Cold Air in Unit Seventeen

“I was about to ask you that.” Her eyes dropped to his soaked shoes. “Though you don't look like the sort of man who could follow me through Chenghai.” He said nothing. He could hardly tell her a bowl of noodles had sent him. Lin opened the lock. Inside was no cash and no contract, only a white insulated case and a stack of yellowed temperature charts. She lifted the top sheet, and the fingers holding it tightened. “My mother helped design a low-energy cold-chain module,” she said. “The project stopped ten years ago. The team scattered. Last week I learned the patent was close to expiring, and the buyer plans to destroy all the data.”