twitched; then, in the next moment, she was coming round, bleary-eyed.
She looked at me. ‘Saul?’
‘Ellen. We’ve just been in a car crash, but we need to get out of here fast. Do you reckon you can walk with me to the train station?’
She was silent. Then, a few seconds later, she nodded, as if she’d only just processed the information.
‘I think so. Gimme a second.’
As I helped her to her feet, I could hear the first siren approaching – probably an ambulance. It was only a matter of time before they were pointed in the direction we’d headed in. And while this may have been an ambulance, I knew – given the nature of the incident – it was only a matter of time before the police arrived, too.
But I couldn’t rush Ellen.
She pressed her palms against the wall, and stretched, groaning. Then, as a second siren joined the first, she looked at me.
‘We need to split, right?’
This comment gave me a boost of hope – she was back on the ball.
‘Right. But first, we need to do something about your blood.’ I pointed to her top. ‘Take it off, and put it on back to front.’
As she did so, I took off my jacket. She put it on.
‘That ought to do. If you’re gonna look odd anywhere, it should be San Fran. Now, I’m gonna lead the way to the station. Look natural, and let me know if you need to stop.’
She nodded, and we headed off, exiting the other side of the service road. Then, at a brisk walk, we headed for the CalTrain station a half-mile away, at Fourth and Townsend. And though, as the crow flies, we were really not far from the site of the collision, the nature of the city meant that pretty soon it was out of sight, and thus out of mind. Folk barely seemed to register the sirens, let alone link us to them.
About halfway, I squeezed Ellen’s hand. She squeezed back. She was coping.
Ten minutes later, we arrived at the station. Then, at last, we had things go our way. There was a train already on the platform, as empty as a San Fran train was ever likely to be; we found a pair of seats tucked away at the back of a carriage, facing the carriage’s rear wall; and barely had we boarded than it peeled away from the platform…
At which point, Ellen slumped on my shoulder in a daze.
But though I, on the other hand, felt as lucid as ever, I was absolutely reeling. Not because of the crash. But because of the awful, inescapable truth. Scott Brendan, the man I’d trusted implicitly, had betrayed me. Scott Brendan had thrown us to the wolves. And while at once this seemed utterly impossible, utterly at odds with the person I knew he was, at the same time, there could be no doubt.
There was no other way they would’ve known where’d I’d been heading. I’d been careful I’d not been followed. And no other way they’d have known my vest was phony.
And as this sunk in, I felt not angry so much as disgusted. Because I reckoned I knew what he’d done it for – the tech to undermine TOR. And if this was the case, if he’d sold our lives simply to enhance his career, it wasn’t just sickening cowardice. It was cut-throat expediency on a level I simply couldn’t comprehend.
Yet while the betrayal stung, even more painful was the fact he’d left us completely high and dry in our fight against Yuelin. He’d stripped us of all evidence against her; of the guy who could testify against her. And that was irreparable.
But what Scott hadn’t counted on, I reckoned, was that they’d be so clumsy in their assassination attempt. I reckoned he’d counted on a cold, clinical job, so he could rest easy once this was over. And suddenly – as I sat there, battered, bruised, war-weary – the thought of eventually confronting him, and watching him quake in his boots at the reappearance of a man he’d taken for dead, became a life-line. A perverse source of strength. A reason to keep my head above water at all cost.
Then I realized that fear was exactly what had gotten into Yuelin and her coterie, too. She could’ve stationed her men inside 169 Stillman Street, and attempted to kill me in private. But after last time – after I’d come on them like an angel of death in Joshua Tree – they were wary. So they’d resorted to the tactics I’d just seen.
But while the knowledge of their fear was something to savor, the truth was, it couldn’t counterbalance the horrors of what’d happened at the Consulate… Only time could heal that wound. Time – and vengeance.
I rested a hand on Ellen’s head.
Chapter 29
Sunday, December 12, 12:47 p.m. – 12 Hobart Avenue, San Mateo, California.
After a fifty minute drive south, Shuai and Scott finally pulled up outside a small bungalow on a run-of-the-mill middle-class street in San Mateo, Silicon Valley. They’d driven in a silence broken only by Shuai’s men reporting that they’d arrived at that same location ten minutes prior, and would start “questioning” Hao.
As Scott followed Shuai up the drive, he reminded himself to project authority. It was imperative he made clear he was no pushover.
‘Right, I want to take a look around,’ said Scott, as they entered the foyer.
Already, he was taking things in. The foyer was large, and doubled as a living room: there was a TV in the corner, playing the news. Off this foyer were four doors. And while the two dead ahead, and the one to the left, were shut, the one to the right – a pair of double-doors – were open, and revealed a large table supporting a number of computers.
‘Two bedrooms – five rooms in all,’ Shuai replied. ‘I’ll show you.’ He pointed to the right. ‘That’s the computer room.’
Scott walked over, and put his head round the door. There was another table to the other side of the room, also full of equipment.
‘And I take it the tech to undermine TOR isn’t here?’
Shuai gave a small nod. ‘For the same reason you don’t have the DVD with you. We’ll make the swap later.’
Scott nodded. ‘Show me the rest of the house.’
Shuai proceeded to show him the main bedroom, crammed with four beds, and accompanied by an en suite, behind the door to the left – and a smaller bedroom, behind the door straight ahead and to the left. In this one, Scott noticed something interesting: two large pieces of luggage on one of the two beds, both with “L. Kelden” written on the side.
As they exited this second room, the remaining door (ahead and to the right) opened, and two grim-faced men exited, both of
whom gave Scott a cursory look before engaging Shuai in conversation in Chinese.
After a moment, Shuai turned to Scott.
‘They’ve been interrogating Hao. He insists you never recorded a confession, and that you have no proof of his online activities: he says he merely told you about them. So, since we want to be sure there’s something in this bargain for us, we’d want you to get him to admit that you did record a confession.’ A deliberate pause. ‘We have the facilities that’ll allow you to water board.’
Scott felt a hot ball in his throat. He’d guessed Hao might be in the final room – which he reckoned was a kitchen. But while Hao may well have said just that, he knew Shuai wouldn’t have taken it seriously – after all, Scott had just handed Hao over to people who’d probably kill him, and might simply be trying to punish Scott. Instead, Scott reckoned this had nothing to do with verifying the existence of the DVD and USB stick. Instead, it was a test. If he was willing to inflict unspeakable agony on another person, albeit a pedophile, they’d know he was truly on side.
He’d gone this far. No turning back now.
‘Fine. I’ll make that pig squeal,’ Scott said, with nothing in his voice. He walked past the three men and into the kitchen. All three followed.
It was a large kitchen. In the center was Hao, again tied to a chair. On the counter was a line of hosing, and a roll of cling-film.
Hao’s eyes shot fearfully between the items on the counter and Scott. There was an awful tension.
‘What the fuck’s going on? One moment you’re whiter-than-white, and now you’ve stabbed your own friends in the back?’
‘Shut the fuck up.’
He approached Hao, and tugged his head harshly back by his hair.
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