Battlefield 4: Countdown to War (13 page)

22

Hotel Majesty Plaza, Shanghai

Kovic slept fitfully through what was left of the night and much of the next day, plunging into deep unconsciousness then being jolted awake by the images of Louise’s remains. He’d seen dead people before, burned, shot, dismembered, detonated, and pretty much anything else that could happen to a person in a riot, insurgency, famine or war. But never someone close to him. He turned the TV and radio on low, to fill the room with noise and jam the memories while he slept. He had to rest. He would need all his energy and all his wits for what was ahead.

He surfaced at three in the afternoon, focused and horribly alive. A rainstorm had temporarily washed the air clean and the city stood out in high definition against a rare blue sky reflecting off the still slick pavements. He ordered room service and took a shower, trying to get rid of the persistent smell of smoke. Even afterwards, his hair still smelled singed.

He ate a traditional rice soup with eggs and dressed in the kit that Hannah’s goons had got him. They fitted. Maybe they had his measurements on file. Courtesy of Hannah, he had the room for one more night. What happened after that – who knew?

For Louise he felt a kind of numb grief, but at least the memory of her was part of who he was, or had once been, the man inside Kovic, who joined the Agency with a good deal more hope for the human race than he had now. But with everything else destroyed, he was in a vacuum. He was used to being other people, had inhabited eight different aliases in his life so far. But now, hollowed out by the madness of the last three days, he felt like no one at all. On the up side, he was officially dead, which for his purposes couldn’t have been more ideal. The question almost
amused him: now that he was dead, how long could he stay alive?

He dived into a VW Santana taxi and headed for the Hong Kong & Shanghai Safety Deposit Company. By now word would have gotten back to Cutler either that he had been successfully deported, or that he had died in the fire. Whichever he believed, it meant the CIA wasn’t about to go looking for him and getting in his way, at least not right away. And with the trident boys thinking that they’d nailed him in his bed, he had more than a good head start. All the same, the less time he spent on the streets the better.

He got the driver to stop first at a luggage store, where he bought a standard white collar salaryman’s ‘Dream’ briefcase, then at the side entrance of the bank, where he moved quickly through the revolving doors, the lobby and up to the security desk. He picked up a pad, wrote a name and a number on it and passed it to the blank-faced assistant. It helped that he didn’t have to say anything, and that they didn’t want him to. Coming from a world of ‘
And just how are you today, sir?
’ and ‘knowing your customer’, the absence of grovelling was always a relief. Give me Chinese service industry surliness any day, he thought.

The assistant took the pad and directed him to the eye scanner that boasted an error rate at one in ten million. But since China had a population of one point four billion maybe it was just as well they also required a palm scan, plus a good old-fashioned signature.

A minute later he was riding the elevator deep into the bowels of the bank. Another attendant met him at the lift door, handed him a key and pointed him to the wall of slim metal doors. He inserted the key, opened the door and slid out the shallow, drawer-shaped box. Just as a final touch he had added his own double combination padlock. He was shown to a small curtained cubicle with a chair and a small desk where he could lift the lid in privacy.

‘Hello, John Richards.’

John Richards’ passport photo did have him looking a bit younger, less frayed; a man who hadn’t yet had to look on the charred corpse of his lover. But then Americans seemed to age faster in Shanghai; maybe the pollution eroded their collagen, and deciphering the two
or three thousand characters needed even to read a news report screwed their eyes.

He pulled out another: Ray Nyman, South African, physical instructor. His current physique may not have quite fitted the bill but at least his scars did. And now was not a great time to be an American in China. He decided to take both, together with their matching drivers’ licences. Into his Dream case also went a fat wad of around a million yuan, nearly two hundred thousand US dollars and two debit cards, from Deutsche Bank and Credit Agricole: nice solid European institutions, each with a deposit behind them of fifty thousand dollars. Underneath those was a Sig Sauer P220 Combat TB with a couple of clips. Kovic hadn’t had much need of a weapon since he hit Shanghai, nor had Langley authorised him to keep one, but he had added it to his kit when a friend in the ATF skipped town in a hurry and left it in a drawer. He knew if he didn’t help himself someone else would, and the day might just come when he would need it. Today was that day, and probably tomorrow was too, and beyond that – maybe forever, who knew?

Even in the Tribal Area badlands of the Af–Pak border or on the mean streets of Baghdad, Kovic had had the comfort of knowing he was part of a machine, that the CIA would watch his back, and even when he got into deep shit, even though they might deny all knowledge of him, they would try to get him out. Now there was no one. Never in his whole time in the game had he felt like a fugitive. And yet this wasn’t the US or Lebanon or Afghanistan. Packing a weapon in Shanghai could land you in big trouble. He held it in his hand. It was comforting. He felt in the drawer for the suppressor and screwed it into place. It wouldn’t make that
foof
sound that Hollywood liked, but it would turn the volume down from an ear-splitting crack to something that wouldn’t frighten the horses. He checked the clips: standard eight rounds. Okay to be going on with.

The phone still had some charge in it. The service provider was Hong Kong registered, a popular one with private security operatives as it automatically erased the call log and couldn’t store contacts. It
was a device that required the user to have a good memory. Fine: he wasn’t planning on organising a party with it.

He put it all into the briefcase and headed for the exit. John Richards, aka Ray Nyman, was on his way.

Wu was waiting for him, parked across the street in his cousin’s pickup. Kovic examined the badge and burst out laughing.

‘For real that’s what it’s called, a Great Wall
Wingle
?’

Wu’s face was blank, his humiliation complete.

‘Guess you won’t be bringing one of these with you to America.’

The Chinese might be on their way to making more cars than anywhere else, but they had a way to go with naming them.

Kovic got in and turned the radio on low: a traditional music station, playing classic songs for the older generation.

‘No, no, I got Springsteen. Or you want James Brown? “Sex Machine”?’

‘Really. This is okay. So, what do you know?’

‘That there was a fire in your building. I was relieved to get your call. I thought maybe you—’

He told him about Louise. Wu looked horrified.

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘So if I come over a little vengeful you’ll know why.’

‘You think it was—?’ He patted the back of one hand with three splayed fingers like the trident.

Kovic shrugged.

‘Fire up the Wingle; we need to go find ourselves a posse.’

The pickup’s cab smelled of brand new plastic.

‘Where do you want to start?’

‘By getting rid of this smell. Open the windows, for God’s sake, and let the smog in.’

23

Jing’an District, Shanghai

Kovic sat on the roof terrace of the Wooden Box cafe, waiting. It seemed an appropriate venue for a dead man. He’d had enough bad coffee for one day so stuck with green tea. Wu sat at another table by the door, keeping watch. The blue sky had gone and purple grey cumulus was rolling in over the city like a giant roof, pressing the day’s pollution back down on its inhabitants. Maybe he should take up smoking again, just to give his lungs a change of poison.

Kovic stared at the table in front of him until he became aware of a presence, lingering nearby.

‘Hey, don’t sneak up on me like that, okay?’

Zhou’s eyes almost disappeared, enveloped by his grin.

‘Sneak up on the spy!’

His gaspy laugh was straight out of
Beavis and Butt-Head
; that and the grin were his only distinguishing features. Otherwise, he prided himself on his blandness; when his face was still it became impossible to remember. It was a brilliant cover, especially for a burglar. Zhou had done Kovic’s dirty work for several years, specialising in theft and safe breaking, which he conducted with meticulous care bordering on the obsessive. Frequently his victims never realised they had had an intruder, believing they had mislaid the missing items themselves or blaming family members or staff. Most of his jobs were carried out in broad daylight. ‘By day I am much less conspicuous,’ he explained to Kovic.

The suit he had on was an anonymous grey, but Kovic could tell it was seriously expensive.

‘Tailor made in Savile Row. I flew there specially.’

‘Maybe you should slow down.’

A thief since he could walk, Zhou had grown up on the streets of
Shanghai after his parents abandoned him to avoid the punitive fine for having more than one child. First he stole to survive, developing such a gift for it that he soon graduated to ever more sophisticated and daring thefts, culminating at the age of twelve in spending weeks studying how to fly online and stealing a light aircraft. He crashed the plane, but managed to escape from the emergency services by feigning concussion. Briefly, he worked for casino owners, stealing money from their own safes so they could avoid taxes. But after a bloody argument over his rate he resolved never to work for criminals again. He came into Kovic’s life when they chose the same moment to break into a Singaporean arms dealer’s penthouse. Kovic had set off the alarm and Zhou switched it off. From then on he outsourced that part of his work to Zhou, who also proved to be an expert at scaling buildings, as well as claiming to have an inbuilt sonar-like sixth sense for infrared motion sensors.

Kovic told him about what he had in mind to begin with.

‘There will be more once we’ve achieved stage one.’

Zhou shrugged. ‘Sounds good to me.’

‘Beyond that it may turn ugly. I think the people I’m going up against may make life very hard for us. You going to be okay with that?’

The
Beavis and Butt-Head
laugh suggested he was.

24

Vaughan’s eyes fluttered open, closed, then opened again – wide. He jerked his head to the left, but there was no sign of – what was his name? A blond anyhow. He was supposed to stay the whole night, that was what he had paid for. But the boy appeared to have untied himself and gone. Something wasn’t right. He could hear music drifting from the ambient entertainment module under the window. ‘Strangers in the Night’, it sounded like. Sinatra? This wasn’t on his playlist. He felt for his glasses: not there. He reached further for the remote that controlled the light and pressed it, but nothing happened. Something gripped him by the wrist.

‘Allow me,’ said a disembodied voice.

The lights in the room glowed and brightened. Vaughan twisted his head round to glimpse a blurred face inches from his. Another hand brought his glasses on to his nose and Zhou’s face came into sharp focus. How could this be happening? His security system was state of the art. Then he saw another face – one he recognised instantly but hadn’t expected to see ever again.

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘Not quite, though we are both risen from the dead.’

‘Steig!’

His voice was hoarse. He had been sleeping with his mouth open again.

‘Steig’s taking a nap,’ Kovic explained from the sofa.

The improbably named Steig, a Thai boxer, was curled up in a foetal position by the bathroom door. Wren and Sparrow, the other two members of Vaughan’s security detail, were conscious, trussed together by Wu with thin wire round their necks. Very painful, even just to swallow, he had warned them, before stuffing their mouths
with some of Vaughan’s socks. Vaughan tried to raise his head but Kovic pressed it down.

‘What have you done with the boy?’

‘How touching to see your chivalry hasn’t deserted you. He’s on her way to his next appointment. I gave him an extra fifty for the nasty marks your chains made. You really are a nasty little pervert, Victor.’

Vaughan’s indignation suddenly rose to the surface.

‘You’ve got a bloody nerve, you know.’ His jowls shook when he spoke.

Kovic smiled.

‘Yes, I know. So! Let’s pick up where we left off in your office, before we were inconveniently interrupted by – let’s see, a car chase, arson and murder.’

Vaughan’s face was now a deep red.

‘Look here, I haven’t the foggiest idea—’

Behind the bluster, Kovic could read his fear.

‘Your people forgot to look under the bedclothes. That was my girlfriend you murdered and torched.’

Vaughan’s voice rose half an octave.

‘I can assure you I had nothing to do with it. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.’

Kovic got up and sat on the edge of the bed, closer. Vaughan saw something shiny catch the light, something shiny and pointed. Zhou and Wu held him while Kovic laid the knife against Vaughan’s upper lip, the blade resting on the inner edge of his left nostril.

‘Who hired you?’

Vaughan blinked several times but did not reply.

‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me.’ Kovic bent closer. ‘Who hired you, you upper-class paedo cunt?’

‘Look, I don’t know anything. I’m not – I’m not important, you know that.’

‘It’s a pretty good job they did, excellent reconstruction.’ He glanced at Zhou. ‘Silicon septum wrapped in skin from the thigh or upper arm; sorts out the ravages of early cocaine use. He was a bit of a wild boy in his youth, weren’t you, Victor?’

Kovic pressed the blade a little; a millimetre more and the septum would come away from its moorings.

There was a girlish scream from the bed, followed by the honeyed tones of Ol’ Blue Eyes.

‘Think we’ve exhausted the Sinatra, now we’ve all got to know each other. Take your pick, Wu.’

Wu found a remote and skimmed through the selection before settling on a robust house beat.

‘Please! I beg you!’ Vaughan was hyperventilating now, in danger of passing out. Kovic moved back.

‘Please, there must be something – we could help each other!’

The words tumbled out in an undignified babble, the urbane imperiousness of their previous meeting long gone.

‘I mean I didn’t really want the job; it’s not what I do, you know that. Though it wasn’t really a
job
– it was more a favour than anything. You know how it is here, you get into these situations, they run rings round us Westerners. Before you know what’s going on, you’ve agreed . . . they’re so
tricky
.’

Kovic glanced at Zhou, his expression showing a flicker of amusement at the Englishman’s frantic explanation. He glanced at his watch.

‘We really need to get moving. Got to cut this short, I’m afraid.’

Two things Kovic had learned about torture. If you’re going to use it, get on with it. Spin it out and they start making stuff up. Databases in Langley groaned with interminable, improvised confessions, admissions and denunciations, the product of long drawn out ‘enhanced interrogations’.

He pressed the blade down again. Blood spurted from Vaughan’s nose. He tried to move his hands but Wu had tethered them with wire.

‘Shall we try a name?’

Vaughan tried to swallow.

‘It, well, it’s not that easy to say. It’s all done through intermediaries; you know how it is. You never know who’s behind who. Chinese whispers, and all that.’

Kovic looked wearily at Zhou, who rolled his eyes theatrically. Kovic turned away.

‘Guy’s a time waster. Unzip him from the nose down.’

‘No, no! Please!’ Vaughan’s eyes bulged and his whole body shook violently, his protests slurred by the blood running into his mouth.

‘Oh God, no. Please. If we . . . if . . . could your government guarantee my safe passage? In return for my cooperation?’

You had to hand it to the guy. Even in his darkest hour, his chutzpah never failed him.

‘I think, let’s see – oh yeah, the murdered Marines might somewhat count against you.’

‘Look, all we did was prepare the artwork and arrange the protest. The rest – that was—’

‘I’m about to take apart your face. What name can you be so scared of coming up with?’

His mouth was open, trembling.

‘Tsu Yuntao.’

Kovic repeated the name, and looked at Zhou and then Wu. It meant nothing to them.

He moved the knife from under Vaughan’s nose and placed the point just under his bulging left eye. It would have given him some grim satisfaction to continue, but he knew he’d be wasting it on the wrong man.

‘There, that wasn’t so hard.’

Kovic lifted the knife away, wiped the blade on the pillow and slipped it into Vaughan’s pyjama pocket.

‘In case you want to slash your wrists after we’re gone. Where will I find Tsu?’

‘Please believe me when I say I don’t know. Where Tsu’s concerned the less one knows the better.’

Kovic reached over and switched off his recorder.

‘When I find him, which I will, I’ll make sure he gets a copy of this.’

Vaughan’s voice was practically soprano. ‘Please! I gave you what you came for. Have some mercy, for God’s sake.’

‘I’m all out of mercy. We need a location.’

Kovic nodded to Zhou who pulled off the quilt. In the king-sized bed Vaughan looked diminished, deflated by fear and the loss of his prime characteristic, his hubris. He sat up in the patch of his own urine and tried to dab his nose with his sleeve.

‘Can you at least take off the wire? Please?’

China’s a big country. Where is your client?’

Kovic led Vaughan towards the open window. He undid the wire and put a hand on his shoulder.

‘Where?’ he whispered.

‘Look – there’s no point. You’ll never get to him. He’s up in the mountains somewhere.’

‘China has a lot of mountains. Which ones?’

I don’t know! He operates remotely – never appears.’

A wisp of breeze rippled the curtains.

‘We’ll see you out,’ said Kovic.

Vaughan looked from one to the other.

‘What? What d’you mean?’

Kovic nodded at the open window.

‘They say most people black out before they hit the ground.’