Punishment

by Guerin Zand

  “Guerin, we have a problem. Diane is missing. We believe she’s been abducted.”

  “What happened?”

  “We’re not a hundred percent certain. She hadn’t shown up to work for a few days and she usually lets someone know if she’s not going to be available. One of her co-workers got concerned when she couldn’t reach her and she called security.”

  “Have you tried to reach her on the comm network?”

  “Yes, that was the first thing I did but I can’t reach her. Security stopped by her house and they entered on my ok. They found her fiancé dead in the kitchen. His hands and feet were bound and his throat was cut. No sign of Diane.”

  “Let’s not waste time, Roger. I’ll contact Sammy and we’ll all meet onboard the shuttle. We’re going to need their help. Katie and Steve are with Maria. Have them secure Maria and wait for me to contact them. We’ll bring Maria up with the two of them.”

  “What about Anna?”

  “She’s flying to Tokyo. She should be on route to JFK from Santiago now and will be arriving around 8 AM tomorrow morning. Arrange to have someone pick her up there and get her secured. I’ll go down to pick her up.”

  “Why isn’t she using the NFT executive air services?”

  “I’ll explain when I see you. Let’s get to it.”

  A few minutes later I was onboard the shuttle. Cindy opened a portal for Katie, Steve, and Maria and at the same time opened one for Roger. Before I could count ten, we were all onboard. It was Maria’s first portal transit, but she didn’t look phased in the slightest.

  “What’s happening, Dad?”

  “You’re on Sammy’s shuttle.” I pointed to Sammy. “We think Diane’s been kidnapped. You’re going to stay here until this is all sorted out.” Maria started to say something but I stopped her. “This is not a discussion, Maria!” She knew I was serious and backed down. “This is Stella. She’ll get you set up with quarters and she’ll be your escort for now. The rest of us have work to do.” Maria hoisted her bag over her shoulder and Stella started to lead her away. I was glad to see she was still smart enough to keep a bug out bag handy.

  Maria turned around. “What about Mom?”

  “She’s on the flight to JFK. We have a team ready to pick her up when she lands. Now go with Stella. I’ll come talk to you as soon as I get a chance.”

  I looked to Roger for answers. “What do we know, Roger?”

  “We’re sure now that it was an abduction. Our teams on the scene found bloody footprints we believe were Diane’s. The blood was her fiancé’s. What doesn’t make sense is that her fiancé was bound and sedated. It looks like whoever did this killed him in front of Diane, probably to scare her more?”

  “Do we know who?”

  “No, but we suspect the Chinese. While I was waiting for you I asked Cindy to gather all the information she could about anything unusual. I had her specifically search the travel records from China over the last six months.”

  Cindy took it as her cue to present what she’d found. “First, we sent Ricky down to the scene to meet up with your team. He brought equipment with him to provide us with DNA scans of the area. We scanned through the data and found DNA that was most definitely from someone of Chinese origin.”

  I stopped her. “You can determine the nationality from the DNA you found?”

  “We can’t tell his nationality, but we can tell that it was a male with genetic markers common to people living in a certain region. We use statistical analysis to…”

  “A simple yes would be sufficient, Cindy.”

  “Ok, yes. We can also use the DNA sample to get the man’s approximate age and we created this composite picture of the suspect from that DNA.” A picture of a Chinese man in his early 30’s appeared in front of us and Cindy moved it to the side.

  “How accurate is this picture Cindy?”

  “We can’t be sure of the hair length or style, so that’s just a guess. The facial features should be accurate enough for our facial recognition systems unless this person has had significant reconstructive surgery. But I don’t think that’s the case.”

  “Why?” Roger asked.

  “Because we tried to match this face against the passport photos of all passengers admitted to the U.S. from China in the list you had me generate. For a while, U.S. immigration has been making digital copies of the passports when admitting anyone and we have a match.” Cindy displayed the copy of a passport photo and placed it next to the composite and it matched, almost perfectly.

  “Wen Chiu? What do we know about him?” Roger looked at Cindy.

  “Well, we know that’s not Wen Chiu. We also got a match to this photo we found in the classified Chinese records we’ve scanned. Cindy brought up what looked like a military profile but there was no name. Simply an ID number, rank, blood type, and other basic biographical info.

  I looked at the information Cindy had brought up and I was more confused. “So, he’s a major in the PLA? That’s all we know about, Wang Chung?”

  Roger and my team looked at me knowing that I had named him that, not as a joke, but as an insult. Cindy looked at Roger, puzzled by the name I had used, but Roger just shook his head lightly to tell her to ignore it.

  “He’s intelligence, most probably Ministry of State Security, MSS. Like our CIA but they also have authority over domestic security issues.”

  Cindy nodded and jumped back in. “Correct, Roger. It was in the MSS files we found this record. But there’s a lot more. He came into the States under the U.S. Refugee Assistance program. Wen Chiu came in under a special status allowing Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim faction living in parts of China, a fast track to refugee status. We found there was a real Wen Chiu who was a Uyghur but we had difficulty finding any photo records of the man. Either they don’t exist or they were destroyed a while back. We checked the databases on the backup servers as well as the active databases.”

  Roger and the team started talking over each other trying to ask Cindy a dozen different questions. Cindy was trying to get a word in, and after a minute of this, I interrupted them all. “Everybody stop! Let’s get on the same page here and not start making assumptions. Cindy, you have more?”

  “Yes, a lot more. The amount of data available is staggering, so we set what you would call our computers to start searching for patterns, and this is what we found.” A list of about sixty other passport photos of Chinese entering the U.S. popped up on the viewer. “They all entered under the same refugee program, all of them were found in the MSS files, and all of them had no public records with photos. It appears that the MSS has been infiltrating the U.S. using this same method for approximately the last two years. Wang Chung, as you called him, was the last and apparently the ranking officer in the group.”

  Roger jumped in. “Ok. We have enough here to start responding. I’ll get these photos to Homeland Security and coordinate with them. The ones who came over earliest are probably support personnel, not the top tier agents. Those will be the ones that just recently arrived. From what Cindy has shown us here, I’d say that’s about twenty including Wang Chung. Cindy, do we know where these agents are currently?”

  “Yes, we think so. I’ve uploaded the information to the servers for you to access and I’ve sent you all a message with a brief synopsis of what is there. This though,” Cindy pulled another page forward on the viewer. “an air cargo/delivery service with multiple locations that correspond to locations where we have tracked some of the agents. It appears to be an MSS cover. We suspect they are using this company to move people around, and a good candidate for a place to start looking for Diane.”

  There was a question I had thought to ask earlier when Cindy sidetracked us with all the information she had compiled. “Cindy, what about Diane’s earbud? We can’t contact her, but can we track the device? Is it still active?”

  “We don’t know. We aren’t detecting it but it may be because it’s in the case. Diane often would remove the device and place it in the
case for privacy when she was with her fiancé.”

  “Then we need to find Wang Chung. We have to assume he is with her and that she is still alive. Let’s concentrate on this cargo service and get a list of all flights in the last 24 hours and any scheduled flights. They may not be using scheduled flights so we also need to know the location of every aircraft they own. I don’t believe they could get an unregistered aircraft into the country and be flying it around, but let’s not rule it out.”

  Cindy stopped me. “Guerin, there’s been an incident in New York. The Chinese consulate there was the target of a terrorist attack. There was gunfire and it appears suicide bombers. One person was identified from CCTV and it appears to be one of our agents. There’s been a posting on the internet indicating the Uyghurs are responsible.”

  I had a bad feeling, the worst feeling. The others were talking and I wasn’t hearing a word of what they said. “ROGER! Where’s Anna? She should be at JFK by now. Where is your team?”

  “Relax, Guerin. The team just reported in a few minutes ago. They’re at the airport waiting for her at the gate. Her flight just arrived and they’re taxiing to the gate now. We’ll have her safe in just a few minutes.”

  “Anna!”

  “Guerin…” Roger started as he put his hand on my shoulder but suddenly he stopped. The room went quiet. Roger was looking at Cindy whose head was down shaking back and forth slowly.

  I don’t know why I felt like I did but I knew what I felt. Anna was gone. I knew it without having to be told. My eyes teared and my lips were quivering as I tried to breathe but I couldn’t. I’d never felt this way before, never. I can’t describe what I was thinking because all thinking had stopped. When I finally took a breath a noise came out and it just continued to come out with every breath. My breathing was actually me screaming. Not words, just noise came out of my mouth. The pain was overwhelming. It was every bad feeling I ever knew all rolled up into one terrifying feeling that had taken control of my entire body. It was like the feeling of fear that overwhelmed me whenever I used a transit portal, my soul had left my body, but this time it felt as if it had left for good. It was gone.

  I don’t know if I collapsed, or what happened. I just found myself seated with Roger and Cindy in front of me trying to say something. I remember Cindy holding my hand and saying, “Guerin, you probably shouldn’t be here.”

  I looked up at Cindy, paralyzed for I don’t know how long. Roger was saying something but it didn’t register. “Cindy, what happened?”

  “Guerin, you should go and be with your daughter.”

  “I ASKED WHAT HAPPENED!”

  Cindy was kneeling in front of me, still holding my hands. Her head dropped and then she looked back up at me. “There was a massive explosion at the international terminal at JFK. Two China Air 797s set for departure, both fully fueled, exploded at the gate when Anna’s flight reached the terminal. The China Air flights were on either side of Anna’s gate. The team Roger sent are not answering. The terminal was almost totally destroyed by the explosion. Anna’s plane was….”

  My head just dropped. I knew this was all my fault, the feeling of guilt was crushing me. I could have insisted Anna use the corporate air service. I didn’t think it mattered but I should have known better.

  “Guerin, you should really go be with your daughter now. We…”

  “Cindy, stop!” I stood up and went back to look at the information being displayed in the room by the viewer. “Roger, it’s a diversion.”

  “A diversion for what?”

  “To divert us from looking for Diane. The consulate, Anna. It’s just a diversion to cover the real objective here. All of the nation’s security forces are now focused on New York. We need to ignore it, find this Wang Chung mother fucker, and get Diane back. I won’t let her die too because I make another mistake. You have to…”

  Roger stopped me. “We’ve got it, Guerin. Our portal teams are standing by as are Sammy and Cindy. We’re all working the problem.”

  “Don’t fuck around with this guy, Roger. He’s not an idiot and he obviously doesn’t care about human life. They’ve slaughtered their own citizens to pull this off. They’re not planning on failing, no matter what the cost. We can’t be playing by any rule book or we’re going to lose. Find these fuckers and kill them, kill them all!”

  Katie came over to calm me down. Katie and I never really were friendly, at least we never acted that way to each other. She put her arm around me and started to lead me out of the control center. “Let’s go see your daughter. She’s going to need you more than us. Roger knows what he’s doing. He’s got everyone here to help him.”

  We didn’t speak, we just walked down the hallway to the nearest elevator. We went up one deck to where the crew quarters were. Katie led me to the room where Maria was staying. When the door opened Maria was on the bed. She had her earbuds in and was laying back listening to music, watching a video, or something. I don’t know for sure.

  She removed her earbuds and dropped her phone. My head was down. I couldn’t even look her in the face. “Dad? What’s wrong? Katie?” She knew something bad had happened. She had never seen me like this, so weak and defeated.

  “There was a bombing. Your mother is dead. They killed her.” That was all I could say. I didn’t know how else I could have said it. After the words left my mouth, that same terrible feeling I had earlier returned and I totally broke down.

  Maria looked at Katie, hoping she would hear something different, and when she didn’t she just started screaming and beating on my chest. She demanded that I tell her it wasn’t true over, and over, and over. We both collapsed to the floor and I held her in my arms as we both cried and screamed with our every breath. Katie left us.

  I don’t know how long we were there on the floor. I tried to apologize to her for failing to keep her mother safe but she wouldn’t let me. She screamed at me for not being there. She asked what good all of my friends were if they couldn’t protect her mother. She accused everyone, including God, for not protecting her mother and then she broke down in tears. She started to speak. “I lied to her about having to go back to college. I wanted to be with someone. I lied to her and made her travel alone. I should have been with her.”

  I suddenly realized that my daughter needed her father, not the broke down piece of shit I had turned into. The feeling of pain, guilt, and loss disappeared and the only thing I felt was how much I loved my daughter. “She knew why you changed your plans.” I chuckled a bit over my tears. “I had to explain it to her. Can you believe that? It hadn’t occurred to her that you might want to spend some time with a friend before leaving for Japan. She was so mad at me for having figured it out she called me an ass and threw a sponge at me.” We both laughed, remembering how infuriated Anna would get at me at times. “If you had gone with her I would have lost you both. I’m glad you didn’t.”

  Chapter 19

  Revenge

  It wasn’t until the next morning that I heard from any of the team. Maria was finally sleeping. I was watching over her when there was a knock at the door. It was Katie.

  “Guerin, why don’t you and Anna get cleaned up and meet us in the mess? We can update the two of you over breakfast.”

  I just nodded. I woke up Maria, told her to get showered and dressed, and I would be back for her in a few minutes. I went to my quarters to shower and change. As I was getting dressed there was a knock at the door and Roger entered.

  “I don’t know how much you want us to say in front of Maria, so I thought I’d bring you up to speed before breakfast.”

  I nodded to Roger. “Just answer any questions she has. Don’t hide anything from her but don’t volunteer any information you don’t think she needs to know. Ok?”

  “No problem. Well, first off, we have Diane and she’s safe. We also have Wang. You were right, they were together. We caught them last night in Topeka at a small airport. The air service company we talked about was operating from there. Katie and
Steve led the team and Katie put a bullet in that mother fuckers back. He survived, but he’s paralyzed from the neck down. The rest of the Chinese agents are dead. Katie wanted Wang alive and she wanted him to suffer as well. We have him onboard in stasis. Diane is fine. Stella took her to medical and checked her out thoroughly. Understandably, she’s not doing too well emotionally. She’s been sedated and we’re letting her rest. The whole thing is being blamed on Uyghur terrorists and China has sent their condolences, if you can believe that. Officially the U.S. has also sent China their condolences over the loss of Chinese lives and vowed to bring all those responsible to justice. Unofficially, the military is preparing for war with China.”

  “Stop them, Roger. We knew this day was coming and we have a plan. The U.S. and its allies need to stand down and let us handle this. We can’t be the aggressors that start this war, or we can’t hope for help from our friends.”

  “It’s not that simple, Guerin. They know that this was a Chinese operation. They’ve taken the evidence we provided to the President and his national security team.”

  “I never said it would be simple, Roger, but we have to make it happen. You need to get to the President and explain it to him. Assure him the Chinese will be dealt with but that a war isn’t the answer.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Trying isn’t good enough. Make it happen and use whatever resources you need. I’ll tell Sammy and Cindy to do whatever you ask.”

  We left the room together and stopped to get Maria. When Maria walked out, Roger walked up and hugged her. Just like Katie and Steve, Roger was part of the family since Maria was born. “How are you doing, Maria?”

  “How do you think I’m doing? They killed my mother.” Maria broke down crying as Roger held her.

  “Come on. You need to eat, Maria. The people responsible will pay, you have my word on that.”

  Maria looked at me. It was a look I had never seen from her before. It was the look of disappointment. Like every little girl, she grew up thinking her father was Superman, and now she realized I was simply human. That look in my daughter’s eyes hurt me almost as much as losing Anna. She’d never see me the same way in the future. I’d lost a bit of my daughter as well.