She shuffled back over to the fire and tossed the envelope to Larson.
"This tell you," she said cryptically and I guessed that she wanted to let the envelope's contents explain because she lacked the ability to express herself properly in English.
Larson looked at the envelope, but set it aside and asked, "Can you tell us what happened to him?"
Lei leaned over and took the envelope from where Larson had set it down. Larson shot Lei a glance as she took it, but she calmed him quickly enough by saying, "Ask your questions while I look through this. I won't take anything."
Larson's face softened, and he turned back to the woman as Lei opened the envelope and removed the contents.
The old woman had been watching Lei carefully throughout the exchange and, when the moment had ended she smiled warmly at Lei as if understanding some kind of silent joke.
"Ma'am," Larson's attention had returned to the woman and he pointed to his friend, "Do you know what happened to Zach?"
"Yes, I know," she said quickly and confidently, "but he tell you himself...in moment," Zach flopped forward and then fell over sideways from the kneeling position he had been in. The woman didn't catch him as he fell on her as much as she guided him to the ground.
Larson jumped forward and immediately checked his friend for a pulse, "What happened? Is he wounded?" I moved to the opposite side of the giant and looked him over.
"No sign of any injury beyond the single knife wound at his shoulder," I called out.
"Then what the..."
The old woman was waving her hands and speaking in Thai, which although we couldn't understand her language, she was clearly saying and indicating that we should all calm down.
"I give him much tea," she pointed at the kettle, "He should be ready to tell what happened to him and Pha."
"Pha?" I asked out loud without really meaning to, "Who's Pha?"
A heart-wrenching groan came from behind me and I turned to see Lei as she dropped the papers she had removed from the envelope and clutched her midsection.
Fearing the worst I moved from my position next to Zach, and was holding onto Lei in less than the span of a heartbeat.
"What is it?" I momentarily thought the old woman had poisoned us, but Lei looked up at me and her eyes were filled with tears that just began to fall. Her whole body was shaking with the effort she was expending to keep from crying and I suddenly realized that no poison could have had that effect on her.
She tried to speak, but couldn't without breaking down and instead pointed to the papers on the floor. Larson and I looked to each other before he went back to caring for his friend while I gently lifted the stapled papers off the floor.
The first few documents were in Thai and appeared very similar to the ones that we had seen earlier regarding his "purchase" of the child.
When I flipped past the last page that was written in Thai and saw the words written in English that were centered on the top of the page in bold typeface all the breath left my lungs in a manner similar to Lei.
"What is it?!" Larson called out in frustration.
I turned sadly to him and looked down at the big man who now lay unconscious on the floor.
My voice was barely a whisper as I said softly, "It's a legal document applying for a permanent naturalization certificate.
Larson frowned, "He applied for a green card? For who?"
"For the girl in the snapshot...Pha."
"But if he had already legally established her as his ward, why would he..."
I held up the papers so Larson could see the words on the top of the page and his eyes went wide as he read the header, "Application for Adoption."
"He wasn't taking her back to the states as a ward or some kind of sex slave," I said gravely, "He adopted her and was taking her back as his daughter."
"My grand-daughter," the old woman said with a sorrowful pride in her voice, "He now Pha's papa, that make him my son."
I felt Lei lean into me and, although she didn't make a sound, I knew she was crying. Lei had told me several times how she had prayed every night as a child that any one of the "clients" she "entertained" would take a special interest in her, and buy her out of the life she was in. Even the more sadistic ones would have been preferable to the life with the Triad. She tried to make her clients fall in love with her by doing more than they asked of her, no matter what that might have been, but it never worked. They always left and tipped her manager/pimp handsomely for her efforts. It made her a favorite, but didn't improve her life, and instead of appreciating her they just made her work more and beat her if she said she was too tired or sore.
Then one night a man arrived at the brothel clad all in black leather, with skin and hair as white as a ghost. She had never seen anyone like that before and was initially afraid of him until he unexpectedly requested to pay off her debt so she would be allowed to leave with him immediately. Confused by the man's interest, since he had never been a client, she nonetheless found a glimmer of hope that her long ago prayers had been answered. When the triad refused to accept money for her debt, she had started to cry softly and decided to finally follow through with a plan to end her life. She had been contemplating it for months, and now, with her last hope seemingly gone, she decided to go through with it.
It was the sound of raised voices that drew her attention back to the white haired man as the manager tried to force Alpha to leave. The raised voice of the manager had alerted several of the triad men, who began filling into the room, brandishing long knives. Alpha had only smiled, before he slaughtered every single triad in the building.
It had all happened so quickly that Lei only remembered how red the blood had looked as it streaked across Alpha's porcelain white hand when he gently extended it to her. She took it, her hand small and shaky as it came to rest in his, and they walked out of the brothel together, forever leaving her old life behind. Lei could remember in realistic detail how mangled the bodies of the triad were, as she and Alpha stepped over them, but the horror she might have felt by the bloody scene never came. Only the elation of finally being free made her legs feel weak. She had collapsed then, and Alpha lifted her into his arms, carrying her away to her new life with the people she and Steven now knew as their family. Lei had been in the life since infancy and was forever grateful to Alpha for having saved her, but the life had scarred her in ways that would never fully heal.
I knew that this man Zach, in Lei's eyes, had suddenly become a hero of epic proportion. He was the answer to the prayers that Lei had as a child, except that he had answered the prayers of another little girl, and he had done it before the child was forced to endure the years of rape, torture and humiliation that Lei had endured.
I gently ran my fingers through the length of her long black hair and caressed her head as she wept into my chest.
"I would have killed him," Lei whispered in between sobs, "I wanted to kill him. I was only waiting until the right time, when he was away from Larson and the old woman."
I put my arms back around her and held her tight, "I know. It's all right."
Lei shook her head against me, "No, it's not. Can you even begin to understand what I would have done? What would have happened if I had gone through with it and then learned all of this after it was done?"
A little chill went through me because I know how Lei can get. She takes her kills personally, and even though I had seen it first-hand several times, I've never gotten used to it.
I took a deep breath and hoped that it might subconsciously influence Lei to do the same.
I whispered, "You're under the blood influence, and feeling everything more than you normally would."
Lei tried to argue but I cut her off, "You haven't hurt him, so there's no need to feel guilt over what you would have done." I felt Lei's body stop shaking as I spoke, and her breathing began to return from ragged sobs to a more normal cadence.
I put my fingertips under her chin and gently lifted her face up to look into m
ine, "We have a chance to help him, and get revenge on this man, for what he did to him...and to us."
Lei's eyes narrowed and there was a kind of twinkle in them, perhaps at the thought of what she was going to do to Whelan when we found him. Involuntarily I winced at her expression, and Lei smiled wickedly at me, knowing what I had realized.
I have never wanted someone dead as badly as I wanted Dr. Phineas Whelan dead, but knowing Lei the way I do, I couldn't help but think, God help the poor bastard when she gets a hold of him.
Larson was still tending to Zach, unsure of what to do.
"How are we going to get him out of here?"
"He not ready to go yet," the old woman informed us.
Larson wasn't listening, "So do we take him to a hospital or to Rogers' doc?
Lei and I turned to Larson not sure how to answer. So where was this Pha? And how were we going to get answers we needed if the guy couldn't speak?
Chapter 32
"Ask me what you need know, I tell you," the old woman said as she moved away from the fire and made her way over to where the giant of a man had flopped onto his side.
The three of us sat quietly for a moment, looking to one another for enlightenment, and thoroughly confused by what was apparently transpiring.
"What do we ask first?" Lei volunteered.
"Ask where Whelan is," I said immediately.
Larson tried to say something when the old lady closed her eyes and placed her hands on each side of Zach's head. Initially she looked to be supporting him, but when she didn't let go, and made a grimace with her face that appeared to be an effort of concentration, we could tell there was more going on than what we could see with just our eyes.
The old woman answered us in her normal heavily accented English, "He say there several people who look like doctors in prison camp. No names, but one in charge usually in underground. Spend most of time there."
The woman stopped talking for a moment and opened her eyes to look down with sorrow at the face of the man whose head she cradled. Her voice sounded slightly choked when she started talking again, "The one in charge is who kill Pha."
Lei, Larson and I all suddenly sat up straight in total shock. We hadn't expected the girl to be dead, in fact, we hadn't even known she was involved beyond anything more than being a means to find Zach. Now it appeared that she was more than a side note in whatever was happening.
Lei looked as though someone had let all the air out of her and she wrapped her arms around herself and turned away from the rest of us. I placed a hand on her shoulder, just to let her know I was aware of her pain, but I was also giving her the space she needed.
Larson looked crestfallen as well, although he tried to maintain a professional demeanor when he asked, "What happened?"
The old woman sighed, "They torture him," she began, "Never ask questions or want anything, just hurt and hurt, more and more, but he never break. Until..."
She went silent as she caressed Zach's face and stroked her fingers through his hair.
"Until what, ma'am?" I tried to ask gently, as the answer was clearly going to be something significant, and very, very bad.
"Until they begin use electric," the old woman whispered and tears began falling from her eyes, "So much pain. Couldn't fight now, but they still not ask questions. The one in charge, he get upset. He get angry that something not working, so then they bring Pha."
"What?!...How did they ever...?" I began to say, but the answer was obvious. They probably found her at Zach's apartment. After all, they knew the address and had undoubtedly gone looking for something to use against him. The girl might have been a surprise, but they guessed right when they took her with them back to the camp.
"They bring her to lab and one in charge threaten to kill her," the tears were falling freely now as the old woman seemed to relive the event as it happened, "He beg them ask what they want. He tell anything. He do anything, but no hurt girl. The one in charge just laugh and then...cut..." the woman stopped and lifted her hand away from his head and covered her own face as she began to sob.
Lei had turned around and moved across the room to the woman's side and embraced her as together they cried. Larson and I just looked at the three of them, not wanting to say anything, because there were no words that could possibly be appropriate in this particular moment.
"He broke then," the woman continued as Lei held her, "for first time since there, he scream...and then, something inside him just shut down, and he die."
I had been looking at the floor of the hut, but my eyes came up at that last part.
"Die? What do you mean he died?" I asked.
The old woman opened her eyes and turned to face me, "Die...like dead."
Larson and I looked at each other, confused.
"Ma'am," Larson started, "I'm sorry, but I don't understand. Zach isn't dead."
"Not now," the woman shook her head as she spoke, "They bring him back with electric, but now he not same. He come back and not person anymore. Chains not hold him and he start to kill. Try to kill one in charge, but stopped. Guards shoot him, kill him again and then, once again, doctor bring him back. Then they change him, put things under skin make stronger. Put things in blood too, but not fix mind."
I leaned over and whispered to Larson, "Do you have any idea what she's talking about?"
He shook his head, "It sounds a little like a brainwashing technique."
I raised my eyebrows, "That stuff is for real? I thought it was all just fiction."
"I thought vampires were just fiction."
I screwed up my face and said, ironically, "Touché."
"Sorry," Larson continued, "Not the right time or place, I know. Anyway, the whole practice of brainwashing for military application was deemed unreliable, so most of the work in that particular field was abandoned, but it still did exist. It really isn't all that dissimilar to hypnosis, but operates on a much deeper psychic level. Although I have never heard of anyone going to such lengths to pull it off."
"Why?"
"Because the subject is at too great a risk of dying." Larson turned and looked at Zach, "I guess that wasn't much of a deterrent in this case."
"So what you're saying is, that in order to achieve the kind of results that might be reliable, a normally unacceptable risk had to be taken?"
"Basically, yes. According to the little information I know, all the research was stifled by the fact that to make further progress, within the science, there would be a need to put the subject into mortal peril. There was some thought about using inmates and prisoners, but the scandal proved too horrendous for anyone to personally accept the responsibility."
"So if someone could work without concern for the wellbeing of the subject, then...?"
Larson nodded, "Then he might be able to achieve results that are comparable only to what has been written about in fiction."
I shook my head, "Goddamn Whelan...the bastard is turning into a twenty first century's Doctor Mengele."
Larson nodded, "The question is, why? What were they programming him to do or become?"
"Not to mention," I added, "why my client is so interested in him."
Chapter 33
Silence reigned in the hut, but the somber moment seemed to be fading as the women parted, their crying over, and Zach began to shift around on the floor as if waking up.
Lei moved across the floor, sat down next to me and asked, "So what do we do now?"
"We got what we came for," Larson answered with a sigh, "Mission complete."
Lei and I turned, eyeing him as he casually picked up his rifle, checked to see if it was loaded, ratcheted a round in the chamber and it was ready to fire. The threat was anything but subtle, yet Larson didn't raise the rifle, but instead held it loosely in his hand, ready to use in case it turned out to be necessary.
I never took threats well and stood to face Larson, "You got what you came for, but we aren't done."
"My part of this was finding Zach, that's
it."
"And those men who came to the village?" Lei was standing now as well, and was slowly circling around Larson as she spoke, making it difficult for him to target both of us simultaneously, in case it turned out to be necessary.
"You know," Lei continued her thought, "the ones who were responsible for Zach's kidnapping, torture and murder of his child."
Larson didn't answer, but he didn't back down either.
"We are here for the man responsible for what was done to Zach," I pointed at Larson’s friend and hoped that whatever the ancient woman had done for him had cleared his mind enough so that Zack could understand me. "And we don't want to get him because of what was done to Zach, although I admit it does add fuel to that particular fire, but because of what he did to us and to our people."
"You said that your client wants Zach brought to him, like a piece of lost property."
I laughed, "My client is every bit the sadistic animal that Whelan is and I'm not doing anything here for his benefit."
"But you still plan on delivering Zach to him?"
I shrugged, "That's up to Zach. I agreed to find him and extricate him from Dr. Whelan's compound. What he does from this point on was never up to me."
Larson frowned, and I couldn’t tell if that was because he was surprised by my statement, or for some other reason known only to him and his people, but he asked. "Why does he want Zach?"
"I never asked. I didn't care then, and I don't care now. This is about stopping Whelan."
"Really?" Larson cocked and eyebrow at me, "Stop him from doing what?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but realized that I didn't have one.
"I don't know," and I turned to Zach, "I don't suppose you could shed a little light here?"
Madman's Monster Page 21