The Ghost Shift (35 page)

“What is it, young woman?”

“Respect.” Mei mumbled the word, sick of the game the members of Cao’s cult played for each other.

“Yes, respect. By your behavior, by lying even about your identity, you show us no respect. Do you think we’re stupid? Do you think we don’t understand this game? Who are you?”

“Jiang Jia.”

“All right. Let’s see how long you will stick with that story. We can be on our way.”

The instructor nodded, rapping furiously on the window to summon a guard. He hopped from the Jeep and crossed to the passenger seat before he could be forced into the indignity of driving. A Jeep pulled out ahead, and the driver tucked in behind it, the third forming a convoy. It sped along the perimeter road by the drain, passing a checkpoint with a raised barrier. They were outside the compound, but Cao’s command reached beyond his territory.

The Jeeps hurtled around a shallow bend. The storm had drifted across the delta, visible now only by the flickering of far-off lightning on the horizon. They swung left, past another checkpoint and over a bridge, and then entered the complex through a gate that Mei had not seen before. Two buildings lay in their path, both of them half-empty—they had a dozen stories, but only a few were lit. It was a long ride from the main streets of the complex. There was an oddity about them that Mei couldn’t identify at first. As she was pulled out of the Jeep by a guard, she realized what it was: They had no nets.

Cao strode ahead, his cigar glowing in the night, followed by the instructor, chattering at his shoulder. Mei walked behind, handcuffed to the guard who’d pawed her. He’d pushed away another guard, as if his violation had turned Mei into his chattel. She didn’t look at him
or register disgust—she was too scared by the dark buildings. Her nightmare had returned.

They took her most of the way by elevator, and got out on the eleventh floor, leaving only one flight of stairs to the roof. She stood with the guard on a landing while Cao and the others climbed the last steps and swung open the door. Then he led the way, tugging on the handcuff so that it bit into her wrist. She felt faint just looking at the roof, glistening with water from the storm. Cao was striding across it, toward the far edge.

“Bring her,” the instructor commanded.

The guard pulled her out, tugging her across the threshold. The sky was wide and black, the last of the storm clouds breaking. It was brilliantly clear—stars shone and aircraft sped south toward Hong Kong. To the north lay the bend of the Pearl River and Guangzhou. After the exhilaration of her near-escape, she knew her fate. She let herself be pulled toward Cao—there was nothing she could do. He had halted near the side, looking at the twin building a hundred feet across the void.

As they neared, he tossed his cigar into the chasm between the roofs, where it plunged like a doomed firefly.

“Who are you?”

“Jiang Jia.”

The instructor clapped once. “Where is your respect? You must—”

“Quiet, idiot.”

Mei was terrified, almost broken, but if she could have laughed, she would have. Cao had treated the instructor as she’d wanted to since the first time they’d met. She smiled at him, but his face was frozen and rigid.

“Show her what we do to liars,” he said.

The guard unlocked the cuff from his hand and pulled her free arm in front of her. He cuffed her wrists together and pushed her toward the edge. Her patina of calm cracked as she saw the drop—made worse by the facing building, which formed a tunnel to the ground. Her head spun, and she tried to scramble back, but the guard shoved her with his knee. Another held her cuffs on a metal hook attached to a wooden pole. They had done this before.

“Kneel,” the instructor said.

Mei obeyed, her back to the roof’s edge and her toes waggling in space, as if praying to Cao.

“You know happens next,” he said.

“I—”

Before she spoke, the guard kicked her legs from under her and they dropped off the roof. Her wrists snapped agonizingly against the cuffs, which the second guard held with the hook, leaving her half-on and half-off the roof. The metal bit into her wrists, and she couldn’t breathe.

“Further,” Cao said.

The guard walked slowly, lowering her over the side. She was in agony. Her body shook, and she could feel gravity tugging at her feet. She would be swallowed up, she knew. An image came to her of the bracelet-like weal on her sister’s wrist as the body had turned in the pond.

“My name is Elizabeth Lockhart,” she said in English.

Cao looked down at her as if, for the first time, she had said something that interested him.

“Bring her up,” he said.

The pain in her wrists was so intense that she thought they might break as the guard walked backward, dragging her onto the roof. When he was done, she lay there shaking.

“Where do you come from?”

He spoke English with a crisp, hard accent—the kind he might have acquired at a boarding school.

“I’m American.” She turned her head to one side to speak, feeling the damp grime of the roof on her cheek.

“You’re a spy?”

“No. No.” She would do anything not to be dropped back over the roof. “I work with an NGO. In Hong Kong.”

Cao put back his head and laughed.

“You’re a do-gooder? Trying to save the world? Why are you bothering Long Tan, where people are happy? Why aren’t you in Af-ri-ca?” He elongated the syllables with disdain.

“Your workers are badly treated. I wanted to help.”

“Nonsense. You know nothing, Elizabeth. Don’t try to colonize us with your sophomore ideas.”

She raised her head to speak. “I’m an American citizen. My family knows where I am. So does the U.S. Consulate.”

“That was in another country. You’ve joined Long Tan’s family. Why did you steal that logic board? A souvenir? Enough of your lies.” Fu knelt by Mei and gestured to the guard to roll her over on her back. He held a badge with her photo on it and clipped it to her tunic. Then he got to his feet, wiped his knees, and walked away.

“Get rid of her,” he said.

The guards pulled Mei to her feet, with her wrist bleeding from the handcuffs. Cao had vanished through the door on the other side of the roof, and she was alone with them and the instructor. The man had puffed up—pleased that, with Cao gone, he was the boss.

He pointed to the handcuffs. “Take those off her.”

The guard who’d groped her did so, then took a cloth and wiped away the blood. He wasn’t showing solicitude; he was eliminating evidence.

“Jiang Jia,” the instructor said. He addressed her as if he hadn’t listened to her last words, or as if he preferred to go by her badge. “We gave you our trust, and you let us down. You have betrayed the spirit of Long Tan and put our workers in peril. That disappoints me—”

“Fuck your grandfather.” Despite everything, saying it felt good.

His face stiffened. “Put her there,” he said.

Two guards stood by Mei’s side and grasped her by her upper arms, pulling her to the edge of the roof. She held her eyes away from the precipice, looking at Guangdong—the cities and the river that carried the world’s goods. In the last moments of life, she wouldn’t let him see her terror.

“Wait.”

The instructor walked up to Mei and faced her, as if he couldn’t bear to let her have the last word. He opened his lips to talk but didn’t speak as, with a splattering sound like a melon bursting, blood drenched his face.

Mei felt the grip on her arm slacken as the guard to her left twisted and sagged to his knees. His skull had blown apart in a spray of red; he was already dead. Mei and the instructor watched open-mouthed as the man’s body tipped backward, plunging off the roof. As it did, the guard on her right also fell to the ground with blood spurting from his leg.

Time slowed down. A mere second had passed, and Mei didn’t know what was happening, except that they were under fire. She saw the instructor’s face clear as his brain came back to life. They were standing three feet from the edge of the roof and he had the stronger position—facing her, her back to the edge. There was only one move for an untrained fighter with the advantage of weight and he took it instinctively, pushing his arms toward her, palms out.

It was nothing—she’d trained for such a moment, and he had given her far too long to react. She thrust her hands up to his arms, so as to sense which one would push harder. It was the right, and she brushed his left arm away while her left hand encircled his right wrist, pulling.
Use your opponent’s weight to your advantage
, the
sifu
always said. The instructor was off balance and she dragged him forward, darting aside to let him pass, almost like a matador. He stumbled two steps, mouth opening as he recognized his fate.

Then he fell into the chasm.

Mei crouched, scanning the roof. The shots had stopped, but she had to get down somehow. She rolled toward the exit and raised her head. It was a hundred yards away, and she couldn’t get there by rolling. She crawled ten or twenty feet, waiting for a shot, and then got to her feet and ran a few paces with her head low. No response. She scrambled to her feet again. Nothing. Taking a deep breath, she ran for her life.

A few feet from the exit, the door opened, and a man stepped onto the roof with a gun in his hand. It was Lockhart.

“Get down!” he shouted.

He shot, the explosions booming across the roof as a body fell behind her. The wounded guard had limped after her, but now he was dead. Lockhart went to check on his body, then ran back to her.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Not badly.”

He knelt, checking her. Her hands were bloody and limp, and her legs and feet were lacerated. Blood leaked from her wrists where the cuffs had bitten her flesh.

“Don’t move.”

Mei was too weak to question him. She lay her head on the roof as he placed his jacket over her. Her body shook and her teeth chattered. She saw a light in the sky, which grew as it hovered above Long Tan toward them. In the last seconds, as it floated across the roof, she heard thundering. It landed fifty feet away, rotors spinning—a Harbin Dolphin helicopter in green camouflage, with the red star of the People’s Liberation Army.

A soldier in overalls climbed out as the blades slowed, pulling a stretcher with him. Another joined him, and they ran across the roof to Mei. Slipping webbing bands under her body, they lifted her onto the stretcher and covered her with a foil blanket. Lockhart walked alongside as they carried her back and slid the stretcher into the rear cabin. It was locked in place by a third crew member as Lockhart took a seat. The soldiers secured the doors, and the craft started to lift as soon as the latches clicked.

Mei saw only the sky twisting across windows as they climbed across the compound.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe,” he shouted above the roar.

When they’d reached a stable altitude, a nurse came to the front to examine her. She worked rapidly, bandaging her wrists and applying dressings to the wounds on her leg. Giving Mei an injection, the woman tucked a container of pills in her pocket, tapping the label. Mei nodded—she would have to dose herself.

Before long, they descended. The helicopter bumped through turbulence on its way down and described a lazy circle, lingering before landing as if the pilot had to pick his spot carefully. The touchdown was so gentle that Mei wasn’t sure the flight had finished until the soldiers removed their harnesses, the rotor whine softened, and a door slid back. The nurse loosened Mei’s bindings and placed an arm beneath her shoulders to lift her.

As Mei sat, she got her first view of the outside world. She’d expected to see an airport or a PLA base, but they were resting at the edge of a marsh. The pilot doused his lights and lit a cigarette.

“That guy can fly,” Lockhart observed, and a soldier nodded.

He unbuckled his harness and took off his helmet, then climbed out and turned to Mei. She clambered to her feet, every muscle aching, and he lifted her down. When they’d walked some distance, the engines pounded and the rotor blades screamed. The helicopter lifted, as delicately as it had arrived.

The only light on the marsh was from a pair of nearby headlights, and he held Mei’s arm as she limped across to a stationary SUV and they climbed in. Feng sat behind the wheel.

“Unbelievable. You made it.”

She punched the wheel, then reached back and held Mei’s bandaged hand. Mei put her head in her other hand, trying to recover from the shock. After a while, Lockhart gave her a tissue to wipe her nose.

“What are we doing here?” she asked.

“It’s as far as we can go.”

“Feng has a fleet of PLA aircraft at her disposal,” Lockhart said. “Helicopters, aerial drones.”

“I know how to ask nicely. Tom will handle it from now on. Now, I don’t want to rush you, but did you find anything?”

“A logic board, but they took it.”

“Anything else?”

“A master chip.”

“Where is it?”

Mei opened her mouth, pointing a finger down her throat.

“You’re joking.” Feng laughed as Mei shook her head. “Just clean it up before you show it to me, okay?”