“I’m Tang, and you?”
“Gao, or bitch that’s what he calls me the bastard.” They walked on, the last thing Tang expected this morning was pushing a stroller. Gao hungrily scooped up the noodles. “It’s down here.” They turned right into a side street. Rubbish and discarded fast food boxes littered the narrow street. A dog had its nose buried in some dumped plastic bags.
“Here, up these steps, it’s my older sisters.”
Tang had to tip the stroller and pull it up the steps behind her, Gao was still gulping coffee and slurping noodles. They reached a door, Gao dropped the empty plastic cup down the steps and opened the door.
Tang looked around. On the couch laid out a wretch of a girl. Lank unkempt hair, dried flaking eye shadow, she was dressed like whore, probably was, thought Tang. With a cigarette and bags under her eyes, she was gutter material. Around the couch were two empty wine bottles.
“Gao. He hit you again?” She dropped her head back down, too tired and high on something to care.
“You got some drinks for Ji?”
She pointed to the cupboards. “In there.” The young woman walked over and took out a plastic bottle. She opened the bottle, walked over to the stroller, then doubled up in pain.
“What’s wrong.”
“My stomach. I must go to the toilet now. Please spoon this out to Ji. Please?” The girl walked off down a side corridor. Tang looked at the baby and the bottle. How did I get myself into this?
She crouched down. How was she going to feed the boy?
“Do you have a spoon?”
“Ohh…” Came the sound from the wretch on the couch.
“Yeah I’ll get.” She stood up and stumbled into the kitchen.
Trust me to get involved, Tang Li looked at her wristwatch, she had to leave soon. She heard the sister behind her stumbling back into the room. A hand closed firmly around Tang’s mouth and chin and pulled her roughly up. She felt a sharp pain as a blade was drawn across her neck. Her eyes were wild with surprise and pain. The hand gripped her hard pulling her back against a body. She realised she’d misjudged the wretch. Tang’s vision faded, she felt the warm blood on her chest, and then, and then she slept…
MAY LET THE WOMAN FALL to the floor. She leaned down and rummaged through her pockets, she found a designer canvas wallet. She opened it, taking out and credit cards or photographs, all forms of ID. Finally, she took out the MSS photo ID card and slipped it in her wallet.
Gao reappeared, “Get showered, get those blooded clothes into this bag.”
May ran the shower, stepped in and took off the clothes watching the blood-stained water run down the drain. She dried herself and walked back into the main room.
“Here put those on. Just get dressed and wait, the others will be along to dispose of her. If anybody tries to call, tell them to piss off and play the part you were doing.” Gao fed the boy then walked backwards down the steps with the stroller. May sat on the couch, all was as it was when she’d first arrived. Dingy, squalid a little food in the fridge. Now of course there was a dead woman on the floor. May looked at the MSS card and then to the woman.
“Tang, we don’t have much to do, I guess you don’t play Go. Pity, I’ll just have to lie down.” She lay on the couch and waited.
HOURS LATER MAY AWOKE at footsteps on the stair. The door opened, it was the one who called himself Hue, the one with the eye patch looked into the other rooms.
“Has anyone been here? Tried to get in?”
“No, it’s been quiet, no one called.”
Hue nodded. Had her stand against a wall where he took a photograph of her head and shoulders. They carried the woman into a bedroom her head and long black hair dangling down. Shortly they emerged with a rolled-up mattress, no doubt with Tang Li inside. All three left and the mattress was thrown into the back of a truck. Darkness had fallen now and the three of them drove to a closed and empty industrial wharf. Tang was transferred into a weighted body bag and dumped into the river off a pier’s end.
They dropped May off at the hotel she stayed at.
“Give me the pass that she carried,” asked Hue.
“Good. Be at The Golden Garden café tomorrow at noon.” The two men drove off and May went inside the hotel. She went to her room and got an early night.
LATE THE NEXT MORNING May walked into the café and ordered Chicken, rice and a tea. She was hungry having skipped breakfast and the chicken smelled good. A little while later Gao walked out from the back.
“Hi, can you come into the back, get yourself another tea.” Gao told the server to pour one. She followed Gao into the back room and sat. They were all there, the old man with a long drooping moustache, a middle-aged woman and three men in their thirties, one with a black eye patch.
Hue handed her the MSS pass, it now sported her picture. Not perfect, it didn’t have the hologram, but it was good.
“This will be you now, Tang Li. Even close colleagues don’t know that you’re a member of the elite counter espionage group known as Gothic Panda or APT3, you can call on nation state capabilities. Your task is to hunt down and eliminate the enemies of the PRC.
In the west, the film character James Bond has a licence to kill.” Hue snorted, “You Tang, actually do.
If you kill someone in the course of your investigations, you will be arrested and interrogated, that can’t be helped. But you have a Y3 notice on you and when your case gets the right level, you will be released immediately, all records relating to your “crime” eliminated. We recommend you don’t do this, but if you have to…” Hue shrugged and left his words in pregnant suspension. He slipped over a Huawei cell phone.
“On there is a contact entitled Xu, this will call Gao. She’ll use several disposable cell phones. Remember the number, you should also use disposable cell phones, in there is an email address: luckpoos@zorgcom.ca. It goes through a proxy server in Canada, very difficult to trace, you can put more detail in there, we’ll check it every day.”
“Where will I be going?” Hue and the others smiled and laughed.
“Within the leadership there is an enclave that wants to retake Taiwan by force. Not all agree, but many high up in the PLAN agree, it’s difficult they admit, but possible.
Some in the MSS have been working on members of the US government and military, using cash, seduction and veiled threats to family members. It’s all to reduce the possibility of a fully armed response to any PRC invasion. Hue briefly looked down at the carpet. He hadn’t told her the full story at all, he might at some point, but for now she had enough.
You’ll join DDG-120 Chengdu, it’s a type 052D Destroyer, you’ll be an acting Lieutenant Commander, from there you’ll get a first hand look at her activities.” Hue passed over her PLAN Officers ID card, complete with her photograph. “Her Captain’s Executive Officer is very well connected with the leadership, his Father is on the Politburo. It would be good for you to get friendly with him.” Hue raised an eyebrow.
“You do look like Tang superficially, but anyone who knows you won’t be fooled, kill them.”
Hue laughed. “May,” he fixed her gaze, “Chengdu is allocated to operation Dragon’s breath, the liberation of Taiwan. So, you may be going home sooner than you thought.”
Chapter 6
May had been given a crash course in PLAN customs, etiquette and facilities. She travelled to Ningbo, the coastal city was a principal naval base. May went to the quartermaster’s department. She passed her PLAN card over. “Yes Sir.”