Ridley Pearson - The Risk Agent

Marquardt produced a BlackBerry from a waist clip and worked it one-handed.

“I would not do that, sir,” Grace said. “Your phone is being monitored by the Chinese. Count on it. You do not want them knowing we have located Lu’s accounts.” Grace paused. “They will descend upon us like locusts.”

“Then turn it over,” Marquardt said, his thumb hovering over the green key.

“I cannot do this.”

“You’re out of your depth, Ms. Chu. You don’t want to threaten me. I’ll have you detained.”

“Unlikely,” she said.

“I’ve spoken to Brian and we’re trying to raise as much cash as possible. The proof-of-life comes at the storefront on Nanjing Road. You will be there with the money, but it looks as if it’ll fall short of fifty thousand. Threatening me does not help your cause.”

“Less than fifty thousand? Unacceptable. They are expecting five times that.”

“Brian believes they might accept one hundred. We won’t know until you deliver it.”

“Too risky.”

“This is a game of risks, I’m told. The thumb drive, please.”

Grace caught a glimpse of the phone. The BlackBerry was already connected.

“More tea?” he asked.

She’d barely touched her cup. He wanted her to stay. The call had been to security. The compound’s team? His own? Did it matter?

Grace stood. “Highest bidder wins the drive and its contents.”

“Do not do this,” Marquardt said calmly. “You will be crushed.”

Security would post men at the front and back doors, providing there were at least two men, which she doubted. More like a single bodyguard with contact to the compound’s team.

If indeed a single bodyguard, he would pull back to a position with a view of both doors. That, or he’d enter the house.

“Save your career while you still can.” He opened his palm to her.

She hurried from the room and nearly plowed over Lois Marquardt, who’d been in the hall within eavesdropping range. Lois and Grace’s eyes met. Lois glanced at the front door and she shook her head. Grace scanned the stairs.

Lois nodded and said softly, “Fire ropes in the window seats.”

Grace bounded upstairs.

There was a child asleep in the first room she tried. She moved on to the end of the hallway-the master suite. Spotted the window seat and, pulling off its cushion, opened it. A chain ladder was bolted to the wall. The window faced the access lane and the drive. Men watching the front and back doors would not see her here. She fed the ladder through the window and followed it outside. It danced unpredictably; it took all her strength and balance to descend without whipping it against the house and revealing her position.

She dropped into the landscaping and ducked, keeping low. Plotting her escape. The support team would arrive momentarily; if she weren’t out of the compound by then, they would have her. The compound was essentially a twenty-acre cul-de-sac with a gated single entrance, surrounded by a twelve-foot rock wall topped with broken glass set in concrete. Designed to keep people out, it also kept them in.

She crept through shadow in the direction away from the gated entrance, reaching the end of Marquardt’s house. No security man in sight. It was a one-man show until support arrived, and the bodyguard had chosen the front door-and the compound’s entrance side-to guard.

Grace took off at a run, house-to-house, keeping in shadow whenever possible. She had taken the bus to come here. Now she was on foot.

There was no way she would make it past the gate without close-quarter combat. The gate guards were untrained in anything but raising their hands and checking documents. If there were just two, she could take them. But if they’d summoned their patrols-another two or three keeping watch within the compound-she’d be outnumbered.

She spotted a bicycle dumped in a driveway. Carried it to the access road and climbed on. She circled around the western side of the compound-the booth guards would be expecting her from the east. It might buy her an extra few seconds.

Porch lights from houses lighted the lane only in patches. She held the bike to the far curb beneath towering bamboo, and therefore mostly in shadow. Street noise intensified as she approached the gate and the only break in the high wall. Lights blazed around the small guardhouse where she now spotted two uniformed men.

They spotted her.

One stepped in front of the red-and-white striped pole arm blocking the vehicle entrance. He raised his hand for her to stop.

The other man kept to just outside the guardhouse, a gap in the entrance for pedestrians-nannies and ayis-blocking this as well.

Grace slowed, wishing to appear cooperative. She swung a leg off, but remained balanced on the left pedal, the bike coasting. A matter of yards from the guard at the pole, she hopped off and launched the bike into him, running for the surprised booth guard. He, too, comically raised his hand for her to stop. She broke his left knee; drove her own knee into his nose as he wrenched forward. He went down hard.

The guard who’d gone down with the bike was up and running. He caught sight of his buddy reeling, and when Grace turned to face him, stopped stiffly, unsure how to proceed.

She juked a hard step toward him and he flinched backward. She knew she had him.

“I am not worth it,” she said, speaking Shanghainese. “Jilted mistress. Nothing more. I will put your nut sack in your intestines if you come after me.”

She turned, but did not run. The guard took several steps toward her, but as she shot him a look, he stopped again. His friend groaned. He turned to help him.

Grace lowered her head and fought to contain her adrenaline, wanting so badly to run, but knowing it would only give her away. A dark blue van slowed to turn into the compound-two Chinese in the front, the right age and look for corporate security.

She waited for the van to turn into the gate area and then took off at a run.

In the distance, a bus approached the bus stop.

11:50 P.M.

HUANGPU DISTRICT

SHANGHAI

In the glow of dimmed ceiling lights, Yang Cheng paced past an oil painting by Eddie Lim, a violent eruption of red, white and black. Behind him was the panoramic view of the Huangpu River, and the colorful neon from the tourist ferries plying its waters. Rain pelted the window.

“I am most disappointed in you,” Yang Cheng, brimming with anger, said to Feng.

“I understand.”

“Do you know where I was just now? A dinner with two investors from Brussels. They have agreed in principle to supply me up to one billion euros in capital for the New City construction. One small problem. I have not yet won the bid. Reason I have not yet won the bid? I have not submitted bid. Reason I have not submitted bid? Tragic Lu remains in captivity of kidnappers in possession of Magic Number. Pearl Lady was connection we needed, and now…where is Pearl Lady?”

“I am to blame,” said Feng, still suffering from the pain of the bruises inflicted by the Mongolian. “Inexcusable. I offer my resignation.”

“I will not let you off so easily.” Yang Cheng continued pacing. “One man?”

“A northerner. Mongolian, perhaps.”

“Scum. Inbreds.”

“Of course.”

“Pearl Lady?”

Feng said nothing at first. “We must assume the Mongol has her. In our favor: she will be of no help to him for another twelve hours. Perhaps longer.”

“Not an entire failure then.”

Feng awaited more admonishment. When it wasn’t forthcoming he dared to say, “If I may suggest-?”

“No, you may not.” Yang spun his wedding ring. “Go ahead,” he said.

Feng considered his words carefully. “If the ransom exchange takes place, if Tragic Lu is recovered alive, then likely the New City bid number-the Magic Number-if in fact Lu Hao has it, as we suspect, is in Marquardt’s possession.”