ProxyWar Page 2

  He stayed through two encores and left after 2 a.m. Even this late, he could hear the hum of traffic as he walked past Sichuan Lu, toward Metro Line 2.

  He hummed one of the tunes Turner played that night. Chin was inattentive, focused on the cash he held within the envelope. He passed the bank’s night drop and casually pushed the envelope into the steel box.

  When Chin stopped at the traffic light on East Nanjing Road, he felt something jab into his left calf. He turned and saw the Caucasian retreating.

  Chin found it difficult to breathe, then impossible to stand. He felt his heart stop. The last thing he thought, as his consciousness evaporated forever, was why?

  * * *

  Elizabeth Rochelle Brown lay in bed, spread-eagled on her back, her breath coming in spurts. She was a tiny woman, just under five feet, thin, with a very large nose huffing her breath fast, in and out. William Wing’s head was wedged between her thighs, his tongue exactly where it could do her the most good. She writhed in ecstasy, moaning into a pillow. “Willy, I’m about to—”

  Her landline began ringing.

  William’s head popped up.

  “Shit, Willy. Don’t stop now!”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Crap.”

  But William was already gone. She pounded on the mattress with her fists.

  William fumbled with the phone, already on its fifth ring. “Hullo?”

  “William! It’s Jon Sommers. How the bloody fuck are you?”

  “Jon? It’s been a long time. A very, very—”

  “Yes, long time. I’ve been a spy in recovery. Trying to be a banker, a normal sod. Harder work than it should be. Right now, I’m looking out my apartment’s living room window down at marauders looting the corner grocery store. Nasty things happening in Manhattan. Lots of unhappy, suffering poor people. Listen, I’ve been invited to speak at a financial conference in Shanghai. I’m to do a speech on protecting banks against money laundering and cyber theft. I need to get away from the riots here. Thought you might be interested, since you’ve been with me on a few escapades in bygone times. Just for a few days. We could catch ourselves up while we explore a bit of your birth country. You could be my tour guide. Interested?”

  William thought for just a few seconds. “Uh, no. First, I’m sure you have an ulterior motive. You always do. Second, I’m happy where I am. Back with Betsy. Not interested.”

  “Right. Well, I’ve no ulterior motive, but I was just hoping to renew our friendship. I miss you, my friend. If you change your mind, my number at the bank is 212-776-9500, extension 8318. Say hello to the Butterfly for me.”

  Now William was confused. Jon just calling to offer a get-together? It had never happened before. And Jon giving up on his request after less than thirty seconds? William didn’t understand. He removed the fishbowl eyeglasses from his head. “Uh, yeah. Take care, Jon.” He dropped the phone into its cradle on the nightstand.

  When he turned toward the bed, Betsy was standing right behind him.

  “What’s he want now?” She punched him in the shoulder.

  “Dunno. He wanted company for a trip to Shanghai.”

  “Yeah. Right. And who would you end up murdering this time?”

  “That’s the problem. I got the feeling all he wanted was a chance to spend some time touring China.”

  She laughed. “Bullshit on a marshmallow stick.”

  “No. He sounded ebullient. Not like Jon at all.”

  She shook her head. “Jon always wants something. He always has some weird plan that will never work. Stay away from him.”

  William nodded. “Okay. I guess.”

  They faced each other.

  Betsy pointed to her crotch. Then to his mouth. “Now.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Central Hospital, Municipal Morgue,

  Shanghai, China

  January 11, 7:43 a.m.

  Chow Sang thought the morgue was the coldest place in the city. Walls and floor all gray, ceiling tile white. The coppery smell of blood of mixed with bleach felt medicinal, devoid of any warmth or compassion. At least, that’s what Sang thought as he viewed the body of his best friend and sometimes lover Ryu. He nodded, and the coroner redraped the body and closed the refrigerated compartment.

  Sang wiped the tear that formed at the corner of one eye with a long, thin finger. He found his eyes staring at a discolored acoustic tile on the ceiling. Drifting. Not good. Sang refocused and nodded. “That’s him.” He turned and staggered to the doorway. “May I sit?”

  The detective standing next to the coroner shrugged and pulled a chair for the rail-thin man. “Just a few questions.”

  “Yes. I understand.” He fell into the chair.

  “You and Ryu don’t live together. Is that right?”

  Sang nodded. He brushed back his white hair.

  “When and how did you discover he was dead?”

  Sang shook his head. “I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t what?”

  “I didn’t ‘discover’ anything. The police phoned me.”

  “You had no indication before our call? You hadn’t visited his apartment?”

  “Uh, well. Yes. I did. But that was several days ago, and nothing there was out of order. I just visited to borrow a book.”

  The detective nodded. “Just a book?”

  “Yes. When you called this morning, you told me he was found on the street. Do you know what caused his death? Was it a heart attack?”

  “The autopsy is scheduled for later today.”

  “I’ll want to know as soon as you find out. When can I schedule the funeral?”

  “Wait. We’ll tell you.”

  “Can I visit his apartment again? There are things of his I’d like to have.”

  “We’ll let you know when. It hasn’t been ruled out as a crime scene yet.”

  Sang’s brows raised. “You think he was murdered?”

  The detective shrugged.

  Sang sighed. “May I go now?”

  As the detective nodded, Sang shuffled out of the morgue, trekked up the stairs and into the street. He hung his head, rain mixing with the tears he could no longer control. It was only a three block walk to Ryu’s apartment. Even though he’d been told to stay away, that is where his feet took him.

  He found himself across the street, his eyes searching the windows of the third floor. He’d intended simply to stand vigil in the downpour, hoping it would wash away his despair. But when someone opened the front door of the building to leave, Sang entered before it could close and lock. He walked up the stairs to the third floor.

  Yellow tape covered the door to Ryu’s tiny studio. Sang took his copy of the key, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. He’d expected to see it as it always was, fastidious in its organization, nothing out of place. But a whirlwind of Ryu’s possessions littered the floor. The apartment had been tossed. Someone had searched the apartment for something. What?

  Sang’s mouth stretched tight over his tongue. He wanted to scream, but knew better than to make noise loud enough to penetrate the paper-thin walls. He felt his muscles tighten in anger, now convinced that Ryu had been murdered for something he’d held or something he’d seen or done. His best friend was a thief, a hacker, and a grifter. What specific act had led to his friend’s death?

  Sang walked to the spot the computers had occupied. These small devices had been Ryu’s pride, as well as the source of his income. The monitors were still intact, but the desktop’s bodies were on the floor, like corpses, gutted and ripped apart. Their disk drives were missing.

  Sang scratched his sparsely bearded chin. He stood, poised like a crane, while he remembered once watching Ryu copy information onto a thumb-drive and disappear into the bathroom. Was that where he hid his backups?

  He walked into the bathroom. It was all-white, the wall tiles, the plasterboard, and the linoleum floor. But the surface of the floor had been pulled up and its pieces scattered around. The intruder had remo
ved most of the wall tiles too. There seemed to be no hiding places left. He scanned the shower. No obvious hiding places within. Inside the medicine cabinet he saw what the intruder had overlooked. A supply of contact lenses had been destroyed, but a container of saline cleaning solution had been tossed onto the floor. Sang picked it up. Full, it made a splashing sound as he shook it. He gripped the bottom of the bottle with one hand and its top with the other. The bottom unscrewed and three thumb-drives fell out, dry inside a poly zip bag. He picked up the bag and the drives within, and vanished from the building as quietly and fast as he could.

  Now, where could he go to discover what information they contained? He walked past a Starbucks. All the computers were in use, and his own notebook was at home. The city library would have to do. He hailed a taxi.

  The third floor of the library had several rows of computers, almost all in use when Sang arrived. He waited over an hour, then sat and tried to open the files on one of the thumb-drives. Of course, they were password-protected. What password would Ryu use? He tried a few obvious choices and all failed. In desperation, Sang tried his own name plus his own birthday.

  He was rewarded with a string of file names. One by one, he double-clicked on each. They all seemed to be schematic designs for something. He read the descriptors at the bottom and left sides of the diagrams. All were in English. They were plans for various electric grids; four files for different regions of the United States. He plugged in the next thumb-drive and found the files there with descriptions in Mandarin. Their schematics depicted the plans for China’s electric grids. The third drive held other files, too many to count, but one of them was named “Troop Status.” Listed in Russian was what appeared to be the combat readiness of the Russian Army. Another file was labelled “Emergency_Contacts.” This one he read carefully after he opened it. He found a page of names—all of them unfamiliar—but their job titles indicated they had, at one time or another, all been Ryu’s clients or his peers. He scanned the job titles and saw only one, “CryptoMonger,” that he thought looked like a tech-heavyweight. He crafted an email to the person or organization. He attached most of the files, especially those of the electric grids in both China and the United States. He thought, vengeance is a dish best served cold.

  Sang had few friends. One of them was an old ex-KGB operative. Misha Sashakovich. Last he’d heard, the old man had changed last his name. What was his name now? It took him less than a minute to remember it. Where was Misha now? He used the computer to track his old friend. A direct approach might be dangerous, given Misha’s new job. He’d take his time thinking of a safe way to arrange contact. He remembered an Israeli he’d worked with in Africa decades earlier, a spymaster for the Mossad. A man who wore black business suits but never a necktie. The man’s call-sign was “Emah,” whatever that meant in Hebrew. He did a little research on the library’s computers and found the man’s name and title. A bit more research and he had Emah’s email address. Sang sent Emah a copy of all of the files.

  Two people with the files would be enough.

  Sang also worried about his own safety now. Should he remain in Shanghai or flee? Best if he aroused no suspicion about what he was holding. No change in his habits. Where to hide the thumb-drives? Not in his own apartment.

  What about here, in the library? He walked in shadows to the elevator and rode it to the top floor where the Shanghai Books Department was located. He looked through the catalogue for something that might be fitting. The drives were each about two inches long, one-half inch wide and one-eighth inch thick. He would place one of the drives into a book’s binding. It would be a tight fit, but he could force it within. He took his time finding an appropriate title: Shanghai Walks by Tess Johnston, published in 1993 by Garden Books. There were four copies. He used number 4. Before leaving, he wrote the title and sequence number on a small piece of paper and then he exited the floor carrying the other drive.

  * * *

  Over a year since William Wing had betrayed Betsy, sleeping with Sylvia and then marrying her instead of Betsy. Betsy thought all the time about how to reconcile her feelings for William. She had loved him since their first face-to-face meeting in Singapore, a couple of years ago. But then, during a mission in the Middle East, he’d suddenly married Sylvia Orley just after meeting her. Orley had almost died just before their wedding, and she wondered if William’s marriage to Orley had something to do with that near-death episode.

  Orley had retired, but Avram Shimmel had begged her to go on another mission. Several mercs died, including her. And now, Betsy had reacquired William. She hated him for dumping her. But she loved him for who he was.

  She shook her head, trying to shake the emotions that held her in lockstep. When will I be able to trust him again? His behavior will always be suspect. Maybe it’s best for me to just enjoy what I can. She leaned over the kitchen table and examined William’s notebook computer screen. And frowned. Her hands moved toward its keyboard.

  She was still unsure if she would ever trust William again. As a consequence of his treachery, she’d sometimes hacked into his email to see what he might be up to, who he was meeting, and which hacking assignments he was working on.

  And now she discovered something almost as troubling. This new situation left her in a dilemma. She could see that Wing’s computer had been hacked. She could see the worm and what it had done. All his files, every one, had been copied and sent somewhere. If she told him, he’d realize she was monitoring his computer. If she didn’t, whoever had copied his files would realize what he was, and that would be even more dangerous. Either way, she would lose something. She heard his footsteps descending the staircase to the kitchen where she sat. She moved away from the machine and walked to the counter where the coffee maker was. Thinking. What should I do?

  “Morning, babe.” William smiled.

  She handed him a cup of coffee. “Willie, what kind of protection is installed on your primary Internet computer?”

  His smile disappeared. “Why?”

  “I heard there’s a new worm that’s been making its way through the hacker community. I received texts from a few of our fellows who’ve had files copied off their Internet computers. I know we don’t store our files on the computers we use to communicate with, but you might want to make sure.”

  William’s brows shot up. “Uh, yeah. I need to take a look and see what’s up.” He took the coffee cup to his own machine and sat. It only took a few seconds before his face went red. “Oh, shit. Don’t know how, but someone has managed to jump from the wireless network into my storage files. They’re air-gapped, not online. How the fuck?”

  “New tech, courtesy of the Mossad. It jumps to every computer from any network in the house. No network connection to a given computer is necessary for it to be bridged. My stuff was stolen too, and I’m not using the wireless. What did they copy?”

  William looked like he was about to panic. “They copied everything!”

  “You better find out who ‘they’ are.”

  William nodded, took a sip of coffee and started pounding his keyboard. Commands streaked across his screen as he backtraced the worm.

  Over an hour passed. He looked at his watch. “I need to travel.”

  Betsy nodded. “As I said, my stuff was copied too, so I’ll be going with you.”

  William punched a number into his cellphone. “Jon, it’s William. I’ve changed my mind. Betsy and I both want to see Shanghai with you. Call me back so I can coordinate our travel arrangements.”

  He faced Betsy. “It won’t be the pleasure trip Jon intended. But we’ll need him when we corner the hacker.”

  Betsy nodded. “We should pack our suitcases. What tools should we bring?”

  * * *

  Jon Sommers’ smile vanished as the applause faded. He nodded and left the podium. Scariest moment of my life, but I did it. He walked toward the edge of the stage and tried to exit the conference room, but several of the attendees had questions. He list
ened and answered, keeping his voice down so as not to attract even more of them. By the time he’d finished, he could feel pangs of hunger and scanned the back of the room.

  Jon saw his friends rise from their seats at the back of the room. He hadn’t seen Betsy and William arrive. Their flight from Woodbine, Iowa, must have landed on time. They waited near the door. Jon walked down the aisle toward them. “Welcome to Shanghai.”

  “That was pure ugly.” Betsy grinned. “Calling hackers a disease. Shame on you.”

  “Lunch, somewhere quiet” was all William said in greeting. “I have several alternatives.” He unfolded a small slip of paper.

  Jon peeked. “Xindalu China Kitchen?”

  William nodded. “A short walk from here. At Hyatt on the Bund. Beijing style cooking, something I sorely miss. We can get a table in the back and make a plan. While we were on the flight, Betsy and I had our notebooks open. I think I know who and where the deed was done.”

  The three walked in silence for twenty minutes through crowded streets to 199 Huangpu Lu, near Wuchang Lu. Hung in the window, Beijing ducks greeted them. Jon stared at the duck heads. “Wow. Seen this before in Chinatown. But these look like they might be appetizing.” He held the door open and they entered.

  After ordering, their duck arrived, fired with red dates and smelling of green apple wood, baked in the restaurant’s special Beijing-style ovens.

  “This is something you’ve eaten before?” Jon licked his fingers.

  “Until I was twelve. Then my father disowned me and had me dropped off in Hong Kong. I became an orphan whose parents were alive.”

  Betsy reached across the table and held William’s hand, then quickly removed hers again. “Sticky and greasy.”

  “Jon, we backtracked the hacker’s work. Seems he didn’t actually intend to send me something nasty. All he sent was the group of files that were designed to open inside my machine. Once there, one of the files woke up and stole everything there. I’m thinking that whoever sent the files didn’t even know about the worm. And after looking into the worm itself, I’m not sure where my files were forwarded to. But when we completed the backtrace, we found a few things in the hacker’s junk files.”