THE FLENSE: China: (Part 3 of THE FLENSE serial) Page 2

  "Shut up!"

  He hurried away from her and out of sight, but she could hear him shuffling around on the opposite side of the room. Water ran into the sink. She realized she'd gotten under his skin with mention of the infection.

  "You were at the crash site, weren't you?" she asked. She knew she was pushing her luck again, but she doubted he'd do much worse than kick her. He might get angry enough to break a rib, but he wouldn't kill her just for talking.

  You hope.

  "Those hazard suits you were wearing wouldn't have protected you against a biological agent."

  "Quiet," he growled.

  "Which one were you, the flamethrower? Crane operator? I hope for your sake you weren't one of the men walking around on the ground, searching through the dirt. All that exposure, at such proximity—"

  He suddenly appeared around the bench, though he didn't look as upset as she expected. "You would've been exposed, too." He studied her face, and a smile began to crease his lips. "I knew it! How stupid could you be to leave your coat where someone might find it? It's like you were begging to be found."

  She met his gaze with as much defiance as she could muster, but she didn't reply.

  "I'm only going to ask you this once more," he told her, the smile evaporating just as quickly as it had appeared. "Who else knows you're here?"

  "Everyone. I sent a video of what you people were doing onto the internet. You should check. I'm sure it's trending right now on Twitter."

  His face blanched for a moment, but that was the extent of his physical reaction. "And your partner?" he asked. "Where is she? The other woman?"

  Angel couldn't help it. She jolted in surprise, and the smile returned. He stood up again, nodding. "We know where she's heading. My partner went after them. Yeah, we know she took that American woman from the hospital and are heading south. Where are they going? Chifeng? Our guys will catch up with them there, if not sooner."

  Angel swallowed her surprise, trying not to show her relief. He thought Jamie was on her way to safety with someone else. He didn't even suspect that she was here or that Angel was the one who had rescued her from the hospital. "What do you want with her?" she demanded. "The American. Why the bone?"

  "That's none of your business."

  "She doesn't know anything. She's just a scared little girl who happened to survive a train wreck."

  He was searching through the drawers again. "Oh, I'm sure she knows plenty, being an employee of the company and all. But that's none of my business. My job is to make sure there are no survivors, no witnesses."

  He appeared again, this time with a small piece of laboratory equipment in his hand called a vortex mixer. From Angel's college research experience, she knew that it was quite heavy, being nearly solid cast iron. Nestled inside was a powerful motor that drove a rubber head, causing it to vibrate. The device was used to mix solutions in test tubes. "No survivors," he repeated, and raised it up over her. "No witnesses."

  Angel tried to pull away, expecting the blow, but it never came. Instead, when she opened her eyes again, she saw that he had pulled out a pocketknife and was cutting through the power cord. It fell to the floor next to her face, coiling like an angry snake.

  With a snap, he shut the knife and put it back into his pocket. Then he set the ruined vortex mixer onto the benchtop again. "Feet up!" he ordered. But he knelt down beside her without waiting for her to comply and began to wind the cord around her ankles. Then he wrenched them up and bound them to her wrists. She realized in that moment that escaping out of the bindings would be next to impossible. The power cord wouldn't stretch like the IV tubing would.

  "Please," she begged, "at least remove the other one. It's cutting off my circulation."

  He stood beside her for a moment, then pulled the knife out again. He placed a foot on her back and yanked at her wrists. Pain sliced through Angel's shoulders. Her thighs began to cramp. She felt him cutting through the plastic, grunting as he did. After a moment, a few pieces of the tubing fell to the floor.

  "Now," he said, bending to one knee, "that should hold you while I go check the rest of the building."

  Angel mumbled something into the floor.

  "What's that?" he snarled, bending down closer. "Speak louder!"

  She turned her head toward him. "I said, you should have done that first."

  He frowned at her. But the look was gone a moment later, when the mixer slammed into the back of his head and drove him unconscious to the floor.

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Jamie screamed in pain as she dropped the vortex mixer and clutched at her belly. Even through the loose shirt, Angel could see how distended her stomach had become. She couldn't imagine the willpower it must have taken for her not to cry out in pain while hiding, waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack.

  She collapsed to the floor beside the unconscious man and screamed again. Eventually, the cries turned to sobs. Then those, too, faded.

  "Jamie, can you untie me?"

  "You have to get them out," Jamie whispered. "Please, just get them out."

  Angel struggled with the bindings, but it was no good. The cord simply had no give to it, and her struggling only seemed to be making them tighter. "You've got to untie me, Jamie. I can't get them out myself."

  The man had landed face-first, hitting the tiled floor hard enough to break the skin on his brow. Blood had begun to puddle beneath his cheek. She watched it expand toward his nose, then touch and merge with it. A bubble formed beneath one nostril, popped, formed again.

  All at once, the tension left Jamie's body.

  "Jamie?"

  "I'm . . . here."

  "I can't help you unless you untie me. We need to get out of here before he wakes up. And more men are coming. Jamie?"

  Slowly, painfully, the girl raised herself up off the cold floor. She sat for a moment, swaying, her eyes unfocused. Finally, she nodded. Her lips were badly chapped and tinged gray with severe dehydration and, in that moment, Angel remembered the boys on Huangxia Island, how sickly they had appeared. The breath coming out of Jamie's mouth smelled just as bad as theirs had been.

  Angel urged her on, reminding her that they didn't have much time. And so Jamie tried, taking the most direct route, which was over the man's body. The effort quickly drained her, and she had to rest before resuming.

  At last, the bindings loosened. And then Angel's wrists were free. She straightened her legs, wincing as her thighs cramped up.

  She went straight to the man. A large bump had formed on the back of his head where Jamie had hit him. The skin was broken there, too, though the wound had already begun to clot. He'll live, she thought, but he's going to wake up with a terrible headache and probably a concussion. She didn't intend to be around when that happened.

  She rolled the man onto his side and propped one arm under his head to cradle it. The other she used as a brace to keep him from rolling forward again so he wouldn't suffocate in his own blood or vomit. Then she bent his top leg forward so he wouldn't roll back and choke on his tongue.

  Finally, she stuck his pistol into her own waistband. It was a SIG-Sauer P226. Or a reasonable Chinese clone of one, anyway. She recognized the shape and knew how to fire it, but the markings were different.

  "Let's go. You need a hospital."

  The girl lay still on the floor, her eyes rolled back into her head and her hands held her belly. Another spasm passed through her.

  Angel tried to lift her up, to get her back onto her feet, but she was a dead weight, once more unresponsive and unaware. Blood soaked through the shirt where she'd reopened the wounds on her abdomen.

  Seeing her dead phone on the countertop, Angel dug through the man's pocket and found his. She sent a quick text message to the man who'd called twenty minutes earlier, hoping to delay his arrival. Then she removed the battery, fearing that it might be trackable.

  Finally, she pulled Jamie by her shoulders out of the room, stopping only briefly to question whethe
r she should tie the man up.

  No time! Just get out of here!

  The urge to run was overwhelming, and with Jamie fighting her, the window for escaping was rapidly closing. "Stop second guessing yourself and go!" she hissed.

  She draped the girl's arm over her shoulder and tried to lift her up. After stumbling into the wall, she managed to get them both moving. Jamie bore none of her own weight, but at least her legs were moving instead of dragging behind.

  Out at the car, Angel laid her down on the back seat. Then she jumped into the front and turned the key, which she'd left in the ignition. The gauges woke. Cold air blasted through the vents, still strong with the stink of burning plastic and metal. The starter motor churned. The car rocked as the engine tried to catch. And failed.

  She turned it again, slamming her foot hard onto the gas pedal, pumping. But the result was the same.

  Any moment now, he's going to come through that door!

  She gave the engine one last crank. This time, the starter motor ground to a halt and went silent.

  His car! He must have a car somewhere here!

  "Stay put, Jamie!" she shouted, jumping out. "I'll be right back."

  She sprinted down the length of the building with the berm of rock and dirt on her left. She hadn't seen a car on their way in, so she figured it had to be around the back side. Her feet slipped on the loose gravel, yet she stayed upright.

  The berm dropped away at the corner, opening up a view of the valley below. Sunlight glinted off a tiny stream where it had carved a shallow notch along the bottom. The dark, shiny ribbon of water was bordered by a dense, dark green sedge.

  But there was no car.

  She spun around the corner, resuming her sprint, and reached the next corner fifteen seconds later.

  Debris lay in piles all around, most of it half-overgrown with grass. Beyond them was the hill with the road to the train stop. And there! A hundred meters away, nearly hidden from view, was the car.

  Gasping for air, her head pounding, she ran, slamming into it. She hooked her fingers under the door handle, pulled, slipped, and fell on her ass.

  "What the hell?" she cried, picking herself up. "Who the hell locks their car in the middle of nowhere?"

  She checked the other doors and found them similarly locked.

  When she arrived back at Jian's car, the back seat was empty. All that was left was a small splotch of blood and a trail of it leading to the factory door.

  "Jamie!" Angel cried in frustration. "I told you to stay put!"

  Her fingers slipped over the bloody keypad, hitting the wrong buttons. On the third attempt, she wrenched the door open and stepped in, then made her way quickly over to the inner door. She could hear Jamie screaming in pain on the other side.

  Hands shaking, she carefully pressed the numbers this time, flicked the handle, and stepped through. "I told you—!"

  "Not another step!" The man they'd left behind was awake. He had a hold of Jamie, one arm crooked around her chest, the other up near her throat. He pressed his knife against her neck. "I'll kill her."

  Angel froze. But after seeing how much he was struggling — to hold Jamie up, to focus his eyes — and the amount of blood glistening on his face and shirt, she knew he hadn't fully recovered from the blow. She stepped toward him.

  He jerked the knife. "I said stop!"

  But she had the gun out by then, relieved that it hadn't fallen out of her waistband when she was running.

  An ex-Albanian on the Lyon Police Municipale had once shown her how to fire the P226. He'd had quite the collection of handguns, but the SIG-Sauer was his favorite, as it was the weapon of choice by ECTLO, the counter-terrorist and hostage rescue squad of the French Navy, to which he aspired. "It's big enough for my hands," he'd bragged. "And has no safety." Then he wrapped his beefy arms around her to help her aim. "Big and ready to go. Just like me."

  She had liked the feel of the weight in her hands, though not his arms around her, and despite his clumsy attempts to bed her, he'd never succeeded.

  Angel pointed the gun at the man's head and took a step forward.

  "I told you to stop!" he told her.

  "And if I do, she will die. If I don't, you'll kill her anyway. I have nothing to lose, nor does she. But you . . . ."

  Doubt flickered in his eyes.

  "She needs medical attention. I intend to see that she gets it. Now let her go, and I promise I won't shoot you." She took another step.

  The man pressed the knife deeper into Jamie's neck, stifling her cries. A line of red appeared at the edge of the blade. Angel hesitated.

  "You're not leaving here," the man shouted at her.

  "I am. Please, don't make me shoot you."

  "You're a doctor. You took a vow to do no harm. I'm thinking you won't."

  Angel sighted the gun. Her hand was shaking badly, and she was having trouble breathing. Very little of the man's body was exposed to her. If she missed . . . .

  She took a breath and held it. "You might want to rethink that," she said, and squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Norstrom watched the investigation team spread out over the crash scene. They had all donned white protective suits of thin plastic, which billowed and flapped in the brisk wind. The hoods were pulled up over their heads and cinched tight. None wore masks. Aston had convinced them that there was no risk of toxic exposure, claiming that any hazardous chemicals had already burned away. Norstrom was certain they wouldn't find anything more toxic than diesel, since his team had planted nothing more than that.

  Three cars lay on their sides in a tangled mess, including the engine, and the men were beginning to work their way around and through them, photographing the scene from every possible angle on the ground for their analysis. One man was preparing a large copter drone to get views from the air, but it didn't look like he'd be able to fly it in this stiff of a breeze.

  The cars appeared to have been torn open by the force of the crash. Their contents lay strewn over the ground. Most of it — junk — was burnt beyond recognition, just piles of molten plastic and twisted metal and ashes. Two more cars, still partially intact, rested upright on their wheels. Norstrom's men had filled them with crates of cheap computer casings and useless components. Those were for show. They had made it appear as if the blaze had gone out before it could destroy the entire lot. After all, there had to be something for the team to find.

  But there would be nothing else, and that was the point. Just what the company wanted the investigators to see and nothing more. No fancy staging. The simpler the scene, the faster the agents would reach the desired conclusion, that this was nothing more than an unfortunate accident caused by an act of—

  man

  —nature. They would conclude that the train traveling along this section of rail would have been going full speed, somewhere just north of eighty miles an hour. It hit a gap where the track had become displaced by ground swell. It derailed, crashed, burned. All five men, the standard crew complement for a freight train of this size, would have died immediately upon impact. All of the bodies were burnt beyond forensic identification.

  The desired conclusion, with no room for any other interpretation.

  But now, Norstrom wasn't so sure he wanted them to reach it so quickly. He almost hoped the investigator would find something else, something . . . suspicious.

  A mercenary with a conscience? Aston's voice mocked. Second guessing yourself now? Isn't it a bit late for that?

  He dropped his eyes to the second text message he received from his man at the factory. It said that the reporter had escaped, though didn't describe how. She was heading for Chifeng, and he was in hot pursuit. He'd report back when the situation was back under control.

  Norstrom rubbed his cheek, hoping to massage that nagging twitch out of it. He would be glad when this job was over. It just kept getting worse and worse. If he had known it was going to be like this when he signed on . . . .

 
; What? Would you have done anything differently?

  He sighed and shook his head at himself.

  Aston was going over the materials manifest with the lead investigator, their heads bowed over the clipboard trying to block out the wind. The agent didn't seem to be very pleased about something. He spoke in a loud, clipped voice to his translator, giving Norstrom the impression that he wasn't buying Aston's explanations.

  All three men looked up as he approached. Relief flushed over Aston's face. He took the opportunity to change the subject, introducing Norstrom as his assistant. Norstrom shook hands with Agent Jingping and the translator, a short, plump fellow by the name of Andrew Tan, who had unusually large hands and ears for his stature.

  "Can you run Mister Jingping through this?" Aston asked.

  Norstrom shook his head. "I'd like to. But I just received a call about the reporter."

  Aston's eyes widened. "Oh?"

  "Seems she was held up in Immigration."

  Mister Tan relayed the message.

  "I offered to . . . meet her in Chifeng." He made a show of checking the time on his phone. "I'll need to leave now if I'm to rendezvous with her." He gave Aston a pointed look. "That'll save her an unnecessary trip out here. You don't need her getting into the middle of—"

  "Mister Jingping says he will like to speak with her," Mister Tan interrupted.

  "No no! She'll just get in the way, contaminate the scene," Aston replied. "Maybe tomorrow?"

  Once more, the exchange was translated. Mister Jingping stared at Aston for several seconds without giving any clue to his thoughts. Then he turned back to the manifest and grunted something incoherent, after which he spun on his heels and headed over to his team. He began shouting orders and gesturing. Mister Tan stumbled after him.

  "That guy's a real hard ass," Aston growled. "Are you really going to meet her in Chifeng?"