"Uh...nothing. But Amber sounds like she might be good for a different kind of...weird. You know, if the mood strikes me." Priscilla giggled. "Yeah, I don't do kinky."

"But you're...beautiful." Jack tried to sound interested and charming.

"Can we get started?" The call girl started to pull off her teddy, exposing her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Jack swallowed hard and stopped her. "Uhm...hold on." Priscilla smiled. "Oh, you want to undress me? That's cool, too.""I was actually wondering...where can I find Amber?"

"I don't know. Through the agency, I guess. Like I said, she's not here much, just for the one guy. And she usually doesn't hang around after."

"Is she cute?" Jack asked, hoping for a description.

"I guess, if you like the gorgeous type," the girl replied. "I'm kinda glad she won't put her face in the catalogue. It'd leave the rest of us in cardboard boxes, eating out of Dumpsters."

"Can you give me her number?"

"What? No. Besides, she doesn't do girls." She giggled again, her annoying trill beginning to grate on Jack's nerves.

"I can be very persuasive."

"Look, are we going to get busy?" The girl suddenly got serious, annoyance creeping into her tone. "Or are you going to drool over Amber?"

"Okay, here's the deal." Jack pulled out her wallet. "I'm giving you another two fifty for Amber's phone number, and this whole conversation never happened." She threw the money on the bed.

* 70 *

The call girl ogled the cash. "I don't have her number."

"What do you have?"

"She mentioned she's going to the Cave tomorrow night. It's a club, near-"

"I can find it. What does she look like?" Priscilla fished a few pictures from her purse. "This is us last Christmas."

The photo was a little blurry, but Jack could make her out. She put the picture in the pocket of her jacket.

"Hey, it's not for keeps."

"It better be, for two hundred and fifty bucks." Priscilla giggled yet again. "I guess you can have it." Jack b.u.t.toned up her shirt. "Thanks for the...good times, Priscilla." She strode to the door.

"You're welcome, I guess."

"There's a certain glow about you," Landis said as soon as Jack got in the car.

Jack ignored the comment. "If I hear the words I guess or a giggle one more time, I'll implode. Aside from that, I don't think she's our girl. But we should check her anyway."

"Why do you think it's not her?"

"Because her elevator doesn't go all the way up, and a few hundred bucks were enough to make her spill on her friend. For a few more, I could've bought her mother. Not the type Rozsa would trust his laundry to, never mind keep his cash and secrets. Her Tuesday client doesn't sound likely, either."

"How about the other girl-Amber?"

"My bets are on her for now. Or her john-he fits the profile.

Very secretive, doesn't want anyone, including the call girl, to see him.""A watcher," Landis said.

"I knew that."

"Knew what?"

"Nothing. We also need to check out the muscle at the door.

Name's Ma.s.simo."

"Ma.s.simo what?"

* 71 *

"He didn't exactly give me his business card."

"Looks like we'll have to follow him home. Get an address." Jack nodded and sat back. "Get comfortable." Landis smiled. "You didn't know what a watcher was."

"For all I know he likes to screw with a bag over his head."

"I don't know how to process your obtuse conclusion."

"What are you babbling about?"

"He's a watcher, and very careful to hide his ident.i.ty," Landis concluded.

"My point. Sounds like someone we should meet."

"And I do not babble."

"Whatever you say," Jack said smugly.

"After we get an address on this guy, I say we go to that place you try to pa.s.s as a home to pick up some clothes, and then to a hotel."

"There's nothing wrong with my-"

"I'm sure pigs feel the same way about their sty."

"Babble, babble, babble," Jack whispered.

Priscilla left the building a few minutes later. Another hour pa.s.sed and a businessman in a suit came out, then another call girl.

One by one, the lights in the brownstone clicked off.

Jack sat up. "Closing time." She was so focused on the front door Landis saw the light come on upstairs before she did.

"Fourth floor. Think he lives there?" Landis asked.

Jack trained her binoculars on the window. She could make out a picture hanging on the wall, but little else-until Ma.s.simo walked by in his wifebeater T-shirt, drinking a beer. "Looks like it. I say we bag it for tonight, come back tomorrow. He's got to leave sometime.

Give us a chance to get in and look around." Landis called Reno and, after updating him on what they'd learned, asked him to find out anything he could about Ma.s.simo and the others who'd been in the brownstone that night. Though it was unlikely he could get anything on most of them with only first names to work with, some of which were probably aliases, he'd worked miracles before. When she hung up, she checked her watch and started the rental. "Now, which way to Sty Central?"

* 72 *

ChaPter seven.

Shanghai, China Simon huddled in the corner of the bleak cell, furiously seeking a plan to get himself out of this nightmare. A month ago, he'd been apprehended at the airport with a half kilo of opium, and every development since then had been increasingly horrific.

Deprived of any contact with either the US Emba.s.sy or family, he'd been taken immediately to a local jail, where soldiers wielding electric batons coerced him into signing a statement in Chinese he presumed was a confession. Not long after, a man who said he was Simon's attorney told him in broken English he'd been given the death penalty for his crimes.

Four days ago, he'd been transferred to the Qing Pu Prison, a squalid and ma.s.sive complex, and placed into a cell block dominated by Westerners. His cellmate Rollo, a freelance Aussie journalist, was being detained without trial on suspicion of industrial espionage, a charge he vehemently denied.

A sudden chaos of noise in the hallway broke Simon from his reverie. Several soldier-guards marched past his cell in a tight formation and began pulling inmates from their cots farther down the hall. The inmates apparently knew more than he did about the purpose of the exercise, because many of them screamed or fought back until they were subdued with electric batons.

"What's going on?" he asked Rollo as they watched.

* 73 *

"Doesn't look good for them," Rollo replied somberly. "I saw the doctor down there a couple of days ago."

"What does that mean?"

"They're next. Their number's up, man."

"What are you saying? They're all going to be executed?" Rollo nodded. "They're coming faster. Some of those guys haven't even been here half a year."

Simon fought a sudden urge to vomit. "You're kidding, right?

What about appeals?"

Rollo's laugh was devoid of humor. "This isn't the b.l.o.o.d.y States. Haven't you caught on there's no such thing as justice here, or even basic human rights? Once you're in, they do what they want to you."

The soldiers marched past them again, dragging a half-dozen inmates, including one young woman.

"Marcia," Rollo said solemnly. "Catholic nun from Canada, arrested in a raid on an underground church. She's made it a year, poor girl, but they finally got her to sign the donor card."

"Donor card?"

Rollo looked at him incredulously. "Where you been, man?

Don't you ever read the f.u.c.king newspapers? We're a precious commodity to the Chinese."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"This country's like ground zero for black-market organs. It executes more prisoners than any other country so it can sell our kidneys and livers to the highest bidder. Why do you think they give the death penalty for virtually any kind of crime?"

"So the doctors...when they visit..."

"Are running blood tests, to make sure you're healthy and a match for whatever f.u.c.king orders they have to fill." Another surge of nausea roiled in his stomach, and Simon dry-heaved into the bucket that served as their toilet. As he wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, screams erupted from the courtyard outside their window. He and Rollo peered out through the bars.

The six prisoners who'd been marched past them were lined up against a brick wall on their knees, their hands tied behind their * 74 *

backs. A soldier on either side held each one in place. Many were screaming or yelling. At a barked order from a man with gold braid on his uniform, six soldiers armed with rifles approached each prisoner from behind and aimed his weapon at his target's head.

Another barked an order and shots rang out in the courtyard, silencing the screams. With chilling efficiency, the dead prisoners were hoisted onto stretchers and put by pairs into three ambulances parked near the gate.

"Jesus Christ," Simon muttered, as he watched a pair of soldiers rake over the bloodstains in the sand to obliterate all evidence of what had just happened.

The director of the Qing Pu Prison, a heavyset man with a large appet.i.te, frowned when the clanging of his telephone interrupted his lunch. He wiped the noodles from his chin before reaching for the receiver.

"Good morning, Xia Jia," the familiar voice said.

Xia had never met the Broker in person but had wondered many times what face belonged to such an icy voice. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"To our mutual friends," the Broker replied. "Supply and demand."

He quickly pushed the soup aside. "Is there trouble with the supply?"

"On the contrary," the reptilian voice said. "Your services have been most satisfying. The product is not the problem. It's the delivery time I would like to discuss."

"What do you have in mind?"

"I have an order here that needs to be filled by the end of the week."

Normally, Xia had a month to fill the Broker's latest list of black-market organs, which gave him plenty of time to make the necessary arrangements. Blood tests had to be conducted on the death-row inmates to ensure they were good matches and had not become infected with HIV or other diseases, guards had to be given * 75 *

adequate time to coerce a signed donation release, officials had to be bribed to speed the process and eliminate necessary paperwork and review, and the hospital nearest the prison had to be notified to begin preparations. Most of the time, the organs harvested for the Broker went to rich clients from the US and Europe, who resorted to "transplant tourism" because their prospects through legitimate channels looked bleak.

Reducing the turnaround to less than a week would be extremely difficult, but he was not about to hesitate in trying to meet the Broker's demands. "Tell me what you need." Xia Jia noted the list of organs, with their respective blood types, on the napkin before him. "Big order for me to fill in a matter of days."

"And you will be rewarded accordingly. Does a twenty-percent raise sound interesting?"

"Per product or total shipment?"

"Product. If you fill the order on time." Xia stared at the ticking clock on the wall as he calculated the hefty bonus being offered. The list was a lengthy one and would require another ma.s.s execution of prisoners. "The time is not enough. I-"