Ridley Pearson - The Risk Agent

The winch cable tightened.

The Marine held himself rigid, the spit from his words mixing with the rain on the face of the policeman directly across from him; but his message was for Knox.

“Cease and desist, sir!” he shouted. “That is United States property!”

The slack out of the winch, Knox hurried to the open door of the vehicle and set the brake. As the cable tightened, the ambulance groaned and jumped. The Humvee buckled and skidded forward. A tug of war.

Knox dislodged a large stone that defined the pebble walkway and used it to block the vehicle’s front tire. Now it was all Humvee: the ambulance crept forward, skidding on the wet surface, slowly drawn toward the gate.

The two policemen understood the physics and the mechanics. They grabbed hold of the steel cable, but to no avail.

Kozlowski arrived at a run, out of breath. He headed straight for the door to the Humvee, where Knox blocked him.

One of the Chinese policemen ran to the police car. He pounded on the trunk and the driver released it and the trunk popped open. The policeman came away with a pair of bolt cutters.

The ambulance’s front bumper was only inches from the gate.

“That’s a U.S. service veteran in that ambulance, Marine,” Knox hollered. “He’s headed to Chinese jail if we don’t get him across that line.”

The message was meant for Kozlowski as well, who stood eye to eye with Knox as the Humvee’s electric winch ground steadily away, and the ambulance slid forward.

It was clear to Knox that the distance between the ambulance and the Humvee wouldn’t allow the ambulance to make it all the way inside the compound. He waved Dulwich forward and watched as a man with a head compress and an arm in a sling took out a police guard sitting across from him on the opposing bench.

Dulwich ducked and moved to the front of the ambulance as the cop with the bolt cutter aimed the tiny jaws at the steel cable. The Marine kicked out across the line, knocking the bolt cutter off its mark. The ambulance bumper crossed into U.S. territory.

The policeman stepped across the line in an effort to cut the cable, and the Marine pulled his weapon. The cop backed off, resigned now to watching.

“Corporal!” Kozlowski shouted, leaving Knox. But not before whispering, “You motherfucker,” under his breath at him.

Knox smiled at a worried Grace.

The ambulance windshield was in the compound.

The rear door of the ambulance flew open and three cops piled inside and rushed the front of the vehicle, after Dulwich. Dulwich threw himself up onto the dash of the ambulance while the driver recoiled.

Kozlowski was shouting for the Marine to holster his weapon.

“Sir! This is my duty, sir!” the Marine called back as he raised the weapon and trained it on the first of the cops in the ambulance.

“Hey!” the Marine hollered, winning the cop’s attention. The man blanched. “Remove yourself from U.S. soil!” the Marine shouted.

The ambulance skidded forward at an angle, snagging the wrought-iron gate and collapsing it inward in a metallic cry. The Marine held his weapon on the policeman, who did not move. It took two more minutes for the ambulance’s passenger door to cross the threshold. Knox stopped the winch.

Dulwich climbed out of the vehicle, met there by Kozlowski and Grace, who helped him deeper into the compound. Knox released the cable.

The Marine kicked at the cable. Knox reached under and cleared it.

The Marine shouted at the ambulance driver, looking down the barrel of his pistol at him. “Sir! Your vehicle is improperly on U.S. soil. I ask that you remove it at once!”

It was doubtful the driver understood English, but the ambulance jumped back so quickly that the cop in front lost his balance and fell over, and the ambulance then rammed the police car behind it, knocking the cop fully to the ground.

Six Marines raced from the mansion carrying M16s and joined the corporal, including the staff sergeant, who took charge.

Knox and Kozlowski supported Dulwich between them. A Marine approached Knox and offered to take his place.

“No, thank you,” Knox said, tightening his grip around the wounded man.

6:00 A.M.

CHONGMING ISLAND

Shen Deshi sat behind the wheel of his car across from Chongming Police Precinct 5, awaiting the shift change. He’d been parked there nearly nine hours, going over and over it in his head. This woman cadet had double-crossed him. She would return his money; Shen Deshi would divide it as agreed with his superintendent, and he would officially retire. There was still hope.

She emerged a few minutes later, unlocked and climbed onto a bicycle and rode off. Shen Deshi followed, giving her a good lead.

She lived in a rundown four-story building of a kind he was well familiar with. There would be five or six families in all, each occupying what was essentially one large room. He climbed out of the car and followed her. No one was better at foot surveillance. When she entered the third-floor flat, she did so blissfully unaware of him.

Shen Deshi did not want to give her time to get settled. He marched to the door and kicked it in with a single blow. The door bounced against the wall and came back at him, and Shen Deshi danced to the left, allowing it to try to close on its broken jamb.

He held a rock in his right hand.

She held a baby.

Sight of the child stopped him. The woman was so young; he’d pictured her sharing the apartment with four or five other women just like her. Instead, he faced a second policeman to his right, a man-a large man, his uniform shirt unbuttoned. An unhappy man. A man holding a switchblade.

“It’s him,” the cadet said. “The blow job.”

Shen marveled at his own stupidity. Allowing haste and emotion to dictate his actions. Since when? Since this bitch stole my future from the back seat, his brain answered.

“All I want is my money,” Shen said.

“What money?” the woman said in a compelling tone.

The husband said nothing. He took a step toward Shen, the knife casually at his side.

“You are certain?” the husband finally said.

“Do you doubt me?” the cadet answered. “You don’t forget such a thing.” She spat onto the floor. “I can still taste him.”

The determination in the husband’s eyes was troublesome. Shen nearly abandoned his quest for his money, but he would not allow himself to be intimidated by a pair of common country thieves.

“The money,” he said, “and I’m gone.” But he’d gravely miscalculated the husband, who came not at him, but moved to block the door. The exit.

The wife had put the toddler in a portable crib. She too now brandished a knife.

“We can negotiate!” Shen said, the rock feeling useless in his hand. It wasn’t that he couldn’t imagine defeating a man and a woman, both with knives. He might be cut and stabbed, but he could survive the outcome. It was the look in the husband’s eyes that stopped his blood from pumping.

“Not here,” the husband said calmly to his wife.

“I know the place. Remote. Abandoned. Just the place,” the cadet said.

In his mind’s eye Shen Deshi saw the bloodstained water running from the butcher-block table and coiling down the drain.

“Let’s be reasonable,” he said.

4:40 P.M.

HONG KONG

Two employees of Rutherford Risk met Knox, Grace and David Dulwich at Signature Flight Support’s private terminal at Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport. They were quickly processed through immigration and then herded into a black Mercedes. Dulwich and Knox were dropped at the nearby Princess Margaret Hospital. Knox’s Super-Glued wound was examined; he received an antibiotic injection and was given a prescription. He waited there for word on Dulwich.