by Ian Williams
It was the wreckage of the red Ferrari.
“Man, pretty torrid stuff,” Ed said, showing Drayton some other photos he’d downloaded, and telling him about the two girls reported to have been in the car, one of them naked.
“Jeez. Looks like it’s been pulverised. Hit with some giant hammer,” Drayton said. “Did it happen here?”
“Yeah, right here in Shanghai,” Ed said.
And Drayton said, “Let me see that again.”
There wasn’t much to go on. The car was a mess.
He asked Ed if there was any more detail, and Ed said, “It’s been crazy. Went viral when the pictures first came out, on a regular news website of all places. Then they pulled the story, and have been busy deleting everything to do with it ever since.”
“Which tells you what?” said Drayton.
“Which tells me that whoever was in that car was the offspring of somebody very important.”
He said there was a firestorm online, lots of anger about spoiled privileged kids of Party officials.
“So we don’t have a name?”
“Well, there was this. Again it was deleted, but only after it was shared a ton of times. You okay, Chuck?”
Drayton wasn’t okay. He was staring at Ed’s computer, at the cover page of the document he’d just been reading at The Facility, at the face of Colonel General Chen Shibo, his son and the Ferrari, which had now been posted online by the hacker.
“And the Ferraris match?” he said.
“Well, two of the letters of the licence plate do. Seems like his name’s Chen and he’s the son of an army officer. Pretty senior, I guess.”
“I guess,” said Drayton. “What else?”
“Nothing else on the car. Just this one page. Posted on a news website.”
Which came as a partial relief to Drayton, though it didn’t last because Ed then showed him a single page from another document that had been shared alongside The Colonel on the same site.
“I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the Ferrari, but it was posted at the same time, by the same person. Just some biographical detail of a bunch of officials.” It was the cover page of the Mr Fang file.
Drayton said he needed to get some fresh air, leaving the main consulate building and dialling Morgan’s number as he went. He needed to warn him. The documents were all over the net. They all led to the Englishman. It wouldn’t take rocket science to figure that out.
But Morgan wasn’t picking up.
So Drayton then headed downstairs to the old wine cellar that was now the secure communications centre, the Bubble Room, by way of the two heavy security doors with their biometric readers checking his retina and the prints of his thumb and forefinger. They didn’t hesitate this time, agreed it was him, and the doors clicked open.
He took his usual seat at the edge of the room, which was busy for the regular conference call. He counted thirteen people around the room and at the long table. All five screens were live, and today they included the Defence Department, where the video conference room looked a bit more colourful than the others, with bookshelves and pictures on the wall. And where they introduced a tall academic-looking man in round spectacles, Professor somebody-or-other from Harvard. A chemical expert.
“We are dealing with a nasty cocktail here,” the Professor said, placing a large display board upright on his table with the title Beijing Smog, and then a pie chart showing its chemical makeup.
“We have particulate matter, the most dangerous of which are the tiny bits. We also have sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and ozone. All nasty in themselves, but with complex, poorly understood and potentially dangerous interactions.”
He said that although the samples had been collected in Beijing, the combination was similar in other Chinese cities.
“We know that it’s already having a devastating health impact, cutting life expectancy by an estimated five years in northern China. An estimated one point six million people die each year from heart and lung disease and strokes as a result of the pollution. Now imagine for one moment if it can be harvested, concentrated and possibly liquefied.”
“So you’re saying it is possible, to build a smog weapon?” said a woman from the CIA screen.
“From the perspective of chemistry, yes. It’s a lethal cocktail,” said the Professor. “We are dealing with a very nasty poison with immediate and long-term effects, and if concentrated and released in a highly populated area it would have a potentially very high morbidity rate.”
“What he’s saying is that this stuff kills. It could make a potent weapon in the hands of a hostile state,” said a person sitting alongside the Professor.
“That’s scary,” said a voice from around the table in the Bubble Room.
“So it’s deadly. But even if it could be harvested, could you realistically make a weapon out of it?” asked the CIA woman.
“It’s like any chemical weapon. You could put it on a missile or a bomb. Or maybe a stealth weapon smuggled into an enemy’s city,” said a woman at Defence.
“But is that really plausible?” asked somebody around the table in the Bubble Room.
And the woman at Defence said, “We have to be vigilant. We can’t afford to ignore that possibility. We have to take it seriously. Especially with all the internet chatter. Let’s see the postings again.”
The central screen went blank and then showed two internet postings, enlarged to make them clearer.
“They were posted at about the same time as the strange light in the sky over Beijing,” said another voice from around the Bubble Room table.
“Didn’t we conclude that the light was a natural thing?” said the State Department.
“We did,” said Defence. “But can we totally discount that it wasn’t a bungled weapons test?”
“What does that mean though, those images? What’s the alien that’s supposedly mixing the gases? And the cigarette? Is that your smoking gun?” said State, not convinced.
“It could be a threat, a warning, some sort of code. Whichever way you look at it, this isn’t something we can simply ignore,” said a man from the Defence Department screen.
“Chuck, what do you make of it? You’re the Cyber Guy,” said a voice from the State Department.
But Drayton didn’t immediately hear him. He was looking at the alien. Looking hard. It was familiar. Minus the hoody.
“Chuck. What’s your take?”
“Sorry,” Drayton said, tuning back in.
“Well, the cigarette. There’s a brand called Zhongnanhai, which is the same name as the Communist Party’s leadership compound next to the Forbidden City in Beijing. Netizens, as regular internet users are called here, they sometimes use it to sidestep the censors, when they want to talk about that place.”
There was a sharp intake of breath around the table. Then silence before a man from the Defence Department said, “Jesus.”
“This is serious,” said the CIA screen. “This could be a warning, saying that something or someone in that compound is developing these weapons.”
“And the alien? Where does that come in? Who does that represent?” said another Defence Department voice.
Drayton said it was hard to say for sure, but the alien might be the signature of a hacking syndicate. A calling card used for bad guys breaking into computers. He said it could also represent a hardline nationalist group, remembering the Alcatraz stuff, the alien looking through the wall where Clint Eastwood should have been.
“Wow,” said the CIA screen. “Hackers and nationalists dabbling with poison gas. This is looking far worse than we’d thought.”
Then the National Security Agency screen came to life, and a voice from its conference table said, “What are we dealing with here, Chuck?”
Dr
ayton said it might just be a prank. Probably was, that there was a lot of strange stuff on the internet, and that we perhaps shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
But the screens in front of him had already jumped to one big conclusion. That at that very moment deadly vials of concentrated smog were being cooked up by an enemy in a hoody and draped in a Chinese flag. And it was possibly happening in the Chinese leadership compound.
“Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves here?” said a lonely voice from State.
But the others were no longer listening.
“The alien must be the key,” said the CIA screen.
And Defence said, “We have to identify that alien.”
“I’m on the case,” said Drayton, excusing himself from the room, where the screens gave him a rousing send-off.
“Good one, Chuck.”
“Go for it.”
“Whatever resources you need, they’re yours. Just ask.”
He said sure, I’ll do that. Leave it with me, guys.
When he reached the top of the stairs, Ed was waiting for him, saying could he have a word, and the two walked outside to the consulate’s carp pond.
“There was one more thing I forgot to mention, Mr Drayton.”
“What’s that?” asked Drayton, irritated that the kid had been hanging around outside the Bubble Room, waiting for him.
“Your Mr Wang, the one you asked me about.”
“Tell me, Ed,” said Drayton, now a good deal more interested.
“Well, I’ve found him. I’ve found your Mr Wang.”
– 30 –
Subverting State Power
Soon after Wang Chu disappeared from cyberspace they came for him in person. He saw the minivan as he was leaving The Moment On Time in the early evening. It was parked opposite, a dark Buick with five doors and tinted windows. One of the rear doors slid open and two uniformed police officers climbed out, one throwing down a cigarette as he did. Another two men in plain clothes joined them, quickly crossing the road, straight towards Wang.
Without speaking a word, they snatched the bag containing his laptop, pinned his arms behind his back and handcuffed him. They pushed his head forward and, gripping his arms, they marched him across the road and pushed him into the back of the van, placing a heavy cloth hood over his head as they did so.
The road was busy, but few people noticed. It was dark and the smog was thick. Streetlights and the glow from the coffee shop window struggled to penetrate the gloom. And it all happened so quickly, like the sharp movement of fuzzy shadow puppets across a dirty screen. Those who were closer and did see knew better than to show it.
The police sat Wang on a bench seat in the Buick, a man either side. He slumped slightly forward because of his shackled wrists and struggled to breathe through the heavy cloth of the hood, which also muffled any sound.
They drove for twenty minutes, though it seemed much longer to Wang, gasping for air, his wrists and shoulders beginning to ache. The policeman to his left adjusted the hood slightly, allowing a little more air to seep in.
The van slowed and sounded its horn. He heard a whistle. Some words were spoken, though it wasn’t possible for Wang to make them out. Then he heard a metal gate opening. They drove a little further and then stopped again, the van door sliding open. A hand gripped Wang’s arm and guided him out of the van. He was led along what seemed like a pathway that was slippery in places, ice most likely, since from time to time it cracked under foot.
He coughed as they entered a building, the hood seeming to trap inside a layer of sooty air. He was led up concrete stairs, which was awkward at first, until he got into a rhythm, though he almost fell when he reached the top and stretched his foot for a step that didn’t exist.
They paused and he heard the sound of a key in a lock and a door opening. They led him through the door and sat him in a cold metal seat.
One of the policemen removed the hood and the cuffs, took his belt, shoes, phone and watch. He told Wang not to move and not to speak.
It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the light, not that there was much of it. Just a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The room was small and without windows, with bare yellowing walls. There was a metal table in front of him and along the wall to his left was a long narrow bed with a single folded blanket. There were cupboards along another wall. A door led to what appeared to be a bathroom. There was a small heater in the corner, but if it was working it wasn’t having much impact. The room was cold and damp, but it struck Wang as more cheap hotel room than prison cell.
Two men in military-style uniforms, possibly policemen, possibly soldiers, sat the other side of the table. They just sat, watching. Cropped hair, severe-looking and young. Probably not much older than Wang. Bolt upright, expressionless, never taking their eyes off him, like the inanimate guards at the Forbidden City.
At first Wang said nothing, as he’d been instructed.
Then he asked where he was. Why he was there. His guards didn’t respond. Never turned a hair. He asked for water. Still nothing. Only when he raised an arm in the air, waved it around, and said please, can I have water, did one of them stand, go to the bathroom and come back with a small plastic cup, half filled. All with military rigidity, every movement slow and deliberate.
He said thanks, appreciate that. The guard said nothing, still showed no response at all, just sat back down next to the other one and carried on watching him, impassive.
But that had been a breakthrough. And so when he needed to use the toilet, he raised his arm and asked ever so politely. They ignored him the first time, and the second. And only on a third attempt, when he said, please, I am really desperate, did one of the policemen stand and gesture towards the bathroom door. Then the second one stood, and both followed Wang to the bathroom, standing to attention in the open door and watched him piss. They returned to their seats as he did.
He ate when they did, and what they did, some sort of soup and rice. And when he needed to sleep because he could not keep his eyes open any longer, he raised his arm again and they nodded towards the bed, still without speaking.
He wasn’t sure how long he slept, but by the time he woke they had changed shifts and two more young guards sat in the same seats, with the same fixed expression, eyes still trained on him. When they saw he was awake they gestured for him to return to the metal seat.
So he sat back down, looked at the table, looked at the floor, at the walls, anywhere but at them. But it was impossible to avoid those eyes, which never seemed to blink. He smiled, raising an eyebrow, stretched his arms, gave an exaggerated yawn. He tried a bit of small talk saying it must have been a long day for you guys too, did they know how long he would be staying there? Anything to provoke a response. But he might as well have been talking to the wall.
Only when it was time again for a change of shift did his guards show an inkling of emotion, or maybe relief as they handed duties back to the original two. One appeared to glance at his watch. Perhaps they were human after all.
He quickly lost all sense of time, becoming disorientated and exhausted. It was made worse by not having access to his phone, depriving him of the screen that was his access to a world he understood, a friendlier world; sometimes he instinctively felt for his back pocket, or woke up to imaginary message alerts.
The only natural light came from a small air vent high on one of the walls. He thought he heard distant marching feet, the yells of a drilling exercise, which made him think it must be some sort of army or police camp. But mostly it was silent.
He wondered whether he was inside that building, the building near the coffee shop that didn’t exist on any map, and he shivered as he remembered Liu’s joke about people never coming back out once they’d gone through that gate. But his car had travelled further. Unless it was a trick and they were tryi
ng to confuse him.
He didn’t know what to think.
He tried to keep track of time by counting the shifts. Maybe each was for eight hours, maybe ten. But soon he stopped noticing those as well.
He slumped in his seat, overcome with fatigue, too tired almost to raise his hand and ask for permission to go to his bed. Then the door of the room opened for what he assumed was another change of shift. Though it hadn’t been long since the last one.
He looked up to see his guards standing to attention and then moving to the back of the room to make way for two men in regular clothes, one carrying a laptop computer, the other a file. They sat at the table opposite him.
The one with the file seemed in charge. He was smartly dressed, wearing a blue blazer over a buttoned-down shirt. He reminded Wang of one of his teachers. The kind of guy you’d hardly notice in the street. In his thirties, early forties maybe with thinning black hair, neatly brushed back and glasses with a fashionable rimless frame.
The other was younger, wearing dark jeans and sweatshirt. He was carrying clothes, which looked like a jogging suit, which he placed on the bed.
“Those are for you,” said the one in the blazer. “You might be with us for a while. Although really that’s up to you.”
Wang tried to focus his thoughts, to clear his head. He sat up on the metal chair, thanked the man for the clothes and asked if he could make a call, tell his family what had happened.
“It’s really in your interests and those of your family to cooperate with this investigation,” the man said, ignoring the request and opening his file, which contained a pile of papers, which looked like they had been printed from the internet.
Wang said that of course he wanted to cooperate, and that he would never do anything to damage his family.
“Sir, what are you investigating?” he said.
The man ignored the question and said that Wang’s family was a good family, a family that had served the Party well, and he should think about how his actions might affect them.