by Graham Brown
“You really won’t get much out of me if I’m dead,” he told them.
The thug was unmoved but the man behind him laughed. “Bring him with us,” he said.
Hawker was blindfolded and dragged into a waiting van. From there it was a short trip to the waterfront and a forced walk onto a waiting vessel, a diesel-powered junk.
As they rumbled out into the harbor, Hawker tried to guess their direction or speed.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked after a minute or two.
“I’ll gladly answer that, once you tell me what you’re doing here,” the Russian voice said back to him.
Hawker gave no answer. He was still trying to figure out the dynamics of the situation. Why should he, an American, have to explain to a Russian what he was doing in Hong Kong?
The motor beneath the deck cut back to idle and then died away. Soon the boat’s momentum ceased and the vessel began to rock back and forth in the chop of the waves.
“Stand up,” the man said.
Hawker stood, holding the rail, as one of the man’s guards pulled the blindfold away. He began to turn.
“Eyes forward!”
A rifle jabbed him in the back.
Hawker did as he was ordered. They were a mile out into Victoria Harbour, looking back at the skyscrapers of Hong Kong.
“You are a man without a home, or so I hear. A man with debts to pay, who is wanted even by his own country.”
Hawker did not respond.
“You go by the name Hawker,” the Russian said. “An interesting metaphor this word. Where I come from, it means a seller in the marketplace, a shill, offering goods or services.”
The name had come to him as a code, one he’d kept for his own reasons. He didn’t try to explain.
“At any rate, you are here plying your trades, both gross and fine, only in this case, it is at the behest of your own nation’s security apparatus. Care to tell us why?”
Hawker held the rail. He guessed that the man already knew the answer, or some version of it. He remained quiet.
“Come now,” the Russian said. “You’re among friends here. To prove it, I’ll answer for you. You’re here to do something that might infuriate the Chinese. Something the people who hired you don’t want to be known for. Murder?”
“I’m not a killer,” Hawker said.
“You are a killer,” the man replied, emphatically. “But not a murderer, perhaps. What then?”
Hawker thought of leaping over the rail, but guessed he’d be riddled with bullets before he hit the water.
“It’s not so complicated,” the man said. “In fact, the answer is right in front of you.”
Hawker looked across the water, staring straight ahead. The boat had been lined up with Kang’s Tower Pinnacle, its white marble façade gleaming in the morning sun.
“They have something your people want back,” the man added.
Hawker’s eyes followed the contours of the tower down to the bedrock at its base. Whatever cover he’d once thought he had was nonexistent at this point.
He turned around slowly, and this time no one stopped him.
Ten feet away, hidden in the shade of the boat’s pilothouse, stood a short, gaunt figure of a man. He wore a black peacoat and leather gloves. No more than five foot six, his round face was marked by sunken cheeks and whitish stubble the same length as the buzzed gray hair on his head.
Hawker guessed the man’s age was close to seventy. His face was pale, his eyes almost gray. Apparently his host was a confident man. His henchmen had vanished and no gun or weapon could be seen.
“Who are you?” Hawker asked.
“My name is Ivan Saravich,” the man said.
“Are you my contact?”
“No,” Saravich said.
“What happened to him?”
Saravich waved a hand in a manner of swatting away an insect. “Don’t worry about him. He chose a bribe over a job. I treasure men like that.”
“What do you want from me?” Hawker asked.
Saravich explained. “I want to help you get at Kang, to help you recover your missing person.”
“And in return?”
Saravich stepped into the light, shielding his eyes from the sun. He walked to the rail, looking toward the Tower Pinnacle in the distance.
“Kang is not a very discriminating man,” he said. “In addition to your missing friend, he has taken one of our citizens, a child, whose mother is a prominent member of our Science Directorate.”
That sounded like a legitimate possibility from what Hawker had been told, but there had to be a reason. “Why would he do that?”
“She’s an expert in high-energy physics,” Saravich said. “What Kang cannot buy he steals; what he cannot steal, he extorts. He wants information from her.”
Information on high-energy physics. Hawker wondered if it were related to what Danielle and McCarter had been working on.
“For weapons?” Hawker asked.
Saravich shrugged. “No one knows,” he said. “Kang is rumored to be very strange, obsessed with exotic areas of science and compulsive in regard to other things like medical oddities and genetic deformation. It is said he has a zoo of humans born defective.”
“Charming,” Hawker said. “Why do you need me to deal with him? Why not take him out yourself?”
Saravich exhaled. “I would prefer it,” he said. “But certain niceties must be observed. You, on the other hand … well, a man with no home does what he does. There can be no proof of whom he works for or why.” He shrugged. “There can be suspicions, yes. Whispers and rumors. Of course. These things will always fly, but in the end it will never be clear, and that is what we prefer. Just as your people do.”
“Of course,” Hawker said. “Everyone’s afraid of the dragon these days.”
“Don’t want to wake it,” Saravich said.
“You want me to get the kid back?”
Saravich nodded. “You can get them both at the same time.”
Hawker might have asked what the alternative was, but it was fairly clear to him that there was none. He was now working for Moore and the Russians. He smiled at the irony, wondering what Moore would think, footing the bill personally with his cold war enemies riding along for free.
Perhaps it was for the better not to try this act alone. He turned back toward Kang’s fortress of a tower. “You think they’re inside?”
Ivan nodded. “We have surveillance video showing them entering the building and no indication of their departure.”
It had been eight days since Danielle’s capture in Mexico. “That’s not exactly conclusive.”
“We know Kang.” Saravich was insistent. “We know his ways. If your friend is alive, then she’s there. And he wouldn’t have brought her here if he planned to kill her quickly.”
He studied the building. “Well, that narrows it down to a hundred floors or so.”
“Actually,” the Russian said, “we have only one floor to worry about.” He handed Hawker a spotting scope. “Look at the foundation.”
Hawker trained the scope on the black bedrock from which the tower seemed to sprout. He saw the remnants of fortifications and old stone walls, even a broken set of stairs leading down to the water.
“Kang built his tower on the ruins of Fort Victoria,” Saravich explained. “A fort those hardworking Brits carved out of solid rock in 1845, before building Fort Stanley a few years later. Kang uses the old brig as his private gulag. Down there he keeps those who owe him what they cannot pay or those who cross him and survive. A very rare few have even been ransomed out.”
Hawker studied the jagged black stone, wet from the spray of the waves.
“He has both of our people,” Saravich said. “I promise you, he has them there.”
CHAPTER 14
Byron Stecker, current director of operations for the CIA, had a phone to his ear. On the desk in front of him lay an internal report, one that was highly critical of a fellow organiz
ation. An organization that had been a thorn in Stecker’s side for years: the NRI.
Since the NRI’s creation, there had been those at Langley who disapproved of what they considered a competing agency. Few were more vocal than Stecker, and for the past two years he’d fought to bring the NRI under the Agency’s control. So far it had been a losing battle.
In hindsight, Stecker assigned the bulk of that failure to a situation beyond his control: the president’s friendship with Arnold Moore. But after two years of running into that particular wall, Stecker had come up with a new plan, one that would turn that personal connection between the two men from a roadblock into an advantage.
The president may have been Moore’s friend but he was a politician first. And like all politicians he feared the appearance of impropriety. In fact, if he was like most of them, he feared the appearance of impropriety more than the actual act of impropriety itself.
With this in mind, Stecker realized what he needed: a scandal at the NRI. If such an event could be managed correctly it would shine a harsh light on Arnold Moore. And the president, ever mindful of how their friendship looked, would be forced to act more harshly than another man. Even if just to prove that he played no favorites.
Stecker would get everything he wanted and this time he wouldn’t even have to ask.
A click on the phone line told Stecker he’d been transferred into the Oval Office. The president came on the line.
“Afternoon, Byron,” he said politely. “What have you got for me?”
Stecker looked down at the report; there were several disturbing rumors to choose from, including one that suggested the NRI was conducting some type of dangerous nuclear experiment at its headquarters in the suburbs of Virginia. He doubted that could be true, but the other information his people had dug up would be damning enough.
“Mr. President,” Stecker said, speaking with a melodious southern drawl and at this moment an exaggerated sense of concern in his voice. “I have a warning flag to run up the pole for you. Have you checked on your good friend over there at the NRI lately? Because he seems to be turning up the heat on a few people whom you might want him to leave alone.”
“What are you talking about, Stecker?” the president asked.
“I’m afraid Moore’s gone off half-cocked,” Stecker said. “Hired some mercenary ex-agent of ours to start himself a private little war over there in China.”
“What gives you that idea?” the president said wearily.
“I have confirmed sources reporting from Kinshasa and Hong Kong,” Stecker said. “I’m afraid the NRI has overstepped its bounds yet again.”
Stecker knew he was laying it on a little thick, but what the hell, he had Moore dead to rights this time. Might as well enjoy it.
The president didn’t reply, but the ringing silence had an edge to it and if Stecker knew anything, he knew this dart had hit the bull’s-eye.
“You bring me those sources,” the president said eventually. It sounded to Stecker as if he were talking through a clenched jaw. “And you bury this story. Understand? If it comes out before we can deal with it, I’ll know who to burn.”
Though leaking the information would have been personally satisfying, Stecker would not let it happen. Better to show the president who had control of their organization and who didn’t.
“Of course, Mr. President,” he said. “Honestly, if Moore has gone off the rails, I would consider it my duty to keep it quiet if at all possible.”
“Cut the crap, Stecker,” the president said. “You’re not the one running for office here. Be at the West Wing foyer tomorrow morning, seven a.m., sharp. Drive your own car and don’t bring any assistants.”
The president hung up, the snap of the phone ringing Stecker’s ear. He felt he’d made his point, but there was more to it than that. The president was angry, but he didn’t actually sound surprised. No, it was more like disgusted, like a man hearing of an accident he thought he’d already avoided.
A grin formed on Stecker’s face as he put the phone down and closed the report. Perhaps this would be more interesting than he’d guessed.
CHAPTER 15
The view from the 101st floor of the Tower Pinnacle was nothing short of spectacular. A curving, tinted wall of glass created a panoramic view. It began on the far right with the skyscrapers of central Hong Kong. In the center was Victoria Harbour, Kowloon, and the busy shipping channels between them, while off to the left lay the open waters of Sulphur Channel, Discovery Bay, and Lantau Island, where the new airport had been built.
There was a time when Kang considered the view a treasure, but now such beauty vexed him.
“Close the shutters,” he ordered.
A male secretary hustled to his desk and punched four buttons in rapid succession. Steel shutters descended from slots in the ceiling, blocking off the priceless view. In ten seconds they were down and locked and the room was illuminated by the soft recessed lighting.
Kang turned his head slightly and the sound of electric motors became audible as the powered wheelchair that supported him began to move. He crossed the floor, acutely aware of the eyes upon him: his secretary, several technicians, and his head of security and unofficial chief of staff, a burly man named Choi.
Though they tried to disguise their gawking, Kang could feel their pity and disdain. He had once been an imposing figure, nearly six feet tall, one hundred and eighty pounds, but several years earlier a rare neurological disorder had attacked him, first draining his energy and coordination and then progressing to steal the strength from his body. Kang could walk, and he did at times, during treatment and therapy. But his condition was deteriorating, and for expediency he now spent most of his time in the chair, his body twitching and shaking from both the disease and the electrical stimulators that had been attached to him to keep his muscles from atrophying further.
That the others stared was perhaps not surprising. But he despised them for it. Even more because he was forced to rely on them and Choi in particular.
“The girl is in the brig?” Kang asked.
“She has been placed as you requested,” Choi said. “But I think—”
Kang cut him off. “I do not ask your thoughts, nor will I suffer them today.”
“But sir, she is no use to us now,” Choi said. “She knows nothing that we don’t already know. We should kill her now or sell her. We know many who would pay well for such a woman. As long as she remains here there is a chance the Americans will move against us.”
A chance, Kang thought. There was far more than a chance.
He offered Choi a dose of pity. “You are limited in what you know. Your view of things does not extend to what I can see.”
He turned the chair a fraction, until he faced Choi more squarely. “The woman is of no use to us at this moment, this is true. But a time will come when she has utility for my purpose. If I were to indulge your bitterness and kill her or deliver her to the brothels, what would I receive in return? Two things I do not need: vengeance and a trinket of wealth. Should I really trade a cup of spite for what I desire?”
Kang watched Choi trying to work it out. He and Choi had come up from the streets together. Though Kang’s modern empire included manufacturing, shipping, and construction, he’d begun as a criminal, a racketeer who dealt in extortion, prostitution, and smuggling. Be it human cargo, drugs, or endangered species, if there was a price for it, Kang and Choi had sold it. And they had not been alone.
Originally their cadre included three others. But Kang had been forced to kill them, one by one, as their thoughts turned from following to leading. Still in the prime of his health, he had ripped one man’s throat out with his bare hands. He remembered the feeling of such strength, such visceral power, the man’s life and warm blood pouring out over his fingers. He longed to experience such a feeling again, such proof of his own potency. And he would not let Choi get in the way of his quest.
“But, sir,” Choi said.
“I
will not be questioned!” Kang shouted. His voice reverberated around the room, startling all who heard it.
Choi’s mouth clamped shut but Kang could see the continued disagreement and defiance in his chief servant. Choi had long been loyal, but Kang could see it beginning to fray. It was inevitable.
He turned his chair and guided it forward toward the door of the conference room. It opened at his approach to reveal two objects and several men who seemed to be technicians of a sort.
The first object was the stone statue taken from Mexico. Two of his men were examining it, using electronic equipment to penetrate its depth.
“What have you found?” Kang asked.
“There is nothing within the statue,” one of the men said. “The granite is solid. No cavities or electromagnetic discharges. No sign of anything that the NRI was looking for.”
“Of course there isn’t,” Kang said. “The boy would have sensed it, when we brought him up here. What about the inscription?”
A second man sitting at a computer terminal answered. “We’re using the computer program to match the woman’s photographs with the remaining portion of the damaged stone. The resolution is poor but we have enhanced it and are now comparing it with all known hieroglyphic codes.”
“How long?”
The man shrugged. “The damage is extensive.”
“We’ll keep trying,” one of the other techs said.
“Time is running out,” Kang said. “We must do more than try.”
He saw their reactions, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Choi exhale in exasperation. He sensed all of them mocking him, as Choi did behind his back. And at that moment he wanted to kill them, to have them slaughtered for their contempt. But he restrained himself from ordering such an action. He would be healed soon, and once he was healthy again he would kill the insolent with his own hands.
CHAPTER 16
Hawker stood on the bow of a harbor tug, beneath a spitting rain and an overcast sky. He wore a heavy wool coat, boots, and a black cap pulled down over his ears. He looked like a longshoreman or a sailor, just one of the crew watching as the tug pushed its cargo southward.