Jordan stood at the window and watched the lights of the city wink on. Lory had sent her a text. His directive to stay put until morning and then return to Guangzhou had changed. She’d texted him back, and he’d confirmed that Davis had told her the truth about his reserve status, and she’d been right about Charlie’s being a CIA asset. Then he gave her carte blanche on dealing with Zhen.
Stepping back to where the others were sitting, she sized up the group. “Davis, how much money do you have?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“The presidential mandate came through. As agents of the American government, we’ve been instructed to sit on the manufacturing plant, monitor all activity, and do whatever is necessary to prevent the sale of the weapon.”
Charlie clicked off the anime. “Aren’t they sending a team?”
“ETA is twelve to twenty-four hours.”
Davis shook his head. “They’ll never make it.”
“Which is why we need to be prepared. We’re going to need some equipment.” Jordan hoped Davis had enough cash to cover the cost. She looked at Charlie. “We’ll need you to pick up supplies.”
“Tell me what to buy.”
She outlined the items for him. They needed communication devices, four-way and hands free. Dark clothing, pants and T-shirts, and dark caps.
“What about weapons?” Davis asked.
“No way,” Charlie said. “The only people who carry guns in China are the Triad and the military. Even the police rarely carry firearms. Under the circumstances, we can’t use the black market. I can get some knives, and maybe some antistab vests, though those might raise a few eyebrows.”
“Then forget the vests,” Jordan said. “We need to stay under the radar.”
“Anything else?”
“We need to figure out how to hack into REE’s IT system.”
“I’m all over it,” Zhen said, scooping up the laptop on the table. Davis reached forward and plucked it out of his hands.
“Hands off.”
“Hey, dude! I’m just trying to help.”
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
Jordan saw the stricken look on Zhen’s face and put her hand on Davis’s shoulder. Her gut told her the kid was sincere. “Why do you want to help, Kia?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Those assholes tried to kill me. They maybe killed my cousin, and they for sure had something to do with all those people dying in the crash. They wouldn’t have the weapon if it wasn’t for me.” His voice cracked, and he swiped his fingers across his eyes. “I just want to make it right.”
Jordan wished she could tell him it would be okay, but what was the point in lying? Unless he knew how to turn back time, it would never be right. The best he could do was keep it from getting worse. “Let’s let him show us what he can do.”
“Why not?” Charlie said.
Davis’s muscle twitched under Jordan’s hand, then he handed over the computer. She squeezed his shoulder, then slipped past him and sat on the couch beside Zhen. Fascinated, she watched as he played the keyboard like a piano, gaining access to the alarm system, cameras, and warehouse specs in under five minutes.
“Any chance you can get to the weapons plans?” Jordan figured that would be too easy, but she had to ask.
Zhen shook his head. “Ping is careful. His office is on a separate alarm system, and he keeps the plans in two places. One set on a computer in his office that’s not connected to the Internet, and a backup on a portable solid-state drive in his office safe.”
Jordan froze. “A safe?”
“What kind?” Charlie asked.
“Digital is all I know. It takes a code to open it.”
Jordan flopped back against the couch cushions. “That’s it. We’re screwed.”
“Not so fast,” Davis said. “When I was on assignment for a big fire in Canada, one of the human interest stories was on digital fire safes. Ironically, most are made in China. It turns out they aren’t all that secure.”
Jordan felt a spark of hope and sat up. “Can you open it?”
“A Canadian locksmith did. He used a magnet. Digital safes have a solenoid—simple coils with a pin that moves through its center allowing the bolts to be locked or unlocked by the coil’s motion.” Davis used his hands to demonstrate, and then picking up a magazine, he circled a spot on the cover. “If this is where the digital keypad sits, you put the magnet here.” He pointed to a spot up and to the left of the circle. “The magnet moves the pin, and the safe opens.”
“That easy?” Jordan said.
“He cracked it in under ten seconds.”
“What type of magnet?” asked Charlie.
“One with a 125-pound pull, though I doubt we’d need one that big.”
“I put it on the list.”
“What about the railgun?” Zhen asked.
Jordan pointed to the warehouse blueprint. “Can you show us where he keeps the prototype?”
He enlarged the diagram on the screen. “Here’s the warehouse layout. This is the front office, the storage area. Over here is Ping’s office, and down here, in this corner, this is where they keep the gun.”
Jordan studied the screen from a distance. “We might be able to reach it.”
“But what then?” Charlie said, pulling up a chair and sitting down.
“What about using a drone?” Kia pulled up some information on the computer. “We did some tests using drones while I was at Berkeley. You can buy and fly much larger drones in China. I think the weight limit here without having to register them for flight is up to 7.5 pounds. A drone that size could easily carry a payload of five pounds.”
“A block of C-4 would do the trick,” Davis said. “It weighs about 1.25 lbs.”
“Where are you going to get it?” Jordan said. “Plus you’d need a detonator.”
Charlie leaned in. “Any of the mines around here would have explosives.”
Kia’s face lit up with excitement. “All we’d have to do is rig the drone, fly it into the warehouse, and—Kaboom!”
“Provided the Triad doesn’t shoot it out of the sky first,” Jordan struggled with getting on board. “A drone that big will make noise.”
Zhen shrugged. “It’s noisy there to begin with.”
“But what if they see the drone coming? We can’t afford to lose the element of surprise. We have to get in there to retrieve the plans, anyway. Why not sabotage the warehouse from the inside?”
“That still requires us to obtain some explosives,” Davis said.
“So give me a better idea,” she said.
“If we can get to the gun, I think I know a way to neutralize it.”
Jordan nodded for Davis to continue. “I’m listening.”
Davis turned the computer. Pulling up an image of the gun, he pointed to a piece that looked like a cargo box. “The energy source, the compulsator, is just a glorified battery. All we have to do to is redirect the energy. When the charge is sent, the armature becomes the conduit. It should be enough to fry any computer or computer parts, not to mention pieces of the gun.”
“How much time would you need?”
“A couple of minutes, depending on how easy it is to get to the wires and whether I have the right tools.”
“Like what?” Charlie asked.
“A screwdriver, wire cutters, and electrical tape.”
“Give me some money, and let me see what I can do.”
* * *
Two hours later, parked in a small pullout to the north of the plant, Jordan looked at the others.
“Everybody ready?”
Her eyes lit on Zhen. He was the variable in all this. Realizing they needed his computer skills and his knowledge of the weapons plans, she’d made the decision to include him. Her other option was to duct tape his mouth, tie him up, and lock him in the trunk. Both options carried pluses and minuses.
Across the road, the REE Manufacturing plant’s main warehouse slumbered in the moonless night like a dragon curled against the base of the mountain. Peaceful except for the occasional growl of a generator rising up like a snore, a long row of wide loading doors spanned the lower section of the massive warehouse like a large maw open and waiting for food. A string of smaller windows inset above formed a row of beady eyes, now shut against the night. The only sign that anyone was present on the property was the warm glow of light spilling out at the back of the building and lighting up a small section of the rock-cut.
A few hundred yards to the north, the main production facility was lit up like a football stadium. The place bustled with activity. Smokestacks in the roof belched steam, smoke, and chemicals into the air. The noise outside was deafening. So far there had been no apparent activity at the main plant, though the lights in the back remained on.
“Does everyone have their comms in?” She heard a chorus of yeses. “Then let’s do this.”
Zhen opened the laptop, lighting the dark interior of the car. He made a few keystrokes, then shut the laptop. “The alarms and motion sensors have been disabled, and I’ve frozen the camera images for the front door and main office areas.”
Crossing the highway and the gravel parking lot went without a hitch. There was no one stationed in front, and no one appeared to be upstairs in the administrative offices.
Jordan stepped up to the door and jiggled the handle. “How about unlocking the door?”
Zhen flipped open the laptop, tapped a key, and the door latch clicked. He repeated the process at the top of the stairs.
Jordan took point entering the main office. Rounding the corner, she checked the bank of monitors. The office where the four of them stood appeared empty on the screen, dark except for a glow from the monitors. The remainder of the images detailed the warehouse floor, a couple of shots of the perimeter, and Ping’s office. The latter appeared dark. The only people visible in the images were four men standing inside, in a back garage area of the building, around a truck with the mounted weapon.
Zhen pointed to the smallest man. “That’s Ping Mu.”
Jordan identified the others as Triad by the tattoos on their forearms. Big and tough looking, two of the men carried QBZ-95s, a standard issue Chinese bullpup rifle.
“There aren’t as many guards as I thought there would be,” Jordan said. Maybe it was a good omen.
Zhen punctured her bubble of optimism. “There’re more. Ping insists they smoke outside. They’re just off camera.” He reached over and hit a button, unfreezing the camera at the front entrance. “Now we can see if anyone decides to come in that way.”
“Are there more banks of these monitors?”
“A couple. There are some in Ping’s office and some on the warehouse floor.”
“Okay, then we’ll go with the original plan. Charlie, you stay here and keep your eye on the monitors. Give us a heads up if you see any of the guards coming. Davis, Zhen, and I will head to Ping’s office. Once we’re done there, Zhen comes back here, and Davis and I head for the garage. If things go south, Charlie, you and Zhen are to leave and head back to Guangzhou. Get Zhen to the consulate and have the PO notify Lory. Understood?”
“Got it. But don’t worry, everything is going to be fine.”
“Because you know kung fu?” she asked.
“That’s right.”