by Fritz Galt
If only Kate and their kids knew what a mess he was in.
Funny that the people he felt closest to during a time of crisis, the only ones he could confide in any longer, were his family.
His memories of Beijing changed abruptly, and surgical masks appeared on every face. Traffic was reduced to nil, with wide, tree-lined boulevards and sidewalks stretching empty in all directions. Anxious residents would tiptoe furtively in and out of grocery stores with their near-bare shelves, trying to avoid the deadly form of corona virus that caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Schools across the city had shut their doors and he and his family were held hostage in their three-story villa on the outskirts of town. Rumors circulated of local villages and entire city blocks that had been quarantined due to outbreaks of SARS. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who had already died from the disease.
If he hadn’t had a job to finish, they would have caught the first flight out of the epidemic-ravaged country. But his company wouldn’t let him go until he had completed all the financial transactions necessary to cement what would become known as the “Chinagate” deal. Money he sent to the president’s bank account assured China’s status in the World Trade Organization. And because of that request to remain and line the president’s pockets, his family had paid the ultimate price.
They had almost escaped the horror scene. Finally, with a go-ahead from Core Petroleum, he and his family had hustled with well-packed bags to the nearby airport. Checking each other anxiously for dry coughs and elevated temperatures, they had to make it past the medical examination station set up at the entrance to the terminal.
He had tried to suppress the tickle in his throat, a constant presence throughout the dry winter and spring months in Beijing. The cottonwood trees had released their seeds, and the city was adrift in a blizzard of white puffs.
Airline employees and airport workers had watched nervously through windows as passengers lined up to enter the terminal.
Then it was their turn at the nurse’s station. He heard a murmuring of airport security officials behind the nurse as she took Kate’s temperature, holding a thermometer to her forehead. The nurse cast a worried look at the rest of the family.
She signaled for them to step behind a white curtain that partitioned off part of the sidewalk. Inside, a man in a lab coat and stethoscope listened to their breathing.
With the cold metal instrument pressed against his chest, the tickle rose in his throat. And Sean had coughed.
He shot a smile at the well-built doctor, hoping to elicit a knowing wink in return. Everyone in Beijing had some sort of respiratory irritation from the desert-like conditions and heavy presence of pollutants and dust in the air.
But the doctor only frowned deeper.
Thermometers in the ears. Beeps. The doctor didn’t tell them the results.
Then, from the deserted vehicle lanes, Sean had heard a truck or van approach, its brakes squealing as it pulled up to the curb.
Several pairs of hands drew the curtain back and daylight broke through to their family. Three medics rushed in and took Kate by the elbow toward what Sean identified as an ambulance. Then they went back for Jane.
Sean had tried to resist, but the doctor had pinned his hands behind his back. And when they grabbed Sammy, the robust little kid held onto him with all his might. At last his fingers were torn free from Sean’s pant legs and he went kicking and screaming into the back of the ambulance.
He had looked on in horror and disbelief, physically restrained from rushing to their assistance. The vehicle’s flashing red light illuminated fear in the eyes of the rest of the travelers waiting in line. Several turned around and hurried back to their cars and away from the aggressive authorities.
Sean had cried out for the medics to stop. He would call upon personal medical insurance, international evacuation services, and VIP hospital wards, anything but a public SARS ward, a death sentence for anyone who entered one. The disease was so contagious, that if one walked into a hospital healthy, he would surely catch it there. Nurses and doctors were dying by the thousands all across the city.
Then the doctor tried to strong-arm him into the back of the ambulance, which suddenly took on the menacing aspect of a paddy wagon.
He broke free and sprinted around to the front of the vehicle, trying to throw his body in its path. The driver gunned the engine.
“Kate!”
He couldn’t see his family inside. They were locked in.
The ambulance advanced on him, and he backed up. It picked up speed and he had to step away, scratching at the windows and trying in vain to bring it to a halt. He found a door handle.
The ambulance dragged him several yards. The pavement scuffed up his shoes.
It wasn’t a vehicle to restore health. His family was being taken away in a hearse. The driver veered, and Sean lost his grip on the handle.
He fell to the pavement. “Stop!”
His cry was futile.
He had coughed once, and his family had ended up in the SARS ward. This time another set of equally implacable goons was taking him away. Should he resist any more than his helpless family was able to do? Should he be allowed by the gods who governed one’s fate to survive merely because he was able to fight back, wrest himself from their clutches, negotiate with his troves of cash?
The sudden unfairness of it all hit him hard. He had no more right to live than his family. If he had to, he would sacrifice his life to get theirs back.
The bouncing motorboat brought him back to reality. Cold water washed around his feet. His captors couldn’t see the angry tears welling up in his eyes. Like his family, he was learning how it felt to be kidnapped and taken away.
There was a man at the airport who had stopped to help him.
He was a tanned, young Westerner.
“I’m Merle Stevens, from the American Embassy. May I assist you?” he had offered kindly, helping Sean to his feet long after the ambulance had disappeared down the highway.
The following two weeks had been sheer torture. He was so distraught that he couldn’t even breathe. Like all other SARS victims, his family had been put into isolation from the start.
He wasn’t even allowed to enter the hospital.
Some days he could only rely on statistics published in the newspaper. And the number of casualties was rising dramatically. One day, three hundred were reported dead. The next day three hundred and forty more died. There was no mention of what hospitals were reporting the deaths, not even which areas of the city.
He had wandered down the lonely streets of the Jianguomenwai diplomatic area to the Embassy for news. Merle Stevens, the tanned young diplomat, made calls for him.
His family was moved to another hospital. But he didn’t know which one. There were twenty SARS wards in the city.
His wife didn’t even have access to a telephone! Perhaps Kate had been separated from Jane and Sammy. Perhaps his little first- and second-graders couldn’t remember where they lived!
Patients were being shifted by taxi and ambulance from one hospital to another in a macabre game of hide the bodies from the World Health Organization, there to get a handle on the extent of the epidemic.
Every time a taxi zipped past on the deserted road, Sean tried to catch a glimpse of the passengers inside. One might be carrying his family.
“They’re not sick,” he had told himself and Merle Stevens at the Embassy over and over again.
One morning, sitting in the dull brownstone chancery building of the Embassy beside a dusty radiator, the words suddenly rang hollow. If they weren’t sick when they left the airport, surely his wife, daughter and son had caught the virus in the SARS ward. And two weeks was ample time to polish off any victim.
Sean felt movement on the boat. Men were shifting their weight, perhaps preparing to cast a line ashore.
He heard cars in the distance, the noisy engines of Chinese-made vehicles with grinding gears and worn brake pads.
; He had stared into Merle’s face at the Embassy, and the young man’s sad expression had told him everything. There was no cheating the SARS virus. He had better prepare to ship the bodies home, if he could even get a hold of the remains.
Sean had wept openly in the man’s office. He had never felt warm tears wash down his hands and forearms before. He had so much grief within him. The situation was hopeless, and he was powerless to do anything about it.
The only reassuring aspect to the entire ordeal, from ambulance to urns of ashes, was that the U.S. Government had assigned a single, familiar face to deal with him during his time of distress. Through intense investigation, Merle had been able to report on his wife and children’s declining health, from “Suspected” to “Probable” cases of SARS. Then they were listed as “Confirmed” cases, and finally he had reported their deaths. He had been there to hand him their remains in three neat little urns to carry home. Without Merle, he would have been unable to step on the plane for his family’s final trip home.
A final R&R for all of us, with emphasis on the word “rest,” he had told himself as he sat stiffly in his First Class seat on the long flight to Chicago, then home to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. His only comfort was in knowing that the ordeal was over for his family at last. He was left alone to bear the pain.
And on that flight to Baltimore, he began to reflect on how his firm had ordered him to remain in China until he had made the president rich…and his grief had turned to anger.
Piedmont Personnel was a small security personnel firm, a government contractor, located in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Its doors never opened for passing salesmen. Its biometric access control system only unlocked the door for its top executive Harry Black and his assistant Lou Marvelle.
It was seven p.m. and an icy evening drizzle rinsed the streets of Atlanta. Lou was holding the door open for Harry as he entered along with the biting north wind.
Harry removed his wet overcoat, stepped into the conference room and took a seat before the television console.
Lou turned on the satellite communication equipment and the image of a dark-haired woman and four despondent young men appeared, their eyes shielded by wraparound sunglasses. Behind them, a curtain wafted out onto a sunny balcony. The studied informality of the furniture in the background spelled “hotel room” to Harry.
Running a security personnel firm was child’s play for the former Navy SEAL. And the men Harry had lured out of the best-trained and most clandestine units of the military were happy with the higher pay and cosmopolitan lifestyle. America’s move to privatize various aspects of government such as military and intelligence operations went down well with them. Tracing an American crook that spent his time cavorting in Asian resorts sure beat planting underwater explosive devices on North Korean subs.
“What happened to Sean?” Harry wanted to know right off the bat. He had read the emailed report. His team had missed a golden opportunity to snatch Sean Cooper off the beach at Hainan Island, someone else had beaten them to it, and he wanted to know who.
“We think he gave us the slip,” one operative replied. “We even had Boris posing as a fisherman on the beach blocking that particular escape route from the hotel. Boris called us over with his cell phone, but we got there too late. Someone had helped Cooper slip through our fingers.”
“How could we anticipate that he would do a one-eighty and check out of the hotel first thing in the morning? We were planning to snatch him later at the pool.”
Harry cursed. “I don’t think the problem was him. I think the problem was you. You must have been hung-over from the party. He was on his toes.”
“Sir, if we drank, we only did so for cover. Hell, if we hadn’t shifted the money out of his account and put a hold on his credit card, he would have left the hotel before we had a chance to nab him.”
Harry studied the image of Badger McGlade, his computer genius, and then sank his head in his hands. “How were you planning to snatch him from the pool?”
“Well, we had men stationed at the pool and Carmen at the massage table. She was prepared to escort him to her room.”
Harry shot the only woman a look. The American Filipina was an expert with her hands, from massage to martial arts.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I can’t force a man to get a massage.”
“So clearly, they didn’t go up to your room. What was your fallback?”
“We planned to have men stationed at the restroom by the pool.”
“What, holding their dicks all day until he needed to take a leak?”
The men had that sheepish look already. He didn’t need to rub it in.
“So what makes you think someone helped him escape?”
“They took him away in a motorboat.”
“Did he leave willingly?”
Badger shook his head. “I don’t think he had this planned. When he learned that his account was empty he panicked. He didn’t have time to set this up.”
Boris Vukic, the tall, dark-haired intellectual in the group, seemed to agree. “I’m afraid this could be a Department of Justice job. It was too professional. They hired locals to nab him and whisk him away by boat. Who other than the FBI would have the means to locate him and spirit him away in China?”
“How about his company?” Harry asked the group at large. “He left their employ with a truckload of cash, not to mention blackmail material.”
“That’s a possibility,” Boris conceded.
“Or how about the Chinese? Maybe they wanted some blackmail evidence to use as leverage against the president.”
“That’s also a possibility.”
“So don’t you see how damned important it is to get this guy?” Harry shouted, slamming his thick fist on the table. The impact sent Lou’s grande lapping over. He looked at the once-dedicated machines of war that had been turned soft by money and life in the burbs. Their country needed soldiers with their talents. But he needed them even more. He had a company’s reputation to uphold, damn it.
In the end, though, he fell back on an old theme that motivated them all. “Remember this: if we screw up again, we will lose our government contracts. And if that happens, you will lose your big, fat paychecks.”
His videoconference counterparts stirred uncomfortably.
“So sit straight men…and Carmen.”
They stiffened on camera.
“Gather up your equipment. I want you ready to check out of there. Reserve tickets to major Asian cities. I want you ready to fly to Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong or Singapore at a moment’s notice. I’ll work my contacts at Justice and also run Badger’s tracker program. You can be sure I’ll locate Sean Cooper, and once I do, I want you ready to react and grab him. Remember, American needs that menace to society yanked off the streets and muzzled.”
Chapter 5
After two long hours smothered in the scratchy burlap sack and buffeted by waves, Sean sensed the motorboat slowing down. It cruised along with a reduced wake before finally cutting its engine.
But they were still nowhere near the sounds of the port. Without returning to land, he would never get to Beijing. Things were definitely moving in the wrong direction.
A man grunted and heaved him to his feet. He reached out and someone guided his hands to a metal ladder. As he felt his way up the rusty rungs, a broad rolling continued underfoot. He was still rocking on the water. Prodded forward, he took a tentative step over the top.
The toot of a working tug echoed across the dull roar of lapping waves. And beyond that drifted the distinct honking of street traffic.
His bare feet touched a level surface. He was onboard a ship.
But his exposed soles were not sliding across the varnished deck planks of a yacht, nor was he walking on the well-painted promenade deck of a cruise ship. He stubbed his toe on a row of rusty rivets. From the thick smell of rotting fish, he guessed she was some sort of fishing trawler or factory ship.
The clande
stine nature of the meeting was beginning to annoy him. Who wanted him so badly that they would set up such an elaborate plot to whisk him away from the resort and sequester him onboard an anonymous ship in some backwater port? Didn’t these guys have a life?
Then he tuned into voices, a sound he hadn’t heard all morning. Men on deck were babbling in a foreign language that he couldn’t identify, much less understand. It didn’t sound like any Mandarin he’d ever heard. Yet it was singsong, perhaps Cantonese or Taiwanese. What did he know? He was a financial officer. The only language he spoke was money.
But he did know a word or two of Russian. After all, he had grown up during the Cold War, when Russian was taught in high school. In fact, he had used it to his advantage to eavesdrop on conversations among the many Russians at the beach resort. Maybe he could confound the kidnappers by appearing unable to communicate with them. If he wasn’t what they wanted, they might let him go.
A rough hand guided him out of the sun into an echo chamber of sorts. He was thrust back against a wall and pushed downward. He landed hard on a metal bench.
“So,” a voice grunted in strongly accented English. “What is your name?”
They didn’t even know who he was? It was time to be difficult. “Kartoshka?” he asked. Potato?
Undeterred, the man repeated his question. “Who are you?”
“Sabaka.” You dog.
The man seemed to accept this and went on with his next question.
Sean remembered some pot-bellied Russian men staggering down the beach in their underwear. He let his otherwise washboard stomach protrude.
“Do you know how to sail?” the man asked gruffly.
That one caught him off guard. “Da,” he lied. He had never even taken a cruise before, and he didn’t know a jib from a mainsail.
“Good. What else can you do?”
Sean decided not to treat it as a question. Instead, he launched into a conversational stream he had overheard among some topless Russian dolls lying under beach umbrellas. I have a boyfriend in Irkutsk. He’s nuts about me. But his penis is too short. I can’t stand the way he smells either.