Sue Lin didn’t turn around.
He walked from the room and headed for the stairs.
This, Governor Sun Siu Ki thought, was without a doubt the worst afternoon of his life. His friends in Beijing had shouted, sworn, second-guessed, cajoled, and threatened him. He had been accused of being a dupe, a fool, a liar, and an incompetent imbecile. He tried to explain that the afternoon debacle was the fault of General Tang, now dead, and General Moon Hok, now a prisoner, but to no avail. The truth was that if those two soldiers had obeyed his orders to vigorously enforce the law and lay the wood to the outlaws, these riots would not have gotten out of control. They were afraid to use the military power the nation gave them. They were cowards.
Then the television showed the mob beating government officials to death. If that wasn’t bad enough, the ministry in Beijing said that treasonous criminal spectacle had been seen by a large percentage of the urban population of China. It had even run on a television station in Beijing, the outraged minister told him, as if the failure of the media officials was Sun’s fault.
So when his aide passed him a note saying Sonny Wong was on the phone, Sun Siu Ki was in a savage mood.
“Carrion-eater. Double-crosser. Traitor.” He used all three of these phrases on Sonny when he picked up the telephone.
“Whoa, Governor. I know you’re having a bad day, but there is a way out. I’ve told you that. I couldn’t single handedly stop these criminal combinations, but I can save the day.”
“For money?”
“Of course, for money. I have a large organization that I support at my own expense, and we have done what the government could not — we have penetrated the rebel organization. Pay me the money and I will give you their heads.”
“Beijing has not authorized the payment,” Sun protested.
“I find their attitude beyond understanding. They are faced with a genuine rebellion that is getting worldwide press and inciting treason throughout China. The rebels are waging cyberwar against the nation. Government officials are being beaten to death by mobs, a spectacle played on every television on the planet”—this was only a small exaggeration—“and the government dithers over whether or not to pay me one hundred million American dollars to put a stop to all this. What are you people thinking?”
“Beijing has faith in the PLA,” Sun explained. “Beijing is a long way from Hong Kong; from there they see the backs of ten million soldiers. Ten million soldiers are ten million soldiers. These traitors are causing huge problems, of course, but no ragtag mob is going to crush the PLA.”
“You saw the robots on television today. Those robots are not a ragtag mob.”
“Beijing was not impressed. You cannot extort money from them with movie props.”
“Sun, you are as stupid as a snail. Wait until tonight. Tonight the robots will be in action. Tonight is the Battle of Hong Kong. When the PLA is losing, think of me. You know the telephone number.” And Sonny hung up.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Callie Grafton awoke with a start. She had been dozing, lost in despair, and suddenly she knew. The knowledge brought her wide awake. She sat up in her bunk.
“He’s coming for me,” she said to Wu, who was also awake. She said it first in English, then had to translate.
“Who is?” Wu asked.
“My husband. He is coming. I know it.”
Wu didn’t believe her, of course, but he had grown to like this strange American woman and her delicious accent.
“Us. He’s coming for us.” The faux pas of excluding Wu occurred to her now, and automatically she spoke again, correcting her error.
“How do you know he is coming?”
“I just know.” She searched for words. “I can feel it. I can feel his presence, the fact that he is thinking of me, the fact that he is coming.”
“Soon?”
“I do not know.”
“Tell me of your husband,” Wu said, to humor her.
Callie looked at him sharply. “You don’t believe me and I don’t expect you to, because I wouldn’t if I were you. But Jake is coming. Perhaps I know it because I know the man.”
She wrapped her arms around her legs. “All this time I have been worried because I didn’t have an escape plan. Ha! I’ve got Jake Grafton.”
“The knight in shining armor,” Wu said.
“Laugh if you like. He’ll come.”
She was still sitting like that when they heard someone outside the door, then a key in the lock. Two men entered with weapons drawn.
“Come with us, Wu. Time to do some more work on your confession.”
They handcuffed his hands behind him and took him away.
Two minutes later the key turned again.
The Russian, Yuri Daniel, stood in the open doorway looking at her. “You too, Mrs. Grafton. Your statement is ready to sign.”
“I gave no statement.”
“That wasn’t a problem. I wrote it for you. Come.”
Since he knew where he was going this time, the helicopter pilot kept the Bell JetRanger low, just above the water. He weaved around several junks and a fishing boat, then flew parallel to the coast for several miles. When he was on the extended centerline of the pier that held the China Rose and Barbary Coast, he turned for it.
“Wind’s out of the north, a bit east,” the pilot told Jake. “I’ll land into the wind on the helo pad on the Coast.”
“Yeah.”
“Guns in or out?” Carmellini wanted to know.
“In the bags, I think. Don’t want to scare ‘em to death. But be ready, just in case.”
The pilot kept the chopper so low that he actually had to climb to land on the Barbary Coast. A night landing on a tiny platform on a small ship, even one tied to a pier, was certainly not routine. The pilot’s expertise was obvious.
As the helicopter settled onto its skids, Jake was looking across the pier at the China Rose. A few lights were on: on the bridge, over the gangway, and in a few of the portholes. The main salon aft was dark.
Safely on deck, the helicopter pilot shut down his engine. Jake and Carmellini got out, bags in hand.
Just in time to meet a man coming out the hatch from the bridge. He was about Jake’s age, tan and graying.
“My name is Jake Grafton. Virgil Cole said you wouldn’t mind if we landed on your boat.”
When he heard Cole’s name, the man extended his hand. “Name’s Schoenauer. How long you going to be with us, Mr. Grafton?”
“Not long, I hope. Let’s get off this weather deck and I’ll explain.”
Nikko Schoenauer led them to the bridge. He poured them coffee while Jake talked. Carmellini went straight to the pier-side corner of the bridge and stood looking at China Rose through binoculars.
“Sonny Wong is rather a nefarious character, but this is the first time I’ve heard he indulged in kidnapping.”
“I heard him ask for the ransom, so there is no doubt he’s in it.”
“I believe you, Mr. Grafton.”
“It’s Admiral Grafton,” Carmellini said without turning around. “I’m just the civilian help.”
Jake reached into his bag for the silenced submachine gun. “We’re going over to get my wife back, if she’s there. If it goes well, we’ll return and ride the chopper off the pier. If it doesn’t, friend Wong may pay you a visit.”
“Hmm,” Schoenauer said, looking at the submachine gun.
“If you have any weapons aboard, you might want to dig them out.”
“Well, we do keep some old AKs, just in case we run into pirates. Pay off customs with a few bucks and they let us by. They know me, of course.”
“Say, would you have any Vaseline and shoe polish around? Black shoe polish.”