The Enemy Inside (28 page)

The unstated question was, Where were they going to get the food and water necessary to support the more than six million people then living in what was left of the British colony?

It was a question for which the British government had no answer. They had run out the string. They had no desire to leave China with feelings of open hostility between the two countries. The handwriting was on the wall. After one hundred and fifty-seven years, Britain would go as they had done from India a half century earlier. The difference being, Hong Kong was not going to become part of the British Commonwealth. It belonged to a sovereign country already, China.

Cheng was right, to those with patience came the fruits of victory. China established a Special Administrative Region for Hong Kong with assurances that it would remain that way for at least fifty years. It was business as usual. Unless you followed the news you might not even realize that the British had left except for the recent disruptions, which had already fallen off the front pages of most newspapers around the world. The democracy movement was dying largely because the lawyers and businessmen who made the island hum with commercial activity were so busy making money that they couldn’t be bothered to attend the protests.

The well-monied movers and shakers told the movement’s leaders, mostly disorganized college students and a few professors, that they would try to show up if the organizers could reschedule the “demonstrations” for a weekend. Such was the practical nature of the Chinese mercantile mind. As far as Cheng was concerned, any thought that this might evolve into a real revolution died of embarrassment.

This morning Cheng had his own business to attend to. The government limo whisked him along the highway and threaded through the crowded downtown streets. Twenty minutes later it dropped him under the portico at the entrance to the Intercontinental Hotel, overlooking the water at the tip of Kowloon.

THIRTY-FOUR

O
n the way to the airport to pick up the second car in Zihua, Herman’s head finally cleared enough that he was thinking once again.

He was confident there was no one following them on the highway. But whoever was tracking them and was able to find them at the condo probably possessed high-end assets. Merely looking in the rearview mirror or backtracking to trip up anyone following on the road wasn’t going to cut it.

Depending on who they were, they could have been watching the condo by satellite or using one of the small remote control drones. For a few hundred dollars anybody could buy one of these little bastards and equip it with cameras. If they were flying high enough, people on the ground couldn’t see or hear them. With three or four they could conduct twenty-four-hour air surveillance over a building and watch anyone fleeing from it.

Whoever it was could have been tracking the van as they fled south along the highway and Herman knew it. He needed to change out vehicles, but do it in a way that it could not be seen from the air.

The parking garage at the resort on the beach was perfect. Inside there were enough cars already parked, with traffic moving in and out that anyone watching overhead would see only the van going in and never coming out.

A half hour after entering the garage, Herman, Alex, and the other two men emerged in a dark blue Range Rover, but instead of heading south, they went north. With enough time to think they came up with the perfect location, the fishing resort of Manzanillo.

A few hours north on the coast highway, Manzanillo had an airport where, if they needed to, they could rent another vehicle. It was a sport-fishing mecca, sailfish capital of the world, blue marlin and dorado. It was large enough with plenty of tourists so that four American men looking for fun would not be noticed. It also had a very active cargo-container port and was only a few hours by car from the dirt airstrip where Herman and Alex had flown in. For anyone on the run it offered multiple means of transport and escape.

It was their second night in the seedy hotel at the south end of town near the container port. The air conditioner didn’t work and there was enough grease and dirt on the windows that no one could see in or out.

Herman couldn’t sleep. In the morning they would move again, just to be on the safe side. Though he was certain that if they got away clear in the car there was no way anyone could have tracked them here. They were cut off from the world.

For Herman that was part of the problem. He wanted to get word to Madriani and Hinds back in Coronado that he and Alex were all right. But he didn’t dare. An incoming call even from a pay phone to the office on Orange Avenue might alert anyone listening in as to their location in Mexico.

Herman couldn’t be sure if Madriani even knew about the attack at the condo in Ixtapa. He might have seen it on the news. Then again, with the level of narco violence in Mexico, a shooting with blood in the parking lot and no dead bodies was not exactly a hot international bulletin back in the States.

The bigger fear were messages from the law firm coming south. There was no one in Ixtapa to receive them. But Harry and Paul didn’t know that. It was clear from the shooter’s uniform shirt that their method of communication was compromised. Anything coming this way might be read by the people chasing them.

Finally he couldn’t wait any longer. About midnight Herman roused one of the other men and the two of them headed into town. They purchased a small stack of international calling cards at a shop on the main drag, then drove fifteen miles farther north up the main highway to a pay phone at the airport.

Herman hoped that anyone intercepting the call might assume that they were traveling on through, headed north up the coast to Puerto Vallarta or, better yet, catching a chartered flight.

He placed a call to the unlisted number at Paul’s house. There was no answer. One o’clock in the morning in Manzanillo, midnight in San Diego. Where was he? Perhaps burning the midnight oil?

Herman called the back line at the law firm. What he heard this time alarmed him: a recording telling him that the office phones were temporarily out of order. What the hell was going on? He wondered if whoever came after them in Ixtapa had also attacked the office. Herman immediately called Harry’s number. Again there was no answer. This time he left a message.

“Where the hell are you guys? Your office phones are out of order. There was a serious problem at the condo here, repeat serious problem, but we are all OK. Repeat OK! Do not . . . repeat, do not use previously established method of communication. It is compromised. Will contact you again when I have time.” Herman went to hang up, then stopped. He lifted the receiver back to his lips and said, “Headed east on charter flight, Tampico. Will contact you from there.” Then he hung up. At least this would give anyone listening something to waste their time on.

He called Paul’s house and left the same message. Herman didn’t have home numbers for any of the other office staff. He considered calling Sarah, Paul’s daughter up in L.A. He desperately wanted to know if her father and Harry were OK and, if so, where they were. But he didn’t want to get Sarah involved. Calling her number could present problems. There was no way to be sure just how sophisticated the people trying to kill them were, or what kind of eavesdropping or tracking software they might have. Herman knew that if anything happened to Sarah he wouldn’t have to worry about the people trying to kill him, Madriani would do it himself.

He slipped the calling cards back in his pocket and the two of them headed back to the dingy room near the port.

THIRTY-FIVE

T
his morning Cheng was not in uniform. Instead he wore a stylish dark blue sharkskin suit, starched white dress shirt, gold cuff links, and a striped silk tie.

Two security men followed behind him in a separate car, also dressed in civilian clothes.

None of the local authorities in Hong Kong had been alerted to Cheng’s presence. He would slip in and out of the city unnoticed. To anyone looking at him, Cheng could easily pass for an affluent Chinese businessman. His face was not known to the public. In fact, most officers in the Second Bureau made a point of staying out of the media. If you took their picture there was a good chance you would have your camera smashed.

He walked into the lobby of the Intercontinental. Under his arm he carried a small leather folio.

One of the security men stepped out of the car and followed behind at a discreet distance.

The Intercontinental was one of the more expensive hotels in town. The Presidential Suite would run you almost fourteen thousand dollars a night. Ying, the man he was coming to meet, liked to live well. Cheng knew he was also careful. He wasn’t staying in the hotel. He was merely taking a room as cover for the meeting. He did this each time they met in Hong Kong.

Ying owned a luxury condominium high up on the island on the other side of the harbor. It was a very expensive address. Ying thought he had covered this well, but Cheng knew about it. Title to the estate was held in the name of a corporation registered in Andorra, a tiny principality and banking haven tucked in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France. Hong Kong might be a Special Administrative Region, but it was not exempt from Chinese Intelligence.

Ying had a lot of houses. He could afford them. When you did business with other people in Cheng’s line of work you always wanted to know what they did with their money, how they spent it, what they bought, and if they made investments, how they hedged their funds. It told you a lot about their goals and ambitions, their tolerance for risk, character, and sometimes their weaknesses.

He checked his watch, ten thirty-five. He was five minutes late. Cheng went to the house phone, picked up the receiver, and when the operator answered, he gave the name Joseph Ying and asked her to ring his room. Cheng knew this was not the man’s real name. He used a number of aliases. Given his government connections he possessed bona fide passports in all of them. Ying was the name he used when doing business in Asia.

Three minutes later Cheng walked into the blue-tinted lounge with its angled walls of floor-to-ceiling glass looking out over the harbor. He walked over to one of the low cocktail tables, laid the leather folio down, and waited. A few seconds later one of his security men walked in and took a seat at the bar. The place was nearly empty. By noon it would be getting busy. Cheng hoped to be out of there by then.

He sat down at the table. Ying kept him waiting. Five minutes, then ten. Cheng looked at his watch. He wondered if Ying was sending him a message. Perhaps he had appeared too anxious. Finally, after fifteen minutes the American sporting a Chinese name came through the door. Cheng stood up, reached down, and furtively wiped the perspiration from his right palm onto the back of his slacks so that by the time Ying reached him he was ready to shake hands.

“Sorry I’m late. Right after we hung up I got an urgent call. I had to take it. I couldn’t get them off the phone.”

“Of course. No problem,” said Cheng. “I was just sitting here enjoying the view.”

Ying turned and looked out through the wall of glass at the sparkling waters of the harbor. “It is gorgeous, isn’t it? Every time I come I am amazed. It becomes more beautiful with each passing year.”

“Unlike us,” said Cheng. They both laughed.

Ying was taller, older that Cheng, and he wasn’t Asian. Round-eyed, gray hair, he was always well dressed, three-piece pinstriped power suit set off by a conservative club tie. He would have fit in well at the British colonial clubs of an earlier era.

“How was your flight?” asked Cheng.

“Fine.”

“Did you come in this morning?” Cheng tested him.

“Ah, no. I got in last night, about eleven,” Ying lied.

He had been in Hong Kong for three days, closed-door meetings at his house on the island. Cheng’s men had him under surveillance. They were also monitoring his calls. They were unable to get content because Ying’s cell phone used high-end encryption and the man was careful to keep conversations brief. But they could track the location of incoming calls.

“Perhaps we should get down to business,” said Cheng.

“Let’s do it.”

They sat and ordered drinks, Scotch and soda for Ying, a Virgin Mary for the general.

“One might think you were Catholic,” said Ying.

“Not unless the pope is Communist,” said Cheng. They laughed. Drinking on company time, especially when the business being transacted was critical, was not conducive to advancement in Chinese leadership circles.

“Saw your man at the bar.” Ying glanced at the security man sitting there by himself drinking a club soda. “I suppose you don’t go anywhere without them.”

“No,” said Cheng. Even if he wanted to. It was unwise for government officials to meet with Westerners unless they had at least one credible witness present. Cheng’s masters in Beijing, while increasingly modern, could still be gripped by pangs of paranoia. The security man might not be able to hear their conversation, but he could at least attest to the fact that the meeting took place in open view, plain sight, and was businesslike in its conduct.

“I have a number of questions,” said Cheng. “I trust we can have a frank discussion.”

“Of course.”

“I am interested in information as to your firm’s Western political assets?”

“By Western you mean . . .”

“The United States,” said Cheng.

“What do you mean by assets? Do you mean consultation on political matters?”

“I thought we agreed to be frank?” said Cheng. “What I mean is, how many of these people do you actually possess? And at what level?”

The older man looked at him from across the table. “May I ask where you get your information?”

“You can ask,” said Cheng.

“If by ‘possess’ you mean own in a way that I can order their actions,” said Ying, “none. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Of course not.” Cheng smiled. “I understand it is much more complicated and subtle. I didn’t mean to imply anything improper.”

Saving face was just as important in America as it was in China.