Li Jin stood in the glass elevator as a crowd of chattering Hong Kong shoppers congregated around him. It was a death trap pure and simple. He was vulnerable in the basement of the shopping center. If the man on the escalator was waiting for him on the floor above or on his way down, he was in big trouble. He peered at the row of buttons on the elevator and his suspicions were confirmed. Every single button had been pressed. The only way out was to somehow disappear into the crowds but if the man was standing at the entrance of the elevator on the floor above there was no way to do that.
Then his attention was drawn to the elevator buttons. A sign next to the buttons announced that the basement housed the food court and an underground parking lot. The elevator doors were closing. He pushed violently through the crowds and stuck his hand through the closing elevator doors. It was a risky move but it was his only chance. Dui bu qi, dui bu qi, he apologized in Mandarin as the door opened and he emerged from the claustrophobic confines of the packed elevator. His eyes quickly scanned the crowds and the elevator gliding downwards. He took a gamble and ran to the left, away from the escalators.
Li Jin followed the direction signs as he ran bumping into shoppers who cursed at him in Cantonese. The gods were really with him today, there were arrows pointing towards the parking lot. He kept running as he followed the signs on the floor, his backpack swaying from side to side but somehow propelling him forward. He emerged from the pristine and well-lit interior of the mall into a huge space of featureless concrete walls and the smell of exhaust smoke. A winding tunnel to the left suggested an exit. A powerful Mercedes wound its way down into the parking lot confirming his suspicions. The exit. He headed past the Mercedes and kept running upwards, the winding road and the incline causing waves of pain to creep up his legs. Li Jin was not used to strenuous physical activity.
Who was that Chinese guy? What did he want? Had he over-reacted to a shopper just casually glancing at him? Was it just a curious fellow mainlander? Not likely. Li Jin always trusted his instincts and they had served him well in the past. Besides, it was always better to be safe than to be sorry. There was a car coming up on his side of the tunnel. He switched to the other side. There was no island in the middle. Then the headlights of yet another car and the whine of an engine suggested another car was coming down the tunnel. He was trapped. Li Jin moved aside just in time missing both cars by fractions of an inch. One of the drivers screeched to a halt and blasted his horn in anger.
Li Jin emerged into a busy Tsimshatsui backstreet. He guessed that it ran parallel to Nathan Road. There were several back alleys strewn with black rubbish bags leading off from the street. Li Jin ran down one of them and was relieved to find that the alley he had chosen ended in a large square full of mostly young people. There were huge video screens everywhere with canto-pop and advertising blaring out of powerful speakers. Li Jin disappeared into the crowds, his heart beating violently.
***
His scary ordeal at the Miramar Shopping Center had put Li Jin’s nerves on tenterhooks. This was not going to be easy but he was determined to pull it off. Additional precautions needed to be taken.
He emptied his bowl of spicy Dan Dan Noodles, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at his cheap imitation Citizen watch. It was 5.30PM. Soon he would be rich beyond his wildest dreams. He moved off towards a damp corridor, following a handwritten sign that indicated toilets. The toilet was small and in serious need of a clean and some disinfectant. He spent a long time in there. Li Jin suffered from a rare bowel disorder and the last thing he wanted was for stomach movements to interrupt the impending proceedings. He checked the credit transfer unit. The batteries were working fine and the wireless link was good. He could successfully access the meager balance in his savings account with the Bank of Communications in Beijing. Excellent.
He’d bought a gun, just in case, from some tailor shop down one of Tsimshatsui’s many alleyways. He removed the gun from his rucksack and examined it. It felt strange and heavy in his hands. He’d never fired a gun before but if called upon to use it in defense of his life he was sure he would pull the trigger. He would be ready for any recoil. He’d seen too many movies for that to throw him. He placed the gun in the back pocket of his jeans and pressed the Velcro flap into place. He then removed the deposit slip from his wallet and placed that in another one of his pockets. He was ready to go. Then he turned his canvas jacket inside-out just in case the man in the mall was still hanging around
Li Jin paid the bill, left the noodle restaurant and took the long route towards Kowloon Park. First he headed towards the backstreets of Jordan and then cut past Kowloon Police Station through to Austin Road. Senses on high alert, he entered the park through the Austin Road entrance and moved briskly past the mini soccer pitch, the arcade and the swimming pool complex. Li Jin was just about to decide that the Chinese garden, with its covered walkways and shrubbery, would make a good spot when he realized that the twittering of birds in the aviary would give away his position. He kept moving through the park, scanning the people strolling around the park enjoying the evening. Everything seemed fine.
Li Jin moved through to the Sculpture Walk featuring works such as the Concept of Newton by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi. He wished he had more time to study it but he was only able to give it a cursory glance. He looked at his watch. He was running out of time but he had spotted what could be the perfect location from which to orchestrate the proceedings. The roof garden at the Nathan Road end of the park afforded views of both the frenzied commercial activity of Nathan Road and the tranquil interior of Kowloon Park. There were a few people in the garden but he could spot secluded areas from where he was standing. He climbed up to the garden and found a deserted spot. A couple of lovers were loitering nearby but they were too busy canoodling to pay him any attention.
Li Jin paused for a few minutes to steady his nerves and then removed his phone from his pocket. He dialed the number to the phone he’d bought for Krachev. With each ring, Li Jin’s heart thumped violently against his chest. Why was he so nervous? Someone picked up.
“Krachev? Oleg Krachev?” Li Jin asked hesitantly. He hadn’t spoken English for a while and it sounded hollow and alien to his ears.
“Yes.”
“I have the merchandise. Where are you?”
“In my hotel. I have been waiting for your call.”
“OK. Come to Kowloon Park. Use the Nathan Road entrance next to the Mosque and head straight to the ... the maze.” Li Jin had just spotted the maze as he scanned the park. It was less than a hundred meters away, well within range of the credit receiver. The voice on the other end definitely sounded Russian. It was Krachev alright.
“The maze?” the Russian asked incredulously.
“Yes. The maze. You will find it easily enough. Find your way to the center of the maze.”
“OK, if you say so.”
“Yes, and be there in fifteen minutes otherwise I disappear and the deal is off.”
“You have the chip with you?”
“Of course. It will be nearby.”
“If there is any funny business you won’t make it out of Hong Kong alive. Understand me?”
“Sure. Fifteen minutes.”
Li Jin hung up and waited.
***
The assassin was sure that he had spotted Li Jin going down the escalator in the shopping center. He had watched the movements of the quarry for any sign of panic. The quarry had just looked away seemingly unperturbed. The assassin had seamlessly logged into a PLA database of the Chinese population and performed a query on everything the major-general had told him about the quarry. All this was done hands-free, using only the electric pulses racing through his synapses. A photo had materialized in his mind and it was a perfect match. It was a student photo probably taken years ago with a digital camera but the face was unmistakable. The thin neck and largish Adam’s apple a dead give away and those wily eyes common with bookish types were spot on.
He had calmly but briskly descended to the basement while copying the photo into face recognition mode. He could feel the two tiny cameras on the sides of the module scanning the faces of the people on the escalator coming the other way and cross-referencing the scans with the quarry’s photo. No matches. The quarry was still down there trapped in the basement. Yet, there were the elevators. One of which was just leaving the basement. The assassin could see a crowd of people in the elevator.
The assassin had quietly turned round and brushing the people in his path aside ran back up the descending escalator to the ground floor. He had taken his position in front of the elevator doors on the ground floor and waited. He would kill the quarry with one swift movement. A quick strike to the spinal cord and it would all be over. He would catch the quarry’s body as it went limp and carry the dead weight through the crowds to one of the exits. The quarry would have to be disposed off somehow but that was just academic.
The elevator had stopped at the ground floor and a group of shoppers had emerged. The quarry was nowhere to be found. The assassin had then headed back down to the basement and combed the area coming up with nothing. When he had seen the sign to the car park it had all become clear. The quarry had escaped through the car park, which he himself had overlooked. The assassin had calmly ordered a bowl of turtle shell jelly at a small dessert stall, donned his wireless sunglasses and mentally logged into yet another Third Department system in Beijing, one that monitored all communications data by the entire populace of China. He instructed an AI to analyze the communications, feeding it the Chinese characters for Li Jin and Hong Kong.
A few seconds later the results flashed across his shades. Li Jin and Oleg Krachev will meet in Kowloon Park today at approximately 6.08PM for the sale of a quantum neuroprocessor. The AI had gleaned all this from disparate e-mail and phone conversations. The assassin had then asked the AI for other important data. The following words scrolled past on the assassin’s shades.
Oleg Krachev. Peninsula Hotel, Kowloon. Room 2006. Sunday Mobile Phone: 923313882.
Li Jin. Unknown residence. Unknown China Mobile Beijing SIM card.
The assassin had smiled. He would pay this Oleg Krachev a visit and this Krachev would lead him to the quarry.