Battlefield 4: Countdown to War Page 15

  ‘Do you want to tell me how come you’re alive? Your boss thinks you’re dead.’

  If that was what Cutler was saying, fine.

  ‘It may only be a matter of time, once the people who killed your men find out I’m still in circulation.’

  He explained about the fire and Louise.

  ‘That’s some track record you have for dodging bullets. What makes you think I won’t pick up the phone and tell Cutler you’re out there?’

  ‘Because my guess, sir, is that you are as suspicious as I am about what really happened, that whatever explanation Cutler gave you it left as many questions as it answered.’

  Garrison was silent while he processed this. A good sign.

  ‘You ran into a DPRK patrol. The CIA is holding you responsible, you aware of that? As far as they’re concerned, you screwed up.’

  ‘I believe it’s a lot more complicated than that, sir.’

  He let out a long sigh. ‘Do I want to hear it?’

  ‘The short version is we were blown. They knew we were coming. Either it was a set-up from the start, or there was a leak and they ambushed us. Either way the intel was contaminated. Whichever it was, it falls on Langley’s shoulders. So that guarantees only one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll never get the truth from them.’

  ‘And what are you going to do about that?’

  ‘I’m going to ask for your help.’

  ‘Kovic, I’ll say one thing for you. You’ve got one fuck of a lot of chutzpah.’

  ‘I have a name.’

  He told him about Tsu and his plan to find him. Saying it out loud, it sounded preposterous and they both knew it.

  ‘You’re right, you need help all right but I’m no psychiatrist.’

  He could feel Garrison wanting to hang up.

  ‘Your ship reported an unusual signal to the NSA.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘The signal went from the NK border to somewhere in the Chinese interior.’ He quoted the grid reference. ‘That location is Tsu’s mountain HQ. He’s our man, sir. I’m going to ask you if your people can look out for any similar signals – capture coordinates for the origin and destination of each dispatch. We may not crack the content but where they’re going might tell us something.’

  ‘You’re clutching at straws here, Kovic.’

  ‘Straws are all I have right now.’

  ‘And that includes my private family cell number.’

  ‘Yes, sir, and I’m going to need you to take the SIM card out and destroy it after we’re done.’

  ‘Oh, I think we’re done.’

  The line went dead.

  29

  Seven Hours West of Shanghai

  ‘Kovic, wake up. There’s a problem.’

  Wu, at the wheel, was slowing down.

  In the back next to Qi, Kovic woke grudgingly from a deep and grateful sleep.

  ‘Big or small?’

  ‘Could be big. There’s a checkpoint up ahead. They’re searching vehicles.’

  Qi shut the laptop and slid it into the compartment under the front seat.

  ‘Army or police?’

  ‘Neither. These guys don’t seem to have any insignia.’

  ‘Welcome to Tsu’s fiefdom.’

  An hour before they had turned off the Hangrui Expressway that taken them almost due west from Shanghai. As it curved south they left the smooth freshly laid blacktop and turned north on to progressively less well tended roads, hemmed in by thick forest, with the first peaks of the Huangshan mountains rising behind.

  They took their place in a line of vehicles, mostly trucks and minibuses. Inside the cab, each of them prepared for their first encounter with a potentially hostile authority. Wu and Zhou were dressed in blue work overalls. Their story was that they were coming to provide Wu’s ‘aunt’ Mrs Chen with a much-needed running water system and connection to the municipal drains. Mrs Chen was one of Kovic’s former assets who had retired to her home village inside Tsu’s territory. In the back of the pickup were pipes, U-bends, spanners – even a toilet; everything needed to convince even the most suspicious guard that they were genuine plumbers. Qi’s cover was that he was a student who had missed the bus taking his class to the mountains for a field trip and was having to hitch-hike. His story would account for the climbing gear. He had also created the necessary paperwork for each of them.

  As for Kovic, he was Ray Nyman, physical instructor, former Special Forces operative and now freelance security contractor. For the Chinese authorities, Africa was a neutral place where their country was doing lots of business and was zero threat. To smooth the way he also had a hundred thousand Yuan on him, some of it sewn into his clothes.

  When they pulled up it was almost dark, slanting rain running down the windshield. From somewhere up the line came the sounds of a scuffle and shouts of ‘On the ground, now! ’ which didn’t bode well.

  ‘Better get in the coffin,’ said Wu. ‘Sounds like they’re in a bad mood. Don’t think they’ll take kindly to a foreign face.’

  The least enjoyable part of Kovic’s training at the Farm had been abduction survival, specifically being confined in cramped spaces like the trunk of a car and driven to other parts of the grounds to be yelled at and accused of being an infidel, imperialist CIA pig and so forth at wearisome length. He could stand extreme levels of interrogation, but the being shut in a trunk part brought him out in a cold sweat. He never admitted it, naturally, or he would have failed that part of the course, rendering him ineligible for the best postings. And in all his tours he had never had to do it for real. He hadn’t bargained on having to do it in China, with his own team.

  In the cab of the Great Wall Wingle, Wu’s cousin had installed a hidden compartment under the rear seat. Qi’s surveillance kit went into it, along with the semi-automatic QB-88 sniper rifle with telescopic and night sights that Kovic had procured for Wu, plus four QSZ-92 pistols. And now, so did Kovic.

  Wu called it the ‘coffin,’ a word Kovic wished he hadn’t bothered to teach him, but which Wu found hilarious.

  ‘Think of it as payback time,’ suggested Qi.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘In advance, for what you are making us do.’

  Qi lifted the seat and Kovic got in. It was hot, dark and stank of diesel and fresh spray paint. Thoughtfully the cousin had added two air holes.

  ‘How many of them can you see?’ Kovic said from his hideout.

  ‘Only two, plus a small minibus, empty. Looks like they’re just making it clear who’s boss.’

  ‘They heavy looking types?’

  ‘You planning on taking them on?’

  ‘If they’re gonna give us a hard time, we may have to. Their uniforms might come in useful – and the bus. If Wu can let go of his Wingle.’

  It was crass and childish, but it took his mind off being folded up into the equivalent of a carry-on bag.

  ‘They’re armed,’ said Zhou. ‘One’s got a Hawk semi-automatic slung over his shoulder. The other’s just taken a revolver out of its holster.’

  Mrs Chen had already warned Kovic what to expect from the local police, that the chief was effectively Tsu’s puppet and ran the force like a private army on his behalf.

  ‘They are bullies,’ she had warned him, ‘but since this is China, they should respond to cash.’

  ‘Okay, the people they searched are moving on. They’re starting on the car in front.’

  ‘The driver’s passed his ID out the window,’ said Zhou. ‘They’re opening the trunk.’ He started to laugh.

  ‘What’s going on?’ The coffin was heating up and he could feel his balls sticking together like badly packed fruit.

  ‘Three goats. In the trunk. Oh, now they’re pulling the driver out. He’s waving his papers. The cop’s just ripped them out of his hands. And the goats are trying to escape!’

  There were three sharp cracks, and then silence. These weren’t your average officious cops.r />
  ‘Goat stew anyone?’

  ‘I think we need to be very, very careful here,’ said Qi.

  The shocked driver was pushed back into his seat and waved on. The cop holstered his revolver.

  Wu moved forward and stopped by the outstretched hand of the cop who had done the shooting. He passed out the papers for all three of them.

  ‘From outside the district.’

  The cop’s face was frozen with disapproval.

  Wu went into overdrive. Despite the unpleasantness of his confinement, Kovic couldn’t help smiling at his refusal to be cowed by bureaucracy – even when it came with a gun.

  ‘My aunt is much respected in Fenju, and it is a matter of concern to the community that a person of her standing does not have proper sanitation.’

  ‘Shut up, I don’t give a shit about that.’

  ‘No, listen. She said that if we had any problem we should insist on speaking to the Superintendent. ’

  Kovic could hear more trucks pulling up behind. With any luck this might induce them to lose interest and move them on.

  ‘Stop talking. Pull over here and get out – all of you.’

  Wu continued to remonstrate while doing what he was told. Kovic wondered how long this was going to take. Already he was finding it difficult to breathe and the fumes were giving him a raging headache.

  ‘Okay. Easy now, guys, let’s keep it cool,’ Kovic whispered, more to himself than anyone else. This was Tsu’s private army – answerable only to him. A dead goat or a dead man wasn’t going to cause a fuss round here. While Wu kept up his barrage of indignation, Zhou gave Kovic a whispered commentary.

  ‘They are both young, one with the semi looks quite weak, bad acne too. They’re examining all the pipes in the back.’

  Kovic could feel the equipment being rearranged, uncomfortably close by.

  ‘Careful with those, don’t get them scratched.’

  Wu sounded suitably indignant. The guard showed his contempt by dropping something hard that banged an inch from Kovic’s ear.

  Qi, who had said nothing so far, now piped up.

  ‘Would it be permissible to make a supplementary payment in order to expedite the processing of our papers?’

  Nicely put, thought Kovic. Prison had rubbed some of Qi’s natural arrogance off him.

  Kovic could hear fumbling, and a safety catch coming off. So much for ‘a soft answer turneth away wrath’, but then the Bible never was much of a training manual.

  ‘Stay where you are! Attempting to bribe an officer is an extremely serious offence! You will accompany us to our headquarters.’

  The way this was going, Kovic thought he might as well have stayed in his seat where at least he would have been more use, and been able to breathe.

  ‘Get in the vehicle – all of you in the front where we can see you. You will drive to our headquarters now! Feng, in the back with me where we can watch them.’

  Shit, thought Kovic. The good news is we’re going in; the shit news is I’m still under the goddamn seat. Wu fired up the engine, the fan blasting Kovic with hot air through his breathing holes. At this rate he wouldn’t make it to headquarters. He tried to visualise the map, and calculate how far they were from the mountain. Where their base was he had no idea. He was going to die of asphyxiation in this improvised tomb, with two assholes on top of him – literally.

  Wu was driving fast – figuring that the sooner they got where they were going the sooner Kovic could get out. Kovic felt the tail slide on some gravel, which was followed by a sharp rebuke from above him and a hard slap.

  ‘Don’t drive so fast.’

  Kovic had had enough. He scrabbled around, feeling for the weapons. He could feel himself becoming hazy, intoxicated by the heat, and the fumes. His hand closed round one of the QSZs, and he tried to move his head as far away from it as possible while he took aim.

  30

  ‘My cousin will not be happy about this,’ said Wu, as he surveyed the damage to the interior of the truck. They had turned down a rough track into the forest to regroup and dispose of the dead guards. The rain had stopped and the fresh damp woodland air smelled almost fragrant.

  Kovic was taking deep breaths to clear his system.

  ‘In Beirut there used to be a guy and his wife who called themselves Crime Scene Steam & Clean. Did great business in the old days.’

  ‘Yeah, well we’re not in Beirut now.’

  The back seat was shredded, and the headlining and sides of the rear doors were splattered with blood and other bodily matter.

  ‘At least we have the top half of the uniforms. Too bad about the pants, though.’

  Kovic had set about digging a shallow grave for the guards with a plumber’s trenching tool. Zhou was struggling to remove the tunic from one of them. Qi, standing further away from the corpses, was fiddling with their radios. He hadn’t spoken since the shooting.

  ‘Not quite what you expected, huh?’

  Qi shrugged. ‘With you I try not to expect anything.’

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  Kovic saw the need for a little empathy. ‘If you decide to bail, I’ll understand.’

  Qi nodded, but they both knew that wasn’t an option. This was payback for Kovic’s protection from the long arm of US law.

  Zhou was methodically working his way through the guards’ pockets, collecting the contents. He jangled some keys he had found.

  ‘Must be for the minibus.’

  Kovic examined them.

  ‘Okay. Wu and Zhou, put those tunics and caps on and go get the minibus. I’ll finish dealing with these guys.’

  He could see from their expressions how well all this was going down. For him the shooting was simply a means to an end, and a reminder of how far he was prepared to go. For them it had moved the mission into another gear. All three looked at him now.

  ‘I never said this was going to be fun.’

  He also knew he was doing them all a favour by taking charge of the burial.

  ‘Qi, you go with them. Take the radios, try and figure out a way of jamming their network, something to give us some cover and buy us a bit of time.’

  Kovic watched as they piled into the pickup and drove away, leaving him alone in the woods with the dead guards. I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t come back, he thought, as he hacked at the earth. What a strange job this was, alone in a Chinese forest burying a couple of corpses. And then he remembered he wasn’t actually in a job any more. He wasn’t on anyone’s payroll; he had no idea if his mission would be a success, if indeed Tsu was at home in his mountain lair, or even if he was, whether he would get near him. And even if he succeeded, what would he do after that?

  Digging the grave reminded him of the funeral of his mother, an elaborate affair that his father insisted on, way beyond his means, which Kovic had stumped up for, to try and atone for having been such a disappointment to them. They had despaired of his wayward ways, his lack of respect for authority, his tendency to hang out with the wrong sort of crowd. His father’s only ambition for his son had been that he would keep up the family tradition and follow him into the Rouge, Henry Ford’s sprawling factory complex where his dad assured him there would be a job waiting for him. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Detroit’s future was bleak and he wasted no time in joining the exodus that more than halved the city’s population in a couple of decades. His father was in a home now, waiting to die. All he knew about his son was that he was somewhere in China doing government work he couldn’t understand, let alone brag about to his fellow retirees. Had he failed his father and mother? Was that what he did with all the important people in his life? He had failed Louise; she was the best thing that had ever happened to him and yet he had let her down so many times, and then finally, put her in mortal danger.

  Going after Tsu was his chance to make amends, to right some wrongs. Campbell, his predecessor in Shanghai who drank himself out of the job, said that the trouble with the CIA was
that most of the work was just a game played out between powers to keep each other’s security services occupied and none of it made a scintilla of difference. Well someone had now broken the rules of the game and Kovic knew he would die rather than lie back and accept the consequences.

  31

  ‘Put the blue light on and step on it. Mrs Chen is waiting for her new bathroom.’

  They were in the minibus that Wu and the others had retrieved. It was night and the road was quiet. The atmosphere was lifting now they had left the dead guards behind. It was night and the road was quiet. Qi had wired the guards’ radios to his laptop and was busy on the keyboard.

  Kovic caught sight of some images of what looked like parts of very fat people on the screen: naked.

  ‘What the fuck is that?’

  ‘It’s called “Big Ass Party”,’ explained Qi. ‘Very popular Russian porn. Everyone on their network will stop what they’re doing to watch, no one will have the balls to refer it up, and it’ll postpone any response to our guys’ disappearance.’

  Kovic was relieved to see that Qi was back to his old self. He gestured with one of the radios.

  ‘Also from here on I’ll be able to monitor all their radio traffic, if and when they start to get curious. I can get a fix to within five hundred metres of how close they are.’

  ‘You’re a genius, Qi. We couldn’t have done this without you.’

  Qi shrugged. ‘I never saw anyone get killed before, that’s all.’

  ‘It gets easier. Whether that’s a good thing—’

  Until a few days ago, Kovic had been on a long vacation from killing. But Louise’s death had catapulted him back into business as usual, and reminded him of his true purpose. It felt as if that precious time which had elapsed since Afghanistan and all his other wars had collapsed in on itself. This was the norm; Shanghai and Louise had been an aberration. But he knew that this was the life he lived for, the sense of danger and uncertainty was something he thrived on, thinking on his feet, making plans on the run, taking risks. He had taken a huge risk confiding in Garrison, and had acquired an unlikely and sceptical sponsor in the form of Hannah, another potentially risky presumption of trust. Around him he had a team whose loyalty he was about to test to the limit. However mad or dangerous it was, this was what he was made for. Live for the moment and let tomorrow look after itself.