The Guangzhou airport teemed with people. Not unexpected at the start of business on a weekday in a city of forty-four million, but Jordan wasn’t a big fan of crowds. Stepping into the sea of people, she allowed herself to be swept along toward baggage claim and worked to ignore the overt stares of the other travelers. She couldn’t decide if it was her red hair, the way she dressed, or the fact she stood half a foot taller than most of the women that garnered all the attention. Near the immigration counter, the humidity from outside overwhelmed the air conditioning. Sweat dampened her collar. She could see the exit and handed the customs official her passport, waiting impatiently while he scanned it through the system. Under normal circumstances, the diplomatic passport worked in her favor. This time, the customs agent questioned her.
“Do you have a weapon in your bag?” he asked.
“No.”
Knowing she wouldn’t be allowed to carry her weapon off mission grounds, Jordan had left her 9 mil in a gun locker at the embassy in Kyiv. She figured that if she really needed a weapon, the RSO at the consulate in Guangzhou could provide her with one.
The customs agent didn’t believe her. He insisted on searching her bag, and by the time he let her pass, she was hot, testy, and running late for her meeting with the local RSO.
As she exited the customs area, the chatter of Cantonese, Mandarin, and Hakka in the main terminal mixed with the techno-style music pulsing through the terminal speakers plucked at her fraying nerves. People pushed and shoved as they hurried for the doors, and Jordan felt her patience slipping. After sixteen-plus hours of travel from Kyiv, all she really wanted was a decent cup of coffee.
She waited in line for a Starbucks, then headed outside to find the driver Lory had said would be there to meet her. He stood in a queue of other drivers holding a sign with her name on it.
“Néih hóu,” she said. Hello.
“Welcome to Guangzhou.”
That ended the small talk, and the driver turned his attention to maneuvering traffic. The rule of thumb seemed to be whoever nosed in first had the right of way. After a few minutes acclimating to the braking, accelerating, and weaving, Jordan turned her attention to the information that Mary had sent, skimming the pages for a second time.
Once DSS verified the victim with McClasky wasn’t Zhen, Lory had ordered a full-scale investigation into what’d happened. The primary goal was to find Zhen, ID his doppelgänger, then determine who had ordered the switch and why.
Most of the intel related to Kia Zhen showed a few petty juvenile offenses and some affiliation with the Triad, but it was hard to be a Chinese American living in Dai Foa, or Big City, as the Chinese called San Francesco, who didn’t have some contact with the gangs. After graduating from high school with honors, he’d taken a gap year. He clearly hadn’t used it productively.
Leaning her head back, Jordan closed her eyes. Lory expected answers. Finding them might not prove to be easy.
Thirty minutes later, she was jarred awake. Blinking her eyes, it took her a moment to get her bearings. The driver was parked against the curb in front of the U.S. consulate. A long line of Chinese citizens were queued in front of the door.
“What do I owe you?” she asked the driver.
“Nothing. I work for the consulate.”
She collected her bag, handed him twenty-five yuan as a tip, and headed for the main building. Four stories of stone and teak wood, it anchored the 7.4-acre consulate complex and was intended to welcome visitors. Jordan thought it looked like a giant loaf of bread.
Skirting the line, she walked up to the desk and flashed her badge. After signing in, she passed through a metal detector and was directed to the third floor. RSO Jennifer Todd was waiting when she stepped off the elevator.
“I’m glad you made it, Agent Jordan,” Todd said, extending her hand. “The traffic can be brutal this time of day.”
Jordan returned the woman’s handshake. “It was customs that gave me the most trouble.”
“That, too.” Todd’s blue eyes twinkled. “I mean, what about immunity don’t they understand?” Fit and fifty, the RSO could have passed for twenty-five. Small and compact with blonde hair that hung straight to her shoulders, her sleeveless dress showed off a set of guns that would make most men jealous.
“Did Agent Lory fill you in?” Jordan asked, following Todd down the hall to an office that faced the river.
“As a matter of fact, he did. This plane crash is a horrible thing. I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I’ll try to answer your questions.”
“I can only imagine the phone calls you’ve been fielding.”
“Between the press and the family members, we’ve been under siege.” Todd crossed to her desk. “Of course, it’s the families that my staff and I care most about.”
“How’s the government reacting?”
“They seem more concerned with keeping the families in line. Yesterday we saw protests. Always unnerving, considering how unusual that is here and how the Chinese government tends to react.”
Jordan thought of the iconic images of Tiananmen Square. She’d only been a small child, but between the recorded violence and the disparate numbers reported of the dead and injured, the tongues of the free world had wagged. It hadn’t helped China’s image.
Rather than offer Jordan a seat, Todd knelt down beside her desk. “Lory tells me you want to know how we tracked down Zhen.”
From her use of past tense, Jordan wondered if she’d heard the news of the switch. “Didn’t Lory brief you?”
“About the plane crash?”
“About Zhen.”
Todd stood up, clutching a small purse. “He told me we got the wrong man.”
Jordan nodded. “We need to find the real Zhen and ID the man sent home in his place.”
“Then the best bet is talking to Detective Yang Li.” Todd toed the bottom desk drawer shut with her foot. “He’s our Foreign Service officer. He and McClasky were the ones who located your fugitive, and they were present when the other officers moved in. If anyone can shed some light on all this, I’m betting Yang can.”