Days of Destiny

by Aiden Vaughan

  “That sounds interesting,” Jason replied, “but what exactly is pearl milk tea?”

  “Pearl milk tea contains little balls of tapioca that float in the drink,” Richard explained. “The green cakes get their color from herbs that are mixed with the rice flour. Lucia can tell you what else is in them tonight.”

  “The green cakes include bean curd and have a special glaze and candy decorations to celebrate the New Year,” Lucia answered. “I will bring you several cakes and a pitcher of the pearl milk tea.”

  “This has been quite an experience for me,” Daniel said later as they were finishing the cakes and taking sips of the pearl milk tea. “Everything has been quite good and new.”

  It was now approaching 7:30 and time for the boys to leave if they wanted to get a good place on the parade route. Before leaving they thanked Mai for the great dinner and for her hospitality. As they were about to leave, Selwyn told Richard about a short cut they could take to avoid a lot of the crowded streets. He took Richard outside for a moment and pointed out where they should go.

  Inside the entry hall, Jason and Daniel were lacing up their chucks and putting on their jackets. When Richard finished putting his shoes and thermal vest on, the three left the restaurant. They began walking down the alley to the building that Selwyn had pointed out.

  Richard said, “Selwyn told me about a shortcut that will allow us to bypass a lot of the crowd.” Looking down the alley, they could see that the main streets were already crowded with people.

  The boys came to the entrance that Selwyn had pointed out, went inside and climbed up the stairs to the second floor. They then proceeded to go through a series of narrow hallways. As they were walking down one hallway, they heard a thumping sound.

  “What’s that noise?” Daniel asked.

  “I don’t know,” Richard replied. “Maybe the heating system is making noises.”

  “Let’s listen carefully,” Jason said. “It doesn’t sound like a machine at all to me. It sounds like it must be coming from a person or maybe an animal.”

  The boys stopped walking and listened carefully. The thumping noise was definitely coming from down the hall. They walked slowly down the hallway, listening at each closed door until they came upon the door where they could definitely hear the thumping sounds inside. It did not appear to be anyone’s apartment but rather some sort of utility closet. Jason tried turning the doorknob but it was locked.

  “Is anyone in there?” Jason called out. Again they heard thumps. “Can you understand what I am saying?” More thumps. “It sounds like someone is locked inside there to me!”

  Richard volunteered, “Let me try talking in Chinese. [to the door] Do you understand me? One thump for yes, two thumps for no.”

  They heard one thump. “Are you trapped in the closet?” Richard continued his questioning. Another thump. “Can you talk to us?” Two thumps.

  “It sounds like there is someone in there being held prisoner!” Jason exclaimed. “Ask that!”

  “Are you tied up or restrained?” Richard asked at the door. A single thump was the response.

  “We need to get a key or something so we can open the door,” Daniel said.

  “I have an idea,” Jason said. “Doors like that are supposed to have latches on the inside that can be opened in case someone is accidentally locked in. Ask whoever is in there these questions. First, can you see the doorknob?”

  When Richard asked the question in Chinese the answer was one thump.

  “Does it have a latch above it?” When Richard relayed the question again the response was one thump.

  “Are you able to get your hands or your feet to the latch?” the relayed conversation continued. After a moment’s pause, one thump.

  “Is it your hands that can get to it?” One thump.

  “Okay, stand up however you can, and turn that latch. Can you do that?” One thump. “Good.”

  Jason went to the door and twisted the doorknob, while they could hear noises inside. All of a sudden, the inside latch was turned, the door opened, and a little boy about eight years old came tumbling out. He was barefoot and only wearing a ratty tee shirt and a pair of shorts. His hands were bound to his chest in front of him with duct tape, his ankles were also tied together with tape, and a piece of tape had been placed over his mouth to gag him. Jason pulled off the tape off of the boy’s mouth while Daniel quickly worked to remove the rest of the tape binding the boy’s hands and feet.

  Richard continued to speak to him in Chinese, telling him that he was safe now, and that they weren’t associates of whoever had kidnapped him.

  When the boy was released he instinctively hugged Jason. The boy was shivering from fear and the cold. There were tears in his eyes. Jason held onto the boy to calm him down.

  “Tell him that we will try to help him get back home, Richard.” Jason said as he continued to hold onto the young boy.

  After Richard relayed Jason’s conversation, the boy did something surprising. He looked at Jason, Richard, and Daniel directly in the eyes and said, “Thank you, thank you!” in very credible English. “Will you be my friend?” the boy continued and gave them a charming smile.

  Jason looked at his friends slightly astonished, and then asked the boy, “Can you speak English?”

  The boy seemed puzzled at Jason’s question, so Richard relayed it to him in Chinese. The boy’s answer was that he only knew a few phrases he overheard from observing an English class back on Taiwan.

  “Ask him his name,” Jason said.

  The boy told Richard that his name was Jian-heng Chen. Jason looked back at the boy’s eyes, smiled his big smile, and replied, “Of course we will be your friends, Jian-heng. My name is Jason. And this is Daniel, and Richard.”

  Through Richard, they heard some of Jian-heng’s story. His two older sisters were smuggled into America inside a large shipping crate with the promise of a better life. When he heard that his sisters were going to America, Jian-heng decided to become a stowaway so he could have a better life too. But when they arrived at the port, two gangster men with automatic weapons came into the crate. His sisters and the other women in the crate were told that they each owed $40,000 in travel costs and would have to work that money off as slaves. The men chained the women together and marched them off.

  Jian-heng hid when the men came into the crate, and then tried to escape so that he could get help. Unfortunately he was spotted and grabbed by the men. They taped him up so he couldn’t escape or cry out, stuffed him into a burlap bag, took him for a long ride in the back of a vehicle, and dumped him into this closet.

  “It sounds like they had plans to make you a slave too,” Jason said shaking his head.

  “What should we do next?” Daniel asked, looking at Jason and Richard. “We can’t just leave Jian-heng here, yet we don’t want to miss the fireworks or the parade!”

  “We obviously will need to contact the authorities about what happened,” Jason replied, “but probably there is no one who could help right now. I am sure every available policeman in the area is involved with the New Year festivities. The last thing we want to do is dump Jian-heng off and have him spend the night alone in custody, especially after what he has been through.

  “I think we should take him back to my aunt’s restaurant,” Richard said. “I’m sure he is starving for a good meal, and he needs some warmer clothes and footwear. Maybe my cousins can help out.”

  Chapter 3

  Helping Jian-heng

  (February 4)

  The boys got up to return to Aunt Mai’s house. Richard asked Jian-heng if he had any shoes or other clothing with him, like an outer shirt or jacket. “It’s chilly outside tonight and you shouldn’t be walking around barefoot on the cold rough cement sidewalks and streets.”

  Jian-heng replied that when the men grabbed him, he was wearing his one pair of beat up sandals, but they were not on his feet when he struggled out of the burlap sack. “Maybe they are still in the sack,” Jian
-heng replied in Chinese. Jian-heng went back inside the closet where he had been held captive, and fished around in the bottom of the burlap sack. When he came back out, he had a smile on his face and was holding a pair of well-worn and beat up flip-flops. Jian-heng set them down on the floor and slipped into them.

  Jason then took off the hoodie he was wearing under his bomber jacket and wrapped it around Jian-heng. “This should keep you warm until we get back to the restaurant.”

  Jian-heng didn’t understand the words Jason was saying, but he understood the gesture. He gave Jason a big smile in return. “Thank you, thank you,” he said in English, using one of the few phrases he knew.

  The four quickly walked down the narrow hallways, descended the stairs and went outside into the chilly night. Within five minutes they were back at the restaurant and ringing the doorbell.

  When Aunt Mai answered the door, she first asked Richard if they had forgotten something. Then she looked down and spied Jian-heng. Richard explained how they had discovered him being held captive in a closet. When Jian-heng shyly looked up at her and smiled, the mothering instinct came out in Mai.

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” she told Richard. “I will get this boy fed and find him some clothing. Then you must take him to the authorities so that they can find the criminals who kidnapped him!”

  Quickly she barked orders to Selwyn, Lucia, and other staff. She then had the boys bring Jian-heng into a small private room adjacent to the restaurant area.

  In the private room, Mai had Jian-heng take off Jason’s hoodie (which he returned to Jason) and his dirty flip-flops. She then directed him to sit down at the table. Within a minute he was given some hot tea and then a bowl of noodle soup. In a very soothing voice, Mai told Jian-heng that he was safe now, and that he would be given a nice meal and warmer clothing to wear.

  About ten minutes later, Richard’s cousins brought in some clothes. They had been searching in their rooms for older clothing that might fit the boy. They gave him a clean tee shirt and a light cloth jacket. They found him a pair of jeans that he could slip on over his shorts. For footwear they had found an old pair of beat up sneakers along with some clean white socks.

  Jian-heng got up from the table. He removed his dirty, ratty tee shirt and put on the clean one. He then pulled on the socks and jeans. The sneakers were a little big for his feet. Lucia helped him to get them laced up. When Jian-heng was fully dressed he lit up the room with his big smile. “Thank you, thank you for these nice clothes,” he expressed in both English and Chinese. “Thank you for helping me. I am so grateful.”

  “These clothes will tide you over until tomorrow,” Jason told Jian-heng through Richard’s translation. “Then we will get you some brand new clothes and sneakers that fit you perfectly.” Jason held up his knuckles to Jian-heng. At first the boy looked at him quizzically and then he figured out what Jason was doing and gave him knuckles back.

  On the side of the room, a door from the kitchen opened, and Aunt Mai came in with a steaming plate of food for Jian-heng. The plate was mostly a serving of rice with small portions of shrimp, beef, and vegetables. Jian-heng grabbed a pair of chop sticks and began to wolf down the food.

  Mai smiled at him and said, “Eat slowly and take your time. You don’t want to upset your stomach. This won’t be the last meal you get in America!”

  Jian-heng looked up at Mai and replied (in Chinese), “This is the first real meal I have had since stowing away in the container ship. All we could make inside the container were pre-packed dishes like boiled ramen noodles from a package.” He then went back to the business of cleaning his plate.

  While Jian-heng was eating, Jason, Daniel, and Richard began discussing his situation. “What should we do about Jian-heng?” Daniel began. “I don’t think we can impose any more than we already have on Richard’s Aunt Mai.”

  “You know I absolutely refuse to just drop him off at a police station,” Jason said vehemently. “After the ordeal he has been through — stowed away on a container ship, then cruelly kidnapped, bound and gagged, and dumped off in that closet — the last thing I want to do is abandon him. And I don’t want to see him left by himself in the foster care system; that would be totally devastating for him after what he has been through.”

  “Very much shades of Jonathan Kowalski,” Daniel replied referring to their last case where they help a friend whose mother had become a drug addict and was living with an abusive methamphetamine dealer who ended kidnapping Jonathan to try and get him under his control. [Editor’s Note: The complete story of Jonathan’s ordeal is contained in Eyewitness News, the fifth Hunter & Holmes mystery novel.]

  “And there is a good chance that the authorities might just decide to deport Jian-heng, or that he could be discovered there by the men who kidnapped him,” Jason went on. “This brave little gutsy kid has taken on incredible odds to come to America for a better life and to try and help his sisters. I think he deserves our help and support!”

  “Let’s take him with us tonight,” Richard said. “I still would like you to see some of the parade and fireworks. I’m sure Jian-heng would have no objections either. We can take him home to my house, since my family can communicate with him in Chinese. Then tomorrow we can start figuring out what to do about his situation.”

  “That’s a great idea, Richard,” Daniel replied. “I agree with Jason that we need to help Jian-heng out. I believe he could be in grave danger if he stayed here. Those men who kidnapped him are sure to come back to that closet soon to get their captive. When they discover that he is missing, I am sure they will start looking around for him in this area.”

  After Jian-heng finished eating, Richard explained to him in Chinese what their plans for him were. He told the boy how they were planning to take him under their wing, bring him back with them to the Silicon Valley, and then see what they could do to help him find his older sisters.

  “But first we are going out and watch the parade and fireworks!” Richard concluded. “We need to get going soon. The parade most likely has already started!”

  When Jian-heng heard what they were planning to do, he jumped out of the chair and quickly went to each of the three teenagers and gave them hugs. There were tears in his eyes. “Thank you, thank you!” he kept saying to them.

  Jason looked him in the eye, and said, “No problem, little buddy. After what you have been through, you need some older friends to look after you!”

  A few minutes later, they were ready to leave. Richard, Jason, and Daniel thanked Aunt Mai again for her assistance and for the wonderful meal they had eaten earlier. Aunt Mai then came up and gave Jian-heng a hug. “Please let me know if there is anything more I can do to help,” she said. “Jian-heng seems like such a nice, polite little boy. I can’t believe that people would want to harm or enslave him! Unfortunately, that is one of the realities of our world these days.”

  With final goodbyes, Jason, Richard, Daniel, and Jian-heng stepped out into the cool evening and headed toward the parade route. “This time let’s not take any shortcuts through dark narrow hallways!” Daniel said with a laugh.

  Chapter 4

  Celebration and Commitment

  (February 4)

  The parade route in Chinatown was crowded with spectators listening to the sounds of the parade gradually approaching them. Richard suggested that they work their way down towards Kearney Street where the parade would complete its route along the southern perimeter of Chinatown. It was slow going but with young Jian-heng they needed to walk slower and more patiently than active teenagers normally would.

  When they arrived at Kearney Street, the sidewalks were already crowded with people. Eventually they found a place where the crowds were a little thinner, and they decided to stay there. Within five minutes the first part of the parade was beginning to go by. The boys took turns hoisting Jian-heng up on their shoulders so that he could see the parade above the crowd.

  The parade was fabulous. There were beautiful floa
ts with dignitaries and representatives from different Chinese cultural groups. Richard explained to the others that this parade had a 150 year tradition in San Francisco, and was one of the best illuminated night time parades in the country. Besides the floats, there were marching bands and elaborately costumed marchers dressed to represent the animals associated with each of the recent lunar years. The excitement continued with people dressed as ferocious lions and a float containing the newly crowned Miss Chinatown, USA, and her court. There were exploding firecrackers, exotic noisemakers, stilt walkers, and folk dancers. People of all ages participated in the parade, including kids Jian-heng’s age dressed up in costumes from local elementary schools. “Maybe someday you could participate in a parade like this,” Richard told Jian-heng, who was eagerly watching everything.

  The crowd alternately oohed and aahed or cheered as the parade went by. Finally “Gum Lung” came by, a spectacular 250 foot long golden dragon carried by a team of more than one hundred men and women from the local martial arts group, White Crane. Jian-heng was thrilled by the parade. As each part of the parade went by, he would shout out and exchange excited comments with Richard.

  Finally the parade came to an end, and the crowd slowly began to break up. Richard told Jason and Daniel that it might be easier to just walk back to where their car was parked. “It’s only ten or twelve blocks away now, and we can take our time. I think in the long run that would be just as fast as waiting in line for public transportation.”

  Jason and Daniel agreed that walking seemed a good option and the four boys slowly made their way south toward Market Street. After about six blocks of walking through the surging crowds, Jason suggested that they take a break. There was an ice cream shop a few stores down. “Let’s get some ice cream and relax for a while. We are in no hurry, right?”