The Curator: SG Trilogy Book 2 (Abby Kane FBI Thriller 8)

by Ty Hutchinson

  He had a point, but I disagreed with it. And that was the end of that discussion. I said nothing more about our visit, opting to drop the subject until I could better understand my own feelings and why my gut raised a flag with this guy. With that said, the drive to the burrito place was solemn, but once we each had a hand wrapped around that oblong tasty goodness, all was good.

  I’d packed a duffle bag containing workout clothes. After seeing what Xiaolian was capable of from our first meeting, I wanted to see what else she could do.

  Again Yates met us in the reception area and escorted us to Xiaolian. I inquired about Watkins, and Yates said he had other obligations that morning. The procedure was the same. I was to meet Xiaolian in the recreation room, and Kang would accompany Yates into the observation booth.

  I changed into my workout gear before entering the room. The minute Xiaolian saw me, her face lit up, and she ran over to me for a hug.

  “I’m so happy to see you,” she said, beaming from ear to ear. “Why are you wearing shorts?”

  “I thought we’d train for a bit.”

  “What kind of training?”

  I took her hand and led her over to the mat. “Do you know how to grapple?”

  “You mean wrestle?”

  “Yeah.”

  She pushed me down until I was in the referee bottom position, essentially on my hands and knees, sitting back on my heels with my toes tucked under them. Xiaolian moved into the referee top position. She dropped down behind me, placing her right knee on the mat, while keeping her left raised. Next to her knee on the mat, she grabbed hold of my arm just above the elbow and then hooked her other arm around my far side, gripping my stomach.

  “On the count of three,” she said. “One. Two. Three.”

  She pushed forward, yanking my right arm out from under me. I rolled forward with the momentum, forcing her up and over. I continued rolling until I was on top of her, where I easily pinned her shoulders.

  “Come on. Let’s go again,” I said, as I got off of her. It was clear she’d had some training, as she did utilize a move, but my size and weight were an advantage.

  I allowed her to retain the same position behind me: the offensive position. Three times in a row, she tried unsuccessfully to roll me onto my back. The weight difference between us would be problematic. I stood up, extending my hand to help her off the mat. She gripped it and popped up.

  “Maybe we should try something else,” I said, standing as I rested my hands on my hips.

  “I know,” she said.

  Before I could say another word, she dropped down and executed a leg sweep, taking me off my feet. I landed flat on my side. A second later, she pounced on me, moving into a full mount position. Instinctively, I hooked both arms around her and pulled her tight against my chest.

  But this time, her size gave her the advantage.

  Xiaolian easily slipped out of my grasp and moved forward, sliding her left knee into my armpit. Then she brought her other leg up and planted her right foot flat on the mat. I knew exactly what she was attempting—a Kimura, a painful armlock. She’d had Brazilian jiujitsu training.

  Xiaolian pushed down on my head to break my grip around her, while at the same time trapping my left arm between her right thigh and her side. If she broke my grip, she would then need only to push down on my trapped arm, and I could either give in or end up with a broken arm.

  I planted my feet against the mat and pushed down, arching my torso up. Xiaolian’s feet left the mat, and she lost her leverage. I bucked up once more with as much force as I could muster, and Xiaolian fell off of me.

  I didn’t stop there.

  Neither did she.

  We both scrambled for the dominant position. I was quicker and moved into a side mount. With Xiaolian on her back, and I on top of her perpendicularly from the side, I hooked an arm under her back and coiled my other over her chest. I shoved my right knee into her rib cage, preventing her from wiggling back and forth. I then applied the Kimura armlock on her. Within seconds, she tapped the mat in defeat.

  I got up off of her and leaned back on my hands. “Where did you learn to grapple?”

  “Doesn’t everybody know how to grapple?” she asked as she sat up.

  I arched an eyebrow. “Uh, no. Is that what it’s like where you’re from?”

  “I always thought so. I mean, the other kids my age all knew how to grapple and box.”

  “Interesting. Care to tell me more about these other kids?”

  “What’s to tell? We had a lot of fun together.”

  “Were you related?”

  “Um, I think so. They were always around. We grew up together. Why? Am I being sent back?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But it sounds like it. Why can’t I just come home with you?”

  “I’m working on some sort of arrangement.”

  “You said that last time. I don’t understand why I have to stay here. I feel like a prisoner.”

  “You’re not. It’s just that… well, we need to make sure you’re safe, and we want to learn more about you. The Chan brothers came after you—that doesn’t happen to the average person. Does that make sense?”

  She nodded, and her gaze fell to the mat.

  “But I want you to know that I’m working on a solution. I promise.”

  “I hope so. I don’t want to go back home.”

  At that point, Kang popped into the room holding a paper bag. “I’ve got a treat for you.”

  Xiaolian jumped to her feet and ran toward him. “What is it? Tell me.”

  Kang removed the burrito from the bag and handed it to her. “It’s received our seal of quality goodness.”

  Xiaolian tore the foil off the top of the burrito. “What is it?” she asked before sniffing it.

  “You’ve never had a burrito?” Kang asked. “Well, I won’t say anything more. You need to take a bite.”

  She did and swooned, nearly toppling over. “Mmmmmm,” she mumbled as she took another bite, even before swallowing the one already in her mouth.

  She said something else, but I couldn’t understand her with all that food in her mouth.

  “Looks like we have another member in our food club,” Kang said.

  Xiaolian destroyed that burrito like a champ. For some absurd reason, I felt like a proud mama.

  She plopped on the floor and leaned back, resting on her hands, with her belly bump protruding through her shirt. “That was the best thing ever. Count me in the next time.”

  With a load of eggs, chorizo, fried potatoes, cheese, and other good stuff inside of Xiaolian’s belly, there would be no more training.

  “We didn’t eat like this back where I’m from,” Xiaolian said. “Our meals were boring. Usually rice, some pork or fish, and vegetables, and we were never allowed big meals like this burrito.”

  “Welcome to America,” I said. “Land of humongous portions.”

  Yates entered the room just then, saying he had to cut our visit short that day. When I asked him why, he essentially ignored my question. I had sort of thought the guy was on our side or at least neutral, being a doctor and all. Maybe not. Kang and I both gave Xiaolian a hug before leaving.

  As usual, we kept our mouths shut until we were sealed away in our vehicle, with no one listening.

  “Still think she’s not a spy?” he asked as we drove away from the facility. “She exhibited other forms of training today. Almost had you with… What do they call that move?”

  “It’s called a Kimura.”

  “I’m telling you, Abby, the more I see, the more I buy into the cautionary tale the government is spinning—a twelve-year-old with her intelligence and trained in hand-to-hand combat. It wouldn’t surprise me if she has also had weapons training. Probably counter-surveillance training too. She might even be toying around with the doctors, you know, giving them—”

  “Okay, okay, enough already,” I said. “I get your point.”

  “Plus there’
s her admission of others like her.”

  I didn’t want to agree, but Kang was right. What twelve-year-old possessed those types of skills?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Later that night, after the kids were in bed, I headed up to my home office on the third floor. Something about our meeting with techie Barnes that morning continued to nag me. I couldn’t place my finger on what it was, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. And in my experience, that always meant there was something there.

  I turned on my laptop and logged into the secure server at the Bureau. I wanted to see if the ViCap (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) database had anything on Barnes. While its purpose was to collect information on homicides, sexual assaults, and other violent crimes, it did house information on kidnappings and missing persons.

  Barnes came up empty.

  Around town, Barnes was known to have a revolving door of beauties. I wasn’t exactly sure if he had family nearby, so if he had indeed been abducted, would anyone have noticed and cared enough to have reported him as missing? Were his friends really his friends or just money-sucking leeches? What about his partners at his old start-up? Did they care? Whatever the reason, I figured if a missing-persons report had been filed on the tech titan, it most likely would be with SFPD.

  I browsed aimlessly through the photos of missing persons; some of them dated back forty years. I clicked on a picture of two teen girls; both had last been seen on October 31, 1969. The report said they weren’t known to be friends, but it was thought that they had skipped school together that Halloween day.

  Then I did a search for missing persons in the Bay Area over the last six months. As I perused the information, something caught my attention. Some of the cases had been rescinded. It wasn’t common, especially for our database; this was more likely to happen with reports filed with the local police. In two cases, family members had made the reports, but had rescinded them twelve to eighteen hours later. My guess was they had found the missing person. It happened.

  So why did one, a doctor—a brain surgeon, no less—stand out to me? Maybe it was because I could understand a known party guy going missing for a day, but a brain surgeon with a successful practice?

  Still unsure of why I continued to look at these files, I dug deeper on the doctor. According to the website for his practice, he was at John Hopkins in Washington, DC before moving to the Bay Area. He was married and had three children.

  According to the report, the wife thought her husband flew to New York for a speaking engagement, but she had the dates on her calendar mixed. When he hadn’t answered his cell phone, she called the hotel to leave a message but was told he wasn’t staying there. Thinking something happened to him, she panicked and filed a missing persons report with NYPD. That he supposedly went missing in New York but lived in California may be the reason why it was in the Bureau’s database. She freaked. Happens all the time.

  I yawned.

  It had been a long day; that nagging feeling would just have to wait. I shut my laptop, headed downstairs to my bedroom, and fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What?” Kang jerked his head back as wrinkles formed on his forehead. “Are you serious?”

  “I am. So start driving, because we’re wasting time. Head south on Polk.”

  During our drive back from the facility the day before, Kang and I had discussed taking Xiaolian out for a little field trip. Nothing big, maybe lunch. We’d agreed it would go a long way toward making her feel better and more inclined to opening up to us. But I had other plans first.

  “I don’t get it, Abby. We did this yesterday with Barnes, and now you have another person you want to question?”

  “I realize that, but are you listening to what I’m saying about this missing-persons case?”

  “Abby, we already have a case. It’s Xiaolian. You can’t go chasing every whim that flutters your way.”

  “Flutter? Whim? Relax, GI Joe. We’re still chasing the spy angle, but I just want to dual-path this thing.”

  “What thing? These missing persons are not a ‘thing.’” Kang slouched a bit in his seat and pouted like a little boy not getting his way.

  I turned away and stared out of my window. I couldn’t understand why there was so much pushback from him. It wasn’t like we were behind schedule or had a deadline. It was an hour out of our morning. No biggie.

  “Okay, then help me understand your thought process,” he said.

  “It’s simple. I think there’s something funky going on, and I want to find out what it is. Just play along. If it turns out to be nothing, it’ll be apparent to both of us, and if something’s there, you won’t need me to explain anything—because you’ll get it.”

  “Who’s this guy anyway?”

  “Lyle Hammond. He’s a successful brain surgeon who has been running his own practice in the city for fifteen years. Before that, he was in DC at Johns Hopkins. He’s married and has three children.”

  Kang said nothing.

  “Stop here.” I pointed.

  “What? The doctor’s practice is on Polk?”

  “No, Bob’s Donut Shop is.” Apple fritters always made everything better between us.

  On the drive to the doctor’s practice, we each wolfed down a fritter that was perfectly crisp, with generous amounts of filling.

  The doctor’s practice was located in the Transamerica Pyramid building, the white triangular building famously associated with San Francisco’s skyline.

  “Is he in the actual triangle or the other, normal-looking, building behind it?”

  I checked the address once more on my phone. “Um, I think he’s actually in the pyramid, twenty-sixth floor. This will be a first for me.”

  “Same here.”

  “We each get to check this off our bucket lists. You’re welcome.”

  “There used to be an observation deck, but they shut it down after 9/11,” Kang said. “I heard that only tenants and their guests are allowed beyond the lobby area.”

  “Good thing we’ve got all-access passes, courtesy of the FBI.”

  It was nine-thirty a.m. when we arrived at Hammond’s office. There were no patients in the waiting area, and the young lady sitting behind the reception desk was engrossed with her cell phone.

  “Hello. I’m Agent Kane. This is Agent Kang. We’d like to speak to Dr. Lyle Hammond.”

  The girl casually looked up at us. “Um, okay. What is this regarding?”

  “Just tell him the FBI is here. That should be plenty enough motivation.”

  “Okay,” she said as she placed the handset of her desk phone against her ear and relayed my words. “It’ll be just a minute; please have a seat.”

  About a hot minute later, Hammond appeared from a hallway to the left of the reception desk. He looked better in person than in the picture on the website. He kept his wavy brown hair, with streaks of gray, parted in the middle. His groomed five o’clock shadow complemented his chiseled jawline. He dressed in black slacks and a charcoal-gray dress shirt—no tie. The outfit was more dressy than business. And he could have held back a bit on the aftershave.

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Lyle Hammond. How may I be of help?” Two dimples appeared when he smiled.

  “We have a few questions we’d like to ask you,” I said as I stood. “Is there somewhere we can speak in private?”

  “Yes, of course. My office is back this way.”

  Hammond’s office looked as if it belonged to some slick hedge-fund manager on Wall Street rather than a doctor—at least from my experience. I expected overstuffed files, x-rays piled high on his desk, and an anatomical model of a brain sitting somewhere. Nope, it was a lot of glass and brushed steel, and everything was perfectly in place.

  “Please, have a seat,” he said as he pointed at the two chairs in front of his desk. He scooted around his desk and sat in an ergonomically perfect Aeron chair.

  “A few months ago, you were reported missing by you
r wife?”

  “Missing?” He chuckled. “I think you’re mistaken.”

  “No, I’m not. She filed the report but later had it rescinded.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, yes, my wife…” He threw both hands up into the air. “She’s a worry wart, and sometimes her imagination gets the best of her. A harmless mistake, that’s all. I hope that’s not the reason why you came here, because there’s not much else to tell.”

  “Is that so?”

  He shrugged.

  “Why don’t you tell us where you were?” I asked, even though I already knew from the notes in the report.

  “I went out with some friends, and time got away from me. You know how it is,” he said as he looked at Kang with questioning eyes.

  “Your wife reported that you were missing for almost eighteen hours.”

  “What can I say? It was all a mistake. I’m sorry if she caused any problems.” Hammond lazily crossed a leg over the other as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Five years,” I said.

  “Five years?” Hammond smiled and frowned at the same time. “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s the jail time you can receive for making false statements to a federal agent.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  I traced a circle around my face. “Does it look like I’m joking?”

  Hammond’s smile disappeared, and he sat up in his chair.

  I said, “Let’s try this again. What happened?”

  “Okay, it’s true. I was missing, if that’s what you want to call it.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “I don’t know. Look, I was too embarrassed to say anything, so I just kept blowing off the accusation, but the truth is I left the office, and the next thing I knew I woke up inside my car at Ocean Beach. I can’t remember a damn thing between the moment I left my office to when I opened my eyes and saw the beach in front of me. Complete blackout, and no, I wasn’t drinking, and I don’t do drugs. Even my wife and close friends don’t know the truth.”