She hated it when he was being charmingly right. “You’re such a pain, Jon. Oh, very well. I’ll find you a place myself.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The two men were alone in Mcdermid’s luxurious penthouse office, surrounded by museum-quality paintings and Ming Dynasty vases. Feng sat with his thick arms crossed, his broad face emotionless, in the chair opposite Mcdermid’s desk. “Smith and the woman have gone to ground.” Feng had ordered most of his men to pursue the pair after their escape, while others had stayed behind to question the crowd. That was how Feng had learned an American voice had shouted to the woman from the escape car. The voice had called her Sandy or Mandy or Randy.
“What the hell does that mean?” Mcdermid asked, barely able to contain his anger as he waited to play the tape of his conversation with Li Kuonyi.
“It means my men were able to track them to Lower Albert Road, where they disappeared into an alley.”
“Disappeared? What are they, shamans?”
“There’s obviously some kind of safe house on the street, and it has hidden entrances. My men are watching.”
“Are they CIA after all?”
“We still can’t find any affiliation to a known intelligence agency for him. We have only a partial name for her, not heard clearly. It could be a first or a last name. We’re checking our sources to see whether we can identify her. But provisionally, I suspect she’s CIA. What or whoever they are, they’ll reappear.”
Mcdermid had not counted on so many problems. Give him a sick company or an underperforming portfolio, and he was in his element. Better yet, show him a politician at loose ends or a defeated senator growing bored, and he would use them to pull in investment funds or to lobby a piece of legislation until it passed. For him, that was child’s play. The Empress cargo was something else. It was a deal so big it would crown all others.
Inwardly, he sighed. It was worth any amount of trouble. “Maybe. Forget Smith and the woman for now. Listen to this.” When the tape finished playing, Mcdermid’s usually smiling face was flushed with outrage. “Is that Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu?”
Feng Dun glanced uneasily around the penthouse aerie and nodded. “They fooled me.”
“They fooled you!” he exploded. “That’s all you have to say? You idiot.
Yu’s alive, and he still has the manifest! They switched documents so you’d see him burn something else, and his suicide was smoke and mirrors. That’s why he had to fall into the river, so you wouldn’t have a corpse. He used blanks, dammit. How could you be so stupid!”
Feng Dun was silent. Disgust for Mcdermid glinted in his eyes and then was gone. “It was the woman. I should’ve suspected. She’s the man in that family.”
“That’s all you have to say!” Mcdermid raged.
Feng shrugged and offered one of his marionette smiles to the outraged CEO. “What do you want, Taipan? Li Kuonyi tricked me. I’d guess she’s fooled many, including her own father. He believed Yu died, just as I did. We must see she doesn’t fool any of us again.”
“What we need is to get that manifest before the Americans do!”
“And we will. She called you first. That’s a good sign. She either doesn’t think the Americans will pay as much or she doesn’t trust them.
She won’t contact them unless she has no other choice.”
“How can you be so damn sure!”
“The Americans want good relations with China. Once they have the manifest, the crisis will be over, and she’s smart enough to know that if Beijing wants her husband and her returned so they can be punished, the Americans will hand them over. She’d rather have your money than rely on Washington to treat her kindly.”
Mcdermid’s anger cooled as he reflected on Feng’s explanation. “You may be correct. It’d be a greater risk for her and Yu. All right, I bought some time for you. Go to Urumqi and find them.”
Feng’s expression was close to a sneer. “I wouldn’t count on that, Taipan. Do you know where Urumqi is?”
“Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Chongqing. For all I care, the rest of your benighted country is a desert.”
“You aren’t far wrong.” Feng’s wooden expression had an edge of both mockery and admiration. “I told you Li Kuonyi was smart. Urumqi is in Xinjiang, at the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert. There’s little in China farther from Hong Kong, and it’d be impossible for you or me to get there before late tomorrow. But inside China, they can go almost anywhere from Urumqi in a few hours. There are two major cities near Dazu — Chongqing and Chengdu. They can fly into either, but so can I.
Still, they’ve made it twice as hard for anyone, even me, to find them.”
“But you’ll do it anyway, won’t you, Feng.” It was an order.
“I’ll fly to Chongqing immediately. Find them first or not, I’ll be at the Sleeping Buddha hours before the dawn meeting.”
“You intend an ambush?”
“Naturally.”
Mcdermid flared up again. “The woman will expect an ambush!”
“To expect is one thing. To prevent is another. I’ll plan well and make them wait for what they guess will come, or perhaps I will surprise them first.”
“Why would they bother to meet you at all?”
“If I’m right, they’re afraid of both Washington and Beijing. Sooner or later, Major Pan and his secret police will track them down. You and your money are the best chance for them and their children to survive in the manner they want. So yes, they’ll suspect. Which means they’ll try to safeguard themselves and whoever’s with them. But as Li Kuonyi said on the tape, they have no choice.”
“I hope you’re right this time.”
“They won’t trick me again.” His eyes seemed to darken.
“The woman’s been a step ahead of you since Shanghai.”
“That will make her overconfident.”
Mcdermid considered. He was not a physical man, but he was not weak either. He could hike to wherever this Sleeping Buddha was, and he could shoot. He had survived as a lieutenant in Vietnam, where lieutenants were food for pigs, and he had beaten Washington at its own game, becoming the ultimate insider. As he weighed everything, he decided the manifest was far too important to trust to Feng alone.
“We’ll both go,” he decided. “You leave tonight, and I’ll follow tomorrow night. Who’s your contact in Beijing?” Increasingly, Mcdermid wanted to know the identity of who had the clout not only to order a submarine to follow the John Crowe, but who could convince the sub’s captain to act upon unconfirmed information that SEALs were planning secretly to board the Empress.
Feng raised one eyebrow. “You don’t pay me for names. You pay me to get the job done.”
“I pay you to do whatever I damn well say!”
“No one pays me that much, Taipan.” There was scorn in Feng’s voice.
Mcdermid glared, while Feng’s expression was impassive. The Feng Duns of the world were minor players in Mcdermid’s mind — necessary but of limited use. He had employed such men on various projects for two decades, finding them among the globe’s underground of mercenaries, agents extraordinary, and assassins, who survived not only by wits and skill but by connections. If they wanted the next job, they avoided burning the last.
“The Altman Group has holdings in Chongqing,” Mcdermid said at last, dropping the subject for the time being. “Get me permission from your friend in Beijing to fly there on business. I’ll need the papers immediately, of course.”
“And the money?”
“I’ll arrange for it.”
