“I can’t see how this will help,” Rip protested, but Jake’s mind was made up.
They rode the tram up the mountain — because the first cable car was going up — and got a taxi at the visitors’ center on top. “Wong has a floating restaurant in Aberdeen,” Rip told the admiral, who wondered if it was the same one that he and Callie had eaten at yesterday. He hoped not. The thought that Wong might have made a dollar off him rankled.
“Whenever I want to talk to the guy I leave a message there,” Rip continued. “For all I know, Sonny sleeps there sometimes. One other thing I forgot to mention: He has an associate, not a partner, but a chief lieutenant. The man is Russian, Yuri Daniel. Avoid him if you can. Just being around him makes my skin crawl.”
To Jake’s relief, Wong’s was not the restaurant where he and Callie had eaten. It was the next one down, gaudy as a painted whore, sporting enough lights to decorate the White House Christmas tree.
Jake and Rip lined up at the same little wharf and took a sampan across the choppy black water to the restaurant. The main dining area was almost empty.
“With air traffic screwed up and all the electrical problems, the tourists are staying in their hotels,” Rip opined.
The maître d’ let them have their pick of window seats, then left them.
“I’m not hungry,” Jake said. “Let’s go see if Wong is around. Where are the offices?”
“The second floor, or deck, I think.” Rip pointed to a small black door near the kitchen entrance.
“Lead on.”
The door was unlocked. Rip pushed it open. There was a man sitting inside. Rip spoke to him in Chinese, asked if Wong were around.
The man looked Rip over, asked his name, then went upstairs.
In about a minute a medium-sized Chinese man in his fifties came down the narrow stairs. He broke into a grin, which revealed crooked teeth. “Rip Buckingham, as I live and breathe,” the man said in English. “This is a surprise. Who is your friend?”
“Jake Grafton.”
“I’m Sonny Wong,” the Chinese man said but didn’t offer a hand. “Come upstairs. We’ll talk there.” He turned and led the way back up the narrow staircase. Rip and Jake followed. The man who had been sitting in the foyer also came along.
Wong’s office was roomy enough, furnished with a practical desk and some overstuffed chairs, and decorated with the stuff curio stores sold to tourists, stuff that looked valuable but probably wasn’t — carved elephants, ivory pagodas, here and there a hand-carved chess set.
Sonny Wong turned to face his guests. “So, Mr. Grafton, did you come to buy your wife back?”
“I came to explain why you should release her unharmed.”
“Oh, no harm come to her if Virgil Cole pay the money I asked. If not…”
“Cole will pay,” Jake said, looking around, then focusing on Sonny. “You got a nice life here in Hong Kong. Rip tells me you’ve got a lot of stuff, a restaurant, houses, apartments, boats, money, women … Virgil Cole is going to pay you. If you send my wife back alive and in the pink, you can continue to live your good life here in Hong Kong. We’ll chalk this little episode up as an adventure and go on down the road.”
Sonny smiled. He looked at Rip. “Do you think Cole would pay more to get you and Mr. Grafton back alive?” He turned toward the telephone on his desk. “Why don’t we ask him?”
Jake Grafton drew Cole’s .38 snub nose from his right trouser pocket, turned, and shot the guard at the door square in the heart. The shot was like a thunderclap in that small space.
Wong turned, quick as a cat, but too late.
Jake Grafton rammed the barrel of the snub nose against his lips.
“If you even twitch, I’m going to blow your brains all over that desk.” He stared into Wong’s eyes, trying to see if the man would do something stupid. Then he felt his pockets.
Rip Buckingham was standing frozen, staring at the dead man by the door, his jaw slack.
Jake marched Wong backward around the desk, opened and closed drawers. Sure enough, in one he found a pistol, a small automatic. It felt heavy enough.
“Rip.”
Buckingham turned toward him. Jake tossed him the automatic with his left hand.
“See if this is loaded.”
“I don’t know…”
“Pull the slide back, see if there is a shell in the chamber.”
Rip bent over slightly, his long hair falling across his face. He used both hands on the pistol. “It’s loaded,” he reported.
“Find the safety, put it to the off position.”
After several seconds, Rip said, “Okay.”
“Fire a shot into that chair.”
Rip extended the pistol to arm’s length, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The shot wasn’t as loud as the boom from the snub nose, but it was loud enough.
“You’re armed,” Jake told him. “Go search all the rooms on this deck. Make sure Callie and Wu aren’t here. Shoot anyone who looks at you cross-eyed. No conversation, just shoot them. Go!”
To his credit, Rip Buckingham went.
Keeping the snubbie against Wong’s teeth, Jake began searching his desk. The papers were written in Chinese, which was no help to Jake. He tossed the stuff all over as he scanned it, looking for… well, anything. Anything at all.
“You want to call the police?” Jake asked Wong.
Wong didn’t reply.
“We can tell them about the kidnapping, have them call the American consul general, who will verify that the wife of an American flag officer was kidnapped by you and you personally demanded a ransom. American trade being what it is with China, I think the authorities might take a damn dim view of your activities, Mr. Wong.”
Jake didn’t call the police because Callie would probably be dead by the time the police got to her. He didn’t say that, of course, but that was the nub of it.
He marched Wong back around the desk and made him sit in a chair while he searched the dead man. This man was also armed, another small automatic. Jake pocketed it.
He sat across from Wong, kept the .38 in close to his body, and pointed right at Wong’s solar plexus.
“I misjudged you, Mr. Grafton.”
“If I knew where she was, Wong, I’d kill you here and now and go get her.”
“I believe you.”
Jake sat silently, staring at the Chinese. For his part, Sonny Wong kept his mouth shut and didn’t move.
The minutes crawled by. The telephone rang. Jake didn’t answer it. After four rings the noise stopped.
Jake heard no shots, no shouts, no loud noises. Which was a good thing for Sonny Wong, because he would have been the first to die. Jake thought the man knew that, for he sat silently and still.
Eight minutes later, Rip returned. He had put the automatic in his pocket. “There were some living apartments,” he told Jake, “some men who looked at me curiously, but your wife and Wu aren’t here.”
“Let’s go,” Jake said, rising from his chair. “Wong, you’ll lead the parade. The thing you’ll feel in your back is the barrel of this pistol. Honest to God, if there is any trouble from anyone, I’m going to empty this thing into your back. Now let’s go.”
Down the stairs they went. They went out into the dining room, then into the kitchen. Five people were there, four men and a woman, preparing dishes for the patrons. Jake stood so they couldn’t see the pistol he had on Wong and had Rip get everyone out of the kitchen.
When all five had left, Jake told Rip, “Go out into the main dining room. Announce that there is a small fire in the kitchen and everyone should leave in an orderly way. Customers and employees, everyone. Don’t let them panic. Just herd them off this barge.”
“A fire?”
“A small fire.”
Rip looked around the kitchen, looked at Sonny standing there with a blank face, looked at Jake. “What about the people upstairs?” he asked.