Ridley Pearson - The Risk Agent

Even more currency in yuan: perhaps two hundred thousand.

He discovered a plastic bag containing a Mongolian passport, some family photographs and a small amount of Mongolian currency. Alongside the passport was a policeman’s ID wallet.

The sight of it stopped him briefly.

“Ah ha!” he said. “I see we are brothers.” He sat down on the mat, surrounded by money-drugged by it-the Mongol’s head at his feet. “So let me ask you this, brother: put yourself in my position. All this cash. You are alone with a suspect who is a spineless kidnapper, an illegal foreigner, and, by the existence of this camera, more than likely a murderer. Huh? Do you wait for the long arm of justice, or take matters into you own hands?”

The Mongol shook his head and squirmed.

“For the sake of conversation,” Shen said. “Humor me. What’s your next move?” He eyed the money. Five years salary? Ten? Twenty? He’d avoided the penny-ante stuff all these years, but now the jackpot. Was he supposed to turn it over to someone only to have them make it disappear, and maybe him along with it, just to tidy things up? He could strike a compromise: share it with a superior and ensure no one questioned his sudden retirement.

“Actionable intelligence,” Shen said. “You tell me all you know and then we take a drive, you and me. Okay, brother? A small ferry on the Huangpu. A man I know. If I am happy with your cooperation, I deliver you to the police over in Pudong. If I am not happy…then no one can save you.”

“I have someone I have to call,” the Mongolian said. “One call and we are both rich, and you promoted. This, I promise.”

“A call?”

“To Beijing.”

Shen Deshi’s blood flowed hot. What had he walked into? Beijing?

He eyed the money, and then regarded his hostage, wondering what to believe.

5:40 P.M.

LUWAN DISTRICT

Danner was asleep on the floor by the time Grace finally overcame her anger. She sat down next to Lu Hao, his hands and ankles bound by plastic ties.

Concealing her true emotions, something every Chinese child learns at a young age, she said calmly, “What have you done, Lu Hao?”

“A thousand pardons, Chu Youya. I beg your forgiveness. I have made a mess of everything, my family’s honor most of all. I deserve whatever punishment you wish to bring upon me.” He kept his head down, staring at the stained carpet squares.

“Explain yourself before I turn you over to the American and allow him to do to you what I, too, feel you deserve.”

“It was a matter of bad luck, nothing more. Happenstance. I saw a face-a man I knew from my deliveries for Mr. Song, for The Berthold Group. The employment you offered me. I should have left it at that.”

“You paid out large sums to the Mongolian.”

Lu’s eyes went wide, impressed with her. He nodded. “Yes. All for the envelope that is now in my back pocket. Four hundred thousand U.S. All for a number.”

“A number?”

“I swear. All that money for a single envelope. A number, nothing more.”

Grace fished the red envelope from the man’s pocket, refusing to believe the events of the past week could have their origin in nothing more than a number. She examined the envelope.

“You opened it,” she said.

“Fourteen billion, seven hundred million. What does it mean? What was I to do? Once inside the building, he beat a man. Beat him until he fell. Killed him, I assure you. While the other one watched-the government man.”

“What government man?”

“He arrived in a government car. I saw the plate-the number six. Nothing more. A high-ranking government official. I was scared! Terrified! I trusted no one. I called you, Chu Youya. Who else? You got me this work. You of all people must know. Did you not get my call?”

She remained silent.

His eyes pleaded with her for an explanation.

She had none.

“The second delivery-two hundred thousand-I was told to accept an envelope. But this man…the look he gave me during the exchange. I must have betrayed myself. I swear he knew I’d witnessed him and the other man and the killing. Don’t ask me how.”

The video, she was thinking. Just as she and Knox had identified Lu.

Lu Hao sounded on the verge of crying. Little Lu Hao. Always depending on his brother or father to pull him along. “I envisioned a story. I would be kidnapped. The envelope’s contents would give me great value to my employer, certainly in excess of four hundred thousand U.S. I would demand a ransom and my father would be returned the money I owe him. Then, of course tragedy would strike. I would be believed killed, my body never found.” He paused. “My parents regain their future and our family, face. I vanish. Australia. America, perhaps. It was a plan not without sacrifice.” He looked over at the sleeping Danner. “Then…him.”

Grace looked over as well. “Slow down!” she said. “A number?” Staring at the envelope.

“I’m telling you. Four hundred thousand U.S. for that.”

She looked at Lu Hao, puzzled, while thinking back to Selena Ming’s explanation of Marquardt and Song traveling together: due diligence on future projects. The Mongolian’s reported connection to Beijing, where all important decisions were made. “Dear God,” she mumbled, taking in the size of the number. Too big to be a bribe. But a bid on a government construction project? It was large, extremely large, but not out of the question.

“Lu Hao…”

“The American. If we’d only left the American. But all such plans are doomed. Tell me it isn’t so,” he said.

“Lu Hao.”

“They will kill me, Youya. What is to become of my family? I have failed them all. I had no choice.”

Grace tried to process all that she’d learned: the size of the number The Berthold Group had paid for indicated what? No bribe could be in the billions of RMB. What could such a number represent?

“The waiguoren took the ransom money. Get it back, cousin. Get it to my father.”

“It is too late for that, Lu Hao. It has gone to buy you your freedom.”

“I should have realized the depths they would go to, these people.”

“Who are they?” Grace asked. “Who are these Mongolians?”

Lu Hao shrugged. “I am but the messenger. The delivery boy. How should I know? But I tell you: the man is cruel, his eyes dead.”

“This factory,” she said. “The one in the video-”

“You’ve seen the video?” Lu Hao rose to his knees.

“Where is it? Tell me its location.” This place seemed the center of the storm, wherever, whatever it was.

She was splattered with something warm. Lu Hao slumped forward, his head thumping onto the foul carpet.

Clete Danner stood over Lu Hao holding a mike stand. He recoiled, reloading his strength to strike a second time.

Grace sprang off the floor and caught his wrist in her hands, preventing the second blow. The man’s eyes were glazed.

“Stop it! Stop it!” she shouted.

He possessed the size and strength to knock her aside. Grace used leverage to prevent the next blow, but could be easily overpowered.

“Enough! Enough!”

Danner was dazed-half sleeping, half waking. His eyes weren’t tracking. He didn’t speak. Didn’t seem to hear. Sleepwalking? A trauma-induced narcosis? He tried again to lower the bloodied stand onto Lu’s head, but the effort was half-assed, the adrenaline retreating. She managed to wrestle the stand from him. Danner stumbled back into the wall and sank down, burying his face in his hands.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said calmly.

But Lu Hao remained unconscious on the floor, bleeding badly. In fact, he looked half-dead.

5:45 P.M.

Knox arrived to the bunker with two bags of athletic clothes and a pair of umbrellas. He knocked on the bunker door. Grace answered, despair on her face.