The man was Asian, only a few inches taller than she was. He wore a black suit, slim-line black gloves and wraparound sunglasses that reminded Shannon instantly of Rafe Santorini. That was disturbing because she didn’t want to think about Rafe. There were too many questions and too many uncertainties she had about the man. She still didn’t know what had become of him. Three men, none of them Rafe, had turned up dead outside the hotel room they’d shared.
Almost shared, she reminded herself. They hadn’t spent the night there. On the flight over, she’d found herself thinking about how he’d looked partially obscured in the steam from the bath. And how he’d picked her up and carried her when she’d hurt her foot. Despite his damaged knee, he’d managed her easily.
“No, Miss Connor. I am Inspector Liu of the Hong Kong Police Department.” The man smiled, but it looked artificial.
“Do you have any identification, Inspector Liu?” Shannon asked.
“Of course.” Liu reached inside his jacket and brought out an ID case.
The information was in English and Chinese. The picture was a good one and proved that Inspector Liu did, indeed, have eyes.
“What can I do for you, Inspector?”
Liu returned the case to his jacket. “I would like to ask you a few questions.”
“All right.” Shannon stood and waited.
Liu looked confused. “Perhaps this isn’t an appropriate place.”
“I’m comfortable.”
“I thought we could speak somewhere less public.”
“Not unless you have a warrant or a writ.” Shannon’s warning radar was screaming at her.
Liu gave her a cold look. “Things in China aren’t done as things are in your country.”
“If I’ve made a mistake,” Shannon said, “then we should get someone from the State Department to explain that mistake to me.”
“If you wish. Do you think someone from the State Department could explain how you entered this country under a false name?”
Chapter 20
S hannon’s confidence drained. The illegal identification she carried damned her. Only then did she realize that the man had addressed her as Miss Connor, not the assumed name she’d traveled under.
“Maybe we could talk in private,” she said.
“Good.” Liu took her arm and walked her toward the curb and the waiting line of taxis and bicycle rickshaws that would take arrivals to the ferries to the mainland. His grip was tight enough to make Shannon feel more captured than escorted.
Liu moved quickly through the crowd toward a sleek black Isuzu with tinted glass all the way around. It didn’t really look like a police department vehicle. The sedan was too upscale.
“You’re not with the police,” Shannon said.
“Don’t be difficult,” Liu grated.
Shannon dug in her heels hard enough to bring the man around. For the briefest moment the pistol tucked under his left arm showed under the jacket.
“What if I stop here and scream?” Shannon tried to free her elbow, but the man had a death grip on her.
“Then you’ll attract a lot of attention before you die.” His face was hard.
“If I go with you, you won’t kill me?”
“No.”
The lie slid easily off the man’s tongue, but Shannon still recognized it for what it was.
“Come with me,” the man said. “Or things will go very badly for you.”
Shannon relented and walked with him. They closed on the car, and she knew if she got inside the car she wouldn’t have a chance.
Walking beside the man, Shannon got the cadence of the man’s steps. Then, when his back foot lifted to step forward, she kicked it behind his other calf. It was an old trick from grade school, just a prank that kids pulled on each other. But it was unexpected.
Liu’s foot caught behind his leg and he fell. He was quick, though, because he caught himself on his free hand and one knee. Crouched on the ground, he glared up at her.
That was a mistake. Shannon set herself and drove a front snapkick into his face.
The kick drove the man backward, but he didn’t release his grip.
Shannon spun into him, twisting her wrist toward his thumb to break the hold. She lifted her right leg over her head then brought it down in an ax kick aimed at his head. The man managed to move his head, but he caught the kick on his shoulder. Something snapped.
Shannon was free. The first lesson taught in any martial art was to escape when escape was possible. She turned and tried to flee through the crowd, but there were too many people around.
Without warning, those people dropped to the ground and cried out in terror.
Afraid of what she was going to see, Shannon turned and saw the man push himself up from the ground. He had a pistol in his fist and wore a look of rage. He took deliberate aim.
Shannon dived to one side and rolled. She pushed herself up again, expecting to feel a bullet slam into her at any moment. When she heard the two quick reports, she felt certain she’d been hit and was surprised there was no pain.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Liu look down at the crimson suddenly staining his shirt in two spots right over his heart. His knees buckled and he went down.
Out in the line of cars behind the black sedan, an Asian woman held a pistol in a two-handed shooter’s grip. She was petite and young, dressed in a simple gray woman’s business suit. Despite having just shot a man in public, she didn’t look panicked.
“Shannon,” the woman called. “Shannon Connor. Come with me. I can help you.”
Shannon didn’t think so. That woman shouldn’t have known her name either.
The driver of the black sedan shoved the door open and got out with a pistol in his fist. He started firing at once at the young woman.
Shannon turned and ran through the cowering pedestrians. She thought about stealing one of the rickshaws, and just as she was about to attempt it, she saw a young driver taking cover behind a car. He held a sign with someone’s name on it.
Desperate, Shannon ran for him. She seized the sign and hoped he spoke English. Gunfire continued to ring out behind her.
Holding the sign up, Shannon said, “This is me, okay?”
The young driver nodded and looked panic-stricken. “Okay.”
“We want to get out of here, right?”
“Okay.”
Shannon grabbed the young man’s arm and hauled him to his feet. She opened the car door and shoved him inside. “You drive.”
“Okay. I drive.” He fumbled for the keys in the ignition.
Shannon opened the rear door and threw herself inside. When she looked back, she spotted the young woman still engaged in the gun battle. Then the sedan’s driver spun and went down.
Turning back to the driver, Shannon slapped the seat. “You go, okay?”
“Okay.” He put the car in gear and peeled away from the curb, merging almost effortlessly with the traffic.
Shannon lost sight of the woman with the gun immediately. Then she groaned when she realized she’d left the valise with the computer and her carry-on bag behind.
She didn’t have clothes. Again.
“Where to?” the driver asked in a tense voice.
“The ferries. I need to get to the mainland.”
“Okay.” He changed lanes and took the next turn. “You not shoot me, okay?”
Shannon looked at him and couldn’t believe that he’d asked that question. “Okay,” she said.
The sound of a ringing phone dragged Rafe from the coma he’d fallen into almost from the moment of takeoff. He experienced a moment of disorientation. Then he found the phone and brought it to his face.
“Santorini.”
“Shannon’s in Hong Kong,” Allison said without preamble.
Rafe sat up a little straighter. “Good to know.”
“We’re not the only ones who know. Someone tried to apprehend her there, then tried to kill her.”
Rafe forced himself
to remain calm. “She’s all right?”
“She got away. But the woman I had who was going to tail her got involved in the gunfight and lost her.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yes. She’s good at what she does. If I’d thought this might happen, I’d have doubled up on the tail. I wanted to streamline it. Keep it simple and easy to hide.”
“That was the right call,” Rafe said, but inside he was cursing.
“So we’ve lost her?”
“Not entirely. While Shannon was at the terminal, she got a phone call from one of her producers at the network. Since she changed phones, I haven’t been able to trace her phone, but I put tracers on the phones of everyone I thought she might be in touch with.”
“Can you find her?”
“Yes. Shannon evidently swapped out the SIM card and has been letting her answering service pick up her calls. The call she took showed she was at the airport. I’ve called, just to check to see if she would answer, but I got dumped into the answering service, too.”
The anxiety inside Rafe elevated a little. “But you’re sure she’s all right?”
“Yes. My agent told me Shannon broke free of her abductor and managed to escape in a car.”
Rafe felt a little proud, but he didn’t say anything.
“It’s not all good news,” Allison said.
“She’s got her old phone number,” Rafe said. “She shouldn’t have kept that.”
“That’s right. If her contact instructed Shannon to remove the SIM card and didn’t have her change phones entirely, that was deliberate.”
“It could have been an oversight.”
“Judging from the caliber of computer work we’re dealing with here, I’d have a hard time believing that.”
“Maybe whoever contacted Shannon didn’t want to spook her by asking her to cut herself off completely from her friends and work.”
“And maybe we’re supposed to be able to track her.”
Rafe had already made that leap in logic, too, but he knew Allison would want him to think about it and not dismiss it out of hand. “You’re saying this could be a trap?”
“Yes.”
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a cynical person?”
“I don’t listen to those people,” Allison responded. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Rafe grinned.
“Let’s look at something else,” he suggested.
“What?”
“That whoever Shannon’s contact is underestimated you. Maybe you weren’t expected to tap the phones of all Shannon’s friends. I know what you did isn’t easy, but other people may think it’s impossible.”
“I don’t think so.”
“And whoever did this might know that Shannon would eventually talk to one of those people no matter what and know that it is easier to trace a landline than to triangulate a cell phone.”
“Harder but not impossible.” Allison paused. “Anyone trailing Shannon is going to be easy to pick out, Rafe. A moving target brings out a moving hunter. Whoever Shannon’s contact is has control of this situation.”
“Because that person knows where Shannon’s going to be at any given time.”
“Yes.” Allison paused. “I have to be honest. This isn’t making me happy.”
A question surfaced in Rafe’s mind and wouldn’t go away. “It doesn’t make sense that Shannon’s contact would try to abduct her. Not after establishing a false identity. So who tried to abduct Shannon at the airport?”
“I don’t know,” Allison admitted. “I’m still working on that.”
“There’s more going on here than Shannon and her contact,” Rafe said. “Someone wants Shannon out of the way as much as her mysterious contact wants her in play.”
“I know.”
“So who’s the second party?”
“I’m not sure. I traced those four men from the hotel. They’re mercenaries. I found identities they’d been traveling under and managed to trace them back. They were in Kenya a few weeks ago. That’s where they were hired.”
“Kenya?” Rafe tried to wrap his brain around that. “How is Kenya connected to this?”
“That’s where one of Arachne’s three mysterious packages was sent.”
“Did the survivor say who hired him?”
“I was given a name. It’s a shell. Nothing real there. Probably deep enough to satisfy the mercenaries and—for that matter—most anyone who cared enough to look. I did more than look.”
“Did you get a description?”
“A very beautiful black woman.”
“Well,” Rafe said with dry irritation, “that really narrows the field.”
He glanced at his watch. Getting a flight on United Airlines had been difficult, but Allison had managed it. She’d also arranged for a team to meet him in Hong Kong. He was going to hit the ground there nine hours after Shannon did.
He hoped that gave him enough time.
“My operative also recovered Shannon’s luggage from the airport,” Allison said. “Shannon left a valise and a computer behind.” She paused. “There was a lot of material loaded onto the computer.”
“Does it help?”
“To find Shannon? No. But it lets me know what this is about.”
Rafe waited.
“Have you heard of Aldritch Peters?” Shannon asked.
Rafe thought for a moment, then said, “No.” Before North Korea, he’d been out of the country a lot.
“He was a geneticist. There’s a lot about him that I have to tell you. Something I probably should have already told you.”
“All right.”
“And I will. Just not yet. But I will tell you this—one of the most influential geneticists who worked with Peters is currently in Hong Kong. His name is Dr. Chow Bao. I think that’s who Shannon is there to see.”
Chapter 21
A fter getting off the ferry, Shannon took a rickshaw to the Sha Tin district and entered the huge Citylink Plaza mall above the rail station. She wanted to be around a large group of people, and the mall was one of her favorite shopping destinations in Hong Kong.
Not that it will help, she told herself sourly. You can’t be around many more people than at the airport.
She wandered through the mall’s shopping center where the clothing and cosmetics were. Kwan-Sook had included cash in the valise. Shannon had transferred it to her purse. There’d even been credit cards issued in the name of the false identity she was using.
A boutique caught her eye, and she went to it to study the showcase. The dresses on the mannequins were Chinese as well as Western.
The iPhone rang and she scooped it out of her purse. A quick check revealed the same three-one-oh area code she’d seen before. However, before she answered the phone, she looked around to see if anyone was showing undue interest in her.
“Hello?” Shannon was angry enough to go on the offensive at once, but given what had happened at the airport, there was no guarantee something hadn’t happened to Kwan-Sook.
And if something had happened to her, Shannon didn’t know what she was going to do about it.
“Are you all right?” Kwan-Sook asked.
“Yes. What happened back at the airport?”
“It appears that the identity I assigned you has been found out.”
“By whom?”
“By the person I told you I was concerned about.”
Shannon pulled herself back against the wall by the shop so she could watch the pedestrian traffic. “Who is that person?”
Kwan-Sook hesitated. “I’m not at liberty to say at this time.”
“That guy tried to kill me.”
“I know. I apologize for that.”
“Terrific,” Shannon said. “You can have that engraved on my headstone.”
“Shannon,” Kwan-Sook said in a soothing voice, “doesn’t the mere fact that an attempt was made on your life tell you that this story is important?”
That was true. Shannon made herself breathe and push her outrage aside.
“I’m doing the best I can,” Kwan-Sook said. “Allison Gracelyn continues to make things more difficult, as well.”
“She doesn’t know where I am.”
“She may. I have been lax in some of my own security. And, not to take away from it, she is very good with computers.”
“Great. You guys can have brunch and form a mutual admiration society.”
Kwan-Sook was quiet for a moment.
In the background Shannon distinctly heard electronic beeping that reminded her of a hospital. Had she heard that before? She thought back and tried to remember.
“You’ll have to be careful,” Kwan-Sook said finally.
“I’m being careful.” Shannon sipped a breath. “How long before I meet the person you wanted me to talk with?”
“A matter of a few hours.”
“Why not now?”
“He’s very reticent.”
“Trust issues?” Shannon asked.
“Attempts have been made on his life, as well.”
“What does he know about Aldrich Peters’s work?”
“I can’t go into that. Please wait till a more appropriate time.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“I don’t want that information to fall into the hands of others.”
Translation, Shannon thought sourly as paranoia bit into her, she doesn’t know if she can keep you safe.
“I’ll make this happen as soon as I can,” Kwan-Sook said.
“But Dr. Chow knows about the attempt on your life this morning. You can appreciate his reluctance.”
Actually, Shannon could. If attempts had been made on the geneticist’s life, she didn’t really want to be around him until his security was intact either.
“All right. What am I supposed to do until then?”
“I arranged for rooms for you. If you’ll allow me another hour, I can have them ready.”
“Not a problem,” Shannon said. “I need to do some shopping. All my clothes—and the computer—got left at the airport.”
For the first time, Kwan-Sook’s voice took on a hard edge. “You left the computer?”
Beneath the Surface Page 16