The Risk Agent

by Ridley Pearson

  “I am aware of the stolen property. Yes.”

  “This being China, I thought we might negotiate.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I need safe passage for four.”

  A long hesitation. “The U.S. government is not in the practice of-”

  “You’re either interested or not. It’ll be later today. Evening. Maybe into the night. You can, or can’t?”

  Kozlowski had worked hard through a career that currently involved paperwork and e-mails where once it had meant working the backstreets of Nairobi or Delhi. God, how he’d loved the work as an operative. That marriage and a child had made him more cautious, more career-motivated, was a personal tragedy of sorts. He envied Knox his predicament, understood the importance of his own role, yet had no desire to annul all the tedious hours that had led to this moment: four years from retirement at the age of forty-nine. A lifetime ahead. But the video camera and what it represented was a gold ring. Solving the disappearance of the cameraman was paramount.

  “I’ll evaluate the video camera,” Kozlowski said.

  “After my friends and I are safely out of here.”

  A pause. “If you get yourself arrested, I’m left with nothing. No deal. The camera. Then I’ll do what I can.”

  The subtle shifting of tone punctuated the line.

  “Can it be done?” Knox asked.

  “A contact could be arranged. How it works out…well, no promises. This is China.”

  “What kind of contact?”

  “I give you a company number to dial. It’s a real estate front. I can walk you through it.”

  Company number. CIA, Knox realized. “So start walking,” he said.

  “First the location of the camera. I’ll sit on it until I hear from you, or I hear you’ve been taken into custody. But I must have it in advance. Those are the terms.”

  Knox described the narrow lane in the Muslim quarter. He told Kozlowski it would be easier to lead him there in person.

  “This is my city, Knox.” He took several minutes to walk Knox through making contact with the company.

  “You still owe me a motorcycle,” Kozlowski said, ending the call.

  2:30 P.M.

  “I e-mailed product inquiry to store,” Randy said over the phone in his chopped English. “The store e-mailed me back. This gives IP address and routing in the source code.”

  “Which means?” Knox said, his patience taxed.

  “It was your idea to track possible video transmission to source.”

  “What’s that got to do with e-mail?”

  “Technical matter only. This helps me. You. No problem for you. Tracing video back to source will take time. Maybe quarter hour. Maybe half.”

  “That’s too long,” Knox said. He could picture himself arriving to find Danner and Lu Hao ten minutes dead. “The minute they send that video-providing they do at all-I’ll have less than thirty minutes to arrive at the location.”

  “It is possible…”

  “Go on,” Knox encouraged when Randy failed to say more.

  “You see, if I am this person I would test bandwidth ahead of time. Maybe one hour. Maybe thirty minutes ahead. Be certain transmission goes successful.”

  “Which gives me the time I need.”

  “Yes. It is true.”

  It was a hell of a risk to take.

  “And if they e-mail a video instead of a live transmission?” Knox asked.

  “File size very large. But e-mail moves in packets. This piece here. That piece there. All pieces join and arrive to your computer. Make problem for us.”

  Knox had surveyed the electronics store to be used for POL. In the front window was a television and camera setup that showed the window shopper standing on the sidewalk looking in. The moment he’d spotted the arrangement, he’d pictured the hostages being shown on that same television. The kidnappers could have a second camera, or a team watching the streets making sure Grace was alone. It struck him as a quick and efficient way to deliver the proof-of-life. They’d used video twice before. People stuck to what they were comfortable with.

  “Maybe I make suggestion?”

  “Go ahead,” Knox said.

  “I could crash the store’s e-mail server. This would then force them to use live video.”

  Knox worried the effort might tip their hand and told Randy so. Better to leave them believing it was business as usual.

  19

  2:55 P.M.

  LUWAN DISTRICT

  NANJING ROAD

  Grace had never seen the streets so crowded. With the Friday holiday rush fully underway, the sidewalks and streets remained in their “crush hour” state, as they had all day. Carrying the duffel bag of money, she approached the electronics store named by the kidnappers and fought to remain stationary, flattening herself against the window.

  Knox had advised her to keep alert. The proof-of-life might come in the television screen currently reflecting her image, or an image in one of the many digital frames, or in the LCD on the back of one of the many cameras. It might be something presented or shown to her by a clerk beyond the cluttered window display. Perhaps even Lu Hao or Danner himself briefly making an appearance.

  She waited there at the window, time moving more slowly, weighed down by her performance over the next hour. She was responsible for a human life. It was no longer drills, or practice, or textbooks, or lecture. She pushed away the credit she might gain with Lu Jian if successful. Until Knox had verbalized it earlier, she hadn’t fully seen her ulterior motives, hadn’t fully acknowledged them. Perhaps there had been hidden motivations for her taking the assignment. So what? Perhaps others-even relative strangers-could see her more clearly than she could see herself.

  She took in every camera, every display, her eyes ticking one to the next. She watched for movement or a signal from the clerks inside, all the while jostled and bumped and her feet trodden upon by inconsiderate passers-by. Twice, she was knocked away from her post and had to fight the human stream to reposition herself.

  Amid the noise of traffic and pedestrians, no one heard her gasp as the screen of a portable DVD player flickered to life.

  “Lu Hao,” she gasped as he and a waiguoren appeared side by side. They sat on scuffed, three-legged wooden stools, their arms at their sides-their hands no doubt bound behind their backs-against a backdrop of a bedsheet. They each had several days’ growth of beard, the waiguoren’s eyes pinched in fatigue. The bedsheet wavered with a breeze-someone entering or leaving the room?-and briefly stuck to the wall behind them, a jagged shape appearing in shadow. A phone was shoved into the frame, covering Lu Hao’s face, the small screen clearly showing the date and time-a website. The phone stayed there long enough to be read and then disappeared. The screen went blank.

  Grace breathed again. For a second time, a sickening nausea spread through her-the first having occurred following Knox’s reference to the Dirty Harry ransom delivery. A film reference. The letters scratched into the hostage chair at the empty warehouse were not “44” but initials. She had not shared her suspicion with Knox. Even now, she could not fully admit it to herself, unable to define and articulate what felt like a poison running through her.

  She was brought out of it by the sound of a phone ringing nearby. It took her another two rings to realize it came from the duffel bag. She reached down into a side pocket and came out with a mobile phone-not her phone. In the jostling of the crowded sidewalk, someone had planted the phone on her.

  She answered. “Dui?”

  “Go to Robert De Niro clothing store, three doors down. Enter changing room number one. Pull the curtain and wait for instructions.”

  The call disconnected.

  She moved forward robotically. Knox was somewhere out there, watching her. With little choice but to follow orders, she made her way to the boutique and entered changing room 1, pulling the curtain closed. She expected the drop would take place here, before she ever reached the People’s Square Metro s
tation. A ruse.

  The new phone rang again. “We are watching you.” She glanced overhead and saw the crude hole carved in the ceiling tile-big enough for a small camera. “Strip. Everything off, now. Naked. Dress in the clothes you will find there.”

  She set down the phone and hurried out of her clothes, offering her back to the overhead camera. She heard the voice in the phone and picked up.

  “Keep the phone to your ear until I tell you. Now, turn around. I must see you fully naked. Kuai! Kuai!” Fast! Fast!

  She showed herself, spreading her arms and turning, feeling violated. Then she quickly donned the loose-fitting clothes that had been left for her.

  The male voice directed her to transfer the ransom money into a Nike duffel left under the bench.

  They wanted to see the money move between the two bags while also removing any chance the original duffel contained a tracking device. Their final check before the drop. A stationary drop-leaving the money here in the shop-would be considered too great a risk. They wanted her moving. They wanted the confusion and chaos of the Metro station-the multiple exits and trains.

  As she dressed-no underwear, no bra-she found a travel card in the pocket of the workout pants. They had her in an orange tank top. She juggled to get into it while keeping the phone in place. The bright color would make her easy to track in the suffocating crowds she was certain to encounter in the Metro. A pair of ill-fitting rubber sandals would make it difficult for her to run.

  “Keep the phone close. Now you go to the Metro.”

  She left the boutique, weakened somewhat by the embarrassment of disrobing, but regained her strength quickly. She was more determined than ever to defeat these people and yet fully aware she would need Knox for that.

  3:15 P.M.

  Melschoi’s man, whose Mongolian nickname was Rabbit for the six children he’d sired, spotted the electronics store on Nanjing Road and immediately recognized its significance.

  “An electronics store,” he told Melschoi over their phones.

  “What of it?”

  “What better place to send proof of the hostages’ condition? There are dozens of computer and television screens in the window. You see?”

  Melschoi didn’t enjoy being beaten to the punch. “Yes. It does seem a strong candidate. Okay. You stay with that.”

  “And if I see her?”

  “Follow her. What else, you fool? But whatever you do, watch out for the eBpon. He’s nothing but trouble.”

  3:20 P.M.

  From the window of a second-floor Cantonese restaurant, Knox watched Grace through a pair of ten-dollar binoculars as she emerged from the Robert De Niro boutique. She raised her arm and scratched her head-their signal that she still had the money, a surprise given the switch of duffel bags. She now carried a black duffel, a knock-off, given that the Nike Swoosh was absurdly oversized and its tail smudged, making it look like a plucked eyebrow. He hurried downstairs and battled the tsunami of human flesh cramming the sidewalks in order to stay ahead of her, putting himself between her and the Metro station entrance. Knox wore blue jeans, wrap-around sunglasses and running shoes-looking like any other waiguoren.

  They were a few minutes into the play and he and Grace had already been outsmarted-an end-around that had her in new clothes and carrying a new duffel. Her iPhone would be turned off. Her private phone didn’t answer. If he lost sight of her, he lost her; and yet his back was to her.

  Aware that the kidnappers, the Mongolians and possibly the Chinese police might have her under surveillance, Knox maintained his lead, a fifty-yard bumper, and entered the station first.

  He traveled through a crowded corridor, loud and smelling of human sweat. He held his phone in his right hand, watching its reception bars reduce the deeper he penetrated. He needed the message from Randy-needed to know if the kid had managed to trap and trace any data flow involving the electronics shop at the time of Grace’s standing at its window.

  Knox had no intention of disrupting the drop, but he intended to protect Grace through the process or for as long as possible, and to make any observations he could.

  He queued up in the rapidly moving security line. All purses, totes and bags were placed onto an X-ray conveyor. The process involved nearly everyone, given it was the start of the National holiday, and the security was lax. The magnetometer sounded its warning beep with each person, yet no one was stopped. The X-ray conveyor ran constantly-its operator giving only a passing attempt to pretend he was studying the monitor.

  Knox funneled into a single file with the others and, with nothing to X-ray, slipped through the magnetometer, causing it to sound. He carried three phones and a Mongolian switchblade in Dulwich’s gray jacket. If they patted him down it was going to get ugly. No one blinked.

  He continued toward the turnstiles, waited in line and swiped his travel card. He was in. He checked his phone which now read in Chinese: NO SERVICE. No Randy. He couldn’t stay down in the bowels of Shanghai for long.

  He waited and watched the security check.

  Finally, an orange tank top appeared.

  Grace arrived at the longer security line, awaiting the conveyor, a hundred thousand dollars strapped over her shoulder.

  3:40 P.M.

  Rabbit followed the woman to the Metro station entrance, allowing her to descend the stairs a good distance before following. He would try to time it so that he passed through the turnstiles ahead of her. People rarely looked in front of them for tails-they were always craning their heads to look back.

  20

  3:43 P.M.

  LUWAN DISTRICT

  SHANGHAI

  The KFC franchise on Huaihai Middle Road was well over its legal seating limit by the time Steve Kozlowski pushed his way inside.

  Inspector Shen stood at a counter along the wall, eschewing the window area. He had shoulders as wide as a vending machine.

  Kozlowski abandoned the idea of waiting in any of the lines, all thirty people long, simply for the sake of appearances. He cut through the crowd, making directly for the man. He was not easily intimidated. He’d spent his career in remote outposts of the world managing others and learning to put the fear of God into them. But the presence of Inspector Shen raised his hackles. The People’s Armed Police was a department unto itself, reporting to no one. Its officers wielded too much power, often worked unsupervised and were known to hide their deeds. The closer he got to the man, the more he felt his intensity.

  They acknowledged each other with a nod. The din in the place covered their low voices.

  Kozlowski said, “The video camera’s been found.”

  Shen looked him in the eye. Kozlowski saw nothing in there, like squinting into an empty steel pipe.

  “I have an address, but am not free to turn it over for at least a few more hours. I wanted to give you time to pull your men together.”

  “No men,” Inspector Shen said. “Only me.”

  Kozlowski had never heard of People’s Armed Police officers working solo. It caused him to wonder if he weren’t speaking to an MSS agent-Ministry of State Security, the Chinese equivalent of the CIA.

  “First the hand, now the camera-found in bad condition, by the way,” Kozlowski said. “It does not bode well for the camera’s operator. We would like to find him as much as you would.”

  “For different reasons,” Shen said. “I will expect your cooperation in this matter.”

  Both men knew that was unlikely. Volunteering the camera was as close as Kozlowski would go. Pursuing such evidence in the name of the U.S. government was impossible without serious repercussions. As much as he might have wanted to, his hands were tied by embassy protocol.

  “I will pass along location the moment I can. If he’s found dead, I request a thorough investigation that includes my people.”

  “As agreed previously. Yes.”

  It had long since occurred to Kozlowski that Shen had killed the man himself and was in the process of unofficially cleaning up his own evi
dence. Such a scenario prevented Kozlowski from getting too knowledgeable about the case without the risk of his scooter being hit by an army truck.

  “How certain are you the camera is his?”

  “I have not seen it,” Kozlowski clarified. “However, from what I’ve been told, it could be no other.”

  Shen shot the man a look. “He has violated the terms of his visa,” the man said. His use of present tense made it sound as if a man with no hand and no camera might still be alive. If the cameraman was already in custody and the Chinese were seeking evidence to bring charges, then Kozlowski was playing directly into their hands. The smell of the deep-fat fryers was getting to his stomach. He coughed up some bile. His fucking stomach had been a wreck since a bout with dysentery four months earlier. Jokes about bowel movements were more common in the consulate than blonde jokes.

  “Only lies put us in this situation,” Shen said.

  “Lies and secrets,” Kozlowski said. They could agree on something.

  “You will write down the location for me,” he said. “Please.”

  “When I have confirmation,” Kozlowski vamped.

  “Now, please. I will not act until I receive your call. My word to you on this.”

  Kozlowski understood the fragility of the moment. This man’s word was as reliable as the FBI warning on a bootleg DVD. But cooperation between governments and departments of those governments transcended individual need. It was the same whether in Somalia or Athens. Or Shanghai: he could get more from creating long-term good relations with the PAP than he ever could from saving the hide of John Knox. He was gaining guanxi, the most elusive and important aspect of any Chinese business relationship.

  Kozlowski hesitated only briefly as he took out his pen and wrote down the address on a KFC napkin. He hoped he had not just signed Knox’s death warrant.

  21

  3:45 P.M.

  LUWAN DISTRICT