Counterblow

by Ethan Jones

  “It’s the best we can do. But, honey, this won’t last forever.”

  Liberty gave him an interested gaze. “Why, how will things change?”

  He regretted saying the words the moment they slipped past his lips. “I… I’m working on something that might allow us to have more time for one another.”

  “But it will be a security contract, like this one?”

  “Most likely. I don’t know all the details at this point. But yes, it should allow us to spend more time together…”

  Liberty smiled and squeezed his hand. “I’d like that.”

  Javin returned the smile, then leaned over the table for a quick kiss. Liberty hesitated for a moment, before she kissed him passionately.

  When he sat back, Liberty said, “Maybe we should go to New York. When do you need to leave on Thursday?”

  Javin made some quick mental calculations. He’d have to confirm his flight arrangements with Mila, but she’d be agreeable to a late afternoon or evening flight. “If we leave early morning, we can spend half the day.”

  “That’s not a lot of time, but better than nothing.”

  “It’s up to you. I’m fine spending the time here, or flying out to the Big Apple.”

  Liberty opened her mouth, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw the server rolling a gueridon trolley with silver cloches. “Our food is here, and I’m starving. We’ll discuss our plans as we eat.”

  “Perfect.”

  Javin sat back as the smiling server set their entrees, pan-seared lobster tail with scallops, before them. He pushed the upcoming operations to the back of his mind and focused wholeheartedly on enjoying the scrumptious meal and the company of his girlfriend. He’d have plenty of time to figure out how to handle the hacker in Beijing.

  Chapter Five

  Three Days Later

  Somewhere Over the Atlantic Ocean

  Javin hadn’t had much time to work on Tarasov’s case or to convince the Chinese hacker that what Javin was proposing, albeit crazy, was actually something he should at least entertain, as it was within the realm of possibility. The CIS operative stole a few moments here and there to send encrypted messages and make untraceable phone calls to a few of his trusted friends and contacts in the agency. Slowly, but surely, Tarasov’s profile started to become visible.

  The former SVR director had entered Canada on a clean French passport. The Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, had no reason to detain him and had waved him through with just a cursory glance at his papers. Javin’s contact had been able to secure a copy of all the paperwork from the CBSA officer, since the two agencies had a framework in place for sharing information and resources.

  Javin didn’t share the complete report with Mila, but gave her only a summary. Tarasov was alone and was driving an unassuming gray Toyota Corolla sedan with Ontario license plates. The vehicle was registered to a certain Daniil Nikitin, who Tarasov claimed was a friend. According to the driver’s license and vehicle registration papers, Nikitin lived on the outskirts of Toronto. Javin doubted they’d find him at that address. The Canadian-Russian team of operatives didn’t have much, but it was a start. While Javin was away, Mila and her teammates would do the legwork.

  The direct flight from Dulles International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport afforded Javin the much-needed opportunity to plot the next stage of his personal vendettas. He was the only passenger aboard the Russian-registered Gulfstream G280 jet. It offered him endless comfort, but that didn’t mean he had privacy. On the contrary, he was confident that all his moves were continually being monitored. The aircraft would have been equipped with cameras and microphones, and the Russians had the capabilities to hack into secured phones and laptops.

  So he did most of the planning in his mind. In Beijing, he’d meet with Fang Zehua, a twenty-nine-year-old working for the MSS, the feared Chinese security agency. Fang was also a CIS asset. Javin and one of his local partners had worked with Fang during an interception operation in China. The partner had succeeded in turning Fang and convincing him to use his superb hacking skills to their full potential. Fang was smart, yet greedy, wanting to make an easy buck, so he could marry his fiancée and afford to move to America. It had been the life-long dream of his parents and, of course, Fang’s. Money had begun to change hands, and Fang had proved his worth with excellent, accurate intel. It seemed that there were no firewalls he couldn’t break through; no networks he couldn’t penetrate.

  What Javin was going to propose to him was going to be difficult, extremely difficult, even for Fang’s extraordinary abilities.

  In London, Javin thanked the Russian crew and headed to catch his connecting flight to Beijing. He went through security without any issues, then found his gate. Since there were still twenty minutes to boarding time, he called Liberty.

  She was pleased to hear his voice. Liberty was still in New York, but she was leaving for Iraq the next day. Ten days was the longest she had been gone from her posting. She was the deputy manager of a refugee camp outside Mosul, in northern Iraq, where she had first met Javin. Iraq in general, and the area surrounding Mosul in particular, was still quite unstable, with terrorist attacks, roadside bombs, and other safety concerns reported on an almost daily basis. Liberty had put in for a transfer, but her application was still pending, and she had no idea when she’d get an answer or whether it would be positive.

  They talked until the final boarding call, then Javin took his seat near the middle of the plane. He exchanged his window seat with another passenger, who was sitting in the aisle seat two rows up ahead, so that Javin could have no one sitting next to him. Once the plane reached the cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, and the captain switched off the seatbelt sign, Javin fired up his laptop. He logged onto the Internet and checked his personal email account. Claudia had sent him a brief note. The inquiry committee investigating his actions during the operations in London and Barcelona was still working on their report and had made no further recommendations.

  Javin didn’t know what to make of that. He knew there was going to be at least a few days, perhaps even two weeks, until the investigation’s findings, but he couldn’t wait to know. He’d go through mood swings: One moment, he couldn’t care less whether they demoted or threw him out of the agency; and the next, he worried himself sick about his future.

  The next email was from Mila: Call me as soon as you get this. He grinned. As cryptic as ever. He wished he had seen the email before he boarded the plane, but that downtime was better spent talking to Liberty. He shrugged. It would have to wait.

  The third email was from Fang. He was rescheduling their rendezvous, changing the meeting time to two hours earlier than initially. He also demanded that Javin come to another location on the outskirts of Beijing instead of downtown. Javin frowned. Fang was known to be spooked easily, which made sense, to a certain extent. The MSS had eyes and ears almost everywhere, and the punishment for betraying the People’s Republic of China was execution. How much of this is just caution, and how much is paranoia?

  Javin shook his head. Being on administrative leave had given him a sense of freedom, as if a heavy burden was lifted from his soul. He still knew his actions had consequences, and the outcome could be severe, but he was ready. Without the restrictions placed on him by agency protocols, Javin felt like a Doberman unleashed from its heavy, controlling chain.

  Another thought raced through his mind and turned his face dark with suspicion. What if Fang has been compromised? Could this be his way of trapping me? It was a danger that covert operatives faced every day when running assets. These were men and women willing to betray their country for a fistful of dollars. If caught and facing certain death, they’d do everything to save their pathetic lives. First and foremost on their list of escape options was to give up their handler.

  Javin pondered on that thought for a long time. Then he went to the folder he had on Fang and his operational background. He found a picture of the Chinese asset and gla
nced at it. The man staring at Javin from the photo had black, short-cropped hair he kept in a spiked-up hairstyle. Fang’s forehead was narrow, and he had thin eyebrows, brown eyes, a droopy nose, and thin lips. He sported a small thin beard that covered his narrow chin. Like most Asians, he was small of stature, but he worked out, and had flexed his biceps for the picture.

  Are you trying to set me up, Fang?

  Javin stared at the photo, then opened one of the documents. He decided to read and re-read everything he had on Fang. If he had any doubts about the asset’s loyalty, he might resort to asking Fang questions about his past, to test his trustworthiness. If not, Javin would know what strings to pull to coerce the Chinese to cooperate.

  Halfway through the flight, Javin checked his email. Mila had sent him a note: Read this, and a short email attachment.

  Javin started to download it, but the file seemed to take forever. The icon kept spinning in circles, increasing his frustration. Someone is probably watching YouTube or pirating a movie. Irritated, he locked the computer with his password, stood up, and walked up and down the aisles. He didn’t catch anyone in the act, which was for the best; otherwise he might have said something he’d regret.

  He stretched his legs and arms and neck muscles, then took a cup of coffee from the galley at the back of the aircraft. When he returned to his seat, the file had finished downloading. He clicked on it and opened a Word document, which had several pictures embedded in it.

  Mila, or whoever had drafted the report, had included short sentences below the images. The first one showed a yellow-painted townhouse. The description read: Nikitin’s residence. He wasn’t at home. None of the neighbors had seen him in the last six days, the day before Tarasov disappeared.

  Javin nodded. Tarasov seemed to have been doing everything by the book. As soon as Nikitin had agreed to assist Tarasov with his escape, the Toronto resident had disappeared. He had Canadian citizenship, and he could be anywhere in the world. Someone in his family or circle of friends might know something. He typed a couple of notes on the document’s margins. Let’s check with the CBSA to find out who drove the Corolla across the bridge and into Detroit.

  The next few pictures showed the inside of the townhouse. Nothing spectacular in terms of furniture or interior design. The description at the end of the page read: Found nothing. No laptop, cellphone, or flash drives. Not even a scrap of paper.

  Javin nodded and began to wonder if Nikitin was a former Russian operative. No one lived that clean. He must have sanitized the townhouse before he left, knowing it would be searched. Javin typed a note for Mila: Who is Nikitin?

  The next picture was a copy of Tarasov’s French passport. Javin had seen it before, and he was the one who had given that image to Mila. Whoever had compiled the report had thought it useful to include everything they knew. I should talk to someone in the DGSE. Maybe they can trace this passport to the forger and whoever ordered it on behalf of Tarasov.

  The DGSE was the French foreign intelligence service. Javin had a couple of contacts that might be able to find him that intelligence, or at least run the passport number and the name of Nikitin through their records. He doubted they’d come up with anything, but it didn’t hurt to try.

  He scrolled through the report. The next pages were copies of what Javin had received from the CBSA and had handed over to Mila. No new pictures of the Corolla, so they mustn’t have found it. No gas receipts, no sighting of Tarasov, not much to go on…

  Javin sighed and drank the last of his now-cold coffee. He glanced at his wristwatch. Almost halfway through the eleven-hour-long flight. Then he looked over his shoulder at the galley and the two flight attendants. He stood up. A trip to the bathroom and another cup of coffee. Let’s figure out how to find Tarasov and Nikitin.

  Chapter Six

  Golden Duck Restaurant

  Northern Outskirts of Beijing

  China

  Javin didn’t like the area and not because he was unfamiliar with the surroundings. He hadn’t been able to run reconnaissance, because the flight had been delayed. Then, Javin’s taxi had been stuck in traffic for over fifteen minutes.

  As per his usual protocol, Javin had his taxi drop him off four blocks south of the meeting location. He was ten minutes late, but safety mattered more than punctuality. Javin walked briskly, taking in everything around him. The streets were narrow, pot-holed, and dimly lit, with every other streetlight out of order or struggling to blink to life. About a dozen or so pedestrians were braving the chilly weather and the sharp wind. They were walking along storefronts that were closed even though it was barely past ten in the evening.

  A few vehicles crawled by him, and Javin felt probing eyes measuring him up, even though he couldn’t see the drivers or the passengers because of the dark tinted windows. He thought they were wondering what he was doing in this neighborhood, their neighborhood. He shrugged, and his hand instinctively went to his side. But there was no holster there. He was traveling commercial and was not in China on official business. He didn’t have a gun and wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest.

  Javin sighed. I hope there’s no need for either.

  He passed by a group of three young men smoking in front of a clothing store with the metal barriers pulled down. The tallest of them, who seemed to be the boss, threw Javin a menacing glare, but Javin ignored it. He could easily take down the boss and perhaps one of his lackeys before the third man could have a chance to throw a punch. But he wasn’t here to start a fight. And of course, things could turn seriously wrong for everyone if one of the thugs was armed.

  The CIS operative rounded the corner and came to an intersection. After a white van zoomed through, he crossed the street and continued to the right. Up in the distance, the lights of a store glowed brightly, illuminating the sidewalk. A bird, which Javin concluded was a duck, considering the name of the restaurant, was blinking with a yellow light. The Golden Duck was written in Chinese and English in large gold-colored letters on the glass door and one of the windows.

  Javin slowed down and looked through a window. There were maybe a dozen or so patrons sitting around half of the white plastic tables. Fang was sitting by himself near the back. It was across from the kitchen counter and near the hall leading to the back of the restaurant. A teapot, two cups, and a bowl were set in front of him. Fang was staring at his phone, then he began to type with just his thumbs. Thank God he’s still here.

  The Canadian cast a sweeping gaze up the sidewalk and around the area. Only a handful of pedestrians were walking across the street, and one small car drove toward the next intersection up ahead. Javin wished he had time for proper reconnaissance, but Fang had been waiting for over twenty minutes. If Javin spent more time checking the back of the building and the nearby grocery store, his asset might decide to leave.

  Javin sighed and stepped through the glass door. A cheerful jingling announced his arrival as soon as he stepped on the dirty brown carpet, but no one paid any attention to him. He took a few slow steps as he studied the faces of the patrons. Most of them were young men and women, but there was a couple in their late fifties or early sixties. The restaurant’s walls were painted a light gray, and posters of soccer players covered one of the walls. A couple of ceiling-mounted television screens were turned to a soccer game and a local news channel.

  Fang saw Javin when he was about six steps away from his table. He frowned and shook his head, then gestured at his wristwatch.

  Javin skirted the table to Fang’s right, then said, “Sorry, man. Traffic.”

  “Why didn’t you call?”

  “No phone.”

  Javin could have bought a pre-paid phone at the airport and called Fang. However, all phone calls made in China went through the state-owned network and operators. They had the capacity to listen to and record all phone calls, especially those to MSS officers, like Fang. He had to be extremely careful and cunning to survive, and, so far, he had done so successfully. Fang used up to seven phones
at any given time, most of them burner phones he discarded after a single call. Still, phoning Fang in China, especially in Beijing, was a grave risk that Javin wasn’t willing to take, unless he had to.

  Fang gave him a sideways glance. “I was just about to leave.”

  “Glad you didn’t.”

  Javin removed his rucksack from his shoulders and dropped it on the floor. Then he took the seat across from Fang. “What’s good here?” He tipped his head toward Fang’s bowl. A single long noodle lay at the bottom of the white ceramic bowl, along with what looked like soy sauce.

  “Everything’s good. What do you want?”

  “What did you have?”

  “Steamed cold noodles. You won’t like them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Most westerners don’t like them. Have the hand-pulled noodles with minced pork.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Fang looked around for the waiter, and, when he didn’t find him, he gestured at someone beyond the kitchen counter. Fang shouted a few words in rapid Chinese. Javin had tried to learn the basics, but he didn’t recognize anything. He turned his head and saw a short, thin man nod at Fang and shouted something back.

  Fang looked at Javin and smiled. “Five minutes, and your food will be ready.”

  “Good.”

  Fang put his phone away. He leaned closer to Javin and whispered, “You’re probably wondering why I changed the time and the location…”

  “Yes, what’s wrong?”

  Fang looked around. “I think someone might be watching me.”

  Javin’s lips pursed. “What, even now? We shouldn’t have met.”

  He made no effort to look around or over his shoulder. If there was surveillance, Javin didn’t want to tip them off that he knew about their existence. He had learned at The Plant, but also through his vast experience, that such a move would only create more problems. The best course of action was to wait until the right moment, and then attempt to lose the surveillance when they least suspected it.