Ekstrom insisted on first class for this kind of flight. The client was paying of course, but the reason was that he needed a little privacy when he was planning his work and thinking things through. And, of course, it was way beneath a man of his standing to sit cheek by jowl with all those snotty kids, backpackers and college lecturers behind the curtain.
Ekstrom had been requested to personally perform a “hit” in mainland China. The assassination itself was not at all difficult. The target would not present any problem and for that matter even the location looked tailor-made. On the other hand, performing a hit in Mainland China would always present certain risks.
Thankfully, the order had come from the Chinese Public Security Bureau — which is why his corporate bosses at SCC had been so excited. It was a way-in to the Chinese market, and his bosses were seeing dollar signs. Ekstrom had agreed, but had asked some stiff questions before he left for the airport. If he was going personally to do a job where he risked the firing squad because some minor Chinese official screwed up, he demanded to know more about who was behind it. Whoever was hiring him, Gong An Public Security Bureau or not, he had better be able to protect him if the shit hit the fan.
Q Y Zhang was the client’s name. A full colonel in the Gong An Beijing Public Security Bureau. He was a big cheese all right — impeccable credentials — and it appeared he operated with impunity throughout China.
But as Ekstrom sat flying high over the Pacific, the natural question was — why? What need had the Gong An for a foreign assassin to do a job they themselves could have accomplished with impunity in China? An even bigger question — why Ekstrom in person?
As he sat in first class, twelve kilometers above the Pacific, Ekstrom was beginning to work it out. It gave a perverse thrill. The Chinese were all over the Semyonov-SearchIgnition affair. They must have been watching Alban and they knew it was Ekstrom who had killed him. Now they wanted the same man to carry out the hit in China. Everyone who was anyone in a US corporation knew that it was the SearchIgnition board who ordered Alban killed. Who else would it be? The Chinese knew it too. And by using the same assassin in China, they wanted suspicion for the next killing to fall on SearchIgnition also.
This Zhang was a clever guy.