I arrived at the parking lot – a huge concrete affair, over five stories – at just before ten a.m. And since Ellen was too early to head to the pick-up area – you could only linger there for maybe ten minutes before arousing suspicion – she tailed me up to the fifth floor. And fortunately, because this was a long-stay car-park, and most people tried the lower stories first, there weren’t many folk milling about.
Before long, I found what I needed: a space that let me park side-on to Bayshore, so the road was framed in the passenger windows. Then I got out of the car, and walked to where Ellen had parked a couple of hundred yards away, in Scott’s Volkswagen Jetta.
I got into her passenger seat.
‘You feeling okay?’
She gave a thoughtful nod. ‘I can do this.’
‘You can.’
My gut felt liquid. The plan was crazy, but I had to project calm.
We sat a few minutes in silence. Presently I said:
‘Once they’re in your car, remember to put them in the handcuffs straight away.’ I paused. ‘If you give me a thumbs up, I’ll drive down, pull in behind you, get in the front passenger seat and we drive off together.
‘But if, for whatever reason, you feel you can’t hang around, give me an okay sign’ – I made the gesture to demonstrate – ‘and leave. I’ll meet you at Stillman.’
I was silent a spell. ‘It’ll probably take about four minutes for me to get down there; but if things get tricky while you’re waiting for me, then leave.’
Ellen nodded, then looked at me carefully. ‘Why have you done all of this for me?’
I understood what she was getting at. Although, in the immediate sense, I was obviously doing this for the hostages, she was asking why I’d let myself get roped in in the first place. The image of the young girl in the gazebo and the young hacker in Vegas flashed through my mind. Then I thought back to the awful monotony of drifting around California with no purpose, and that hunger I’d felt. The hunger for action; for direction.
But really it came down to the woman sitting next to me.
She was worn-down, tired, dirty. But with her intense brown eyes under her scruffy fringe, her slender body, and her distinctive oversized ears, she still looked pretty as all hell.
But more to the point, this was not some two-dimensional individual acting purely out of revenge. She’d been standing up for the little guy long before we’d met, and I knew it was this moral code – as much as any thirst for vengeance – that had been driving her.
She was a fighter, a woman of principle, and I respected her.
And whereas I was a trained fighter, an individual uniquely desensitized to enormous violence, she was not. And that made her willingness to put herself in harm’s way infinitely more courageous. Infinitely more selfless.
‘Ellen, I can think of nobody more deserving of my help.’
She smiled a dazzling smile, and in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to lean forward and kiss this beautiful woman; wanted nothing more than to drive into the distance with her by my side, and forget this whole goddamn mess.
Maybe the glint in her eye meant she felt the same way – and maybe not. But of course it was immaterial: it wasn’t an option.
I squeezed her hand and gave her a melancholy smile; then I went and retrieved the valise and the backpack from my trunk, put them in Ellen’s, and withdrew the handcuffs.
I went to the driver’s window. Handed her the cuffs.
‘And you’ve got your Walther and walkie-talkie?’
She patted her pocket, to signify the Walther, and pointed to the walkie-talkie in the holder by the gear stick.
‘You better make a move. Good luck.’
She leaned out the window, took my face in her hands, and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. The next instant, she’d reversed out of her spot, and was gone.
Feeling suddenly re-energized and focused, I got into the back seat of the Chrysler, and got to work. First, I grabbed a car mat from the front, and, to conceal my activity, pushed it up against the window facing into the car-park. Next, I took the suitcase containing the VSS, and built it in thirty seconds. Finally, I opened the window facing the road, laid across the back seats on my stomach, and leveled the muzzle out the window; and, as a result of the waist-high car-park wall, this gave me a clear view of the road.
Just as it had been when I’d headed to the car-park, the northbound lane of Bayshore was looking good: a fairly steady flow of traffic, average speeds of twenty-five mph. And while it was clear – as I’d suspected – that getting a clean shot might be tricky, I knew it might’ve been harder. There were two lanes as opposed to three. And since the car-park was to the east of Bayshore, and the target was set to be traveling north, I didn’t have to shoot across the traffic moving in the opposite direction.
I kept very still, and concentrated on my breathing; concentrated on putting my body in a state that would best serve my aim.
Three minutes later, my walkie-talkie, which was just under my chin, came to life.
‘Here.’
I’d told Ellen to keep it brief. Didn’t want her to attract attention by talking too obviously into a walkie-talkie. But already the worries were exploding in my head. It was only too possible that she’d somehow fail to spot the men. Or maybe she’d see them, but fail to get a sufficient look at their car.
Or maybe there’d simply be a delay of some kind, and Ellen would be forced to move before Minxin exited the airport…
I pushed these thoughts aside. It was out of my control. I just had to focus on keeping myself together…
Suddenly, the walkie-talkie came to life again.
‘Black Car. Mercedes. 2AQC314. One driver. Hao and Minxin in back.’
‘Copy.’
‘They’re heading off now.’
I took a deep breath. They were a mile away, but at twenty-five mph, they’d be here in just over two minutes.
I surveyed the horizon through the optics. And as I sifted through and vetted the stream of vehicles, spending a fraction of an instant on each one, I started counting: 30 seconds, 60, 90, 120, 150…
Then I hit 180, and still no Black Mercedes. And I could feel the sweat prickling through my scalp.
Then, with a painful wave of relief, I saw it. Saw the driver. Two figures behind. The number plate.
It was in the left-hand lane, which made for a tougher shot. But it was moving maybe twenty mph. And though the left-hand lane meant vehicles in the way, there was a large area of tarmac between the north and southbound lanes, painted white, which the driver would undoubtedly pull into, and would make Ellen’s job a far sight easier.
I tried to take aim immediately, but couldn’t make it work: still too far away. But then, a few seconds later, it’d drawn nearer and as I hovered over the red car that was blocking the shot, I placed my finger on the trigger in preparation…
And then a short glimpse of the front-right wheel. I exhaled, ready to pull the trigger. But as my finger started to jerk, the red car blocked my view again.
Keep calm, I told myself. Moving targets. Not easy. Still time.
But not much time.
I continued hovering my aim as the Merc moved past me, and started moving away. Now a van was blocking my view. And with my whole being, I willed the van driver to squeeze the gas. Willed him to accelerate. Then, after a painful couple of seconds, it happened: a space freed up before the van, and it overtook the Mercedes on the inside lane…
Now.
I jerked the trigger, aiming just in front of where the back-right wheel of the Mercedes was in that moment. Then a sickening second – a breathless, interminable second – as the bullet smashed silently through the air…
Bull’s-eye.
I watched with incredulity as the bullet hit home and the wheel immediately deflated. And just as I’d hoped, the driver – after a short struggle to keep control of the vehicle – pulled over into the no-man’s land between the two lanes.
It was an impossible shot. Millions to one. What’s more, no other road-user reacted. They’d all just assumed it was a routine break-down.
But still no time to celebrate. So much that could go wrong.
I grabbed the walkie-talkie. ‘Perfect hit. Pulled up into central reservation. Attempting to call Hao now.’
I got out the iPhone, and dialed Hao. And once again, as I put my eye to the optic, and examined the back of Hao and Minxin’s head (both of whom I had a clean aim at now, since they were a decent distance from the traffic), I willed the universe to work in my favor.
The call connected and the phone started ringing – a good start. Then, with another jab of relief, I saw Hao fumble around.
The ringing stopped and Hao held his phone to his ear.
‘Hello?’
I answered while pressing on the walkie-talkie’s button at the same time. Wanted Ellen to hear I’d made contact.
‘Listen, Cocksucker, I’ve got a sniper rifle aimed at your head—’
Hao immediately made as if to look out the window.
‘No,’ I hissed. ‘Act natural, or I’ll puncture your head like I did your wheel. Now, smile nicely and nod, as if everything’s perfectly normal.’
I paused, and though I couldn’t see his face, his head jerked up and down.
He was breathing heavy.
‘In a second, a friend of mine will pull up behind your car. You and Minxin will calmly get out the car and get into the back-seats of this new car. You’ll tell Minxin and your driver that this is a second driver that you had tail the car for security purposes. You’ll tell the driver that he must stay put, and that you’ll send someone for him. Do that now. And make it convincing, or so help me God—’
I let off, and Hao launched into his rendition. And though I could hear the fear in his voice, I reckoned he was doing an adequate enough job.
Halfway through his speech, Ellen pulled behind the Mercedes, perhaps twenty yards off.
She gave a half-second glance up towards me, then began staring down the Merc.
A few seconds later, Hao finished talking.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’m hanging up. Get to it.’
I terminated the call, and watched as Hao and Minxin – a tubby, supercilious-looking man, with a look of utter confusion – exited the car, and started towards Ellen’s.
Other vehicles were still paying little notice. But I was most worried about the driver. He seemed calm enough, but was watching things intently in his rear-view mirror. Even if he thought he’d just gotten unlucky, and had punctured his tire on some detritus, he clearly realized what was going on was unorthodox.
Ellen had to get the two men under control before the driver reacted.
On that thought, I made a decision: I had to leave right now if I wanted to be in the car with Ellen. Because I could tell by the way she was glancing at the driver that she also registered him as a potential threat – and would be considering leaving as soon as possible…
I reckoned the fact Hao would assume the sniper rifle was still aimed at him would be enough to keep him in line.
I snapped the rifle into pieces, jammed them into the case, and jumped into the driver’s seat. Then, with one more glimpse outside (Minxin and Hao climbing into the back, Ellen turning to face them), I jammed the keys in the ignition, and shot quickly out the spot. Next thing, I was wending my way through the labyrinthine concrete block. As I did so, I pictured Ellen calling the shots, and placing their hands in handcuffs. Pictured the driver in the Mercedes watching this unfold, and his curiosity and suspicion spiking.
Pictured the kids in the consulate, complete unaware that their lives hung by a thread.
Before I knew it, I was joining the northbound lane, and could make out both of the cars. And a few moments later, I was pulling up behind Ellen’s.
No sooner did I come to a stop – maybe five yards away from Ellen’s car – than the driver threw open his door and started scrambling out of the Merc.
No time to think.
I grabbed the sniper case, scrambled out of the car, and began sprinting. As I did so, the driver – who was already moving towards us – also broke into a run. And in the same moment, we made a brief, electrifying eye-contact.
But I had a huge advantage: I had a quarter of the distance to cover. And sure enough, by the time I hit Ellen’s passenger door, he was barely halfway. And then I was in the car, and the guy was still five yards off.
‘Go, go, go!’
Ellen smashed the gas, the driver jumped clear, and we swerved into the flow of traffic. And barely had we done so than I pulled out my Walther, and turned on the two men in the back. Both had their hands handcuffed before them.
‘Put a goddamn word out of place, and get a hole in the head.’
‘Do you know who I am?’ said Wu. Not haughty. Just shocked at the sheer audacity.
‘I couldn’t give a fuck. All I know is, if I put a bullet in your stomach, you’ll die a slow, painful death, like anyone else.’
The blood went from his face. I looked at Ellen. Her mouth was tight, eyes focused, hair meshed with sweat. She looked beat. And all at once, I became aware of my own muscles twitching and trembling with the trauma I’d put them through. And as I leaned back to open my lungs, I felt the agony of my broken rib.
It’d been tender this whole time. But I’d suppressed it – like turning a TV to mute.
I drank a few deep breaths. Once I’d regained some semblance of composure, I pulled out Scott’s iPhone, switched on airplane mode, took out the SIM and then turned it off. The driver would contact the authorities, who would be able to see Hao’s call-log, and see the number to Scott’s phone – meaning it had to be switched off. After this, I produced the walkie-talkie, flicked it to the frequency we’d found in Pockmark’s shoe, and touched my finger to the button.
But then, I stopped myself. Stopped because I realized that, since seeing Yuelin’s mug shot, I’d given very little thought about the person I was up against. And thus, very little thought about how best to handle her…
Yuelin Lie. As far as I knew, she wasn’t a psychopath: she was a fanatic. Of course, the two things weren’t mutually exclusive. But since she was motivated by an ideology – an ideology predicated on the supremacy of the Chinese, and the necessity to avenge past injustices – as opposed to a desire to simply make people suffer for suffering’s sake, it seemed fair to say that she was a fanatic.
But the thing about fanatics and psychopaths was that, often, the end-product’s the same. Psychopaths are unable to empathize with others. Fanatics, on the other hand, can; but they designate people who fall foul of their ideology as subhuman, meaning they find it impossible to empathize with them. So the upshot’s the same: a lack of empathy; a capacity to wreak suffering on other people as if they were no more than insects.
But whereas with psychopaths that’s the long and short of it, fanatics – because they can empathize – can be manipulated by threatening someone they value; which was the logic behind capturing Minxin Wu.
Yet though fanatics have this chink in the armor, I was aware, also, that they were in many ways more dangerous. More driven, committed, zealous. Because, unlike psychopaths, they truly believe they’re on the side of right, and as a result, will stop at nothing, will go to any lengths, to see their agenda through.
But though this distinction altered my approach, it didn’t alter my thirst for revenge. Yes, I understood her fanaticism was a mind-virus. But once you start not only targeting the most vulnerable people – the peaceful protestors, the defenseless kids – but also relishing in their deaths, you need to be snuffed out.
And this was a woman who’d tried to put a bullet in Ellen’s head. Who, failing that, had planned to kill both me and Ellen in the most painful way imaginable.
Suddenly – and almost involuntarily – I imagined myself tied up and thrown to the flames; imagined Ellen thrown in next to me, and watching her flesh scorch, and being powerless to do anything about it. And next thing I knew, my body was hot with rage, and I wanted Yuelin’s skull pressed beneath my boot.
I quashed this surge of emotion. Calm was all-important. As Vann had pointed out, I’d learned that lesson enough times…
Another deep breath. Then, I pushed the button.
‘Yuelin Lie. This is Saul Marshall. I’ve got two hostages I think you’ll be interested in. So before you set off the detonator, I’d recommend you talk to me.’
I looked at Minxin. Just as I’d expected, he’d been completely in the dark about Yuelin’s activities: his face was pure shock.
A long silence. Then, just when I was about to try again, a voice. Yuelin’s.
‘I’m listening, Saul Marshall.’ Superficially, her voice was calm. But there was a quality to it – a seriousness and zealousness – that scared me. That elicited a primal reaction; a goose-pimpling of the flesh. And the intensity of this reaction caught me unawares.
Her frugality with words, at least, was expected. After all, she was concerned with deniability. And since she couldn’t see her audience, she had to tread lightly.
In films, these sorts of conversations are fireworks. But this was real-life. And she wasn’t concerned with talking a big game. She was concerned with the success of her mission.
I gripped the talkie harder. ‘It’s quite simple. I know you’re planning a fire at the Consulate, targeting the kids inside. My guess: you’ve got a remote detonator, it’ll provide a spark, and some tactically placed flammable materials will do the rest. All very clever, since the US authorities can’t get in to put it out.’
I paused. Yuelin said nothing. She was hearing me out.
I knew my best bet was to barter with Minxin’s life. But while I knew his life would carry weight, I knew I couldn’t overdo it. If I demanded the technology to crack the Dark Web as well as the detonator, Yuelin might simply decide the price was too steep, and sacrifice her cousin. What’s more, I’d be revealing what I knew.
I had to tread the path.
‘But since I have your cousin, I suggest we do a trade: Minxin for the detonator. I’d suggest a trade for the Consul instead, but I’m aware he has limited appeal: you have to assume I’ve already recorded a confession from him – regardless of whether I have or not – meaning that getting him back would be relatively pointless. Hence: Minxin.’
I released the button. I’d given some information away – namely, that I knew Hao had something to confess. But that didn’t tell Yuelin I knew about the Dark Net hack. After all, I could’ve inferred the fire plot independently, and simply found out from Hao that he’d been blackmailed. Yuelin replied:
‘If a detonator did exist, how would you know you’ve been given the real thing?’
She didn’t say this tauntingly. More as though pointing out a pit-fall. And it was a clever tactic, because she was hardly alerting me to something that hadn’t occurred to me already. Instead, it was a double-bluff. A tactic to get me to spill how I was intending to verify the detonator, so as to better enable her to pull the wool over my eyes.
But though she probably knew about my background by now, probably knew there was a decent chance I’d had bomb disposal training, I wasn’t going to elaborate. I felt fairly certain, given her penchant for radios, she’d be using a radio-controlled detonator. And if she was, I had tactics to tell whether the detonator was: a) connected to a live device; and b) thrown together at suspiciously short-notice.
‘I’ll know,’ I said simply. ‘And think long and hard before trying to fob me off with a phony; because so help me God, I won’t hesitate to put a bullet in Minxin’s bloated fucking face. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the fallout – so long as I get those kids out of there.’
I let that sink in. I knew that her cousin’s life would mean a lot. Her ideology stated the primacy of Chinese people; so she was likely to consider the life of a high-powered Chinese dignitary, her cousin no less, to be gold-dust.
But her mission – the perpetration of this atrocity – was also valuable to her. And I had to hope the former outweighed the latter…
After a seemingly interminable wait:
‘We’ll make the swap. 1584 Miramontes Street, Half Moon Bay – thirty miles south of San Francisco. Be there ASAP. Any surprises, and…’ She paused. She didn’t want to be too explicit, and didn’t need to be. ‘And bring Kelden. I’m not open to negotiation. If you fall foul, the deal’s off, and I’m prepared to live with the consequences, however regrettable.’
She said this last bit with real strain in her voice. I knew that if push came to shove, she was willing to sacrifice Minxin. But she clearly found the prospect difficult to stomach.
But there was also deep hatred in her voice. Hatred for the interloper who was threatening to derail her best laid plans. Who’d slaughtered her brethren, and was threatening to kill her own flesh and blood.
I reveled in it. Wanted her to suffer. But while what I felt for her was real and intense, it wasn’t the same as the full-blown hatred she felt for me – it was a flash-in-the-pan disgust. And this made sense. After all, I’d effectively been slaughtering her family whereas, though she’d threatened to kill me under gruesome circumstances, her wider plans hadn’t sought to target me personally. As a result, she was still, in my estimation, no different from countless other scumbags I’d dealt with in the past. That is, she hadn’t earned my hatred.
And I knew this difference in outlooks gave me the upper-hand, because it meant I was more in control, more level-headed, more likely to make the right choices.
I said: ‘Fine. I’m remaining on this frequency. That is all.’
I lowered the talkie, took a deep breath. We were playing chicken. Leveling threats, seeing who blinked first. But though it was finely balanced, I reckoned this might actually come off, reckoned that a trade might actually be on the cards…
But then again, maybe not. The insistence on my bringing Ellen was deeply unnerving. Maybe this was a trap, and I had no prospect of freeing the protestors.
The image of them resurfaced in my mind. And all at once, I knew failure wasn’t an option. All at once, my disgust for Yuelin was eclipsed by an overwhelming urge to save these young lives.
Not just for their sake. But to repent. For everyone I’d ever failed.
When we arrived at 169 Stillman Street, Scott opened the roll-up door, and Ellen pulled in.
Scott led the way upstairs to the office spaces, and, as a temporary measure, we marched Minxin and Hao into a small windowless room.
In the hallway outside, I told Scott the situation. Told him about the meeting I’d organized with Yuelin. About her insisting I bring Ellen.
His response made my heart sink.
‘This is a suicide mission, Saul. Why have you bring Ellen along if not to try to eliminate you both?’
I groaned. It felt like the walls were closing in on all sides. But the situation was what it was. And I had to make it work.
Ellen, who’d been silently biting her lip, said:
‘Is there any way we can get a satellite view of the address Yuelin gave us?’
She said this stoically. But this small inquiry spoke volumes. Again she was making it clear she was willing to put her neck on the line for others.
She was in this for the long-haul.
Scott nodded. ‘SAIC moved their computers out. But there was a junker here when they moved in, and it’s still here. And though the place’s no longer in use, I think the Wi-Fi’s still running.’
He led the way into a separate office. It was completely bare, except for one old computer in the corner.
Scott turned it on, and though it was slow, and running a Jurassic operatic system, it worked. And after a few moments, Scott had connected to the Wi-Fi.
He typed in the address, and brought up a satellite image.
Half Moon Bay was a coastal settlement to the south of San Francisco; a surfer town, straight out of a Californian tourist board advert, and spread over six square miles.
The house in question, however, was on the very eastern periphery of town. Miramontes Street ran from west to east, and though it was a residential street, it jutted out another third of a mile eastwards than any other road in town. And this last 700 yards was practically a dirt-track – at the end of which, after a last-minute bend in the road, was the house, 700 yards away from any other.
The house itself was nothing exceptional: a small, two-story structure. But the location made perfect sense as a safe house. It was tucked away, out-of-sight. And in broader terms, it was near enough to San Fran that Yuelin could be there at short notice, but also far enough away that, should San Fran go into lockdown, she’d be out of the danger zone.
‘Attempting this is madness,’ Scott said after a few minutes. ‘What if she has a sniper upstairs capable of carrying out a brain-stem shot? Then, even if you’re holding a gun to Wu’s head, they could take you out while sparing Wu.
‘And yes, Ellen could have a gun to Wu’s head as well. But for one thing, there may be two snipers. For another, you’ll have no leverage on your way out.’
Scott paused. ‘Saul, they’re planning to kill you. It’s that simple.’
I massaged my temples. It was true. The situation was impossible.
And yet Ellen was looking at me imploringly. And in my mind’s eye, so too were all those kids in the consulate…
It was the bottom of the ninth, and I needed to produce a miracle.
Then, suddenly, an insane idea flashed into my mind.
‘Saul?’ said Scott, registering the change in my expression.
‘Back in May 2007, I was given a mad job by the FBI’s Office of Intelligence. Four naturalized Americans from Lebanon were plotting an attack on Fort Dix.’ I was talking fast, words pouring. ‘I was put forward to infiltrate their group as an al-Qaeda contact – because we needed to catch them in the act of building a bomb. Eventually, they decided to do just that. So I organized a “safe-house” which was heavily bugged, and we started building bombs; started filling fifty-five-gallon oil drums with a mix of fuel oil and ammonium nitrate fertilizers: a classic recipe. Only, I couldn’t actually allow them to build real bombs. So I bluffed: I used Scotts Super Turf Builder – a fertilizer with zero explosive force.
‘I was picked for the job because of my con-artist past. But if they’d realized, they might’ve killed me on the spot. Only, they didn’t realize. Not until they’d all been arrested.’
Ellen and Scott stared at me, lost.
‘So I bluff again. I buy twenty bars of Ivory bath soap, melt it down. Is there a microwave in this office?’
Scott nodded.
‘Then I meld it to my chest, and affix a phony detonator. One that looks to be activated by the release – not application – of pressure, so that not even a brain-stem shot can stop me from setting it off. Then, when I turn up, but before I get round that kink in the road, I contact Yuelin, and say I’m packing enough plastic explosives to blow the house to kingdom-come from up to a quarter-mile away, so she better play ball.’
‘She’ll know it’s bullshit. A basic bomb vest is one thing, but where the hell would you have found that quantity of plastic explosives at that short notice?’
‘She may well think it’s bullshit. But so long as she doesn’t know for sure, she won’t dare shoot.’
Scott groaned. ‘You’re going to do this, aren’t you?’
I nodded. ‘You in, Ellen?’
She grinned. ‘Let’s just hope it doesn’t rain.’
I smiled back.
‘Would you look up the nearest Wal-Mart?’
Scott – his fingers shaking – typed it into Google. There was one round the corner.
‘I’ll head there now.’
I left the building without delay, the thought foremost in my mind that I had to give Yuelin as little time as possible to cook up some counter gambit. Once there, I purchased the soap, a white shirt, a jacket, a rubber hand pump, and a Swiss army knife. Within five minutes, I was back and got to work in the office’s kitchen unit.
I put the bars of soap in the microwave, two at a time, and each pair expanded, so that they filled the microwave with a hot, glossy-white mush. I ripped off my t-shirt, and melded the mush to my skin. I let it cool and set. And ten minutes down the line, my torso was covered in a material that looked uncannily like C4 plastic explosives. And if it had been C4, it would be enough to take out not only the building I was in, but also the three to either side, no problem at all.
Then I took a rubber hand pump, affixed one side of a metal cable to the pump, and embedded the other in the soap – after which, I put on the new shirt and threaded the wire through my sleeve, so the pump was in my left hand.
‘Okay, Ellen and I will head there now, while Scott – you interrogate Hao,’ I said to the pair, who’d been watching my progress. ‘We’ll bring two walkie-talkies – one on Yuelin’s frequency, the other on the friendly frequency; two Walthers; two full extra magazines; and the $2,000 from the guys in LA and my phony credit card, just in case. We’ll leave everything else here.’
Ellen nodded.
‘Scott, you have the USB stick. If we can supplement that with a recorded confession from Hao that he’s been blackmailed by Yuelin, we may have enough to nail her. Of course, he may not know who’s been blackmailing him. But since the tasks he’s done for her are extensive and he’s Chinese, she may well’ve confided in him. You up to that?’
He made a nervous double-blink. ‘Yes. I’ve got the camcorder.’
I nodded. Then I took up Ellen’s walkie-talkie which was still on our friendly frequency, and pressed the button.
‘Vann, how are things?’
‘Busy as hell here,’ he replied instantly. ‘On the plus side, it means I’m under the radar. On the down side, an unauthorized entry would be impossible without someone noticing. So in short: if the attack gets underway, I might be able to break in and act solo. But the moment I emerge from the Consulate, I’ll be arrested.’
‘You willing to pay that price?’
‘If it means saving lives, then yes, of course. Besides, I was planning to break into the Chinese consulate before any of this happened, so it’s really no skin off my teeth.’ He paused. ‘I take it the hostage-taking went off without a hitch?’
‘I’ve got them. I’m now heading to trade Minxin for the detonator, in a phony C4 vest, made of soap, which I’m hoping will stop Yuelin putting a bullet in my head.’
A long pause. Then:
‘Probably a good time to admit that my gun was really just my fingers pressed up against the inside of my jacket this whole time,’ Vann said.
He was trying to take the edge off, but the heaviness in his tone was plain. And before I could answer, he added:
‘If anyone can convince someone a load of soap will take down a building, it’s you.’
‘Thanks, Vann. My talkie’s on Yuelin’s frequency; but we’re gonna keep a second one with us on the friendly frequency, so update us immediately if there’s any sign of fire. Obviously, if we’re at the trade-off, and you contact us, Yuelin will hear, too. But that’s fine. If she double crosses us, I want her to know we know…’
‘No problem, Saul. I’ll keep you in the loop.’
I lowered the talkie, and looked at Ellen.
‘Let’s do this.’