Ridley Pearson - The Risk Agent

“Can’t help you.”

“It’s Shanghai,” said Dulwich by way of explanation. “You work out of Shanghai.”

“Sometimes.”

“Six trips there in the last fourteen months.”

Knox eyed him for a moment. Dulwich’s new gig gave him access to far too much information for Knox’s comfort. “I like China.”

Looking at Knox, people might have taken him for a nomad, but few would imagine the extent of it. When not living out of a tent in some trading outpost, he called hotels and rentals home. Tommy ran the online side of the company back in Detroit, unaware the guests at the house were paid home health aide supervisors, while Knox roamed all corners of Asia, from the Middle East to eastern China, parts of South America and Eastern Europe as their buyer.

With the death of their father three years earlier, Knox had assumed full responsibility for Tommy. He’d left the high-paying, high-risk work, forming the more manageable trading company and bringing Tommy in on it. So far, so good.

“What do you make of the ransom demand?” asked Dulwich.

Knox studied the photocopy.

“Left-handed. Under thirty.”

“Because?” Dulwich leaned forward.

“Writing Mandarin in simplified characters began in the nineteen-twenties. It didn’t take hold until the fifties and sixties. This character,” Knox said, circling one with his finger, “was modified more recently than that, and began being taught in schools in the late eighties. That gives us the relative age of the writer. As to the calligraphy-the tails are from a lefty. I can’t tell from the photocopy-was this written in ink or pencil?”

“Pencil.”

“The continuity of the lines, the lead, suggests a mechanical pencil. Common enough there, but maybe he works as a draftsman or engineer, or he’s a bean-counter. The date, the first of the month, is Western notation, not Chinese. That’s interesting. Why not Chinese notation?” Knox slid the document back across the table with his index finger. “But you know all this already.”

“Some of it, not all. I need you, Knox. Danner needs you. We need a hair sample, an electric razor-anything with his DNA for verification.”

When he was first getting to know Dulwich back in Kuwait, Knox had read him as a steak-and-potatoes guy. The kind of person who got his reading from the back of shampoo bottles while on the can. But over time, he’d revealed a deeper intelligence and far broader interests than Knox had initially suspected. Now Dulwich had the resources of a major security company-Rutherford Risk-at his disposal. Companies like Rutherford Risk operated like a private CIA or NSA. Knox knew better than to get sucked into one of their operations.

“I see two people.”

“In his capacity as a consultant for The Berthold Group,” Dulwich continued, “Lu’s main job was incentivizing certain individuals and companies involved with the construction job.”

“You mean he was paying out bribes.”

“Yeah.” Dulwich shrugged. “He’s known to have kept a set of books of these confidential payments. One theory is that one of the individuals receiving the kickbacks realized how valuable a man like Lu Hao was to Berthold and snatched him up. Another-”

Knox cut in. “Listen, I feel horrible about Danny. I do. But I’ve got Tommy in a good place. I can’t afford to step out on the business, even for a short time. I’m sorry.”

“You’re SERE trained. I paid for it in the first place.”

Few civilians were allowed into the military’s Survival Evasion Resistance Escape training program. A lifetime ago for Knox, Dulwich had arranged for him and six others to go through SERE training, as well as the FBI’s Quantico course. It made Knox a uniquely qualified civilian.

“You know plenty of others with SERE training. Ex-Air Force. Hire one of them.”

“They don’t do regular business in Shanghai,” Dulwich said. “This is Clete Danner we’re talking about, man. Maybe I judged you wrong.”

Knox sighed, looked away. “Maybe so.”

“You ever seen the inside of a Chinese prison?” Dulwich asked.

“Give it a rest. That’s beneath you.”

“If PSB get Danner, that’s where he’s headed. For an eternity. You know the laws. He’ll be considered a spy. We need to beat them to it, and we need to move quickly.” The Public Security Bureau-the Shanghai police-was nothing to mess with.

“And if I slip up, it’ll be the same thing for me. I’ve got Tommy. No go.”

“We’ve put a woman into Shanghai. An accountant who knew the hostage personally. She’ll pose as a new Berthold employee and go after the bookkeeping with you. She can interpret it once you’ve got it. The hope is, those docs will help lead us to the kidnappers in time. Meanwhile, we’ll be preparing to negotiate the ransom and the drop.”

“Dangerous to play both sides like that.”

“Yeah, but what are you gonna do? If a Triad took Lu Hao and Danner, what do you think they’ll do to the American once the ransom is paid?”

“Don’t lay this on me.”

“It’s not about you. It’s about Danner. He’s facing prison or death. You know I wouldn’t ask you otherwise.”

Knox shook his head. “Bullshit you wouldn’t.”

“Look, you have a legitimate reason to be in Shanghai. Pretend like it’s a business trip. Meet up with the woman we’re putting in place. Support her. Help find Lu’s accounts. We’ll supply you with whatever we can on the sly. And if we find Danner, you bring him out.”

“And what if I don’t get out?” Knox snapped, realizing as he said it that his mouth had betrayed him. “What happens to Tommy then?”

“We’ll pay your fee to him,” Dulwich said, sensing his progress. “We’ll double it. Deep pockets on this one.”

“I don’t like it,” Knox said.

“Tommy says you’re bored.”

“Tommy talks too much. Enough with the cheap shots.”

“You know what I think?” Dulwich said.

“I don’t remember asking.”

“You once said pulling me out of that truck changed everything. Remember that?”

“Yeah. That’s about the same time I decided not to go to Afghanistan and to get out of the contracting business.”

“Peggy is eight months pregnant with their second,” Dulwich said of Danner’s wife. “She went hysterical when I told her he’d gone missing. She’s forbidden from flying. Stuck in Houston.”

Shit. Knox should have known about the pregnancy. Should have stayed in better touch.

“I can’t put any of our guys into China right now,” Dulwich said. “We’ve had inquiries-formal inquiries asking if one of our employees is missing. They’ll be watching Immigration. But since you do business there on a regular basis, you go in as you. Just another buying trip. You meet up with the woman and together you find the books, find Lu Hao and Danner.”

“I don’t babysit,” Knox said.

“You won’t have to. She’s former Red Army, very, very smart, and a looker.”

“Shit, shit and shit.”

“We have to leave tonight,” Dulwich said. Checking his wristwatch, he said, “Wheels up in ninety.”

Knox drummed his fingers on the rattan tabletop. “And what if they do kill him?”

“Then we deliver the wrath of God upon them. You and me. Whatever it takes.”

Slowly, Knox stood and stretched. “Do I have time for a shower?”

“God,” Dulwich said with a smile, “I sure hope so.”

5:00 P.M.

HUANGPU DISTRICT

SHANGHAI

The waiting area of the Guangdong Road PSB was a gray, tube-lit room with a poster warning of avian flu, hung thickly with cigarette smoke. The officer-of-the-month photo hadn’t been changed since June. A black-light bug-killer sparked randomly above the door.