“Stupid fool. Drop the pipe. Keep both hands in view.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Your CIA uses a cameraman, a member of the Xuan Tower documentary crew, to attempt to embarrass Chinese government, or to challenge the WTO environmental agreement. Who knows what might be the reason? More American tricks.”
“That’s nonsense!”
“Lower the pipe.”
Kozlowski lay down the pipe. It clattered against the concrete.
“Hands behind your back.” He waved the gun. “Onto your knees.”
“You arrest me, it will be a national incident. Think how that will affect your career?”
“It is already a national incident. Espionage is no game. Do not worry about my career, Mr. Kozlowski. Worry about your health in Chinese prison. How your family will cope.”
“I have diplomatic status.”
Shen Deshi stepped forward with astonishing speed for such a big man. He pistol-whipped Kozlowski, stunning him. He cuffed the man’s hands behind his back. Removed Kozlowski’s cell phone and disassembled it one-handed. He smashed all the parts with an angry foot.
“Up!” Shen said, ordering Kozlowski to move.
Grace used the commotion to cover the sounds of her climbing down from her perch. She hurried toward the open doors, staying low and moving fast. A second car arrived, trapping her. She settled into a tight spot alongside one of the large vats.
The driver of the second car was a young woman wearing a police uniform. She entered and helped Inspector Shen move Kozlowski toward the yard. Shen directed her to drive “the prisoner” into Shanghai and drop him at an address he recited.
“I will call ahead,” he said to her. “Much will be made of your cooperation.”
Kozlowski said to the inspector, “You are bringing a shit storm onto yourself.”
“This foul-mouthed waiguoren will tell you a dozen lies,” Shen told the young woman. “All foreigners have golden tongues. Pay him no mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Commendation and promotion must certainly follow on the heels of such loyalty and the expert conduct of one’s duties.” It sounded like a rehearsed speech.
She slipped behind the wheel of the Range Rover.
Shen put Kozlowski into the back seat, tying the seatbelt’s shoulder strap tightly around the man’s neck. The recoil mechanism held Kozlowski upright. If he leaned forward, he choked.
“Beat the damn spy with your flashlight if you have to,” he told her. “He deserves every blow.”
“Gladly,” she answered.
Shen shut the car door, banged on the side of the vehicle and it drove off.
He returned inside, holstering his weapon and then lengthening his stride.
As the second car arrived, Knox slid beneath Kozlowski’s Range Rover and hid. He overheard much of what went on inside, and moved to the second car in hope of stealing its keys or rendering it useless.
If he could get Kozlowski and Grace into the Range Rover…
He quietly opened the sedan’s door. He punched the jamb’s interior switch, preventing the inside light from turning on. The keys were in the ignition.
He banged his head into the rearview mirror, dislodging it. Reached up to try to leave it close to where it had been.
It was aimed into the back seat.
Knox froze as he saw a black strap protruding alongside the center seatbelt clasp: a Nike Swoosh.
From the back seat of the Range Rover, Kozlowski realized his diplomatic plates would work against him. No traffic cop would dare ticket the car or pull it over. She drove around the tannery and aimed for the front gate.
One of his daughter’s puzzle books stuck up from the seat pocket, the sight of which caused a knot in his throat. He’d run out without so much as a goodbye. For all the fairy-tale endings, as a man in service to his country, he knew how the final acts to most such lives played out: a blindfolded and handcuffed body found slumped and collecting flies in a city dump or along a shoreline.
Pleading his case with his driver wasn’t going to cut it. Once he was in Chinese custody, his life was all but over.
The Range Rover slowed to clear the posts defining the compound’s front gate. Kozlowski leaned. The seatbelt tightened around his neck.
The driver-side window exploded. A man’s hand appeared and the cadet’s head rebounded off the steering wheel. The hand tripped the door locks and the driver’s door came open, the car still rolling. The slumped cadet was pulled from the seat and John Knox took her place. Knox must have tried for the clutch, but he hit the brake and the car stalled. Knox reached for the ignition.
A shot rang out, exploding the rear window. Shen Deshi screamed in Mandarin, “Stop or I will shoot!” He was close. He had a good shot at the back of Kozlowski’s head. With his neck held by the seatbelt, Kozlowski wasn’t moving.
“I will shoot him!” Shen called out again, this time in English. “Maybe you make it. Maybe not.”
Knox gripped the ignition key more firmly. He slipped the gearshift into Reverse.
“Now! Out of the car! You! The driver!”
“You shoot him, I’ll run you over,” Knox called through the blown-out window. “So, you’d better make the first shot count.”
“Knox?” Kozlowski hissed from the back seat.
“You’d better make damn sure you kill me, too, because I’m only going to cripple you with the car. I’ll save the good stuff for last.”
“You talk too much!” Shen called out. “Get out of the car. Now!”
Knox swung his legs out.
“Are you out of your mind?” Kozlowski said.
Grace swung the pipe, intending to strike the man’s right arm and break it while simultaneously crushing his ribcage. She’d come up from behind the man while Knox bought her time by keeping the conversation going. She wasn’t going to kill a Chinese cop-but if she had her way, he might wish she had.
She drove the pipe with the power of a tennis serve. She felt things disintegrate with the contact.
The cop folded in onto the blow, dropped the gun and then sagged left, tumbling over. Grace kicked the gun away and raised the pipe where he could see her, prepared to take a head shot if necessary.
Shen Deshi had no intention of going down at the hands of a woman. His broken and dislocated arm clutched to his fractured ribs, he sprang from the asphalt and knocked her back. The pipe clattered. He reached for it instinctively, but screamed behind the pain, his right arm useless.
Grace rolled over the fallen pipe. The cop kicked out but only grazed her. The next kick landed, however. Just below her ribs. And the next in her hip.
Knox connected with the cop in a football tackle. Knocked him five yards into the backfield, and hammered three consecutive rights into the man’s dislocated shoulder. The cop let out a cry.
The cop then backhanded Knox across the cheek, wheeled around, pivoting on the ball of his left foot, and connected his heel into Knox’s face. Knox hit the asphalt hard-too hard-and saw stars.
Shen blocked the pipe as Grace swung it. He took hold of it, and twisted it from her, catching her off guard. He owned it. He took a swing, but she jumped back.
The waiguoren was up on his feet, but dazed. The man’s nose was bleeding, his eyes unfocused. He lowered his head and charged like a bull. Shen couldn’t believe it-the waiguoren was a dead man. He hoisted the pipe high overhead bearing down with all his power. The pipe stuck behind him. Wouldn’t pull forward.
He spun around: it was the cock-sucking cadet, both hands on the pipe, a defiant look in her eyes. She held to the pipe. The waiguoren hit him so hard he lifted up off the asphalt, and landed with two hundred pounds atop him.
He cried out as his opponent took him by the shoulders-the shoulders!-and smashed him to the pavement. Once, twice.
