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.”
“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 you. 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 about the situation and what he could do to affect it.
The tension in everyone he met was visible — all the pedestrians were on edge, regardless of age, sex, race, or how they were dressed. Without smiles 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 and 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?”