by Chris Goff
“You’re not a spy.”
“I know that, sir.”
“At best you’ve got some rudimentary training in covert operations. Hell, without the police liaison, you have no authority to operate on foreign soil.”
“I also swore an oath to protect my country and its national security.”
“What are you asking for, Jordan?”
“Just a couple more days. I’ve got a feeling Zhen is alive. Let me keep looking for him. Give me forty-eight hours. If I don’t have something tangible by then, I’ll get on the plane.” She could hear Lory’s fingers drumming the desk. Maybe he’d listen if she sweetened the pot. “Look, if I come away empty-handed, tell them I disobeyed your orders. If I find what I think I’ll find, you take the bows.”
“Daugherty warned me about you.”
“Did he now?” Jordan wasn’t surprised.
Chapter 17
She had barely put away her phone when Davis slipped his arm around her shoulders and started guiding her back toward Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street.
“We can’t stay here,” Davis said.
Instinctively Jordan pulled away.
“Listen,” he said, tightening his grip and bending his mouth so close to her ear she could feel his warm breath. “There are two Triad members coming up the street. We need to backtrack, now!”
She peeked over his shoulder. Two gang members moved swiftly in their direction. She wasn’t sure if the two men were dialed in on them yet, but it wouldn’t be long before she and Davis hit their radar. Then all hell would break loose.
Tucking her head against Davis’s shoulder to hide her red hair, she matched his stride toward Shangxiajiu Commercial Pedestrian Street.
Davis leaned in. “When we get there, you need to be quick. Turn right and try to blend in with the crowd, then when you get to Upper Ninth Road, hail a cab.”
Since when did he give the orders?
“What are you planning to do?” she asked.
“Run a diversion.”
His words caused her to slow her pace. “I can’t let you put yourself in danger.”
“Keep moving, Rae,” he said, guiding her forward. “I can handle myself.”
“Right, because all international correspondents receive specialized training.” Or because of the mentioned military background? When she had a chance, she would ask him about that.
“In my case, yes.”
They locked eyes, and she saw a sharpness there that made her believe it was more than a little. He had a look she’d seen in the eyes of agents and Marines prepared to put their lives on the line to protect those entrusted into their care. She’d seen the same look in Batya Ganani’s eyes when they were running for their lives in Israel, the same look in the captain’s eyes when they had come under attack outside Hoholeve. It was a look that belonged to someone with combat experience, someone on a mission, someone with training who had a plan.
She had a better view of the men now. Both were small and slight, the dragon tattoo curling around their biceps. “Maybe they can tell us what happened with Zhen?”
“Don’t even think it.” It almost sounded like an order.
Jordan peered up at him, but he never looked down, his gaze sweeping the crowd like a built-in sonar device. “If we work together, I think we could take them.”
“Please, can we just go with my way? Where there are two of these guys, there are more, and at the moment they’re not interested in me. It’s you they want to kill, and I’m not about to let that happen.” His tone had softened, but his voice still held an impervious quality that made her want to rebel and acquiesce at the same time.
“Since when did you become my guardian angel?”
He didn’t respond, but she felt his arm muscles bunch like a cat getting ready to spring. “We’re almost there. When I tell you, veer right and get to the end of the street. Catch a cab and go straight to your hotel, not the consulate.”
For a split second, she wondered if this might be a trap. Why was he waving her off the consulate, when Lory told her to go straight there?
Not that it mattered. There was no way Jordan was going to serve him up as a decoy.
Before she could come up with an alternate plan, they reached the intersection at Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street. “Listen to me, Davis.”
He ignored her, forcing his way into the passing throngs of people while keeping his arm firmly around her shoulders. Then as the crowd closed ranks behind them, he spun her away to the right and disappeared. Jordan found herself caught in the current of people, swooped away like a fish in a fast-running river. Managing to twist herself around, she stumbled along backward while moving sideways against the tide.
Focused on keeping her feet, it took her a moment to spot Davis. He stood a head above the crowd moving swiftly in the opposite direction. Then two gang members breached the crowd and loomed before her. They looked both ways before spotting Davis, then taking the bait, moved off in his direction. His gambit had worked.
Afraid of what might happen if the gangsters caught up to him, Jordan started following. Then suddenly, as if fulfilling a prophecy, four more gang members materialized. When two of them headed her way, there was nothing she could do except turn around and head for Upper Ninth Street.
She had almost made the taxis when someone grabbed her arm.
“Where you going, lady?” asked a recognizable voice. The man wrenched her arm, spinning her around. The gangster from Di Shi Fu Road, the one she’d stabbed with her tactical pen, grinned.
“Let me go.” She tried pulling her arm away, but he held tight. When she tried twisting out of his grasp, he laughed and clamped down harder.
“You’re not getting away this time, bitch.”
She saw light flash off a knife blade and noted the swoop of his arm as it skimmed toward her. She arched away, but there was nowhere to go.
Jordan braced for the strike. When it came, the blow knocked her down, but the only pain came from her elbow slamming against the ground. She moved her hand to her side. No blood.
It took her another beat to realize the gangster was laid out cold on the tiles beside her. The other gang members had scattered, and suddenly Davis loomed above her.
“Where did you come from?” Jordan sat up. Pain shot along her arm as she tried to plant her hand and help herself to her feet.
“I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to go!”
A crowd was gathering, forming a blockade around them, growing and tightening as people pressed close to see what all the commotion was about. From somewhere down the street, she heard a police whistle.
Realizing that getting caught like this, with a Triad member down, would do nothing to help her present situation, she reached for Davis’s hand. He pulled her to her feet.
“Ḿhgὁi, excuse me,” he said, plowing a path to the street.
There was no shortage of taxis at the corner and no hesitation on the part of the driver to spirit them away in the face of the descending police once Davis flashed a hundred dollar bill. Jordan gave the driver the address. Once clear of the area, she drew a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and settled back in the seat.
“Thank you for back there.”
Davis waved off her gratitude. “You would have done the same.”
“I would have thought about it.”
He grinned. “You know how you can pay me back.”
Jordan stole a look at him from the corner of her eye. From the way he’d disarmed the gangster and laid him out cold on the ground, it was clear he was more than just a news correspondent. Just like her father had been more than a hockey player. This man had skills. The question was how current they were and where they’d been acquired.
“How?”
“With a story.”
“If that’s what you’re really after,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” Jordan shrugged. “Except that once we’re free of this cab, I’ve
got a couple questions for you.”
Chapter 18
The taxi driver made two passes around the consulate. The first one established that the Chinese military had set up camp. The second showed military placed strategically at every entry point.
“I told you it wasn’t a good idea to come here. Any other thoughts?” Davis asked.
“One.” Mary had booked Jordan at the Guangzhou Mei Ling Hotel several blocks from the U.S. consulate. The small building was wedged in between the Zhujiang New Town subway station and the Union store, a seller of basic Western and imported foods. Large red lettering in both Chinese and English festooned the hotel’s portico, while inside the front desk glistened in gaudy tiles of shiny gold. “May I help you?” asked a woman behind the desk. She saved her brightest smile for Davis, who stood behind Jordan in line.
“I have a reservation,” Jordan said.
“Passport?” After verifying Jordan’s documents and swiping a credit card, the woman handed everything back. “Would you like two keys?”
Jordan looked over at Davis. “Oh, we’re not together. He needs his own room.”
“Do you have a reservation?”
Davis shook his head and flashed a smile. “It was an unexpected trip.”
“I’m sorry, but the hotel is full. There is much going on in Guangzhou this week. I’m afraid you’ll have trouble finding a room in the city.” The woman glanced between them again. “Perhaps your friend would reconsider?”
“Does it have two beds?” Davis asked.
Jordan looked at the woman and shook her head.
“Let me make a few calls and see what I can find.” After phoning five of their backup hotels, the hotel clerk cradled the receiver. “Sorry, no luck. Everywhere full.”
“How about a rollaway?” This time he looked beseechingly at Jordan. “You wouldn’t really put me out on the street, would you?”
The woman tapped on her keyboard. “I can have the houseman bring up a cot, but there will be an extra charge.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Davis said. “In fact, I’ll pay for the whole room.”
“Nice expense account,” Jordan said, feeling her resolve crack despite her better judgment. It didn’t help that he was so damned good-looking or that he’d just saved her ass. She waited a moment longer before giving in. “You’re buying dinner, too.”
Their room was on the third floor, and she almost retracted her goodwill offer upon seeing the layout. Only slightly more muted in tone than the common areas, the bedroom walls were covered in gold-and-white wallpaper descending to planked hardwood floors. The cot had already been delivered and was crammed into the tiny space along with a double bed, a flat-screen TV, a small desk with an electric kettle and ergonomic chair, a clothes rack, and a sitting area consisting of a small table and two chairs looking out at a small French balcony.
“Look at it this way, it’s bigger than most New York City hotel rooms,” Davis said, dropping his backpack in the middle of the cot. “Where’s your luggage?”
“I’m guessing at the consulate.”
“I take it you had your go-bag with you?”
“In Agent Todd’s car.”
Davis stepped to the window and looked out. “Does anyone know you’re staying here?”
“Not unless someone hacked my e-mail, which is always a possibility. But seeing as we weren’t ambushed upon our arrival, I’m fairly certain we’re okay for the night.”
He seemed content to take her word for it. “Hungry?”
“Starved.” She’d hardly eaten anything since yesterday morning. Just a bite or two before lunch had been interrupted.
While Davis ordered take out from the in-house restaurant, Jordan checked out the bathroom. Separated from the main room by an etched glass wall, it was designed more for aesthetics than providing privacy. After washing her face, she conducted a quick survey of her newly acquired cuts and bruises. Her elbow was red and slightly swollen, leaving her forearm and hand slightly numb. She needed to put ice on it. There were dark fingerprint marks on her arm. Bruises deep enough that if Henry were there, he might have been able to pull fingerprints and ID her assailant. Last, there was a welt where the tip of the gangster’s knife had grazed her stomach. She’d been lucky not to have suffered Todd’s fate. She owed that to Davis.
Which was a big part of why he was in the next room. That and the fact he was incredibly handsome. She couldn’t deny her attraction. Still, it didn’t earn him a pass on explaining where he’d learned to disarm an armed assailant and knock him out cold.
Davis was sitting at the desk typing something on his computer when she reentered the room, so she brewed some tea and then settled into one of the chairs beneath the window. The view was of another wing of the hotel and a small courtyard.
While Davis worked, Jordan pulled out her phone and called Henry. She’d sent him the photo only a few hours ago, so there was a good chance he hadn’t even looked at it yet. Still, identifying the men who tried killing her—twice—was high on her list, and it was worth a try.
Henry sounded pleased that she’d called. After a few seconds of chitchat, she got down to business. “Did you get the photo I sent?”
“Yep.”
“Any luck identifying the gang member?”
“I’m one of the best forensic specialists you’ll find, Rae, but even I’m not that good. The facial recognition software is running, but do you have any idea how many Triad members or suspected Triad members there are?”
“Over forty thousand.” High enough numbers that the odds of the database coughing up a match to one of the men was slim. “What about the tattoo? Did you find anything on it?”
If he was surprised she knew, he gave no indication.
“We had better luck there. The Triad is actually composed of a lot of little Triads, and that particular tattoo is associated with one called the Danxia Triad. It’s a subgroup of the Guangdong Triad, based out of Shaoguan.”
Jordan set down her tea and reached for the small pad of paper and the pen on the table. “Can you spell that?” She scribbled as he parsed out the letters. “Isn’t that close to the area where the fragment originated?”
“Spot on.”
There was the connection she’d been looking for. “I owe you, Henry.”
“Bring me a souvenir.”
Davis glanced up as she set down the phone. “Good news?”
Jordan picked her tea back up and considered how much she should tell him. She needed to be cautious. “Henry ID’d the tattoo.”
“What’s the connection with Shaoguan?”
He had been paying attention. She would have to be more careful. A rap at the door saved her from answering. “I’ll bet it’s the food.”
“Don’t think we’re done here,” Davis said, pushing back the desk chair and crossing to the door. His hand caught the handle, and then at the last minute, he looked through the peephole.
Davis yanked back his hand, and sharp pinpricks of fear propelled Jordan out of her chair. “What is—”
Davis cut her off with a hand signal, but it was his hard expression that made her swallow her words.
“Who is it?” she mouthed, starting forward to see.
Davis blocked her path. “It’s the police. How the hell did they find us?”
The girl at the desk! They’d shown her their passports, and she must have entered them into the system. It was a rookie mistake. Jordan should have realized that the Chinese would be monitoring the hotels and watching for credit card usage. The Communist Party was notorious for tracking foreigners’ movements—especially foreigners they wanted to question.
The Chinese detention centers carried their own reputation—thirty people jammed into a ten-by-ten cell with no blankets, chairs, beds, or pillows. Whether or not a prisoner was brought up on charges, all detainees were made to work for food, and corporal punishment was common. Once in custody, the police could detain them for as long as they wanted—forever unless some
one at the consulate found out. Maybe even if they did.
They needed a way out.
Jordan flung open the windows to the French balcony and looked with dismay at the ornamental railing bolted to the outside of the building. Sticking her head out, she could see all the windows were decorated the same and there was not a fire escape in sight. She and Davis were four floors up with no way down.
Leaning out to look at the ground below, she was discouraged to find the night blanketing the small common area that stretched between the two buildings. The dark made it nearly impossible to gauge the distance to the ground or to see what lay directly beneath them. She would guess it was thirty feet to the ground from the bottom of the railing. Farther out, some of the passage had been converted to parking spots, and the lights and action of the city lit up the streets at either end.
The police tried again, this time pounding on the door. Jordan could hear them talking to each other.
“We need to get out of here,” she whispered. “It sounds like one of them is heading back to the front desk for a key. That will only buy us a few minutes. Any ideas?”
“Only one.” Davis picked up one of the chairs near the window and jammed its back under the doorknob.
Jordan smiled. That might buy them an extra fifteen seconds, if they were lucky.
Yanking back the covers on the bed, she stripped the sheets and knotted one to the other. Based on the average length of a queen-sized bed, and subtracting the inches tied up in the knots, one bed provided close to ten feet of makeshift rope. Quick on the uptake, Davis grabbed his camera off the bed, looping it around his neck; stripped the cot; and added his sheets to one end of the chain while Jordan tied the other end to the bottom of the balcony railing. Hung for decoration, she could only hope it would bear their weight.
Davis held up his end of the makeshift rope. “It won’t make it to the ground.”
Jordan reached for the sheet and tossed it over the edge. “It doesn’t have to. If I’ve done the math right, we’ll run out of sheet with just over ten feet to go. That’s a single-story jump. It’s doable. When you get to the end of the sheet, just hang and drop. Let your knees and body absorb the shock.” She could see he wanted to discuss it, but there wasn’t time.
