She punched him again, and this time he really deserved it.
They started wandering toward their hotel again.
“So,” Jake started, “let me get this straight. You want to help me find this rogue bastard.”
The two of them stopped again. This time she looked more serious. “Jake. Something more is going on here. It’s not just about Bill Remington. After you read the information I got from that Munich company, you know that China is making a major move. They just attacked a Taiwanese navy ship. If that ship had not defended itself properly, over a hundred crew would have died.”
Jake had already thought about this as well. “I know, Alexandra. I think the Chinese wanted to start a war with Taiwan. But they also need the oil and gas from the South China Sea. So this could just be about economics.”
“What’s the word for that in English? Hegem…”
“Hegemony?” Jake provided.
“Yes. They’re already a huge economic power. But they want to dominate the world. They want superpower status.”
“I agree,” Jake said. “But all I can do is find Bill Remington. That’s my current job. Do you still want to help me?”
She laughed. “I’ve been shot at before. And it’s usually when I’m in your general vicinity.”
“What can I say. I’m a lead magnet.”
“More like a Scheiße magnet.” Then she moved closer to him and kissed him on the lips. She sniffed Jake and added, “And I think you need to throw out those clothes and take a shower.”
They wandered back to their hotel.
Early the next morning Jake and Alexandra both woke refreshed. They had taken a late-night shower and stuffed their dirty clothes in a plastic bag. On their way down to breakfast, they dropped their clothes into a garbage can. Jake was starting to run out of garments.
Done with breakfast now, they sat in their room for a moment. Jake had both Glocks apart, making sure they were clean from the dunk in the river. He also removed all of the bullets from the magazines and dried them out with the bathroom hair dryer. Then, when everything gun related looked up to his standards, he put them both back together. Of course he used latex gloves to reload the bullets into the magazines. In the end, he slapped the mags into the handles of each gun and cycled rounds into the chambers.
While he did all of this, Alexandra was on Jake’s laptop checking on news from Munich.
“This is really strange,” she said. “There’s no mention of three dead Chinese men in my apartment.”
Jake set the Glock onto the table and went over to the bed next to her. “You know how that works. Your service probably scrubbed it.”
She shrugged and kept on typing. “I guess.”
“I’d like to know how they found your apartment,” Jake said.
“I know. I don’t think I can go back there anytime soon. Did you sell your apartment in Innsbruck?”
“Why? Do you want to move in?” He rubbed her bare leg.
“Only if you’re there.”
“Well, I still own the place. But it’s winter there now and my knee gives me too many problems in the cold. I’m think about getting a place in southern Italy for the winter.”
She continued to type but turned her head to check his eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, why?”
“A few years ago I traveled to Calabria for a mission. I really loved the place. The food, the people, the scenic beauty. I fell in love with it.”
“We could run our business from there,” Jake said, “and work out of my Innsbruck apartment in the summer. Or, if we want to play in the snow, we can take the train there in the winter. I’ll take one for the team.”
“Sounds wonderful.” She opened a page on the internet and stopped typing to read. “My God.”
“What?”
“The Chinese fired a bunch of missiles at Taiwan. A lot of them were intercepted by American warships in the area and ground-based defense systems. But a few got through and killed a number of people. They’re still not sure how many.”
“Shit! That’s considered an act of war against America. We have a defense pact with Taiwan. An attack on one is an attack on the other. Has Taiwan retaliated?”
She shook her head. “No. Not yet. What do you think they’ll do?”
“Not a helluva lot without America,” Jake postulated. “Most of their systems are defensive in nature. My guess is the U.S. will position a carrier group somewhere near Taiwan.”
“It’s moving up the South China Sea from Japan now,” she said.
“China wouldn’t dare attack our carrier directly. I think both sides will try to find a way to save face. But this is definitely a bold move by China. It might be a test. A precursor of things to come. It’s like chess, where you move a bishop out to see how your opponent will react. If he counter attacks, you can simply slide the bishop back to a safe spot.”
“How does this impact our search for Bill Remington?” she wanted to know.
“Good question. Knowing Remington, he would not be anywhere near Taiwan at this time. He could get hurt there.”
“What about mainland China?”
“That would be too obvious. No, Remington likes to play games. Most of his time in the Agency was spent here in Asia. He spent the most time in Taiwan, which was one of the reasons I went there first. But he would also know that I know that.”
“And Singapore?”
“He did two years here in his early career.”
“Where else?”
“He spent some time in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Those were his main areas of specialty. His first wife was Thai. She came from a politically-connected family.”
“They’re divorced now?”
“No. She died in a car accident, leaving Remington with two small children. The children are grown now and out of college. Both are under FBI surveillance in case Remington tries to contact them.”
“You said first wife. Did he have a second?”
“Yeah. She divorced him after finding out he was sleeping with an Asian woman.”
“So the second wife wasn’t Asian.”
“No. French Canadian. But the FBI is still checking up on her.”
Alexandra closed the laptop. “Okay. Remington has a thing for Asian women. That’s why we’re here.”
“Mostly. But Singapore has an extradition agreement with the U.S. I stopped here for two reasons. One, he had a bank account here, which the Agency froze. But I still have an appointment to talk with his banker this morning.”
“And the second reason?”
“Remington still has a lot of friends here, as we found out from last night. By exposing myself here, he can make a move on me.”
“Wait. You’re setting yourself up? That’s crazy.”
Jake laughed. “If I tried to find him the traditional way, I would be looking for the rest of my life. He’s got the ability to change his appearance and identity, and the money to stash himself just about anywhere. He’ll use cash exclusively. Now, he could have already bought a penthouse condo in downtown Singapore, but I doubt it. My guess is he’ll end up in one of two countries. Cambodia or Vietnam. Neither has an extradition treaty with the U.S.”
“Why not go there first, then?”
“Because I can’t extradite him from those countries. I need to draw him out. We’ve frozen his account here, but I still think he’ll find a way to get his money.” Jake got up from the bed and went over to the guns, picking up one and sliding it into a thin holster at the small of his back. He covered that with a light tropical shirt.
“What happens if the local police catch us with guns in Singapore?” she asked, and then picked up her own weapon.
Jake shoved an extra magazine into a cargo pocket on the side of his leg. “I don’t think we want to find out. They’ll probably cane our asses and then throw us in jail and throw away the key.”