Zack rested his chin on his fist as he watched Todd move the zombie along a stone path in a dark cave. Sometimes gold glittered along the floor or in the walls. Each time the zombie touched the gold, a display at the bottom of the screen changed.
“You guys ready?” Todd turned to his audience, his eyebrows lifted in mischief. Without waiting for an answer, he clicked on a stone wall blocking the hero’s way. As it disintegrated, it revealed Chinese lettering in two very distinct columns.
“Wow,” Ember exclaimed, her long slender fingers on Todd’s knee. “Good job. Look what you found.”
David scanned the script. “Stop. Don’t move a thing. Let me read it.”
Everyone paused until he pointed to the first set of letters. “These are eleven names.”
“The names of the children?” Todd asked.
“Possibly. But,” David straightened in his seat, “that last name is not a child’s name. It says R. Richards.”
“What’s the other list?” Zack asked.
David peered closer. “Numeric.”
“Now watch.” Todd moved the zombie hero again, pushing him farther into the cavern. As Jiāng-shī advanced, he pulled a root hanging down from the ceiling. A panel creaked open and a ghost materialized, wavering in and out of focus.
“It’s one of those Easter eggs I found. What’s this spooky guy saying, David?” Todd turned the volume up. “It’s talking in Chinese. I don’t understand.”
David cocked his ear toward the computer as everyone quieted to hear the ghostly incantation. “The creature is Yōu Líng, the dark soul. It sounds like he’s relaying delivery instructions, but it’s in code. Four must travel to the city of stone workers. Four go to the city of the lady. Three are destined for the city of light.
Mother gasped. “Is he talking about Paris? It’s the only city of light I know.”
“Then where’s the city of the lady?” Todd asked.
“New York? Maybe the lady’s the Statue of Liberty,” Ember interjected.
Mother turned to Zack and David. “You guys ever heard of the city of stone workers?”
Zack shrugged. “Might be Egypt. Stone workers built the pyramids.”
“Never mind. Watch this.” Todd moved Jiāng-shī to the tunnel exit, where Todd clicked his mouse over the second square stone to the right of the arched opening.
Immediately, two gray wraiths swirled around the basket of children, chanting and buzzing. The wands in their long bony fingers emitted fiery sparks that sizzled into the heads of the gingerbread children. Childlike cries screeched above the buzzing noise of the wraiths until the sparks faded. Tendrils of orange smoke drifted over the basket. Jiāng-shī’s zombie face split into a toothy grin as he bowed to the wraiths.
David pushed back from the game. “I can’t watch it anymore.”
His reaction sparked Zack’s interest. The game just got more and more bizarre. “What are they doing to those kids?”
Todd zoomed in to enlarge the head of one of the gingerbread children. Zack cursed. A dragon tattoo had been burned into the face of each cookie child.
“And look at this.” Todd was excited now. He enlarged another head. A green dragon was burned into that child’s face. Another showed a red dragon. “Sick, huh?”
“Wait,” Zack growled. “Go back to the list you found.”
Todd did as he was told.
“Which of these names got the green dragon tat?” Zack asked.
“Heck, I don’t know. Wait a second.” Todd flashed back to the screen where the branding had taken place. Enlarging the screen even more, he was able to decipher Chinese characters on one of the children. Everyone turned to David.
“Li Ming,” he interpreted. “It’s a little girl. Her name is...Li Ming.”
“Now go back to the list,” Zack ordered.
“Already doing that,” Todd muttered, working the joystick as fast as only a gamer knows how. Everyone leaned into the screen. Sure enough, Li Ming’s name was there as well.
“Poor Li Ming is going to...where, Todd?” Mother asked.
“Wait for it.” Todd worked the keyboard, adeptly matching the names on the list to the gingerbread children in the basket. By the time he was done, they knew exactly which child was going to Paris, New York, or Egypt. They also knew each child was a female.
“Wait. Something’s not right,” Zack muttered. “We’ve got three little girls with the black dragon tattoo right here in Anacostia.”
“The city of stone workers doesn’t mean Egypt,” David murmured.
“I know! The Masons were stone workers,” Mother declared with gusto. “George Washington designed D.C., remember? He was a Freemason and pretty high up in the ranks, too. He incorporated their symbols throughout the city’s design when he put L’Enfant in charge.”
“That’s a conspiracy theory,” Todd muttered. “No one believes that. It isn’t true.”
“Oh, yes it is,” she declared.
“It’s got to be D.C.,” Zack said. “That means these children are coming to Richards or he’s already got them. We’re looking at a freaking purchase order. That’s how these guys are communicating with each other. This isn’t a game. It’s e-Commerce. It’s how they’re selling children.”
“Why’s his name on the whole order if he’s only getting four of the eleven?” Todd interrupted.
“Damn it,” Zack hissed. Expletives he couldn’t say in mixed company sprang to mind. The evidence was clear. “Because his business is international. We need to decipher those tattoos. I’ll bet a month’s pay they’re like barcodes.”
“You might be right,” David said.
“Ah, guys.” Todd had continued to work through the game. “I still need to know what the witch with the wand was chanting.”
“I forgot. Play it again,” David said tiredly. “Sorry.”
Todd clicked the second square stone to the arched exit again. The wraiths repeated the chant.
David paled. “I don’t know what it means, but she said, ‘Even if you live, you’ll die’.”
“Them poor little babies are all cursed,” Mother whispered.
“Like hell.” Zack stood so quickly he knocked his chair over. He stabbed the computer screen with a condemning finger. “These girls aren’t cursed. He is. It’s Richards who’s cursed, and every person who’s working for him.”
And I’m the one who’s going to put him down.
FIFTEEN
The following morning, Mr. Quentin Burns and his wife, Amelia, were back at the attorney’s office with the prerequisite fee.
“Is that the money?” Mrs. Bradford asked when she spied the hefty aluminum briefcase.
“Yes, ma’am.” Zack lifted it to hand it over but she declined, shaking her head with her lips pursed in that dried prune way she had.
“I don’t want to touch it, but I do need to see it. Please set it on my desk.”
That was an odd request, but Zack did as he was told. She peered down her nose at the stacks of one hundred dollar bills when he opened the case. “You call those small bills?”
“They are to me,” he replied with his best fake-millionaire nonchalance. After the revelations of the video game, he was in it to win it. Cold hard cash didn’t get turned down too often. He was willing to bet it wouldn’t today, either. “What’d you expect? Twenties?”
Ms. Bradford sniffed like she was offended by the filthy lucre. “Fine. Keep it. Mr. Richards will see you now.”
She ushered them into the attorney’s office. Reginald Richards motioned them to sit in the chairs in front of his desk while he finished a telephone conversation. When he hung up, he leaned his elbows onto his desk, his lip curled as he ran his gaze over them both.
“Mr. and Mrs. Burns, or whatever your names are, you say you’re looking to buy a little girl. That right?” Attorney Richards was used to dealing in human commodities. He didn’t bother with the euphemism of adoption. A dark haired, olive skinned man, Zack pegged him about five ten
, maybe two-hundred-fifty pounds. His hands were rough and calloused, not the hands of a pencil-pushing lawyer at all, and his face was just as rough. A scar on his forehead gave the appearance of a perpetually raised eyebrow. The man had jowls. He looked more like a nineteen-fifties era gangster than a lawyer.
“It’s Quentin Burns, Mr. Richards. And this is my wife of eleven years, Amelia—”
“I don’t care what your names are.” Richards waved the explanation away. “Let’s get straight to the point. Your background checks came back clean. Marge says you got the dough. That’s all I care about. Most people lie about their names anyway, so it don’t matter one way or the other. What matters is you two understand what I’m going to tell you next.”
Mei reached for Zack’s hand and he squeezed it, surprised she wanted any contact with him. The woman drove him crazy, cold one moment, hot the next.
“You wrote down here that you want a little girl around six years old.” He glanced at the form they’d filled out the day before. “A Chink. That right?”
You sonofabitch. Zack bristled at the derogatory slur. “I’d appreciate if—”
“Yeah, whatever.” Richards tossed a card across the desk. “Take this. It’s a couple foster homes you can check out. Take your pick of the litter, but I want you to know what you’re doing’s illegal. Buying babies and children is against the law. Make damned sure you don’t go blabbing where you got her.”
“Yes.” Zack answered simultaneously with Mei. She was wound so tight, her nervousness vibrated straight up his arm.
“I gotta be honest with ya. I really do this kinda stuff to save them little girls’ lives, ya know.” Richards waxed noble. “They got no chance of a decent life over there. You ever seen one of them orphanages in China? All they want is sons, so the baby girls gotta go somewhere. I’m here to tell ya, them places are a stinking mess. Everyone knows these kids are better off over here, no matter how they end up.”
“What about the adoption papers?” Zack asked. His fist curled. He needed to get Mei out of here before he decked the lying buffoon. The image of eleven gingerbread children remained stuck in the back of his mind. Richards needed to be branded, and Zack was the man for the job.
“You get the papers when you picks the kid. You’ll come back here, and we’ll finish the deal. You got a problem with that?”
Zack shook his head. “No, sir, but I want to make sure—”
“I don’t care what you want. Get out of here. I’ve got bigger problems than a couple rich snobs who can’t even make a kid.” With that snicker, he waved them to get out of his office.
As if on cue, Ms. Bradford re-entered the room and escorted them back to her desk. Just in time, too. One more minute of listening to the evil man, and Zack would’ve wreaked some vengeance for Chai all over Richards’ ugly face. He wanted to.
Mei held tightly to his hand, and this time he didn’t just press his other hand to the small of her back. He pulled her close, she was trembling so hard. They’d just come face to face with one of the most despicable men he’d ever met.
“Please take a seat.” Ms. Bradford motioned toward the chairs next to her desk. “Did he give you the addresses?”
Zack slanted the card at her. “Got ’em.”
“Just checking. He starts rambling about those poor little girls and he forgets sometimes. Reggie really is a good man.”
“And pigs fly, too,” Todd muttered in Zack’s ear.
Not now, Todd. I’m already mad enough for the two of us.
“If you don’t find what you’re looking for at either of those homes tomorrow, let me know. We don’t keep all the available children in one place. Security, you know.”
“Tomorrow?” Mei’s voice creaked. “We can’t go until tomorrow?”
Zack tightened his grip on her.
“Certainly not,” the annoying secretary replied.
“Why not?” he asked. “We’ve done everything you’ve asked, and you expect us to wait another day?”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Ms. Bradford peered down her nose through her glasses at her computer screen, her fingers flying over her keyboard. “These things take time. I can hook you up with other options if you don’t want to wait, but if you give us a day, we can make sure you have more of a selection. Your choice. What shall it be?” She paused, her quick fingers suspended over her keyboard.
The trap was set. Zack had no choice. Of course he and Mei needed to view as many children as possible.
“I guess we’ll wait until tomorrow then, won’t we?” He could not restrain his sarcasm.
“I’ll give you the address for a third home since you’re so eager.” She leveled a volley of sarcasm right back at him. Her fingers hit the keyboard. She acted like she was hooking them up with a used car instead of a child. Someone needed to knock her on her ass, too.
Zack offered the briefcase again.
“Not today.” Her expression could not have been sweeter. “I only needed to see it. You’ll pay when you take possession. That way, you’re as guilty as we are.”
“You’re cold.”
Mei shivered at Agent Lennox’s words, but it wasn’t from the chilly weather. The gray clouds scudding across the sky were nothing compared to the desolation in her soul. Another day without LiLi was more than she could handle.
The drive back to the safe house had been quiet, the shock of being in the presence of a truly evil man more than she’d anticipated. Attorney Richards hadn’t even tried to hide what he was doing. The man dealt in human flesh, as if children were nothing. Her skin crawled thinking about him, yet he’d only done it because he assumed he was talking with someone as low as he was. Her skin crawled even more. She’d sunk to his level.
“I’ll turn on the gas log,” Agent Lennox offered, already on his way across the room to the fireplace.
Standing frozen inside the two story foyer, she couldn’t handle the safe house either. The plush lifestyle it represented irked her to her core. The vaulted ceilings, fine moldings, and huge brick fireplace reminded her she was living the life of a queen. LiLi was not.
Everything had been different last night. Agent Lennox avoided her, and she didn’t blame him. After their unexpected kiss on the street, he’d become an easy target, always too close and kind for his own good. She knew she was hard on him. The kiss had been a mistake. She never should have let him get inside her defenses. He was trouble, a womanizer, a pretty boy, but so gentle in the way he’d held her. One minute she intended the kiss as nothing but subterfuge, the next, it seemed she could not stop. His touch had ignited a ravenous hunger and a wildfire. All her defenses melted. The only way back was to push and shove. So she did.
Poor Agent Lennox. After one particularly nasty barb about him being nothing but a spoiled rich kid, he’d retreated to the couch and television while she locked herself in one of the four bedrooms. It seemed a good arrangement–then.
Mei stood frozen in the doorway, unable to enter and unable to leave. The longer she stood, the more she wanted to run. There seemed no way to hurry the drawn-out process of the undercover operation along.
Agent Lennox turned to her, waiting for what, she didn’t know. He had a fire blazing. The man had the patience of a saint, but then, he should. He had to be getting paid enough to watch over her. The oriental gong of his cell phone jolted her out of her very depressing dilemma of whether to leave or stay.
“What’s up?” he answered after checking his caller ID. He stilled, listening as he watched her. His brows furrowed, and Mei’s heart stopped. It had to be bad news. She could tell.
“Who’s that?” His piercing look drew her into the room. “You’re kidding? Under the same bridge?”
She walked to the fireplace, her heart on the verge of panic. Which same bridge? The Eleventh Street Bridge? The Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge?
“How?” His dark eyes registered no emotion, but something cold glittered there. Whoever he had on the other line, they were talking about death.
Someone had died. Who? LiLi?
“Guess that takes care of that.” He paused. “Okay.”
When he stiffened, Mei clutched his wrist. “What’s going on?”
He held up his index finger for her to be quiet.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
His features softened. Her blood pressure spiked. It’s LiLi. They found her.
“Where?” he said quietly. “Okay. Got it. Right. We’re on our way.”
She whirled around, intending to go right back out the door. They’d found her daughter. That’s what Agent Lennox was talking about. She had to leave, but he grabbed her wrist before she got too far away, his expression hard as granite while he continued the conversation.
“That isn’t going to be easy,” he muttered, his eyes sharp and focused on her. He was quiet another moment, before he said, “Got it. Thanks, David.”
“Tell me,” she ordered the moment the call ended. “What did Agent Tao tell you? Who died?”
Agent Lennox stowed his cell phone in his pants pocket before he spoke. “They found another little girl, Mei. David will call with the details as soon as he gets to the hospital.”
“How old?” All her worst fears.
“Around six.”
“Where is she now?”
“Children’s National Medical Center.”
“I’m going.” She pulled away, her heart in her throat.
“No.” Somehow, Agent Lennox was in front of her, blocking the door. “We’re going to stay on task and—”
“No, we’re not. I don’t care if you go with me or not. I’m going.” She pulled out all of her nastiest skills. “I have to know. Get out of my way.”
“No. We stay.” He didn’t move, just stood there with his hands palm forward like he was trying to capture a frightened animal. “By the time we get across town, David will be at the hospital. He’ll call. Then we’ll know for sure. Besides, if we screw the mission, we’ll never get back inside Richards’ office. We need to stay the course.”
“I can’t. I...I...can’t. Get out of my way.” The man was stupid to think he could stop her. Nothing could. Weeks of fury propelled her into him, punching, scratching, and kicking. He had to get out of her way. Now!
Zack (In the Company of Snipers Book 3) Page 13