number for Yu Yongfu that only he’d know, and it didn’t sound like a Chinese entrepreneur.”
“It could be a number specifically for the Empress deal.”
“Whatever, Donk & Lapierre knows someone unauthorized has the number now, is in Hong Kong, and could be interested in the Empress. They were worried enough to send armed thugs to the phone booth. Which brings me to the next problem.”
“I can’t wait.” Klein’s voice was tired, irritable. “You’re sure you’re up to this assignment, Colonel?”
“Anytime you want to bring me home, be my guest,” Jon growled.
There was a surprised silence. “All right, Jon. Sorry. Merely trying to lighten the situation, which is grim enough back here.”
“Trouble on your end?”
“The Chinese have spotted our surveilling frigate. Their ambassador is making waves, if you’ll pardon the nautical metaphor.”
“Is it out of control?”
“The president thinks not yet. They appear interested only in dancing so far. We both know that won’t last. Give me some good news before you depress me even more with the next problem. Did you get anything from your appointment with Donk & Lapierre?”
“Three things. Managing director Cruyff has something in his safe he’s worried about, and he’s antsy about being questioned over connections to Chinese companies.”
“That’s two.”
“Three is the big one. Someone a lot higher is involved — someone Cruyff reports to, who knows I was in Shanghai and what I look like.” He described the meeting and his trip back into the office to eavesdrop.
“It should be simple enough to identify Cruyff’s boss in Antwerp.”
“Since Cruyff spoke English to him — not French or Flemish — I don’t think he was reporting to Antwerp. No, whoever the boss is, he’s here in Hong Kong. My blond wig left Cruyff and him with just enough doubt to move slowly, but sooner or later, they’ll send people here to the hotel. I need information about the man on top, so I can gauge what to do.”
“In these days of international corporate conglomerates and holding companies, we can’t rule out that his Belgium bosses aren’t English or American. But all right, I’ll get right on it. What will you do now?”
“Food. Something decent for a change. And sleep. A whole night’s sleep would be a novelty.”
“I’m not sleeping, and neither is the president.”
“It’s morning there.”
“A mere technicality. Take your cell with you, and sleep with it and your pistol under your pillow. I’ll get back to you, Colonel. Sweet dreams.”
Aloft, En Route to Hong Kong Ralph Mcdermid considered the company’s top jet — a retrofitted 757 with a gourmet kitchen, cherry-paneled conference room, and sleeping suite — to be his personal transport. In fact, its free use was written into his forty-page employment contract, which, of course, included the usual stock options, monetary incentives, golden severance package, insurance, and use of company cars, cleaning services, club memberships, and houses and apartments around the globe.
He was sitting back, his feet up, lulled toward sleep by the jet’s purring engines, when his phone rang. It was Feng Dun.
Mcdermid was instantly awake. “Where the devil have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve tried three times to reach you!”
Feng’s voice turned cold. “I’ve been looking and making calls, Taipan.”
Mcdermid was never quite certain whether Feng’s use of the old honorific was insulting. He suspected so. In the 1800s, the Chinese had used taipan to describe European and American freebooters who took fortunes out of Hong Kong and China and gave little back.
But Mcdermid needed Feng, so he said only, “What have you learned?”
“Li Kuonyi has disappeared. She was at her father’s house, now she’s gone. No one knows where. Not her staff, and, of course, no one at Flying Dragon.”
That worried Mcdermid. Now that Yu Yongfu had killed himself, his wife might turn into a loose cannon. It would depend on her level of grief and her concern about their children.
Mcdermid asked, “Her father doesn’t know where she is?” “So he says. Her children are with him. I’ll watch them closely.”
“No. Assign your best people instead. I’ve got something else I want you to handle personally.”
“And that is …?”
“Jon Smith. He may be in Hong Kong.”
In the distance, Feng clicked his teeth, interested. “This man is like the snake at midnight. He keeps appearing where least expected. You didn’t warn me he had such talent.”
Mcdermid bit off a retort. “I suspect he’s looking for the third copy of the invoice manifest. I know the cover he’s using and where he’s staying. How long will it take you to get to Hong Kong and kill him?”
reared back like a wild animal in terror. In a convulsion of retreat, the whole body attached to the wrist pulled madly back from Jon’s grip.
Jon tightened his hand and jerked the wrist toward him to shake the dagger free.
But the dagger did not drop. The hand would not release it. Jon hurled himself up, and the rearing shadow fell to the rear, dragging Jon with him, twisting to be free. His momentum fully backward, the man toppled to the floor.
Jon landed on top with his full weight. Abruptly, the man stopped moving. Panting, naked except for his shorts, Jon suddenly felt the chill of the dark room. He heard the muted noises of distant traffic.
His attacker did not move.
Jon kept his grip on the killer’s wrist but reached over with his other hand to take the knife. There was no knife. Quickly he felt the carpet around the wrist. No knife there either. But he felt something hot and liquid on his bare chest. There was a faint, metallic stench of fresh blood. Instantly he felt for a pulse in the wrist. There was none.
He jumped up, switched on the light, and drew a sharp breath. The hilt of the dagger protruded from the side of the man’s chest, where it must have been jammed as the man twisted when they fell. A small amount of blood seeped into his black shirt.
Jon took a deep breath. And walked toward the phone on the bed table… and stopped. There was no way he could call the Hong Kong police.
Questions would be asked.
He returned to the corpse and saw that the blood had not yet oozed to the carpet. He lifted the thin body in his arms. It was light as a baby’s. He carried it to the bathroom, laid it in the tub, and stood back, considering.
The harsh buzz of his cell phone made him whirl. He hurried from the bathroom and pulled the phone out from his bedcovers.
“Fred? I?” he began.
Fred Klein interrupted, his voice bristling with news: “I have two possible candidates for your mystery man — the one who appears to be more important to Donk & Lapierre than Charles-Marie Cruyff. One is a routine guess, the other quite a different pot of fish.”
Jon barely heard. “I just killed a man. He was so small, he looked like an undernourished thirteen-year-old. If I hadn’t turned on the light, I never would’ve guessed he was an adult. He … ”
The shock was a split second. Then: “Why? Where?”
“He was sent to murder me. Chinese. Here in the hotel.”
Klein’s shock became alarm. “The body’s still there?”
“In the bathtub. No blood on the carpet. We got lucky, didn’t we? I got lucky. He nearly had me. Some hungry guy needed their money, whoever the bastards behind all this are, and I got lucky, and he didn’t.”
“Calm down, Colonel,” Klein snapped. Then, almost gently, “I’m sorry, Jon.”
Jon took a deep breath and steadied himself. For a moment, he felt disgust for being so eager for an “adventure” to break up the monotony of the biomed conference in Taiwan. “Okay, I’ll move the body somewhere.
They won’t find a trace here.”
