The main hall of the Imperial Bank of China was a cathedral of commerce, bustling with the lunchtime rush. The air hummed with the murmur of a dozen languages, the rustle of banknotes, and the rhythmic clatter of abacuses and teller stamps. Beneath the veneer of chaotic, everyday business, however, an invisible, meticulously constructed net was being drawn tight.
Section Chief Ling stood near the grand entrance, disguised as a wealthy merchant's bodyguard, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes scanning the crowd with a predator's lazy, watchful patience. A dozen of his best agents were scattered throughout the hall. Two stood as imposing guards by the main doors. Another, a sharp-faced young woman, posed as a wealthy lady arguing with her servant. Three more were customers in the queues, feigning impatience. And the teller at window number four, a man named Agent Tong, was the bait. They had been waiting for two days.
The fixer, Wu, pushed his way through the revolving doors, the heavy canvas bag slung over his shoulder. He was a creature of the Shanghai underworld, confident and at ease in any crowd. To him, this was just another bank, another routine job. He scanned the teller windows, chose the one with the shortest line—window number four—and took his place, humming a tuneless opera melody under his breath.
He reached the front of the line and hefted the bag onto the marble counter with a heavy thud. "Deposit," he said brusberly to the teller, sliding over a slip of paper with the account number for the "New Century Trading Company."
Agent Tong, the teller, gave a polite, professional nod. He unzipped the bag and began to count the thick stacks of cash, his movements quick and efficient. Wu leaned against the counter, bored, his eyes flicking over the grand architecture. He did not notice Section Chief Ling subtly shift his weight, a silent signal that rippled through the other agents in the room. The target had arrived. The trap was about to spring.
After counting the last stack, Tong paused, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow. He consulted a thick ledger, then a sheet of new regulations posted beside his window. He looked up at Wu, his expression one of polite, bureaucratic apology.
"I am very sorry for the delay, sir," he said, his voice pitched just loud enough for Wu to hear clearly. "But due to new Imperial financial regulations regarding cash deposits of this size, we require a secondary administrative review. It is a measure to combat foreign money laundering."
Wu's humming stopped. A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. "What does that mean? I'm in a hurry."
"It simply means a short delay," the teller replied smoothly, his training holding firm. "We will need you to fill out this source-of-funds declaration form. Please have a seat over there. The review should take no more than one hour, after which we can complete your transaction. You will, of course, also need to present a secondary form of identification to validate the form."
The blood drained from Wu's face. Secondary identification. The words hit him like a physical blow. His false papers were good, a single, solid identity. But they were not deep. He had no second document to back them up. He looked at the polite, smiling teller, and for the first time, he felt a prickle of genuine fear. He looked around the bank hall. The bored-looking guards by the door suddenly seemed taller, more alert. The other customers in the line seemed to be watching him. The air of normal business had evaporated, replaced by something tense and predatory.
This was not a bureaucratic delay. This was a cage.
Wu was a creature of instinct. He knew when a deal had gone sour. He had to get out. Now. He forced a smile, trying to appear nonchalant. "Ah, a delay. That is inconvenient. My employer is waiting. I will come back later, when I have more time."
He pushed the unsigned form and the deposit receipt back toward the teller and turned to walk calmly toward the main doors.
That was the signal.
The moment he turned his back, Ling gave a nearly imperceptible nod. The two imposing guards by the door stepped forward, moving to block his path. The woman who had been posing as a wealthy lady suddenly dropped her fan, and as she bent to retrieve it, she positioned herself to cut off his retreat to the side.
Wu saw the movement. The calm walk became a frantic sprint. He charged the doors, shoving one of the guards aside with a powerful shoulder check. He burst through the revolving doors and out onto the sunlit chaos of the Bund.
The chase exploded into the open. The quiet trap had become a public spectacle. Agents who had been positioned outside shouted, "Stop him!" Whistles blew, shrill and piercing.
Wu, now in a full-blown panic, knew he would be caught on the open street. He needed chaos. He reached into his coat, his hand closing around the cool metal of a cheap pistol. He pulled it out, and without aiming, fired two shots into the air.
CRACK! CRACK!
The sound of the gunshots sent a wave of screaming panic through the crowded street. Pedestrians scattered. Horses reared in their harnesses. The carefully ordered world of the Shanghai International Settlement dissolved into pandemonium.
The gunshots immediately escalated the situation beyond Shen Ke's control. A pair of uniformed Sikh officers from the International Municipal Police, hearing the shots from a block away, began sprinting toward the commotion, their own whistles adding to the din.
The scene became a brutal, three-way melee. Shen Ke's agents, their faces grim with determination, were closing in, trying to capture Wu alive as per their orders. Wu, cornered and desperate, was fighting like a wild animal, swinging his empty pistol as a club. And the international police, seeing a Chinese man with a gun being chased by other armed Chinese men, were trying to restore order, shouting commands in a mixture of English and Shanghainese that no one was obeying.
From the high window of a cheap hotel room across the street, Agent Donovan watched the scene unfold with a stomach-turning horror. He saw it all. He saw his fixer, his last link to any kind of operational funding, get swarmed by a team of ruthlessly efficient men in civilian clothes. He saw them subdue Wu with brutal, practiced efficiency, one of them striking him hard at the base of the skull with a sap. They were not police. They were something far more dangerous.
They dragged Wu's limp body into an unmarked black car that had screeched to a halt at the curb, and then vanished into the traffic, leaving the confused international police to deal with the panicked crowd.
Donovan stumbled back from the window, his heart hammering against his ribs. It was over. His network was gone. His money was gone. His last contact had been captured. And he knew, with a terrible certainty, that they would make Wu talk. They would learn about him. They would learn about Dr. Chen. They would learn about the lab.
His terrified gaze fell upon the satchel sitting on his bed. Inside it was the small, heavy, lead-lined box containing the uranium salts. He had been on his way to a dead drop to leave it for Dr. Chen, a delivery he was only supposed to make after Wu had confirmed the funds were safely deposited.
Now he was trapped. A disavowed agent, hunted by the most efficient secret police in the world, holding the most dangerous and incriminating object in all of China, with nowhere left to run. The net had closed.