Jake hurried and ended the call. “Yeah. You doing okay?”
J.P. shrugged and looked at his phone, and Jake knew why. “When’s next visiting hours?”
“Two hours for ICU.” J.P. plunked down on the couch and switched on the TV. Animal Planet was on, and Chayote came over to see what sort of prey might be flitting about on the magic window.
“I hate these commercials,” J.P. said at the break.
“Help support the ASPCA. Call now,” urged a dried-up C-list celebrity. “They need your help.”
Chayote was barking at the still shots of flea-ridden dogs, accompanied by a Sarah McLachlan tune.
“I’d bark too, buddy,” J.P sympathized. “Those shih tzus are snobbish little bastards, even with flies on their faces.”
Jake was deep in thought about Esma, the chief, and the dead janitor, but J.P.’s comment got his attention. He looked up at the TV.
“That’s not a shih tzu,” he said, standing up and hurrying to the kitchen counter where the laptop was charging. “That’s a shar-pei.”
Shar-Pei. The code name for the Chinese social-control experiment in 1999. The GPSN experiment.
Jake opened the computer. J.P. joined him at the counter, peering over his left shoulder. He typed “Detective Tim Rapport Rick Canart” into Google.
“Son of a bitch.” Jake didn’t even need to open any of the results. The two names appeared together in multiple contexts. High school football recaps, articles of incorporation for various businesses, and Idaho state and county legislation.
Jake fumbled through his wallet to find Rapport’s card. He took his phone from his pocket and dialed the station in Salmon, Idaho.
“Police, nonemergency. How can I help you?” It was the ancient secretary.
“I need Detective Rapport, please.”
“One moment.” Hold music. Billy Joel, elevator-style.
C’mon.
“Sir?” The centenarian was back. “May I ask who’s calling?”
Shit. “It’s Jake Trent.”
A pause. “Regarding?”
“I think I left a jacket in the detective’s office.”
“I’ll be right with you.”
Billy Joel again. J.P. gave an inquisitive face. Jake held up his forefinger, telling him to be patient.
“He’s out of the office,” the woman said. “And I didn’t see any jacket.”
“Thanks.” Jake pressed End.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said to J.P. He dialed another number.
“Layle. Tell me about the wolf.”
Jake stood there listening to the deputy chief with an astonished look on his face.
“What?” J.P. whispered.
“Right,” Jake said into the phone, “we need to get ahold of Noelle right away and see what the biologist said.” A pause. “But I think it’d be better if you called.”
Jake ended the call and walked with the laptop back to the couch. J.P. followed. Chayote sensed the excitement and jumped up to join them.
Jake searched for pictures of wolf fur but didn’t find a detailed enough picture. The general coloration looked similar to what he remembered—banded segments that ranged from light to dark. Black tips.
He was getting antsy, tapping on the armrest of the couch, thinking of what else he could do from home. Nothing.
“What?” J.P. asked again.
“Feel like playing sidekick again? I’ll bring you up to speed in the car.”
J.P. stood up. “Hell yeah. That is, if you tell me what’s going on.”
“Bring Chayote.”
* * *
On the ride, Jake filled J.P. in with enough information to stop him from asking more questions. Or so he thought. The Mariner was still in the driver’s-side door sleeve. When they hit Moran Junction, Jake pulled it out, loaded a round in the chamber, put the safety back on, and tucked it into the space between the driver’s seat and the center console.
“What’s with the gun these days?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
“So do all retired lawyers carry limited-edition Glocks?” J.P. was pushing Jake further than he had in all the time they’d known each other.
“Only the ones who own bed-and-breakfasts.”
J.P. stayed quiet for a moment, hoping for an elaboration. When it didn’t come, he spoke again. “C’mon, man.”
They still had twelve miles before the turn up the Buffalo Fork. Jake decided to give him a bone. “You know the story, basically.”
“The Office of Special Investigations? I’ve googled it.”
“Ninety percent of the job description was finding and prosecuting those who had committed crimes against humanity—Nazis first, and then as they died off, Bosnian Serbs and Hutus in Rwanda. People like that.”
“People who committed genocide.”
Jake nodded. “A lot of paperwork and negotiating with the International Criminal Courts to root them out.”
“And the other ten percent?” J.P. was looking at the Glock.
Jake took a deep breath. “As civilian experts on war crimes—academics, really—we could get into places the US military couldn’t. We consulted foreign governments, attended diplomatic summits, things like that.”
“Summits? With a Glock?”
Jake let out a forced laugh. “That’s where my story becomes classified.”
J.P. turned and looked Jake in the eye. “Hit me with it.”
“When the US government lost hope that its courts or the ICC would be able to prosecute one of these criminals using the formal legal process, we occasionally . . . A select few of the prosecutors, including me, were tasked to carry out the legal process ourselves. In an informal way.”
“Judge, jury, and executioner.”
Goddamn, he put that succinctly. “Yeah,” Jake said. It was the first time he’d revealed the true nature of his prosecutorial career to anyone outside the Big Office.
“What about in Philly?” Apparently J.P. wasn’t satisfied.
“Different deal in the small office. We were investigating domestic organized crime, police and political corruption, things like that.”
“But you needed a gun.”
“In that office, prosecutors are trained law-enforcement officers. We can’t always trust the local authorities on the ground.”
They made the left turn up Buffalo Fork Road. The scarecrow’s decrepit hunting camp was only a mile or so ahead, on the right.
“And you’re carrying it now because you know something?”
“I’m carrying it now because I don’t know something.”
A few hundred yards before the driveway, Chayote started whining and scratching at the window. “Hold on, buddy,” Jake said.
Jake eased the 4Runner toward the house, all the while scanning the property, looking for the tall man. Visibility was good—Jake could see the whole way past the house and to the riverbank—and there was no sign of him.
“Shut up, Chayote.” J.P. blew in the dog’s face, which made him sneeze.
“Let him be,” Jake said. He left the 4Runner forty yards out from the ramshackle camp. “Wait here.”
Jake had the Mariner drawn, but at his side, concealed. He approached the shack carefully, looking through the makeshift tarpaulin windows, front and back. Next, he checked the garage—still no white Tercel. Walking back to the vehicle, he tucked the Mariner into the back of his pants and pulled his shirt over it.
He opened the passenger door. “We’re good.” Before J.P. could exit, Chayote jumped over his lap and bounded off, headed upstream of the structure.
“Hey!” J.P. shouted. “Get back here!”
“Let him go,” Jake said. “I know where he’s going.” Chayote showed no intention of listening anyway.
“Come with me.” J.P. followed
Jake around the side of the shack, toward the riverbank. The ground in the shade of the building was still frozen from the night before, crunching under their footfalls.
Around back, Jake stopped and muttered, “Of course.”
“What?”
“I should have known.” Jake stooped down and looked at a narrow pair of tire tracks that went around the other side of the camp. “He’s gone. Let’s go find Chayote.”
“Who’s gone?” J.P. hurried to catch Jake, who was walking fast upstream.
“I don’t know him, or exactly what his role is. But he was a person of interest, and we missed it at first. And now he’s gone. He had an old ATV back there that he uses to get around.”
Up in the distance, Chayote was furiously digging, pausing occasionally to wolf down whatever scraps he deemed edible.
“What’s he up to?”
“I’ll show you.”
When they arrived at the burial site, Jake sternly called off Chayote, who reluctantly slunk away with his crimson-red muzzle to chase mergansers in the river.
Chayote had dug a hole only six inches deep, but the carcass of the animal was becoming exposed. Jake took a rock from beside the grave site and unearthed a broad shoulder of tan, brown, and black fur.
“The wolf?”
Jake stood. “Let’s go see what we can find in the cabin.”
They beckoned Chayote and he tromped along below them in the river shallows.
Jake tried the back door, where they could enter without any neighbors or passersby noticing, but it was locked. So was the front entrance, but the door featured a small window.
“Got it,” J.P. said, and gladly plowed his elbow through the glass.
“Nice one.” Jake reached through and unlocked the door.
The smell of mildew filled the air. The interior was spartan. No TV, no computer or microwave. The kitchen consisted only of a Coleman propane range and a Tupperware washbasin. No running water. In the living area, nothing but a long couch, a cheap sleeping bag, and a few dog beds scattered on the floor.
Jake bent down. The dog beds were coated in fur similar to that of the carcass. But was it wolf, or a heavy-coated breed like a husky?
Along the south wall was a long desk with two mismatched chairs. The lack of dust in spots suggested things had been recently moved from the desk’s surface. Jake opened a large drawer, filled mainly with disorganized letters and maps. From the bottom, he pried an 11x16-inch framed document, set it on the desk, and wiped the dust off. It was a diploma.
The University of California, proudly confers upon ERIC WILLIAM YOUST the degree of Philosophiae Doctor in Applied Science and Technology
Jake took a picture with his phone to note the name and put the framed document back in the drawer.
“Look at this.” J.P. crossed the dingy hardwood floor toward Jake. He handed him a framed picture of the cabin on a snowy day. A slim Asian woman stood near the front door, flanked by two large wolves with grizzled gray coats. The woman Divya and Layle are after.
He handed it back to J.P. “Bring it with us.”
The place was mostly bare—cleaned out by the scarecrow upon his quick exit. Jake took a few pictures of the interior and opened the rough wooden door to the garage.
The light in the garage was dim—a single fluorescent bulb illuminated a workbench in the very back. As they made their way in that direction, a series of hurried clicks carried through the garage doorway from the main cabin. The latch on the front door was being tested against the strike plate.
“Hell was that?” J.P. stopped dead in his tracks.
“Quiet!”
Jake cautiously turned to face whatever might be coming. He reached behind his back and gripped the Glock. Another series of frantic jiggles, then a hard push. Jake pulled the gun and silently moved back into the main cabin, squaring himself to the front entrance.
The visitor made a few more weak attempts. Click. Click. Click. Jake peered through a roughly shaped Plexiglas window. No vehicle in sight.
Scratch. Scratch. J.P. began to chuckle from the garage. Jake replaced the weapon in his waistband, stepped forward to the door, and opened it.
Chayote rushed in, ignoring Jake, more eager to sniff every piece of furniture and floor that had been touched by the canines of unfamiliar scent. Jake took a quick look around outside and shut the door.
“Shoulda shot him,” Jake muttered as he came through to the garage. “Let’s make this quick.”
Jake and J.P. combed through boxes of old clothes, records, and broken electronics under the workbench. Jake noted a crate of 10W-30 motor oil, wondering whether the ATV was a four-stroke. If it was, the scarecrow had no need for regular synthetic and had lied about owning a car—possibly an old Tercel.
“What’s all this?”
J.P. was crouched down, inspecting his fingertips. Tiny flecks of bronze glimmered in the vague light. Jake took a closer look.
“Copper wire ends, looks like.” Jake looked around the bench, which he now noticed was littered with similar scraps.
“Your boy is a real handyman.”
“Looks like it. Let’s get out of here.”
Jake left the cabin dragging the heeler, who was preoccupied growling at an especially furry corner of the couch.
There was a dried-up mud puddle where the driveway met the road. Jake put the 4Runner in park, jumped out, and snapped a picture of a set of skinny tire tracks.
When he got reception near Moran, he dialed a phone number for only the second time in a decade.
“Human Rights and Special Prosecutions.”
“Nancy, it’s Jake. I need Schue again.”
“Jake? He told me specifically not to put you through ever again.”
That son of a bitch.
“Nancy, I need his help. People’s lives are at risk.”
“Dammit, Jake.” The line went dead momentarily, then started ringing again.
“How did I know you’d call again?” He seemed more entertained than angry.
“Thanks for taking the call.” Maybe he’d read Schue wrong.
“What do you want?”
“I need research. Things that would take me too long to find without help.”
“Like?”
Maybe Jake wouldn’t have to figure this whole mess out on his own. “I need you to check out a Chinese research project called Shar-Pei—see if a US Senator, Senator Canart of Idaho, had any involvement—and I need you to get me a full bio on an individual.”
“Name?”
“Divya Navaysam.” He spelled the last name.
“What type of project are we talking?”
“Not totally sure. Population control, maybe. The Chinese flirted with a project that would identify every citizen and immigrant electronically.”
“Is that it?”
Jake thought a moment. “No, I need any information on a woman named Charlotte Terrell—her whereabouts, if she traveled recently, where she is now.”
“What’s the timeline?”
“As soon as possible.”
“You owe me,” Schue said and hung up.
42
WASHINGTON, DC. OCTOBER 27.
9 A.M. EASTERN STANDARD TIME.
Divya took a moment to compose herself and then knocked on Wright’s door. He was in a heated discussion on the phone, but he finished abruptly and motioned for her to come in.
“Have a seat. Is it already time for an update on this fucking mess? I have to say, not my favorite time of day.”
“Me neither, sir.”
“What do you have for me?”
“Some new information from the tapes.” Divya had spent the morning poring over the transcripts from the phone tap on Canart.
“Anything important?”
“I’m not sure. Ca
nart has promised Xiao to fill him in on who killed his wife and why.”
Wright laughed.
“Sir?”
“That’s fine with me. We didn’t do it. The Chinese killed her.”
“Why?”
Wright ignored the question. “Is Trent looking for the girl?”
“He’s cooperating, yes. Why is she so important?”
“Have you been briefed on Shar-Pei in its entirety?”
“Of course.”
Wright chuckled. “Then tell me when Shar-Pei was dreamed up.”
“Mid-1990s. Shortly after the one-child policy was put in effect. A response to overcrowding.”
“You’re a hundred years off.”
Divya’s jaw dropped. “The technology wasn’t even available . . .”
“Shar-Pei wasn’t about technology in the beginning, Divya. It was about growing a superpower.”
“How?”
“Selective breeding.”
“What?”
“The dog breed shar-pei dates back to as early as 200 BC. The dogs were bred by the Chinese for their intelligence and dominance. By selecting animals with strong positive traits and mating them, the gene pool steadily improved. Basic heredity. In 1881, a Chinese geneticist proposed a long-term plan for China to create a superior race, or at least a ruling class superior to that of other nations. Shar-Pei, named for the nation’s proudest dog breed.”
Divya jumped in. “Xiao named it Shar-Pei for his daughter’s pet.”
“Wrong. When the Chinese expat leaked information about the killer GPS chip to the US, the United States threatened to expose the program to the world.”
“Blackmail?”
“Run-of-the-mill foreign relations. We wanted information about Iran’s purchase of North Korean Scud missiles.”
“So, China made up a backstory to placate the US?”
“Exactly. But the Department of Justice continued investigating, claiming sole jurisdiction on grounds that it was a crime against humanity.”
“The Office of Special Investigations.” Divya was shaking her head.
“And they found mention of a covert operation called Shar-Pei well before the 1990s.”
“What did they do with the information?”
“We’ve monitored the situation jointly ever since.”
River of No Return : A Jake Trent Novel (9781451698053) Page 23
