The Risk Agent

by Ridley Pearson

  He continued greeting guests and shaking hands on the way to a table reserved for them. She declined the offer of Champagne, as her head was already spinning.

  “My father,” he said, “began this business with a single handcart and a shovel.”

  “Yang Construction has a fine reputation as the number-one construction company in all of Shanghai. All of China.”

  “You flatter me.”

  “I repeat only that which I have heard,” she said.

  “We are honored to do business in such a great and charitable nation. We employ over twelve hundred in management positions, and many thousands in the workplace. All Chinese. No foreign blood other than a few consultants for appearances.” When he smiled, his eyes became quiet. “For nearly twenty years now, our chief competition is The Berthold Group, your new employer, Chu Youya. Their presence has grown from consultant to major player. My father first did business with BG in nineteen eighty-two. Now look: they are building the Xuan Tower. Foreign firm, not Chinese. This is not right. I make no secret of my wish to see Xuan Tower completed by a Chinese firm, such as ours.”

  “I have just recently arrived in Shanghai,” Grace replied. “I am sorry to hear of your differences with The Berthold Group.”

  “It is not your concern. Forgive me.” He paused and offered her a drink for a second time. She declined. “I would like to come straight to the point, Chu Youya,” he said. “I have the burden of many guests I must entertain. So you will please forgive me.”

  “Of course,” Grace said, concentrating on keeping her face calm. Yang Cheng would never begin the ransom negotiations himself, but she prepared herself to look behind whatever his point was.

  He lowered his voice. “The house of Allan Marquardt is destined to fail, Chu Youya. It is a foreign company, after all. No matter the lip service paid by our great country, a foreign company will never be allowed to attain the position of a Chinese company within her borders. Never! You and I both understand that. When Berthold fails, many people will be seeking employment. Accountants-even brilliant, young accountants-will be like ants after the same sugar. Great challenges present great opportunities,” he continued, as if quoting a proverb. “Such an opportunity now awaits you, Chu Youya. You are Chinese like me, not foreign blood like them. You come work for me now, I will pay twenty-five percent more than Allan Marquardt, I will offer better benefits, and you will honor your family by working for a Chinese company.”

  “You do me a great honor, Yang Cheng.” Grace hung her head, wondering if this was indeed the point of her invitation, or was he seeking to explore the possibility of negotiation by erecting the pretense of an employment deal between them? “I am deeply humbled. You will forgive me if I must take time to consider your generous offer.”

  “Time is sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse. Use yours well. I am not the one in a hurry. You…on the other hand.” He paused, tellingly. She thought the implication had to be connected to the ransom situation, but then became confused as he continued. “The Xuan Tower nears completion. Mark my words: it will not bear the name of Berthold Group at the time of its ribbon ceremony. It was never to be.”

  “In defense of my current employer,” she said, letting it hang there, “certainly dozens, maybe hundreds of buildings in Shanghai have been financed and built with foreign money, whether in part or in whole. So many Western architects have made our skyline all the more interesting. The French. The Germans. The Arabs. Shanghai is truly metropolitan.”

  “Of this there is no doubt. Americans, too. Yes. But Xuan is to be the tallest building in world. A point of great Chinese pride. Chinese pride, not American pride.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “There will be no confusion on this point. Do not fool yourself. Allan Marquardt’s reach will stop here in Shanghai, and before the Xuan is open.” His face grew red. The whiskey? She doubted it. Perhaps he’d had a promise from the government from the start. Lu Hao’s kidnapping might be but a single mahjong tile pushed to send others falling. Financial conspiracy was an art form in Asia, practiced by all-from the street sweeper to people like Yang Cheng. He said, “Chinese profits are reinvested. Foreign profits travel across the oceans and never return. Enough is enough.”

  …will stop here in Shanghai. The Berthold Group had construction projects in cities all over China. Yang Cheng had slipped up. Was there a bidding war underway for a Shanghai project that Yang Cheng was determined to win? Was confident he’d win? If he knew about Berthold’s secret payments to inspectors and subcontractors he could instigate an investigation and immediately disqualify Berthold from any future bids, ensuring his own success. Lu Hao’s off-record books would play a critical link in any such attempt to paint Berthold as corrupt.

  “Please,” he said, signaling a passing waitress. He snatched a glass of Champagne for her and lifted his glass. She took a small sip.

  “I await your decision,” he said. “Before the dismissal for the National Holiday, if you please.” He’d named the same deadline as the ransom. Was she to make that connection? Was she supposed to acknowledge it? “Will you be joining your family on Chongming Island for the holiday?”

  Every muscle tensed. His knowledge went well past her CV.

  “If time permits,” she said, lying. She had no intention of seeing her father.

  “Family is everything.”

  A threat? Or a simple reminder of her Chinese roots and where her loyalty belonged?

  “Country, ideology, family,” she said, reciting priorities established in her early schooling.

  Yang Cheng’s eyes went beady as he forced a smile. “Yes. And of all these: family.”

  8:00 P.M.

  Knox took issue with a person wearing a Bluetooth headset in public. Alone behind the wheel, fine. Around the house, maybe. But it struck him as pretentious, insular and ridiculous looking. If God had intended for man to have a plastic horn protruding from one ear, he’d have put one there.

  Katherine Wu kept touching her ear and going off into conversations that didn’t include him. She looked and sounded like a robot while her body sent much different signals.

  Knox forced a word in. “I understand The Berthold Group has encountered workforce slowdowns this week.” A stab in the dark, but an educated one. Dulwich had told him as much. “Problems with materials delivery. Some trucking issues.”

  She flushed. “I manage Mr. Yang’s schedule, Mr. Knox. You overestimate my position, I am afraid.”

  There was that word again; he wished she would stop that.

  “Oh, I doubt that,” he said. “It’s all over Shanghai.”

  “Is it? And I am the last to hear. So typical. I wouldn’t believe every rumor you hear.”

  “I thought that was you!” A Chinese woman’s accented voice from behind Knox. A voice he knew. A voice he’d heard in many incantations, from joy to ecstasy.

  Amy Xue, a petite beauty, wore a loose-fitting raw silk off-the-shoulder top and a pair of jeans that threatened her circulation. Her hair was done in an asymmetrical cut, with bangs slanting high to low, right to left. She wore no visible makeup, a gorgeous pair of black pearl earrings and a matching necklace. Her face was girlish-ageless-with long narrow hooded eyes that had first won his attention three years earlier.

  Knox kissed her on both cheeks. “Help,” he whispered. They held arms tightly as he introduced her.

  “Amy Xue, this is Mr. Yang’s assistant, Katherine Wu. She is showing me the view.” He faced Ms. Wu. “Amy is one of my original trading partners,” Knox said, “and a close friend. She has the finest pearls in all of Shanghai. But often, too expensive.”

  “Americans always want cheap, cheap, cheap,” Amy said. “Like sound of bird.”

  “Sounds as if you two have been trading together for a long time,” Katherine Wu said, intentionally impolite.

  “As I said: old friends,” Knox said, having not taken his eyes off Amy. Glad she’d confirmed his occupation without prompting.

/>   “You may be old, John Knox, but not me. You come to my city, not tell me in advance?” Amy said. “How am I to hold best pearls for my best customer?”

  “If you don’t mind,” he said to Wu, taking Amy by the elbow and leading her away.

  Katherine Wu allowed them a fifteen-foot lead and then followed on a leash. Knox steered Amy toward the bar and finally caught sight of Yang and Grace at a table in the far corner of the cocktail lounge to the right. He felt an enormous sense of relief.

  Amy didn’t miss much. “Friend of yours?”

  “My accountant.”

  “I’ve always thought spreadsheet a dirty word.”

  “Not like that, Amy. You know better than that.”

  “I know my favorite customer when I see him. I know you did not send e-mail telling me you were coming.”

  “It was a last-minute decision, this trip.”

  “Tell that to your accountant.”

  He ordered drinks for them both. A kir for her. Beer for him. The smoking at the bar bothered her, so they moved closer to a marble slab holding satay, egg rolls, pot stickers, bao and fruit. Knox ate the pot stickers and satay. Amy stuck to the fruit.

  He thought about Danner. What he was eating, where he was sleeping. He felt shitty about his own present surroundings in the lap of luxury. The GPS burned a hole in his coat pocket. He’d slipped it from Grace’s purse as they’d boarded the elevator. He hoped she wouldn’t discover it missing before they separated for the night.

  “Did you like last shipment?” she asked. What he liked was the way she slipped the chocolate-dipped strawberry between her lips and sucked on it.

  “We could use more of the stone boxes and the black pearls. We’re getting squeezed on the cultureds by other online sites. Fewer of those.”

  “We will give you what you want,” she said, making him suffer through another strawberry.

  “More of the custom designs. We can’t compete on unstrungs. It’s your beautiful designs that separate us.”

  “You flatter me, Knox.”

  “The bracelets are popular. More bracelets.”

  “Black pearls. More bracelets. Not a problem.”

  He considered asking Amy what she’d heard about the kidnapping. Rumor spread fast on the street. But self-preservation was about containment. Loyalties changed here as quickly as the weather.

  “Amy, would you help me with something. Kind of like translating,” he said, thinking about the GPS.

  “You speak better than most Chinese.”

  “Your beauty is exceeded only by your exaggeration,” he said in Mandarin. Then, returning to English. “Shanghai neighborhoods. Which are trickier than others for waiguoren. These are business addresses for possible suppliers. As safe as this city can seem, I don’t want to end up somewhere I don’t belong.”

  “Suppliers?”

  “I promise: no pearls. No jewelry.”

  “You know this city well, Knox. You do not need me.” She’d teed one up for him to ask about Lu Hao and Danner.

  “I hear the city has become more dangerous for a waiguoren in recent days.”

  “Is that so?” she said, her voice as smooth as the surface of a fine pearl. She offered no way for him to judge her knowledge.

  Knox spotted Bruno, the bar and restaurant manager, and signaled him. Bruno’s size and comportment befit his name: he had a wide, serene face and a boyish smile, all tucked into a six-foot-one, two-hundred-and-eighty-pound body.

  At Knox’s request, Bruno led them into his back office and left them alone.

  Knox took out the GPS and showed Amy the bookmarked locations.

  She worked through descriptions of some of the areas where a waiguoren would stick out. “Not that there is any risk to you. No physical risk. This is Shanghai.”

  Knox memorized the map with her comments in mind. He wondered if she had possibly not heard of the kidnapping. She gave no indication otherwise. He thought all of Shanghai knew.

  “You saw this, yes?” Amy asked, pointing to a tiny red dot the size of a pinhead alongside the character notation.

  “I might have missed that,” he said, having no idea what it was.

  “It is a voice note.” She scrolled along the bookmarked route. “Each location, a voice note.”

  Knox studied the device, thinking: Voice notes?

  “Friend in International Pearl City try to sell me this same GPS,” Amy said. “Gar-min,” she said, making it sound Chinese.

  She worked the device through some menus and Knox’s breath caught as Danner’s voice-calm and restrained-spoke. He had trouble concentrating on the actual message.

  “Second floor, second door from the south corner. Husband and wife. Mid-forties-out of shape. No children.”

  Knox wanted to replay it just to hear Danner’s voice.

  “A note for each location?” he said, rhetorically.

  “Evidently.”

  “Okay, then.” He accepted the device back and pocketed it. A note for each location. It might prove a shortcut to nearly the same information they sought from Lu’s accounting of the bribes: the precise location of each bribe recipient.

  She said nothing more about it, showed no outward sign of interest or curiosity-as discreet as one could ask for.

  “Here,” she said, kissing him just off his lips, and catching his hand as it came up. “Do not wipe it off.”

  “Who’s going to see us?”

  “Everyone already has. If you do not want them asking the obvious questions, then leave it.”

  She was testing him. Her way of asking him what this was about while saving herself face.

  He searched her exquisite eyes. “What are the obvious questions?”

  “Xing xing zhi huo ke yi liao yuan,” she said. A single spark can start a prairie fire.

  “Shu dao hu sun san,” he returned. An equally well-worn proverb. When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter. He warned of fair-weather friendship.

  “I am no monkey,” she said. “You must be careful, John. You never fail to surprise me. This makes me warm for you.”

  “It’s not what you think,” he said. All waiguoren were considered spies first.

  “Have you no idea what I am thinking about?” She placed his thigh between her legs and pressed, letting him feel her heat. She craned up and whispered, “Maybe you can guess.”

  They kissed.

  “Enjoy your accountant,” she said, pulling away from him, making a show of her muscular backside.

  Reentering the bar, he was hyperaware of the dozen eyes that found him-including Grace’s.

  He arrived at her table and addressed Yang. “If you are seducing my date, I will have to cry foul. As the host of such a perfect party-the drinks, the food, the guests-you outclass any man in attendance and play to an unfair advantage.”

  “The older the ginger, the hotter the spice,” Yang answered. “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” He glanced over to Grace.

  “Only a fool would argue with such wisdom,” she said.

  “We were just wrapping up,” Yang said. He moved to draw Grace’s chair back. Grace stood, thanking him.

  Katherine Wu appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Knox noted how well she’d been trained, and kept his mind partially on Yang’s security man, wondering if that training spilled over to him; wondering if he happened to know some Mongolians.

  “I trust you will enjoy yourself,” Yang said to Grace.

  “The rest of the evening will pale by comparison to these few minutes in your company,” she said.

  Yang bowed ever so slightly. Together, he and his assistant moved toward the bar.

  “Had enough?” Knox said.

  “You can leave any time you would like.”

  “If I want permission, I’ll ask,” he said.

  She indicated her own chin and passed him a napkin from the table. Knox wiped off Amy’s lipstick.

  “Part of my cover.”

  “You do not have to explain yourself to
me,” she said, sarcastically. “I wish to stay a while longer to see if I can get our host alone once more. I worry for Lu Hao. I do not doubt a man like this could be behind it.”

  “Did he offer to negotiate the ransom?” he asked, aiming for specifics.

  “Leave when you wish. Perhaps we make a small scene and I am left on my own. Men can be so predictable.”

  “You could slap me,” he said.

  “Happily,” she whispered.

  “Six A.M.?” he asked.

  “I don’t forget so quickly,” Grace said, her eyes lingering a little too long on the smudge still clinging to the corner of his lips.

  “The corner of Huaihai and Maoming,” he said. “Near the entrance to the Metro station.”

  She cracked him across the cheek, everyone nearby interrupted by the slap.

  Knox nursed it and moved away, cutting through the crowd. She had a hell of a right hand.

  9:10 P.M.

  Knox took repeated precautions to avoid being followed, including arriving at the Jin Jiang Hotel, where he was officially registered. He went through the motions of riding the elevator to his room, both for the sake of his cover, and to try to trap anyone behind him he might have missed.

  Once inside the room, he stopped short at the sight of a brown padded envelope on his bed. He felt through it before opening-something hard, slightly smaller than a paperback book.

  He spent a minute giving the room a lived-in look. Kept one eye on the package, which was both stapled and taped shut.

  Finally, he tore it open and slid out the contents revealing the smooth aluminum of an Iomega portable hard drive. He double-checked the envelope. No note.

  Kozlowski. Had to be. Before calling Dulwich to deliver his daily briefing and inquire if the delivery of the hard drive was somehow his doing, Knox pulled out the GPS and listened to Danner’s seven voice notes. Used as a dictation device, the notes were brief and cryptic, unemotional and nearly without personality. But Knox held on to the sound of the man’s voice, replaying several of the messages just to hear him speak. He suffered nostalgia, a condition he thought he’d been cured of permanently following his contract service with the military. The last real friendships he’d forged had been in Kuwait, now too many years ago to count.