Awaiting The Crow

Colonel Deng chain-smoked as he waited outside one of the six large hangars on Chengdu's Baishiyi military airbase. He was edgy, there was much at stake. It was true that if Marx's operation succeeded, Deng would be comfortably rich, but if it failed, he'd be dead or imprisoned for life. As backups, he had three escape plans if things didn't work out.

Deng's main concern was that the operation appeared rather ad hoc and overly reliant on bribery. Two days earlier, on behalf of Marx, he bribed the air base's commander to go on a holiday for a week.

In his absence, Deng was considered the base's ranking officer despite his being a logistics officer and not at all in any way or form previously connected to the airfield. It cost Marx $2 million in bribes for the air base commander, which Deng presumed would count for nothing if things really went awry.

Marx was paying Deng a larger sum of $4 million for his own role in securing control over both the security of the base and in the neighboring military hospital. Half of the amount had already been paid into an offshore account. With the money, Deng would retire to a life of ease outside of China, someplace where he couldn't be extradited from.

Deng considered the $4 million compensation enough for dealing with Marx and for being kept in the dark over what he was being a part of. The only thing he knew was that it involved supplying his sick uncle with a new liver and was related to Marx making inroads into North Korea. His cousin Lin told him it was a need-to-know-basis situation, and he had no need to know. Besides, it would be safer for him and everyone else if he was not fully acquainted with the details, he was told.

As he put out a cigarette, three military vehicles that were Chinese versions of the Humvee drove up with dimmed lights. They halted near him, close to one of the hangar's side doors. Deng approached the now parked lead vehicle, which Lin stepped out of.

'Hello cousin,' Lin said.

'Lin, how can you be sure Marx has a source of organs for your father?'

'He told me so. He has two matching specimens. Your hatred of Marx clouds your judgment.'

'You're taking a risk on his word,' Deng said. 'And they're late.'

'Yes, but they're about to arrive,' Lin said, looking back towards the start of the airstrip.

As if on cue, out of the early morning night sky, the Crow came into land.

Fate Awaits

Kristen was more than anxious as the Crow parked inside one of the hangars. Nervous beads of perspiration formed on her cheeks and neck. Her heart was beating furiously.

Through the window, she saw Chinese military personnel rushing about, and then she heard the hangar's large doors close behind. It all seemed very covert, especially as Marx told her halfway into the flight there was no need to go through customs or any form of immigration control once they got to China.

Every bone in her body now regretted coming on the flight. Things didn't seem right. It's an understatement to say that she would have much preferred to be back with her family in Texas.

Once the jet halted and its engines died down, one of the two pilots exited the cockpit to open the passenger's door, which became a set of stairs for passengers to ascend.

Kristen and War were closest to the door, but they balked at being the first to depart; they left that to Marx, who passed them and exited the jet to be met by Lin at the base of the stairs.

Marx and Lin limply shook hands.

'How's the general?' Marx asked, referring to Lin's father.

'Unfortunately, not getting any better.'

'Then we'll make sure he does. Where is Deng?'

'Outside.'

'Sulking?'

'Somewhat Mr. Marx, but I think he will be fine. Just a minor loss of face.'

'If he misbehaves further, Lin, your cousin, will lose much more. Is he able to fulfill his obligations?'

'Yes, he is.'

'I hope so, he didn't come cheap, and we can't afford any ineptitude,' Marx said as he turned to see Kristen and War descending the jet's stairs. 'The woman is my assistant, and that bearded fellow is who we need to get to North Korea,' he told Lin.

'The Iranian nuclear scientist?' Lin asked.

'Yes, that's him indeed.'

Just as Kristen and War joined them, Lin held out his hand for War to shake, but it was ignored.

'Oh, I hope you had a good flight,' Lin said, trying hard to hide his embarrassment.

'He's not one for awkward pleasantries,' Marx said. 'How about we just get them to where they're going to stay.'

Lin nodded.

'You'll be residing at the military hospital,' Lin said. 'It has comfortable accommodation. It's not far, just next to the airbase. Lieutenant Wu will take you both there,' Lin said as a Chinese officer with his aide stepped forward from behind him.

Marx indicated for Kristen to do as Lin requested.

'Take Ivan and get some rest. We will meet at midday local time. I have some minor matters that need addressing with the Chinese before then,' Marx said.

'What about the pilots?' Kristen asked.

'They're going to a hotel in the city,' he said. 'They're big boys. Don't worry about them. Now move along.'

The aide took Kristen's baggage, and the officer gestured for them to follow. After they exited the building, Lin turned to Marx and voiced his concerns.

'That nuclear scientist looks very young,' he said.

'Yes, he was a child genius, and now he'll help push forward North Korea's miniature nuke program,' Marx replied. 'And Pyongyang will pay you handsomely for it. Don't forget you're making 20 million dollars from it.'

It was all baloney, of course. Marx just had to get War near where the North Koreans had their nuclear-tipped long-range missiles. There, War would say his incantation that would launch North Korea's missiles against Japan and the U.S. within a week.

Washington's response, of course, would be devastating. China and Russia, among others, would shortly thereafter get dragged into it.

By then, Marx planned to be in his well-stocked bunker in New Zealand, waiting out the nuclear war he helped orchestrate. It was the kind of conflict that'd kill off most of humanity.

But before then, many things had to fall into place. Marx looked at Lin and put his hand on his shoulder.

'Now, the important issue is that we must look after your father. We have two suitable donors on the plane, not just one,' Marx said.

'Good, very good, Mr. Marx. We need to get them to the hospital quickly, the surgical doctors and their team have been alerted,' Lin said. 'After the transplant operation, we can then fly you and your team to North Korea as you want, hopefully, the day after.'

'I need a solid confirmation on that as soon as possible,' Marx said.

'Yes, of course.'

'Vacher!' Marx yelled.

From inside the jet, Vacher acknowledged.

'Oui!'

'Bring them out, the surgeons are waiting.'

A minute later, Quintus and Tina — with black hoods over their heads — were escorted from the Crow by Marx's minions, who put them into one of the wannabe Humvees outside the hangar.

Soon enough, they drove off and passed through a security gate to enter the grounds of the neighboring military hospital. The vehicle parked near a nondescript iron door of the badly lit east side of a large hospital building. That's where Quintus and Tina were taken inside.

Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance

During her meditation, Luo Jia managed to still her mind to the point that it was as clear as the Lake of Five Flowers. There was no emotion, no fear, no concern — just a sense of clarity sustained by a foundation built on kindness and patience.

The remarkable thing was that the 35-year-old managed this despite being one of 12 women crammed into a dark and stuffy concrete cell with no window. None of them knew if it was day or night outside, but they each took turns lying down to sleep while others sat or stood to provide space to do that. Given they were all Falun Gong practitioners, many meditated or did their standing Tai Chi-like exercises.

Like the other women, Jia wore a drab blue prison tracksuit. Aged between 20 and 45, they were all good people trying to be the best versions of themselves, even in such hideous circumstances.

None of them deserved to be locked up. Jia was a schoolteacher before police caught her with a banner that read 'Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance is Good,' referring to the practice's three main principles.

Jia and 16 others had been sent to the cell from a nearby women's prison three days earlier. Over the course of the days that followed, five of them had been taken out and never returned. The remaining attempted not to dwell on their fate, but when they understood they were in a military hospital, they couldn't but fear the worst.

They were all aware that their fellow practitioners were targeted by the state for organ harvesting, it became widespread knowledge from 2006 onwards.

In the camps, each of them had already been forced to have medical checkups that focused on their vital 'commercial' organs. The details recorded presumably to match the needs of a cash-paying recipient. A prison guard told Jia five months earlier that local Chinese recipients preferred military hospitals for an organ transplant because it was cheaper than the civilian hospitals that targeted richer overseas clients, mainly from Japan, South Korea, and the Gulf states.

There was little surprise in this information, but Jia was shocked by how casually the guard mentioned it. It upset her that the land of her birth had become so amoral and evilly misled.

She tried not to think about such matters as she now meditated in the cell. She instead sought nothingness.

After meditating for close to an hour, Jia unfolded her legs, and as she waited for the tingly feeling in her feet to dissipate, she heard noises coming from beyond the door. People, presumably soldiers, had entered the area immediately outside the cell, which they understood as part of the building's basement. Among the Chinese voices was a man with a heavy foreign brogue, which she correctly guessed belonged to an American.

'This one put him in here and prepare him,' the man said in his accented Mandarin. His voice was also harsh and unforgiving.

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The sound of a male voice that followed was a stark contrast.

'Tina! Don't be afraid, I'll find you,' the voice said in English. Despite Jia being unable to understand what he said, she sensed the man's voice was full of hope and courage.

His gesture, however, sparked viciousness outside the cell. Jia heard men zap the English speaker's legs with electroshock batons before he was dragged off somewhere else as per orders of the man with the accented Mandarin.

'With the woman, put her in one of your holding cells. Just lock her away!' the man with the accent demanded.

Jia heard the guards drag someone close to their cell door.

On the other side of the door, the soldiers took the black hood off Tina's head and then the zip tie from around her wrists.

Another soldier hastily unlocked and opened the cell door, and two others then shoved Tina inside. The door was promptly shut and locked behind her.

Most people would have only seen darkness in that unlit cell. But she instead saw how it was immersed in bright, warm light.

The Baton

In a sparse room adjoining the basement, Vacher and Irfan threw Quintus onto a hospital gurney and used a pair of their stainless-steel cuffs to tie his already zip-tied wrists to it. Along with Marx and his henchmen, in the room, there were Lin, Deng, and three soldiers who had never seen Westerners up close before.

Marx pulled the back hood off Quintus' head and thrust the electroshock baton he was holding close to his face.

'Like how that stung?' he asked.

'How 'bout you just slither back to Hell,' Quintus replied.

'You'll be there before me, Roman.'

Marx zapped Quintus with the baton, this time to the thigh. Quintus couldn't help but quiver as 900 volts coursed through his body. After what seemed like an eternity, the pain stopped. He opened his eyes and saw Marx admiring the torture device.

'I have substantial shares in the company that manufactures these handy-little things,' Marx said. 'They deliver a nasty shock. Non-lethal yet excruciating.'

Marx again jabbed Quintus with the baton, this time in the center of the chest. Lin stepped forward, alarmed.

'You will damage his organs!' he yelled.

'Don't fret, Lin, he can take it,' Marx replied as he continued zapping Quintus. 'In fact, it'll do him a world of good, and what's more, you'll find him to be more compliant.'

After half a minute of being shocked, Quintus was near senseless.

Marx halted the torment and was again in his foe's face.

'Now let me tell you, Quintus, how you shall die,' Marx said. 'The beginning of the process is simple enough. In a minute, you're going to get an electrocardiogram and an abdominal X-ray. The X-ray is first, right Lin?'

Lin nodded.

'Then, after a few other things, in five or six hours, you should be ready for the operating table. At that stage, you'll be injected with a paralyzing drug, so you'll be alive when the dissection begins, and you'll feel each and every scalpel slice as they carve their way to your liver,' Marx said. 'At some stage, you will die in the process.'

Quintus tried ignoring both Marx and the residue of pain he felt. Instead, he focused on maintaining the mindfulness needed if he was to take advantage of any opportunities to escape.

Meanwhile, Marx continued talking.

'Lin's father, an old friend of mine, will be the recipient of your liver. I'm not sure if they are going to bother with your other spare parts, but sometime later, the same will happen to that sweet young thing you befriended in Reno, and she will be killed as per demand.'

He paused and just stared at Quintus while savoring the moment.

'By the way, your wife is also here, so it's probably best we do something similar to her as well,' Marx said. 'After more than 2,000 years, this is how it ends for you. Everything you strove for, everything you went through, all for naught.'

Marx chuckled at the thought of Quintus' future.

'And then — Hell awaits Quintus, Hell awaits! You think now is bad, you just what till those demons get ahold of you.'

Marx chortled some more and then gestured to Lin, who took that as his cue to look at Deng, who in turn barked orders at two soldiers to take Quintus away.

'And your time in that Irish gibbet will seem like paradise!' Marx yelled as Quintus on the gurney was pushed out of the room.

The two soldiers rolled Quintus down a hallway towards an elevator that would take them higher up into the building proper. As they did so, Quintus focused on remembering where he was being moved from so he could retrace the journey and come back for Tina. That's what he hoped for anyway. There was no other way to think unless he accepted that he only had a few hours to live.

In the elevator with the soldiers, Quintus managed to watch the digital numbers on the button panel climb from B 1 up to level 2, where the elevator stopped and its doors opened.

They exited, and Quintus was taken down a corridor that turned right towards the X-ray room, where they were met by a yawning officer and an overweight radiology technician wearing a white gown and a facemask.

A Lifeline

Kristen stared at her unpacked bag sitting on the single bed that was the main feature of the no-frills single room situated on the building's fifth floor. She wasn't sure if she should open it and get out of her slim jeans and t-shirt and into her nightwear for sleeping. The uncertainty of her situation and its resulting unease was debilitating.

Upon hearing a soft-brushing noise behind her, she turned to see a folded piece of paper being slid under the door.

'Hello?' Kristen said to whoever was outside her door, but there was no reply.

She saw a shadow under the door move away. She presumed it was a Chinese staff member unable to understand English.

She went and picked up the paper and unfolded it. It was not at all what she expected. What she saw left her speechless. She sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at it for several minutes.

It was an ink drawing. Going by what she had seen in the boardroom in New York, she knew it was one of War's. It was an illustration of a Roman centurion with his shield raised, protecting a young girl who stood frightened behind him. The girl was dressed 1960s-style, and she was clutching a teddy bear. The soldier gave the impression he'd die before letting the girl meet any harm. He'd fight anything.

It was, of course, a scene straight from her most recent dream.

The spell was broken when somebody outside wrapped their knuckles softly on the door.

'Who's there?' she asked.

'Miss Kristen, it's me.'

She part opened the door to find War dressed as he was on the plane: cargo pants and his surplus jacket over a blue polo shirt.

'Ivan, you drew this, didn't you?' she asked, holding up the drawing for him to see.

'We must go,' he said.

'What do you mean?'

'You're in danger.'

'From what, from who?'

War looked back up at the hallway and then back to her.

'You must come with me,' he said.

Intuition told her that he was there to help. She grabbed her bag, and they left.

X-Ray

The soldiers parked the gurney carrying Quintus just inside a radiology room. Quintus kept his mind clear as they talked with the officer and the radiology technician.

'For five minutes, the Westerner was blasted with an electroshock baton — there is no fight left in him,' a soldier said in Mandarin.

'He certainly looks somewhat frazzled,' laughed the bespectacled technician who next described what needed to be done.

The officer then ordered the soldiers to uncuff and untie Quintus so that they could take him from the gurney to the X-ray bed. Using a knife, a soldier cut the plastic zip tie from Quintus' wrists, and then the other soldier unlocked the handcuffs, making Quintus free of restraint.

His chance had arrived.

He sprang into action and sat up fast. He jabbed the nearest soldier under the armpit, paralyzing him. The officer tried to attack Quintus with a baton, but his intended target hit back with a well-targeted blow, and the officer flopped to the floor unconscious. The other guard met a similar fate.

The out-of-shape technician attempted to flee, but Quintus blocked the door with the gurney. The technician raised his hands as if surrendering.

'Don't hurt me. I'll give you money,' he said in English through his facemask.

'Where are we? What is this place?'

'This is 327 Military Hospital. Chengdu. South-west China.'

'Take off your jacket,' Quintus told the technician, who complied.

'Okay, now lift up your arm a little.'

The technician closed his eyes and did so. Quintus jabbed him, and the technician was paralyzed on the spot.

A minute later, Quintus left the X-ray room wearing the technician's coat, facemask, and a cap he found. As he walked the deserted corridor, he noticed the lights of the neighboring airfield through a window. He saw the shadowy shapes of six military helicopters on a concrete patch by the airstrip. He didn't have time to stop and see more, but he saw enough.

Quintus turned into the corridor where the elevator was. He kept his head down to hide his face from a wall-mounted CCTV camera. After reaching the elevator, he pressed the button and waited for the doors to open.

He hoped Tina was okay and wondered if what Marx said about the woman named Kristen was true. Was she somewhere in the hospital? And if so, was her life in danger? He didn't know and had no way of knowing. Marx could have just been playing mind games. Quintus had to act on what he knew was genuine.

The elevator bell rang. Its doors opened, and he stepped in and pressed the button for basement level one.

Visiting the General

Sickly General Zhou was startled when he sensed someone sitting in a bedside chair. It was dark in his hospital room, so he couldn't see who it was, nor did he have the strength to switch on a light.

'Who is there?' he feebly asked in Mandarin.

'Save your strength, general.'

'Aaron Marx, is that truly you?'

'Yes.'

The general sighed, and Marx wasn't sure it was a sign of disapproval or relief. Outside of that, it could have been just an indication of how near the older man was to death. It was some time before the general again spoke, and when he did, his voice seemed to come from a distant place.

'I have nightmares that I'm already in the underworld. Do you think such things exist?'

Marx couldn't help but chuckle. Atheists are the biggest chumps, he thought.

'Yes, well, Hell is certainly not for the fainthearted, and for some of us, dear comrade, it's inescapable,' Marx said. 'But try to rest and fret not. You won't be dying today — a new liver is being prepared for you as we speak.'

Interrupting Mahjong

Quintus watched the elevator's electronic floor numbers drop to B 1. Following a juddering stop, the elevator door opened, and he carefully exited.

After finding the corridor empty, he quietly made his way toward where he thought the cells were. As he reached the corridor's corner, he could hear men casually talking.

He paused and peeked around the corner to see three guards playing Mahjong at a table opposite the cell doors. Above them was another CCTV camera covering the area.

Quintus ducked back and grabbed a fire extinguisher braced to the corridor's wall. With it in hand, he darted around the corner and threw it at the CCTV camera. A direct hit. The camera was smashed to smithereens.

Quintus then ran at the first guard who stood from the table and quickly immobilized him and did the same to another soldier reaching for a radio. The last remaining soldier swung a baton but missed. Quintus threw counterpunches, and that soldier crumpled to the floor.

Once he was sure the area was guard free, he took off the facemask and grabbed a set of keys hanging from a nail above the table, which he hoped were for the cell doors. Intuition told him Tina was behind the second door. One of the keys worked, and he unlocked the door. He opened it wide enough to let light into the cell. Inside it, he saw Tina sitting on the floor.

'Told you I'd be back,' he said quietly to her.

Tina smiled with relief, and he took her hand to help her to her feet. Around her, the Falun Gong practitioners either nodded or smiled at him as if what was occurring was all very matter-of-fact.

'Everyone out and fast before alarms start ringing,' he said.

'Quintus, what's happening?' Tina asked.

'These people must get out of here, or they'll be butchered. It won't be easy to escape, but we have to try,' he said. 'The sun will be up soon, so we need to move quickly.'

Speaking in basic Mandarin, Tina repeated Quintus' concerns to the women as he began to free the occupants inside the other two cells. Inside them was a mixture of Tibetans, Uyghurs, several house Christians, and a democracy activist who spoke some English.

Soon enough, 30 bewildered prisoners, talking in hushed tones, were milling outside the cells. With anticipation, they watched Quintus approach a steel door that he guessed was the one that he and Tina were first brought in through. He saw another CCTV camera monitoring it.

SMASH!

The fire extinguisher was again put to good use in obliterating it.

He went to the door and tried the keys to open it. After two attempts, he found the right key and pushed the door open. It was still dark outside and, as far as he could tell, there were no guards on that side of the building.

Asleep on Duty

There were now two blank monitor screens in the hospital's main security room situated on the ground floor. But all 12 monitors in the room may as well have been turned off, as the soldier, a 20-year-old Kunming native named Wei Zexi, who was meant to be watching them, was asleep while sitting upright in his chair.

Over the past four months, sleeping on the job had become a habit for Wei, and he'd gotten away with it so far. Besides, his commanding junior officer was often off doing something similar somewhere else in the building. To both Wei and the officer, getting forty winks was the best use of their time.

Since his early teens, Wei had dreamed about joining a special forces unit, but he lacked the necessary fortitude and skills. Now he complained to his friends that he was only a glorified security guard. It was not even a military base. If he were a guard in the neighboring airfield, he wouldn't be falling asleep, Wei told himself. Nothing ever happened at the hospital in the early hours of the day, everyone knew it, and this was his justification for sleeping.

The hospital may have been run by the military, but it was a money-making machine for the higher-ups, especially the specialized doctors and local Communist Party officials. Along with expensive immunotherapy procedures, Wei knew the hospital made much of its money through organ transplants. Most of the staff knew how the organs were acquired, and he had seen via the monitors how the prisoners were pulled out of cells and then prepared. No one was allowed to talk about it, but they all understood those killed for their organs were enemies of the state, at least according to the higher-ups. He told himself it was none of his business and so there was no point losing sleep over it.

During the beginning of each shift, he usually set the alarm on his cellphone for 4.45 am so he would at least be awake for the final hour of his time on duty. After his phone alarm went off, on this morning we're focused on, he stood up from his chair and went to the bathroom to relieve himself and wash his face.

It was when Wei got back that he noticed two of the screens that should have been showing the basement were blank. He picked up the phone to make a call but paused when he saw on another screen, one that was working, two non-Chinese men in a hallway outside a room on the fifth floor. He didn't know who they were. One of them was making a call on his cellphone. Wei decided this was something he should report.

Vacher's Call

As Marx sat by General Zhou's bedside, he felt the phone in his pocket buzz. He pulled it out, checked the caller ID, and exited the room to take the call in the corridor.

'Vacher, anything wrong?'

'Sir, we can't find Ivan, and now we can't find Kristen,' Vacher said.

'What do you mean?'

'They are not in their rooms, and we have searched the whole floor. I've called her cellphone, but there's been no answer.'

'If you don't find them soon, I will hold you both personally responsible.'

Up on the fifth floor, Vacher looked at Irfan and raised his eyebrows, communicating that their boss had not taken the news well.

'Should we alert the Chinese? We could get Deng onto it. They can help search,' Vacher said just as four armed guards turned the corner and approached them. 'Oh, some Chinese have just shown up Mr. Marx,' he said.

Vacher was all smiles until one of the soldiers shouted orders that he could not understand. Both the tone and the manner were unfriendly, and that riled the Frenchman.

'Hey, relax. Everything is fine. We're your guests, for Hell's sake!' he said back at the soldier.

Another soldier attempted to take Vacher's phone, and a scuffle ensued, resulting in both foreigners being pinned to the floor.