The Wrong Man (Complete 3-Book International Thriller Box Set)

by Fritz Galt

  The last half hour of his climb was straight up the side of a mountain. There was no longer a path, only familiar rocks to grip with bare hands and a crumbling hillside in which to dig his toes.

  “May Allah be praised,” he muttered under his breath. Osama was nearly impossible to reach, even if one knew where to find him. Allah had concealed him well.

  And with divine wisdom bestowed upon him, Osama did not use modern communications technology. Which provided Hadi an opportunity to make a living, relaying messages by foot to the al-Qaeda camps thirty kilometers down the valley in Wana, the regional capital.

  At last, before he ever saw or heard it, he felt the presence of Allah’s mighty lion. The warmth from Osama’s fire seeped into the night air through a small opening behind a shield of stone. Hadi edged around the rock wall and crouched low.

  “I have returned, most venerable one,” he whispered.

  Someone stirred inside the cave. The muzzle of a gun nudged a sheepskin aside, revealing a small fire flickering within.

  Already a short man, Hadi had to stoop low to step inside. The sheepskin fell into place behind him.

  He found himself looking into a circle of faces. The man with the straight back, large round eyes and scraggly beard that was streaked with gray drew his attention.

  “Most worthy one,” Hadi began, falling to his knees. “With Allah’s guiding Hand, I have managed to spread your message to the myriad minions at your disposal. The word has reached the far corners of the earth that you are offering a bounty for whoever Allah blesses to find Sean Cooper.”

  “And…?” the soft, baritone voice said patiently.

  “And word has reached us sooner than expected. A Triad gang called Sun Yee On has located him at a beach resort in southern China.”

  The round eyes curved into crescents of joy.

  Hadi went on. “Following your instructions, I have authorized them to make the snatch. They will have him captive within hours, inshallah, Allah be willing.”

  “Good work,” Osama said. The tension in the air was released when he spoke, his voice warm with praise. “Now I want you to inform my cousin, who is skippering a boat in the South China Sea, to take possession of our gift to Allah.”

  “What should the bounty be?”

  Osama looked uncomfortably at his associates seated cross-legged around him, men of learning and worldly experience, but cool calculations running through their minds.

  “Pay as little as you can. Do not reveal our hand.”

  “As you wish, sir.” Hadi’s eyes fell on a jug warming by the fire. He could smell the aroma of rich coffee, called kahwa, that the Arabs drank.

  “Leave at once,” Osama thundered. “Allah does not abide by fools!”

  Hadi prostrated himself, lowering his forehead to the cold cave floor, then quickly scrambled to his feet.

  The guard nudged the sheepskin aside with his AK-47.

  Hadi broke out into the night, circled the stone shield and began to lower himself hand by hand down the sheer slope.

  Osama’s cousin would take possession of the unwashed Westerner from the Triad gang by the first light of morning. By the end of the day, the chief crusader against the Muslims, the infidel President of the United States, would be subject to the Will of Allah!

  Kate Cooper knew that giving birth to her third child could go wrong in many ways. But, what could she do about it? Isolated in a remote Chinese prison with her two young children, she had no maternity or neonatal options.

  She would have to rely on the prison’s well-meaning but doddering doctor in a medical examination room that had no heat, heart monitoring equipment or anesthetic, not to mention an incubator.

  She felt her first labor pains shortly after dawn on a frigid winter day when the prison’s cinderblock walls were unable to keep out the blunt cold of a north wind. She interrupted Jane and Sammy’s entertainment for the day, folding and refolding a page from a Chinese newspaper, and sat them down on the cell’s lone bed for a lecture.

  They would have to remain in the cell by themselves, but Mommy would be right down the hall. If they heard her being loud, they would just have to cover their ears until she came back. When she came back, she would bring them a new baby.

  She searched their puzzled eyes. “Do you understand?”

  They nodded.

  “And where do you put your hands?”

  “Over our ears,” Sammy, at five the younger of the two siblings, responded and demonstrated for her.

  “That’s right.” She turned to her seven-year-old daughter. “And what will I bring back?”

  “A baby sister,” Jane said.

  “No, a brother.”

  She let the argument proceed until it ran its course. She had no choice as the pains were coming more frequently and lasted longer.

  Jane finally terminated the quarrel by turning to her with a seemingly unrelated question. “Does Daddy know if it’s a boy or girl?”

  Kate thought back to her sudden forced separation from Sean Cooper at the Beijing International Airport that fateful day the previous spring. She shook her head. “No, Daddy probably doesn’t even know that we’re having a baby.”

  “But Daddy knows that we’re here, doesn’t he?” Sammy said, in need of reassurance.

  What could she tell her children? For all their father knew, they had died of SARS as had thousands of others that spring in Beijing.

  “And Daddy will come and save us, won’t he?” Jane asked.

  Another painful contraction gripped Kate’s lower abdomen. The baby was definitely knocking at the door.

  Through a grimace, she made a promise she was sure she would come to regret. “Of course Daddy will come to get us.”

  It gave them all a small measure of comfort as she fell to her knees on the cement floor and shook the metal cage. “Doctor! Doctor!” she screamed repeatedly.

  Sean Cooper sat bolt upright in a large, soft bed. Then instantly regretted the sudden movement. He clutched his head that swam and throbbed from too much alcohol the night before. But his instincts were alert. What had woken him up?

  He wiped the night’s sleep from his eyes. Early dawn crept under his hotel curtains. The central air conditioning hummed as loudly as the buzz in his head. Then he remembered where he was. He was staying at a resort on China’s tropical Hainan Island, the plump mango that hung from China’s southern shore. Hainan was a playground for wealthy Chinese, Russians and expatriates, a large island with all the curiosities of ethnic minorities and mountain villages combined with brand-name hotels, SCUBA diving and pristine beaches. The northern rim of the island was all industry and the mountains of the interior were forbidding, so like most foreigners, Sean had landed on the sunny southern coast.

  He felt across the smooth bed sheets and found no one there.

  Little by little, he reconstructed the events of the night before. The resort had thrown an elaborate bash in celebration of the upcoming Academy Awards. The party had consisted of fizzy champagne, floating balloons, colorful fireworks, a suave emcee and a very loud band.

  He had met up with the gorgeous, leggy Sandi DiMartino on a balcony overlooking the freeform pool. Her sleek, bare arms had grazed his sleeve as she leaned over the railing, sighed, and surveyed the milling crowd in the distance. They had run into each other with increasing frequency over the course of the week, and their casual acquaintance had developed into a cozy intimacy.

  He moved his feet to explore the far reaches of the king-sized bed. The covers were still tightly tucked in. He had not slept with her, although it was a strong possibility, given their attraction and all the booze downed the night before.

  So, if nobody else was in the bed, what had disrupted his sleep?

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to stop the room from spinning.

  Another of his nightmares could have awoken him. In previous dreams, operatives from various government agencies had tracked him down. They had fired at him with pistols.
After all, his country had branded him a traitor.

  But why should they hound him? It was the president who had profited, not him. Even the press knew that the money had gone into the president’s personal bank account. So Sean had transferred the money. His oil company had made him send the Chinese bribe to the Caymans, or his family would face the rest of the year in SARS-ridden China.

  Still, the public wouldn’t hear it from Sean, not as long as the entire Administration pinned the Chinagate scandal on him.

  He opened his eyes and took a brief accounting of his condition. His head felt as if a dull mallet was pounding on his skull, but he had not woken up in a sweat. He seldom did anymore. He had grown used to such nerve-wracking dreams. He knew how to recognize and dismiss them. A revolving cast of bad guys took turns chasing him—some were from the White House, others from a Congressional subcommittee, the corporate security office of his former employer, and from China’s feared Public Security Bureau. In the end, though, he would outrun them all with his in-shape, middle-aged body, or elude them using his familiarity with the Chinese street.

  Something more immediate and real had caused him to jump up in bed.

  Then he made out a bright speck on the carpet by the hotel door. He reached for his glasses and drew the wire arms over his ears. He tried to focus on the object, but winced at the effort.

  He pulled his covers off and stood up to investigate. That turned out to be a mistake. He reached for the desk to steady himself. Easy does it. He didn’t want to toss his fortune cookies. Step by step, he lurched stiffly toward the note. What kind of champagne did that to a guy?

  At last, he stood over the paper that shone in the morning light. It was a torn fragment of stationery. He didn’t recognize it, so it hadn’t fallen out of his pocket. Someone must have shoved it under the hotel door. Careful not to bend over, he crouched down and picked it up.

  Rising, he flipped on the overhead light and squinted to read the words.

  It read: “Your family lives.”

  What?

  He closed his eyes in the brilliant light. Then he slowly reopened them. He read the note aloud to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.

  “Your family lives,” he said, his throat dry and his voice thick.

  How could the message be meant for him? His family had died over eight months earlier in a SARS ward in Beijing.

  Who else might the message be meant for?

  Summoning up his strength, he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. It was empty, too early even for housekeeping to be making their rounds.

  He looked down at his rumpled boxer shorts and tank top and then at the note in his hand. In the dim light of the hallway, the note still read the same, but this time it seemed to be speaking directly to him. In a strong, masculine handwriting it said, “Your family lives, you dummy.”

  Suddenly, the clouds parted and he knew without a doubt that the note was meant for him. He knew exactly what he must do.

  He hustled back into his room and bolted the door. Then, without bothering to shave or shower, he pulled on the first travel clothes he could find. He had to check out of the hotel, leave Hainan Island and head back north in search of his family.

  He grabbed the desk phone and rang the front desk. “I need a bellboy right away,” he slurred. “I’m checking out.”

  He dumped his neatly hung wardrobe into his twin suitcases and threw his travel kit, trash novels and travel brochures into his carry-on bag.

  The doorbell rang. It was the bellboy. His clothes still askew, Sean opened the door and slid out the travel bags.

  “I’ll be right down,” he told the obliging bellhop. “And I’ll need a taxi to the airport.”

  He closed the door and leaned back against it, breathing hard. He needed a moment to catch his breath, to quiet the kettledrums banging in his head, stop the churning in his stomach, and collect his thoughts.

  Normally a meticulous man, he wasn’t used to rushing into decisions, packing hastily and heading off without a plan.

  He found himself clutching the scrap of paper tightly. He smoothed it out and studied the three words that had suddenly brought his family back to life. It was incredible!

  Was it true?

  Sean swallowed hard. His mind was reeling. It wasn’t a dream, was it? Wish fulfillment at its most devious? No, the wooziness in his being, and the weakness in his knees told him otherwise.

  Was the message a trick? No, it would be too cruel if it were a hoax.

  But how could his family, apparently dead for the past eight months, still be alive? It was true that he had never seen them after they had entered the ward in Beijing, and had only been handed three urns to bury. If they had survived the raging epidemic, where were they now? And how could he find them?

  His options were limited. The U.S. Embassy was on the lookout for him. The Chinese government was most likely complicit in his family’s abduction and on high alert. Somehow, he must avoid all of them and make his way back to Beijing.

  He had to return to the hospitals that cared for SARS patients, and pick up the trail from there. Surely his wife Kate with her light brown hair and Jane with her mother’s emerald eyes and little Sammy with his shock of red hair would stand out in the Asian city.

  He slipped out of the hotel room and carefully shut the door behind him. Even the loud click of the automatic lock seemed to bang like a gong in his brain. Then he shuffled like hell down the hallway.

  As he raced for the distant lobby to check out, he felt his wallet swinging heavily in his chino trousers.

  At least he had enough money to stay one step ahead of the White House and the Chinese authorities. His millions could buy him anonymity from both governments’ covert attack dogs and allow him to survive with dignity for years behind China’s bamboo curtain.

  Maybe his money would even be necessary to obtain his family’s release.

  He rushed under the restaurant’s lofty ribbed ceiling that resembled the interior of a wooden ship. He streaked past the white grand piano that sat above a waterfall. The cavernous space had the grandeur of an old Hollywood set. But he would gladly leave all that behind to see his beloved family once again.

  He entered a breezeway and pushed aside a column of colorful balloons blown into his path by a gentle wind from the South China Sea. The fresh air felt good and helped clear the last vestiges of alcohol from his blood. He was on his way to Beijing!

  He weaved past the Chinese cleaning crew dressed like Vietnamese in their cone-shaped hats and pajama pants. They were leaning over short-handled brooms, whisking away confetti and streamers that littered the marble floor. What a wild pre-Academy Awards party that had been, all of which suddenly seemed so trivial.

  He slowed to a walk as he entered the lobby, and straightened his worsted wool sport coat. To one side of him, a television was broadcasting the Academy Awards live. He paused for a moment to scan the few guests who lingered around the television. They made up a wall of Oriental faces.

  Who had left him the note?

  He looked at the words once again, scrawled in a man’s handwriting. It was so cryptic, so melodramatic, in fact. But he put that thought aside. The three words offered him more reason to live than anything else in the past eight depressing months.

  A veteran actor named Tudman Grier was making some inane comments on stage in Hollywood. The gleam in his eye showed that he knew he had the whole world eating out of his hand.

  Then a correspondent cut in from London to announce that parties around the world were reveling in the achievements of their respective movie stars.

  “We’re even seeing unofficial fireworks for a British actress,” the commentator said, “despite the current climate of fear from terrorism.”

  “Afraid they might be afraid,” Sean muttered to himself. He had no sympathy for terrorists, and little more for the politicians and press who conveyed and amplified the terrorists’ threats to the common man. This morning, he knew no fear. H
e turned to resume his mission to check out and head for the airport.

  Then a comment on screen stopped him dead in his tracks.

  “For the moment, the celebration in Hollywood drowns out other events that would normally be making headlines today, such as the American president’s current political crisis, now known as ‘Chinagate.’”

  Sean turned to watch the news carefully.

  “Last month,” the anchorman explained, “under an avalanche of public criticism, President Bernard White appointed a Special Prosecutor, Stanley Polk, to the Chinagate case.”

  The camera cut to his attractive co-anchor, who continued on cue. “The accusations could be summarized as such: Recently leaked bank documents show the transfer of a large sum of money from China to the president’s personal bank account in the Cayman Islands.”

  Sean marveled at how poorly the woman read the teleprompter, stressing the wrong words in each sentence. What had she been drinking?

  The main anchor resumed. “This deposit coincided with the conclusion of a lucrative trade deal with China, whereby China gained access to the World Trade Organization.”

  The woman took over. “Stanley Polk’s team is currently seeking a key witness named Sean Cooper, who transferred funds from China into the president’s personal bank account.”

  The sound of his name on television made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

  Then the screen dissolved to a blurry shot of him, taken by a video camera with a telephoto lens. He was kneeling in a black suit before three graves in a cemetery. It was taken the day he buried Kate, Jane and Sammy.

  Suddenly, he was more sober than he ever wanted to be.

  The news story cut to a young spokesman for the special prosecutor, who announced, “Our investigation has been hampered because our key witness, Sean Cooper, is missing, or, we fear, the victim of foul play.”

  The young man surveyed the group of reporters menacingly.

  “We will be looking into cover-up attempts by the president, including possible efforts by the White House to silence Sean Cooper or otherwise impede him from testifying.”