15: Macao

Illyana was in a packed shopping street in Macao, walking briskly alongside her mission controller, Bobby Drake. It was dusk and the greens and reds of hundreds of illuminated signs reflected off his silver-framed glasses.
"Can you still see Clyde?" she asked. She could only see the backs and heads crammed around her. Bobby was taller, with a view over the crowd.
“I think I can," Bobby said, adjusting the zoom of the lenses. "But straight dark hair isn't exactly uncommon around here."
There was a brief gap in the crowd and Bobby caught a glance of the yellow baseball jersey attached to the head he had been watching for the last two minutes. Clyde Xu was wearing a green bomber jacket.
"Dammit," Bobby said. “Wrong guy."
"You're shitting me," Illyana gasped, as they stopped walking and anxiously turned into the frontage of a shop selling tacky jewellery.
“Watch your language,” Bobby said as he pulled a smart phone out of his pocket and dialled Emma. She was back at the apartment, sitting in front of the laptop.
"I've lost Xu," Bobby said. "What are you getting?"
The Institute had easily breached Macao’s telecommunications infrastructure and set up a trace on Clyde Xu’s mobile phone signal, without even remotely alerting the Chinese authorities.
"According to this he's right on top of you, Bobby," Emma said. "Mobile tracking isn't pinpoint, but he should be less than fifty metres away."
"Which way is he moving?"
"Nowhere fast. Maybe he's gone into a shop or something."
"Thanks, Emma," Bobby said. "Call me back when he starts moving." Bobby snapped the phone shut and looked across at Illyana. "Any sign?"
"I"m too short," Illyana said. "I can't see a thing."
"Emma said he's stopped moving."
"We passed a Starbucks twenty metres back," Illyana said. "We could check that out."
"Right," Bobby said.
As the pair turned away from the display of cheap watches to head for Starbucks, Illyana spotted a green jacket, hands buried in pockets. It flashed past less than a metre in front of them. Luckily, Clyde Xu had things on his mind and his eyes were glued to the back of the person walking ahead of him.
Bobby and Illyana exchanged shocked expressions, before stepping into the crowd and resuming the foot pursuit.
"How did we manage to get in front of him?" Illyana asked.
"Must have dropped into a shop to buy something," Bobby said, as he craned his neck, desperate not to lose his fix on Xu for a second time.
Illyana looked at her watch. It was three minutes to eight, which either meant Clyde was running late, or that the meeting was going to take place somewhere nearby. They closed right up on their target as they waited to cross a road. As soon as the green walk sign lit up,
Clyde jogged forward behind the first line of stopped cars, then bounded across the pavement and into a noodle bar with a grubby white sign and a plate glass frontage steamed up with condensation.
They wanted to give Clyde: few moments to settle into the restaurant. Bobby and Illyana crossed the road at a sedate pace, then made themselves look busy at a newsstand. Illyana bought Macao Times and some sweets, while Bobby called Kyle on his mobile phone.
"Kyle, where are you?"
"Me and Bruce saw you crossing the road." Kyle answered. "Don't sweat it."
"OK," Bobby said. "Stay close to the restaurant, but don't let Clyde see you and don't make any moves before I give you the all clear, you understand?"
"You're the boss," Kyle answered.
Bobby snapped his phone shut and looked at Illyana as she slid a tube of mints into her jeans. "Ready?"
Illyana handed Bobby the newspaper and nodded. "As I'll ever be."
"OK, off you go. I'll follow you inside in three minutes."
Because of the condensation, Illyana wasn't sure what she would find as she pushed open the glass door. The kitchen was at the front of the restaurant, with a muggy soy-sauce smell rising from steaming tubs of noodle and rice dishes.
A sweaty face popped up from behind the counter. “Hi, do you want a table, or take-away?”
She saw their target sat facing the door and the queue for takeout it wasn’t that long, she told the man she wanted takeout. She felt a little queasy as she went joined short line of
customers waiting for take-out. The restaurant was seventy per cent full and the decibel level was pretty high. Clyde Xu was on his own so she was relieved to see that the person he was meeting hadn't arrived. He looked tetchy, jiggling his ankle up and down and fanning himself
with a laminated menu.
As she moved to the queue she reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled the sticky backing away from the small listening device there. As she passed Xu’s table a guy in a hard helmet was coming out with a bulky delivery bag. Illyana back stepped to avoid him grasping the edge of the nearest table to steady herself, Xu’s table. She straightened up and joined the takeout queue.
A couple of minutes later Bobby Drake walked in and when he was asked what he wanted by the sweaty door minder, he asked for a table in fluent Cantonese. Moments later Illyana strode out of the restaurant, sweeping by Bobby onto the street. When she saw a homeless woman she placed the noodles she had brought down without breaking step.
Bobby passed between the rows of tables and settled in a few rows behind Clyde Xu. He pulled out his phone and placed a wireless earpiece in, he synched to the listening device Illyana had placed under Xu’s table. He heard the sound of Clyde anxiously jiggling his menu.
It was nearly quarter past eight when a heavily built Australian man carrying a large sports bag slid into the plastic bench facing Clyde Xu. He reached across the table, shook hands with Clyde and spoke in English.
"How’s it going, pal? Sorry I kept you."
Clyde had a nervous touch in his voice, like a first date or interview. "No worries."
"OK mate, nothing goes in writing, so prick up your ears," the Australian said, too quietly for anyone in the noisy restaurant to overhear, but easily picked up by the tiny microphone half a metre away from his mouth.
"The bag is for you. There's a security pass and a cleaner's uniform inside. The pass is for an office block called the Pacific Business Centre, in Catoi. The real cleaners work from eleven at night until two in the morning. You sneak in just after they arrive at eleven tomorrow night. Tell the security on the front desk that it's your first night on the job and you got lost. Act nervous."
Clyde smiled. "I probably will be nervous."
The Aussie smiled back. "Only natural, son. When you arrive at the office, you stay the hell away from the other cleaners and hide out until they leave."
"Where do I hide?"
“Toilets. Not the ones in the offices themselves, but the ones outside by the elevators. They’re maintained by a different contractor that only works during office hours. At two a.m., you use the security pass in the bag and enter the offices of Venetian Aide on the sixth floor. It's a small Italian human rights charity. At the back of the office you’ll find the local chairman’s suite behind a set of double doors. In the washroom off to the side will be a Samsonite overnight bag. It’ll be packed with clothes and toiletries. Open the bag and place the explosive at the bottom. Insert both fuses, in case one goes wrong. You activate them by snapping off the heads and twisting the two wires together.
"When you’ve finished, you go back to the toilets and strip off your cleaner’s overall. Then you leave the building via the stairs. You’ll set off an alarm when you open the fire door. The security guard is no spring chicken, but he might call the cops so wouldn't hang around, OK?"
Clyde nodded. "What happens then?"
"You're a teenager, so my guess is that you go home and play with yourself before falling asleep."
"No, I mean what happens with the explosive. Why are we putting it into an overnight bag instead of under his desk or something?"
The Australian shook his head slowly. "Come on, you know how this works. We don't tell you what you don't need to know."
Clyde felt stupid. "Of course, sorry."