The Risk Agent (38 page)

Grace looked up and outside at the flat expanse of rice paddies stretching to the horizon. “It is a New City,” she said. “A resettlement city.”

The Chinese government occasionally created a new technology center or manufacturing district in a remote area and relocated millions of people to live and work there.

“Doesn’t that fly in the face of Chongming being the seventh city?” he asked.

“Not actually. It supports it. It is to be a resettlement city,” she said, her voice more confident. “Similar to one I once saw outside Chengdu.”

It was a new term Knox had not heard, and he said so.

“China is no longer able to feed her people. We import even basic food like rice. The problem is farming efficiency. We have over seven hundred million farmers, yet the average farm is less than half a hectare.
Our government has calculated we need a minimum of one-point-five hectare per farmer to be self-sufficient. It means we must find new work for one out of every three farmers. We are in the middle of the largest migration of humanity in the history of world,” she said, sounding somewhat proud.

“Resettlement,” he said.

“Yes. Resettlement cities are built on empty tracts of land, just like this.” She indicated the open fields. “High-rise housing. Typically, four to five million people.”

“Million,” Knox said, trying to wrap his mind around it.

“Such a construction project would be worth—”

“Billions of yuan,” he said. “Fourteen billion, seven hundred million, to be exact. The number. The prize.”

They sat in the idling car, neither of them speaking. For both it was an epiphany, the weaving together of frayed ends. For both, their fatigue suddenly weighed even heavier.

“I owe you an apology,” Knox said. “Marquardt’s trip meant something.”

“Accepted.”

“Lu’s red envelope,” Knox said.

“Passed along by a Beijing official. The first two hundred thousand was likely for the coordinates, so Marquardt could visit the proposed property. The process would be closed bids. By seeing the property beforehand—”

“He’d know the approximate cost of developing it, refining his bid.”

“The second two hundred thousand was perhaps to buy the bid amount acceptable to the Resettlement Committee. The fourteen billion, seven hundred million. This would allow Marquardt to undercut all other bidders.”

“Yao Xuolong understood what he was looking at,” Knox said. “It’s a small island. He figures it out just as we have. Maybe he offers to sell the coordinates to Yang Cheng or another Berthold Group competitor, or maybe he wants money to keep his mouth shut. Whatever his move, it gets him killed.”

“But he knew who to contact,” she said. “He knew who to call. How would he know the Mongolian?”

“Maybe he didn’t,” Knox said.

“The government official,” she proposed.

“It’s possible. And if he figured out who it was, so can we.”

The only flaw in the trapezoidal shape formed by the coordinates was at the southeast corner, where an irregular box connected the parcel to the shores of the Yangtze River. Both of them spotted it.

“I am familiar with that area of the island,” she said. “A long time ago, it served as a ferry dock. Now it is warehouses and light industrial.”

“So they annex a piece of ground onto this New City, ground that’s already zoned for light industrial. It offers a manufacturing area and river access. Makes sense to me.”

She took Knox by the hand. “Your fingers burning. Light industrial.”

“Chemicals,” he said.

“Chemicals,” she echoed.

35

12:45 P.M.

HONGQIAO DISTRICT

“Goddamn Chinese,” Kozlowski blurted out to his wife as he hung up the phone.

“Honey!” She motioned to their daughter, Tucker, who was playing on a DSi.

“It’s Saturday,” he said, “of a national holiday weekend, and of all the days, the lab chooses today to return a forensics report.”

“So they’re working. But you’re not.”

“If only.”

“Please.”

“I have to. There’s a heavyweight cop involved with this. And Knox. You know Knox.”

“He’s in trouble?”

“He is. Up to his keister. I should have never answered the phone.”

The call had explained that the severed hand retrieved from the
Yangtze was cut from a dead man, not a living one. The DNA IDed him as a Caucasian with O-negative blood. Flesh burns on the wrist were consistent with chemical burns. Soil samples taken from beneath two of the fingernails returned high traces of heavy metals: mercury, lead, cadmium, chromium and arsenic.

“Which means?” Kozlowski had asked the lab technician.

The man replied: “These metals are in densities twenty-three percent higher than Shanghai garden soil.”

Shanghai garden soil? Who the fuck asked about Shanghai garden soil?

“This is soil from Chongming Island.”

“Say again,” Kozlowski said.

“Soil on Chongming Island is the only location for a radius of several hundred kilometers with this same approximate concentration of heavy metals.”

Kozlowski swallowed hard. He’d had two men following Inspector Shen Deshi since their meeting at the KFC. His men had lost him to a river crossing in the storm but had reconnected and followed him onto Chongming Island.

“What kind of chemicals, exactly?” Kozlowski had asked, continuing the conversation.

“In combination with the chemical agents discovered on his wrist: sodium hydrosulphide, soda ash and sodium metabisulphite. I might suggest a livestock tannery.”

“A tannery on Chongming Island,” Kozlowski had mumbled.

“Correct,” the lab man said.

Kozlowski had hung up fearing Shen Deshi was about to beat him to the physical evidence of an American videographer’s murder. Evidence the man would destroy as quickly as possible. Any chance at justice lost.

Kozlowski made contact with his two agents.

“He’s in a police precinct in Chongming.”

“Stay with him,” Kozlowski ordered. “If he so much as farts, I want to hear about it.”

36

1 P.M.

CHONGMING

CHONGMING ISLAND

Inspector Shen Deshi sat imperiously, legs crossed, in the corner of the brightly lit assembly room of Chongming’s PSB, fifth precinct. He wore dark glasses. He studied the group, amazed at the youth of the precinct’s few patrol officers, trying to remember if he’d ever been that young.

His decision to keep the money had put him in a reflective mood. The surprise on the Mongolian’s face as he’d slid off the ferry would not leave him. Perhaps he’d been too hasty. If well-connected, the Mongolian’s employer could make hell for him. So could Kozlowski, if any evidence surfaced that the Mongolian had chopped the American cameraman to pieces. He needed to pull a blanket over all of this and let it go to sleep. A deep sleep. And quickly, before it got out of hand.

The police captain called his group to order. Their uniforms were loose and ill-fitting; three were women, two old dogs not yet thirty and
one quite the stunner, who managed to fill out her uniform nicely. He thought this woman might accompany him on his rounds.

He listened to the captain detail the situation: a fugitive foreigner, considered dangerous, in league with a Chinese woman, both wanted for questioning on multiple assaults, possible kidnapping, extortion and a homicide. A big case on Chongming Island was a stolen water buffalo; the patrol officers were collectively drooling at the thought of pursuing a real-life fugitive, not because they would enjoy the pursuit, which they would, but because the only way out of a hellhole like Chongming Island was to gain the attention of one’s superiors and request reassignment. For the nine officers gathered, their captain was waving a lottery ticket in their faces.

Shen considered the stop a necessary diversion. He wanted to establish himself with the local police in the event things went as badly as he expected they might; and he hoped to wave the scent of the fox in the face of the hounds and send them scampering in the wrong direction, leaving him to pursue the prize alone. Or almost alone. The young female officer seemed worth taking along.

Fifteen minutes later, they were seated side by side in his car; she hung on his every word, knowing better than to ask where they were going.

“I have contacts in the private sector,” he told her, knowing he impressed her. “In this case, it’s a crime lab used by the Europeans and Americans. I was offered information an hour before the Americans were to receive it. I am looking for a tannery on the island. One in operation in the recent past.”

“Chongming Tanning,” she said immediately.

“What of it?”

“My late uncle on my mother’s side worked there until it was closed by authorities. The closing brought his family much hardship.”

“A blue building?” he said. “Near water?” He’d seen the Mongolian’s video. He was guessing it was near water because the cameraman’s hand had been found in the river.

“The same.”

“Please, direct me to this place.”

“Take a right at the next street,” she said.

Shen steered the car sharply right. She reached out to brace herself, and leaned against him, exactly as he’d wanted.

“How long?” he said.

“Ten, fifteen minutes, at the outside,” she said.

“I like your mouth,” he said. “The shape of your mouth.”

She blushed and looked away. “Thank you.”

He took her by the hair and turned her head to face him. “I would like it better in my lap.”

She flushed. Her lips went white.

“You do not wish to displease me, neh?”

He enjoyed seeing terror on her face, the sense of power it instilled. Officers took sexual favors all the time, but not Shen Deshi. He intended to make up for lost time. He slid his seat back and pulled her face into his lap. “You are about to earn yourself a promotion,” he said.

He nearly drove off the road as she finished him off, his right hand down her shirt, his left choking the steering wheel.

She collected herself and then it was as if it had never happened.

“You will direct me to within a quarter mile of the tannery,” he said. “I will park someplace out of the way. You will stand watch and notify me of anything out of the ordinary.”

“It is a deserted area,” she said. “After the tannery closed, other companies moved out as well.”

Land, any land, was too precious to abandon. “Why would they do this?”

“Local committee declared the area a future park.”

“What was the real reason?” he asked. There was no point in building a park on a sparsely populated island.

“This was the only reason I ever heard.”

“Tell me, how did your uncle meet his end?”

She said nothing for a moment. “Illness. Cancer of the blood.”

“Was he alone in this?” Shen Deshi said.

“You’ll turn left soon,” she said, pointing.

He swung the car left.

“This road leads to River Road. Then right on River Road.”

“I see I picked the right partner,” he said. “You have done well.”

She flushed with anger and embarrassment.

“I am glad for the chance to work with you,” he said. “Cooperation between departments is to be rewarded.”

“Take the next right.”

He traced her jawline. “We work well together, is it not true?” he said.

She shivered. Looked as though she might be sick.

“Pull over please!” she called out softly.

Shen Deshi yanked the car to the side of the road.

The woman threw open the door and vomited.

37

6:00 P.M.

CHONGMING ISLAND

Through the haze, the air over Shanghai bulged as a pink smudge on the horizon. Nearing the confluence of the Yangtze River and the China Sea, the shipping traffic spread out; low-slung barges lumbered alongside towering container ships. Jets floated on final approach into Pudong International.

Grace drove the Toyota, now sporting a third set of license plates. She turned the car off the River Road onto a rutted mud drive, entering an area of dirt and weeds and abandoned warehouses. A gravel yard’s towering equipment was silhouetted by the last vestiges of the sunset.

“It’s a ghost town,” he said, climbing out. Grace joined him.

“National Day holiday.” Cinder-block walls separated the abandoned buildings. Grace kept close to one as she led them away from the gravel yard.

“I suggest you take up position there, on the sand pile,” said the former
army officer, pointing to the gravel yard. “From there you will be able to see all the buildings. It is good cover.”

“Agreed,” Knox said. “But you’ll be the one standing guard, not me.”

“A Chinese woman wandering around these places will be treated much more gently than a waiguoren.” She stopped, too small to scale the wall.

“But I can climb the walls without someone’s help,” he said, smugly.

Knox helped her over the wall, then followed. They cut across a mucky, foul-smelling stretch of saw grass and mud and scaled a second wall into the gravel yard. The sun sank into the layer of smog. Night fell quickly, dusk lasting all of five minutes.

Together they crawled up the sand pile, winning an elevated view of the industrial buildings to their left.

“Third building over,” Knox said. “That’s not dirt.”

“Asphalt. I cannot read the sign from here.”

“If you could, it would be the same sign as in the Mongolian’s video.”

“Speculation.”

“If you climb that conveyor, you’ll have an even better view.”

“You have an extra phone or two.”

“So what?”

“Give one to me and call me from up there if you see anything.”

Knox smiled at her. “Nice try.”

“As a woman,” she said, “and a native of this island, I have much better chance of talking my way out, if caught.”

“As a man, I don’t talk my way out,” Knox said.

“My point, exactly. Should talking fail, neither will I. If I need help, I have you.”

“And how do you intend to get over the walls?”

“There is only the one wall,” she said, pointing. “You see? The second wall is crumbling. Not a problem.”