The Risk Agent

41

5:00 P.M.

THE BUND

On the deserted seventh-floor terrace of M on the Bund, Knox looked down through binoculars at the congested swarm of people populating the Bund’s riverside promenade. The sunlit afternoon had brought twenty thousand tourists, mostly Chinese, crammed in to get a piece of the famous view across the Huangpu River. Among the steel and glass towers rising into the sky was the Xuan Tower, its scaffolding torn and dangling, shredded tarpaulins flapping. In the aftermath of the typhoon, there was no manpower to clean it up. Every construction project in the city had suffered staggering losses due to the storm.

His iPhone in hand, Knox kept watch on the promenade for a red umbrella carried as a parasol, despite the setting sun. Eventually he spotted it coming from the proper direction, knowing Grace hid beneath it as she climbed the promenade steps to join the masses on the river walk.

It joined other umbrellas and parasols, along with baby strollers, balloons and stick kites. The umbrella stopped in the center of the choke. And waited.

A black Bentley arrived at the curb. A man wearing a dark suit was let out the back by a busy chauffeur. Though the passenger appeared to be alone, Knox and Grace knew better. Yang Cheng was never alone.

“I’ve got you. He’s on his way up,” Knox said, speaking into the iPhone.

“It is so crowded,” came her reply. “Police?”

“I’ve got two by the subway entrance on your side of the street. Two more up by the Peace Hotel.”

“This is normal.”

“Yes. All right. Stand by.” She left the call open, as planned, allowing Knox to overhear. She would dangle the ear bud/microphone around her neck, like an iPod on pause.

Grace hid below the red umbrella, finally angling it to make eye contact with Yang Cheng as he stood next to her. The claustrophobic press of Chinese tourists disturbed her. She tried to blot them out, to make it only her and this man, as she’d been trained. But it wasn’t so easy.

They spoke English because the majority of those around them did not.

“I can deliver the name of a minister, with accompanying evidence, to the anticorruption authorities. There will be no choice but to void The Berthold Group’s contract on the Xuan Tower and reassign it.”

He drew in sharply, as if she’d hit him. If there hadn’t been so many people around, she might have heard his heart beating from three feet away.

“While interesting, it is not this I seek,” he said calmly.

“What you seek is fool’s gold. The strike price for the New City bid,” she said. His eyes widened, despite his attempt to keep them from doing so. “It is a trap meant for the waiguoren.”

“Is that so?”

“The parcel was annexed to include what will turn out to be a contaminated site.”

He whistled unintentionally as he drew a breath in through his teeth.

“I save you much face and a great deal of money.”

“You would say anything to improve your situation. You and the foreigner are wanted by police.”

“Fourteen billion, seven hundred million yuan,” she said.

He was focused on her, unmoving, as people teemed around them.

“But if you act upon it, you will rue the day, believe me. The plan was to have the expense fall upon Marquardt. What I have for you is far better: the name of the person who leaked the number. You may not be praised publicly but we both know you will be richly rewarded for bringing such a man to ground.”

“And in return?”

“An insignificance.”

He huffed. “That, I doubt.”

“An American in hospital. A trifle. It’s a standing request of the consulate’s.”

“This American?”

“His release. Yes.”

“From the hospital.”

“There may be the intent to question him, to trouble him. But he is not well.”

“An insignificance? Hardly.”

“By comparison,” she said.

Yang Cheng debated all this internally.

“The choice is yours, but the offer will be made elsewhere if you pass.”

“What else?” Yang Cheng asked, sensing it in her.

“The four of us will not appear on any watch lists or wanted lists. My citizenship and visa status, and that of Lu Hao, remain unblemished. Clean slate.”

“Face.”

“Yes.”

“A man cannot promise such things. These take time and expend much guanxi.”

“Precisely why I have come to you, honorable Yang. You have twenty-two hours to free the man hospitalized,” she said.

“Absurd! Two weeks or more! A single week if I’m lucky!”

“You will explore possibilities. When the man called David Dulwich-the American in hospital-arrives to the consulate, you shall have the name of the corrupt official. And all evidence. By this time tomorrow I will seek another to do business with.”

“This is not business, it is extortion.”

“Business makes for strange bedfellows,” she said.

“We will always have a place at Yang Construction for one as cunning as you, Ms. Chu. You have my number.”

Grace collapsed the umbrella-her signal to Knox-and moved into the throng.

Yang’s man joined him at his side and shot a look back at her. She recognized him as one of the two from the alley attack.

She pushed north through the crowd, trusting that Knox was watching her. She returned an ear bud.

“Do you have me?” she asked.

“Wave,” he said.

She lifted her arm.

“I have you. You’re clean.” He paused. “What was all that visa nonsense?”

“This is my family home. Lu Hao’s family home. We cannot return here if we are fugitives.”

“You attached it to Sarge. That wasn’t our agreement.”

“We did not have an agreement, John. We had an understanding.”

Ten minutes later, a black Range Rover pulled to the curb in front of the Peace Hotel. The car’s rear door swung open. A tall man and a petite woman climbed inside and the door closed.

The Range Rover pulled back into traffic.