Rising Tiger (8 page)

“What?”

“The Chinese fired a bunch of missiles at Taiwan. A lot of them were intercepted by American warships in the area and ground-based defense systems. But a few got through and killed a number of people. They’re still not sure how many.”

“Shit! That’s considered an act of war against America. We have a defense pact with Taiwan. An attack on one is an attack on the other. Has Taiwan retaliated?”

She shook her head. “No. Not yet. What do you think they’ll do?”

“Not a helluva lot without America,” Jake postulated. “Most of their systems are defensive in nature. My guess is the U.S. will position a carrier group somewhere near Taiwan.”

“It’s moving up the South China Sea from Japan now,” she said.

“China wouldn’t dare attack our carrier directly. I think both sides will try to find a way to save face. But this is definitely a bold move by China. It might be a test. A precursor of things to come. It’s like chess, where you move a bishop out to see how your opponent will react. If he counter attacks, you can simply slide the bishop back to a safe spot.”

“How does this impact our search for Bill Remington?” she wanted to know.

“Good question. Knowing Remington, he would not be anywhere near Taiwan at this time. He could get hurt there.”

“What about mainland China?”

“That would be too obvious. No, Remington likes to play games. Most of his time in the Agency was spent here in Asia. He spent the most time in Taiwan, which was one of the reasons I went there first. But he would also know that I know that.”

“And Singapore?”

“He did two years here in his early career.”

“Where else?”

“He spent some time in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Those were his main areas of specialty. His first wife was Thai. She came from a politically-connected family.”

“They’re divorced now?”

“No. She died in a car accident, leaving Remington with two small children. The children are grown now and out of college. Both are under FBI surveillance in case Remington tries to contact them.”

“You said first wife. Did he have a second?”

“Yeah. She divorced him after finding out he was sleeping with an Asian woman.”

“So the second wife wasn’t Asian.”

“No. French Canadian. But the FBI is still checking up on her.”

Alexandra closed the laptop. “Okay. Remington has a thing for Asian women. That’s why we’re here.”

“Mostly. But Singapore has an extradition agreement with the U.S. I stopped here for two reasons. One, he had a bank account here, which the Agency froze. But I still have an appointment to talk with his banker this morning.”

“And the second reason?”

“Remington still has a lot of friends here, as we found out from last night. By exposing myself here, he can make a move on me.”

“Wait. You’re setting yourself up? That’s crazy.”

Jake laughed. “If I tried to find him the traditional way, I would be looking for the rest of my life. He’s got the ability to change his appearance and identity, and the money to stash himself just about anywhere. He’ll use cash exclusively. Now, he could have already bought a penthouse condo in downtown Singapore, but I doubt it. My guess is he’ll end up in one of two countries. Cambodia or Vietnam. Neither has an extradition treaty with the U.S.”

“Why not go there first, then?”

“Because I can’t extradite him from those countries. I need to draw him out. We’ve frozen his account here, but I still think he’ll find a way to get his money.” Jake got up from the bed and went over to the guns, picking up one and sliding it into a thin holster at the small of his back. He covered that with a light tropical shirt.

“What happens if the local police catch us with guns in Singapore?” she asked, and then picked up her own weapon.

Jake shoved an extra magazine into a cargo pocket on the side of his leg. “I don’t think we want to find out. They’ll probably cane our asses and then throw us in jail and throw away the key.”

She shook her head. “I just looked it up on the net. It’s six strokes of the cane and five to ten years for possession of an illegal firearm. If you use it you get the death penalty.”

Jake gave a little whistle. “I guess we’re already guilty of that. Let’s not get caught.”

“Hey, I’m still officially on active duty with the BND,” she said with a wry smile.

“True. But someone there might have sold you out to the Chinese. I’m not sure I would trust them to come to your rescue.”

Alexandra slung a small leather purse across her shoulder, the strap slid right between both of her breasts. Then she put her gun into the purse and found a spot in an inner pouch for an additional magazine.

“You have a point, Mister Sunshine,” Alexandra agreed. “Do you think the banker will try to shoot us?”

“No, but I specifically made an appointment with the banker, hoping he would pass the message on to Remington. So I expect him to send someone to take me out.”

She shook her head. “Wonderful. Here we go again, Jake.”

After locking up the laptop in the safe, they left the room and headed to the elevators.

Jake went into the main branch of the Indo-Malay Bank alone, leaving Alexandra outside to watch his back. As he walked through the massive lobby with high ceilings, he could feel the rub of the gun at his back. It was an uncomfortable location for him to carry a concealed handgun. He preferred to carry it under his left arm or on his right hip. But he had no choice now in this hot climate, where a concealing jacket would be out of place.

He kept his eyes open for any sign of the people who had shot at him last night. The woman would be easy to remember, but the remaining man would not. He had only caught a quick glimpse of the guy as he approached from behind Alexandra.

The bank manager was a man of Indian descent named Ravi Singh. He was a slight man with tiny hands. If the man had shaved that morning, then his beard grew really fast. Jake had given the man his real first name when he set up the appointment, wanting to make sure this man passed that on to Bill Remington. But Remington would know that Jake would use a fictitious last name, which he did. He was now Jake Jones, with an American passport to match.

They took seats in the inner office with a grand view of the lobby through tall windows.

“Please explain your relationship with Mister Bill Remington,” the bank manager asked.

“As I said on the phone, our government is very interested in finding Mister Remington.”

“With which organization in the government do you work?”

This was normally where Jake would reach across the desk and grab the son of a bitch by the throat and let the man know who was in charge of the questions. But he took the high road for now.

Jake said coyly, “Let’s just say I’m a concerned citizen with enough authority to continue freezing Remington’s account here. And if my investigation warrants, I’ll have this bank audited by a dozen international organizations by tomorrow. You’ll either be in jail or selling curry kabobs at a kiosk outside Universal Studios at Sentosa. Is that clear enough for you, Mister Singh?”

The bank manager kept looking out to the lobby, as if he were looking for someone in particular.

Finally, Singh nodded his head. “How may I help you?”

Good. Jake had softened him up for a frontal attack. “All right. We have frozen his assets at this bank, but I’m guessing Remington would have anticipated that. I’ll bet he has other assets here. Perhaps in a safe deposit box.” Jake was just fishing for a response.

It worked. The bank manager visibly gulped.

Jake continued, “I’ll take that as a yes. So, let’s say Remington can’t come here himself to pick clean his safe deposit box. He would have trusted someone here to bring him his money.”

“That’s not a service we provide,” Singh said, his hands up in protest.

“Sure, not normally. But Remington can be very persuasive.” So could Jake, and he guessed now he would have to become a bit more severe with his questioning.

●

When Alexandra first saw the woman walking down the sidewalk after getting out of the taxi, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure that it was the same woman from the night before. The woman last night had seemed to simply linger in the background, letting her two male counterparts do all the shooting. The Asian woman was again wearing black from top to bottom, but her hair was slicked back with jell. She appeared to be alone this time.

Alexandra timed her approach perfectly. The two of them met where a small service alley divided the bank from a row of other tall buildings. With one swift move, Alexandra pulled the Asian woman into the alley.

The response was immediate. The two of them went into an instant fight with punches, blocks, kicks and counter attacks. The smaller woman had some major martial arts skills, but Alexandra held her own. And the German had superior size and strength. In just a few minutes, Alexandra had the woman in a sleeper hold and had backed up behind a trash dumpster.

Once the Asian woman passed out, Alexandra checked her for identification and weapons. First she found the silenced .22 in an inside jacket pocket. She quickly took the gun apart and threw most of it into the dumpster, only keeping the upper receiver. She could dispose of that later. Then she found the woman’s passport. It was from Thailand. Interesting.

As the woman started to wake up, Alexandra looked around the dumpster for any danger. All she saw was the occasional pedestrian on the sidewalk. But she couldn’t wait here forever. The woman started to sit up, so Alexandra punched her in the jaw, knocking her out again.

Then Alexandra got up and walked toward the bank. She sent Jake a quick text and headed toward the front entrance.

●

Jake had gotten everything and more than he expected from the banker. But he did expect Remington to send someone after him at this appointment. He was disappointed that the man had not tried.

Just as he got out the front door, he saw Alexandra approaching from around the alley. She was wiping blood from her lower lip. As she got closer, he could see she also had a bruise forming on her left cheek.

“What?” she said. “You should see the other chick.”

“I can’t leave you alone for a minute,” Jake said. “What happened?”

Alexandra detailed her fight in a few seconds as the two of them waved down a taxi.

“Thai?” Jake said. “That’s no surprise now. The banker was set up to deliver money to Bangkok.”

As the taxi pulled up, Jake opened the door for Alexandra. Before she got in, she dropped something into the gutter grate. He followed her into the cab.

●

When the Asian woman woke in the alley, she was equally happy for her good fortune to still be alive and angry for losing a battle with the taller, stronger woman. She knew that she had greater inner strength, and she should have been able to defeat that woman. Then she also realized that her favorite gun was gone. But with good luck she had at least found part of the gun in the dumpster, but it was the least important part. It would be much harder to find a new suppressor.

Worse than anything, though, was her failure to engage the American man she had been paid to follow. A man of his stature would be hard to find now. He had practically raised a white flag by setting up an appointment with the Singapore banker.

Now she needed to see what the banker had told the man.

Without announcing herself, she simply walked past the receptionist and closed the door, making sure she and the banker were alone.

She sat into the plush leather chair and simply stared at the banker. The two of them had only one language in common, English, and she made sure the man thought her English skills were marginal at best.

“What are you doing here?” Ravi Singh asked her. Then the banker got up and went to the large windows overlooking the lobby area. He started to close the shades, but then must have thought better of it and left them open.

The woman rubbed the side of her neck where the larger woman had choked her. But her real pain was along the left side of her jaw where the woman had hit her. “You met with American?”

The banker came back and sat behind his desk. “Yes, of course.”

“What you tell him?”

Mister Singh looked nervous. “Just what I was told to tell him. What do you think?”

“I hear this man dangerous,” she said. Actually, her employer had said the man could snap her neck like a chicken and then go out for curry and beer like nothing happened.

The banker’s bushy brows furled. “What happened to you? Did you get in a fight?”

“Never mind me. Did you give the man jump drive?”

“Of course. Reluctantly.”

“You sell it?”

“Absolutely.”

She nodded approval. Her employer would be happy now, even though she had exposed herself to this man’s girlfriend. But the plan would work even better if the man made it all the way to Bangkok.

Satisfied, she got up and left the banker alone. Part of her wished her employer had allowed her to beat up that man. She hated bankers.

Jake and Alexandra got back to their hotel and settled in for the afternoon. Alexandra was obviously tired from going to bed so late the night before, and perhaps from the adrenalin rush during the fight with the Asian woman. After she washed up a bit, she crawled onto the bed and nearly immediately went to sleep.

With her heavy breathing in the background, Jake pulled out the jump drive he had gotten from the banker, Ravi Singh. There was just one folder on the drive, and that only contained a couple of files. One file showed the original transfer of money into an account owned by Bill Remington—the money coming from the same accounts that had placed money in his friend Chad Hunter’s account in Belize, implicating him in the supposedly accidental shoot down of a Chinese satellite. But of course Jake had already disavowed that action, exonerating his old friend. Although this part of Remington’s indiscretion was already known, including the transfer of money to this Singapore account, there was some interesting data here. For instance, it showed a pattern of cash withdrawals that coincided with what Ravi Singh had told him. The banker had personally removed the money, placed it into Remington’s safe deposit box, and then delivered this cash to a tailor in Bangkok, Thailand. One of the files showed the banker’s travel tickets, where he had flown to Bangkok and back in the same day on three separate occasions in the past month. This was all before the American government had found out about the account and frozen the assets.