“I’ve forgotten if you told us,” Knox said, addressing the agent. “How do I reach the building’s manager if I need him?”
“There is direct dial on the state-of-art security installment entrance beside the entrance.”
“He lives in the building?”
“Of course. On the lower level.”
“Do I use the east or west stairs to reach him?”
She looked a little put off by the question; there was no figuring Westerners.
“West.”
The manager would have the security camera system in his room. If a cop or agent, the man who’d just entered would check the videos first, trying to determine where he and Grace had headed. It gave them a few minutes, but not many.
He texted Grace:
abort
He had to separate himself from the real estate agent, get Grace clear of the building; then, if possible, he would tend to business.
Grace cursed her mother under her breath, having found no prescription medication among Lu’s toiletries. Back in his bedroom, she searched his desk, then the rest of his room methodically but hastily, pulling out drawers, crawling beneath the desk, checking for a hidden USB drive or external disk drive, any conceivable place he might have stored the desired documentation of his bribery. She patted down all his clothing, checked inside the toes of his shoes. A tennis racket cover. Two empty backpacks. The futon mattress and frame.
Her iPhone vibrated.
abort
She cursed aloud and then started snapping photographs of the room, including the empty desktop. Never mind the roommate’s claim: it appeared the room must have been searched, the most important items taken. The digital frame switched photographs: Lu Hao on a lovingly restored motorcycle and sidecar; this transitioned into Marlon Brando also on a motorcycle; then Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, followed by Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf in Indiana Jones-also a sidecar and bike; and finally the Shanghai skyline before revealing a new picture of Lu Jian. Grace put her hand to her mouth as she took in the photograph: this time Lu Jian was smiling widely, his arm around another woman.
She fled the bedroom quickly. The kid had returned to his place on the couch.
“Where is Lu Hao’s laptop?” she asked. “He had an address I need.”
The boy shrugged.
“Was it not here the day he disappeared?”
Another shrug.
“Has someone been here before me?” she asked. “Someone asking questions, looking around?”
“Who are you?” the boy asked.
She marched over to him. “You know what they say about a woman scorned?”
The boy appeared properly terrified.
“That’s me. You do not want to make me any more angry than I already am. So…who was here before me?”
“I told you: no one. I swear it.”
“A woman?” she said, playing her role to the limit.
“No, I promise.”
“What did she look like? What is her name?”
“I tell you: there has been no woman. No man. No one!”
“Liar! You tell Lu Hao to call Ling-Cha,” she said, making up a name, “the moment he steps through that door. You understand?”
The boy nodded.
“By the gods, I’ll have your balls in a vise if you forget.”
She marched to the door, turned and glared at the other boys-they all looked both terrified and relieved that she wasn’t haranguing them. She let herself out.
Knox stepped aside, allowing the agent to enter the elevator first. “I would like to take the stairs,” he said. “I will meet you in the lobby.”
The agent stepped toward the control panel to stop the car, but too late. The doors slid shut.
He assumed the Mongolian-for that was how he’d pigeonholed him: northern Chinese or Mongolian-would use the west staircase because, according to the agent, the west staircase was closest to the superintendent’s residence.
In the event of an abort, Grace would take the west staircase-farthest from the building’s main entrance. Knox texted:
take east stairs
…but moved quickly to intercept her in the event it was too late.
He reached the stairs and put his ear to the door: faint footfalls…approaching him. He slipped inside. Steel and concrete stairs in a concrete shaft.
Sounds from above and below: above being Grace; below, the Mongolian. He caught Grace as she rounded the upper landing, hand signaling for her to leave the stairwell.
The ascending footsteps grew louder and quicker.
Grace paused, heard the approach and left through the door.
The shoulder of a black leather jacket appeared. Knox stepped away from the railing, drawing in a deep breath to charge his system and purge the adrenaline.
Knox’s SERE training had inspired in him an interest in, and study of, hand-to-hand combat techniques. Chinese soldiers and Shanghai police were trained in sanshou, a bare-fist close-quarters fighting technique. Russians were taught sambo, a martial arts style of fighting that combined hard-fisted blows and wrestling techniques. Within the first few blows, Knox would know where his opponent was from-information that might come in handy later.
Knox flew off the landing, catching the Mongolian midstride and plastering him to the wall. The man maintained his balance and postured a wrestling stance.
Sambo. So, not Chinese and therefore unlikely he was police. A game changer. Knox could do more than push and shove.
His mind raced. Russian? Mongolian? North Chinese? A foreign agent, or private security? Good either way, as he could fight the man without fear he was assaulting a Chinese officer.
He pivoted and kicked the man’s chest. Followed with an open-fisted chop aimed for the man’s throat. But the man countered with an effective forearm block and used Knox’s forward momentum against him. He ducked under Knox’s arm and head-butted Knox’s ribs.
The wind knocked out of him, Knox teetered. The man stepped in for a headlock-again, a wrestling move.
Knox kneed him in the side and drove his elbow into the man’s face. A bone cracked. The man’s jaw looked like a jack-’o-lantern that had been dropped.
He cursed-not Chinese, not Russian. The man ran off a string of expletives. An agglutinative language. Mongolian? Knox had been to Ulan Bator only once.
In a matter of seconds, the fight was over, Knox pinning the man, pressing a knee to his groin while holding his right arm twisted to within a quarter turn of tearing his rotator cuff. His opponent remained conscious, but in a crippling amount of pain.
Knox removed a switchblade, a wallet and a cell phone from the man’s pockets. He would overnight the phone or its SIM card to Rutherford for analysis.
He considered working the man for information, but the guy didn’t look the conversational type, and Knox was pressed for time. He gave the arm a sharp twist-like taking a leg off a cooked turkey. But this was a big bird, and its cry, convincing.
Grace waited for him in the back room of Bliss, a bar on Jinxian Road decorated in 1970s retro. The cigarette smoke was thick, the recorded jazz smooth, and the waitresses very young and pretty. The sign listed twenty-two on the occupancy permit. Maybe it was a maximum age limit, Knox thought. There were five others scattered around at tables eating dessert or enjoying a drink. No one over twenty.
