This Court had not expected.
He slowly raised his hands.
Now he heard a key card placed in the door behind him, and then a second man entered. Court looked back over his shoulder to confirm that it was the man in the suit and tie from the bar. He wore dark glasses now, as well.
So, still just the two guys, he said to himself. It seemed to him MSS could scare up fifteen operatives if they wanted something bad to happen to a CIA officer in HK. Perhaps whatever was going on here was off book, or MSS just didn’t think they needed much muscle to do whatever it was they were about to do.
Court thought about Suzanne Brewer’s assurances that MSS didn’t get physical with CIA. Either these dudes weren’t MSS, they didn’t think he was CIA, or the rules had changed. There was an equation he’d have to solve to sort all this out, but that was a problem for down the road.
The man in the bathroom stood up slowly. He appeared calm, professional, and his English was accented but more than adequate. “Sit on chair by window.” He motioned with the pistol for Court to enter the bedroom, and Court complied.
Across the ransacked space, a swivel chair pulled out from the desk sat positioned with its back just inches away from the twenty-fifth-floor window looking out over Victoria Harbor. On the desk to the right of the chair, a set of high-end steel handcuffs lay on a towel.
Court said, “If it’s money… I have a little cash. My credit cards are in my—”
He felt the tip of the suppressor of the pistol jabbed against the back of his head. The man in the tracksuit spoke from behind. “You sit in chair!”
Court sighed now. “Okay, pal. I sit in chair.”
Court crossed the room and sat down. The man in the business suit spun him around to face the window; Court couldn’t help but look straight down, twenty stories, to the roof of an adjacent seven-story building below. Beyond that was a busy road, the headlights and taillights snaking in either direction in red and white. Court felt hands on his wrists, and then his arms were yanked behind him and the steel cuffs were clicked tightly in place.
His pockets were rummaged through. His wallet, his phone, and his hotel room key were tossed on the bed, and then he was swung back around to face the two men.
The men spoke to each other in Mandarin for a moment; neither seemed particularly worked up about what they were doing. Then the guy in the tracksuit disappeared into the bathroom.
While he was out of view, Court looked to the other man. “Do you speak English? Will you tell me what is going on?”
The man in the business suit made no reply. Instead he just went to the bed, laid his pistol down on it, and unzipped a black satchel. From it he pulled out two small blue items. In seconds he opened one up and Court recognized it for what it was.
A surgical mask.
Uh-oh.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Tracksuit returned from the bathroom with his suppressed pistol stuck inside his waistband. In his hands he held what appeared to be a Montblanc fountain pen. Business Suit placed a second surgical mask over Tracksuit’s face, then pulled out his phone. Court noted that the man’s pistol was still on the bed, which told him these guys were more than confident in their capabilities.
Tracksuit waved the pen in the air. “Do you know what this is?”
Court lied. He was pretty sure he knew, but his cover identity would not have a clue. “It’s a pen.”
“No. It is designed to look like pen. But, in fact, it’s blowgun that uses compressed air to fire powerful powder that will alter your mind.”
“Heroin? What are you going to do with—”
“Not heroin. Scopolamine hydrobromide. A truth drug. I blow this in your face and you will tell us what we want to know within minutes. Of course, you will be zombie for hours, but that is just side effect.”
Court pushed a crack into his voice, the tenor of a man on the verge of panic. “Je-Jesus! I’ll… I’ll tell you now. No reason to use that shit! I’m just a businessman from Cleveland, here in town to… what are you doing?”
Business Suit stepped forward, raised his phone, and took a picture of Court’s face, then stepped back to the far side of the bed, near the pistol lying there. Court watched while the man thumbed keys on his phone. He assumed the man was about to e-mail or text the photo to someone.
While Business Suit did this calmly, Tracksuit unscrewed the front of the pen. Like his partner, he was as relaxed as he could be. This was just another day at work for the two of them.
Court realized quickly he wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of this, to satisfy these two that they had the wrong man, or that the CIA plane he’d arrived in was something other than a CIA plane. And Court also knew there was absolutely no way to keep them from sending that picture to Chinese intelligence officials, something that would irrevocably ruin his mission here in Hong Kong.
Actually, there was a way. One way to save the mission. One way to stop this op from falling apart before it even began.
These two men had to die.
Behind the chair, Court’s left hand reached over to his right hand, and he slipped the gold wedding band off his finger. He used his fingernails to pry free a thin stainless steel band that ran around the inside of the ring in a small recess. As he pulled the two-inch-long flexible piece of metal out, it straightened into a tiny metal shim.
The ring had been left for him in the backpack on the plane, along with several other common CIA gadgets from the Science and Technology Division. Court had left the majority of the gear on the aircraft, but he’d taken a few novelties, the wedding band included, because he’d worn such a device off and on for the past decade, depending on his mission and on his alias.
As Tracksuit moved closer, Court used his right thumb and forefinger to manipulate the shim. He’d practiced the move a thousand times, almost always behind his back, though this was the first time he’d done it in the field. He inserted the thin metal shim in front of the ratchet teeth on the cuff, pushing it into the cuff’s main housing. He kept pushing, his thumb turning white with the pressure, until the entire steel shank had made its way in. This forced the teeth of the ratchet out of the pawl, a set of spring-loaded counter teeth inside the handcuff’s steel housing.
With the teeth disengaged from the pawl, he quickly turned his wrist, popped open the cuff on his left hand, and moved the cuff over to his right hand, next to its mate.
The man with the scopolamine blowgun said something to the man thumbing keys on his phone, and both men chuckled.
Tracksuit switched to English. “You won’t remember a thing after this. When we have all the information we need from you, I might get you to order room service for my colleague and me. I could go for a bottle of scotch and a lobster, paid for by the CIA.”
Both Chinese men laughed again.
Tracksuit leaned forward now, just feet in front of Court, and he brought the blowgun up to Court’s face. He only had to press the recessed button next to the clip and the powder would—
Court launched up and to the left, putting Tracksuit between himself and the man across the room. As he rose, his hands came out from behind the chair, and his right hand fired a jab towards the face of the surprised man in front of him. The momentum from Court’s muscular legs and back all added to the power of the jab, and both steel cuffs were wrapped around his right fist like brass knuckles. He drove his punch through the blowgun on his way to the man’s face, crushing the plastic device as well as the nose of the Chinese intelligence officer.