by Lee Goldberg
“Very little. Margo French is his driver and researcher,” Pang said. “They met in Seattle on his last book tour. Prior to that, she was a lounge singer at lesbian bars, a dog walker, and a cashier at a bookstore. She’s a University of Washington dropout and appears to have no professional training of any kind.”
“Obviously that’s all false. We’ve seen her skills.”
“If she’s a spy, too, then the CIA didn’t go to much trouble to create a cover for her.”
“The banality of her life story is what makes it brilliant. It’s designed to make us overlook her and we did,” Yat said. “Clearly, Ludlow is the brains and she is the brawn.”
“You think she’s assigned as his bodyguard?”
“He’s obviously an investigator who was sent here to corroborate the intelligence report and her job is to protect him. We need to take Ludlow alive so we can learn where that report came from.”
“What about her?”
“Expendable,” Yat Fu said. “Soon we’ll cut off that finger and shove it down her throat.”
Ian and Margo walked up to the stage, close enough to overhear Damon and Larry’s conversation.
“I’m still in that tiny trailer,” Damon said. “I’ve got no room to work. Where’s my motor home?”
“It’s arriving at the port tomorrow,” Larry said. “You’ll have it on set in forty-eight hours.”
Damon pointed at him. “You’d better be right, because if it’s not here in two days, then I won’t be on set. So unless you want to shoot this whole fucking movie in my hotel room, you’ll get me my motor home.”
Larry walked off the stage, glowering at Ian as he passed.
“We’re making friends everywhere we go,” Margo said.
“At least Larry isn’t trying to kill us.”
“Suggest another script change and see what happens.”
Damon spotted Ian and smiled at him from the motorcycle. “There he is, the man who made this all possible. We’re living your dream, man.”
And Ian and Margo were living the nightmare. Ian wished his plots would stop coming true. Maybe, if he survived this, he’d start writing westerns.
Susie stepped up onto the stage beside Damon. “Thank you for agreeing to do this publicity shoot with Ian.”
“I’m glad to do anything to support the film,” Damon said.
Ian whispered in Margo’s ear. “Plus he gets two percent of the royalties from the tie-in editions of the book that have his picture on the cover.”
“Come on up, Ian,” Susie said, then looked over at Wang Mei. “You too, please, Mei. The photographer is ready.”
Ian and Mei went up on the stage and stood on either side of Damon, who, by virtue of being on the motorcycle, appeared to be as tall as they were.
“You look incredible, Mei,” Ian said.
“I feel like a movie star.”
“You are.”
“Not yet,” she said.
The photographer started taking photos, giving them directions for a variety of poses and expressions. At one point, Susie handed them each copies of Ian’s book Death Benefits, and more pictures were taken. While all of this was going on, Margo kept an eye on the two bodyguards, who were having a hard time maintaining their ferocious expressions and now just appeared constipated.
Ian stood there smiling through the photo shoot thinking about Margo and how she’d lied to him, deftly manipulating his sympathy and guilt, so she could use him as her cover on a trip to Hong Kong. At least it had been an accident when he had put her life in danger, but she did it to him on purpose. It was a betrayal. And yet, somehow, he felt like he was to blame again for their predicament.
Sure, she’d used him, but it was the story on his laptop and his deadly mistake of logging in to the hotel Wi-Fi that truly put them in the crosshairs of Chinese intelligence. Of course, it didn’t help that she was a spy and, by doing what spies do, made him look like one, too. But she’d done that by accident, and once he realized that, then it really was impossible to get angry with her. It was his fiction, mixed with some fate, that had screwed them both.
Again.
After several hundred photos were taken, the photographer declared that he was done and that he was confident one or two shots might work. The actors and Ian stepped off the stage and Susie led them, along with Margo, to the other side of the Ferris wheel, where a podium and a buffet table were set up and P. J. and the movie crew were mingling with the media.
But the mingling stopped as a gleaming two-toned Rolls-Royce drove up and parked near the podium. A bodyguard emerged from the front passenger seat and opened one of the rear doors. A bejeweled, black-haired Chinese woman in her sixties got out of the car and radiated such a regal bearing that she might as well have been wearing a crown and holding a staff.
Margo leaned close to Ian and said, “That’s Wang Jing, Mei’s mother. She’s as much of a prisoner as her daughter is.”
Another bodyguard got out of the Rolls and stared hard at Ian and Margo as he joined his partner to flank Jing.
“We know who they’re really working for,” Ian said.
Mei went to Jing and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then introduced her to Damon and P. J., who then escorted her to the podium. Jing tapped the microphone to make sure it was on and then faced the crowd and their cameras.
“Welcome, everyone. I am Wang Jing. I’m so proud to be here today on behalf of Wang Studios and my husband, Wang Kang, who is deeply disappointed that he couldn’t attend due to his illness.” She spoke English with an upper-crust, British accent. “This is an auspicious moment. The start of principal photography on Straker begins a new era for the Chinese film industry on the global stage. That’s why it’s so important that we begin by performing the traditional ‘big luck’ ceremony.”
She went to the buffet table, where there was a cooked pig and a tantalizing assortment of fruit and cakes, surrounded by candles and incense sticks. In the center of the table was a gong. A Buddhist priest stood beside the gong, lit an incense stick, and recited a prayer in Cantonese. He pointed the incense stick in four directions, concluded his prayer, and gave a slight nod to Wang Jing.
She picked up the baton and struck the gong, and the Chinese audience and crew immediately broke into applause. Ian, Margo, and the other Americans followed their example and began clapping, too, as Jing returned to the podium.
“Thank you all for being here,” she said. “I hope this film is the first of many cinematic masterpieces born from this historic collaboration of stellar talents.”
Susie appeared at Ian’s side. “Picture time.”
She brought him up to the podium, where he joined the stars and P. J. to stand alongside Wang Jing for several group photos. When the photos were taken, the group dispersed and the journalists made a beeline for the food.
Susie corralled Ian and Jing and waved over her photographer. “Could we get a photo with just the two of you?”
Ian stood beside Jing while more photos were taken. He tried to think of something to say to her and settled on: “I’m sorry your husband couldn’t be here to join us.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“I wish there was something I could do to help.”
Jing surprised Ian by grasping him by the forearm and asking, “Have you and your assistant seen the view from the wheel yet?”
“No, we haven’t.”
“Then I must show you before they start filming the scene.”
Keeping him in her grasp, she guided him toward the ramp that led to an open cabin on the wheel. Margo moved into step beside them and the two bodyguards immediately rushed up. Jing scowled at them.
“Stay,” she commanded, as if they were misbehaving Dobermans, and they obeyed. “A kidnapper can’t possibly get to me on a Ferris wheel. If you really want to keep me safe, you’ll make sure nobody disturbs the proper operation of the attraction.”
The bodyguards stayed put and two baffled attendants opened the cabi
n doors for Ian, Jing, and Margo, who stepped inside. A minute later, the Big Wheel turned and the cabin rose slowly up into the air.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Classified Location, Kangbashi District, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China. July 3. 8:21 p.m. China Standard Time.
“Why didn’t the bodyguards go into the cabin with them?” Pang asked, standing beside Yat Fu as they regarded the button-camera views from the bodyguards as well as those provided by the security cameras on the ferry building.
“It would have broken their cover to ignore her orders.”
“She knows they don’t actually work for her.”
“But the others around her don’t,” Yat said. “How would it have looked to the media and the dignitaries to see her bring her bodyguards with her to talk with a writer? I believe our operatives made a wise call. It’s about time one of our agents did. Do we have audio and video in the cabins?”
“Ordinarily, yes.”
“Ordinarily?”
“The production crew disabled the system so it wouldn’t interfere with the filming of their scenes tonight.”
That was a problem. Yat needed to know what they were talking about in that cabin. “I want Jing taken in tonight for interrogation.”
“Are you sure that’s politically wise?”
“Are you questioning my judgment?” Yat Fu certainly would be if he were in Pang’s position. Every decision that he’d made over the last two days had gone wrong. Ludlow escaped with Fung’s phone and the intelligence it contained, three of Yat’s agents were on choppers to the mainland for emergency knee surgery, two others had broken noses, and the Hong Kong authorities were already complaining to the Ministry of State Security in Beijing about their violent encroachments on the region’s autonomy. And what did Yat Fu have to show for it? Nothing. His only solace was that none of his failures or the anger of some petty bureaucrats would matter soon.
“No, of course not, sir,” Pang said, bowing his head ever so slightly in deference and obedience. “I was merely offering my counsel for you to consider.”
That was the smart, suck-up thing to say and Yat Fu wanted to believe it.
“She is talking to an American spy. I need to know which is stronger, her loyalty to her husband or to her country,” Yat said. “Her answers to my questions will determine that and her longevity.”
“Understood, sir. How shall we proceed with the two Americans?”
With the Hong Kong authorities already irritated by his actions in the city, and his masters in Beijing also likely to be, neither abducting Ludlow and French off the street nor dragging them out of their hotel rooms was a viable option.
“We will keep them under constant surveillance and wait for an opening to detain them without creating an incident,” Yat said. “If that’s not possible, we’ll grab them when they try to leave the country. Either way, no one in America will ever see them again.”
The Big Wheel, Hong Kong. July 3. 8:25 p.m. Hong Kong Time.
The view of the Hong Kong and Kowloon skylines from the Ferris wheel cabin was impressive and very cinematic. But Ian was too nervous to appreciate it. Something big was about to happen. He could feel it.
Jing released Ian’s arm, gave him a thorough visual appraisal, and then frowned her disapproval.
Ian tugged at his sleeves. “You don’t think I look great in this tuxedo?”
“I was expecting more,” she said.
“More what?” Ian said.
“Muscle and strength of character. Some sense that you have the necessary capability to do what has to be done.”
“Which is?” Ian asked.
“You have five days to get my daughter out of China.”
“I told you she wanted to defect.” Margo smiled at Ian in triumph, then regarded Jing. “But how did you know to approach us?”
Ian answered before Jing could. “Because it wasn’t only the Australian bodyguard who fed Warren Fung information after the abduction. Mrs. Wang reached out to the reporter, too, because she knew he was a CIA informant. It was Fung who told her who we are.”
“Mr. Ludlow is correct,” Jing said. “The Chinese government needs to know there is a price to pay for betraying loyalty.”
Margo eyed Ian. “How did you know that she was Fung’s source?”
“Plotting is my strength,” Ian said, then addressed Jing. “Why should we exfiltrate your daughter?”
“Exfiltrate?” Margo asked.
“Quietly get her the hell out,” Ian replied.
“Why didn’t you just say that?”
“Because this is how spies talk.” And he sure felt like one now, wearing a tuxedo, facing Hong Kong, and talking about a defection. All he needed was a martini, shaken not stirred, in his hand. He’d never felt so cool.
“I’m a spy and I don’t talk like that,” Margo said.
“Because you’re new at this and don’t know all the terminology yet,” Ian said. “I’ve been doing it longer.”
“In your imagination,” Margo said. “That doesn’t count.”
Jing sighed with irritation. “You will get my daughter out of China because in return she will give you intelligence of extreme value to the United States. But it loses most of its value in five days.”
Margo was irritated by Jing’s irritation. “How do we know the intelligence you’re offering isn’t bullshit?”
“If it is, you can send my daughter back to Beijing. You risk nothing.”
“Except our lives,” Margo said.
Jing sighed again, this time with impatience. This was a woman with an entire vocabulary of sighs. “Your lives are of little significance in the grand scheme of things, unless you succeed in this exfiltration.”
“What about your life?” Ian asked.
“My husband and I planned for this possibility, Mr. Ludlow. Or perhaps I should say ‘eventuality.’ He entrusted me to ensure our daughter’s safety. That is my only purpose now.”
“You are betraying your country,” he said.
“They betrayed us first.”
“How does Mei feel about this?” Ian said. “And what it means for you and your husband?”
“She knows we are dead already,” Jing sighed with resignation. “Her purpose now is vengeance.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Big Wheel, Hong Kong. July 3. 10:13 p.m. Hong Kong Time.
A helicopter with a stuntman firing a fake automatic weapon out of the open cargo area hovered in front of the Ferris wheel cabin where Damon and Mei were performing their scene while a second helicopter, equipped with cameras, circled them all. Crowds of people massed around the ferry terminal and the K-rail perimeter erected around the Big Wheel to watch the action.
Ian and Margo observed the scene from the ground, where they sat in two director’s chairs, about twenty yards away from where P. J. Tyler directed the action from a set of four video monitors mounted in a rolling stand. P. J. sat with Larry Steinberg, the assistant director, and the director of photography and used a walkie-talkie to give directions to everyone up in the Ferris wheel and choppers.
Mei’s bodyguards stood near the director, where they could keep an eye on what she was doing. But every so often, the two Chinese agents would check out Ian and Margo. Margo kept her eye on them, too, and one hand near the Glock in her shoulder bag.
“Relax,” Ian said. “We’re safe as long as we stay with the film crew. You said so yourself.”
“What worries me is what happens when filming stops for the night and the police protection around the set goes away.”
“We get a ride with Damon and the director back to the hotel.”
“Where assassins will slit our throats while we sleep,” Margo said.
“Damon Matthews and the entire American crew are staying there, too. The Chinese won’t try to snatch or kill us while we’re embedded with the cast and crew for the same reasons we’re safe right now.”
“That means we can’t leave the hotel or the studio o
r set foot on the street unless we’re with the crew.”
“Not if we want to live,” Ian said.
“How are we going to get Mei out of Hong Kong alive when we can’t get out ourselves?” Margo said. “And even if we could get away, she’s got bodyguards glued to her twenty-four/seven.”
“Except when she’s shooting.”
“So we’re screwed,” Margo said.
“It’s a story problem.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I write Straker into no-win situations in every book and I always find a way out for him,” Ian said. “I’ll do the same for us.”
“This isn’t a novel,” she said. “You can’t write a solution and expect the Chinese assassins to follow your script.”
“Why not?”
“Because they are real people in the real world,” she said, the pitch of her voice rising as she became more exasperated with him. “They aren’t fictional characters that you can control.”
Ian gestured up at the Big Wheel, where Mei and Damon were pretending to dodge bullets from a helicopter. “Back in Los Angeles, six or eight screenwriters—I’ve lost count, to be honest—wrote that scene in a script and now it’s actually happening, right here in Hong Kong. It’s a Godlike power.”
“But it’s not real,” she said, practically shrieking at him.
“I’m watching it happen.” Ian pointed to the wheel. “So are tens of thousands of people on the Hong Kong and Kowloon waterfronts.”
She took a deep breath and tried to calm down. When she spoke again, it was if she were explaining something basic to a child, like the importance of chewing food before swallowing it.
“You are watching actors playing make-believe characters in a fictional situation,” Margo said. “If the characters get killed, the actors live. If we get killed, we’re dead.”
“That’s the only difference.”
“It’s a big difference,” she shrieked.
Ian stayed quiet for a few minutes, giving Margo a chance to cool off. As he did, he pictured himself back in his office, facing a blank dry-erase board, and imagined Straker in the same situation they were in. With this image still in mind, he asked Margo a question.