The Risk Agent

23

4:00 P.M.

HUANGPU DISTRICT

Knox prodded the taxi driver to stay with the blue Volvo sedan sandwiched in traffic up ahead.

He’d returned to the Metro security station in time to catch the four P.M. shift change, had watched as one of the uniformed security men had left carrying a heavy black duffel with the oversized, smudged Nike logo on its side.

The guard cut through People’s Square indifferent to the steady rain and the gloom it produced. Knox skillfully avoided being seen, reveling that the shoe was on the other foot. The guard continued two blocks on foot until meeting the blue Volvo.

The first decent break of the past week came as a woman and her daughter disembarked from a taxi heading the same direction on Dagu Road as the Volvo. In the rain. In Friday rush hour.

Knox took it as an omen.

Now his taxi driver ran a light as its timer expired. The man used the right lane to pass two vans, nearly paving two cyclists in the process.

“Hen hao!” Very good! Knox called out from alongside the driver. They’d caught back up-less than a block separating them from the Volvo.

The driver smiled widely, his few remaining teeth cigarette-stained and crooked.