Operation Barracuda (2005) (14 page)

What goes around, comes around,
Lambert thought.
Could Mike Wu be involved in the Professor Jeinsen business?

He then opened Anna Grimsdottir’s personnel file and scanned it once more before the meeting. It wasn’t necessary, though. Lambert had known Anna for a long time—she was one of the original Third Echelon employees. A woman of Icelandic origin, Grimsdottir was thirty years old. She was a second-generation American and a college dropout. She had been studying computer science at St. John’s College in the nineties but decided she could program rings around her instructors. She worked as a programmer for several different communications firms contracted by the U.S. Navy. She had been recruited at the ground floor of Third Echelon and had worked as a programmer and eventually became the technical director. Grimsdottir had continuously shown a strong drive, a sharp intelligence, and a noted dedication to the work.

There was a tentative knock on his door. “Come in.”

Anna Grimsdottir stepped inside. As always she wore her brown hair pulled back and resembled an attractive college professor. She was so studious looking that one’s mother might say she had a “nice personality.” Her colleagues knew Grimsdottir’s temperament was rather staid, almost the reserve of a Brit. But they also knew she had a wry sense of humor that she rarely allowed to surface.

“You wished to see me, Colonel?” she asked.

“Sit down, Anna.” She took the chair, crossed her legs, and sat with impossibly good posture. “How was your leave?”

“Nice. Hawaii, you know.”

“Sorry I had to end it early.”

“No, actually I’m happy that you did. I’m glad to be back.”

“Good. As you know, we’ve lost Carly.”

Grimsdottir lifted her chin and said, “She was very good. I’m sorry that she . . . well, I’m sorry about what happened, sir.”

“We all are.” He cleared his throat and came to the point. “Are you ready to resume your responsibilities?”

“Of course.”

“You’ll need to get up to speed very quickly. You’ve missed out on a number of developments within the organization.”

“Let’s do it.”

Lambert looked into her eyes and saw that there was absolutely no fear. Total self-confidence.

“Let’s do,” he replied.

 

 

MIKE
Wu, aka Mike Chan, passed a sign telling him that Oklahoma City was twenty miles away. He needed to find a place to stop and rest before he had an accident. Wu hadn’t slept a wink since he had shot Carly St. John and left Washington, D.C. Now, two days on, he was feeling the effects of sleep deprivation and too much caffeine. He was jittery, not thinking clearly, and had a massive headache.

Before leaving the D.C. area he had parked his blue 2002 Honda Accord alongside a green one that was in front of an apartment building blocks away from his own. Armed with a screwdriver, he switched license plates on the two cars in less than a minute, and then headed west on I-70. He picked up I-81 to take him down through the Appalachian Mountains and Virginia. The highway joined I-40 in Tennessee, and he planned to stay on that road all the way to California. He knew it was probably an obvious route to take but it was also the fastest. Hopefully the police wouldn’t be looking for him yet. After he had slept a little, he planned to dump his Honda and steal a car for the second half of the trip. Wu couldn’t believe he had made it halfway across the United States so quickly. But then, he rarely stopped. Only to buy gas and pick up a bite to eat.

He passed a sign for a motel located off the next exit. Good. Out of the way and cheap. Just what the doctor ordered. Wu couldn’t wait to get there. He’d have a shower, drop into the bed, and catch five or six hours. And then—

Damn!
In the rearview mirror he saw a police car right behind him, lights flashing. Where did he come from? Wu looked at his speedometer and saw that he was doing ninety-three miles per hour. In his haste to reach the motel, he had become careless. Up to that point he had been so good at driving safely and staying within speed limits so as not to attract attention. Now this.

Wu pulled the car over to the shoulder and stopped. The patrol car, an Oklahoma State Police vehicle, moved up behind him. The officer sat in his car making a note and doing the routine call-in with the license plate number.

Shit.
It’s going to be reported stolen. What should he do? Think quickly!

In his sleep-deprived, anxious state, Mike Wu did what he thought was the only solution possible. He reached under the seat and grabbed the Smith & Wesson SW1911. Wu scanned his mirrors to make sure no other drivers were around to see what he was about to do.

The officer got out of the patrol car and walked toward him. Wu lowered the window and smiled at the man.

“Hello, Officer,” he said. “I know, I was speeding. Sorry about that.”

“Step out of the car, sir,” the patrolman said.

“I have my license right here . . .”

“Please step out of the car, sir,” the man repeated.

“Okay, if you say so.” Wu pointed the pistol out the window and squeezed the trigger. The bullet caught the patrolman in the chest, propelling him backward to the road. Wu opened the car door, stepped out, and aimed the gun at the policeman’s forehead. The patrolman, gasping for air, shook his head and attempted to cry out.

Wu squeezed the trigger a second time, got back into his car, and drove off, leaving the dead man at the side of the road in front of the police vehicle. He decided that the best thing to do next was to go ahead with his plan to stop at the motel and get some sleep. The police would be looking for him, all right, but they wouldn’t expect him to be so close, set up in a fleabag motel. He’d simply make sure the car was out of sight. Later, after he was rested, Wu would steal another car and continue his journey to freedom.

I
find the Purple Queen nightclub easily enough. The place is huge, more like the size of a theater. This area of Kowloon, Tsim Sha Tsui East, is a major center for nightlife in Hong Kong. All around me I see not only these ritzy hostess clubs like the Purple Queen, but also karaoke bars, disco clubs, restaurants, and even leftover British-style pubs. The neon is mesmerizing and you can feel excitement in the air. Kowloon after sundown rivals anything Las Vegas has to offer. It’s difficult to believe this is now a Communist-controlled land.

Two large Sikhs stand outside the front doors ready to intimidate anyone they think might not be desirable clientele. I’m dressed in my uniform because I’d like this to be purely a reconnaissance mission. I want to get the lay of the land.

I keep out of sight in the shadows and circle behind the building. There’s a small parking area with a slot marked RESERVED, probably for the big guy. All the other spots are taken. I can’t imagine where the valet parks the overflow, for the streets are packed with automobiles. There’s a back door, no windows, and an enclosure where they store the garbage until it’s hauled away. It’d be nice to get inside that back door.

As if on cue, a guy comes out the back and throws a bag of trash into the pen. He’s dressed in a suit, wears sunglasses, and obviously works as muscle for the joint. I walk over to him and say in Chinese, “That garbage stinks. How often do they pick it up around here?”

He looks at me as if I’m insane. “What?” he asks.

“I said the garbage here stinks. Oh, I’m sorry, it’s not the garbage. It’s you I smell.”

This gets a reaction. He reaches for the inside of his jacket and I quickly chop the side of his neck with a spear-hand. The gun, a Walther from the looks of it, drops to the ground. I punch the goon hard in the stomach, causing him to bend forward, then clobber him on the back of the head. Once he’s in Dreamland, I drag his body into the garbage pen, stuff him unceremoniously into the only empty can, and put the lid on. That should keep him snug for at least a half hour, maybe more. I then throw his pistol into another can and cover it up.

I step inside the open back door and find myself in a corridor lined with four doors. I hear rock music and bad karaoke singing coming from the club beyond a door at the end of the hallway. The space to my immediate right is some kind of meeting room. There’s a table and six chairs around it, a whiteboard on the wall, and a telephone. What’s strange is that there are plastic sheets hanging on two of the walls. It’s the kind of coverings painters use to protect furniture, but the room doesn’t appear to be recently painted. I’m about to move on when I notice a spot of paint at the bottom of one of the sheets. I crouch to take a closer look and discover that it’s not paint at all.

It’s dried blood.

Looking back at the room I can picture the place entirely covered in plastic at one time. Something bad happened in here and they haven’t quite cleaned it all up.

Very quickly, I tear off the section of plastic. I stuff the strip into my pocket and then move on down the corridor to try the next door. This is a messy office. Papers are strewn over the desk, filing cabinet drawers are half open, and someone’s leftover takeout carton of Mu Shu Crap is smelling up the room. I glance at the papers and can barely make out the Chinese script. They’re bills, orders, and employee records for the Purple Queen.

I step into the next room, expecting to bump into a couple of Triads at any moment. But it’s just another office, not quite as messy as the first, containing nothing of interest.

The next room is the kitchen, where they wash the dishes and glasses. There are two guys wearing aprons, backs to me, busy at the sinks. They both have headphones on and are listening to Walkmans attached to their belts. I can see a swinging door on the other side of the kitchen that most likely leads to the club.

The door at the end of the corridor suddenly opens. I step inside the kitchen and stand on the other side of the threshold. Two men wearing suits and sunglasses walk past, ignoring the kitchen, and head down the hall. They go out the back door, slamming it shut behind them. I pause for a moment, thankful that the dishwashers are too preoccupied by their jobs to turn and notice me standing behind them.

When I feel it’s safe to move, I smoothly slip out of the kitchen, swiftly dart to the back door, and crack it open. The two men are getting inside a car. I wait until they pull out of the lot and disappear before I exit the building. I figure it’s time to become Joe Tourist and enter the nightclub for real.

As I find a dark corner in the alleyway to put my civilian clothes on over my uniform, I ponder what the blood on the plastic sheet might mean. Seeing that Triads run the club, I suppose it could be anyone’s blood. I’ll have Hendricks run it to check the blood type. If it’s the same as Gregory Jeinsen’s then I might be on to something.

Now appearing like an average
gweilo
looking to spend some money, I approach the front door. One of the door-men opens it and a blast of soft American rock music hits me in the face. The cover charge is five hundred Hong Kong dollars, which includes the first two drinks. Sheesh, what a bargain. After I fork out the money, four gorgeous Chinese women wearing
cheongsams
sing out in unison, “Welcome!” and pull back velvet curtains so that I may enter the main floor.

It’s a dimly lit room bathed in red and there are dozens of planters holding small palm trees. An aquarium stretches along one wall. I estimate there are about fifty tables in the place, with a dance floor dominating the area. There are also several divan-coffee table combinations scattered around the perimeter. Middle-aged Chinese gentlemen accompanied by anywhere from one to four “hostesses” paying rapt attention to them occupy many of these seats. In fact, the place is surprisingly crowded. I didn’t expect to find so many big spenders in post-handover Hong Kong.

Apparently the patrons of the Purple Queen can purchase “time” with a hostess. She’ll sit and have a drink with you, dance with you, talk with you . . . whatever you happen to arrange. There are even private rooms you can escape to. Whatever happens in there must be arranged beforehand and probably costs you more than you can afford. I understand that naïve visitors can be taken for a ride financially; simply having a drink with a hostess can be very expensive.

I take a seat at one of the tables near the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY, which is written in both English and Chinese. I can read Chinese fairly well and can make out some of the other signage around the place that isn’t translated into English. There’s an emergency exit behind the band’s setup and the restrooms are near the bar.

I’m not at the seat twenty seconds before a lovely young Chinese girl wearing a
cheongsam
approaches me. “Would you like some company?” she asks in heavily accented English.

“No, thank you,” I say. “Just bring me a drink, please. Fruit juice, if you have it.”

The girl blinks as if I’ve said something completely gauche. I hand her one hundred Hong Kong dollars and this seems to appease her. She rushes off using those dainty small steps so typical of Asian women and I concentrate on the “entertainment.” A Chinese—or maybe a Japanese—businessman is onstage trying to sing “We’ve Only Just Begun” karaoke-style. It’s horrific. When he’s done, the three hostesses he had been sitting with applaud enthusiastically. The man leaves the stage and a four-piece band returns to their instruments. The guitarist announces that they’re ready to play another set and invites everyone to “get up and dance.” The band then launches into a passable cover of “Funkytown” and maybe ten or twelve people migrate to the dance floor.

The girl brings me my juice and again offers to sit and chat. Once more I refuse and act disinterested. She glares at me unpleasantly and walks away. The girl whispers to another hostess, who decides to try her luck. Perhaps the
gweilo
prefers someone a little taller? Someone with larger breasts? Maybe the one with the blonde wig?