Lee explained how they were trying to think of a business that would appeal to Meng and his partners. “Because of Meng’s specialty, which is to assist American businesses to gain entry into China, we feel our fictional venture should have expertise in providing all sorts of information needed for new businesses to start up in China. We’ve pinned down a few key cities that Chinese experts seem to think are primed for growth over the next few years. Most of them are third tier or fourth tier cities such as Foshan or Wuxi. Our firm can promote that we have expertise in these specific cities. We may promote that we’ve had people on the ground in these places for a while and have developed key contacts that can help expedite the whole process of starting a business.”
“I think that sounds like a perfect start,” Mulala said. “Starting a new business in China is a really complex undertaking. People who want to do this must figure out which type of business they will register under. They must submit the correct forms to the appropriate local or provincial authority. They must pay the fees, which can be quite expensive. Taxes are complicated. Many industry sectors have certain restrictions in terms of asset allocation or access to markets. It’s a crazy process. I don’t even know how people have the patience to do it, to be honest with you.”
“Do you happen to have any sources that may have some of these requirements for start-ups in China? Someplace that has a consolidated listing?”
“Yes, I do as a matter of fact.” Dirhwan frowned. “My firm has a Chinese consulting department, so I have access to a lot of good info. I wasn’t able to bring them with me tonight, though. You may have to drop by my place in Manhattan sometime this week and I can give them to you.”
Dirhwan was able to think of a few of these things off the top of her head, which Lee wrote down in a notebook. “The other thing I wanted to mention,” Dirhwan said, “is that, since it sounds like you’re going to need Meng to click on a link on an email or website of your making in order to install Kep’s malware, you may want to think about how to design the website to facilitate this as much as possible.”
“How do you mean?”
“For example, you may want to think about the questions that Meng would be most likely to ask you about and then make sure you include links in your website that can answer those questions. That way, if Meng asks a question, you can simply point him to the website and show him where to click.”
“What do you think are some things that Meng would be most likely to ask?”
“For example, he might ask about the expertise and qualifications of your company’s analysts, which categories or sectors the company consults on, how much you charge for services and in what format, the regions your company specializes in, whether or not you provide for any language services as far as translating or interpreting from English to Chinese, how up-to-date your information is and at what level of detail does your company offer the information. These are just a few of the things a client may ask.
“I’d recommend that you have a link to a ‘Why Choose Us’ section that lists specific areas of expertise that may not be offered by any other firm out there. Something like that would be easy for you to point out to Meng and try and get him to click on it.”
As Dirhwan spoke, Lee scribbled furiously in a notebook. As the informal meeting drew to an end, almost three hours later, Lee had filled over ten pages, front and back.
“You asked me earlier about a name for the business,” Dirhwan said. “I’ve been tossing a few ideas around in my head.”
“I’m all ears,” Lee said.
“Since you seem to be planning on a small company that is able to adapt quickly and that has localized expertise, the name should reflect this. It should also reflect that it provides very timely data, but that it goes well above and beyond this by providing a whole solution—a customizable solution based on the type of business and its target location. Maybe something similar to ‘Responsive Solutions’ or ‘Responsive Data.’”
“Isn’t that too vague?” Lee asked.
“Oh, I don’t think so. A lot of businesses have vague names like that. It’s the purpose of the company mission statement and list of services and markets served to reveal more detail.”
Three and a half hours after her arrival, Dirhwan slipped out of Wang’s apartment in North Brooklyn, leaving a tidal wave of information and ideas in her wake.
Beijing, China
Monday, March 3, 3:15 p.m. CST
A restless series of images interspersed with periods of various hues of black and gray accompanied by an agglomeration of noises saturated Leonard’s experience for an indeterminate period of time. One moment he found himself drenched in blackness, a soft beeping off in the background somewhere, the next he found himself caught in an anachronistic menagerie of experiences which had a familiar feeling to him. At times, he found himself at a fork in a small creek, walking slowly along the water, picking his way around scrub and through low-hanging branches, wiping cool sweat from his brow as he navigated his way toward an undefined destination. At other times, he found himself sitting by himself in the social periphery next to a brick building, as the other young boys and girls traipsed by him going here and there, book bags on their backs. Still others, he was sitting across from a brown-haired boy, a board game resting in between them. He would pluck a brass figurine from the board, turning it over in his hands, feeling the cool metal as he churned through all the strategic options.
He shifted easily into and out of these scenes, always returning to the black and gray and the beeping until, one day, he found himself staring at a ceiling, a nurse in white and green hovering over him, her coal black Chinese eyes peering down at him. The nurse spoke rapidly and with seeming urgency to someone else in Mandarin before peering down at him again.
“I see you are awake now,” she said. “Do you feel okay? Any pain?”
He found he could not speak, so he shook his head in the negative.
The nurse smiled. “Good. Try to get some rest.”
The nurse left his side, and he fell asleep again. For a while, he fell back into the alternating pattern of the darkness with the beeping in the background interspersed with the puzzling scenes. It was only later, after he had awoken permanently, when he realized that the scenes were related to his distant past, but distorted in strange ways as in a dream. After another indeterminate period of time, he found himself awake again and he sensed that, this time, it was permanent. The nurse reappeared and put him through a series of simple tests as he lay there.
“There is someone here who’s been waiting to see you. Do you think it will be okay if you speak with him?”
“Yes,” Leonard said, nodding his head. “Let him in.”
A few moments later, a scraggly-looking Hirsch appeared at his bedside.
“Hey, Joe.”
“Hey,” Leonard said, through a dehydrated throat.
“Joe, do you remember who I am?” Hirsch said, leaving a trace of sarcasm in the comment.
“Of course, Mr. Hirsch,” Leonard mumbled.
Leonard was distracted slightly by the odd-colored hues in which the elder Hirsch appeared above him. It seemed everything was tinged with yellow.
“You remember who I am?”
Leonard’s thoughts flooded instantly with scenes of his various meet-ups with agents throughout Beijing and his meetings with Hirsch and other agents.
“Of course, yes. I remember everything,”
“You really got yourself pummeled.”
“How bad?”
“You were beaten up in the Forbidden City. Do you remember any of it?”
“It’s coming back. How much damage?”
“Do you want the good news first, or the bad?”
“Bad.”
“You suffered four or five blows to the head with a blunt object, probably a steel bar or club of some sort. They caused a number of fractures in your skull. You’ve already been through two surgeries to piece your thick skull back together and remove
blood clots. You also sustained a few broken ribs and a broken nose.”
“Any permanent damage?”
“The doctors are still watching for new blood clots, so you’re not out of the woods yet. But, as of now, the docs say there’s a chance at a full recovery. You’ve passed all of their tests so far, however, they’re still wary of more clots.”
“I’ve been thinking about—”
“I’m sure you’ve been thinking about Min and Jiang,” Hirsch said, keeping his voice to a whisper. “Don’t worry about them. We’ve got you covered.”
“Who’s taken over? Abrams?”
Hirsch nodded. “Everything’s going very well. We’re getting new information every week.”
“What about my cover? Is it still intact?”
“We think so, but we don’t know for sure.”
“I don’t think they attacked me because of who I am,” Leonard said. “It was ordered by Shi Sun to keep me away from Jiang. No more, no less.”
“Don’t worry about all of that right now. Just relax and focus on getting yourself healed up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, then. I’ll be back in a couple of days. Now that we know you’re conscious, you’ll have a visitor or two. You have a few people concerned about you who’d like to stop in.”
“Sounds good.”
“Rest up. I’ll check in with you again before too long.”
Leonard sighed as he listened to Hirsch’s footsteps as he left the room. He would do what he could to get back into service sooner rather than later.
Chapter 33
Manhattan, New York
Monday, March 3, 4:26 a.m. EST
Luis McCollum had properly earned the nickname “Eagle Eyes” from his days in the FBI’s sniper school. The instructors had set up an observation drill whereby the snipers-to-be were situated in a variety of elevated positions—his happened to be atop a small hill overlooking a clearing in a forested area within the training grounds at Quantico—and given the task of using their rifle scopes to ferret out a series of items that had been carefully hidden down range. It had been a competitive drill, executed over the course of several days, and McCollum had won with a score that had placed him within the top one percent of all trainees in the history of the program. He was currently putting those observation skills to good use as he lay on his stomach on top of a roof on an apartment building located along West 139th Street, just across from the firehouse that was to be the teams’ target for the raid.
He waved to his two sniper comrades, Temerak Hill and Ollie Miller, who he could see perched on the roofs of two of the residential buildings on the opposite side of the firehouse. They would be responsible for covering the rear exit, which opened into an alley in the middle of the residential block.
He took a brief respite to check his watch, which read 4:26 a.m. Peering through the scope of his .308 long range rifle, he saw far below an SUV turning off of Amsterdam Avenue onto 139th Street. It stopped shortly after turning from Amsterdam onto 139th, and the six men on Simmons’s Team Echo exited.
McCollum studied them as they jogged purposefully from the SUV, then disappeared into the commercial-use building adjacent to the firehouse. They wore their battle dress utility uniforms, bullet proof vests, and miscellaneous attached equipment, including Kevlar helmets and night vision goggles. They carried with them also the more malevolent tools of their trade: the MP-5 sub-machine guns, pistols, gas and flash/bang grenades, and ample ammunition. As many raids as he’d been involved in, the contrast between the soldiers and the residential neighborhoods in which they moved never seemed to get any less stark.
A few moments later, two sedans pulled up behind the SUV that had carried Team Echo. Out of the front sedan came Donnie Trumane, Jim Samuelson, Scott Roberts, and Salvadore Mendoza. From his perch on the rooftop, McCollum could vaguely hear the sound of the doors closing before the four men left the sedan behind, jogging in a crouch, weapons at the ready. They moved quickly to the firehouse and down the short drive, where they gathered in ready positions to the left and right of the small pedestrian door located in between the two larger garage doors.
With Trumane and his men gone, the drivers of the two sedans killed the headlights, veered around the SUV, and continued westbound on 139th Street until they reached the front of the firehouse, where they parked them horizontally across the driveway, blocking the exit. Two men exited from each vehicle, dropping into firing position behind the sedans, MP-5s loaded and ready to fire.
A few moments later, the last remaining pieces fell into place. Another SUV appeared on 139th Street, where its driver positioned it perpendicular to the road in order to block any traffic. This vehicle was to serve as the western flank of the perimeter. The eastern flank, provided by the SUV that had transported Simmons’s team, repositioned itself across 139th Street adjacent to the intersection of 139th and Amsterdam. Finally, McCollum spotted Team Echo as its point man lifted the exit hatch, and the seven of them spilled out onto the roof of the commercial building. He observed them make the small leap, single file, onto the roof of the firehouse, like a workman-like army of ants, and congregate around the trap door leading into the firehouse.
Trumane stood next to the door into the firehouse’s garage behind Roberts, while Mendoza and Samuelson were on the opposite side of the door. Trumane waited as Command went through a last-second roll call.
“Command, this is Charlie One. Are we clear for green?”
“Charlie One, you are clear for green.”
Trumane nodded at Roberts and Mendoza, who took the ram in their hands. It took two wallops with the ram to disengage the lock, and Trumane led them into alpha level. They met no resistance in the garage. As the plan dictated, the four men split up and searched an assigned quadrant. There were two larger items they had to clear: a gray metallic cabinet and a wooden storage bin with a heavy, clanky lid on top. Everything else was an assortment of odds and ends: a workbench with a collection of tools, some plastic bags full of refuse, an old mirror with a silver frame and with a large crack along the left side, two plastic garbage bins, some wiring and electrical tools sitting alongside radio and optical equipment, and a stack of Chinese newspapers and other periodicals.
Trumane walked to where the fire pole extended down from bravo level above. He tried to peer up into beta level, but the opening was covered by a seal made of heavy metal, probably iron. A few seconds later, Trumane spoke softly into his mic, announcing that alpha level was clear and absent the presence of any explosives. The four men manned their quadrants, sub-machine guns drawn and ready to return fire, if necessary.
In his earphone, Metz heard Trumane give the all-clear on alpha level. Metz had heard the ram when it had bashed against the door. It had sounded like two dull thuds. In his earphone, Command cleared him to initiate the second phase. Metz glanced at his men. They appeared in shades of green, since he was wearing his night vision goggles. Metz said, “Command, this is Alpha One, are we clear for green?” Command gave Jermaine and himself the go ahead to begin the second phase.
Metz nodded at his point man for the operation, Tim Harvey, who had elected to go in with a ballistic shield. “Set the charge, Tim.” Metz and his men, seven of them total, stepped back from the door until the charge detonated. Metz was the fourth one through the door after Harvey, Escobar, and Birch. As soon as he cleared the door he realized that, already, the team was in distress. A hail of bullets impacted around him, coming from somewhere toward the front of the room. Most of the fire had been directed at his three teammates who’d already entered. Harvey, the point man, had been forced to take a knee, the shield raised in front of him. He was struggling to keep all of his extremities behind it. Escobar and Birch had sprinted to take cover behind a couple of thick support columns. Escobar appeared to have been hit in his left leg. He confirmed this as he announced over the mic he’d been hit in his left thigh.
In those first few microseconds, Metz realized he was exp
osed. With a surge of adrenaline he veered to his left to see if he could make it to the staircase leading up to the third floor. He realized when he was halfway there that he wasn’t going to make it, but he was rescued by a support column. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief and stood behind the column to collect his thoughts.
As he gathered himself and appraised the situation, Metz realized that all of his men were now under a barrage of automatic weapons fire. Jim Johnson, who was to have followed behind him, had made it only part of the way into the firehouse before realizing he was a sitting duck. He’d promptly reversed course and made it back out to the rear of the structure, but not before taking a bullet in the back of his right leg. None of the last three men—Johnson, Jeremy Oteri, and Eric Martin—had managed to even make it into the firehouse.
But there was little Metz could do at the moment. In a lull in the gunfire, Metz finally managed to glance from behind the support column he was hiding behind. There appeared to be a handful of armed men, at least three that he could see, firing from behind a brick barricade. The barricade was about four feet high and built so that it encircled the central opening with the fire pole. Birch, Escobar, Harvey, and himself were pinned down, engaged now in a firefight with the men behind the barricade. He noticed also that the barricade had been built with some small holes in it, through which their adversaries were firing. He noted also that the men were wearing armor, including Kevlar-type helmets and bulletproof vests.
At least he had the support column for some protection. Even amidst the gunfire, he was able to collect himself, take stock of the situation, and report everything to Command.
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