Insider X (17 page)

25

High-Speed Bullet Train, Chengdu-Chongqing Railway

SITTING NEXT TO the window, Lip used the remnants of a damp paper napkin to dab his mouth again.  The drooling was almost nonstop.  The falsies, which went over his front teeth, felt like they were cutting into his gums.  He ran his tongue over the front of them to see if there was any bleeding.  No salty taste, so it didn’t seem to be blood.  Just saliva, most likely, and lots of it.

He looked at Marks, who was sitting next to him.  Marks’s face was similarly transformed.  But not with falsies and cheek inserts, but with a very realistic-looking salt-and-pepper streaked goatee.  He also had on bushy eyebrows and a wig that made his normally short hair look like it needed a trim, and needed it badly.  If he’d been wearing a tie-dye shirt he could have passed for a middle-aged hippie.

“How are my teeth?” Lip whispered.

Marks glanced at him.  He raised one of his eyebrows in response.  It was like a fuzzy caterpillar crawling on his forehead.  Lip got the willies.  He looked away and glanced out the soot-smeared windows.

It was a forlorn scene.  A stripped-down countryside, barren of trees and anything green, was speeding by.  Mixed in were high rises and industrial-looking complexes that covered the horizon.  They were on the outskirts of Chengdu now.  Just minutes from their destination.

This train was one of the few running on this line that made stops before it reached Chongqing.  They were getting off at the next stop.  Lip was looking forward to losing the teeth, soaking his feet, and having a drink; preferably something ice cold that was made with hops.  Of course, like usual, that was going to have to wait.

Their ad hoc disguise had been hastily assembled.  It wasn’t up to usual standards, but so far it was doing what it had to do.  Mei had set them up with it.  Right after Johnny Two-cakes gave them his disappointed lecture.

Like it had been their fault someone gave them a bomb.  No:
I’m glad you guys are okay
.  Nope.  That wasn’t him.  Instead, he’d sighed and complained about having to change the plan.

Lip had learned not to take it personal.  Johnny Two-cakes may be a little stiff and pragmatic at times, but he had his moments.  Like the time he got diarrhea down in San Pedro Sula and said,
“Well… I’m glad I didn’t flush”
.
  He told them that when Marks, Lip and he were about to get whacked by a drug lord that happened to own that particular drinking establishment.

Lip checked his phone again.

“Still nothing,” Lip said.

“Are you surprised?” Marks said.

Lip shrugged.  It was fifty-fifty with these things.  Sometimes the PLA would allow the local news service to actually cover the news.  And sometimes they wouldn’t.

Looked like it was falling in the latter camp this time.  There was nothing on the news circuits about the bomb going off at their hotel.  Probably because “bomb” was considered too alarming for the general populace to hear.  Better to keep the peace by not even acknowledging the event had happened.  It was only two government employees who had bought it after all.  Mei had gotten that little bit of news for them, using her inside sources.  Ciggies and Camel Joe, who were indeed PLA, had smoked their last cigarettes.

Lip scrolled through what was making the wire.  For the twelfth straight month China had seen expansion of its manufacturing and service sectors.  There was also an article on Apple’s China Strategy. 
Boom or bust?
was the headline.  Sales forecasts of Apple’s latest iPhone had grossly missed estimates—some of that was being blamed on the abysmal customer reviews that had been pouring in from around the globe.  As Lip skimmed the various news boards, he felt the feeling of rapid deceleration.  Their train was slowing down.  He turned off his phone.

More immediate things to chew on.  He wondered what type of reception Marks and he would be looking at when their train came to a stop.  Mei’s inside sources had gotten them another piece of info.  Apparently McKinley Morganfield’s and Shawn Carter’s passport photos were being circulated among certain departments.  Orders were to apprehend on sight.

Their train came to a full stop.  Out the window, Lip could see some of the folks standing on the platform waiting to get on.  Didn’t seem to be any uniforms in the mix.  No suits either.  Maybe they were going to get lucky here.

Hopeful thought.  Lip knocked on the closest thing that resembled wood, which happened to be his metal armrest.  Three times.  Marks glanced at him.

“You see them too?” Marks said, as they both stood up.

“Who?” Lip said.

“By the last column.  End of platform.  Five guys,” Marks said.

Lip had to lean over to see them.  “Welcome party?”

“Looks like it,” Marks said.

Lip’s face set.  “I’ll take the bag.  Meet you at the lot.”

Marks nodded and stepped off the train.  Lip held back and let the others on the train file past him.  He waited till about twenty folks had stepped off the train, and then joined the line.

As he stepped off the train and onto the platform, Lip could see the five guys were still in the same spot.  They hadn’t gotten on the train or followed Marks.  As Lip took a few steps, he saw one of those five orient on him.

Figured.  Fat guy.  Disguised or not, didn’t matter.  Lip was made.

The five guys started to walk towards him.

26

LIP KEPT COOL.  He wasn’t sweating.  Just drooling.

The small duffel he’d slung over his shoulder wasn’t heavy.  Inside the bag were some tools and a few devices they’d used on other “cable jobs”.  The devices weren’t much to look at, but they sure came in handy for certain projects.

Lip headed towards the stairs.  The five men were about thirty yards away.  They were walking quickly.  They’d shifted direction and were now on an intercept angle.  At their pace, they would get to the stairs before Lip did, unless Lip flat-out ran.

So much for getting to the stairs and trying to lose them in the crowd.  Lip assessed his options.  Running was a bad call.  Getting back on the train would only look worse.

As the five men got closer, Lip sized them up, using his peripheral vision.  The five men had a thug look to them.  Ciggies and Camel Joe had been a handsome pair compared to this crew.

Lip decided to slow his pace.  He looked left and right, stopped walking and turned around as if he was lost.  A couple who had been walking behind him began to step around to pass him.  Lip held up his hand and said a few words to them in French.  The couple stopped walking.  Lip reached in his pocket and pulled out the ticket he’d used for the train.

The couple looked at Lip with curious expressions.  Lip smiled and spoke to them in French again.  The couple gave him a blank stare.  Lip pointed at his ticket.

The couple shook their heads and replied in Mandarin.  They apologized, smiled, nodded their heads several times, and walked by him.  Lip looked for someone else.  He waved down the next person and spoke quickly to them in French.  He pointed at his ticket again.  Same reaction from that person; they walked away too.

Lip turned around and looked for someone else to flag down.  The five men who had been heading for the stairs had changed direction again.  They came to a stop a few paces away.  All five looked at him.  One of the men held a piece of paper in his hand.  He looked at it, and then looked at Lip.

Lip smiled and took two steps forward.  He spoke French and asked them if this was the stop for Chongqing, which Lip already knew it wasn’t.  The men gave him five hard stares.  Lip pointed to his ticket.  The men didn’t look at the ticket, but continued to stare at Lip.  One of the men took the piece of paper from the other guy and looked at it.  The man frowned.  He looked at Lip, and looked at the paper again.

The man said some words to the others.  One of the men spit on the ground.  Lip spoke again in French.  He gave his best smile, flashing his fake choppers and a string of drool.

One of the men snorted and the others seemed amused.  The man with the paper told them in Mandarin that this moron wasn’t their guy.

Moron?  Lip kept his goofy smile.  He pointed at his ticket again as drool went down his chin.  The men walked off.  Lip took a deep breath, and headed towards the stairs.

27

LIP DIDN’T SEE any others that were looking his way, but he knew better than to drop the corny clueless French-guy act.  There might be another team eyeing him.  As he went down the stairs, he asked a few more folks if this was Chongqing.  He only got blank stares and smiles.

He entered the train terminal and looked at the directional signs.  He found where he needed to go, but didn’t head that way.  Instead, he went the opposite way, walked for about twenty yards and stopped.  He did a one eighty.  Looked clueless, and walked back towards where he needed to go.

As he left the station, he checked reflections in windows, looking for tails.  He was outside now.  He walked along the sidewalk, and passed a sign on a pole.  It was written in Traditional Chinese and had a botched English translation below.  In Chinese it was letting folks know that the striped parking area, next to the curb, was a drop-off zone.  The English translation said “Free Park For The Old”.

Lip wondered if that was how the diplomats did it.  When the US ambassador made an entreaty to his counterpart in Beijing, did they use the same interpreter?  If so, that might explain a few things.  Lip could see the conversation now:

US Ambassador:
I’d like to discuss these tariffs
.

Beijing Guy:
What!?  You’d like to fuck my wife?

US Ambassador:
Yes, I’d like to discuss these tariffs and see if we can resolve this amicably.
 

Beijing Guy:
And you want to lick my daughter’s ass?  I will kill you!

Lip didn’t need much to amuse himself.  He crossed the street.  The town he was in was quite pretty.  Nothing like some of the countryside he’d seen on the train.  Though ‘town’ was probably a misnomer.  There were over 300,000 people in this rural-looking area.  By US standards that would be a city.  Here, though, in a country with dozens of cities with two million or more, a place with 300,000 was considered a town.

He saw plenty of trees and greenery as he walked.  For some reason that Dr. Suess book,
The Lorax
, popped to mind.  Looked like the
Once-ler
hadn’t cut down the
Truffula
trees, yet. 

Lip was always surprised with these visits.  Just a few years ago that area of stripped-down countryside that he’d glimpsed out the train windows had been trees as far as he could see.  Chengdu, and its surrounding countryside, was once one of the most beautiful areas in China.  It was still beautiful in many spots, but it was changing fast.  Environmental Mass Destruction was the name of the game over here.  All in the name of progress.

As he walked a few more blocks, he realized he might have been mistaken.  The Once-ler had arrived.  He passed two dusty construction sites.  The trees in this area were gone.  Two high rises were going up.  There weren’t any workers on the site.  It looked like the work day had already wrapped up.

He walked long enough to verify that he wasn’t being tailed.  Once he was certain he wasn’t being followed, he took a right at the next block, and headed towards the rendezvous spot.  It took some time to get there.  It was getting dark by the time he saw the parking lot.  A chain-link fence was around its perimeter.  Most of the vehicles on the lot were trucks and vans.

The gate to the lot was open.  There was no one around.  Lip went through the open gate and looked for the section of the lot he needed to find.

Didn’t take long.  The spots were numbered.  He spied Marks.  Marks was leaning against the van.

“About time, Frenchy,” Marks said.

Lip smirked.  “You got the keys?”

“Just like Mei said.”  Marks tossed him the keys.  “In the wheel well.  Checked the cargo.  We’re good.”

“Uniforms there?” Lip said.

“Yep.”

Lip opened the door and got in the van.  Twenty seconds later, they drove off the lot.

28

Red C3, Facility 67096

THE CORNER OFFICE overlooked the park and manmade pond.  Landscaping lights had turned on an hour ago and made for a pretty sight.  The man in the mask wasn’t interested in the view, however.  His mind was churning on other things.  On what he had just been shown.

He looked at the photos again.  The names of the men, Morganfield and Carter, meant nothing to him.  And their faces were different.  Significantly different.  These men were Caucasian, not Asian.  But otherwise there was indeed a similarity.

And it wasn’t just in their body types.  But in their gait.  The way they stood.  The way they walked.

He compared it to the video footage.  It had been captured two years ago at China Telecom’s Shanghai Branch.  He looked at the two Asian men walking in the video footage.  And then he looked at the photos taken less than five hours ago.  There were several shots, which showed two Caucasian men walking into a hotel.

Were these the same men?  The men who had foiled his plans two years ago?  Had destroyed everything he had set up at China Telecom? 

That operation had been his crown jewel.  There, at China Telecom, his supercomputer had manipulated the global financial markets, and had almost rigged the presidential election in America.  He had come so close to accomplishing so much.

And then it was all gone.  Taken from him.  Destroyed in a fiery flash.

He recalled the emotions he’d had that day as he saw China Telecom burn to the ground in front of him.  Two men had done that.  Two Asian men.  A short fat one and a big tall one.  These two now had the same general physiognomy as those two.  Same body types.

Could Hu be right here?

“Make sure these men are taken alive for questioning,” the man in the mask said.

Next to him, Hu, one of his loyal minions, simply nodded.

Hu was a reliable foot solider.  No fool, he had seen through these men’s elaborate charade.  They were not investors as they purported to be.  Hu had dug into their backgrounds and had found some holes.

The bomb at the hotel to remediate the matter had not been successful.  But Hu had redeemed himself in the last five hours since that failure of his.  He had shown him this.  This possible connection.

If Hu was right, he would be very thankful he hadn’t eliminated them.  A bomb was too quick for these two.  If these men were indeed the same men, then what they deserved was something else entirely.

“You have done good work here,” the man in the mask said.

“Thank you, Supreme Leader,” Hu said, bowing deeply.

“Now we must find them,” the man in the mask said.  “Use every resource we have.”

“Already being done, Supreme Leader,” Hu said.  “We will find them.  I will not fail you.”