Shanghai Financial Tower outskirts – January 24, 2013, mid night
A man in a faded janitor's uniform rolled up on a second-hand motorbike.
The engine quieted as he stopped in the shadow of the towering skyline, city lights buzzing around him.
At thirty-six, he looked like an ordinary guy getup: white hairs, glasses low on his nose, cap pulled down, a fresh bandage across the bridge of his face. His wary eyes flicked upward.
Before him loomed the Shanghai World Financial Center, 101 floors of steel and glass rising like a giant bottle opener into the night. Even so, it was dwarfed by its neighbor, the Shanghai Tower, twisting up to 128 stories. He clicked his tongue. Fortune or irony, his mission was in the second-tallest one.
He parked in the queue, touched the fresh bandage over his nose and sighed. Then he walked into the security lane as if he belonged there.
