Dylan Ting remained in the Central Detention Facility awaiting transfer to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He took a sip of water and began to tell Mitchell Parker his version of the truth.
“My uncle, William, met the Vice President when they were students in Beijing. They were close. Danny Huang was their other friend—just the three of them—and William said they got into a lot of trouble but made some great memories. My uncle said it began then, a plan to create the ultimate government party.”
Mitch nodded. “Young, ambitious and all studying politics.”
“Yes,” Dylan agreed. “Economics and politics. They planned that this party would be the best of capitalism and socialism—a party which would ensure the country was a powerful force in the world, with a huge, loyal and willing workforce motivated by success and advancement. The standard of living would be enviable, health and education provided for all, technology would be the best in the world and China would be the most advanced culture in the world.” Dylan painted their vision with his hands.
“Almost got me,” Mitch said.
Dylan laughed, forgetting for a moment they were now on opposite sides. He continued. “The Vice President had his own agenda. He told William and Danny about his grandfather on his mother’s side, Alfred, who was shot during the war as a deserter. Alfred was a loyal man who loved his country but he was shell shocked. He had testimonies … well, his grandmother had spent the rest of her life gathering these from the men in Alfred’s platoon attesting to this … he wandered off, dazed, frightened and was caught and executed by his own men. For the rest of her life she worked to overturn his status as a deserter. The Vice President said it killed her, and eventually his mother succeeded where his grandmother didn’t in overturning the charge.”
“That bitter memory was just enough to sway the Vice President’s loyalties to his country,” Mitch summarized.
“So my uncle said.” Dylan nodded. “The Vice President was bitter, but he was also greedy and ambitious and the thought of being a major player in an empire was enough for him to get caught up in the plan with Danny and Uncle William.”
“But this is just big dream stuff, we’ve all dreamed. What put the plan in action?” Mitch asked.
“I think it was big dream stuff for William, but for Danny and the Vice President it was more. After school, they went their separate ways but never lost touch. When William graduated he went into government, making his way up the ladder. He and Danny were always pushing for change; they had both been charged for rioting and inciting crowds several times while pushing for public control of industry and social services.
“It was when William got overlooked for a promotion twice that he changed. This is according to my aunty … I was here in the States when all this was happening,” Dylan clarified. “She said they regarded him as ‘soft’. So Danny and William began to work on their old school plan of the ultimate party. William called in an old friend Kiang Hai, who had a network, and it became a subversive and sizeable underground party.
“The Vice President visited Beijing again when he got married. It was timely—William had recently married Mei. There was tension though because Danny loved Mei, but Mei loved William and she would have followed him anywhere. The Vice President returned to the US and his career began to take a meteoric rise. Soon, he was suggesting to William that he should consider an ambassadorship to the US.” Dylan stopped to sip his water.
Mitch watched him. “I assume the offer was not just based on friendship?”
“Oh no,” Dylan confirmed. “They had plans and they were developing a weapon which would give them more power, that was actually William’s pet project. With me studying at the uni, William as ambassador and the Vice President in the second highest job in the country, let’s just say the university was courting us with access to some of the best scientists.”
“All coming together nicely,” Mitch agreed.
“Yes and Danny who remained in Beijing, began to realize this was their ticket to making a difference.”
“So how did you initially get involved?” Mitch asked.
“Uncle William and Aunty Mei couldn’t have children for many years and I was the first nephew. My parents travelled a lot and I became William and Mei’s surrogate son; I lived with them for years. They didn’t have their daughter until six years ago. Anyway, they came here, William served his year as he called it, put in for residence and got it and then disappeared so he could work underground at the university.”
“But why?” Mitch asked. “Why couldn’t he continue to just live here and do his work?”
Dylan hesitated and then continued speaking. “Because he had a new identity, a bit of a change of appearance and a new name and he was working as a casual in the university lab which gave him around the clock access for his research work. I saw to that through my connections and no one knew him as William.”
“Really?” Mitch frowned, “hard to believe. You’ve got his university access cards and ID?”
Dylan nodded.
“We’ll be wanting that. So no one recognized him?” Mitch asked again in disbelief.
Dylan shook his head. “Westerners think we all look alike, so it wasn’t hard to pass him off as one of the scientists.”
“And is that why Joseph Kinaird and Jessica Wu had to die? Because they would be able to identify you and William?”
“No. It wasn’t about identification with Joseph Kinaird; he walked in on William in the science lab—we weren’t sure what he heard, so we decided to play safe. Wendy … I loved Wendy or rather Rodney Lam loved Wendy,” he smiled. “But yes, she could identify me, so her death was for the good of the mission.”
Mitch shook his head. “Why was the mission aborted?”
“Because I told William that the FBI were intending to destroy the sub and he might be collateral damage. He’s my uncle, of course I fed him information. Did you think I’d let him die? We couldn’t believe my luck when you called me in to work it … direct access to intel that I could feed him.”
“So why not abort the whole thing?” Mitch asked.
“Because William thought we could still do it under the radar if we were clever and fake the abort to get you guys off our case.”
“But the abort order didn’t come from William,” Mitch said.
“No it didn’t,” Dylan agreed, “but I orchestrated it on his behalf. Having Danny’s phone worked nicely for my plan, thanks. William was furious with Danny for hitting on Aunty Mei, it wasn’t the first time Danny had been disrespectful. So given our death was imminent if we proceeded with the current plan, we decided to get rid of the additional party … to fake that the mission had been aborted and get rid of everyone except the Vice President, me, Ru and William. We needed Ru with his communications skills and contacts in Beijing or I would have bumped him too.”
“Lucky Ru,” Mitch said. “So you told Ru the plan and he came onboard?”
“William convinced him. He respected William and I knew from spending hours in the car with Ru that he was not going to go back home and tell his family the mission failed.”
Mitch nodded encouraging Dylan along. “So you didn’t tell Beijing you had aborted the mission,” Mitch asked testing again if Dylan knew of Ru’s other life.
“No, that’s why we needed Ru, he could control that. He could tell Hai he had followed his abort order but not actually do it.”
“So run me through what happened on the day the VIP was to be lifted,” Mitch said.
Ru nodded. “On the day of the VIP sub pick-up, I sent a text to Hai from Danny’s phone saying we had been exposed. Hai panicked and aborted the mission as we expected he would. He gave Ru the orders to communicate it. That’s when I rang you from the VIP house, but I couldn’t talk, so I just left the phone on speaker so you could hear the abort message.”
“So then you expected we would call it off and you could head to the beach, continue the mission and in theory have safe passage,” Mitch said. He topped up Dylan’s glass of water and poured one for himself.
“Correct,” Dylan said. “But then Hai wanted to talk directly with Danny rather than just text. That was impossible, you had Danny under lock and key. So I had to tell Ru this—I told him that in my role as language trainer with the FBI, I had come across that information and had managed to steal Danny’s phone.”
Mitch frowned and sat back, trying to keep up with Dylan Ting’s version of the truth. William and Dylan played right into Ru’s hands.
Dylan straightened in his chair. “We had to act quickly now and clean up the situation.”
“But I heard the shots … you didn’t kill Hai and the others until after the beach failure,” Mitch frowned confused.
Dylan nodded. “That’s right. William didn’t want to kill them.”
“He’s not adverse to violence from what I remember,” Mitch rubbed his burnt arm.
“No, he just didn’t want to be there when they were killed; he liked Hai. So we secured Hai and Froggy and put them in that cell room,” Dylan said.
“Noble,” Mitch said sarcastically. “OK, stepping back before all that … surely the Vice President was panicking?”
“He was oblivious to all that drama. Remember he and William were close friends, he trusted him, trusted him a lot more than he trusted Danny. Plus William removed the Vice President so he never heard the abort mission message. The Vice President believed whatever we told him … and we told him that the other men were staying in the water reserve, that underground tank, to go over their plan. We just kept him in the house.”
“Didn’t he question why they weren’t on the beach for the handover?” Mitch asked.
“Sure and we told him because we were minimizing numbers, keeping it safer,” Dylan said. “He was so desperate for power, Ru said he would have believed anything.”
“Who was the other man we found dead with Hai and Froggy?” Mitch asked.
“A stand-in. Organized to use the fourth passport so the four cops would leave the country together on the right date.”
“He drew the short straw,” Mitch said.
“People will do anything for money,” Dylan shrugged.
“So, you, the Vice President, Ru and William continued with the plan expecting to get to the sub as normal. You and Ru stayed at the VIP house to liaise with Beijing, William and the Vice President went to the beach. Except we hadn’t aborted, we were there,” Mitch summed it up.
“Yes. I stayed with Ru in the communication room,” Dylan confirmed. “I persuaded him to let me, but really I had to keep an eye on him even though he didn’t know it. William took the Vice President to the meeting point. When Ru and I saw them killed on the beach via our screens at the VIP house, we killed the three in the cell room, took off via the tunnel and grabbed a boat to lay low for a while. We didn’t think anyone would look for us at sea.”
“Ah, so you were there as well at the VIP house when we arrived,” Mitch said. “I thought it was just one person.”
“No. Ru sent me to the car via the tunnel when he saw you in the perimeter camera. I was waiting, ready to drive us out. It was just the two of us and we had to stick together.”
“But then you made a mistake, we tracked your phone. You made a call to your aunty from the boat,” Mitch said.
“That was a mistake,” Dylan agreed. “But if anything happened to me, I couldn’t let her wonder forever what happened to William. She wasn’t supposed to know he was alive and the FBI probably wouldn’t have filled her in.”
There was a knock on the interview room door and Mitch looked over as John stuck his head in. “Quick word?” he said.
Mitch noted the time and announced for the recording that he was pausing the interview. He rose and left the room. The security officer outside the door entered the room as Mitch left. He closed the door behind him.
“What a story,” Mitch looked at John. “What’s up?”
“Danny Huang is dead,” John said.
“What? How did that happen? Wasn’t he in solitary?”
“He was. But this afternoon he was moved from one prison to a more secure one and …”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Did he top himself?” Mitch stood with his hands on his hips.
“No, he didn’t kill himself. The driver of the prison transport van pulled his gun, turned the gun on Danny Huang and shot him dead before the fellow officer sitting next to him shot the driver dead. Said he had to in self-defense.”
“Oh that’s just great,” Mitch shook his head. “So who was the driver?”
“An American citizen …” John began.
“Whose parents were Chinese nationals,” Mitch finished.
“Got it in one.”
“Well that chapter’s closed. For chrissake, how deep does this go? Now with Danny, Hai, William Ying and the VIP all gone, we’ve only got Dylan and Ru’s word for what went down.” Mitch turned hurriedly back to the glass and looked through. Dylan Ting sat still. Mitch breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to John.
“Sorry, thought it might be epidemic.” In the next moment he heard the gunshots. He turned to see the glass splattered with blood; Dylan Ting was collapsed on the table, blood pouring from his head onto Mitch’s paperwork. In the corner of the room, slumped dead, was a dead security officer, the gun still clutched in his hand, pointed up under his own chin.
“Where’s Ru?” Mitch demanded.
Mitch and John raced to Ru’s holding cell. Mitch breathed a sigh of relief as the young man paced in his cell.
“I’ll leave you to it and get back to clean up the Dylan Ting situation,” John said. “I’ll organize extra security for here. Don’t enter until it arrives.”
“I think the security was the issue,” Mitch reminded him.
Mitch waited impatiently for the guard to arrive. He reached for his phone and called Henri, expecting he had already left for the day.
“Mitch, shall I tell Ann you won’t be home until late tonight?” he said knowingly.
“Sorry Henri.”
“Don’t be. She’s well-versed in our hours. Are you back?”
“Yes, but got a few dramas.”
“We’ll see you when we do then,” Henri said.
Mitch hung up just as the guard arrived. They entered Ru’s cell.
“Over your seasickness?” Ru asked in perfect English.
“I’m much better on land.” Mitch said.
The young Asian man looked at Mitch and smiled. “I know why you are here,” he said.
“Word travels fast, even in high security. Unless of course, you organized it.” Mitch lowered himself into a chair.
Ru dropped down in a chair opposite him, across the desk. “I told you it had all gone to plan. I’ve even cleaned up the loose ends … I’m assuming Dylan Ting is now dead too?”
Mitch nodded.
“Good,” Ru smiled. “It would have been more successful if you hadn’t pursued me. I’d be gone and there would be no connection to my work,” Ru said. “You would have thought I was one of them who escaped.”
“If you didn’t have Dylan with you, you might have got away. You got two ambitious,” Mitch said.
“He offered me access to FBI files,” Ru said. “I thought I could go home with more than I came with.”
“Go home a hero,” Mitch said. “But you made one mistake.”
Ru’s eyes narrowed as he thought back over his actions.
“You left some files in the tunnel,” Mitch said.
Ru’s face flared with anger. He leaned forward, close to Mitch and hissed, “Do you think we would allow your Vice President to partner with a bunch of dissidents to corrupt our government?”
“Well we weren’t too keen on it either,” Mitch said. “So no intel from the Vice President …”
“… ever surfaced,” Ru finished the sentence.
“But you’ve seen it.”
Ru shrugged. “I did the job your people couldn’t.”
“I think you’ll find the job is done and you along with it.”
Mitch rose and left.