Point Blank

by Fern Michaels

  Charles surprised everyone by saying, “I believe him. I know a thing or two about China, as does Fergus. We also know people like Wing Ping.”

  “Charles is absolutely right,” Fergus said.

  No one said they agreed or disagreed with Charles’s statement and Fergus’s affirmation. To everyone’s surprise, Cooper remained silent but alert.

  “What does that mean, Jack?” Dennis asked nervously. “I mean about Cooper’s not barking.”

  “I think it means Cooper is in agreement that the Abbot is telling the truth. I’m no seer, Dennis. That’s just a guess on my part,” Jack said.

  “I know, I know. That’s what I was thinking. So in an actual showdown, these creeps would really be on our side, right?”

  Jack laughed. “Kid, do you really think any of them are in a position right now to help anyone, even themselves?”

  His voice still jittery, Dennis looked Jack in the eye, and said, “I guess that was pretty stupid coming from me. It’s just that I’ve never been in a situation like this. These guys are Chinese!”

  Cooper let loose with a yip of sound that startled everyone since they couldn’t hear Jack and Dennis’s conversation.

  “Let it go, kid. As you can see and hear, Cooper agrees it was a stupid question. We need to—” Whatever Jack was about to say was cut short when a hard pounding could be heard at the door.

  Charles moved quickly as he motioned for the Brothers Hung and Shen to open the door. He held up his hand, then chopped it down to mean they should open the door. They did, and men rushed in. Jack tried to count them, as did Harry.

  “Twenty-eight,” Jack said.

  “Twenty-nine,” Harry said.

  “Wrong. Thirty-one,” Dennis said.

  Cooper barked.

  “Thirty-one it is!” Annie said, brandishing the gun that Jack had returned to her. She fired one shot at the ceiling. The shot was so loud in the cavernous dining hall that it sounded like a bomb going off. It had the desired effect. The men froze in position. Their expressions said it all. A grandmother with gray hair shooting a gun! Unheard of in China.

  “I am going to make a speech. Harry, will you translate, please. Tell them first of all not to move or I will plug them right between the eyes or . . . between their legs, whichever they prefer. I’m not choosy.” Annie waited while Harry made the translation.

  When he was finished, Annie said, “Now point out that nice line of captives that we have secured on the far wall.” Harry obeyed. The man named Chen Fang stepped forward and started to give Harry some Chinese lip. Annie shot him in the knee. Chen Fang’s bellow was a sound none of them had ever heard before. Harry shrugged as Dennis and Ted dragged the screaming, squealing man over to the line of captives. They left him on the floor because, as Ted laconically said, “He isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

  “Now what?” Kathryn demanded.

  “Herd them over to the line with the others. Explain to them clearly that they can do it quietly or they can cry in pain, it’s their choice,” Annie said. “What are they muttering about, Harry? Tell them to shut up so you can tell them what I just said.”

  “They’re cursing you in Chinese, Annie,” Harry said cheerfully. “I’m telling them what you said, but I’m not sure they want to hear what I’m saying.”

  Annie let loose with a snorting sound. Cooper barked twice. Annie brought up the gun in her hand, fixed her sights on a man directly in front of her, and sighted the gun, eight inches below his waistline. The man scurried to the line and sat down as though he were a misbehaving schoolboy. And then, to Annie’s delight, he folded his hands. She whirled around and pointed the gun again with the same, as she put it, awesome results as all the men who had rushed through the door scurried, even pushing and shoving their partners to get into the line with the others.

  “You do such good work, Annie! I’m proud of you!” Myra gurgled.

  Everyone clapped their hands. And then the boys rushed to help Fergus and Charles tie and bind all of their newest guests together.

  “We’re getting a full house here.” Nikki laughed.

  “We sure are,” Yoko said as she winked at a flustered Harry.

  Cooper closed his eyes and appeared to go to sleep, but it was all a ruse, since everyone in the room who mattered knew that Cooper never slept.

  “Done and done,” Fergus said as he took his place at the table with the others.

  “What do we do now?” Nikki asked. “Just wait for the weather to clear? Or we could give some thought to having that guy Chen Fang call Wing Ping’s right-hand guy, Wei Ming. I think it’s a good idea,” Nikki added, and the others agreed.

  “To say what?” Maggie asked.

  Kathryn laughed out loud. “To tell him they’re being held prisoner. What else? Or we could have him say the exhibition, the fight, whatever you want to call it, is off. I was kicking something around with the girls earlier, and what if we have Isabelle contact Abner and have him do the social media thing all the way. Say the fight is off. That Harry has no interest in defending his title, either in China or the States, with someone who isn’t even listed in the world rankings and whose ability is only a matter of hearsay. That means Wing Ping. We think that should put his jockeys in a knot. He’ll be incensed and have his hands full trying to hold back all the bad publicity that announcement should generate. Unless he succeeds in countering, he’ll look like a silly fool those in the sports field will laugh at. We think it will work, but we are open to discussion. We don’t have anything else to do at the moment, so why not?”

  A babble of sound ensued until Charles blew his whistle. “One at a time. We do this the democratic way—we each get a vote. All in favor of getting in touch with Wei Ming, raise your hand.” Every hand at the table shot into the air.

  “Everyone in favor of having Abner do the social media counterattack.”

  Again, every hand at the table shot high in the air.

  “Let’s do it, people! That means you, Isabelle. Get cracking and ask Abner how long it will take before we see some results,” Kathryn said, her eyes blazing with something the others had never seen before.

  “Well, I guess that takes care of that, now, doesn’t it? Chen Fang over there appears to be in a great deal of pain. Do we want him making the call and saying what happened, or do we want one of the others who speaks English to make it?”

  They all kicked that idea around for a few minutes, and finally agreed that Chen Fang, in pain, wailing, and cursing, should make the call. Or as Espinosa put it, his English was better than that of the others. “Keep that gun on him, and he’s all yours, for whatever that’s worth.”

  “I’m not calling Wei Ming. When this is over, he’ll hunt me down and kill me. Call him yourself,” Chen shouted bravely.

  “Not if we kill you first,” Yoko said playfully, wagging her finger under the man’s nose. Right now, you are looking at an either/or. With us, you stand a better chance of surviving by making us happy by cooperating. It is your choice, however. We’re Americans, and we believe in democracy and freedom of speech.”

  “Oh, dear, do we have to go through this again,” Annie said as she whipped the gun out from behind her back. She lazily walked over, tossing the gun from her right hand to her left. “I’m John Wayne’s older sister, Chen Fang. Do you want to make the call or do you want me to . . . ?”

  A string of screeching Chinese permeated the room. The group of Americans all looked at Harry. “You don’t want to know what he’s saying,” Harry informed them. “The bottom line is that he’s willing to make the call.”

  “Is there a doctor here in the monastery? Shouldn’t someone be taking care of that guy’s knee? What if he bleeds out?” Dennis asked.

  “We do have a man of medicine here at the monastery. Not a doctor like you have in America or the big cities in China. He deals in herbs, but he also knows how to dress wounds. I’m sure he will know how to remove the bullet in the man’s knee. Shall I go to the office, try
to restore our system, and call him? If I can activate it, we can use the loudspeaker system to tell him he’s needed here in the dining hall. He could be anywhere in this vast monastery, and it could take many hours to locate him.”

  “Yes, yes, do that, please. We’ll hold off calling Wei Ming until the medicine man gets here. I think we can all agree on that,” Charles said, as the others nodded their agreement. “In the meantime, girls, write out on paper what you want Chen Fang to say.”

  “What did you say, Annie?” Myra whispered so as not to distract the others.

  “I’m mumbling to myself, Myra. Bert still has not responded to my last two e-mails. That is not like him. I sent Dixson Kelly an e-mail, and he just responded, again, saying he hasn’t been able to reach Bert either. He also said he sent off queries to Big Al at the Sands and Todd at the Wynn, and he got no responses. But, then, he just sent them, so we need to give him some time. I’m worried,” she said flatly.

  All eyes turned to Kathryn, who stared them all down. “What? Why are you all looking at me like that? I’m not Bert’s keeper. I’m not his anything anymore. You all need to accept that and move on, as I have. I can’t make him respond to an e-mail or text message.

  “Surely, you all know that? Where’s the restroom in this place?” she asked in a choked-sounding voice.

  “Out the door, down the hall, and make a left. It’s the second door on the right,” Dennis said.

  “I’m not even going to ask how you know that,” Jack muttered. This kid never ceased to amaze him and the others as well.

  “I saw the door out of the corner of my eye when we went to the office. I’m a reporter, I’m trained to see things and put them together. That’s what reporters do.” Dennis’s voice held just a trace of defiance.

  “And Dennis is right,” Maggie said. “As a rule, we reporters sometimes see and hear things others would pass on. It’s a kind of instinct on our part. With time and practice, we hone it, then we live by it. Dennis is a good pupil. He’s very observant.”

  “Okay, okay! At least we all know where the restroom is, thanks to Dennis here,” Jack said, clapping the young multimillionaire reporter on the back.

  Cooper barked his approval of the compliment, then sauntered to the door and waited. Harry opened the door and followed the dog out to the main lobby, where he opened the massive doors. Cooper walked out and was back within minutes. He looked up at Harry and waited. “What?”

  Cooper turned and pawed the heavy door.

  “Right! Right! Lock it!” Harry slid the heavy metal bar across the double doors. Safe! Cooper yipped his approval as he started the trek back to the dining hall.

  In front of the great doors, Harry stopped and dropped to his haunches. Cooper placed his paws on his shoulders so that man and dog could eyeball each other. “I wish you could talk, Cooper. I wish I understood really what you are all about. My imagination, I know, doesn’t . . . it’s like you’re not real, that you’re human to some extent. How do you know . . . is it dog instinct that’s superior to human instinct? I need to know. I want to know. I feel like . . . like you’re part of me and Lily, and I don’t understand why that is. Help me out here, Cooper.”

  Cooper nuzzled Harry’s neck, then licked at the tip of his nose. He made soft noises in his throat, sounds Harry had never heard him make before. “Okay. Maybe someday I’ll figure it all out. Right now all I care about is that you have our backs and that Lily is safe. Do I at least have that right?”

  Cooper let loose with two joyous yips.

  Inside the dining hall again, Charles asked about the weather. Harry just shrugged. He didn’t see any sense in telling Charles or the others that he hadn’t noticed if it was raining, sleeting, or snowing because his thoughts were elsewhere. No point at all.

  While they waited to see if Brother Hung would be successful in restoring the monastery’s electronics and for the medicine man to be found, the group talked in low tones as they worked on a script for Chen Fang to use when he called Wei Ming.

  Kathryn returned to the table and stared off into space, while Isabelle sent one text after another to her husband, Abner. From time to time she smiled, and once she actually giggled. Annie, looking like Mother Doom and Gloom, kept her fingers on the speed dial as she tried to locate Bert Navarro.

  “Something’s wrong,” Annie whispered to Myra.

  “Yes, I know. I feel what you’re feeling because I am feeling the same thing. I know Bert can take care of himself. He came up through the ranks of the FBI and was director for a time. But that was back in the States, where we play by the rules. This is China, and things are different here. Not to mention Bert has some emotional baggage he’s toting around. Just keep trying to reach him, and anyone else you can think of who might know something about where he is and what he’s doing. Unless you have a better idea,” Myra said softly, her eyes as worried as Annie’s.

  “Therein lies the problem, Myra. I don’t have any other ideas. I don’t know what else to do. Like you said, this is China. Even though we were assured that these special phones can’t be hacked, I’m not so sure. For all we know, we’ve been monitored, spied on, and God knows what else since we’ve been here. I’m really worried, Myra.”

  “I know, dear. I am, too. But let’s not let on to the others. They have enough going on right now without worrying about Bert.”

  Annie nodded, her eyes going to Kathryn, who was staring into the flames as though mesmerized. She wondered what the young woman was thinking right this minute. Then she corrected herself. Right now, she didn’t want to know what Kathryn was thinking.

  Time wore on, hour after hour, until the dining hall doors finally opened and Brother Hung ushered in a little round man with owlish glasses, who looked around as though he had been dropped onto some alien planet in another galaxy. He carried a canvas medical bag in one of his hands.

  The group watched as the little medicine man examined Chen Fang’s kneecap, clucking his tongue in distress as he did so. He rummaged in his bag and came up with a thick green leaf and shoved it between Chen Fang’s clenched teeth. “Chew and swallow.” Hung translated the medicine man’s instructions. Within minutes, Chen Fang was out like the proverbial light, allowing the medicine man to poke and prod at his knee. In the quiet room, the bullet made a sharp sound when he dropped it on the floor.

  “Whatever that leaf is, I want a bushelful,” Ted said with a straight face.

  And on and on it went for another hour. They were just settling down with fresh tea when the medicine man pronounced Chen Fang alive but in a world of pain. He left a handful of leaves in a little canvas sack for Brother Shen and said that the minute Chen Fang opened his eyes, Brother Shen was to shove a leaf in his mouth until a medical doctor could tend to the man. He gave his assurances that Chen Fang would not die and left the room as fast as his fat little body could take him.

  “I’m relieved,” Dennis said.

  The others ignored his comment and concentrated on Isabelle and the exuberance she was showing. She held up her phone and whipped it around. “Okay, people, tell me my husband is the smartest man in the universe! Take a look and see what he’s done in a little over an hour.”

  “What? What?” they all chorused as one.

  “He turned the whole fight, exhibition, whatever they’re calling it, upside down. He canceled it and said the promoters would refund all the ticket sales. There’s a war going on stateside, and it’s going to reach this side of the world very quickly. Give it another thirty minutes, and Macau will have an uprising, and Wing Ping will have round eyes.”

  Annie looked at Myra, who met her gaze with unblinking intensity. Their thought was the same—Bert.

  Chapter 21

  “How’s Chen Fang going to call that snake if he’s out cold?” Ted asked.

  “Obviously, he isn’t going to until he wakes up,” Charles said.

  “So what should we do in the meantime?” Myra asked.

  Tongue in cheek, Charles said,
“What you do best, my dearest one—scheme and plot.”

  “That wasn’t the least bit funny, Charles,” Myra sniffed.

  “You’re right, it wasn’t funny at all. I was just making conversation. It’s getting late, we’re all stressed, and until there is something concrete we can do, I suggest we take turns trying to catch a little sleep. I’m sure the brothers can fetch us some bedding. We men will take the first watch, and you girls sleep. Four-hour shifts, if that meets with everyone’s approval.”

  The women all started talking at once, with comments ranging from I’m not that tired, to How do you expect us to sleep under these circumstances? to I’m too wired up to sleep. Charles wagged his finger in the air to indicate he meant business as the Brothers scurried off to fetch the required bedding.

  Annie was pacing the huge room, her fingers tapping out text after text. The incoming texts caused her to pick up her feet and move faster. She was scowling and muttering as she made her way around the room in circles.

  Isabelle was doing the same thing Annie was doing, but instead of scowling, she was laughing and giggling at what she was seeing on her special phone. Finally, she clicked off and turned to the girls. “Oh, you are going to love, love, love what I’m going to show you. We really need to give Abner some kind of prize for what he’s done. I’m telling you, you are going to . . . to . . . just . . . Especially you, Harry.”

  “It would help, dear, if you told us what Abner sent you that we all need to see,” Myra said quietly.

  “I know, I know, it’s just . . . I’m just flabbergasted at what he’s done. I mean I know he’s good—excellent, actually. No, that’s wrong, he’s the best hacker in the good old US of A. Maybe the world,” Isabelle cried out jubilantly. “And he did it all in a little over two hours. TWO HOURS, people.” She waved the special phone in the air to make her point.

  “It’s only going to take me two seconds to lay your ass out on this tile floor if you don’t shut up and tell us what’s on that damn phone.” Kathryn screeched so loud that the captives sat up straight to see what was going on. Chen Fang still slept peacefully, as did Cooper the mystic dog, who didn’t react to Kathryn’s outburst in any way whatsoever.