Hong Kong (21 page)

Cole's face wore a blank expression. His mind was obviously going at a mile a minute.

"How come this Wong knows so much about the revolution?" "He's involved, obviously."

"Obviously. How is he involved? What's his role in all this?" "Not now," Tiger Cole said, frowning. "I can't tell you now."
"Goddamn you!"
Jake Grafton roared. "That asshole kidnapped my

wife!"

"I'm sorry, Jake," Tiger Cole said.

The admiral struggled to get himself under control. He played with the pistol, checked it, then pulled up his trouser leg. When he spoke again it was in a normal tone. "If you had nothing to do with Callie's kidnapping, you have nothing to apologize for," he said as he strapped the ankle holster to his right leg. "If you did, I'll kill you, Cole. It's that goddamn simple."

"How did Sonny Wong capture Wu Tai Kwong?" Carmellini asked.

"Everyone in Hong Kong knows Wu is somewhere in the city," the consul general replied. "The revolutionary movement has more leaks than the
Titanic."

"So why hasn't Wu been arrested before?"

"Because we've paid off the police." Cole shrugged. "Everyone in the Chinese government is corrupt, all of them. This is the third world!"

"Can we get help from the police to get Callie back? Wu?"

"Beijing has posted a huge reward for Wu. The cops are corrupt, but you are fooling yourself if you think no one will call the PLA to turn him in. They will!"

"Okay," said Jake Grafton. "Let's talk about Callie. Only a few people knew she was going to listen to that tape. Carmellini, you're one of them. Who'd you tell?"

"No one, Admiral."

"Somebody figured it out."

"Kerry Kent," Tommy said bitterly.

"You ass," she hissed and went for him with her fingernails.

Carmellini grabbed her wrists. He was far too strong for her. "Don't play the injured lover with me," he sneered with all the contempt of a nan who had never been in love. "I've heard that song before. You're the number-one suspect on my list."

"I trust her," Cole said, in a tone that ended the argument.

Carmellini pushed Kent away. If looks could kill, he would have received a fatal wound just then.

"The postmortem can wait," Jake Grafton said. "We've got other fish to fry." He picked up the tape from Cole's desk and put it in his pocket.

The maid brought Rip the cell phone. He was sitting on his roof under a dripping umbrella. The air was now a fine sea mist; occasionally a whisper of breeze tossed a handful of droplets on his face, almost like a kiss.

The maid didn't look at him, merely handed him the phone and left.

Rip pushed the button and answered.

"Rip, this is Sonny Wong."

"Hey, Sonny."

"Got some bad news for you, Rip. Hate having to deliver it like this, but the world is pressing in, if you know what I mean."

"Like what?"

"Like I have your brother-in-law as an unwilling guest."

"My brother-in-law?"

"Yeah. Wu. Remember him? Drives for the Double Happy Fortune Cookie Company? Is wanted by the government for political crimes? The million Hong Kong dollars reward? That brother-in-law."

"Jesus, Sonny, I thought we were friends."

"We are, Rip, but this is business. Hong Kong is about to blow up in our faces, no thanks to your brother-in-law, who has done everything within his power to light the fuse. It's been a grand party, but it's over. A guy has to look out for number one. You and I are not friends ten million American dollars' worth. That's what it will cost you to see Wu in one piece again."

"I don't have that kind of money, Sonny. You know that."

"Ah, but your father does. Call him! Tell Richard Buckingham that if I don't get the money, your brother-in-law Wu Tai Kwong will be turned over to General Tang Tso of the PLA, who will probably shoot him before he writes the reward check. Or strangle him. For some reason, those guys still like to strangle people. So old-fashioned and

Uncivilized too, but probably very satisfying on some level. Al-ost orgasmic."

"You're a perfect bastard, Sonny."

"Not quite perfect but I'm working on it. If I were Richard Buck-ham's heir, like a certain person I know, I wouldn't have to be. You now what I'm saying? It's an accident of birth, really, that I was born a sewer, poor as a flea on a starving rat, and I've been digging and ratching every minute since then to get out of it." "Let me talk to Wu."

"You're going to have to take my word on this, Rip. Wu is sleeping ight now; I don't want to wake him." "How do I know you've got him?"

"If you're really worried about that point, I'll have someone drop by ith a finger. What the hell, he's got ten. He'll never miss a few." 'Okay, okay."

'You talk to Richard. I'll call you back in a few hours, give you the particulars on a Swiss bank account that I'm trying to fatten up. You can plan on transferring the money there." With that Sonny hung up.

Rip went inside looking for Sue Lin. He found her in the kitchen. "Where's the maid?" "The new one?" Rip nodded.

"After she gave you the phone, she went downstairs, got her umbrella, and left. Didn't say a word to me. I happened to look out the window and saw her walking toward the tram." "Wu's been kidnapped."
"What?"

'Sonny Wong has him. He wants ten million American dollars or he'll turn him over to the government and collect the reward."

She sat and put her face in her hands. Rip put his arms around her shoulders and found she was shaking.

Hey." He knelt in front of her, opened her hands. Tears streamed along her cheeks. "Hey."

i ve seen this Sonny Wong," she whispered. "He is evil." Sue Lin, I've known him for years. Yeah, he's a crook, but he's
^a|
ways been straight with me. He's just wants money. Unfortunately We looked like an easy mark."

"He'll kill Wu."

"We'll pay the money. I'll bet he'll let him go."

"With the city full of people who worship Wu?" she protested, shaking her head. "Sonny Wong will kill him and take the first plane out before anyone finds out the truth."

The sound of a man groaning woke Callie Grafton. She opened her eyes and looked around. It took several seconds before she realized what she was looking at. She was in a small stateroom, perhaps on a ship, lying on a narrow bed, a lower bunk. Across the aisle, almost within reach, lay a man with his back to her. He was the one groaning.

Blood stained his shirt and the sheet on which he lay.

She extended her arm ... and felt a sharp pain roar through her skull. Slowly she put her hands to her head and pressed. She had the mother of all headaches.

Her head throbbed with every heartbeat. Gradually the pain seemed to ease somewhat, and once again she extended her hand to the groaning man.

His back was warm.

Callie moved, painfully, until she could touch the man.

She swung her feet over the edge of the bunk and sat up, which almost split her head with pain. In a minute or so the pain lessened and she could see and function.

Ever so slowly, she stood, turned the man over, and examined him.

His left hand was bloody. She looked. His little finger was missing, leaving only an oozing, partially scabbed wound.

She tore at the sheet, finally got a strip off it, and wrapped the strip around the man's hand as a crude bandage.

He had stopped groaning. When she finished she realized his eyes were open and he was looking at her with intelligent brown eyes. He was Chinese, in his mid-thirties perhaps.

"You've lost a finger," she said in Chinese.

"They cut it off."

She sat back down on her own bunk, put her aching head in her hands. It was coming back: the knock on the hotel room door, the voice—she thought it was the maid or bellman. When she opened the door, several men rushed in. They grabbed her mouth to keep her from

amine and threw her on the bed and one of them produced a

hypodermic.

That was all she remembered. That and the fear.

Now she was sitting in a stateroom ... she could feel the boat rocking

• the waves. It must be a small ship to rock like this. There was a

round porthole with the glass painted over; a bit of light leaked through

he scratches in the paint. That light was all that illuminated the tiny

room.

When she turned her head she could see that the man on the bunk

had rolled over. Now he was looking at her.

"Does your hand hurt?"

"Not too much," he said.

"Who are you?"

"You wouldn't know me."

"Do you have a name?"

"Wu."

"I'm Callie."

"Callie." He said it experimentally.

"Where are we?"

"I think we have been kidnapped. They knocked me out, so I don't know."

"Me, too."

She still had her watch, which was unexpected. Almost three o'clock. The men had burst into the hotel room about ten A.M.

She wondered if it were the same day.

She lay down and thought about her husband.

"Commander Tarkington?"

"That's right." Tommy Carmellini pressed the telephone to his ear to help himself concentrate. The voice that sounded in his ear from the other side of the Pacific was certainly clear enough.

"My name is Tommy Carmellini. We met last year in Cuba. Do you remember?"

Yes." Tarkington sounded sleepy. The telephone call had awakened him.

Admiral Grafton asked me to call you. He needs your help." Tarkington was Jake Grafton's aide.

"I got a pencil. Shoot." Now Toad was alert.

"His wife has been kidnapped," Carmellini said.

"Callie Grafton?
Gawd damn!"
The Toad-man whistled through his teeth.

Carmellini glanced around the office. Kerry Kent and the three CIA dudes were all staring at him, listening to his every word.

"We believe the man behind it is a Hong Kong citizen named Sonny Wong," Carmellini continued. "I don't know his real name. He is associated with a Russian national named Yuri Daniel. The admiral asked me to call you. He wants the CIA to run those two through the computers and see what they can come up with. Wong may have some bank accounts in Switzerland or some other bank haven. Look for passports, visas, travel records, wire transfers, anything."

"Okay." Toad's voice was crisp and businesslike.

"Have the National Security Agency set up a study of telecommunications traffic in the Hong Kong area. Obviously we are interested in the Graftons, Sonny Wong, Yuri Daniel, kidnapping, ransom, anything along those lines."

"I'll talk to them in a few hours. Tell the admiral I'll go through the agency director's office. Shouldn't be a problem. Anything else?"

"That will do it for now."

"Heard anything about Callie? Is she okay?"

"We don't know."

"Does this Wong dude want money or what?"

"Money."

"Wow!" said Toad Tarkington. "That Wong must have really bad karma—I can smell it from here. Jake Grafton is the last man on the planet I'd want blood-crazy mad at me. You tell the admiral I'm on my way to the office as soon as I get my pants on."

Jake Grafton sat at the conference table in Cole's office and tried to clear his thoughts. There was stationery in the trays under the computer printer, so he helped himself to a couple of sheets. He took a U.S. government black ballpoint from his shirt pocket and clicked the point in and out while he collected his thoughts.

The National Security Adviser had sent Jake to Hong Kong to find out what was going on; the man was entitled to know.

lake wrote quickly in a clear, legible longhand detailing what he had 1 rned. The consul general was involved in a conspiracy to overthrow h Chinese government and had resigned. Cole had been in the build-when China Bob Chan was killed, may have talked to him, and

« have been somehow involved in his death. The enclosed tape was

de in Chan's library by the recorder planted by Harold Barnes and should be listened to by Chinese-language experts.

He wrote two pages total, then put the handwritten sheets and the audiotape in a large padded envelope, which he sealed. He wrote the National Security Adviser's name on it and handed it to Cole.

"I want you to send this to Washington in the next diplomatic pouch. The Chan tape is in there."

"Okay."

"I'm relying on your honor, Cole."

"I am well aware of that fact, Jacob Lee, and will try not to take offense at the fact you felt the need to point it out."

"I'm all out of apologies," Grafton replied coolly.

"I'll put the envelope in the pouch," Cole said. "The problem is the airlines—nothing is coming in or going out of Lantau since the air traffic control computers crapped out."