Checkmate

29

Fisher paid the driver, got out, and shut the door. The driver did a hasty U-turn, then sped back down the dirt road, taillights disappearing into the fog. Fisher would’ve preferred a less conspicuous infiltration method than a bright yellow taxi, but he was short on time and the next KCR train from Kowloon to Lo Wu wasn’t scheduled until the following tomorrow. As it was, he’d had to hail three taxis before finding a driver willing to take him to Lo Wu.

Still, he wasn’t overly concerned. Hong Kong’s taxi drivers had an uncanny ability to immediately forget whatever their fares did or said or where they went. This wasn’t so much a function of discretion as it was of self-preservation. Since the British handover, not much had changed on the surface of Hong Kong, but there was an undercurrent of tension on the streets, as if the people knew Beijing was watching.

And if the Chinese government was watching Hong Kong, they were certainly watching Lo Wu, a stone’s throw from the border. If he was being watched right now, he saw no sign of it. The road was empty and devoid of streetlights. To the north, perhaps half a mile away, he could see the lights of Lo Wu; beyond those, five miles away, the brighter lights of Shenzhen, China’s southernmost metropolitan area at five million people.

According to Grimsdottir’s map, Excelsior’s warehouse was on the southern outskirts of Lo Wu, between a slaughterhouse and a sewage treatment plant. It was also only a few blocks from the Border District’s Police Headquarters. He pulled the OPSAT from his jacket pocket, called up the map, and memorized the landmarks.

He turned up the collar of the jacket and started walking.

Only three cars passed him and none of them slowed, which he took as a good sign. Still, with each step he felt the tingle of fear in his belly grow. He’d had his share of missions on the Chinese mainland and each of them had been unpleasant at best. Both the PLA and the Guoanbu — the Chinese secret police — were ruthlessly efficient and tended to arrest first and interrogate later.

When he reached Kong Nga Po Road, he turned right and walked a few blocks, then turned again, into a small industrial park. He found Excelsior’s warehouse next to the sewage plant’s hurricane fence. Fisher walked around back to the loading dock and walked up the ramp. He tried the door. It was locked. There was a buzzer. He pulled a baseball cap from his pocket and put it on, then pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket and pressed the buzzer.

Thirty seconds passed. The door swung open. Fisher lowered his head. Under the brim of the cap he saw a pair shiny dress shoes. Security guard, he thought.

“Shen-me?” a man’s voice said. What?

Fisher pushed the papers toward the guard, who instinctively reached for them. Fisher grabbed his wrist and jerked him off balance. As he lurched forward, Fisher wrapped his arm around the man’s neck and squeezed, cutting off the blood flow. After a few seconds, the man went limp.

Fisher dragged him through the door, dropped him, and and caught the door with his fingertips to keep it from slamming shut. He froze and listened. If there were other night-shift workers, they might be coming to investigate. No one came.

The loading dock was dark save for a yellow exit sign above the door. The walls were stacked high with boxes and crates in various states of loading. On the far wall were a pair of swinging doors. He dragged the man into the nearest shadow and headed for the doors.

On the other side was the warehouse itself. Long and narrow with a low ceiling, the space was divided into four aisles, each of those divided into eight-by-eight-foot caged, floor-to-ceiling bins. Each bin seemed to contained a category of office equipment, from copiers, to desks, to generic artwork for bare walls. He found the bin he was looking for at the end of the second aisle. Through the cage he saw metal shelves crowded with computer CPUs. With a little coaxing from his picks, the padlock popped open in his hand.

He went to work, and twenty minutes later he’d checked each CPUs serial number with no luck. Then it occurred to him: Song Woo had only recently returned its equipment. What would Excelsior do with recent returns? Maintenance check, perhaps?

In the last aisle he found two bins that had been merged into a work space. Sitting on the bench were a half-a-dozen CPUs and monitors. He picked the gate lock and started checking numbers. He got lucky almost immediately. He dialed Grimsdottir. “Got ’em,” he said.

“Excellent. Plug me in.”

Fisher connected the OPSAT’s USB cord into the first CPU.

Grimsdottir said, “No go. The hard drive’s been reformatted.”

Fisher plugged into the second one.

“Bingo. That one’s been wiped, too, but not very well. There’s data still there. Can you pull it?”

“Consider it done.”

Five minutes later, he was back at the loading dock. As his hand touched the doorknob, he heard the slamming of a car door, then footsteps coming up the ramp. He checked his watch: five minutes to midnight. Shift change?

The door buzzer went off.

Fisher hurried to the guard’s body and traded his own jacket for the uniform jacket; his ballcap for the guard’s brimmed one. The buzzer went off again.

“Wei!” a voice shouted. Hey!

A fist pounded on the door.

Fisher took a breath and opened it.

The security guard had his fist poised over the door, ready for another strike. Down the ramp was a two-door Hongqi, with a magnetic sign affixed to the door. The man regarded Fisher for a moment, then cocked his head and opened his mouth to speak.

Fisher hit him, a short jab to the point of his chin. The man stumbled backward, landed hard on his butt, then did a reverse somersault down the ramp. Fisher jogged after him and stopped his roll. He took the car keys from the man’s jacket pocket, then carried him to the trunk, peeled off of the magnetic logo, tossed it into the backseat, and drove away.