It took Knox less than a minute to spot a beautifully restored CJ750 and sidecar that matched Grace’s description of what she’d seen in Lu Hao’s apartment. Five bikes farther down the line, he identified a dark green Honda 220 street bike, reminding him of the owner’s manual for a 220 in Danner’s desk drawer.
“Beautiful,” he said in Mandarin, approaching the 750. He rattled off the bike’s specifications and caught Kozlowski staring at him, not the bike.
“A recent addition,” the superintendent said. “This one will not last. Will be reclaimed for certain.”
“This model, and ones like it, interest me greatly,” Knox said.
The superintendent wandered the lines, searching out other antiques.
Knox meanwhile moved closer to Danner’s Honda.
An agitated Kozlowski, hands in his pockets, didn’t know what to do with himself.
“It would be impolite to leave the captain alone,” Knox told Kozlowski, who glared back at him.
Knox reached Danner’s bike. Its right side was badly scarred. It had been dumped and had skidded a good distance.
Reaching it, he called out, “Hen hao!”-very good!-so that his spending time with it could be explained.
The superintendent hoisted a thumbs-up from across the yard-he could smell the yuan flowing.
Knox observed a bracket attached to the handlebars, its black plastic stamped GARMIN. He checked over his shoulder. The superintendent was busy searching for a similar prize.
Kozlowski watched Knox from a distance, like a worried parent.
Knox screened his opening of the motorcycle seat’s storage, and he rummaged its contents: a pair of foam earplugs, leather gloves, a cable lock, a small plastic funnel, bungee cords. And a black, faux-leather drawstring bag. He lifted the bag-the weight and shape making sense for a GPS-and he zipped it into one of the ScotteVest’s lower pockets.
The superintendent shouted as Knox was zipping up the jacket. “Do not make a mistake!”
Knox’s blood ran hot. It was too late to return the GPS. He got the seat compartment closed, believing he’d been caught in the act.
“That one may look pretty,” the superintendent said in blistering Shanghainese, “but the older ones run far better.”
Knox shouted at the superintendent. “I do not doubt! The young, pretty girl has nothing on the older, experienced woman!”
The superintendent howled. Kozlowski bristled. The superintendent indicated a beat-up 750 that lacked its sidecar. Knox moved in that direction, passing what looked like a vintage BMW or a good Russian copy of one.
They identified six bikes, including Lu Hao’s. The superintendent wrote down the plate numbers. Gao would talk to his men and be back in touch.
Out on the street, Kozlowski said, “If you’re lucky, they put you in a six-by-six-foot cell and slowly starve you. Within a week, you’ll say anything into the video camera they want you to say, and it won’t help you one bit to say it. If you’re unlucky, you never get as far as the cell.”
“He liked me,” Knox said.
“You do not want to get into this.”
“I’m buying a couple motorcycles.”
“Listen, I know who lives in the apartment building in Zhabei where the man was beaten-a man, by the way, who has not been seen since. He should have visited a hospital; he did not.”
“Health care these days.”
“I also know which private security companies are contracted to which U.S.-based corporations with offices here. I know whose jet carried you into Hong Kong. I will say this, Knox: I’m very careful about running background checks on the people I drink beer with. Break bread with. The people I admit into the consulate for Monday Night Football. Extremely careful. So either I missed something-unlikely-or you’re a sleeper-also unlikely-or you’re into something you shouldn’t be. But I’d gotten to like you, and that opinion is quickly changing.” He waited a moment for people to pass them on the sidewalk. “I help people I like. But not the stupid ones.”
Knox considered entering full denial mode-his knee-jerk reaction to such lectures. He caught himself and said, “I need the laptop or its contents. I need a heads-up if the heat joins the game. And I need some slack from you.”
Kozlowski said, “You think? Really?”
“Time’s against us here,” Knox said. “I’m staying at-”
“The Jin Jiang, room five-forty-seven. I know that. Shit, Knox, what do you think I do all day?”
Knox swallowed dryly. He didn’t like the thought that Kozlowski was keeping tabs on him. He wondered if Kozlowski knew about the room at Fay’s as well.
Knox shook the man’s hand and thanked him. “You’ve been a big help.”
“Whatever you took out of there,” Kozlowski said, “I wouldn’t mind it landing on my doorstep in a basket with no note. This street is two-way or it’s shut down,” Kozlowski said.
“Understood.”
Knox looked up in time to spot the distinct shape of a face among the hundreds of Chinese looking his way. A man on a green motorcycle, nearly the color of Danner’s.
A Mongolian.
10:45 A.M.
Up the street, a wide-shouldered man loitered on his motorcycle by a cart that sold cong you bing-green onion pancake. He watched the two Caucasians leaving a nondescript entrance.
The man’s parents had created his name, Melschoi, by way of a cruel acronym: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Choibalsan. He’d taken heat for it in the schoolyard, but by the time he’d signed with the police in Ulan Bator, no one murmured a critical word in his company. Melschoi had developed into an imposing force: physically oversized, mentally resilient and morally strong.
After six years, on a police force fueled by corruption, Melschoi’s attempt to stay clean proved his ruin. In failing to bring down a cabal of officers, he and six police loyal to him-four of whom were with him now in Shanghai-had been betrayed. Two of his team, including his younger brother, had been abducted, tortured and brutally killed. He and his remaining four officers had been forced to run, stowing away beneath a winter train bound for Beijing, an experience that accounted for the two missing fingers on Melschoi’s left hand.
Disgrace had left him disfigured. He and his men planned to return to Ulan Bator with enough money to move and protect their families before finishing what they’d begun.
Now he’d lost two of his men to injury at the hand of an eBpon-a foreigner. He’d witnessed this same eBpon visiting the Sherpa’s driver. Now he was with Cold Eyes-the U.S. Consulate’s security chief. As far as he was concerned, it confirmed the eBpon was a spy, a foreign agent. This discovery irritated him, because it meant that the man was hands-off. His client would not tolerate an act against the U.S. government.
Melschoi understood the guidelines imposed. But he understood the rules of a street fight better. The foreigner would pay for cutting his team in half, though the man’s ability to take out two of his men did not go disrespected. Melschoi had long since proved himself to be a patient and careful adversary. Accidents happened.
He left the motorcycle and hailed a taxi, prepared to switch cabs several times if necessary.
The eBpon would never know what hit him.
11
7:06 P.M.
HUANGPU DISTRICT
THE BUND
SHANGHAI
Heading up Guangdong Road toward the Huangpu River, the buildings grew older and more imposing. Some of
