Cliff Ryder - Out of Time

The airport was surrounded by the city itself, and huge, close buildings that seemed to lean on each other. The farther they drove, the farther apart the buildings became until Alex found himself looking out the window at far-flung warehouses and factories. The air grew heavy and gloomy with soot that assaulted his already itching eyes. Alex longed for the countryside and the quiet.

Finally, Liang backed the truck up to a loading bay at the rear of a desolate warehouse. According to the sign, the building belonged to the Wang-Soo Electronics Company. The loading bay door rolled up on its huge tracks, and three large men stepped from the concrete slab to the back gate of the truck.

Liang stepped out, exchanged a few words with them and then flung open the truck’s door. Alex wondered briefly if he should step outside and help, but thought better of it after a shift in his position sent warning cramps up his legs. He’d managed to keep the aches and pains to himself thus far, but he couldn’t afford to have Liang lose confidence in him.

It took less than ten minutes for the four men, working together, to unload the truck. Alex glanced at them in the rearview mirror once or twice, but paid them no more mind than that. He caught sight of Liang, proffering the bill of lading for a signa-ture, and then lost sight of him as he crossed to the driver’s side and stepped back into the cab.

“All’s well?” Alex studied the man for a moment. Hauling all those TVs hadn’t caused him to even break a sweat. It occurred to Alex, just then, that aside from the illness, maybe he was getting too old for all this.

“It’s all good, as you Americans say. We’ll go to my apartment now and wait for the sun to set.”

“What cover story do you give your wife?”

“I don’t need a cover story. I import electronics from South Korea. I work hard. When I want to go out, I go out.” He nodded curtly and smiled. “It’s a cultural thing.”

“My wife thinks I’m in security,” Alex said. “A consultant.”

“Ah.” Liang pulled away from the loading dock and turned back toward the city. The truck bumped and lurched over the potholes in the road.

Twenty minutes later, Liang parked the truck at the back of a huge apartment complex. He pocketed the keys and locked the doors, then fished another set of keys from his pocket.

“We’re home.”

No matter how he craned his neck, Alex couldn’t seem to see the top of the building. “I have just two questions—what floor do you live on?

And do you have an elevator?”

“Twenty-second and yes.”

“Thank God,” Alex said, sighing with relief despite himself. The idea of climbing all those stairs had sent chills down his spine.

Alex let Liang lead the way, some of the road weariness sloughing off as he stepped into the air-conditioned back lobby. They rode the elevator to the twenty-second floor, stepped out and walked a short distance down the hall to Liang’s apartment.

The key wasn’t even in the lock before Liang’s wife threw open the door and launched herself into his arms. Liang caught her, looking slightly embar-rassed.

“I missed you,” she cooed, kissing him hard.

Her face paled as she spotted Alex, standing off to one side and watching his shoes.

“This is Soo Lin, my wife. Soo Lin, this is Mr.

Vance, an associate of mine.”

Soo Lin half bowed and pressed her hand into his, the best of both worlds. “So pleased to meet you, Mr. Vance. Please, come inside.”

“A pleasure to meet you, too. Liang brags about you constantly.” He noticed her blush and smiled back at her. “He says you’re quite the amazing chef.”

“Well, I suppose I have a reputation to live up to, then.” She shut the door behind them and stepped off to the side. “I will make tea. Dinner will be ready in half an hour. You should rest for a while.”

Alex noticed the pile of shoes on the mat by the door and added his own to the collection. Liang was already in his stocking feet, padding quickly across the carpet toward the hallway.

“We’ll take tea in a moment. First, I have something to show Mr. Vance. Come this way, please.”

Alex followed him to the back bedroom, one of only two in the apartment. It was all very sparse, but clean and neat. Alex felt comfortable at once.

Liang stooped down, lifted a bit of the carpet and pulled it back. Beneath the carpet lay a wood floor panel, and once that was lifted, Alex could see Liang’s small cache of tools.

“Whatever you don’t have in that bag of yours, I have in here or can get at a moment’s notice. I’ve taken the liberty of contacting a few of my associates, sources for those items that are harder to come by.” He smiled at that, his eyes twinkling with a hint of menace.

“Good to know. We can better decide what we need to take that place out once we’ve had a look at it,” Alex said.

“No need to worry here. I have security measures in place and, despite their appearance, these walls are quite soundproof. You can talk freely unless my wife is in the room.”

“You’re very thorough, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“You have the explosives covered?”

“Yes. They aren’t here, of course. I have access to what we need. We could start a war, if that was our desire.”

Soo Lin called from the living room and Liang tugged at Alex’s arm. “Time for tea and dinner. We have about two hours before the sun sets. The building usually clears out about an hour after that, so there’s less traffic on the roads around it and less chance of us being seen.”

“Two hours until we leave, then.”

“Until then, we can stuff ourselves.” Liang poked him in the stomach with his elbow and laughed.

ALL THE HYPE over Soo Lin’s cooking had not been exaggerated. Not only did she also lay out a five course meal, but she did so as if the president of China himself were coming to dinner. They ate until they could hold no more and then they retired to the living room to rest while Soo Lin cleared away the mess.

Fifteen minutes after the sun was completely down and the darkness had stolen the shadows, Alex gathered his gear, changed into darker, more appropriate clothes and followed Liang back to the parking lot. This time, they took a small hybrid car out into the countryside. It was quieter and faster than Alex had anticipated. Like the plane he’d flown in from South Korea, it just wasn’t much on legroom.

Liang drove them to the top of a hill just south of the lab building. The view from there was good and the woods offered cover. Alex lay flat on the ground, Liang at his side, and pulled the night-vision goggles from his duffel bag. The building was heavily guarded, more so than might be expected of a mere medical-research company.

The entire compound was ringed with razor wire, and guards with large dogs at their sides patrolled the parking lot and surrounding landscape. Alex supposed that, somewhere inside that compound, there were more than a few men staring at the woods beyond that fence.

“There are cameras on each corner of the fence and the building itself,” Liang whispered. “There are three sets of doors—front, back and a set with the loading-bay doors in the rear—and each has a camera and coded lock. All but the door cameras are programmed to sweep the entire area.”

Alex nodded but did not speak. He was watching the cameras do their sweep and using the timer built into the goggles. “Every forty-five seconds,” he said. “It’s safe to assume those are being fed to recording devices, as well as monitors.”

He did another visual sweep. “At least the advance reports I read were correct. The guards are heavily armed—rifles, pistols and Tasers.”

“I did the advance report,” Liang said, “so if it was incorrect, I would be to blame. But yes, they are well equipped and there are a great number more inside.