“Then she will die.”
Millie pulled up to the high-rise to which Arrow had directed her, located at the end of the strip near the more naturalistic area of Coloane Village. The exterior looked to be made entirely of windows so that every unit boasted an uninterrupted grand view, one of the many luxuries the building afforded.
The men she’d brought with her were quiet and deferential, but she knew they were capable of taking on anything they faced on their way up to the penthouse. As Millie conversed with the driver of the SUV about where to park to make sure they could get in and out as quickly as possible, the other three agents went around to the back of the SUV. Two of them grabbed assault rifles, and the other grabbed a shotgun. Millie also took a shotgun, and the four of them entered the building. Obviously having been appraised of their imminent arrival, the guard at the desk waved the party through and gave Millie the code for the elevator to access the penthouse.
“Mr. Donaldson says hello,” the guard said.
“I’m sure he does,” Millie said.
She knew it was not a casual greeting, but rather one more way for Arrow Donaldson to show her he was watching.
The elevator zipped Millie and her team quickly to the top of the building, and as they exited onto the penthouse floor, Millie suddenly felt very vulnerable. The walls were all glass. While others might find the views awe-inspiring, Millie merely felt exposed.
Millie hurried everyone off the elevator and toward the entrance of the penthouse. Li Feng answered on the second knock and Millie pushed everyone quickly inside. She was pleased to find that the apartment had dark drapes pulled down over all the windows. Li Feng was dressed in the same long, dark coat and dark hat and sunglasses she’d been wearing when she had been whisked away by Arrow right after her arrival. Millie let her breath return to normal speed and she relaxed her muscles. Maybe, for once, something would go as smoothly as planned.
While Li Feng gathered her luggage, the agent in the polo shirt came over to Millie with a concerned look on his face.
“This doesn’t feel right,” he said, looking back toward the bedroom where Li Feng was visible in the doorway. After briefly greeting her CIA protectors, the soft-spoken woman had told them she’d be ready in a few minutes, and asked them to be seated while she finished getting ready. None of them took her up on the offer of hospitality.
“I looked at every photo I could find of Li Feng when I got assigned to this detail, so I could get a feel for her. See if I could spot any patterns or vulnerabilities.”
“That’s good work. I did the same thing.”
“Then you see it, too?”
Millie paused to consider.
“She seems a bit off from how the file describes her,” Millie said after a moment. “But this is a stressful situation for her, and people don’t always act the same under stress.”
“Li Feng has been under stress most of her life. This kind of stuff is barely a blip in her day.”
Millie nodded along as Mike talked. She was growing more concerned, and frustrated that she hadn’t been confident enough in herself to do something about it before a man called it to her attention.
“You’re right. I noticed it, too, but wasn’t sure it was a big deal.”
“I don’t believe the woman in that bedroom is Li Feng.”
16
Bingo was still planning how to spend his bonus when the security guard from Arrow Donaldson’s condo building called to let him know that the Americans had arrived and were on their way up to the penthouse to get Li Feng.
Li Feng.
The woman whose family was as responsible as the Chinese government for what had happened to his wife, and led him to working for a man like Ziggy Peng. After the government had murdered his lead programmer on the deepfake video app team, they sent Bingo’s wife to a work camp — and threatened to do the same to Bingo unless he agreed to go undercover to stop the Americans from recruiting high-level spies with gambling addictions. They put him in touch with Arrow Donaldson, who pawned him off on Ziggy Peng to do the dirty business they didn’t want to be traced back to themselves.
Bingo thought of his wife, ripped away from their house in the middle of the night. Later he’d found out from Arrow Donaldson that the real reason the government punished him was because he refused to sell his app to QuiTel for peanuts.
He would use his bonus from killing the American woman and attacking Li Feng to hire an investigator who’d had much success finding people who’d run afoul of the government. Those who survived were mostly dumped into the labor camps that were off the grid and so primitively run that Bingo’s hacking skills were useless in tracking her.
Bingo pushed those thoughts out of his head so he could concentrate on the task at hand. First he had to hack into the drone. Fate was with him that day, as the drone was assigned to an aerial patrol route very close to the building where Li Feng was staying, making it easier to reroute its path without too much attention. By the time the person monitoring the drone realized something had gone wrong, Bingo would be done.
As the drone approached the penthouse, Bingo typed in the code to raise the window shades in the entire penthouse. Through the monitor showing the feed from the drone’s camera, Bingo saw the group of Americans scatter. Then he saw Li Feng.
He forgot about the Americans and he forgot about the bonus. All he could think about was the night that his wife disappeared, and the look on her face as the men with guns dragged her out of the apartment. Li Feng had the same look on her face when Bingo pulled the trigger.
Arrow Donaldson had already yanked Millie around once about transferring Li Feng to her custody. She wasn’t going to let him get away with doing it a second time. She didn’t even care that the woman pretending to be Li Feng could overhear her call.
“Is Li Feng with you yet?” Arrow asked by way of greeting.
“The woman in this apartment is dressed like Li Feng, and she says her name is Li Feng, but I don’t—”
“Then your intelligence training should tell you that she is Li Feng.”
“My intelligence training is telling me that you’re lying to me and avoiding transferring Li Feng to my custody once again.”
“I knew you were the wrong person for this job. You can’t even tell a real person from an impostor.”
Determined not to let Arrow get her riled up so she’d say something she’d regret, Millie looked out the window to calm herself — just in time to see a drone buzzing outside. She assumed one of the agents was playing a joke on her and was about to yell at the group when the drone began firing. Millie dove toward the woman posing as Li Feng while one of the agents fired at the drone with an assault rifle.
When the drone finally exploded, Millie waved for the agent to go and track down as much of the drone’s wreckage as he could find. Her attention was focused on the woman bleeding in the middle of the room. Millie wondered if she should call in an emergency response team. But once she was standing over the woman, she realized the woman definitely wasn’t Li Feng, and the woman definitely wasn’t alive.
17
Ziggy Peng hung up with Bingo and wondered what to do with Dale Gai. He was feeling less guilty about hitting her and angrier that she had made him resort to that kind of primal response. Despite his reputation as a violent man, Ziggy Peng didn’t think of himself that way. He didn’t get into fights over petty matters, he didn’t carry grudges, and he took no particular enjoyment in hurting others. In his line of work, violence was often just the only way to solve a problem. Dale Gai was a problem.