Invasion, p.9
Invasion, page 9
For several seconds there was silence. A standoff. Luke was quite prepared to pull the trigger if he needed to, aiming a non-lethal shot at their legs or arms, but he knew that was a last resort. He was also uncomfortably aware that he had had no chance to test-fire the weapon. Hell, this was just a piece of yellow plastic in his hand. It still didn’t feel like a proper firearm. What if he pulled the trigger and nothing happened? He was going to have to bluff this one out.
‘You can all fuck off now,’ he said quietly, pointedly aiming the Glock at the man with the pistol.
Buzzcut spat on the ground between them and swore in Cantonese. He said something to the others and then, as one, they turned their backs and vanished down the alleyway. Luke’s breathing was coming in short, controlled gasps as he let the tension flow out of his body. The Glock had done its work but now he needed to dump it. Word would soon get out that there was an armed gweilo, a Westerner, on the loose in Kowloon and the police would be swarming all over this place in no time. Luke bent down and picked up a filthy rag from next to the dustbins. Carefully, keeping an eye open to make sure no one was coming, he wiped the weapon clean of his prints. Then he walked fifty metres down the road and, without breaking step, lobbed it over a wall into someone’s garden.
So he had survived the encounter. Great. But someone here was on to him and he had no idea who.
25
Lieyu Island, Kinmen County, Taiwan
BOULDERS. SLIPPERY WITH slime and seaweed. Encrusted with jagged barnacles that cut through his black neoprene gloves. These were the things that Zhang and his unit of Sea Dragon frogmen encountered as they slithered ashore that night, using the rusting steel tank traps as cover while they scanned the darkened shoreline with their multifunctional night-vision goggles. Their unit had recently been equipped with the latest variant of these and they did more than allow the wearer to see in the dark. They were hardwired into each man’s integrated combat system, their ICS, a digital piece of kit that not only allowed Zhang and his team to identify enemy forces from friendly troops simply by looking at them but also beamed back video in real-time to their base on the Leizhou peninsula. This in turn allowed their commanders to see exactly what they were seeing, while geo-locating the position of every human in the area. The People’s Liberation Army, once a backwater of Mao-era weapons and tactics, had come a very long way in a short time.
Too small to be picked up by Taiwan’s coastal radar, Zhang’s unit had landed unobserved and unopposed on the gently sloping beach next to the Dong Lin Seashore Park. Turning east, they passed a darkened cemetery and an empty guard post. It was when they were nearing their objective that the silence of the night was broken by the sudden frantic barking of a dog, quickly followed by a shouted challenge. Peering through his night-vision goggles, Zhang could see three border guards, seventy metres away according to the luminous display on his headset. All were carrying weapons and, with them, a Belgian Shepherd was barking and straining at the leash.
For Private First Class Jian Zhang and the men on either side of him, the moment when they opened fire was the culmination of so many months of intensive training. Actions and reflexes were instinctive, forged in the furnace heat of exercise scenarios so dangerously realistic they would never be permitted in a NATO army. Two of the Taiwanese border guards went down in that first blistering fusillade of 5.66mm steel darts. But the third was able to roll to the side and squeeze off two rounds before he, too, succumbed to the overwhelming incoming fire.
Zhang took the shot in his pectoral muscle, the bullet slamming into his chest and narrowly missing the brachial artery. If they had reached Lieyu Island by another means, and not by swimming covertly to their target, he might have been wearing ceramic body armour. Without it, his torso shuddered with the impact and his brain registered pain as he dropped to his knees. As the respirocytes, the injected artificial red blood cells, coursed through his veins, Zhang’s body was already working overtime to control the damage. He called once, not in panic, or even in alarm, just loud enough to let his team know he was wounded and down. Hands and arms quickly came to his aid, laying him down in a resting position while the squad medic rushed up to attend to his injury. But Zhang was conscious and talking, his body long since enhanced to a point well beyond the bounds of normal human endurance. He knew, even in that moment, that it would not be long after surgery that he would be fit to resume his duties.
Zhang missed the rest of the raid. While the combat medic was tending to him in the lee of a sand dune the rest of his squad surged forward unopposed. Picking up the pace, they quickly covered the ground to their objective: the 23 August Artillery Battle Victory Monument, a relic from China’s bombardment of the island in the 1950s. Their drill had been rehearsed many times back on the mainland and now it was carried out in seconds. The two men assigned to the task raced to the flagpole and tore down the red, blue and white Taiwanese flag, replacing it immediately with the yellow stars on the red background of the People’s Republic of China. A powerful torch had been brought ashore for this very moment and now photographs and video were taken as evidence and transmitted to the vast Orwellian building known as ‘1 August’, the headquarters of China’s Central Military Commission on Fuxing Road in west Beijing. And all before anyone in Taipei, or indeed anywhere in the world, had the slightest idea of what had just taken place.
Chinese troops had their boots on the ground on Taiwanese territory while half the world was still asleep.
26
Vauxhall Cross, London
‘I’M NOT CONVINCED.’
‘Felix?’
‘I said I’m not convinced. By this Macau lead.’ MI6’s Director Critical was frowning and shaking his head. He was wearing his trademark maroon silk bow-tie, giving him a jocular, almost comical appearance that was completely at odds with his rather humourless demeanour. They were on the third floor of the Vauxhall Cross building: Felix Schauer, Jack Searle, the head of China desk, Angela, Luke’s line manager, and Lucia Freer on secondment to the Secret Intelligence Service from its sister service GCHQ in Cheltenham.
Almost the moment Luke’s message about Macau had come in, Felix Schauer had called a CADISC, a case discussion, an urgent meeting to thrash out what their next move should be. There was an assumption by some outside the intelligence community, one fuelled by cinema perhaps, that Britain’s intelligence officers spent all their time racing around the world in fast cars and firing guns. But Luke Carlton was the exception rather than the rule, a man who had come into the Service on the back of twelve years at the sharp end of the armed forces, an individual to whom weapon handling and the art of survival were second nature. The truth, when it came to most of his colleagues, was rather more banal. MI6 intelligence officers spent an inordinate amount of time in meetings, only occasionally in chic, trendy hotel bars, more often in some bland, featureless office inside Vauxhall Cross. And yet the decisions taken in those dull little rooms could often dictate whether an operation succeeded or failed, if an agent would be extracted from a hostile situation alive or end up in pieces.
‘I think we send them. Both of them. Luke and Jenny. To Macau. It’s the only lead we’ve got and the source who gave it to Luke has given us reliable product in the past.’ The head of China desk was young, ambitious, a fast mover and, despite his proven prowess as an intelligence officer, he had somehow managed to get this far without ever visiting a Chinese-speaking country or knowing more than a dozen words of Mandarin.
‘And this view,’ said Felix Schauer, eyebrows arched in question, ‘would be based on what, Jack? Your extensive time spent there, in Macau?’
It was a calculated barb. Schauer knew full well that the head of China desk had never been near Macau but he couldn’t resist the put-down. The two men regarded each other for a moment before Angela intervened.
‘Look, I think before we reach a decision on this we should hear what Lucia has to say. It’s quite pertinent, I think.’ She nodded to the young signals intelligence officer and gave her a smile of encouragement. ‘Lucia …’
‘Right. What we’ve done,’ she said, looking from one to another, ‘is to work on a breakdown of mobile-phone transmissions made in the area around the Tai Wo Tang Café in Kowloon where we lost contact with Hannah. We’ve taken a bracket of one hour either side of the time we think she was abducted and then—’
‘Excuse me for interrupting,’ Felix Schauer again, still with the frown, ‘but we’re talking about Chinese territory here, aren’t we? You’re saying we can access the telecoms towers even though they’re ultimately under Ministry of State Security control?’
Lucia looked across at Angela before replying. ‘We can, yes. The basic framework for the network was laid down just before Handover in ’97 and then we’ve had … how shall I put it? … a little help from certain expatriate technicians who stayed on in Hong Kong after that. Um, can I continue?’
‘Please do.’ Felix Schauer offered her something approaching a smile.
‘So, working with our friends in the NSA, we’ve been able to sift through the vast amounts of traffic that you would expect from such a high-density residential area and isolate those calls being made from there to Macau.’
‘And?’ Felix Schauer was drumming his fingers on the table, but if the gifted young linguist from GCHQ found his constant interruptions an irritation she didn’t show it.
‘And we’ve registered a total of three hundred and sixteen calls made from that part of Kowloon to Macau during that two-hour timeframe. Of those, only three were made to known state organizations and these were all innocuous, linked to agriculture and fisheries.’
Felix Schauer spread his hands and sat back in his chair. ‘So doesn’t that just prove my point?’ he said. ‘There is nothing here to corroborate Luke’s source. Sending him and Jenny to Macau sounds like a lost cause when they should be nailing down every lead we have in Hong Kong.’
‘We don’t have any leads in Hong Kong,’ interjected the China head. ‘At least, not yet.’
Searle and Schauer glared at each other.
Once again it was Angela who defused the tension. ‘Guys, she hasn’t finished yet. Can we just hear her out?’
Lucia flashed her a smile of thanks before resuming her brief. ‘What we did detect from this phone traffic, after running it through the Sirius program, was a sudden surge in calls coming out of that part of Kowloon and they were all being made to two numbers in Macau. One of those numbers …’ Lucia paused to look from Felix to Jack then back to the Director Critical. ‘… one of those numbers belongs to a known player in the Macau underworld. A kind of Mr Big, if you like. The name he uses is Francisco Rodrigues.’
Felix Schauer sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘Rodrigues? The man Carlton is proposing to meet tomorrow?’
‘The same one,’ Angela replied. ‘Look, I know this doesn’t prove anything. And, yes, of course we need to test every theory. But let’s not lose sight of what’s going on out there.’ She pointed her finger towards the door and in the vague direction of the Thames below, as if it somehow represented the tense waters of the Taiwan Strait. ‘We’ve got every ingredient going on in the South China Sea for the start of a Third World War. We need – we must – retrieve the download of data that Blue Sky was due to give Hannah Slade if we’re going to have any serious chance of stopping this thing escalating. I’m with Jack here. We should put Luke and Jenny in Macau without delay. And get them in front of this Mr Rodrigues. He might just be our route to finding Hannah and getting her back.’
Felix Schauer was deep in thought and it was several seconds before he spoke. When he did, his words were directed at Lucia and his voice had softened considerably. ‘Follow the data. Isn’t that what you people in Cheltenham always say? Well, I’m not going to argue with that. You make a strong case, Lucia. I concur. Send them to Macau.’
27
Kowloon, Hong Kong
IT WAS AFTER midnight when Luke finally knocked on the door of their room on the nineteenth floor of the Landia Hotel, waited for a response from Jenny, then let himself in. She was still awake and sprang up when he walked in and closed the door behind him. ‘My God, Luke! You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you OK? What happened?’ She moved towards him and stopped short, her arms hanging loosely by her sides.
‘Nothing,’ he replied, sitting heavily on the padded stool beside the dressing-table and running his hands through his hair. ‘At least, not with the source. He’s given us a lead of sorts – you got my signal, right?’
‘About Macau? I did, yes. So did London. They think it’s worth pursuing. They want us to head there immediately.’
‘What – now? It’s the middle of the bloody night.’
‘No! In the morning. But come on, Luke, I know you too well. You’re holding back. Something happened out there, didn’t it?’
Luke swivelled towards her on the stool and returned her gaze. It was true, she knew him far too well for him to keep any secrets from her. This was the fourth operation they had worked on together and Jenny had a way of almost reading his thoughts. Yet on his way back to the hotel he had thought carefully about how much he should tell her. Getting jumped like that in a back-street within their first twenty-four hours in-country was not a good start and he had no wish to spook her. But he and Jenny were equal partners on this operation and she had a right to know.
‘I got jumped,’ he said flatly. ‘In a back-street. Three guys. One armed.’
‘Oh my God.’ She clamped a hand over her mouth, then placed it on his shoulder, searching his face. ‘Are you hurt? How did you get away? When did this happen?’
Luke got up from the stool before answering. ‘Does this place have a minibar?’ He started hunting around the room. ‘Yes! Found it.’ He opened the miniature fridge beneath the dressing-table and took out a tiny bottle of whisky. ‘Join me?’ Jenny shook her head, still waiting for answers. Luke poured the amber liquid into a tumbler, took a sip, and briefly closed his eyes. ‘Well, I have to say, hats off to Security Section,’ he said at last. ‘They were right about the Glock.’
‘Wait – what? Don’t tell me you used it! Christ, Luke! What were you thinking? This isn’t Afghanistan! How many bodies are we talking about?’ All her earlier concern had vanished and now she was looking at him accusingly.
Luke held out his free hand in a calming gesture. ‘Easy there,’ he said. ‘No one got shot. I just had to show them the weapon and they legged it straight away. And don’t worry, it’s disposed of now. Prints are wiped. Look … I’m fine. I’ve faced a lot worse, Jenny, you know that. But the bigger worry is this: was I a mark? Is someone on to us already? Are we compromised before we even start here?’
Jenny went to the window and pulled back the curtain slightly, as if somehow the answers were down there in those teeming twenty-four-hour neon-lit streets. She looked back at Luke, who was draining his glass. ‘Did anyone call your name? Ask you for ID?’ she said.
‘Nope.’
‘So it could have been a casual mugging gone wrong. This stuff happens.’
‘With a pistol?’ Luke replied. ‘I don’t think so. Nothing casual about that, Jenny. Besides, they never asked for money. They were trying to take me somewhere. An abduction, basically.’
‘Well, let’s look at it this way,’ Jenny said. ‘I doubt it was MSS. If the Ministry of State Security wanted to lift either of us they probably know exactly where to find us. Which means …’
‘Triads.’
‘Exactly. Somehow, God knows how, we’ve attracted the attention of the criminal underworld here. Luke, this is not good news.’
‘Tell me about it. Or, better still, tell me about this Rodrigues guy in Macau. Has the office come back with anything on him yet?’
‘They have.’ Jenny reached for her phone and began to scroll down. ‘Just the bare bones for now. Senhor Francisco Rodrigues is forty-two, a Portuguese national, born and raised in Macau. Father was in the drinks import business. Started working for a local underworld triad the same year Macau got handed back to China. He was only a teenager then. Worked his way up – if you can call it that – in the underworld there and made some powerful friends. He now owns a string of bars, hotels, some of which double as brothels and—’
‘Nice,’ Luke interjected. ‘I can hardly wait to meet him.’
Jenny put down her phone. ‘I agree. He’s quite possibly an odious piece of shit. But we know how this works, Luke. In this business you sometimes have to swim in muddy waters. Well, this is one of those times. If a white Western woman of Hannah’s description has been smuggled across the water into Macau then the chances are this guy will know about it. Um, Luke …’
‘What?’
‘There’s something else you need to see.’ She picked up her phone once more, found the message she was looking for and passed it to him without a word.
When he’d finished reading it they looked at each other in silence. So Blue Sky was dead. Murdered. Probably not more than a mile from where they were right now. The most highly placed agent the Service had ever had inside China in a generation. The defector who was supposed to be delivering them the mother lode on Beijing’s plans for Taiwan. Luke’s mind was already working through the possibilities. If someone had got to him so quickly, what were the chances that Hannah Slade was still alive? And had Blue Sky even been able to pass on the data to her before they’d got to him? Those questions and more, he knew, would keep him awake for much of the night.
