The Second Perimeter (22 page)

46

F
at Neil did a slow turn— an elephant doing a pirouette— as he inspected DeMarco’s motel room. “Jesus, Joe, this place is a dump,” he said. “Tell me we don’t have adjoining rooms.”
Neil was in his fifties, short, maybe five seven, and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. He was the guy you didn’t want to see walking down the aisle of an airplane when the seat next to you was empty. His head was balding on top but he allowed his remaining hair to grow long at the back and tied it into a grayish-blond ponytail that reached between his shoulder blades. The only attire DeMarco had ever seen him wear was Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and sandals, and that’s what he was wearing today.
“It was the best I could afford,” DeMarco said, responding to Neil’s comment about the motel room.
“Is Uncle trying to reduce the deficit by lowering your per diem?”
“Something like that,” DeMarco muttered. There was nothing to be gained by telling Neil that he was unemployed.
“Good,” Neil said. “Someday I’ll be eligible for Social Security, and it’d be nice if there was something still in the kitty when the time comes.”
This was Neil’s idea of a joke. If he ever needed Social Security he’d hack into a server and the government would began to spit out the largest retirement checks it had ever printed.
Neil was an old associate of Emma’s, a man who made his living by collecting and selling information. He slithered— electronically— through firewalls and hacked into encrypted systems. He tapped phones and bugged boardrooms and bedrooms. DeMarco suspected that a portion of Neil’s income came from government agencies and another portion came from people trying to get a leg up on the competition. Whatever the case, Emma had once saved Neil’s life so when DeMarco called him and asked for help, Neil got on the first plane to Vancouver, arriving just in time for breakfast.
“Where’s your gear?” DeMarco asked.
Neil didn’t answer; he was still inspecting the motel room. He stuck his head into the small bathroom. “No Jacuzzi,” he said. He turned toward DeMarco and raised his arms like the crucified, suffering Christ. “And my God, Joe, this place doesn’t have room service.”
“Neil, trust me, you’ll survive,” DeMarco said. “Now where’s your gear?”
Neil jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “A van, out in the lot. But before I start unpacking stuff, we need to sit down and talk. And I’m hungry.”
Hunger, DeMarco suspected, was a chronic condition.
At a Denny’s two blocks from the motel, Neil ordered a breakfast large enough to feed Ethiopia. After half of it disappeared, he said, “We need to develop a working premise.”
“A working premise?”
“Yes,” Neil said. “I can’t rape every database in Canada, so we need to narrow things down somewhat. We have to start by making certain assumptions, assumptions to focus our efforts. Comprende?”
“Yeah, I get it,” DeMarco said. “And our first assumption is that Emma’s still alive and still in Canada.”
“I hope she’s alive, too, Joe, but is your assumption a product of reason or emotion?”
“Reason. If Li Mei had just wanted her dead, she would have shot Emma while she was sitting there in her car. The second assumption, that she’s still in Canada, is more of a reach but we gotta make it.”
“And why is that?” Neil said.
“Because if Emma was packed into a box and loaded onto a ship for China, then we might as well go home and hold a wake for her. I’m not gonna do that, so we’re gonna assume she’s still here.”
“But why Canada?” Neil said. “Maybe she’s in the States by now. Alaska, if not the lower forty-eight.”
“She could be, but both Canadian and U.S. customs are watching the border crossings. And it would seem to me that the last place Li Mei would feel safe would be the States. But mostly I think she’s still here because, as Smith said, the Chinese government probably isn’t helping Li Mei and she’d need help to get Emma out of the country. They’d have to line up a ship from a friendly country, make arrangements with a container company, fake bills of lading. Probably more than Li Mei could do on her own.”
“I don’t know about that,” Neil said.
“We
have
to assume she’s still here, Neil,” DeMarco said.
Neil could hear the desperation in DeMarco’s voice. “Okay,” he said, “so we assume she’s still in Canada. Then what?”
“Then I don’t know,” DeMarco said. “That’s why I called you.”
Neil started to answer, stopped and ate another slice of bacon— his fifth or maybe his sixth— then jabbed his fork at a syrup-sodden piece of pancake.
“Neil,” DeMarco said.
“Have you considered
why
this woman kidnapped Emma instead of killing her, Joe?”
“Yeah,” DeMarco said, “and it’s not good. Smith thinks Li Mei is forcing Emma to give up stuff she knows. Classified stuff.” DeMarco didn’t want to use the word “torture.”
“That’s what I thought you were going to say,” Neil said. “But let’s not think about that for the moment. Let’s return to our working premise.”
Neil shut his eyes and pursed his lips, moving them in and out. He reminded DeMarco of Rex Stout’s description of a thinking Nero Wolfe— Nero Wolfe in a Hawaiian shirt.
“Where would she take her?” Neil said.
“Well if I knew that—”
“That was a rhetorical question, Joe. You’re going to have to get used to them. Now as to Emma’s current location, let’s see if we can narrow down the possibilities. First, I don’t believe Li Mei would stash her in a heavily populated area.”
“Why not? If they put her in a cellar someplace or a vacant apartment in a high-rise, who’s to know?”
“I don’t think so. Li Mei needs someplace she can smuggle a kidnapped person into— a person who’s unconscious or being restrained. She needs someplace where the neighbors won’t see a lady in handcuffs and a blindfold being carried up the stairs.”
“So she smuggles her in at night.”
“The kidnapping happened about noon,” Neil said. “Li Mei wouldn’t have driven her around all day, waiting until dark. No, Li Mei needs someplace where her comings and goings won’t be noticed, where they won’t be exposed when they go out for food and supplies.”
“Maybe—” DeMarco started to say but Neil continued as if he was sitting alone.
“Nor do I believe that they’d stash her anyplace with a large Asian population, such as Chinatown. Li Mei and her companions might blend into such an area, but the Chinese embassy probably has more contacts among the Asian population than the Canadians do. And I imagine that by now both the Chinese and the Canadians have alerted everyone they know in Vancouver— agents in place, gang leaders, merchants, forgers— to be on the lookout for Li Mei and her two associates.
“On the other hand,” Neil said, “being Chinese also poses a problem for Li Mei. Urban Vancouver has a large Asian population but the outlying areas do not. This makes Li Mei and her associates stand out— something we can use to our advantage.”
“How—”
“So we’ll add to our working premise that Li Mei has Emma somewhere isolated but not in an area with a large Asian population.”
“Well shit, Neil,” DeMarco said, “that leaves just about all of fuckin’ Canada, from here to Nova Scotia.”
“No, travel takes time and increases the risk of discovery. That’s not what a logical person would do. A logical person would find a place close to Vancouver, someplace they could get her to quickly after the snatch. So I believe she’s in an isolated area near Vancouver, but in a place where her neighbors won’t notice the activities of a beautiful Chinese woman and her two thuggish companions.
“Which brings us to the thugs,” Neil said, switching direction without signaling. “Who are they? Are they Chinese agents? The answer to that question is probably no, as your Mr. Smith has assumed. So they’re the kind of people who work on the fringes. People like me, in other words. People with skills who operate for profit but who are not part of the government’s infrastructure.”
Neil sat for a second saying nothing. “Yes, I think that all sounds right.” After a few more minutes of silent lip-pursing, he said, “So, that’s our working premise, Joseph: Emma is alive, near Vancouver, in an isolated area with two Chinese for-hire thugs.” Neil rubbed his two thick, soft paws together. “Now we have something to work with.”
“What exactly do we have to work with, Neil? All you’ve done with your working premise is reduce the size of the haystack— but it’s still a big fucking haystack.”
Neil shook his big head, feigning dismay. “Allow me to explain for the slow learners in our group. We can now start looking at records for property that has been rented or sold— but I think rented— to a Chinese woman or a Chinese couple in the last two weeks. We may be able to narrow the date down even further because this operation was not planned long in advance. But for now we’ll consider the time frame from the date you and Emma arrived in Bremerton until the day Emma was snatched.”
“But how would you know if Li Mei’s rented property? You think she’d use her own name?”
“No, but it’s probably a safe assumption that they would use a name suitable for an Asian— Chinese, Japanese, Korean, something like that. Or she could have used a name that sounds both Caucasian and Asian.”
“Like what?”
“Like Lee. Is Lee American or Chinese? Or Park. Is Park Korean or American?”
“I get it,” DeMarco said. “But why can’t they just use a non-Chinese name? Why not Jones or Taylor or Butler?”
“For a couple of reasons. One, such a name would draw attention to them. But I think the primary reason they’ll use an Asian name is that these people would have false papers, and if you have false papers and you’re an Asian, you don’t have the papers made out in the name of Fenshaw.”
“If she has fake papers,” DeMarco said, “maybe the intelligence guy at the Chinese embassy would know what name she’s using.”
“That’s a good thing to have Smith check on,” Neil said, “not that the Chinese would necessarily tell him. Then there are the thugs.”
“What about the thugs?” DeMarco said.
“Because they’re thugs, there’s a good chance they’ll have police records. Or if they don’t have police records, folks in the underworld— gang members, mob bosses, those sorts of people— probably know them. This would be a good thing for the RCMP to look into.”
Neil started to say something else, then stopped.
“What?” DeMarco said.
“I think there’s someone else we need to look for. A pharmacist.”
“A pharmacist?”
“Yes. As you said earlier, Li Mei is probably forcing Emma to give her information. Now she could be pulling out her fingernails or—”
“I get the idea, Neil.”
“Yes. Well that sort of interrogation isn’t particularly effective, not if you want
large
amounts of information. I mean if all you want to know is where the family silver is buried, whacking off someone’s pinky can be pretty effective. But to get large amounts of data, too much time is spent allowing the person being questioned to recover from the torture. And it often requires a doctor to keep the person alive while you’re torturing her. And it’s messy and it’s noisy. But most important, it’s often difficult to tell if the captive is telling the truth as the pain wears off. So if I was Li Mei, I’d use drugs. And since one of our prior assumptions is that this operation was not sanctioned by the Chinese government, where would Li Mei get these drugs?”
“A pharmacist.”
“Precisely. A very special pharmacist,” Neil said. Neil covered the empty plate in front of him with a napkin as if he were pulling a sheet up over the head of a corpse.
“Well, Joe, let’s go back to the motel and unload my equipment. I’ve got enough to get started.”
As they walked toward the car, DeMarco said, “Wouldn’t Smith’s people have come to the same conclusions we have?”
“Possibly. Assuming they’re as bright as
moi
.”
“Let’s assume they are.”
“Well, assuming they are, they’re probably going after information legally— meaning they’re working through the Canadians. If we were on American soil, Smith might be inclined to run roughshod over a few privacy rights. But here in Canada, I think they’re probably asking the Canadians to help them with record searches, and the Canadians— since it’s not
their
ex-spy who’s gone missing— are probably following the rules. Well, Joe, m’boy, I’m not following any fucking rules. I owe Emma my life.”

E
mma was crying. She was crying for Suki.
She was nine years old and it was a Saturday morning. She was sitting on the porch of her grandmother’s house playing jacks. Practicing, actually— not just
playing
. At recess on Monday she was going to play Judy Parker again and this time she was going to beat her. She could now scoop up eight jacks with her small right hand. Sometimes she could get nine, but ten were just too many. But Judy Parker, who had bigger hands than hers, big
fat
hands, could get all ten almost all the time. Emma would practice until she could get ten. She’d stretch her fingers if she had to.
While Emma was practicing, Suki was playing near her. She’d chased a butterfly for a while, swatting at it with her paw until the butterfly flew away. Bored, the kitten had pushed her sweet little face into the area where Emma’s jacks were and nudged them with her nose. Emma pushed her gently away. “Suki! I need to practice,” Emma said.
Then she forgot about Suki, so intent on mastering the game, and the next time she looked up to see where Suki was, she couldn’t see her. She stood up, on the top step of her grandmother’s porch, and searched all around the front yard with her bright blue eyes. Then she saw her: the kitten was across the street, stalking a bird.
Emma didn’t want Suki to catch the bird. “Come here, Suki, come here,” she yelled. But Suki ignored her and crept toward the bird. Emma jumped down from the porch and ran across the street calling, “No, Suki, no.” As she neared the kitten she waved her arms and the bird flew away, but when she tried to pick up Suki, to scold her for being a cat, the kitten scooted out of her arms and ran in the same direction the bird had flown— back across the street, toward Grandma’s house.
Emma saw the car coming and she screamed— but it did no good. The car’s right front tire broke Suki’s back. Emma ran to the bleeding cat, screaming hysterically. The lady who’d been driving stopped the car and ran over and clutched Emma to her, holding her, trying to comfort her, to contain her. Emma struggled in the woman’s arms and kicked at her, all the time looking at Suki, who just lay there, her eyes open, with funny stuff coming out of her nose. Emma couldn’t stop crying.
“Stop crying and answer me,” she heard a voice say. It didn’t sound like Grandma though; Grandma never yelled at her that way.
“She killed Suki,” Emma said.
“What?” the mean voice said.
“She killed Suki. The woman with the red shoes.”
“Goddamnit, how much did you give her?” Li Mei said to Loc in Chinese.
“I gave her the same amount as before, just like you told me,” Loc said. He didn’t like this arrogant woman. “I’m telling you, it’s building up in her system. You’re going to fry her brain if you don’t stop for a couple of days.”
Li Mei ignored Loc and said to Emma, “Quit crying, Emma, and tell me about Wu Sing. Emma! Stop crying! Tell me what Wu Sing gave you before he died.”
“Wu Sing?” Emma said.
Sing had worked at the Chinese finance ministry and for several years he had provided the Americans with data on how much the Chinese were spending on their weapons programs. The amounts being disbursed gave the DIA an indicator of priorities and strategies. Unfortunately, Chinese counterintelligence eventually identified Sing as a mole but before they could arrest him, he bolted. He made it as far as Taiwan where he was crossing a street to meet Emma, the last step in a journey to freedom, when a Chinese agent ran him down. Emma remembered Wu Sing lying there on the wet asphalt, his back broken, staring up at her, his eyes begging her to save him.
“You were driving too fast,” Emma said to Li Mei, her voice petulant and oddly childlike.
Li Mei shrieked in frustration and raised her hand to slap Emma, but then she stopped. She studied her prisoner for a moment: she looked terrible, her hair dirty and matted to her scalp, her face thin and haggard from lack of sleep and loss of weight. She looked beaten.
Li Mei exhaled. “Okay,” Li Mei said to Loc in Chinese. “We’re done. But don’t let her sleep yet. Give her a small dose of the amphetamine if you have to to keep her awake, but nothing else. I have something to tell her and I want her lucid. Do you understand?”
When Loc didn’t answer immediately Li Mei said again, “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he finally said. He was staring intently at Emma and there was a slight smile curving his lips, a strange light in his hooded eyes. Li Mei knew Loc was a sadist, possibly a psychopath. She wondered if she should kill him now.