Mirage

Cabrillo was also a person of interest to the Ministry of State Security since he had once blown up a Chinese Navy destroyer called the Chengdo. Technically, Dirk Pitt had blown it out of the water, but he’d done so while aboard the Oregon. That wasn’t what weighed on the Chairman. It was the fact that that particular battle had cost him a leg. He spent little time dwelling on the loss, which he’d more than made up for in so many ways, yet there were times when he felt it acutely.

Home to twenty-five million people, Shanghai was arguably the largest city in the world. As they rocketed through suburbs and sprawling acres of apartment blocks festooned with drying laundry aboard the Maglev train from the airport, Juan didn’t doubt it. Eddie had been here on many occasions, this was the Chairman’s first. Hitting speeds in excess of two hundred and fifty miles per hour, the ultrasleek train riding on a cushion of air took just minutes to reach the city’s Pudong District. A cab would have taken hours to cover the eighteen miles.

Just a few years ago, Pudong, on the eastern side of the Huangpu River, had been sparsely populated, unlike the western bank, which contained the old sections of the city and masses of bland skyscrapers left over from the 1970s expansion. Now Pudong was the face of the city, with its iconic skyline of oddly shaped buildings, most notably the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, with its two strange globes stacked on top of each other, and the beautiful Shanghai World Financial Center. The streets had the hustle and noise of New York City.

They cabbed over to their hotel but checked in separately, since two men staying in one room would arouse suspicion. As luck would have it, neither room faced the right direction, so Juan had to play the ugly American and demand a different room. The second one was perfect.

The address L’Enfant provided was one of the newer skyscrapers in Pudong, a gleaming rectangle of black reflective glass that topped out at over four hundred feet. It wasn’t the tallest building in the district, not by a large margin, but it was still impressive.

Eddie met Cabrillo in his new room with a view of their target tower. The hotel wasn’t as tall as the building, but for now their view was fine. Eddie had entered China as a medical devices salesman so he could pack in some unusual electronics. Customs had gone over it, of course, but had seen nothing amiss.

He took one of the devices to the window, which opened a crack, and stuck a probe outside and aimed it at the nearby building. He watched a digital display as he aimed the probe at each individual floor, starting at the ground and working his way up. When he was aiming the probe at the second-to-top floor, he grunted at the display. The top floor showed him similar information.

“Well?” Juan asked.

The device was a laser that could read the vibrations on a windowpane. With the right software, those vibrations could be turned into the spoken words of anyone on the other side of the glass. They hadn’t bothered bringing a computer to interpret the vibrations. They were only interested if anyone in the target building was trying to counter the use of such a laser detector.

“Top two floors have random-flux generators,” Eddie replied, putting the device back in its case. “The panes are dancing like dervishes. Impossible for a laser to get a read on what’s being said inside.”

Juan nodded thoughtfully. This didn’t necessarily mean L’Enfant was correct, but it boded well that whoever occupied the top two floors was so security conscious. “Okay, this is looking good. We’ll split up now and find out all we can about the occupants of those floors.”

Eddie was already wearing his first disguise, a package-delivery boy. Later, he would change into a suit so he could try to talk his way into the building as a prospective tenant.

Juan was dressed as a tourist, complete with fa

Four blocks from the black tower, Cabrillo entered the ornate lobby of another building, one so new it still smelled faintly of paint. There was an express elevator to the observation deck. A group of schoolgirls in matching skirts and sweaters talked and giggled and played elaborate hand-slapping games while they waited for the elevator. The two teachers chatted with a representative from the building’s staff.

The elevator car finally arrived and the group entered. Juan gave the two teachers a goofy grin and they soon ignored him. They exited seven hundred eighty feet above the street onto an open deck surrounded by a chest-high glass barrier. The vista was stu

The children oohed and aahed at the amazing views. For his part, Cabrillo was suitably impressed, but he had come here for one particular vista. He took a moment to check to see if anyone on the observation deck looked out of place. There was one security guard, who made a slow circuit of the deck like a shark patrolling one of those enormous aquarium tanks. The rest were tourists like himself or young couples playing a little hooky during the workweek. He approached the best spot for looking down on the rooftop garden but gave it no more than a glance before turning to look at the central structure that housed this tower’s elevator machinery. He saw the security camera immediately, the only one on the observation deck. It was trained on the spot Cabrillo had seen was the best to study the target building. Someone wanted to know if they were being watched.

Juan hadn’t reacted when he’d spotted the camera. He was too professional for that. He was also curious. He moved out of its range, strolling along like any typical tourist. He spent another twenty minutes looking at the view. The schoolgirls were gone, replaced by a group of German tourists on a package holiday. He estimated enough time had passed that no one would co

He moved under the camera and, when no one was looking, reached up to change its angle ever so slightly. He moved away to wait. It took ten minutes. The guy who arrived wore a suit, not the uniform of a typical maintenance man. He went straight for the camera and returned it to its original position. The man had a Bluetooth headset strapped over one ear, and upon instructions of whoever was monitoring the camera feed, he tweaked the angle of the camera another few degrees.

Cabrillo had already taken the first available elevator as soon as the man had made his move. Now he loitered on the sidewalk outside the building. He had to wait only a few minutes. Mr. Fix It didn’t work at this building. He hit the streets with a long stride. Juan knew where he was headed, so he took off down a parallel street. He was just in time to see the man enter the black tower where L’Enfant said Kenin was holed up.

Yes indeed, the occupant of the top floors was very security conscious. “Must be paranoid,” the Chairman muttered under his breath.

They hadn’t really considered the observation deck as a suitable place to watch the black tower for the simple reason that it was closed at night. He had merely gone there to test his enemy’s resolve. Juan returned to the building and spoke with a woman who managed leasings. Through a dummy front, the Corporation had already rented space on the sixtieth floor that gave them a perfect vantage. He was given keys to the suite of rooms but declined her offer to show him the space. Juan rode the elevator up.