Raymond Benson - High Time To Kill

The Hind pulled away and sped to the south. By the time the authorities determined that the van had been shot at from the sky, the helicopter was long gone.

Meanwhile, the Mercedes SEL made it to “the Ring,” and headed toward the E19 exit.

“How long to Paris?” Lee asked.

“I don’t know,” Harding said. “Just sit back and enjoy the scenery. I’ll get you to your plane on time.”

“My superiors are not happy with the change of plans.” Over the past couple of days, Harding had been holed up with the Chinese man and found him to be cantankerous and annoying.

“Look, we can’t help it if Lindenbeek got caught. I had to see that he was eliminated. We couldn’t have him identifying us. The Union had to make last-minute changes, all right? The original plan with you flying out of Brussels to Beijing just wouldn’t have worked. They’ve probably got both of our faces plastered on every Immigration desk in Belgium. You would have been arrested before stepping on the plane.”

Harding sounded more sure of himself than he felt. Ever since the encounter in the Métropole, he had been a nervous wreck. Everything had begun to fall apart. Basil had been hired to guard Lee, but instead had fouled up. The Chinese thought that Lee was going to be on a plane to Beijing, but that plan had to be changed at the last minute.

“I would have you know,” Harding said, “that the Union fulfilled their end of the deal. We got the formula on a microdot, and we got that microdot inside of you. It was your problem to get back to China with it.”

“No,” Lee said. “It was part of the Union’s bargain with my people that you would see me safely into China.”

“We were going to do that, weren’t we? All right, so we changed the original plan. The new plan is more complicated and will take more time, but it will get you to China. Relax.”

“I don’t particularly want to go to India,” Lee said.

“I can’t do anything about it,” Harding said. “These are the orders from my superiors. I am to take you to the Paris airport, and there you’ll get on a flight to Delhi. You’ll be there only a short while. Then you’ll get on a plane to Kathmandu. That’s in Nepal.”

“I’m not stupid.”

Harding shrugged. “You will be contacted by someone in Kathmandu. They’ll find you at your hotel. All of that information is in the packet I gave you. Arrangements are being made to smuggle you across the border into Tibet. From there, you’re home free. But you’ll have to make your way to Beijing from Tibet.”

“It sounds very tiresome. Don’t forget I just underwent surgery.”

“You could be a little more grateful, you know,” Harding said. “The Union are going to all this trouble to get you to Tibet as a favor. We don’t have to do this. Like I said, our obligation stopped with getting you the formula. The Union simply want our clients to be happy, so we’re taking this extra step to see that you get home safely. After all, we don’t get the other half of our money until you’re back in Beijing.”

“What about you?” Lee asked. “You are a traitor to your country. Where will you go? How much of the fifty million dollars is your percentage?”

“I can’t go back to England, that’s certain. Don’t worry about my percentage. I am being paid enough to make all this worthwhile. I have to leave my home, my country, my job . . . I plan on retiring on an island somewhere in the South Pacific.”

“Stay away from the Philippines,” Lee said. “That place is no fun.”

As they drove out of Belgium and into France, Harding worried about the next phase of the plan once Lee got to Nepal. At least he would be through with his end of the operation after he dropped Lee off at the Paris airport. What happened next was out of his hands, although he had helped plan it. If only that damned secret service agent hadn’t poked his nose into it. What was his name? Bond? That’s right . . . the golfer.

Keeping track of him would be easy enough.

James Bond and Gina Hollander sat in her office, staring at the computer monitor. Her spare laptop had been set up next to it so that they could work simultaneously. They had patched into Interpol’s database using Gina’s authorized password. The mug shots of Asians had been flashing on the screens for three hours and they had yet to make a match to Lee Ming.

“They’re all too young,” Bond said. “Is there any way we can narrow our parameters?”

“Not really,” she said. “Not from here. You ask for active Chinese agents, you get active Chinese agents.”

“This is getting us nowhere. We must have looked at hundreds of faces, and frankly, they really are starting to look alike. I don’t mean that derogatorily.”

“Perhaps he’s not a criminal. Maybe he’s an ordinary Chinese citizen. Maybe he’s not from China at all,” she suggested.

“Look up inactive Chinese agents. He’s in his late fifties. He could be retired.”

Gina typed on the keypad until a different set of screens appeared. As expected, the faces looked older, more seasoned.

“This is more like it,” Bond said.

She typed on the laptop and brought up the same database there. “I’ll take N through Z, all right?”

They worked for the next hour.

“At least there are not as many inactive agents,” she said.

Bond was coming to the end of his half, when a face popped on the screen that looked familiar. He stopped and studied it closely. The man was identified as Ming Chow, a former member of China’s dreaded secret police. He had retired in 1988 due to a heart problem.

“This is him,” Bond whispered.

“Really?”

The photo was twenty years old, so the man appeared much younger than Bond recalled. He clicked on the “details” button and more biographical information flashed onto the screen.

Gina read aloud: “Ming Chow worked in counterintelligence through the seventies and later became an officer in the People’s External Security Force. He distinguished himself with the investigation and arrest of a British spy stationed in Shanghai. MI6 agent Martin Dudley was caught red-handed with Chinese military secrets being smuggled in antiquities. Before Dudley could stand trial, he was found dead in a jail cell. Ming Chow was promoted shortly afterward.”

“Of course! Now I remember why this man looked so familiar. Martin Dudley was providing intelligence to MI6 for years when they finally caught up with him. There was quite a stink between Britain and China at the time. I was sent to China with a delegation of diplomats to testify at his trial. He was found dead the morning his trial was supposed to have begun. We were convinced he had been murdered, but the Chinese claimed he hanged himself. Ming Chow— how could I forget him?—he was the man in charge. When we suggested that perhaps Mr. Dudley had been killed, Ming Chow just grinned. ‘So sorry,’ he said, ‘accidents happen.’ I knew the bastard was lying. I could see it in his eyes.”

Bond tapped the monitor with the back of his index finger. “He’s older now, but our Lee Ming is Ming Chow.”

“So he’s not inactive at all?”

“Not necessarily. He may not be officially working for China’s secret service. Many times, as you know, former agents hire themselves out for ‘freelance’ work.”

“The Union, perhaps?”

“I smell them in this, all right. Their fingerprints are all over this case.”

“We had better get this mug shot out to all the Immigration stations in Belgium.”

“We’ll do better than that. This fellow’s face is going out all over the world,” he said.

Lee Ming, alias Ming Chow, had just checked in for his flight to Delhi when his mug shot was transmitted by Interpol to all Western immigration authorities. Unfortunately, he had already cleared Customs and Immigration and was waiting at the gate for boarding to begin. As it was, he probably would not have been caught. The Interpol information accompanying the photo of the Chinese man failed to mention that the man being sought was at least twenty years older than he was in the photo.