Codes of Betrayal by Uhnak Dorothy

Author:Uhnak, Dorothy [Uhnak, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: USA
ISBN: 9781480460980
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

DEA AGENT RODNEY COLEMAN did not do well in cold weather. There seemed to be a thin translucent sheet of ice over his face, and a shudder ran down his back.

Battery Park had not been his choice for a meeting. The choppy waters crashed against the bulkhead and the Statue of Liberty’s torch could barely be seen through the sleety fog. He took hold of Nick’s arm, turned him away from the water.

“A good location. Anyone dumb enough to be following you would have been spotted by now and the meeting aborted.”

Anyone following him would have frozen to death if he had to stand in one place long. Nick shrugged his arm free, hunched into his lined hunter’s coat: Thinsulate-lined, lightweight but warm. He moved quickly along the cement pathway.

“Well, Nick, the information you gave us on the Golden Dream—good. Very good. It was intercepted three days ago, just inside San Francisco Harbor. The agency is very happy with this; a great deal of China White was confiscated.” He stopped walking abruptly, squinted against the glassy ice particles that hit him smack in the face. “But, Nick, here’s my problem. This really doesn’t connect the Venturas with the Chen Triad. What we’re doing here is helping Dennis Chen take care of his opposition without him having to lift a finger. So to speak.”

“You asked me to pass along what I heard. I gave you what I heard.”

Coleman turned up the collar of his black coat, adjusted his Burberry scarf, and pulled the incongruous knitted watchcap down almost to his eyebrows. It gave him a slightly retarded appearance.

“You know, Nick, the coalescence of the Triads, the mob, and the Colombians is a very strange coming together. You know about the Triads? They go back hundreds of years, and—”

Nick hunched his shoulders as he walked, then moved slightly so that he was no longer acting as a windshield for Coleman. “Skip your history lesson, okay, Coleman?”

Coleman shrugged good-naturedly and continued. “The young bloods in the Triads know how to live well. Quietly, privately. Never flaunt their wealth or their power. The younger ones are not happy about sitting down with a gathering of old Mafiosa who think a trip to Disneyland is a celebration. A collision of cultures, as well as of age. Your grandfather is to their liking, but some of his colleagues—” Coleman shook his head derisively. “If they don’t parade around with glitzy girls on their arms, who’s going to know what big shots they are? You know, it’s these old-timers, they’re the ones insisting on the sitdown that’s going to happen. They have that thing about ‘looking a guy in the eye’—as though eye contact will tell them all they need to know. Wait till they see the poker faces on those Triad honchos.”

Nick kept walking

“The young Chinese, they’d rather do it all with no human contact. Via fax, anonymous couriers, coded messages. Computer discs. But they’re willing to come together this once, mostly because they respect your grandfather.

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