Sveta did this, keeping her voice calm. When Bui replied, still with his mouth pressed into the table, Sveta looked up at Zoya.
“What do you want to know?”
“I want to know where Fan Jiang is.”
Sveta translated this, waited for the response, and then delivered it.
“I have no idea who that is,” she said.
Zoya sat back down after patting the man on his back. She took a moment to adjust her shirt, to push a strand of her chin-length brunette hair back behind her ear, and then she nodded. “Okay, Mr. Tan. This, I believe. It is very likely you have no idea of the identity of the young Chinese male who appeared here earlier in the week and joined your organization. I will show you a photograph to help you.”
Zoya stood again, pulling her smartphone out of her pocket. She tapped the screen, put the phone on the table in front of Bui, then stepped around him. She took his head, pushed it down inches from the image of Fan on her phone, and pulled off his blindfold.
The Vietnamese police lieutenant could see nothing in front of him other than the image. He looked at the picture for several seconds. Finally he nodded, and he spoke.
Sveta looked at Zoya, standing behind the prisoner. “Yeah. I’ve seen him. Came in yesterday morning. So what?”
Zoya smiled a little and winked at Sveta. “So… tell me more.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
Court climbed out of the communal bathroom in the predawn darkness, stood on the windowsill, and reached out to grab on to the eave of the four-story building’s roof. Raindrops pelted his hand, and the surface felt damp. He hadn’t planned on the rain continuing into the morning, but he was more than accustomed to things not going his way, so it didn’t slow him down at all.
Pulling himself part of the way up on the eave, he used his feet to walk up the wall, then kicked away, swung out, and hoisted himself up onto the roof. He lay flat on his stomach to slip off his pack and then he rolled onto his back, taking a second to enjoy the cool rainfall on his face.
But only a second. Soon he began moving south on the roof to the corner of the building, and he crawled under the steel-sheeting tent he’d erected against the parapet here.
He settled into position and lay there, wet but out of the rain, curled up flat on a roof in a dark little hole. He felt like a rat, but again, he was accustomed to it, and he didn’t find it unpleasant. On the contrary, the conditions weren’t on his mind at all.
It was the clock that had him scared.
After using his binoculars to check the two sides of the building in view, he checked his phone to view the three cameras he’d positioned around the target the previous evening. He saw no activity at all, other than a couple of bored-looking guys in generic security uniforms sitting in the guardhouse in the front, and one in the back.
He checked the time on the phone and saw it was almost seven a.m., and he wondered what time the workday started around here for the local mob.
He decided to call Dai to ease the desperate Chinese colonel’s mind, to give him some calm, soothing words about how the Gray Man had everything under control. The truth was something different, of course, but Court felt like he needed to sell confidence to keep the Chinese from taking active measures themselves.
Court put his wired headset in his ear, accessed his encrypted voice-calling app, then dialed Colonel Dai’s number. The international connection took a moment to go through and initiate, but when it finally did Dai answered abruptly.
“My men have just notified me that they went to collect you at your hotel. They say you are not there.”
“Got an early start.”
Dai said, “You will tell me where you are and what you are doing.”
Court replied, “I’m already in position watching the Wild Tigers building here in the city.”
“What do you see?”
“So far, nothing, but I have the ability to get eyes on vehicles coming and going and into some of the windows, and I am developing an understanding of the security setup.”
“What do the security protocols look like?”
Court said, “Nothing much, to tell you the truth. It’s surprising.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know there aren’t a lot of all-out gang wars here in Vietnam, but this building doesn’t even look well protected from local law enforcement.”
Dai said, “That does not come as a great surprise. The local Saigon administration takes a cut of their operation. Beware of any patrolling police. They are probably on the payroll of the Wild Tigers.”
“That wasn’t in the material I read.”
Dai just said, “Vietnam doesn’t possess the purity of political thought we enjoy in the People’s Republic of China. They have a large underworld, and some of their politicians benefit from it. It’s disgusting, really. Hanoi is trying to rein it in, but quietly. They can’t admit there is a problem.”
Court had been around the block enough to know China bowed to no one when it came to top-down corruption and official cover-ups, but he wasn’t going to get into a discussion of government malfeasance with Dai.
The colonel asked, “What is your plan?”
“Continued surveillance until I either see Fan himself or see security measures that make me believe he is here.”
“We don’t have time for that! I have sixteen well-armed and well-trained men in the city, and men from our consulate there are available to me, as well. We already know this location is where the Wild Tigers operate. We can raid the building today. If we don’t find Fan Jiang there, we will find someone who knows where he is. Remember, whoever raided that ship two nights ago in Hong Kong has affected our operation. The Wild Tigers have to suspect that someone on their ship talked, so they will assume those attackers will go to Saigon next. We need to act before they arrive, or before the Wild Tigers move Fan. They might decide he is not worth the trouble, and they may wash their hands of him. If he gets away from them, we will lose our opportunity.”
Court said, “The Wild Tigers have already paid a high price for Fan. They will get valuable information from him; I don’t see them giving him up. Trust me, Colonel. When this place opens for business today, I will be able to tell if a well-protected person arrives.”
“And how will you do that?”
“I assume there will be multiple vehicles, running in a motorcade. If not, the security setup will indicate this isn’t the right location. We’ll find him if he’s here, but there is no reason to hit a four-story building if we don’t know our target is inside.”
Dai said, “You are not in command; I am! You are assisting my operation. If you are worried about our agreement regarding Fitzroy, I assure you it will be honored, even if my men terminate Fan Jiang.”
Court watched the rainfall on the roof around him. The sky above was lightening as the morning broke. “That’s not why I’m trying to keep your men back. I’m only thinking of the operation. Look, you brought me into this for a reason. We need a measured approach. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a long time. I know when it’s time to move on a target, and when it’s time to pull back and assess.”
Dai pressed, as Court thought he might. “Every minute we wait is another minute our target can get farther away!”
Court put his forehead down on the gravel roof. He could feel Dai’s urgency through the phone. This guy wasn’t going to wait around for Court to find Fan on his own. Still, Court pressed. “We have a tactical advantage now. We know where the Wild Tigers are. Let me watch them to get more intelligence.”
Dai was silent for several seconds. Finally he said, “I will give you more time. But not much. And I want results!”
“So do I,” Court said, and he was about to hang up on Dai, but he heard the phone go dead before he got the chance.