“This is the place,” the driver said. “Go inside. The bartender will show you to a table in the corner.”
Gushan opened the door and looked around. The street was lit with illumination from shop fronts, streetlamps, and a crisscrossing set of lights strung overhead in a festive fashion. Snow on thesidewalks and the untraveled sections of the street reflected the illumination and doubled the effect, giving the area a warm glow. It reminded him of the streets in northern provinces during the Chinese New Year.
He saw nothing to suggest danger, but his sixth sense told him they were walking into trouble. The fact that the driver had an American accent hadn’t helped.
He stepped out of the van and looked down the road, not for trouble this time, but for help. A short distance away, he spied the white lights of two cars he’d arranged to follow them. The newly built vehicles were made by a Chinese manufacturer. They were sleek and electric. Inside were six of his men. If an ambush occurred, it would help to have backup nearby.
“It’s clear,” Gushan said.
The admiral and his assistant climbed down. Gushan slammed the door behind them and the van took off. Hiking across the slush in the gutter of the road, they made their way to the entrance and stepped inside. The bartender spotted them immediately, leaving his spot behind the large oak bar and directing them to a back corner table in a section that was relatively quiet in comparison to the otherwise boisterous room.
Gushan guessed there were at least sixty people in the bustling establishment. One group was playing darts; others were watching a World Cup soccer match on a television in the corner. Everyone was drinking and talking. There were advantages and disadvantages to all of that. Crowds created a bit of anonymity, but the swirling nature of the scene would make it hard to detect a threat. All in all, he’d have preferred a dark alley with no one around.
They took their seats. A tray carrying tall glasses filled with golden lager was delivered without a word. The admiral looked at the liquid suspiciously.
“They didn’t bring us here to poison us,” Gushan said. He reached for a glass and took a sip, quickly disappointed with the taste.
Minutes went by. The admiral fidgeted in his seat. No one came to speak with them. “How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” he asked.
As an operative, Gushan had spent plenty of time waiting for clandestine meetings to happen. Sometimes they never did come off. “Until your contact is comfortable. There’s nothing we can do to speed that up. Might as well have a drink.”
Gushan slid a glass toward the admiral and then one toward Haifeng. They sat untouched.
“Suit yourself.” After another sip of the beer, Gushan stood. He had no taste for lager. He wanted something stronger.
“Where are you going?” the admiral asked.
“To the bar,” he said, then offered an explanation. “It’s of no help for us to sit all together. We have one view. We make a single target. I can better watch for threats if I have a different perspective. And your contact may feel less threatened if you’re sitting here alone.”
Haifeng moved to stand, but the admiral wasn’t having that. He motioned for Haifeng to sit back down. Gushan understood. The admiral would feel naked without his bodyguard. He stepped away, leaving the two of them at the corner table and trying to remember what little he knew about Nordic liquors.
Chapter 30
In a darkened attic room two floors above the bar, Ahab stood amid a jumbled mess of boxes, unneeded chairs, and stacks of folding tables. A screen displaying gray-toned images from hidden cameras flickered in front of him as he listened to the feed from a hidden microphone that was picking up most of what the Chinese group was saying.
“Youwillwait,” Ahab said to the screen as he overheard Gushan talking. “You will wait until I’m good and ready.”
A man emerged from the shadows behind Ahab; he looked sleep-deprived and jumpy. His face had five days of scruff, and he had the remnants of a bruise on his cheek. “Why wait?” he grumbled in an American accent. “The Chinese are here. Let’s make a deal and get this over with.”
Ahab turned to the American, who had betrayed the others on the fateful flight. Ridley Wiles looked like a hunted man, as if he’d been chased for many miles and hounded every step. This, despite the fact that no one but Ahab knew he was alive.
Like most traitors, Ridley had assumed the betrayal would be the hardest part. As if all he had to do was steel himself to commit the act and everything would be easier on the other side. He was nowlearning the true nature of his new life. He thought he would be driving fast cars, gambling in Monaco, drinking champagne on yachts with beautiful women around him. Instead, he was hiding in a run-down tavern, sleeping on a dilapidated mattress that had been chewed on by rats.
Even if he got what he was after, the places he dreamed of would remain beyond his grasp. He would live in the shadows, in fear of discovery and with gnawing guilt. Every time he stepped into the sunlight, he would expect a swarm of Interpol cars to surround him or a bullet to take him down.
Ahab knew this misery better than anyone. He’d betrayed more than one country in his time, and many friends. But having spent decades in the shadows, he’d managed to create an alternate reality for himself, one where he was able to enjoy the spoils of his efforts.
Another cough rose up through his chest. Another taste of blood and also bitterness. That alternate reality was gone, or at least it soon would be, thanks to Kurt Austin, Major Gushan, and their respective countries.
Ahab was dying, poisoned by the toxic waste he had been dumping into the South China Sea. While escaping from the burning freighter, Kurt Austin had blasted one of the containers, spreading a witch’s brew of heavy elements and contaminated radioactive solvents across Ahab’s body. It soaked through his skin and mixed with his bloodstream. By the time he was able to reach a place of detoxification, it had penetrated every bone, muscle, and tissue in his body. It mutated the cells that were supposed to rebuild his bones and turned them into destroyers that were now ravaging him from the inside. It riddled healthy organs with holes or filled them with tumors that were now growing beyond control.
Despite a fortune spent on doctors and radical treatments, Ahab was dying. Dying because of Austin and Gushan. Dying because thetwo countries they called their own had chosen to work together to stop the illegal dumping operation Ahab was running. Dying because Austin had rewritten his orders and came to rescue Gushan without waiting for anyone’s approval.
Had Austin waited thirty minutes, Ahab would have been safely off the freighter and far away from the burning ship as it went down. He would have been healthy. He would have been able to vanish once more and retreat to his own personal Shangri-la, waiting patiently for the next high-paying job.
Instead, he was a man with numbered days. He had maybe a year to live in his collapsing body. In six months, he’d be fighting multiple organ failures. Soon after, he’d be confined to a bed somewhere, doped up on opium until he couldn’t see or feel or think. But before then he would have his revenge, on Austin and the Chinese major first, and then on the nations they served and the world of the living—which he now hated—at large.
Suppressing his lingering rage, he turned to Ridley, who knew nothing of this plan. “This is not the time to panic. You’ll get what you’ve earned. Just be patient.”
