He reached into his pocket and handed over his passport — or at least, Dietrich Hoffmeyer’s CIA-altered passport.
The man looked at it and nodded. ‘You have an appointment, yes?’ he asked, and Cole realized that it wasn’t just that all foreigners were being stopped; he’d been stopped because he’d already been identified.
‘Yes,’ Cole responded. ‘I hope I’m on time.’
‘Your timing is fine,’ said the man, before clicking on his radio and firing off a burst of staccato, sing-song Cantonese; totally different to the Mandarin spoken by the majority of mainland Chinese, and further proof of Wu’s desire to bring in outsiders to protect him. He received an unintelligible reply, and looked back up at Cole. ‘Please wait here,’ he said. ‘You will be escorted to your meeting shortly.’
‘Thank you,’ Cole said with a smile. He was impressed that they had called for an escort; less professional soldiers may well have abandoned their posts and escorted him themselves, or at least split up their two-man team. But not these guys; the first man’s eyes remained on Cole while his opposite number scanned the crowds around him.
He didn’t have to wait long. Soon enough, two more men approached, and Cole saw that they belonged to the Hong Kong SOU, the unit most closely responsible for Wu’s safety.
These two men were also polite, and as the first pair melted away back into the crowd, Cole’s new escorts performed a thorough and professional body search for weapons or anything which might be considered inappropriate — a recording device, for instance. They first of all cast the metal-detecting wand over him, and then went hands-on. Of course they found nothing, as there was nothing to find; Cole was going to kill Wu with his bare hands.
‘Okay,’ said one of the men, again with good English, ‘follow me please.’
He led off, the crowd separating for him immediately as they saw his assault rifle, creating a clear path for them. Cole noted how the second man slotted in behind him, so that he was trapped between the two of them.
They walked northwest on the path that followed the five-meter-high walls of the Round City, until they came to the colorful stone archway that marked the entrance to Yong An Bridge, a beautiful, multiple-arch construction built in the thirteenth century.
Another pair of soldiers nodded to Cole’s escorts as they passed through the archway onto the bridge, and Cole continued to take in his surroundings as he went, eyes scanning and recording the images. He took note of where the guards were, pleased to see that the latest report from Liu was perfectly correct: where all the different buildings were, where different kinds of people were grouped within the crowds — families, couples, teenagers, business people — all in case he had to make an emergency tactical withdrawal.
He wasn’t overly worried — he had an appointment with Wu after all, he had no weapons, and his method of execution was so effective mainly because it was undetectable. Like he had in his countless mental rehearsals, he fully expected to get the job done and then simply be escorted back out of the park, with nobody any the wiser. And even when the general collapsed an hour later, his heart given out completely, nobody would ever suspect that it had been something to do with the foreign businessman he had met earlier.
They passed underneath the next colorful archway, signaling their arrival onto the Jade Flower Islet, the thirty-six meter tall White Dagoba dominating the scene, perched on top of the islet’s central hill.
Cole had learnt from Liu that while most of the islet was open to the public, the northern section where White Dagoba Hill descended back down to the lakeside was closed off and reserved for Wu De and the other generals and aides from his military government.
But as they marched across the path leading east around the base of the hill, Cole noted that security was tighter over the whole island than it had been on the mainland side; picnickers and revelers were being much more closely monitored here, by a much larger guard force. Cole took in each and every detail — faces, weapons, positions, movements — as he followed the lead soldier towards the northern shoreline.
The eastern side was much quieter than the west, Cole observed, but that was only to be expected — the dragon boat races would occur towards the northern and western sides of the lake, so people on the east side of White Dagoba Hill would see nothing. But from his brief glance westwards from the memorial archway, he could see that the entire western side of the island was already too saturated with people to contain any more. New arrivals were therefore being ushered eastwards, where a myriad of stalls selling the ubiquitous zongzi rice and xionghuang wine had been set up to assuage the disappointment of missing the races. As a result, they were doing a thriving business with the latecomers, who sat, chatted, ate and drank all around the small, wooded island.
The general and his entourage, Cole knew, were located in the Long Corridor, stretched out across the northern shore. Based on the corridor in Jiangtian Temple in Zhenjiang, Jiansu Province, the Long Corridor was an exquisite architectural marvel. Three hundred meters long, the corridor building was open to the lakeside at the front and enclosed by latticed windows at the rear, and was painted in red and decorated with the most beautiful multicolored embellishments across its entire length. It had two levels, and according to Liu, Wu would be on the second floor, centrally located in an upper pavilion that would provide perfect views of Beihai Lake and the dragon boat races. And — perhaps more importantly from a public relations perspective — it would also give the crowds a perfect view of the general, who would no doubt be resplendent in full uniform and battle honors.
It wasn’t long before the path they were on met the eastern end of the Long Corridor, and Cole could immediately see that security was taken a lot more seriously here. The entrance to the corridor had a six-man team guarding it, with sentries and look-outs positioned through the tree-clad hills surrounding the area.
The soldier who had asked for Cole’s passport handed it over to the commander of the guard team, explaining who Cole was in another burst of Cantonese. The man looked at the passport of Dietrich Hoffmeyer, looked at Cole, and nodded once. Immediately, two men moved in to search him again — as if he would have had a chance to obtain a weapon somewhere between the South Gate and here, ensconced between two armed soldiers. But Cole admired their professionalism — the fact was that he could have if he’d needed to, and it was good practice of the guards to check.
Deemed clean once again, Cole entered the Long Corridor with his two escorts, passing by the guards, the footsteps of his leather-soled shoes click-clacking across the ancient stone floor. They rounded a corner, the corridor descending downwards towards the northern shore, the steps worn smooth by the passage of millions of pairs of feet over hundreds of years.
But before they got as far as the shoreline, they reached a pair of guards who — at a signal from the man in front of Cole — opened a recessed door hidden within the latticework of the left-hand wall.
The man behind Cole ushered him through after the first soldier, and he found himself in a hidden stairwell which led to the second level. They emerged onto the upper corridor, another recessed door held open for them by another pair of guards.
They carried on walking, rounding another bend which led finally to the main length of the corridor, facing the northern side of the lake. As Cole marched down the open corridor, he looked out across the lake, seeing the thousands of people on the far side. Boats were already in the lake, the teams warming up for the big event. He could hear the cheering all the way across the lake.