The Risk Agent

14

1:25 P.M.

HUANGPU DISTRICT

The wet market was less than three blocks behind him when Knox used a reflection off a storefront window to spot the dark green motorcycle at his back. It started to rain lightly. He walked quickly south and the Mongolian followed. Dulwich’s explanation about the taxi driver reporting him seemed plausible if unlikely; more probable was that the Mongolian had spotted him and Grace on the scooter in his lilong and had then traced the scooter’s registration back to the employee at Quintet from whom Knox had rented the scooter. He made a mental note to follow up with Fay about that.

Knox headed to the Modern Electronic City, a funky, three-story shopping complex at the intersection of Xiangyang Road and Fuxing Middle Road. Inside was a congested rabbit warren of narrow aisles and shop stalls crammed with anything electronic as well as the ubiquitous clothes and kitchen supply stalls.

He was met with the roar of negotiation. He climbed a moving escalator, turned right at the top and slapped a hundred-yuan note onto the scratched glass countertop. He punched “Kenny G” in the shoulder and, in halting Mandarin, told the shop booth attendant he was being followed by a Mongolian asshole who thought all waiguoren were fair game. “A common pickpocket, no doubt.”

To be called “common” was among the gravest insults.

Kenny cursed. Knox, a regular customer when in town, stepped into shadow, wedging himself into a corner. The emergency exit he wanted was at his back.

Two minutes and the Mongolian had not entered.

Knox saw across to a stall selling digital cameras. On its counter stood an array of digital frames-electronic LCD screens that could display a slide show. One of the frames scrolled through images of the Great Wall and the terra-cotta soldiers. Another advertised across the screen in a steady scroll:

Join the revolution in digital storage!! Holds over 1,000 photos and 5,000 songs!

Grace had photographed a digital picture frame in Lu Hao’s apartment. It had not occurred to her to collect it. But it being digital implied internal memory. The frames accepted images from USB connections.

Lu Hao had hidden his off-the-book spreadsheet in plain sight.

Knox was suddenly far less concerned with trapping and working over the Mongolian for information-Dulwich’s current plan-as he was with returning to Lu Hao’s apartment to grab up the digital frame.

Knox spotted Dulwich wandering the lower level. After allowing several minutes to pass, Dulwich rode the escalator upstairs and joined Knox around the corner at Kenny G’s. They quickly swapped jackets and hats, Dulwich now dressed in the ScotteVest, jeans and ball cap, Knox in Dulwich’s pale gray canvas airman jacket-candy bar wrappers in both pockets. Given the rain, the substitution might work.

“Forget working this guy,” Knox said. “I’ve got a new lead to follow.” He explained how Grace had seen a digital frame in Lu Hao’s apartment, how they’d overlooked that as a possible digital hiding place. “All I need is to get this guy off my back.”

“The plan is still actionable,” Dulwich said. “He’s out there watching. We hit him. Now.”

“He doesn’t know shit,” Knox said. “That’s why he’s following me.”

“He knows something we don’t. Beijing. That makes him an information asset.”

“Just lead him away. Get him off me. You’ve got his location on your phone. We can take him anytime we want him.”

“There is no ‘we.’ I have a train to catch. It’s now or never.”

“Then never,” Knox said. Adding, “Not now. This frame is more important.”

“Your call. Stay tough,” he said. He turned and headed for the escalator.

Knox worked his way across the third floor to a stall selling rice cookers, blenders and hot plates. At the back of the stall was one of very few windows on this floor-a fixed-pane window six inches wide and three feet high. Knox put his face to it.

Through the blurry smudge, Knox spotted the Mongolian across the intersection on the motorcycle, oblivious to the rain; they both watched Dulwich-now wearing Knox’s jacket and hat-dodge his way through umbrellas to the curb where a taxi was waiting. Dulwich opened the back door and climbed in. The taxi pulled out into slowly moving traffic.

Knox celebrated their success: the short distance to the taxi had made the substitution work perfectly. The Mongolian rose to kick-start his bike but held up on the curb watching as the taxi moved off.

Why was he not following? The idea had been to lure the Mongolian away, following Dulwich the impostor. So why give the taxi such a lead? Taxis all looked the same-they were difficult to follow.

Knox peered down the street. Was there a second Mongolian in place? Had they screwed this up?

Panic flashed through him. A heavy rain in Shanghai. Snagging a taxi in this weather could take fifteen minutes and yet…

The taxi had been waiting at the curb. Improbable on a sunny day. Impossible on a day like this.

Knox rapped his knuckles on the window as if he could stop the taxi, already moving. He fumbled with the iPhone; dropped it; stooped to recover it. Dialed as he stood.

His face back to the window, he saw the roofs of vehicles as traffic moved around Dulwich’s taxi-another anomaly. Dulwich’s taxi was clearly positioning itself toward the right lane.

“Yeah?” Dulwich said, his voice slightly altered by the ever-shifting signal embedded in the phone’s security.

“Abort!” Knox said. “We were set up! That taxi was waiting for me!”

Knox heard Dulwich say, “Hey, pal, pull over,” in English. “Ting!” he hollered. Stop.

Knox heard the breaking glass and twisting metal a millisecond before the same sounds found their way through the wireless phone network.

The taxi was T-boned by an old-model gray Toyota, pushed clear through the intersection and slammed into a tree.

The drivers of both vehicles hurried out and staggered toward the curb.

Now the Mongolian headed up the sidewalk on his motorcycle. He hopped off and reached through shattered glass as if trying to help. Knox knew better.

A massive throng of onlookers immediately surrounded the wreck. Everyone loved a good collision.

Knox made it to the ground floor before his brain fully kicked in. Protocol dictated he walk calmly in the opposite direction of the wreck.

Instead, he ran to the wreck and challenged the crowd, pushing and shoving and shouting curses in Mandarin. The Mongolian was back on the bike. He throttled up and swung left around the corner-out of sight.

The crowd owned Knox. He moved toward the wreck where a smear of blood stained the frame. The whoop-whoop of a siren cried out: an ambulance from nearby Huashan Hospital or the police. Either way, Knox couldn’t stick around. He’d be questioned. Involved.

He pushed forward and tugged open the bent back door. Dulwich was unconscious, his face bloodied. Knox hooked him beneath his arms and pulled him out. As he did, his hand found the hard drive. He was searching for the iPhone when an old, nearly toothless woman slapped his hand and shouted, “Thief!”

Knox called her an old cow, but hurried off down the street before the crowd decided to make an example of him.

3:20 P.M.

JING AN DISTRICT

SHANGHAI

Knox called Rutherford Risk in Hong Kong and then waited ten minutes for the company’s head, Brian Primer, to return the call to the iPhone. As they talked, he walked up Changle Road toward Huashan Hospital.

“Go ahead,” Primer said, with no introductions.

“Sarge-David Dulwich-is down. Traffic accident. Looked serious to critical.”

“You escaped unharmed?”

“Wasn’t in the cab. What’s the call? I can have him out of there within…two hours, at the outside. Request a safe house with medical, or an evac team.”

“I appreciate your…loyalty. His identification is good. It should hold. No need to put the operation at risk. Not yet.”

“But the ransom money,” Knox said.

“Yes, I’m aware of the situation, believe me.”

“You want me in Guangzhou?” Knox asked.

A long pause on the other end of the call as Primer weighed his options. Perhaps Knox had surprised him with his knowledge of the operation.

“I need a few minutes. An hour. Do you have the hospital?”

“Approaching it now.”

“Survey for arrival of interrogation team, or anything suggesting compromise.”

“Can do. I won’t let him be taken,” Knox stated.

“Settle down,” Primer said. “We’ve managed a lot worse than this.”

“It was intended for me. The crash.”

“Knowledge or speculation?”

“I spotted an adversary in the area. Both drivers fled the scene.”

“Good to know. Then I’d keep my head down if I was you.”

“I want him out of there.” He paused. “I need the ransom money.”

“I said: settle down. This is what we do. Let us do it. You handle your end. The accounts?”

“A work in progress.”

“And is there progress?”

It struck Knox that this was Primer’s focus. “Guangzhou?” Knox said. He wondered if Primer would authorize a quarter million dollars in cash to be picked up by a relative stranger.

“That drop required Dulwich. We’ll figure something out. Not to worry.”

“Worry? We’ve got two days! Less, now. I can get him on a plane. A boat.”

“You handle the accounts. The exchange.”

“There won’t be an exchange without that money!”

“Then extraction. We’ve got Dulwich covered.”

Sure you do, Knox thought, wondering how expendable Dulwich was to a man like Brian Primer.

“Keep this phone close.” The line went dead.

Knox had reached the street corner. Looking left, he saw the blockish white buildings of Huashan Hospital. In the first few hours of care it would be difficult to get to Dulwich. But after that…

He kept vigil, waiting for the arrival of police that never came. An hour passed. Primer was right: Dulwich’s “accident” was being treated as just another civilian casualty.

For how long remained the question.

6:20 P.M.

CHANGNING DISTRICT

SHANGHAI

“The wheels are coming off this thing,” he told Grace, having returned to the safe house apartment. “We have to get Sarge out of there. Priority one.”

“The company will take care of Mr. Dulwich.”

“The company will pretend he doesn’t exist.”

“Not Mr. Primer.”

“Believe it,” Knox said. “In truth, Sarge probably doesn’t exist. He’s probably an independent contractor, like you. Like me, now. Nowhere on their payroll despite his working there. It’s an insidious arrangement set up exactly for moments like this.”

“Like Lu Hao,” she said solemnly.

“Yes. Like that,” he agreed. “It all depends how good his documentation is. There are ways.”

“You cannot possibly be considering removing him from hospital.”

“Can’t I?”

“We cannot care for him! The way you described his condition-”

“Don’t get your panties in a knot.”

“Excuse me?”

He didn’t translate it for her. “At some point they’ll determine he’s an American. His teeth-dental work-will tell them that much. X rays. Tattoos. There are ways.”

“We must focus on Lu Hao and Mr. Danner.”

“Sarge was the source for the ransom money.” He relived their conversation in the wet market, including the pickup in Guangzhou. A pickup that would not happen. “No Sarge, no ransom drop.”

Grace hesitated before speaking. “Extraction.”

“Right,” he said. “As if.”

He looked over at her. She needed sleep. They both needed food.

“Okay. One step at a time,” he said. “Maybe the frame has Lu’s files. Maybe the numbers tell us something we don’t know.” He no longer believed it. He suddenly saw them instead as a means to an end. “We’re looking at this wrong.”

“How so?”

“Everyone seems to want Lu’s accounts, right?”

“It is possible,” she said. “Yes.”

“So whoever possesses his files has power over the others. Power means leverage.”

“The numbers always reveal more than anyone suspects,” said the forensic accountant.

Knox yawned. “You’re missing the point.”

“Which is?” she said angrily.

“We need to raise money in order to pay the ransom.”

“I am aware of that predicament.”

“So now maybe we have something to sell,” Knox said.

Twenty minutes later, he sat in a wheelchair outside a changing room in a boutique clothing store.

“Do you know the expression, ‘Take no prisoners’?” he asked, as Grace tried on clothes on the other side of a black silk curtain. He could see her bare feet. The petite woman who ran the store was in the front dealing with a customer.

“I have heard it before.”

“Tie up every loose end.”

“Yes,” she said, impatient with him.

“That’s why the change of clothes for both of us, and my condition.” His hands on the wheelchair’s wheels. “In case any of those cops are still watching the building.”

“The police,” she said.

“We don’t know who they are. State Security? Private muscle?”

Grace drew back the curtain. She wore a gray business suit with black pinstripes, and a sheer white blouse unbuttoned to show a good amount of skin. She looked older. She carried a tote over her shoulder. Just right, Knox thought: slightly slutty.

She said, “How do you know those men who attacked us are not because of this woman you slept with?”

They both knew Grace’s carelessness had led Yang’s men to them in the alley, but he kept his mouth shut.

“How do you know Lu Hao isn’t a blackmailer?” Knox said. “That he wasn’t blackmailing some Beijing minister who then sicced the Mongolians on him to clean up loose ends?”

She studied him. Disappointment and disdain mixed with a hint of curiosity.

“Not Lu Hao,” she said.

Knox rode in the wheelchair head down, a blanket across his lap. He wore a woven bamboo hat and a collarless blue cotton jacket typical of retirees, his shoulders hunched, his head drooped against a lightly falling rain. Wheelchairs were rarely seen on the streets of Shanghai. Wherever Shanghai’s elderly or handicapped were kept, it wasn’t on the busy sidewalks. But Knox fit the mold for those that were occasionally seen-old and decrepit, sad testimonies to the ravages of age.

Guiding him was an upscale office worker, a woman with a nice figure wearing high heels. She pushed the chair with one hand, and with the other clutched her purse over her head against the rain.

Grace said, “Pushing this is a lot more difficult than it looks.”

Knox barely heard her. For the past several hours he’d brooded over the loss of Dulwich, intent on rescuing him from the hospital. He wished he’d secured the man’s iPhone and its ability to track the Mongolian.

Now, less than thirty yards from Lu Hao’s apartment building, Knox peered out from under the hat, looking for signs of the police and surveillants they’d encountered their last time here. They reached the entrance to Lu Hao’s apartment building and Grace backed him through the door.

Inside, they acted quickly, having talked through it. For the sake of any cameras, Grace pushed Knox and the wheelchair into the elevator. She reached in and touched “7.”

Then she headed toward the stairs, leaving him behind.

Down the hall she found a door marked BUILDING SUPERVISOR in both English and Mandarin. She descended the stairs into a dank-smelling but well-lit basement. The seconds ticked off in her head.

Knox’s former assault of the Mongolian in the stairway meant the police had questioned the supervisor, residents and the real estate agent. Grace needed to take the supervisor’s attention off her face, despite her attempts to disguise herself. She paused on a landing, bent down and tore her skirt. She did the same to her blouse, popping buttons and revealing her bra. She wet her finger and smeared her eye shadow. Hyperventilating, she approached the partially opened door that discharged cigarette smoke and the strains of a Chinese television melodrama. She knocked loudly and pushed inside without invitation.

“Help me!” she cried out in Mandarin.

Knox’s plan was designed to work no matter what the manager’s gender. By exposing herself, there wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t jump to his feet to come to her aid; and the implication of sexual assault would bring sympathy from any woman. If a married couple-often the case for building supervisors-Grace would have her work cut out for her.

It was a married couple.

Early forties. He, with thinning hair and a bad complexion, all skin and bones; she, in a blue jumpsuit, her face oily, her hair clumped and pulled back in a bun.

Grace entered a small space, every inch used efficiently. A narrow futon, two stools with an improvised table between them. A small cathode-ray color television flickered between neat stacks of clothing on a shelf. To her right, another smaller black-and-white television sat next to two VCRs. Exactly as Knox had described.

She plopped down on the empty bed without invitation.

“He…I…he tried to…” She pleaded with her eyes to the woman. “Please.”

She saw the gravity register on the man’s face. Unless he could quickly control the story, he would be out on the street looking for work. There had already been one assault in his building in the past few days. Another would be the end of him.

“Tea, my dear,” the woman said, shooting a look at her husband telling him to do something. The kitchen was behind a maroon blanket. With the clatter of pots and pans, Grace went to work.

She reached for the perplexed building superintendent. To her relief, he reached back for her.

6:40 P.M.

Seven Swans-Lu Hao’s apartment.

Knox, wearing the hat to screen his face from the security cameras, used his knuckle to ring the doorbell, avoiding fingerprints. He kept watch on the glass peephole in the center of the door. As it briefly flashed dark-indicating its light source was blocked-Knox kicked open the door, taking the doorjamb with it.

As it swung open, he hit it again with a shoulder, making sure to crush the man caught behind it. He took two great strides into the center of the room, dispatching a greasy punk who rose up from the couch, and a second, sturdier kid who was apparently slow off the mark. Neither was unconscious, but they’d be wishing they were for the next several minutes.

Knox pivoted on his right heel. The man behind the door held up his hands in resignation.

He wasted no time getting into Lu Hao’s bedroom. He grabbed the digital frame.

In and out of the apartment in less than a minute, he rode the elevator down, willing it to fall faster.

6:42 P.M.

Grace took the supervisor’s hands, allowing him to help her up from the bed. As she came to her feet, she spun him and threw a chokehold, silencing him until he went slack and unconscious-the man’s wife less than ten feet away. Grace eased him to the floor.

She hit Eject on both VCRs and they discharged their cassettes. They could not afford to be identified; Knox had been adamant about this. She took these as well as other cartridges from a neatly ordered stack and filled the tote.

The wife came from around the curtain, pulled by the sound. As her face filled with horror, Grace slapped a hand over her mouth from behind.

“He is fine. You do not move. No police. This never happened.”

Knox’s plan counted on the couple not wanting another report against them.

“The problem upstairs was drunken tenants. The usual youngsters. Do you understand?”

The woman first shook her head, then nodded, tears running onto Grace’s hand.

“I regret the intrusion,” Grace said. “Please accept my apologies.”

She was back up the stairs in a matter of seconds.

6:44 P.M.

Knox wheeled himself out of the elevator, counting down the seconds. He would give her another minute, no more; then, he would go after her.

Grace arrived with her shirttails crossed and tucked in at the waist, her torn skirt rotated so that the slit ran all the way up her leg revealing the thin black band of her bikini underwear. She said nothing, only nodded at him before pushing his chair out the doors.

Knox reached over and deposited the digital picture frame and power supply into her bag.

Two blocks later, an empty wheelchair and a damp blanket collecting rain won the attention of the occasional pedestrian. It looked sad, as if it held a disheartening story.

Fifteen minutes later, it was gone.

An hour later, it had already been resold, twice.