The Risk Agent (6 page)

“It appears nearly finished,” she said, noting the building’s upper twenty stories were wrapped in a green fabric, strung over elaborate scaffolding, noting that he thought the kidnapping directly related to the construction of the tower.

“There’s much yet to be done. Is it coincidence that as we near completion, Lu Hao is abducted and therefore the incentives stop, and we encounter problems? We’re only a couple days into this and we’re already experiencing costly slowdowns—materials, labor. Our vendors and suppliers aren’t getting their payments.” Marquardt paused to make full eye contact with Grace. “Our problem is, only Mr. Lu knew their identities. This is critical work you’re doing, Ms. Chu.”

“It benefits your Chinese competitors.”

“If you go down that road, start with Yang Cheng. Yang’s a devilish prick who has taken every opportunity for nearly a decade to remind me foreign builders don’t belong here. He’s never accepted our being awarded the Xuan.”

“I will start with Lu Hao’s apartment,” Grace said. “The sooner I have the end-of-year accounts, the better. I can help keep auditors from realizing the exact nature of Lu Hao’s work for you. Important should we fail in his recovery.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, though didn’t sound at all certain.

Her BlackBerry vibrated.

“Take it, if you want,” he said.

“I’m fine,” she said, noting that the call was from her mother. She flushed slightly as she returned the device to its holster.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Was there anyone within your company who served as a primary contact with Lu Hao?”

“Preston Song.”

“I would like a meeting with Mr. Song. Not here. Not in the company building. Perhaps something social. But soon.”

“I’ll arrange it.”

Before he opened the doors to the office, Marquardt said, “Please be careful, Ms. Chu. Yes?”

Grace nodded.

Back inside the office, Marquardt raised his voice slightly to make sure his assistants heard. “I trust you will find your new residence acceptable. If you have any more problems, feel free to bypass HR and bring them directly to me.” He paused. “We are pleased to have you working with us, Ms. Chu.”

Grace rode one of the elevators to the lobby and stepped outside for privacy. She returned the call to her mother, speaking Mandarin.

“Mother?”

“You come to Shanghai and do not tell me? What kind of daughter are you?”

Her mother continued berating her, but Grace was stuck on the fact that her mother knew she was in Shanghai.

“How can you possibly—? I only arrived this morning.”

“Third cousin by marriage, Teardrop Chang, was on a flight from Hong Kong. You do not call your own mother? Your mother who carried you for nine months? Your mother who suffered your birth?”

“Of course I was going to call,” she lied.

“If you have returned for the sake of little brother Lu, please do not tell your father. He will most certainly have heart failure.”

“Why would I return for the sake of Lu Hao?” Grace tried to sound naïve, her heart pounding now. Her mother could not possibly know of the voice mail she’d received from Lu Hao ahead of his kidnapping—a voice mail she’d ignored.

“Little brother Lu has not called his mother. Does not answer his mobile phone. Has not been seen. Do you know nothing, my daughter the detective?”

“Listen, Mother,” she hissed into the phone, covering the mouthpiece with her free hand, “I am not a detective. I am an accountant. A contract accountant. And please, no names over the phone.” Then more conversationally, “You must not speak of that which you do not witness yourself. Such mistruths are dangerous. Do you hear me, Mother? Dangerous. Think carefully of the well-being of your family.” Appealing to the woman’s sense of family was often the only way to get through to her—not a card Grace could play very often.

“If you can, you must help…our friend’s son,” her mother said. “He must have his medicine, the poor boy. His mother is vexed, although he looked fine to me at the party.”

Grace had been told of Lu Hao’s epilepsy, years before, by his older brother. But she’d forgotten until now, had not considered he would be on daily medication.

“What party, Mother?”

“His mother, Lu Li’s celebration. Four years of the rabbit!”

“Lu Hao was at the party?”

“Of course. As was I.”

“What day was that?”

“Sixteenth of September.”

“You are certain?” Lu Hao had left the voice mail for her on Friday the seventeenth.

“Have I not known this woman my entire life? I’m as certain as I am of the shame you bring upon your father by not accepting the betrothal he has arranged for you.” She never failed to rub salt into that wound. “For Lu Li’s birthday, the families gathered.”

“Lu Hao was there on the island that Thursday?”

“Are you listening? Do you doubt your own mother? Four day celebration!”

“I will call you later,” she said and hung up. Friday the seventeenth. Guilt over never having returned his call wormed inside her.

Lu Hao’s medical condition had not come up when she’d recommended him for the contract work for The Berthold Group. Along with the surprise that came with her mother’s knowledge of her arrival was the news about Lu’s condition, and the inescapable—and perhaps intentional—reminder of Lu Hao’s older brother, Lu Jian, with whom she’d had a romance that had begun in high school and had ended nearly six years later with the announcement of her arranged marriage that had blindsided her. She’d fled Shanghai, joined the army, and had broken off communication with her family for the next two years. She had yet to speak to her father, and only heard from her mother periodically, when her father was not in the house.

Lu Hao was the black sheep of the family. A film student and ice-to-Eskimos salesman who had emotionally corrupted and manipulated his father to invest in his film project, Lu Hao had eventually bled the family savings dry and driven them toward bankruptcy and loss of face—the greatest disgrace of all.

Grace had known of the situation—through her mother—and had tried to use Los Angeles friends to circulate Lu Hao’s script in Hollywood, but to no avail. Her second, more successful effort had been to win Lu Hao the contract with The Berthold Group. All this had less to do with Lu Hao than it did her continuing feelings for his brother. She’d hoped that by trying so hard, she might renew contact with him. A hope that had yet to bear fruit.

Bringing Lu Jian’s brother home could only help her cause.

The first step was to search Lu Hao’s apartment for his accounts documents—and now, for his medicine as well.

Now. Tonight. With or without the man Dulwich said would be joining her. Grace was not waiting for anyone.

5:20 P.M.

CHANGNING DISTRICT

SHANGHAI

The man following her was a pro. Grace had changed into tight jeans and spike heels in a lobby restroom and then left by a side door eschewing the main entrance to the MW Building, home of The Berthold Group. She might have missed him completely had she not picked up a second whiff of him. But there it was, the same distinctive scent—a masculine musk, part pine, part perspiration—she’d first noticed while at an ATM, the stop used to scan the sidewalk.

She now knew he was back there—he’d passed close by her for a second time. The act alone showed nerve and confidence. While she reeled over how she might have missed sight of him in the first place, she contemplated her next move. She did not want to reveal her training, only to appear as an average citizen. At the same time, she would have to lose him once and for all.

Along with a column of hundreds of passengers crammed elbow to elbow, she took the stairs down to the platform. Glass partitions served as barriers to prevent the crowds from pushing someone onto the tracks. The hordes jockeyed for position, a regular part of any day, Grace along with them.

Flat-panel television monitors suspended from the ceiling counted down the timing of the train arrivals to the platform. 58…57… Her skin prickled at the sight of a tan baseball cap she remembered from a window reflection back near the MW Building.

She shivered. Had he made her earlier, or only picked up on her at the ATM? Was he that good? Or was she that rusty?

She spotted the cap again, though she couldn’t make out the face beneath it. Her nerves on edge, she moved down the line of the groups waiting to board.

26…25…

Standing among a group of women, she withdrew a black scarf from her bag and pulled it over her hair. Then she donned a surgical mask of the kind worn by many city-dwellers to protect against the Shanghai smog.

10…9…

The crowd surged toward the doors. A squeal of brakes cried from down the dark shaft.

Grace slipped out of the crowd and pressed her back against the escalator’s retaining wall.

The ball cap moved with the crowds. It jostled for position. As the train arrived, it paused. Turned toward her.

Could he have possibly spotted her transition into the disguise? Impatient passengers shoved past the hat. It appeared the man in the cap wasn’t going to board.

She turned and took the long way around the escalator, intent on leaving the station on foot.

A quick glance back: the tan cap was moving onto the train.

But the body language was wrong—a Chinese, and in that instant she realized the hat had been given away by the first man wearing it.

He was very, very good.

She caught him, hatless, in profile at the base of the escalators. He fit the description she’d been given by David Dulwich. Relief flooded through her.

“Losing the ball cap was a nice touch,” she said from behind.

The man spun around. He studied her and smiled a kind smile. He was tall. A well-lived-in face, tanned and lined, under a sprinkling of gray in his short, dark hair.

“Nice,” he said, glancing once more at the train and the doors about to shut. “Very nice.”

“Grace Chu,” she said through the mask. They shook hands.

“John Knox. The scarf and mask… I didn’t see that one coming.”

“Next time,” she said, “you should pay more attention.”

5:25 P.M.

PUDONG DISTRICT

SHANGHAI

Three men in coveralls carrying toolboxes approached the receptionist desk in the spacious lobby of building 4 in the Kingland Riverside Luxury Residence. The lobby receptionist was a round-faced girl of twenty wearing a crisp navy blue suit and a plastic tag that bore the name SHIRLEY, a word she could not pronounce.

The first of the men spoke Shanghainese. “Chu Youya. Home theater installation.”

The receptionist double-checked her logs. “So sorry. I show no such appointment for Ms. Chu.”

“Then you will please tell Chu Youya why we left, little flower, when she asks tonight about home theater installation. Good luck with finding a new job.” He signaled the other two. “That is it.” He circled his index finger. The three turned for the street.

“Wait!” the receptionist called. “I will make an exception.”

With the lead man’s back to her, the young receptionist missed the wry smile that crept across his lips before he turned to offer a shrug of indifference. Yes or no? he seemed to be asking.

She picked up the phone and he feared the involvement of a higher-up. Always a higher-up, and after that, another.

“You make this a committee, I am leaving,” he stated, calling across the lobby. “I have not got all day. Your decision, little flower.”

Reluctantly, she hung up the phone.

Five minutes later, the lead man dead-bolted the door to Grace’s apartment. It did not escape them that luxury apartments such as this were often bugged by the government. That they were bugging an already bugged apartment was the source of great amusement.

They went about their business expertly. One handled the video while the other installed the audio. The team leader chose the placements. Five microphones, three prying eyes. A pressure sensor beneath the carpet at the front door capable of turning the devices on and off in order to conserve battery life.

The lead man used his mobile phone to log in to a secure website. Moments later, he was looking at a miniaturized color image of himself staring at the phone.

On the way out through the lobby, his men avoided looking at the receptionist, as ordered. The fewer recognizable faces, the better.

The leader raised his arm. “All is well, little flower. Hopefully we not see you again.”

“Your card!” she called out, having overlooked this requirement earlier. She needed a record of exactly who had visited.

The lead man hesitated, then returned to the desk and handed her a business card. He could sense her palpable relief as she read the card from a Best Buy in the Changning District: a card he’d received from a show floor salesman on an earlier visit.

On his way out to the parked van, he lit a cigarette and dialed from his mobile phone.

“It’s done,” he said.

“Record everything,” a man’s voice said.

On the other end of the call, Feng Qi lowered his voice as he stood at the entrance to Xiangyang Park. Wiry, well-dressed and carefully manicured, he had not yet seen the Chu woman leave the MW Building. As the chief of security for Yang Construction, he was the man responsible for tracking The Berthold Group’s new arrival in the finance department, the division in which the recently departed Lu Hao had worked. Feng Qi was deeply concerned by the woman’s long absence and could only hope she was working late on her first night on the job. He continued into the phone: “I want full transcripts and video delivered by e-mail each night before midnight.”

“You will have it. Transcripts cost extra.”

“That is to be negotiated,” Feng said. He got no argument and ended the call. In Shanghai, everything was negotiable.

6:30 P.M.

ZHABEI DISTRICT

SHANGHAI

As Knox and Grace rode the Metro toward Lu Hao’s apartment building, Knox reviewed for her his search of Danner’s apartment. Grace told him of Lu Hao’s apparent need for medication, which Knox took as progress. The kidnappers might be forced to return for the medication, providing them an opportunity to identify one or more.