by Dave Buschi
“This way,” Mei said. “Hurry.”
They followed her down a corridor, took a left, and went down another corridor. Up ahead was another door. Mei opened it, paused and whispered, “Nothing from below, but there is something up top.”
“Good enough for me,” Marks said. The four of them plowed through the door and proceeded down the stairs.
Mei whipped off her heels and raced down with stilettos in hand. Above them were people moving with a lot less discretion, going the opposite way. The four of them reached the basement. Marks cracked the door. All clear. They emptied into the parking garage. Mei took the lead again, pausing briefly to put on her heels. They went down a ramp and headed towards the van.
“We’re driving out?” Marks said.
Mei checked her phone. “We’ll use the side exit, they’re not watching it.”
They hustled to the van and piled in. Johnny Two-cakes sat up front with Mei. Mei cranked the four cylinder motor and spurted out of the space. Moments later they exited onto a busy side street.
“Easy cheesy,” Mei said.
“Nice work, Ivona Tinkle,” Lip said.
118
“WHY’D they tag us?” Marks said, as Mei took another turn. “They could have picked us up when we arrived.”
“Wasn’t us they were interested in,” Lip said. He maneuvered himself trying to get comfortable. Through the floor they could feel every bump in the road. Lip pointed towards the front. “They could have had Mei at the airport, so it’s not her. It’s our boy, Johnny Two-cakes.”
Johnny Two-cakes had put his mask back on. He proceeded to climb back into the cargo hold. “Gentlemen, I believe a debriefing is in order.”
“First you gotta take that mask off,” Lip said. “It’s creeping me out.”
Johnny Two-cakes gave another of his trademark sighs, but obliged. “There… better?”
“No, my bad,” Lip said. “That’s much worse.”
“Easy,” Marks said. Man had had a hiatus from Lip for seven years. Too much too quickly could send the man into anaphylactic shock. “Where’s she driving us?”
“She knows a place—it’ll take us some time to get there,” Johnny Two-cakes said. “We have a lot to go over. I’ll start from the beginning.”
“In the beginning was the Word,” Lip said. “And the Word was Johnny Two-cakes!” Lip hugged him. “I love ya, man.”
JOHNNY Two-cakes sighed. That would be number five. Not that anyone was counting. “Thank you, Lip. The feeling is reciprocated.”
“You can get off him now,” Marks said.
Lip took a seat and looked at Marks. “See, Johnny Two-cakes loves me. He didn’t tell you that, did he?”
“Gentlemen, let us get on the same page here,” Johnny Two-cakes said, beginning to get annoyed. “Marion told you about Costa Rica?”
“Yeah,” Marks said. “She told us what she knew. Wasn’t much. Something happened there. That part we figured out. We just don’t know what.”
Johnny Two-cakes nodded. “It may help for me to start there then. You went to my house in Arlington and saw everything?”
“Ah yeah,” Marks said. “We checked it out.”
“It was nice by way,” Lip said. “You got insurance, right?”
Johnny Two-cakes sighed. “What happened to my house?”
“It was Marks’s fault,” Lip said.
“What happened to my house?”
“It burnt down,” Lip said.
“What?!”
“Alright, maybe we should go first,” Marks said.
“My house burnt down?” Johnny Two-cakes looked in shock.
“You had nice books,” Lip said. “Did you get those at the library?”
JOHNNY Two-cakes had moved right past sighs and into double blinks. Lip had called it best, one time, when he rated the man’s limited facial expressions according to the DEFCON system. 5 was cool, 1 was nuclear. Sighs were definitely DEFCON 5. The numbers in-between (2, 3, 4) were nuanced—it was hard to tell if a double blink meant he was cool or leaning towards nuclear. Burma episode in helicopter was DEFCON 1—that’d be nuclear, Johnny Two-cakes losing his shit. It had only happened once.
Man was usually the picture of restraint. Calculator episode, to take another example, was probably DEFCON 3. That’d be when Lip ruined the man’s favorite calculator. Lip thought it would be funny to preprogram the thing. He’d tuned it such that instead of doing calculations, it spit back “5318008” every time you punched any buttons. What is wrong with my calculator? Johnny Two-cakes had said. Have you tried turning it upside down? Lip had said.
Looking at Johnny Two-cakes’s face now with the double blinking going on, Marks realized they’d probably jumped to DEFCON 3. Possibly 2. Nuclear war could be imminent.
“My house…?”
“Lip, you take this. Catch the man up the speed.”
“No problem,” Lip said.
Lip could have sold CliffsNotes. Man had a knack for summarizing. He started from the beginning with the phone call from Marion. Starbucks… Jiri, aka Vlad… what they discovered with the databases being altered. Lip hit all the majors, including everything about the Gol’yanovskaya crew and their sick operation; how they took it down and saved the kids. The men that hit them at Johnny Two-cakes’s house. How Rudy was still at large. How Lip figured out where JTC was based on the stick and visa issuances. He even gave a shortened version of his perfect storm theory he’d given Marks on the plane. The election thing, the shorting of stocks, how the emails traced to China Telecom and how the stuff in Johnny Two-cakes’s office showed all the connections.
Johnny Two-cakes digested all of it like he was downing icky medicine and going through the stages of acceptance. DEFCON 2… 3… 4… and then came 5, the sighs.
“Thank goodness Marion is safe,” Johnny Two-cakes said. “I never suspected they’d find her—not that quickly, and not with the precautions I took.”
“Dude, we’re sorry about the house, really,” Lip said. “But what was the deal with those plastic baggies? Were you drying them?”
“Let it go, Lip,” Marks said.
“No I need to know,” Lip said.
Johnny Two-cakes, to his credit, stayed at DEFCON 5. Man was more concerned with how the Gol’yanovskaya crew found Marion. He asked some questions about the original phone call Marks received. Marks told him exactly what had been said.
Johnny Two-cakes nodded, sighing. “I suspected, but this almost confirms it. They do have it.”
“Have what?” Marks said.
“A Black Widow,” Johnny Two-cakes said.
Man was talking about the NSA’s Cray supercomputer. Badass piece of hardware that Lip was in love with.
“They don’t have it,” Marks said. “Those punks were muscle. You tell him, Lip.”
“I’m not talking about the Gol’yanovskaya,” Johnny Two-cakes said. He looked up towards Mei, and dropped his voice lower. “This will have to wait.”
Man didn’t want Mei knowing. Same team, but not same team.
“Understood,” Marks said.
THEIR asses needed a break, and they got one. Mei told them they were switching vehicles. Next ride wasn’t exactly better. Mei parked down an alley and they piled out and got into a compact car. Thing would have made an electric miniature car look like a limo.
“Kidding me?” Lip said. “How are we going to fit in this?”
It was like packing sardines. Somehow Marks and Lip squeezed themselves into the back seat. Head room was lousy. Marks had to kink his neck just to prevent from hitting the underside of the car’s roof. Lip’s bulk and Marks’s mass took up almost every square inch; they were starting to spill over into the driver’s area.
“Pull my finger,” Lip said.
“Not funny,” Marks said, icily.
“Lighten up, Francis,” Lip said. “It’s a joke. Hey Ivona, what’s the deal with the musical cars?”
“Precaution,”
Mei said. “Get used to it. You cozy?”
“Peachy,” Marks said.
“I love peaches,” Mei said, and spurted out into the street.
Least the ride had some pickup. You wouldn’t think it, looking at it.
“What type of engine we got here?” Marks said.
“Engine?” Mei said.
“Forget it,” Marks said.
“It’s a ‘straight six’,” Lip said.
“Yeah whatever,” Marks said. “Like you would know.”
“No, I think it is,” Lip said. “Listen to it. Hear that?”
“No.”
“Wait,” Lip said.
He tooted.
“You did not do that,” Marks said.
Johnny Two-cakes sighed and rolled down the window.
THEY were the freakin’ Keystone Kops. Clown car. Lip with the toot. Man had no shame—with a woman in the car too. Not that Mei was your typical woman. Her humor could get ‘over the line’ when she decided to join the club. Probably why Lip felt comfortable and christened their second car with his second toot. Marks didn’t know what was worse, the smell of cheese or the frigid polluted air coming through the window? Least their second car had more elbow room.
“What the fuck, Lip?” Marks said.
He threatened to throw the bum out, if he did it again. Lip said it was his cold. Digestive thing. “Is there going to be a bathroom I can use?” Lip said. His face had taken on a gray cast. Marks almost felt for the guy. Almost. “Should have done it at the airport.”
“I didn’t need to go then,” Lip said. “Hey Mei, can we make a pit stop?”
“Pit stop?” Mei said.
“He means a bathroom stop,” Marks said. He glanced at his partner again, who was starting to squirm. “I think it’s in all our best interests we find one.”
POOPY pants dropped the bomb at KFC.
“Feel better?” Marks said, as Lip got back in the car.
“Much. Hey, you ever noticed that?”
“What?” Marks said.
“The colonel, he looks Chinese.”
Marks glanced at the KFC sign of a grinning Colonel Sanders as they drove past it. That was marketing genius at work for you. Shanghai had KFCs everywhere; they were like dandelions the way they’d sprouted up in the last few years. Wouldn’t surprise him if the locals thought KFC was a Chinese brand by now with the way they’d tinkered with the logo. It was subtle, but no doubt about it, they’d squinted the eyes and tweaked the goatee. Man almost resembled a smiling Fu Manchu.
“Snack?” Lip said. He’d come with provisions; two bags of greasy fare.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Marks said, taking a bag of you tiao, some fritter thing he’d had before.
Partner was definitely feeling better. Lip’s appetite had come back with a vengeance.
“Might want to go easy,” Marks said, noticing how Lip was scarfing down his second roll of Beijing Duck.
“Hey Johnny Two-cakes, you’re missing out,” Lip said. “Sure you don’t want some of this congee?”
“What is that?” Marks said, looking at the container.
“Rice porridge,” Lip said. “Or maybe it’s maggots.”
“Give it to Two-cakes then,” Marks said.
More sighs.
ANOTHER stop. It was like being in the circus. They just needed clown suits.
“I’ll be back,” Mei said, opening the door. “Wait here, outside the vehicle.”
“Where are you going?” Marks said, as they piled out.
“To freshen up, do some shopping,” Mei said with a wink.
“Yeah whatever. Everyone’s a comedian here,” Marks said.
Mei went into a garage. Least it looked like a garage. Two big wooden doors on the backside of a concrete two-story building. The alley was filled with garbage, some of which had recently been burned in a large pile.
“Alright,” Marks said, looking at Johnny Two-cakes. “What couldn’t you tell us with Mei in the car?”
“Ah yes,” Johnny Two-cakes said. “The Black Widow. We’ve suspected the Chinese have had one for some time.”
“And something I said confirms they have one?” Marks said.
“Yes, I think so,” Johnny Two-cakes said. “If Marion said I’m John Claiborne’s wife, like you said, then that’s probably what triggered the capture. It would have been an algorithmic search; a key phrase thing. The phone call was tagged and heard from here. It would have all happened in seconds. The only delay would have been the human operator reviewing the call. That person would have sent the information to the Gol’yanovskaya. The instructions, where you were meeting her—the entire contents of the conversation. Marion was just lucky, thank God, that the men got there too late—that you arrived first.”
“Algorithmic search?” Lip said. “They tapped into the soup and pulled it from here? They have that capability?”
Johnny Two-cakes nodded. “With their Black Widow? Yes. They stole all the specifications. Made an exact replica of ours.”
“Wow,” Marks said. “That’s not good.”
“It most certainly is not,” Johnny Two-cakes said.
“But how are they tapping into the soup?” Lip said.
“Just like we do,” Johnny Two-cakes said. “They’ve tapped into almost every telecommunications network around the world. Every key distribution hub. Middle East, Latin America, here, of course, Europe, even on our own soil.”
“This gets better and better,” Marks said.
“We’ve known for some time the trunk lines and undersea fiber-optic cables were compromised,” Johnny Two-cakes said. “None of that is news to us. But the Black Widow part is most disconcerting. It means they have real-time analytic capability. It’s capable of doing exaflops in terms of exploitation. It’s why I came here. We suspected they had one, but we needed absolute proof.”
“You keep saying ‘we’?” Marks said.
“Yes, we.”
“Wait a second, you mean you’re expensing this?” Lip said, catching on.
Johnny Two-cakes sighed. “Yes.”
“Now we’re talking.” Lip elbowed Marks. “We’re on the gravy train.”
Marks shrugged, as if that made a lick of difference. Lip would just spend their expense check on something else, like another unnecessary upgrade.
The sound of a vehicle approaching interrupted them. Make that two vehicles, each coming from opposite directions.
Red flags popped in Marks’s head. He watched as they pulled to a stop near their vehicle. A single driver was in each of them; both young males. At the same time, Mei stepped from the garage. She had company. A dozen boys and girls.
Marks had a déjà vu moment, recalling Burma with Lip and the “munchkins”. This was different, but the same. The difference was these kids were older. Teens or in their early twenties by the look of it. The same, common denominator part, was several of the youths were visibly armed and the others looked to be packing, as well.
“I am sorry,” Mei said.
119
China Telecom, Shanghai Branch
THE man wore a long gray tunic that went past his matching gray trousers. It was a proletarian manner of dress that was not at all in keeping with current trends, particularly in Shanghai, a city known for its urbane sophistication. Those with the means were typically well dressed, but this man did not live by that standard. He liked the off-putting nature of his clothes. It usually made those in his presence uncomfortable. As if they were worried about the modish moneyed nature of their own wardrobe when compared to the plainness and frugality of his.
Of course, it might have been the mask on his face that caused the greater unease on the part of his visitors. The mask was hard to ignore. It was definitely striking. It was made of a special fabric that fit him like a glove, and went over his entire head, fitting snugly like a ski mask. The fabric was off-white in color. There were oval openings for the eyes and mouth. Just visible around the eyes was his pale pinkish skin.
The lips of his mouth had a feminine plumpness to them and they could be quite expressive in showing disdain or other emotion, almost as if they had to compensate for the rest of the face that was hidden.
The mask was a compression mask typically used by burn victims. It exerted a gentle uniform pressure across the face. Such pressure was to help prevent hypertrophic scarring; those red and white elevated scars that could result from second and third degree burns. Increased blood flow at the burn site during the healing stage had the tendency to form granulation tissue. Pressure, while it didn’t eliminate the issue, could mitigate such hypertrophic scarring.
However, in this particular case the scarring had been severe. The compression mask that was originally used happened to be defective. Instead of helping, it had caused infection. The manufacturer, located in DongGuan, China, had used substitute materials to make the special fabric. Compounding the issue was the fact that in the measuring process certain errors were made. A critical step in making compression masks was the custom-made fit. It needed to fit the burn victim’s face exactly. An improper fit could do more harm than good.
And that had been the situation in this case. The result was not pretty following removal of the mask. Not surprisingly, the patient was not pleased. The phrase “to lose face” had many bad connotations in China, and in this situation the phrase had the added insult of taking on a very literal meaning.
But all of that was ancient history. As was the fact that the compression mask was never permanently removed. It was simply added back to man’s wardrobe. Like a pair of favorite gloves, worn daily and never taken off.
“Client 487”, or “Prime”, or “the man in the white mask”—the names were but veneers, over masks, over a faceless face of a cipher—had supplanted himself, taking another person’s place, filling another man’s shoes. Not as difficult of an arrangement as one might think. The mask obscured all features of the original person who wore it. Caucasian or Asian? Man or Woman? Impossible to tell, which made it rather easy to pull off the charade.