Chasing Rain Page 5

  Rong took the stairs to avoid detection. He’d overridden the security cameras upon entering, so there was no danger of electronic surveillance picking him up, only the “dumb human kind.” He was not impressed with the security BE had implemented, but, to be fair, MSS had the means to get into just about anywhere, including the most secure US Government installations. World War III is already ongoing. It’s a cyberwar, and the US is losing badly to the Chinese, he thought triumphantly.

  As luck would have it, another BE security guard took a non-routine check of the stairwell and drew his weapon upon seeing Rong on the landing above him.

  “Hands up!” the guard shouted.

  Rong complied, holding his briefcase above his head. “Officer, I’m sorry, I was just working late,” he said in perfect English. “That’s not a crime, is it?”

  “State your name and position,” the guard said firmly. Rong could tell the officer wasn’t sure if Rong might be an employee. They’d probably never had an unlawful entry before.

  “Anthony Wu,” Rong said.

  The guard kept his revolver trained on Rong, as he reached for his radio. “Come down the steps sss-low-ly,” he said, “while I call this in.”

  Rong took two steps and then pounced, flying through the air like the lethal acrobat he’d been trained to be. The MSS agent’s right foot landed fast and hard, perfectly on target into the guard’s nose, smashing his head back into the concrete wall. He was dead before his body slid to the floor. Rong rode the guard down and landed upright, careful to avoid stepping in the already pooling blood.

  Less than two minutes later, Rong was heading for the airport in his rental car. He now knew Chase would be leaving town again very soon, and this time he planned to travel with him.

  Wednesday morning, As Chase drove to the airport, weaving in and out of traffic as if he were on a NASCAR track, he recalled Wen’s warning via the Jamaican to not be followed. He’d felt relatively safe on the yacht all night in the middle of the bay, but now, changing lanes on the interstate, surrounded by a million people, he wondered which one of them was the spy, the enemy, the assassin. He checked his rearview mirror compulsively, reminding himself that almost all those people were innocent, had no idea what TruNeural was up to, and that the future wasn’t forever. It had an expiration date, and that day loomed in the coming dawn.

  Once on his plane, Chase felt the pull to head north to Vancouver for Wen. Instead, his destination was south, to a secret meeting with one of the only people who might be able to help him help Wen. That person wasn’t who dominated his thoughts, though. It wasn’t Wen now, either.

  Irvin Sliske, the smiling snake who’d taken RAI and created RAIN, ran wild in his mind. The man had ordered Porter killed for potentially giving Chase information. How does someone get that greedy? That twisted? Chase wondered. How long can I dodge GlobeTec’s assassins? They must know that I’m the only one who can stop RAIN.

  Even in the air, Chase had an uneasy feeling. A few days earlier he’d been a carefree billionaire—the world in the palm of his hand, nothing but promise for a glorious future. Now, corporate killers and the Chinese secret police were out to get him. Even if I can stay alive long enough to try to save humanity, I still have no idea exactly how to do it.

  Fourteen

  The IT-Squads had been touching down in their destination cities throughout the night as the real missions began. While the sun was rising over the west coast of the United States, a team headed to their respective targets in San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas, and Edmonton, Canada. The unit in New York was already in place and preparing for a Dark-Drop—an order to assassinate civilians, in this case, an American businessman. There were other possibilities and endless eventualities that could alter the mission, but the IT could handle anything. It’s what they trained for. The elite agents hoped this case would only require a “Scrub and Replace,” where they deleted data and sometimes replaced it with something else. The order was often as radical as a Dark-Drop because it could literally alter reality. The IT-Squad would digitally erase every trace of a transaction, account, contract, patent, plan, etc., and then, as necessary, remove all physical traces of the same. As the Operational Officer monitored the status of his teams, he had that nagging thought that always hit him at these times.

  Nothing can be trusted anymore, not even the truth.

  Irvin Sliske, an urgent man with a permanent scowl, stood on the roof of the TruNeural headquarters, overlooking Seattle, on a brisk spring morning. He didn’t like what he was hearing, not because he cared that Porter was dead, but rather he worried about the messy details, the distraction.

  And he didn’t much like the man giving him the news.

  He glanced over at Franco Madden, who he’d always considered to be a weasel. A very dangerous weasel—greasy appearance, tiny, shifty eyes, and dark polyester suits that were just a little too small. Adding to his annoyance, Franco always spoke in a slurring voice an octave higher than one would expect.

  “‘It’s a bright cold day in April, and the clocks are striking thirteen,’” Madden suddenly said, bringing Sliske back to the conversation.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Sliske asked, wishing he could push Madden over the edge and watch him hit the concrete forty-one stories below.

  “The opening line to Orwell’s 1984,” Madden, who always seemed to be reading a book on the latest e-reader, replied. “Feels somehow apropos, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I don’t know, I’ve never read it. And other than the fact that it’s April 30th, you’ve lost me, Franco.” Sliske shook his head, frustrated that he couldn’t fire Madden since they both answered to the Chairman of TruNeural’s parent company, GlobeTec. But Sliske had good reason to be leery of Franco, after watching him operate for the past six years. One minute he could be your best friend, a “trusted” colleague, and the next he’s arranging your death, much as Franco had done with Porter.

  “And you’re sure no one’s going to question Porter’s suicide?” Sliske asked irritably.

  “I’m sure his wife doesn’t like the idea,” Madden replied, barely concealing a self-satisfying smirk. “But who ever wants to accept the fact that their spouse was so unhappy and depressed that he killed himself? ‘Sorry honey, you missed the warning signs, you should’ve been able to save him, but you just weren’t good enough.’”

  Sliske sighed, disgusted. “There’s no need to be mean. The poor woman did nothing wrong. Her husband just knew too much.”

  “Forgive me,” Madden said sarcastically. “I didn’t realize you had a conscience.” The smirk was still there. “No one makes billions without stepping over a few bodies, Irvin.”

  Sliske stared off into the distance for a moment as the pinks and peaches of the sunrise framed Mount Rainier like a postcard. “Then we’re sure that Porter didn’t get any information to Chase Malone?” he asked, trying to ignore the bad taste in his mouth.

  “Porter never should’ve been hired,” Madden said, squinting his eyes as if to punctuate his condescending tone.

  “Porter was a brilliant engineer,” Sliske shot back. “It was your job to make sure his access was limited and that he stayed in line. This is on you.” Sliske snapped his fingers and pointed at Madden.

  “I did my job. That’s why Porter is no longer a problem,” Franco said confidently. Globetec’s security division—which he headed—employed thousands of personnel whose job was to keep GlobeTec and its subsidiaries ahead of its competitors by whatever means were necessary. Hundreds of those employees were highly trained operatives. Franco Madden knew secrets and scandals that could destroy companies and individuals. He wielded enormous power, and loved his job. “Will you be able to proceed without him?”

  “Of course we will,” Sliske thundered.

  “If that’s the case,” Madden said, his expression turning sour, “then why did you need Porter in the first place? Was he really worth the risk?”

  Sliske’s face momentarily flash
ed rage before he was able to mask it. As CEO of TruNeural, one of GlobeTec’s many divisions—not the largest, but with its enormous profit potential and AI technology that would benefit operations of every company in the conglomerate—and GlobeTec’s Board—of which Sliske was a director—gave him immense latitude, but he still had to get along with the weasel.

  “Look, Franco, we’ve played together in the same sandbox for years without ever stepping on each other’s castles. You do your job, and I do mine. There’s no need to stand here and keep blaming each other in this unpleasant business. The firm has a long road ahead, and I assume we’ll both be on it, so let’s not let this Porter situation ruin our professional relationship,” Sliske said, staring at Globetec’s head of security and forcing a smile. “You and I . . . we’re fine.”

  “Porter was your mess,” Franco snapped back. “I cleaned it up.”

  Both men were ambitious and smart enough to know they needed each other. They would not be successful in a campaign to try to get the other one removed.

  “Porter didn’t just come with the deal,” Sliske said. “We needed him. I would’ve liked to have had him a little longer, but we got what we got.”

  “It’s what he got from us that worries me,” Franco said, tracing his wispy mustache with bony fingers. “If he got something, then one of us is not going to be fine.”

  Fifteen

  Wen moved to the far side of the waterfall’s pool. Butterflies, thick near the water, were somewhat disorientating amongst the mist and colored lights. The confused flying insects normally wouldn’t be active at night, but the lighting, and Wen’s desperate movements, seemed to have brought them into a frenzied swirl. They flew around her as she quickly checked the area one more time. The meditating man seemed unaware that she’d entered the garden. Over her shoulder, Wen caught a glimpse of the agent rushing toward her.

  Wen noticed a concealed room of some sort—probably for pumps and lighting control units, she guessed. The room tempted her. It might lead to an exit. With only a fraction of a second to decide whether to go for the room or climb the waterfall, every scenario ran rapidly through her mind. Wen knew how to pick locks. She could probably get into the room before the MSS agent reached her. However, if there was no way out of that room, it would become her tomb.

  Wen hiked up her skirt, found an outcropping, and grabbed a handhold in the cliff above her.

  She knew the Chinese agent could shoot her off the rock face, but she calculated that the well-trained man wouldn’t discharge his weapon in an airport of a foreign country unless absolutely necessary, and he so clearly had her cornered. Singapore was not China, and an international incident was always the last thing the MSS wanted. The elite spies employed by the powerful communist government were always careful to avoid attracting attention. So far, she seemed to be guessing correctly, as the agent was chasing and not yet shooting.

  The climb was trickier than she expected because the designers of the garden had purposely made it difficult for children and adventurous travelers to get onto—or scale—the cliff. The rising mist and waterfall kept the mossy rocks wet. Her skirt kept sliding down, until she twisted the hem into the waistband.

  Wen, who’d always liked butterflies, suddenly wished they didn’t exist as they swarmed around. It felt like trying to climb out of a well with people throwing confetti at her. She wanted to look back and see how close he was, if his weapon was drawn and aimed, but the tricky ascent required all of her concentration.

  Finally, near the top, a beam of bright red light that was part of the illumination scheme of the garden left her momentarily blind. Before she could recover, purple and turquoise lights flooded her eyes. She slipped. Her arms flailed wildly, trying to grab hold of anything. Nothing. Wen thought she was going all the way down, that her body would be smashed on the rocks bordering the pool below. It might be survivable, but that wasn’t likely. She’d always had a fear of becoming paralyzed.

  This is it, she thought.

  After falling several feet, her foot hit something flat and solid—an odd outcropping of rock which concealed an additional row of lights that kept the water contrasting the surrounding cliff face. One of her hands scraped across the rocks and caught a small seam, otherwise she would have bounced off the tiny ledge before getting any footing. She turned while trying to catch her breath. The MSS agent, now less than ten feet away, climbing up the same route she had just taken, yelled at her in Mandarin.

  “Stay right there!”

  Another choice. Climb back up to the top where she would almost certainly arrive at the same time he did, or take a controlled jump into the pool.

  Her knees burned, her hand was scratched and bleeding. Wen tried to slow her breathing. How deep is the pool? she wondered, assuming it wasn’t deep enough and therefore a jump would have the same result as a fall. Wen scrambled to reposition her body to quickly climb back up above the falls. I must get there before him. The agent had the advantage of size and, like her, he’d been trained to kill without an instant’s hesitation.

  It took three tearing moves. Her arms were shaking, her legs on fire, but she was almost there. As she swung her leg up onto the highest rocks spanning the top of the falls, she felt the sudden slap of a strong hand on her calf.

  “Got you!” he said in Mandarin. He pulled hard, reversing her momentum and potentially sending her down into the rocks. “What are you going to do?” he asked through gritted teeth. “You have nowhere to go but down!”

  Wen saved her strength and did not respond to his taunts, but felt fortunate he had chosen to attack where she was strongest. She did a faux-kick at first, using only a fraction of her strength in order to make him overconfident. He squeezed his grip harder, ready to make his final effort in the face of her “weakness.” Wen pulled out of the move and double-pumped her leg. Before he could react, she used all the pent-up force and slammed her foot into his shoulder. The results were fast and severe. He tried to shift and stretch to prevent himself from going over while she was free to finish getting onto the ledge. She took a moment to get her balance, as the ledge was only about a foot wide.

  By the time he came at her again, Wen was standing two feet above him. The agent made the mistake of going for her legs again, grabbing her knees, hoping to get her legs to buckle, which would cause her to fall from the narrow ledge. Instead of folding, she dropped into a crouch and pushed her kneecap hard into the side of his face. The stunned agent managed to recover fast, and came at her again, but he failed to anticipate her other knee. This time Wen connected the blow dead center. The crunch of his nose breaking was loud in the quiet garden. The agent’s groaning cry was even louder.

  She knew if the meditating man hadn’t noticed them by now, that noise would’ve brought his attention. A question surged with the next wave of adrenaline: would the meditating man try to help, thinking Wen was being attacked, or would he go for airport security?

  The answer would have to wait. The furious MSS agent bit hard into her calf while grabbing at the Singapore Girl skirt and pulling her onto the ledge with fierce might. In spite of his broken nose, he managed to lock Wen in a position where trying to fight would likely cause her to lose balance and tumble off the ledge.

  Her advantage lost, she reached back against the wall, desperately trying to stabilize her weight. One hand, surprisingly, found a lifeline—a concealed conduit pipe that ran through the wall and curved down toward the falls. Somehow she grasped her right hand tightly around it and spun off the wall, yanking her now bleeding calf from his mouth and twisting her other leg around his neck. In one swift move, her strong legs sent him around and propelled him over the falls. He clung to her ankles for a moment, kicking the rocks, trying to save himself, or at least to pull her down with him.

  Wen fought his weight, holding onto the pipe with one hand. Her knee caught the corner of the ledge and gave her just enough additional leverage to stay above it. His grip lasted another second until his hand slipped on
the blood trickling from her calf. The agent plummeted straight down into the eerily-lit darkness. His body hit the water, crashing on the rocks. Wen now knew that the pool was very shallow.

  Another question flashed as she began to scramble back down into the garden: had he reported to MSS about sighting and pursuing her before coming into the garden?

  Sixteen

  The meditating man was waiting for her as Wen reached the bottom of the cliff.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in Tibetan.

  Wen didn’t speak that language, but understood his meaning. “Yes,” she answered in Mandarin. “That man tried to rape and kill me.” She grabbed her bag from behind the yellow flowers.

  The meditating man nodded. “Bad man,” he said in broken Mandarin. “They coming to help.” He saw the fresh panic in her eyes. “If you don’t want them,” he said hesitantly, “you go out there.” He pointed to the pump room.

  “It goes out?” she asked, already moving to the door.

  He nodded.

  As she started to pick the lock, he said “No” in Tibetan and showed her a hidden key.

  “Thank you,” she whispered with a hurried smile, then slipped into the room. Wen saw an opening on the other side of a large pump and control panel. She followed a small tunnel filled with pipes and bundled cables until it connected to a larger room filled with equipment. A couple of maintenance men saw her Singapore Girl uniform and asked in Malay if she was lost.

  “Yes, very,” she responded in Malay, one of the many languages she spoke. “My first day.”

  The men laughed, pointed to the exit, and then explained how to get to her gate.

  “Many thanks,” she said as she never stopped moving. Fortunately, they hadn’t noticed her bleeding calf. She grabbed a roll of duct tape off a shelf as she passed and as soon as she was back into the public area of the airport, headed for a restroom. She had first-aid supplies in her bag, and quickly cleaned and attended to her wounds. Then she used the duct tape to repair the inside hem of her Singapore Girl Sarong Kebaya uniform that the agent had torn. Not a perfect job, but it would have to do. Checking the time, she saw she would barely make the flight.