Her eyes narrowed. She wiped the blood on her mouth off onto her shoulder.
“She doesn’t think you’ll really kill her,” Carmellini said.
“I won’t have to,” Jake told him. “All I have to do is tell these people how she betrayed Wu and them. If Wu dies, she won’t live another ten minutes. They’ll kill her with their bare hands.”
Her head was down now. Blood still flowed from her nose.
“He’s holding them on a yacht, the China Rose.” Her voice was a husky whisper. “It’s at the Kowloon docks.”
Jake Grafton lifted her head. He looked straight into her eyes. “You’d better pray we find them alive and get back here. Without me you’re dead. Understand?”
They put tape over her mouth and punched a small hole in it so she could breathe. Then they left her, locking the door behind them.
“Sorry about that,” Jake said to Tommy Carmellini as he used a rag to wipe blood from his hands. “When you left the room she turned wildcat, so I punched her in the nose.”
“Glad it was you and not me. I knew Harold Barnes. He didn’t deserve what he got.”
“Cole is going to give me some weapons. I don’t know what is on that ship. Maybe two people, maybe fifty. You want to come along?”
“Yeah.”
“Ain’t in your job description. When you’re dead the story is all over; the movie ends right there. If you’ve got a woman somewhere and big plans, I understand.”
Carmellini shrugged. “Going places people don’t want me to go is what I do.”
Jake tossed the bloody rag in a corner. “I’m going to kill anybody who gets in my way,” he said. “No questions asked, no hesitation.”
Carmellini glanced at the closed office door. “And Kerry Kent gets off with a busted nose.”
“Oh, I doubt it,” Jake said, sighing. He gestured to the people conferring in front of the map and checking the computer monitors. “She betrayed these people. If they don’t kill her, Wu Tai Kwong will.”
When the helo brought Tiger Cole back from Kowloon, he had five more small bombs with him. “Okay,” he told Jake Grafton, “you’ve convinced me. She sold us out. There was a radio-controlled bomb in every one of the Yorks.”
“Only one?”
“God, I hope so. I inspected them as carefully as I could. We could take them out of service for a week or so and disassemble each of them into a pile of parts and check every goddamn nut, bolt, and screw, but…”
“She says Callie and Wu are being held in a yacht tied up at the Kowloon docks.”
“She being cooperative now?”
“That’s probably not an accurate statement.”
Cole snarled, “By God, I have a few things I’d like to ask her.”
“Hey, she isn’t going to tell you anything you don’t already know. She did it for the money.”
Virgil Cole shook his head, rubbed his eyes. “I just don’t understand people like that. Maybe I’ve had too much money for too long …”
“You were never that poor, believe me,” Jake said. He handed Cole the sixth bomb.
“You said you wanted weapons?”
“And the use of your helicopter. I want to find this yacht before the light fades.”
“Wong has a yacht?”
“Kent says he does. China Rose.”
Cole’s eyes lit up. “I’ve seen it! An older ship, steel, about two hundred and fifty, maybe three hundred feet long, with a little bridge and a massive salon aft. White with red trim.” He looked at his watch. “The sun sets in about ten minutes. Go find that thing while I round up some weapons and clothes.”
“Black.”
“Today’s your lucky day. Black is our uniform. I’ve got a truckful of black shirts and trousers. I’m trying to convince my friends that night is the time to fight.”
Jake settled into the copilot’s seat of the Bell and the pilot immediately lifted it into a hover. When he was above the power lines, the pilot eased the nose over and let the machine fly between the buildings toward the harbor.
They stayed low, the skids almost in the dark water, as they worked their way northwest up the Kowloon docks. Scanning the ships with binoculars, Jake fought down the sense of panic that welled up within him as the sun dipped below the horizon. Time was running out.
Coasters, tankers, container ships, tramps, fiber-optic cable layers… ships of every kind and description. They were Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, American, and flag-of-convenience ships from all over the globe. Grafton hunted through them as the light faded slowly, inexorably.
Lin Pe worked her way along the nearly deserted streets of Kowloon. She was very tired and her feet dragged.
Unable to go farther, she sat on the sidewalk against a building, her bag clutched in her hand.
She had never seen the streets this empty. Those people who were out walked purposefully, determined, with quick glances up and down the street.
There were soldiers, of course. PLA trucks drove along the streets with soldiers sitting on the fenders, rifles in hand. At street corners soldiers directed traffic, waving civilian cars off the streets to make way for trucks.
And tanks.
Three tanks rumbled by Lin Pe, huge beasts with long, clumsy barrels protruding from their turrets. Their treads chewed up the pavement.
She got up and followed them, walking as quickly as she could. The tanks were faster than she was, but they didn’t disappear from sight.
The three of them came to a halt at the intersection of Nathan and Waterloo roads. The intersection was about a mile north of the southern tip of the peninsula. One tank went through the intersection, then turned in the street. Gingerly the drivers maneuvered. One tank came to rest in the intersection, its nose and the cannon pointed south. One tank was parked on each side of the intersection, slightly back. The tankers on each flank pushed the barrels of their cannons through the glass windows of the corner buildings so they could also command the street and remain half hidden by the buildings. Two trucks stopped to discharge soldiers, who took up positions behind the tanks and the parked cars that lined the side streets.
Owners of parked cars came pouring from adjacent buildings. They scrambled to move their vehicles, some of which were already blocked in by the tanks. Shouting and pleading with the soldiers did no good. One officer pointed his rifle at several civilians and ordered them to leave. In seconds the last car that could be moved was gone, and the sidewalks were empty.
Lin Pe walked another block and found a store whose owner had yet to lock the door. He protested as she entered, but she insisted, talking loudly, refusing to leave. When the owner went back in the store to summon his wife, Lin Pe took out her WB cell phone and dialed the number she had memorized. It took her but thirty seconds to report the location of the tanks.
“Climb,” Jake said to the helicopter pilot. He was desperate. There was little light left, and the China Rose was eluding him.
“If we climb the PLA may knock us out of the sky.”
“Climb,” Jake repeated, his voice hard and urgent.
The pilot hoisted the collective and the helo bounced upward; Jake fought against the downward G-force to hold the binoculars steady. The pilot leveled at a thousand feet above the water. “Fly the whole waterfront again,” Jake Grafton ordered, “especially the area by the amusement park.”
But China Rose wasn’t there. The haystack contained no needle.
Just when he was ready to admit defeat, he saw it.
“There!” He pointed. “Closer. Go closer.”
The pilot turned the Bell and closed the distance.
Yes. There was just enough light to see the red trim, the small bridge, and the windows of the salon. A small boat hung on davits behind the stack. The yacht’s name… he couldn’t make it out. It must be China Rose!