by Alec Peche
“Do I come with you to the hotel?” Hermione asked.
“I don’t have an answer to that,” Damian said, “but I would prefer to leave you here. If for some reason we get caught by the police it would be better for all involved if you’re were nowhere in the vicinity. That way you can’t be an accessory to our criminal behavior.”
There was silence for a few moments while all three thought about the best and safest position for Hermione to take.
Then she said, “If I come with you I could serve as a lookout in case anyone gets close to your room twelve.”
“And if Damian and I show ourselves to be completely inept at kidnapping, what will you do with the police show up?”
“I don’t think the police are going to show up; you’re too talented to get caught and I think this guy wants to keep his mouth shut, but if I’m wrong. I’ll make my way back home to Ariana’s house or if need be over to your island until you guys can return.”
The two adults thought about their options. They liked her being close and helping. They didn’t like exposing her to the nastiness of the criminal activity they were about to perform, but they had faith in her ability to make her way back to one of their houses if they should fail in the mission. Damian looked at Ariana trying to decipher if she was arriving at the same conclusion as he was and if he read her correctly, she agreed.
“Okay we’ll set up an open cell phone line between the three of us so we can stay in communication. I brought over my magic fabric that will nearly make us invisible in the dark and I’ll leave a piece of it will you Hermione for your safety. Let’s go outside and practice with the net gun. We may need to reload on the spot if we both miss our first shot. I thought we’d tried ‘capturing’ your pool’s springboard as that represents a man lying down in bed. Let’s see if with a little practice we can nail him from ten and twenty feet away and once we get perfect at that we’ll go back inside and get dressed all in black for this operation.”
They went outside to practice and Damian was thankful that Ariana’s backyard couldn’t be seen by her neighbors as they would be wondering why they were shooting a net at a springboard at midnight. He smiled a little at the thought and Hermione caught his smile.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“I was just thinking about how strange we look firing a gun that shoots a net at midnight at a diving board. If we were on a YouTube video people would question if we were sane.”
She smiled in return and relaxed a little in the dangerous situation.
“Look at the bright side of this situation Hermione; you’re not a decoy rather you’ll be assisting us from a safe position.”
“What if he’s not in the hotel room?”
“Then we’ll do this again tomorrow and he’ll never know we entered tonight.”
“Okay. How are you going to break into his room?”
“ I have a card system that once I scan the hotel lock mechanism, it will duplicate it on to my plastic key card and I’ll use that as a Master to enter his room. I’m also taking bolt cutters in case the guy has put a safety chain across his door on the inside.”
“Oh. Some day when you’re not fighting my wars, you’ll have to show me some of this stuff in your lab. I don’t want to be a computer geek when I go to college but I should understand the big picture of what you do.”
“Tell you what, the next time you stay with me on the island, I’ll give you a detailed tour of my computer lab. I have your eyes and brain glazed over in no time and you’ll get a good night’s sleep.”
“Damian, you are such a nice man and I’m so lucky that I crawled into your dingy of all the boats in the Richmond harbor.”
“Hermione, thank you for not subjecting me to teenage hormone dramas. You are such pleasure to take care of and support and I feel lucky you came into my life,” Damian said giving her a hug.
The two embraced while Ariana continued practicing her aim at the springboard. She figured with five more shots and reload, she’d have it down to be a good partner in crime. She was glad to see Hermione and Damian getting closer as it was good for both of them.
“Okay before the two of you turn to mush over there, I think we should move on to our next stage. Hermione and I will change into all black clothing and then let’s talk our plan through. Damian do you have any grease paint in your supplies? Our faces are going to glow in the dark.”
“I didn’t remember to bring that but if you have dark eye shadow and some Vaseline, we can make our own.”
Hermione was on her way out of the room yelling, “I’ve got that, I’ll bring the supplies down to the kitchen and some fabric for everyone’s hair.”
“She seems to have bought into our plan and I think she’ll be safe in the car. If the worse should happen, then she’ll make her way home. It might be a long journey but the kid has the gumption to get there,” said Ariana.
“Let’s just hope the plan goes according to schedule,” Damian said worried about Hermione and Ariana getting caught in this hare-brained scheme of his.
Once Hermione returned and mixed the ingredients, they were all nicely covered in black and hard to see in the dark. Damian went through the plan one more time and demonstrated the use of the magic fabric outside in the dark so the ladies could see how well it would cloak them. Once he demonstrated the technology they would be using and their plan to subdue the man in room twelve, then they all piled into Ariana’s car for the journey over to Mill Valley.
Chapter 40
They made a pass by the hotel to review the parking lot and look at the door to room twelve. As they passed, all three looked for a parking spot that would be close enough for Hermione to be able to view the hotel room, but not so close as to put the car under a light or for the car to look out of place.
On the third pass they determine the perfect spot and Damian pulled in. Hermione immediately had the magic fabric pulled over her and the three of them tested their headsets before they got out of the car.
Both Ariana and Damian moved towards the hotel room. With the slight breeze coming off the bay, they occasional appeared when the wind blew their magic fabric cloth away from their bodies but then Hermione knew what she was looking for. At this time of night she thought that no one else would notice the occasional appearance of a human leg. They would assume they were seeing things late at night.
Pretty soon Hermione thought the two were over in front of room twelve. As they were close to the building, they weren’t getting the wind they had crossing the parking lot. Keeping an eye on the door, she saw it open and then close again. They were inside the kidnapper’s room. Hermione took a moment to look at the front of the hotel and no action going on elsewhere. One light was on in the entire hotel and she heard no approaching sirens. All good news.
About five minutes later she saw the door open again. Damian was still wearing his concealing cloth and it appeared there was an upside down body moving across the parking lot. She could see only feet striding across the lot toward the car and it was really freaky looking. Then the breeze hit them again beyond the protection of the building and she caught a quick glimpse of Ariana. Hermione also knew by monitoring the microphones that they had woken the poor man awake and had him tied up and out of the room in no time.
The car was suddenly opened and he was deposited in the set next to Hermione. Damian motioned her out and into the front seat and he took her place in the back seat, while Ariana climbed in, started the car, and they left Mill Valley heading for Ariana’s home in Belvedere. No sound was coming from the man so Hermione assumed they taped his mouth shut. On one hand she felt sorry for him. It must be hard to breath given the stress of the moment and the tape, but then she wiped that out of her mind with the thought that given a chance the man in the back seat would have done the same to her.
The drive was quiet on the way to Ariana’s house with Damian again carrying the man over his shoulder in a fireman’s clutch to Ariana’s pontoon boat. Twenty minute
s later they pulled up at Damian dock and he moved the man inside to her bedroom. Some of the revulsion for her kidnapper sitting on her bed and on her sheets must have shown in her face as Damian whispered to her that she would have new bedding the next time she stayed with him.
Once in the room, Hermione watched Damian chain the man to a new hook that he must have installed for this purpose. She also noted the camera. Again the distress must have shown on her face as Damian whispered ‘later’ at her as a way of providing her with the knowledge of a further explanation. Then she shook her head and told herself to move on from these petty feelings. She was lucky to have these two adults that captured the man that likely knew something about her parents. She was about to get her first answers in months as to what was going on.
Once the man was secured in her bedroom the two adults came outside to check on her.
“Kiddo are you doing okay?” Ariana asked sensing the teenager’s stress.
“Yes. At first I was angry seeing him in my room, on my bed. Then I told myself to get over it as it made sense to secure him there rather than anywhere else in this house. It also makes sense to bring him to this island as if he should escape the room, he really can’t swim ashore unless he has a wetsuit on and I don’t see one. So I’m chill with the situation.”
Damian reached over and gave the girl a hug and said, “Sweatheart you’re going to fall asleep in class tomorrow from all this late night activity. Do you have water polo practice at six?” He looked at his watch as he asked the question, thinking the kid would have to be back at school in just under four hours.
“No practice tomorrow as it’s a late day because the teachers have a meeting. So you picked the perfect night for me to stay up very late.”
“There is no perfect day to involve a teenager in a kidnapping of another adult,” Damian groaned feeling like a failing parent.
The teenager just patted him on the arm and said, “It will be okay.”
Damian had a hundred emotions crossing him at once including who was the parent here and wow wasn’t he an awful parent for exposing this wonderful child to the kidnapping of another adult. He should be shielding her from the violent world.
“Why don’t you go upstairs to my kitchen and make our prisoner some tea. I suspect he’ll want something to drink once I remove the tape,” Damian requested.
Hermione frowned at him suspecting that he just wanted to get her out of earshot so he could threaten the man some more. Then she shrugged and said, “Sure I’ll be down with tea in about five minutes. Cups for everyone?”
He nodded and she left his computer lab to take the stairs to the kitchen. He had an induction cooktop and so it would be quick before she reappeared with tea for all.
Damian opened the door to their prisoner and said, “I’m getting some tea for you, me and the ladies. I figure that once I remove the tape across your mouth, you’ll want something to drink. A word of caution, as you might have guessed from the boat ride, you are on an island in San Francisco Bay. You don’t have a wetsuit, so you’ll die from hypothermia before you reach the shore. You’ve been trying to kidnap our sweet teenager so we’re going to have a conversation about that in a minute. Understand?”
The man nodded and looked resigned. With a razor blade, Damian cut the duct tape that held the man’s two wrists together. He couldn’t go anywhere though as Damian had handcuffed one of the wrists to a wall hook well secured into the framework of the house.
Ariana brought documents to Damian that she’d swept into a bag that were in the man’s hotel room. Picking one of them up she opened a passport and said, “This identification says you’re Jack Mayang, a resident of Malaysia. This passport says you’re John Lee from Malaysia, and yet a third identification says you reside in Hong Kong. Pretty careless to leave all of those identification around for anyone to read. Who are you really and maybe we should just turn you over to immigration along with your multiple forms of identification?”
He couldn’t answer her as the tape was still across his mouth. Damian heard Hermione returning with a tea set and said to the man in a low and menacing voice, “I’m going to remove the tape on your mouth and you’ll be provided some herbal tea and you’ll say nothing but pleasant things while that teenager is in the room. Do you understand?”
The man nodded and as Hermione was arriving he begin taking the tape off, a relatively painful process. He paused and said to Hermione, “Hermione, this tape is really sticky. Can you run back to my kitchen and bring some olive oil to me? It will make getting this tape off a much less painful process.”
She was gone and returned moments later with the desired bottle and a paper towel. Damian used the towel to pat the oil around the tape and it began to come off with less pain for the man. When Damian finished, he was handed a cup of herbal tea which he appeared to gratefully swallow.
Finally, he set the empty cup down on the bed and said, “I’m John Lee from Malaysia.”
“Why have you been trying to steal Hermione?”
He looked puzzled by the name and said, “You mean Hannah?”
Hermione spoke up from the door and said, “My name is Hermione Knowles.”
John Lee replied, “Your name is Hannah Sherman and I’m searching for your parents. But you don’t know where they are do you?” he asked looking at Hermione.
Ariana spoke up then, “Look we’re not going to argue names here. What were you planning on doing with the child if you had managed to capture her?”
“I was planning to use her to get her parents.”
“Then your barking up the wrong tree as she doesn’t know where they are,” Ariana said.
Mr. Lee said, “Barking up the wrong tree? What does that mean.”
“That was Ariana’s way of telling you that Hermione has no idea where her parents are or even if they are dead or alive. They were kidnapped in the middle of the night. She has not seen nor heard from them since,” Damian knew these were brutal words for Hermione to hear.
Chapter 41
John Lee had run through a myriad of emotions in the last hour. He had been sound asleep when the two people broke into his hotel room. Before he knew it he was tied inside a net and hauled over someone’s shoulder to a car than a boat. He knew enough of the geography of the area to know that he was still in the region and he was clearly not on a boat of any kind. The teenager’s guardians must have figured out where he was staying and gone after him. What to do next?
He couldn’t go back home as he had no job and quite possibly no life. Clearly though the game was up in the United States. He had no weapon on him and there were none in this room, which after looking around appeared to be the teenager’s room. The silvery purple paint color seemed to suit the girl, not the adults. Overpowering these people was a problem as he noted they were each carrying a spray bottle, and he was sure that acid substance was inside the bottle. He wasn’t sure his eyesight would stand many more attacks. He felt that beyond the terrible burning sensation of each hit, his eyesight had been a tad blurrier. Maybe the eyes would heal in time and maybe not.
If the three of them were telling the truth, and he seen no evidence otherwise than the girl would serve as no leverage against her parents as she had no way of contacting them. It seemed that parents and child had been separated since last spring. Then other questions arose in his brain.
“Who are you people? Are you relatives of Hannah?”
“I’m Damian and this is Ariana and we’re Hermione’s legal parents.”
John Lee had been in the United States for a while, but he didn’t understand the term ‘legal parents’. Why were they calling the girl named Hannah something else that was unpronounceable to him?
“Harmony’s parents?”
“Hermione, as in the Harry Potter series,” replied Hermione.
“Harry Potter? Who is that?”
“Never mind,” Damian replied recognizing that the man’s knowledge was limited in that area by his age and his lack of k
nowledge of popular icons in the western world. “What were you planning to do with Hermione if you captured her?”
“I was going to make her contact her parents. She must have a way to do that.”
“I don’t,” was Hermione’s stony reply.
John Lee stared at her finding it hard to believe the child was cut off completely from her parents.
“You and your band of thugs stole my parents in the middle the night. The last contact I had with them was watching them be restrained and loaded into a van about four or five months ago. I have no idea where they are now or even if they’re alive,” Hermione said ending with a sob.
John Lee watched the older woman hugged the child in comfort and said, “If you were unable to communicate with your parents, my next step would be to call Mr. Lin for guidance.”
“Who’s Mr. Lin?” Damien asked, though he had an idea.
“He’s the man who hired me to find Hannah.”
“It’s Hermione,” the teenager said rebelliously and Ariana rubbed her shoulder.
“Did your Mr. Lin want Hermione killed at some point?” Damien asked.
John Lee looked startled at the question in front of the teenager but then answered, “Yes because he thinks she knows about the problem in his drug manufacturing. So even if he found and killed her parents she was still liability.”
These were harsh words for Hermione to hear, but she didn’t lose it as it was merely a confirmation of what she had thought all along. Her knowledge was a liability. For some reason she found comfort in the fact that she was with Damien and Ariana rather than her own parents. She felt she was able to lead a more normal life and was better protected than just having a safe room to run into and barricade herself. Then she felt guilty for her thoughts; she loved her parents very much.
