The Stone Monkey

Forty-seven
    “Extradited?” Rhyme asked.
    “That’s the fuzzy little spin they’re putting on it,” Dellray growled. “But we ain’t seen any single solitary arrest warrant for him issued by a Chinese court.”
    “What does that mean, no arrest warrant?” Sachs asked.
    “That his fucking guanxi ’s saving his ass,” Rhyme said bitterly.
    Dellray nodded. “ ’Less the country that wants the extradition shows valid paper, we never send nobody back over. No way.”
    “Well, they’ll try him, won’t they?” Sachs asked.
    “Nup. I talked to our folks over there. The high-ups in China want him back, lemme quote, ‘for questioning in connection with irregular matters of foreign trade.’ Not a breath ’bout smugglin’, not a breath ’bout murder, not a breath. ’Bout. Nothin’.”
    Rhyme was stunned. “He’ll be back in business in a month.” The Changs, the Wus and who knew how many others were suddenly at risk again. “Fred, can you do anything?” he asked. Dellray was well thought of in the FBI. He had friends at headquarters down on Pennsylvania Avenue and Tenth in D.C. and had a good stockpile of his own guanxi .
    But the agent shook his head, squeezing the cigarettethat rested behind his right ear. “This li’l decision got made in State Department Washington. Not my Washington. I got no clout there.”
    Rhyme remembered the quiet man in the blue suit: Webley from State.
    “Goddamn,” Sachs whispered. “He knew.”
    “What?” Rhyme asked.
    “The Ghost knew he was safe. At the takedown he was surprised but he didn’t look worried. Hell, he told me about killing Sung and taking over his identity. He was proud of it. If anybody else’d been collared like that, they would’ve listened to their rights and shut up. He was goddamn bragging.”
    “It can’t happen,” Rhyme said, thinking of the poor people floating dead in the Fuzhou Dragon and lying bloody on the sand at Easton Beach. Thinking of Sam Chang’s father.
    Thinking of Sonny Li.
    “Well, it is extremely happenin’,” Dellray said. “He’s leaving this afternoon. And there’s not a single damn thing we can do.”
    •   •   •
    In the Federal Men’s Detention Center in downtown Manhattan the Ghost sat across the table from his lawyer in a private conference room, which the lawyer’s handheld scanner had assured them was not bugged.
    They spoke in Minnanhua Chinese, quietly and quickly.
    When the lawyer was finished telling him about the procedure for his release into the hands of the Fuzhou public security bureau the Ghost nodded and then leaned close. “I need you to find some information for me.”
    The lawyer took out a pad of paper. The Ghost glanced at it once and frowned. The lawyer put the foolscap away.
    “There is a woman who works for the police department. I need her address. Home address. Her name is Amelia Sachs and she lives somewhere in Brooklyn. S-A-C-H-S. And Lincoln Rhyme. Spelled like in poetry. He’s in Manhattan.”
    The lawyer nodded.
    “Then there are the two families I need to find.” He didn’t think it wise to describe them as people he was trying to kill, even in the absence of listening devices, so he said simply, “The Wus and the Changs. From the Dragon. They might be in INS detention somewhere but maybe not.”
    “What are you—?”
    “You don’t need to ask questions like that.”
    The slim man fell silent. Then he considered. “When do you need this information?”
    The Ghost wasn’t sure exactly what awaited him in China. He guessed that he would be back in one of his luxury apartments in three months but it could be less. “As soon as possible. You will keep monitoring them and if the addresses change you will leave a message with my people in Fuzhou.”
    “Yes. Of course.”
    Then the Ghost realized that he was tired. He lived for combat, he lived to play deadly games like this. He lived to win. But, my, how tired you got when you broke cauldrons and sank boats, when you simply did not accept defeat. Now he needed rest. His qi sorely needed to be replenished.
    He dismissed his lawyer then lay back on the cot in the antiseptically clean, square cell, the room reminding him of a Chinese funeral parlor because the walls were blue and white. The Ghost closed his eyes and pictured Yindao.
    Lying in a room, a warehouse, a garage, which had been arranged by a feng shui artist in the opposite manner of most practitioners: the nature of his fantasy room would