Knox heard the breaking glass and twisting metal a millisecond before the same sounds found their way through the wireless phone network.
The taxi was T-boned by an old-model gray Toyota, pushed clear through the intersection and slammed into a tree.
The drivers of both vehicles hurried out and staggered toward the curb.
Now the Mongolian headed up the sidewalk on his motorcycle. He hopped off and reached through shattered glass as if trying to help. Knox knew better.
A massive throng of onlookers immediately surrounded the wreck. Everyone loved a good collision.
Knox made it to the ground floor before his brain fully kicked in. Protocol dictated he walk calmly in the opposite direction of the wreck.
Instead, he ran to the wreck and challenged the crowd, pushing and shoving and shouting curses in Mandarin. The Mongolian was back on the bike. He throttled up and swung left around the corner-out of sight.
The crowd owned Knox. He moved toward the wreck where a smear of blood stained the frame. The whoop- whoop of a siren cried out: an ambulance from nearby Huashan Hospital or the police. Either way, Knox couldn’t stick around. He’d be questioned. Involved.
He pushed forward and tugged open the bent back door. Dulwich was unconscious, his face bloodied. Knox hooked him beneath his arms and pulled him out. As he did, his hand found the hard drive. He was searching for the iPhone when an old, nearly toothless woman slapped his hand and shouted, “Thief!”
Knox called her an old cow, but hurried off down the street before the crowd decided to make an example of him.
3:20 P.M.
JING AN DISTRICT
SHANGHAI
Knox called Rutherford Risk in Hong Kong and then waited ten minutes for the company’s head, Brian Primer, to return the call to the iPhone. As they talked, he walked up Changle Road toward Huashan Hospital.
“Go ahead,” Primer said, with no introductions.
“Sarge-David Dulwich-is down. Traffic accident. Looked serious to critical.”
“You escaped unharmed?”
“Wasn’t in the cab. What’s the call? I can have him out of there within…two hours, at the outside. Request a safe house with medical, or an evac team.”
“I appreciate your…loyalty. His identification is good. It should hold. No need to put the operation at risk. Not yet.”
“But the ransom money,” Knox said.
“Yes, I’m aware of the situation, believe me.”
“You want me in Guangzhou?” Knox asked.
A long pause on the other end of the call as Primer weighed his options. Perhaps Knox had surprised him with his knowledge of the operation.
“I need a few minutes. An hour. Do you have the hospital?”
“Approaching it now.”
“Survey for arrival of interrogation team, or anything suggesting compromise.”
“Can do. I won’t let him be taken,” Knox stated.
“Settle down,” Primer said. “We’ve managed a lot worse than this.”
“It was intended for me. The crash.”
“Knowledge or speculation?”
“I spotted an adversary in the area. Both drivers fled the scene.”
“Good to know. Then I’d keep my head down if I was you.”
“I want him out of there.” He paused. “I need the ransom money.”
“I said: settle down. This is what we do. Let us do it. You handle your end. The accounts?”
“A work in progress.”
“And is there progress?”
It struck Knox that this was Primer’s focus. “Guangzhou?” Knox said. He wondered if Primer would authorize a quarter million dollars in cash to be picked up by a relative stranger.
“That drop required Dulwich. We’ll figure something out. Not to worry.”
“Worry? We’ve got two days! Less, now. I can get him on a plane. A boat.”
“You handle the accounts. The exchange.”
“There won’t be an exchange without that money!”
“Then extraction. We’ve got Dulwich covered.”
Sure you do, Knox thought, wondering how expendable Dulwich was to a man like Brian Primer.
“Keep this phone close.” The line went dead.
Knox had reached the street corner. Looking left, he saw the blockish white buildings of Huashan Hospital. In the first few hours of care it would be difficult to get to Dulwich. But after that…
He kept vigil, waiting for the arrival of police that never came. An hour passed. Primer was right: Dulwich’s “accident” was being treated as just another civilian casualty.
For how long remained the question.
6:20 P.M.
CHANGNING DISTRICT
SHANGHAI
“The wheels are coming off this thing,” he told Grace, having returned to the safe house apartment. “We have to get Sarge out of there. Priority one.”
“The company will take care of Mr. Dulwich.”
“The company will pretend he doesn’t exist.”
“Not Mr. Primer.”
“Believe it,” Knox said. “In truth, Sarge probably doesn’t exist. He’s probably an independent contractor, like you. Like me, now. Nowhere on their payroll despite his working there. It’s an insidious arrangement set up exactly for moments like this.”
“Like Lu Hao,” she said solemnly.
“Yes. Like that,” he agreed. “It all depends how good his documentation is. There are ways.”
“You cannot possibly be considering removing him from hospital.”
“Can’t I?”
“We cannot care for him! The way you described his condition-”
“Don’t get your panties in a knot.”
“Excuse me?”
He didn’t translate it for her. “At some point they’ll determine he’s an American. His teeth-dental work-will tell them that much. X rays. Tattoos. There are ways.”
“We must focus on Lu Hao and Mr. Danner.”
“Sarge was the source for the ransom money.” He relived their conversation in the wet market, including the pickup in Guangzhou. A pickup that would not happen. “No Sarge, no ransom drop.”
Grace hesitated before speaking. “Extraction.”
“Right,” he said. “As if.”
He looked over at her. She needed sleep. They both needed food.
“Okay. One step at a time,” he said. “Maybe the frame has Lu’s files. Maybe the numbers tell us something we don’t know.” He no longer believed it. He suddenly saw them instead as a means to an end. “We’re looking at this wrong.”
“How so?”
“Everyone seems to want Lu’s accounts, right?”
