The Risk Agent

by Ridley Pearson

  The boy did not appreciate the admonishment. “Some are saying the Triad got him.”

  But if one of the Triads, she thought, then why had the apartment not been tossed?

  “Killed?” She made herself sound shocked.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Kidnapped?” she said, letting emotion enter her voice.

  “You know rumors.”

  “Tell me truthfully: have others been here asking questions? Do not lie to me!”

  “I swear, no one.”

  She sniffled. “Please. I need a minute alone.”

  He seemed eager to leave her.

  She saw him out of the room, and then closed the door behind him. Quickly, she entered the bathroom adjoining Lu’s bedroom, pulled this door closed as well, and started rummaging through everything in sight.

  From inside the galley kitchen, Knox had a clear view of the wall-mounted video display showing the apartment building’s secure entrance. He kept one eye on it as he feigned interest in the pantry shelving and the cabinet water heater. The agent stood alongside, studying him, reciting the benefits.

  Five people had left the building in the past few minutes. No one had entered. But when a heavyset male appeared in the security display, grabbing the closing front door, Knox took note of the black leather jacket. The man who’d been watching the apartment from across the street? On camera, his features were sharper and bolder than most Chinese. He looked bigger as well.

  “I’ve forgotten if you told us,” Knox said, addressing the agent. “How do I reach the building’s manager if I need him?”

  “There is direct dial on the state-of-art security installment entrance beside the entrance.”

  “He lives in the building?”

  “Of course. On the lower level.”

  “Do I use the east or west stairs to reach him?”

  She looked a little put off by the question; there was no figuring Westerners.

  “West.”

  The manager would have the security camera system in his room. If a cop or agent, the man who’d just entered would check the videos first, trying to determine where he and Grace had headed. It gave them a few minutes, but not many.

  He texted Grace:

  abort

  He had to separate himself from the real estate agent, get Grace clear of the building; then, if possible, he would tend to business.

  Grace cursed her mother under her breath, having found no prescription medication among Lu’s toiletries. Back in his bedroom, she searched his desk, then the rest of his room methodically but hastily, pulling out drawers, crawling beneath the desk, checking for a hidden USB drive or external disk drive, any conceivable place he might have stored the desired documentation of his bribery. She patted down all his clothing, checked inside the toes of his shoes. A tennis racket cover. Two empty backpacks. The futon mattress and frame.

  Her iPhone vibrated.

  abort

  She cursed aloud and then started snapping photographs of the room, including the empty desktop. Never mind the roommate’s claim: it appeared the room must have been searched, the most important items taken. The digital frame switched photographs: Lu Hao on a lovingly restored motorcycle and sidecar; this transitioned into Marlon Brando also on a motorcycle; then Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, followed by Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf in Indiana Jones-also a sidecar and bike; and finally the Shanghai skyline before revealing a new picture of Lu Jian. Grace put her hand to her mouth as she took in the photograph: this time Lu Jian was smiling widely, his arm around another woman.

  She fled the bedroom quickly. The kid had returned to his place on the couch.

  “Where is Lu Hao’s laptop?” she asked. “He had an address I need.”

  The boy shrugged.

  “Was it not here the day he disappeared?”

  Another shrug.

  “Has someone been here before me?” she asked. “Someone asking questions, looking around?”

  “Who are you?” the boy asked.

  She marched over to him. “You know what they say about a woman scorned?”

  The boy appeared properly terrified.

  “That’s me. You do not want to make me any more angry than I already am. So…who was here before me?”

  “I told you: no one. I swear it.”

  “A woman?” she said, playing her role to the limit.

  “No, I promise.”

  “What did she look like? What is her name?”

  “I tell you: there has been no woman. No man. No one!”

  “Liar! You tell Lu Hao to call Ling-Cha,” she said, making up a name, “the moment he steps through that door. You understand?”

  The boy nodded.

  “By the gods, I’ll have your balls in a vise if you forget.”

  She marched to the door, turned and glared at the other boys-they all looked both terrified and relieved that she wasn’t haranguing them. She let herself out.

  Knox stepped aside, allowing the agent to enter the elevator first. “I would like to take the stairs,” he said. “I will meet you in the lobby.”

  The agent stepped toward the control panel to stop the car, but too late. The doors slid shut.

  He assumed the Mongolian-for that was how he’d pigeonholed him: northern Chinese or Mongolian-would use the west staircase because, according to the agent, the west staircase was closest to the superintendent’s residence.

  In the event of an abort, Grace would take the west staircase-farthest from the building’s main entrance. Knox texted:

  take east stairs

  …but moved quickly to intercept her in the event it was too late.

  He reached the stairs and put his ear to the door: faint footfalls…approaching him. He slipped inside. Steel and concrete stairs in a concrete shaft.

  Sounds from above and below: above being Grace; below, the Mongolian. He caught Grace as she rounded the upper landing, hand signaling for her to leave the stairwell.

  The ascending footsteps grew louder and quicker.

  Grace paused, heard the approach and left through the door.

  The shoulder of a black leather jacket appeared. Knox stepped away from the railing, drawing in a deep breath to charge his system and purge the adrenaline.

  Knox’s SERE training had inspired in him an interest in, and study of, hand-to-hand combat techniques. Chinese soldiers and Shanghai police were trained in sanshou, a bare-fist close-quarters fighting technique. Russians were taught sambo, a martial arts style of fighting that combined hard-fisted blows and wrestling techniques. Within the first few blows, Knox would know where his opponent was from-information that might come in handy later.

  Knox flew off the landing, catching the Mongolian midstride and plastering him to the wall. The man maintained his balance and postured a wrestling stance.

  Sambo. So, not Chinese and therefore unlikely he was police. A game changer. Knox could do more than push and shove.

  His mind raced. Russian? Mongolian? North Chinese? A foreign agent, or private security? Good either way, as he could fight the man without fear he was assaulting a Chinese officer.

  He pivoted and kicked the man’s chest. Followed with an open-fisted chop aimed for the man’s throat. But the man countered with an effective forearm block and used Knox’s forward momentum against him. He ducked under Knox’s arm and head-butted Knox’s ribs.

  The wind knocked out of him, Knox teetered. The man stepped in for a headlock-again, a wrestling move.

  Knox kneed him in the side and drove his elbow into the man’s face. A bone cracked. The man’s jaw looked like a jack-’o-lantern that had been dropped.

  He cursed-not Chinese, not Russian. The man ran off a string of expletives. An agglutinative language. Mongolian? Knox had been to Ulan Bator only once.

  In a matter of seconds, the fight was over, Knox pinning the man, pressing a knee to his groin while holding his right arm twisted to within a quarter turn of tearing his rotator cuff. His opponent
remained conscious, but in a crippling amount of pain.

  Knox removed a switchblade, a wallet and a cell phone from the man’s pockets. He would overnight the phone or its SIM card to Rutherford for analysis.

  He considered working the man for information, but the guy didn’t look the conversational type, and Knox was pressed for time. He gave the arm a sharp twist-like taking a leg off a cooked turkey. But this was a big bird, and its cry, convincing.

  Grace waited for him in the back room of Bliss, a bar on Jinxian Road decorated in 1970s retro. The cigarette smoke was thick, the recorded jazz smooth, and the waitresses very young and pretty. The sign listed twenty-two on the occupancy permit. Maybe it was a maximum age limit, Knox thought. There were five others scattered around at tables eating dessert or enjoying a drink. No one over twenty.

  “Next time,” she told Knox as he sat down across from her, “please let me pick the place.”

  “It’s quiet,” he said.

  “I cannot breathe.”

  “If you jump the wall out the back door you’re in a lilong,” he said, explaining his choice. A lane neighborhood. He ordered a beer when a clear drink arrived for her. Vodka, rocks, he was guessing.

  “So? What’d we find?” he asked.

  “You are favoring your right side.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Tell me about the apartment?”

  She passed him her iPhone, on which she’d been reviewing the photographs she’d taken in Lu’s room. In return, he passed her the Mongolian’s wallet and produced the SIM card from the man’s phone.

  “He’s carrying a national ID, so maybe not Mongolian. But he looked Mongolian.”

  “I found no medication,” she said. “Troubling. No toothbrush. No laptop or charger. No mobile, or charger. No USB or storage device for files. No accounts, no files, nothing.”

  Knox looked up from the photos on the phone. “The kidnappers beat us there.”

  “The roommate says otherwise.”

  “How about clothing?”

  “Nothing to say one way or the other. My mother was obviously mistaken.”

  “Mothers are never mistaken,” he said. “Not if you ask them.” He had hoped for a smile.

  “Perhaps Lu Hao keeps his medication with him.”

  “Could be. But why take your laptop on a delivery run?”

  She said, “In China, a laptop is a sign of prosperity. People carry them like handbags.” She pointed across the bar to two young Chinese at their laptops.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t say it meant anything.”

  “Your voice did.”

  “Know me that well, do you?”

  She worked the vodka. “Well enough.” She had the Mongolian’s wallet open and was pulling out cards. A transportation card. A Chinese Resident Identity Card. “If a forgery,” she said, “it is a very good one.”

  “He sounded Mongolian,” Knox said. “Looked it, too. But maybe he’s Chinese?”

  “Possible. We get our share across the border.”

  Knox had never thought of people wanting to get into China before. “He was trained in close quarters combat. Sambo. You know sambo?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Waiguoren,” he said in Mandarin. Foreigner. It made Knox think back to the guard at Danner’s apartment building mentioning a foreigner.

  The beer was half gone. Knox ordered them both another drink. She didn’t object. He liked that.

  “I’m going to overnight the SIM card to Dulwich. But first, tonight, I’ll hope for an incoming call. Or maybe we should call some of its recently called numbers?”

  “Patience.”

  “My contact at the U.S. Consulate might run the national registration card for me. He’s a good man. And if he’s who took Danner’s laptop, he might be willing to share.”

  “What about Lu Hao’s motorcycle?” she asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Mr. Danner and Lu Hao were both on motorcycles when they were taken, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “So what happened to the motorcycles? Where did they end up?”

  Danner’s missing Garmin GPS, Knox was thinking. “You’re brilliant.”

  She averted her eyes to the tabletop and reached out for the second drink as it arrived. Chinese had trouble taking compliments. Not him.

  “Since the police do not yet officially recognize the kidnapping,” she said, “perhaps neither motorcycle has been processed as evidence?”

  Knox said brightly, “Lady Grace, you should drink more often.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Another compliment.”

  “Accepted.”

  Progress. He hoisted his beer and they clinked glasses.

  A waitress passed. Knox’s eyes strayed to her. He said, “Do you know the term “handi-capable”?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “A person who’s challenged, physically or mentally, but the challenge is viewed more as opportunity than limitation.”

  “That is nice.”

  “That is my brother,” he said. “My business partner.” The beer was wrestling with his tongue.

  She sipped the vodka, looking across the rim of the glass at him curiously.

  “Just thought I’d get that out of the way,” he said, upending the beer.

  She stared across, studying him.

  “I actually would like you to review our books,” he said.

  “Then I will.”

  “Lu Hao?” he tested. “What’s the family connection?”

  “Not yet,” she said, her lips opening to welcome the liquor.

  MONDAY

  September 27

  4 days until the ransom

  8

  9:40 A.M.

  LUWAN DISTRICT

  SHANGHAI

  The U.S. Consulate occupied a former private residence on four acres at a prestigious corner in the heart of what had once been the French Concession. Having already copied and overnighted the SIM card from the Mongolian’s phone to Rutherford Risk in Hong Kong, Knox walked in the shade beneath the plane trees, a warm breeze on his face. To his right rose the twelve-foot wall topped with razor wire that encircled the consulate. Phone booth-sized security booths stood at regular intervals manned by rigid, uniformed officers of China’s Ministry of State Security. There had to be dozens of security cameras trained on the area. The Chinese captured and identified every face that entered.

  Knox had originally met Steve Kozlowski through the man’s wife, Liz, a statuesque blonde who served as an immigration lawyer at the consulate. Her love of all things Chinese had inevitably led her to Knox, whose reputation for procuring the best antiques and collectibles made him popular with the “trailing spouses.”

  He and Kozlowski discovered a shared love of American football, and with the consulate receiving the U.S. Armed Forces television feed, Knox had joined the ranks of corporate executives, university professors and a few select government workers handpicked by Kozlowski to watch live games with him and a few Marines, exactly twelve hours off the U.S. air time.

  Over time, he’d developed a cautious friendship with Kozlowski, who, by reputation, got close to no one. Knox often wondered if the man were a spy.

  Knox passed through the thorough security check and was greeted by Kozlowski. Tall and strikingly handsome, he had a receding hairline disguised by a nearly shaved head. Dressed in a tailored dark gray suit, a bright blue tie and with a consulate ID lanyard around his neck, Kozlowski looked more like James Bond than a bureaucrat responsible for the welfare of every American citizen in southern China.

  Walking toward the century-old mansion converted thirty years earlier into consulate headquarters, the two discussed the NFL season. Knox asked after Liz. They passed sumptuous gardens where Chinese workers in blue coveralls toiled bent over in the shade.

  They passed through an interior security desk. Knox was led into a large common area of pool secretaries and assistants that had once been
a spacious sitting room. Kozlowski had the center office.

  Knox immediately spotted an open folder on the desk: a gruesome color photograph of a-man’s-severed right hand. On Kozlowski’s desk, he reminded himself. He read the date upside down: nine days earlier. A ring with “OSU” running at an angle. He committed the design to memory, believing it either Oklahoma or Oregon or Ohio State. A dead American. Correction, he thought-a butchered American. Too far back to be Danner’s, thank God. Knox felt a rush of relief.

  Kozlowski must have seen him snooping. He shut the file folder and gave Knox an eye-fuck.

  “So, what’s up?”

  Kozlowski moved like a piece of Claymation, all sharp movements; Knox had never seen the man fully relax.

  “On the phone you said you had an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Kozlowski said. “Which, by the way, is not terribly original, you realize?”

  Knox lifted his hands in mock defense. “The offer’s legit.”

  “So talk,” said Kozlowski, leaning back in his chair.

  “I’m looking into exporting CJ750s,” Knox said. “M1s, M1Ms and MISupers. Pre-World War Two, BMW R71s. If it goes well, maybe even some tuo la ji.” He referred to three-wheel tractors common in the farms.

  Kozlowski, who adored anything with two or three wheels and a motor, leaned forward now. “Yeah? So?”

  “So, the baby boomers are moving away from the Harleys and into some of the vintage bikes. There’s a market there. The recession has pushed more boomers into early retirement, but they’re far from broke and they’ve got time on their hands.”

  “I drive the Chinese equivalent of a Vespa,” Kozlowski said. “You’re trying to get me to upgrade? Liz is the shopper in our family, not me.”

  “Here’s what I think: the Chinese police must impound hundreds of bikes a week. The bikes then sit there and gather dust. Now, I could go around putting up posters in noodle shops with my phone number on tear tabs advertising I’ll buy junker 750s. Or, I could talk to the boys at the impound about the timing of their next auction.”

  “Who says they have auctions?”

  “You know otherwise?”

  “You want to pay off a cop to walk them out of the door right now. I know you, Knox. I cannot, will not, be part of that.”