“I will call you back,” Jiang said sharply. “Let me have your number.”
There was a delay of half an hour before Jiang Yingchao called on a sterile line. No doubt he had located the Vatican newspaper and then made a few rapid, excited calls first.
“You do understand, my dear fellow, that this isn’t the sort of thing that comes up very often,” said Giles. “But it’s positively frightful how careless some of these great institutions are about their treasures, isn’t it? Positively frightful.”
“Yes, yes,” Jiang interrupted impatiently. “There would be a great deal of interest, I’m sure. If we’re talking about the same thing—the Sung Dynasty jade chess set—”
“I’m speaking hypothetically, my dear Jiang, of course. You do realize that. I’m saying that if such a marvelous set happened to become available, you might want to put out the word. Discreetly, of course.…”
The coded language was clear; it was like waving a red flag at a bull. “Yes, yes, I do know of someone, yes indeed. There is a general, you know, who is known to collect such things, these Sung Dynasty masterpieces of carved jade. It is the general’s consuming passion. You may know his nickname, his moniker—the Jade Master.”
“Hmm. Not sure I do, Jiang. But you think he might have any interest?”
“General Tsai is most interested in repatriating looted imperial treasures, bringing them back to the motherland. He is a fervent nationalist, you know.”
“So I am given to understand. Well, I would need to know quite soon if the general has any interest, because I’m about to tell the hotel operator to hold all my calls—those loathsome oil sheiks from Oman and Kuwait simply won’t stop calling!”
“No!” Jiang blurted out. “Give me two hours! This masterpiece must be returned to China!”
Bryson did not have to wait that long. The diplomat called back barely an hour later. The general was interested.
“Given the extraordinary nature of this property,” Bryson said firmly, “I absolutely insist on meeting my customer face-to-face.” At this point, Bryson knew he could pretty much set his own terms for the meeting with General Tsai.
“But—but of course,” sputtered Jiang. “The … customer would require nothing less. He needs to have every assurance of the item’s authenticity.”
“Naturally. All certificates of provenance will be provided.”
“Of course.”
“The meeting must be immediate. I can accept no delay.”
“That is not a problem. The Jade Master is in Shenzhen, and he looks forward to meeting with you as soon as possible.”
“Good. I’ll take the first flight to Shenzhen, and then the general and I will have an initial conversation.”
“What do you mean, an initial conversation…?”
“The general and I will pass a convivial hour or two, I’ll show him photographs of the chess set, and if I feel we’ve established a comfort level, we’ll proceed to the next step.”
“Then you won’t be taking the set with you to your meeting with the general?”
“Oh, good Lord, no. After all, such a customer would be in a position to expose me if he wanted to. Can’t be too careful these days. You know my motto: I never deal with strangers.” He chortled. “After I meet this chappy, of course, we won’t be strangers anymore, now will we? If everything’s in order—if everything feels right—we can discuss importation, filthy lucre, all those boring humdrum details.”
“The general will insist on inspecting the jade chess set, Giles.”
“Certainly, but not at first. Oh, no. China’s terra incognita to me, I don’t know the chappies in charge. I guess I feel a smidgen vulnerable there. Wouldn’t want your General Whosit to confiscate the thing and bundle me off to one of those cabbage farms or what have you.”
“The general is a man of his word,” Jiang objected stiffly.
“My antennae have served me awfully well these last twenty years, old friend. Wouldn’t want to ignore them at this late date. Fella can’t be too careful with you inscrutable Orientals, you know.” He chuckled; there was silence on the phone. “And you know me—a jigger of rice wine and I’m anybody’s!”
* * *
Flamboyantly attired in a yellow kid-skin vest and a silk-and-cashmere checked suit, Giles Hesketh-Haywood arrived at Shenzhen’s Huangtian Airport and was met by an emissary of General Tsai wearing the dark-green, rankless uniform of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the standard red metal enamel star at the front of his standard-issue “Mao” cap. The emissary, a stony-faced middle-aged man who offered no name, whisked Bryson through customs and immigration. The way had been prepared; the airport personnel were deferential and inspected nothing.
That was left to General Tsai’s men. Once they were clear of immigration, the emissary wordlessly hustled Bryson through an unmarked door where two other green-uniformed soldiers were waiting. One of them unceremoniously rifled through his luggage, leaving nothing unopened or unchecked. Meanwhile, the other began frisking him systematically, from head to foot, even slicing the insoles in the costly English leather shoes. Bryson was not surprised at the search, though he emitted squawks of indignation befitting his legend’s prissy persona.
He had not arrived unarmed, though. Anticipating that he would be searched before being permitted to meet with the general, he had left behind any firearms, or in fact anything that would be out of character for Giles Hesketh-Haywood to carry. The risk of being caught, and therefore sabotaging the entire legend, was too great.
But concealed in Hesketh-Haywood’s glove-soft leather belt was a weapon so well concealed that it was worth the risk. Sewn between two layers of the finest Italian cordovan leather was a long, flexible metal strip about an inch wide by twelve inches long, made of an aluminum-vanadium alloy, a razor-sharp blade down most of its length. The blade was easily and quickly removed from the belt by opening one snap and pulling hard. It was difficult to use without wounding oneself, but if employed properly, the blade would slash human skin down to the bone with virtually no pressure. And if that was insufficient, Bryson was confident that he could rely, as he often did, on his ability to improvise, to find weapons where others saw none. But he hoped weapons would not be needed. The uniformed soldier ordered Bryson to remove his belt; he ran it cursorily between his fingers and detected nothing.
A black, late-model Daimler limousine was idling in front of the terminal exit doors, a military chauffeur at the wheel, also in the green rankless uniform of the Chinese Army, with a bland, unreadable face, his chin tucked toward his chest in a gesture of humility.
The dour emissary opened the passenger’s door for Bryson, placed the suitcase in the trunk, then got into the front seat. He did not speak a word; the driver steered the Daimler away from the curb and onto the airport access road toward Shenzhen.
Bryson had been to Shenzhen once, years before, but he scarcely recognized it. What was a tiny, sleepy fishing village and border town barely twenty years ago had exploded into a clamorous and chaotic metropolis of hastily paved roads, slapdash apartment complexes, and belching factories. From the rice paddies and virgin farmland of southern China’s Pearl River Delta had sprouted the skyscrapers and power plants and industrialized sectors of the Special Economic Zone. The chaotic skyline bristled with construction cranes, the sky an ugly gray polluted haze. The bustling population of some four million people settled on the banks of the fetid Shenzhen River were mostly mingong, or peasant workers, lured from their rural provinces with the promise of jobs at subsistence wages.
Shenzhen was a megalopolis in a hurry, a boomtown city going at a furious pace twenty-four hours a day, running at full blast on the high-octane fuel that was the most profane of words in all of Communist China: capitalism. But it was capitalism at its brashest and cruelest, the dangerous hysteria of a frontier city, crime and prostitution rampant and evident. The glittering heights of consumer excess, the lurid billboards and flashing neon, the swanky shops of Louis Vuitton and Di
or, were, Bryson knew, nothing more than a veneer. Behind it lay concealed the desperate poverty, the squalor of the mingong’s grim daily existence, the metal sheds housing dozens of migrant laborers with no plumbing, scrawny chickens running around tiny, filthy yards.
The traffic was thick, choked with late-model automobiles and bright red taxis. Every single building was new, tall, modernistic. The streets bustled with blinking signs, all of them in Chinese with the rare exception of an English letter here and there—an M for McDonald’s, a KFC. Everywhere seemed to be lavish colors, gaudy restaurants, and stores selling consumer electronics—camcorders and digital cameras and computers and televisions and DVDs. Street merchants peddled roasted pigs and ducks and live crabs.
The crowds were dense, shoulder-to-shoulder, with almost everybody carrying a mobile phone. But unlike Hong Kong, twenty miles to the south, there were no elderly people practicing tai-chi in the parks; in fact, there were no old people here at all. The maximum length of stay in the Special Economic Zone was fifteen years, and only the able-bodied were welcome.
The emissary turned around in the front seat and began speaking. “Ni laiguo Shenzhen ma?”
“Pardon?” said Bryson.
“Ni budong Zhongguo hua ma?”
“Sorry, no speakee the lingo,” Bryson drawled. The emissary had asked him if he understood Chinese, whether he had been here before; Bryson wondered whether he was being crudely tested.
“English?”
“I am, and I speak it, yes.”
“This is your first time here?”
“Yes, it is. Charming place, though—wish I’d discovered it earlier.”
“Why do you meet the general?” The emissary’s expression had turned outright hostile.
“Business,” Bryson said shortly. “That is what the general does, right?”
“The general is in charge of the Guandong Sector of the PLA,” the emissary upbraided him.
“Well, there sure seems to be a lot of business going on here.”
The driver grunted something, and the emissary fell silent, then turned around.
The Daimler crawled through the unbelievable congestion of the streets, the strange cacophony: the hysterical shrieks of high-pitched voices, the blaring of truck horns. In front of the Shangri-La Hotel the traffic finally came to a standstill. The chauffeur turned on his siren and flashing red light and veered up onto a crowded sidewalk, barking shrill orders through the car’s loudspeakers, scattering the frightened pedestrians like so many pigeons. Then the Daimler zipped ahead of the knot of traffic.
Finally they came to a checkpoint, the entrance to a highly industrialized sector that appeared to be under the direct control of the military. Bryson assumed that it was here that General Tsai had his primary residence, perhaps maintained his headquarters. A soldier holding a clipboard leaned in and gestured rudely to the emissary, who quickly got out. The car continued down the street, past drab residential buildings into a more industrial-looking area, predominately warehouses.
Bryson was instantly wary. He was not being taken to the general’s residence. But where was he being driven?
“Neng bu neng gaosong wo, ni song wo qu nar?” he demanded in a deliberately heavy British accent, the syntax that of a speaker ill at ease with the language. Care to tell me where you’re driving me?
The driver did not reply.
Bryson raised his voice, now speaking with his customary fluency, that of a native speaker. “We’re nowhere near the general’s barracks, siji!”
“The general does not receive visitors at his residence. He keeps a very low profile.” The driver spoke impertinently, even disrespectfully, not as a Chinese speaker of his station would address a superior, not using shifu for “master.” It was disconcerting.
“General Tsai is famous for living extremely well. I advise you to turn this car around.”
“The general believes that the truest power is exercised invisibly. He prefers to remain behind the scenes.” They had pulled up before a large industrial warehouse, next to military-drab Jeeps and Humvees. Without turning around, the engine still running, the driver continued, “Do you know the story of the great eighteenth-century Emperor Qian Xing? He believed it was important for a ruler to have direct contact with those he ruled, without his subjects knowing. So he traveled throughout China disguised as a commoner.”
Realizing what the driver was saying, Bryson jerked his head to the side, for the first time focusing on the driver’s face. He cursed himself. The driver was General Tsai!
Suddenly the Daimler was surrounded by soldiers, and the general was barking out commands in Toishanese, his regional dialect. The car door opened, and Bryson was hustled out. He was grabbed by both arms, a soldier restraining him on either side.
“Zhanzhu! Stand still!” shouted one of the soldiers, training his sidearm at Bryson as he commanded him to keep his hands at his sides. “Shou fang xia! Bie dong!”
The general’s window electrically rolled down; the general grinned. “It was very interesting speaking with you, Mr. Bryson. Your facility with our language grew stronger the longer we chatted. It makes me wonder what else you may be concealing. Now I suggest you meet your inevitable death with serenity.”
Oh, Jesus! His true identity was known! How? And for how long?
His mind raced. Who could have revealed his true identity? More to the point, who knew about the Hesketh-Haywood ruse? Who knew he was coming to Shenzhen? Not Yuri Tarnapolsky. Then who?
Photographs of his face had been faxed, connections made. But it made no sense! There had to be someone close to the general who recognized his face, was able to penetrate the facade of the English high-end fence. Someone who knew him; no other explanation was logical.
As General Tsai drove off, the Daimler emitting a cloud of exhaust smoke in his face, Bryson was shoved and pulled toward the warehouse entrance. The handgun was still trained on him from behind. He calculated his odds, and they were not good. He would have to free a hand, preferably his right, and grab the vanadium blade from the sheathing of his belt in one rapid, smooth movement. In order to do that, though, he would need to arrange for a diversion, a distraction. For the instructions from the general were clear: he was to meet his “inevitable death.” They would not hesitate to fire on him, he was sure, if he made any sudden attempt to break free. He did not want to test their orders.
Then why was he being brought into this warehouse? He looked around, seeing the immensity of the cavernous facility, clearly intended for the delivery and storage of motor freight. At one end was an enormous freight elevator large enough to accommodate a tank or a Humvee. The air was acrid with the smell of motor oil and diesel fuel. Trucks and tanks and other large military vehicles were stored in serried ranks, very close together, across the expanse of the warehouse floor. It looked like the storage area for a prosperous, high-volume car or truck dealership, though the concrete walls and floors were grimy with spilled motor oil and the residue of exhaust fumes.
What was going on? Why was he being brought here, when they could just as easily have executed him outside, where there were no nonmilitary witnesses?
And then he realized why.
His eyes were riveted on the man who stood in front of him. A man who was armed to the teeth. A man he knew.
A man named Ang Wu.
One of the few adversaries he’d ever encountered whom he’d have to describe as physically intimidating on every level. Ang Wu, a renegade officer in the Chinese Army, attached to Bomtec, the trading arm of the PLA. Ang Wu had been the local PLA representative in Sri Lanka; the Chinese had been shipping arms to both sides of the conflict, sowing dissent and suspicion, vending the highly flammable fuel for the region’s smoldering resentments. Outside Colombo, Bryson and the ad hoc band of commandos he’d assembled for the task had headed off a lethal caravan of munitions under Ang Wu’s direct control. In an exchange of gunfire, Bryson had shot Ang Wu in the gut, taking him down. His enemy was heli
coptered out, reportedly back to Beijing.
But had there been more to the incident, an underlying meaning, an unexplained plan in which he had been merely a pawn? What really lay behind the exercise?
Now, Ang Wu stood before Bryson, a Chinese AK-47 machine gun hanging from his shoulders on a diagonal nylon sling. On each hip was holstered a handgun. Draped around his waist like a belt were bandoliers of machine-gun rounds, and sheathed at his side and ankles were gleaming knives.
The grip on each of Bryson’s shoulders tightened. He could not free his hand to grab his belt, at least not without being shot down in the interim. Oh, God!
His old nemesis looked happy. “So many ways to die,” Ang Wu said. “I always knew we would meet again. For a long time I am looking forward to our reunion.” With a fluid motion he unholstered one of the handguns, a Chinese-made semiautomatic, hefting it, seemingly enjoying its solidity, its power to extinguish life. “This is General Tsai’s gift to me, his generous reward for my years of service. A simple gift: that I get to kill you myself. It will be very—how do you say?—up close and personal.”
There was a glacial smile, an array of very white teeth. “Ten years ago in Colombo, you took my spleen—did you know that? So we start with that first. Your spleen.”
In his mind, the enormous warehouse had collapsed into a very small space, a narrow tunnel, with Bryson at one end and Ang Wu at the other. There was nothing else but his adversary. Bryson took a slow, deep breath. “It hardly seems a fair fight,” he said with a forced, artificial calm.
The Chinese assassin smiled and, extending his arm, aimed the pistol at the lower left region of Bryson’s torso. As his enemy thumbed the safety, Bryson suddenly lurched forward and twisted his body in an attempt to dislodge himself from his captors’ grips, and then—
There was a small coughing noise, more like a spit, and a tiny red hole, like the beginning of a teardrop, appeared in the very center of Ang Wu’s broad forehead. He slid to the floor very gently, like a drunk passing out.
“Aiya!” screamed one of the guards, whirling around, just in time to catch a second silenced round in his head as well. The second guard shrieked, reached for his weapon, then abruptly crumpled to the ground, the side of his head blown away.
The Prometheus Deception Page 35