He waited. The two cars passed him, continuing down the block, then made a right. As soon as they were out of sight, he reversed, gunned the engine, and raced back the way he’d come, his mind spinning over his options.
Chen Ju-Long circled the block, moving rapidly so he could set up a box on the convenience store. He called the follow car and said, “Go long. I’ll have the short.” The car acknowledged, and he pulled back around, driving slowly, looking for a bumper position that would allow him to see the target leave the market, giving him the ability to trigger.
He pulled abreast of the convenience store and saw the car was gone. In the wind. He parked at the first spot he could find and said, “Target is unsighted. I say again, target is unsighted.”
From the stationary team—the one that was supposed to take out the target—he heard, “We have a man and a woman at his apartment. Looking to get in.”
“Who are they?”
“I have no idea.”
“Stand by.”
He called his other mobile unit and said, “Start concentric circles. Focus on the main highways. He went somewhere for a reason. See if you can find him.”
He got an acknowledgment and called his contact, Jake, unsure of whether the man could be trusted. He had been recruited through the octopus tentacles of the United Front Work Department—a division of the People’s Liberation Army that pressured the Chinese diaspora around the world—but the man could be setting them up. It had happened in the past, and would happen again. It couldn’t be helped when you were recruiting someone of Chinese heritage who worked in a place like Silicon Valley. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn’t.
Jake had proven trustworthy in the past, executing the implant of the new F-35 jet fighter that had crashed, and he’d been well paid, but the PLA had also leveraged his extended family in China to gain compliance, putting them under the knife, so to speak.
It could have generated a need for revenge. The man could be trying to set them up as well.
Chen was well versed in the wilderness of mirrors inside the People’s Republic of China. A staunch party member, he had worked his way up to the tip of the spear inside the Guoanbu, and was now the head of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security’s external kinetic branch. Meaning he executed what others had failed to do through less violent means. Given that, he knew the bounds of his playground. He was not a killer who wanted to kill. He was a killer who executed what was necessary. And he wasn’t sure this one was necessary. Especially given what he’d already conducted inside Australia.
That killing had been necessary.
The phone rang forever, then Jake finally answered, saying, “Is it done?”
“No, it’s not done. He didn’t go home. He went to a store next to his apartment and we had to break off. When we reengaged, he was gone. I want to know why this is so important. Right now, we aren’t in the surveillance footprint, but if we continue, we will be. Taking him at his home in a robbery leaves an easy answer for the police. Killing him somewhere else will invite an investigation because of the random nature. It’s much riskier. They’ll have to solve the crime and will use all means to do so.”
“He knows what I’m doing. He saw me at the Taiwan desk. He suspects. I watched him talking to the security manager. If he lives, I’m not delivering what I have. I won’t do it. It will seal my fate.”
“What does it matter? You give up what you have, and it’s done. So you lose your job.”
“Lose my job? I’ll be arrested as a damn spy! I did this because of my family. Now what do I do?”
“You did it for money. I ask you again, if we let him go, does that compromise the mission? I don’t care about your fears. I only care about the mission. You’ll be well taken care of inside China.”
“I’ve never even been to China! I don’t speak Chinese. I don’t know anything about the country. You people said you’d take care of me.”
“And we will. Answer the question. Will this compromise the mission?”
There was a pause, then, “Yes. Yes it will. If he gets back and tells them what I rooted through, they’ll search the code. They’ll see the penetration. They’ll know what I took, and they’ll patch it. I have what you want, but if he gets back and raises an alarm with the management, it will cause the mission to fail.”
“I thought you could do this clean. No trace of penetration?”
“I can, from the machine’s perspective, but not with Clifford’s persistence. Nothing is one hundred percent. There may be a trace. I don’t think there is, but there might be. I know we’re clean from a cursory search, but I don’t know about a complete forensics scan.”
Chen considered the implications. What Jake said held a ring of truth, but Chen was seriously exposed in Australia at the moment, and thus so was the People’s Republic of China. He’d just executed a man who had been bribed by the PRC—an act that had not gone unnoticed by the Australian authorities. A luxury car dealer in Melbourne named Nick Zhao, the man had been primed to run for Parliament—the first such deep penetration the PRC had ever managed—had become scared by the stakes and had approached the Australian intelligence agencies about his recruitment.
Which was how Chen came in.
Flat-faced and broad-shouldered, with muscles that came more from work than nature, Chen was the final solution for problems the Ministry of State Security could solve no other way, and he’d been called to resolve the issue of the errant parliamentary candidate.
Zhao had been found dead in a motel room, with the cause of death still under investigation. The entire press universe in Australia was breathlessly screaming that his killing was a Chinese operation to shut him up. Which of course it was. Chen wasn’t eager to conduct another lethal operation in the land down under so soon. But this sounded like it was necessary.
He said, “You’d better have the data. If I do this, and you don’t, you won’t have to worry about being arrested as a spy. You’ll just have to worry about where you’ll be buried. It won’t be in China.”
He heard breathing for a moment, like the man was hyperventilating, then, “I have the data. I’m headed to Cairns right now. Just like you asked.”
“No aircraft. Trains only. Just like you were told.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll meet your man in Brisbane. He’ll give me the meeting site in Cairns. Just like I was told. I have it all. Just get rid of that guy.”
Chen said, “Give me his cell phone number.”
“Why? I thought you had him. Have you lost him?”
His voice beginning to drip with menace, Chen said, “Ask me another question and I’ll rip out your throat. The number.”
Jake passed it, then said, “That’s all I can do. This is your problem. Your skill set, not mine. I do the hacking. That’s all.”
Chen said, “You’ll do what I ask, period,” then hung up the phone. His female partner said, “So?”
He took a breath, looked at her, and said, “So it’s going to be the hard way.”
He got on the radio to the stationary team and said, “Capture the people at the door. We’re headed your way. I want to interrogate them.”