I give her the e-mail address for the computer and its server. “I need a password, and fast.”
While I wait, I putter around the hard drive, taking a look at Word files and other programs. There’s a folder containing several Excel spreadsheets that are obviously inventory lists with purchase and profit designations. I run searches for “Jon Ming,” “JonMing,” “Ming,” “Lucky Dragons,” “Shop,” and “Mike Chan” but come up with zilch. Then I search for “Barracuda” and come up with a folder with that name. I open it and see several saved e-mails. Some of them are from Prokofiev in Moscow. Reading them, I come to realize that once again, for the second time in a year, I’m sitting at the desk belonging to Andrei Zdrok, the Shop’s leader. So he’s here in Hong Kong. I might have known, seeing that his other two flunkies are in the colony as well.
Prokofiev’s messages are in coded gobbledy-gook but I can make out something concerning shipments of materials to Hong Kong from Russia, and orders to make sure something from America is delivered to China.
There’s a folder marked GYROTECHNICS and it contains some e-mails from someone named GoFish@GyroTechnics. com. These are written either in very poor English or it’s some kind of shorthand code. I quickly scan them and then come across the word
“Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“I have something for you.” She gives me a six-character letter-and-number combination. “Try that and see if you get in.”
I do, and it works. “Anna, I guess you’re still on my birthday card list,” I say.
“What about me?” I hear Coen ask.
“You just might get a card
“Thanks a lot.”
I look through the recently received e-mails and find one from GoFish. It says that his brother is now in town and needs to get out of the country quickly. A brand-new message in the in-box is from “GoFish2.” I can’t believe what I see when I open it.
Andrei—
It’s me, Mike Wu, formerly Mike Chan. As you know, Eddie is my brother. We have just learned that JM has canceled the purchase of the Barracuda GS. We want to sell it to you directly. Contact me ASAP. We don’t have much time. I need to get out of Los Angeles immediately.
— Mike
I quickly upload these files to my OPSAT and turn off the computer. While I’m doing so I consider all the various bits of information I’ve gathered in Russia and in Hong Kong. The way I figure it, Mike Chan was the mole inside Third Echelon. He arranged to deliver MRUUV classified secrets from Professor Jeinsen to the Lucky Dragons. The Shop then bought this material and sold them to another party. Mike and his brother, whoever that is, are in possession of one more piece of Jeinsen’s work. Jon Ming doesn’t want to go through with the transaction so Mike is trying to sell the thing to the Shop without the Triad acting as middleman.
There’s a noise outside in the hallway. I freeze as I realize that someone’s coming down the creaky stairs. Whoever it is shouts at the sleeping guard, giving the guy a thorough dressing-down for drinking and falling asleep on the job. I hear the guard, disoriented and hoarse, try his best to apologize.
More footsteps. There are several guys out there. What the hell am I going to do? There’s no way out of this office. No windows, no vents, nothing. I move to the door and stand behind it, my Five-seveN drawn and ready. If I have to shoot my way out, I’ll do it.
Then I hear the newcomer ask the guard why the bookcase upstairs was open. The guard doesn’t have an answer. An order is given to search the premises.
I reach into my trouser leg pocket and grab a smoke grenade. After lowering my goggles, I clutch it in my left hand and prepare to pull the pin with my teeth and throw it. Suddenly, the office door pushes inward, slamming against me and revealing my position.
21
I switch on my thermal vision, pull the grenade pin, reach around the open door, and drop it. The men shout in alarm and then there’s a tremendous explosion in the hallway. It’s just a smoke grenade but the tight confines of the quarters magnifies the intensity of the blast. Total chaos ensues outside the office as the door is bombarded with gunfire. I fall to the floor, facedown, and crawl out beneath the line of fire. With my head in the hallway I can count four warm bodies in the smoke. Three of them are shooting blindly toward the office. I calmly aim my Five- seveN and take them out — one, two, three.
“Stop!” the fourth man shouts. “Stop shooting, you fools!” The poor guy doesn’t realize his men are already dead. I can see him moving toward the staircase, feeling his way along the wall. I stand, grab him in a one-arm choke hold, and place the barrel of my handgun to his head.
It’s Anton Antipov.
“I should just kill you now,” I say in Russian.
The guy is trembling. “Wait!” he says in English. “Please!”
“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t.”
“If you kill me you’ll… you’ll never know what’s going on.”
“I know what’s going on.”
“Surely you don’t know the details.” The guy is desperate. The coward is ready to spill his guts. He’s right, though. I
The man squints at me and asks, “Who are you?”
“The Avon Lady. Now what’s the Shop doing with the MRUUV material?”
“You’re Fisher! Are you not? The Splinter Cell!”
“I asked you a question.”
“I was afraid you might show up sooner rather than later. Andrei… Andrei wouldn’t believe you’d be on our trail so quickly.”
“Are you going to answer me or not? You have three seconds.”
“Wait!” Antipov puts up his hands defensively. “Don’t shoot!”
“Okay, I’m waiting. Now talk to me.”
“We’ve sold the MRUUV plans to General Tun in China. He plans to attack Taiwan with his army. He’s mobilizing in Fuzhou and war is imminent.”
Is the general nuts? “He’s crazy if he thinks he can attack Taiwan without retaliation from the United Nations, not to mention America. Surely he knows that.”
Antipov nods. “The general apparently has a plan for that scenario.”
“And that is…?”
“I don’t know!”
The guy is too scared to lie. I think back to the information I gleaned from Zdrok’s computer. “What’s this final piece that’s coming from California?”
“You know about that?”
“Answer me.”
“It’s the guidance system for the MRUUV. A firm based in Los Angeles is designing it according to Tun’s specifications. You know how the MRUUV works?”
Yeah, I do. It’s an undersea torpedo that can be guided remotely from a submarine or ship. “Why the hell would Tun need one of those to attack Taiwan? Does he have a bomb? One of your Russian nuclear bombs? Is that
