by Mark Dawson
The weapon was equipped with a Chinese military rail on the receiver; he took a 3-9x40 standard day optic and mounted it. He attached the quick-release bipod and, as happy with his setup as he could be, rolled back on to his stomach with the weapon arranged in front of him. He took out his binoculars.
Aleksandra had wanted to go with her husband, but he had said no. She told him that she didn’t trust his connection. She said that they didn’t know anything about the courier who was being sent to make the exchange. Will tried to soothe her, reminding her that the exchange was being made in a public place and that it would be safe, but Aleksandra had seen how anxious he was, and that made her anxious, too. But she had agreed to his plan: she would meet him at the railway station an hour after the exchange had been made.
She packed their case, checked out of the hotel and took a taxi to the station. They were going to Beijing, at least to begin with. They had chosen China because they wanted the reassurance that they would not be extradited back to the United States should they be discovered. The counter to that reassurance was the concern that, should their presence be revealed, the Chinese government would not let them leave, either; the Chinese had a booming biogenetics programme of their own, and the information that they had stolen made them very valuable indeed.
They had decided that they would take a flight from Beijing to Johannesburg. Extradition would be possible from South Africa, but, insulated by the money that they would shortly receive, it would be possible to buy a place and live off-grid. They would be able to disappear. There would be security, and happiness, in anonymity.
Aleksandra looked around. The station was busy around her. She waited in line for the ticket desk. There were several tellers serving the waiting passengers, but it took twenty minutes to make her way to the front.
She looked at her watch.
Just before midday.
That was the time that had been set for the rendezvous.
The location of the appointment wasn’t far from the station. Aleksandra tried to picture it, what might be happening, what Will would be saying to the man who had come to collect the data in exchange for the money that they had negotiated. Their failsafe had not been agreed in advance with the buyer. They knew that might cause problems, but they wanted the additional peace of mind and they were prepared to gamble for it.
They were not interested in welching on the deal. They didn’t need another set of enemies. Instead, they would find an Internet cafe when they got off the train in Beijing and Will would upload the key so that the buyer could access the information.
Aleksandra felt a tap on her shoulder, turned and saw that the woman behind her was glaring and gesturing towards the now vacant window ahead. She smiled sheepishly and stepped up. She didn’t speak Mandarin and the surly teller made no effort to speak English, and it took careful negotiation before she was able to buy the two one-way tickets to the capital.
The woman whom she had inconvenienced shook her head derisively as Aleksandra wheeled the suitcase away. There was a cafe in the concourse and she bought a cup of coffee and took it to one of the outside tables. She sat down and checked her watch again.
Twelve.
The meeting should be taking place now.
It would take fifty minutes for Will to get across town on the subway.
The train was at one fifteen.
Plenty of time.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Pope faced the water so that he could see to the left and the right. The square was busy with locals going about their business and tourists enjoying the morning. He looked up and saw a bulky CCTV camera on a pole on the other side of the square. It was a dome camera, and as he watched, it rotated through 360 degrees.
He noticed Isabella keeping her distance just like he had told her to do. He had wrestled with the good sense of bringing her with him, but he had quickly realised that trying to have her stay behind was going to be impossible. She was determined to be involved and, save locking her in a room somewhere, he knew there was little that he could do to persuade her to wait. And, he conceded, it was useful to have a second pair of eyes. She was young, but she had been given excellent training and had more experience than plenty of intelligence agents he had worked with. She had demonstrated all of that in Syria. It was not lost on him that she had saved his life when they had been compromised in the desert just before they crossed over the border to Turkey. And she had intervened just as he was getting his arse handed to him by the woman who had jumped him in Montepulciano. It was pointless to pretend otherwise: she had already more than proven her worth.
He took out the cell phone that had been left for them at the Shanghai train station. The line was open with Isabella on the other end; he conferenced in the number that had been left for him.
‘Mr Pope.’ The voice was distorted as before.
‘I’m here.’
‘What do you have for me?’
‘Not much. No sign of Wheaton.’
‘He’s in Shanghai. We’ve confirmed it.’
‘But not here.’
‘Let’s give him a little time, shall we? He’s a nervous man.’
‘Assuming he shows up, how do you want me to play it? What if he has what you want?’
‘Do you have the cable that was with the phone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Look at the phone.’
Pope did as he was told.
‘You see the micro-USB port on the top of the phone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Plug the cable into the port.’
Pope took the cable from his pocket and pushed it home. ‘Done.’
‘The phone has been rooted. That just means we’ve played with the code a little. Wheaton will have a USB drive. You attach the drive to the other end of the cable and that’s that.’
‘What happens then? You upload the data?’
‘Correct.’
‘No,’ Pope said. ‘Are you joking?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I don’t think so. If you have the data, you’ve got what you need. There’s no reason for you to help me after that.’
‘You have to trust us, Mr Pope.’
‘With respect, I don’t even know your name. And I’m old enough to know that you don’t trust anyone, not in this game.’
Isabella’s voice interrupted the call. ‘Someone is coming your way.’
‘Where?’
‘From your six.’
Pope turned around and saw the man. He had approached from the south, pausing on the promenade before angling to his left and taking a diagonal that brought him right up to the tables. He stopped there, nervously massaging an ear lobe, and then he noticed Pope looking at him. He took a half step towards him, paused again, looked behind him and then continued.
‘He’s coming,’ Pope said into the phone. ‘You’ll get the data when I deliver it to you in person and not before. If that’s a problem, say so now and I’ll walk away.’
The man walked across the square towards Pope’s table.
Pope stared up into the CCTV camera. ‘You’re watching, aren’t you?’
There was no answer.
‘I know you are. So you’ll see this.’
He got up from the table.
‘I’m about to go,’ he said into the phone.
‘No,’ the voice retorted, the anger and frustration evident even through the electronic distortion. ‘Fine. We’ll do it your way. Leave the call open. I want to hear what he has to say.’
Pope put the phone down, sat back in his chair and turned all the way around.
The man was a few feet away. He stopped when he reached the table. ‘Is this free?’
‘Help yourself,’ Pope said.
The man stood where he was.
Pope looked up at him. ‘Mr Wheaton?’
The man swallowed, his larynx bobbing up and down. ‘Yes. And you?’
‘My name is Michael. Why don’t you sit?’
‘I have to be careful. I’m sure you understand why.’
Pope watched the man as he spoke. He was slender, with neatly cut hair and eyebrows that looked like they had been trimmed. His fingers were long and thin, the nails chewed down to the quicks.
‘I understand. And the sooner we do this, the sooner you can leave. Sit down. You’re standing out.’
Wheaton pulled the chair out and sat. He clasped his hands together and kneaded them nervously. ‘Are you ready to make the transfer?’
‘I just need to speak to your buyer and the money will be transferred. How about you?’
Wheaton reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a USB drive. He reached across and dropped it on the table next to Pope’s hand.
‘That’s half of what you need,’ Wheaton said.
‘Half?’
‘That’s the data. But it’s encrypted. It stays that way until I leave the country. When that happens, and I’m sure I’m safe, then I’ll give you the key to unencrypt it.’
Pope had no idea whether that was acceptable.
‘I’m not negotiating,’ Wheaton said as Pope paused. ‘Take it or leave it.’
‘One minute,’ he said. He turned his head a little and spoke into the microphone. ‘Did you hear that?’
Wheaton started to protest – ‘They were listening?’ – but Pope hushed him with a raised hand.
‘Was that a stick he gave you?’
‘Yes,’ Pope said.
‘Let me think about it. Don’t let him leave.’
Isabella drifted along the promenade, maintaining distance between herself and the square. She could see Pope and the man at the table and, thanks to the open connection, she could hear the conversation that he was having.
She watched them carefully. Pope was bigger, taller and broader across the shoulders. Wheaton was slender, almost effeminate. His nervousness came through in his voice. Pope had taken the seat at the table with his back to the cafe, granting himself a clear view into the square. That was not coincidental; Isabella’s mother had taught her to do the same thing, how important it was to choose the seat with its back to the wall so that you could see who else was interested in your conversations. Wheaton was discomforted by the fact that he couldn’t see behind him and frequently turned his head to look out into the square.
She listened to their conversation.
‘That’s half of what you need.’
‘Half?’
‘That’s the data. But it’s encrypted.’
Isabella’s attention was distracted from the conversation. She had been looking west, into the square, and something had caught her attention. She stopped walking and looked more carefully. What was it? She glanced up at the tall buildings on the other side of the busy road.
She thought she saw something.
And then she saw it again, clearly this time.
A glint.
A starburst as the noon sun bounced against something reflective.
Curry arranged himself so that he could hold the rifle comfortably: his left hand was forward, cradling the fore-stock; his right arm reached around so that he could slide his index finger inside the trigger guard; his shoulder was pushed up against the stock; he put his eye to the sight.
He scanned the square and the promenade. He nudged the rifle right to left, allowing the cross-hairs to settle on the heads of the men and women below before nudging it away again. He drew the range back, locating the table where the two men sat facing each other. He recognised Michael Pope and laid the cross-hairs over his face and watched as he spoke, gesturing as he did so. The second man had his back to him, but he had watched him make his way across the square.
He spoke into his lapel mic. ‘Angler is here.’
‘And Parasol?’
‘No. Just him. I have the shot. Am I clear?’
‘Weapons free. Repeat: weapons free.’
Curry had orders to take both Wheaton and Pope out. Wheaton was the primary target. Curry adjusted his aim accordingly. The safety switch was on the bottom of the receiver, just behind the magazine opening, and Curry clicked it into firing mode.
Pope waited until he heard the voice in his ear again.
‘Tell him we’ll pay half now, half when the data is unlocked.’
Pope relayed the message. Wheaton nodded; he must have been expecting the counter.
‘Do you have the stick?’ the voice asked in Pope’s ear.
Pope reached across for it. ‘I have it.’
‘We’re sending the money now. Tell him to check.’
Pope turned to Wheaton. ‘They’re paying you. Check your account.’
Wheaton took out his own phone and busied himself making a series of taps on the screen, navigating through his banking app.
Pope glanced up at the Bund. Isabella was still there, standing against the wall. She wasn’t looking at him, though. Her attention was beyond the square, focused on something on the other side of the road.
Pope turned in the same direction, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Pope spoke quietly into the microphone. ‘Isabella?’
Wheaton put his phone away. ‘The money’s there,’ he said, buttoning up his jacket and standing. ‘Thank you.’
Isabella screamed into his ear: ‘Sniper!’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Pope swung around to look into the square, instinctively searching for a threat, anything that might explain the message.
A flash in his peripheral vision.
The quickest flash of light from a window of one of the buildings.
And then he felt a sudden damp warmness on his face.
The boom of the rifle came another fraction of a second later.
He turned back. Wheaton’s lifeless body lolled forward against the edge of the table. A bullet had entered his skull at the back of his head and had blown it apart as if it were an overripe melon.
The gunshot had brought a moment of shocked silence, but now there were screams.
Pope pushed away from his chair and rolled aside a fraction of a moment before the second bullet hit. It sliced through the metal slats of the chair, mangling them, and thudded into the ground beneath it.
The crack of the shot followed.
He heard Isabella’s voice in his ear again. ‘Pope!’
He was out in the open and knew that he had to move. He pushed himself up on to his hands and knees and started to scramble away, his boots sliding through the sudden blood that had been spread over the ground like sticky jam. He found traction and pushed with his legs until he was upright, taking three steps and then diving into the inviting cover offered by the corner of the Airstream.
It might not be enough. The walls of the trailer would be thin, and the calibre of the bullets that had been fired had to be on the larger side of the spectrum. He guessed the sniper was using heavy-calibre rounds and, if that was right, they would slice through the wall of the trailer as if it were paper.
He shuffled farther into cover, trusting that the fact that the sniper wouldn’t be able to sight him would be protection enough.
His earbuds had been disturbed by his lunge into cover. He pressed them back into his ears.
‘Isabella,’ he said into the microphone. ‘Isabella – can you hear me?’
Nothing.
He heard the distorted voice instead. ‘Control – report.’
‘Sniper,’ Pope said. ‘Wheaton is down.’
‘Do you have the drive?’
He patted his pocket and felt the hard little ridge of the memory stick. ‘Affirmative.’
‘Do you know where the sniper is firing from?’
‘One of the buildings to the west of the square. I’m in cover, but he’ll have a clear shot if I move.’
‘Hold position. I can see you.’
He looked back to the CCTV camera on the other side of the square. It had panned around so that it was pointing directly at him.
‘I’ll arrange a dist
raction,’ the voice said.
Curry clicked his radio to transmit.
‘Target is down,’ he reported.
‘Extent of injuries?’
‘Angler is dead. Headshot.’
‘What about Archangel?’
‘Negative. He is in cover. I have no shot.’
‘Did he make the exchange?’
‘Affirmative.’
There was no immediate response. Curry ignored that, settling into the routine that had been drilled into him. He quickly reached forward and collected the two spent casings.
The radio crackled again. ‘Are you compromised?’
‘Negative. Not as far as I can tell.’
‘Then maintain position. Blaine is inbound. Provide coverage.’
‘Affirmative.’
Isabella sprinted across the promenade.
The square was a confusion of frantic activity. The men and women who had witnessed the shooting were scattering in all directions, and there was an ugly cacophony of noise: screaming from onlookers who had seen what had happened mixed with angry car horns from the road as pedestrians spilled off the pavement in an attempt to get clear. The dead body slumped over the cafe table was like a stone dropped into the middle of a smooth pool of water; ripples were rolling out in all directions and, as those nearby realised what had happened, panic began to spread.
Isabella had looked down at Wheaton when the first shot had been fired. The bullet had come from a high angle, entering the top of his skull and exiting through his cheek before it crashed into the table and split it down the middle. The shot had been fired from the building, high up, from where she had seen the glint of light. The tower bore the insignia of the Bank of China.