The Risk Agent

22

4:00 P.M.

XINTIANDI SHOPPING AREA

SHANGHAI

Xintiandi, a high-end commercial development set in a renovated Shanghainese lane neighborhood of the 1920s, occupied eight city blocks, its buildings and now wide concourses home to luxury retail stores and four-star restaurants. An important tourist destination, it was also a home for the Platinum Card set. On the start of the National Day holiday it looked like a mosh pit at a rock concert.

Into this chaos arrived Grace, claustrophobia already wearing on her. The shoves; the cigarettes; the body odor; the perfume all served as catalysts for her anxiety.

She bullied her way forward, the heavy duffel slowing her down as it collided with others in the crowd. A light rain began falling. She pushed for the Cold Stone Creamery around the corner, fighting the dense crowds.

She arrived at the ice cream parlor, gripping her phone tightly in her hand, waiting for the next call.

And waited.

And waited.

The phone’s screen remained blank. She mentally urged it to ring.

Silence.

The rain fell harder.

Had she been too late?

She glanced around, immediately spotting two uniformed police moving methodically through the throng.

Had the kidnappers spotted the police? Canceled the drop?

The isolation from Knox was killing her. She wondered when she had allowed herself to become dependent upon John Knox.

She dropped the heavy duffel to the concrete, clinging to its strap tightly.

No call.

No contact.

She looked down at the duffel. The two zipper tabs met dead center in the bag; this was not right! She had pulled them both to one side, having had experience of heavy bags coming open when the zippers were centered like this.

She distinctly recalled pulling the zippers to one side.

She knelt, the rain beginning to pour down. She hardly felt it.

There, in the middle of the crowds flowing around her, in the middle of an all-out downpour, soaked to her bones, Grace nervously grabbed hold of the zippers and separated them. Hesitated only briefly before tugging the two sides apart.

She saw a bag filled with stacks of newspaper bundled together with twine. Unable to breathe, she looked up into the rain as if expecting answers. When? Where? How? She had put the money into this duffel herself-her reaction went far beyond bewilderment to outright denial. This was impossible!

Impossible or not, it was. She dug through the newspapers just to make sure.

The two cops were closing in on her. The Mongolian was back there somewhere. She had but a matter of seconds. The orange shirt gave her away.

She abandoned the bag.

She had no money, only a travel card with twenty yuan left on it-about three dollars. She hurried away from the police, approaching a T-shirt kiosk.

She stole a shirt, not by lifting the hanger off the peg, but by bending over and pulling the shirt down, off the hanger. Ten yards later, down on one knee, she delighted a pair of high school-aged boys by peeling off the orange top and donning the stolen T-shirt.

She returned to the Metro entrance, passing within a few yards of the police, who seemed to be looking for her.

Behind her, lying wet atop the plaza’s concrete pavers, they would soon come across the orange tank top, trod upon, dirty and already torn.