Battlefield 4: Countdown to War (11 page)

‘I was fleeing for my life. If you examine the footage more closely – the unedited version – you might notice some of your comrade citizens were trying to kill me.’

‘They are criminal degenerates with whom you had been consorting, presumably with the intention of procuring narcotics.’

‘I don’t do drugs: it’s in my contract.’

‘Or prostitutes.’

‘I am happily, serially monogamous.’
Or I was
.

She raised a hand, as if stopping traffic.

‘Agent Kovic, America may think it can trample all over other countries with impunity, leaving a trail of destruction and – chaos.’ She took a deep breath and almost hissed into his face. ‘
Not China!
’

She paused, lowered her tone and rebooted herself.

‘For the last six years your purpose here has been to lure citizens into the corrupt practice of betraying their country by stealing secrets in return for monetary gain. Your presence has been closely monitored and many of the traitors who have collaborated have been punished appropriately.’

It was true. Some of his more expendable sources had been found out, usually because they were careless with the money he paid them. Instead of being parsimonious, as it certainly was with its own salaried employees, the Agency allowed agents to be generous towards their assets, so he could splash out hundreds and even thousands of dollars on intel that was frequently low level or unprovable and sometimes obviously false.

He stared at her, puzzled. ‘You know what? I don’t think you really know why I’m here. I think you’ve been told to bring me in, but you don’t know why. I think this whole interrogation is a sham. You’ve got your file and your video, but this is just a denunciation.’

She didn’t move, didn’t even blink, but her sudden stillness said it all. He was right. What did she know about the border incident? Did she even know he’d been there? Or about Vaughan’s
involvement with the demonstration, why he had had to run for his life?

‘What do they want? I’ll give it to you. I want to go home.’

She stared at him as if she was at a loss to know how to answer.

Kovic felt his patience running out. ‘Look, where is all this going? Despite the chemically induced nap, I’m seriously tired. It’s been an extremely long day and I’d like to go home and have that shower.’

She stood up and glared at him, a flicker of satisfaction lifting her expression. ‘You are going to get your wish.’ She closed the file.

‘You are going home.’

It took a moment to sink in.

‘You are booked on the Delta flight to Washington DC at 8.30 a.m. tomorrow.’

18

French Concession, Shanghai

This had to be some kind of mistake. Cutler would have to intervene, smooth it out. Chinese agents in the US were frequently in trouble for crossing lines. But expulsion . . . Surely this whole charade was just a slapped wrist. The metal door swung open and the two suited heavies from the Benz appeared and began to un-cuff him. One had his clothes in a plastic bag. The woman got up and started towards the door. Suit One hauled Kovic to his feet and started pulling off the jump suit.

He yelled after the departing interrogator.

‘Hey! You can’t do this without notifying the US Consulate.’

She turned and smiled thinly.

‘We already did. Before we picked you up.’

Shit. Few things got to Kovic like the thought of going home. He wasn’t ready. He had stuff to do.

‘You have to allow them the opportunity to make a formal objection.’

‘They confirmed no objection was being raised. Perhaps your behaviour today was an embarrassment. You seem to make trouble and draw attention to yourself wherever you go. Hardly the correct behaviour of even a mediocre agent. They must be very disappointed to have wasted all those tax dollars on your training.’

That cunt Cutler had hung him out to dry.

‘You will be escorted to your place of residence where you will be permitted to collect essentials for the journey. Then you will be taken straight to Pudong airport and on to the flight for Washington DC. You will never return to China.’

This wasn’t right. There were always deals to be done. Nothing was ever final and in Shanghai there was always the option of the
cash offer, even to the most upstanding zealot. Even on the tarmac, at the bottom of the airline stairs. He stared at her. She was resolute, something unflinching in her determined look, as if compromise had never been in her vocabulary. Perhaps his cover as a crap agent had been too convincing. She didn’t know what he had.

‘Can we talk?’

‘We just did.’

She turned away and disappeared out of the room. The suits frogmarched him out and they retraced their steps to the Benz. This time they put him in the front passenger seat and cuffed him to the grab rail on the dash. They hovered outside the vehicle, smoking and spitting, splinters of their exchange floating towards the car.

‘. . . fucking Daddy’s girl
. . .’

‘
. . . Chief was overruled, forced to take her on
. . .’

‘
. . . fuck up sooner or later and then
. . .’

‘
. . . back to Harvard
. . .’

Kovic shut down his thoughts and strained to listen. Between bursts of sadistic laughter they swapped descriptions of the indecent acts they wanted to perform on their colleague.

‘
. . . how much more I can stick
. . .’

‘
. . . like to stick it right up her, show who’s boss
.’

They both thought this was hilarious, their blubbery chests shaking.

Kovic’s mind went into hyperdrive. Maybe there was an arrangement he could come to with the suits to help them get rid of her, like if he escaped in such a way that it was her fault and he gave them some financial inducement; operatives at their level were always susceptible to a bribe. The lift doors opened and the woman strutted towards them.

They were back on the street. The clock in the Benz said 02.35. The woman was driving; the heavies were in the back. All Kovic’s exhaustion from the day had been extinguished by the surge of adrenalin at the prospect of his fate. He had to think of something, make something happen. He couldn’t jump for it, but maybe he could head butt her and cause a traffic accident, create some mayhem, get free and make a run for it. The guys in back didn’t have
their belts on. A decent impact would deploy the airbags, but she’d be crushed by the guy behind.

Despite the late hour, the streets the traffic was solid. Even with the siren there was no way their path would clear. This city never slept. He looked at her behind the wheel, the men who hated her sitting in back. Was she really such a hard-ass? What had she done to deserve such hostility or was it just because she was a woman?

Then it came to him.

‘Huang Shuyi.’

There was no reaction.

‘Daughter of Han Zaiohong. Hannah to your friends in Cambridge.’

Two years earlier, Langley had forwarded a request from the FBI who were examining a group of students from Shanghai suspected of espionage. He had done some background checks. Two were part of a complex hacking operation that Kovic argued should be allowed to run in order to trace whoever they were working for. Huang Shuyi was one of them. They all shared a house in Cambridge, Mass. The Feds had bugged it but were having trouble deciphering their dialect. Kovic was asked to listen in. What he discovered was one of the household, a kid named Rai, had contracted AIDS. Much of their communication was about how to get him help without tipping off his family. The shame of exposure was literally a fate worth than death.

‘I’m sorry for what happened to your friend at Harvard.’

Again no response.

‘By the way, you should change the meatloaves on the back seat there. They were saying some pretty disgusting things about you back in the car park.’

They passed by People’s Square. The protest was still going, with fewer people now, carrying traditional candlelit lanterns on poles.

‘Looks like it isn’t America’s week.’

What did she really know about the border incident? He pressed on.

‘Guess we really screwed that one up.’

She shrugged. ‘American stupidity plays into the hands of reactionary elements.’

Interesting response, thought Kovic. ‘Reactionary? Surely those kids are the true patriots.’

He had nothing left to lose; she had shone a tiny light into her own thoughts.

‘I was there, on the border; the only one who survived. Your bosses must know that – how come they didn’t tell you? Don’t they trust you? That’s probably the real reason why you’re deporting me.’

She didn’t answer. He had gone too far. His thoughts drifted away to his home. The stuff he had accumulated.

‘Do I get to pack?’

‘Just your hygiene requirements. The rest will be confiscated.’

He thought about Louise; they had parted on a bad note. He should at least say goodbye. Hell, she’d be better off without him, she had put up with so much. Without him she’d be able to get on with her life, get married, raise a couple of mortgages. He was just holding her back.

A couple of fire trucks whooshed past, sirens blaring. In the distance he could see a helicopter searchlight beaming down less than a mile ahead. Hannah swerved into their slipstream.

They were heading in the same direction, towards the French Concession. The way ahead was clearer now and she made a good job of keeping up with the emergency vehicles. If he could cause some kind of accident. This could be his last chance. When they stopped, whoever opened his door could be put out of action for a few moments but with all three of them it would be pretty hopeless. But as they got nearer the plan ceased to matter. The helicopter’s searchlight was playing on a column of brown smoke funnelling up into the equally smoky night sky. It appeared to be coming from the area where he lived.

One of the suits spoke up.

‘We should leave this – go straight to the airport.’

But Hannah didn’t answer.

Fires weren’t unusual in the French Concession. Cramped accommodation, the fashion for paper lanterns, the common proximity
of laundry to gas rings and – even more popular – bad electrical connections with several appliances run off a single light socket all made the whole place a bonfire waiting to be lit. But this one was bigger than he had ever seen. Shanghai’s firemen were notoriously inept when it came to dealing with domestic blazes and none too willing to risk their lives for some careless citizen who’d left the gas on.

Hannah pulled up a block short of the narrow street that led to his building. It was clogged with fire trucks, a large crowd pressed up against them, paying no attention to a cop shouting at them to disperse. The car door on his side now opened and one of the suits unlocked his cuffs from the dash. He should take advantage of the mayhem. But his desire to flee was fading, overtaken by curiosity and a rising sense of dread. It was now clear that the smoke was coming from his courtyard. As a clutch of firemen in hi-vis green jumpsuits were attempting to manoeuvre a ladder into the cramped space, a flash of flame shot into the air from an exploding gas canister. The firemen retreated.

Two policemen were restraining someone who was trying to enter the building. Kovic recognised him as Ren, the son in law of one of the old ladies. He was screaming and gesticulating wildly. The cops who were restraining him pushed him back and he fell, slipping on the paving that was awash with fire hose water.

This was his chance. He whirled round. One of the suits lost his grip and he slammed his free fist into the face of the other. Hannah gripped him by the collar with both hands but he knocked her sideways using all his weight. The crowd engulfed her. But he didn’t run. Instead he threw himself at the gateway into the courtyard, kicking out at a cop who tried to tackle him, and dashed into the smoke. He could hear one of the old ladies screaming from one of the inner rooms. The door was jammed from the heat. Where the fuck were the firemen? Probably consulting the manual. He shouldered the door four, maybe five times before it gave, his lungs bursting, his eyes streaming. He plunged into the smoky darkness and tripped over a soft mound: his elderly neighbours, huddled together below the smoke.

‘Get up. Come!’

He scooped up one of them but she could barely stand. He hitched an arm over his shoulder and dragged her forward as he reached for the other. Both of them collapsed back on to the ground. He bent low to take a lungful of the least smoky air just inches from the ground, then grabbed one of the women by the shoulders and dragged her out of the door and into the courtyard, coughing and yelling to the firemen to help. A group of them rushed forward as he dashed back through the door, retraced his steps and brought out the other woman who was now unconscious.

Through the smoke he glimpsed his own door. This morning he had locked it. Now it was open.

19

There was no question where the fire had started. Fires, like explosions, left tell-tale burn patterns that could be deciphered, ugly shapes he remembered all too well from his time in Afghanistan. It had started in his bedroom, right on his bed in fact, the remains of which still reeked of gasoline. Despite the cramped conditions, he was a hoarder of books and magazines, thanks to an old fashioned weakness for print on paper. This was deliberate. Someone had made a pyre of papers on the bed. Although the fire was out now, everything sodden from being hosed down, the base of the bed was still warm, the jet-black charred wood frame incongruously reminiscent of the glistening coat of his parents’ black Labrador. Nothing much of the mattress remained. With mounting apprehension he parted the damp clumps of ash.

Most people would not recognise what he now saw. But Kovic wasn’t most people. He had seen things that he was glad most people hadn’t. He had entered freshly bombed and burned dwellings in search of crucial intelligence, methodically working through the pockets of the dead when their bodies, sometimes in pieces, were still warm, coolly focused on the job in hand, not thinking about the horror of what surrounded him. Today his head was in another place, not primed to receive the horrible truth of what he was now looking at.

He turned towards the scorched bedside table, and a pair of sunglasses, melted and fused with the surface as if they had been cooked on a hotplate. And something else caught his eye beside the table, on the floor, too low to have been caught by the flame and almost intact but for a scorch mark; side by side, bright as day, the earrings.

Louise had come back.