There was no way to beat them all.
And the room exploded in a cyclone of violence.
He thrust a snap kick into the man in the stall, slamming his body against the tiles hard enough to crack his skull, heard what sounded like meat being slapped, then caught something in the corner of his eye flying across the room. A body hammered into the sink counter with the crunch of his spine loud in the enclosed space.
He whirled around, fists raised, and saw the fourth attacker on his knees, a black man with the shape of a fireplug snapping the Triad guy’s elbow against the joint until it broke, the noise sounding like the crack of a dry limb.
The Triad man screamed, and the final intruder hammered him in the temple with a sledge of a fist, dropping him to the ground.
Paul took a fighting stance, unsure of what was happening.
The man who’d laid out his attacker, a tall, ropey Caucasian with long black hair, said, “We didn’t come here to fight you. Let’s go before someone else shows up.”
Paul said, “Who are you?”
The black man said, “Do you really think that’s the question right now? We’re the ones who just saved your ass.”
Panting, Paul nodded and said, “What do you want?”
The tall man said, “You. Follow us, if you want to live.”
Chapter 77
Chen Ju-Long waited for the bleeps and glitches of the encrypted call to connect, absently staring out the window of one of the tallest buildings in the world and seeing the landscape of Taipei spilling out below him. The biggest operation of his entire career was coming to a head, and he was feeling the pressure.
He saw movement, looked up, and waved a hand at Zhi. “Tell Bobcat he can leave the bathroom.”
She nodded and left the room. After being rerouted from over a hundred mirrors around Asia, Chen finally heard the phone connect to his control, still in Australia.
“Is this Tiger?”
Chen said, “Yes. This is Tiger. Operation MANTIS is now in motion. I have a short window to turn it off. Do I have execute authority?”
“What is the risk of compromise?”
“Negligible. Ocelot just left the office. Bobcat is still here. As far as I can tell, they’re both clean. They’re meeting the day after tomorrow with the contact from NCIST to implant the malware.”
“Is the contact a risk?”
“Only in so much as he believes Ocelot is cleared to access the platform. Bobcat works for the company that developed the algorithm, and Ocelot has the clearance through his work here in Taiwan and the badge we produced for him. If the contact suspects either is up to something nefarious, he becomes a risk, but right now, he’s clean.”
“There is another risk. Ocelot himself is not clean. He is under scrutiny by the National Security Bureau for reasons we don’t understand. We believe we’ve tied off the knot, but I want you to make sure.”
Taken aback, Chen said, “What? He just left my office. He didn’t say a word about that.”
“He doesn’t know. We have other assets who determined his status. The threat is being eliminated by another team, but they aren’t professional. I don’t trust them.”
“Who?”
“Triad. We want it to look like an internal matter, but I need you to ensure completion.”
“Me? I can’t make it look like an internal dispute. Why me?”
“Because we don’t trust them. They are working for money, and might be running both sides of the fence. They are not Fifth Bureau. I’ll send you a target package. If it alerts after tonight, it means they missed and he is your target. Do you understand?”
Chen saw Jake Shu enter the room, head bowed, Zhi behind him. He said, “Understood. But I’ll need men. My mission in Taiwan was just supposed to be as an escort, not as a kinetic arm.”
“We have two deep assets in Tainan. They are coming to Taipei tonight. They will contact you.”
“Are they any good?”
“As good as you. And they know the target. They identified him when Ocelot gained his badge.”
Chen pointed at a chair, telling Jake to sit. Into the phone he said, “So is MANTIS a go?”
“Yes. But we need to be able to control it. Can we do that?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. This is outside the scope of my abilities. Stand by.”
He held the phone against his chest and turned to Jake, saying, “If you get this in the system, how will it be initiated? Is it on a timeline, or is it triggered?”
Jake said, “I don’t have any idea what you mean. All I have is the data. I didn’t build it. My job was just to bring it to you.”
Chen bored into Jake’s eyes and said, “But you’re the computer expert. You aren’t a simple drug mule. You make the drugs, correct? So you can manipulate this and make the system reflect something that isn’t happening? Like you did with the F-35?”
“I . . . I suppose. But I didn’t create this data, unlike the F-35.”
Chen looked at Zhi and she went behind him, stroking his cheek with her nail. Jake’s eyes flew open and he said, “I can do it. I can do it. I just need a powerful computer.”
Chen smiled and said, “So you can manipulate this like you did in Japan, and then build a trigger? That can be accessed outside of the system?”
Jake’s eyes went all over the room, looking for a way out. He said, “A trigger for what? I have no idea what you’re asking.”
“I’m asking if you can manipulate the data to do what we want. To make their systems think something is happening when it’s not. Just like you did in Japan.”
Chen saw the sweat break out on Jake’s head, understanding that he was in much deeper than he ever wanted to be. He said, “I can’t promise anything. I have to see the code, but I need real computing power. Not just a desktop system.”
Chen looked at him for a moment, then returned to the phone, saying, “Okay, he can do it, and we can initiate via a remote trigger, but we need computing power. Can you give us that?”
He heard nothing for a second, then, “What do you mean?”
“I mean Bobcat needs to work on the data with the ability to manipulate it. He can’t do it on an office computer.”
Chen heard his control say something muffled in the background. He said, “Are you still there?”
“Yes. I’m still here. I’m talking to others. Stand by.”
Chen waited, the clock in the room slowly ticking, the only sound in the office. Eventually, he heard, “We can get you the computing power. He will have to interface with the Twelfth Bureau in Beijing. Can you do that from your location?”
Chen looked at Jake and said, “Can you do this remotely? From a computer here? Send it to our facility and use their computing power?”
Jake nodded, saying, “If the pipe is wide, I can do it. Do you have a T1 connection here?”
Chen rolled his eyes and said, “I have no idea, but we’re paying an enormous amount for the space in this tower, so I’d say yes.”
Jake nodded, looking sick. He said, “Then I can do it, with remote access from the far end.”
Chen started to say something into the phone when Jake waved his hand in the air. He paused. “What now? Can you do it or not?”