Calculated

by Nova McBee

  “What about my father?” Rafael says.

  “I can’t help the bad choices he’s made.” I empathize with the pain in Rafael’s eyes. “He can still make good ones too. He can give us all the networks and contacts for Italy—customs, buyers, and anything he knows. If he agrees, we’ll request trial in Italy rather than China. I’m sorry, Rafael. That’s the most I can do for him.”

  “D’accordo. I’ll tell him, but I will not force him to do anything.” Our eyes meet. The pain, disappointment, and confusion swirling inside him aren’t hard to miss.

  “What about you?” he asks. “After all this is done, where will you go? What will you do?”

  Kai slips his fingers between mine and locks down on my hand.

  “That’s a good question.”

  Numbers forecast that even perfect plans have bumps in the road. And my plan is no exception. The whole week has been chaos.

  The economy is shaking more each day. America is starting to feel the effects as well. News is stirring up panic. The World Bank publicly supported the J.J. Super Bond, and the initial application process opened. Over a thousand companies have already applied for interviews. Everything depends on what happens this next week.

  There’s tension throughout the whole city. But the real tension is in me—the J.J. Super Bond is not nearly at the magnitude of cash flow that we need. Even if we are able to successfully storm the Pratt, and obtain Madame and King’s stash, it’s still not enough for the economic bailout and the super bond.

  In the meantime, Agent Bai tipped info over to the police about two of Madame’s massage parlors. They were infiltrated and the police rescued twenty-six girls in one night. Madame will suspect a routine bust and think nothing of it.

  There’s a knock on my office door and Yu Tai walks in holding a paper in his hands.

  “You got the deed?”

  Yu Tai nods. “King destroyed the original, but through Agent Bai’s security clearance, we got into city records and got a copy.”

  “Once this is over, Yu Tai, you can begin a new life with what rightfully belongs to you,” I say.

  “My honor will be restored but the property is worthless because of the erosion. No chance of developing new ports there ever again,” he says.

  “Wait,” I laugh, “you don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “King wanted your dad’s property for what’s beneath it. The ancient catacombs from the Song Dynasty.”

  “The legend? It’s real?”

  I nod. “History’s going to get a new chapter. Every major archeologist, geologist, historian—not to mention tourist—will beg you, with gold, to get access there. Just watch.”

  Yu Tai looks stunned, then walks out, blissfully happy.

  After two minutes and eighteen seconds, Rafael walks in with a briefcase.

  “Buon giorno,” he says, his Italian kiss-greeting warms my cheeks.

  “Morning,” I reply.

  “You know, you are more beautiful than I remember.”

  “Grazie,” I say, blushing. We stare at each other. Something passes between us. I know what he’s thinking, because I’m thinking it too. Perhaps in another life, we could have had something. But that chance has passed. That spark I felt when he came to the Pratt was real, for that time. He was a gift of hope during my captivity. A sign I could feel something normal for a boy. I needed him then. But Rafael is not what I need now.

  Just like that, I let go of those memories and questions regarding Rafael. They’ve been answered. I don’t need to think about them anymore. A picture of Kai in his jeans and tee-shirt floats in my mind and business takes over.

  “So, what do you have for me here?”

  “Take a look.” He opens the briefcase. Inside are keys, codes, USB drives, paper copies of schedules, lists of names. Even a bottle of mist.

  The mist—a last-minute request. I feared the girls would react like prisoners of war when the kung fu brothers come for them. Like POWs, the girls are sometimes disillusioned by the time help arrives, so they fight against them, believing it’s another trap. I told the brothers that if it came to that, the mist might be the gentlest way of getting them out.

  I nod approvingly at Rafael. He was faithful to his word. To get everything we asked of him.

  “Your father?” I ask.

  “He gave up the contacts very willingly, left a lump of money for you and returned to Italy on the first plane,” Rafael says, handing me a plump envelope. “King still thinks he’s meeting my father on Friday. I visited Agent Bai and recorded a confession of what I know. I’ll stay ’til Friday to help, but then I’m heading back too. To take a chance in Rome or London.”

  “Thank you, Rafael.”

  “I told you I’d return the favor, Mila.”

  “My real name is Josephine,” I say. “I’m seventeen. From Seattle, and you were right, I am a prodigy.”

  He cups my hand in his, a satisfied look in his eyes. We say goodbye and good luck, even though we’ll see each other in a week. But for us, it’s closure, something we didn’t have until now.

  It’s done. We have the names, the schedules. Later, the team comes to the office. We get to work finalizing the last details—rerouting the shipments, investigating buyers and custom agents, replacing them. My nerves are an ocean of restless waves.

  We go over the plan one last time. Golden Alley tomorrow, the Pratt in three days, and the Expo in five.

  I hope we can hold it together for five more days without getting caught.

  34

  Present: Phoenix

  GOLDEN ALLEY, SHANGHAI, CHINA

  We are two blocks from Golden Alley. Agent Bai adjusts a small Bluetooth device in my ear, making sure it’s connected to his and Kai’s.

  “It’s working,” I say, hearing everything like a three-way conversation. “I want a play by play update.”

  “Got it.” The Sang Brothers, Agent Bai, Yu Tai, and Kai move in toward Golden Alley, while I hang back on a busy, lighted corner. I wanted to go in with them, for the girls’ sake. But after they convinced me I wouldn’t be helpful until after they subdued the thugs running the place, I agreed to wait for their signal.

  It’s Friday. Hua Mei says that there are always more buyers on Friday, mostly street scum.

  As I wait, I think of this morning. It was the first day of hotel infiltration for the kung fu brothers. Four hotels down, and everything went as planned. They ‘replaced’ Madame’s men with Master Sang’s men. Kept up appearances, payment runners, business as usual. No one suspected anything.

  According to Kai, buyers got quite a shock when they entered the hotel room expecting a girl and found a beefy kung fu master instead. I imagine the look on their faces and smile.

  We’ve recorded 35 confessions. Eighty-six girls have been safely rescued, 52 that needed medical attention. I still hear Kai’s voice…I had no idea horrors like this existed.

  I expect tonight to be quick and effective like yesterday—a piece of cake since it’s all lower level operations. They can’t be as sophisticated as the hotels.

  Kai’s voice pops up in my ear now.

  “Going in.” There’s a loud crack. “Door’s open.”

  For 78 seconds there’s nothing but light breathing in my ear until an angry male voice starts cursing and Agent Bai starts yelling, “Get back!”

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  No response. Another loud crack, voices are raised. In the background girls are screaming hysterically and there’s a lot of loud smashing sounds. A fight has broken out.

  “Master Sang! I need back up!” Agent Bai yells.

  “Over there, more buyers!” Kai’s voice.

  “They’re struggling too much. Yu Tai, mist them!”

  “To the vans, quick!”

  “What’s happening?” I ask. My mind races through a series of calculations, but I need more variables. Despite not hearing the signal, I run toward the alley, heart pounding.

 
; When I arrive, all hell has broken loose and flooded into the street. I count, stunned. How is it possible there are so many girls here? So many buyers?

  In the chaos, I look for Kai just as a noise tears through the streets. Sirens. I snap up to see Kai’s eyes, worried and serious.

  “Get out of here, Phoenix!” Kai shouts. “Now!”

  I don’t question his command. I find a taxi on the main road and retreat to the factory as fast as I can, processing the scene I’ve just witnessed: dozens of girls bolting from the door, screaming, struggling, fainting. Buyers attacking Master Sang. Agent Bai slamming another man to the road, handcuffing him.

  Red’s poem crashes like waves over my mind trying to calm me. Sun glows gold…

  My thought is cut short by Agent Bai’s static-masked voice breaking up in my ear, “A crowd…gathering! … Police! … Disappear!”

  Numbers shatter like glass in my mind as another siren is added to the noise. Our plan’s odds of success lower each second. If this goes public, Madame might follow the trail to the hotels, then to the boats, and then to us—and basically, we’re screwed.

  Last night’s fiasco makes the morning news. Interpol’s representative covers it up for us, explaining it as a routine bust but I can’t shake the bad feeling in my gut that Madame will have seen through it.

  At lunch, more bad news follows. Inflation has risen steeply over the past two months. Small shops have begun to close, and schools are cutting budgets. A normal cycle that should correct itself, they say on the news.

  People have no real idea of what’s really coming.

  I raise the white bowl to my lips, shoveling the remaining rice into my mouth with my chopsticks. Today this bowl of rice costs less than a dollar, but if we can’t secure the money we need for the super bond and correct the economic free fall, soon it could cost more than twenty dollars. So many mouths will go hungry. I can’t let that happen.

  I hurry back to my office. As I prepare for the bond and loan interviews, Kai roams in unexpectedly.

  “Hi. How are you?” he asks. The bruise on his face from last night is a real shiner. I wonder how he explained it to his dad.

  “What’s wrong now?” I ask. He’s supposed to be finalizing details for the Pratt take down with Agent Bai. “Do you need me?”

  “I do.” He plants a kiss on my cheek, pulls back, and finds my eyes.

  “I was referring to the plan,” I say, my body pulsing with electricity. I’m still getting used to him touching me.

  “Everything’s in order. I just missed you.” He turns to rummage the papers on my desk. “Last night shook you pretty hard. How are you?”

  “Not as optimistic as you.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Just tell me where to find nearly $1.2 trillion to plug into the Chinese economy and I’ll be fine.” I feel an eruption coming on. “We’re robbing two notorious criminals of everything they have—without telling the police—and I’m still not sure we’ll have enough. And now, Madame might run before the Expo! And without Asia Bank we can’t implement the final bond installments.”

  My head collapses onto the desk. “I wish these mountains of papers would fall and bury me and I’d never have to get up again. Then the responsibility would fall on someone else to find a solution. I could donate my brain to science. They could open it up and maybe the solution would be inside.”

  My back warms in the center. Kai’s hand is circling softly. “Remember why you are doing this. You are meant for this. Stay here. Take all the time you need. One application at a time. We’ll get enough, you’ll see.”

  I sigh. “I shouldn’t complain. I have help.” I point across the hall where the two other brainiacs, Sheri and Phillip, are solving problems and working out new systems for smaller banks according to my J.J. Bond instructions. “Any more news on Madame?”

  “No. We are working on the last Golden Angel Hotel, the one where you stayed. It’s tricky because Celia will stay there during the Expo.”

  Kai feels me shudder when her name is spoken and pulls me in for a hug.

  “It’s okay. She’s not your concern anymore,” he says. “That’s why we are here.”

  “Thanks,” I say, even though I know that’s not true. The Expo is around the corner.

  Kai pulls my head to his chest. The minute I hear his heartbeat in my ear, my fear dissipates. My thoughts drift to pleasant things I haven’t allowed my heart to access—ice cream on the beach, winter nights reading books in front of the fireplace, love. I can’t get over how hearing the thump of his beating heart never grows old. It beats over and over again, strong and steady—

  —Something’s wrong. Usually I’d have an exact number of heartbeats logged right now, but I don’t—which means I’m not counting them—which means…

  My eyes snap open, darting around the room. The distance between me and the door. The window size. The desk and the chair. There’s nothing assigning numerical definition to my office. The numbers are gone. Just like when I’m in a dream, only now I’m awake. I stay motionless, the thump thump of Kai’s heart still in my ear, wondering what to do next.

  I squeeze my eyes shut several times and like a switch the numbers turn on. I can calculate again. Kai has a normal heart rate of eighty-eight beats per minute.

  Hmm, I think, that’s strange. It must be a coincidence. But then again, I don’t really believe in those.

  35

  Present: Phoenix

  THE FACTORY, SHANGHAI, CHINA

  The highest melting point in the world for a pure metal is 6,192° Fahrenheit. This fact alone blows scientists away, but not me, because on some days I feel like that metal. My computer-like brain has a high aptitude for what it can handle. But these days, my brain must be getting fried. Numbers jumble up or fade in and out like a radio signal.

  It happens when I stare at the J.J. Super Bond for too long, or when I look at Kai, or right when I wake up. I’ve never experienced this before. It worries me.

  In front of me sits a stack of papers I should be working on, but I can’t focus with my numbers distracting me like this. The coffee’s not helping. I massage my temples with my fingertips, but it’s useless. I grab my purse. Maybe a walk will clear my mind.

  On foot, I head toward the factory in auto mode thinking of Lulu, the new girl, who’s walking and even laughing again. Dr. Ling will be there too. Maybe she’ll know what’s happening to me.

  I enter through the back gate. A shuffling noise startles me to the left, twenty feet away. I push back into the doorframe. There’s a small flowerpot at my feet. It’s not much, but I take it into my hands. I crouch down, peer around the corner. My defenses drop when a tall, thin man comes towards me.

  “What are you doing here, Chan?”

  “I came to visit the factory,” he says.

  “How did you get in?” I ask, angrily. Now that Kai knows, it seems all kinds of new things are happening. “I changed the locks.”

  “I have a right to know if you are doing something illegal,” he says, evading my first question. “Especially since my son is involved and bruises are appearing on his face.”

  “So you’re spying on me,” I say, a bit hurt. “I can’t believe that you would accuse me of doing something illegal!”

  “Consider where I found y—” He stops abruptly. Chan is not looking at me anymore but behind me, his eyes wide with disbelief, as if he sees a ghost.

  “Good afternoon, Chan Da Ge.”

  My head whips around. Dr. Ling stares at Chan. A smile, slow and comforting, rises on her lips.

  Da Ge? Am I hearing things, or did she just call him “big brother?” If she wasn’t acquainted with him intimately, she would never use that expression.

  “Ling Xia Hui.” Chan clears his throat, trying to remove whatever it is that’s making it hard for him to speak. He examines her slowly from head to toe. “How the years have passed.”

  “More than ten,” she responds in her usual calm manner, but
tears gather in her eyes. She steps closer. He, too, moves forward. I, however, back up. To them, I might as well be invisible anyway.

  “When I saw you last, you were still a girl,” he says, stumbling for the right words. “You have changed a lot.”

  My anger dissipates as I watch Chan melt into a boy, unsure of himself. Who is Dr. Ling that he is transformed into someone I can’t recognize? Will I ever know who Red is to him?

  “You’ve not changed a bit,” she says, “except sterner in the face.”

  “I’m sorry about your brother, your family…for how things worked out...” He breaks eye contact. He’s choking up. Pain zigzags across his face marking an ache I know well—it’s the expression of a man whose life was stolen from him. But how?

  “The past is the past. Red did not dwell there. I don’t either. You know my family, Chan Ge. It wasn’t your fault,” she says, lips trembling. “I’ve missed you. We all have.”

  Chan lowers his eyes, tears slipping down his cheeks. He clears his throat, one, two, three times. “I’m sorry, Ling Ling.”

  “It’s all forgiven. Except now, there’s more bad news…”

  His stupor flees. He returns to the present place and time where I’m in the picture.

  “How do you know her?” He points to me. “What are you doing here?” he asks, suddenly very confused. Her eyes ask me for direction on what to say.

  Awkward silence settles. I jump in.

  “Chan,” I say, “it’s time you learned what we’re doing. But I need to have your word that what we tell you stays here. People’s lives are at stake.”

  He tenses into his usual stiffness. He steps backwards, like he has been put in this position before and won’t be cornered again.

  Dr. Ling goes to him. Her round eyes peer up at him, like a gentle supplicant, praying him through hell. That’s when I notice what a beautiful woman she is. Her passion for life and helping people radiates like Red’s.