‘We’ll need several of your activists,’ Zeb said into Meghan’s phone, which he’d placed on a coach seat so the group of eight could circle around it to listen. The tourist bus was parked in a shopping mall lot in Dongcheng.
They had reached Beijing the previous evening and spent the night in the coach, on a street in a secluded, upscale neighborhood in the Huairou District. The elder twin had driven them to a motel, where they rented rooms by the hour to freshen up.
Now well-rested, they had traveled to the central part of the city and, after a breakfast in a Western-style café, returned to the coach.
None wore masks, but they took the precaution of splitting up and going alone or in pairs when outside.
‘What will they need to do?’ Maria Ling asked.
‘Go around the city, especially in CBD.’
‘That’s it?’ Zhao Yilin Chua exclaimed. ‘Just walk around?’
‘Yeah, but with dark hoodies pulled over their heads. They should have their heads down, not show their faces to the camera.’
‘Tall activists,’ Beth smiled. ‘They’ll—’
‘You want to fool the cameras,’ Maria got it immediately. ‘Dark, because that’s what you’ll be wearing.’
‘There’s this massage parlor on Henghui Road. A financial company occupies the building. Walking distance from Jianwai Soho and the Big Underpants.’
‘Shi, we know the place,’ the rebel leader said. ‘Maria and I’ve been there a few times, after our meetings.’
‘We’ll need your people to flood those streets. In the evening, from five pm onwards.’
Neither of the activists spoke for a long while.
‘Is something going down?’ Maria asked softly.
‘You’ll read about it in the newspapers,’ Zeb replied. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘We can help.’
‘You will be, by getting your activists on the street.’
‘They. Cannot. Get. Involved,’ Meghan emphasized slowly. ‘No matter what they see or hear, they have to keep their distance. They have to act like random civilians going about their business.’
‘We’ll do it.’
‘What do you think?’ Broker asked as he walked past the gleaming, mirrored-glass building.
‘Looks like Hsu’s people are already preparing for his visit,’ Zeb replied. He had spread a map over the roof of a parked car and was tracing a finger over it. A tourist, checking out the route to his next attraction. ‘There are traffic cones in the parking lot, closing off a big part to vehicles.’
He looked up casually and located his friends, who were strung out on Henghui Road and Jhingheng Street. Bear and Chloe licking ice-creams, Bwana on his phone, Meghan and Beth, arm-in-arm, snapping photographs, Broker and Roger by themselves. All of them with shades over their eyes and hoodies pulled low. Glocks, armor, stun-grenades and various weapons on them. Bear and Broker had their HKs beneath their bulky layers of clothing.
‘That place has its own exit to Henghui,’ Beth observed.
‘Yeah.’ Zeb watched a car drive away through the opening in the waist-high concrete wall that ran around the building. ‘Nothing elaborate, just that gap.’ The main entrance to the building had rolling metal gates and a security guard. It’s also the exit from the basement parking lot, he observed as a limo pulled out and drove away.
‘Why would Hsu visit such a place?’ Bwana wondered. ‘Securing it wouldn’t be hard. They’d need to close down Henghui and Jhingheng, flood the parlor with agents, and only then he would be safe.’
‘His visit wouldn’t be anonymous, in that case.’
‘There!’ Beth exclaimed.
There, what? Zeb turned around casually to check what the younger sister was referring to.
He spotted the tall, hooded figures immediately. Three of them, walking briskly down Henghui. One of them passed him without raising his head.
‘Maria messaged me. She said there are close to fifty of them in Central Beijing. By evening she promised there will be double that, in CBD.’
‘We need to check the inside.’
‘That’s my job.’ Roger crossed the street and approached the parlor’s entrance before anyone could object. ‘My body’s a temple. It needs regular massages.’
‘It’s not big,’ he briefed them when he returned forty-five minutes later. ‘A reception area, which has the owner behind the desk. I got her to give me a tour. I told her I was a businessman and needed to de-stress.’
‘Businessman,’ Bwana scoffed, ‘in a hoodie.’
‘What would you know about style?’ the Texan retorted. ‘There are six massage rooms that lead off the central hallway, three on each side. They’re like stalls. Wood walls on the two sides, concrete at the back, mirror on it. Curtains at the front, for privacy. Each one with a table, sink, towel racks, and clothing hooks. Side walls are about eight feet high. At the back of the parlor, a bathroom and a small storeroom for supplies.’
‘She showed you that, too?’
‘Nope. I sneaked a look when I went to the bathroom.’
‘Those tables,’ Zeb asked him, ‘how are they laid out?’
‘Customer’s head to the concrete wall.’
Makes sense. That gives them the most privacy.
‘Are any of the rooms bigger?’ Zeb wondered. Hsu will want the best room.
‘Nope, all the same size. The owner herself administers the massages and calls on five others to help her if she’s busy. The place was empty when I visited. She said lunch and evenings are when she gets traffic. Get this.’ There was a grin in his voice. ‘I tried to book for this evening and she said she’s busy.’
‘That’s what she said,’ Meghan said, drily, ‘evenings—’
‘Nope, that’s not it. There’s a mirror on the wall behind her. I could see her log into her machine … not just that, I recorded it on my phone.’
‘Send it over,’ Beth told him impatiently. ‘We can hack into her system and check out when Hsu’s got his appointment.’
‘You shouldn’t go there, laoban,’ Rong declared.
‘I shouldn’t?’ Hsu glared at him. ‘That’s the only time I get for myself. Those massages relax me. They take away my stress—’
‘That place isn’t safe. Xiangsheng. It’s so small, and right in the middle of CBD.’
‘No one knows I visit there. Even the owner does not know who I am.’
‘We can get a masseuse to visit us here, laoban. We have a gym in the basement. We can use it—’
‘No. I go there to get away. These last two weeks have been so stressful. Carter almost killed us. I had tough meetings with the president … no, I will not stop going there.’
‘But, xiangsheng, that’s such a small place!’
‘Which is exactly what I want. I am anonymous there. Besides, you’ve checked out Song Jiang and her workers.’
‘Shi, laoban. They are all cleared. None of them are activists. She massages you personally—’
‘Enough,’ Hsu cut him off. ‘We won’t discuss it anymore. I’ll leave at six. Have my team ready.’
‘Shi, xiangsheng. Eight CPOs will be with you.’
At five pm, Zeb was in a small restaurant on Jhingheng Street. He sipped his tea as he read a newspaper.
‘They’re here.’
He looked up at Meghan’s comment and, as he watched, a hoodie-wearing figure walked past his window. He grinned as he spotted more of them on the street.
He didn’t know if the cops or MSS agents might have noticed the decoys, but thus far, they were moving around unhindered.
‘Hsu’s appointment is still on?’
‘Yeah. All appointments at the parlor have been blocked out from five-thirty to seven pm.’
‘Any name or contact number for the booking?’
‘Nope.’
We’ll know soon enough. He signaled the server for the check and stretched.
Zeb was on Henghui Road when the BMW rolled up. It came to the building’s main entrance. The guard waved it through after a brief conversation with the driver, and on entering the parking lot, the driver took the car to the spaces in front of the massage parlor and parked sideways, blocking vehicular passage from the main building to the small business.
Four hard-looking suits got out of the vehicle and inspected the parking lot.
‘Hsu’s CPOs,’ Meghan commented.
‘Yeah.’
They went to every vehicle and got rid of each one by summoning and ordering the drivers to drive them away.
‘BMW’s empty,’ Beth whispered. ‘Those four were its only occupants.’
Zeb repeated his map routine as he watched two of the men go inside the parlor. They returned shortly and nodded to the suits leaning against the BMW.
Confirming that the parlor is empty. Just the owner, inside.
One of the CPOs made a brief call.
Zeb straightened when the men stood up.
He had tossed the map in a trash can when a second BMW drove fast, down Henghui, turned into the entrance to the parlor and parked sideways to block that exit.
He started crossing the road when more suits jumped out of the second vehicle. One of them opened the rear door.
He got a brief glimpse of Jian Hsu before the MSS chief hurried inside the parlor without looking around.
‘Seven CPOs outside.’
He couldn’t help but grin at the satisfaction in Bwana’s voice.
He mounted the sidewalk to Henghui.
His team started closing in.
He was climbing over the waist-high wall when one of the MSS agents noticed him.
‘STOP!’ the man ordered. ‘GO BACK.’
Zeb kept going. He felt loose and ready as his world narrowed down to the seven men who were bunched close together.
He felt movement behind him and sensed the twins, Bwana and Bear’s presence.
‘STOP! ARE YOU DEAF? DIDN’T YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID?’
He was close enough to read the anger in the speaker’s voice. The MSS agents had spread out, but not by much. They were angry, puzzled, by the approach of the operatives.
‘IT’S THEM!’ One of them yelled. ‘THE AMERICANS.’
‘GO!’ Meghan commanded in his earpiece.
He broke into a run, skirted Hsu’s men, heard Bwana grunt and his fist connect with an agent and then he was inside the parlor.