Extinction (39 page)

Kirsten selected a blue shirt in her size and brought it to the counter. The woman behind the cash register was Lisu, but she wore a tasteful Western pantsuit, which was another sign of wealth. She gave a start when she saw Kirsten. “Oh my!” she said in heavily accented Mandarin. “What happened to your blouse?”

Kirsten looked down at the bloodstain. “My boyfriend cut my chin. It’s a long story. How much does the shirt cost?”

The shopkeeper narrowed her eyes. Along with her pantsuit, she wore a necklace with a small gold crucifix. A larger cross hung on a door at the back of the shop. Kirsten recalled a pertinent fact about the Lisu: Many of them were Christian. British and American missionaries had trekked to this area in the early 1900s and converted several of the clans.

“That’s one of our better shirts,” the shopkeeper said. “I’d normally charge two hundred yuan, but I’ll let you have it for a hundred and fifty.” She smiled slyly and lowered her voice. “I take American money, too. You can have the shirt for twenty American dollars.”

Kirsten smiled back at her. “Funny that you mention American money. I have a nice pile of it right here.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her roll of hundred-dollar bills. It was much smaller than it was when she’d left the States, but she still had $3,800. “I’m hoping to do some traveling in Burma. Do you know any tour operators?”

The shopkeeper stared at the cash. “I might be able to arrange something. Can I see your identification papers?”

“I don’t have any. Will that be a problem?”

The woman stared at the money for a few more seconds before coming to a decision. “Please wait here,” she said. Then she walked to the back of the shop and went through the door with the large crucifix on it.

While the woman was gone, Kirsten took off her bloodstained blouse and changed into the blue shirt. It was ugly, but it did the job. She was tucking it into her pants when the shopkeeper reappeared, holding the door open. “You can come in,” she said. “My manager wishes to speak to you.”

Without hesitation, Kirsten strode through the doorway. But as soon as she stepped into the back room, two big Lisu men closed the door behind her and grabbed her arms.

They held her still while a third man patted her down and went through her pockets. The thug took her cash, her satellite phone, and Arvin’s flash drive and dumped them all on a desk in the middle of the room. Sitting behind the desk was a fourth man, who was also Lisu but much smaller and older than the other three. His hair was white and his face was wrinkled, but he had lively eyes and perfect teeth. He wore a gorgeously tailored pin-striped suit and a gold chain with a crucifix.

“Hello, Ms. Chan,” he said in English. “How good of you to stop by.”

Startled, Kirsten wondered for a moment if the old man was a Module, despite his full head of hair. But then he held up a sheet of paper, and she saw her own picture on it, and Jim’s as well. It was the same flyer she’d seen in the hands of the police officers in Yichang. Thousands of copies had probably been distributed across the country by now.

“My name is Wang Khaw,” the old man said. He waved the flyer in the air. “I received this yesterday from one of my friends at the Public Security Bureau. They know I do a fair amount of business at the border, so they try to keep me informed.” He tapped a bony finger on the Mandarin text below her photo. “It says here that you’re an intelligence agent for the Americans. Is that true?”

Kirsten nodded. There was no point in lying to the man. The satellite phone was a dead giveaway. She tried to approach Wang’s desk, but the thugs tightened their grip on her arms and pulled her back. “Look, there’s three thousand eight hundred dollars on your desk,” she said. “And that’s just a down payment. If you help me cross the border, I’ll contact the CIA agents in Kachin State and get you some serious cash. Fifty thousand dollars, how does that sound?”

Wang frowned. “Fifty thousand? That’s all? The Ministry of State Security is offering twice as much for you.” He shook his head. “Fortunately for you, Ms. Chan, I’m not interested in money right now. I want information. Specifically, any information you have about the PLA operation that took over my town this afternoon.”

The old man’s face was tense. Kirsten could see why Wang might resent the presence of the Chinese army, which would surely put a damper on his smuggling activities. And because the Lisu of Yunnan Province were close cousins to the Kachin of northern Burma, she supposed that Wang might not like the idea that the PLA was preparing to attack the Kachin militias.

She gave him a sober look. A good intelligence officer, she reminded herself, makes the most of the facts she has. “This deployment is obviously a reaction to what happened at the Three Gorges Dam. The People’s Republic is lashing out at its enemies, and the Kachin rebels are at the top of the list. The Burmese army can’t control Kachin State, so the PLA is going to do the job for them.”

Wang curled his lip. “Is that the best you can do? Telling me what’s obvious?” He raised his voice. “Does the Chinese government really think the Kachin blew up their dam?”

“It doesn’t matter. The PLA sees this as an opportunity to crush the militias once and for all.” Kirsten didn’t know if this was true, but she spoke with the utmost confidence. “There’s been a change in the leadership of the People’s Republic. The Politburo has become more aggressive, and they’ve launched new operations to eliminate their opponents. I’ve been investigating one of those operations, a project named Tài Hé. It’s based near Lijiang, just one hundred and fifty kilometers from here.”

“Go on,” Wang said, leaning back in his chair. “Is Tài Hé connected to the PLA deployment?”

“I believe so. The Politburo is obsessed with keeping the project secret, but I managed to infiltrate one of their computers.” She stepped toward Wang’s desk and this time the thugs let her go. She pointed at Arvin’s flash drive. “All the information is in there. I’m trying to get it to my superiors in Washington. That’s why every policeman in this country is looking for me.”

Wang picked up the flash drive. “And what secret could possibly be so important?”

“Tell me something, Mr. Wang. Have your employees noticed anything strange over the past few months? Any odd gray clouds that hover over the mountains near the border? Clouds that move like swarms of insects?”

It was just a guess. Kirsten had no idea whether the Guoanbu had sent drone swarms to the Burmese border. But it was an educated guess. The section of the border near Pianma was certainly one of the places where the Chinese government would’ve wanted to conduct surveillance operations. And after several seconds of stunned silence, Kirsten realized she’d guessed right. Wang exchanged glances with his thugs, who shifted nervously from foot to foot.

She took another step forward, approaching the edge of Wang’s desk. “Did you see it yourself?”

The old man nodded. “I thought I dreamed it at first. But my men saw it, too.”

“That swarm was part of Tài Hé. They’re insects embedded with antennas and computer chips. For spying on dissidents and enemies of the state. And delivering biological weapons.”

Wang put the flash drive back on his desk and pushed it away as if it was unclean. “It’s the work of the Devil,” he muttered. “An abomination.”

Kirsten looked again at the crucifix hanging from the old man’s neck. “You’re right,” she said. “What they’re doing is satanic. So will you help me stop them?”

He didn’t answer right away. He lowered his head and stared at the floor, deep in thought. The old smuggler was clearly a clever man who didn’t do anything without thinking it through. Kirsten and the three thugs stood there in silence, waiting for him to finish calculating.

By the time Wang finally raised his head, he’d regained his composure. “Business is business,” he said. “As soon as we take you across the border, I want my fifty thousand dollars.”

SIXTY-SEVEN

Jim’s troubles started at the timberline, about a mile and a half from the radio tower. For the past five hours he’d ascended the tree-covered ridges of Yulong Xueshan, taking cover behind the thick summer foliage. But the tower loomed above an alpine glacier at the mountain’s summit, and between this ice sheet and the timberline was a long barren slope littered with loose stones. If he tried to climb this slope, he’d be exposed to the dozens of surveillance cameras that were surely monitoring the area around the tower. He’d lose the element of surprise, which was one of the few things he had going for him.

He lingered at the edge of the woods, unsure what to do. Although it was only 5:00
P.M.
, the sun had already sunk behind the high peaks of the mountain range. He knew that waiting for nightfall wouldn’t help; Supreme Harmony’s surveillance network included infrared cameras, and the thermal image of Jim’s body would shine like a beacon against the cold mountainside. He peered around the trunk of a large pine tree, trying to determine where the cameras were, but he spotted nothing on the bare gray slope above him. Then he saw something move beside another tree at the timberline, a figure in an olive-green uniform, about a hundred yards away. An instant later he heard the rapid-fire bursts from the soldier’s AK-47.

Jim ducked behind the pine trunk as the bullets whistled past. The soldier had to be a Module—his marksmanship was too damn good. The AK rounds slammed into the tree, ripping off slabs of bark and pulp. Jim crouched low and raised his Glock, but he was badly outgunned. When he snaked his prosthesis around the pine to return fire, the barrage from the AK gouged the trunk and showered him with splinters. The Module circled to the right, shooting as he ran, and Jim scuttled around the tree to stay behind cover. Sooner or later, he knew, one of the bullets would hit him. It was just a matter of time.

Thinking fast, he pulled his satellite phone out of his pocket and displayed the image of Medusa on the screen. “All right, I give up!” he yelled. “I’m throwing down my gun.” He tossed aside his Glock, which landed on the pine needles that blanketed the ground. “Now hold your fire! I’m unarmed!”

It was risky. He didn’t know if Supreme Harmony would want to take him alive. But even if it had no interest in incorporating him into its network, he assumed it would want to interrogate him. Out of curiosity, if nothing else. After a few seconds the Module ceased firing, and the woods fell silent.

Jim raised his hands in the air, holding the satellite phone in his prosthesis. Then he stepped out from behind the pine trunk. “Don’t shoot! I have something you want.”

The Module came forward, keeping his AK braced against his shoulder and the muzzle pointed at Jim’s chest. He was thirty feet away, close enough that Jim could see the stitches in the young soldier’s shaved head.

Jim held out his sat phone, making sure the screen was pointed at the Module. “It’s in here,” he said. “The information from Arvin Conway.”

The Module lifted his head from the gun sights and stared directly at the sat phone’s screen. But he kept advancing. The image of Medusa seemed to have no effect on him. He was coming in for the kill.

“No, wait!” Desperate, Jim glanced at his Glock, but it was too far away. The Module would blast him before he could dive for it.

The soldier stepped closer, coming within ten feet. “We’ve confirmed your identity,” he said in perfect English. “You are—”

He stumbled in midsentence. His body went slack, and the momentum of his last step pitched him forward. He dropped the AK and landed face-first in the pine needles.

Jim grabbed his Glock and trained it on the inert Module. The trick had worked, but not as well as he’d hoped. Viewing Medusa from afar hadn’t stopped the Module; apparently, his ocular cameras had to see the image head-on and up close to deliver the correct sequence of data that would shut down the implants. Worse, Jim couldn’t use the trick again. Supreme Harmony would figure out what he’d done and make sure that none of its Modules came too close. The only way to defeat the network was to broadcast the shutdown code from the radio tower, but now he had no hope of surprising Supreme Harmony. The network knew where he was.

Muttering curses, he tucked the Glock in his pants and picked up the Module’s AK-47. Then he started running up the mountainside. Although his plan might be hopeless, he couldn’t turn around. He left the woods behind and climbed the barren slope as fast as he could, leaning forward and pumping his arms.

The cold mountain air seared his lungs. He saw the glacier up ahead, a tattered blanket of dirty ice, ravaged by global warming. Its surface was etched with countless cracks and crevasses, and rivulets of meltwater leaked from its receding edge. Near the mountain’s summit, now less than a mile away, was the radio tower, a steel-lattice antenna rising hundreds of feet above the glacier. The tower’s control station was a simple aluminum-sided trailer resting on the ice sheet next to the antenna’s base. Jim focused all his will on that trailer. It was his goal, his target. He stared so hard at the thing, his eyes watered. Then four figures emerged from behind the trailer, running in lockstep across the ice. Jim could barely see the Modules—they were more than a thousand yards away—but he was willing to bet they carried assault rifles. Although they were beyond the maximum effective range of an AK, they were closing in fast. They’d obviously spotted him.

Jim stopped in his tracks and looked for cover. There was nothing but bare rock to his left and right, and the woods were more than half a mile behind him. But just a hundred yards ahead was the melting edge of the glacier, which rose almost twenty feet above the granite slope. He could take cover behind the wall of ice if he could make it there in time. Summoning all his remaining strength, he dashed toward the glacier’s edge, running headlong toward the Modules. He was dizzy from exhaustion, but he managed to stumble behind the cover of the ice sheet just as the first gunshots echoed against the mountain.

On his hands and knees, he gulped the thin air. The altitude made it excruciating—he was 16,000 feet above sea level and seriously short on oxygen. Once he caught his breath, he surveyed the jagged wall of ice in front of him. A stream of meltwater flowed from a gap in the wall, and the gap led to a crevasse, a trench within the glacier. Jim decided to enter the crevasse and see where it went. It was better than walking on top of the ice sheet, where the Modules could take another shot at him.