Point of Contact

Right now he didn’t need Gavin, anyway. What he needed was a way to get over to that second warehouse. He couldn’t use his cell-phone app to connect with another Uber ride — and if he used the landlines to call for a cab, well, who knows what that might trigger? He guessed that Lian’s security team was probably still staking out his guesthouse, so using the company car Lian had loaned them wouldn’t work unless he engaged in some fancy driving and shook them off his tail — but at night with little traffic and in the rain, with Lian’s mandate to her team to never lose him again, he suspected that he wouldn’t be able to pull it off short of a Fast and Furious movie-trailer car chase. And even if he did, he’d only piss Lian off even more and sour his already strained relationship with her. His job overall was to smooth the merger transaction between two companies, not cause irreparable damage to that relationship. His suspicions about the contents of that warehouse were just that — suspicions. He didn’t want to embarrass Gerry Hendley or Hendley Associates by going off on a snipe hunt that might not result in anything except screwing the pooch and ruining the merger.

Still… his instincts told him that checking out the warehouse was worth at least some risk. Stepping over to the window confirmed the weather was still miserable, so walking or running the twenty-five miles or so to get there was out of the question. He needed a set of wheels. Fortunately, Feng had shown him where the keys were kept for the company delivery vans parked in the back. Technically, he would only be borrowing one of them, not stealing it.

Or at least that’s what he’d tell the police after they arrested him.

47

Yong sat at his desk, nude.

The storm blasted against the heavy plate glass of his twenty-fourth-story luxury condo, but his eyes were fixed on the same video images of the semi truck and warehouse that Jack was watching simultaneously.

“Ice?” Meili was nude, too, but in the kitchen, fixing drinks. She held a cube of ice aloft in a pair of silver tongs.

“No.”

She muttered a curse to herself as she tossed the ice cube into the stainless-steel sink, then poured a couple ounces of Casa Noble Anejo, a fine sipping tequila, into two tulip-shaped Glencairn whiskey glasses and carried them into the living room.

“That’s why you got out of bed? I was hoping you were looking for more porn, or maybe QVC.”

“The alarm triggered.” Yong lifted the glass to his lips and sipped, keeping his eyes on the screen. Unknown to Jack or Paul, wireless trackers were embedded in their Dalfan security cards, keyed to an alert system on Yong’s computers.

“I’m surprised you heard it. You were quite busy at the time.”

“I’m a great multitasker.” Yong threw back the rest of his tequila.

“More?”

“Of course.” His eyes fixed on the heart-shaped mole over her lip, stirring a memory. Blood rushed to his manhood.

“What’s Ryan up to?” She finished her glass.

Yong snorted; the blood retreated. “He’s a nosy bastard. I’ve never known an auditor to be so pushy.”

Meili stroked the back of Yong’s neck as she watched the screen over his shoulder. “He’s becoming quite a problem.”

“He’ll head to the warehouse tonight.”

“In this weather? No way.” Meili dragged her nails gently across his back.

“He’s persistent.”

“What do you intend to do about it?”

“Scare him off.”

Meili stopped rubbing him. “We need to kill him.”

Yong gazed at her. “Too risky. Besides, he won’t find what he’s looking for.”

“No, he won’t, but he’ll just keep looking. You said yourself he’s persistent. We need to get rid of him.”

“We can’t kill him. It will bring the cops in — or worse, the Americans.”

“It won’t be a problem if it looks like an accident. He’s not supposed to be sneaking around in that warehouse, right? A large crate could fall on him, or maybe he interrupts a burglary in progress.”

“It can’t be traced back to me — or Lian.”

“It won’t.”

“Let’s do it my way first.” Yong picked up a phone.

“There isn’t much time.” Meili picked up her phone. “You call your men, I’ll call the warehouse. If your plan fails, mine won’t. But one way or another, Jack Ryan will be dealt with tonight.”

* * *

The rain hammered on the metal roof of the garage as Jack climbed into the white Nissan NV200 compact cargo van plastered with a Dalfan-logo vehicle wrap. The automatic garage door opened and sheets of heavy silver raindrops poured in front of the van’s bright halogen headlights. The storm was definitely getting worse.

The van smelled showroom-new. The odometer read three hundred and forty-two kilometers. He logged in his destination on Google Maps even though his cell signal was still jammed in this location, but he knew it would pull up once he left the property.