by David Archer
Albertson took out his phone and dialed a number. “This is Inspector George Albertson, SFPD. I need to speak to your lead detective, immediately.”
“Okay,” Albertson said after couple of minutes, “the Petaluma Police Department is going to send officers to Fa Ling Bioengineering to search for Li Chang. Since there’s sufficient evidence to indicate that he could be present, they can operate on the principle of probable cause rather than having to obtain a warrant. I talked to Detective John Tomlinson, he’s going to lead the search and report back to me as soon as he knows anything.”
Sam sighed. “Then all we can do is wait,” he said.
“We can do a lot more than wait,” Garrity said. “We’ve got this guy on murder and attempted kidnapping.”
“That’s true,” Albertson said. “Prichard, we’re going to take him in and start the questioning. Your man, Feinstein, is going to have to come with us.”
“No problem,” Rob said. “Sam, you might want to keep the doctor with you the rest of the night. I’ve got a bad feeling this might not be over anytime soon.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “You, me, my mother-in-law, and an old Civil War ghost.”
Rob grinned, because Ron had told him a couple of stories about Beauregard, but Albertson and Garrity looked at Sam like he’d lost his mind.
“A Civil War ghost?” Garrity asked.
Sam nodded. “He’s a figment of my mother-in-law’s imagination, but somehow, she often gets glimpses of the future. I guess Beauregard, the imaginary ghost, is her way of dealing with her gift. She called my wife an hour ago to tell her to warn me that Beauregard says things are about to get worse, and it turns out she was right again.”
The two inspectors rolled their eyes as they left, and Summer led Daphne down to the room she shared with Jade. Sam posted two of the security men outside their door, then went to his own room and lay down on the bed without even bothering to get out of his clothes.
He hadn’t expected to be able to sleep, but dropped off quickly. Forty-five minutes later, he woke instantly when his phone rang.
“Prichard,” he said.
“It’s George Albertson. Just wanted to let you know that there was no sign of Fei out there, but they did find what looked like an operating room all ready to go. I made sure no one mentioned Chang by name, so he might not know we’ve figured out who he is. If you’re right about him being Yue Fei, then I’m afraid he’s still in the wind.”
“I expected as much,” Sam said. “If he finds out we raided his house, though, he’ll know that. That’ll make him even more angry and dangerous that he was before, you can count on it.”
Albertson hesitated for a moment. “Look, Prichard,” he said, “I understand you kind of outrank me in some ways, and I’m okay with that, but if you get a line on this guy, I want to know it. I’ve lost two good friends to this son of a bitch, and I want to be there when he’s taken into custody.”
“I’ll call you,” Sam said. “I know where you’re coming from, and I want him every bit as bad as you do.”
31
Sam rose at seven, groaning as he told himself that four hours of sleep would have to be enough. He checked in quickly with the rest of the team and found that everyone was safe and accounted for, and they all agreed to meet for breakfast in the restaurant off the lobby.
His hip didn’t like the late nights, so he limped into the bathroom and set the shower for as hot as he could stand, then let the water run over him for several minutes. The heat always helped to some degree, easing some of the tension in the muscles around the joint, and he was walking more easily when he came out to get dressed.
At seven-thirty, he walked into the restaurant and found everyone else already there and waiting, including Rob Feinstein. He shook the big man’s hand and asked how things had gone with the police.
“They took my statement, and that was it. I was only there for about thirty minutes, and then they let me go with the usual warning not to leave town without letting them know. Albertson said it’ll be ruled justifiable homicides, so there isn’t anything to really worry about.”
“Good,” Sam said. The waitress came over then and they all placed their orders, and then Sam related what Albertson had told him about the raid at Fa Ling. The food arrived as he was finishing up.
“We’re going to proceed as we were,” he said as they ate. “Steve and Walter will go back to doing their interviews today, as if they’re still trying to identify Williamson’s accomplice. If Chang shows up for work, which I doubt, then I want him brought in for his interview around midmorning. That’ll give us time to get SFPD in place, and we might be able to take him without a lot of trouble, but my guess would be that he’s got other triad members working there, as well.”
“Good chance,” Darren said, and Pat nodded his agreement. “I’d have someone watching my back, if I were him.”
Joel looked at Sam. “But if nobody knows who he is, how could they watch over him? He’d have to let them know he was Fei, and what if they decided to just kill him once they knew that?”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Walter said. “He’d tell them that Chang was someone important to him, because of his job in the company, and that it was their job to keep him safe, no matter what they had to do.”
Sam nodded. “I agree with Walter. As far we know, there’s no one who has met Fei face-to-face.” He turned to Joel. “Tell me something,” he said. “Is there any way to block his signal, if we get him someplace we can take him?”
“Yes. The signal from the chip to the cell phone relay is Bluetooth, which is based on signal-hopping in the 2.4 megahertz band. All we’d have to do is introduce an overwhelming signal on all seventy-nine frequencies in that band, and he won’t be able to send or receive anything. We’ve got a signal noise generator in the labs that can do it easily, but it’d have to be in the room with him.”
“Is it something small enough to hide?” Sam asked.
Joel grinned. “I’m talking to Stanley Harper now,” he said. “He’s at work already, so I told him to get one and put it in the interview room, but not to let anyone know what he’s doing. And it’s small enough to fit into his pocket, so he can put it up under the table and no one will even know it’s there.”
“Okay, good. Last thing we’d need would be for him to call for help when we go to take him down.” He cleared his throat. “Now, that’s for the off chance that he shows up for work. If he knows we hit his house, then he won’t be there. If that turns out to be the case, and it most likely will, then we need to find some way to determine where he’s going to go next. He’ll know for sure that we compromised his operating room, so he won’t be going back to Fa Ling. That means he’s going to be hunting for another one, and another doctor to perform the operation.”
Daphne waved a hand at him. “Mr. Prichard? I have a thought.”
Sam smiled at her. “Yes, Doctor?”
“What if I were to send a text message, saying that I am willing to do the surgery, but that I am angry about what happened in the night? If I demand more money, because of being placed in danger, perhaps he might find it believable.”
“Aw, he’d never go for it, Sam,” Steve said. “He’d figure it was a trap and ignore it.”
Sam looked at Daphne for a long moment. “I’m not so sure about that, Steve. First off, he’s probably getting desperate, and desperation makes people make mistakes. Second, he’d almost certainly think it’s a trap, but he’d also think he could beat it and still get the doctor. And third, I can’t come up with a better idea.” He turned back to Daphne. “Go ahead. Let’s see if you get a response at all.”
She smiled and bent over her phone, and a moment later she looked at him again. “It's done,” she said.
“Okay, we’ll see if he bothers to reply. Now, Rob, I want you and your guys to stay on the doctor at all times. The rest of us can take care of ourselves, and Joel and Becky will be with us. I think...”
Daphne’s
phone chimed, and all eyes turned to her. She looked at the message she had received and then handed the phone to Sam.
The bloodshed was unfortunate, it said. However, I do still need your services. My original plan has been compromised, but I am making new arrangements even now. Your new fee is acceptable. Wait for me to summon you.
“Making new arrangements,” Sam mused. “Where could he find another operating room on short notice?”
Joel closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again and looked at Sam. “There are sixteen active hospitals in San Fran alone,” he said, “and more than fifty within another ten-mile radius outside it. There are also more than eighty clinics that have operating rooms of their own in that range, and twenty-two unused hospitals and clinics that are still intact as far as their facilities go. Sixteen of those are up for sale or lease, which means they still have power and such and could conceivably be used.”
“Holy cow,” Sam said. “That many? That’s a lot of options to try to cover, but we might not have to worry about doing it ourselves.” He took out his phone and dialed Indie.
“Sam?” she said as she answered. “Everything okay?”
“Well, I’m safe,” he said. “The case is coming together, but we’ve got one issue that’s giving us problems, and I thought I’d see what Herman can do with it. I’m sending you a photo of our suspect, and Joel is going to send you a list of hospitals and clinics that are shut down, but still have functional operating rooms. Can you have Herman scan and see if any of them have functional security cameras and watch for this guy to show up at any of them? Actually, if he sees any activity at all, that would probably be something we’d want to check out.”
“Sure, babe,” she said. “Bo is down for a nap and Kenzie is gone to school, so give me a few minutes to get it all set up. Send it to your email?”
“Not unless you get something. I hate to ask, but I need you to watch and see if anything turns up. The rest of us are going to be working other angles.”
“No problem,” Indie said. “I’ve got this.”
Sam put the phone away and looked at the others again. “Indie’s got that part covered; any of those places that have video security she can reach will soon be under the watchful eye of Herman, who still amazes me at least twice a day. If Chang or anyone else shows up at any she can watch, we’ll know about it immediately. Now, what else can we do at the moment?”
“Where do we stand on Fa Ling?” Denny asked. “Since we’ve got evidence of their involvement, it might pay for some of us to go out there and start asking questions. I mean, if Chang was going there for the operation, someone out there must know him, right?”
“That’s a good idea,” Sam said. “I’ll call Ron and get us some backing from D.C. on that. You and Summer can handle that, while Darren and Jade come to C-Link with the rest of us.”
He took out his phone and called Ron, who then called his current contact at Homeland Security. Within ten minutes, they had produced a warrant allowing Denny and Summer to supervise a search of Fa Ling Bioengineering’s entire facility and interrogation of its employees.
They finished eating and headed out to their individual assignments. Rob and his men escorted Daphne up to her room to get her briefcase, and then they followed Sam, Joel, Pat, and Becky. Darren and Jade rode in Darren’s rental car, while Summer and Denny took the one the girls had been provided by C-Link.
When they got to the corporate offices at just after eight-fifteen, Joel announced that Li Chang had failed to show up for work, as they’d expected. Sam told Steve to continue the interviews anyway, to try to give the impression that they still didn’t know who the accomplice had been, while he went with Daphne to meet Dr. Prentiss.
Once the introductions had been made, Sam left her there with her guard team and took Joel, Pat, and Becky along as he got his own tour of the place. Joel was happy to show them around, telling them what each section was working on and bragging about the accomplishments and breakthroughs they had made.
“This is the paralysis lab,” he said at one point. “I want you to meet someone here, give me a—oh, there he is. Adam, hey. Are you busy at the moment?”
A short man in his early forties turned around and smiled. “No, not at all,” he said. “What can I do for you, Joel?”
“I want to introduce you to some people,” Joel replied. “Adam Meeks, this is Sam Prichard, Pat Morgan, and Becky McGill. They’re working on the investigation into the theft of the chip, but I’m showing them around.”
Adam smiled and extended a hand. “My pleasure,” he said. “Did Joel tell you why I’m here?”
Sam smiled. “No. I’m guessing you’re one of the specialists working on the paralysis problem?”
Adam laughed. “Nope,” he said. “I’m the guinea pig. I was paralyzed more than thirty years ago, when I was hit by a car while riding a bicycle. I was only twelve at the time, and it took me almost three years to regain enough mobility to even use a wheelchair and feed myself. Joel got me involved in this program two years ago, when they needed test subjects for artificial nerves, and I was the second one they tried them on.” He spread his arms and turned around. “Hard to believe I hadn’t walked or shaken anyone’s hand in twenty-nine years, isn’t it?”
“Wow,” Sam said. “You were totally paralyzed?”
“I had limited use of my arms, but not my hands. I had to use clips on my hands to hold a spoon or fork, and I could just push a wheelchair along with the heels of my hands. They started out with artificial nerves that reconnected my spinal cord to my arms, and it took about a month to get full use of my hands back. Then they brought me back in and did the same with my legs, and I spent eight months learning to walk again, but now I can even take my wife out dancing.” He chuckled. “Of course, now she knows I’ve got two left feet and I’m a lousy dancer, but she never turns me down when I ask.”
“That is incredible,” Becky said. “How long have you been married?”
“It’ll be sixteen years next June,” Adam said with a smile. “Annie was my physical therapist, and she said it was the fact I never lost my sense of humor that made her fall for me, but I think it was my stubbornness. I asked her out for over a year before she finally gave in and said yes, but then she had to stop seeing me professionally, of course. It would have been an ethics issue to date her client, so she palmed me off on one of her colleagues.”
“That’s an incredible story, Adam,” Becky said. “And now she’s reaping the rewards of having faith in you.”
“Darn right,” said a woman who had come in from the hallway. “Hi, I’m Annie Meeks, proudest wife in all of San Francisco.”
She shook hands all around and Adam made the introductions, and then he led them to three of the other “guinea pigs.” Martin Leeman had been in the same shape as Adam, though not for as long; he’d fallen off a building he was working on three years earlier and broken his back. Deanna Jackson had been paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident, and Leroy Bennett had lost the use of his entire left side after a stroke.
The tour continued with a walk through the prosthetics labs, where they met men and women who were the experimental recipients of feet, legs, arms, and hands. They shook hands with one woman who seemed perfectly intact, only to find out that her right arm had been lost from the elbow down. The one she was wearing was so lifelike that Sam was amazed.
“That is incredible,” he said after she showed him that she could take it off. The seam where it met her real arm was inside a sleeve, so it would go unnoticed under most circumstances. “How did you happen to get into the testing program?”
“Oh, that was easy.” She laughed. “I’m a design engineer who specializes in synthetic skin. I was looking for funding to start my own company making artificial skin that looked real, and Dr. Prentiss saw me at an expo. I had a pretty good prosthetic hand then, but it didn’t look real, so he asked me why I hadn’t covered it with my own invention, and I answered that it hadn�
�t occurred to me yet. He made an offer to buy my patents that was more than I’d ever make on my own, and then he offered me the job of running the department that put it to use. I took both, and the first one we made with my skin is the one you see right now.”
Joel led them into the hallway again, and Sam stopped him.
“Joel,” he said, “you said Chang is an engineer who actually worked on developing the chips, right? How did he come to get the job?”
Joel furrowed his brow. “He’s been here longer than me,” he said. “Just a minute.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then looked at Sam again. “It turns out he was recruited straight out of college. He was top of his class in bioelectrical engineering, and actually had offers from several different companies. C-Link offered the best compensation package, I guess.”
Sam looked at him, chewing his cheek for a moment. “What about friends?” he asked. “Do you know if he had any friends in the company?”
Once again, Joel closed his eyes for a few seconds. “The company actually keeps records on things like that,” he said. “Chang is actually considered a loner. He didn’t seem to have any real friends in the company at all, and it doesn’t seem that he had much of a social life. He’s got a Facebook page, but other than occasionally posting something obscure, like a YouTube video he liked, there isn’t really any activity on it. I can’t even find him on Twitter, or any other social networks.”
“What about girlfriends? Or even boyfriends, for that matter?”
“There is no mention of any significant other in his personnel file, and nothing in his Facebook page to suggest that there’s anyone special to him. In fact, he puts in so many hours working here that he probably wouldn’t have time for anyone else. He’s on salary, so he doesn’t actually have to put in overtime, but he’s been averaging about seventy hours a week since he started working here.”
“Okay, what about other families? Parents, siblings?”
“According to what he told us when he was hired, his parents live in San Diego. He has one brother, named Liu, but he’s in the Air Force.”