Chapter XXXI: Chungking Express

1130hrs, 13 December 2013, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China.

"I didn't realize Hong Kong looked so beautiful at night. Such beauty can vanish in a blink. It really isn't worthwhile." Mark Lee, A Better Tomorrow.

"How the hell did we manage to pull this off?" Mina was standing with Amy near the Chungking Mansions, one of the largest apartment complex in all of Hong Kong. There were thousands of people living there; Indians, Taiwanese, Chinese, Thais, Laotians, Vietnamese, Malays…even the odd European or American could be found there among the cheap apartments, stores, kebab shops and other commercial enterprises. It had been a wretched hive some time ago, with drugs, prostitution, fraud, murder, and every other crime imaginable going on there; but HK had cleaned up their act and it was quickly becoming a nice place to live and visit.

"You told Kobayashi that we needed a vacation," Amy said. She was wearing slacks and a long shirt, coupled with a jacket and some fashionable glasses that contained her HUD. It was kind of cold outside; measuring about fourteen degrees centigrade. She had a nice purse by her side, containing that metal box that had so stumped them back in Japan. Mina had been nicely surprised by the contents of the box after Amy showed her, but had taken it with her just in case they needed it for something.

"I didn't think he would take it that seriously…" Mina replied, looking at that huge, ugly building in front of them. She also had a purse, with jeans, shirt and a jacket as well as sunglasses.

"He's serious about getting us back on track." Amy looked through her glasses and scanned the area. "Anything to help us get all that stuff from the last couple of months off of our chests."

"Did you turn the Nakanishi tracking software off?" Mina asked. She looked suspiciously at a couple of police officers walking by them.

"Hey, 663," one of them said to another. Mina guessed it was his badge number. "Did you finally break up with that airline hostess?"

"Of course, they think we're in the IFC, doing some shopping," Amy said, going through the menu on her HUD. "They still have Artemis as our comm officer. I'm glad he knows what we're up to, even after India."

"He's a good guy," Mina said, looking at Amy with a soft look. "He's just a bit naïve." She was still looking at the police officers as they passed them.

"I didn't know you spoke Cantonese," Amy said to her. "I can barely get Mandarin."

"I can understand it, but speaking it is something else," Mina replied.

"Well that's…" Amy started to say something, but she noticed a couple of men walking on the opposite side of the road from them.

"You see that?" Three men, in heavy jackets, even for this weather, and jeans, moderate build, moderate height (for Asians). Their clothing was somewhat baggy, which could mean that they didn't have the money to afford the right size of clothes, or they had something to hide…

"Yeah, I see them," Mina replied. "They've been following us for about a block."

"Perhaps they're just looking for a quickie," Amy dryly noted. "Right, we have to shake them."

She looked at her map on her glasses HUD.

"Okay, there's a Sheraton up ahead," she said, moving past some tourists, babbling happily in Chinese. "We can lose them in there."

She and Mina walked a quick pace, passing by the entrance of Chungking Mansions but not stopping.

"This is a nice place," Mina said, looking at the gleaming towers in front of them.

"No time to gawk," Amy replied, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her into the hotel.

"They even have a Morton's here!" Mina exclaimed, walking past a restaurant in the hotel. "I bet Serena would be having a fit right now."

"Come on!" Amy hissed. She continued to walk very fast through the lobby, which was bathed in white light and decorated for the upcoming Christmas holiday. There was a staircase in the center of the lobby, and she and Mina dashed up it to the second floor.

"Are they still behind us?" Amy asked Mina. She was still holding her hand.

"Yeah, they're gaining!" Mina saw the three men enter through one of the doors, looking very out of place though in the fancy hotel.

"Can I help you?" Amy almost ran into an employee of the hotel, who was impeccably dressed in a white blouse and skirt, matching her surroundings.

"Ah…yeah…um," Mina replied hastily. The employee was giving both of them an odd look. "We're trying to find the elevators."
"They're right over there," she said in English, pointing to her left at a bank of elevators.

"Thanks!" Amy ran over to the elevators and hit the up button. She looked over her shoulder and saw the men come running up the stairs…right into the employee they had just spoken to.

"Hey!" she was now in a bad mood. "What are you doing here?"

"We're…uh…" That took the guy off guard.

"Sir, please leave the premises!" She reached for a radio and started calling for security.

Ding. The elevator door opened up and Mina and Amy jumped in, hitting the button for the sixteenth floor.

"Got it!" Mina said, somewhat relieved.

The doors began to close when one of the men that had been following them ran in front of it and tried to put his hand in the entrance.

"No you don't!" Amy delivered a high kick and knocked the guy's hand out of the way, letting the doors close.

"Jesus, that was close." Mina breathed out, finally after that tense chase. "Who do you think they were?"

"I'm scanning the radio frequencies of the security team here," Amy said. She broke through the encryption and accessed the frequency. "I'm patching it to you Mina."

Mina listened in to the frantic conversation going on over the radio net. "Whoa, they're Nakanishi."

"Shit, what?!" That kind of an outburst wasn't usually Amy's style.

"Hold up…they said that they're with the Nakanishi Group and that we're a person of interest. The security team isn't buying it though."

Mina listened some more, but it seemed like the situation had resolved itself.

"Thank god for that," she muttered, almost terminating the conversation on her eyepiece. But then, there was one last burst of traffic.

"Wait…there's a security team waiting for us on the sixteenth floor!" Mina exclaimed. "Why did you pick that floor?!"

"Sorry!" Amy said, flummoxed. "I was just trying to get away!"

Mina looked up at what floor they were on. Twelve…thirteen….fifteen. She had to think of something that would distract the security team. She came up with one real fast.

"Oh god. Amy, you're not going to like this." Mina whipped off her sunglasses and leaned in toward Amy.

"What is…..mmmpphhh!"

Mina grabbed her face and planted a huge kiss on her lips, making sure add some tongue action in there as well.

I hate you so much, Amy thought, but played along. This was going to be so awkward.

The doors of the elevator opened to the sight of two (apparently) lesbian lovers engaged in a passionate moment.

"Uh…" The (male) security team wasn't expecting that.

"Oh…err…" Mina let go of Amy and turned around, fluffing her hair and giving a big, white smile. Amy just kind of stood there, dumbfounded at what had just happened.

And that was my first kiss too, Amy grumbled.

Several awkward minutes later, the security people let them go, convinced that the Nakanishi guys were stalking them and that they were just here in Hong Kong for some "peace and quiet." Mina and Amy apologized profusely for invading their hotel, but were actually offered a free night's stay by the manager for the inconvenience that they had gone through. They politely turned it down, and left for the entrance to Chungking Mansions.

"When do you think this guy is going to show up?" Mina asked Amy, as they were standing by the entrance to Chungking Mansions, on Nathan Road. There were thousands of people walking around, ants in the concrete jungle that was Hong Kong. It was like India, just much more cleaner and a little bit more organized.

"D.D said twelve," Amy replied. "Do you think the Nakanishi guys are still tracking us?"

"I think we gave them the slip," she replied. "The security people told me that they shipped those guys across Victoria Harbor and told them to never come back."

"And thanks to your little stunt back there." Amy was still a little confused about her orientation.

"My pleasure," Mina said, winking at her.

"Stop acting like you enjoyed it," Amy said, very irritated.

"Meh." Mina continued to smile at her.

Amy checked the time on her glasses HUD. 1200hrs.

"Alright, I'm bringing the picture of Hao Chung…Zhong…up and scanning the surrounding perimeter."

Mina saw the picture come up and Amy's subsequent scan of the area. Even though there were thousands of people walking in and out of shops, driving cars, and engaging in their normal, everyday business the facial recognition software would be able to find the person they were after.

"Did that D.D person fly into HK today?" Mina asked Amy, looking around for their target.

"Yeah, but he's staying pretty far away from this place." Amy kept scanning, but no such luck.

They waited there for ten minutes or so, looking around and in general, acting pretty touristy in the process. Mina went and looked at some of displays in the nearby shops and Amy walked around the entrance to the Mansions, avoid the aggressive hawkers and their wares. Amy stamped her feet and walked some more, trying to stay a little bit warm, watching her breath puff out in the cold, but humid air.

"Hey, Amy, I've got a match."

Mina was standing by the window front of a technology store when her HUD identified a match on the target.

"What's the probability?"

"Eighty-five percent." Mina highlighted Hao Zhong and started to walk toward him, keeping her purse close by, her trusty Glock 26 ready to go. He was wearing a fedora and a long trench coat, with a brown scarf.

"I'll take that," Amy said. She started to walk toward Mina's position.

"Does he see us?" Mina asked.

"I don't think so. Wait." Amy saw Zhong reach into his pocket and pull out a mobile phone.

"I'll try to tap into the call, standby." She accessed the communications towers in the area, triangulating the call that Zhong was making to the hotel where D.D was staying at.

"Got it. Listening in."

"Where are you?" Zhong asked, irritated. "This is very important."

"I'm sorry Zhong," D.D replied. "It's over."

"What do you mean, over? Just because you got a couple of shots thrown at you doesn't mean anything. It wasn't Nakanishi. My contacts said…"

"Your contacts don't know shit. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a potential wife to meet."

"Wait!" Zhong said, part in protest, part in desperation.

"Oh, and expect a couple of women there to meet you. They have the box."

Zhong immediately looked around and saw Mina coming up to him, about ten meters away.

"Shit!" He dropped the phone and started to run inside Chungking Mansions.

"He's running!" Mina gave chase, pushing some hawkers away from her and dashing down the long gauntlet of shops.

"I'm right behind you!" Amy yelled. She ran down the row of stores and went an alternate route pre-programmed by her HUD, showing the probable route and exits out of Chungking, based on Zhong's physical strength (not good), his endurance (pathetic, he smoked two packs a day and his body fat percentage was 19 percent) and his general knowledge of the area (quite good, but the other two parts slowed him down).

"He's heading toward the back of the Mansions," she reported to Mina, sending a projected course. "He knows the area, so be careful."

"Got it." Mina continued the chase, past the curry stalls, the sari shops, the bootleg movie stores, knocking over display items and making a mess of things in her pursuit of Zhong up ahead.

Zhong hurried as fast as he could, huffing and puffing all the while, but the blonde lady behind him was gaining on him, despite his dodging between the stores and the stalls. He knew that if he continued on this route, it would take him out by the Hong Kong Guest house…he had a friend there that could hide him and…

Wham.

Amy blindsided him and pushed him into a group of stalls holding canaries.

"Ow!" he yelled out, before Mina and Amy pulled him up and rushed him away from a gathering crowd of onlookers into an alley some distance away.

"Hey…what the fuck! Let go of me you crazy bitches!" he yelled at them in Mandarin.

"Oh hush," Mina replied in English. She was holding him against a wall, restraining him against his attempts to get away. "Know what this is?" She nodded to Amy, who pulled out the metal box.

Zhong's eyes bulged out when he saw that box.

"You got that from D.D?" he asked in English and disbelief.

"Like the man told you," Mina said.

"You were listening into my conversations?!"

"Yeah, there's a lot of things can do," Amy replied with a slight smile. "Now, what's in this box?" Something to throw him off for a second; they obviously knew, but he didn't.

Zhong looked at her, then back to Mina, then back to Amy.

"You can't open the box here…" he slowly said.

"Oh, try me," Amy replied. She fiddled around with it, and popped the lid open, retrieving the keycard inside of it. "What's this do then?"

Zhong's eye's bulged out and he struggled against Mina's grip, but she tightened her hold on him.

"Answer the damn question," Mina said.

"That's what I need to destroy Nakanishi!" Zhong said desperately, his eyes darting from Amy to Mina, Mina to Amy.

"Then what does it open?!" Amy poked him in the ribs, reminiscent of her first interrogation.

Zhong took in a breath, inhaling the smells of the city, the cooking of meat, freshly washed laundry, some piss added in with that, car exhaust, and the odor of unwashed bodies coming from the apartments.

"Alright, you got me," he said. Zhong hung his head (or as much as Mina would allow him), in defeat.

"Where can you use it then?" Amy asked once more, calmly this time.

"It's a key to the safe I have over in the International Finance Center. At the Mitsui branch over there."

Mina and Amy breathed in. That would mean going over to the place that they had said they were going to be.

"You do know that there's a branch of the Nakanishi Group over in that building there?" Amy commented, wondering if they wanted to commit suicide entering that building.

"Yeah, that's why I hid it there. Right underneath their noses. At least I'm not using their financial services, now that would be suicide, heh." Zhong seemed pretty confident of his plan. It was more folly than brilliant planning to the SAILOR team, however.

"Wonderful," Mina groaned. She looked at Amy.

"Well, we don't have much choice." Mina took Zhong by the collar and walked him down the alley.

"Wait, we're not going there…are we?"

"Oh yes, and much more." Mina hailed a passing cab and shoved Zhong in, taking a seat next on his right and Amy on his left.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

"Tee-hee," Mina giggled, putting on her dumb blonde routine. "Where are we going…boss?"

Amy just smiled, trying not to look too embarrassed in this situation.

Zhong looked stunned, but quickly recovered.

"Uh…uh…the IFC building."

"You know there's a no drive zone…" the taxi driver said, but Zhong cut him off.

"Just get us close enough, we can walk," he replied in a snippy tone.

"Right away."

The taxi drove away, zipping through traffic, red lights, and other taxis, reinforcing the "bad Asian driver" stereotype.

Thirty minutes later, they were in the lobby of the IFC, hustling Zhong along and trying not to look suspicious.

"Which floor is the bank on?" Mina asked.

"It's on…" Zhong started to say, but Amy had already beat him to it.

"The seventh floor." She had looked it up on her HUD, which was connected to her glasses.

"Wrong, it's on the eighth floor," Zhong corrected. "The bank proper is on the seventh floor, but the safe in on the eighth one."

Mina jabbed him in the ribs for that.

"Ow!"

"Yeah, it'll be a lot more painful if you keep that up," Mina said to him. Zhong rubbed his right side, where both Amy and Mina had poked him, wincing in pain. There really wasn't much he could do about it, so he continued along with the two of them to the elevators.

Ding. "Eighth Floor, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation." The elevator had a proper computerized announcer and everything.

As the doors opened, they revealed a proper lobby, with a flatscreen TV, a reception desk, and a couple of couches and sofas for waiting customers. There was a guard at the desk, along with a receptionist.

"Hello there," the receptionist said in flawless American English. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Han. It's been awhile since you've been here."

"Uh, yeah, nice to see you Ms. Shan," Zhong sputtered back. He actually put it under "Han Zhao", since that was a pretty common name, and if Nakanishi wanted to find him, they were going to have to do a lot of paperwork in order to find that one goddamn safety deposit box.

"Who are your friends?" she asked him, somewhat flirtatiously, but also out of suspicion.

"They're…professional acquaintances," he replied, sweating profusely. It was certainly hot here in the room, as it was kind of cool outside. Of course, something else was hot as well…

"I see," the receptionist said. "Do you have your key?"

Zhong nodded. Amy reached inside her purse and pulled out the box.

"Very good. Please open it up." Zhong did so, and took out the keycard.

"I see that storage container has been damaged, would you like a replacement for that?" Ms. Shan asked him. She looked at the two women next to him, and wondered if they had anything to do with that.

"No, no, it's alright." Zhong handed the card to her, and she inserted it into a bank of empty keycard slots. The light on her computer screen turned green for Zhong's safety deposit box inside the safe they had behind her.

"You two will have to wait out here," she said to Mina and Amy.

"Aw, come on!" Mina whined. "You said you were going to show us!" She tugged on Zhong's arm, making sure to play it up for everyone watching. "Please?"

"I…uh…"

"You're going to have to be entered into the system then," the receptionist replied, now looking very suspiciously at those two. There was actually a limited-entrance policy regarding visitors, and for those who vouched for them, could be let in for a certain amount of time. She motioned to a digital fingerprint scanner, along with a retinal scanner on her desk.

"Please place your right index finger on the scanner." Mina and Amy looked at each other, but complied.

"Now please look into the eye scanner." Again, the two did so.

"Mr. Han, I'm going to have you sign this voucher for these two." She pulled out a piece of paper, stating that he could be charged with a variety of different crimes if he knowingly allowed people to come in there and to rob the place, basically.

"And I need you two to sign these forms….and sign here…and here."

Five minutes of paperwork later, more scanning and another battery of background checking, they were clear to go in with Mr. Zhong.

"Thank you for being cooperative," the receptionist said, opening the door to the safe. She motioned for them to move in.

"Thanks Ms. Shan."

Mina and Amy nodded in thanks, and followed him into the safe. What they didn't see what the receptionist push a small button, alerting the security force to an internal emergency, without calling the police. Despite all of the paperwork, she still didn't trust them.

Inside the safe room, there was another waiting area with a guard, armed with a Beretta 92F. He asked for their signatures on yet another waver, another fingerprint and retinal scan, and finally, they were let into the safe. He didn't ask for their purses or anything, though he did a quick check through them. Finding nothing (their pistols were hidden in a false pocket), he allowed them access to the safe.

"Please hit the buzzer when you want to be let back out," he told them, shutting the safe door behind them.

"Well, that was sure fun," Amy said to Zhong, letting go of his arm. Gross.

There were rows and rows of deposit boxes here, with a desk and a small table in the center for viewing the contents of the box.

"Where's your safety deposit box?" Mina asked.

"It's the one over here." He went to a box that had a green light on it.

"No external keys. Nice," Amy commented. "All access is controlled from the front desk."

"And that's why I put my information here."

"Well, that's great and all, but can you show us the information?" Mina asked impatiently.

"Fine." Zhong went over to the box and pulled it out, revealing a laptop computer. He set it down on the desk, plugged the charger into a socket that was in the floor. It took a couple minutes for the computer to boot up, but after that, Zhong accessed an video file he had encrypted on the hard drive.

"What's that?" Mina asked, pointing to the icon on his GUI.

"When I was working with Nakanishi, they invited me to their headquarters in Tokyo. I figured at some point, they would try to get rid of me, so I made an insurance plan."

"Which would be…?"

"I planted a spy camera on their projector in their meeting room," he said, typing in some passwords to gain access to the file. "There are some very interesting conversations, but this one takes the cake."

Mina and Amy crowded around him, waiting in anticipation.
"This will blow your mind." Zhong clicked on the video file and played it.