“I’ve always wanted to visit China,” the brunette across from her said. “This is so exciting!” Her name tag said Jenn, but they had done little more than exchange pleasantries before taking off from Los Angeles.
Lisa nodded, then looked out her window again as the jet turned onto the ramp and approached their gate.
“First time?” Jenn asked.
“No,” she replied, casually reaching between her legs to adjust the knife.
The purser’s announcement over the public address system halted further conversation. “Flight attendants, disarm doors, cross-check, and stand by for all call.”
She unstrapped from her seat and reached down to disarm the emergency slide and prevent it from automatically deploying when the door opened. She glanced across the galley at Jenn’s door to verify she had done the same to hers, then picked up the inter-service phone.
Her crew began chiming in as each of the working flight attendants checked in with the purser, or lead flight attendant, and verified they had disarmed their doors. As two of the more junior flight attendants on the crew, she and Jenn were last, at their stations in the aft galley.
“Jenn, L4, disarmed, all clear.”
“Lisa, R4, disarmed, all clear.”
“Thank you,” the purser replied. When she clicked off, the flight attendants hung up their phones and began preparations to disembark the passengers.
Several minutes later, as the last of the almost two hundred and seventy economy passengers exited through L2, Lisa placed her smaller carry-on atop her roller bag and waited for Jenn to finish gathering her things.
“Sorry,” Jenn said, aware she was holding up the crew from beginning their thirty-hour layover.
“Take your time,” she replied, though she didn’t mean it. She glanced at the small Breitling Chronomat with diamond-set bezel on her wrist and mentally calculated how long she had to make her meeting. “I’m in no hurry.”
As far as the others knew, she was one of three flight attendants who didn’t speak Mandarin. That she had undergone months of rigorous language training was something she kept to herself, and she spent the forty-five-minute ride from the airport to the hotel pretending not to understand those who spoke the native language.
Jenn and the other excluded flight attendant spent most of the van ride taking pictures of the scenery outside their windows. But Lisa feigned disinterest while intermittently eavesdropping and looking at the minute hand on her watch ticking gradually closer to when she was supposed to meet her contact at the Lujiazui Central Green.
“Well? Do you, Lisa?”
It took her a second to realize Jenn had asked her something. “I’m sorry,” she replied. “What did you say?”
Jenn laughed at her startled expression. “Girl, your head is still in the clouds! I said, Betty and I are going to walk the Bund. Do you want to join us?”
It had been several months since she last visited Shanghai, but she remembered walking along the promenade on the west bank of the Huangpu River quite well. It had been spring then, and she remembered enjoying the leisurely stroll to Huangpu Park, the country’s oldest public park, at the north end where she first met with Shen Yu.
But today she was to meet him at Lujiazui.
“No, I’m sorry, but I’m beat,” she said. “Maybe we can meet up tomorrow? I’ve always wanted to see the Jade Buddha Temple.”
Jenn’s disappointed look quickly disappeared, and she sat up tall and clapped her hands with a broad smile on her face. “This is going to be so much fun!”
An hour later, Lisa exited the Jinmao Tower through the eastern entrance. The hotel occupying the top thirty-five floors inside the eighty-eight-story building was in the heart of the Lujiazui financial and business district, and most flight attendants appreciated the easy access to restaurants and shopping. But Lisa only cared for its proximity to the park.
She turned north on Dongtai Road, walked underneath the large pedestrian walkway, and crossed Lujiazui Road to enter the green space. She was running a few minutes late, but she knew Shen Yu would wait for her. He had made it clear he would speak only with her, and he needed to do it immediately.
Must be important for the Agency to pull strings and get me on that flight, she thought.
She turned onto the red brick walkway circling the park and looked toward the pond in the middle. Shen Yu had indicated he would wait for her near a sculpture of what looked like two tree trunks stretching into the sky to become winged angels. The sculpture was easy to spot. Shen Yu was not.
“You’re late,” he said, suddenly appearing alongside her.
She startled but recovered quickly. “Shen Yu. You have us all very worried.”
“With good reason.” He looked at his watch before scanning the busy street behind him. “I need to catch a flight back to Hunan.”
“So soon?” She followed his gaze. The sun was still high in the sky, and the smog gave it a milky glow that was oddly beautiful. But the park was empty, and they were alone. “Shen Yu, what is so important that I had to fly halfway around the world?”
“I’m sorry,” the scientist replied. His face was downturned, and his eyes pleaded with her in a way even her childhood golden retriever couldn’t have competed with. “I uncovered something I shouldn’t have.”
She felt her heart quicken. “What?”
He stared into her eyes, and she could tell it was a struggle for him. She knew the respected biochemist had shown a certain hesitancy to trust the Americans, but the consensus at Langley was that her feminine touch was exactly what he needed to overcome his reluctance in helping them.
“Shen Yu. Talk to me.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly with his chin tilted skyward. “I’m afraid they will execute me when I return,” he finally said.
Instinctively, she reached to her right hip, where she would have carried her gun were she back in the United States. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and she felt cold as she contemplated the potential extraction scenarios they had considered for this exact situation. At the time, she had shot down every single one, believing they were too dangerous and that she still had more time.
“Then don’t go,” she said. She wasn’t about to let him return to face a sentence she had committed him to. “We can get you out. I will get you out.”
Shen Yu shook his head. “It’s too late for that.”
She reached out and took his hands in hers. They made eye contact, and his lip quivered with a fleeting look of shame that vanished as he steeled himself to do what he believed was right.
“Please,” she said. “What did you find?”
His eyes darted around the park as if searching for hidden assassins. “A splinter element within the Ministry of State Security has developed a synthetic bioweapon designed to start a war.”
“What element? Where?”
He ignored her questions. “I uncovered the plot months ago and thought I had more time to stop them, but I’m too late.”
“Too late?” She struggled to wrap her brain around what Shen Yu was telling her. “It’s never too late…”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it is. They are going to use it against an American aircraft carrier.”
She swallowed hard. “But Shen Yu…”
“Listen to me,” he hissed. “I couldn’t stop them, but maybe you can.”