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.
“Your food,” Manning said. He unpacked several containers and placed them on the credenza. Most were still warm.
Lin rose and checked out the selection. He slid open a drawer and removed some very expensive-looking china and handed a plate to Manning.
“I will not serve you,” he said, “so ‘help yourself’, as you Americans say.”
“Thanks.” Manning didn’t serve Lin either, but did allow him to go first. The older man arranged different varieties of food on his plate in small, neat piles and returned to his desk. He had already warmed himself some tea from the electric pot on the desk. Lying next to it was the pistol. Manning quickly dumped three different dishes onto his plate with his chopsticks and headed for the door.
“How long will we wait?” Lin asked.
Manning turned back to him. “Not long.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s time to get this over with,” Manning said. He returned to the secretary’s office and left Lin alone with his dinner and thoughts.
The patrolman didn’t seem very enthused to drive Ryker from the Hyatt to 101 California, and for good reason. The traffic was thick, and even worse, it was weekend traffic, which meant the out-of-towners were out in force. As the revelers were just getting started, the black-and-white squad car made some good time at first, but once it hit Kearny the traffic thickened enough that it took almost ten minutes to make it to the intersection with California.
“You want the lights, Sergeant?” the patrolman asked.
“Not necessary,” Ryker said, though he felt a peculiar anxiety beginning to build in his chest. And why was that? His instincts were trying to tell him something, but he didn’t exactly know what.
“Then I guess we’ll get there when we get there,” the patrolman said, slouching in his seat. He was already bored as hell.
Ryker wished he was also, but he was far from it. Far from it.
The air duct was just large enough for her to fit, but not at all comfortably. It was a tight squeeze, and very, very dark despite the night vision monocle she wore over one eye. The aluminum duct felt thin and flimsy beneath her weight, and she feared it might give way and she would crash through the suspended ceiling onto the office floor below. Or worse, the duct might simply fold up and trap her, leaving her pinned inside. That was her greatest fear-being trapped with no chance of escape, alone in the darkness, until the police found her or she simply died from thirst and starvation. And with the accursed Lin Yubo so near…
She pushed the thoughts from her mind and inched forward through the darkness on her belly, slithering through the ductwork like some sort of jet-black serpent, her movements slow and measured and precise. And virtually soundless. Stealth was her primary weapon now.
She came to a junction where the ducts split off, up, down, left, and right. She moved to the edge of the intersection and peered down, the direction she needed to go. Darkness waited, so deep and impenetrable that even the night vision monocle couldn’t properly pierce it after a hundred feet or so. But she could make out junctions like the one she lay at below, one for every story. She only needed to make it to the next one.
Slowly, carefully, she pushed herself over the edge until she hung head-down in the vertical duct. Using her arms and legs as brakes she slowly descended, leaving the ductwork of the 46th floor behind. She arrived at the 45th floor and slowly, oh so slowly, curled to her left and entered the horizontal duct there. She made very little sound the entire time, only a sliding scuffle here, a slight metallic
And for some reason, she did not want to kill Manning…but she didn’t know how that could be avoided.
Slowly, she crept forward through the dark shaft, stopping every few feet to listen. All she heard were the sounds of the building, the air whispering past her, the gurgle of water in pipes. There was a distant metallic clicking sound, and it took her a moment to recognize it as a magnetic lock activating. And then-muted voices. Vague, indistinct, almost lost in the rumble of the building, but her keen senses picked them up the same way a bat’s sonar might detect a solitary moth fluttering along in the darkness. She peered through every vent she came across and found nothing more remarkable than empty cubicles or vacant carpet. Yet she was certain she was on
