Battlefield 4: Countdown to War (20 page)

42

Kovic lay face down on the helipad, surrounded by guards, their rifle muzzles inches from his head and a boot pressing on the small of his back.

‘Give me a freakin’ break, guys – I’m hardly going anywhere.’

None of them showed any understanding of what he was saying. He couldn’t see because they had forced him to face the ground but he could hear more men being rushed towards him.

‘Find someone who speaks English, quick.’

A minute passed before the English speaker was found.

‘State your name and business.’

He waved the passport.

‘Ray Nyman, from South Africa. I heard Mr Tsu is recruiting.’

He was banking on this being more plausible than most covers he could have chosen, now the world was awash with former South African Special Forces looking for private security work.

‘Okay, I’m hearing you
,’ came Qi’s voice in the receiver buried in his ear.

‘Look you guys, go easy on me, okay? It was a lot harder getting in here than I bargained for and I’m as good as dead so you can do pretty much what you want with me. Lock me up if you have to, but a bowl of rice wouldn’t go amiss, or better still, a nice juicy ostrich steak to remind me of home.’

They hauled him to his feet.

‘Thanks. You gonna take me to the boss?’

Without a word they frogmarched him towards a small metal door that didn’t look like the visitors’ entrance. As they got near, another guard on the inside opened the door and they entered a dank, dark tunnel, which had been carved out of the mountain itself. The
only light was from a series of naked bulbs attached to a cord that was pinned to the roof. Through another door was a row of cages. The stench of human waste caught in his throat. At first it seemed that none of them were occupied until he noticed what appeared to be a bundle on the floor of one which moved slightly.

‘Hey, I wanna see Mr Tsu. I’ve got serious skills here, man. Hey—!’

‘Be quiet. Stay here.’

They pushed him through the mesh door into a cage and locked it behind him.

‘Hey, how about some of that famous Chinese hospitality?’

The guards turned and left. He whispered to Qi but, of course, there was no answer.

‘Well at least I’m in,’ he said to himself. He examined the cage. There was a bucket, and a bunk made of the same mesh as the cage. The floor was disturbingly sticky. He wasn’t sure which category this mission came under: impressively courageous or just stupid. Right now it felt like the latter. For all he knew Tsu might not even be here. But what other options did he have? What sustained him was the thought that he could very easily be sitting at a desk back in Langley, just at the moment a very attractive thought, but not once he had replayed the events of the last few days. Eight thousand miles wouldn’t have taken him away from the reality of what had happened to the men on the border, and to Louise.

He remembered something he was once told by a Vietnam vet who had survived four years in a Vietcong prison camp. At first the idea of getting back home sustained him; he felt motivated to hang on in there and when he got back to marry the girl who was waiting for him and take up the job that was lined up for him in her dad’s auto repair shop. But, as time wore on, something in him knew that future was receding. The war and imprisonment had killed that part of him. So to fend off despair he focused everything on vengeance. And when the opportunity came to escape, instead of getting the hell out and going home, he went rogue, and with a couple of fellow inmates wreaked revenge on their captors. If Kovic needed any further inspiration, it was in that story.

After an hour the lights went out. There was nothing to do but
try and sleep, but after about three hours all the lights came back on and two guards appeared. They marched him to a shower room, gestured for him to strip and wash. He pretended not to understand in the hope of picking up some useful comment. The water was tepid but welcome. He dried himself on a small, stained cloth and they gave him a green jump suit to put on and some rope-soled slippers.

‘Do I get to eat?’

Neither of them replied. He made an eating motion but there was no reaction. He was seriously hungry. They marched him out through the tunnel and into the courtyard. It was dark outside; cloud shrouding the mountain fogged the floodlights so they cast ghostly rays. This time he was unshackled and allowed to walk without being held, but when he glanced at the watchtower to his left a hand reached out and gripped his neck, turning his head away.

‘Okay, washed and dressed for dinner,’ he mumbled as if to himself but in the hope Qi was listening.

‘Thank God: where were you? ’

‘Taking a nap.’

They paused at a huge pair of varnished dark wooden doors, knocked and waited. Kovic heard automated bolts slide back and one of the doors opened. They passed down a stone-floored corridor decorated with fabulous ancient tapestries, Han Dynasty depictions of warriors on horseback, worth millions. Through another pair of heavy doors was a room that seemed to be constructed entirely out of grey marble that reminded Kovic uncomfortably of a tomb.

A lone figure stood with his back to him, smoking. Without turning round he waved the guards away. Kovic stood and waited.

‘What do you want?’

‘Just looking for work, sir.’

‘How did you get here?’

The voice was so low it was almost inaudible, the English fluent with an American accent.

‘Climbed, sir. It’s a hobby.’

‘South African?’

‘Born and bred, sir.’

‘Speak some Afrikaans?’

‘Daar was eendag ‘n woud

aan die kant van die son,

die maan is ‘n flou olielamp

saans brand honderde kersies . . .’

‘What’s that?’

‘“
Hansie en Grietjie”
– Hansel and Gretel. First poem I learned at school. And the last.’ Kovic gave a little chuckle, which Tsu didn’t share.

Slowly he turned; Kovic felt his innards go cold. He hoped to be in the presence of the man who had sent his killers to the border. But the profile was unmistakable. Tsu himself was the assassin – no question. His profile, the slight stoop as if his neck had been broken some time ago and had never fully straightened, and the tattoo on his left, not his right wrist like the others he had seen. He must have descended from his mountain retreat especially for that mission. He gestured for Kovic to sit, exposing the tattoo under his cuff as he did. Kovic sat. It was all he could do to keep his composure – and his cover.

‘You don’t look white enough.’

‘My father emigrated to Jo’burg from Athens. My mother’s Cape Coloured.’

‘What would I want with a
lǎowài
?’

‘I’ve seen guys in Hong Kong with white muscle: drivers, minders. It’s a fashion statement.’

‘The fashion is for Anglo Saxons. You’re too dark.’

‘I can speak the lingo a good deal better than most.’ He recited a few lines of Mandarin.

Tsu’s gaze hovered somewhere above his head. Despite the lack of eye contact, Kovic could feel himself being sized up.

‘Ever killed anyone?’

‘A few.’

‘Where?’

‘Soweto. Then Liberia, Sierra Leone, all the shitholes in Africa.’

‘So you think you are capable of serving me. Would you kill your fellow man – to order?

Kovic shrugged.

‘It’s all the same to me.’

Tsu came up very close and peered into his eyes. He wasn’t all Chinese, that much Kovic could tell. His features were too pointed. It was a hollow stare that emitted supreme confidence and deathliness all at once. Kovic wondered for how many this look had been the last thing they had seen.

Tsu turned away. ‘Show me what you can do.’

He snapped his fingers. A door opened and one of the guards entered, dragging what Kovic thought at first was a large animal on a long chain. It tried to move on all fours but its limbs wouldn’t work properly. It was a grey brown colour; its back was mottled and scarred. The guard carried a whip in his other hand and with this he lashed the creature’s back with the whip so it jolted upright. Then Kovic realised – it was human, a naked, horribly beaten male, grey with dirt, the hair on his head caked and matted, with pinkish bald patches where tufts had been wrenched from his scalp. Judging by the length of his beard and the way his long hair was matted into semi-dreadlocks, he had been imprisoned for some considerable time. The remnants of shirtsleeves clung to his back, the cuff s of which flapped emptily at the end of each arm. If the man still had any hands Kovic couldn’t see them. The guard, oozing contempt, put on a show for his master of kicking his prisoner hard in the stomach and wrenching the chain as he shouted something indecipherable. The man convulsed; a dribble of bloody spit hung from his half open mouth. He made no noise except hoarse breaths. The guard jerked the chain and dragged the man to a point about fifteen feet from Kovic.

Tsu came round the table and stood beside Kovic. From his tunic he took a Glock and raised it to Kovic’s temple.

‘Stand and face them.’

Kovic stood, his heart smashing at the inside of his ribcage. Tsu kept the Glock pressed against Kovic’s head. With his other hand he produced an identical gun and handed it to him.

‘There’s one bullet. Let’s see what you’re made of.’

The guard tugged the chain again and the man knelt upright. His eyes swam in Kovic’s direction but they didn’t focus. Now that
he knew it was Tsu who had administered the fatal shots on the border, Kovic knew he would not hesitate to pull the trigger. Kovic had been in a few firefights, but had only killed in what he reasoned was self-defence.
I should put the poor bastard out of his misery,
he thought.
And anyhow, what choice do I have?

He clicked off the safety and raised his arm. The prisoner slumped a little and the guard lashed his back with the whip so he jolted upright. Without moving his head, Kovic glanced at Tsu whose eyes were focused on his face. No chance of swinging round and taking a shot, no matter how quick his reflexes were. He aimed at the slouching figure. The guard jerked the chain that was attached to a metal collar round the man’s neck and whipped him again on the back. Kovic looked at the prisoner, who was barely conscious, and the guard who was frothing with hate. He aimed, squeezed. His hand jolted with the recoil. The guard’s head jerked sideways as the bullet burst open his neck just above the Adam’s apple, his cap tipped back off his head and he sank slowly to his knees as if the life were ebbing out of him feet first.

Kovic turned his gaze back to Tsu to leave him in no doubt which man he had aimed at.

‘What’s the matter? Didn’t I get the right one?’

43

Tsu’s mouth stretched wide. His eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas and he let out a long hyena-like laugh that was like nothing Kovic had ever heard before. Eventually the laugh subsided.

‘Interesting choice.’

Kovic said nothing. He gazed at the poor prisoner, who was trying to comprehend what had happened. Tsu took the empty Glock from him and pressed a button on the wall.

‘Amusing, but also very revealing.’

Two more guards rushed in, then slid to a halt when they saw their dead comrade.

‘Your cover is absurd. I can tell that you are an American. You’re fatally compromised; you’ve allowed yourself to be infected by a naive sense of fair play, hence your siding with the victim, the little guy. You want to help the downtrodden, bring liberty and justice for all, blah, blah, blah. You’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t help the downtrodden; I help the powerful become more powerful.’

Tsu was right; he had blown it. Kovic turned and faced him. There were many things he had done in the line of duty that he wasn’t proud of, that he would prefer to forget if his mind allowed it. He had bent and broken the rules and made up some of his own along the way. But he had never killed a defenceless man. He levelled his gaze at Tsu.

‘And you can shoot a man in the head when he’s lying wounded in the snow. What kind of “helping the powerful” is that?’

Tsu snorted contemptuously, but when he looked at Kovic again the lofty disdain had faded from his face. The retort had hit home. He could see Tsu’s thoughts whirring.

Well, Kovic thought to himself, at least I’ve got in front of the
monster. But he knew the truth was he had fucked up.

Outside, the courtyard was filled with the sound of another helicopter preparing to land. Floodlights came on and a landing crew moved into position. Tsu pressed the button. Two more guards rushed in.

‘Clear that away,’ he barked at them. ‘And take this one back to the cells as well.’ He picked up the gun he had given Kovic and smashed him across the face with the grip. ‘Have him prepared for questioning.’

44

‘Qi, you clocking this?’

There was no reply on the transmitter at first. Then Qi’s voice, low.

‘
You okay? ’

‘Been better. I’ll be out of range for a while but try to stay online. You got eyes on the arrivals?’

‘Yeah, captured on camera, checking the IDs. Some VIP and his entourage. How are you going to get out of this? ’

‘No idea yet. If I don’t make it out, take everything you have to Huang Shuyi at the MSS. Record everything you can. Wu should recce the cable car, see if it’s viable for exfil.’

Qi signed off .

There was no point in alarming them and the last thing he wanted right now was rescuing. He wanted to see who had arrived on the helicopter, but just as the door was being opened, with two of Tsu’s henchmen in attendance, his head was twisted away from the view. All he caught was the gleam of the highly polished finish on the machine and a carpet being rolled out across the rain swept courtyard. A guard hustled him forward.

‘Hey, easy, okay?’

The butt of the guard’s gun slammed into the side of his head and he blacked out.

He came to, trying not to focus on the phrase ‘prepared for questioning’. He was in another cheerless, windowless room, again with one bare bulb for illumination. In the centre was a thick wooden pillar that looked like it had been part of the original structure. On it were several metal rings of the sort found in a stable. There was a metal band round both of his wrists that was attached to a chain that tethered him to the pillar.

Alone in this dank cell, doubt began to gnaw at him. What had he achieved? He had risked the lives of three good men on this crazy mission. He had gotten access to his adversary’s hideout and come face to face with him. But that was it. Now he was powerless and about to be tortured by a sadistic killer. Self-doubt, an alien sensation he barely recognised, engulfed him. He cursed his own impetuousness. He remembered some comments of his instructors at the Farm.
Too headstrong, can take things to extremes, drives too fast at obstacles, a reckless
appetite for risk that needs to be reined in.
It was all true, and he hadn’t changed. For all those reasons he was here now gambling with his life – and those of his crew – on an encounter with an adversary who would almost certainly destroy him.

He thought of Cutler, his head propped up on his fingertips, shaking his head in dismay. Glad to be rid of him no doubt, relieved – even happy – in the misguided assumption that he had died in a fire.

Then he thought again about the shootings on the border, remembered his promise to Garrison, and then thought, painfully, about Louise. What did he have left to live for? It was as if all his life he had been jumping into the fire, propelled by some death wish or an insatiable need to challenge himself, to live as close to the edge as he could. Only in Shanghai had he found a kind of peace – and now even that was gone, forever.

His thoughts drifted on to Hannah. She had surprised him. He had detected something of the maverick in her, and the misfit, as if she knew her destiny lay somewhere other than in the MSS bureaucracy and was just looking for a good enough reason to rebel. She had believed him – against all odds, against her better judgement. She had staked her career on him. He had better not let her down. As he thought about her the sense of doubt and defeat began to dissolve. Perhaps he was not done yet.

A low metal door opened and Tsu stepped through it. He had changed uniforms, from loose fatigues into a dark formal tunic. He was carrying a brandy glass. He held the door open and another figure came in. This man was older: fifty-something, bald,
unusually tall for a Chinese. His whole bearing exuded authority. The brilliant-white uniform stood out in such dazzling contrast to the dank grime of the room it almost glowed. The sight of this figure in these surroundings was so strange and unexpected that for a few seconds Kovic didn’t register who it was. The naval dress was a giveaway, but it seemed hardly possible. As he came closer, there was no doubt – Admiral Chang Wei, Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese Navy.
What the fuck was he doing with Tsu?
The two men circled the pillar he was chained to, studying him as if he was an exhibit at a show.

Eventually Tsu spoke, in Mandarin.

‘The one who escaped from the border: Kovic. The CIA claim he’s dead. Quite why he’s here is a mystery. Maybe we can – encourage him to tell us.’

Chang came right up close and peered at Kovic. He smelled of aftershave and liquor. His voice was hard edged from decades of barking orders.

‘One less American running around our territory can only be a good thing. It was remiss of the bureaucrats in Beijing to have let so many of them in. How much does he know? Has he talked?’

Tsu grinned.

‘I haven’t applied myself to that yet.’

Chang turned to Kovic, addressing him in English.

‘Your people have polluted the minds of our young generation. Your values are not our values. Our spineless politicians have been seduced by your toys, let you off er the people Buicks for their bicycles, fooling them into thinking they were getting some fanciful idea of freedom by buying your goods.’

He waited for some response from Kovic. None came.

‘Do you know how many people there are in China, Agent Kovic?’

‘One-point-three-four-three billion. Give or take.’

‘Good.’

‘If you don’t include Taiwan.’

The Admiral’s face registered irritation at this perennial bone of contention, but he pressed on.

‘Four times that of the United States. And the average American consumes
fifty
times
more of the earth’s resources than a Chinese. Imagine what would happen if we allowed every one of those Chinese to consume at the same rate. Your so-called values will kill our nation. I’m not going to let that happen. You’ve fooled our politicians into letting the capitalist genie out of the bottle. I’m going to put it back.’

Kovic stared ahead, silent, trying to get to grips with what was happening right in front of him: one of China’s most powerful military men in league with its most notorious criminal. But he absorbed every one of Chang’s words. The pieces were slowly starting to come together.

‘Modern China was forged in the furnaces of sacrifice, and honourable toil – something America lost long ago. Now you seduce and corrupt us with your poison, of the body and the mind.’

His voice was getting louder; this was his worldview, the mantra that drove him, and it told Kovic just what he had walked into. The border incident, the riots – it all amounted to nothing less than the preparations for a military coup engineered by Chang himself. This lunatic was planning to take over the biggest nation on earth.

‘Democracy is an illusion! A dream you use to sell refrigerators and French fries. The real rulers of your world are corporations, not your precious Congress.’

Kovic felt he should show he was paying attention.

‘So you want to turn the clock back? That’ll be popular.’

Chang’s reply started as little more than a whisper.

‘Agent Kovic, do you know how old our civilisation is? When your continent was still overrun by savages with feathers through their noses, China had invented gunpowder, the compass, the clock, the printing press. Before Western meddlers came and corrupted us with their opium, China had bestowed a good living on a fifth of the world’s population.’

Tsu was nodding and grinning. He was enjoying his party. Kovic felt a lifetime’s worth of hatred and bitterness trained on him. Tsu addressed Chang in Mandarin.

‘Is there anything specific you’d like me to get from him? His career was completely compromised by the border incident. His bosses seem to have dispensed with him and he must be sore about that. I doubt there’s much there. The MSS regards him as low level.’

Was this designed to provoke him into talking? And who had Tsu had got that from – Hannah or her bosses? How deep did his links to the MSS penetrate?

Tsu glanced at Kovic and continued, slipping back into English.

‘He’s unimportant but quite slippery. He left his whore in his bed as a decoy so he could pretend to be dead and escape.’

Kovic felt the tenuous hold he had on his anger break apart.

‘You mean your goons were too stupid to check under the bed-clothes before they shot and burned her.’

Tsu brought his face up to his and pressed a finger under each of Kovic’s eyes, pushing into the sockets.

‘Be careful or I might give in to my natural tendencies.’

The Admiral turned away, a look of disgust on his face, murmuring in Mandarin.

‘See what he has on Jin Jié and his associates – elements among the elite who support him. Then do what you want with him.’

Tsu relaxed the pressure and Chang headed towards the door.

‘What’s your problem with Jin Jié? He seems pretty harmless to me.’

Both men turned and looked at him, surprised by his grasp of the language. Chang’s response was full of venom.

‘Jin Jié represents everything that is sick and corrupt in this country. His so-called “progressive” ideology will destroy what’s left of our system. His weak will has allowed him to be seduced by the mirage of American superiority. He’s just another instrument of Western humiliation. It is time to turn back the clock, to bring order back to our society. America is a threat and must be treated as such.
You
are the enemy.’ Chang’s voice became shriller with each sentence until he was shouting into Kovic’s face, spraying him with his sulphurous saliva.

He turned to Tsu.

‘Squeeze everything out of him and then post the remains back to the White House.’

And with that, Chang strode out of the room.