Ridley Pearson - The Risk Agent

“I have the video your missing cameraman shot before he went missing.”

A long pause on the other end.

“Come again?”

“You heard right. It shows Lu Hao as an eyewitness to a possible crime-a murder, Lu Hao claims. It shows an individual-the Mongolian-rushing the camera. And after that night, your cameraman is never seen again. Am I right?”

Another long silence.

“Wouldn’t you like to close that disappearance?” Knox asked. “In the video, the Mongolian’s clearly doing business with some kind of fat cat. Rich. Portly. Chinese. This whole mess has something to do with Marquardt and The Berthold Group paying out huge sums on the sly to obtain a number. The Mongolian’s the middleman. The fat cat’s got to be the source.”

“What kind of number?”

“A big number,” Knox said. “A very big number.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I,” Knox admitted. “But my best guess is the Mongolian’s job was to see the number reach the people who paid for it-The Berthold Group-and he understood Lu’s importance to that end. Who knows what might have happened once it reached the buyer, but the kidnapping came along, so we’ll never know.” He withheld Lu’s culpability in his own kidnapping. “The disk for my friend. He has to be delivered tonight.”

“Circumstantial evidence isn’t going to convince anyone of anything. I wish I could help you. I really do. But I know these people. It’s not going to happen.”

Knox had been so profoundly convinced he’d bought Dulwich his freedom that he felt the wind knocked out of him. “I have the video,” he repeated.

“And I, for one, can get mileage out of it. Yes. You’re right about me wanting to close this disappearance. But as we both know, I’m forbidden from investigating. I can’t even ask probing questions. So I’d have to play the video right, and even then it will maybe help start a dialogue, but that dialogue is not going to lead to the release of your friend. He was the target of a commissioned crime. The authorities are going to want answers from him.”

“You’ve got to get him out of there.” Knox knew Dulwich wouldn’t cooperate, and that if he didn’t, he’d serve jail time.

“I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking you’ll bust him out of Huashan Hospital. But guess what? You won’t. He’s well-guarded and he’s in bad shape, pal. He’s going home on a stretcher right now. It takes two to carry a stretcher, last time I checked.”

“You and me,” Knox said.

“Right.”

Knox searched for some kind of solution. Every time he advanced an idea, it ran into a wall.

“This fat cat you described,” Kozlowski said. “A businessman?”

“Not according to Lu. Government pool car. Shanghai.”

“Do you have that on film? That’s exactly what we need.”

“Negative,” Knox said. But what he heard was: “we.”

“Any way to make that ID?”

“My guy is comatose at present, even if he knew, which he doesn’t. I’ve got wheels-up at eight P.M.”

“Never going to happen.” Kozlowski added, “Some storm, huh? Been here six years, haven’t seen one like this.”

“And if I brought you this guy’s name?” Knox tested, his mind reeling. Kozlowski, prevented by law from investigating, wanted Knox to do his dirty work for him. Knox didn’t need it in neon lights. It made him wonder how inaccessible Dulwich really was.

“It would change things,” Kozlowski said.

“Change things, how?”

“Listen, if he really is government…a minister, let’s say…or someone prominent in the party…and he’s involved or even partially responsible for a pair of killings? That shit sells, Knox. That right there buys your buddy a free pass, no question.”

“You’ll guarantee that.”

“TIC. No guarantees.”

“Passage out, if I stick around to do this? For two-one on a stretcher?”

“Same answer. But will I try? Of course I will.”

“You’re using me.”

“No, no, pal. We’re using each other.”

“You gain enormous cred,” Knox said.

“No. Whatever you dig up, it can’t come from me. That suggests I investigated it myself. But there are ways around everything. Bring me that name-a corrupt official. Match that to your eyewitness-a Chinese eyewitness at that. Are you kidding me? In this country, in the current environment, that’s currency. Serious currency. Trust me.”

“I don’t,” Knox said.

“You know for a while there, I had you figured for a fool,” Kozlowski said. “Are we done here?”

“Keep that phone charged,” Knox said. “I’m going to be calling you back on it.”

“Remember, pal: I don’t know you.”

“Love you, too,” Knox said, ending the call.

7:00 P.M.

THE BUND

The rain hit the hotel room windows like water from a fire hose. The river view was supposed to look across to Pudong, but all Knox saw was the swarm of people on the docks below.

“So?” she said, inquiring about a phone call Knox had placed to Rutherford Risk’s Brian Primer.

“He wants us out,” Knox confided.

“See?”

“But he has nothing in place for Sarge’s extraction. He was unaware of his detention. It clearly put him back on his heels. I pushed for some kind of plan, and said ‘first things first,’ wanting us out.”

“And I agree.”

“And I don’t,” Knox said. “He doesn’t have a plan, nor will a plan do any good if Sarge is moved to a Chinese jail. Kozlowski knows the ins and outs better than anyone, and he said it’s going to take leverage, and I believe him. I’m staying. You’re leaving.”

“I doubt it. With these winds, the river like that, they will close the ferries, if they have not already,” Grace said. “We should be making alternative plans.”

She sat on the corner of the bed, slurping down a bowl of wonton soup.

“This is the alternative plan. Besides, they won’t have us on a ferry,” Knox said. “They’re just using these docks for the rendezvous.”

“You cannot identify this Party man without me,” she said, repeating an argument she’d championed for the past hour.

“Watch me,” Knox said.

“How can I watch you from Hong Kong?”

“Touché.”

“You have to understand-”

“We discussed this. You wanted Lu Hao out. I wanted Danny out. We’ve got them both and now you need to see them out. I made sure the blame for the kidnapping wouldn’t fall onto Lu Hao. By now the Mongolian is likely under arrest. If we could get to him, maybe he’d give up the name, but we won’t see him again. End of story.”

“We,” she said, quoting him.

“This is non-negotiable,” he said. “What if Danny wakes up in a rage again? Someone has to be there.”

“They can keep them separate on the boat,” she said.

“You know that, do you?”

“I know you need me.”

He knew it too, but wasn’t about to admit it. “I need you to be there when Lu Hao can finally talk to us. I need the location where that video was shot. I need some leads.”

“Lu Jian, his brother can help. If Lu Hao was on the island on the seventeenth, then it was because he was there with his family. Lu Jian can help us fill in the blanks. But they will not help you. Not without me.”

He hadn’t considered the family angle. “When Lu Hao wakes, you can get at least the location of the factory out of him. You need to be there to listen.”

“Someone needs to be there,” she said. “It does not have to be me. Not necessarily. It could be Danner.”

She was right about that as well. Danner had expressed remorse over his assaulting Lu; he wasn’t going to do that again. And Danner spoke the language fluently.