Hong Kong (15 page)

When power was finally restored from the main feeds, the computers still refused to work. The airline companies' reservations computers, fax machines, and Internet terminals seemed to be working fine, but the airport had ceased to function.

The technicians in the Hong Kong harbormaster's office were also having problems. The radars that kept track of the myriad of ships, barges, tugs, and boats of every kind and description in Victoria Harbor and the strait were working, but the computer that processed the information and presented it to the harbor controller was no longer able to identify or track targets. When the technicians tried the backup computer, they found it had a similar disease.

The people who had caused these problems sat and stood in front of the computer monitors at Third Planet Communications in a merry mood. Someone opened a bottle of Chinese wine, which they drank from paper cups.

The virus programs they had written and loaded on the affected computers seemed to be working perfectly. As Cole explained to Wu and Kent all those months ago, "Remember the chaos that was supposed to happen when Y2K rolled around, and didn't? We must make it happen now. Revolutions are about control, which is essence of power: We must take control away from the Communists. When the Communists lose their power they lose their leadership mandate. It's as simple as one, two, three."

Tonight Cole told Wu, "The revolution has begun." He shook hands all around and headed for the door with a light step. Tomorrow would be a hell of a day and he needed some sleep.

Tommy Carmellini hailed a taxi in front of the consulate. The driver took him back to his hotel via the Cross-Harbor Tunnel, creeping along through the blacked-out city with a solid stream of cars and trucks.

The rear door of the hotel was locked. To discourage thieves, no doubt, Carmellini thought as he opened it with a pick. The job took less than a minute. With the electricity off, of course there was no alarm when the door opened. There wouldn't have been an alarm even if the power had been on—the door wasn't wired, a fact Carmellini had ascertained fifteen minutes after he checked into the place.

He went up the back stairs and carefully unlocked his room. A old-fashioned metal key, thank God, because the card scanners in use at the new hotels would not be working, leaving all the patrons locked out of their rooms.

No one was in the room waiting for him.

Carmellini changed into black trousers, a long-sleeved dark shirt, and tennis shoes. The equipment from the consulate went into a knapsack, as did a roll of duct tape, a small flashlight, a glass cutter, a few small hand tools, and an extensive assortment of lock picks: everything necessary for a quiet night of burglary.

Kerry Kent lived in an apartment house on a side street off Nathan Road, a mile or so north of the Star Ferry landing at Tsim Sha Tsui. The building was about ten stories high, filled the block, and was ten or fifteen years old, Tommy Carmellini thought.

The street was unnaturally quiet. A few people were up and about at two in the morning, but without electrical power to drive the gadgets,

the night was very still. Carmellini could hear traffic on Nathan Road and, from somewhere, the rumble of a train.

He checked the scrap of paper where he had written the apartment number.

Kent's pad should be on the seventh floor, he decided, and went into the building to examine the apartment layout. The elevators weren't working so he climbed the dark staircase. Okay, the first floor was the one above the ground floor, so she would be on the eighth floor.

He walked along the hall until he found the apartment that corresponded to hers, which was twenty-seven.

Back outside on the sidewalk he examined the windows and balconies, counted upward. Okay, Kent's was the balcony with the two orange flowerpots and the bicycle chained to the rail.

He stood on the sidewalk just a moment, adjusting his backpack, listening, looking....

When he was sure no one was observing him, Tommy Carmellini leaped from the sidewalk and grasped the bottom of the wrought-iron slats in the railing on the first-floor balcony. He could tell by the feel that the iron was rusty. Would it hold his weight?

Using upper-body strength alone, he drew himself up to the edge of the balcony floor and looked. And listened.

When he was convinced it was safe, he pulled himself up hand over hand until he could hook a heel over the rail, which squealed slightly in protest.

In seconds he was balanced on the rail, still listening....

He straightened, examined the underside of the floor of the balcony above him. He reached up for the rails, grasped them, and gradually gave them his weight, making sure the slats and railings were not too rusty or broken.

Up the side of the building he went, floor by floor, silently and quickly. Two minutes after he left the street, he was crouched on Kerry Kent's balcony examining the door, which was ajar. For ventilation, probably, since the night was warm and pleasant. As he listened for sounds from inside the apartment, he examined the windows of the apartments across the street, looking for anyone who might have watched him climb the side of the building.

Only when he felt certain that he was unobserved did he remove two tiny remote microphones, bugs, from his backpack, and a roll of

duct tape. Using a knife, he trimmed two pieces of tape about two inches long from the roll and stuck them on the front of his shirt, where they were accessible. Then he returned the knife and tape roll to the backpack.

Due to the low probability that Kent routinely swept for bugs, these would transmit to a recorder as long as their batteries lasted, a time frame that depended on how many hours a day noise was generated in the apartment. They should last a couple of weeks if she didn't watch too much television or leave the radio on continuously. Months if electric power wasn't restored to the building.

The recorder had to be nearby, outside if possible, where Carmellini could get at it without too much effort. He planned to find a place to install it after he got the microphones in place.

Just to be on the safe side, he removed the backpack, which contained the burglary tools he wouldn't need since she left the sliding glass door ajar, and placed it on the floor out of his way.

Now he got to his feet, crouched to present as small a silhouette as possible to any casual observer, and inched the door open with his latex-clad fingertips. Applying steady pressure, he got the door moving and kept it moving, as slowly as possible.

When he had it open enough, about fourteen inches, Carmellini stood, turned sideways, and stepped in.

Moonlight was the only illumination. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom Carmellini could see that the apartment consisted of just one room and a bath. The kitchen area, a sink and stove, was located in the inside corner of the room to the right of the door. The area to the left of the door was the bathroom. The rest of the apartment, which was about the size of a standard American motel room, contained a Western-style bed, a few chairs, and a dresser. A television sat atop the dresser. Posters of famous paintings adorned the walls.

And in the bed, asleep apparently, were Kerry Kent... and a man. From this angle Carmellini could see only his hair—the man appeared to be Chinese. Kent's bare leg stuck out from under the sheet and light blanket that covered them.

Carmellini stood in the darkness listening. Heavy, deep, rhythmical breathing.

From where he was standing he examined the apartment, looking for a place for the bugs.

The head of the bed certainly looked inviting. It was some kind of wooden latticework; he could reach in and stick a bug on the back of the top of the headboard. It should be out of sight there and safe enough, unless someone moved the bed and examined the headboard.

The other one ... perhaps under the bedside nightstand that held the telephone.

The decisions made, Tommy Carmellini stepped forward with bugs and tape ready.

Like a silent shadow he moved to the edge of the bed and bent down. He reached up under the nightstand and was affixing the first bug when Kerry Kent's deep breathing stopped.

She was facing away from him, thank God, but she might turn over.

He froze.

Yes, she was turning toward him. He waited until she had completed her move and was breathing regularly again, then he felt to make sure the tiny transmitter's antenna was hanging down freely. It was. Now he slowly stood, staying perfectly balanced, moving at the speed of a glacier, making no noise at all.

To get the other bug behind the headboard meant that he had to reach across her, above her face, and put it in place without jiggling the headboard in any way, for the movement of the headboard would be transferred to the bed.

He didn't let his limbs come to a stop but stayed fluidly in motion, each move thought out and planned so that he stayed balanced on both feet.

He got the tape, with the bug in the center of it, in the proper position and pressed firmly so that it would stick to the wood. The antenna seemed to be hanging in place behind one of the lattices.

He had pulled his arm back and was ready to turn when her breathing changed abruptly and she awoke. One second she was asleep, the next she was awake. Just like that.

Carmellini stood frozen. He was about eighteen inches from her head. If she decided to get up to go to the bathroom, this was going to get very interesting.

Can a person feel the presence of another human being, one absolutely silent and motionless?

There are those who swear they can. Tommy Carmellini believed

that some people could, and he stood now willing his heart to beat slowly lest she hear it.

For the first time he was also aware of the faint voices and traffic rumble that could be heard through the open balcony door, which had of course been almost closed before he arrived. Would she notice the noise? Or the coolness of the night air?

She turned in bed again, rubbed against the sleeping man.

Oh, great! She'll wake him!

She mumbled something in Chinese ... and the man stirred.

He turned, put his arm around her.

Seconds passed, his breathing deepened.

Tommy Carmellini realized he was sweating. Perspiration was trickling down his nose, down his cheeks. He dared not move-----

If I don't relax, she's going to smell me!

The seconds dragged. She adjusted her position in the bed ... and finally, little by little, her breathing slowed and grew deeper.

Carmellini began moving toward the open door. He didn't walk, he flowed, gently, steadily, smoothly-----

On the balcony he debated if he should close the door. If it made a noise now ... no! The risk was too great.

After scanning the other balconies and the apartment buildings across the street to ensure he didn't have an audience, Carmellini went over the rail. He leaned back, checked the balcony below as best he could, then lowered himself onto the railing. Balancing carefully, he released his grip on the wrought-iron slats above and coiled himself to go down another floor.

In half a minute he was standing on the street. He was wiping his hands on his trousers when the electrical power was restored to the neighborhood, bringing the lights on. Televisions and radios that had been on when the power failed blared into life.

What is it his mother used to say? "You're going to get caught, Tommy, one of these days. Sneaking around like you do ain't Christian. People'll get mean when they catch you sneaking, one of these days."
One of these days,
he thought.
But not today.
He began looking for a place where he could hide the recorder. As Tommy Carmellini walked south on Nathan Road toward his hotel, a van whipped to the curb and a man jumped out with a bundle

of paper in his arms. He put the stack on top of a newspaper dispenser, cut the plastic tie that bound it together, then got back in the van, which rocketed off down the street.

Carmellini paused by the stack and took a sheet off the top. A flyer of some type. In Chinese, of course.

He folded it and put it in his pocket.

Wonder what that is all about?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Governor Sun Siu Ki didn't have newspapers to worry about this morning; he had shut down the politically incorrect rags and jailed the editors. No, the rag du jour was a flyer that had been distributed by the tens of thousands throughout the Special Administrative Region, the old colony, of Hong Kong.