Cold Zero

Chapter 1

Hong Kong

The little car hit a speed bump and hurtled through the air like a shoulder-fired missile.

Landing in a spray of glass and broken plastic, it shattered a motor mount and kept going.

Two blocks later, as it took flight and slammed back to earth once more, its bent frame groaned like a stabbing victim.

Despite all of its damage, the autonomous taxi continued at breakneck speed.

Screaming down the precipitous incline of Hong Kong’s Central District, the wind tore at its flimsy shell.

As its tires clawed for purchase on the slick asphalt, they unfurled tendrils of hot smoke.

Trailing behind, three police cruisers slalomed wildly through the early morning traffic, struggling to keep up.

Horns blared. Klaxons wailed. Wide-eyed pedestrians scattered for cover like startled birds. The madness was only two minutes old, yet the radios crackled with urgency as patrol cars swarmed in from every direction.

With a roar from its engine, an unmarked sedan lurched into the fray, closing the gap quickly with the rogue taxi.

Riding shotgun, Captain Ronny Tang of China’s Ministry of State Security, or MSS for short, wished he had eaten a milder breakfast. The mi xian was twice as spicy coming up as it had been going down.

Using one hand to brace himself against the dashboard, he used his other to work the radio and bark commands. Everything was unraveling.

“Faster!” he yelled at his driver.

The man they had spent weeks tracking was finally making his move.

All Tang needed to do was arrest him. But as he moved to apprehend their target, the unexpected had happened—the man had bolted from his hotel.

And he hadn’t been alone. An unidentified woman accompanied him, adding a layer of mystery to the situation.

At first the woman seemed like a minor hitch, a solvable complication. Then the autonomous taxi had shot straight into the morning rush.

How the hell is that possible? Tang asked himself in disbelief. There was no way the target could have commandeered the driverless taxi. By design, a thick Plexiglas divider cut off access to the front seat.

The alternative possibility was just as crazy—that the car had, of its own volition, gone full-on Formula 1. It had to be ignoring every preprogrammed safety protocol as it traded paint with countless cars and trams as it pinballed downhill.

He looked ahead and watched a police motorcycle accelerate and catch up.

The little car braked suddenly and swerved, clipping its front wheel.

The bike tumbled to the pavement and its rider went cartwheeling into a curb.

The taxi flew into the next intersection, narrowly missing a delivery boy on a scooter.

As soon as it was through, the light changed to red.

Tang’s driver slammed on the brakes.

“No, no! Keep going!” the captain shouted.

The driver tried to comply, but a bus careened out in front of them. With a last-second jerk on the wheel, they merely sideswiped the bus’s front bumper. In a crunch of grating metal, the sedan ricocheted off and kept going.

The captain tried to work the radio, desperate for all the reinforcements he could muster, but he could barely key the microphone as his body was thrown left and right.

“Don’t lose sight of him!”

As it turned out, additional radio calls were unnecessary.

A massive response had already been initiated by headquarters.

Every police car in the district was converging on their quarry, a chorus of sirens that could be heard from miles away.

Military units, which had been on alert since last night, were descending from all quarters.

Navy patrol boats were locking down the harbor, a ground stop had been ordered at Hong Kong International Airport, and helicopters swirled overhead.

Three blocks ahead a roadblock was hurriedly established.

Two rows of eight cars, fronted by spike strips, impeded every inch of road and sidewalk.

Backing all of it up were a pair of ZFB-05 armored personnel carriers.

It would be absolutely impenetrable. With the streets lined by skyscrapers on either side, and multiple cars in pursuit, the driverless taxi was rocketing toward a box canyon of concrete, glass, and armor.

You won’t be running much longer, Tang thought.

The taxi’s sensors were on overload. Radar, GPS, cameras, computers: All were working in unison, yet in a way the designers could never have imagined.

Safety was no longer paramount. The overriding function had become speed.

Two passengers in the back seat held on for their lives, clutching handholds in a death grip as they watched the steering wheel spin ghostlike through oncoming traffic.

As the final intersection before the roadblock neared, a twenty-car-deep traffic jam loomed.

The autonomous taxi never slowed for the sea of brake lights.

It bounded up over a curb and onto the sidewalk.

Pedestrians threw themselves clear and shopping bags went flying.

The car plowed over a trash can, clipped two streetlights, and decapitated a fire hydrant.

A food cart exploded in a spray of particleboard, candy, and grilled sweet potatoes; the wreckage was soaked immediately by the geyser from the broken fireplug.

By some combination of good luck and technology, not a single person was run down.

As the taxi approached the intersection, the roadblock was not yet in sight. Even so, by some digital prescience, the car sensed the dead end. It swerved left at the corner, its tires smoking through another skid before getting back on track and disappearing.

Tang cursed. “Left. Left!”

“I see him!”

The MSS car rounded the turn trailing by only half a block. At the next intersection the taxi swung hard right and sped downhill. The waterfront loomed ahead.

At each of the next three intersections the pattern repeated.

Each time the autonomous taxi flew past, the light changed to red and traffic swept in.

Patrol cars joined the chase from all directions, braking and skidding.

The end result was nothing short of a demolition derby, auto parts and glass littering the road like a trail of mechanized breadcrumbs.

The taxi neared the waterfront, but instead of turning onto the shoreside road, it crashed straight through a fence and swerved onto the wharf.

Dozens of police cruisers and MSS cars followed through the jagged breach.

For the pursuers, this simplified their geometry.

Patrol cars maneuvered to outflank their quarry, sealing off the only two escape routes.

Seconds later, the taxi hit a patch of oil, slewed into a spin, and slammed into a shipping container with a sickening crunch.

Finally, the car had been stopped. One side was crumpled, and the left front wheel was bent severely. Its off-white paint scheme had gone to a virtual rainbow from collision damage.

Squad cars immediately surrounded the taxi, forming a semicircle at a safe distance.

Nervous officers bailed out. They drew their weapons and took cover behind doors and quarter panels.

Everyone had seen these kinds of car chases on TV, in lawless places like California, but such pursuits in the People’s Republic were a rarity.

Captain Tang’s sedan, dented and spewing steam from its radiator, wheezed to a stop behind them.

Three more unmarked MSS cars arrived and a dozen men spilled out onto the wharf’s scarred asphalt.

The autonomous taxi was contained. Still, given the chaos of the last ten minutes, no one knew what to expect. Are the suspects in the car armed?

Everyone looked to Tang for guidance.

To his credit, he kept calm. At the warehouse behind them, workers were gathering in a doorway. Two forklift operators paused to gawk. A crowd was forming near the breached wire fence. This prompted the captain’s first order. He dispatched a dozen police officers to push the onlookers away.

More reinforcements soon arrived, a group of men in full tactical gear who were trained in dispersing crowds. They went to work with shields and batons, clearing the wharf of potential witnesses.

With the scene under control, Tang strode toward the driverless taxi.

Five MSS men fell in behind him. The scent of scorched rubber stained the salty breeze.

He wrenched open the dented rear door, reached in, and dragged the passengers out one at a time.

Both ended up sprawled on the oily tarmac.

One was a middle-aged Chinese man in rumpled business attire, the other a black-haired young woman in a sheer blouse, pencil skirt, and stiletto heels.

The man hauled himself up to his feet, indignance in his scowl. He straightened his coat, stared at the captain, and said with all the authority he could muster, “Do you know who I am?”

Amped-up on adrenaline, and frustrated by the turn of events, Tang answered by punching him squarely in the mouth.

The blow was more forceful than it needed to be, and the man fell on his ass.

He sat stunned and immobilized, blood pouring from his mouth.

Two front teeth appeared to be loose. The woman on the ground next to him looked petrified.

Tang leaned into the taxi. He searched the back seat but didn’t see what they were after. He ordered his men to tear it apart. Two raked over the interior. Another used a crowbar to pry open the damaged trunk. Their only find: a silk purse containing a few toiletries.

Tang told them to keep looking.

His men searched the suspects roughly, turning out their pockets and tossing the meager contents on the ground. The car’s seats were ripped out and every compartment was checked.

After ten minutes, two things seemed clear. First was that the object of their search wasn’t here. The second, and more nuanced realization, involved the man on the ground. As he sat moaning and holding a bloody rag to his mouth, the captain suspected he might have made a terrible mistake.