The Risk Agent

1

4:30 P.M.

CHANGNING DISTRICT

SHANGHAI, CHINA

Lu Hao rode his lovingly restored CJ750 motorcycle, its sidecar seat covered by an oilcloth tarpaulin hiding a duffel bag that minutes earlier had contained cash. A good deal of cash. The kind of cash Lu Hao needed in order to repay his father for his own foolish mistake. But now the duffel was nearly empty-a few thousand yuan was all that remained. He returned his eyes to the street. To glance away from Shanghai traffic for more than a second could prove fatal.

13…12…11…

The middle lens of a Shanghai traffic light was an LCD timer that counted down to the light change, giving motorists on both sides of the intersection time to at least consider the traffic laws. Not that anyone obeyed them. The traffic laws in Shanghai were offered more as suggestion than enforceable law.

Lu Hao revved the bike-a thing of beauty, a sound like that. He drew a few envious looks.

4…3…2…

Hundreds of waiting vehicles crawled forward. A Darwinian exercise commenced in the wide bike lane to the right: motorcycles assumed the lead, followed by motor scooters, electric bikes and finally bicycles. Not a horn sounded. Not a curse was thrown. Everyone knew their place.

Lu Hao turned off Yan’an Road, a ten-lane arterial, and traffic immediately lessened. A few more turns, and he entered a time machine: Shanghai as it was a century before.

Laundry hung like colorful prayer flags from bamboo poles jutting from apartment windows. There were more pedestrians than vehicles on the street. He slowed, straddling the motorcycle’s sonorous rumble. A delivery man had dumped a half-dozen fifteen-gallon water cooler bottles off his motor scooter, stopping traffic.

Lu Hao swung right again down a narrow street lined with stalls. Old, toothless men in white undershirts commandeered second-floor windows. The spirited laughter of a mahjong game echoed down the lane, mixing with an out of tune piano implausibly working through Gershwin.

He caught movement from his left: a man running toward him at top speed, head down. An ambush, forced upon him by the spilled water bottles. The lane was a choke point. He glanced to the sidecar and the hidden duffel.

His attacker led with his shoulder, connecting with Lu Hao and knocking him off the bike. Two more men appeared. They grabbed hold of him. He was dragged, facedown, barely conscious, and thrown into the back of a microvan, where yet another man slapped duct tape over his mouth and pulled a plastic tie around his wrists.

Then everyone started shouting at once.

Clete Danner wore the motorcycle helmet’s mirrored visor down to hide his American face. He bent into the handlebars to disguise his size-there weren’t many Chinese who were six-three and two-thirty. When the threat came from Lu Hao’s left, Danner vaulted the bike and, in an infinitesimal misjudgment, caught the toe of his right shoe on the frame. He overcompensated, suddenly finding himself off-balance and thrown back on his heels only a few meters from the van.

A nunchaku came at him like an airplane propeller, its aluminum cylinder striking his raised right forearm. He felt a bone snap. He went light-headed and a deep purple overtook his vision.

He cocked his right leg and kicked. The nunchaku connected with his upper thigh, but the man holding it went airborne, slamming into the metal frame of the van and sliding down unconscious.

His assailant was hauled inside. There was much screaming in Mandarin.

The van’s motor strained and coughed exhaust from the tailpipe. The van backed up, knocking Danner over. His helmeted head bounced off the asphalt. Everything went dark.

A second or two-more?-had passed, followed by pain. The broken arm. The bruised thigh. His concussed head.

He was dragged into the van, the smell of sweat, oil and blood overwhelming him. The van doors banged shut. A flurry of angry Mandarin as the van took off. His helmet was ripped off his head.

“Waiguoren!” he heard.

He knew he could not possibly be part of their plans. He’d had Lu Hao under surveillance for months. Where had these guys come from? His cover was now blown. The entire operation was blown.

The pain subsided, replaced by a deep and welcome silence.