Checkmate

28

“Slow down,” Fisher ordered the driver, whose grasp of English was weak but probably better than he let on. Some taxi drivers didn’t want to be bothered with “touristy” questions, and nothing shuts up a tourist quicker than a Hong Kong driver’s practiced “Eh?”—which is exactly what he gave Fisher now.

“Slow down,” Fisher repeated in Cantonese.

The driver slowed the taxi and Fisher stared out the window at the line of darkened windows trolling by. The characters on the windows were Chinese, but Fisher had memorized the ones he was looking for. It appeared in the window of the fourth storefront: SONG WOO LTD.

“Stop,” Fisher said in Cantonese.

The street was more alley than thoroughfare, dark and narrow and bracketed on both ends by the bustling nightlife of Kowloon, most of which involved laborers coming from or going to work, and shop owners closing down for the day. It had been raining all afternoon and the pavement glistened under the illumination of a lone streetlight farther down the alley. In the distance, like a faint melody, he could hear the sing-song babble of voices speaking in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Following Grimsdottir’s map, he’d taken a taxi from his hotel on Hong Kong Island and through the Cross Harbor Tunnel to this mostly commercial area of Kowloon — commercial only on its face, Fisher knew. Many of the businesses were owned and run by families who lived in apartments above the shops.

Song Woo Limited’s storefront stood out for two reasons: One, it was situated between an herbalist and a dim sum kiosk; two, the space was vacant — a rarity in Hong Kong, one of the most densly populated cities on the planet.

“What’s that sign say?” Fisher asked in English.

“Eh?”

Fisher handed a five-dollar bill — about forty HKD — over the seat.

“Say, ‘For Lease,’ then give phone number for agent.” The driver recited the number.

The fact that the space was still unleased told Fisher Song Woo Ltd. had only recently been vacated.

Fisher handed over another bill. “You know this place?” The driver grabbed the dollar, but Fisher held on. “You know how long it’s been here?”

“Maybe two month. Gone last week. Never see nobody.”

“Okay, take me back.”

The driver drove to the end of the alley and turned onto the main road. Fisher let him get three blocks away, then said, “Let me out here.” He paid the fare and got out, then flipped open his satellite phone and speed-dialed. Grimsdottir answered: “Extension forty-two ninety.”

“Hey, it’s me. Aunt Judy isn’t home, but she left a forwarding number.” He recited the leasing agent’s phone number. “Give her a call and let me know what you find out.”

“Will do.”

Fisher hung up and started walking. In the distance, over the stacked rooflines of Kowloon, he could see a rainbow of searchlights crisscrossing the sky. This was a nightly event in Hong Kong, a light show atop the sky-scrapers that lined the shores of Victoria Harbor. In contrast, here he was just a few miles inland walking past a coop full of clucking chickens. This was the lure of Hong Kong: two worlds, the modern and the traditional, crowded into a chunk of land one third the size of Rhode Island.

He took a circuitous route through the streets and alleys until certain he wasn’t being followed, then made his way back to the alley where Song Woo was located. He wasn’t hopeful of finding anything in the deserted office, but it was an i he needed to dot.

He found the alley as he’d left it: dark and deserted. He felt slightly naked without his tac-suit, but his pants were black and after turning it inside out, his jacket was as well.

He clicked on his flashlight and gave the door a quick study. He clicked off the flashlight and pulled a pick set from his pocket and went to work. Twenty seconds later, he got a satisfying snick as the lock snapped back. He eased open the door, slipped through, and shut it behind him.

The office, no bigger than an average bedroom, was devoid of furniture and furnishings. Even the overhead fluorescent lights were missing from their fixtures. At the back was a closed door. Inside he found storage closet lined with empty shelves. Sitting in the corner on a table was a multifunction printer/fax/copier. On its back side he found a sticker with Chinese characters.

He pulled out his sat phone, took picture, and sent it to Grimsdottir with the caption “Translation?” Her answer came back sixty seconds later:

He dialed and she picked up. “What’s this you sent me?” she asked.

He explained. “It looks like Song Woo was more than just a front; they did some business here. My thought is, if they rented a copier, did they rent computers?”

“And if so, might someone have forgotten to erase everything? Good thinking.”

“Anything on the leasing agent?”

“Working on it, but my guess is we’re going to find another front company. I do have their account number at Excelsior, though.”

Cameron Road was only a ten-minute taxi ride away, but rather than finding another comfortably dark alley, Fisher found himself standing on the sidewalk before a four-story modern office building. He lingered for only a moment, then walked across the street and stepped into a darkened doorway to watch.

Through the front windows he could see a security guard sitting at a kidney-shaped reception desk. A woman in a charcoal gray business suit got off the elevator and walked past the desk with a wave, then pushed out the door and started down the sidewalk.

Fisher’s first instinct was to study the building for weaknesses, but then he checked himself. Here, patience was his best weapon. The front doors weren’t locked, which left only lone guard in his way. The man was in his seventies, so incapacitating him would be simple, but if the pot of tea on the guard’s desk was any indication, nature might do the work for Fisher.

Five minutes passed, then ten.

The guard stood up, stretched, then walked to the far end of the lobby and pushed through a door. Here’s to an aged bladder, Fisher thought.

He walked across the street, into the lobby, and straight to the elevators. To the right was a door bearing a stair-step pictograph. He pushed through.

He found Excelsior Office Rentals on the fourth floor. The door’s lock was more modern than the one he’d encountered at Song Woo, but it gave way with little more effort. Once inside, he found a bank of filing cabinets in a side room. He found Song Woo’s file and scanned it.

He dialed Grimsdottir. “Song Woo leased two computers from Excelsior. I’ve got an address for their warehouse.” He gave it to her.

“Sam, that’s north of you — way north, in Lo Wu.”

Bad news. Lo Wu sat just a half mile from the border with China. Ever since the Brits handed Hong Kong back to China in 1999, the rule for tourists was, the farther north you travel, the tighter the security. Regular PLA (People’s Liberation Army) troops patrolled the streets alongside civilian cops; roadblocks were more frequent and detentions more common — especially of Westerners, who rarely ventured outside Hong Kong proper and, as far as Beijing was concerned, had little business doing so.

“I know where it is,” Fisher said. “Load the map on my OPSAT. I’ll be in and out of there before you can say, ‘Life sentence in a Chinese labor camp.’”