Caldwell felt a strange mixture of fear and excitement as he and Mei Lin disembarked from the plane at Shanghai’s Hongqiao airport. It was raining slightly outside and as they walked through the makeshift tunnel on the way to the arrivals area he could hear the sound of the raindrops thudding on the roof above. The information they had gleaned from the four PLA officers on the plane had been a stroke of pure luck and the implications were still cascading through his mind.
He’d watched in awe as Mei Lin had removed a miniscule eavesdropping kit from her luggage and placed the tiny audio transmitter on the tip of her index finger. It looked like a small round piece of gray felt. She had then walked up the aisle towards one of the air hostesses, engaged her in idle conversation and then made her way back to her seat. Her movement had been a blur when she’d attached the transmitter to the shoulder of one of the PLA officer’s jackets. The PLA had turned around abruptly and Mei Lin had thrust her hips in the officer’s direction, brushing his shoulder, her head turned the other way to avoid the PLA man registering her face. The man had spent some time admiring Mei Lin’s rear and Caldwell had ducked out of sight just in time.
Later, listening to the conversation on Mei Lin’s tiny earpieces they had just looked at each other and smiled. Caldwell couldn’t understand everything the men were saying, they had thick Beijing accents, but he could catch the drift of most of it. The server which contained the AI was being transported to the former site of the No. 455 Military Hospital. Mei Lin had checked the address on the in-flight entertainment system and written it down. No. 388 Huaihai Road West. The hospital had been deserted for almost a year, according to the search results. There were plans for some kind of restoration as a medical facility for the PLA. The men were supposed to wait in the old mansion on the hospital grounds until the major-general arrived in Shanghai. Major-general Wang? This whole fiasco with the AI extended right up to the upper echelons of the People’s Liberation Army.
With the Chinese army involved at this level, things were going to get dangerous. Yet, Caldwell felt that he was so close to giving Fouler what he wanted and reclaiming his past, that he had no option but to press forward. And he had Mei Lin with him. He suspected he wouldn’t be able to make it without her practical common sense and obvious field skills. Yet, Caldwell still felt like he was a pawn in a dangerous game, his fate entirely at the whim of Fouler and his organization.
He thought about the low level hacking he had been used to in the Union. The small-time scores of The HUB seemed inconsequential in comparison to what he was currently involved in. Some of the skill sets were identical but the scope and element of danger were orders of magnitude larger. The hacking of NEXT Tower had gone down well, giving them the lead that had taken them to Tsinghua. His instincts had been right in going for student data to nail down the whereabouts of the lab where this AI was fabricated. It had been yet another stroke of luck that they had arrived on the campus just when the PLA were removing the AI for transportation to Shanghai. And if the wizened old taxi driver had lost the PLA on the roads of Beijing, everything might have just screeched to a dead end. Or if the PLA had not in fact been heading to the airport what would he have done? Now, here they were in Shanghai with the ability to listen into conversations of at least one of these guys and possibly others depending on the man’s proximity to the other PLA agents. With luck they might get some sound bites from the major-general himself and those were bound to be interesting.
Later, when Mei Lin had logged in to a netbase linked to the bugs she had planted at the Kornhill residence of Hideo Sato and Junichiro Miyagi, another bombshell had emerged from the recorded phone conversations. The Yakuza too were heading back to Tokyo and then to Shanghai and they were going to kill a Major-general Wang. Wait a minute. Could it be the same major-general? It made sense. The major-general had Kenzo Yamamoto killed. Apparently, he was killed by some kind of toxic compound, one used for assassinations predominantly in China. The Yakuza revenge their own. The key thing was to manage not to get caught up in the ensuing crossfire as collateral damage. So, they had not only the PLA to worry about in Shanghai but also the Yakuza. It seemed the Japanese were unstoppable, tracking him from London to Hong Kong and now to Shanghai. They would have to be extra careful. Caldwell’s thoughts were interrupted by Mei Lin tugging at his arm.
“Use this passport chip, it’s in another name.” She gave him the chip, took the real one from him and placed it in a small container.
“Would it by any chance be a Mr. Johnson?”
“That’s right.”
“But what about the digital tag that gets placed on passport chips every time you use them?” Caldwell asked.
“Don’t worry about that. I bribed the check-in girl, it’s all sorted. I told her I was going on a dirty weekend with a married laowai to Shanghai and didn’t want the trip to show up on his chip. And being a young Shanghai girl she understood totally and was sympathetic.”
“That would explain the mischievous look on her face when she gave me the ticket,” Caldwell laughed. Mei Lin winked at him.
“Wouldn’t the authorities have you on file as an agent and alert someone when you went through immigration?”
“They normally would but Fouler has something on the head of immigration for the whole of New China. Something bad. You’ll find no HYDRA names on the list. We know. We have access to the list. Besides, I am traveling as Ms. Zhu, an attaché at the Union Embassy in Beijing.”
“Talk about hacking the system.”
“A little reverse guanxi never hurt anybody.”
Even though they had no luggage in the hold of the aircraft, they still proceeded to the luggage carousel staying reasonably far back from the other passengers but with the tall frames of the PLA officers always in sight. They waited at the luggage carousel, taking care to stay out of sight. Mei Lin had the earphones connected to the planted bug in one of her ears.
“Anything interesting?” Caldwell asked.
“Only to a guy, perhaps. They are talking about where they were going to for a bit of entertainment after this is all over.”
“So all this is something that has a finite time frame?”
“It would appear so.” Mei Lin’s mouth opened in horror as Caldwell uttered exactly what she was thinking.
“The AI is going to be inserted into cyberspace? But why Shanghai specifically. This suggests some kind of closed network located here in the city,” Caldwell said.
“Possibly. Even so, it’s just a matter of time before the shit hits the fan anyway, if such an AI really exists. With an AI that powerful in there, who’s to say if Fouler or whoever else can do anything to penetrate it?”
“I need to gain access before that happens.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“No idea. I’ll leave it to Kenzo Yamamoto’s console to figure that out.”
“Great strategy, Caldwell,” Mei Lin said sarcastically. Just at that moment the Tsinghua servers emerged from the depths of the baggage handling system. They had been enclosed in military green containers but the PLAs’ determined movement towards the containers was confirmation enough. The PLA heaved the containers off the carousel and proceeded to push them through to the arrivals area. Mei Lin and Caldwell followed and watched them move off towards the diplomatic channel. Two other military-looking men in plain clothes and sporting recent buzz cuts sidled up and started talking to the PLA officers. Mei Lin indicated that they better hurry as there was a queue for foreign nationals. Caldwell took his place behind a lively group of about a dozen over-weight tourists and waited.
Mei Lin went quickly through the diplomatic channel and stood waiting for Caldwell on the other side. The American tourists were all going through immigration as a group. A Chinese tour guide was collecting their passport chips. Caldwell stood impatiently waiting his turn and scanned the crowds.
The American tourists went through passport control to the arrivals area. Mei Lin had disappeared. It was his turn. He walked up to the counter and handed the immigration officer his passport chip. The dark-skinned young man looked at him closely through cold unsympathetic eyes.
“First time in Shanghai?” Caldwell’s chip went into the reader. The officer’s eyes were focused on whatever the chip said on his computer screen.
“Yes.” Caldwell wasn’t sure whether Mr. Johnson’s profile would match his response.
“Business or pleasure?”
“Just here to see the city.” Caldwell said, trying his best to sound like a well-off European in Shanghai for a bit of fun.
“Welcome to Shanghai, Mr. Johnson,” the man said at length, giving Caldwell back his chip. There was no hint of welcome in the bored officer’s eyes but Caldwell couldn’t care less. He was through and he just wanted to find Mei Lin. There were three uniformed PLA officers standing behind the immigration counter, scrutinizing the passengers as they went past. One of the men had his eyes permanently fixed on the screen of a military scanner. They were probably scanning the passport chips in passenger’s pockets. Mei Lin’s precautions were proving invaluable. The men didn’t even give him a second glance and Caldwell was developing a deep respect for her foresight.
Caldwell walked into the arrivals area searching for Mei Lin. A huge crowd of well-dressed Shanghainese stood by the railings waiting for their associates and loved ones to emerge from the arrivals area. Some of them held up printed placards with corporate logos and the names of passengers printed on them. Caldwell noticed at least three Mr. Johnson’s. There were also quite a large number of PLA soldiers moving around the airport. Caldwell suspected that if he had used his own passport chip, he wouldn’t have made it out of passport control. He spotted Mei Lin standing next to the automatic doors. She signaled for him to go over and he rushed through the waiting throng towards her. The doors slid open and they emerged into a sea of taxis, coaches and private cars.