The Shanghai Strain: A Rex Dalton Thriller, page 1
The Shanghai Strain
_______________________________________
A REX DALTON THRILLER
BOOK ELEVEN
JC Ryan and David Lee
About The Shanghai Strain
An idyllic holiday turns into a race against time to stop a diabolic plot.
Rex, Catia, Digger, and their friends, Josh and Marissa, are on holiday in Hong Kong. The nature scenes are breathtaking, the people enlivening, and the shopping exhilarating.
That is until Catia, Marissa, and Digger go shopping at Stanley Market. Two ladies are attacked by members of the triad group, Sun Yee On. Seeing it happen right before their eyes, without hesitation, Catia, Marissa, and Digger jump into action and rescue the women.
Thus, their blissful holiday comes to a violent end, and they become the targets of the Chinese government who wants them dead to prevent the uncovering of the diabolic scheme of the President of China to get control of the world.
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Rex Dalton and his dog, Digger, visited the island of Olib in Croatia.
A girl was murdered.
The police said it was her boyfriend who stabbed her to death, but Rex and Digger had no doubt they were making a big mistake.
Dalton decided to conduct his own investigation and bring the real killer to justice.
A thriller with quirks and twists that will keep you guessing until the end.
Click here to get it now.
Dedication
Dedicated to my good friend Mitch Pender, a military dog trainer, for giving me the idea for this series and guiding me through the intricate and amazing capabilities and psychology of those majestic four-legged soldiers.
Mitch has a lifetime of experience and an exceptional depth of knowledge as a military dog handler and trainer.
I am deeply indebted to my friend, co-author, co-conspirator, and mentor, David Lee, who, with his in-depth understanding of Hong Kong and China, came up with the idea for this novel and tirelessly assisted me in developing the outline and advising and supporting me throughout the entire writing process.
Epigraph
Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.
Mao Tse Tung
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1 – A chance meeting
Shanghai, China
Chapter 2 – The Seven Seas
Rome, Italy
From Rome to Hong Kong
Chapter 3 – Shopping at Stanley Market
Stanley, Hong Kong
Stanley Market, Hong Kong
Chapter 4 – You know who those women are?
Stanley Market, Hong Kong
Chapter 5 – An invitation they couldn’t refuse
Discovery Bay, Hong Kong
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Chapter 6 – Sightseeing in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Chapter 7 – The reason
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Chapter 8 – We need information
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Unknown location, Hong Kong
Chapter 9 – It will be done
Yuen Long, Hong Kong
Yuen Long, Hong Kong
Chapter 10 – Welcome aboard
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Chapter 11 – Ever thought of taking up baseball?
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Chapter 12 – We’re here for our women
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Yuen Long, Hong Kong
Chapter 13 - New Righteousness and Peace
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Chapter 14 – What is really happening
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Chapter 15 – Tao Meng’s Scouts
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Shanghai, China
Chapter 16 – The recruit
Sarlin Tower, Hong Kong
Chapter 17 – The report
Sarlin Tower, Hong Kong
Chapter 18 – Who had to report what, to whom, and when
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Chapter 19 – The phone calls
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Secured telephone call
Langley, Virginia | Washington, DC
Chapter 20 – Meetings and briefings
En route to the White House, Washington, DC
Oval Office, White House, Washington, DC
Situation Room, White House, Washington, DC
Chapter 21 – Assemble the teams
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia | CRC Headquarters, Arizona
The TOMATS, Matz Island, Hong Kong
Chapter 22 – A four-part plan
Secured video conference
Chapter 23 – Avert a viral holocaust
Secured video conference
Chapter 24 - Find me virus data
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Chapter 25 – Setting up two meetings
Matz Island, Hong Kong
Chapter 26 – The doctor of Shanghai
Shanghai, China
Chapter 27 – Emerging pictures
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Shanghai, China
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Chapter 28 – Exporter to importer in six weeks
Secured video conference
Chapter 29 – No second term
Singapore
Chapter 30 – The sayanim of Shanghai
Shanghai, China
Chapter 31 – The functional equivalent of war
White House, Washington, DC
Chapter 32 – Gambling on Macao
Macao Special Administrative Region
Chapter 33 – The marshals
Beijing, China
Chapter 34 – What do you want?
Shanghai, China
Shanghai, China
Chapter 35 – So crazy it’s actually going to work
Aboard the TOMATS, Matz Island, Hong Kong
Chapter 36 - Less than two weeks away
Langley Virginia | Washington, DC
Chapter 37 – The President is on the line for you
Washington, DC | Hong Kong
Chapter 38 - Reporting to the President
Beijing, China
Chapter 39 – How did they do it?
Shanghai, China
Chapter 40 - 22 Hours to H-hour
Shanghai, China | Hong Kong
Chapter 41 – 20 Hours to war
White House, Situation Room, Washington, DC
Chapter 42 – From Shanghai to DC
Various transcontinental flights
White House, Situation Room, Washington, DC
Chapter 43 – Seven things
White House, Oval Office, Washington, DC
Beijing, China | Washington, DC
Epilogue
Fact and Fiction
Foreword
The Shanghai Strain is a work of fiction written purely for the entertainment of my readers. The names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in the story are merely the product of my imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any likeness to actual people, alive or dead, businesses, companies, events, or places is entirely coincidental.
The idea for this novel was born in early October 2019, almost three months before WHO (World Health Organization) reported about a mysterious type of pneumonia from an unknown source, sickening dozens of people in Wuhan, China. On January 30, 2020, for the sixth time in history, WHO declared a "public health emergency of international concern," a designation reserved for extraordinary events that threaten to spread internationally. On February 11, 2020, WHO renamed it from the novel coronavirus to COVID-19. CO for corona, Vi for virus, and D for disease.
At that time, I had completed the detailed plot outline, and for the next week or two, wrestled with the question of whether to shelve the book and start another, which is what I did. However, what is a mind if you can’t change it? As time progressed, I found myself drawn back to this story more often than I wanted to be. Finally, I decided to complete the story for two reasons: One, I hated the idea of leaving the story untold. Two, I realized I could finish the story as originally conceived. In other words, I could write it as if the tragic events of the COVID-19 pandemic had not happened in the fictional world where my characters reside.
Admittedly, with the pandemic raging across the planet while I was writing this story, my thoughts had unintentionally been influenced by the dreadful, unfolding events that are impacting so many, causing immeasurable emotional and financial stress to millions, already killed hundreds of thousands and still counting.
I only wish that the COVID-19 pandemic had never happened and that my heroes were real so they could have helped to prevent it from ever happening.
Major Characters
Rex Dalton: Former black operations specialist working for CRC.
Catia: Married to Rex. Former Mossad mission support specialist.
Digger: A black Dutch Shepherd. Former military dog. Rex and Catia’s companion.
Josh Farley: Black operations specialist working for CRC. Fr
Marissa: Married to Josh. Black operations specialist working for CRC. Friend of Rex, Catia, and Digger.
John Brandt: CEO of CRC (Crisis Response Consultancy), a private military contractor specializing in black operations on behalf of their clients such as the CIA and other US security agencies.
Chris McArdle: Second in command of CRC.
Declan Spencer: John Brandt’s best friend. Former Navy SEAL commander, now captain of the luxury yacht, the TOMATS.
Greg Wade: Team leader of CRC’s small but highly skilled group of IT specialists.
Rehka Gyan: Rex’s technology expert, virtual assistant, researcher, and friend. Greg’s love interest.
Yaron Aderet: The head of the Mossad’s largest department, Collections, tasked with all the many aspects of conducting espionage overseas.
Li Lingxin: President of the PRC (People’s Republic of China).
Jethro Matz: A Hong Kong Jew and CEO of Matz Enterprises, the largest electricity supplier in Hong Kong.
Tamara Matz: Jethro’s sister and co-CEO of Matz Enterprises.
Tao Meng: Jethro’s personal assistant.
Ramesh Ojha: Jethro’s head of security. Nepalese, a former Gurkha.
David Sarlin: A Hong Kong Jew and CEO of HK Securities. A close friend of Jethro and Tamara.
Dora (Sarlin) Frankel: David’s sister and close friend of Tamara and Jethro. Married to Robert Frankel, living in California.
Benjamin Yatsir: A Hong Kong Jew, Dora, and Tamara’s friend from school. A very successful medical microbiologist and virologist.
Howard Lawrence: Director of the CIA.
Martin Richardson: Deputy director in charge of CIA operations
Dr. Zheng Xuefeng: The CEO of Zexian Biomed, a biotech company located in Shanghai, China, Benjamin Yatsir’s boss, and friend.
Dong Yan: Chinese industrialist and dissident.
General Dai Min: A senior general in the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) in charge of China’s nuclear arsenal. Board member of Matz Enterprises nuclear power station ninety miles northeast of Hong Kong sole supplier of electricity to several of South China’s mega industrial plants.
Dr. Abiram Sharot: Chinese Jew and physician at East Shanghai Private Hospital, ESPH.
General Yuan Lee: A senior general in the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) in charge of China’s Bioweapons Program.
TOMATS: The luxury yacht the name derived from the first letters of Ernest Hemingway’s classic short novel, The Old Man and the Sea.
SYO, Sun Yee On: Chinese triad (mafia) group operating out of Hong Kong.
Chapter 1 – A chance meeting
Shanghai, China
Day 1
IT WAS DORA FRANKEL’S chance meeting with her old school friend at Shanghai Pudong International Airport that unwittingly triggered the chain of the events that would rouse Rex Dalton, his wife, Catia, and their military dog, Digger, from their brief retirement from the world of covert operations.
Dora arrived at the airport on time to check in and had an hour or so spare for shopping before flying to her friends and family in Hong Kong where she grew up. She didn't live in Hong Kong anymore; she met her knight in shining armor, Robert Frankel, while doing modeling work in California and married him. That’s where she lived now.
Dora was a head-turner; she had been all her life. She was a tall and elegant sixty-five-year-old, with beautiful, wrinkle-free skin and a toned body that was the envy of women forty years younger. Her face was one romance writers studied when they described their heroine. In her younger days, she was one of Hong Kong’s top models, so popular that when she wore an outfit to a public event, the next day, top clothing stores would have the same outfit on their shelves and sell it out in hours.
She was about to enter a fashion store when she heard a man’s voice behind her. “Dora? Is it you?” Turning, she smiled. “Benjamin! What a pleasant surprise . . .” She hesitated; there was no mistake. The man was Benjamin Yatsir, her old friend from school, but he looked disheveled, stressed, withered. “How are you?”
“I’m well. How about you?”
A few minutes later, when the pleasantries were out of the way, Benjamin told her he had just arrived on a flight from Beijing and that he had time for lunch before having to return to the lab where he worked. Benjamin grew up in Hong Kong and had attended the same school as Dora.
With their lunch orders in front of them and the server out of the way, Dora leaned forward toward Benjamin and said, “Ben, excuse me, but you don’t look well. When I saw you a year ago you looked well, but now . . . you look troubled . . . anxious, and you’ve lost weight. What’s going on?”
“Ah, just work stress, the usual. There’s so much going on, and I’m struggling to keep up. Maybe it’s the age thing sneaking up on me.”
“Ben, you’ve never been a good liar. I know you better than your siblings. Out with it.”
It took a few more rounds before Benjamin relented. “I didn’t lie when I said it’s about my work.”
“What about your work, Ben?”
“As you know, it was your brother who got me appointed as the lead researcher at Zexian Biomed, for which I’ll be eternally grateful but . . . there is a problem. I suspect a big one.”
“What is it, Ben? Is there something you want me to talk to David about?”
“Yes, there is, but let me tell you what it is first.” Ben smiled wryly.
“Sorry, I’m worried about you.”
“We study zoonotic viruses, viruses that are transmitted between animals and humans, and then human-to-human. And we have made significant progress and some major breakthroughs. In other words, on that front, things are, or rather, were going well. Then two months ago, three officials working for the MSS turned up at Zexian Biomed and called Dr. Zheng Xuefeng and me into a private meeting.”
The MSS was the Ministry of State Security, China’s intelligence, security, and secret police agency responsible for counterintelligence, foreign intelligence, and political security. They have been described as one of the most secretive and brutal intelligence organizations in the world.
Dora raised her eyebrows inquisitively when Ben paused.
“Well, they ordered us to stop all research projects we were working on to concentrate all our efforts on the study of a new pathogen, a virus, which they gave to us in vials. They didn’t tell us where the pathogen came from, only that it was Zexian Biomed’s job to sequence its genome. To find out how it would spread, through bodily fluids, through the air, physical contact, etcetera. Also, they wanted to know about the gestation period and what impact it would have on the human body. And most important of all, they want us to find a cure and vaccination for it.”
“Without knowing where and how it originated? That sounds irrational.”
“Totally. And add to that, we were given no access to humans who’d been infected by the virus. They told us that the virus was contained, no one had been infected. That was a big lie. But I’ll get to that soon.
“The next thing they did was order us to call every staff member into the staffroom where officials told them that they were a ‘privileged’ group who had been selected to work on a very prestigious but very top-secret project for their country in the interests of national security. Everyone then had to fill out and sign a form pledging us to absolute secrecy. The document was very specific about the dire consequences of discussing any of what we were doing at the lab with anyone outside our workplace as I'm doing now.
“Dr. Zheng has been ordered to ensure that all our research is meticulously documented and uploaded to a secured server every day. We’re not allowed to make copies of the data or any document created by us, neither are we allowed to print anything.”
“Draconian,” Dora murmured.
“Absolutely. Especially the fact that we’ve come to realize they’ve placed all of us under surveillance.”
“You mean as in being followed?”
“I don’t know about being followed, but our telephones and mobile phones, work, and personal are all tapped. Our internet activities are being monitored, work and personal.”
“Why?”
“I think I know. You see, when we compared the genome of this virus with the known viruses that are harmful to humans, we found signs of gene splicing. In other words, gene sequences of other viruses have been inserted into this new virus, which we call the Shanghai Strain.”
