He had talked to Jon and fallen instantly asleep. He sat bolt upright, swung his legs over the edge, and lurched to his desk chair, still drugged with his first nap in thirty hours.
It was his blue phone. He grabbed the receiver. “Klein.”
“Your new office must be sumptuous for you to be so soundly asleep,” Viktor Agajemian said. The former Soviet engineer chuckled. “I’ve been ringing for two minutes, but I knew you’d be somewhere there, yes?”
“What does Chiavelli want, Viktor?”
“Ah, yes. We don’t exchange social calls anymore, do we?”
“Not at three a. m.”
“Good point. Very well, Captain Chiavelli tells me the merchandise is to be moved tomorrow morning. He doesn’t know where or why, but all indications are it’s not related to his mission.”
“Damn!” Klein exploded, fully awake now. “That’s the message?”
“Word for word.”
“Thank you, Viktor. The money will be in your account.”
“I never doubted it.”
Klein ended the connection, but he continued to hold the receiver, considering. So Chiavelli thought the order to move Thayer was either routine or connected to the human-rights treaty. Possibly, it was related to the Empress. In any case, it was a disaster. He could never have a civilian team, or even a military team, in place quickly enough.
He looked up at his ship’s clock. Yes, there still might be time for an alternate plan. He depressed the cradle of the blue phone and dialed again.
Hong Kong Jon had been right. He had observed the hotel long enough to know no one was watching him from outside — except, of course, the CIA agent Randi thought he had not seen at the safe house. You had to hand it to her.
She was a bulldog when she was on assignment.
Smiling conspiratorially about his all-night absence and battered appearance, the hotel staff welcomed him back. He left them to speculate and rode up to his room. Once alone, he went to the bathroom mirror, where he pulled off the Band-Aids from his face and studied his wounds.
He winced when he touched them, but they were all relatively superficial. He yearned for a shower, but settled for using the Jacuzzi in the bathtub.
He was soaking peacefully when his cell phone buzzed. It was in the pocket of the hotel robe, hanging within arm’s reach. He had left it behind when he had broken into Donk & Lapierre.
“Yes?” “You leave tonight,” Fred Klein told him.
“What do I do in Dazu for a day and a half? Pretend I’m a tourist? I thought we decided I’d be better off here, digging into what Mcdermid’s
« up to.
“That was three hours ago. There’s been a serious development.” He told Jon about Viktor Agajemian’s call.
“Can you get the extraction team ready that soon?”
“That’s where you come in, Colonel. You’re going to have to help Chialli get David Thayer out of prison.”
“Only two of us? How do we do that? Have you forgotten I don’t even speak Chinese?”
“Chiavelli does. There’s not time for me to explain it all. You’ll find out the details when you land. Can you leave now?”
“I’m in the bathtub. Give me twenty minutes.”
“Don’t bother to pack. I’ll send someone in to do that and check you out after you’re gone. A car will be waiting downstairs to take you to the airport. There’ll be gear and clothes inside. A navy jet will fly you to the carrier. Good luck.”
“What about …?”
But Klein had already broken the connection. With a groan, Jon rinsed off, climbed out, and dried himself carefully, avoiding the injuries on his face and the ugly contusions and welts on his body. The hot water and Jacuzzi jets had soothed the bruises, and he felt better. He dressed and left the room. All the way down on the elevator, his uneasiness grew. What was Klein sending him into now?
Chapter Thirty-Three
In her shortest, tightest, lowest-cut black sheath, Randi Russell turned every male eye at the British Consul’s party, and most of the female eyes, too, as she entered the glitzy throng. For a change, she wore no facial disguise, only a light touch of glamor-queen makeup. Still, her pale blond hair was swept elegantly upward, and her physical attributes tended to focus an audience’s attention, so she hoped her target — Ralph Mcdermid — would be sufficiently distracted to not recognize her.
She picked a glass of champagne from a passing tray and joined the only person she knew — an executive from a British firm that was an MI6 front.
He smiled at her. “Working or playing?”
“Is there a difference, Mai?”
“Worlds. If you’re playing, I can make a pass.”
“How sweet,” she smiled back. “Another time.”
He gave a sad sigh. “So I’m only your pimp tonight. Pity. All right, whom would you like to meet? And what’s your cover, by the way?” She told him, and he took her around the room, the eyes following. Soon, Mcdermid spotted her. He stared. She gave him a bold smile and continued her conversation with an older Chinese woman high in the local government.
“Would you kindly introduce me to your charming friend, Madame Sun?”
Mcdermid had come up silently behind Randi and touched her on the arm as he passed to address Madame Sun.
The older woman favored him with an indulgent smile while she advised Randi, “Be careful of this one, child. He’s a renowned charmer.”
“Mr. Mcdermid’s reputation precedes him,” Randi said.
“Then I’ll leave you to become acquainted.”
Mcdermid inclined his head to Madame Sun in a polite good-bye. When he focused again on Randi, she saw a momentary cloud pass before his eyes, as if he sensed something was not quite right.
She pouted, altering the structure of her face. “Your reputation does precede you, Ralph Mcdermid. May I call you Ralph?”
The cloud passed, and the lecher returned. Possibly a combination of her clear American English, the revealing dress, and the thoroughly Caucasian face.
He smiled. “What reputation would that be, my dear?”
“That Ralph Mcdermid is a powerful man in all ways.”
The flirtatiousness of that from a stunning woman made even Mcdermid raise an eyebrow, if not very far. “Exactly who are you, dear?”
“Joyce Ray. I work for Imperial Import-Export, San Francisco.”
“Or they work for you?”
“Not yet.”
Mcdermid laughed. “An ambitious woman. Well, Joyce Ray. I like you.
Shall we pass along the food tables and find seats? Perhaps outside?”
“I am hungry.” Randi gave it the double meaning, and she could see a pink flush rise an inch above his collar. He had bitten.
“Then off we go.” He gave her his arm.
They walked to the buffet table and carried their plates to a secluded corner of the patio. He told her a few carefully selected anecdotes about the Altman Group and learned in return that Imperial was a wholesaler with
