Dasyueshan Mountain Forest, Taiwan
THE CAR COMING DOWN the road towards them was a brand new silver Toyota Corolla Cross SUV. Music blaring, windows down, kids sticking their heads out at the back. Luke and Jenny didn’t hesitate. He dropped the Heckler & Koch into the undergrowth at his feet, jumped down from the forest edge and stood in the middle of the road, frantically waving his arms. The car swerved, tried to get past him but its path was blocked by Jenny.
She ran to the driver’s window as the vehicle skidded to a halt. ‘Please!’ she implored, first in English and then in Chinese. ‘You have to help us. We got lost in the forest and we need a lift back to Taipei.’
The driver looked scared. His family fell silent, and his wife in the passenger seat turned down the music. Luke realized they must look a terrible sight, his face plastered with mud from where he’d piled into the forest floor, bits of foliage sticking to their clothes, even splashes of Kreutzer’s blood, which would take some explaining.
‘But we have no room,’ the father protested. ‘See? My children are in the back.’ Two chocolate-smeared faces stared back at them.
Jenny put the palms of her hands together. ‘I’m begging you,’ she said. ‘We have to get back to Taipei at once! We can squash up in the back.’
Luke cast a nervous glance up and down the road in both directions. Bo’s people must be close by. We need to get aboard this vehicle and get our heads down out of sight before we’re spotted. He didn’t even want to think about Hannah right now. They had done what they’d had to do.
Crammed into the back seat of the Corolla, knees halfway up to his chin, Luke dared to let out a deep breath. Jenny gave him a wan smile and sank lower in her seat. But there was no one behind them, no funereal black 4x4s chasing them down. Every few minutes he reached up and felt for the precious cargo inside his breast pocket, just to remind himself it was still there. Just to tell himself that what they had done to Hannah was justified. God, he hoped so. They didn’t know what was on the flash drive. Maybe it would take days – too long – to decrypt. Maybe it would be of little value. Some already out-of-date intel on Chinese troop movements to the ports perhaps. Or some mindless petty gossip about which Politburo member is seeing which mistress. No. Luke closed his eyes. He couldn’t allow himself to think like that.
‘Can we borrow your phone?’ he asked. ‘Just a very quick call, I promise.’ He glanced down at his wrist to check the time, then realized he no longer had a watch. Or a passport. Or anything at all. Bo’s people had taken everything from them in that underground car park.
Silently, the driver’s wife handed him her iPhone in its cherry-coloured case. She did not look happy.
Three p.m. in Taiwan. That would make it, what, 7 a.m. in London? There should be someone on the China team he could speak to. He dialled in and waited. One ring, two rings. Then it went straight to voicemail. Oh, for fuck’s sake! Luke felt like screaming. He googled the number for the British trade office in Taipei, Britain’s de facto embassy. Someone picked up.
‘Can I speak to Graham Leach, please?’ he said.
‘He’s out at the moment. Who shall I say is calling?’ An English voice, calm and unruffled.
‘Can you tell him his visitors from London are on their way back to Taipei? Tell him … tell him we’re bringing him the chocolates.’
‘“We’re bringing him the chocolates”?’ Jenny parodied his words and shook her head.
‘Hey, come on, I had to think of something,’ he grunted, handing back the phone to the driver’s wife.
They were coming into a town now, the lush green countryside giving way to a kaleidoscope of Chinese characters and shop fronts.
‘What’s this place called?’ Jenny asked.
‘Miaoli,’ replied the wife. ‘One more hour and fifteen minutes to Taipei.’
It occurred to Luke that they had quite possibly travelled on this exact road on the way up to the forest. Bound and gagged in the boot of a car and at the mercy of some very bad people.
The lift took them straight up to the twenty-sixth floor of Taiwan’s President International Tower on Song Gao Road. Before the doors pinged open Jenny stood next to him, gently put her arms round him and held him tight. For the few seconds of their ascent neither of them spoke, yet so much still needed to be said.
‘Thank Christ for that! You’re back in one piece!’ The lift doors opened and there was Graham Leach, SIS station chief for Taipei, and Luke found himself almost glad to see him. Almost.
‘Where’s Hannah?’ Leach asked cheerfully. ‘In your hotel, I hope, taking a well-earned rest.’
Luke and Jenny looked at each other. Such an obvious question, one they were bound to be asked. How had they not prepared for it?
‘Um. She’s not here,’ Jenny said, stating the obvious, kicking the can down the road. This was a conversation yet to happen but right now there were other things to attend to.
‘Right, then. Moving on,’ said Leach, rubbing his hands. ‘You’ve brought the goods. Well done. Impressive effort by all of you. We’ve brought the IT guys up from Singapore station. Technically, they belong to Cheltenham but they’re here to decrypt and assess what you’ve got. I don’t mind telling you …’ Leach lowered his voice, as if imparting some massive secret. ‘… there’s a lot of people back in London on tenterhooks to see what’s on this flash drive. Oh, yes.’
Leach spread his arms wide, the genial host, and suddenly Luke had a flashback to Bo doing the same in his temple lair.
‘So,’ Leach said, ‘let’s be having it and let’s get it loaded up.’
Luke unbuttoned his breast pocket, reached in and retrieved the wad of gum containing the flash drive and held it between his thumb and forefinger. Again, that wonder at something so tiny, this innocuous-looking object, yet so much hanging on it. ‘Let’s hope it was all worth it,’ he said, handing it over, thinking of Hannah even as he spoke those words. The dogs would have got to her just as he and Jenny were climbing into the back seat of that family’s SUV. And then what? He shuddered inwardly. Luke wasn’t used to guilt but he felt it now.
‘Look, this may take a bit of time,’ Leach said, ‘you know how thorough these GCHQ types like to be. Why don’t you make yourselves comfortable next door? There’s a couple of soft chairs in there. Maybe get your heads down. You must be knackered. I’ll come through and tell you once we’ve got the measure of what’s on the drive. Sound good?’