by Mark Dawson
‘But?’
‘But we don’t have any other options open to us. And he’s been true to his word so far.’
‘So we’re meeting someone to make an exchange?’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘But we don’t know anything else. Who is it we’re meeting?’
‘A man and a woman.’
‘But who?’
‘No, we don’t know that.’
‘And where do we meet?’
‘We don’t know that either. Shall we find out?’
Pope reached into his pocket and took out the cell phone that had been left for them in the locker at Lhasa station. He detached the cover so that he could insert the battery. He closed the case, switched on the phone and waited for it to find a signal. He unfolded the piece of paper that had accompanied the phone and dialled the number.
Isabella watched curiously as he held it to his ear. He waited for a moment and then started to scribble notes on the paper. He ended the call, opened the case, pulled out the battery and put the pieces into his pocket.
‘Well?’ she asked him.
‘It was a recorded message.’
‘And?’
‘We need to pick up a bag of equipment at the station in Shanghai. And then we’re meeting a man. His name is William Wheaton. He’s going to be at Chen Yi Square tomorrow.’
‘Do you know it?’
‘No. But they said it’s on the river. Very public. Lots of witnesses. That means Wheaton must be frightened.’
‘And what are we getting from him?’
‘A memory stick. Once we get it, we call the number they just gave me and they’ll transfer the money he wants into his account. And then we get out of China.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Pope said.
PART SIX:
Shanghai
Chapter Twenty-Three
Their train pulled into its platform at Shanghai station at ten minutes to midday on the sixth day since they had fled Mumbai. It groaned up to the buffers just as a bullet train slithered away in the opposite direction from the adjacent platform. The passengers started to disembark. Pope and Isabella took their places in the queue and waited for the carriage to empty out. There had been instructions in the bag that they had collected in Jalpaiguri that they should reprovision themselves in Shanghai. They followed the crowd into the station’s main building, a vast hall with a clear ceiling and shops along both sides. Pope led the way through the crowded atrium to the luggage office on the first floor, near to the south entrance. Pope said that he had a bag in one of the lockers, and the dour woman behind the desk wrinkled her nose and gestured that they could go through.
They found the locker and Pope entered the code. The display reported how long the locker had been used for and demanded twenty yuan before it could be opened.
‘Ten hours,’ Pope said, pointing to the display. ‘Whoever we’re working for, they’ve got someone else in the city.’
Pope fed in a twenty-yuan note, the door opened and he took out the backpack that had been stored inside.
There was no one else in the room, so he put the pack on the floor and unzipped it. There was a new Bluboo Xtouch cell phone, with a SIM card attached to the box by a piece of tape. The boxed phone was sitting atop a stack of banknotes. He took one of the bundles out. The notes were fifty-yuan bills, and there must have been a hundred notes. Five thousand yuan. There were eight bundles comprising the stack.
‘Forty thousand yuan,’ Pope said. ‘Four and a half grand. Very considerate.’
There was a zipped pouch at the front of the backpack. Pope opened it and reached inside. His fingers brushed up against something coldly metallic.
‘What is it?’ Isabella asked.
Pope opened the pouch all the way to reveal the pistol inside.
‘Glock?’ she said.
Pope nodded. ‘G43.’
Isabella recognised the single-stack nine-millimetre with the stippled beaver-tail grip. It was highly concealable, very accurate and it suited most hand sizes. That was the upside. The downside was that the magazine held just six rounds with another in the chamber; seven shots wouldn’t last long in a running gunfight.
‘Ammunition?’
Pope took out a box of nine-millimetre rounds and spare magazines. ‘They really do think of everything.’
The final thing inside the main compartment was a sealed envelope. He slid his finger inside and tore it open. There was a printed reservation for two rooms in the Shanghai Hilton.
Pope zipped the backpack up again and carried it down to the subway that was beneath the station. They took line one towards Xinzhuang and got off at Changshu Road. They walked north along Huating Road and then Changshu Road and finally, after a few more minutes, arrived at the hotel. It was a forty-three-floor behemoth that overlooked the Yan’an Elevated Road. Pope checked them in, dispensed with the offer of help from the bellboy and led the way to the elevator. Their rooms were on the thirty-fifth floor.
Pope unlocked the first room and opened the door.
‘You going to be all right here?’
Isabella looked around. The room was expensively furnished, but in a bland style that could have been found in any high-end hotel anywhere in the world.
‘This is fine,’ she said.
Pope left the key card on the bureau.
‘Get some sleep,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.’
She followed him to the door and closed it behind him.
She went back to the window and looked out into the gloomy afternoon. Shanghai was gloriously futuristic, very different to the rest of the country as seen from the window of their train.
Isabella undressed, stood under the shower for ten minutes and then fell back on the bed. She was tired and Pope was right. There was no way of knowing what the following day would bring. They knew very little about the man whom they had been sent to meet, and they only had a little time to scout the meeting place and consider a plan.
That would all come tomorrow. For now, though, she closed her eyes and waited for her questing mind to calm.
She was asleep within five minutes.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Isabella woke at four in the morning.
She passed across the room to the window and watched the lights of a jet as it flew overhead, then looked out at the Oriental Pearl Tower dominating the skyline to the east, the distinctive spheres, each bisected by red bands, representing pearls falling on to a jade plate. The two largest spheres, positioned along the length of the tower, were illuminated and shone brightly over the cityscape. She saw the wide dark curve of the Huangpu River and the space-age night scene in Pudong.
The hotel was equipped with a large sports complex, and she decided to go down to it and take the opportunity to wake up properly with a little exercise. She charged a new swimsuit to the room account, changed into it and went through into the luxurious pool. It was large, twenty-five metres long and wide enough for six lanes. She was the only person down here. She climbed down the steps, the cold water gradually enveloping her, and then pushed away from the wall and dived down to the bottom. She surfaced and started out, moving through the water with powerful, crisp strokes. She reached the far end, performed a smooth tumble turn and kicked out again. She had not been able to exercise ever since they had left Mumbai, and she had missed the familiar endorphin buzz.
She settled into a steady rhythm, losing herself as she powered up and down her lane. She had always been a strong swimmer, but just lately her endurance had seemed to increase. She had first noticed it during her swims in the sea off the coast of Palolem. She seemed to have more energy than she remembered. She had always trained hard, and now she was seeing the benefits.
She started to daydream, and as was so often the case, she found herself thinking about her mother. She increased the frequency of her strokes and eventually even those thoughts faded away as she powered through the water, hypnot
ised by the metronomic rhythm, the breath on every third and the rush of the chemicals that flooded her brain.
Isabella knocked on Pope’s door when she returned to her room. There was no answer. She unlocked her own door and saw two slips of paper with his handwriting on it. The first said that he was going out and would be back at seven. The second, evidently slipped beneath the door later than the first, said that he was in the Lobby Pavilion for breakfast and would wait for her there.
She dried her hair and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The restaurant was the hotel’s most informal, with comfortable chairs arranged around four-person tables. Pope was sitting alone at a table at the back, his seat pointing into the room. He saw Isabella and raised his hand in greeting.
She crossed the room and took one of the empty seats next to him. There was a plate on the table that bore the remnants of a continental breakfast, together with a cafetière and a glass of half-finished orange juice.
‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You?’
‘Not really. Couldn’t stop thinking about today, so I just got up in the end. Didn’t want to wake you.’
‘I’ve been up since four.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Exercising. Where did you go?’
‘I made some preparations,’ Pope said. He looked over at the buffet. ‘You want to get something to eat?’
‘I’d rather get on with this,’ she said.
‘Go and get a muffin or something,’ he said. ‘You need to eat.’
He was right. She was hungry, so she did as she was told. The buffet was generous, and she collected two croissants, a banana and a glass of pineapple juice. She brought them back to the table as Pope was unfolding a map. She shuffled her chair around as Pope spread it out on the table. It was designed for tourists, with all the key points of interest denoted by outsized icons. The legend at the top of the page read ‘Shanghai City Centre’, with a box to the right of the page locating all of the main hotels, including their own. She saw how the city was split by the broad blue stripe of the Huangpu River, ranging nearly half a mile between the east and west banks.
Pope laid his finger on the map. ‘We’re meeting Wheaton here,’ he said.
Most of the land was coloured yellow, bisected by a grid of white streets, except for a shoulder of green on the western bank of the river. It was labelled ‘Huángpu Park’ in the north and, below that, ‘The Bund’. That was where Pope was indicating.
‘It’s a promenade,’ he explained. ‘Runs north to south with the river on the right and the East-1 Zhongshan Road on the left. The precise spot is here, Chen Yi Square, next to the Bank of China.’
He moved his finger, landing it on an area adjacent to the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel and around five hundred feet north of the Yan’an Road Tunnel.
‘I’ve been there this morning. It’s just a square, looks like it’ll be busy with tourists when we meet. Lots of people, lots of witnesses to make sure Wheaton’s safe when he makes the exchange. There’s a coffee stall there, too. I’m guessing that’s where he’ll want to do it.’
Isabella munched on the croissant. ‘What’s our plan?’
Pope looked down at the map. ‘He could come in from any number of ways. He could use the Bund from the north or the south or he could come in from any of these roads that feed into Zhongshan. There’s no way of knowing.’
‘And we don’t know what he looks like,’ she added.
‘Correct.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’
Pope reached down to the bag by his feet. Isabella saw that it was marked with Mandarin script and, below that, an English translation: ‘New World Department Store’. He picked up the bag and gave it to Isabella. She rummaged inside it and found a new set of clothes, a boxed Xiaomi cell phone and a pair of in-ear headphones.
‘I went shopping. They open early. I think the clothes will fit,’ he said, a little unsure. ‘They’ll help you blend in. I want you to watch from the northeast corner of the square, on the Bund. It’s elevated – you’ll have a good view from there. If you see anything that bothers you, you tell me. We’ll keep a line open on the phones: this one for you, and the one we were given for me. I’ll loop our friend into the call. It’ll save time if he can hear the conversation I have with Wheaton.’
‘Fine.’
‘And I’m going to give you the Glock. I’m not sure how careful Wheaton is going to be, but I don’t want to scare him off. And I know I can trust you with it. If there’s any trouble . . .’ He left that hanging. ‘Well, you know what to do.’
Isabella was satisfied with the plan. There was little more that they could do to prepare themselves when they knew so little of what the exchange might entail.
Pope finished his coffee and checked his watch. ‘It’s eight,’ he said, pushing the chair away and getting to his feet. ‘We should think about getting over there.’
‘When do we meet?’
‘Midday. Four hours.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Bund. It was also known as Waitan and was the waterfront area that centred around the East-1 Zhongshan Road within the city’s old International Settlement. Isabella had the map, and she looked down at it as she followed the western bank of the wide Huangpu River. Both sides of the water were faced with the high, glossily modern skyscrapers that had been developed over the course of the last few decades. There was a lot of traffic on both Zhongshan and, on the eastern bank, Binjiang Avenue. Just as Pope had predicted, the promenade was busy with sightseers and locals enjoying the warm midday sun.
Isabella walked south, up against the barrier that guarded against the drop into the sluggish waters of the river. She was wearing the bland and featureless clothes that Pope had purchased in the mall: jeans, a zip-up top and a cap that she wore forward to cover as much of her face as possible. She also had the backpack that had been left for them at the station. It looked like the kind of thing that a young tourist might wear. She had the Glock inside the pack. She concentrated on maintaining her anonymity, idling along behind a group of young tourists who were following a guide, the woman’s flag bobbing up and down fifteen feet away from her. She hoped that anyone observing might think that she was part of that group.
Isabella glanced ahead. Pope was a hundred feet away, just entering the square. The wide space was dominated by the skyscraper that accommodated the Bank of China to the west and by a bronze sculpture of Chen Yi, the community mayor who had been the first man elected to the post in 1949. He stood atop a marble dais, his left hand in his pocket and his right arm by his side. Pope paused in front of the statue. He bent down to fiddle with the laces of his shoe.
Isabella drifted back towards the rail, slowing her pace. She could see Pope and the stretches of the wide boulevard to the north and south. She watched the men, women and children as they walked by. There were hundreds of people here. Thousands, probably. It was a little before midday. A busy part of the day. It was easy enough to gain anonymity by staying within the crowd, yet, on the other hand, should anything be amiss, it was very public; the opportunities for anyone to do harm would be minimised by the sheer number of witnesses. That was of benefit to them and to the man whom they had come to meet. It was an excellent place to plan a rendezvous. Wheaton was careful. That was good.
Pope had said that there was an outdoor cafe in the square and she looked down on it: a collection of chairs and tables set out around an Airstream trailer made out of gleaming aluminium. Customers made their way to the tables, where they were served by white-shirted waiting staff.
Pope went to a spare table and sat down.
His voice buzzed in the earbuds that she had pushed into her ears. ‘I’m here.’
‘I can see you.’
‘Anything?’
She glanced around again. ‘Nothing’s standing out.’
‘Stay back. If you see anything that makes you worry, let me know.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
‘I know you do. I’m going to loop our friend into the call now.’
‘Understood.’
Isabella was alert, scanning the faces of the Western men who passed her by. No one stood out. Perhaps Wheaton would approach from the south.
A ferry chugged across the water, distracting her for a moment as it sounded its mournful horn.
The asset’s given name was Eric Curry. His codename within the programme was Moros, but the Curry persona had become a good fit; the quirks and habits of his alter ego came naturally, worn as easily as a comfortable jacket. Curry worked for a software company as a travelling sales rep. He was always on the road, visiting prospective customers all around the world. He had arrived in Shanghai four days ago for a series of meetings. They were all legitimate. He would meet a potential new client this afternoon to discuss a licence agreement that would, if agreed upon, cement his position as the company’s third most productive salesman.
It was the final meeting of the trip, but it would come later. The real purpose of his visit needed to be attended to now.
They had received intelligence that the exchange was due to take place in the square below.
Five minutes.
Curry went to the room’s window. There were two panes of glass, one above the other. He spread duct tape over the lower pane, and, using the rubberised butt of a small hammer, he tapped on the glass to shatter it. The tape held the pieces in place. He put on a pair of gloves and picked out the broken glass, starting with the larger fragments and then working his way around the frame until it was all gone. He lay down flat on his belly and slithered forward. The office had been carefully scouted and provided an excellent vantage. He could see down into the square, with the bronze statue of the Communist Party functionary and the locals and tourists who passed along the wide promenade.
He rolled on to his side so that he could get at the bag that he had brought with him. He unzipped it, reached inside and withdrew the component parts of the sniper rifle that had been delivered to him. It was a QBU-88, the designated marksman rifle deployed by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The rifle, also known as the Type-88, was a gas-operated, semi-automatic weapon. It wasn’t optimal, by any means. It filled the niche between the infantry rifle and the sniper rifle, being intended for aimed semi-automatic fire at a range of between three hundred and eight hundred yards. But he had fired rounds from dozens of different rifles during his training, and he was confident that he could make this shot.