“Anything else?” Jake asked.
“That’s about it, unless you are interested in the brands of her clothes.”
“Should I be?”
“Well, they strike me as expensive duds, better than I am used to seeing on government employees, but she’s British and a hell of a lot richer than me…”
“Better come on back to the consulate.”
“Is the ferry still running? I know the subway is dead and the tunnel is closed.”
“Hire or steal a boat,” Jake said, and hung up.
He pushed the intercom button to summon the secretary. When he appeared, Jake told him, “I want to call the Pentagon on the satellite phone.”
“Those circuits are all in use by the staff, sir, for official business. They are giving the National Security Council and State real-time feeds on the situation here.”
“Terrific. I want to use a line.”
“Who are you, sir? Really? I mean, I know you are an admiral on active duty in the navy, but using the consul general’s office and—”
“I don’t have time for this,” Jake snapped. “Get me a line, and now. After you do that you call the Secretary of State’s office and complain to them.”
The secretary was offended. “I’ll have the call put through. You can use the phone on the desk. Wait until it rings.”
Okay: China Bob Chan was smuggling money and high-tech war equipment into Hong Kong. And he was a conduit for Communist money being given or donated to American politicians in the hopes of getting favorable export licenses. Sonny Wong was a professional criminal with ties to criminal gangs all over China. Cole was an American agent supplying money and highly classified weapons systems to the rebels.
And Kerry Kent? A British SIS agent, either covertly assigned or playing hooky. Cole’s weapons system operator, WSO, wizzo in U.S. Air Force terminology. Screwing the head rebel. With money in the bank…
Cole didn’t trust China Bob, so a CIA agent bugged his office and was killed before he could retrieve the tape. Then somebody shot China Bob Chan, and the whole tangled skein became a mare’s nest.
Callie listened to the tape and heard… nothing.
She heard hours of conversation, much of it one-sided because Chan was on the phone, and probably all of it relevant if one knew more about Chan’s business… but not otherwise. For Callie it was just noise.
Then she was kidnapped.
Money?
Wong threatened Cole. Callie could convict him with her testimony, he said.
How would he know? He didn’t hear the tape.
What if he were assuming the tape contained something it didn’t?
Ahhh…!
The phone rang.
Jake picked it up and found himself talking to the Pentagon war room duty officer. He identified himself and asked for Commander Tarkington.
Twenty seconds later Toad was on the line.
“Are you sleeping there?”
“Up in the office. I was down here loafing, hoping you’d call.”
“Got a job for you.”
“Yes, sir. Fire away.”
Jake gave Toad all the information he had on Kent’s stock portfolio. “This is a straw we are trying to build with,” he told Toad. “See what the NSA computer sleuths can come up with. The account probably won’t be under her name. I would think it’s probably with a London brokerage or the Hong Kong office of a London brokerage. This woman may have had access to stolen American passports from this consulate. If she has contacts in the Hong Kong underworld, she may have passports from anywhere, genuine or faked.” Jake gave Toad a physical description of Kent.
When Toad had finished writing down the description, he told his boss, “I’ve been talking to the CIA. They say SIS is well aware of Kent’s status with the rebels, though they refuse to admit anything. Officially the Brits say they never even heard of her.”
“Forget that. Find the money. Find where it came from. An inheritance, divorce settlement, whatever.”
“Heard anything from Callie?”
“No.”
“I asked for permission to come over there to help you, but the President nixed it. Said he doesn’t want any military personnel going in-country for any reason.”
“I figured he’d say that.”
“I’ve talked to the chairman.” The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Toad meant. “We shouldn’t have a problem getting cooperation. When I find out anything, I’ll call you.”
“I’ll be sitting right here,” Jake Grafton said.
At that moment Callie Grafton was telling Wu Tai Kwong, “We need an escape plan.” She had inspected every inch of the small stateroom where they were being held, as well as the tiny bathroom. She had looked at the door hinges, the window, the air vent, the beds, and didn’t have a glimmer of an idea.
“Yes,” Wu agreed after a moment’s reflection, “a plan would be good.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
“No.” Wu raised his hands, then lowered them. The sheet strips around his arm were blood-soaked, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
She found the situation infuriating. She balled up her fists and shook them. “I don’t understand you. You say they will kill you, yet you don’t seem to be worried. You aren’t figuring out how to get out of here. You’re just sitting there.”
“What else is there to do?”
She made an exasperated noise. She had been married so long she judged all men by her husband. Jake Grafton wouldn’t be sitting calmly, waiting for the inevitable. Not Jake. He would be scheming and planning until he drew his very last breath.
She missed him terribly.
“Figure a way to get us out of here,” Callie told her fellow prisoner. “There must be a way. We’re on a ship, a small one I think, docked I believe, maybe anchored. When they come for me again — or you — we’ll both jump them. Fight, claw, do whatever we have to. Get out. Get free. Stay alive. Let’s find something we can use as a weapon. Anything.”
Wu waited a while before he spoke. He had that habit, she noticed, and she didn’t much care for it. He said, “You would like my mother, I think. She is much like you. She struggles with life, seeks to conquer it.”
“And you don’t?”
“We all do to some degree. My mother more than me. You are more like her, I think.”
“You are supposed to be a revolutionary. By definition, revolution is struggle.”
“Quite so. I struggle to change the world as man has made it. But life? When the rain comes, it does not matter whether you welcome it or hate it — the rain falls upon your head regardless.”
“Everyone dies, too,” Callie said acidly. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready. I have a lot of good years left in me. I’m not going to be robbed of life by some hoodlum, not if I can do anything to prevent it.”
“That’s the rub,” Wu said softly. “Preventing it.”
The Luda-class destroyer, Number 109, came steaming west through Victoria Strait between the island of Hong Kong and the Kowloon peninsula. She had been ordered by the commanding officer of the naval base to sortie immediately and shell the rebels in the Bank of the Orient square, pursuant to the orders of Governor Sun.
Lieutenant Tan was the officer of the deck when the order was received, and he protested. The commanding officer was not aboard, the ship was not ready for sea. His protests fell on deaf ears. “Sail with the men you have aboard and shell the rebels as ordered,” the base commander said.
Of course, the base commander was having his own troubles. A riot had broken out in the enlisted mess hall, probably instigated by the rebels. The officers who attempted to turn off the base television system had been met with sticks and garbage pail lids. The rioting sailors were making threats against the officers’ lives.