China Strike

by Matt Rees

  “She’s on a plane to Palma now, following Feng Yi. Before she took off, she got an ID on the Swedish woman who accompanied him onto the flight. Her name is Maj Sand. I can’t find anything more about her, except that she’s listed on the website of a drug treatment clinic in Stockholm as a counselor for addicts.”

  The Krokodil was still taking his drugs. His blighted skin revealed that much. But he might have taken counseling, might have been in Stockholm and met this woman. It was possible, of course, that she was unconnected to the assassin, but Verrazzano had to let the worst case play out in his head to figure out how he could counter it. “Is Bill going to tag them when they get to the airport in Palma?”

  “That’s his plan. What’s Feng Yi’s game now? Has he gone rogue?”

  “Possibly. But I think he’s been lured to Palma.” Verrazzano scanned back through the diagram he built in his head of leads and possibilities. He reached the house in Detroit where he had found the first Chinese engineer dead. The victim’s wife, pregnant, weeping in her bedroom, recalled that her husband said the trouble started “when the big man took off his wig.” What did that mean? Was Feng Yi the big man?

  “Lured? By the guys who’ve been killing the engineers, you think?”

  The big man. “Because he has all the codes. All the secrets. Everything they need to activate this big crash.”

  “Oh, my God. But we’ve blocked their stock market play. They won’t make any money, even if they do pull this off.”

  “Maybe there’s another short sale that we don’t know about. Or someone else is paying them to do it. Maybe money’s not even why they’re in it, after all. Tell Bill to be careful. The Swedish woman is working for the most dangerous man you could imagine.”

  “The Krokodil?”

  Verrazzano was silent a moment. Todd was up against much more than that. The Krokodil was only as lethal as Wyatt’s left hand. “Tell Bill not to lose them. But warn him to keep an eye out for Wyatt. I’m going to get on a plane to Palma as soon as I can.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Bill Todd’s trip from his hotel to the airport in Palma took almost as long as it did for Feng Yi to fly from Vienna because he had to work hard to be sure the man who killed the Irish banker in the shark tank wasn’t on his tail. He took a bus from his hotel and got off under the palms at the busy intersection of Avinguda de Jaume III and the Passeig de Mallorca, where the detritus of the Darien crash had been shunted and piled in between the tall palms. He crossed the dusty nineteenth-century flood culvert and headed into the alleys of the medieval town. At least there were no Dariens there to pressure him with the enormity of his job. He hurried past the cathedral and down the steps to cross the Parc de la Mar. He hailed a taxi on the broad avenue by the beach. He scanned the traffic behind him as the cab pulled away. He was pretty sure he was clean, but he couldn’t be certain. The road was just too crowded and the lights of the speeding vehicles weaved and ducked like two dozen boxing bouts in a single ring.

  By the time he spotted Feng Yi and the Swedish woman at arrivals, Todd was sweating hard. He chided himself for focusing on his worries about a tail. Stick to the job of watching the Chinese suspect, he told himself. He tried to stay alert to the potential threat behind him while also trusting that he had done a good enough job of evasion back in the old town. He followed Feng, skirting the groups of loudmouthed English tourists and their sullen, tired children.

  The Chinese man walked politely at the side of the Swede most of the way through the terminal. He spotted a Wi-Fi zone and snagged a spot on the end of a metal bench beside a crowd of excitable teens and wilted business travelers. He brought a tablet out of his shapeless blazer and set to work. The Swede stood at his side, biting her nails. Todd worked around behind them. He saw a picture of a limo on the screen of Feng’s tablet. The limo had been photographed on a city street, somewhere classy and classical, Europe for sure. As Feng opened up another interface, he spoke to the Swede with a big smile. He tapped in a few pieces of information and a couple of lines of code before he submitted it. He put the tablet back in his jacket and rose from the seat. He drew a finger across his neck and rocked backward. His laughter, shrill and cruel, cut through the babble of conversation and the public address announcements in the terminal. The Swedish woman shared in the laughter. Her smile was quite genuine. Feng high-fived her. They went out into the late-night heat.

  Feng and the Swede joined the line for a taxi. Todd allowed a few passengers to take the spots behind them, then he hid himself at the back of the line. When Feng’s turn came to climb into a cab, Todd cut out of the line and walked quickly to the fifth taxi in the waiting lane and climbed inside. The driver started to protest. Todd flashed his ICE ID. It would mean nothing specific to the Spaniard, but it would at least suggest that this wasn’t just an impatient tourist in the rear of the little SEAT hatchback. The driver shrugged and pulled away. Todd pointed at Feng’s taxi. “Stay with him, okay?” Another shrug from the driver, and they went toward the highway ramp.

  Todd checked the road behind him. Some kind of fight had broken out at the taxi rank. Tourists spilled onto the roadway. Maybe his success in cutting the line had prompted others to try the same thing. A Mercedes pulled out of the taxi lane and took the same direction on the highway as Feng and Todd.

  He watched the Chinese man’s outline in the rear window of his cab. Feng was talking, gesticulating with his fat hands. The Swedish woman nodded her head. There had been something conspiratorial about them at the airport, and their behavior in the taxi confirmed it for Todd. He couldn’t say quite why, but the man and woman seemed like business associates after a long negotiation, a deal done and plans laid. The taxi left the highway at Son Malferit and took the road along the seashore, back toward the cathedral.

  Todd checked the road behind his cab. The Mercedes was a few cars back in the next lane. A plane flew low over the road, its engines blasting, on its way in for a landing. He craned his neck to watch its path.

  Feng’s taxi looped around the marina as far as the Embarcadero where the ferries left for Barcelona and Valencia on the Spanish mainland. The cab pulled into the bus stop, and the passengers got out. Feng tossed some cash to the driver and took out his cell phone. The woman lifted her foot and rested it on the bollard. She edged her skirt up to show him her leg. He took a photo and laughed his shrieking bray. He fiddled with the phone and showed her something. She slapped his shoulder playfully.

  They walked past a seafood restaurant by the ticket booth for the ferries and toward the private quays. The dock was lined with gleaming white pleasure cruisers that’d be way too small for a billionaire but plenty big enough for someone with ten million in the bank.

  Todd paid off his driver and hurried into the cover of the bus stop. Across the busy avenue, the Mercedes pulled up outside a tapas bar. The passenger stayed in the cab. If it was the shark tank killer, Todd wondered whether he could back himself to win. Well, if he lost, he wouldn’t have to pay out on the bet.

  He cut around the far side of the seafood restaurant. Feng and the Swede were on a quay running parallel to the shore, about one hundred yards from Todd. The man was a couple of yards ahead of her, eager, gesturing for her to move faster and laughing.

  Todd glanced back to the road. The Mercedes was gone. He had missed the passenger’s exit. He scanned the traffic for a tall American crossing between the racing vehicles, but he saw nothing. Maybe the shark tank guy was behind the bus stop. Todd took a step toward it.

  “You’re clean, Bill.”

  He spun toward the voice. Noelle Kinsella wasn’t looking at him. She stood at the corner of the seafood restaurant, lifting up onto her tiptoes to keep Feng Yi in view.

  “Jesus, Noelle. You were in the Mercedes? I thought you were—”

  “The shark tank guy?” She ignored his anxiety, still scanning the quay for their targets. “My flight landed just before Feng’s did. Don’t worry. I was just checking you to be sure you weren’t taile
d.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “So that you could spend your time gaping in my direction and letting everyone know I was keeping an eye out?” She beckoned to him. “They’re going to that yacht out on the end of the quay.”

  Todd rubbed the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve. He had been on his own with the knowledge that the tall, deadly American was in the same city for twelve hours. He was glad to see his partner. “Should we get closer?”

  “Once they’re on board. But not yet.” Kinsella went to a thick, low palm tree and peered through the fronds. Feng gestured to a 150-foot motor yacht with wonder. “Did you figure her out? The Swede?”

  “I’d have said Feng was counting on some action once they get to the boat. But I don’t know.”

  “Spill it.”

  “It’s more than just a sex thing between them. There’s some kind of understanding.”

  “Sex isn’t an understanding?”

  “At the airport, he sent some kind of file from his tablet. I couldn’t tell exactly what. It had to do with a car, though, and when it was done, she was satisfied somehow.”

  Feng helped the Swedish woman up the steps onto the motor yacht. They went into the living quarters through the rear deck. The door swung shut behind them.

  “When’s Dom getting here?” Todd asked.

  “His flight leaves Prague about now. Our sweet little friend from the FBI is arriving soon too.” Kinsella sneered.

  “I told Roula you should go to Prague. To help Dom.”

  “Dom can manage without me.”

  “But I can’t?”

  She watched the yacht. The lights came on in the forward cabin. “You’re my partner, so I came here instead of Prague.”

  He smiled.

  The low whine of an outboard engine sounded over the traffic from the avenue. An inflatable dinghy came around the prow of the motor yacht and swung about to the swim deck at the rear of the boat. A tall man climbed out into the glow of the single blue night-light, tied off the dinghy, and went up to the deck of the yacht. In the shadow of the canopy, he glanced around the marina.

  Todd saw the face. “It’s the guy who killed McCarthy.” He pulled himself back against the wall of the restaurant.

  “You’re sure? Wyatt? He’s hard to see from here.”

  “I’ve spent the last day waiting for him to kill me. I recognize the son of a bitch.”

  Wyatt went into the cabin and shut the door behind him. Todd reached into his shoulder holster and started for the quay.

  “Hold it, Bill.” Kinsella grabbed his arm.

  “We’ve got to go in there. Feng’s our only lead. Wyatt’s going to kill him.”

  “We don’t know that. They could be working together. Wyatt didn’t exactly look like he was sweating it. If we go over there now, he’s going to see us coming a long way off. If he’s who you say he is, the boat will either be gone or we’ll be dead before we get to the gangway. We need to let this play out, and we need backup.”

  Todd holstered his weapon. He kept his hand on it for a long moment, then he let his arm drop.

  “We have to alert the ICE agent in Madrid, Bill, and have him liaise with the police here in Palma—”

  “Liaise. Will you listen to yourself? You actually said liaise.”

  “We’re ICE agents, Bill. We’re not James fucking Bond. You want to jump on a Jet Ski and paraglide through the window of the yacht in a tuxedo, you joined the wrong organization.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right.” He kicked a palm tree and cursed.

  “Putting your faith in procedures isn’t working for you, huh?”

  “This is real big stuff, Noelle.”

  “Then put your faith in Dom Verrazzano.” She shifted her attention to the yacht. “That’s my plan.”

  CHAPTER 28

  One of Vienna’s favorite desserts, a Bundt cake called a Gugelhupf, was created for the Emperor Franz Josef to eat during afternoons with his mistress. At the Club Rex, Minister Ma enjoyed the company of a naked woman and a slice of that same delicacy. Unlike the staid old ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ma dipped the sweet sponge into a wide martini glass and sucked the vodka out of the cake.

  He lay on the cushioned floor in his private room and watched the Ukrainian woman dance in the red neon lights, each movement repeated a hundred times by her image in the mirrored walls. She piled her peroxided hair on the crown of her head sensuously and gave the Chinese minister the kind of smile that suggested she was worried her teeth might pop right out of her mouth if she relaxed her jaw.

  Ma leered at her. This was how the foreign delegations had danced for him at the trade talks that day. Briefly he superimposed the face of the secretary of state on the writhing whore. Then he rode the woman, imagining she was one of the new cars that Feng Yi’s computer virus had hijacked, savoring the wildness of her movements, letting her power shoot him out of control.

  He could still smell the woman, the cheap perfume and the pungent sex, when his communications director opened the door for him to climb into his Red Horizon limousine out on Lindengasse. He touched his fingers to his nose and inhaled as the car rounded the corner to Mariahilfer and headed past the art museum toward the Burgring. The dark hulk of the old palace hid the great paintings of centuries past. Ma smiled. The models had all been whores, and the painters had been their johns. Now their works were examined for brushstrokes and composition by the pompous, fat bourgeoisie. He would make them look again, when he led the Communist Party—when he led China. They would see that beneath the velvet smocks and the petticoats, their art was decadent and syphilitic, just as their economies were diseased. They would feel his mastery.

  The communications director took his cell phone out of his jacket. He read a text and frowned. Minister Ma turned away. He was all bliss, and the men who worked for him only ever saw problems.

  The limousine picked up speed and ran a red light. The driver’s shoulders lifted, his grip on the wheel noticeably tighter. Ma watched through the plastic shield that separated him from the chauffeur. They weaved through the late-night traffic, faster and faster.

  “Minister Ma,” the communications director said. He proffered the phone. “I do not understand this text.”

  “Not now.” Ma moved forward, perching on the edge of the bench seat. He opened his mouth to speak to the driver. The car sped still faster through the junction by the State Opera House, narrowly missing a garbage truck clearing away the day’s tourist mess. Ma looked to the left and saw his hotel recede out of sight.

  “Where are you going?” he called. “Tan, what are you doing?”

  “I can’t stop.” The driver’s voice was strangled and panicked. “Minister Ma, I can’t control the car.”

  They raced up behind two ranks of vehicles at the next red light. The driver swung the limousine away from the waiting cars, south into Schwarzenbergplatz. A taxi pulled out abruptly from the curb. The driver screamed and cut left. The communications director fell across the bench seat and crushed Ma against the door. Ma pushed back and cursed. The director’s cell phone dropped into Ma’s lap. The limo jumped onto the wide pedestrian area down the center of the square. The cobbles were crowded with young people strolling in the mild summer night, gathering around guitarists to sing songs and watching Pakistani men try to sell bright-pink light sticks.

  “Stop the car, you fool,” Ma yelled.

  “Minister Ma, the car is accelerating like the Darien cars the other day.”

  Ma picked up the communications director’s cell phone. He raised it to hurl it back at his underling.

  Before them, General Schwarzenberg rode a gigantic bronze horse atop a huge granite plinth. The hero of the Napoleonic Wars stared ahead, watching the great battles of the nineteenth century unfold. For a moment, Minister Ma realized that, of course, the general’s brave regard would actually have been a witness to the extinction of thousands under his command. Here comes one more death, he thought, as th
e car hurtled between the screeching young Austrians toward the mass of stone. The driver let go of the wheel and dived across the front seats.

  The car hit a low bollard, and Ma’s arm, holding the cell phone, jumped up in front of his face. The text message on the cell phone read, “You are the drone. I am hanging up now.”

  Ma recalled the insult with which he had humiliated his computer expert. The massive plinth of granite rushed up at the car. Ma filled his lungs and bellowed. “Feng, you bastard.”

  PART 3

  CHAPTER 29

  The Spanish police created a perimeter with plainclothes officers. They wanted to empty the marina, but Kinsella persuaded them that a clear out would alert the suspects on the yacht to the presence of the cops. So when Verrazzano arrived from the airport, he found a dozen local policemen loitering undercover along the quay and behind the seafood restaurant, which was serving an early breakfast to a group of middle-aged German vacationers with skin burned by the sun to the vibrant tone of the lobster in the salad on their plates. Kinsella showed him the yacht where Feng Yi had spent the night with Wyatt and the Swedish woman. “Wyatt is dangerous,” she said.

  You don’t know the half of it, Verrazzano thought.

  Todd came to him accompanied by a Spaniard who hunched nervously and twitched his neck. “Hey, Dom. This is Comisario Cruz. He’s commanding the squad from the local police department and he—”

  “I cannot handle this situation,” Cruz said. “Your ICE agent in Madrid told me this was an interdiction connected to a computer software case. Now it’s about the Chinese government and the Darien crash and the man who went in the shark tank at the aquarium. We need backup.”

  “You have twelve officers here,” Verrazzano said. “Any more and the people on that boat will know we’re coming.”

  “See? You want to board the yacht. My officers aren’t able to do that. I mean, they can try. But it’s not what they know how to do.”