Chapter 21

Shanghai, China

Artemis

January 12-14

Two days ago, we entered the sewers under Shanghai.

The sub ejected us, and all our equipment, like a hillbilly spitting out a watermelon seed. We got organized: latched the heavier equipment to the back of the motorized underwater propulsion thing – I don't know the name of it, it's just torpedo shaped and has a battery, a motor and a big propeller at the rear, with two hand holds and several attachment points for ropes. And a light – it has a light, but Zeus didn't let us use it. We all attached our individual lines to the rope hole thingies, grabbed one of Zeus' legs and he held the propeller thing.

There were a lot of really large boats overhead. In the briefing for this mission, Io had told us that Shanghai was one of the busiest harbors in the world. I believe it. Taking a look behind us, the sub, sitting on the bottom of the bay faded quickly into invisibility, as the big ships passed overhead.

Zeus took us due west, until we got out of the channel, and kept to the western side of two smaller islands in the middle of the Yangtze River. At least they looked small on the little map I had on my wrist GPS. We slowly moved against the current of the Yangtze – which by the way was just foul, yellow, gunky water. We saw some fish, and how they could live in this was beyond me.

After about two hours, Zeus motioned us to be prepared to drop the tanks when we ran out of air, and move to some other tanks we had in our supplies. We only had one other spare, each. I hoped that the exit plan that Io outlined didn't require us to scuba back to the sub. There was a 'little uncertainty' in that part of the plan, but Zeus said that was okay – normal. Maybe he was used to it, but I wasn't.

We followed our wrist GPS devices and eventually got to the Huangpu River. Making a sharp left turn there. The wrist watches told us that it should be dark by now, so we could surface. We did so under the S20 bridge and turned off our air tanks. It was dark and I thanked the Great Spirit for that. (Yes, I was being indoctrinated into the Navajo worldview.) The banks were lightly illuminated and nothing was shining on the water. Zeus told us that we were going to travel like porpoises. Coming up for air, holding our breath as we made progress underwater, rinse, repeat.

Zhengfu was totally unaware of the 'lather, rinse, repeat' analogy, but she understood the repetitive nature of the maneuver.

Boy, it takes a long time to cover the nearly three miles we had to go upstream in the Huangpu. Finally, we got to the Qiujiang River, which was only a hundred feet or so across. It was really more of a name given to a storm drain. It was strange seeing a tunnel from underwater, but we passed over one near the mouth of the Qiujiang as it flowed into the Huangpu.

We came up slowly into this narrow 'river' and crawled into one of the many sewer pipes that dumped into the Qiujiang. We crawled several yards into the big pipe, through a couple of inches of slowly draining water, hauled our equipment slowly up after us and flopped back in exhaustion. We'd been in the water for about six hours, and, although we didn't have to swim, the cold tired us out. Even in the 'dry suits' we had on. They weren't totally dry.

Zeus showed us how to sit so we wouldn't have to touch the cold water, and we ate some power bars and went to sleep. When we woke up several hours later, we were face to beady red eyeball with some Chinese river rats. Looked like close cousins of any garden variety American rat, to me. Zhengfu had woken first and was lazily batting them away, while she waited for me and Zeus to wake.

Zeus turned on the sending unit for satellite transmission and he and I inserted our ITEs. We checked in with Io. I thought of her as being cozy and dry in her salt cave, but of course, she wasn't necessarily there. She could be anywhere she wanted to be.

"I saw that your GPS indicators stopped moving 130 feet from the Qiujiang River," she said. "So I assumed that you were resting there before moving on."

"We are exhausted, Io," I said, "from being in the cold water so long. Next time, can we go after some bad guys in Palm Springs?"

"I'll see what I can do. Checking the online yellow pages under 'bad guys.' Please wait."

"When did we get a comedian for a contact person?" I said to Zeus, modifying the language I used for the ears of Zhengfu, who couldn't hear Io but could hear our side of the conversation.

"You have several miles of sewers to traverse, although the over-the-ground distance is not as great," Io said. She updated our GPS displays to the underground map of the sewer system. There were two dots that represented where we'd exit the sewers, and a further dot where our 'targets' – the people we were to bring back – were. "I have confirmed that the targets will be in their apartment from 6 pm onward, in three days. I have further confirmed that he is committed to go, so the actual risk will be minimized. You must be in position by that time, the lights will only go out for a few minutes."

"Right, Io. Zeus out."

We passed the information on to Zhengfu.

"Did he really say the risk will be minimized?" she asked incredulously. "We are going to be above ground for several hours, in the heart of the biggest city in the world, surrounded by a hostile population and police force. Minimized. HAH!"

We (Zeus and I) knew what Io meant. She meant 'to the extent possible.' We'd gotten used to Io's shorthand. We split up the gear and began trudging through the sewers, following the green line on our GPS. We got to the first stop and rested. It was under a manhole, and from the sounds of it, in a busy street.

We were so tired, we didn't even notice. Zhengfu took the first watch, Zeus the second and that left me with breakfast duties. I poked everyone awake at about 7:00 and passed out the protein bars. Yum.

By the end of that day, January 13, we had found the sewer grate for the power plant that was supposedly the key to all Shanghai electricity: the Shanghai Power Property Unit. Zeus waited for nightfall and then popped up to have a look, as Zhengfu phrased it. "A piece of cake," was all Zeus said.

We overnighted in the sewer, and on January 14, Zhengfu and I made our way to the other target site in the dark hours. We had to go the long way 'round, because the Power Station was on the north side bank of a little river – that was not on any maps that Io provided. The sewers emptied into the unnamed crick. That's what the Navajo would have called it. I called it a pain in the ass. It was only 20 feet wide and about waist deep – for Zeus. On me it was up to the bottom of my ribs, and Zhengfu got her titties wet. But we crossed without incident.

I wonder what other unexpected surprises we'd have. Somebody or the other said that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. I don't know about the enemy, but we were in enemy territory – that'll have to do for botching our neatly planned plans.

But we finally got to the manhole behind the Lanhua Teacher's Apartment complex. It was an oblong, multi-story building in and among other similar boxes. Dr. Fa and his daughter, Dr. Fa, should be in #1422. We checked in with Zeus and Io, and settled in for the rest of the night. We'd come out in the open shortly after the morning rush.

The morning and the evening were the second day.

January 15

We eased the manhole open slowly, ever so slowly. This was our first moment of greatest danger. If a passerby or, god forbid, a policeman saw us, we were in trouble. Fortunately, we were careful enough and the location was out of the way enough that we had no trouble climbing out of the manhole without any trouble.

Sliding the cover back into place was no problem, since Trav could woman-handle it by herself. It only clanged once when it dropped into place, but the sound attracted no attention.

Now came the hard part.

We had to find two people: a man and a woman – The woman somewhat taller than the man. Then we had to kill them.

I could shoot bad guys easily, but to just kill two people? I didn't think I could do it. But the disguise for the disappearance of Drs. Fa would fall apart with the bodies.

Trav – or Zhengfu, as I preferred to call her – thought nothing of it. "What are two lives out of 1.5 billion ethnic Chinese?" she said. "They won't even be missed."