Vital Force (17 page)

He never left anything undone.

“Where the hell is she going?” Special Agent Fisher asked aloud to himself as he turned the car onto I-205 North just south of Portland.

It was getting dark, at that period where the eyes had not changed from day to night, and the rain had picked up some. To make matters worse, it was Friday evening and rush hour traffic would become a bigger problem as they approached Portland.

Cliff had his eyes closed in the back seat, and Agent Harris had climbed over to the front passenger seat about ten miles back to help navigate.

“I'm guessing the airport,” Harris said. “The two oh five bypasses most of the city and ends up right at Portland International.”

“Great. If we don't stick close, she'll end up on a plane to damn near anywhere without us catching her. I say we just pull her ass over. We got her on murder and espionage. What more do we need?”

“You know better than that,” Harris said to him. “We need to know who she's working for; otherwise we'll never get it out of her.”

Agent Fisher pulled around a couple of cars to get closer to the white Trooper ahead.

“What are you doing? Not so close.”

“We lose her and we're fucked.”

Harris thought for a minute and then pulled out a map of Portland. She could barely read it, only seeing what she needed from the headlights of cars behind them.

“Okay,” Harris said. “We call ahead. Have a reception waiting for her at the airport.”

“What if she doesn't go to the airport?” This surprised the both of them, coming from Cliff in the back.

“Shut the fuck up,” Harris said.

“He's got a point,” Fisher said under his breath.

She checked the map again. “All right, smart ass. Where do you think she's going?” She turned directly at Cliff; a look that burned right through him.

“Seattle.”

“Seattle?” she asked. “Why the fuck Seattle?”

Cliff shrugged. “That's where I'd go. Li is Chinese, right? If she's working for them, then she'd need a flight there to deliver the DVD she got from me.”

“And she can't do that from Portland?” Fisher asked.

“There are no direct flights from Portland to China,” Cliff assured them. “You have to fly to Seattle, San Fran, or L.A. So, she'd want to pick up a direct flight.”

“Why do you assume that?” Harris asked.

Cliff shook his head. “She could have caught a flight to Portland in Eugene, and then another to Seattle. That's if she had wanted a bunch of connections.”

Fisher laughed as he pulled out and passed another car.

“All right,” Harris said. “But why does she have to deliver the DVD? Why not just send the data over the Internet to China?”

Cliff leaned forward in his seat against the seat belt. “Now here's where I'm sure about her. She doesn't trust technology. She thinks the government is tracking every transfer of data.”

Harris glanced sideways at Fisher and then back at Cliff. “Which government?”

“Doesn't matter. All governments.”

“Shit!”

“What?” Fisher said.

“Cliff, are you sure you don't know who she works for?” Harris asked him.

“Absolutely. She did make a number of phone calls, though. You might want to have those traced.”

“How we gonna do that, dumbass?” Harris asked him. “She's using a cell phone. Probably a throw away.”

“Trace her number.”

There was silence in the car as Fisher looked at Harris, and then Harris turned to Cliff.

“You have her number?” Harris asked. “Why the hell didn't you tell us that before?”

“You never asked.”

Cliff gave her the number and then Harris made a call to the Portland office to have them trace the calls and also tell them their current location.

“How long have you had the number?” Fisher asked him.

“Couple weeks. I stayed at her place one night, picked up her phone, thinkin' it was mine, since it's the same model, and turned it on to make a call. You know how the home number pops up on some models as soon as you turn them on? Well, I remembered the number.” He pulled out his cell phone from his pocket. “You wanna give her a call? We could ask her where she's going. Save us some time.”

Suddenly, Fisher braked hard to avoid a car that had done the same in front of them. He swerved to the fast lane to keep from hitting an old pickup truck. Then he hit the gas to get around the vehicle to keep up with the Trooper.

“Damn it,” Fisher said. “I think she caught us. She tapped on her brakes.”

“Let's give her a call,” Cliff said, proud of his thought.

“I told you to shut the fuck up,” Harris yelled back at him. “I'm gonna have to climb back there and baby-sit your ass.”

“That's all right,” Cliff said, rubbing his jaw, which had swollen considerably. “Got da picture.”

Then, without warning, the white Trooper turned off onto an exit that led to an overpass and started to slow.

“Hang on folks,” Fisher said. “Something's up.”

The Trooper pulled over to the side of the ramp at the top of the hill. Fisher had two choices. He could simply pull up behind her, or he could pass by and turn right. Seconds to decide.

Pull behind her.

He came to a stop a couple of car lengths behind the Trooper and kept the engine running, the wipers swishing to remove the rain.

By the time anyone knew what was happening, it was too late. The driver's door on the Trooper opened. A figure appeared for a moment. There were five flashes of light. And then the door closed and the Trooper sped off.

There were shards of glass everywhere in the front seat. Fisher was the first to raise his head above the dash.

The Trooper was gone.

“What the fuck happened?” Cliff yelled from the back seat.

Fisher put the car in gear and sped off after the Trooper. He thought he saw the tail lights go straight across the highway and back onto the freeway, but he wasn't entirely sure.

When he finally had a chance to look to his right, he saw that Agent Harris was slumped over.

“Oh, God.”

He pulled over to the side of the road on the on-ramp.

“Harris,” he yelled at her, checking her for wounds. She had taken a round in her left shoulder. The shock had knocked her out, he was sure. He held his hand over the wound. “Use that damn phone of yours to call an ambulance,” he screamed at Cliff.

Shenyang, China

As the chopper flew off to the southwest toward Beijing, Jake and Su shuffled with their backpacks from the field toward the narrow road that led to a small village. Jake knew they could hop a train from there. The Agency pilot had thought it best to not fly them directly to the Shenyang airport. None of them wanted the police to discover an American contract pilot flying two people on the run, not to mention the dead body of an American embassy diplomat. Besides, the air traffic controllers had undoubtedly been told of the helo that had been shot up, and would be watching for them.

It was almost noon. Jake walked alongside the deserted road behind Su, whose left arm hung at her side as if it were dead. He knew the broken wrist would have to be set soon or it wouldn't heal properly. If she waited much longer, the doctor would have to re-break it and then set it.

She was having a hard time with the heavy backpack, so Jake stepped up and stopped her.

“Let me help you with your pack,” he said to her.

“I can handle it,” she answered emphatically. Tears streaked her face.

“You're not all right,” Jake said.

“Has nothing to do with my wrist.”

That's what Jake thought. He had been forced to relay the information about her family being rounded up.

“You can't turn yourself in,” Jake told her. “You'll never see the light of day.”

“They never see light either.”

Jake knew that might be true, but maybe not. “Listen, if you drop off the face of the Earth, what can they do? They can't hold your family forever.”

“Chinese are patient people. Communists more patient.” She started walking again, determined.

He'd work on her. But right now they had to keep moving. In a mile or so they came across the small village that was linked better by rail than road. In fact, much of Manchuria was linked better by rail.

It wasn't hard to find the rail station. But after Su bought two tickets to Shenyang and came back to where Jake was sitting on a small wooden bench in the tiny terminal, she informed him they'd have an hour to wait for the next train.

She took a seat next to him, her backpack at her feet. “Sorry about my emotions,” she said.

“Hey, nothing to be sorry about. We don't know for sure that the government has your family. Would they link you to your friend in Harbin?”

She sat stone faced and said, “I know now. Heard my name on the radio when I picked up the tickets.”

Jake let out a deep breath. “I'm sorry.”

“You did nothing.”

“I got you into this.”

“No. I did this. I could have said no.”

That might have been true, but Jake was sure the Agency probably had some leverage against her. Something that forced her hand.

“Will it be safe to go to Shenyang?” Jake asked her.

“I don't know. But we can't get to Alaska without catching a flight from Shenyang to an international airport.”

“Are you going with me?”

She nodded her head. “I don't have a choice.”

Jake glanced across the room at the man behind the ticket counter, who had just picked up the phone and set it back down again, and was showing too much interest in their conversation. Other than the two of them, the place was empty. Something wasn't right.

On their way in, Jake had noticed a small car parked out back; a Volkswagen Santana, Shanghai's version of a 1980s Jetta.

Su glanced up at Jake as he rose and walked toward the ticket counter, not understanding what was happening.

With one fluid motion, Jake grabbed the man by the shirt and slammed him to the counter. Then he swung his legs over the counter and punched the man once in the kidney, dropping him to his knees. Once he had the guy on his face on the floor, trying to catch his breath, Jake riffled through the man's pockets.

“What the hell you doing?” Su yelled. She had run across the room to the other side of the counter.

“He was going to call the cops on us. Come here.”

She came around the side of the counter.

“Grab that tape over there. And the scissors.”

She did as he said, handing them to him. In less than a minute, Jake had the man tied up and taped from head to toe. He wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. At least not until the next train came and they found him there. He checked his watch. That gave them forty-five minutes.

“Let's go,” he said.

They collected their backpacks and hurried outside.

“What about the train?” Su asked.

Jake pulled out a set of keys and led her to the crappy, beat up car in the back lot.

“You're getting good at stealing cars,” she said. “You sure you don't do this for a living?”

He opened the driver's door. “Nope. But everybody has to have a hobby.”

Getting in, he unlocked the other doors and they put the packs in the back seat.

“Where we going now?” she asked, sitting in the passenger seat.

He cranked over the car and shrugged. “You're asking me? This is your country.”

“Shenyang is that way,” she said, pointing toward the south.

“Great.”

He pulled back, ground the gears, put it in first gear, and shot away from the terminal.

After they got out onto a main road heading toward Shenyang, Jake considered what to do. They had to leave China as soon as possible. But their choices were limited. There would be no direct flights to Alaska. They'd have to fly to Seattle or San Francisco. But maybe. He smiled at his idea. It wasn't the first time he had thought of it, though. When Armstrong and Anderson had first recruited him for this job, he had considered the option that he might be hung out to dry. After all, that's why they had hired him in the first place. They could disavow any knowledge of his existence. He was, as they would say, not affiliated with the U.S. government in any way. So, he had always known he might need another way out of China. Now it was time to call in an old favor.

Traffic on the main road got heavier as they closed in on the city of six million people.

“How far?” Jake asked. “What'd that last sign say?”

“About five miles.”

“I hope you're ready for another road trip.”

She looked confused. “We can catch a flight to Beijing here. Be there in time for evening meal.”

He shook his head. “No, they'll be watching the airport. They'll expect that. We'll do the unexpected. With the right traffic, we'll be there by late evening.” That is, if the car held up, he thought.

When they got to an outer ring of Shenyang, Jake drove around the east side of the city, not even catching more than a glimpse of small Hutongs on the outskirts.

There had been no choice. Fisher had thought his new partner had taken a shot to her shoulder, but the bullet had actually struck her just below her left shoulder socket, ripping a hole through her left biceps. Another shot had hit her directly in the chest, sinking deep into her Kevlar vest, and taking her breath away for a moment. With Harris hit, Fisher had driven her to the closest hospital in the Portland area, dropping her at the emergency room door, and then speeding off after the Asian woman in the white Trooper.

Fisher would have been quite angry had they not placed the satellite tracker on the Trooper while it sat in front of the house in Eugene. He had just gotten off the phone with the Portland office; they had relayed the woman's position to him.