The Breakthrough

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “I think so.”

  “Are you aware that the kidnapped child is the son of a Chicago police officer?”

  She looked stricken, and she swore. “My boss must not know that either. He would never—”

  “Ma’am, I’m going ask you to walk me through every detail of this abduction, and we’ll eventually get to the rest of Mr. Pitts’s activities. But I’m most concerned with the disposition of Max Lamonica Drake. I need to know where he is, who he’s with, and what is supposed to become of him. If you give me anything less than what we need to bring that boy home safely, I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of your life in prison.”

  35

  Feng

  Boone was certain he was among only a handful aboard who bore only one carry-on. Most passengers disembarked with a couple apiece and still headed toward baggage claim. Wanting a shower and a change of clothes, Boone was eager to get through the red tape.

  While Boone had not been to as many countries as his passport indicated, he’d had experience with customs and passport agents in Canada, Mexico, England, Spain, and the United States and had noticed they seemed to share the bored gene. Maybe that was a cover for alertness, because surely they were closely monitored, and no one wanted to be responsible for allowing in a threat to their country.

  By the time he reached the passport desk, Boone had seen several dozen young men who could have convinced him they were Feng Li. The young women all seemed dramatically beautiful with almond eyes, perfect skin, gleaming teeth. And everyone seemed to have the same straight black hair.

  The passport agent wore what appeared to be a tailored uniform, and while he sported the requisite detached air, Boone thought the young man looked like a twelve-year-old playing dress-up.

  He deftly opened Boone’s passport with one hand without looking at it and slid it into a scanner. He pulled it out and looked between the photo and Boone’s face. “Welcome to the People’s Republic of China, Mr. Booker. What brings you here?”

  “Sightseeing.”

  “What is your business?”

  “Sports catalog publishing. But not this trip.”

  “Pleasure?”

  Merely nodding proved Boone’s most difficult lie. Pleasure was the last thing on his mind, unless and until he came back through this airport with Max in hand.

  “You have only the one bag?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I see no return date.”

  “I can’t stay long.”

  “And you’re staying where?”

  “With a friend.”

  “Name?”

  “Mr. Feng Li.”

  “Occupation?”

  “Tour guide.”

  “Address?”

  “I know only his e-mail address. I expect I’ll visit his home tonight.”

  “How will you get there if you don’t know—”

  “He’s meeting me here.”

  “And if he does not arrive?”

  Boone hadn’t thought of that or been prepared to answer it. “Then I’ll sample one of your many fine hotels. What would you recommend?”

  “I am not permitted to suggest places of business, sir, but you are correct. There are many fine places to stay.”

  Because of having just the one bag, Boone was first in line, but now people were lining up behind him. The agent stamped a page in the back of his passport and pointed him to customs. “Enjoy your visit, Mr. Booker.”

  Because he was on his way into the country rather than on his way out, Boone’s declaration form was just a formality. His bag would be scanned and searched anew, though this had been done in Chicago too. The customs agent noted Boone’s single bag as the passport guy had. “You travel light. Not staying long?”

  “Just a few days. First time. Can’t wait.”

  Though the bag had not seemed to cause any concern to the employee peering through the monitor, the customs agent pulled it off the belt and dug through it. He looked up, clearly surprised, when he found Boone’s phone.

  “American, right?” he said, turning it on.

  “Yes.”

  “Phone still off? Most Americans turn phone on right away.”

  “Don’t even know if it works here,” Boone said.

  “It does!” the agent said, turning it so Boone could see his messages piling up. “Popular man.”

  Boone shrugged. He knew the messages would be either innocuous or refer only obliquely to info that had been forwarded to Feng Li. The agent flipped the phone shut, placed it back in Boone’s carry-on, and closed the bag without another word. He left the duffel on the counter and walked away.

  Boone waited a beat, then grabbed the bag and followed the exit signs. He pulled out the phone and scanned the list of messages. It was 10 a.m. the day before in Chicago, thirteen hours behind Beijing. By the time Boone was asleep, probably around 1 a.m., in China, it would be high noon in Chicago. He’d heard from all the usual suspects, but Boone also knew they were listening in, waiting until it was clear he was the only one with access to his phone.

  After a few hundred more feet, Boone began scanning the crowd for Feng Li, but hundreds of young Chinese men around him looked like the picture he had committed to memory.

  Boone’s advantage was that he was distinctive even among all the Westerners getting off late-night flights. Feng Li shouldn’t have trouble recognizing him by his height and build, and he, too, had been transmitted a photo.

  Despite knowing he would soon have an aide who knew both the language and the locale—not to mention whatever leads Boone was to follow—he was suddenly nearly bowled over by a desolate loneliness. Boone had never been so far from home, from his loved ones, from his colleagues and friends. And there was a desperation about his mission he could barely get his mind around. How in the world was he supposed to find his son in this massive metropolis, fourteen times bigger than New York City and with two and half times the population?

  As he strode through the cavernous, space-age terminal, feeling smaller and more insignificant with each step, Boone became aware of something peculiar. Any public announcement—and there seemed to be two or three every few minutes—was preceded by four musical tones over the loudspeaker system. The first few times the tones barely registered with Boone, and they were followed by announcements in Chinese, English, and he thought he also recognized French among a few others.

  Waldemarr had told Boone he would find Feng Li’s English entertaining, but Boone also found the PA translations unique. “Please to check in your oversized baggages.” “Before you leave the terminal, make sure you have all your belongs.”

  The next time the tones sounded, a sense of peace flooded Boone and suddenly eradicated his feeling of isolation. What was it? Those tones sounded like the first four notes of a tune he recognized, something from home. From church! He hummed them to himself and found himself singing under his breath,

  Under his wings I am safely abiding,

  Though the night deepens and tempests are wild.

  Still I can trust him; I know he will keep me.

  He has redeemed me, and I am his child.

  Finally Boone spotted a cadre of drivers and tour guides bunched along one wall. There, in front, with a crude, handwritten cardboard sign reading Booker, stood a young man who looked like a college student. He wore flip-flops, cargo shorts, and a red polo shirt and carried a forest-green backpack. The Feng Li of Dr. Waldemarr’s photo greeted Boone with what looked like a shy smile. Boone stuck out his hand, but Feng ignored it and reached for his duffel bag.

  “No problem, I’ve got it,” Boone said.

  “Sorry. Must take. Look strange. Custom.”

  Boone felt funny, letting a man half his size lug a heavy bag while he followed. Feng kept glancing back and smiling as he hurried out. “Sorry. You understand. Must not bring attention. Guides carry bags.”

  “No problem,” Boone said.

  “Car and driver wait down here,” Feng said. “He work for
tour company. You Booker unless we’re privacy.”

  “Got it.”

  Boone found it strange, however, as they made their way through the crowds on this hot, humid night, that Feng did not introduce him to the driver of a tan minivan. He was a heavier, older man who looked half-asleep. “How ya doin’?” Boone said as Feng deposited his bag in the rear and Boone climbed into the air-conditioned backseat. The man nodded without looking at him.

  Feng sat in the front passenger seat, and though he buckled himself in, he was able to turn almost completely around to face Boone. Boone nodded at the driver and said, “English?”

  Feng shook his head and held up his thumb and forefinger, separated by a quarter inch. “You comfort, Mr. Booker?”

  Boone assured him he was, and the minivan pulled into airport traffic that would surely dissipate once they were on their way into Beijing proper. But no; if anything, as the driver painstakingly merged onto the main thoroughfare, the traffic only intensified.

  “Lots of cars for this time of night?” Boone said.

  “No!” Feng said. “Traffical jams common all day.”

  “And all night?”

  “Twenty-four hours. Wait till you see CBD. Central Business District has four millions cars, eight lanes traffics each direction.”

  As the minivan crawled along, Boone became concerned about the driver, who seemed to be nodding. Boone touched Feng’s shoulder and mouthed, “He awake?”

  “Sometimes I talk loud just to make sure!” Feng shouted, and the driver came to attention. Feng laughed heartily. “None accidents so far.”

  Boone muttered, “So far,” and Feng erupted again.

  “Where are we going?” Boone said.

  Feng raised his brows and looked first at the driver, then at Boone, speaking quickly and quietly. “First part of tour is CBD, then release car and take short-distance walk.”

  “Your place?” Boone said.

  Feng held a finger to his lips. “I will take you to where you stay, talk some more, arrange tomorrow.” And again, as if to appease or reassure the driver that everything was normal, Feng said, “Beijing mean northern capital. Second-largest city in largest country. Only Shanghai largester.”

  Boone idly pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his nose. He hesitated when Feng looked stricken. “Please! Not like United States. Bad taste to blow nose in public.”

  “Fair enough,” Boone said, merely wiping his nose. “Thanks.”

  Just then the driver opened his window, loudly cleared his throat, and spat.

  Boone winced. “But that’s okay?”

  Feng looked surprised that he had asked.

  “How far are we going?” Boone said.

  “Twenty-six kilometers,” Feng said. “Uh, fifteen miles. One hour.”

  “An hour to go fifteen miles?”

  “Yes! Lucky!”

  As if to keep his cover in front of the driver, Feng continued his tour guide patter as they approached the city center. “Closer we get to CBD, rent is more the higher but not too much more tree.” He pointed out a swimming pool outside a high-rise luxury hotel. “Not for enjoy the swim at noontime. Too much the hot. And never in winter. Drain water so none the freeze.”

  At a stoplight near the CBD, the minivan waited first in line in one of the lanes. Other cars inched forward, cheating into the intersection and making pedestrians walk around them. When one man stumbled getting around a taxi in the next lane, he steadied himself on the minivan before moving on. Feng’s driver immediately laid on the horn, startling the man and making him brandish his fist and shout.

  The driver rolled down his window and screamed as the man crossed the street.

  “What was that about?” Boone said, as the driver closed his window and seemed to be peeking sheepishly in the rearview mirror.

  Feng shrugged. “Japanese.”

  “That man was Japanese?”

  Feng nodded. “You know, the Japanese people never did say the sorry for occupying.”

  “When was that?” Boone said.

  “Fifteen years, from early of the 1930s to middles of the 1940s. Many millions killed.”

  “That guy looked about your age, Feng. Neither of you was even born then.”

  “Should still say the sorry.”

  At long last, at just after one in the morning, Feng spoke to the driver in Chinese, and he laboriously pulled off the main thoroughfare and onto a street crowded on both sides by parked cars. He continued to drive as if in what Feng referred to as a traffical jam, despite that the street was otherwise deserted.

  “We get out here,” Feng said. “We walk now.”

  Feng jumped out and opened Boone’s door. Boone thanked the driver, who did not respond.

  “Not a cheerful guy,” Boone whispered as Feng fetched his bag out of the back and slammed the hatch.

  “He finally go home now. Eighteen-hour shift.”

  “And we’re going where?”

  “My place first, then yours.”

  “Have you heard from Chicago?”

  “Oh yes. Big news.”

  36

  Hutong

  Feng Li’s mention of a short-distance walk had to have been for the benefit of the driver too, for it wasn’t so short, and it wasn’t all walking. As they brushed past many others in the street, Boone quickly checked his messages. Jack’s and Margaret’s both read: Refer to Doc’s.

  Waldemarr’s said, FL will bring you up to date.

  When they were alone, Feng spoke quickly in his personal brand of English, telling Boone that he had heard that the police detective had a “photographical memory” and that he was confident Boone would retain everything he was explaining.

  “We will walk to the subway, then ride several kilometers to my stop, walk to my apartment, and I will give you the gun. You will stay about six kilometers’ walk from me—”

  Three and a half miles? Some short walk.

  “—and we will meet in the middles of the morning for the train ride.”

  “Another train ride?”

  “To Tianjin,” Feng said. “A smaller city. Only ten to twelve of the millions.”

  “More like a village,” Boone said.

  Feng stopped and stared at him. “Much largers than a village.”

  “I was kidding,” Boone said. “Much larger than any city in the US. What’s there?”

  “Your Chicago people say the transfer to happen at Astor Hotel there.”

  “Transfer?”

  “Of the boy.”

  Boone felt gobsmacked. After all this, they knew where Max was to be transferred? He stood speechless.

  “I show you messages at my place,” Feng said. “Bullet train will take us only less than one hour. Hundreds kilometers per hour.”

  “And we’ll get there how long before this transfer?”

  “Many hours. Boy to be delivered just after dark. Maybe eight o’clock.”

  Feng said this so casually that Boone wondered if the man had any idea how monumental the news was. As Boone hurried to keep up with Feng, he wondered if he had misheard due to the language barrier. Just before they got to the subway stairs several miles away, Boone took Feng’s arm and pulled him off the sidewalk into a shadowy area, tall shrubs blocking the street lamp. “Are you telling me my son is in Tianjin and is to be handed over to his new parents tomorrow evening?”

  Feng nodded. “Wang and Bai Xing. You understand more when you read messages. Mother will not be there. Only Wang, the father. Very rich. Owns computer software company. Speak very good English.”

  “And where are they from?”

  “Xi’an, over six hundred miles from here.”

  It was too much to take in. Feng was clearly not prepared to be more specific until he was safely in his own home. He bought Boone a subway ticket and used his own card for himself, and soon they were pushing into the shoulder-to-shoulder car. Some people were sitting, but Boone could hardly see how. He towered over the tiny Chinese, who
rolled their eyes and seemed to look at him with amusement.

  Forty minutes later he and Feng were deposited at a station where they climbed three flights of stairs and emerged into a brightly lit business area. Boone could scarcely believe it, but Dr. Waldemarr’s prediction was coming true. He actually felt as if he could sleep again.

  Feng led Boone on another long walk, this time through a hutong. “I’ve heard of these,” Boone said.

  “Very the famous,” Feng said. “Especially in Beijing. Centuries old. Once were nice neighborhoods. Now mostly slums.”

  The narrow alleyways connected hovels that Feng explained had running water for public bathrooms only every one or two hundred meters. As they passed one tiny living space, Feng said, “Woman teach calligraphy to tour groups for pennies.”

  “How long is this?”

  “Another one and a half kilometers.”

  “Feng, I need you to fill me in about tomorrow. Can we take a cab or—”

  “Rickshaw,” Feng said. “Much the faster. Avoid traffical jam.”

  They had their choice of bicycle-powered rickshaws at the next minuscule intersection. The bare-bones bench seat felt as if it might give way under Boone’s weight, especially after Feng jumped in next to him. The ancient cyclist said something to Feng in Chinese.

  “Want to know you want guided tour. I tell him no.”

  “Good. Is he taking us all the way to your place?”

  “Almost. Not allowed outside hutong.”

  Boone nodded, hoping his silence alone would motivate the cyclist. But the man had his own plodding pace, and nothing seemed to affect that.

  “Would he go faster if I gave him a tip?”

  “Not the advised. Offensive.”

  So’s his speed.

  They climbed out at the edge of the hutong, and Feng said, “Half block now.”

  The miniature flats on that side of the street didn’t look much different from what they had just walked and ridden through. “Is this another hutong?”

  Feng shook his head. “Strange to think about. Hutong means water well, but hutong have very little water. This not hutong. Each apartment have the water.”