The Agent (An Isabella Rose Thriller Book 3) Read online

  The shooter disentangled himself from the bike. The impact of the crash had buckled the front wheel. It wasn’t going anywhere. The man stood, shook out his arms and rolled his neck. His pants were shredded, and the skin beneath had been rubbed red raw. The skin of his palms, too, had been abraded where he had put his hands down to try to stop the slide.

  He ignored all of that and started to walk towards Isabella.

  She turned to look for the Glock. She couldn’t see it.

  She retreated.

  The parked vehicles penned her in.

  The man closed in.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Isabella backed away.

  The man looked to be in his twenties. He was wearing a slim-fitting suit and was shaven headed. His skin was smooth and clear. It would have been difficult to describe him as attractive: he had heavy brows, his eyes were spaced a little too far apart, his nose was longer and thinner than usual and his ears stood out from the sides of his head. He was not especially tall, nor was he built any larger than average.

  Isabella took it in as she maintained the distance between them, but her attention was snagged by the expression of bland normality that he wore on his face. It was as if this extraordinary scene – the murder of a man in broad daylight and then an armed pursuit through the streets of the world’s largest city – was the equivalent of a lazy Sunday afternoon jaunt to the shops. He moved with a loose ease that suggested that he was completely comfortable with what he had done and what he obviously intended to do next.

  Isabella bumped up against the side of the car that was blocking the way behind her. It had crossed the junction from the south and crashed into a Nissan going west. She glanced left and right. There was a gap between the two cars, littered with broken glass.

  Isabella started to edge left, towards the gap between the crashed cars.

  ‘Look around you,’ she said. ‘There are witnesses everywhere.’

  The man didn’t take his cold eyes off her. He kept coming.

  They both heard the sound of the bike at the same time. The man turned just as Pope appeared around the side of the bus. Pope drove right at him, yanking the handlebars and throwing the bike into a skid. The bike went sideways and slid into the man’s legs. The impact was sudden, the weight of the bike striking the back of his legs, knocking him off his feet so that he crashed down to the ground as the bike continued its slide beneath him.

  Pope righted the bike and smoked the rear wheel as he turned back to the east.

  ‘Quickly!’

  The shooter had landed flat on his back, a heavy impact that seemed to have knocked the wind out of him.

  Isabella sprinted across and vaulted on to the back of the bike.

  The man pushed himself up on to his hands and knees.

  ‘Go!’

  Isabella held on tight as Pope lit up the wheel again. He flung them ahead, crashing over a kerb hard enough to launch the bike into the air. They thudded down again on a grassy expanse that bracketed an access road leading towards one of the tunnels that threaded beneath the river. They left the grass, the tyres squealing as they bit on to the asphalt. The tunnel had four lanes: two for eastbound traffic and two for westbound.

  Pope flung the bike to the left and right, and Isabella had to hold on as he opened the throttle all the way.

  ‘Take the tunnel,’ said the voice in her ear. ‘I’ll contact you on the other side.’

  Pope crashed over the central reservation until he was in the correct lane. The traffic was busy, but Pope negotiated it aggressively, ignoring the angry horns that sounded in their wake. The wind rushed around them both, drying the moisture in Isabella’s eyes and stinging her skin.

  The road was clear ahead and Pope was able to accelerate. They flashed into the tunnel, the overhead lights passing above them in a series of ever-faster lines.

  Isabella turned to look back.

  Nothing.

  ‘We’ve lost him.’

  Blaine got up. He had managed to jump just as the bike had slid at him, and that had probably prevented one or two broken legs. But the bike had still clipped him, and it had flung him down on to the surface of the road with enough force to daze him. He could hear a buzzing in his ears as he tried to stand.

  A man arrived next to him, reaching down. He said something, but Blaine didn’t hear him properly. The man put both hands beneath Blaine’s shoulders and helped him up. Blaine’s reaction was automatic: he windmilled both arms to slap the hands away, grabbed the man by the lapels of his jacket, butted him in the face and then dropped him to the ground.

  There was a scream; Blaine turned to see a woman caught between wanting to run to the fallen man and her fear of him. A wife, maybe. A girlfriend. Blaine didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

  He started to jog, leaving the junction and going south along Sichuan South Road.

  He made sure his throat mic was still attached to the collar of his shirt.

  ‘This is Blaine.’

  ‘Report.’

  ‘I lost them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The girl. She is resourceful.’

  There was a pause. Blaine could hear the sound of sirens behind him. He picked up the pace. He remembered a bus stop opposite the Guangming Finance Mansion. He would take a bus and get as far away from here as he could.

  ‘Exfiltrate, Blaine. You can’t be there.’

  ‘Acknowledged. Blaine out.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Pope waited until he could see daylight and then stopped the motorbike, blocking the lane. He told Isabella to get off. He walked back to the car that was trapped behind them. The driver had opened his own door and was halfway out when he saw Pope. He tried to get back inside again, but he was too slow. Pope reached down, grabbed the collar of his jacket, hauled him out and dumped him on the road.

  Pope got into the front seat. Isabella hurried around to the other side. Pope put the car into drive and negotiated a path around the parked bike. They set off again, the daylight blending with the artificial light until they emerged into the early afternoon’s brightness.

  Pope looked ahead, but there was no sign of anything that suggested that the enemy had been able to get across the river in time to continue their pursuit.

  He heard the distorted voice in his ear. ‘Pope?’

  ‘The sniper and the man on the ground – they were the same as the woman in Italy?’

  ‘They are the products of the same research. Wheaton works – sorry, worked – on the programme to develop them.’

  ‘Did you know they were going to be there?’

  ‘No. We had no idea. We wouldn’t have sent you if we did.’

  ‘So how did they know?’

  ‘We’re looking into that.’

  Pope took the opportunity to take a deep breath. ‘We need to have a conversation.’

  ‘We are. Right now.’

  ‘Not like this. Face to face. I don’t like being used as an errand boy.’

  ‘That’s not how it is. We’re helping you. It’s not all one-way.’

  ‘It’s not going to be anything at all unless you can persuade me that you can be trusted. And I can’t trust you like this. I need to look you in the eye.’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Last chance. You agree to meet me or we’re done. I’ll throw the stick in the river and find them without you.’

  There was no response.

  ‘You still there?’

  ‘I need the stick, Control.’

  ‘And I’ll give it to you. But it has to be face to face.’

  ‘Fine. Go to Beijing. I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Rosewood. I’ll reserve a room for you. Go there and wait. I’ll be in touch.’

  It was two in the afternoon when Aleksandra finally stopped pretending and allowed the panic to wash over her.

  The train to Beijing had departed forty-five minutes ago and William had not been here to take it
with her.

  She tried to persuade herself that there was a good reason for the delay.

  Perhaps there had been extra negotiation to be done to accommodate the failsafe.

  Perhaps there had been traffic between the location of the rendezvous and the station.

  Perhaps the subway had been delayed . . .

  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

  No.

  Aleksandra knew that none of those reasons were true.

  Something had happened.

  Something bad.

  They had discussed what would happen if William did not arrive for their meeting. Plan B. Aleksandra would take the train to Beijing and then transfer to Harbin. William would join her when he could.

  She bought a ticket for the next train and joined the scrum of passengers shuffling through the gates and down to the platform.

  The train was waiting.

  She struggled through the crowd to the correct carriage and hauled her suitcase aboard. She stowed it, slumped down in the seat and stared at the men and women outside. She had been thinking about William, but now she found that she was thinking about herself, too.

  If something had happened to him, then she was in danger.

  She looked at the blank and apathetic faces in the crowd and thought of the millions of people that swarmed through the city outside. Twenty-four million. The most populous city in the world. The only person she knew in Shanghai was William, and now she had no idea where he was.

  She felt vulnerable and alone.

  PART SEVEN:

  Beijing

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Shanghai and Beijing were connected by the Jinghu High-Speed Railway. Pope and Isabella caught a commuter train from Yuyuan Garden station and then changed to the non-stop 15.32 from Hongqiao. They rode in second class, the carriage arranged into rows of three seats, a space for the aisle and then a further two seats. They had two seats together.

  They tore through the countryside at two hundred miles an hour. They were both quiet. Pope took out the thumb drive and laid it on the fold-up table attached to the back of the seat ahead of him, flicking it with his finger so that it spun on its axis. Isabella was next to the window, and she gazed out as the landscape went by in a fluid blur. They took turns to go up to the buffet car for lunch. Isabella looked at the juice, teas, dried Chinese snacks and dried noodles, but she wasn’t hungry. She bought two butter cookies and made herself eat them.

  Pope was still playing with the thumb drive when she returned.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked him.

  ‘We’ll meet our friend and then decide.’

  ‘You think they’re a friend?’

  ‘They helped in the square.’

  ‘The alarms?’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘You think they did that?’

  ‘They didn’t go off by themselves.’

  ‘How did they do it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pope admitted. ‘The same way they found us. The same way they got a message to us. There’s a lot about this that we don’t know.’

  The journey was 820 miles, but they completed it in two minutes shy of six hours. They cleaned themselves up in the bathroom, washing the dust and grime from their skin. Their contact had booked a room for them at the Rosewood, and a hotel driver was waiting for them after they had disembarked the train. Isabella sat quietly and looked out of the windows as they made their way across the city. The air was dense with pollution and the skyline was largely invisible. Vast skyscrapers that were the rival of anything in Manhattan were shrouded in smog, just the occasional glimpses revealed as the breeze stirred up the miasma. It was past nine, but the streets were still busy with pedestrians, the men and women anonymous behind pollution masks. Beijing seemed vast and impersonal, and Isabella felt the stirrings of disquiet. Pope was quiet in the seat beside her, similarly staring out at the streets as they passed slowly through them. She found that she was glad that he was with her.

  The hotel was in the Chaoyang district, opposite the Chinese state broadcaster. The fifty-four-floor China Central Television Building soared into the dense clouds: two leaning towers, bent ninety degrees at the top and bottom to form a continuous tube.

  The taxi turned off the main road and slowed down to advance into the tree-lined forecourt. The cars waiting at the kerb were all top of the line: Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs, Ferraris and Porsches. The driver stopped and a bellboy in a crushed velvet jacket and shiny black shoes ghosted up to them, opening the door and welcoming them to the establishment in perfect English. Guests were led into the elegant building, passing between two stone lions as their cars were driven away by similarly attired valets and their luxury luggage dispatched.

  Pope checked them in at the front desk using their Australian passports and referring to their cover story as father and daughter. Their room had already been paid for. They were taken to their room by a deferential member of staff, who blushed as Pope tipped him.

  Isabella looked around. Their room was decorated with Chinese objets d’art, and the floor-to-ceiling windows offered a glimpse out into the smog-filled canyons formed by the unsympathetically utilitarian office buildings of the financial district.

  ‘Not bad,’ Pope said.

  Isabella sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘When is he coming?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Get some sleep if you want.’

  ‘I’ll wait.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  The clock showed half ten when there was a knock at the door.

  Pope got up off the bed, crossed the room and opened it.

  Pope stepped aside. The man who came into the room was dressed shabbily, and Isabella’s first thought was that he must have been homeless. He had an aged leather jacket with holes at both elbows and the stitching coming loose in the armpits and a series of patches on the lapels. He wore two scarves – a grey cable-knit and a blue windowpane – together with fingerless gloves and a pair of aviator shades with one arm secured in place with a short length of duct tape. He had a frayed corduroy cap that he wore pulled down low on his head and he had a laptop bag over his shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Control,’ he said.

  He came farther into the room and turned to Isabella.

  ‘Are you sure you want her in here?’

  She stood, a denunciation ready on her lips.

  ‘I don’t have any secrets from Isabella,’ Pope said before she could speak. ‘She’s already been through more than she should have on the basis of the lies that I’ve been told. She can listen to what you have to say and decide what she wants to do.’

  ‘Fine. It makes no difference to me.’

  ‘You got here quickly.’

  The man shrugged. ‘I wasn’t far away.’

  ‘Were you in Shanghai?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Couldn’t we have met there?’

  ‘It was getting a little hot. This is better.’

  ‘What do we call you?’

  ‘Whatever you like.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We need a name.’

  ‘Fine.’ He reached up and tapped his finger to the centre of his cap. ‘Call me Atari.’

  The man’s cap was decorated with the logo of the Japanese video game company. Isabella recognised the design: the curved prongs that joined at the top to form the outline of the letter A.

  ‘Come on,’ Pope said with irritation.

  ‘You don’t need to know my name. It’s not important. I’m not important. I’m just the guy who talks to you.’

  ‘On behalf of whom?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter, either. Look – there are lots of us, all around the world. I don’t know who they are, they don’t know who I am. It’s safer that way. We share certain beliefs and opinions.’

  The man took off the jacket, folded it neatly – Isabella thought that seemed pointless, given the state of it – and laid it on the bed. He was wearing a t
atty fifties-style cardigan beneath it that he might have found in a thrift store. He went to the minibar, opened it and took out a bottle of water. He cranked the lid and swigged down a mouthful.

  ‘This fucking smog,’ he said, taking another drink. ‘I can still taste it.’ He went to the window, looked out and then, almost without thinking about it, closed the blinds.

  ‘We’re five floors up,’ Pope said.

  ‘And I don’t like to take chances.’ He turned back. ‘Do you have the drive?’

  Pope took the other two bottles of water from the fridge and gave one to Isabella. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Give it to me.’

  ‘No. Not until you tell me why you want it.’

  He sighed. ‘What would you like to know?’

  Pope opened his bottle. ‘Let’s go over what you mentioned before. Start with Wheaton. Who was he?’

  ‘He worked for Daedalus Genetics.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of them.’

  ‘Why would you have? It’s a biomedical research company. Based in Boston. Facilities all around the world.’

  ‘And Wheaton did what? Genetics?’

  ‘No, that’s what his wife does. He was a computer scientist. He and Aleksandra are selling information that they stole from the company. That’s what’s on the stick.’

  ‘What kind of information?’

  ‘Therein lies a longer tale. Do you mind?’ he said, nodding to the bed. He sat down next to Isabella; she caught a faint odour from his clothes or his body. ‘Daedalus is working on a project to re-engineer war fighters. They call it “Prometheus”. Very grandiose, I know. Its aim is to produce “metabolically dominant soldiers”. Wheaton’s wife is Aleksandra Litivenko. Russian émigré, very smart, expert in experimental molecular embryology.’ He put both hands on the bed and leaned back, exhaling wearily. ‘Look, a lot of what I’m going to tell you is going to sound like crazy science fiction. Daedalus, Prometheus, all that – I know it sounds nuts, but I promise you, it’s not. It’s all true, one hundred per cent straight up, and it’s fucking scary. You just need to keep an open mind.’