Death Wave by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online

for now.”
“Don’t alienate him, Lia,” Blake said in her ear. “You’re supposed to be swooning all over the guy.”
She ignored the advice. Sometimes it was better to play hard to get, and her legend, the fictitious background created for her by Desk Three, emphasized that she was a hard-nosed professional.
“Of course, Ms. Lau,” Feng said, and he smiled. “For now.”
Lia glanced down into her cup, then looked up, bemused. The barista had expertly poured the steamed milk to create an incredibly delicate image of two intertwined hearts surrounded by lace. Had that been Feng’s idea? Or a misinterpretation of the meeting by the barista? She wondered if Feng had the same picture in his cup, but she wasn’t going to lean closer for a look. Instead, she stirred the picture away, then took a cautious sip. The cappuccino was strong and slightly bitter.
“I very much liked your résumé, Ms. Lau,” Feng said after a moment. “A double major in public relations and communications from Berkeley, and a minor in anthropology. I like smart women.”
She said nothing, and he pushed ahead. “It says you live in San Francisco. You would be willing to relocate?”
“Yes. Where did you have in mind?”
He sidestepped the question. “The position would require a great deal of travel.”
“I’m aware of that. Your interviewer in Honolulu told me as much.”
He nodded, smiling. “And you were willing to meet me here in Berlin this afternoon. I appreciate that.”
“I travel a lot in the job I have now,” she told him. It was the precise truth. “I’m here on business in any case. It seemed like a good opportunity to meet you … personally .”
Again, the truth. When Feng’s agents checked up on her, as she knew they would, they would find a solid background for her. Phone calls to any of several numbers she’d provided, including that of her supposed company’s HR department, would be answered by people who would swear she worked in the PR firm of Farnum, Pfizer, and Smith.
“Indeed.” He took a sip of his cappuccino. “Well, my people in Honolulu would have told you I need a good public relations specialist. But there’s considerably more to this position than that. How much do you know about COSCO, Ms. Lau?”
She was well prepared for this one. “I know it’s the second-largest dry cargo shipping company in the world. You have a hundred and thirty vessels of over three hundred and twenty thousand TEUs, and over six hundred merchant vessels with a total cargo capacity of thirty-five million metric tonnes, DWT. The COSCO group includes six listed companies and over three hundred subsidiaries, with facilities in over a hundred ports worldwide.”
“Nicely memorized, Ms. Lau. Do you know what ‘TEU’ stands for?”
“Twenty-foot equivalent unit,” she told him. “It refers to the standard twenty-foot intermodal containers carried by container ships, by rail, and by truck.”
“And DWT?”
“Deadweight tonnage. That’s the total weight a ship can carry, including its cargo, fuel, ballast water, fresh water, provisions, passengers, and crew.”
“Its displacement, yes.”
“No, displacement is something else entirely. That refers to a ship’s total mass, how much water it displaces when it’s fully loaded, which equals the deadweight tonnage plus the weight of the ship’s structure itself.”
Feng nodded. “Very good. You’ve obviously done your homework.”
“Of course,” she told him. She decided to give his ego a tweak, a small one. “After all, it was important that I impress you.”
He smiled again. “And you have been quite successful.” He sipped his cappuccino, leaning back in his chair. “Ms. Lau, to be quite frank, I need someone beautiful, charming, smart, and extremely, ah, well informed, someone like you , in fact, to travel with me as a kind of personal, ah, secretary. I want someone who can inform me of local customs, idiosyncrasies, background culture, language, that sort of