Covert One 4 - The Altman Code (40 page)

Ever since Feng and the two other men had surprised her, listening at
the bedroom window in the garden of Ralph Mcdermid’s mansion, Randi had
been thinking of what she could say that they would believe. A lot would
depend on their level of paranoia. On how much Mcdermid had to hide, on
how many enemies he had, and on how well he and Feng Dun knew those
enemies.

She decided to try to evade a little longer. She would continue to act
like a frightened, unsophisticated country woman, then give them the
“mystery man” story. “I was only looking for money,” she whimpered. “The
gate to the garden was open. I heard voices, and I went in to ask the
rich foreigner for help.”

Feng Dun’s foot kicked so fast she did not see it move until it exploded
in pain against her ribs.

She shrieked like a pig being dragged to slaughter. As she writhed on
the floor, she managed to gasp, “My family must have money. I don’t earn
enough in the factories to send to the village. I have to have more. And
… and sometimes I have to steal. It was such a fine house … there’d
be much money in such a house. There’d be beautiful things to take and
sell … ”

“Stupid peasant!” Feng’s pale face flushed pink and contorted in rage.

“You followed him all day. You were spying on him. Probably for far
longer!”

Randi gave her best cunning, groveling, pleading, terrified-nobody
performance. She grabbed at Mcdermid’s ankles and blubbered up into his
repulsed face.

Feng cursed in Mandarin, grabbed her by her pajama top, and dragged her
away from Mcdermid. “Peasants! They pretend they’re being skinned alive
if you bump into them. I’ll give her something real to howl about.” He
spun around. In his soft voice, he spoke rapidly to the other two men.

“Get the electrodes and the blowtorch.”

His words were in Shanghainese, but Randi understood the dialect. Her
mind reeled. She could stand torture as well as most, but resistance
would almost certainly end up incapacitating her even if she were
rescued or managed to escape. Still, there was one story they might
believe completely: She would give them Jon.

He was already hurt. For all she knew, it could be serious. She steeled
herself as she glanced at him. He sagged against his bindings,
unconscious, not even moaning. She could do nothing for either of them
if she, too, were badly injured. And she could do nothing for the
Company and certainly nothing for America.

She would let them get their blowtorch, their electric devices, or
whatever other horrors Feng Dun had in his torture arsenal. If they
chose the electrodes, they would apply a nasty stun to her first, which
she knew would leave no serious damage. She would not break and give
them Jon until the second or third jolt. The longer she held out, the
more they would believe what she told them. If they started with the
blowtorch, she would have to gamble and give him up sooner. Blowtorches
frightened her.

The two grinning men returned with their persecution tools. Reflex was a
physical reaction beyond control of the mind. Only a split second after
she had reacted did Randi realize Feng Dun had been watching.

He smiled again. “Light the blowtorch,” he told one of the men. To the
other, he ordered, “Bring another chair. Take off her sandals.”

Ralph Mcdermid swallowed hard. “Is that really necessary–”

“Yes, Taipan,” Feng Dun’s voice had a harsh, irritated edge. “In matters
of this importance, hands must get dirty. Even bloody.”

The second man grabbed a chair from a corner. Feng Dun picked her up by
the shoulders. She sagged, but he lifted her as easily as if she were a
straw doll. He dumped her onto the chair. The first man lit the
blowtorch, while the second pulled off her sandals.

She shrieked again in Mandarin. “No! No! I’ll tell you. He hired me.”

She pointed at Jon, who still did not move against his ropes. “I was
afraid to say it. You would hurt me as you’ve hurt him. But … that’s
the man who did it. He paid me, told me to follow the gentleman there,
and remember where he went, what he did, and who he talked to.

Everything the foreign gentleman did. I needed the money. My father and
mother are old. They need medicine and food. Their house is old. It must
be repaired. Please! Don’t hurt me!”

She chattered on as if terror had unleashed a flood of words. Mcdermid
and the other men turned to study Jon as Feng translated. A look of
understanding came over Mcdermid’s face. Randi could see belief in his
eyes, saying to himself, Yes, of course. Why didn’t I guess that from
the start?

Feng was not looking at Mcdermid. He was staring at Randi’s feet. He
stepped closer, grabbed her hands, and turned them over to peer at the
palms.

Distracted by Feng’s movements, and relieved that the blowtorch was not
going to be necessary, Mcdermid said, “Feng? What is it?”

Feng dropped Randi’s hands, grabbed her chin, and tilted it up. He
stared at her face, her eyes, her hair. His long fingers felt like steel
nails against her forehead and scalp, and her stomach plunged.

She pulled back. “Owww! You’re hurting me!”

“Stay still.” Abruptly, the fingers dug into her forehead below the
hairline. Her flesh-colored scalp and black wig peeled off in his hand,
revealing the tight skullcap that held down her own hair.

“Feng!” Mcdermid’s broad face looked stunned.

Feng pulled off the skullcap, and her blond hair tumbled out.

His two musclemen gaped as if they had seen a miracle.

Mcdermid announced stupidly, “She’s not Chinese!” “No,” Feng said,
without taking his gaze from Randi’s face, “she’s not Chinese.”

“But how did you–?”

“Her feet,” Feng said. “Rural people wear sandals most of their lives.

She doesn’t have the gap between her large toe and the others.” He
studied her with a kind of admiration. “Her hands have been artificially
coarsened and aged, probably with latex skin. The same kind of product
gave her eyes an Oriental fold and shape. She’s probably wearing contact
lenses, and there’s a subtle pigmentation on her skin from some kind of
long-lasting skin dye. It’s a remarkable piece of intelligence
tradecraft, the work of experts.”

Everyone in the room, except the unconscious Jon, stared at Randi the
way they would at an exotic zoo animal.

Fear rushed through her. She thought fast. They would no longer believe
her story that Jon had hired her. Feng had deduced that she worked for
an intelligence agency. Nothing would change his mind about that now.

Whatever new lie she told must contain that admission. Sweating, she
considered possibilities … what Feng and Mcdermid might believe ..

. what legend she had the skills to make credible.

“So,” Feng said in that ghostly voice that seldom varied, which made it
all the more intimidating. “You aren’t Chinese, but you speak Mandarin
as well or better than I do, and I’d guess Cantonese and Shanghainese,
too, yes? Certainly English. You’ve understood every word we’ve said.

You’ve been ahead of us from the start. You’re highly trained by a large
organization with global interests and the need for operatives who can
speak foreign languages. Even our American friend there can’t speak
Chinese. But he isn’t CIA, is he? A special person, perhaps, recruited
for a special mission, but with a real Langley agent to work with him,
yes? And, of course, that Langley agent would be you.”

Randi made a decision. She curled her lip and said in disgusted Russian,
“Don’t insult me.”

Ralph Mcdermid took a half step back, his eyes wide as if he had been
slapped across the face.

Feng Dun blinked.

“And you’re right about Colonel Smith,” she continued in perfect
Russian. “He’s not CIA. What or who he is precisely, I know as little as
you.” Give them a small confirmation. It could distract them. “But I’d
like to know, too. It could prove useful to us later.” Mcdermid
demanded, “What did she say?” When Feng translated, Mcdermid frowned
angrily. “Why is a Russian agent following me?”

Randi switched to Russian-accented English. “The Altman Group isn’t the
only arms dealer.”

“Russian intelligence is interested in doing business?” Mcdermid sensed
profit. “Does the Kremlin want to work with us?” He had done good deals
with Russia in the past, but recently Moscow had grown greedy, demanding
a larger cut.

“In Russia today, life is good for few.”

Mcdermid studied Randi. He decided, “You’re not working for the
government. You’re moonlighting for yourself or others. For one of your
capitalist oligarchs, perhaps. Someone who wants to know what the Altman
Group is doing for reasons of business utility.”

Randi gave a slow nod, as if reluctant to admit it. “We do what we must.

My father was GRU. One becomes accustomed to living well.”

GRU was the old Soviet military intelligence. Feng said, “Does this
oligarch have a name?”

“Possibly.” She cocked an eyebrow and looked at Mcdermid.

Feng turned his head toward Mcdermid, too. Then he glared at her. “I
don’t believe you. What weapons deal is Mr. Mcdermid making in Hong Kong
that brought you here?”

“Stop, Feng.” Mcdermid saw dollar signs. Russia still had weapons many
people wanted, particularly in the Third World. Although those dictators
and self-appointed kings cried poverty, they managed to come up with the
cash when it came to guns and ammunition. If this woman had access to a
private store, which had probably been looted from the government’s
dwindling supplies … “We need to talk.”

Feng remained focused on Randi’s face, searching it for something he
could not quite pinpoint but seemed sure was there. Then he looked at
Jon Smith. He had still not moved. Feng again considered Randi.

“Feng,” Mcdermid repeated.

The enforcer glanced at him, turned, and walked toward the door.

Mcdermid followed, after a reassuring smile at the moonlighting Russian
agent with the business connections.

In an inner office, Ralph Mcdermid’s cell phone rang. He took it from
his pocket. “This is Mcdermid.” The polished voice said, “We need to
talk.”

Mcdermid covered the mouthpiece. “I’d better take this,” he told Feng
Dun.

“Very well. My people must eat anyway.”

Mcdermid nodded. “It’s been a long night. Get something downstairs. I
want white toast and coffee. Cream and sugar. A Danish, if you can find
one. Then we’ll talk more about the Russian.”

The footsteps of Feng and his men thumped down the wood stairs, while
Mcdermid found a seat on a packing box that held adult toys for a sex
shop on the street floor.

He returned to the phone. “I have good news for you.”

“What news?”

Mcdermid related the capture of Smith and the Russian agent. “This is
the end of our major problem. All of the copies of the manifest are
destroyed.” The voice on the other end said with relief, “Excellent. And
did you give my information about the SEAL operation to Feng Dun to pass
on?”

“Yes, it’s over. He made the connection to one of his people, who got
the information to the sub’s captain. You hadn’t heard?”

“Not yet. It will be a pleasure to act surprised. The White House won’t
try again, now that they know the Chinese will be watching for more
attempts. Tell me about the Russian woman. You say she was spying on
you? I don’t like the sound of that.”

Mcdermid filled him in. “We can make use of her perhaps. I’ll know more
soon.”

“It’s interesting, but let’s keep our focus. I’m out on a limb on this.

We’d better bring it home.”

“You’re out on a limb? Consider my position. If I’m not worried, you
don’t have to be.”

“What will you do with Smith?”

“Whatever we need to. That’s Feng’s province. But first, I want to find
out for whom he works.”

“If anything happens, I know nothing about this.”

“Naturally. Neither do I.”

Cheered by their progress, Mcdermid hung up and remained sitting on the
packing box, thinking about the new good fortune the Russian woman might
have brought. Depending on what she was offering, it could be another
billion in the long run.

As soon as she heard the door close, Randi bent to put on her sandals.

Her whisper was so low, so directed only toward Jon, that it would be
inaudible from the door around the corner.

“Jon? Jon? I’m going to get you out of this. Can you hear me? Jon?”

“Of course, I can hear you. I’m not deaf, you know. At least not yet.”
His speech was thick through his swollen lips. A hint of pain in the
cheerful whisper. “Terrific work. I’m impressed.”

Relief rushed through her, mixed with annoyance. “You’ve been awake the
whole time, damn you.”

“Now, now.” He tried to raise his head. “Only most of the time. I–”

Randi put a finger to her lips, shook her head, and signaled him to
slump again. She stood up and walked around the bare room. She examined
the floor, walls, and ceiling, as if searching for another way out. What
she expected to find were listening devices and closed-circuit cameras,
but there were no cameras and no recent changes in the walls that could
conceal bugs.

Nothing hung on the walls, and there were no wall fixtures and no
furniture other than the two straight chairs. She could not be
completely certain there were no listening devices, but she did know
there were no cameras.

She returned to her chair and said in a low voice, “Okay, they can’t see
us, and I can’t find any mikes, but let’s keep it down, just in case.

How much did you hear?”

“Most of it. Giving me to them was masterly, probably the only story
they would’ve believed. The Russian bit was positively brilliant. The
peasant howling and crawling wasn’t bad either. I had no idea you had so
much talent as a groveler.”

“Your approval warms my heart. But we’re still trapped here. Unless you
want your feet fried to a cinder on your way to a shallow grave, we’d
better figure out what to do when they come back.”