“That asshole! I’ll kill him!”
“No,” Jill hissed. “That’s nice. I like it when a guy says I’m pretty. Now, is there something you want or are you here just to ruin my sleep?”
There was another long pause. She could tell that he was struggling to keep his voice steady as he swore at someone away from the phone, presumably Tao. He had that habit when he lost his temper.
Finally, he got back on the line. “Actually, we have a lead. There’s a Genjix op in the Kaohsiung province of Taiwan. It’s a massive harbor though, and too large for us to reconnoiter. Can you cross-reference the port with known Genjix companies?”
A Genjix trade operation in Taiwan? We assumed all the major ports would be on the main land. We have been looking in the wrong place.
Jill was wide awake now. “That’s a bit broad. It’ll take some time. Any luck with Dylan?”
“Not a clue. Been poking around the underbelly of the island. For a guy who sticks out like a sore thumb, he pulled off an amazing disappearing act. Can you check for me? I don’t want to direct my team down there without getting some intel first.”
“Sure,” Jill got up and threw on a bathrobe. She was all business now. “I’ll dig around and get back to you.” She paused. “And take care of yourself. Cam still needs a father.”
“Don’t worry about me, hon. And you tell that dick Marco that if-”
Jill hung up the phone.
“Baji, how’re the trade barriers in Taiwan?”
They are an ally of the United States. Barriers are negligible. This could be a major development. Dylan might have stumbled onto the Genjix’s workaround to the sanctions.
Jill went to the living room and rummaged through several of her files. Twenty minutes later, after skimming through a large stack of US Department of Commerce reports, she jotted down several notes regarding the trade policies and programs, as well as companies that traded heavily with Taiwan that had suspected ties to the Genjix.
“There are hardly any trade restrictions with Taiwan. It’s an open door.”
The Genjix must have infiltrated the island after we pulled out. This could be our trade leak. We have been looking in the wrong places all this time.
She checked the time and called up Tammy, ignoring her assistant’s groan of indignation as she ordered several more reports prepared by the time she got into the office. Then she set up an appointment with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Trade. If the trade list was expanded to Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, there was suddenly a frightening list of materials that could pose a serious threat to the Prophus after all.
NINETEEN
AMBUSH
I was in the first wave sent to test these new evolved creatures. Several hundred of us migrated our primate hosts into their valleys and joined Cro-Magnon tribes. Another wave was sent to various Neanderthal tribes. It was then that I realized the potential of this new species.
To this day, an argument still rages about whether the Neanderthal or the Cro-Magnon was worthier of being raised. Make no mistake; it was the Quasing who raised your forbearers. We were your evolution. That decision, though, did not come without conflict.
Tao
That is your third bowl. Stop eating.
“You know what, Tao? I have a new rule. As long as I have a six pack, I can eat as much as I want.”
You have not had a six pack in four years. And when you did, you kept it for less than a week.
“You know what, Tao? As long as I have a four pack, I can eat as much as I want.” Roen reached out with his chopsticks and picked up a piece of blood pork sausage for emphasis. This stuff was damn good. Over the past three weeks, he had learned the secret of cuisine on the island. The people of Taiwan cared little for aesthetically pleasing food. Half the stuff he’d eaten looked downright indigestible – stuff that Jabba the Hutt ate. The other half looked like it would leap off the table and eat him. After the first week, he had overcome his fear of ugly food and now tried every morsel of Taiwanese food he could get his hands on. He was rarely disappointed.
We did not come all this way for you to could dim sum your way to obesity again. When this is all over, you are going back on the regiment.
The consensus was that Ahfu was best hole-in-the-wall restaurant in all of Taipei. Roen knew that to be a fact because there was a sign in front of the restaurant declaring just that. And after discovering this little gem in a side street off the market and eating three meals a day there every single day, Roen wholeheartedly agreed with the assessment.
The restaurant was in a rickety wooden building that defied gravity just by standing up. The walls were a patchwork of metal, wood, and flaking paint that probably violated a dozen health codes. But the dumplings were delicious, the taro puffs were spectacular, and the sesame balls were… Roen had no words to describe how good they tasted. There was this sticky rice wrapped in khaki green bamboo leaves that could cause world peace.
You can start your new job on the Food Network another time. We have work to do.
Roen reluctantly agreed. Faust and Wuehler sat across from him at the wobbly table. Faust had discovered this gem of culinary mastery with Roen, and the two single-handedly kept the place in business. At first, Wuehler objected to planning in a public place. Then he tasted their pork buns. Now, he held all their meetings here. Today, they had the restaurant to themselves except for an elderly woman sitting in the corner drying bamboo leaves on a small line hanging from the wall. Roen suspected she lived in the back, seeing how she was there every time they came.
“Taipei’s a dead end,” Faust was saying. “Almost a month; not a trace. Not one hit at the other safe houses and nothing from the locals.” It was shocking that Dylan had somehow not registered a blip here. Roen was now entertaining the possibility that his friend had died. “You’d think he’d meet up with one of our established contacts,” Roen mused.
“Except one’s dead, one is senile, and the last one is a double agent,” Wuehler remarked. “I wouldn’t risk those odds either if I were him.”
“Wait, we’ve got a double agent on the payroll? Why are we putting up with this? Hell, let’s go take him out.” Roen complained with his mouth full. “After dinner, that is.”
“Because the others are dead and senile,” Wuehler repeated.
We have too few eyes on here as it is. Better to receive information we don’t trust than to receive nothing at all.
Roen shook his head. “I make minimum wage, and we’re paying double agents? We need to vote in fresh blood in Command.”
Faust raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know we were a democracy. In that case, I’d like to be Secretary of Transportation. My campaign motto will be ‘No more flying coach.’”
Roen gave him a thumbs up. “Got my vote there.”
Wuehler threw up his hands. “Do we have any leads at all?” His frustrations would have seemed more impactful if he didn’t have a pair of chopsticks in one hand and a steamed bun in the other. “What about the escape pod debris? Anything worth sifting through? They did find one intact.”
Faust shook his head. “Quarantined by the police. The closest Ashish got to it was two hundred meters when they dragged it to shore to repaint.”
“Why would they do that?” Wuehler frowned.
Faust grinned. “I believe that escape pod has been officially drafted into the Taiwanese navy.”
“Maybe if we redirect our focus away from Taipei…” Wuehler said.