“I wish we had a dog to walk; it would help us blend in better.”
“If I’d known, I could’ve brought Mitch in on the case.”
Mitch was a fifty-five-pound boxer. Don and his wife had purchased him as a companion for their eight-year-old, special-needs son, Rudy. The dog had Don’s body, Rita’s soulful eyes, and Rudy’s temperament.
Charlie laughed. “It would be good to have Mitch around now. Some dog ears to rub would be good for the mood in the office. Don, what if Lin is dead?”
Charlie had finally put into words her worst fears. She’d had no right to bring Lin into a dangerous situation. She had under-estimated the stakes in this case. Heinrich, Dudiyn, and whoever else was involved didn’t care about human life.
“They’ve got no reason to kill the boy.”
“Maybe not before, but they do now. He’s seen his abductors and maybe he’s even seen what they’re up to.”
“We have to stay optimistic. Lin may have been at the storage garage, but we didn’t see any signs of foul play. Heinrich doesn’t like us, and we don’t like him. He knows that. It wouldn’t surprise him that we put Lin Fong in place as a mole. He’s got Cynthia watching us.”
“If he’s hurt that boy . . .”
“I believe you, Mack. But, let’s stay positive.”
They reached the corner across from Heinrich’s house, and slowed their pace. Charlie pulled out her phone and pretended to make a call so they could stand still for a minute while Don scanned the house.
“I don’t see any movement. There’s a window on the side of the garage, and the newspaper’s still on the front porch.”
Charlie put the phone away, and they walked along the side of the house to see if they could get a look at the rear. The fenced yard abutted the backyard of the house on the next block. When they got to the corner, they turned and walked back. At the garage, they paused.
“If you’re looking for the guy with the Saab, he’s not home.”
Don and Charlie had not seen the woman get out of her car in the driveway behind them. She was carrying a small grocery bag in one hand and keys in the other. She hastily zipped up her parka to her chin and reached into the jacket to pull out gloves. She crossed the street to join them.
“He left about twenty minutes ago. I passed him on my way to the drugstore.”
“Oh.” Don said.
The woman glanced curiously at Charlie, but gave her attention to Don.
“There were two Chinese men here this morning looking for him, too. Or maybe they were looking for the other guy. The one with the van. What’s going on?”
“There’s not much going on,” Charlie said. “It’s funny you should mention the Chinese guys. We’re here to meet a friend of ours, a young Chinese kid. Did you happen to see him?”
The lady shifted her position to square up between the two, assessing them both before answering Charlie’s question.
“No. The guys I saw were older. There was no kid. But they were looking in the garage window, just like you were doing.” Her eyes glided toward Don.
“Wow, you don’t miss much,” Charlie said, holding out her hand. “I’m Charlene Mack, and this is Don Rutkowski.”
“Kathy Talbot,” the woman said, shaking hands. “That’s my house over there.” She pointed behind her. “Say, you two are police, right?”
“Something like that,” Don said.
“Private investigators,” Charlie corrected, showing the woman her P.I. license.
“I thought so,” the woman said, staring at Charlie’s ID.
“Look, it’s freezing out here. Why don’t you come in for a cup of coffee? I need to take my medicine,” Talbot said, holding up her bag.
Talbot’s house was neat. OCD neat. She went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee and waved Don and Charlie to her living room. Within five minutes, Charlie’s eyes began to water, and she sneezed. When Talbot came through the kitchen door holding a tray with three mugs of coffee, the source of Charlie’s allergies followed with tail bobbing in the air. The cat immediately jumped on the couch next to Charlie.
“You don’t like cats?” Talbot asked.
“I’m allergic to their dander.”
“You know, they say that can be psychosomatic.”
“Or, maybe just psycho,” Don quipped, followed by, “This is good coffee.”
“I’m glad you like it. I put a bit of cinnamon in it.”
Don lowered the cup, looking into it as if Talbot had said strychnine instead of cinnamon. Charlie took a sip of coffee and watched the cat climb over her leg and jump to the floor.
“When did the two men move in across the street?” Charlie asked, clearing her throat.
“The older guy, the good-looking one, moved in about a year ago. I’ve only seen the other one for a month, maybe two. There’s something fishy about the two of them. At first, I thought they were gay. Don’t get me wrong, I got nothing against gay people. But, you know, you hear about the parties and stuff. So, anyway, the older man, the good-looking one, isn’t gay because he has women over to the house all the time. The other one— the big guy— works in the garage a lot, late at night. He has a van with those loud mufflers. I hear him coming and going at all hours. I bought my house seven years ago, but these guys are renters, and sometimes renters don’t care about the homeowner’s association rules.”
“What rules have they broken?” Charlie asked.
“Well, for one thing, people are always watching the house and loitering.”
“Somebody other than the Chinese men and us?” Charlie asked.
“Well, sometimes, there’s a car that sits right over there.” The woman pointed at a space diagonal to Heinrich’s house. “They use binoculars to look at the house.”
“Binoculars,” Don said. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I have a pair myself.”
When Don and Charlie left a half hour later, there was still no sign of occupancy at the house. Just for good measure, Charlie jumped over the back fence and knocked at the back door. She wasn’t sure what lie she’d tell if Heinrich opened the door, but she wanted to rule out his house as the place where Lin might be. She peered into the kitchen window. There was a light on over the sink and nothing looked out of place. She knocked again and listened, then hopped back over the fence.
“Mandy just called,” Don said. “Heinrich is on his way home.”
“Okay, let’s get back to the car.”
“Where are we going?”
“Over there,” Charlie said, pointing across the road to the nosy neighbor’s house.
It was almost dusk. The headlights of a speeding vehicle swung across the gravel path, throwing rocks from the rear wheels. The white van stopped abruptly in front of the garage, and the two Spectrum guards, with guns drawn, aimed at the driver as he stepped out of the vehicle. Cynthia recognized Dudiyn and gave an all-clear sign. She intercepted him in mid-stride.
“You almost got yourself killed.”
“What the hell happened here?” he demanded.
“I already told Mr. Heinrich what happened. The police broke down the door. They had a search warrant.”
Cynthia was in mid-sentence when Dudiyn stepped around her and headed to the garage. He stopped to look at the scanning box, which hung from loose wires. In the light over the door, Cynthia saw the look of contempt he shot at her before entering the garage. From the doorway, she watched Dudiyn examine a few of the disposable phones. He knotted the bag, stepped over to the cases marked bleach, and began counting them. Cynthia stepped into the garage, and he turned.
“I’ll need someone to help me load these boxes into the van,” Dudiyn said.
“Okay. What’s all the bleach for?”
Dudiyn stared at Cynthia for a few seconds. Then lifted the bag of phones over his shoulder, like Santa’s sack of toys.
“You’ll have to ask Mr. Heinrich. If he hasn’t told you, it’s not for me to say. I’ll pull the van closer so we ca
n start loading the boxes,” he said, brushing past her.
Cynthia watched from the rear of the vehicle as Dudiyn and the guards loaded seventeen cases, each with eight plastic bottles of bleach, into the bed of the van. Dudiyn paced from the garage door to the van and back, and counted the remaining cases a couple of times. When he wasn’t looking, Cynthia shined her flashlight inside. Along with the bleach and the phones there was a clear bag containing plastic ties. When the cargo was loaded, Dudiyn locked the van, fumbling with the keypad.
“Our guys will have the cameras repaired before I leave tonight. We’ll also put in a keyed door. Will you take care of the repairs to the ocular scanning system?” Cynthia asked.
“What?” Dudiyn was preoccupied.
“The security system. Will you arrange to have it replaced, or should I?”
“Oh. I’ll speak to Mr. Heinrich about that. We’ll take care of it.”
Without another word, Dudiyn was behind the wheel of the van and drove off. The Spectrum staff returned to supervising the camera repairs, and Cynthia sniffed her fingers. Surprised, she used the flashlight to look at her hand. She had punctured one of the bleach bottles with an ink pen and smeared a bit of the contents on her hand. Instead of the scent she’d expected, her fingers were coated with shiny, odorless granules.
Lin began a slow ascent from a restless sleep. It was so dark he wasn’t sure he was really awake until he moved his arm and the chair resisted. He might have been asleep a few minutes or a few hours, but the stiffness of his body where it touched the cold floor suggested hours. He was disoriented, no longer even certain of the direction of the door, until he heard the hum of the water dispenser. He pulled himself to a sitting position and turned toward the sound. Scooting on his butt and dragging the chair along, he bumped into cardboard boxes and wood pallets until he finally reached the wall and pulled himself up to lean against it. He took a deep breath; his face hurt, and his tongue was heavy and dry. He extended his free arm, searching, until his hand touched the metal water fountain. He slurped water for a very long time, then let the water drip onto his chin without catching it and put a palmful on the back of his neck. He reached, again, for the wall and nuzzled against it like a lover. The coolness against his cheek turned the sharp ache into a dull one. Finally, he righted the chair on the floor and sat in it with his back against the wall. He could use the wall to work his way to the outer door, which he now knew was to his right. But, even when he got to the door and even if he managed to get it open, he wouldn’t know what lay on the other side.
The BlackBerry was his best chance for survival. It was somewhere on the floor in front of him. He would be systematic about it, scooting on his butt toward the middle of the room, keeping the chair directly behind him and using his free hand and legs like antennae to keep from bumping into anything. Then he’d shift over a yard or so and reverse his course.
His system worked, but it took what felt like almost an hour to find the phone. When he did, he cradled it like a baby. He used his thumb to touch the keyboard, and the backlight sprang to life. He carefully punched in the seven numbers he’d memorized.
“My God, Lin. Where are you?” Charlie shouted into the phone’s speaker.
“Ms. Mack . . .” Lin gasped.
“Are you alright? Where are you?”
“I’m not sure. In a warehouse where there are a bunch of Chinese workers. They had me in another place at first, and . . .”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m bleeding some. It’s the guy I saw with Mr. Heinrich in your apartment building. The bald one with the beard. He beat me.”
“Oh, Lin. I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to get hurt.”
Lin let out a sob, then gathered himself. “I’m okay.”
“We’re coming to get you. Right now. But you’ve got to help us find you. What kind of a room are you in? Are there any windows? Did you see any kind of landmark outside?”
“Uh, no. There are no windows, and it’s too dark to see anything. But this place isn’t far from where they had me at first, and when we got out of the van we were almost directly under a freeway.”
“Okay, Lin, that’s a good start. Can you hear any kind of noise from outside?”
“No.”
“Okay. Hold on. We’re coming.”
Charlie and Don were sitting in the neighbor’s living room across the street from Heinrich’s house. He’d arrived a half hour ago, entered through the garage, and left the door open. Forty minutes later a white van pulled into the garage and the door was closed.
Don and Charlie waved their goodbyes to the neighbor and bolted through a rear door to the car. Don turned it around to head east toward John R, where he careened south to the Fisher Freeway service drive. Charlie held onto the Buick’s door handle.
“He said the building was under a freeway overpass, but he’s got to be closer to Cobo,” Don said.
Charlie nodded, and took her phone off mute. “Lin, can you get out of the room you’re in?”
“I don’t know. I’m handcuffed to a chair, and it’s so dark I keep bumping into things.”
“You’re handcuffed?”
“He cuffed my wrist to the arm of the chair. But I can pull the chair.”
“Okay. So one hand is shackled, and one is free?”
“Yes.”
“Are your feet free?”
“Yes.”
“Okay Lin, listen carefully. Just keep moving, as best you can, in the direction of the door. Keep your phone on, and we’ll stay on the line. We’re searching for you, and we’ll find you. Okay?”
“Okay, Ms. Mack.”
Charlie put the phone on mute and turned to Don. “He’s scared.”
“He’s got a right to be. Let’s call Novak, maybe now she can track his phone.”
“That’s right. Pull over, Don. There’s no use just driving around.”
Don idled at the curb and called Judy while Charlie continued to reassure Lin.
“Yes, Don,” Judy answered.
“Charlie and I have the Fong boy on the line, and we need you to trace the call,” Don said.
“He’s on the phone? Is he okay?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it,” Don said gruffly.
“Put the call on speaker,” Charlie ordered. “Judy, we don’t know where Lin is. He’s in some kind of warehouse with no windows. He can’t see to find his way out, but we don’t think he’s very far from Cobo. Anything you can do to trace his call?”
“I’ll try.”
Crawling on his knees and dragging the chair beside him, Lin had managed to reach the narrow door to the anteroom. He was still trying to inch his way over the threshold when he heard the turn of a doorknob ahead of him and watched a swath of light from the warehouse spread across the room. A slender silhouette broke the light, and with the slam of the door the room was once again dark. Lin held his breath. There was no further movement at the door, but he knew someone had entered.
“Hello?” a small voice sounded.
Lin didn’t dare answer or move.
Then Charlie’s voice squawked through the phone. “Lin, are you still okay?”
Suddenly, the overhead fixture washed the room in light. Lin stared toward the door, willing his eyes to adjust to the change. When they did, he met the gaze of Amy Wu.
The handler at the emergency number had spoken briefly to Amy, asking her a few questions and advising her to go to a nearby facility operated by Guí Motors, where she was to wait until she was contacted. She’d heard Mr. Kwong, Heinrich, and the directors in Beijing speak of another location, but her duties had been exclusively at Cobo Center. She’d retrieved her car from the Cobo garage and used her GPS to get to the location, but ran into a dead end. So she turned on the interior lights to read the directions she’d carefully written. She found the one-level industrial building at the end of a long rock driveway. Her headlights swept across the number “5017” affixed to a red sign above the double door
s. There were no other cars in the shallow parking area, and no one in sight. Motion lights illuminated the front door as she approached. She knocked, and when there was no answer, opened the unlocked door and stepped in.
A large, open room was abuzz with the activity of laptop keyboards. Five rows of desks were manned by workers, both men and women, all young, all wearing white earbuds, and all appearing to be Chinese. Some of them stared at Amy as she entered the room, but others only glanced up for a second before returning to their tasks. She walked slowly along a vinyl runner toward the rear of the room. Six round fluorescents were strung from metal beams in the high ceilings, but every work station also had a gooseneck lamp glowing onto the desktop. She expected someone to greet her, but no one did. When she got to the last row of desks, she stopped.
She stepped off the runner and leaned toward the young woman nearest to her. “Hello, can you help me?”
The worker looked at Amy, and then back to her keyboard. When Amy didn’t move, and continued to hover, the girl removed her earbuds.
“Can you help me?” Amy said again.
The worker placed her index finger to her lips. Amy stepped closer to her, and whispered, “I’m here to meet someone.”
The girl gave a nervous look around, and quickly gestured with her head and eyes toward a door on the wall behind her. Then she immediately replaced her earbuds and like those seated around her, began tapping her keyboard as if her life depended on it.
Amy had approached the door tentatively, then put her ear close to listen. The light from the room behind her momentarily flooded the dark inside, and she quietly slipped around the partly open door. The room was silent and black. She’d groped at the wall near the door for a light switch, and when she couldn’t immediately find it, she spoke a timid ”hello.” With no answer, she was about to return through the door when a tinny voice rang out. Scared, Amy’s hands slapped frantically for the light fixture, and when she’d illuminated the room she immediately recognized the skinny boy on the floor. He was crouched near another door, a chair linked to his arm, and his face was bruised and puffy. She rushed to his side and put her hand on his shoulder. Lin wrapped his free arm around her. “Xié xié,” he’d said over and over.
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