Brown folders came out next, containing papers and photos. Remaining at the back of the safe was a sizable stack of cash, which she left in place. Next to it was a large yellow envelope, which she emptied onto the bench alongside the guns. Its contents included some kind of wire with small wooden handles at either end, a tiny black camera, a strange looking cellular phone and a black pencil case containing tiny, odd electronic things.
“Spies,” she said, wondering whether leaving it all out on the bench for them would turn out to be a mistake.
The front door opened. Matt held it for Casey. She went straight to Lu Lei, who was on the couch, reading. She kissed her on the forehead.
“What are you reading there, sweetie?”
Casey gasped as she looked over Lu Lei’s shoulder at the Chief’s file, open on her lap. Matt closed the front door and walked into the kitchen and a few seconds later, swore loudly.
He joined them in the living room. Lu Lei stood up and crossed her arms. Nobody spoke. She looked from one to the other, eyes wide, daring them to try to explain.
“That safe...” he stammered.
“My parents are spies?”
She could see that their minds were ticking over, searching for a believable lie, one that would never come.
“Enough! I’m thirteen. I can keep a secret. Tell me the truth. Who are you?”
Lu Lei watched Casey’s face. Her eyes darted to the left, obviously searching for another lie. Matt was still flummoxed as he moved to the couch. After a long silence, Casey nodded at him, and he exhaled from his nose. “I’ll make you a deal. We’ll answer some of the questions you have, but first you have to tell us how you got that safe open.”
“Okay. Deal. I’ll tell you then.” Lu Lei walked over to the safe and continued. “Those times I barged into the living room and you were down here behind the couch doing something with the wall, it was obvious something was back here so I spent some time investigating the wooden panels. The hidden safe was my first surprise.”
Matt nodded sternly at her. “Go on.”
“Faced with a locked safe, I started leaving my new video camera, recording, on the bookcase when I went to school. It took quite a few failed attempts and lots of patience to catch you doing something, but eventually I got both of you on camera cleaning your guns. That was the second surprise. Guns. Both of you! I could see that you kept the guns in the safe. I figured, ‘Maybe there’s some other stuff in there too.’ My next step was to aim it at the safe and zoom in on the keypad, bit by bit. After a lot of mistakes, I got it aimed just right. Your safe combination is 8452840. Your turn. So you’re both ruthless assassins?”
Casey started, “First of all, wow.” She looked at Matt, who actually seemed to be amused. “Second of all, and most importantly, we love you very much, and you are our daughter. Yes... You are, of course, correct. We are spies,” she paused. She seemed to choke on the words, as if she had never admitted it to anyone before.
Lu Lei’s heart started to race again.
Casey continued, “We are not assassins. We merely collect information. In our case, we try to help prevent war from breaking out. The guns are just for protection, a last resort. We’ve never fired them... in China.”
Lu Lei’s hands were on her hips, defensively. “You work for the American government?”
Matt and Casey looked at each other for a second. Casey replied, “Yes.”
“If I tell someone, you will have to kill me?”
Matt laughed a little, but held it in. “No, but I’m glad you brought it up. We’ll talk about that in a minute.”
“And what about the death of my parents?” Her arms were crossed, her heart pounding.
Casey’s face softened. “Our friendship with your parents was real, and we were close friends with the Master, long before we met them. We are not connected to their death in any way. I assume that you have looked at the files, but there’s a lot more to it. Matt and I can tell you everything we know, but there are going to be some rules that come with the information. You’re a big girl now, a teenager. I think you know how teenagers like to talk; right?”
Lu Lei did know. Gossiping was one of her pet peeves and she had learned not to tell anything to the girls at school, or to the boys, especially Wei Bao.
Casey kept going. “If anyone found out what we are doing here, we would be locked up forever, and you would be sent to an orphanage. Next day. Guaranteed. So, I think that instead of you investigating us, it might be better if we start bringing you in on what we do here, and how we do it. I can't emphasize enough the importance of keeping this all to yourself.” Casey looked at Matt.
Matt took over. "Lu Lei, we know you. It's been seven years, now. We know that you can keep secrets. Here's the thing, though. Some of what you are about to find out will stir up your emotions. Emotions can make secrets much harder to keep. You must work hard at it, always pushing the consequences to the front of your mind when you feel the urge to disclose something."
Lu Lei remained silent.
Casey continued. “As for the file relating to the car accident... We will fill in the gaps for you in a minute. Nothing is conclusive. The Chief can’t be put in jail. Unfortunately, his connections are extensive and, practically speaking, he cannot be accused. He has the power to make people disappear, and that includes the two of us. If you so much as hint at this to anyone, anyone at all, we will be gone and you will be alone.”
“Do you know how it happened?”
Casey nodded at Matt, who sighed deeply before speaking in a gentle voice. “It seems that there was a fight at your house and your parents had to drive somebody to the hospital. The Chief left the scene and somehow they had the accident on the way.”
Lu Lei suddenly felt like she was outside her body, watching the conversation take place. She could see them talking to her, but she couldn’t hear it. There was just a strange roaring in her ears. She felt an urge to run. It was all too much.
She felt Matt's hand on her shoulder, and she came back to the conversation. He was looking into her eyes.
“Lu Lei, you are safe with us, but we all need to act the part. The Chief has never tried to harm you and we believe that this will continue to be the case, just as long as nobody does anything to provoke him. No fighting of any kind with Wei Bao.”
Casey took over. “I’m sorry we had to keep all this from you, sweetie, but you were too young. You are still too young, but unfortunately you seem to be a master safe cracker.”
“Casey, I'm concerned that she has handled the pistols. If she can get to them, she's a danger to herself. I think we ought to at least give her the rules about firearms. Do you want to do it, or shall I?”
Matt walked over to the kitchen and, to Lu Lei’s surprise, he returned with both pistols. Casey turned her back on them both, shaking her head in either disbelief or disapproval.
“Pay attention now. This is just your first safety lesson. These are our tools for work, so don’t touch them unless one of us is here to supervise. They do not belong to you.”
Lu Lei was impressed that she was finally being treated as an adult. It was a strange feeling, but despite the swirl of mixed emotions, she liked what was happening.
“What I’m about to explain to you are the rules that prevent people from getting hurt and will prevent you from killing yourself or one of us, by accident.”
He put the larger pistol on the coffee table in front of her. “Number one: treat every gun as if it were loaded.”
Lu Lei sat quietly, still astounded. After hearing Matt’s list of gun rules, he demonstrated the mechanics of each of the pistols and then proceeded to reduce them to pieces. It was impressive, almost artistic.
“This is too much to learn in one sitting, so Casey and I will give you a lesson every night this week after dinner, without actually firing any guns. At least then we’ll know that you won’t be shooting yourself by accident if somehow you manage to get hold of one again.”
Lu Lei
’s heart had slowed down finally, but she was thinking about the death of her birth parents now, and she already had questions.
“And lastly,” Matt continued, “as a sign of our trust, I am not going to bother changing the combination of the safe. We no longer have any secrets from you, and besides, you would probably just find a way to open it, anyway. However, if you ever touch one of our sidearms again without our supervision, guess what you will be eating for dinner every night.”
“Spinach?”
Matt put both his arms around her and hugged her tightly.
“We really love you. Do you know that?”
“I know, Dad.”
Listening from the kitchen, Casey’s eyes welled up. Lu Lei hardly ever called him Dad.
Though warm and comfortable in bed, Lu Lei remained wide awake for hours. Matt’s explanation of the accident files had immediately filled her head with more questions. She had asked them all, but Matt and Casey’s answers had not connected all the dots. She continued playing it through her imagination: a fight at the house, the trip to the hospital, and the death of her parents in a random car accident.
She had always feared the Chief, and now she realized that she had not been imagining it. She had never liked the way he looked at her, and neither had it made complete sense. There was always hatred in his eyes, yet he had no reason to hate her except for those couple of times, seven years ago, when she’d put Wei Bao on the ground.
The sparring fight between the Chief and the Master right before his heart attack had seemed somewhat out of the ordinary to her when she was young, but now as she tried to put the shards of her shattered memories together, she realized that the stories in her memory were not coherent, and some incidents didn’t make any sense.
Tonight, Matt’s list of gun rules had knocked some memories into the light. Lu Lei found herself examining scenes which she had tucked away; details which she had only ever filtered through a five-year-old’s mind. Matt, talking about bullets and their potential for destruction, had got her thinking about bullet wounds.
Gasping, Lu Lei realized that a heart attack obviously would not cause bleeding. The Master’s heart attack had been a lie. He’d been shot.
25
Preparations
Standing in the doorway of her old house, Lu Lei felt the morning sun on her back as Matt flicked on all the light switches and looked upward dubiously.
She walked into the center of the space, testing the floorboards. “It looks pretty good. What’s the problem with those lights? Why are they flickering?”
“I really don’t know. Some of them just flicker for a long time before they come on. I’ll get the electrician back in. Floor is great though, right?”
“Good, mostly, but the work done by the monks and the students feels much nicer underfoot. Bounce on this area, then do the same thing over there.”
She watched as Matt made the comparison. “See what I mean?”
“I guess the floor captures the spirit of the times. You can see the moment where things in China took a turn for the worse.”
She looked at him mischievously. “Feel like sparring? I don’t get to fight adults at kung fu class. They are all teenagers.”
Matt whirled around and took a fighting stance, glaring comically at her as he imitated an old style kung fu vocal cat noise.
She giggled and took an exaggerated pose, balanced on one foot.
Matt stepped in close to her and clipped her behind the head with an open hand.
“What was that?” she complained.
“That was you being slow and unprepared. Maybe you underestimate me because of my age?”
“You are nearly fifty.”
He stepped toward her again, but this time Lu Lei poked him in the ribs with two fingers as he attempted to get behind her.
“You’d better keep your distance, young lady. I have a clear advantage in height and strength.”
Lu Lei took a few quick steps toward him and leaped skyward with all of her strength, flicking a toe past Matt’s ear with a lightning fast kick.
“Whoa, that was a bit close.” Matt stuck his finger in his ear, shaking it around pretending to clean it.
“I was expecting you to duck.”
Matt laughed. Then, arms spread wide, he ran at her. Lu Lei turned and took off, shrieking with laughter, but genuinely terrified that he would catch her and hold her down and tickle her like he used to do when she was small. She was very ticklish, and he was one of the few people who would ever know it.
She tore around the periphery of the space, staying barely ahead of him until her laughter became so uncontrollable that her knees gave way. He was upon her as she collapsed to the floor, gasping, face hurting from smiling. He got her right in the ribs with both hands, pushing her laughter across the threshold into squealing panic-laughter.
“Stop, stop. I’m going to pee myself.”
“And let that be a lesson to you, young lady. The martial art of tickling; far more powerful than kung fu.” Matt stood triumphantly above her, wiping his own tears.
Jimmy tipped his fridge backward and kicked a large wooden wedge under the front so he could retrieve the phone given to him by the American.
“Mister Roet. It is Jimmy.”
“Hello Jimmy. Welcome aboard. My superiors have high expectations for you, so I hope you will not let me down. Keep it coming and prove that you are worth the money, and we won’t have any problems. What do you have for me so far?”
“All bad news for you. My friends in the PLA infantry say that there is a big upgrade happening to all their equipment. New uniforms, camouflage like in the movies. New rifles and pistols. The Communist Party must be throwing a lot of dough at the Military. I heard they got some new planes, too. No details yet. Probably didn’t upgrade the food, though. That was some bad food they had there. Worst food I ever ate.”
“Okay Jimmy, new guns and disappointing noodles. Is this what I’m paying you for?”
“More details next week. Maybe I can get you some pictures of the new rifles.”
“You’re off to a rough start, Jimmy. I’m going to need you to do better. Send photos of rifles, sure, but going forward I’ll need intelligence on training upgrades, navy, air force, artillery, armored vehicles, big stuff. Also, start working on a tree diagram of the chain of command, from the top down. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“I got you covered. I gotta go slow or they’ll catch me, and fill me full of water, just like you guys do, only they have more experience than your guys.”
Jimmy knew much more, but he was going to spread it out.
“Fine. Call me in a week.”
“Okay, boss, I got your-” Roet hung up.
Matt watched, smiling proudly as Lu Lei broke down Casey’s pistol at the kitchen table on some newspapers. He could see that she was having fun and enjoying the attention. She was showing them both more respect now, knowing that firearms were undoubtably something they knew a lot about.
“This is a Croatian pistol used by their military. It’s a short recoil semi-auto with a polymer frame.”
Casey called from the kitchen, “Honey, we need to talk about Roet. Can you come in here, please?”
“That’s good, Lu Lei, slow and methodical for now. Leave it disassembled. I’ll put it back together. Go do your homework.”
Matt pulled an apron out of a drawer and took over the wok on the stove as Casey’s meat cleaver flew across the carrots on the wooden cutting board.
Casey talked loudly over the noise she was making. “Marcus is trying to cheap out on us. He keeps asking what he’s getting for his money.”
“Is this since he put Jimmy on the payroll?”
“Yep. The suits must have told him he was over budget. Should we be concerned that he might pull funding from some of our other assets? The ones most at risk are the virologist and my cop. Roet feels that they no longer have enough to offer.”
“Such an idiot. He’ll get us k
illed. Does he realize that we’ll have to clean them up?”
Casey stopped chopping. “I imagine he does. He didn’t say anything specific.”
“Let’s check on them both. We need to know if the money stops coming in. I don’t trust Roet to tell us in time. His priorities are backwards and he’s a coward.”
“And the worst part? We lose eyes on the Chief.”
Matt gave the wok an extra hard toss, causing a large orange flame and a hiss of burning oil. “Yeah. The Chief's unpredictable, and he still seems to hate all three of us.”
Casey started chopping again. “I’m more worried about Lu Lei. The Chief tends to hold grudges and we both know how ruthless he is.”
Matt sprinkled soy sauce into the wok. “That reminds me, we should repack the go-bag we have for Lu Lei. It’s already two years old. The clothes wouldn’t fit her anymore. Now we can explain it to her. She’s old enough. It will give her the opportunity to include a couple of things from her parents, you know, like pictures, or trinkets she's attached to. If we have to run, she needs to be mentally ready. No kicking and screaming.”
“So, Matt, we're on high alert now, right?”
“I would say so. Let's put some plans into place for the assets. Are you done chopping those carrots?”
Lu Lei was surprised that Matt and Casey had decided to trust her after she had ambushed them with her safe cracking mission. She felt closer to both of them, now that the shock and realization had passed. The evening gun lessons were exciting despite not being able to shoot.
Just before dinner, Casey handed her a card with an address to memorize and showed her the location on a map, and the fastest routes on a bicycle. Casey took the address card back and burnt it in the sink, then handed her two keys.
Casey, holding each key up, said, “Front of building, and front door. Got it? Keep them on your key chain. Never be without them. Your life, and our lives, may depend on it one day.”
Surviving Spies (Irving Waters, Spy Fiction Series) Page 19