The Altman Code - Covert One 04

by Robert Ludlum

  Feng cursed in Mandarin, grabbed her by her pajama top, and dragged her away from Mcdermid. “Peasants! They pretend they’re being skinned alive if you bump into them. I’ll give her something real to howl about.” He spun around. In his soft voice, he spoke rapidly to the other two men.

  “Get the electrodes and the blowtorch.”

  His words were in Shanghainese, but Randi understood the dialect. Her mind reeled. She could stand torture as well as most, but resistance would almost certainly end up incapacitating her even if she were rescued or managed to escape. Still, there was one story they might believe completely: She would give them Jon.

  He was already hurt. For all she knew, it could be serious. She steeled herself as she glanced at him. He sagged against his bindings, unconscious, not even moaning. She could do nothing for either of them if she, too, were badly injured. And she could do nothing for the Company and certainly nothing for America.

  She would let them get their blowtorch, their electric devices, or whatever other horrors Feng Dun had in his torture arsenal. If they chose the electrodes, they would apply a nasty stun to her first, which she knew would leave no serious damage. She would not break and give them Jon until the second or third jolt. The longer she held out, the more they would believe what she told them. If they started with the blowtorch, she would have to gamble and give him up sooner. Blowtorches frightened her.

  The two grinning men returned with their persecution tools. Reflex was a physical reaction beyond control of the mind. Only a split second after she had reacted did Randi realize Feng Dun had been watching.

  He smiled again. “Light the blowtorch,” he told one of the men. To the other, he ordered, “Bring another chair. Take off her sandals.”

  Ralph Mcdermid swallowed hard. “Is that really necessary—“

  “Yes, Taipan,” Feng Dun’s voice had a harsh, irritated edge. “In matters of this importance, hands must get dirty. Even bloody.”

  The second man grabbed a chair from a corner. Feng Dun picked her up by the shoulders. She sagged, but he lifted her as easily as if she were a straw doll. He dumped her onto the chair. The first man lit the blowtorch, while the second pulled off her sandals.

  She shrieked again in Mandarin. “No! No! I’ll tell you. He hired me.”

  She pointed at Jon, who still did not move against his ropes. “I was afraid to say it. You would hurt me as you’ve hurt him. But ... that’s the man who did it. He paid me, told me to follow the gentleman there, and remember where he went, what he did, and who he talked to.

  Everything the foreign gentleman did. I needed the money. My father and mother are old. They need medicine and food. Their house is old. It must be repaired. Please! Don’t hurt me!”

  She chattered on as if terror had unleashed a flood of words. Mcdermid and the other men turned to study Jon as Feng translated. A look of understanding came over Mcdermid’s face. Randi could see belief in his eyes, saying to himself, Yes, of course. Why didn’t I guess that from the start?

  Feng was not looking at Mcdermid. He was staring at Randi’s feet. He stepped closer, grabbed her hands, and turned them over to peer at the palms.

  Distracted by Feng’s movements, and relieved that the blowtorch was not going to be necessary, Mcdermid said, “Feng? What is it?”

  Feng dropped Randi’s hands, grabbed her chin, and tilted it up. He stared at her face, her eyes, her hair. His long fingers felt like steel nails against her forehead and scalp, and her stomach plunged.

  She pulled back. “Owww! You’re hurting me!”

  “Stay still.” Abruptly, the fingers dug into her forehead below the hairline. Her flesh-colored scalp and black wig peeled off in his hand, revealing the tight skullcap that held down her own hair.

  “Feng!” Mcdermid’s broad face looked stunned.

  Feng pulled off the skullcap, and her blond hair tumbled out.

  His two musclemen gaped as if they had seen a miracle.

  Mcdermid announced stupidly, “She’s not Chinese!” “No,” Feng said, without taking his gaze from Randi’s face, “she’s not Chinese.”

  “But how did you--?”

  “Her feet,” Feng said. “Rural people wear sandals most of their lives.

  She doesn’t have the gap between her large toe and the others.” He studied her with a kind of admiration. “Her hands have been artificially coarsened and aged, probably with latex skin. The same kind of product gave her eyes an Oriental fold and shape. She’s probably wearing contact lenses, and there’s a subtle pigmentation on her skin from some kind of long-lasting skin dye. It’s a remarkable piece of intelligence tradecraft, the work of experts.”

  Everyone in the room, except the unconscious Jon, stared at Randi the way they would at an exotic zoo animal.

  Fear rushed through her. She thought fast. They would no longer believe her story that Jon had hired her. Feng had deduced that she worked for an intelligence agency. Nothing would change his mind about that now.

  Whatever new lie she told must contain that admission. Sweating, she considered possibilities ... what Feng and Mcdermid might believe ..

  . what legend she had the skills to make credible.

  “So,” Feng said in that ghostly voice that seldom varied, which made it all the more intimidating. “You aren’t Chinese, but you speak Mandarin as well or better than I do, and I’d guess Cantonese and Shanghainese, too, yes? Certainly English. You’ve understood every word we’ve said.

  You’ve been ahead of us from the start. You’re highly trained by a large organization with global interests and the need for operatives who can speak foreign languages. Even our American friend there can’t speak Chinese. But he isn’t CIA, is he? A special person, perhaps, recruited for a special mission, but with a real Langley agent to work with him, yes? And, of course, that Langley agent would be you.”

  Randi made a decision. She curled her lip and said in disgusted Russian, “Don’t insult me.”

  Ralph Mcdermid took a half step back, his eyes wide as if he had been slapped across the face.

  Feng Dun blinked.

  “And you’re right about Colonel Smith,” she continued in perfect Russian. “He’s not CIA. What or who he is precisely, I know as little as you.” Give them a small confirmation. It could distract them. “But I’d like to know, too. It could prove useful to us later.” Mcdermid demanded, “What did she say?” When Feng translated, Mcdermid frowned angrily. “Why is a Russian agent following me?”

  Randi switched to Russian-accented English. “The Altman Group isn’t the only arms dealer.”

  “Russian intelligence is interested in doing business?” Mcdermid sensed profit. “Does the Kremlin want to work with us?” He had done good deals with Russia in the past, but recently Moscow had grown greedy, demanding a larger cut.

  “In Russia today, life is good for few.”

  Mcdermid studied Randi. He decided, “You’re not working for the government. You’re moonlighting for yourself or others. For one of your capitalist oligarchs, perhaps. Someone who wants to know what the Altman Group is doing for reasons of business utility.”

  Randi gave a slow nod, as if reluctant to admit it. “We do what we must.

  My father was GRU. One becomes accustomed to living well.”

  GRU was the old Soviet military intelligence. Feng said, “Does this oligarch have a name?”

  “Possibly.” She cocked an eyebrow and looked at Mcdermid.

  Feng turned his head toward Mcdermid, too. Then he glared at her. “I don’t believe you. What weapons deal is Mr. Mcdermid making in Hong Kong that brought you here?”

  “Stop, Feng.” Mcdermid saw dollar signs. Russia still had weapons many people wanted, particularly in the Third World. Although those dictators and self-appointed kings cried poverty, they managed to come up with the cash when it came to guns and ammunition. If this woman had access to a private store, which had probably been looted from the government’s dwindling supplies ... “We need to tal
k.”

  Feng remained focused on Randi’s face, searching it for something he could not quite pinpoint but seemed sure was there. Then he looked at Jon Smith. He had still not moved. Feng again considered Randi.

  “Feng,” Mcdermid repeated.

  The enforcer glanced at him, turned, and walked toward the door.

  Mcdermid followed, after a reassuring smile at the moonlighting Russian agent with the business connections.

  Chapter Thirty.

  In an inner office, Ralph Mcdermid’s cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket. “This is Mcdermid.” The polished voice said, “We need to talk.”

  Mcdermid covered the mouthpiece. “I’d better take this,” he told Feng Dun.

  “Very well. My people must eat anyway.”

  Mcdermid nodded. “It’s been a long night. Get something downstairs. I want white toast and coffee. Cream and sugar. A Danish, if you can find one. Then we’ll talk more about the Russian.”

  The footsteps of Feng and his men thumped down the wood stairs, while Mcdermid found a seat on a packing box that held adult toys for a sex shop on the street floor.

  He returned to the phone. “I have good news for you.”

  “What news?”

  Mcdermid related the capture of Smith and the Russian agent. “This is the end of our major problem. All of the copies of the manifest are destroyed.” The voice on the other end said with relief, “Excellent. And did you give my information about the SEAL operation to Feng Dun to pass on?”

  “Yes, it’s over. He made the connection to one of his people, who got the information to the sub’s captain. You hadn’t heard?”

  “Not yet. It will be a pleasure to act surprised. The White House won’t try again, now that they know the Chinese will be watching for more attempts. Tell me about the Russian woman. You say she was spying on you? I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Mcdermid filled him in. “We can make use of her perhaps. I’ll know more soon.”

  “It’s interesting, but let’s keep our focus. I’m out on a limb on this.

  We’d better bring it home.”

  “You’re out on a limb? Consider my position. If I’m not worried, you don’t have to be.”

  “What will you do with Smith?”

  “Whatever we need to. That’s Feng’s province. But first, I want to find out for whom he works.”

  “If anything happens, I know nothing about this.”

  “Naturally. Neither do I.”

  Cheered by their progress, Mcdermid hung up and remained sitting on the packing box, thinking about the new good fortune the Russian woman might have brought. Depending on what she was offering, it could be another billion in the long run.

  As soon as she heard the door close, Randi bent to put on her sandals.

  Her whisper was so low, so directed only toward Jon, that it would be inaudible from the door around the corner.

  “Jon? Jon? I’m going to get you out of this. Can you hear me? Jon?”

  “Of course, I can hear you. I’m not deaf, you know. At least not yet.” His speech was thick through his swollen lips. A hint of pain in the cheerful whisper. “Terrific work. I’m impressed.”

  Relief rushed through her, mixed with annoyance. “You’ve been awake the whole time, damn you.”

  “Now, now.” He tried to raise his head. “Only most of the time. I—“

  Randi put a finger to her lips, shook her head, and signaled him to slump again. She stood up and walked around the bare room. She examined the floor, walls, and ceiling, as if searching for another way out. What she expected to find were listening devices and closed-circuit cameras, but there were no cameras and no recent changes in the walls that could conceal bugs.

  Nothing hung on the walls, and there were no wall fixtures and no furniture other than the two straight chairs. She could not be completely certain there were no listening devices, but she did know there were no cameras.

  She returned to her chair and said in a low voice, “Okay, they can’t see us, and I can’t find any mikes, but let’s keep it down, just in case.

  How much did you hear?”

  “Most of it. Giving me to them was masterly, probably the only story they would’ve believed. The Russian bit was positively brilliant. The peasant howling and crawling wasn’t bad either. I had no idea you had so much talent as a groveler.”

  “Your approval warms my heart. But we’re still trapped here. Unless you want your feet fried to a cinder on your way to a shallow grave, we’d better figure out what to do when they come back.”

  “I’m ahead of you. You were doing fine, so I had plenty of time to think. What do you know about the big guy with the crazy hair?”

  “Feng Dun?”

  “Yes, that’s the name I have for him, too.”

  “He’s from Shanghai. A former soldier, guerrilla, and adventurer. Very undercover. Now he’s an enforcer for high-level businessmen.”

  “Where’d he get that hair?”

  “There are plenty of redheaded Han, probably from some long-ago minority they assimilated. I’d guess the white’s just an odd sign of his aging.

  Now it’s your turn. While I was crawling around on the dirty floor, saving your bacon, what did you come up with to get us loose?”

  “We jump ‘ and split.”

  She was speechless at the inadequacy of that. “You’re kidding.”

  “Think about it,” he said, the pain in the voice intensifying the more he spoke through his sore lips. “What else do we have? Are there more of them out there on the other side of that door?”

  “They blindfolded me. Probably, but we don’t even know where we are.”

  “Yes, we do. Or at least, I do. I’ve been listening, and even though I was blindfolded, too, I was able to figure out a few things. It’s morning now, probably late morning. I heard vendors’ voices, awnings being opened, and boat horns and whistles from the harbor. Plus, I think there was a rumble from underneath us, as if the subway runs somewhere near. I figure we’re in Wanchai again, in some back street not so far from the harbor.”

  “From the look of this room, we’re in an old building,” Randi decided.

  “And that means probably only one staircase—only one way out.”

  Jon nodded. “Right, so our best shot really is to jump them. You can handle Mcdermid, right?”

  “With one hand.”

  “Use two. Just to be sure, not to mention fast.”

  “Consider it done. We’ll need to be out of here in a hurry, before the others know what’s happening. But can you do it? You look seriously banged up.”

  “I’ve felt better. The good thing is nothing’s broken, and I’ll rise to the occasion. The threat of death is a fine motivator to get a fellow off his duff.” She studied him and nodded. He had that determined look she had seen in him before. “You’re the doctor.”

  “Get me loose, but leave the ropes on so it looks as if I’m still tied.”

  She undid the knots, her fingers fumbling as she hurried.

  As she worked, he said, “They’ll ask you a lot more questions about your Russian contacts. What you’re after. What your arms dealer has to sell and wants to buy ... all that. You’ve got to keep their attention, especially Feng’s.” She left the ropes entwined, so they would look tight. “Thanks for the advice. I never would’ve figured it out by myself.”

  Jon ignored her sarcasm. “He’ll have his gun, of course. I intend to blind him.”

  “Then you make damn sure you get him the first time.”

  “I know. I—“ They heard the key turn in the lock. Jon instantly slumped

  in the chair, careful not to move the nylon ropes. Randi resumed her

  nonchalant posture in the other chair, ready to do business with

  Mcdermid, if the price was right. Mcdermid appeared first. Feng Dun

  walked behind, not hurrying, his expression a mixture of suspicion and

  disapproval. He did not like the way Mcderm
id was handling the Russian

  woman. He cared nothing about Mcdermid’s business, and, besides, he did

  not trust her. She was too glib. No one had yet asked her to prove that

  she was who she claimed to be. It was an oversight he intended to

  correct now. From under his nearly closed eyelids, Jon saw the questions

  on Feng’s face. And although the killer was distracted, he was watching

  Jon. Mcdermid walked directly to Randi. “All right, let’s talk about

  your people. We’re going to—“

  “Hold it,” Feng announced. “First I’ll check the American.” He pulled Jon’s head up by his hair. Jon groaned, and he drooled saliva from his slack mouth. Without warning, Feng slapped him across the face. Jon gave a feeble flinch and collapsed so heavily Feng had to support his head with one hand while he used the other to tug on the nylon cords across Jon’s chest.

  Randi felt her muscles tense with fear as she tried to maintain her casual slouch on the chair. Jon’s cords held. She had looped them several places, and Jon had expanded his chest to make them tight. When he relaxed, the loops would slip. Then he could work free unseen.

  “Finished?” Mcdermid said impatiently. The Altman CEO did not wait for an answer. He returned his attention to Randi. “We ... What’s your name, I can’t just call you the Russian.”

  “Ludmilla Sakkov.” She nodded toward Feng Dun. “What’s his name?”

  “You don’t need to know my name, Russian. If you are Russian,” Feng

  said, observing her closely from head to toe. “I once fought for the

  Russians—“

  At that moment, Jon leaped from his chair far more quickly than he had thought possible. Relaxing, feeling the cords slip, then lunging. The loops fell away, the chair clattered backward, and his right fist caught Feng Dun on the point of his jaw. The blow snapped Feng’s neck back and sideways, pinched his spinal column, and knocked him sideways where he would have pitched into Mcdermid, if Mcdermid had still been standing there.

  He was not. Two powerful karate chops to the throat and the side of the head from the suddenly standing “Russian” had knocked Mcdermid to the floor, unconscious. Feng’s legs tripped on Mcdermid’s legs, and Feng slammed down onto his shoulder.