However, I write to you now with a heavy heart. My children’s nanny, Zhen, has disappeared as of five days ago. Local police have not seen her, and after (sensitively) interviewing the people she shares an apartment with, they have not had any luck in identifying a culprit, nor finding her. It is as though she has disappeared without a trace.
This is very unlike Zhen. She is the most upright, responsible person I have ever met, and she has made our lives richer by her presence. It is not an exaggeration to say that my life as an attorney or my wife's as a news producer would not be possible without her aid. Her loss has been felt most keenly, and we are deeply concerned both for her and picturing our lives going forward without her.
Yesterday I heard on the news about the case in which Sienna Nealon was involved, the one with the Chinese kidnapping victim? Zhen, too, was from China, and I wondered if this disappearance might be related? I wanted to bring this to your attention in hopes that, perhaps, you might be able to pass it along to the FBI. I spoke with the local authorities but they made only vague promises to look into the matter, essentially concluding that Zhen probably just ran away, and informing me that they saw no reason to pass along this information to the FBI or Sienna Nealon.
Please, Julie – help me. I beg you. For Zhen. Our little Kaden misses his nanny dearly.
Sincerely,
Marta
Julie peered at the screen. If she'd been well rested, she probably would have known what to do after only one read. But on her third, she made a decision, and forwarded the email up the chain to her boss, with a “Is this something?” written above the body of the forwarded email.
Because she really didn't know if it was something or not. Maybe it was just a runaway nanny. Or maybe it really was something deeper.
Whatever it was, it was above her pay grade.
After she hit forward, she didn't think about it again, already on to the next email.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Jaime Chapman
Jaime was rocking the treadmill desk today, on his tenth mile and still going, knocking things off his action items list and lining things up for tomorrow. He missed walking outside on days like this, but hey, the compromise was that he got to look out over his kingdom from the top of his glass and steel pyramid, and man, did the world seem small from up here.
He was about ready to cross off another task when his phone started ringing. This was the private line, the one he kept for the most important people. Top echelon only. Hell, he was debating even booting the stupid Escapade app off of it, just so he could have a phone to himself that wasn't constantly dinging with notifications for dumb shit.
Wu Huang, it read. That was an instant pickup.
“Wu,” Jaime said, hitting the stop button on the treadmill. “How's it going?” Grabbing the towel off the corner of his desk, Jaime hit the ground, his Vibram Five-Fingers absorbing the impact across the whole foot. Marvelous shoes. It was like walking barefoot, but without as much risk of random tetanus.
“Not so good, Jaime,” Wu said.
Jaime mopped his forehead, frowning. “Sure. Talk to me. What's on your mind?”
“My government is becoming concerned,” Wu said. “With some issues surrounding our merger, and with America's current stance in general.”
That ratcheted the tightness of Jaime's forehead lines even further. Damn, he might need a Botox later just to loosen things up. This deal was vital; nothing could stand in its way. “Who's screwing up what? Tell me. Maybe I can do something.”
Wu laughed lightly. “I doubt this is in your purview, my friend. As you know, we are a bit tighter with our government over here than your own is with you. It allows for more continuity of control, you know?”
“I've always admired that cohesiveness about the Chinese system,” Jaime said. “You guys have amazing vision. It's one of the reasons I want to be in business with you.”
“I know, my friend, I know,” Wu said. “But I doubt there's anything you can do. I just needed to let you know that I have been informed – in light of recent events – we are going to experience what you might refer to as 'regulatory headwinds.'”
What the hell? “I thought this deal with the government was as good as done,” Jaime said, keeping a very even keel on his voice, even while his stomach dropped from beneath him. He needed this deal. The stock price's recent rise was predicated on it.
“Let us just say...they are concerned in Beijing,” Wu said. “There have been some accusations floating around in your own government about this silly kidnapping business. Have you heard of it?”
“A little,” Jaime said. Who cared about a local kidnapping story? In DC? “I don't really pay much attention to minor things going on across the country, you know?”
“Well, China does,” Wu said, sounding quieter than Jaime could recall hearing him in the past. “The rumors are swirling in your government that they want to implicate China in this somehow.”
“Well, that's stupid,” Jaime said. Then, realizing how what he said might be misinterpreted. “I mean, it's utterly ridiculous to blame your government for some local crime in the US.”
“I agree,” Wu said, “but it seems the police officer on the case has named our government several times to various sources.”
Jaime felt a cold shiver run down his spine. “This is Sienna Nealon, isn't it? Her case?”
“Yes. She's high profile.” Wu was still being quiet, which was concerning. “Her words carry weight. All the way to Beijing, even.”
“She's just a silly little...” Jaime searched for a word that fit. “...well, bitch, really. No one who's met her, who knows her background, would take her seriously, Wu. She's an idiot. No college education. Didn't even graduate high school, for crying out loud. Her claim to fame is that she supposedly saved the world from some guy that no one ever heard of, and she's been milking that fame ever since. Guess what? Her fifteen minutes are long ago up. If it weren't for some stupid screwup in the handling of that Revelen business a year ago, she wouldn't even be high profile right now.”
“I agree with your assessment,” Wu said, “but it is built on a foundation of 'should' when 'is' reigns. She has credibility with your government, and she is saying things – harmful things – about China. It worries our officials that someone with that level of status is bringing her credibility to bear against us. We have long been misunderstood in your country, in spite of being one of your largest trading partners.”
“I know this, Wu, and I agree,” Jaime said, thrusting a hand in front of his face like a knife chop. Like he could cut through Wu's argument and make him see that blowing up this deal because of Sienna effing Nealon was the worst idea and most terrible waste possible. “I want to make people understand that China is a fantastic country. That you guys are the future. There's a lot to love and to learn about the way you do things. Which is why I'm in this deal with you in the first place. If any of the big dogs – Gates, Ellison, Zuckerberg – in America came to me with your deal, there's no reason I'd want to sell a piece of my company to them. I chose you because together we can build an outpost of this empire in the Middle Kingdom that will make China stronger on the world stage. Less misunderstood. And, just to be honest, we're both in a great position to increase our portfolios by orders of magnitude. Let's not incinerate that because of some dumb cop in Washington.”
“I don't want to put things off,” Wu said, “especially for that reason. But Sienna Nealon...she's a problem. She needs to keep her ideas to herself. Our officials are nervous that this could precipitate real consequences in our economy and in our other dealings with America. She had a meeting, alone, with the president yesterday. Did you know that?”
“No,” Chapman said. “I didn't.”
“Think how much damage someone with that kind of ax to grind against China could do. With her powers? She could mind control him. You know?”
Chapman's mouth felt a little dry. “Yeah...that'd be...”
“Di
sastrous,” Wu said. “For all of us. You can see why my government might be concerned. Because it seems to them that she's carrying around 20th century prejudices against our people.”
“Yeah, no, that – I'm with you, a hundred percent,” Chapman said, mind whirling. “Maybe I can – I mean, I've got some influence. I could maybe help block her. Push back.”
“Could you?” Wu asked. “I didn't think law enforcement was your area of specialty.”
Jaime laughed lightly. “I've donated so much money to the president and the party that I could go in and lecture Gondry on cloud formations at this point. Leave it with me, Wu. If this is what your government needs – Sienna Nealon shut out? Her words to fall on deaf ears? I can deliver that. That's easy.”
“Is it? Really?” Wu sounded skeptical.
“Money talks over here,” Chapman said. “Absolutely, I can do this. For us. Not a problem.”
“That would go a long way toward getting our officials' concerns assuaged about the danger she presents,” Wu said. “If she's just a lone voice, that's a lot less threatening to us than a mind controller having private meetings with your president.”
“Yeah, that'd concern anyone,” Chapman said, nodding along. Did Sienna Nealon really have mind control abilities? Was that something a succubus could do? Wu might know better than the US government. Her ability to steal memories and souls was well documented. Messing with the mind while doing so was in the realm of possibility, though it didn't matter for his purposes. He just needed to shut her out of the White House and get this deal back on track. “I'll take care of it, Wu.”
“That would be fantastic,” Wu said. “Let me know when you do, so I can talk to the people responsible for approving our plans in China. It will certainly buy us some goodwill.”
“I'll get right on it,” Chapman said, nodding furiously in his empty office. “Say, we should probably have a talk, too, about some of the co-projects going on right now between us? You know, with Socialite and Lineage and the rest.”
“Absolutely,” Wu said. “I'm on a tour of a facility in Shenzen right now, but we can set that up for next week sometime, when I'm back in Beijing. Have your assistant call my secretary. Got to go, Jaime. Thank you for your diligence in this matter. It will not go unrewarded.”
“You're welcome,” Jaime said to the dead phone. Wu had already hung up, leaving Jaime to plot his next move and figure out how to get Sienna Nealon's dumb, uneducated ass the hell out of this situation.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Sienna
“Hey next time you want to set us an impossible task,” Holloway said, a phone handset pinched against his ear, a bored, bordering-on-angry look on his face, “why not make it something fun, like drinking a hundred beers an hour?”
“I'm sure that'd be really good for my sobriety,” I said, listening to the phone ringing fruitlessly on the other end of my own waiting phone call. “But I could probably take a hundred beers in an hour.” I popped myself lightly in the mid-section. “Meta liver constantly heals itself, after all.”
Holloway slammed the phone down. “We're trying to track down people by name that – we don't even know they're the right people.” He pushed fingers back through his hair, strands falling through them. He'd probably been good looking in his youth, but a few too many miles on the odometer left him looking like a tired lawman who'd seen too many cases go to shit. “We can't get help from above, laterally, or from the State Department, INS – hell, I'd take an assist from Health and Human Services at this point.” He shook his head and picked up the phone to dial again.
All we were working from was the list recovered at the office site, which presumably had been dropped by Firebeetle before he'd fled. I was willing to work from that assumption, at least for now, until I could either prove or disprove it. Hard to say which would come first, given how little we still knew after pounding the phones for an hour with no luck.
“When are we going to talk about the albino tiger?” Holloway asked. He had one foot up on his desk, leaning back in his chair, the phone cord stretching dangerously taut.
“Not a lot to talk about,” I said, dialing my next number. We'd pulled these out of a database, but whether they actually synched up with any of the names in the list was questionable. We'd gotten few answers in any case; most were probably cell phones, and who wanted to answer an unknown caller? The real crime was that almost nobody had set up their voicemail, which meant we couldn't even leave a message asking for a callback.
Of course, if these were the phones of people who'd been kidnapped, they weren't likely to return a call, but still...it was a frustrating feeling, trying to chase down this stupid lead by dialing the phone over and over and getting nothing for it.
“It was a damned tiger,” Holloway said, staring at me in disbelief. “And white. And it came dropping down out of nowhere to save your ass from getting killed.”
“Yeah,” I said, hanging up the phone. “Saved me in Baltimore, too. It's an animal shifter.”
Holloway just stared at me. “So it couldn't become, like...this phone, for instance?” He held up the handset just away from his ear.
“Not as far as I know.”
“You known any of this kind of meta before?”
“I knew one,” I said.
Holloway just stared at me. “You gonna share a story, or do I have to fill in the blanks in my own head?”
I rolled my eyes, picked up the phone and dialed again. “Glen Parks.”
Holloway squinted at me. “I know that name from somewhere.” He thought about it a second, then snapped his fingers at me. “You killed that guy.”
“That's really an evergreen statement. But yeah.” I listened to the trill of another unanswered phone ringing over my handset. “He was my training officer at the Directorate.”
“Guess you guys weren't too close if you ended up killing him.”
“He was one of the best mentors I ever had,” I said without emotion. At least, none in my inflection. “And he told me I was his best student.”
“Shit.” Holloway hung up the phone. “If you were his best, what the hell did his worst do to him?”
I chuckled. “You'd have liked Parks. He was old school military. A gunnery sergeant type, y'know?”
“Squared his shit away,” Holloway said with a stiff nod. “Yeah, I like that.” He sat bolt upright. “Hello? Yes?” He bent to look at his copy of the list. “I'm sorry, I'm looking for...Niu?”
Without any answer on my call, I hung up again, and waited, listening and watching Holloway's own. It was strange to try and pick out what was happening solely by how he was reacting. His face was pinched for a second as he concentrated on the answers he was getting; the voice on the other end was far too quiet for me to discern what they were saying from here, so I got up and moved closer.
“And you haven't seen her since two days ago?” Holloway stood before I could cross the couple steps between our cubicles. “Have you filed a missing persons report?” He was concentrating heavily, listening, ignoring me as I eased closer to listen. “Okay. No, you should. Definitely should. Can you give me your address? I can send – what? No. Well, look, I'm with the FBI and we're trying to locate–”
I heard the click of the person hanging up very distinctly. Holloway pulled the handset away from his ear and looked at it as though puzzled by what had just happened.
“We have one missing person confirmed?” I asked.
“I guess,” Holloway said, hanging up the phone and circling the name Niu Chang. “I'd prefer an actual missing persons report to confirm it, but the lady sounded like she was one step from hanging up on me through the whole conversation.”
“Lends credence to this back-channel informant I've got,” I said, sitting back down. “Says that most of these kidnappings are people below the margins. Chinese citizens either trapped in a work visa or here illegally and don't want to get tossed.”
“So they're willing to let their own family me
mbers disappear before calling the cops?” Holloway gave me a distinctly disbelieving look.
How the hell did one answer that? I didn't get a chance, though, because my cell phone rang with an unknown number with a DC area code, and I hurriedly picked it up. “Hello?”
“Hold for Secretary of State Ngo,” came a cool, female voice at the other end of the line.
“Sure,” I said, and a moment later, I was connected.
“Sienna?” SecState Ngo's voice came on the line.
“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “Did Director Chalke inform you what I wanted to talk to you about?”
“Not entirely.” Ngo sounded a little distracted, like she was signing something even now. “Something to do with your current case, though, right?”
“You could say that. This morning I met with a State Department employee by the name of Bridget Schultz. She was suffering from the effects of a sonic device planted in her apartment–”
“Wait,” Ngo said, “you were the one who found that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Damned thing felt like it was going to pop my head off my shoulders when I got close to it, but I did. Anyway, I was supposed to take a meeting with her to talk China–”
“Interesting,” Ngo muttered under her breath. “You think this was done to keep her from talking to you?”
“No, ma'am,” I said. “I suspect the device has been there for some time. My understanding of this technology is that it causes its damage via long-term exposure. Bridget had clearly been suffering from it before there even was a case. Which is why I wanted to talk to you – do you know why someone – some government, maybe – would target her?”
Ngo made a small, noncommittal grunt on the other end of the phone. “Bridget had worked in the China section in DC for a while, spent years in the country before that. She's a solid expert.”
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