by Brad Parks
“But then everything got crazy,” Sheena continued. “There was that million-dollar reward and . . . Jiang went rogue on us, trying to get the million. Wu was in on it too. Then Johnny figured out they were up to something and he . . . he must have killed them. All I know is, Johnny suddenly told me he wasn’t taking orders from me anymore and that our deal was off. I guess he figured that if he got five million dollars from Plottner, he could disappear to an island somewhere and live like a king. He was just going to kill Matt and so Scott and I, we . . .”
Sheena was again struggling to get the words out. But Emmett could finish the story by himself.
In short, Sheena had an experience with a very different kind of interference.
“Scott told you about the gun he had in his closet,” Emmett said. “You thought you could come out here, get the drop on Johnny, and set everything right.”
“Yes,” Sheena whimpered.
“But Johnny Chang was waiting for you guys. He killed Scott Sugden with a high-powered rifle, then took you hostage.”
“Yes,” Sheena said again.
“And do you have any idea where Johnny is now?”
“No. I just . . . no.”
“He didn’t say anything about where he might hole up?”
“No. Originally he was just going to fly back to Colorado when it was over. But I doubt he did that. I have no clue what his plan is.”
“Matt,” Emmett asked, “did you overhear anything that might help us?”
“I wish I had. But no. He didn’t exactly talk to me much.”
Emmett looked down at the ground, then up at the others in the room. Brigid seemed to take this as her permission to walk closer to the door. The Bomb Squad captain let her go, though he remained close enough that he could grab her if she got too close.
She stopped about five feet short.
“Matty,” she said in a shaky voice. “Matty, it’s me, baby.”
From inside, Matt yelled, “Brigid! Get out of here! Get out of here right now!”
Brigid continued: “Matty, I love you. I love you so much. You are the most amazing man in the world and I love you and we’re going to get you out of this, don’t you worry.”
Matt screamed, “You have to go! I don’t want you anywhere near here! I love you too. But go. Go!”
“I love you,” Brigid said, tears streaming. “I love you. All I want you to think about is how much I love you.”
This brought a new and even more urgent plea from Matt, though it didn’t seem to move Brigid any more than the last one had.
Finally, Emmett got it: Brigid might have been able to hear him, but she couldn’t make out the words.
He walked up and seized Brigid gently by the arm, making sure she could see his mouth.
“He wants you out of here,” he said softly. “It’s really not safe. You have to think of your son right now. If something goes wrong here . . . the boy shouldn’t have to lose his father and his mother.”
Her tears were coming harder now.
“I know. I just—”
Wanted to say all the words to her husband that Emmett wished he could have said to Wanda one last time.
“Please,” Emmett said firmly. “We have to go.”
His grip on her arm tightened.
“Okay, Matt,” Emmett called. “I’m taking her out now.”
“Thank you!” Matt called. “Thank you! Go! Go!”
“I love you, Matty,” Brigid kept calling as he guided her down the hallway. “I love you so much.”
CHAPTER 64
Emmett kept his hold of Brigid’s arm until they were out of the house by a good fifty feet.
“I need you to promise me—to promise Matt—you won’t try and go back in,” he said.
He could tell by the look on her face he wasn’t necessarily going to get that promise, so he turned to Aimee.
“I’m serious. You have to keep her out of there.”
“I understand,” Aimee said. “She does too. It’s about Morgan. We’re going to think about Morgan, right?”
Brigid was still trying to contain her sobs, not doing a very good job at it. Emmett left them and returned to the Bomb Squad, which now had men up in the attic. They were cutting away the insulation to expose the drywall of the attic floor.
That was as close as they dared get. The fear of Johnny Chang seeing them coming through the ceiling stopped them from going any farther.
Once they got the word it was safe, they would cut a hole in the drywall and hop down. The captain said that thanks to still photos sent from headquarters, and with what Matt Bronik had told them from the other side of the door, they had figured out how to disarm the pipe bombs safely.
The whole operation would take about three minutes.
It would also take about three minutes to vacate the house from the attic while wearing bulky bomb suits if they determined all was hopeless.
They would be awaiting word either way.
Emmett thanked him, then went back down to the lower level of the house to begin his own search for clues that might lead him to Johnny Chang.
Sheena’s culpability really only changed things so much. At least immediately. His greatest concern was still getting everyone out of this alive.
And, by his count, there were really only two ways that could happen.
One, Chang would be a man of his word and allow the hostages to leave the room when the three-hour timer was up. Since that seemed unlikely, that left:
Two, they find Chang and either capture, kill, or disable him before he could set off the bombs.
There was little Emmett could do to control the first option. He focused on the second.
Where was Chang?
Emmett attempted to think like a fleeing suspect. Plottner thought Chang had taken off around 7:20, right after agreeing to the deal. Emmett didn’t believe that. Chang would have needed to stay close. What if Plottner, or someone else, had insisted on one last proof-of-life demonstration before handing over the Zcash? What if there had been some other unforeseen wrinkle?
No, Chang had at least stayed nearby—close enough to be able to return to the house, if necessary—until a few seconds after 8:58, when he finally received the money.
At that point, his options were more limited. He would have guessed there was a massive search for him. Bus stations, train stations, and airports would be dangerous, even off limits.
He obviously had some kind of vehicle. He and the other two men had transferred Matt Bronik into something—a van? a truck?—when they vacated the ambulance.
Whatever he was driving, the real question was where he had gone. He’d know there was a good chance the highways and other major thoroughfares were being watched, but New Hampshire had thousands of miles of quiet back roads. Even with the combined efforts of the state police and the federal government, there wouldn’t be enough officers to monitor all of them.
Emmett was in the living room now. His search was not systematic. He was just keeping his eyes open.
Even if Chang had been smart enough to stick to back roads, he still had other issues. Sleeping in a van or truck in New Hampshire in March wasn’t just unpleasant. It was dangerous. You either risked freezing to death, or you kept the engine on and risked carbon monoxide poisoning.
He needed somewhere to stay. If he used a credit card, the authorities would find him quickly. Even if he stayed at some off-brand place that accepted cash deposits, like the Tuck Inn, a hotel clerk would be able to identify the subject of a manhunt as well as anyone.
Then there was the even more difficult problem of how to escape the country. Having five million dollars in untraceable money was only so good if you couldn’t eventually go somewhere to spend it.
Emmett was in the kitchen, lost in his thoughts, not even looking at anything in particular.
Then his gaze fell on a garbage can that was in the middle of the floor. Which was odd. It hadn’t been there the first time he had been through the kitc
hen.
Brigid or Aimee must have taken it out. But why would they?
He walked over and looked down at it. His eyes fell on a Walmart receipt that was sitting atop some of the other trash. He didn’t want to touch it, lest he spoil any fingerprints on it, so he cocked his head to the side to read it.
The item that jumped out at him was third down.
THETFORD QK DSLV TISS 4PK2.44
Thetford. He knew the company. And he knew the product: quick-dissolve toilet tissue. It was specially made for the septic systems of boats and RVs. He had bought some himself for his own RV.
And didn’t that make sense? Whether you wanted a place to stay while you visited your grandchildren or a place to hide out while there was a massive police manhunt for you, a recreational vehicle was a solid choice.
It would be comfortable. And warm enough. Many models had electric heat that you could keep on all night without having to run the engine.
Wherever Johnny Chang was hiding, he was doing it in an RV.
Emmett covered the ground leading back outside with long, urgent strides.
It was 11:14. Forty-four minutes to go.
Brigid, Aimee, Beppe, and David Dafashy had gathered near Emmett’s car. They turned toward him as Emmett approached.
“I think he’s in an RV,” Emmett said. “Johnny Chang. He bought the kind of toilet paper that’s made for RVs.”
Aimee asked, “So what do we—”
“We call every RV-sales-and-rental place in the area, starting in the Lake Sunapee region and moving outward. Tell them it’s an urgent police matter and ask if an Asian man with a sloped forehead has been in their store anytime in the last twenty-four hours.”
“And if they have?” Beppe asked.
“Hand the phone to me.”
Aimee, who had a laptop under her arm, brought it up and set it on the hood of Emmett’s car. A few keystrokes later, she had a list of potential places.
They split it up, started calling.
Emmett’s first try was with the Granite State RV Emporium in nearby New London.
He struck out there.
His next call was Upper Valley RV Sales & Rental in West Lebanon.
There, a woman answered the phone. After Emmett explained who he was and what he was looking for, she electrified him by saying, “We had a man like that in here this morning. He came in a little after nine.”
“Tell me more, please,” Emmett said.
“Well, he wasn’t picky, that’s for sure. We’ve got plenty of stock this time of year. He could have taken pretty much any RV on the lot. He said he didn’t care, just that he’d need it for about a month or so. I told him our midsize option was ninety dollars a day, plus thirty-five cents a mile, and he could have it as long as he liked. He said that sounded great. I asked him if he wanted to see it and he said no, he just wanted to get on the road. We filled out the paperwork and he left.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I probably had him out the door by nine forty-five or so?”
Meaning he could still be anywhere within a fairly wide swath of New Hampshire or Vermont.
But at least they now knew what he was driving.
“What’s the license plate on that vehicle?” Emmett asked.
She gave it to him, along with the make and model.
“What name did he use?”
“Jonathan Manchu Chang. He was real polite. He said people called him Johnny.”
“What kind of ID did you get from him?”
“License and credit card,” she said. “Same as everyone else.”
“And they were both in the name Jonathan Chang?”
“Yeah. The license was Colorado. Don’t see a lot of those around here.”
“Did you photocopy it?”
“Scanned it, actually. Front and back. Want me to email it to you?”
“That’d be great,” Emmett said, providing his address. “And the credit card went through no problem?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “It was a Visa. Want the number?”
Emmett took it. The credit card companies required a subpoena before they gave out most information. Emmett didn’t have that kind of time. But maybe it would be useful later.
“Thank you. Now if you could do me a favor, please assemble and save any evidence you have on Johnny Chang. I’m going to send someone by for it in a bit.”
She said she would; then he rushed her off the phone, eager to call this in to Angus Carpenter. Before long, they would have hundreds of eyeballs looking for Johnny Chang.
And that was a good start.
But he worried it wouldn’t be good enough.
Johnny Chang was one man in one RV in an area of the country that was primarily sparsely populated wilderness.
Impossible to find.
Except.
Emmett was getting an idea.
He called Gary Evans.
Emmett gave the agent a brief rundown of the situation, finishing with, “And now he’s in an RV. He pulled out of Upper Valley RV Sales & Rental on Miracle Mile in West Lebanon at approximately nine forty-five. Would you have any satellites that could tell us where he is now?”
“Officially,” Evans said, “the army doesn’t use its satellites to monitor the activities of American citizens.”
“Unofficially?”
“I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
CHAPTER 65
My lipreading allowed me to eavesdrop on Emmett from a distance. I missed a word here and there, but I got the broad strokes: he had called Gary Evans and asked for the army’s help.
He was then immediately back on the phone, pacing around the driveway, asking his captain to have a SWAT team at the ready.
I related all of this in real time to Beppe and David, who had huddled with me in front of my car. Aimee was sitting in the passenger seat, only half listening through the open window. She was mostly pounding her computer in an attempt to learn more about Jonathan Manchu Chang.
After a few minutes, she called us over.
“Okay, according to what I’ve learned so far, Johnny Chang went to Rice as an undergrad, then Berkeley for grad school.”
“Sheena went to Berkeley,” Beppe said. “They must have met there.”
“Well, then that explains Johnny signing on with Marwari Aiyagari International after he left Berkeley,” Aimee said. “He was the chief technology officer for MAI USA. That’s all according to his LinkedIn profile. And if you only looked at LinkedIn, you’d think he was still there.
“But then I found an article about him in the Denver Post that tells a much different story. Johnny Chang was fired by MAI, and he’s facing a criminal charge for embezzlement in Colorado state courts. It looks like he had set up fake companies that were invoicing MAI for fake services and equipment. He had been arrested, arraigned, and was out on a personal recognizance bond. He was facing at least five years in prison.”
Which corroborated part of Sheena’s story. The rest was easy enough to believe. Sheena preyed on her friend Johnny’s desperation. That it was one more way to stick it to her controlling father only sweetened the deal for her.
David was about to offer some kind of observation, but I immediately shushed him. Emmett had received a phone call.
I didn’t bother with the long-distance lipreading this time. I walked up to him so I wouldn’t miss a word.
Except he was mostly just listening with a look of stony concentration on his face.
As soon as he ended the call, I asked, “What’s happening?”
“The army tracked Johnny Chang for a good while after he left the RV rental place,” Emmett said, talking fast. “But then they lost him. Apparently the satellite they had immediate access to couldn’t see through the trees. Last they saw, he was headed into a place called Gile State Forest. It’s a few thousand acres. We’re starting to search it now.”
I felt an electric charge surge through me. “I know every road and every trail in Gile S
tate Forest. I’ve hiked there hundreds of times.”
He studied me for half a beat, then jerked his thumb toward his unmarked car.
“Why don’t you get in?” he said. “I think the Bomb Squad wants you out of here anyway.”
Without another thought, I climbed into his passenger seat.
“I’m coming too,” Aimee said, moving toward the back seat.
Emmett offered no objection. Within twenty seconds, we were on the move.
It was 11:32. We still had twenty-six minutes. Gile State Forest was a big place, but there were only a few roads in and out. It might not be impossible to find Chang there.
And then?
And then we’d figure it out.
At the top of the driveway, we passed Plottner’s limousine, idling by the side of the road. I thought about calling him, then dismissed it.
His money wasn’t going to help us now.
As Emmett drove, he got his radio connected to the same frequency as the SWAT team, which had been hanging out near the highway. They would make it to Gile ahead of us.
“Evans said Chang went into Gile on Route 4A. Not long after Sugar House Road, he made a turn and that’s where they lost him.”
Another charge went through me. “I know exactly where that is,” I said. “It’s an old logging road that runs through the heart of the forest. It goes up a way and then splits. The left fork heads to an abandoned mine. The right fork dead-ends at some trails.”
Emmett relayed that information to the SWAT team. As he drove, I watched the minutes tick away.
11:38. Then 11:39.
We crossed under the highway, then turned on Route 114. Johnny Chang would have traveled this direction on his trip to Riddle Hill Road and the abandoned house. It made sense that he had scouted out the area and remembered it when he was looking for a place to hide in his RV. Gile State Forest could get crowded during the warmer months, but not this time of year. I was often the only person there when I visited. It was a good place to lie low.