‘Don’t fret,’ continued Mr Grey, holding the Director’s red-hot glare. ‘Connor and his friends are on their way here.’
This news seemed to pacify the Director. She shrugged off her anger, then asked tersely, ‘How can you be so certain?’
Mr Grey glanced into the lab where Charley continued her personal battle, while technicians took neurological read-outs of her labours. ‘His weakness for Charley is his undoing, along with his loyalty to Buddyguard – he now knows about his colleagues’ limited survival time. I anticipate the drive being in your hands within twenty-four hours.’
The Director drew close to Mr Grey, closer than most people would ever dare. ‘Good. Then I’ll inform the Board of your imminent success. They’ve been understandably anxious waiting for news.’
The assassin didn’t flinch at the Director’s threatening tone. ‘One last thing.’
The Director raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’
‘Once the drive is recovered, Connor is mine. He has a blood debt that needs repaying.’
‘We have a choice to make,’ said Connor, his voice echoing off the crumbling brick walls of the disused warehouse. Late-afternoon sunlight filtered in through the upper tier of broken and boarded-up windows that shouldered the burden of the warehouse’s collapsing roof, while the three of them sat in a tight huddle at one end of the cavernous space.
As soon as the tour bus had arrived at its first destination in Shanghai, they’d disembarked with the other tourists and made a quick getaway. Through a combination of Amir’s memory for directions and Zhen’s knowledge of the city, they’d managed to navigate their way back to the warehouse that had once been Colonel Black and Bugsy’s bunker. Now it was their last remaining refuge in the whole of China.
Connor looked at his two friends. Their faces were washed-out, their eyes ringed with exhaustion. Zhen perched on the old office chair, her knees clasped to her chest, her hair still tied in a bun. Amir wearily propped himself against Bugsy’s workbench, the array of electronic equipment untouched since their departure for the train station a week and a lifetime ago. His friend stared off blankly at the far end wall, his body slumped in defeat. Connor himself was bone-tired and almost at his wits’ end. They were back where they started, yet in even more peril than before. But with Alpha team and their instructors’ lives still in jeopardy, and with the bitter knowledge that Equilibrium was responsible for his father’s death, Connor was far from broken.
‘We could head back to Zhouzhuang and try to meet up with Zhen’s cousin,’ he suggested.
Zhen shook her head. She showed them her smartphone, which displayed a news app in Chinese. Connor immediately recognized the photo of the water town with its canals. ‘The whole area is swarming with police. They’ve set up roadblocks. You wouldn’t get ten kilometres down the highway before you were captured.’
‘Then we look for alternative routes to Hong Kong,’ said Connor.
‘We’ve already done that.’ Amir sighed heavily. ‘Zhen’s cousin was our best chance out of here and you blew it!’
‘Listen, I’m sorry,’ said Connor, feeling the guilt hanging round his neck like a noose. ‘I should’ve listened to you. I was stupid for answering that call, but I had to know … had to speak to Charley.’
Amir nodded, his gaze forlorn and far away. ‘I understand. I wanted to know too.’ He turned to Connor, his eyes red and rimmed with tears. ‘I’m more angry with her for trying to deceive us – to our very faces! Like you, I’d clung to the hope that Colonel Black had been wrong, that Charley was still one of us – our friend.’ He crushed a polystyrene cup that had been left on the workbench and angrily tossed it away. ‘She’s nothing but a heartless traitor!’
It hurt Connor to hear his friend say such things about Charley. But how could he argue with him? The simple fact was that Charley had betrayed them and now they found themselves in a desperate predicament. ‘Well, if we can’t get to Hong Kong, what do you suggest?’
‘Hand over the flash drive to Equilibrium.’
‘What?’ Connor’s jaw fell open. ‘We can’t do that. After everything we’ve read on that drive, Equilibrium has to be exposed. Destroyed! They’re terrorizing the world and no one knows the truth. They murdered my father!’
‘I know,’ said Amir sadly. ‘They also killed Bugsy and Steve. But this might be the only way to save Colonel Black and the rest of our friends. It could just save us too.’
‘How? The drive is the one thing that can bring Equilibrium down.’
‘I realize that, but I don’t see we have any other option. If we can’t get the flash drive to Stella Sinclair in London, then we may as well exchange it for the lives of our friends.’
Connor now understood Colonel Black’s moral dilemma when he’d insisted that sacrifices might have to be made for the sake of the flash drive and the greater good. They too were now stuck between a rock and a hard place – and all the time the gap between them was closing.
Zhen cleared her throat. ‘Once Equilibrium has the drive, won’t they simply kill us all to keep their secret safe?’
Connor nodded. ‘Zhen’s right, Amir. We can’t trust them.’
Flicking a stray piece of polystyrene cup off the bench, Amir shrugged in response. ‘Then I’m out of ideas.’
The three of them lapsed into silence. Equilibrium had them against the wall. They couldn’t escape the country. They couldn’t go to the authorities. And they couldn’t save their friends unless they gave up the drive. Connor held his head in his hands. ‘I’m afraid Equilibrium has beaten us.’
‘If a battle cannot be won, do not fight it,’ agreed Zhen.
Connor looked up. ‘What did you say?’
‘If a battle cannot be won, do not fight it. The great Chinese general and philosopher Sun Tzu said that –’
‘I know who he is. My sensei in jujitsu was always quoting him.’ Connor’s expression hardened from defeat to determination, a steely glint entering his green-blue eyes. He had the spark of an idea – a dangerous one, a risky one – but an idea nonetheless. ‘There is another choice.’
Amir and Zhen both stared at him. ‘What?’ asked Amir.
‘We do the one thing Equilibrium least expects: go on the attack.’
Amir recoiled in shock. ‘Sorry. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Sun Tzu say if a battle cannot be won, then do not fight it?’
Connor nodded and grinned. ‘Sun Tzu also said, If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. We know ourselves and what we’re capable of. The real question is, who or what is Equilibrium?’
Without war, there is no peace. Without chaos, no calm. Without poverty, no riches.
Our role is to keep society in balance. To ensure no government becomes too strong. No country too powerful.
Equilibrium is shaping the future. Ensuring we have a future. A future that we own …
‘They’re a bunch of megalomaniacs!’ exclaimed Connor as they huddled round Amir’s tablet and read the document displayed on the screen.
Amir nodded and continued to study the files. ‘Equilibrium is a multinational criminal organization with its central cell in China. According to this statement, its goal is to destabilize the world in order to enhance its own global domination. One method of doing this is to infiltrate governments, then acquire stakes in critical infrastructure and natural resources.’
‘So Equilibrium is ultimately about money and power?’ said Zhen.
‘Yes,’ replied Amir, his eyes racing over the files. ‘As far as I can tell, Equilibrium functions like a company with its own Board of Directors, each responsible for a different territory, with China’s Director being the chairman of the Board. Think of it like the mythical beast of the Hydra – a many-headed snake that survives even if you cut one of its heads off.’
Connor’s brow furrowed. ‘Didn’t Hercules kill the Hydra?’
Amir nodded. ‘He chopped the heads off, then used a firebrand t
o stop them growing back.’
Connor tapped the flash drive. ‘So, this is our Hercules. Somehow we need to expose the Chinese head and stop it ever growing back. Then we destroy the others. OK, who’s on this Board of Directors?’
Amir buried deeper into the personnel folder, but each file came up virtually blank, only stating a location and contact number. ‘As you can see, there’s very little, if any, information on them. In fact, it appears they go to great lengths to remain anonymous. I’ve only a corporate structure to go by for any evidence they actually exist. However, those beneath the Director are identified.’
Amir clicked on a link to reveal a greasy black-haired man with a poor complexion and close-set mud-brown eyes magnified behind rimless glasses.
Zhen gasped. ‘That’s Liu Yan!’
‘Who?’ asked Connor.
‘Chairman of the Politburo Standing Committee. The third most powerful man in the Communist Party.’
‘He’s not the only one of influence under Equilibrium’s employ,’ said Amir, opening several more files. ‘There’s the vice-president of the Xinhua News Agency, the CEO of China Investment Corporation, and even the Minister of National Defence!’
Connor stared aghast at Amir. ‘Our enemy’s even more powerful than I feared. What information do you have on the Hive itself?’
‘As we already know, it’s the headquarters of their Chinese operations. But it’s also the heart of their cybernetics programme – hence the high-tech medical facilities. Equilibrium’s people don’t just want to rule the world – it appears they want to rule the future as well.’
Amir pulled up a series of documents with schematics of robotic limbs, microprocessors and human bodies. He ran through them. ‘There are projects here for artificial intelligence, voice cloning, biomechanics, genetic modification, human augmentation –’
‘Human what?’ asked Zhen, struggling to keep up.
Amir leant back in his chair. ‘Basically, they’re attempting to create super-humans.’ He ran his finger down the screen, reeling off the projects. ‘Strength enhancement, night-vision capabilities, cerebral uplinks to the internet … this is scarily advanced stuff. We’re talking real-life cyborgs. Human Terminators!’
Zhen bit her lip anxiously. ‘Will we have to fight these cyborgs?’
Amir squinted at the screen, then shook his head. ‘Most of it seems to be in the developmental stages still. But this is definitely Equilibrium’s endgame.’
‘They have to be stopped,’ declared Connor. ‘But, before we attempt to chop the head off this snake, we first need to rescue our friends. If we can locate them and alert the ship’s captain, then Equilibrium will no longer have that hold over us.’ He looked at Amir. ‘Equilibrium must have tracking information on their whereabouts. Having broken the encryption on these files, do you think you can hack into their computer system like Bugsy did?’
Amir whistled through his teeth. ‘It’ll be risky, but I can give it a go. Bugsy left a pathway link to their mainframe’s back door … if it’s still active, that is.’ He went online, his fingers flying over the keyboard. ‘First I’ll have to set up a Tor router, then bounce our signal through multiple nodes, so our location can’t be pinged easily.’ After several minutes of furious typing, Amir turned to Connor and Zhen. ‘Here goes nothing.’
He executed the link to the mainframe. The screen flashed once, then went blank.
Amir slumped in his seat and sighed. ‘Sorry, the link’s dead.’
Then a cursor flashed in the top left corner.
‘Hang on …’ He straightened and smiled. ‘I think we’re in.’
Connor leant over his friend’s shoulder as Amir began to tap away on the keyboard. ‘This’ll be like hunting for a needle in a haystack. It’ll take some time –’ Suddenly the cursor went haywire and streams of numbers began filling the screen. Amir swore, stabbing at the tablet’s power button. The computer refused to power down.
‘They’re back-tracing all the IP addresses!’ cried Amir as he tried to disconnect the flash drive to prevent corruption of the files. But the system was locked down. Amir picked up the tablet and smashed it repeatedly on the edge of the workbench until the computer was little more than fragments of circuit board.
‘You’re making a habit of that,’ said Connor, eyeing the remains of the wrecked device strewn across the bench and floor.
‘Old-fashioned kill switch,’ said Amir, panting. He looked at Connor, a sheen of sweat on his brow. ‘Sorry. Equilibrium blocked the back door and left a trap!’
‘Did they locate us?’ Connor was already reaching for his Go-bag and preparing to make a swift exit.
‘I’d set up the Tor router over a VPN,’ explained Amir, as if Connor knew what he was talking about. ‘It shouldn’t have been traceable. I’m pretty confident they didn’t reverse-engineer the IPs all the way. Not in the time we were online.’
‘Good,’ said Connor, settling back down and dropping his Go-bag. ‘Now, is there any other way to access their server?’
Amir looked along the workbench, cluttered with piles of electronic gear, a pair of sleek laptops and other high-tech surveillance equipment Bugsy had acquired. ‘The only way would be a physical link. Someone would need to enter the Hive and plug a transmitter directly into the mainframe. But we’d have to be crazy to attempt that.’
Connor slid one of the laptops, along with a bunch of surveillance gear, over to Amir. ‘As Sun Tzu once said, every plan is crazy before the battle, but sane in victory.’
Zhen’s brow creased. ‘I don’t think he ever d–’
Connor kicked her shin under the table and smiled pointedly at her. ‘Time to work out a plan.’
‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’ said Connor from the rear seat of the auto-rickshaw that they’d temporarily ‘borrowed’ from a backstreet dealer. The rickshaw was parked round the corner from the 1933 Building, far enough away not to draw attention but close enough to communicate with the transmitter once it was installed.
Zhen nodded nervously. ‘Neither of you can do this job. So I guess it’s down to me.’
She wore the familiar black-and-orange jacket of a Sherpa fast-food delivery boy. Her long hair was tucked inside the biker helmet and she carried a black thermabag containing several pots of noodles. Staying out of sight in the rickshaw’s rear cab, Connor and Amir had their baseball caps pulled down tight to the eyeline, their faces concealed behind pollution masks.
‘Test-1-2-3,’ whispered Amir into his head mic.
‘I hear you,’ said Zhen, tapping the side of the helmet on which Amir had inserted a discreet earpiece.
‘Good. I’ll guide you once you’re inside.’ Amir studied a blueprint of the Hive on his laptop’s screen, detailing the layout of the building, its network of ventilation shafts and the CO2 fire system that protected the array of computer servers. Then he pulled up a second window, a video feed showing Connor’s masked face in close-up and real-time.
‘Whoa, look away, Zhen – his face’ll crack the screen!’ joked Amir.
Connor elbowed his friend in the ribs as Zhen bent her gaze towards Amir instead. ‘Good thing your face is covered too, Amir.’
‘Well, at least we know the contact-lens camera is operational.’ Amir tweaked the focus and colour contrast of the image. ‘How does the contact lens feel, Zhen?’
She blinked several times. ‘A little uncomfortable but OK.’
Their plan was bold and crazy. Rather than trying to sneak in, the idea was for Zhen to walk straight up to the front entrance in the guise of a delivery boy.
Connor slid the tiny transmitter into the lower seam of her jacket. ‘Good luck, Zhen. If the situation gets out of control, just run for it.’
Anxiously clasping the thermabag to her chest, Zhen responded with a hesitant smile, then turned and strode off with her food delivery. The two of them watched her progress on the laptop as she rounded the corner, crossed the street and approached the imposing concrete entr
ance to the Hive.
Amir put his hand over the mic. ‘This is a stupid plan,’ he hissed to Connor. ‘Zhen isn’t trained for this.’
‘But neither of us look Chinese,’ Connor reminded his friend. ‘She can infiltrate Equilibrium without raising suspicion.’
‘Would you be willing to bet your life on that?’ Amir pointed to the video feed showing two security guards intercepting Zhen by the front doors.
Connor’s heart was in his mouth as their guide was questioned. The conversation was captured by the hidden mic in the metal zipper of her jacket and translated in real-time over the laptop’s speakers.
‘What’s in the bag?’ grunted one of the guards.
‘Noodle delivery,’ replied Zhen.
The guard ordered her to open the bag. Then he searched the contents, opening each pot. ‘Smells good,’ he said. ‘Who’s the delivery for?’
‘Zhao Wu, Research and Development Department,’ replied Zhen, using the name Amir had gleaned from a cybernetics file.
The other guard now patted her down. There was a scrunch as his hand passed over the zipper mic. While the helmet concealed her earpiece, Connor was growing ever more concerned that the transmitter would be discovered. Not able to see where the guard’s hands were going, he held his breath in dread anticipation.
The first guard glared at Zhen. ‘Are you winking at me?’
The video feed flickered as Zhen blinked rapidly, the contact lens clearly causing her irritation. ‘Errm … no, just a bit of dirt in my eye.’
The other guard completed his body search and stepped away. Satisfied she was clean, he waved her through. Connor resumed breathing. Fortune had been on their side this once, the transmitter too small to be felt amid the jacket’s padding.
Zhen entered through the glass doors and approached the long sleek reception desk. The man behind it observed her with indifference.
‘Noodle delivery for Zhao Wu,’ she announced.
The man checked his computer, then narrowed his eyes at Zhen. ‘Zhao Wu isn’t working today.’
Fugitive Page 18