Steve Martini - The Enemy Inside

Cheng was right, to those with patience came the fruits of victory. China established a Special Administrative Region for Hong Kong with assurances that it would remain that way for at least fifty years. It was business as usual. Unless you followed the news you might not even realize that the British had left except for the recent disruptions, which had already fallen off the front pages of most newspapers around the world. The democracy movement was dying largely because the lawyers and businessmen who made the island hum with commercial activity were so busy making money that they couldn’t be bothered to attend the protests.

The well-monied movers and shakers told the movement’s leaders, mostly disorganized college students and a few professors, that they would try to show up if the organizers could reschedule the “demonstrations” for a weekend. Such was the practical nature of the Chinese mercantile mind. As far as Cheng was concerned, any thought that this might evolve into a real revolution died of embarrassment.

This morning Cheng had his own business to attend to. The government limo whisked him along the highway and threaded through the crowded downtown streets. Twenty minutes later it dropped him under the portico at the entrance to the Intercontinental Hotel, overlooking the water at the tip of Kowloon.

On the way to the airport to pick up the second car in Zihua, Herman’s head finally cleared enough that he was thinking once again.

He was confident there was no one following them on the highway. But whoever was tracking them and was able to find them at the condo probably possessed high-end assets. Merely looking in the rearview mirror or backtracking to trip up anyone following on the road wasn’t going to cut it.

Depending on who they were, they could have been watching the condo by satellite or using one of the small remote control drones. For a few hundred dollars anybody could buy one of these little bastards and equip it with cameras. If they were flying high enough, people on the ground couldn’t see or hear them. With three or four they could conduct twenty-four-hour air surveillance over a building and watch anyone fleeing from it.

Whoever it was could have been tracking the van as they fled south along the highway and Herman knew it. He needed to change out vehicles, but do it in a way that it could not be seen from the air.

The parking garage at the resort on the beach was perfect. Inside there were enough cars already parked, with traffic moving in and out that anyone watching overhead would see only the van going in and never coming out.

A half hour after entering the garage, Herman, Alex, and the other two men emerged in a dark blue Range Rover, but instead of heading south, they went north. With enough time to think they came up with the perfect location, the fishing resort of Manzanillo.

A few hours north on the coast highway, Manzanillo had an airport where, if they needed to, they could rent another vehicle. It was a sport-fishing mecca, sailfish capital of the world, blue marlin and dorado. It was large enough with plenty of tourists so that four American men looking for fun would not be noticed. It also had a very active cargo-container port and was only a few hours by car from the dirt airstrip where Herman and Alex had flown in. For anyone on the run it offered multiple means of transport and escape.

It was their second night in the seedy hotel at the south end of town near the container port. The air conditioner didn’t work and there was enough grease and dirt on the windows that no one could see in or out.

Herman couldn’t sleep. In the morning they would move again, just to be on the safe side. Though he was certain that if they got away clear in the car there was no way anyone could have tracked them here. They were cut off from the world.

For Herman that was part of the problem. He wanted to get word to Madriani and Hinds back in Coronado that he and Alex were all right. But he didn’t dare. An incoming call even from a pay phone to the office on Orange Avenue might alert anyone listening in as to their location in Mexico.

Herman couldn’t be sure if Madriani even knew about the attack at the condo in Ixtapa. He might have seen it on the news. Then again, with the level of narco violence in Mexico, a shooting with blood in the parking lot and no dead bodies was not exactly a hot international bulletin back in the States.

The bigger fear were messages from the law firm coming south. There was no one in Ixtapa to receive them. But Harry and Paul didn’t know that. It was clear from the shooter’s uniform shirt that their method of communication was compromised. Anything coming this way might be read by the people chasing them.

Finally he couldn’t wait any longer. About midnight Herman roused one of the other men and the two of them headed into town. They purchased a small stack of international calling cards at a shop on the main drag, then drove fifteen miles farther north up the main highway to a pay phone at the airport.

Herman hoped that anyone intercepting the call might assume that they were traveling on through, headed north up the coast to Puerto Vallarta or, better yet, catching a chartered flight.

He placed a call to the unlisted number at Paul’s house. There was no answer. One o’clock in the morning in Manzanillo, midnight in San Diego. Where was he? Perhaps burning the midnight oil?

Herman called the back line at the law firm. What he heard this time alarmed him: a recording telling him that the office phones were temporarily out of order. What the hell was going on? He wondered if whoever came after them in Ixtapa had also attacked the office. Herman immediately called Harry’s number. Again there was no answer. This time he left a message.

“Where the hell are you guys? Your office phones are out of order. There was a serious problem at the condo here, repeat serious problem, but we are all OK. Repeat OK! Do not. . repeat, do not use previously established method of communication. It is compromised. Will contact you again when I have time.” Herman went to hang up, then stopped. He lifted the receiver back to his lips and said, “Headed east on charter flight, Tampico. Will contact you from there.” Then he hung up. At least this would give anyone listening something to waste their time on.

He called Paul’s house and left the same message. Herman didn’t have home numbers for any of the other office staff. He considered calling Sarah, Paul’s daughter up in L.A. He desperately wanted to know if her father and Harry were OK and, if so, where they were. But he didn’t want to get Sarah involved. Calling her number could present problems. There was no way to be sure just how sophisticated the people trying to kill them were, or what kind of eavesdropping or tracking software they might have. Herman knew that if anything happened to Sarah he wouldn’t have to worry about the people trying to kill him, Madriani would do it himself.

He slipped the calling cards back in his pocket and the two of them headed back to the dingy room near the port.

This morning Cheng was not in uniform. Instead he wore a stylish dark blue sharkskin suit, starched white dress shirt, gold cuff links, and a striped silk tie.

Two security men followed behind him in a separate car, also dressed in civilian clothes.

None of the local authorities in Hong Kong had been alerted to Cheng’s presence. He would slip in and out of the city unnoticed. To anyone looking at him, Cheng could easily pass for an affluent Chinese businessman. His face was not known to the public. In fact, most officers in the Second Bureau made a point of staying out of the media. If you took their picture there was a good chance you would have your camera smashed.