After leaving he took a cab to a scuba-diving shop on Sai Yeung Choi Street and bought a mask, fins, and a tank of “spare air”—a small pony bottle filled with oxygen, used as a supplemental emergency air source when diving. Court knew he might be swimming out to check over boats in the bay tonight, and if he had to do this in a low-profile manner, it would be nice to be able to swim under the surface. An entire scuba rig — a buoyancy control vest along with a full-sized tank, weights, and a regulator — would be ideal, but this would also mean carrying a bag back to the island the size of a full-sized suitcase and weighing over sixty pounds. Court much preferred cramming the fins, mask, and emergency air in a small backpack along with his other items, something he could drop and run away from if necessary.
At the dive shop he also purchased a small Kershaw fixed-blade knife with a sheath he could hang around his neck under his shirt. This was his only real weapon now, and it was strictly for defense, but Court had well-practiced edged-weapon skills, and he knew a small knife could be enough for him to “acquire” a firearm from an enemy along the way.
On his way back to his hotel room he slipped into a little tea shop attached to a grocery store, ordered a bottle of water, and jammed himself into an isolated corner, one of the more challenging things he’d pulled off all week considering the crowds here in the city. He popped an earbud into his ear and pulled out his smartphone. He downloaded a commercial app that let him make encrypted calls, then dialed Suzanne Brewer, all the while keeping his eye on the movements of those around him. He knew the ambient noise in the busy shop would work to his advantage, but if anyone decided they wanted to get close or linger too long, he’d have to go mobile.
The pedestrians on the sidewalk outside the window in front of him moved like cattle being pushed through a stockyard, so he really wasn’t in the mood to negotiate the logistics of a clandestine conversation while shoulder-to-shoulder with foreign nationals.
As always, Court’s handler was a pro. When he called, she answered, and quickly. “Brewer.”
“It’s me.”
“Identity challenge, Apollo.”
“Identity response, Anger.”
There was a slight hesitation, and then she said, “That’s a fail. You get one more chance.”
Damn, thought Court. He was out of practice with this shit. Checking in wasn’t really his bag. He thought back to his daily code changes. He’d memorized them on the plane over; he knew them all, but he’d forgotten the correct sequence. What was this, day three? What was yesterday’s code?
He tried again. “Identity response, Angry.”
“Identity confirmed.”
For crying out loud, Court thought, but did not say.
He did say, “I’m in play. I made contact with Colonel Dai yesterday. He is satisfied I had nothing to do with the MSS men killed at the Peninsula.”
“That’s a relief. And what about Fan Jiang? Did Dai hire you to terminate him?”
“Yes, I’m on the hunt, just as planned.”
While he spoke to Brewer his eyes scanned, back and forth, searching for any surveillance. But to any untrained eyes gazing his way, he just looked bored.
“What have you learned about Fan’s location?”
“Not enough. I have a lead to run down, but so far it hasn’t turned into much.”
“What’s the lead?”
“Nothing confirmed. We were wrong about Dai and Fitzroy being able to point us right to the objective. This is going to take some detective work.”
“Well… let me help you.”
“I will… as soon as I need help.”
Brewer adopted a more severe voice now. “I detect a certain sparseness with your intel, Violator. I understand your frustration with the compromise the other day, but I won’t allow you to jeopardize the mission by keeping details from me. This isn’t the way you are used to doing things, I understand, but you aren’t running the show alone anymore.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that when two jackasses followed me from the airport.”
Brewer’s voice stiffened even more now. “There was a mistake on our end, it’s been acknowledged, so you’ve heard all the contrition you are going to hear from me on that. You are an agent. My agent. You managed to get this op back on track, and for that I am thankful. But now you need to do your job, and that means keeping me in the loop.”
Court wanted to crush the phone with his hand. He told himself he didn’t need an angry nanny.
But, in actuality, he did.
“All right. I’m looking for a boat that was at the mouth of the bay near the public ferry dock at Po Toi Island on Sunday night.”
Court could hear typing in the background.
“What’s the name of the vessel?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Tonnage? Type? Registry?”
“Nope, nope, and nope.”
“How do you even know that—”
“Because a nervous bartender looked out to a spot in the water.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I told you what I had was thin.”
After a moment to get her bearings, Brewer told Court to wait while she checked the Automatic Identification System vessel-tracking website, Marinetraffic.com, looking for any vessel that moored in or around the bay at Po Toi Island the previous Sunday night.
When the screen came up she told Court there were a few small fishing boats, but nothing larger than that.
But Court already knew the search would be a long shot. Most ships were not required to squawk an identity code if their gross weight was less than three hundred tons. And in the case of whatever vessel Fitzroy’s men had boarded, it seemed clear it would be running black no matter the tonnage. If it was transporting Fan or providing the location of some sort of a meet for a group of Triads, he couldn’t imagine they would squawk their identity and location.
When Brewer seemed to draw a blank, Court said, “Look, I need to get back to work. When I have a lead I think you can help with, I’ll—”
Brewer interrupted him. “I’ve got it.”
“You’ve got what?”
“Satellite images. Not from Sunday night, we weren’t overhead then, but from thirteen hundred hours on Monday. There is a cargo ship in the mouth of the bay. Nothing else around the island even a fourth of the size. We have a shot from Tuesday, too. Yes, still there, in the same place.”
Court just muttered, “Wow.” He was impressed with the fast work of Brewer and CIA.
Brewer said, “I guess the Gray Man doesn’t have his own satellite.”
“It’s in the shop.”
She ignored the joke. “The ship was still there Wednesday, but after that it’s gone.”
“Can you see the name?”
“The angle is no good to read the bow. It’s the same shot each day, more or less. I guess it didn’t move around very much while it was there. I’ll be able to ID the make of the ship in a second, running it through a scan. There are no goods on the deck, but there is a crane for loading items into the cargo holds. I see a couple of men here and there showing up in different locations, but other than these deckhands, no activity.”
She then gave him the manufacturer information of the ship, and told him there were 343 known to be in operation around the world, and over ninety in Southeast Asia. “I can run down locations on all of these, but it will take a couple of hours. For those that aren’t squawking their codes I can dig into ownership information, try to find out where they are, as well.”
Court thanked her with a promise to check back later, then signed off. He bought some clothes and other items from nearby shops, went back to his hotel room for an hour and a half to open his new gadgets and test them out, then repacked them in his backpack. He dressed in a dark long-sleeve but breathable hemp shirt, dark brown linen drawstring pants, and black trail-running shoes. He would look like an adventure tourist inside an establishment or walking in the village, but he knew his earth-tone colors would allow him to move with some camouflage in the foliage of the island, if necessary.