The Risk Agent

by Ridley Pearson

  The Mongolian? she wondered. Police? Security?

  She slowed her breathing in an attempt to squelch her adrenaline rush. She used the shifting light to plot her own course out of the building.

  Staying low, she inched her way down the aisle, dodging the boxes and tools she’d spilled. Halfway to her freedom, her curiosity got the better of her.

  She turned and followed him. Like her, he seemed to be taking inventory of the place-hardly the actions of a man returning to a crime scene or a security man who knew his beat. She knew better than to stay, but was drawn to him. He reached the dressing tables and, like her, studied them long and hard.

  A cop, judging by his confidence and his methodical nature.

  His flashlight swept the tables and the cutting tools, the drain in the floor. It found the chain and followed the dripping goo to the puddle, then up to the drums.

  He removed his leather coat and hung it carefully over a valve, stepping incredibly close to where she hid. She could see a well-worn leather shoulder holster beneath his left arm.

  If he was a cop, then maybe he was an officer of the People’s Armed Police. Kozlowski’s Iron Hand?

  The man ran a faucet and got a stream of water going from a hose she hadn’t seen. He washed down the soiled dressing table.

  She choked back her surprise: he was destroying the very evidence that Kozlowski had told Knox both men wanted. Why not preserve evidence that might work against the Mongolian?

  The answer seemed obvious: because there was no Mongolian.

  His mobile phone pealed Metallica. He returned to his coat and answered the call, speaking curtly.

  Knox hung from the compound wall, peering inside. He didn’t want to jeopardize Grace if she’d managed to hide or escape. He didn’t want to leave her if she’d been discovered and abducted.

  He schooled himself to have patience, to let the situation develop. He had just climbed to the top of the wall as a pair of headlights swept the asphalt. He lay down flat.

  A Range Rover swung onto the fresh asphalt, aimed at the open doors. The driver climbed out.

  Steve Kozlowski.

  Knox nearly called out, but stopped himself as he realized Kozlowski was meeting up with some Chinese cop-a bad-ass cop, according to Kozlowski himself-and on a Saturday night on a holiday weekend at a remote location.

  Kozlowski, bent?

  The consulate man left the Range Rover running and the headlights filling the doors. He entered the tannery with a commanding authority, a take-no-prisoners stride.

  Knox rolled and dropped off the wall. He ducked low and ran for the Range Rover.

  Headlights lit the tannery’s interior walls as Grace moved to the far aisle and climbed a ladder to an overhead catwalk. She lay down on her belly and watched the man hosing down the dressing table. He worked quickly now in an almost maniacal effort.

  A second man appeared in silhouette at the doors. He walked like he owned the place. Turning, she caught him in profile and nearly gasped. He fit Knox’s description of the consulate security chief, Kozlowski.

  Interesting bedfellows.

  Kozlowski broke his stride to grab a length of pipe as he continued deeper into the facility led by the spray of water.

  Maybe not bedfellows.

  He arrived to within several meters of the Chinese man. The water ran red into the drain.

  “Don’t do that,” Kozlowski said in English. “Step away, now!”

  Shen continued his work. “Go away, Mr. Kozlowski. It is no concern of yours.”

  “You are destroying physical evidence of a possible homicide of a U.S. citizen. Step away and desist.”

  Shen Deshi said coolly, “I advise you to go away now. You are trespassing. You have no authority to be here.”

  “I will not have you destroying evidence. You will stop…or I will make you stop.” Kozlowski raised the pipe.

  “If you remain here in this place you do not belong, I will bring the charge of industrial espionage. A government spy. Do you really want such trouble?”

  “Destroying the blood evidence will not make the case go away. I assume you intercepted the forensic evidence intended for me?”

  “I know nothing of what you speak.” Shen Deshi turned around, the hose splashing water onto the concrete floor. “Do not be naïve, Mr. Kozlowski. You have a hand found in the river. No body. You are prohibited from investigating in this country-an act you are currently engaged in. You are inside a facility of a private company, which constitutes industrial espionage. How much trouble do you want for yourself?”

  Kozlowski said, “Chemicals and soil samples from the hand link directly to this facility. The hand is Caucasian. The DNA will come back for the missing videographer, an American. I am within my rights to protect evidence.”

  The scientific link caused Grace’s heart to flutter. A murder had taken place here. Possibly more than one. Lu Hao would never be safe. His plan to kidnap himself seemed suddenly much more understandable.

  “When do you expect the results of a DNA test? Six weeks? Eight weeks? Do you want to spend eight weeks in a Chinese prison? Be my guest. Even if you prove such a connection, this cameraman was far from his assignment. This, too, smells of U.S. spying. You will be tied to him, and him to you. Is this what you want for U.S. Consulate? This is violation of agreements made between our sovereign nations. Very bad for everyone.”

  “Step away.”

  Shen trained the hose back onto the dressing table. “You must leave now,” he said. “Last chance. I do not wish such trouble on you. Of all blessings, charity is the highest.”

  “A U.S. citizen has been murdered-most likely by a Chinese. We both know this,” Kozlowski said. He lowered the pipe, raised his phone and took a photo. “Destroying evidence is also a crime.”

  With the flash of the camera phone, Shen Deshi dropped the hose and marched toward Kozlowski, withdrawing his handgun.

  “Stupid fool. Drop the pipe. Keep both hands in view.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Your CIA uses a cameraman, a member of the Xuan Tower documentary crew, to attempt to embarrass Chinese government, or to challenge the WTO environmental agreement. Who knows what might be the reason? More American tricks.”

  “That’s nonsense!”

  “Lower the pipe.”

  Kozlowski lay down the pipe. It clattered against the concrete.

  “Hands behind your back.” He waved the gun. “Onto your knees.”

  “You arrest me, it will be a national incident. Think how that will affect your career?”

  “It is already a national incident. Espionage is no game. Do not worry about my career, Mr. Kozlowski. Worry about your health in Chinese prison. How your family will cope.”

  “I have diplomatic status.”

  Shen Deshi stepped forward with astonishing speed for such a big man. He pistol-whipped Kozlowski, stunning him. He cuffed the man’s hands behind his back. Removed Kozlowski’s cell phone and disassembled it one-handed. He smashed all the parts with an angry foot.

  “Up!” Shen said, ordering Kozlowski to move.

  Grace used the commotion to cover the sounds of her climbing down from her perch. She hurried toward the open doors, staying low and moving fast. A second car arrived, trapping her. She settled into a tight spot alongside one of the large vats.

  The driver of the second car was a young woman wearing a police uniform. She entered and helped Inspector Shen move Kozlowski toward the yard. Shen directed her to drive “the prisoner” into Shanghai and drop him at an address he recited.

  “I will call ahead,” he said to her. “Much will be made of your cooperation.”

  Kozlowski said to the inspector, “You are bringing a shit storm onto yourself.”

  “This foul-mouthed waiguoren will tell you a dozen lies,” Shen told the young woman. “All foreigners have golden tongues. Pay him no mind.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Commendation and promotion must
certainly follow on the heels of such loyalty and the expert conduct of one’s duties.” It sounded like a rehearsed speech.

  She slipped behind the wheel of the Range Rover.

  Shen put Kozlowski into the back seat, tying the seatbelt’s shoulder strap tightly around the man’s neck. The recoil mechanism held Kozlowski upright. If he leaned forward, he choked.

  “Beat the damn spy with your flashlight if you have to,” he told her. “He deserves every blow.”

  “Gladly,” she answered.

  Shen shut the car door, banged on the side of the vehicle and it drove off.

  He returned inside, holstering his weapon and then lengthening his stride.

  As the second car arrived, Knox slid beneath Kozlowski’s Range Rover and hid. He overheard much of what went on inside, and moved to the second car in hope of stealing its keys or rendering it useless.

  If he could get Kozlowski and Grace into the Range Rover…

  He quietly opened the sedan’s door. He punched the jamb’s interior switch, preventing the inside light from turning on. The keys were in the ignition.

  He banged his head into the rearview mirror, dislodging it. Reached up to try to leave it close to where it had been.

  It was aimed into the back seat.

  Knox froze as he saw a black strap protruding alongside the center seatbelt clasp: a Nike Swoosh.

  From the back seat of the Range Rover, Kozlowski realized his diplomatic plates would work against him. No traffic cop would dare ticket the car or pull it over. She drove around the tannery and aimed for the front gate.

  One of his daughter’s puzzle books stuck up from the seat pocket, the sight of which caused a knot in his throat. He’d run out without so much as a goodbye. For all the fairy-tale endings, as a man in service to his country, he knew how the final acts to most such lives played out: a blindfolded and handcuffed body found slumped and collecting flies in a city dump or along a shoreline.

  Pleading his case with his driver wasn’t going to cut it. Once he was in Chinese custody, his life was all but over.

  The Range Rover slowed to clear the posts defining the compound’s front gate. Kozlowski leaned. The seatbelt tightened around his neck.

  The driver-side window exploded. A man’s hand appeared and the cadet’s head rebounded off the steering wheel. The hand tripped the door locks and the driver’s door came open, the car still rolling. The slumped cadet was pulled from the seat and John Knox took her place. Knox must have tried for the clutch, but he hit the brake and the car stalled. Knox reached for the ignition.

  A shot rang out, exploding the rear window. Shen Deshi screamed in Mandarin, “Stop or I will shoot!” He was close. He had a good shot at the back of Kozlowski’s head. With his neck held by the seatbelt, Kozlowski wasn’t moving.

  “I will shoot him!” Shen called out again, this time in English. “Maybe you make it. Maybe not.”

  Knox gripped the ignition key more firmly. He slipped the gearshift into Reverse.

  “Now! Out of the car! You! The driver!”

  “You shoot him, I’ll run you over,” Knox called through the blown-out window. “So, you’d better make the first shot count.”

  “Knox?” Kozlowski hissed from the back seat.

  “You’d better make damn sure you kill me, too, because I’m only going to cripple you with the car. I’ll save the good stuff for last.”

  “You talk too much!” Shen called out. “Get out of the car. Now!”

  Knox swung his legs out.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Kozlowski said.

  Grace swung the pipe, intending to strike the man’s right arm and break it while simultaneously crushing his ribcage. She’d come up from behind the man while Knox bought her time by keeping the conversation going. She wasn’t going to kill a Chinese cop-but if she had her way, he might wish she had.

  She drove the pipe with the power of a tennis serve. She felt things disintegrate with the contact.

  The cop folded in onto the blow, dropped the gun and then sagged left, tumbling over. Grace kicked the gun away and raised the pipe where he could see her, prepared to take a head shot if necessary.

  Shen Deshi had no intention of going down at the hands of a woman. His broken and dislocated arm clutched to his fractured ribs, he sprang from the asphalt and knocked her back. The pipe clattered. He reached for it instinctively, but screamed behind the pain, his right arm useless.

  Grace rolled over the fallen pipe. The cop kicked out but only grazed her. The next kick landed, however. Just below her ribs. And the next in her hip.

  Knox connected with the cop in a football tackle. Knocked him five yards into the backfield, and hammered three consecutive rights into the man’s dislocated shoulder. The cop let out a cry.

  The cop then backhanded Knox across the cheek, wheeled around, pivoting on the ball of his left foot, and connected his heel into Knox’s face. Knox hit the asphalt hard-too hard-and saw stars.

  Shen blocked the pipe as Grace swung it. He took hold of it, and twisted it from her, catching her off guard. He owned it. He took a swing, but she jumped back.

  The waiguoren was up on his feet, but dazed. The man’s nose was bleeding, his eyes unfocused. He lowered his head and charged like a bull. Shen couldn’t believe it-the waiguoren was a dead man. He hoisted the pipe high overhead bearing down with all his power. The pipe stuck behind him. Wouldn’t pull forward.

  He spun around: it was the cock-sucking cadet, both hands on the pipe, a defiant look in her eyes. She held to the pipe. The waiguoren hit him so hard he lifted up off the asphalt, and landed with two hundred pounds atop him.

  He cried out as his opponent took him by the shoulders-the shoulders!-and smashed him to the pavement. Once, twice.

  Darkness.

  Grace held the cop’s gun trained on the cadet, who stood there with the bloody pipe in her hand, breathing heavily, her eyes locked onto the fallen man.

  For a moment, the three of them looked back and forth at one another. Exhausted. Paralyzed.

  “There will be no killing here,” Knox told the cadet in Mandarin.

  Enough killing, Grace was thinking. Surprised by Knox. Again.

  “He will not dare to report this,” Grace said to the girl. “Too much he cannot explain. Drop the pipe and walk away.”

  “Drop the gun,” the young woman said.

  Grace ejected the magazine and placed it down onto the asphalt by her feet. She retained the handgun and the one bullet remaining in its chamber.

  “Together?” she offered.

  The cadet nodded.

  Grace and the woman moved in concert, placing the pipe and the gun down nearly simultaneously.

  “We can drop you somewhere,” Knox offered in Mandarin.

  The woman spat onto Shen Deshi. She backed up, facing them until reaching the Range Rover. She finally turned and walked off into the headlights and down the River Road, in no particular hurry.

  “What if he can give us the name?” Grace asked Knox, looking at the fallen policeman.

  “This guy? It would take a lot of good drugs and a couple weeks to get his own name out of him.”

  “We just…leave him?”

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Knox said, rubbing his head to make sure it was still attached to his body.

  “We have nothing! For all this, we gain nothing.”

  “We have Kozlowski. We have the tannery and whatever’s beneath the asphalt. The waypoints of one massive chunk of land.”

  “The Chinese have this place,” she corrected. “Any evidence will be long gone by morning. Americans can’t investigate, anyway.”

  Grace walked closer to the fallen Iron Hand and kicked him hard enough in the shoulder to make sure he wasn’t play-acting.

  “I’ll do it,” Knox said.

  Grace reloaded the magazine into the handgun and held it on the man as Knox searched him. He found his phone and smashed it. He found a wallet and a passport belonging to a Mong
olian. He passed these to Grace.

  “That answers that,” Knox said.

  “Every bone in my body says not to leave him here…not alive,” she said. “Not like this.”

  “Hey, the girl’s prints are on the pipe. You want to cap him, be my guest. We can put this on her.”

  “But you said…”

  “Listen, that was for her sake. I’m trying to be supportive here.”

  She allowed a small laugh to bubble up from inside her. For the second time, she disassembled the handgun, this time throwing the pieces into the field.

  “That’s the first time I’ve seen you laugh,” Knox said.

  “His car?” she asked.

  Knox reached into a pocket and dangled the keys.

  “Always a step ahead, John Knox.”

  “Not always,” he said. “Sometimes.”

  “Sometimes is good,” she said. “Very good.”

  Knox slammed the Range Rover’s hatchback into place. He’d taken a moment to put the section of pipe into the back-the pipe containing the cadet’s fingerprints-as evidence, in the event the inspector did not survive his injuries. He wanted all the bases covered.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Kozlowski said, immediately after being untied from his noose. Knox occupied the front passenger seat.

  Grace pulled the driver’s seat forward and adjusted the rearview mirror. She drove.

  “You’re welcome,” Knox said.

  “I’m serious,” Kozlowski said.

  “I saw you pull up, I thought you were bent. Imagine my surprise.”

  “What the fuck were you doing here, Knox?”

  “Your work for you. The work you asked me to do.”

  “Don’t mess with me.”

  “A surveyor, here on the island,” Knox said, “was killed and his death made to look like an accident. Chances are he was attempting to blackmail the Beijing higher-up you and I discussed. This, because he’d figured out what he was surveying-a New City development that will eventually hold four million people. My guess: he wanted money to keep his yap shut. So the Mongolian shut it for him.”

  “What Mongolian?”

  “And Lu Hao saw the whole thing. So did your one-handed cameraman. Only, the one-hand part came later.”