The Risk Agent

by Ridley Pearson

  Grace said, “May I talk freely?”

  “Yes. The house is secure.”

  “My associate and I,” she said, avoiding naming Knox, “have located and obtained Lu Hao’s accounting of the incentives.”

  Marquardt seemed to float for a moment. “Excellent!”

  She opened her hand, revealing a USB thumb drive. Then closed her hand, trapping it inside.

  “I will turn it over to you along with the encryption code necessary to read the files, as soon as you explain the reason for your trip to Chongming Island.” This had not been part of Knox’s plan.

  Marquardt’s composure flagged. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Chongming Island.”

  “I…know the place.”

  “You went there with Preston Song. I need to know why. It has become critical to our saving the hostages.”

  “I remind you that you are, indirectly, my employee. If you’d like me to call Brian, I’d be happy to. Extortion is not your best option.”

  “I looked into the reasons for the two hundred thousand dollar payments at our lunch. I was stonewalled. You and Mr. Song visited Chongming Island after the first payment, a payment Mr. Lu never accounted for in the Xuan Tower incentives. Why not? A second such payment preceded Mr. Lu’s kidnapping by a matter of hours, according to your own records. That also needs explaining.”

  Lois Marquardt arrived with the tea. She fixed two cups and turned to leave.

  “My associate and I have been followed,” Grace said, appealing to the man’s wife, who turned to listen. “My apartment is under video surveillance. I cannot return there. I have been followed repeatedly from work. I can no longer risk going there. Anywhere, for that matter. One of my associates has been hospitalized in serious condition. Presumably, much of this relates to the files on this thumb drive and, I believe, your trip to Chongming Island with Preston Song.”

  “Allan?”

  Marquardt eyed his wife, clearly wanting her gone.

  “I’ve got it, dear. Thank you for the tea.”

  “If you need anything,” she said to Grace, “give a holler.” She left.

  “I don’t see how our trip could possibly be connected to the kidnapping.”

  “Then you admit it.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “It is not important.”

  “It is to me. More important than you can possibly imagine.”

  “You need not know the details. Part of my job is to protect you,” she said.

  “I can’t tell you a thing about it. You’ve wasted a trip over here, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s unacceptable.”

  “Ms. Chu, we are on the same side. What you’re asking is impossible. If I could, I would. But I cannot.” He paused. “The thumb drive, please.”

  “We have lost the ransom due to a complication-our associate being hospitalized. Your trip to Chongming Island-whatever took you there is relevant to the kidnapping, I assure you.”

  “Not possible. And, yes, Brian updated me on the ransom. It’s a bum deal.”

  “First, you will explain Chongming Island,” Grace said levelly. “Then you will raise as much U.S. cash as possible before tomorrow morning at nine A.M. The rest we will raise from other parties interested in the drive’s contents.”

  Marquardt coughed. “The content of that drive is my property. You will most certainly not be auctioning it off. I will detain you here, if necessary. You’ve overstepped your bounds, young lady.”

  Marquardt produced a BlackBerry from a waist clip and worked it one-handed.

  “I would not do that, sir,” Grace said. “Your phone is being monitored by the Chinese. Count on it. You do not want them knowing we have located Lu’s accounts.” Grace paused. “They will descend upon us like locusts.”

  “Then turn it over,” Marquardt said, his thumb hovering over the green key.

  “I cannot do this.”

  “You’re out of your depth, Ms. Chu. You don’t want to threaten me. I’ll have you detained.”

  “Unlikely,” she said.

  “I’ve spoken to Brian and we’re trying to raise as much cash as possible. The proof-of-life comes at the storefront on Nanjing Road. You will be there with the money, but it looks as if it’ll fall short of fifty thousand. Threatening me does not help your cause.”

  “Less than fifty thousand? Unacceptable. They are expecting five times that.”

  “Brian believes they might accept one hundred. We won’t know until you deliver it.”

  “Too risky.”

  “This is a game of risks, I’m told. The thumb drive, please.”

  Grace caught a glimpse of the phone. The BlackBerry was already connected.

  “More tea?” he asked.

  She’d barely touched her cup. He wanted her to stay. The call had been to security. The compound’s team? His own? Did it matter?

  Grace stood. “Highest bidder wins the drive and its contents.”

  “Do not do this,” Marquardt said calmly. “You will be crushed.”

  Security would post men at the front and back doors, providing there were at least two men, which she doubted. More like a single bodyguard with contact to the compound’s team.

  If indeed a single bodyguard, he would pull back to a position with a view of both doors. That, or he’d enter the house.

  “Save your career while you still can.” He opened his palm to her.

  She hurried from the room and nearly plowed over Lois Marquardt, who’d been in the hall within eavesdropping range. Lois and Grace’s eyes met. Lois glanced at the front door and she shook her head. Grace scanned the stairs.

  Lois nodded and said softly, “Fire ropes in the window seats.”

  Grace bounded upstairs.

  There was a child asleep in the first room she tried. She moved on to the end of the hallway-the master suite. Spotted the window seat and, pulling off its cushion, opened it. A chain ladder was bolted to the wall. The window faced the access lane and the drive. Men watching the front and back doors would not see her here. She fed the ladder through the window and followed it outside. It danced unpredictably; it took all her strength and balance to descend without whipping it against the house and revealing her position.

  She dropped into the landscaping and ducked, keeping low. Plotting her escape. The support team would arrive momentarily; if she weren’t out of the compound by then, they would have her. The compound was essentially a twenty-acre cul-de-sac with a gated single entrance, surrounded by a twelve-foot rock wall topped with broken glass set in concrete. Designed to keep people out, it also kept them in.

  She crept through shadow in the direction away from the gated entrance, reaching the end of Marquardt’s house. No security man in sight. It was a one-man show until support arrived, and the bodyguard had chosen the front door-and the compound’s entrance side-to guard.

  Grace took off at a run, house-to-house, keeping in shadow whenever possible. She had taken the bus to come here. Now she was on foot.

  There was no way she would make it past the gate without close-quarter combat. The gate guards were untrained in anything but raising their hands and checking documents. If there were just two, she could take them. But if they’d summoned their patrols-another two or three keeping watch within the compound-she’d be outnumbered.

  She spotted a bicycle dumped in a driveway. Carried it to the access road and climbed on. She circled around the western side of the compound-the booth guards would be expecting her from the east. It might buy her an extra few seconds.

  Porch lights from houses lighted the lane only in patches. She held the bike to the far curb beneath towering bamboo, and therefore mostly in shadow. Street noise intensified as she approached the gate and the only break in the high wall. Lights blazed around the small guardhouse where she now spotted two uniformed men.

  They spotted her.

  One stepped in front of the red-and-white striped pole arm blocking the vehicle entrance. He rais
ed his hand for her to stop.

  The other man kept to just outside the guardhouse, a gap in the entrance for pedestrians-nannies and ayis-blocking this as well.

  Grace slowed, wishing to appear cooperative. She swung a leg off, but remained balanced on the left pedal, the bike coasting. A matter of yards from the guard at the pole, she hopped off and launched the bike into him, running for the surprised booth guard. He, too, comically raised his hand for her to stop. She broke his left knee; drove her own knee into his nose as he wrenched forward. He went down hard.

  The guard who’d gone down with the bike was up and running. He caught sight of his buddy reeling, and when Grace turned to face him, stopped stiffly, unsure how to proceed.

  She juked a hard step toward him and he flinched backward. She knew she had him.

  “I am not worth it,” she said, speaking Shanghainese. “Jilted mistress. Nothing more. I will put your nut sack in your intestines if you come after me.”

  She turned, but did not run. The guard took several steps toward her, but as she shot him a look, he stopped again. His friend groaned. He turned to help him.

  Grace lowered her head and fought to contain her adrenaline, wanting so badly to run, but knowing it would only give her away. A dark blue van slowed to turn into the compound-two Chinese in the front, the right age and look for corporate security.

  She waited for the van to turn into the gate area and then took off at a run.

  In the distance, a bus approached the bus stop.

  11:50 P.M.

  HUANGPU DISTRICT

  SHANGHAI

  In the glow of dimmed ceiling lights, Yang Cheng paced past an oil painting by Eddie Lim, a violent eruption of red, white and black. Behind him was the panoramic view of the Huangpu River, and the colorful neon from the tourist ferries plying its waters. Rain pelted the window.

  “I am most disappointed in you,” Yang Cheng, brimming with anger, said to Feng.

  “I understand.”

  “Do you know where I was just now? A dinner with two investors from Brussels. They have agreed in principle to supply me up to one billion euros in capital for the New City construction. One small problem. I have not yet won the bid. Reason I have not yet won the bid? I have not submitted bid. Reason I have not submitted bid? Tragic Lu remains in captivity of kidnappers in possession of Magic Number. Pearl Lady was connection we needed, and now…where is Pearl Lady?”

  “I am to blame,” said Feng, still suffering from the pain of the bruises inflicted by the Mongolian. “Inexcusable. I offer my resignation.”

  “I will not let you off so easily.” Yang Cheng continued pacing. “One man?”

  “A northerner. Mongolian, perhaps.”

  “Scum. Inbreds.”

  “Of course.”

  “Pearl Lady?”

  Feng said nothing at first. “We must assume the Mongol has her. In our favor: she will be of no help to him for another twelve hours. Perhaps longer.”

  “Not an entire failure then.”

  Feng awaited more admonishment. When it wasn’t forthcoming he dared to say, “If I may suggest-?”

  “No, you may not.” Yang spun his wedding ring. “Go ahead,” he said.

  Feng considered his words carefully. “If the ransom exchange takes place, if Tragic Lu is recovered alive, then likely the New City bid number-the Magic Number-if in fact Lu Hao has it, as we suspect, is in Marquardt’s possession.”

  “This is nothing I do not know.”

  “But should the ransom delivery fail, we are given additional time to find Lu Hao before the others.”

  “A man’s ears are never shut,” Yang said, looking at Feng for the first time in the past twenty minutes.

  “We have the video and audio recordings of Chu Youya in her apartment. She clearly received corporate books of a suspect nature from a woman professing to be Marquardt’s assistant. This alone could get her fired. Perhaps even investigated by banking authorities.”

  Yang nodded, beginning to follow. A smile struggled onto his otherwise anguished face. “Yes.”

  “The videos could be delivered, anonymously, of course,” Feng said. “I also have photographs of Chu Youya taking lunch with the waiguoren. Papers exchanged here as well, and we have waitress as witness. The waiguoren might find himself sought for questioning as well, making the ransom exchange impossible.”

  Yang nodded. “You are shit for brains, but your shit smells sweet at this moment. I mentioned such tactics earlier,” Yang said, always needing to claim authorship.

  “Of course you did. I am only reminding you of your worthy recommendation. It was stupid of me not to recognize its brilliance at the time.”

  “The authorities will not take kindly to such third-party surveillance. The recordings must not be traceable back to us. Not ever.”

  “It will be handled like eggshells. All measure of secrecy and security.”

  “You will handle this yourself.”

  A career death sentence for Feng should it fail. He’d be a department store rent-a-cop if he failed.

  “I am honored to be valued with your trust,” he lied.

  Yang’s mobile phone rang where he’d left it on his desk. He checked the caller ID.

  It was his secretary, Katherine. Late for her to be calling. Perhaps she’d reconsidered his most recent advances. He waved Feng out of his office dismissively.

  In the distance, the flashing lights of a jet descended into the Pudong airport-another plane full of waiguoren, no doubt. The poison continued.

  They spoke in Shanghainese.

  “Yes?”

  “I have had a call from the woman, Chu Youya. She wishes to meet with you.”

  Yang thought it had to be some kind of disturbing joke, he and Feng having just spoken of her.

  “Sir?”

  “You’ve spoken to her directly?”

  “Yes. Tonight, if possible. I informed her I thought you available.”

  He found his voice. “My office. Fifteen minutes.” He checked the clock. “Can you arrange it?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I will want you here at your desk.”

  Face.

  “My pleasure,” she said.

  “Make it thirty minutes,” he said, giving Katherine added time to reach the office building. “Bring her up the private elevator.” He tossed a crumb her way: no one used the private elevator but him.

  She said brightly, “Thirty minutes.”

  “You’ve done well.” Another crumb. If he played his cards right, he might even win her services by the end of the night as well.

  He called Feng back into his office. “You will have video or audio set up in this office in the next thirty minutes.”

  “But it’s-” Feng caught himself glancing at his watch, his mind reeling. “Right away,” he said.

  FRIDAY

  October 1

  The exchange

  17

  1:15 A.M.

  THE BUND

  “An unexpected pleasure,” Yang Cheng said, addressing Grace in Shanghainese.

  She reached into her purse and came out with the thumb drive. “Lu Hao’s accounts,” she said in Mandarin, finding Shanghainese too coarse and rapid for business negotiations.

  Yang’s eyes flared slightly. Otherwise, he was a picture of executive comportment: interested, but not overly excited. “Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”

  “Perhaps not,” she said, returning the drive to her purse. “And since you do not, and might be considering other means to explore the topic, let me just say the drive’s contents are encrypted-highly encrypted-the key to which requires me to make a certain call from a specific phone at a specific time. And not before lunchtime today, at any rate.”

  He nodded glumly. “Let us assume I can imagine what you mean by ‘Mr. Lu’s accounts.’”

  Grace eased her purse shut, its magnet snapping sharply.

  “I require a bid in excess of one hundred thousand
USD by nine A.M. Delivery before noon.”

  Yang smiled, cat-like. “Is that so? I warned you about working for Mr. Marquardt. You should have accepted my job offer.”

  “Perhaps it is not too late.”

  “It is very much too late. Selling corporate secrets is a punishable offense, Ms. Chu.”

  “So is buying them, I imagine,” she said. She looked around the office. “And for the sake of whatever recording devices you have in place,” she said, “let me just say you are the one calling these files corporate secrets, not me. To my knowledge, these files are not from a corporation but an individual, one Lu Hao, and I believe you will find he grants me access to these files insomuch as he is presently captive and in dire need of funds to secure his safe release.”

  Yang felt his forehead perspiring. If the camera hadn’t been running he might choke the life out of this pest. She’d been nothing but trouble for him.

  “What you ask…it is a great deal of foreign currency to raise on such short notice,” he said. “Perhaps yuan would suffice?”

  “USD,” she said. “Highest bid wins. Nine A.M.”

  “One hundred thousand? A week or two at the earliest. The banks, you see? Noon today? Never.”

  “Noon,” she said, standing. “Katherine has my phone number.”

  “She will show you out.”

  “I look forward to hearing from you.”

  “Tread lightly. This is a great risk for you, Chu Youya.”

  She quoted a proverb that translated: How can you catch tiger cubs without entering the tiger’s lair?

  “How many others?” he inquired.

  “Enough,” she said.

  “Same conditions?”

  “I will accept bids up until nine A.M. The cash, by noon.” She nodded. “If I’m followed from here-and believe me, I’ll know it-you are off the list.”

  2:10 A.M.

  CHANGNING DISTRICT

  SHANGHAI

  Grace microwaved some frozen Bi Feng Tang barbecue pork buns. She and Knox ate on the half balcony of the safe house apartment overlooking other people’s laundry. They drank beer.