Rising Tiger (24 page)

Since Jake had already been to the building, he knew that there was no real security to enter the main structure. Security simply controlled access to the elevators.

As they walked in, Lin led the way at least ten steps ahead, while Jake and Alexandra strolled arm in arm like a couple. An escalator went down and up from the main entrance. If they went down they would be in the mall area with dozens of food venues. Jake guessed they would all be closed at this hour, with the possible exception of Starbucks. The up escalator would bring them to a broad foyer with multiple banks of elevators. They went up.

Traveling up the escalator, Alexandra leaned her head against Jake’s shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he whispered.

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t have taken the nap. I could use some coffee.”

When they got up to the elevator level, Lin took a seat on a chair near the center with a view of the east bank of elevators and pulled out her phone. Jake and Alexandra sat with their backs to Lin.

Jake noticed a lot more activity than he would have expected at this hour. And it was almost all men in dark suits with brief cases. They all could have been part of a clone army, Jake thought.

“What’s with the men in suits?” Jake asked over his shoulder to Lin.

“Those are the general’s men,” she answered. “At this hour they are the second shift going into his hacking center on the same floor as his penthouse. Here we go.”

Jake looked to his right and saw the man he had talked with last week, Chan Le, the head of security. Lin got up and met the man a short distance away. While she asked him for directions, Chan Le slipped something into her pocket. Very smooth. Then she walked off toward the west elevators. Jake and Alexandra sat while the security officer passed them. It was as if he didn’t recognize Jake. A true professional.

Now Jake got up and Alexandra took his hand to do the same, as if a reluctant girlfriend being dragged into a car show.

Jake and Alexandra got to the elevator and streamed in right behind Lin.

Once the door closed, Lin used the card she had gotten from the security officer and then punched in the six-digit code. The lights went from red to green and they were on their way.

“What about the camera?” Jake asked.

“Our friend disabled that one,” Lin responded. “The men you saw going up to work are all software hackers. They work in twelve-hour shifts seven days a week from twelve to twelve. Once they get upstairs, they are required to strip down naked, walk through a security system where they are scanned, and then they put on clean jump suits before sitting down at their stations.

“What do they hack?” Alexandra asked.

“We haven’t been able to pin anything on them,” Lin said. “But we think it’s everything from the world military computers, especially America, but also business rivals.”

“Industrial espionage,” Jake provided.

The door dinged and Jake reached for his gun.

“Not yet, Jake,” Lin said. “This is just the outer corridor.”

Jake’s mind clicked back at the diagram and he knew Lin was right. But he still kept his hand on his gun as the doors opened.

Men in suits streamed from other elevators and funneled into a single door down the corridor. Jake went one way and Alexandra the other. Lin stayed behind to lock both elevators on the 88
^th
floor. She would then hold her position, keeping track of the hackers and their security force.

Jake took a left and wound around through a darker section that looked like it could lead to a steam boiler instead of what had been described as the most lavish penthouse in Taipei. But Lin had gotten that information from two young prostitutes who had been with the general recently. So the intel could be sketchy, he knew.

Taipei 101 was built in a square that stacked up like a child would with blocks. From floors 87 to 92, a 728 ton mass dampen sphere hung in the center like a pendulum keeping the building from swaying during earthquakes and typhoons. Jake passed a door that led to the sphere, and he continued on to the corner. General Wu Gang’s penthouse ran along two sides of the building, the south and west sides. The other two sides contained his hackers and other business offices, which would be empty at this hour.

At the corner, Jake hesitated and checked his watch. It was ten minutes until midnight. He would have to wait here, since he knew the next corridor not only housed the penthouse door, but also had a security camera that would not be disabled for ten minutes.

Alexandra stepped quietly along her route toward the opposite side of the penthouse corridor. She knew that this passageway had security cameras that the building security officer should have cut by now. She hoped so.

Now she passed the entrance to an office that was supposed to be the headquarters of the general’s legitimate empire. Of course the man also had offices in Shanghai and Beijing, but even he must not have trusted the communist Chinese government, since he had moved his money and headquarters to Taiwan.

She got to the corner and checked her watch. It was eight minutes before midnight. She removed her gun from her right hip, leaned against the wall, and took in a deep breath. Jake sure made things interesting in her life. But at this time, her heart racing out of control, maybe she could consider taking a step back from the ledge. Just a little. Get through this, Alexandra. The general tried to kill you, she thought.

●

Inside General Wu Gang’s penthouse, his chief of security, Shangwei, knocked on the general’s bedroom door. He didn’t like just barging in at this hour. The last time he did that he found the general gagged with a ball in his mouth while he took one girl doggy style, while the other girl took the general from behind with a strap-on. Not that he was judging. He was a trained former army intelligence officer. Since he now lived in the west, he might just consider writing a book about all that he had seen. Now, it was his job to simply relay security problems to the general, and of course to protect the man against all enemies. At least this time he knew the man was with only one woman, since he himself had escorted the regular prostitute up to the penthouse hours ago.

“Sir,” Shangwei said to darkness. He opened the door a little wider to let the light from the main living room stream across the bed.

The general sat up, pulling the covers off of his female companion and exposing her slight naked body.

“What is it?” the general asked.

“Some of the security cameras on this floor are out.”

The general sat up further, exposing just the head of his tiny penis barely sticking out of a black and gray curly pubic mound.

“Have you called the building security?” General Wu Gang asked.

“Not yet, sir. It could be nothing. They do maintenance at this time of night.”

Now the general scurried out of bed and put on his underwear. “I don’t like this. How many men do we have here?”

“Me and two others in the penthouse. Plus three more in the hacker room.”

“But most of the hackers are former army.”

“Yes, sir. But conscripts from before their college days. They’re not. . .”

“Arm them,” the general yelled. Loud enough to wake the sexy hooker in his bed. As he continued to get dressed, he pointed at his companion for the evening and said, “Go back to sleep.”

The girl shrugged, lay back down and pulled the covers over her body.

The general, mostly dressed now, went to his nightstand and found his own private handgun, a Colt .45 revolver with a pearl handle.

Shangwei left to round up his men and pass the word to his other men to be prepared.

Just a minute before midnight and Jake finally connected his phone to blue tooth, tapped on the ear piece deep in his ear, and got on the line to both Alexandra and Lin, who were already talking.

“What’s up?” Jake whispered.

“I hear some activity in the hacker room,” Lin said. “They might know we’re here.”

Jake checked his watch and saw that it was exactly midnight. He pulled his gun and then peered around the corner toward the main penthouse door.

“Nothing here,” Jake reported.

“Same here,” Alexandra said. Since she was just on the other side of the corridor from Jake, that made sense.

Before Lin could respond, Jake heard gunfire on the other side of the 88
^th
floor.

“One down,” Lin said, her breathing hard.

The gunfire would surely waken anyone in the penthouse. Jake took that as a reason to move forward. He rounded the corner and stepped across the corridor, the same side as the penthouse door.

“Cover me from there,” Jake said to Alexandra, when he saw her moving out also.

Suddenly the penthouse door burst open and a gun appeared, firing wildly in both directions. But Jake had hit the floor and waited for a target. He could hear two men speaking Chinese. Then a man rushed out.

Jake fired twice, striking the man center mass and crumpling him to the tile floor, his gun bouncing across the surface and landing against the far wall.

The door slammed shut.

More gunfire across the building.

“What now?” Alexandra asked.

Jake wasn’t entirely sure. The general could just hole up in his penthouse with his remaining men until the police arrived. They wouldn’t be able to come by elevator, though. But they could rise up the elevator to the observation level above and come down through the fire stairs.

“We need to go in after the man,” Jake said with some hesitation.

“Is there any other way out of the penthouse?” Alexandra wanted to know.

“Not sure. The plans were incomplete after the general converted this from office space to his penthouse.” But if Jake had designed the place, there would have been another way out.

Jake got up and inched his way toward the door, his gun ready to fire again. He kicked the man he just shot. Definitely dead.

“Are you sure about this, Jake?” Alexandra asked.

“Not really.” Jake was about to kick in the door, when he saw a flash of movement behind the peep hole. He aimed quickly and shot out the peep. Then he heard the distinct sound of a body hitting the floor behind the door. “Two down here,” Jake said, and then slammed his body against the wall next to the door.

“Same here,” Lin said.

“I’m feeling left out,” Alexandra pouted.

Then Lin said something in Chinese and gunfire ensued. More yelling. Then there was a huge explosion, and Jake guessed she has used one of the grenades.

“Help,” Lin screamed.

Jake pointed to Alexandra and said, “Go help her.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“I got this. Go.”

In just the few seconds of silence, Jake heard a door slam down the corridor he had taken. Thinking for a second, he remembered there was a door that looked like it could have been a service door on the west side. An escape route. Damn it!

Jake rushed past the penthouse door and back the way he had come. He stopped at the corner and considered his options. When gunfire went off behind him and bullets struck the wall next to his head, he had no choice. He rushed around the corner and saw nothing.

Then Jake ran as fast as he could to the other end of the passageway toward Lin and the hackers.

“Lin, I’m coming your way from behind. Did anyone else come your way?”

“No,” Lin screamed. “I see Alexandra on the other side. Thank you.”

More gunfire.

Jake stopped running suddenly when he passed the door to the center of the building. This door was just a little offset from the one that had closed, the penthouse escape door.

With his hand on the door handle, Jake hesitated for a second, thinking someone could be on the other side waiting for him to rush out.

Then Jake caught movement at the corner by the penthouse, followed by flashes and the full report of a handgun.

Nowhere to go, Jake slammed down the handle and hurried inside, bullets striking the door but not penetrating.

Inside, Jake could see the massive dampen sphere lit by soft orange light. Just as he saw movement from the level above, Jake reacted by shoving his body low against a metal railing. A bullet struck the metal and then the sound of a large caliber gun echoed through the chamber.

“The general is inside with the dampen sphere,” Jake said to anyone listening.

Nothing.

The room must be interfering with the signal, Jake guessed.

“So, you’re Jake Adams,” the general said with an awkward sneer. “I thought you would be much taller.”

Jake scanned the area, looking down a few flights and then up at least four more. “I get that a lot,” Jake said, concentrating his gaze on the general. The man was carrying a western-style .45 caliber revolver with a six-round cylinder. Five left, Jake thought. Time to draw fire. Jake ran toward the staircase.

The general shot twice, hitting the curved wall behind Jake. By the time Jake hit the stairs, the general rushed out of view on his way higher up.

Three bullets left, Jake hoped. Unless he had a revolver speed loader.

When Jake reached the position the general had just left, he heard the door below slam shut. Jake turned and aimed, making sure of his target. When he saw it was the general’s security chief, the man with the tattoos on his neck, Jake fired twice, striking the metal railing in front of the man. The security man returned fire, but Jake had already moved out of view chasing the general higher. Now he would have bullets coming from both sides.

“Inside the dampen ball area,” Jake said again through his Bluetooth, nearly out of breath.

Still no response.

But he did hear more gunfire from outside, so he knew the women were still in the game.

He rounded another corner and could see the general making his way toward the top of the ball enclosure area. Jake passed the doors to the public observation area, where tourists would view the city during normal business hours. He checked the doors, but they were all locked.

More shots from below.

The general yelled something, his voice echoing from the top to the bottom. Probably giving his man instructions, Jake thought. Without understanding Chinese, Jake was at a huge disadvantage.