The Risk Agent

by Ridley Pearson

  Danner nodded again.

  Grace flashed Knox a look of concern. One man barely conscious. Another traumatized. Yet another in a hospital room.

  “We’re good,” he said reassuringly. Even he didn’t believe it.

  They climbed the stairs to the street, Knox waiting for a decent cell signal. Halfway up, he had it and he focused on the instructions Kozlowski had provided.

  Knox dialed.

  “White Star Realty?” A Chinese woman speaking good English.

  “I’m calling for Frances.”

  “Frances is not in.”

  “I should have called last night.”

  Knox hung up.

  A moment later his phone rang, and he answered.

  “White Star Realty,” the same voice said.

  “I’m looking for a two-bedroom condominium in Shanghai with a river view,” he said. A Shanghai extraction; water travel preferred over rail, air or surface.

  “One moment please.”

  He waited. The iPhone shifted, the faint sounds of lines being switched, carriers changed.

  “I can help you.” A different woman’s voice. “Any restrictions?” she said.

  “No higher than the twenty-fourth floor.” No later than midnight.

  “How many beds?” How many traveling?

  “Three beds.”

  “Let me check our listings please.”

  “Four. You mean four!” Grace said.

  Knox indicated for her to sit down and be quiet. He had given the correct count.

  More clicks and pops on the phone line.

  The woman’s voice returned to the line. “We have a nice flat with a lovely view that may fit your needs. It’s 1800 Zhongshan South. One of my representatives could meet you to view the property.” There was no 1800 Zhongshan South Road. But 18:00 hours equaled six P.M., which meant it was 600 Zhongshan South. The Dongmen Lu Ferry Terminal was at that address, and the Hotel Indigo next door.

  “What floor?” he inquired. What time?

  “The twenty-first floor. Eight P.M.” 21:00 hours. He ignored the time, an intentional miscue to mislead any eavesdroppers.

  “Thank you.” Knox had no idea how they would make the connection once to the terminal, but that was for later.

  “We appreciate your inquiry and the chance to serve you.”

  The line went dead. Knox pocketed the phone.

  “Three beds?” she repeated.

  “First of all, it wasn’t beds, it was people. Three people.”

  “Same question.”

  “I’m not leaving Sarge behind,” he told her. “We get you three out now. He and I will follow shortly.”

  “Mr. Dulwich can handle himself,” she said. “Mr. Primer will not allow anything to happen to him.”

  “Just like nothing has happened to us,” Knox said sarcastically. “Sarge is expendable. We all are. We went over this. You’re leaving. You and Danner and Lu. They both need medical attention. Sarge and I will follow. No arguments.”

  She looked poised to object, but they’d reached the street and the chaos of the crowds and the downpour of rain.

  6:15 P.M.

  Knox flagged down two pedicabs-safer than taxis or public transportation.

  Grace and Danner climbed onto wet plastic benches beneath a wind-torn canopy. Knox helped Lu Hao into the front cab. The drivers kept the three-wheeled motorized carts to the bike lanes.

  Twenty minutes later, they approached the ferry terminal and the hotel just beyond. Thousands of Chinese were queued out into the street awaiting ferries. Darkness had fallen quickly, and the crowd seemed anxious, bordering on turning into an angry mob.

  The four entered the Hotel Indigo, wet all over again. Knox informed the desk attendant White Star Realty had sent him. They were shown to two second-floor rooms-never above the fifth floor-across the hall from one another. The decor was Euro-chic, lots of stainless steel and frosted glass.

  Knox and Grace inspected Lu’s wound. Grace tried speaking to him in Mandarin, but Lu Hao was hiding somewhere behind the blinking, bloodshot eyes.

  “He is bad off,” she said.

  “Yeah. Not long until we get him some help,” Knox said.

  Grace excused herself to the toilet and returned with her hair combed. Danner was asleep on a bed in seconds. They propped up Lu Hao and put ice on his wound.

  Knox ordered room service, including black tea, as it promised to be a long night.

  “We must talk,” Grace said. “Across the hall.”

  “We can’t leave these two,” he said.

  “Five?” she said.

  “I have a bargaining chip,” he said, touching his coat. “The tape from the video camera. I should be able to buy Sarge a ticket home, but I’m running out of time here. Can we put a pin in it, and I’ll get back to you?”

  She shook her head but did not counter.

  “I promise we’ll talk.”

  He headed out the door and into the room across the hall.

  Knox placed the call to Dulwich’s iPhone. After four rings, Kozlowski answered. “Go ahead,” Kozlowski said.

  “It’s me,” Knox said. “These phones are safe,” he reminded.

  “You’ve been busy. You have moved yourself right to the top of the city police’s most wanted list.”

  “I gave you the place and the people responsible!”

  “And I called it in for you. But with no hostages and no ransom money, it looks more like another assault. One of a string attributed to you.”

  “I can’t worry about that.”

  “Just beware of it. I would lay real low if I were you.”

  “I want the person you took that phone off. Tonight. With me. Here.”

  “First: I don’t want to know where you are,” Kozlowski said. “Second: it’s not going to happen. They caught one of the drivers. They know it was a conspiracy and they’ve posted a cop outside your friend’s room. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “You have to change that,” Knox said.

  “Do you happen to remember a conversation we had? One in which I warned you about how far you could take this?”

  “I have the video your missing cameraman shot before he went missing.”

  A long pause on the other end.

  “Come again?”

  “You heard right. It shows Lu Hao as an eyewitness to a possible crime-a murder, Lu Hao claims. It shows an individual-the Mongolian-rushing the camera. And after that night, your cameraman is never seen again. Am I right?”

  Another long silence.

  “Wouldn’t you like to close that disappearance?” Knox asked. “In the video, the Mongolian’s clearly doing business with some kind of fat cat. Rich. Portly. Chinese. This whole mess has something to do with Marquardt and The Berthold Group paying out huge sums on the sly to obtain a number. The Mongolian’s the middleman. The fat cat’s got to be the source.”

  “What kind of number?”

  “A big number,” Knox said. “A very big number.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I,” Knox admitted. “But my best guess is the Mongolian’s job was to see the number reach the people who paid for it-The Berthold Group-and he understood Lu’s importance to that end. Who knows what might have happened once it reached the buyer, but the kidnapping came along, so we’ll never know.” He withheld Lu’s culpability in his own kidnapping. “The disk for my friend. He has to be delivered tonight.”

  “Circumstantial evidence isn’t going to convince anyone of anything. I wish I could help you. I really do. But I know these people. It’s not going to happen.”

  Knox had been so profoundly convinced he’d bought Dulwich his freedom that he felt the wind knocked out of him. “I have the video,” he repeated.

  “And I, for one, can get mileage out of it. Yes. You’re right about me wanting to close this disappearance. But as we both know, I’m forbidden from investigating. I can’t even ask probing questions. So I’d have to play the video
right, and even then it will maybe help start a dialogue, but that dialogue is not going to lead to the release of your friend. He was the target of a commissioned crime. The authorities are going to want answers from him.”

  “You’ve got to get him out of there.” Knox knew Dulwich wouldn’t cooperate, and that if he didn’t, he’d serve jail time.

  “I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking you’ll bust him out of Huashan Hospital. But guess what? You won’t. He’s well-guarded and he’s in bad shape, pal. He’s going home on a stretcher right now. It takes two to carry a stretcher, last time I checked.”

  “You and me,” Knox said.

  “Right.”

  Knox searched for some kind of solution. Every time he advanced an idea, it ran into a wall.

  “This fat cat you described,” Kozlowski said. “A businessman?”

  “Not according to Lu. Government pool car. Shanghai.”

  “Do you have that on film? That’s exactly what we need.”

  “Negative,” Knox said. But what he heard was: “we.”

  “Any way to make that ID?”

  “My guy is comatose at present, even if he knew, which he doesn’t. I’ve got wheels-up at eight P.M.”

  “Never going to happen.” Kozlowski added, “Some storm, huh? Been here six years, haven’t seen one like this.”

  “And if I brought you this guy’s name?” Knox tested, his mind reeling. Kozlowski, prevented by law from investigating, wanted Knox to do his dirty work for him. Knox didn’t need it in neon lights. It made him wonder how inaccessible Dulwich really was.

  “It would change things,” Kozlowski said.

  “Change things, how?”

  “Listen, if he really is government…a minister, let’s say…or someone prominent in the party…and he’s involved or even partially responsible for a pair of killings? That shit sells, Knox. That right there buys your buddy a free pass, no question.”

  “You’ll guarantee that.”

  “TIC. No guarantees.”

  “Passage out, if I stick around to do this? For two-one on a stretcher?”

  “Same answer. But will I try? Of course I will.”

  “You’re using me.”

  “No, no, pal. We’re using each other.”

  “You gain enormous cred,” Knox said.

  “No. Whatever you dig up, it can’t come from me. That suggests I investigated it myself. But there are ways around everything. Bring me that name-a corrupt official. Match that to your eyewitness-a Chinese eyewitness at that. Are you kidding me? In this country, in the current environment, that’s currency. Serious currency. Trust me.”

  “I don’t,” Knox said.

  “You know for a while there, I had you figured for a fool,” Kozlowski said. “Are we done here?”

  “Keep that phone charged,” Knox said. “I’m going to be calling you back on it.”

  “Remember, pal: I don’t know you.”

  “Love you, too,” Knox said, ending the call.

  29

  7:00 P.M.

  THE BUND

  The rain hit the hotel room windows like water from a fire hose. The river view was supposed to look across to Pudong, but all Knox saw was the swarm of people on the docks below.

  “So?” she said, inquiring about a phone call Knox had placed to Rutherford Risk’s Brian Primer.

  “He wants us out,” Knox confided.

  “See?”

  “But he has nothing in place for Sarge’s extraction. He was unaware of his detention. It clearly put him back on his heels. I pushed for some kind of plan, and said ‘first things first,’ wanting us out.”

  “And I agree.”

  “And I don’t,” Knox said. “He doesn’t have a plan, nor will a plan do any good if Sarge is moved to a Chinese jail. Kozlowski knows the ins and outs better than anyone, and he said it’s going to take leverage, and I believe him. I’m staying. You’re leaving.”

  “I doubt it. With these winds, the river like that, they will close the ferries, if they have not already,” Grace said. “We should be making alternative plans.”

  She sat on the corner of the bed, slurping down a bowl of wonton soup.

  “This is the alternative plan. Besides, they won’t have us on a ferry,” Knox said. “They’re just using these docks for the rendezvous.”

  “You cannot identify this Party man without me,” she said, repeating an argument she’d championed for the past hour.

  “Watch me,” Knox said.

  “How can I watch you from Hong Kong?”

  “Touché.”

  “You have to understand-”

  “We discussed this. You wanted Lu Hao out. I wanted Danny out. We’ve got them both and now you need to see them out. I made sure the blame for the kidnapping wouldn’t fall onto Lu Hao. By now the Mongolian is likely under arrest. If we could get to him, maybe he’d give up the name, but we won’t see him again. End of story.”

  “We,” she said, quoting him.

  “This is non-negotiable,” he said. “What if Danny wakes up in a rage again? Someone has to be there.”

  “They can keep them separate on the boat,” she said.

  “You know that, do you?”

  “I know you need me.”

  He knew it too, but wasn’t about to admit it. “I need you to be there when Lu Hao can finally talk to us. I need the location where that video was shot. I need some leads.”

  “Lu Jian, his brother can help. If Lu Hao was on the island on the seventeenth, then it was because he was there with his family. Lu Jian can help us fill in the blanks. But they will not help you. Not without me.”

  He hadn’t considered the family angle. “When Lu Hao wakes, you can get at least the location of the factory out of him. You need to be there to listen.”

  “Someone needs to be there,” she said. “It does not have to be me. Not necessarily. It could be Danner.”

  She was right about that as well. Danner had expressed remorse over his assaulting Lu; he wasn’t going to do that again. And Danner spoke the language fluently.

  “He’s weak. Malnourished. Exhausted. Traumatized.”

  “Do you question his abilities for even a moment?” she asked. “You do not, do you? Neither do I. He can do this for us.”

  “We’re going down to those docks, and the three of you are getting on that boat.”

  “We do not know if a boat is there.”

  “I’m done arguing.”

  “Do not be ridiculous,” she said. “You enjoy the arguing.”

  9:00 P.M.

  DONGMEN LU FERRY TERMINAL

  The ferry terminal teemed with several thousand soaking wet and terribly unhappy Chinese with nowhere to go. Debris, rain and the spray of filthy river water were carried by a ferocious wind that gusted at eighty kilometers an hour. Ferry service had been suspended. From the milling crowd, pressed belly-to-back, arose the sense of an impending riot.

  Knox, Grace, Danner and the rag doll that was Lu Hao entered the melee. Knox worried that given the crowd, they would not be spotted by their contact, but he said nothing to the others. At least they were among the only Caucasians.

  “We’ll try the ticket booth first!” he shouted to Grace.

  Both Danner and Lu Hao had regressed rather than recuperated during their brief stay in the hotel room. Lu Hao could walk, though barely, the concussion serious. Danner was drained and tapping all his reserves to keep up.

  The four found themselves moved against their wills with each shifting wave of the crowd.

  “If this comes apart on us,” Knox shouted to be heard, “when it comes apart-we don’t fight it. We go with the flow and try for the edge as quickly as possible.”

  Maybe the others hadn’t heard him; no one said a thing.

  “No matter what,” he said, “don’t fall. We lock arms and we stay standing. It’s the stampede that kills.”

  Knox locked elbows with Danner on his left and Lu Hao on his right. Grace had L
u’s other arm holding him upright. It was cumbersome and difficult to move.

  The situation deteriorated quickly from crowd to mob as resentment, anger and claustrophobia created its own personality.

  Knox, a head taller than most, could see the crew of a ferryboat trying to hold back the leading edge of the mob, all of whom were determined to board the boat and escape the crush. A crew member swung a fender, banging heads, and a fight broke out. It spread quickly, fed like flames. Stranger turned on stranger.

  Only minutes later, the peal of police sirens announced the arrival of a riot squad. The mass surged from the street and away from the police. Lu Hao raked forward and nearly went down. Knox and Grace righted him and allowed themselves to be carried by the flow.

  A line of police appeared on the upper plaza. Blue helmets and Plexiglas shields.

  A second line of police appeared from around the Hotel Indigo and sealed off the possibility of escape to the south.

  “Here we go,” Knox said, mostly to himself.

  With elbows locked, Knox leaned into the effort as the crowd shifted away from the police to the south. His team worked against the pressure, aiming for the ticket terminal.

  The police strategy proved to be flawed: as the lines squeezed the crowd, the only release of pressure was to the docks and the river, forcing more people to leap for the empty ferries, whipping up the fighting.

  Knox wiped rain from his eyes. As they worked toward the ticket terminal, he spotted a tourist sign held by a slender arm: WHITE STAR ADVENTURES.

  “There!” he shouted.

  The woman was Chinese, petite, overdressed and soaking wet. She shook Knox’s hand and welcomed him to the “tour.” If she were playing a role, it was to a T. She never broke from her smile, never referenced the weather.

  “Our boat is tied up other side of third ferry-ferry to the south,” she said. “Terminal is crowded today. Four traveling?”

  Knox had referenced three passengers over the phone.

  He hollered to be heard. “Three will be traveling!”

  “John!” Grace called out sharply.

  Knox silenced her with a look. The guide caught it all.

  “We together then?” the guide said.