Trevor Scott
Rising Tiger
1
Jake Adams got off the metro train car at the Jiantan Station and immediately saw the massive Shilin Night Market outside the platform, a sea of people flowing like blood cells through veins. He had been riding the MRT system much of the day, familiarizing himself with the city and the various colored lines, and trying to adjust from the jet lag after his flights from Costa Rica to San Francisco and then to Taiwan. He had to admit that he was beat. When he was younger he seemed to be able to make flights across the oceans without much of a problem. Of course he would usually drink himself to sleep and wake up refreshed. But now he rarely drank on flights, other than water.
Somehow he expected Taiwan to be much warmer in February. Now he shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and slowly wandered down the stairs to street level. It wasn’t like he could blend in to any Asian street scene, but he wore blue jeans, a baseball hat he had purchased that morning, pulled down to cover as much of his face as possible, and wrapped a scarf around his neck. His only exposed skin was his eyes to his chin — enough to give him away as a non-local upon close inspection.
On street level now, he weaved into the crowd, doing his best tourist impression, his eyes trying to catch everything in his surroundings, from the bright kiosks selling clothes and trinkets, to the center stalls cooking unfamiliar foods, the smells wafting up to Jake’s nostrils and setting his stomach to a slow growl. The average tourists, Jake knew, would be looking for cheap clothes or food, but Jake was scanning for danger.
He had heard that the Shilin Night Market was the largest in Taiwan, with anyone who was anyone in Taipei making a stop there on certain nights. If that was the case then Jake guessed this was one of those nights. The place was nut to butt with locals. Jake stood out like a polar bear in a rain forest.
Jake wished like hell he had acquired a gun from the local Agency crew working out of the embassy, but that was a problem. He had traveled to the country with his Canadian passport, very real but totally fake, and only two people knew he was coming here — the current Director of Central Intelligence, John Bradford, and the former Director, Kurt Jenkins. Jake would have never taken on this case without a push from his old friend Kurt. After all, Jake was tracking down the former Deputy Director of the CIA, Bill Remington — a man who had run the clandestine service and had friends throughout the Agency at all levels — but a man now without a country after the crap he pulled with that whole Cyber Shot affair. Remington had shot down a Chinese satellite with a new rail gun weapon and then tried to cover that up by killing off the men in charge of the weapons test. Worse than that, though, he had tried to frame Jake’s good friend Chad Hunter by having a million dollars transferred to an offshore bank account.
That was nearly a month ago, and Remington was on the run with a huge head start. Sure, officially the Agency had folks out looking for the guy, and Interpol had a Red Notice out on him. But Jake knew the man had too many contacts in the game to make that effort pay off well. So did the new Director, John Bradford. That’s why Bradford hired Jake on the recommendation of Jenkins.
He pushed his way through the crowd and tried his best not to look too intimidating. He was, after all, a man simply out for an evening of shopping.
Jake stopped at a food kiosk in the center of the street and bought what he guessed was barbeque chicken on a wooden stick. The stop did two things for Jake. It allowed him to turn and check his six to verify he was being followed. He had been clean coming off the train, but had noticed an Asian man in his mid-thirties with hair to his shoulders follow him from the platform to the night market. The man needed a lesson in covert surveillance.
Turning again, a slight smile as he pulled a chunk of meat from the stick and chewed, Jake wandered forward. He was supposed to meet a man named Kwan Feng at a particular food joint across from a Nike store. Kwan was a known asset or agent of a Remington associate. Jake knew it was a risk reaching out to this man, but he had no other choice. It wasn’t like Remington was stupid enough to use a credit card or travel with his own passport. No, the man had been in the business a long time.
This Kwan fellow just happened to work at one of the major banks in Taiwan, and Remington’s friends had used that bank to transfer money to Chad Hunter’s account in Belize. So Kwan might just have some inside knowledge.
Jake had gone to the bank earlier in the day, but Kwan had successfully gotten away without giving him squat. Kwan said he would meet him at the night market and give him some information. Even though Jake knew this was probably bullshit, he had no other real choice, other than hauling the man out of the bank by his ear, taking him to a remote location, and beating the information out of him. Okay, Jake guessed that might have been better than walking into a trap. Maybe he was going soft.
Since Jake had not acquired a gun, he at least was able to buy a couple of nice blades — one a small tactical knife strapped to his right ankle, and the other a sharp flip assist blade in his left jacket pocket, his fingers ready to snap the blade within a second.
Jake saw the Nike store ahead and he finished his meat on a stick before moving forward cautiously. If there was still a man on his tail, there would be at least one more ahead of him.
Kwan was a man of nearly indeterminate age. His hair was cut short and showed no sign of gray. But that meant nothing in the business world, where most attempted to maintain their youth. At the bank the slight man wore a finely tailored dark suit, but now Jake saw the man sitting alone at a table wearing a heavy jacket. Perhaps goose down. This might have been all right for Jake in Austria this time of year, but the jacket seemed far too warm for Taiwan. Looking around, though, and Jake realized the Taiwanese had thin skin for cold weather. Many wore similar coats.
Before sitting down, Jake scanned the entire area. But it was such a cluster of people there was no way he could discern another tail.
“You made it,” Kwan said. The man’s only age giveaway was the wrinkles of consternation across his forehead, as if he had spent years trying to figure out a particular mathematical formula. He waved his hand for Jake to take a seat across from him.
Jake smiled and then picked up the plastic chair and moved it alongside the Taiwanese man before taking a seat. Someone at the Agency had at least taught this man how to position himself at a table, with a superior view. But the guy looked like a frightened rabbit, his eyes shifting side to side and his head indiscreetly swiveling about like a bobble head on the dash of a 4x4 on rocky terrain.
“What do you have for me?” Jake asked. His eyes concentrated for only a second on Kwan before wandering to his surroundings.
Kwan said something in Chinese, but Jake didn’t understand him. After a mission in China years ago, Jake had spent over a year with Chang Su, a beautiful Chinese woman. But she had only taught him a few words in that time. He thought of Su often, and especially since his arrival in Taiwan that morning. For some reason, mostly Jake’s fault, the two of them could not make things work. Su had eventually moved to Singapore with a new identity Jake’s friends had made for her. It had been a year since they had talked, though.
“Speak English,” Jake demanded.
“I’m sorry. I was talking to myself,” Kwan explained with great deference, his hands in a praying motion.
But Jake could see something in those hands. When the man’s left hand came down to his side and lingered just a few inches from Jake’s right leg, Jake glanced around like a normal tourist while his hand went down and accepted something small. Based on how it felt, Jake guessed it was a high capacity jump drive. He put his right hand in his pocket, dropped the drive and pulled out a two hundred dollar Taiwan note. On the front of the bill was a picture of the late president of Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek.