Gunmetal Gray

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Court Gentry and Fan Jiang walked in the darkness for five hours, taking only short breaks when they found dry ground. The first portion of their hike, up to and including the border crossing into Cambodia, had been slow and arduous: a seemingly never-ending series of muddy fields and flooded rice paddies, broken every twenty minutes or so by thick, nearly impenetrable tree lines full of thorny underbrush and ankle-twisting root systems.

For the past hour and a half, however, they’d walked primarily along dirt or gravel roads as they continued to the west. They’d seen not another soul the entire time, which was good news for Court, because the batteries had gone dead in his night vision binos an hour earlier and he’d buried the device under thatch and fallen leaves, and without it he found it much harder to avoid dangers in their path.

Court had dumped the rifle, as well, although he felt sick about doing it. He knew there were a lot of threats in his path still; the Russians would have expected him to make a run into Cambodia, and the Mi-8 might come back looking for him.

But he couldn’t just walk public roads with a carbine on his shoulder, so he disassembled it and threw it into a grove of thick jungle along the way, and hoped like hell he wasn’t going to regret the decision.

Fan had been silent much of the way, other than occasional lamentations about his feet hurting and his legs cramping. Court had ignored him at first, then consented to his pleas for breaks every now and then. But now Court began to worry as the young man started limping noticeably.

The American realized they wouldn’t be able to make it much farther.

They left a road when it turned to the north because Court wanted to keep going west towards the population center of Phnom Penh. He didn’t have a map on him, but he’d studied the area knowing he might have to come this way and he remembered the route in a general sense, so they followed a dark narrow trail through rough jungle.

He thought he was saving time doing this: getting Fan to the west where he knew the farmland ended and there were more villages and even small towns. But after twenty minutes the dark wooded trail ended at a slow-moving river, with no way across anywhere he could see.

Court’s heart sank. It was easily seventy-five yards across, and while there was a tiny boat dock and a dilapidated wooden shack here, there were no boats at the dock and no signs of life on either bank of the river.

When he saw the water in the low light, Court remembered from the map that this river wound around the southeastern part of the nation, and this told him he was farther south than he’d thought. He also remembered there were no bridges for miles in either direction, and he didn’t think Fan would be able to walk nearly that far in his condition.

Court turned to the young computer expert. “Let me guess… you can’t swim.”

Fan replied defensively, “I can swim. But… but I am too tired. I will drown, I promise you.”

Court nodded. He looked at the area around him and saw that the shack was missing part of its roof, but the broken concrete slab it was built upon was dry. The jungle and the riverbank looked like prime locations for snakes to hang out, so he told Fan they’d take a break right here on the slab.

Together they went into the shack and sat down on the hard concrete. Court knelt over Fan and helped him get his shoes off, then used the small penlight feature on his thermal monocular, basically the only item to survive sliding down the levee, to look over Fan’s feet. They were blistered and bleeding, but only because they weren’t callused to begin with. With a little bandaging Court decided Fan would be fine.

Court said, “Take off that hoodie, it’s eighty degrees.”

Fan did as Court instructed, and Court ripped the hood off, then cut it into two strips. The material was damp but not completely soaked, and Court tied them gently over Fan’s blisters.

He said, “We can wait here until daylight, probably in another forty-five minutes or so. If someone comes with a boat, we get a ride out of here, and we get a phone. If nobody comes by in the next two hours, then we swim across, and we keep going.”

“But… I can’t walk any farther.”

Court said, “That’s why we’re resting, and that’s why I’m bandaging your feet.”

Fan just nodded distractedly, then said, “This is crazy.”

“What’s crazy?” Court asked.

“Everything. This night. That, back there, with the shooting, the soldiers. You. This is not my life. My life is three computer terminals and access to the networks of the Strategic Support Force.”

Court said nothing; he just worked on making himself comfortable. He had a good view up the trail, so if anyone came from that direction using flashlights, he’d see them long before they saw him.

Fan said, “But all this… everything that happened tonight. I guess this is what you do.”

Court smiled a little, still looking up the trail. “What can I say? I’m not smart enough to be a computer hacker, so I get the shit work. Like this.”

Fan gave out what sounded to the American to be a tired sob, then said, “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

Court scanned the trees around him now, doing his best to absorb any light. While doing so he said, “Of course you do. You ran. They chased. If you hadn’t jumped the border… we wouldn’t be having so much fun right now.”

“I did not want to run. It happened so fast.”

Court kicked his own shoes off. They wouldn’t dry out, but letting the skin of his feet get some air around it would help them heal. “Seems like an odd thing to do on the spur of the moment. C’mon, dude. When you escaped I’m sure you knew the Chinese would come after you, and I’m sure you knew any of the countries you’d worked against would be interested in you, too.”

“You don’t even know the work I did, do you?”

“Like I said, cyber warfare is a bit over my head.”

“Well… I did not work against the United States. That’s another portion of my unit. My job was to find access points into my own nation’s secure networks by using the tactics of 61398. There is a big difference.”

Court said, “Maybe to your conscience. Not to your desirability. Look, I just came because I was sent. I don’t care what you did or to who. I wouldn’t even understand it if you told me.” Court lay down on the cement, facing Fan Jiang. “The only thing I am curious about is why you decided to make a break for it.”

Fan did not respond for a long time. Court thought the kid wanted to say something but had decided against it. Finally the young man answered. “The security department kept watch on us at all times. But that was everyone in the unit. I worked with a team inside unit 61398 called Red Cell; there were five of us. They had another way to keep us in line. There was an official term for it, but most everyone called it ‘family collateral.’”

“What’s that?”

“Our relatives. Everyone on the team had a wife or a husband, children, other family members, who were kept at the compound in Shanghai. Treated well, full party benefits, but watched over, twenty-four hours a day by an escort… a member of the security unit.”

“So they kept your wife and kids inside the military installation?”

“I was married when I was eighteen. The department encouraged it. She was a lieutenant in the PLA, which made it easy for us to prove our loyalty to the party. But six years ago she died… during childbirth.”

Court looked up to the lightening sky. “Sorry.”

“Yes. I was going to have a son.”

“Damn.”

Neither spoke for a full minute. Court was exhausted and he didn’t know what this day would bring. He imagined he still had many miles to go before he’d find a way to pass Fan off to U.S. authorities.

But Fan wanted to talk. “When she died… when they died, I mean, security at 61398 brought my parents into the compound in Shanghai from their home in Beijing. Family collateral. My parents were my only relatives. I was told if I remarried they could return to Beijing, but I did not want to remarry so soon.”

Court just said, “That must have been tough on your parents.”

“It was the opposite. My father was a colonel in the PLA, and my mother had been a mathematician at the National Defense University. They were proud to support the work I did by living in the compound. They were assigned a guardian, Major Song Julong. He was charged with watching over them, and he had served under my father, so it was good for everyone. Me, my parents, and Song.”

Court rolled up onto his arm now and looked at Fan. He understood, for the first time in this mission, what had started this entire situation. “But something happened, didn’t it? Something that forced you to run.”

Fan looked back to the American in the low light and nodded slowly. “Yes. Something happened.”

Fan Jiang moved briskly, swinging his briefcase along with his stride, his tie loose and his parted hair hanging low and boyishly after a full day walking the exhibition floors of the China Information Technology Expo. The massive event was winding down for the evening; thousands of men and women filed out of doors, down escalators; they flagged cabs and stepped onto metro cars and buses. Fan was right along with the crowd, fitting in as an unremarkable young businessman, although one flanked by two much larger and much less talkative coworkers.

Fan was tired; most every day of his life involved twelve to fourteen hours sitting at a desk, so just participating in a trade show was real physical work to him. He was looking forward to getting back to his room so he could pig out on room service, then go to bed early. Tomorrow he and his guards would fly back to Shanghai, and by midafternoon he would be back in his uniform and back at his desk, and as novel as it was to come here to get intelligence on the work done by IT corporations around the world, he was ready to return to his normal and sedentary existence.

His bodyguards, Chen and Liu, were arguably more exhausted than their protectee, because while Fan had to talk to dozens of people and take pages of notes, the two security officers had to stay ultra vigilant at all times: tough to do considering the fact that the expo was a massive transitional space with thousands of people moving around.

The three men pushed through the revolving doors of the expo’s lobby and out into the six p.m. heat, heading to the cabstand to catch a taxi back to the Sheraton. Before they made their way to the back of the long line, Sergeant Chen’s cell phone trilled in the breast pocket of his gray suit coat. He pulled it out, looked down to the phone to identify the call, then held it out to his protectee without answering it. “Fan, it’s your mother. We’ll get in line; you sit on that bench right there by the door.”

“Xie xie.” Thank you, Fan said as he took the phone. Fan liked to be separated from the two sergeants while he spoke to his parents. Not because he had anything to hide; rather he was embarrassed to talk to his mother in earshot of the tough bodyguards.

As he sat on the bench he said, “Ni hao, Mama.”

The voice on the other end of the line was not his mother. It was a male voice, but it was not his father.

Fan Jiang recognized the voice of his parents’ government-issued escort, thirty-eight-year-old Major Song Julong.

“Jiang? It’s me. It’s Julong.” Fan knew the man well; he’d become part of the family in the past six years since his parents were brought into the unit and moved to the compound in Shanghai. Song was with them virtually all the time, and Fan spent most of his free time at his parents’ apartment, just a few buildings away from his own. When he did this it was common for Song Julong to join them for dinner, watch television with them, or play games.

He’d become something of an adopted brother to Fan.

Fan said, “Ni hao, Song. Why are you calling from my mother’s phone?”

The man spoke quickly. “Something terrible has happened.”

Fan sat up quickly. “What’s happened?”

Song’s voice was serious, ominous. “You cannot react to what I am telling you. I did not call you. This is your mother calling. Do you understand me?”

Fan did not understand, but the man’s tone made him nervous. “Put her on the phone. Or my father. They are both with you?”

“When the security department finds out… you know what they will do.”

“Finds out what? What are you talking about?”

Song said, “Softly, Jiang. If Chen and Liu are there, do not let them hear you!”

Fan glanced up at the men in the taxi line. They were lighting cigarettes and talking to each other, not even looking his way. “They can’t hear me. Tell me what is happening.”

“Fan… there has been an accident. Just now. Not five minutes ago.”

“Accident? Are my parents—”

“I was driving. It was me. A sand truck from the construction site on the Inner Ring Elevated Road backed up just as I was passing.”

“No… Please tell me they are okay, Julong.”

“Keep your voice down. You understand what this means for you, don’t you?”

“For… for me? Where are my parents?”

Song shouted into the phone now. “They are dead, Jiang! They are both dead! Killed instantly. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry, but you can’t react to what I am telling you.”

Fan leaned forward suddenly, as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

Song said, “Your parents were good people. They were like my own parents, who I lost when I was young. You know that. You know I didn’t want this.”

Fan just stared at the sidewalk in front of the taxi stand now. Still in a state of shock, he tried to clear his head and think. “I’ll tell the guys. They will get us on a flight tonight. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“No!” said Song. “You don’t get it. You still don’t get what I’m trying to tell you, do you? I am calling you now, before anyone in 61398 finds out, because of your participation in Red Cell. Ten minutes ago you had the highest security clearance in the nation. Now when the police get here and when MSS and MOD find out the identity of the dead, you will have no clearance. You will have all the secrets of the Strategic Support Force in your head, but you will be deemed untrustworthy by the government. You have no more family collateral, and when 61398 finds out… it will be all over for you.”

Fan just looked at his two bodyguards. They were making their way closer to the front of the taxi line. Chen glanced his way and tapped his finger on his watch. Fan nodded, then turned away. “How much… how much time do I have?”

“You are in Shenzhen. We are in Shanghai. The car is burning; they won’t find their IDs. I walked away from the accident; I’ll tell them I hit my head and didn’t know what happened.”

“Why? What are you talking about?”

“You have ten, maybe twelve hours. By dawn tomorrow MSS will be in contact with MOD, and they will call Chen and Liu. MOD will order them to bring you straight into the security office of 61398. At that time they will take your credentials, and they will hold you. They will say it is for your own protection, because of your grief. But they will keep you for a day or two while the orders are signed.”

Fan asked the next part with a lump in his throat. “Orders?”

“And then the security director himself, Colonel Le, or else his second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Dai, will order you shot. That’s how it happens. That’s how they remove the compromise to Red Cell.”

Fan knew nothing of this; he found it so hard to believe. But Song had worked as a security escort for a dozen years. They were friends. There was no reason he’d say any of this if it weren’t true.

Fan had seen two other men leave Red Cell when they lost family collateral. He’d been told they’d moved to other sectors. Now he wondered if they’d been executed.

He just said, “I served faithfully. I have done all that was asked.”

Song sniffed; Fan could almost hear the tears running down the man’s face. “They only believed in you because they controlled you. That control is gone.” Song sniffed again. “You have to act tonight.”

Fan shouted into the phone, loud enough that his two bodyguards looked towards him in surprise. “And do what?”

Song said, “You need to run.”

Fan turned away from Chen and Liu. “I… That’s crazy. I have no idea how to do that.”

“It’s okay, Jiang. I will tell you what to do. I will tell you what has worked in the past with defectors.”

“De—”

“Don’t say it! Just listen to me very carefully.”

“But… What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” Fan heard a slur in Song’s speech now. Maybe it had been there the entire time.

“Why are you doing this for me?”

“I owe it to your parents.”

Song tried to hide his drinking, but sometimes he showed up at Fan’s parents’ apartment drunk. Fan wondered if Song had been drinking today, if the story about the sand truck was not the complete story. But he did not press.

He just listened.

Five minutes later Fan handed the phone back to Sergeant Chen without saying a word.

Chen was with Liu near the front of the taxi line and still thinking about the outburst he’d overheard. “Problems with Mommy, Fan? Did she buy you the wrong color underpants?”

Liu laughed next to him.

Fan just said, “No problems.” And then, “Guys, I feel a head cold coming on. I’ve had to shake too many dirty hands this week.”

Liu nodded. “We all have. Disgusting gweilo, mostly.”

“Can we go to a market and get some cold medicine? Something that will help me sleep?”

It was a reasonable request, so Chen just shrugged. “There is a market around the corner from the Sheraton. We’ll go there.”

“Wanshan,” Fan said. Perfect.

Court looked at the little man lying on the cement foundation by the riverbank, and he could hardly believe he’d had the guts to sneak across the border into Hong Kong while being pursued by the full military and intelligence apparatus of the People’s Republic of China. That said, he understood the young sergeant had absolutely no choice at all.

He asked, “Did you ever find out what happened to Song?”

Fan nodded. The morning light had grown to where it was now possible for Court to see the pain and the fatigue on Fan Jiang’s face. “I looked on the Internet when I was in Hong Kong. There was a single-car crash in Shanghai on the Inner Ring Elevated Road at the same time as Song’s call. I looked at the video from the news report. It was the car Song drove, burning. It took an off-ramp too quickly and flipped. There was no construction site anywhere around. No sand truck involved, either.”

“He was drunk.”

Fan nodded. “And the guilt of killing my parents caused him to try to save me. The report said there were three victims of the crash.”

Court blew out a long sigh now. “They terminated him.”

Fan nodded, then concentrated on the American in front of him. “So… I told you all this. Now you must tell me the truth.”

“Depends on the question.”

“What is going to happen to me?”

“Don’t worry. You’re safe. First, I get you away from Colonel Dai and his men.”

“And then?”

“And then I am to hand you over to some nice people who’d like a word with you.”

Fan sat up. “Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“You are going to take me to the U.S. I know you are. I want to go to Taiwan.”

Court didn’t know why the kid wanted to go to Taiwan, and he didn’t ask. He said, “The U.S. has good relations with Taiwan. I’m sure we’ll work something out.”

“You are lying. The CIA is going to demand I work for them. They will hold me for years, force me to work against my home country. And if I refuse… will they send you to kill me?”

Court chuckled. “It’s the USA, not China. You might eat fatty food that gives you a heart attack and watch shitty TV that makes you want to kill yourself, but the CIA won’t whack you.”

Fan Jiang said, “I took nothing out of China when I left. No documents, no plans, no schematics for programs. I have nothing to turn over to anyone. I just want to go to Taiwan. Of course I know I will be debriefed, but I refuse to work against the People’s Republic of China.”

Court thought this kid was about to cry, but as far as he was concerned, Fan Jiang was hopelessly naïve.

Fan said, “I am from China. I am not against China. Not even after what happened. I am for Fan Jiang. Can’t I just leave this all behind?”

I seriously doubt it, Court said to himself. Then he sighed a little. “I’ll talk to some people when we get out of here.”

It was bullshit, and Court got the distinct impression Fan saw through it, because he sprang to his bare feet and took off for the dirt trail through the jungle. Court reached for him but missed, then put his own shoes on and chased after him. The faint morning light kept Fan from running off the trail and into a low-hanging branch, but Court caught up with him in under a minute, grabbing him by his shirt and tackling him to the ground. The bigger American put a knee in the young Chinese man’s chest. “Calm down, kid. It’s not so bad. We’re the good guys.”

Fan Jiang struggled. “No, you are not.”

Court realized he was crushing the kid while telling him he was a good guy. He pulled his knee back. “Well, we’re the better guys. Dai will kill you for what you did. Those Vietnamese back there will kill you for causing that massacre, and if the Russians got hold of you…”

Court let that hang in the air for a moment.

Fan said, “I want to go to Taiwan.”

“Right. Taiwan. Look, I’m going to hand you off to someone, and you can tell them that.” Court pulled Fan to his feet. “You’ve had a lot of bad luck, and I really wish you all the best, but I have a job to do. And I promise you, if you run from me again, you will just make your bad luck even worse, because I will kick your ass.

“We’re finished waiting around here. If you can run like that, you can damn well cross that river. I’ll be there right with you. I’ll keep you safe.”

Fan started to protest, but Court took him by the arm and began walking him back down to the water. “C’mon, kid, let’s go for a swim.”

The light was even better when they returned to the little shack by the beach, but as soon as the two men had a view down to the little docking area, they both stopped in their tracks.

Three green powerboats, each some twenty feet in length, floated silently in the water just yards offshore, and in them some two dozen men, all armed with assault rifles and machetes, stared right back at Court and Fan with hard eyes.

Over a dozen muzzles pointed at the chests of the two foreigners.

“Well… that’s not good,” Court muttered.

“Who are these men?” Fan whispered.

Court sized up the men on the boats. They were sinewy, weathered, tan from living on the water and out in the elements. These guys knew the jungle.

“The kind of men you don’t piss off. Raise your hands slowly.”

“Should we run?” Fan asked.

Court raised his hands, and Fan followed suit. Yes, Court could have run. He could have dived off the trail, rolled down into a shallow ditch in the trees, and disappeared into the jungle.

But not with Fan.

Court said, “No, kid. We’re going to do exactly what they say.”

“Where will they take us?”

“Just a guess. Not to Taiwan.”