The man entered the room.
Pressing her hands onto the floor, she pivoted up and clipped the legs out from under him.
A tray with bread and cheese clattered away.
She sprang to her feet and slammed the sole of her boot into the man’s face. Something snapped, probably his nose. She pounded her heel into his face one more time. The back of his head popped against the floorboards and he lay still.
Another kick into the ribs made her feel better.
But the attack had generated noise. And there was at least one more threat lurking nearby. She searched the man’s clothes and spotted a gun in a shoulder holster. She freed the weapon and checked the magazine.
Fully loaded.
Time to leave.
NINE
COPENHAGEN
MALONE STARED AT HIS KIDNAPPER. THEY’D ABANDONED THE street just as the police arrived, rounding a corner and plunging back into the Stroget.
“You have a name?” he asked.
“Call me Ivan.”
The English laced with a Russian accent made the label appropriate, as did the man’s appearance—short, heavy-chested, with grayish black hair. A splotchy, reddened skink of a face was dominated by a broad Slavic nose and shadowed by a day-old beard that shone with perspiration. He wore an ill-fitting suit. The gun had been tucked away and they now stood in a small plaza, within the shadow of the Round Tower, a 17th-century structure that offered commanding views from its hundred-foot summit. The dull roar of traffic was not audible this deep into the Stroget, only the clack of heels to cobbles and the laughter of children. They stood beneath a covered walk that faced the tower, a brick wall to their backs.
“Your people kill those two back there?” Malone asked.
“They think we come to whisk them away.”
“Care to tell me how you know about Cassiopeia Vitt?”
“Quite the woman. If I am younger, a hundred pounds lighter.” Ivan paused. “But you do not want to hear this. Vitt is into something she does not understand. I hope you, ex-American-agent, appreciate the problem better.”
“It’s the only reason I’m standing here.”
His unspoken message seemed to be received.
“You can overpower me,” Ivan said, nodding. “I am fat, out-of-shape Russian. Stupid, too. All of us, right?”
He caught the sarcasm. “I can take you. But the man standing near the tree, across the way, in the blue jacket, and the other one, near the Round Tower’s entrance? I doubt I’d evade them. They’re not fat and out of shape.”
Ivan chuckled. “I am told you are smart. Two years off job have not changed this.”
“I seem to be busier in retirement than I was working for the government.”
“This bad thing?”
“You need to talk fast, or I may take my chances with your friends.”
“No need to be hero. Vitt is helping man named Lev Sokolov. Ex-Russian, lives in China. Five years ago, Sokolov marries Chinese national and leaves against wishes of Russian government. He slips away and, once in China, little can be done.”
“Sounds like old news,” Malone said.
“We think him dead. Not true.”
“So what else changed?”
“Sokolov has four-year-old son who is recently stolen. He calls Vitt, who comes to find boy.”
“And this worries you? What about the police?”
Ivan shook his head. “Thousands of children go in China every year. It is about having the son. In China this is necessity. Son carries family name. He is child who helps parents in old age. Forget daughters. Son is what matters. Makes no sense to me.”
He kept listening.
“China’s one-child policy is nightmare,” Ivan said. “Parents must have the birth permit. If not, there is fine that is more than Chinese man makes in the year. How can he be sure to get son in one try?” The Russian snapped his pudgy fingers. “Buy one.”
Malone had read about the problem. Female fetuses were either aborted or abandoned, and decades of the one-child policy had caused a national shortage of women.
“Problem for Sokolov,” Ivan said, “is that he fights criminal network.” He gestured with his short arms. “Is worse than Russia.”
“That’s hard to imagine.”
“Is illegal to abandon, steal, or sell child in China, but is legal to buy one. Young boy costs 900 dollar, U.S. Lot of money when worker earns in year 1,700 dollar, U.S. Sokolov has no chance.”
“So Cassiopeia went to help. So what. Why are you concerned?”
“Four days ago she travels to Antwerp,” Ivan said.
“To find the kid there?”
“No. To find boy she must find something else first.”
Now he understood. “Something you obviously want?”
Ivan shrugged.
Malone’s mind envisioned the torture video. “Who has Cassiopeia?”
“Bad people.”
He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Ever deal with eunuchs?”
NI DID NOT KNOW WHETHER TO BE AMAZED OR REPELLED BY what Pau Wen had revealed about himself. “You are a eunuch?”
“I was subjected to the same ceremony you just witnessed, nearly forty years ago.”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“It was what I wanted to do with my life.”
Ni had flown to Belgium thinking Pau Wen might have the answers he sought. But a whole host of new, disturbing questions had been raised.
Pau motioned for them to leave the exhibit hall and retreat to the courtyard. The midday air had warmed, the sun bright in a cloudless sky. More bees seemed to have joined in the assault on the spring blossoms. The two men stopped beside a glass jar, maybe a meter wide, containing bright-hued goldfish.
“Minister,” Pau said, “in my time, China was in total upheaval. Before and after Mao died, the government was visionless, stumbling from one failed program to another. No one dared challenge anything. Instead a precious few made reckless decisions that affected millions. When Deng Xiaoping finally opened the country to the world, that was a daring move. I thought perhaps we might have a chance at success. But change was not to be. The sight of that lone student confronting a tank in Tiananmen Square has been etched into the world’s consciousness. One of the defining images of the 20th century. Which you well know.”
Yes, he did.
He was there that day—June 4, 1989—when the government’s tolerance ran out.
“And what did Deng do after?” Pau asked. “He pretended like it never happened, moving ahead with more foolishness.”
