The office building was well secured, seemingly surrounded by dozens of video cameras. She knew the doors would be locked, as it was the weekend and there was only a skeleton workforce on the premises, at the very best. This was simultaneously to her advantage and a sort of drawback. If there had been more foot traffic entering and exiting the building, she might have had the opportunity to slink inside and take her chances that way. But that was not an option; to try such an approach in the late afternoon hours would have been carelessly brazen, not to mention a complete failure. While she had no doubt the building’s security team was less than effective-how often had they truly been tested? — she was certain that even on a Saturday afternoon, their numbers were substantial enough to delay her. And more importantly, one of them might be able to summon the police before she could effectively deal with them.
Another impediment to trying to slip in through the ground floor was that, after all these years of waiting, of practicing, of training…she found the blood lust she needed to complete her mission was fading. There had been enough death in her past already, enough to fill a dozen lifetimes with unending remorse and grief. The security guards in the lobby of 101 California were only trying to earn a living, and were not guarding Lin himself, per se. Killing them might give her a few minutes of advantage, but that advantage would be tenuous, at best. She’d had the opportunity to slip into Lin’s mansion the night before, but she’d squandered it, wasted the chance on killing his primary guard dog, just to send a message, to increase his terror a thousandfold, to ensure he knew his life was near its end. She cursed herself now for her stupidity, for prolonging the inevitable. Time had been wasted, and opportunity had been frittered away like rice thrown at a Western-style wedding, despite the fact that millions went hungry on a daily basis.
No war, no peace. Without going to war with oneself, there was no chance for peace.
She embraced it fully now, as she had never allowed herself to do before. It was an interesting moment, drawing power from her enemy’s most hateful slogan, a slogan that had been the epitaph for thousands. Friends. Family. Her mother, her father. Her brother, so small, so defenseless.
If she’d had much humanity left, she might have shed another tear for their absence. But the part of her that felt pain at the touch of grief had perished long ago, and now the despair only served as fuel. As motivation.
She pulled her old Corolla into the driveway that led to the parking garage. She pulled the magnetic card she had taken from Baluyevsky’s body last night before fading into the night, and swiped it across the card reader before the sealed garage doors. Automatically, one of them opened, rolling upward into its ceiling recess. She pulled her car into the garage and drove around, looking for the black GTO. The garage was mostly deserted, and she had no trouble finding it. She parked a few spaces from it, then exited her car, carrying a black, nylon duffel bag over one shoulder. The bag’s color matched her clothes, baggy garments the color of midnight, loose enough to allow for freedom of movement. She walked toward the car and pulled a lock pick from one pocket.
In just a few moments, she had the trunk open. She removed the recording device she had planted in the vehicle the night before while Manning slept, sated. The memory of the early part of the night rose in her mind unbidden, and she remembered the rapture she had felt while riding him. It had been years since she had allowed herself to run so freely, to take pleasure, and in a rare moment, return it as well. She wished she had allowed herself to lie beside him throughout the night and take him again the following morning, but that was not to be. Never to be.
She knew Manning was perhaps more lethal than Baluyevsky, and most certainly smarter. Otherwise, Lin would not have recruited him. The old man must have sensed that Baluyevsky, for all his skill, would have been nothing more than a helpless sheep being led to the slaughter. Manning was not that way at all, and she knew if he’d had even an inkling as to who she was, she would be dead.
Walking toward the elevator bay, she inserted a pair of ear buds into the recording device’s RCA input. As she entered the bay (once again with the assistance of the magnetic card she had liberated from Baluyevsky’s bloodied corpse), she played back the conversation Manning and Lin had had during their drive back to San Francisco. She had missed nothing, and it presented no further clues as to what Manning’s plan was.
But she knew. Both men were upstairs, where there was almost no place to run. It was a trap. Manning intended to ambush her when she went for Lin Yubo.
She called the elevator and pressed the button for the 46th floor, which was also leased to Lin Industries. As smart as Manning doubtless was, there were other ways to defeat an ambush.
The manager and the hotel security officer granted Ryker and Chee Wei access to the room with barely any questioning. They stood in the doorway and watched while the two detectives pulled on latex gloves and went through the room with a practiced, methodical ease.
There wasn’t much to it. While the hotel room was certainly upscale, it was also bereft of anything other than the most carefully-manufactured character-most certainly nothing like the Taipan Room at the Mandarin. Ryker didn’t need to turn it upside down to see that it had barely been used, if at all. While he’d been hoping the room had been used as a home base, he was disappointed to find that wasn’t the case. The closets and dresser were bare, and there were no feminine toiletries of any sort in the bathroom. The glass-walled shower was bone dry, the towels perfectly folded and aligned in the rack above the toilet. Of course, housekeeping had been through. Ryker asked about that.
“I’ve already checked,” the hotel detective said. “The staff says the room’s pretty much been like this the entire time. No room service, no calls for extra towels, no nothing.”
Chee Wei carefully stripped the bed and inspecting the linens. He looked up at Ryker after a few minutes and shook his head.
“Nothing. Not a single hair. You want to get forensics in on this?”
Ryker debated that, then turned to the hotel manager and the detective. “You guys mind if we call in some extra troops? We’ll keep things as discreet as possible.”
“Is it absolutely necessary?” the manager asked. “This
Ryker nodded. “Sorry, but it is.”
The manager looked entirely unhappy about it, but he nodded his assent. Ryker looked at Chee Wei.
“Go ahead and call in the troops. And have the local district send a cruiser over.”
“Okay, but why?”
“Because you’re going to stay here and keep an eye on things. I’m headed cross-town.”
Chee Wei frowned. “Where to?”
“One-oh-one California. I’ll bet you twenty bucks I’ll find Lin and his hired boy Manning there.”
The time passed slowly, but Manning was used to waiting in place for something to happen. He had long ago trained himself to ignore boredom, and to stave off sleep through sheer discipline. Those were the major problems with pulling sentry duty like this. There was usually nothing to do, nothing to keep the mind occupied. Waiting in ambush took a great deal of patience, and Manning had had years to cultivate that specific skill, both inside the Army and outside in the private sector. While it had been some time since he’d had to tap that well of patience-working for Chen Gui was usually all rough-and-dirty work that was over in minutes, if not seconds-he still had the hunter’s knack for lying quietly in wait until his quarry showed itself.
And as the sun slowly slid toward the western horizon, his gut told him he wouldn’t have to wait for much longer.
The food arrived from a restaurant in Chinatown that served authentic Chinese food, not the overly sweet/overly sour fare that most Americans thought was the real deal. Manning paid for the order with his credit card and promised one of the security guards a $50 tip to bring it up to the office floor. That way, Manning wouldn’t have to go to the lobby to pick up the food and leave Lin alone. The young security guard took the bait, of course; he was all over the extra money. Manning wasn’t gone for long, and he found Lin was still in his office, checking his email and doing what work he could by himself. It didn’t seem like there was much for him to do. Manning figured he was more the type of boss who told other people what to do as opposed to actually doing anything himself.
