by HN Wake
“They dragged him? Into a police car?”
Johnson searched his memory. “Yes, a police car.”
“Did they use their lights? Their sirens?”
“I don’t know.”
“Uniformed?”
Johnson squinted, confused. “What? Uhm, yes.”
“Did Azly or his father recognize them?”
“Yes, local police. His father said they have harassed Azly in the past for working with the Penan. They are bad men, he said.”
Mac started toward the bathroom. “Go get dressed. Meet me in the lobby. You need to take me to the police station.”
With a nod, Johnson Koh handed over authority to her.
They sat in the Land Rover across from the darkened police station. The street was deserted and there hadn’t been movement of any kind since they had pulled up twenty minutes earlier.
Johnson had spoken again to Azly’s father who had relayed the full story. At 11 p.m. the police had barged into the family house on the edge of town. They took a baton to Azly in the stomach. While he was down on the floor they punched him twice. Azly stayed down, balled together: he was already weakened from the beating from Mudzaffar earlier in the day. His father pleaded for the beating to stop.
The two officers dragged Azly out to the police cruiser and dumped him in the back seat. They drove off without lights or sirens. A friend of Azly’s had confirmed that the police officers had frog-marched him into the local Miri police station.
In the Land Rover, Mac and Johnson sat silently watching the front door.
“What are you planning?” he asked.
“I’m going to get him out.”
“How?”
“Call Azly’s father. Find out if he knows what time the night shift starts here. It’s gotta be soon.”
An hour later, a plump night officer locked up his car and lumbered toward the police station. Mac indicated the camera on Johnson’s lap. “Make sure you get the shot when we’re in the porch’s light.”
She jogged toward the station. “Officer, Officer.”
The police officer stopped slowly and turned.
She walked up to him. “You have to help me.”
“What?”
She walked him up under the light of the porch. “I need your help. I need to see a friend who they brought into the station a few hours ago.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
“I just need five minutes to talk to him,” she insisted.
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
She took his hand and circled his fingers around a thick envelope.
He looked down. It took him a moment to understand. When he did, he flipped through the envelope filled with over one hundred ten dollar bills. “What’s this?”
Once money was involved, the asset was too busy thinking through the risks and rewards to be paying any attention to what was said next. It was all about soft reassurance.
She leaned in close, her eyes imploring. “I just need to see him. No one will ever know. I just need your help.”
He looked up and down the street. She had him. The asset was in play.
He pocketed the envelope. “Come to the station when I’m ready to leave. 5 a.m.”
She nodded, relieved. “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”
When she got back in the Land Rover, she opened the door and leaned in. “You get the shot?”
Johnson nodded.
She grabbed her courier bag, said, “Wait here. I’ve got something I have to do.”
Langley, VA
The air in Director Dunne’s office was cold and smelled of burnt coffee, almost hickory. Three empty take-out cups were lined up on the right side of his huge desk, a fleet against sleep. The early morning light filtered in through the tinted glass of huge windows.
Odom stood in front of the desk, his arms at his side, pretending to be calm when, in fact, he was nervous. He waited for Dunne to speak first. He had already waited an interminable five minutes.
“You find her?” Dunne asked in a low voice. His button down shirt was wrinkled, the collar was open, and a limp undershirt rode high on his neck.
Odom cleared his throat. He wished he had been able to get his own caffeine but the message had been on his desk before he arrived at work. “The Director wants to see you A.S.A.P.” He had hustled directly up.
“She’s up in the jungles,” Odom said. “She’s followed Halloway into the jungles. She’s retracing his steps.”
Dunne eyed him as he took in the new information. “That’s interesting.”
“How so, sir?”
“She’s quick. And she’s thorough. I didn’t expect her to actually go up into the jungles.” Dunne thought for a moment then asked, “Did she tell you about the jungle trip?”
“No. Not yet. KL Station hid a tracker in her GPS handheld. It pinged back her coordinates. They informed me. They were the same coordinates Halloway found.”
“You realize what that means?”
Odom cocked his head. He did not.
Dunne spoke in a patient voice reserved for slow students. “It means, Odom, she found the medical student.”
31
Miri, Sarawak Province, Malaysia
The moonlight struck the hills and water traps creating a field of diaphanous phantoms that floated across the Miri Country Club golf course. The small lakes reflected the high moon; their sinister secrets were protected beneath dark surfaces. In the distance, on the other side of a chain link fence, sat the darkened Miri General Hospital.
From the police station, it had only taken Mac twenty minutes at a light jog to reach the golf course. She needed to approach the hospital undetected and had chosen the rear approach from the country club.
The damp surface of the putting green squished slightly beneath her feet. She dropped into a jog again as she reached the taller grass. Her stride was long and easy. Her feet felt the cold dampness as her running shoes picked up the wetness.
The course smelled as if it had been recently cut, a strong tangy scent. A small copse of trees was ensnared in a sheer fog. The only sound was a lone cricket deep in the underbrush.
She picked up the boundary of another putting green and followed its curved lines. The stretch in her legs was invigorating. It was a release from the tension of the stake-out at the police station.
We’d contain and manicure everything if we could, she thought. She imagined a golf course stretching the globe, the entire population living along its boundaries in well-tended houses.
I’d be the one trying to escape, she realized.
Near the far fence she slowed her pace. Only a few dim lights shone from two windows along the back of the Miri Hospital. The dark parking lot on the other side of the fence was empty.
She pulled out leather working gloves from her courier bag, slipped them on, jumped up, grabbed the top rail, swung herself up and over, and landed silently on gravel. Small towns like Miri didn’t need razor wire.
She loped to the back door and knelt in the shadows. She felt for the lock and with swift, practiced movements snapped open the lock with a lock pick.
Inside, the hallway was dark and tiled. Disinfectant filled her nostrils. An empty patient trolley sat along the wall with ominous wrist-straps dangling from an arm rail. Using a small penlight to light her way, she slipped past doors with darkened windows toward the far corner of the building; most hospital morgues were housed in the basement toward the back. She had guessed correctly.
On the last door a large sign marked MORGUE.
Inside, the large examination room was lined with metal cabinets and a single large desk. Everything was put away. A potent cocktail of formaldehyde and pine permeated the space.
She found the cabinet labeled ‘F’ and pulled out the top drawer. The Dominick French file contained a printed Post Mortem Examination Sheet, two handwritten pages, and ten photos of the pale corpse. The pictures captured Dominick’s body from various angles includin
g close up photos of his neck and the single wound. Someone has slashed his windpipe. The final paper was a release form. His family had moved quickly to get his body.
She returned the documents to the drawer.
She padded across to the far door. It was heavy metal with a plexiglass window lined with diagonal shatter-proof wires. She shone the penlight into the room behind; an aisle ran down the center between two rows of ten, square refrigerator doors. The room was modern and clean.
She took a deep breath, pushed open the door and stepped inside. The room wasn’t cold, it was exactly the same as the examination room.
She rolled her head along her neck, stretching out her shoulder muscles and mentally preparing for the job at hand. She stepped to the first refrigerator door, pulled down on the big handle, and swung it open. Inside, only an empty steel tray laid out before her. She repeated down the line.
In the fifth chamber, bleached soles extended out of the chilled darkness. Involuntarily, she let herself sniff the cold air. It was musty and slightly moldy, but not rancid. Relieved, she breathed in and exhaled deeply.
A tag hung off the large toe of the right foot. She picked it up, shining the light on it: Abdul Izzah, Male, 45 years old. With both hands, she grabbed the tray and pulled the naked body out. He was on his back. The penlight beam made it slowly up his stiff body. He appeared shorter than she expected. And his skin was thick like a frog’s.
The flashlight reached the remains of a head. A bullet had clearly exited from the front of his face: not much was left. The enormous, gaping wound had been cleaned, but it was a clinic reminder of the incredible damage a bullet could inflict.
Placing the flashlight in her mouth, she smoothed her hands down his arms, across his chest and down his legs. Nothing seemed out of place or out of the ordinary. She slowly examined each hand under the flashlight’s beam. Nothing distinguishing. No cuts, no gashes.
She reached under and slowly rolled the body over, careful not to let it roll off the edge of the metal tray.
She stepped back up toward the head and shone the flashlight. In the dead center of the back of the head was a cleaned, small hole with a ring of soot.
Abdul Izzah had been assassinated at close range to the back of his head. By a professional.
She took out her camera and snapped five photos of the wound. The flash lit up the morgue like a streak of lightening. She quickly stepped back into the examination room and found a long set of tweezers. Next to the body, she slid a finger directly into the wound at a downward angle.
The contents of his skull were soft, spongy, and cold. She swallowed back a tiny hint of bile and stared at the ceiling as she breathed in deeply, searching the cavity. She felt the bullet. She replaced her finger with the tweezers and pulled the bullet. She dropped it in a small plastic bag and secured it in her courier bag.
The wheels rumbled loudly as the tray slid into the depths of cold storage.
Outside in the hall, she stepped lightly into a recessed corner and leaned back against the wall in the pitch black. The flash of the camera may have attracted attention. If security were coming they would arrive from the front and head directly into the morgue, at which point she’d walk right down the hall and out into the night.
Her mind analyzed the body and the wound of Abdul Izzah. He had been killed by a professional. It had been a clean shot. She remembered Eddy Mudzaffar’s blank stare earlier that day as his SUV had hit their motorcycle tire: he was capable of assassination.
She imagined Mudzaffar paying off Abdul Izzah to kill Dominick and make it look like a drunken fight gone bad. Then she imagined Mudzaffar holding a gun to the back of Abdul Izzah’s head and pulling the trigger.
Jesus, Josh, who are these people? Why on earth were you involved with them?
She shook away an image of Mudazaffar’s gun against Josh’s head, concentrated on the silence in the hallway.
Ten uneventful minutes later, she let herself out the rear door and jogged back into the dark golf course.
32
Miri, Sarawak Province, Malaysia
Mac stepped into the recessed shadows—just beyond the light over the front door—by the small cement porch of the Miri police station. She pulled a long scarf over her head. Inside, a shadow grew as someone stepped toward the door; the night shift was ending. The plump police officer stepped out into the early dawn and motioned her to enter.
The interior was silent and cold. The smell was that of a library: an indefinable mustiness combined with the dry rot of paper. She tilted her head down, letting the scarf cover her face.
He led her down a long hallway and used an old fashioned skeleton key to unlock a heavy grate. They passed into the back wing and down a second long hallway with cement blocks painted in thick institutional grey. Along the corridor, three of four steel doors stood ajar.
The police officer stopped in front of the fourth door, picked a new key from his key chain, and unlocked it. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
The room was barren except for a sink-toilet combo in the far corner. Either for budget reasons or austerity measures, this was the most barren prison cell she’d seen: no bed, no nothing. Chips of grey paint littered the floor along the cinder block walls.
In the far corner, Azly lay in a fetal position on the floor. He had been severely beaten. His chin had been hit numerous times and the skin was swollen and cracked. His left eye was a mass of blue and purple swelling. His right eye, also badly bruised, was still functioning and was eyeing the opening of the door. He only had on his T-shirt and jeans. He was shivering.
She clamped down on quickly rising anger so that it wouldn’t interfere with her objectives. “Hi, Azly.”
He blinked the one eye.
She helped him sit up, brushed the paint chips off his shirt. “We’re going to get you out of here.”
He nodded tenderly.
“Can you last a few more hours?”
“Yes.” He seemed to find some strength from her proximity.
She leaned in to his ear, “I’m going to put my scarf over our heads so they can’t tell what we’re saying.” She indicated the camera up in the corner.
He glanced at it, nodded.
She leaned back against the cinder blocks and slowly draped the scarf over herself and Azly. She whispered. “What did they ask you?”
His voice was breathless from pain. “They asked what we were doing. They asked where I took you. I told them we trekked up into the rainforest and met with the Penan. It’s not against the law to do that. They asked who you were.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you had come with Johnson, out of the offices in Hong Kong. I told them you were a reporter.”
“Did you tell them our names?”
“Yes, I told them your names.” A tear escaped and ran down his swollen cheek.
“I’m so sorry. I’m here to get you out.” She took a breath. “Was Eddy Mudzaffar here in the police building? Was he in the room when they beat you?”
He nodded. Another tear escaped from the swollen eye.
She clenched her jaw to hold back the outrage. “Did he put his hands on you?”
He nodded. The tears flowed freely.
She took his hand. “It’s almost over, Azly. Give me a few hours. You’ll be home soon.” She cupped his hands around five small blue pills. “Here, take these. They will stop the pain. They work.” She handed him her water bottle.
He swallowed the pills and leaned his head back.
“Just a few hours and you’ll be home.”
She took another scarf from her courier bag and draped it around his shoulders, pulling it tight like a mother would around an infant struggling to sleep. She helped him lie back down on the cold floor.
She followed the night officer down the silent hallway. As they reached the locked grate she tapped his shoulder and held up a photo on her digital camera. He squinted in the dark at the image of himself taking the envelope of cash.<
br />
She looked him in the eye. “Don’t mention this to anyone or this photo goes to your superiors and the newspaper.”
She took advantage of his shock, reached around his large waist to unclasp the holster, and slid out his gun. “I need to borrow this for a few hours.”
He gulped, nodded, turned, and led her back through to the front lobby.
Out on the dark street, she looked up ahead at the parked Land Rover. She stopped and pulled out the Agency Blackberry, opened the browser.
She left a message in the chat room, “It’s 42. I need a favor.”
She looked up and down the dark street as she waited.
89 responded quickly, “Talk to me.”
“I need the recorded feed from the internal cameras in the Miri, Sarawak, police station going back forty-eight hours.”
“How many cameras?”
“Three hallway mounts and one each in four cells.”
“Got it. Will send you when I have it.”
She pulled open the passenger door to the Land Rover, settled in, and let out a long breath. “He’ll be okay.”
“How is he?”
“They got to him. Badly.”
Johnson slammed his hands on the steering wheel. “I should never have arranged this for you. The only reason they are doing this is because he took a foreigner up there. Goddammit!”
The sky was growing lighter.
She said, “He’ll be fine.”
“What? How on earth do you think he’ll be fine?
“He’ll be fine.”
The calm strength in her voice made him glance over. She stared through the windshield at the sunrise.
He changed the subject. “Up in the rainforest, I asked you about the other man in your photos. The one who went up there with Dominick French. Who was he?”
She remained silent. His questions were getting closer to the truth.
“You said you’d read about both of them in the local newspapers. I asked our office to find those articles for me. The newspapers only mentioned Dominick. There’s no mention of another man.”