He wondered if she really was in there. A Directorate mini-drone on an automated-presence patrol had recorded her walking down the street and entering the small wooden building. The drone’s small size limited its onboard processing, meaning that it had to send its video feed back for analysis as it continued on its sweep. Carrie Shin’s facial-recognition match had come seven minutes later, which was a lifetime in a hunt.
He needed to talk to her. If anyone was worth understanding in this war, it was her. What did he hope to find? That they were alike? Hunters, both of them?
Markov stepped out of the Geely sedan, keeping the vehicle between him and the target. The Directorate commandos crouched behind their civilian-style Great Wall pickups looked tense. They’d better be, he thought, they’re about to raid a church.
“Everyone ready?” said Markov. “And remember, Carrie Shin comes to us alive. You know what she looks like.” He paused and tapped the sizable opaque visor atop the assault helmet he wore. “I’ll be in on the tac-view with you, so cue her up on contact.”
“All are in position, sir,” said one of the commandos. “We’ll await your go order.”
Before Markov could respond, squealing tires made the men twitch, and the entire assault force turned and trained their weapons on the oncoming vehicle. It was a convoy of armored Geely SUVs, bookended by two APCs. The men noticed the flags flying from the front fenders of the third vehicle.
Of course, General Yu would want everyone to know it was him, confusing personal bravery with stupidity. The faint rhythmic thumping of attack helicopters circled overhead. A platoon of bodyguards exited and took up positions as General Yu jumped out of his vehicle, waving his pistol in the air like he was leading a cavalry charge. One of his aides knelt a few feet away, filming the general from below, which was meant to make the man look even taller in the video clips sent back home. He truly was a giant, the kind that didn’t bother to think about where he stepped.
“Colonel, get everyone back. Across the street,” said Yu, taking charge of the scene as if it were his birthright, his command voice sounding like he was about to lead an army of thousands into battle.
“Sir, the men are already in position,” said Markov. The general looked down at the cameraman and scowled, putting away his pistol. Markov looked at him innocently and asked, “Would you like to give the attack order, General?”
“No, Colonel. I said pull them back. We’re going to destroy the entire nest. My dead boys deserve their due,” said General Yu. Then a helicopter pilot’s voice came over the headsets of the assembled commandos.
“This is Green Dragon Six. Target acquired, engaging in thirty seconds,” he said.
“General, I must strongly advise against this,” said Markov. “We need her alive. We need to know what she’s done. Does she have a network? Is she operating alone? What are her ties to the insurgents? I need to speak with her. If you blow everything from here to Shanghai, we lose that chance.”
“I don’t need to know. I don’t need a date,” said Yu. “The threat needs to be eliminated. Entirely. When the smoke clears, we will learn all that we need to know: that she’s dead.”
The thumping approach of the attack helicopter changed pitch as it began to dive toward the church.
“This will only backfire in publicity terms, flattening a church so soon after the school raid killed all those children. We’re going to lose the entire population. You don’t kill like this, not for one person. That’s a card the losing side plays.”
“It’s not for one person. It’s for the twenty-one boys of mine she butchered. I am not writing another damned letter because of her. And what happened at that school is exactly why we’re not going to go in and lose any more of my men. You wanted me to understand the foe? Well, they need to understand me,” said General Yu.
Markov tried to shout a further protest, but nothing could be heard over the deafening arrival of the twin-engine helicopter.
He cast a glance at the church and watched a young girl, maybe thirteen years old, towing two small toddler boys from an outbuilding and into the main parish hall, seeking its sanctuary. As they entered the wide wooden doors of the church, one of the little boys looked back at them and stared at the hovering helicopter until he was pulled inside.
Markov turned to confront Yu and saw that the man had already clambered back inside the SUV, which was now pulling off in reverse. He slapped the side of the vehicle’s window in anger. At least the general would hear that.
One after the other, two missiles flashed from beneath the helicopter’s stunted wings. All Markov could do was quickly duck behind the nearest pickup for cover. He sat facing down the street they’d driven up, turned away from the explosions erupting behind him. He’d seen so much carnage before in war, but for some reason this time he couldn’t watch. There was no point. The hunt had been lost, the lessons he’d learned over his career of no value to anyone.
Research Facility 2167, Shanghai
The fact that he couldn’t feel the drill going into the back of his skull made the noise all the more terrifying.
Sechin’s eyes darted around the room. He tried to turn his head, but he couldn’t move. A computer display in front of him was all that he could see; the screen showed a surgeon drilling into a shaved skull. A puff of bone dust smoked up from the metal boring through the skull on the screen. Then the screen itself was covered with a fine white powder that wafted in from behind him. His vision blurred as some of the powder fell in his eyes. He tried to blink but couldn’t. Someone outside his field of view squirted a liquid into his eyes and dabbed the corners as the liquid dripped out.
A second and third time, the drill bored through the skull on the video screen, sending more puffs of bone dust wafting over. He wanted to close his eyes to stop watching, but he couldn’t. After the second squirt of liquid into his eyes, he realized it was because his eyelids were no longer there. He couldn’t do anything, in fact, but watch as the surgeon began to insert thin fiber-optic wires into the three holes in the skull. He knew the wires were filled with over five hundred electrodes, each as thin as a human hair, that would link with the electromagnetic signals of his brain’s neurons.
The surgeon, if one could call him that, then disappeared from the computer screen. Sechin heard the sound of metal wheels scraping on the tile floor, coming closer. Then the surgeon was there in front of him, pushing a cart with a small box on top, fiber-optic wires stretching out from it and wrapping around the back. Also on the cart were two robotic hands; other wires linked them to the box.
Sechin knew who the man was even before he removed his surgical mask.
“General Sechin, it is a pleasure to meet you.” Dr. Qi Jiangyong stood with the practiced upright posture of a university lecturer, which he had been before his neuroscience research had led him to be reassigned to the Public Security Ministry.
Sechin didn’t reply; he was trying to take his mind elsewhere, lock his thoughts away in a place of complete intensity beyond, just as they’d taught him in training. He thought of Twenty-Three’s touch, losing himself in the exact moment of his imagined release.