Shadow Girl

by Gerry Schmitt

  She’d been fifteen years old when she and her missionary parents had been expelled from China by a new government led by the young and brash Mao Zedong. They’d packed up hymnals, crosses, and everything they owned and fled to Cambodia, where they’d set up a temporary church in the middle of a snake-infested jungle. Baby Jesus had been a tough sell to the men of the Khmer Rouge and, four months later, her parents were murdered, hacked to bits one night as they slept on their cots. A Cambodian woman she’d befriended helped smuggle her away. When they finally crossed the border into Thailand, she was put into an orphanage. That lasted only a few weeks until the head of the orphanage, an unsavory man named Kim Duk, sold her as a child prostitute to a madam in Bangkok.

  Bangkok had been nothing short of bizarre—the young girls, the aberrant sexual needs of the older men, the craziness of the clattering, overcrowded city. But she had been an oddly curious girl and a sexual prodigy of sorts. With her porcelain white skin and fluent English, she soon became a favorite of the American GI’s who came to Bangkok for R & R, on leave and trying to forget the horrendous, bloody fighting in Korea.

  Three years later, a rising brothel star, she was confident enough to engineer her own move. She bribed her way into a higher-class brothel located in the Rattanakosin section of Bangkok. There she began to entertain men who were high up in the military and the Thai government. She learned sex tricks, improved her Thai and Chinese language skills, and became adept at flattering and charming older men. Within a few years, she met her future husband, Somchai Homhuan. He was a Thai arms dealer, smuggler, and crime boss. None of that mattered. She’d already seen and done it all. And she’d learned the most important lesson in life—that a person had to scratch and claw and kill for every single baht they earned and any sliver of respect they hoped to get.

  It wasn’t long before she became Homhuan’s wife and, eventually, his trusted business partner. Her new Thai name, Mom Chao Cherry, which meant Her Serene Highness Princess, had started out as a private joke between the two of them. A pet name and a gentle jibe at her proclivity for first class travel, expensive jewelry, and need to spend money as wildly as the Thai royal family. Then it evolved into her given name. A decade after giving blowjobs to Japanese businessmen who traveled to Bangkok on corporate-sponsored sex trips, she’d risen to what was known in Thailand as Hi-So, or high society. It was the absolute pinnacle of success.

  Three years ago, Homhuan was killed, murdered by men from the rival Kham cartel, who ruled the Golden Triangle, that sliver of land where Burma, Thailand, and Laos came together and poppies were the most prolific cash crop.

  After Homhuan was gone, it seemed only right for her to step in and oversee the entire organization.

  Mom Chao Cherry gazed out the window at the night sky. It was early spring, and Cassiopeia hung lazily just to the left of Draco. The lady was tipped back in her chair, a celestial goddess surveying her heavens. Mom Chao Cherry decided it was a very auspicious sign for what was yet to come.

  6

  IT was shot down,” Deputy Chief Gerald Thacker said. “The NTSB suspects a surface-to-air missile.” He was standing at the head of a long table in Conference Room A. His hair lay flat against his head, looking a little wonky, the normally razor-sharp pleat in his trousers was long gone, and Thacker’s voice was raspy and hoarse. Afton recognized that Thacker was wearing some of the same clothes she’d seen him in last night, and it was readily apparent that the man was exhausted. He’d most likely spent the entire night fielding questions from every law enforcement agency, politico, and power broker in the state.

  Afton didn’t envy him. Thacker was generally on the front end of things, walking point and running interference. And he was good at it. He was a savvy, highly capable individual who, for the most part, was a well-liked, affable boss who wasn’t afraid to grab the reins. But this crash, this explosion, had rocked him from the top of his head to the soles of his wingtip shoes. Because this type of deliberate, premeditated, terrorist-type attack just didn’t happen in the Twin Cities. Which meant that Thacker, and everyone else, was justifiably on edge.

  Afton sat at the far end of the table next to Max quietly sipping her double espresso java Aftershock. Two other detectives, Dick Dillon and Andy Farmer, sat across from them. Dillon was the only non–coffee drinker in the room, preferring to get his requisite caffeine fix from the latest neon-flavored Mountain Dew.

  “Terrorists?” Max asked.

  “We don’t know,” Thacker said. “But it would be strange. Records indicate that the helicopter was a Bell 407, which I’m told is the most common type of chopper used as an air ambulance. It was making a medical delivery to the university hospital.”

  “What happened to the pilots?” Dillon asked. He’d come late to the party and wasn’t up on all the details.

  “The medical examiner is sorting that out right now,” Thacker said. “What’s left of them.”

  “Were there any passengers on board?” Dillon asked.

  “Not exactly,” Max said. He glanced sideways at Afton and said, “The only cargo the helicopter was carrying was a heart.”

  Dillon did a double take. “Human?”

  “No, a chicken heart,” Max said. “Of course it was a human heart. Family Liaison Officer Tangler and I found that puppy on ice right after the cooler it was packed in blew through a window into some kids’ dorm room.”

  Afton grimaced at both the memory of the heart and at her title, liaison officer. More than anything else, she longed to earn the title of detective. But that, she’d been told, was still some years away. Many years, unless she figured out a tricky way to circumvent the system.

  “Some poor bastard must have been awfully disappointed,” Dillon said. He was a short, overweight, florid-faced cardiac patient-in-waiting. He was also a fairly decent detective, though he could be wildly inappropriate at times. This was one of those times.

  “Do we know if the heart was being transported for anyone in particular?” Afton asked.

  “Yes. It was earmarked for Leland Odin,” Thacker replied.

  “Name’s familiar,” Max said. “Can’t place it, though.”

  “He’s the CEO of Diamond Shopping Network,” Thacker said.

  Dillon’s eyes went wide. “Holy crap, that’s big money!”

  “All the money in the world might not buy him another donor heart,” Thacker said. “Word was, Odin was prepped and waiting in an operating suite at the university hospital last evening. Waiting for that particular heart. Seems he was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy some six months ago.”

  Max shook his head in disbelief. “You gotta be kidding me. He was that close to getting a new heart?”

  “And then it all went boom,” Dillon said. He nudged Farmer with an elbow.

  “And we’re positive the heart was for this guy Odin?” Farmer asked.

  “So the doctors tell us,” Thacker said. He picked up a piece of paper and read from it. “Motorcycle accident in Madison, Wisconsin, yesterday afternoon. Twenty-two-year-old Matt Havers swerved to miss a deer, drove into a ditch, and flipped his bike three times. Mr. Havers died on his way to the hospital.”

  “Donor cycle,” Max said under his breath.

  “Is Mr. Odin still alive?” Afton asked. She was getting geared up to meet with the family.

  “He is,” Thacker said. “Though the university hospital lists his condition as extremely critical.”

  “What about the heart?” Farmer asked. “Could it be saved? I mean, even if it’s been sitting in the gutter for a couple of hours, it’s gotta be better than what Dillon has under the hood.”

  Max rolled his eyes. “Oh Christ. Here we go.”

  But Farmer was on a tear. “I got some jumper cables in my car, maybe we can get it started again.”

  “Screw you, Andy,” Dillon said. “This is some serious shit.”

  Thacker waited until the laughter died down. “I’m afraid Mr. Odin’s heart was not salvageable.”


  Afton had recognized the name immediately. Leland Odin was the man behind Diamond Shopping Network, a home-shopping company that was headquartered out in the western burbs. He was a man who’d started a small chain of dollar stores, jumped to television with direct-response infomercials, then went multi-platform in sales and became a gazillionaire along the way.

  “Wait a minute,” Max said. “Was this an act of terrorism or do you think somebody shot down that helo to keep Mr. Odin from getting his heart? Why would they go to the trouble? The damn surgery is risky enough as it is.”

  “Terrorism . . . sabotage . . . they’re both theories we’re floating around,” Thacker said. He pulled his mouth into a grim line.

  “So two pilots killed and at least three dozen people injured by crash debris,” Max said.

  “It could be attempted murder as well as a double homicide,” Afton said under her breath. “A crime within a crime.”

  Thacker heard her. “I want to keep everything under wraps for now until we get a handle on the facts.”

  “If someone was gunning for Leland Odin, you’re not going to be able to keep it quiet for long,” Afton said. “People are going to start asking questions.”

  “People already have,” Thacker said.

  “The media?” Max asked.

  Thacker exhaled deeply and rocked back on his heels. “They’re the least of our problems. Right now, I’m fending off inquiries from Odin’s family, his business partner, and, unfortunately, two city council members, as well as our own Governor Lindsay. The governor . . . well, let’s just say he and Odin are good friends. They went to school together at St. Paul Academy.”

  “And I’m guessing that Odin probably contributed a shit load of money to Lindsay’s last campaign,” Max said.

  “There’s always going to be big-time political muck that we have to wade through,” Thacker said. “So put on your rubber boots and keep your head on straight.” He cocked an eye at Afton. “And when it comes to the family, you’re especially going to have your work cut out for you.”

  “Did someone want to kill Odin? Along with two pilots?” Farmer asked.

  “Helicopters don’t just explode on their own,” Max said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Not usually,” Thacker said. “Which is why the NTSB and our Crime Scene guys have been working over the debris since eleven o’clock last night.”

  “What have they found so far?” Afton asked. If the family asked, she wanted to be ready.

  “Like I said before, the NTSB is thinking surface-to-air missile,” Thacker said.

  “Fired from where?” Max asked.

  “And where the hell does somebody get a freaking missile?” Afton asked.

  Thacker raised both hands as if he were a preacher about to bestow a blessing. “You tell me. The missile, I don’t know. Probably military, which means there’s a huge security problem somewhere. As to where it was fired from, we haven’t got that pinpointed. We’ve had patrol officers going door to door last night and first thing this morning. Plus, we’ve got our guys as well as two physics professors from the university analyzing copies of our videos. We’re hoping they can determine some sort of trajectory path.”

  “How would they do that?” Afton asked.

  “For one thing, we have video from three different cams,” Thacker said. “They’re gonna use the different angles and factor in the distance and velocity to figure out where the missile might have originated.”

  “No witnesses?” Farmer asked.

  “Only for the actual explosion. But the tech guys down in the Batcave have a copy of a video that a kid shot on his GoPro. They’re cleaning it up so we can review it.”

  “What about the news stations?” Afton asked. “Every one of them has some kind of weather tracking Doppler. Maybe we could use that as well.”

  “Good thought,” Thacker said. “I’ll make a couple of calls.”

  Before he could say another word, a young man Afton didn’t recognize entered the room with a monitor on a rolling cart. The young man had a shaved head and a bushy black beard. He was wearing a brown HAN SHOT FIRST T-shirt and faded blue jeans.

  “Here we go,” Max said.

  “So we’re going to Zapruder it?” Afton asked.

  Thacker’s head jerked in her direction. “What’d you say?”

  Afton scrunched down in her chair. “You know, watch it frame by frame, like the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination. The FBI watched it frame by frame to try to figure out how many shots were fired and from what location.”

  “Lone gunman, my ass,” Dillon hissed.

  Black beard cleared his throat. He’d been plugging in cords and fiddling with a laptop computer. “Uh . . . I’m Jeremy Payne?”

  “Mr. Payne,” Thacker said. “Thank you. People, this is the new team leader of our IT Division.”

  The crew mumbled introductions, then Payne said, “We’ve been working on this with the NTSB. You guys ready to see the vid?”

  “Let’s do it,” Max said as Afton jumped up and flipped off the light switch.

  “What we have here,” Payne explained, “is rough footage shot via a GoPro.”

  Afton sat on the edge of her chair transfixed as the image on the screen came to life. There was a shot of gray clouds scudding along a dark sky as the camera made a panning motion, then the camera dipped down to show the dark river.

  “The vid gets kind of muddy here,” Payne said.

  The footage continued to roll. The camera zoomed left, catching a row of trees, wavered a bit, and then went right. The time stamp numbers in the lower right-hand corner flashed by with each passing second.

  “At least we’re getting an accurate idea of time,” Afton said. She watched as the camera focused on the I-94 bridge off in the distance. Headlights flew by as the camera swung shakily left and then right.

  “Is the explosion even on here?” Max asked. He was getting antsy.

  “Just wait,” Payne said.

  More seconds ticked by and then, suddenly, the helicopter came into view. It hung there for a few moments, looking practically motionless as aircraft usually do when they’re coming directly at you. Then, a split-second later, the helicopter exploded, turning into random bursts of light.

  “There you go,” Thacker said. “Like a meteor exploding.”

  Afton thought it looked like old footage she’d seen of a hydrogen bomb explosion. Stark and contrasting, almost like an X-ray.

  “Holy shit,” Dillon said.

  The camera shook for a few seconds and then refocused on what looked like vestiges of fireworks falling out of the sky. Afton knew these were parts of the helicopter. Probably parts of the pilots, too.

  “What does this tell us?” Farmer asked. “Besides time of day?”

  “Let me back up the vid, turn up the sound, and add some compression,” Payne said as he pecked at his keyboard.

  “Compression?” Afton asked.

  “It’s a technique that will compress or level the signal to a dynamic range where all other sounds are reduced, but the sound we want is significantly boosted,” Payne said.

  Max tapped a finger against the table. “And that means . . . ?”

  Payne played the video again. Only this time, there was an ominous hissing sound right before the explosion!

  “Holy shit!” Max exclaimed. “What was that?”

  “The missile,” Afton said. “Just before it hit the helicopter.”

  “That’s exactly right,” Payne said. “We isolated the frequencies to a specific range in order to locate the sound.”

  “Tell them why that’s significant,” Thacker said.

  “So you noticed that the hiss got increasingly louder just before the explosion?” Payne asked.

  The detectives all nodded.

  “Now we can tell which direction the missile came from.” Afton smiled. “Holy crap.”

  “Exactly,” Payne said. “And based upon the duration and frequency of the
audio we can estimate a general location.”

  “So where did it come from?” Max asked eagerly.

  “We don’t know exactly,” Payne admitted. “We want to calibrate this video with the video from the other two cameras to pinpoint location and trajectory.”

  “How soon will we have that?” Thacker asked.

  “We’ve got a dozen people working on it now,” Payne said.

  “So . . . hours?” Max asked.

  Payne nodded. “Hopefully.”

  “And a kid shot this from across the river?” Max asked. The Mississippi River sliced through the heart of the University of Minnesota campus, creating an East Bank and a West Bank. Kind of like Palestine, just not so contentious.

  “That’s right,” Payne said. “Best guess right now is that the missile was fired from the West Bank. In the Cedar-Riverside area.”

  “While the technicians do their part,” Thacker said, “we have our work to do, too. Dillon and Farmer, I want you guys to head back to the crash site and see if anything else has turned up. Max, I want you to go talk to Sunny Odin, the victim’s wife. She’s not a widow yet, but it’s not looking good for Leland Odin. Afton will go with you as family liaison officer.”

  Max nodded. “Got it.”

  “Look, I don’t need to tell you this is high profile. The university has already beefed up security and we’ve got some heavy hitters looking over our shoulders. More than that, we’ve got an anxious public thinking that ISIS is on our doorstep. Let’s leave no stone unturned.”

  “Is this a courtesy call to Sunny Odin or are we looking for something specific?” Max asked.

  “We’re looking for whatever we can turn up,” Thacker said. “There are too many unanswered questions right now. We have to start somewhere, but I want you to play nice.”

  “How much do we know about Leland Odin?” Afton asked. “And, I guess, Sunny.”