Cliff Ryder - Out of Time

Alex nodded gratefully. His hands were almost numb, but functional. He rolled the garrote and slipped it back into its pouch. Then the two of them slid the guard’s body from the sedan and stuffed it into Liang’s vehicle.

“I’ll take care of our friend here, too,” Liang said. “I’m going to get you back and you’re going to rest. I’m not asking you this time.”

Alex nodded.

Liang slipped in behind the wheel of his car, and Alex took the sedan’s wheel. Thankfully no one else had appeared. A wife or girlfriend coming out to greet the guard would have been disastrous—at least for her. The records Liang had found showed him as single, but things like that tended to shift often and rapidly. The fact he lived alone simpli-fied things considerably.

Liang led Alex on a slow, winding route. They avoided main streets and ended up on another long industrial lane similar to the one where Liang’s warehouse had been located. At the far end of a strip of squat, gray buildings, Liang stopped and stepped out of his car. A door opened, and a smaller man appeared. Alex held back until the two separated. Liang waved him forward.

“Chen will handle cleanup,” he said. “I’m leaving our friend with him. The clothing the man is wearing will be removed and cleaned. It will be ready for you by tomorrow night. As you know, Boswell was scheduled for night shifts beginning tomorrow, so he won’t be missed in the morning.”

“Perfect,” Alex said.

“We’ll leave the car here, as well,” Liang explained. “They’re going to go over it, make sure there isn’t anything we’ve missed—some security feature—a transponder signal that requires an updated key, or anything that would give you away before you get inside the gate. They are also going to work on modeling his face more carefully. You might pass for him physically, but only at a distance.

We need to make sure you do better than that.”

Alex grinned. This, at least, was something he could handle without concern. “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I have my own equipment. It’s a specialty of mine.”

Liang nodded.

“Let’s get this thing inside,” Alex said.

Liang gave a signal to unseen others near the doors, and a larger garage door opened in the side of the building where Chen had disappeared.

Several dark forms emerged, and one waved Alex forward. He nosed the sedan through the door and into a dimly lit interior. Liang and one other man followed with the bundled body of the security guard. The garage door closed, and large fluorescent lights came to life, bathing the room in light.

Workbenches lined the walls. There were welding kits, a small paint booth, machining tools and engine blocks, as well as racks of parts, tools and cables.

Alex stepped out of the car and whistled softly.

Liang joined him, grinning again.

“This is quite the operation,” Alex commented.

“Sometimes it is necessary to modify things before they are perfect for today’s market.”

“Stolen things?” Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.

“We prefer to believe that they are assets poorly employed by an overbearing political machine that are being reallocated to a more suitable and just purpose.”

“Very diplomatic.” Alex chuckled.

The large work bay bustled with activity. Alex saw that the body disappeared through a rear exit.

He asked no questions.

“We should be getting back,” Liang said. “Soo Lin will be waiting with dinner, and I’m hungry.

It’s already been a very long day.”

Alex nodded, and they left the others to their work.

“They are thorough,” Liang said softly as the two exited and returned to his vehicle. “If there is anything in that car to be worried about, they will find it, and when you drive it back into the parking lot, they will suspect nothing. There is only so much I can do though. When you are inside—”

“I’m on my own,” Alex completed the sentence.

“Believe me, Liang, it won’t be the first time.”

“Let us hope it is not the last,” the big man replied.

“Even the Chameleon knows that his enemies watch for him all the time, waiting for the day he fails to change color and disguise himself in time.”

He started the engine and drove back toward the city.

THE NEXT MORNING Liang and Alex returned to the garage early. They entered through the smaller door, and found the building all but vacant. Only a very few lights remained lit, and it was Chen alone who greeted them.

The little man was all business. He led them straight to where the black sedan was parked and began chattering at Liang in rapid-fire Chinese that Alex could follow, but barely. He gave a quick rundown of the precautions they’d taken. Nothing out of the ordinary had been found. They had installed a removable false floor in the rear. It was shielded against every form of scanning they were familiar with, and a couple that even Alex didn’t recognize. It was easy to access from the driver’s seat without drawing unwarranted attention. It would hold everything Alex needed that he couldn’t carry on his person.

Boswell’s uniform had come equipped with a utility belt with adequate pockets for a wide array of equipment. A little rearranging had provided room for Alex’s special tools that he preferred to carry on a mission like this. The uniform was bulky and allowed plenty of room to conceal packets, and he carried a deep-pocketed clipboard organizer.

The only thing that would have been better would have been if he could enter the building carrying a bulky duffel bag.

When the brief was complete, they ushered Alex into a separate room, where he dressed and they outfitted him. All the time they worked, Chen chattered. When they had a moment alone, Alex asked Liang about this.

“I hope he manages to talk less when he’s not here,” he said. “I’d hate to see you in trouble because someone couldn’t stay quiet.”

Liang laughed.

“When Chen is not in this building, he might as well be a mute. You would see him, and you would not believe it is the same man. He is what Americans believe all Asians to be—inscrutable.”

As if sensing he was being discussed, Chen turned and grinned at them, then he winked. Alex buckled on the utility belt and shook his head with a short laugh.

“It is almost time,” Liang told him.

“This last part will take a few minutes,” Alex said. He stepped over to a mirrored bench where he’d laid out his equipment. There was a blowup photo of Boswell on the bench, taken from his security badge. Alex studied it, tracing the lines of the man’s face with his index finger, which was thankfully steady for the moment, then using the digital image, he transferred the data into a rectan-gular metal container. He tapped several buttons, then waited as the small machine hummed to life.

When it was finished, he opened the case, and removed a human face—a re-creation of Boswell’s image in a special type of formfitting latex. He placed it over his own face, and set to work, ensuring that it fit properly around his eyes, nose and mouth, and using small touches of makeup to blend it in with his own skin. He moved quickly, having gone through this many times in the past.

It was ironic, in a way, that while he could appear to become someone else, he could not escape who he was, the disease that would forever change him into something else, as well.

Fifteen minutes later he took a last glance at the mirror, and then closed his eyes. He sent his thoughts back over the hours to when he’d first observed Boswell crossing the parking lot to his men. He pictured the set of the guard’s shoulders, the way he held his chin and the way he moved.

He brought his mind slowly into synch with that image, sensing how the man’s gait would feel, watching himself through the other man’s eyes.