The Altman Code by Robert Ludlum & Lynds Gayle

Author:Robert Ludlum & Lynds, Gayle [Ludlum, Robert & Lynds, Gayle]
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Espionage, Suspense, working
ISBN: 9781409118633
Publisher: Orion Books Limited
Published: 2010-07-15T07:06:24+00:00

Covert One 4 - The Altman Code

Chapter Twenty-Two.

It was nearly dark when Ralph Mcdermid finally left the building through a side door, although Feng Dun and his hunters had emerged hours before, one at a time, and scattered as if on assignments. Because the Hong Kong crowds had swollen with the evening rush to go home, Jon did not hang back. During the afternoon, the humidity had broken, and the struggle through the mass of pedestrians was easier.

Frustrated and worried, he hurried to keep the CEO in sight. Mcdermid walked only as far as the Central station of the M. T.R., the subway. Jon waited twenty seconds, bought a ticket, and followed. There were fewer people on the platform, and Jon paused, making certain no one else surveilled the CEO–either surreptitiously or as a hidden bodyguard.

When the train came, Mcdermid entered a car, and Jon slipped on behind, through a second door. Mcdermid wove forward until he found a space he liked on one of the stainless steel benches. He sat and stared into space, making eye contact with none of his silent, weary fellow passengers and ignoring the colorful advertisements, all of which were in Chinese, very different from the days before the island returned to mainland China’s control and commercials appeared in English as well.

Jon moved in the opposite direction and grabbed a pole, his back half turned, where he could catch Mcdermid in a window reflection. He found himself wondering why anyone of Mcdermid’s position and wealth was riding the subway. Not going far? Not wanting to use company cars or personnel in another man’s empire? Tired of the pandemonium and pressure of the streets? Cheap? Or, more likely, he wanted no one, not even a chauffeur or taxi driver, to know where he was going.

The ride was remarkably quiet and smooth. Mcdermid never bothered to gaze around, apparently unconcerned that he might have picked up a tail.

He got off a couple of stops later, at the Wanchai station. Jon waited until the last moment again, when the CEO was already some forty feet away, to squeeze out through the closing doors. He hurried out to Hennessy Road, where Mcdermid was ambling along, looking relaxed.

Mcdermid led him through Wanchai, Hong Kong’s former red-light district.

Once notorious for sex and drugs, the area had fallen on hard times. The result was that the city’s booming financial district had invaded. New high-rises clustered together, and the newest and best hotels asked and received more than three thousand dollars a night for rooms.

Hands in his pockets, Mcdermid strolled down neon-lighted Lockhart Road, where most of the remaining sex trade was. Here, Wanchai still lived down to its tawdry reputation. Wanchai girls loitered at bar doors and gave a well-rehearsed pssst to any man who looked as if he could pay.

There were gaudy hostess clubs, topless bars, discos, and raucous English and Irish pubs. The signs and the spielers, the neon and the come-ons were still loud and bright here, broadcasting the delights inside for the hungry and the lonely.

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