Free The Stone Monkey by Jeffery Deaver Page A

that? An animal? Some wreckage from the Fuzhou Dragon?
    No, she realized with a start; it was a man. He clung desperately to the rock.
    Sachs grabbed her Motorola, clicked to the local ops frequency and radioed, "This is NYPD Crime Scene Five Eight Eight Five to Suffolk County Rescue at Easton Beach. You copy?"
    "Roger, Five Eight Eight Five. Go ahead."
    "I'm a half click east of the town. I've got a vic in the water. I need some help."
    "K," came the reply, "we're on our way. Out."
    Sachs stepped out of the car and started down to the shore. She saw a large wave lift the man off the rock and pitch him into the water. He tried to swim but he was injured—there was blood on his shirt—and the best he could do was keep his head above water, but just barely. He went down once and struggled to the surface.
    "Oh, brother," Sachs muttered, glancing back at the road. The yellow rescue truck was just then moving forward off the sand.
    The immigrant gave a choked cry and slipped under the waves. No time to wait for the pros.
    From the police academy she knew the basic lifesaving rule: "Reach, throw, row then go." Meaning, try to rescue a drowning victim from the shore or a boat before you yourself swim out to save him. Well, the first three weren't options at all.
    So, she thought: Go.
    Ignoring the searing pain in her knees, she ran toward the ocean, stripping off her gun and ammo belt. At the shoreline she unlaced her standard-issue shoes, kicked them off and, eyes focused on the struggling swimmer, waded into the cold, turbulent water.

 
     
Chapter Eight   
     
    Crawling from the bushes, Sonny Li got a better look at the woman with the red hair as she pulled off her shoes and plowed into the rough water then kicked away from the shore toward somebody struggling in the waves.
    Li couldn't make out who it was—either John Sung or the husband of the couple who'd sat next to him in the raft—but, in any case, his attention was drawn back immediately to the woman, whom he'd been studying from his hiding spot in the bush since she'd arrived at the beach over an hour ago.
    Now, she wasn't his type of girl. He didn't care for Western women, at least the ones he'd seen around Fuzhou. They were either on the arms of rich businessmen (tall and beautiful, casting disdainful glances at the Chinese men who'd stare at them) or tourists with their husbands and children (badly dressed, casting disdainful glances at men spitting on the sidewalks and the bicyclists who never let them cross the street).
    This woman, though, intrigued him. At first he hadn't been able to figure out what she was doing here; she'd arrived in her bright yellow car, accompanied by a soldier with a machine gun. Then she'd turned her back and he'd glimpsed NYPD on her windbreaker. So, she was a public security bureau officer. Safely hidden across the road, he'd watched her search for survivors and clues.
    Sexy, he'd thought, despite his vast preference for quiet, elegant Chinese women.
    And that hair! What a color! It inspired him to give her a nickname, "Hongse," pronounced hoankseh, Chinese for "red."
    Looking up the road, Li saw a yellow emergency truck speeding toward them. As soon as it turned into a shallow parking lot and stopped he crawled to the edge of the road. There was a chance he'd be spotted, of course, but he had to act now, before she returned. He waited until the rescue workers' attention was on Hongse and then scrabbled across the road and up to the yellow car. It was an old one, the sort you saw in American TV shows like Kojak and Hill Street Blues. He wasn't interested in stealing the car itself (most of the security bureau officers and soldiers had left but there were still enough nearby to pursue and capture him—especially behind the wheel of a car as bright as an egg yolk). No, at the moment he just wanted a gun and some money.
    Opening the passenger door of the yellow car, he eased inside and began going through the map box. No weapons. He