The man in charge focused his gaze on Su and asked her something in Chinese. She looked disturbed by the question, but she didn’t answer. Instead, she slid her bag across the floor toward him.
He holstered his gun and immediately started rifling through her stuff. When he found her cell phone, he stopped and looked it over carefully.
He asked her about it, and Jake assumed he must have found something intriguing about that phone because he started punching buttons.
“What’s he doing?” Jake whispered to Su.
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head.
The man in charge cast his eyes on Jake. “You American? Passport.”
Jake hesitated and saw the man’s hand move toward his gun. Reaching inside his jacket, Jake retrieved his passport and handed it to the officer in charge.
The man flipped through pages and found Jake’s visa, which was a concern to him, since his contact in Russia had hastily provided it only two days ago.
Changing expressions from curious to concern, the officer raised his brows. “Say Beijing here,” the man said. “Nothing about Harbin.”
Su said something in Chinese and then followed up in English with, “We met and I want you to see Chinese countryside.” Su let out a breath. She was concerned.
The man had Jake’s passport in one hand and the cell phone in the other. He seemed to be trying to make a connection, but nothing was registering.
Without great fanfare, the officer spouted off a series of words that Jake didn’t understand. Then he handed him his passport and stuffed her phone back in her bag. They were gone just as quickly as they had entered.
“What the hell was that all about?” Jake asked her.
“He a…what you say? Asshole?”
Jake laughed at the way it came from her lips. “As you know, we have those in America as well. I meant, what did he say before leaving?”
“He bitch at me, saying I should know to update visa before taking American to other places.”
“What are they looking for?”
“They say a man who killed two people in Shenyang.”
Now Jake wished they had simply hidden the gun somewhere in the compartment. This wasn’t America, where he could find a gun easily, or even Europe, where he had guns placed in various cities of almost each country, just in case he needed one. He had no reason to believe he’d need a gun, but he also knew that circumstances often lead in that direction.
13
Standing at the edge of the 300-foot-high cliff, the constant wind making it nearly impossible to stand, the man glanced out onto a dark Pacific Ocean. He wrapped his arms around his trunk and shivered. Two months ago he had been in the Bay Area, where, although cold and windy much of the time, was no comparison to this, he thought. Whoever thought about stationing the military here should have been shot, and yet he had volunteered for the assignment when Brightstar needed an electrical engineer to help with their contract, where they would bring online the newest early warning radar for the missile defense system.
That was the plan. But he was an entrepreneur. Always had been, since his youth when he ran a network of paper boys like a pimp with whores, taking a cut of each paycheck.
No. When someone shoved a boatload of money in front of him, he had taken two seconds to say “hell yeah.”
He checked his watch. It was time. He pulled the backpack from his back and retrieved a satellite phone. In a few seconds, he had the phone set up and the number punched in.
“Yeah, it’s me.” He hesitated and glanced about him. “Right, I’m standin’ in the middle of the mess hall.”
He listened now, his expression changing from playful to grave. Trying to say something several times, he was cut off before a single word slipped out.
“Yes, I understand. I’m sorry. It’s not a problem.”
Shaking his head, he clicked off the phone and returned it to the bag. Then he sealed it in a camouflaged water-tight case and hid it among the low scrub brush. Only the occasional blue fox would know it was there.
Cliff Johansen cleared the empty beer bottles into a recycle bin. He remembered from his college days that each bottle was worth five cents, so he and Zack Evans had stacked the 12-packs up as furniture in their apartment in Eugene until they were short on cash. He laughed to himself with the thought, considering his current salary and the payoff he was about to receive.
“What’s so funny?” Li asked, coming into the kitchen.
“Nothing. Just thinking of our college days. Now Zack drinks more martinis than beer.”
“Did Zack go to bed?”
“Yeah, he has to work in the morning.”
She looked behind her, toward the living room and beyond, and then back toward Cliff. “You get everything?”
Nice try, he thought. “I told you I put it in both places. No remote access. I got half.”
Moving her body next to him, she said, “Then you get half. What you want? Upper or lower?”
Cliff was excited now, realizing he would get it at least one more time. She was the sweetest lay he’d ever had, and probably the best he could hope to have for some time. Anything he could do to delay the inevitable would be great with him.
He reached behind and planted his hand on her butt, pulling her closer to him, hoping she would feel his excitement.
“I guess I got my answer,” she said. “Let’s go. We have work to do in the morning.”
Cliff followed her through the house and up the stairs, his eyes not moving from her fine ass.
14
It was closing in on midnight by the time the train made it into the main Harbin station. Jake knew the delay could have been much worse, but it was disturbing that they had lost nearly four hours with the police searching their train from one side to the other.
After getting off the train, Jake and Chang Su had taken a cab to within a few blocks of the apartment of her contact, whom she had worked with a couple of times in the past, and the guy who would drive them north in the morning.
Cruising along the downtown streets in the cab, it was easy for Jake to see the Russian influence to Harbin, with the onion domes splattered across the skyline. Sidewalks were covered with snow, and those who were still walking about at that hour, were bundled in thick layers of clothing, clouds of breath streaming out with each quick step.
Jake was still under-dressed with his leather jacket. He guessed the temperature was somewhere around ten below zero; colder than normal for February, according to his local guide.
Su must have seen him shiver. “We get you a warm coat in the morning.”
“How much farther?”
“Not far.”
Shortly the cab pulled over to a curb in a run-down residential section. The cabbie had parked in front of a bar. She paid the man and they both got out to the sidewalk.
“You want a drink?” Jake asked.
“No, we should go. We’re already hours late.” She started off down the sidewalk, the large backpack over her shoulders.
“Well, I could have used a beer,” he said, following her.
They had gone about a block when she stopped and moved into the shadows.
“What?” Jake whispered.
“His car is gone.” She pointed up the pavement and across the street. “He always parks it there.”
“Maybe it’s in the shop,” Jake said. “What’s this guy do?”