16

“Someone set me up, damn it!” I shout to the empty hotel room in Kowloon.

Colonel Lambert, Frances Coen, and Anna Grimsdottir are all online with me through my implants. I’ve given a full report on what went down at the warehouse and I’m hopping mad.

“Calm down, Sam,” Lambert says. “Why do you think you were set up?”

“Because they knew I would be there. They brought along that contraption that screwed with my implants for that very purpose. The Triad I interrogated in the alley confirmed it. Someone told them to expect me. They knew I was a Splinter Cell and that I had those communication implants. I was set up!”

Grimsdottir speaks up. “This device, Sam, what did it look like?” She has a soft voice but one can sense intelligence behind it.

“Kinda like a boom box. There was a tiny satellite dish they pulled out of it and set on the floor.”

“I think I understand how it was done,” she says. “They would have had to understand the technology behind the implants and how they work. If you’re right, then they must have had inside information from Third Echelon. It’s the only way.”

“Mike Chan again?” Lambert asks.

“Possibly. If he’s the traitor.”

“Of course he’s the traitor,” I say. “He killed Carly, didn’t he? Have you caught that bastard yet?”

“No, the FBI is on his trail,” Lambert replies.

“Well, it still doesn’t answer how the Triad knew I’d be at the building. The only person who knew what I was doing was Mason Hen—”

That has to be it. Hendricks.

“Um, I think I need to pay a little visit to Hendricks, Colonel.” I look at my watch. There are a few hours left before I have to be at the Kwai Chung container port.

“Mason Hendricks has been one of our most trusted field agents, Sam,” Lambert says. “His record is impeccable.”

“Then maybe he knows how there might have been a link. His source was bad or something. It’s worth pursuing. Besides, I gave him a piece of evidence that needs to go to a lab. Some blood I found at the Triad’s nightclub. Who knows, it might belong to Jeinsen.”

“All right, Sam.”

“Anything else, Colonel?”

“Yes. We’ve finished the analysis of General Prokofiev’s materials you found in his house.”

“Yeah?”

“You know that list of missing nuclear devices? The notes he scribbled next to some of them?”

“Uh-huh.”

Frances Coen continues. “It’s a code, all right. And it’s very strange.”

“Well?”

“When the code is broken, it’s a recipe for Russian borscht.”

“What?”

“Well, that’s a guess. The words specifically decode as ‘Formanova Cylindra beets, beef stock, water, vinegar, butter, cabbage, and tomato sauce.’ Those are the ingredients of borscht. It leaves out a few spices and perhaps some other vegetables, but that’s what it is.”

“What the hell does borscht have to do with nuclear bombs?”

“We don’t know. That’s just what the code says when it’s broken.”

“I think you guys have gone loony,” I say.

“We were hoping you might know what it means,” Lambert says. “Was there anything in Prokofiev’s house that might give us a clue as to what it’s all about?”

“I can’t think of anything, unless that battle-ax of a wife puts plutonium in her cooking. Which I wouldn’t put past her. Look, I’m going back to Hendricks’s place before the sun comes up. I’ll let you know what he has to say.”

“We’ll talk later, Sam,” Lambert says, and then we sign off.

* * *

Dressed in my workout clothes and carrying my uniform in a gym bag, I take the ferry to the island, grab a taxi, and go back to the Mid-Levels just as the sun begins to rise. But the driver can’t get through to Hendricks’s street. A policeman tells us that only local traffic is allowed in.

“What’s the problem, Officer?” I ask in Chinese.

“Fire,” he replies.

I pay the cabbie and get out. Once I’m on the street I can see the thick smoke billowing up ahead. A couple of fire trucks, an ambulance, and two police cars are blocking the middle of the road. And they’re in front of Hendricks’s small house.

I walk up the pavement and take a look. Sure enough, his place is black, still smoldering from what was apparently an intense blaze. I move closer to the policemen who are talking with the fireman in charge. Even though they’re speaking in Chinese, I’m able to catch a few words and phrases.

“Firebomb… through the front window… one in the back… possible Triad work… two bodies…”

I observe in fascination as firemen bring out two covered corpses on stretchers. One charred, black-and-red arm sticks out from under a sheet. I catch the words “man and woman in bedroom” before the corpses are loaded into the ambulance.

Hendricks had boasted about expecting female companionship for the night. Well, he got lucky, all right. Lucky as in Lucky Dragons. And I guess his lady friend got more than she bargained for as well. It’s a shame.

Now I’m at a loss as to how I was set up at the warehouse. Apparently Hendricks was betrayed too. The Triad must have found out what he was up to, somehow intercepting the information he got from his source. Maybe it was the source who tipped them off.

And so much for the piece of evidence I took from the nightclub. It’s probably long gone now.

I walk away, realizing I must disengage myself from Hendricks, finish what I came to Hong Kong to do, and get the hell out. As the new rising sun bathes the island in warmth, I make my way back to the ferry so I can get to my appointment at the container port on time.

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