Battlefield 4: Countdown to War (8 page)

‘That seems logical.’

‘Except for the executioners who took off into China, which is very much not logical.’

Cutler studied his hands. ‘Well, that’s your recollection. We’ll need corroboration.’

Kovic glanced at the recorder. This was turning into an inquisition. He wasn’t having that.

‘Either the intel was corrupted, someone wanted us to fail from the start, or the mission leaked. Which was it?’

Cutler looked perturbed. ‘That’s a matter for investigation.’

‘Fucking right it is. Where did the intel come from? Who gave you
Highbeam
?’

He waved the question away. ‘Langley have a team in Seoul looking into all that as of twelve hours ago.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

Cutler sighed. ‘It’s Beijing deep cover – I can’t go into any detail.’

Kovic stared at him. He had been responsible for some of the Agency’s best coups across the entire Eastern theatre. It was thanks to him that they had traced the mole in Langley who had been Beijing’s entry into the CIA’s mainframe. He had also busted Berkhoffer, the Silicon Valley ubergeek turned supposed philanthropist whose set-up in Shanghai turned out to be a front for ripping off patented US pharmaceuticals. And Kovic had his own networks of moles deep in the Chinese bureaucracy whose identity he alone
knew, who would deal only with Kovic, whose product was sporadic but always dynamite and which he made sure was never seen by the Chinese.

But he knew that his disinclination to toe the line or to work out of a sanctioned office – he liked to stay well away from the Consulate – the toll of traffic accidents and occasional drunken brawls all rankled with Cutler and gave him ample reason to want rid of him. Worst of all Kovic, who had done more than his fair share of hot postings, who had lived and worked undercover, was a constant reminder to Cutler of his own lack of credible field experience – which set him apart from the other Agency brass.

Kovic studied the photographs again. He had seen three of them shot in the forehead. In the photographs there were no facial entry wounds. Someone had either patched them up or doctored the images because the injuries that were visible looked like they were the result of an RPG or some other blunt instrument of battle. Whether Cutler wanted it or not, Kovic was going to give him the benefit of his analysis.

‘They were killed China-side – we need to look this end. You know what this is about – someone looking to drive a wedge between us and the Chinese, and judging by the protest outside they’re off to a good start. You want to get on top of this right now.’

Cutler steepled his fingers and pressed them against his nose. ‘Let’s not get carried away with conspiracy theories. It’s Langley policy to have someone neutral looking over it. Out of my hands I’m afraid. They’ll want to talk to you at some point.’ He put his hands behind his head and smoothed down what little hair was there. ‘Meanwhile, I’m standing you down. Get a little R&R.’

He tried to grin. ‘Chase some tail.’

The words seemed so unlikely coming from him; Kovic would have laughed had he not been so mad.

Cutler thinks I’m complicit.
The thought flashed up in front of him. His mouth dropped open, but quickly he closed it. If that’s what the Chief suspected, Kovic wasn’t going to let on he’d guessed. Much as it would have gratified him to climb across the table and throttle him with his own tie, Kovic swallowed his rage.

Cutler shuffled some papers on his desk and glanced at his laptop. ‘You know, just stay out of sight till this blows over.’

Kovic just glared until Cutler started blinking rapidly. Then just as it was getting awkward, he had one of his sudden mood swings, got up, came round the desk and held out his hand, then remembering the frostbite quickly withdrew it again, settling for a brotherly arm grip so awkward and so lacking in conviction that Kovic had to look away.

‘You’ve had a bad time. You’re sore – and I don’t just mean the nose. This is complicated, but we’ll get through it. I want you to take some time – take a break, go to Hawaii or Guam. Get away from—’ He gestured at the window. ‘All this.’

He clearly had no idea about Kovic’s personal life. Kovic had never formally registered Louise as his significant other as he was supposed to do. Probably Cutler couldn’t imagine him with anyone but a hooker.

‘We’ll get to the bottom of this and get it straightened out.’

Having stressed the gravity of it, he was now talking as if it was a minor road accident. But the message coming through was clear: butt out. At this moment Randall, Cutler’s gopher and interpreter, stepped through the door without knocking.

‘
Zǎoshànghǎo
– Good morning.’ Randall grinned, hoping to show off more of his Mandarin, then realised he had misread the mood in the room.

Kovic ignored him, but Randall came right up to his chair and gestured at the door. Kovic turned to Cutler for an explanation.

‘He’ll see you out.’

It said everything about Cutler that he felt the need to have him escorted to the door. He was a loose cannon, a threat to be contained. He had come asking questions and got nothing. And since he had come back alive instead of in a body bag, with a story that didn’t fit with what the pictures said, the finger of suspicion was pointing right at him, the sole survivor and sole witness. What really happened out there? Kovic needed his own answers, fast.

12

Shanghai

There was no sign of Wu when Kovic reached the parking deck. Straight away he knew why. Randall, who had escorted him down, looked sheepish.

‘He’s stood my fucking detail down, hasn’t he?’

Randall sighed in commiseration. ‘You know Cutler, he’s big on
efficiencies
.’

‘So what are we doing in this piss lake? I could have left by the front door.’

‘Er, that’s not deemed to be advisable at this time.’

Thinking Kovic might be about to deck him, he gave a swift wave and retreated into the elevator.

Kovic headed for the exit. If Cutler was planning to hang this round his neck he was going to regret it. He wasn’t going to stand by and let that happen.

Trying not to breathe in too much of the stench of urine, he jogged up the ramp. The chemical sweetness of the smog was a relief. After an audience with Cutler, he always felt the need for something very Chinese as decompression. He walked a few blocks, found Songshan Lu, ducked under an awning, made for the crowded counter and edged himself on to a stool.

‘
Shengjianbao!
’ he shouted over the din.

The owner ignored him and continued to slice meat, his huge cleaver intermittently visible through the escaping steam. Beside him, his daughter presided over the
shengjianbao
, turning them in a huge vat of oil, while her husband chopped the veg. Only their little daughter sitting in the back watching TV turned and made eye contact. Kovic waved, she scowled and turned back to the screen.

Kovic had gotten used to this lack of courtesy, not hostile, just
irrelevant to the hectic business of the day. The owner, thin, bald and with just one remaining tooth – hardly an advertisement for the food – tended to shake his head as if he was just closing or didn’t like you, but if you stood your ground you would get fed eventually. He lit a cigarette while he waited – another good thing about China, he reminded himself; you could smoke anywhere. Then he remembered – another promise to Louise had just bitten the dust.

After a few minutes a bowl of crisp-bottomed dumplings appeared, with a tiny saucer of pinkish-brown liquid on the side. Kovic picked up the nearest, dipped it into the vinegar, bit into it and took out his cell.

‘Wu, you’ve been fired again, I assume?’

‘Yes, I know!’ Wu had a habit of injecting every comment with enthusiasm as if every time he had a chance to use his English brought him unbridled joy. Being stood down by the Agency, which had happened on a previous Cutler ‘efficiency drive’ simply meant Kovic hired him direct, which, as well as having certain tax advantages, appealed to his vision of them as a daring duo, answerable to no one. ‘Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ Wu had once said, to which Kovic responded, ‘Yeah, pal. But remember how the movie ends?’

A luscious blend of pork and green spring onions flooded into his mouth, swept in on a tide of meaty broth. How they got the soup to stay in the dumplings was a mystery he had not yet solved.

‘Damn that’s hot! Are you nearby?’

‘Of course, Agent K.’ Wu had never been able to get his tongue round ‘Kovic’ and was a fan of the
Men in Black
movies, so Agent K it had become.

‘Can you do something for me, Wu?’

‘You bet, sir.’

Kovic knew he would eventually exhaust Wu’s reserves of goodwill, which he feared were inextricably linked to his fantasy of living in America one day. ‘When I get to America, I go on big road trip. Route 1, up California coast, Big Sur.’ Both his parents were dead and being an only child meant he had none of the usual family obligations. But it bothered Kovic that the only important things in
Wu’s life were his job and his car. He lived in a single men’s hostel, never drank or smoked. Even when he was on the Langley payroll, Kovic supplemented his meagre wage with some extra cash out of the considerable slush fund he had salted away over the years for his assets and for the frequent bribes he needed to give without having to account for every cent with Langley and the likes of Cutler. It guaranteed Wu’s loyalty and enabled him to outsource some of the less savoury jobs he was occasionally required to do.

In a world where everything was traceable, cash was a wonderful thing. It extended his freedom to operate under the radar and kept the CIA auditors at bay. There was something in his DNA that liked it this way. His Croatian grandfather had never had a bank account all his life. It was in his blood to run his own cash economy.

But whether he could grant Wu’s wish and get him to America was another question, especially in the current climate. Better to stick to the here and now.

‘Okay, go back to People’s Square, find out who’s organising the protesters. Sign up with them if you have to. Photograph the placards and get anything they’re handing out like fliers –
chuándān
. And find out if they are students or workers, or what.’

‘Wicked.’

‘Well, maybe. Talk to me when you’re done.’

Kovic killed the cell, took another dumpling and stared out at the bustling street. Two old ladies were unloading a crate of live chicks from the back of a Toyota people mover, while a third, who was sweeping the front of a shop with a broom made of twigs, barked instructions at them. On a balcony above, an unshaven man in shorts and a pyjama top with a cigarette stuck in the side of his mouth was hanging out washing. Above the washing line the strip of sky he could see between buildings was criss-crossed with cables festooned with advertising posters: for foot massage, trad itional herbal medicine, smart phones, divorces, toothache remedies, martial arts, fortune telling, haemorrhoid cures. A smart couple in suits, like matching CEOs, came past, loudly blaming each other for the quality of their son’s exam grades. They stopped, the woman slapped the man’s face, and they continued. A young woman with
orange ringlets walking a pair of yapping cinnamon-coloured Pomeranians stopped by a metallic yellow Range Rover and passed the dogs through a window to a man with silver dreadlocks. He got out and they started to study their phones as they walked away, descended the stairs into the subway. Kovic smiled. Nothing made sense in Shanghai if you wanted it to. Better just to enjoy the surprises, especially the past and the future crashing in on each other.

When Kovic had arrived in the city, many of the older people still dressed in the buttoned-up blue trouser suits of the Mao years and travelled by pushbike. Now it was a twenty-four-hour cavalcade of the latest and coolest fashions and gadgets from anywhere in the world, admired, copied and reinvented. China was in the fast lane, pedal to the metal, breaking all speed limits. Where it was all going, who knew, but he was enjoying the ride. Perhaps it had been the same for his grandparents arriving in Detroit, marvelling at the cars and the roads, telephones and flushing toilets. He shivered when he thought about what had happened since, that city like the set of a disaster movie, a place to escape from, like he had.

Wu was back, standing in front of him looking triumphant, brandishing a flier. Kovic snatched it, gestured for him to sit, shouted for tea and
xiaolongbao
– remembering Wu preferred the steamed variety.

The photograph was the same as the one Cutler had shown him, only cropped to emphasise the dead faces and leave no doubt that there were both Caucasians and Chinese.

‘
American imperialist aggression has enmeshed the flower of Chinese youth in treachery against our brother neighbour
,’ it said.

‘Reads like something out of Mao.’ He pointed at the Chinese uniforms. ‘And what about these guys?’

‘Chinese Special Forces; look.’ Wu pointed at the insignia just visible on one breast pocket, the dagger with a lightning flash across it.

‘Anyone you recognise?’

He shook his head.

‘What do you have on the protesters?’

Wu took a deep breath. Kovic braced himself for one of his info-bursts.

‘They are accounting students from Shanghai Lixin University of Commerce, an institution of higher education under the direct jurisdiction of Shanghai Municipal Government. As a part of Songjiang University Park of Shanghai, in which it is located, the university has an enrolment of over 9,300 full-time students, who study a variety of four-year degree programmes mainly specialised in the areas of commerce—’

Kovic put his hand up.

‘Okay, back to normal conversation mode.’

‘Okay, sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’ Kovic turned over the flier. ‘You did good.’

He examined the flier more closely. In tiny print at the bottom on the back was the name of the printer: Le-wou.

‘Time for your policeman act. Make them tell you who placed the order.’

As well as being an incredible driver, Wu had another handy skill, which Kovic had stumbled on by chance one day when he’d imitated his landlord for a joke. The guy was an amazing actor. He took out his phone, searched the printer’s name and called the number. Then he took another breath, frowned, and drew himself up to get into character.

‘This is Police Superintendent Jin Tai!’ he barked. ‘You are suspected of distributing seditious propaganda against the state of a nature likely to inflame the citizens!’

It was uncanny. Wu, frowning hard, nodded and listened as the printer remonstrated. Kovic shook his head in admiration. The boy was a natural.

‘Are you denying you are the publisher of this material?’

Kovic could hear the frantic printer on the other end, pleading for mercy, and – he hoped – giving up the name of his client.

‘Yes, well, be more careful in future who your customers are. Be watchful at all times.’ He finished the call.

‘The company is called something like Panamvan – a Western name.’

His
xiaolongbao
had arrived.

‘Parnham Vaughan.’

Wu nodded, his mouth full of shrimp.

‘Thassit. What are they?’

‘Turd polishers.’

Wu stopped chewing and stared at him.

‘Reputation management. They rebrand you if you’ve fallen foul of the law and need to make a fresh start, or you’ve got something controversial going like bulldozing a town to get at some mineral underneath, or flooding a valley for a dam and you got to sell the idea to the locals you’re tipping out of their homes. All the big companies have them.’

Wu was already searching them on his phone.

‘Jin Mao Tower: very good address.’

‘Yeah, probably a broom cupboard in the basement.’

‘No. Eighty-eighth floor. Good number.’

The number eight was associated with prosperity. Evidently they’d gone up in the world since Kovic last dealt with them. He tucked some money under his plate and headed out into the street. The old man shouted something after them.

‘I gave you a good tip, you old bastard.’

The little girl shot out from under the stall with the rest of Wu’s
xiaolongbao
, packed neatly into a box.