Hong Kong (22 page)

"Did you have anything to do with that?"

"I certainly hope so."

Jake scratched his head, trying to make up his mind. "I want the tape in the bag and on its way," Jake said finally, "so I won't be tempted to trade the damned thing to this Wong asshole for Callie."

"Okay."

"And the time has come for you to resign." Jake took Cole's letter of resignation from his pocket and tossed it on the desk. "Fax that thing to Washington."

"Now?" Right now."

Cole took a deep breath. "Okay," he said.

The intercom buzzed. "Mr. Cole. There's a small package here for

on. The sergeant at the gate brought it up. He says you should see it."

"Is he still there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have him bring it in."

The marine was square as a fire plug and togged out in a khaki shirt and blue trousers with a red stripe up each seam. He looked pale

"Did you X-ray the package, Sergeant?" Cole asked.

"Yes, sir. There's no bomb. Looked like a bone."

"A bone?"

"Well, three little bones. Jesus, sir, it looks like a finger."

Cole cut the brown wrapping paper away from the box with a letter opener, then cut the tape that held the top on.

Jake Grafton was looking over Cole's shoulder when he opened the box. It was a finger, all right, freshly severed, if the still-soft blood was any indication.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Cole said softly and sent the marine on his way.

Jake Grafton stood still as a statue, staring at the finger.

"It isn't Callie's," he said.

"Probably Wu's," Cole muttered and used the intercom to ask the secretary to have Kerry Kent come up to the office.

While they were waiting Jake walked around the office looking at Cole's memorabilia. He was thinking of Callie, wondering how he was going to get her back, when he realized he was looking at an old photo of himself and Tiger Cole. The thing was in black and white, framed, sitting on an out-of-the-way shelf behind the conference table. He and Cole were standing in front of a bomb-laden A-6 in their flight gear, obviously on a flight deck. Neither man was grinning.

Those were simpler days.

Kerry Kent knocked, then came charging into the office. She looked into the box, and clapped her hand over her mouth.

"Those bastards," she said between clenched teeth. "Those fucking bastards."

Victoria Peak and the tops of the buildings were wreathed in fog when Jake Grafton walked out the front entrance of the American consulate. The rain had stopped, leaving the air tangibly wet, thick, warm, and heavy.

He walked slowly, taking his time, watching for people who might be paying attention to him.

He had to will himself to walk slowly, to analyze and think logically bout the situation and what he could do to affect it.

The tension in everyone he met was visible—all the pedestrians were n edge, regardless of age, sex, race, or how they were dressed. Without miles or nods, the people walked briskly with their heads down, avoiding eye contact, avoiding each other, hurrying toward the great unknown.

He stood in line and bought a ticket on the tram, then waited a minute or two with the crowd for the tram to descend the mountain. He let other people board the car in front of him, arranging it so he was one of the very last aboard, and told the motorman where he

wanted off.

The car got underway almost noiselessly as the cable pulled it up the tracks. The only sound Jake could hear was the faintest rumble from the wheels, or perhaps he was only feeling the vibration of the steel wheels on the steel rails. The grade was about thirty percent, he estimated. A series of stairs ran alongside the cable car's track for those in the mood for a serious climb.

No one in the car spoke. All studiously avoided looking at each other as the car silently climbed the steep grade. The buildings slid past and the fog thickened.

The car stopped at a tiny platform about three-quarters of the way up the side of the mountain. Jake got off, then the car resumed its journey and disappeared into the fog.

He walked along the street, found the right house, rang the bell.

A man opened the door, a man in his late thirties, perhaps even forty.

"Rip Buckingham?"

"Come in, please."

When the door closed behind him, Jake said, "I suppose Wong called you."

Yes. My wife is upstairs. Wu is her brother."

They sat at a table in the kitchen, with a window beside them that gave a view of some nearby housetops amid the gloom.

Cole said they took your wife." "Yes."

Sonny won't be able to stay in Hong Kong after this."

"If he gets fifty million from Cole, he won't want to."

"He also wants ten million from me. From my dad, actually, Richard Buckingham."

"Buckingham News?"

"Yeah."

Jake considered the situation in silence as he sized up Rip Buckingham and tried to figure out how much steel was in him. Finally he said, "Wong won't be able to live comfortably anywhere if he releases Callie and Wu alive to testify against him. Switzerland isn't an extradition haven."

"After Wong gets his money, he'll kill everybody who might cause him trouble," Rip said heavily. "A man once told me that four hundred Chinese each paid Sonny fifty grand American to go to America. The ship sailed away and was never seen again."

"Twenty million dollars," Jake muttered after doing the math in his head.

"I don't know if the story is true," Rip continued, "but I know Sonny. He doesn't take unnecessary chances."

Tommy Carmellini had his equipment set up in the attic of the consulate. He had worked for three nights bugging and wiring selected offices, one of which was the CIA office. Another was the consul general's. Grafton wanted to know what was going on—Carmellini intended to find out.

Just now he settled into the folding chair he had stolen from the immigration office and donned a headset, which was plugged into the amplifier. The tape recorder was recording all the microphone inputs simultaneously for later study. Without interfering with the recording, he flipped through the channels, listening to various bugs in turn, sampling the audio.

The CIA office was his main concern. He listened to them chat, matched up voices with the faces in his memory. They were still squeezing the juice from the kidnapping. Well, an admiral's wife doesn't get snatched every day.

Kent also knew that Sonny Wong claimed he had Wu. She wasn't sharing that tidbit with the others, Carmellini noticed. In fact, she was sharing very little.

a remark of Bubba Lee's set the tone. "Man, calling Washington   telling NSA to get on the case—that Grafton
is
somebody." "Yeah, but who?" That was Eisenberg. "An admiral in the navy. Don't they sometimes get posted to the

intel community?"

"Sometimes."

"Well, that sailor has some stroke, or thinks he has."

"Thinks he has, yeah."

"Do you buy it about Sonny Wong? Does a snatch sound like something he would do?"

"Never can tell, man. Things are getting twangy tight around this town. Riots, people shot in the streets, power off half the night..."

"Did you hear about the airport?" Was that Bubba Lee? "The computers out there rolled over and died. People trapped on the concourses, no water in the fountains or toilets, flights canceled. I heard someone went crazy and threw a chair though a plate-glass window."

"Whole goddamn town is falling apart."

"Hey, the whole goddamn
country
is falling apart, if you ask me."

There was more of it, thirty minutes or so. At some point Carmellini realized that there were only two men talking. Eisenberg had been silent a long time, as had Kerry Kent. Maybe they were no longer in the room.

Didn't Cole say Eisenberg knew the woman in the passport office?

Carmellini flipped to that microphone. A loud conversation in Chinese drowned out everything else in the room.

Disgusted, Tommy Carmellini turned the selector to listen to the mike in the consul general's office.

Yep, there was Kent.

"—might kill him. I've been saying for months that he should have an armed bodyguard around the clock. Does anyone pay any attention to the fears of a woman? What does
she
know? What could
she
possibly contribute to this—"

"He didn't want a bodyguard! You know that. Stop this goddamn whining."

"Whining? They may
kill
him!" Indeed. He's been a fugitive for a dozen years, with his life hanging
^b
Y a thread. The revolution continues regardless. The world keeps turn-
^ln
g. the tide is coming in ... at last!"

"What are you doing to get him back alive?" "I'm paying the damned ransom." "What else?"

"What else do you think I should do?"

"I don't know!" she moaned. "I only know that I want him
alive\ \
need him, China needs him—
everything
depends on him.
Everything!"

"Tell me some more about Sonny Wong," Jake Grafton said to Rip Buckingham, "everything you can remember." They were still in Rip's kitchen, seated in front of the window. The rain had stopped and the fog was lifting, revealing the skyscrapers of the Central District.

"Sonny's the head of the last of the old-line Hong Kong criminal gangs, or tongs," Rip told the American. "He's sort of an anachronism, a fossil from the wilder days."

"Kidnapping isn't anything new," Jake said sourly.

"No," Rip admitted. "I thought Sonny was above poopy little capers like this, but apparently not."

"I want to know everything, who his associates are, what he does for money, where he lives, what he eats, his habits—vices, women, kids, everything."

"What's on your mind?"

"I want my wife back."

"That may be impossible."

Jake Grafton gripped the edge of the table and squeezed as hard as he could. All these years, ups and downs and ins and outs, good times and hard times, the tiny triumphs and disasters and little victories that fill our days ... to have her life end here, now, snuffed out by a criminal psychopath who wants money?

When his muscles began quivering from the exertion, Jake Grafton released the table. He rubbed his hands together, thought about Callie, about their adopted daughter, Amy. "Let's hope not," he said to Rip, so softly that the Australian almost missed the response.

CHAPTER TEN

British consul general Sir Robert MacDonald spent a long afternoon with his staff writing a situation report for the Foreign Office. While so engaged he received a telephone call from the foreign minister in London, who was worried.

"The PM wants to know what in the world is going on out there," the foreign minister said after the usual pleasantries.

"The authorities are having some public relations difficulties," replied Sir Robert, never one to overlook the obvious. He had gone to school with the PM, who loathed him. Forced to accept Sir Robert into the government, the PM had sent him as far from London as he possibly could. "A few technical problems too, I'm afraid," the consul general continued. "Rather inconvenient when the power goes off at odd hours."

The Buckingham newspapers published a provocative piece in today's U.K. and American editions," the foreign minister informed Her Majesty's Hong Kong representative. "I wonder if you've seen it?"

Afraid not. The locals shut down the
China Post,
which was Buckingham's little rag hereabouts. Of course, they shut down all the newspapers—I'm sure my staff sent you that information in the morning report."

Richard Buckingham signed this piece himself. He says that a rev-

olution is about to sweep China, one that will overthrow the Communists."

"His son was the editor of the
China Post"
Sir Robert replied. Ri
_p
had been a thorn in MacDonald's side since the day the man arrived from London. "Governor Sun tossed him in jail," he said, unable to keep the satisfaction completely out of his voice. "He's out now, of course. Perhaps he had something to do with the article."

"I see," the FM said slowly.

"It's always a mistake to quarrel with a man who buys ink by the barrel," Sir Robert continued, repeating a comment his wife had made to him on several occasions when he took offense at
China Post
editorials. "Richard Buckingham can say anything he wants in his newspapers and there's jolly little the Chinks can do about it. But talk of revolution is rot, pure rot. The Communists are firmly in control. They have a division of troops in the colony."

Sir Robert still referred to Hong Kong as a colony, which it had ceased to be in 1997, even though his staff and the Foreign Office had repeatedly requested him not to.

"The Orient Bank fiasco was very poorly handled," the consul general told the foreign minister now. "I expressed our dismay at the senseless loss of life. Appalling. I told Sun that myself. Still, the Chinese brook no nonsense from dissenters." That was a serious understatement. The authorities were positively paranoid about dissenters, which caused them diplomatic problems throughout the Western world, including the U.K.