Battlefield 4: Countdown to War (23 page)

53

Hangrui Expressway

The road was slicked with rain, but Hannah drove like a bat out of hell. Not just because Kovic needed exfil ASAP; she was filled with the need to get out of the stifling atmosphere of Shanghai – fast, as if it would engulf and suffocate her if she didn’t hurry. There was something gratifying about the thunderous power of the Benz, her domination of the fast lane, wipers on high swatting the slanting rain, as if bearing down on slower vehicles, lights ablaze, all but pushing them out of her path, gave her back some sense of control over her destiny. One of the compensations about her country was that you could drive like a madman and not get stopped.

In her head, she still didn’t know what to make of Kovic. He was a type that just didn’t exist in China. He was more like a character out of Wild West mythology. A loner, blazing his own trail, taking the law into his own hands, making more enemies than friends along the way. Since his appearance, her life had turned upside down. She had done things she would never have imagined herself capable of. He was nothing like her father and he was the polar opposite to the only other significant male in her life, Jin Jié, the visionary, the believer, who looked for the good in everyone with whom he came into contact. It shocked her how Kovic had got under her skin, as if he had detected that underneath her armour of reserve and respectability was an inner core of rebellion. And he had willed it to the surface. Now it came back to her. As she was facing the Director’s advances, desperately working out how to react, she had asked herself, what would Kovic do? She looked forward to telling him.

A BMW she had blasted past was giving chase, the driver evidently infuriated at being overtaken by a woman. She pushed her foot down further, hearing the supercharger kicking in. The BMW
shrank in her rear-view mirror as the needle edged past 200kph.

She and Kovic were in much the same position, fugitives from their own organisations, in pursuit of a truth to which their masters were either deaf or actively against them finding out. But still she was wary. He was clever, probably a highly skilled manipulator, a con man; he needed to be to do the work he did. Was he using her for his own dubious ends?

And his claims about Admiral Chang Wei . . . the man was a legend; he commanded almost universal respect, her own father’s closest comrade. She had intended to put off telling Jin Jié what Kovic had told her until she was able to interrogate him face to face, but as she put more miles between her and the city, she started to doubt the wisdom of that. She selected the phone on the car’s computer and speed-dialled Jin Jié’s number.

‘Hannah, what a pleasant surprise.’

He was always so fucking cheerful. Nothing seemed to faze him, no matter what his detractors threw at him, but up to now that had just been words. She told him what Kovic had said.

‘You’ve got to take precautions. You need a proper security detail, people you know you can trust.’

He laughed.

‘So thoughtful of you to worry about me. Please don’t. What’s happening is just the inevitable knee jerk against progressivism. It’s to be expected.’

‘Chang wants to eliminate you. My sources for this are impeccable.’ She didn’t tell him it had come from the uncouth looking American he had seen her with the other night.

‘All right, I’ll lock the door and keep the curtains drawn, if it makes you happy. I’ve got to go; my lecture’s about to start.’

He rang off. Hannah fumed to herself. Why didn’t anyone want to take her seriously? Couldn’t they see what was happening?

54

Huangshan Mountains

Keeping directly under the cable car’s wires high above, Kovic slowly navigated his way through the forest; following them would surely lead him back to where the others had fallen to earth. The undergrowth was thick and the rain had made it boggy underfoot. Not much light filtered through the canopy above and the forest was filled with the strange sounds of exotic wildlife. Tsu had certainly been good for one thing – the land around his mountain had been almost untouched by humans.

Kovic’s body still hurt like hell, but surviving the fall had restored his energy, that, and the grim satisfaction of having wreaked his revenge on Tsu. He plodded forward. The others had better have survived.

He found Zhou first. He was sitting on a fallen tree barely awake, keeping watch. Qi was with him, asleep behind a curtain of foliage. Zhou had found him curled up in a foetal position, frozen in shock from the descent. Qi was so convinced he wasn’t going to make it Zhou had spent some minutes persuading him that he was still alive and intact. Thanks in part to luck, and his own light weight, Qi had hit the ground without injury. It was Zhou, the accomplished burglar with a track record of jumping off tall things, who had broken his leg. In spite of this, the joy of having survived had lifted his spirits. Kovic shook Qi awake. He looked up and eyed him with a mixture of relief and dread.

Kovic read his mind.

‘The worst is over – that’s a promise. You did good. Real good. Get some rest.’

Qi’s eyelids closed and he sank back into sleep.

‘No sign of Wu?’

He was missing. They had disabled their phones, removing the batteries when they were on the mountain. Perhaps he had forgotten to put his back together, though Kovic doubted he would overlook something so basic. Maybe he was lying unconscious somewhere. The rain was coming down harder. They were all soaked, dazed and hungry. Kovic texted Hannah their location from the satphone. The best they could do was wait for her rather than go looking for Wu.

‘Get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.’

Zhou fell immediately into a deep slumber. Kovic watched his sleeping comrades. In the last forty-eight hours they had explored the limits of their capability, and risked their lives over and over for him and his crazy cause. It was his job now to get them back where they came from. Shanghai might be in a state of unrest, but at least it was their home turf; they knew how to go to ground there. Word would have come down from the mountain about them and their escape. But now that Tsu was gone, would anyone be bothered to come after them? About five metres away there was a narrow path through deep undergrowth that ran parallel with the fallen tree. Kovic kept watch on it, turning his head each way every few seconds so there was no chance of being surprised.

It was inevitable. He hadn’t slept for thirty-six hours. Only jumping up and down on the spot could have kept him from following the other two and being sucked into a deep and all-consuming sleep. It might only have been for fifteen minutes, but it was deep enough for the search party to form a tight circle around him before they prodded him awake. There were five of them and five guns and no possible means of escape.

55

They stared at him down their gunsights for several seconds. They all looked young and inexperienced. Always a bad sign. Youth usually went with an inclination to shoot out of sheer nervousness. None of them looked at all calm. Mind you, their great leader was lying dead somewhere in the foothills of his own mountain. Maybe after the head had been guillotined, the body soldiered on.

Eventually the tallest, who also appeared to be the leader, murmured in Mandarin.

‘He’s a real mess. Must be the one. Call it in.’

Kovic slowly raised his hands. He figured at least giving himself up on the spot might distract them from searching for the other two still asleep just a few metres away. He hoped the guards hadn’t found Wu, but that would explain his silence.

The leader prodded him to get up. Kovic rose, keeping his movements slow and deliberate. They patted him down and then grabbed his bag, with the satphone back inside. Unless they destroyed it, the GPS signal would lead Hannah to him, he hoped.

The leader studied the screen. Kovic had emptied its call log. He dropped it in front of him and stamped on it.

‘You, come. Hands – on – head,’ barked the leader, in an apparently exhaustive demonstration of his English.

‘Sure thing.’ Kovic cursed himself for this lapse of concentration. After all he had been through in the last forty-eight hours, what an inglorious apprehension. The guards were whispering to each other as he staggered forward. What punishment had Tsu decreed for whoever took his life? Perhaps his hubris was such that he never legislated for such an event.

It was a short march to an identical minibus to the one they had
commandeered two days before. A guard sat either side of him. Since there was no possibility of escape at this stage he tried to relax, and conserve some energy for a moment when he might be able to use it. Did they even know the fate of their boss? Knowing the Chinese phobia about shame and ignominy, attempts would certainly have been made to hush it up, or at least spin it into a cour ageous death in combat. He wondered if they had found the body.

As they drove off, the leader, who was seated beside the driver, turned to him, his face full of venom.

‘You pay – you die, same as him.’

Kovic didn’t respond. So they knew. Well, at least he had accomplished this part of his mission.

The leader, perturbed by the lack of reaction, reached out and slapped his face. But the force of the blow was minimal, because just at that moment the driver slammed on the brakes. The bus slewed to a halt. Broadside on the track ahead of them was a Mercedes Benz SUV.

56

Hannah stood in the middle of the path, her ID at arm’s length in front of her, her legs apart. Her Chang Feng sub-machine gun was hanging from her other hand.

‘MSS. Here to receive your prisoner.’

The guards looked at each other. She was doing and saying the right things, but this was clearly the first time they had ever encountered a female MSS operative – or perhaps any armed female.

‘This American scum is wanted on suspicion of mass murder and I have orders to bring him in.’

Nice touch, thought Kovic. But the fact she was alone, and the fancy SUV; they would take some convincing.

The leader stuck his head out of the window.

‘Well you can suck my dick, cunt.’

Oh dear, thought Kovic, simultaneously appalled and fascinated by how this was going to play out.

Emboldened by their leader, another one chipped in.

‘Yeah, get ready to receive my cock.’

What a shit country to be a woman in law enforcement. Hannah’s eyes widened.

Now they all had to have a go. ‘She can do us two at a time.’

‘Yeah, one at each end.’

Hannah shifted her weight slightly and raised the barrel of the Chang Feng. There was that resolute look in her eyes that he remembered from when she had first arrested him.

‘She’s way out of her depth,’ one of them said to another.

The leader leaned towards the driver and said, ‘Go forward. And if she doesn’t move, run her down.’

Hannah put away her ID and for a moment Kovic thought she was giving up. The driver revved the engine as if to warn her what he was about to do. Then instinct told him to duck – now.

57

‘You don’t think you’re burning your boats here?’

Kovic shoved one of the dead guards out of the door and climbed out.

‘Not at all. It was a simple matter of self defence in the face of insubordination.’

She threw the sub-machine gun on to the passenger seat of the Benz. The burst of fire had almost sliced the roof off the bus. The remains of the guards were scattered about the interior. She was utterly calm.

‘First time I killed a man I threw up over him, couldn’t stop myself.’

She eyed him coldly.

‘Who said it was my first time?’

She didn’t let on how shocked she was by the state of him, caked in dried blood and grime. He looked and smelled like something primeval.

‘You need to get yourself smartened up.’

He put out his hand. It seemed strangely impersonal but he couldn’t think of a more appropriate gesture.

‘Thank you – you just saved my life.’

She didn’t shake it. Instead she took his hands in hers and looked at them briefly. Her touch was cool yet somehow comforting.

‘What about these guys?’

‘They’ll think you did it.’

Suddenly she grabbed her gun and shoved him aside. His ears were still ringing from all the rounds she’d fired so he didn’t hear what had distracted her. Another vehicle approaching from inside the forest. Hannah raised her weapon.

‘Wait.’

Lurching over the rough ground towards them was the Great Wall Wingle, with Wu at the wheel, and Qi and Zhou sitting alongside.

58

G25 Expressway, Outskirts of Shanghai

The rain hammered on the roof of Hannah’s SUV as they slowed for the toll. On the outbound side, cars and minibuses jammed all the lanes, many of them weighed down with luggage. The exodus from Shanghai had begun.

The inner city streets were eerily quiet. Only the police were out in force, swishing hurriedly through the rain on bikes and in vans. Kovic considered his options. Officially he was still dead. He could check in with the CIA, brief Cutler on all he knew and face any consequences of his insubordination. Or he could disappear, re invent himself and start over. He had the means and the cash to keep himself afloat for a good while, and boy, did he need a break. Hunting Tsu down and sending him to his death had brought him some grim satisfaction, but he was just the means, not the end. Chang was calling the shots and the thought of him out there threatening to blow up the world felt like unfinished business. If he didn’t stop him, who would?

He had given Hannah a detailed account of his experience on the mountain, majoring on his encounter with the esteemed Admiral. She had listened without comment.

‘You’re not getting it, are you?’

‘Admiral Chang is a great patriot. He has also fought against corruption in the political elite. The people love him for that.’

‘Yeah, and it’s all great cover for his plans for world domination. He’s the reason for all that’s going on – all this.’

Kovic gestured at a convoy they passed of minibuses laden with fleeing citizens.

‘Lady, I just don’t get you. One minute you’re the gun-toting
freedom fighter, all for changing the world, next thing, you’re the blind patriot toeing the party line.’

‘We’re just not as simplistic as you Americans with your good guys and bad guys. I thought you of all people would have learned by now that China has many layers. There’s far more to it than you Americans will ever understand.’

‘Then I’ll be very clear,’ he said, unable to mask his rising irritation. ‘Chang has your boy Jin Jié in his sights. He’s the next target, I guarantee it.’

‘He’s not “my boy”.’

‘Whatever. Look, it’s fine if you want to believe his schtick. He’s young, he’s cute and he’s got a way with words. But to Chang, Jin Jié’s an American puppet, spreading the twin evils of democracy and materialism. Your great patriotic Admiral’s too smart just to take him out. My bet is he’ll use him in some other way.’

‘Like what?’

‘That’s what you and I need to figure out, while Jin Jié goes underground.’

‘He won’t do that; it would be an admission of defeat. He’ll stay visible no matter what.’

Four military helicopters swooped over them, headed for the centre.

‘Good luck to that.’

She pulled up at a traffic light and looked over at him.

‘You really are a mess.’