American Traitor Read online

  The Asian pointed the pistol at my head and whispered, “You lie. You know where he is, and you’re going to tell us where he’s gone. Right now.”

  He flicked his eyes to the man behind Jennifer, who grabbed her around the waist. She shuffled forward, ostensibly in shock and trying to get out of his grasp, but moving inexorably toward the table with the corkscrew. The man jerked Jennifer’s hair back and put a blade to her neck, halting her advance.

  I screamed, “Stop! Stop! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, don’t hurt us.”

  The lead man said, “We have no desire to harm you. Just tell us where Clifford Delmonty is.”

  I said, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. Please. We’re just here on vacation.”

  He nodded at the man holding Jennifer, who placed the blade of his knife under her breast. He turned to me and said, “We can do this a long time. The death will not come quickly.”

  And that was enough. He had sealed his fate. I’d toyed with talking our way out of this, because we really didn’t know anything, but the threat of them carving up Jennifer was something I just couldn’t let stand.

  I felt the beast stir, but needed to close the distance to the pistol in the man’s hand. I baited him, still playing the role, saying, “Don’t hurt her. Please. Please don’t hurt her.”

  Like a fish sensing food, he took the bait, believing he was about to crack me. He advanced on me and placed the barrel against my forehead, saying, “Where is he?”

  Jennifer was within arm’s reach of the corkscrew, and the position of the knife the man held wasn’t lethal—well, I was sure I’d hear about it later, but it wasn’t a death thing.

  I locked eyes with her for a split second, then turned to the man with the pistol, feeling the steel against my skull. I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender, getting them at eye level. At the level of the barrel.

  I whimpered, “Okay, okay, anything. Anything.”

  “Where is Clifford?”

  I said, “I told you—we don’t know. We just got here from America. We were supposed to meet him here after he got off work.”

  He jammed the pistol harder into my head, leaning into my face and saying, “Do you really want to die?”

  I saw his elbows bend, presenting me with what I wanted. I now just needed a little bit of momentary doubt. A hesitation.

  I said, “Do you?”

  The comment put him off balance, and the gun relaxed against my skull. I saw confusion in his eyes and slapped the pistol away from my head, trapping his wrist and rotating violently against the joint, whirling around in a tight circle, feeling his wristbone shatter as he flipped through the air.

  I slammed him on his back, jerked the pistol out of his hands, jammed it into his temple just like he had done with me, and pulled the trigger, exploding his brain out of the back of his skull.

  I leapt up, seeing Jennifer’s captor impaled with the corkscrew straight through his right eye, her arm working the weapon while the other one controlled the blade he had used against her. He screamed and began violently thrashing.

  I shouted, “Off! Off!”

  She bounced back and the man doubled over, grasping the corkscrew. I shot him in the head, dropping him to the floor. I turned to the third man, and he took a running leap to the door. I fired once, hitting him, but not a death shot. He bounced against the doorframe, and then went through it, running flat out.

  I let him go.

  Jennifer looked at me, hands on her knees and breathing heavily. I checked my newfound weapon, then took a breath myself. We stood for a pregnant second, saying nothing. Finally, she broke the silence, saying, “What the hell just happened?”

  She was looking at me like it was my fault. I said, “What?”

  “What was that? Don’t give me a load of bull about how this was a surprise. Why are we down here? What did you do?”

  Incredulous, I said, “Me? Are you serious? I didn’t cause this. I should ask what you were doing on the internet during the flight down.”

  She took a deep breath, kicked the guy at her feet, and said, “You were going to let him cut me.”

  I smiled and said, “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.”

  And the Princess Bride quote resonated, defusing the situation.

  I bent down to search the guy I’d shot and she sighed, following suit with her target. She said, “What’s this about?”

  I found nothing worthwhile on the man at my feet, which in and of itself was important. I said, “I have no idea, but I know someone who does. We need to get the hell out of here.”

  She stood up, saying, “Not going to argue with that. This guy is clean. Not even a fast-food receipt.”

  Which meant this wasn’t a simple break-in. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number, saying, “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 14

  Chen Ju-Long had the apartment complex in sight when he saw a man come bursting out of the gate holding his hand to his thigh. Chen recognized him. He said, “What in the hell . . .” and whipped into the small parking space out front.

  His female partner rolled down the window and said, “Get in.”

  The man spilled into the back of the car and they were gone, heading back the way they had come. The man in the back was panting, holding his leg. The woman leaned over and said, “Move your hand.”

  He did, and she said, “He’s hit in the thigh. It’s a gouge. It’s deep, but not deadly.”

  Chen said, “What happened?”

  The woman wrapped the man’s thigh in a scarf, causing him to wince. He sat up and said, “We interdicted the couple as you asked. They were skilled.”

  “Skilled how?”

  “They . . . took out the team.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re dead.”

  Chen took that in, then said, “They were armed?”

  “Ummm . . . no.”

  Chen looked in the rearview mirror and saw fear. He said, “What happened?” And the man told him. Chen couldn’t believe it. He had not wanted to create another scene on the continent of Australia, and now he had. It would be a firestorm, all tied to one Clifford Delmonty. Now he had to find that man, if only to shut him up.

  Chen said, “Who were they?”

  “I don’t know. They claimed they were just meeting Clifford for a vacation. Initially, they were compliant, shocked that we interdicted them, just like we thought would happen.”

  “And then?”

  “And then they turned into something else. The man killed Li Kang with his own pistol, and the woman killed Bao with a corkscrew.”

  Chen was incredulous. “What? Bao was killed by a woman? With a corkscrew?”

  “Well, not killed. Just stabbed in the eye. The man killed him with Li Kang’s pistol.”

  Chen reached a stoplight and squeezed his eyes shut. It was a disaster. He said, “So this Clifford Delmonty is more than Jake says? Is that your read?”

  The man hesitated, then said, “Possibly. It’s hard to tell. The couple we interdicted were skilled for sure, but I can’t say that Clifford is the same.”

  Chen shook his head and said, “You can’t? Really? You pick up a couple outside of his door and they slaughter a trained team from the Guoanbu?”

  His voice rising, he said, “To what would you attribute the action? Random chance? He’s just a computer programmer who has friends who can kill on command? Or perhaps it was sloppy actions?”

  The man sagged in the seat, not saying a word. Chen said, “Were the men clean?”

  Now on firmer ground, the man said, “Yes. I had the cell phone. Other than that, we had no pocket litter. They can’t identify anyone short of using forensics in China. It will be a mystery.”

  Chen scoffed and said, “Except for where they were found.” He pulled over and said, “Get out. Go clean up the mess you made. You are no longer of use.”

  The man snapped up and said, “What will I do? I’m shot. I can’t go to the hospital. I don’t even have a visa for Australia.”

  Chen said, “Get to the evacuation safe house. Call the number. There is a doctor on call. Get patched up, then get a cleanup crew to that apartment. Dispose of the bodies, then get the hell off of this continent. You’ve done enough damage.”

  “How will I get there?”

  Chen turned around and said, “I honestly don’t care, but if you fuck up your own exfiltration, cause a scene in any way, I will gut you. I promise.”

  The man left without another word. The woman said, “It may be time to call higher. Get that number in the system. Find its location.”

  Chen put the car in drive and said, “I really don’t want to do that. So far, this is a local problem. If I call them, I’ll have to penetrate the cell network here. It will raise questions. I’d prefer to handle it on my own.”

  “We don’t know where he’s run to, and no matter what Jake said before, we have to stop him now just to cauterize the wound we’ve created.”

  Chen glanced at her, wondering about her judgment. He understood her skill, but was still unsure about her. He knew her as Zhi Rou, but understood it was an alias. She’d been assigned to him as a honeypot for the mission against Nick Zhao, the man they were trying to infiltrate into the Australian Parliament. Her sole mission was to get him to drop his willingness to testify about the PRC plan—to get him to reconsider talking about his recruitment, leaving China in the clear. Instead, he’d ended up dead.

  She’d said that it was inevitable, that the man was going to press the case against the People’s Republic of China, but Chen was doubtful. Maybe she’d just decided that killing him was the easiest solution. At any rate, she’d done it in such a manner that the authorities were still confused about how he’d died. Natural causes? Of course not, but so far homicide hadn’t been mentioned.

  A tall woman with a statuesque build, she had straight black hair and emerald eyes that belied a pure Chinese heritage, but her loyalty was unquestionable. She had killed for the PRC under his command, but he was still unsure about her judgment.

  She saw him considering and said, “The longer we wait, the farther he gets away.”

  Chen pulled over. “Maybe you’re right.” He sighed and said, “Call up our contact at external branch. Get the Third Department active.”

  She pulled out her encrypted cell and began dialing the Third Department of the People’s Liberation Army—the 3PLA, as it was known in the West, the direct mirror of the United States’ National Security Agency.

  She relayed the request, hung up the phone, and said, “It’ll take some time. Maybe thirty minutes.”

  Chen shook his head and said, “Thirty minutes is too long. We’ll have to readjust to a different city. He’s on the run.”

  His cell rang, startling them both. The other car he’d sent on a reconnaissance—a fishing expedition, really—said, “We have him. We have him. He’s headed north, back on the A9.”

  Chen said, “We’re coming. Stay on him.”

  He put the car in drive and said, “About time we had some luck.”

  Chapter 15

  Paul Kao wound through the four-lane road that circled the massive concrete structures of the National Security Bureau on the outskirts of Taipei. Outside of the gate—which appeared respectable and official—the rest of the compound looked like a prison from the road, with drab concrete buildings and a sixteen-foot wall topped with concertina razor wire.

  He slowed as he reached the main gate, really not wanting to enter. He knew what lay beyond. He had failed.

  Separating from every other vehicle on the freeway, he took a left, rolling up to a soldier in an immaculate uniform complete with a ceremonial weapon and a white helmet. He showed his badge and was allowed access.

  Unlike the other minions, who had to park across the freeway, he was allowed the small privilege of parking inside the compound. Not because of his position, but because of who he was meeting.

  He pulled to the left, drove down the central road that ringed the buildings, and found a spot reserved for the chief of the Third Department of the NSB—the department chartered for the internal protection of Taiwan. The irony wasn’t lost on him that his direct opponent was the Third Bureau of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security—the bureau tasked with penetrating Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

  He exited his car and entered a three-story concrete building, walking up the stairs to the second floor. He went right, stopping at a door with flags of Taiwan standing left and right. He pressed the buzzer and heard a lock click open. He entered, saw a secretary at a desk, and said, “I have a meeting scheduled.”

  She pressed a buzzer, said something into an intercom on her desk, then waved him forward. From her look, Paul understood that she knew what the meeting was about. Maybe not the meat, but she knew he was here for bad reasons.

  Paul walked into the office and saw a short, balding man of about sixty, with Coke-bottle glasses, a rumpled suit, and a bad comb-over. He would have been the comic relief in a cop movie if Paul didn’t know his skills.

  His name was Jiang “Charlie” Chan, and he was the man solely responsible for stopping the kraken tentacles of the People’s Republic of China from overwhelming the nascent democracy that was Taiwan.

  Most anyone under the age of sixty in Taiwan took on a Western name, if only to make it easier on business trips. Some chose the English version of a word that sounded close to a Chinese character in their real name. Others, like Paul, just picked one in primary school that was easy to repeat. Paul was sure that Jiang had chosen Charlie because of his last name. It was an irreverent comment on his job, and absolutely represented the man behind the desk.

  Unassuming and underestimated by all who opposed him, both in the political realm of Taiwan and the intelligence arena in which he fought, he had been responsible for the protection of his country since he had been old enough to hold a job. His successes were legendary, and he was Paul’s mentor, a man Paul highly respected.

  Charlie looked up, his eyes magnified by his glasses. He pointed to a chair, and then went back to reading something on his desk. Paul sat down and waited, not daring to fidget.

  Eventually, Charlie closed a folder and said, “It was him. Fished out of the Shifen Falls. Apparently he fell in and drowned downriver.”

  Paul felt a little sick to his stomach, knowing he had caused the death. He said, “Are we sure?”

  “Yes. We have a positive identification from the family. They are questioning why he was there. Of course, there is no answer forthcoming from this office. What happened?”

  Paul told him all of the actions that had occurred up until he had watched Feng walk across the bridge, succinctly summarizing the intent and the mission. He had followed all protocols for dealing with a source, to include registration in the NSB cover database and informing his direct superior of his moves, gaining approval for the action, but as they say, success has a thousand fathers. Failure is an orphan.

  “So, you had no backup?”

  “No. It was too short notice, and honestly, you know as well as I do that nobody believes me. The Snow Leopard isn’t just running drugs. He’s subverting our democracy in conjunction with the CCP. They work hand in glove, and they’re working to upset our elections. Nobody would believe I was using a college student to gain leverage against them.”

  Charlie fiddled with a pen on his desk, then said, “This looks bad. Bad all the way around. You did everything right in recruiting this source—which means there is a paper trail a mile long. It won’t take long for that to hit the press, and in so doing you might have done more to hurt the election than anything the PCC has done on social media. We’ll look like the police state we used to be.”

  Paul put his head in his hands, not wanting to reflect on the fact that his hubris had led to the death of one of his sources. He was to blame for the loss. Nobody else. And the family would get no closure. None at all. Because of the Snow Leopard.

  Which brought a thought to his brain, a trickle of hope. He rose up and said, “Did anyone see anything? Did the local police get anything? Maybe we can hang the Snow Leopard on a simple murder charge instead of espionage.”

  Charlie said, “Nobody saw anything. He drowned outside of the tourist area. Apparently he wanted to swim downstream.”

  “You surely don’t think that is true.”

  “No, I don’t, but it’s irrelevant what I think. He’s dead, and our penetration is done.”

  Paul stood up, turning in a circle, unsure of how to broach what he wanted to say.

  Charlie said, “Quit being so melodramatic. Sometimes things don’t work out. I don’t blame you.”

  Paul stopped pacing and gathered his courage. “Sir, he’s dead because we’ve been penetrated here. Here. Somehow, the CCP knew I was sending him in. They knew to alert the Bamboo Triad. They’re ahead of us.”

  Charlie simply stared at him with his Mr. Magoo glasses, saying nothing. Paul continued, “Think about it, sir. There were a thousand different feeds on his case, from the first penetration to his recruitment. Somewhere in there, someone saw something and alerted the mainland. Alerted the MSS. We sent him in, and he was killed.”

  Charlie leaned back and said, “We?”

  Paul clenched his fists and said, “Okay, okay, I did it. But I did everything right, and he was still killed. We have a mole here.”

  “Maybe he just did something stupid. Maybe it was on him.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think so. It doesn’t smell right. His entire case was like a floater. It was easy to find him and easy to turn him. Like the MSS wanted us to find him. Like they didn’t care.”

  Charlie said, “Paul, I think you should take a break. Take some time off.”

  Paul looked at him in shock, but pressed ahead. “Sir, it’s not me. I’m not imagining things. It was like the breadcrumbs were laid out for us, precisely to see how we operated. Precisely to learn our methods of operating. I think it was a test case, and we have a mole. Me leaving isn’t going to fix that.”