False Witness (17 page)

“Your wife told me all about the kidnapping,” he said, scrolling down on his PDA. “So you can skip that part. I've already got a few of my men looking for the GPS tracker in the wreckage from your vehicle. Right now, my top priority is locating Kumari.”

“Thank God,” Clark said.

“We'll deal with your multiple felonies later,” Parcelli added.

“Right. Maybe you could actually help me with those if I cooperate?”

Parcelli stopped poking at the PDA and focused his narrow brown eyes on Clark. If he felt any sympathy, he was a master at hiding it. “Most of those are state offenses. Not my jurisdiction. But let me put it this way . . .”

As Parcelli stared, the room seemed to shrink. The tough-guy local cops had not scared Clark, but Parcelli was a different story—so matter-of-fact. He seemed like a man who didn't make threats and didn't play games. “An innocent man's life is in danger, Mr. Shealy. You might be the only hope he has. If you don't cooperate, I
won't
help you. That much I
can
guarantee.”

Clark cleared his throat, took a swig of water through the straw sticking out of his plastic cup, and began spilling his guts. He told Parcelli everything—quickly, in chronological order. And Parcelli had the good sense to keep the interruptions to a minimum.

Actually, Clark decided not quite
everything
was relevant. He failed to mention, for example, that Kumari had e-mailed him the algorithm or that Kumari's trusted friend would be calling later that same year with the key. Clark also couldn't resist putting his own spin on a few events where it might be his word against somebody else's. But even in his own sanitized version, his list of indiscretions was lengthy—it was hard to spin the exploded kneecap of Johnny Chin or the collapsed nose of Dennis Hargrove.

It might have been partially due to the medication, but for some reason Parcelli made Clark extremely nervous, necessitating frequent pauses to suck water through the straw. Relief flooded Clark's body like a narcotic—or maybe it was the Darvocet—when Parcelli's cell phone rang and it became clear that his men had recovered the GPS tracking device.

“It looks like Kumari hasn't moved from that spot you described,” Parcelli said after he finished the phone call. “My men are already heading there. We'll pick up this interview later. Is there anything else we need to know before we try to extricate Kumari?”

Clark pretended to be thinking hard, scrunching his face for effect. “Don't think so. Good luck.”

Parcelli stared for a beat too long, unnerving Clark. Then he handed Clark a card. “If you think of anything—anything at all—give me a call.”

30

That night, Clark and Jessica moved into a semiprivate room. Guards stood watch at the door. The treating physician detained Clark and Jessica for observation overnight because of possible closed-head injuries. Clark's diagnosis might have been affected by knowing that he would be transported to a local city jail if he left the hospital anytime soon. Consequently, he suffered intermittent short-term memory loss. With a number of criminal investigations pending, he never knew when that might come in handy.

The good news was that Jessica had not been sexually assaulted. Though her captors all wore masks around her, the man she identified as Huang Xu had actually been somewhat of a protector, insisting that only he and one of his men could touch Jessica.

That one exception, a stocky Chinese man with a viselike grip, seemed to know every pain-inducing pressure point on Jessica's body. He would dig his fingers into one such spot on the side of her neck, and she would nearly collapse from the pain, shrieking in agony as she begged him to let her go. If she tried to resist their demands, like getting her head shaved, or if Xu wanted her to scream during a phone call, he would simply nod, and this man would begin the painful torture. Jessica thought she saw a tattoo on the left side of the man's neck once when his ski mask slid up a little, though she couldn't swear to it.

There was also a time, Jessica said, when Huang Xu was not around and one of the other men decided to burn her with cigarette butts. Clark suspected there might have been other such incidents as well, but Jessica didn't want to talk about them, and Clark had the good sense not to push. Over time, perhaps, they would rehash the entire painful ordeal. Maybe he would ask about the photo Huang Xu sent him, maybe not. Clark knew just enough about hostage situations to realize that he might never know the full extent of what Jessica had endured.

They would both need counseling, and they would both need time—lots of time. But together, they would heal. Jessica was strong. A survivor. And perhaps, one step at a time, they could both rebuild some semblance of confidence and hope in their shattered world.

It was after 2:00 a.m. when Agent Parcelli reappeared in Clark's room. Clark pretended to be asleep, figuring he could also use grogginess to his advantage if necessary. But when Parcelli turned and quietly headed for the door, Clark knew his jig was up.

“I'm awake,” Clark confessed.

Parcelli walked over next to the bed and stood there in the shadows, his face impossible to read. From the angle, Clark noticed a jutting chin that hadn't seemed quite so prominent before, covered with the sprouting stubble of a man who badly needed a shave and probably a warm shower.

“You feeling any better?” Parcelli asked.

Clark nodded. “Darvocet. Percodan. I'm lobbying for OxyContin.”

Parcelli forced a thin smile. “Don't make me add narcotics to your list of indiscretions.”

Clark tried to smile back but suspected he didn't succeed. The relief at rescuing Jessica had been short-lived, washed away by revelations about her mistreatment. Plus, Clark had maimed two men and killed several others. Kumari's fate still hung in the balance. Clark didn't feel much like celebrating.

He let the quiet hum of hospital machines form the question he couldn't bring his own lips to ask. They both knew why Parcelli had come back.

“Your friend didn't make it,” Parcelli said at last. He sounded apologetic, his all-business tone replaced by a more sympathetic one. “We sent our best SWAT team in, but things turned chaotic. One of the triad members executed Kumari—a bullet to the head—before we could get to him. Three of their men are dead; four others wounded but expected to survive.”

Clark felt his throat constrict, his heart sickened by the news even as he struggled to digest it. “Huang Xu?”

“He wasn't there. Somehow, he must have known we were coming.”

For the next few minutes, Parcelli briefed Clark on other aspects of the investigation. They hadn't found Kumari's computer yet and thought it might have been pulverized in the helicopter explosion. Even so, they worried that the mob might have accessed the algorithm before the explosion.

“I think he would have erased it from that computer,” Clark offered. “And the ones in his apartment as well. Kumari was no dummy.”

That assessment prompted a long and piercing look from Parcelli, as if he knew something he wasn't saying. Clark decided it might be time for a quick change of subject.

“Did you figure out how the explosive device ended up on the helicopter?” he asked.

Parcelli said he was working two different theories on that one. It might have been that Kumari's laptop was on the helicopter. Perhaps his hard drive was protected by a code that Kumari wouldn't reveal even under extreme interrogation. Maybe the helicopter crew was supposed to finish off Clark and Jessica and then take the computer to an expert someplace.

On the other hand, Parcelli said, he tended to favor the explanation that Kumari intentionally and secretly dropped the explosive device out of his laptop's battery compartment before he got off the helicopter.

“Maybe Kumari heard them say they were going back for you and Jessica,” Parcelli offered. “Later, Huang Xu might have taken the computer when he left the triad's hideout—before our agents arrived.”

Knowing Kumari, just from the short time they had spent together, Clark favored this second theory. But there was another possible factor, in Clark's opinion, one he wasn't about to suggest to a no-nonsense FBI agent.

Maybe
the explosion was an answer to a desperate prayer.

Clark closed his eyes and wished it were all simply a nightmare. “Was he tortured?” Clark asked.

Parcelli hesitated. His silence became Clark's answer.

“What did they do to him?” Clark asked. “How bad?”

Parcelli shifted from one foot to the other. “I really can't say.”

The machines hummed, and neither man spoke for a few minutes. “I'll be back first thing in the morning,” Parcelli eventually said. “The doc says he's got some pretty strong painkillers in you right now. We'll need a coherent and detailed statement. Three other triad members were apprehended on the interstate, about thirty miles from the hideout. Two of them are suspects in Ms. Shealy's kidnapping. We'll need both of you as witnesses—voice identifications, descriptions of size and build, distinguishing marks that weren't covered by the masks, eye color—all those things will be critical for us to make our case.”

“What about all my felonies?”

“First things first. You help us bring down the triad. Then we'll talk about the felonies.”

“It was bad, wasn't it?” Clark persisted.

Parcelli nodded slowly. “Scalding water,” he said.

When the agent left, Clark was grateful for the solitude. He heard his wife's rhythmic breathing on the other side of the curtain. It should have brought him tremendous comfort, having her back, but there were so many shattered pieces that could never be made right.

Jessica was alive because Clark had traded Kumari's life for hers. A good and decent man had been murdered. He was tortured because Clark didn't have the courage to trigger the detonation device as soon as he left the blasting area, even though Kumari sent the signal almost immediately. Clark could never forgive himself for that.

And then there was the matter of the algorithm—a secret at once so magnificent and so terrible that it seemed to reside at the very axis between ultimate good and evil. Soon, it would belong to him. Like the crosshairs of a target emblazoned on the base of his skull.

31

On judgment day, Huang Xu rose early, stretched, performed his exercises, and centered himself. As a teenager, training under the watchful eye of the triad's Hung Kwan, he had mastered the martial arts, mind and body. He learned, among other things, how to enter an alternate state of perception, what Westerners called self-hypnosis. Xu had excelled, earning a place with the chosen seven, selected for leadership and education by Li Gwah himself.

He had been sent to America for a Western education.

In college, Xu continued his mastery of pain tolerance, disassociating mind from body, and put into practice the Buddhist principle of nonattachment. He held little regard for the things that motivated American college students, including the college women who found his disciplined body, long dark hair, sideburns, close-cropped beard, and mysterious ways magnetic. To defeat lust, Xu contemplated the loathsomeness of the body.

“Examine the body as a corpse,” Li Gwah had taught him, “and see the process of decay that has already begun. Contemplate the various aspects of the body—the lungs, the spleen, the fat, the feces, and the liver. What is the body but a skin bag filled with bones, organs, and fluids?”

Xu attended medical school at Gwah's insistence but developed little respect for the American system of medicine. Drugs, surgery, rehabilitation—all the things held dear by his instructors had little to do with the real causes of disease. At age twenty-five, Xu helped perform clinical studies using self-hypnosis to reduce anesthesia and accelerate postoperative healing. The next year, he left the practice of medicine, concluding that the capitalist health-care system was more concerned with profit than holistic wellness.

“You have learned well,” Li Gwah told him.

That same year, Xu began serving full-time in the Manchurian Triad.

His education continued under the tutelage of Gwah, the Shan Chu of the triad, a man who combined spiritual insight with political zealotry. It gave Xu, who had lost both parents in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, purpose and a cause worthy of his devotion—a new China undergirded by a revival of the old spiritualism. Nationalistic, but enlightened in the ways of Buddha. China, assuming her proper place at the top of the world's superpowers. China, resisting the dominance of Western cultural imperialism.

Xu believed fanatically in the triad's goals, rising quickly through its ranks, forging alliances and making enemies as each task required. Exposure to the West brought with it free thinking. But it was tempered by the memory of his parents' deaths. And a vision of the glory of China restored.

Which was one more reason why the events of the past few days had caused him so much frustration. The Abacus Algorithm had been developed by an
Indian
professor. That country, China's ancient rival, was experiencing its own economic revival. It competed with China for the attention of the West and, because of China's family-planning policies, would soon pass China as the world's most populous country. India, where the majority of people still worshiped millions of Hindu gods, had possession of one of the most powerful secrets in the world. If used skillfully, this simple formula could impact commerce, expose the secrets of other nations, and make the Indian subcontinent the hub for mathematical innovation. If used clumsily, the algorithm would throw the Internet into chaos. That much power did not belong in the hands of an
Indian
mathematician.

Like his mentor, Huang Xu followed the teachings of Buddha. But his was an imminently practical faith, which is to say, he molded the religion to fit comfortably with his agenda. He had no time for moral platitudes or hyperspiritualism. He spoke little of the Eightfold Path to righteousness and all but ignored the stringent moral code that had constricted the Buddha. He focused instead on individual enlightenment, inward peace, and mastering his emotions. He developed his own moral code, using the Buddha's teachings of nonattachment to fortify a cold-blooded approach toward reaching his goals. This strain of Buddhism, his own creation, he followed with total devotion.
Emotions
counted for nothing.
Regular people
counted for nothing.