Loose Ends

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Wolf sat in his car, pretending to look at his phone but in reality checking out the Chinese Consulate. He wondered if this Tan Quanyu fellow was in the building at the moment. Hamza had given the man up but it had taken longer than Wolf expected. He'd been a tough bastard but eventually the pain, the disorientation, both from the environment and the drugs, had broken him.

After getting Hamza's contact's name the man had had a sudden seizure. Foaming at the mouth, struggling against his bonds, Hamza was in desperate medical straits. Wolf and his medic had rushed in, but to no avail. Doc had shaken his head and said, "Massive heart attack, even with a full surgical team on hand, he would've died."

"What caused it? The drugs? The electrical shocks?"

"Could've been anything, I'm betting that he had an unknown heart condition and we just triggered it. It happens."

Looking back on it, Wolf would have liked to have had a longer "chat" with Hamza, but that was all water under the bridge at this point.

Speaking softly, Wolf murmured, "Now how do we get to Tan?"

MacDonald looked incredulously at Gordon, "Are you serious? Are you absolutely certain?"

"I wish I was wrong, but MacDuff is quite certain, there's a leak in the Glasgow police. The incident on the M8 was reported outside of the department shortly after it happened."

"How? Who? Damn it man, is there anyone in this bloody country still loyal?"

"Many are, Sir, but they aren't in government service apparently.'

"Let Wolf know, start chasing any leads we have, I want this leak sealed."

Gordon stood up and nodded, "Sir."

Tan walked out of the small office he shared with another person, she actually was a cultural attaché as opposed to that being his cover. Only the Consul General and one other man knew Tan's actual job in the Consulate.

He was headed for that man's office now. Superintendent Ren Yuhan was in charge of all influence operations in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. One of his main tasks was financing the various groups throughout the area who believed they were advancing the cause of world peace. Little did they know that that peace was one in which the People's Republic of China called all the shots.

As he entered the anteroom of Superintendent Ren's office he paused as Ren's administrative assistant checked to see if it was alright for him to enter. The lady nodded at him as he went in. Tan wondered briefly what Lei Lim would look like in fashionable clothing and Western style makeup. She looked somewhat attractive even in the severe clothing she wore to work in the Consulate.

Ren was just hanging up his phone as Tan entered. "Tan, you're here, sit down."

"You have a problem in Glasgow." Ren was blunt, he was always blunt. The man had the charisma of a three day old dead fish.

"Yes, Comrade Superintendent, the team I was using to finance ..."

"Not that idiot Albanian. Your man inside the Glasgow police, what's his name, Wang, he's been compromised."

Tan sat up straight in the chair, moving to the edge of his seat, "Huang? Compromised? How? When?"

"He made a phone call to you on the night of the incident on the M8, yes?"

"Yes, he thought it would be a matter I'd be interested in, knowing that I had people operating in and around Glasgow."

"Well, a record was made of his outgoing call. Fool used a phone at the station and a computer algorithm picked up on the fact that the call was going to a cell phone, so it recorded the call."

"There is a recording of that call?"

"Yes, ordinarily it would have been weeks before those records were checked, perhaps even months if ever. The sheer quantity of data captured by computers is nearly impossible for someone to determine anything of value from. But someone searching for a particular thing on a particular day might find something. Someone did."

Tan remembered Huang mentioning "drug hit" and "automatic weapons fire" two phrases which would certainly trigger a recording to be saved for later analysis.

"Usually those recordings are overwritten within a day or two, I know that we record everything and I assume so do the British. Looking back on it, I can imagine why that particular recording would have been saved to another, more permanent, location."

Ren lit a cigarette and puffed madly on it for a few moments, then abruptly stubbing out the smoldering tube of tobacco he stood up, "Sever ties with this Wang fellow."

Tan stood up and gave his superior a questioning look.

"Sever all ties, permanently! Now go."

Tan stepped onto the street as his driver pulled up, not noticing that a man in a parked car further up the street had dropped all pretense of looking at his phone when he had recognized the man coming out of the Consulate.

The driver looked back at his boss, "Where to, chief?"

"Back to Glasgow, we have some loose ends to tidy up."

Wolf keyed his encrypted comms device, "Max, you have my location?"

"Affirmative."

"Can you get a drone up and track a vehicle for me? I think I know in general where he's going, but I want something overhead when he gets to his destination."

"Can do, it'll be dark soon, but with infrared, my little drone buddy won't mind. Destination? Route?"

"Glasgow, the M8."

"Roger that, I'll let you know when the drone is on station, can you follow the guy until then?"

"Shouldn't be a problem, thanks Max."

Dai Jiang kept looking in his rear view mirror, he was convinced that they were being followed. Traffic was light, but this car, a non-descript late model Mini he was guessing, had made every turn that he had made as they headed out of Edinburgh.

Just before he decided to tell his boss, the car had turned off. This job made him paranoid at times. But being paranoid could keep you alive.

Satisfied that they were home free, he concentrated on getting Tan back to Glasgow.

Wolf walked into the area they were using as an office. He saw Max and a couple of others watching a laptop screen. As he walked over, he recognized the car that Tan had got into outside the Consulate.

"That's our boy, boss!" Max said with a laugh. "I love these f**king drones, man."

"They are useful." Turning to another man in the room, he said "Peter, walk with me."

When they got out of the office, "I want to use your team to try and snatch this Chinese guy."

"Snatch him, or kill him?"

"I need him alive. Your team are all Russian speakers, all of you were born there. If anything goes wrong, I want the Chinese to think that the Russians are the opposition here, not us."

"Fortunately boss, I thought to bring our Russian duds. Might be easy to pick up in a flea market or something around here but ..."

"That might leave a trail of sorts."

"Yup, and seeing as how we have our own kit, why waste government money?"

"Right, now get your boys down to Glasgow. We'll get you the full particulars once we know where Tan is going."

"Roger that, boss. On our way."