The Risk Agent Read Online Free PDF Page B

outstanding. It had obviously brought the man much
yunqi
—luck.
    Shen Deshi avoided pointing out the captain’s name was weak, his family name sounding too much like the number five, which was bad
yunqi
.
    The captain reached for the phone as a knock sounded on his office door. A uniformed officer entered with a fogged plastic bag containing the human hand, along with an assortment of photographs and paperwork.
    “We have kept it at a constant temperature of two degrees,” the captain explained.
    Shen Deshi looked it over through the plastic, handed it back to the messenger and told him to keep it frozen. He then studied the photographs, all properly scaled, and a sheet of partial fingerprints. He read the paperwork carefully.
    “The ring?” he asked.
    “Oklahoma State University,” the captain replied.
    Shen Deshi leveled a look on the man. “You see? Not so difficult. An American. It is a fortuitous start.” Burned into his eyes was the fact that the captain had failed to notify anyone of the apparently dead foreigner.
    The captain picked up on this and quickly defended his actions. “It was our intention to complete the preliminary investigation before troubling our superiors.”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “Third document. We have faxed a copy of the fingerprints to the Ministry and are awaiting a response.”
    “You covered yourself properly,” Shen Deshi said, his voice grating, barely able to contain his temper. “The hand was cleaved cleanly at the wrist. There is either a one-handed American out there looking for his school ring, or a dead American butchered on Chinese soil, his body parts floating down the Yangtze—the rest of him long gone by now. The Americans must be notified.”
    “Right away.”
    “The evidence—
all of it
—must be shared with them.”
    “I will see to it. I will contact the embassy myself. Personally. I will do so immediately.” The captain reached for the phone.
    “Not the embassy,” Shen Deshi said, finally venting. “Your idiocy is a pox on us all. You bring us great shame.”
    The captain recoiled. This was the gravest insult one could deliver. Great shame obliterated careers. Great shame could lead a man to the noose.
    “Let me think a moment.” Shen Deshi reached over and took up the teacup and sipped. “Nice tea,” he said, suddenly pleasant. “I thank you for it.”
    “My pleasure.” The captain was sweating.
    “The better course is to deliver the evidence to the consulate here in Shanghai,” Shen Deshi said. “You will notify the U.S. Consulate.”
    “Humbly begging your pardon, honorable Shen, but it would be faster to—”
    “Faster, yes. But that’s the point. It will take the consulate time to determine exactly what they have. I need that time to further my investigation and get ahead of them. I must be able to answer the obvious questions they will have. You will quietly make inquiries if any upstream districts are reporting any assaults, murders or disappearances involving foreigners.”
    “Right away.”
    “I will need duplicates of all of this.”
    “Immediately.”
    “We must not lose face with the Americans. Bad
yunqi
for us all.”
    “I will make the calls.”
    “Quietly.”
    “As a mouse. And I will deliver the information to a low-level bureaucrat I know at the consulate. And even then, not all the evidence. Not until they officially request it. That may factor in another day or two for you.”
    “This is very good thinking, captain. There’s yet a chance that you can undo these mistakes that were no doubt made by your subordinates.”
    “You are gracious.”
    “Perhaps,” said Shen Deshi, smiling grimly, “some discipline is in order to set the proper tone.”
    H ey, there.” Skype video challenged Knox, not for the technological issues but because his brother looked so normal. Boyishly handsome. A kind face. One would never suspect the problems that lurked behind the man’s warm eyes.
    “You haven’t called me in a