Michael turned his attention from the screen and just stared into Kate’s wide almond eyes. Finally he said, “It’s crazy.”
“No, Michael, it’s real.”
“Trust me. It’s crazy.”
“Why?”
“Because now I have to figure out what your long lost airplane has to do with this.”
Michael reached into the pocket of his cargo shorts and withdrew the Lucite sphere he had taken from the factory. He watched Kate’s eyes widen as she took hold of the clear sphere, staring intently as cosmic snow fell on the globe of the Earth within, tiny green LEDs twinkling in harmony with its rotation. In that brief moment, Michael actually felt a chill run down his spine as he watched the world he thought he knew dissolve into nothing, to be replaced by something as yet unseen.
Chapter 12
Though Kate had little idea what the snow globe might represent, they had at least reached a truce which allowed them to pursue the one commonality in their quest so far — Chen. It didn’t take a genius to see that all roads led back to him. A quick internet search cross-referencing him against Chohow Industries revealed the man’s place of residence and that he was in fact president of the aforementioned company. After that, all it took was a phone call to his secretary to learn that he was unavailable because he would be at a business dinner all evening. From there it was a short cab ride to the garish, gated Mediterranean-style condominium complex Michael now found himself outside of.
The complex, located in Shenzhen’s outlying farmlands, consisted of maybe fifteen five-story buildings, each containing what looked like forty units. Kate’s plan was simple. Since the gate guard had a closed-circuit view of the entire compound, she needed a diversion and Michael was it. He was to show up at the front gate with his backpack and a guide book asking directions to the nearest bus station. If Michael could win her fifteen seconds away from the prying eyes of the guard, Kate could hop the wall on the highway side of the compound and put in a call for assistance from one of the outdoor security telephones that were staggered between the buildings. The guard leaving his post would give Michael an opportunity to sneak in through the front gate. The guard would then see that the call had been an error and Michael and Kate would be free to go about the business of breaking into Chen’s townhouse in peace.
That was the theory. In practice Michael discovered that either guards at gated communities didn’t go for backpackers or else they were extremely lonely because, upon startling the guard with a tap at the window, he immediately got on the phone. Within moments a second guard had pulled alongside Michael on a motorcycle. Michael now had two guards to contend with. But it didn’t stop there. Two more guards arrived by car, then another on a bicycle. They were coming out of the woodwork and as it turned out, they weren’t angry, just eager to offer him a ride to the bus station. This wouldn’t happen at home, but Michael had to remind himself, he wasn’t at home. He was in China. And apparently the sight of a backpacker out here in the far flung suburbs was still unique enough to cause a spectacle.
Fortunately, Kate’s call on the internal security phone soon came in and all five of the guards were off to the races, checking on what might be the matter. Michael snuck into the parking lot behind them. He skirted the far wall, meeting Kate on the south side of the complex as planned.
“What took you so long?”
“Made some new friends.”
Kate ignored him. “As far as I can tell Chen’s condo is the one nearest to the perimeter wall, there,” she said, pointing at a dark building.
“No lights, no answer on the phone, we good to go?” Michael asked.
“As good as it’s going to get.”
“I was kind of hoping for some spook talk. Maybe you could tell me SAT RECON is in, subject identified, target acquired, that kind of thing. Like I told you, we spies expect that kind of thing.”
“This isn’t a game, Michael.”
“I wasn’t playing.”
* * *
The truth regarding the “sat recon,” which Kate hadn’t shared with Michael, was that she had attempted to contact the MI6 sub-station in Hong Kong to get precisely this information. Her highly modified iPhone contained the latest in secure satellite technology. It was a marvelous piece of personal communication equipment, equipped with such an array of electronic shielding and countermeasures that interception of its signal was thought to be impossible. Unfortunately, on attempting to dial out, Kate had been greeted with dead air, no dial tone, no static, nothing. She had assumed that sunspot activity was interfering with her transmission, but as is often the case with such things, the real explanation was more sinister.
The Chinese Bureau of Scientific Affairs had for years been working on a special project code named 411 whose stated purpose was the interception and decryption of enemy satellite communications. To date, decryption was still a complicated affair requiring both the brute force of supercomputers and the time to let them work, but interception had proven to be a workable problem. In addition to accurately intercepting satellite transmissions, the Chinese had discovered something else. If they had a particular region under surveillance, they were able to acquire the location of the transmission, something that the users of encrypted satellite phones, unlike their common cell brethren, believed they were immune to.
It was in such a way that Chinese Ministry of State Security Captain Zu Huang caught his break. Earlier in the day Captain Huang had been tasked with ferreting out an American spy. He had been given surveillance photos taken by a security camera at Chek Lap Kok airport and a purported agenda, but little else. Huang didn’t need to be told that his homeland was an enormous country and that without actionable intelligence he’d been set up to fail. It was well known that all agents were set up to fail. The system was designed to ensure that only the strong survived.
Fortunately, in addition to being strong, Huang was a very thorough man. An earlier request to monitor the Greater Shenzhen Special Economic Zone for encoded satellite transmissions had resulted in two hits. One came from a known MI6 safe house in the Lo Wu border area, but the other, which Huang had just received word of, appeared to originate from a residential development far from the center of town. It was this transmission which interested Huang because to date there was no record of the use of such a device at that locale. And though Huang had no hard proof that the American was behind the transmission, absent any other leads, he was well aware that he’d be foolish to ignore the matter. And so, without further ado, Huang hurried into his Ministry issued sedan, commanding his subordinates to follow.
* * *
An elevator carried Kate and Michael up to Chen’s fifth-story apartment. Upon reaching the top floor, Kate led Michael past two doors to apartment 534. Kate knocked at the door, but as expected there was no answer. There appeared to be no peepholes in the doors, so there was little chance of being seen by a neighbor. Still, she covered her hand with her sleeve and reached up to loosen the light bulb in the wall mounted sconce. The darkness afforded her the privacy to pull out a simple lock pick which she held between her teeth. She then handed Michael a pair of latex gloves which he stared at for a moment before pulling on. Kate followed suit, pulling on her own gloves before going to work with the lock pick, the only real sound the noise of traffic on the expressway behind them. Less than five seconds later, they were in.