by Amelia Autin
Mei-li told Dirk everything she’d uncovered that afternoon while she polished off her dinner. She’d skipped lunch—too wrapped up in her thoughts to eat when Patrick had stopped for a quick bite—but now she realized she was ravenous. “RMM will do a forensics search of the house in Tai O,” she concluded. “Any evidence they can find will be preserved—fingerprints, DNA, etc.—in case there’s a prosecution. But I don’t need any of that to know your daughters were there. Remember the picture of them taken in Tai O?” she asked without thinking. “That filthy room? Has to be in that house.”
When Dirk stiffened and the smile was wiped from his face, she realized what she’d said. She reached over and placed an apologetic hand on his. “I’m sorry, tim sum. I didn’t mean to make you remember that.”
Dirk’s hand moved under hers, and he twined their fingers together. “I know you didn’t,” he said, a rough edge to his voice. “But the minute you mentioned Tai O, I was already thinking about it.” He stared at their hands for a moment, then raised his eyes to hers. “That’s the third time,” he said softly.
“Third time?”
“You’ve called me tim sum three times,” he explained. “Once on the overlook at the Peak, once when you wished me sweet dreams and now.” His blue eyes seemed darker somehow, a question in them. A question...and something more.
Mei-li couldn’t look away, and she couldn’t refuse to answer the question he was asking. “Tim sum translates literally as sweetheart,” she said gently. “Tim—sweet. Sum—heart.” When his eyes widened, she added, “It’s not the most common endearment in Cantonese, but it’s what you are to me.”
His fingers tightened on hers. “Mei-li, I—”
Dirk’s iPhone rang, shattering the moment. She knew he would have ignored it...if the “unknown caller” ring hadn’t indicated who it was.
“Dirk DeWinter.” He stood as he answered the call, his voice crisp, determined. He listened for a moment, his eyes narrowing. Mei-li rose so she could stand next to him and hear the kidnapper on the phone, but Dirk moved restlessly away from the table. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t understand. You have my daughters. I have the ransom. I’ve been waiting all day, and now it’s too—”
He listened impatiently to the voice at the other end. “No,” he repeated firmly. “No. You send me a picture of my daughters now. Right now, or the deal’s off. I’m not waiting until tomorrow—they could already be dead, for all I know.” He breathed harshly. “And if they’re dead, then God help you, because I will hunt you down.”
He tightened his lips, and Mei-li knew part of him was regretting that threat. But he meant it. She did, too. If Linden and Laurel were dead, she would hunt the kidnappers down herself. She would use every resource she had to find these men and administer justice. An eye for an eye. No courtroom. No judge. No jury.
“Okay,” Dirk was saying. “One now, and one tomorrow when I get the wire instructions.” He disconnected and stood there breathing hard, clenching and unclenching his right hand.
She slipped her arms around his waist, holding him as tightly as she could. Offering him whatever comfort she could without words because she knew words were meaningless in this moment. His arms closed around her, and they just stood there. With her head pressed against his chest, she could hear the thudding of his heart, and her own heart ached.
When his heartbeat eventually slowed, she raised her head and asked, “What did he say?”
“Nothing worth repeating, except that an ‘unavoidable delay’ had occurred, and I should receive instructions tomorrow.”
“But you insisted on a picture now.”
“I had to. No way in hell could I sleep not knowing...” He laughed without humor. “Not that I’ll sleep anyway. But I’d go crazy imagining the worst.”
“I know.”
The ding of his iPhone indicated an email, but Mei-li grasped the phone before he could do anything. “He wouldn’t be sending a picture unless your daughters are still alive,” she said urgently. “So let’s download it onto your laptop right away and see what it tells us.”
* * *
“Aberdeen Harbour,” Mei-li said when she mapped the GPS coordinates, then checked the accuracy by doing the same in the software on her computer. “But...”
“But it’s in the middle of the water.” Dirk cursed beneath his breath. “Another GPS-camera malfunction, like the picture yesterday? The one that seemed to be taken in the middle of Victoria Harbour?”
“Nooo,” Mei-li said, drawing the word out. “Unless he took the ferry from the Aberdeen Promenade across to Ap Lei Chau on the south side of Aberdeen Harbour and turned off his phone for some reason.”
“Or accidentally turned it off,” Dirk suggested. “That happens to me sometimes because I carry mine in my pocket.”
“But twice?” she asked skeptically. “Under the same circumstances? I figured he must have been on the Star Ferry yesterday when his iPhone was turned off, and then he didn’t turn it back on until he reached wherever he was when he took the picture. And when last night’s picture was taken in Aberdeen, I assumed that must have been his destination. But if he crossed to Ap Lei Chau...”
Something was niggling at her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Instead of trying to force it—something that rarely worked—she asked Dirk, “What exactly did the kidnapper say on the phone tonight? And this morning, too,” she rushed to add. “I should have asked you for a verbatim report, but I didn’t.”
“Let me think.” Dirk was silent for a minute. “This morning, he said I was batting a thousand. Baseball reference,” he explained when Mei-li gave him a questioning look. “Because I’d gone four for four on the ransom drops yesterday. Then he said they wanted me to wire the rest of the ransom, instructions would be delivered and I wasn’t to leave the suite.”
Nothing in that conversation stood out, so she asked, “What about tonight? Anything strike you as odd?” Dirk hesitated, and Mei-li’s instincts came quivering to life, like a hound on the scent. “What? Something just occurred to you. What?”
“I heard something in the background of the call earlier,” he said slowly. “Same as this morning. Familiar...yet not. What I mean is, I know I’ve heard something similar, but where I heard it before didn’t seem to fit.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I heard the sound on the phone, all I could think of was the museum yesterday.”
Mei-li’s eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “Boat sounds,” she whispered. “The folk history display. Remember when we walked onto the junk, right before you got the phone call?”
“Yes, but—”
“That display had an audio sound track running in the background,” she reminded him urgently. “Not loud, but...adding to the feeling that you were there, really there. Water lapping against the boat. Sea birds. Boat bells and mournful boat whistles.”
Dirk snapped his fingers. “You’re right. Now I remember. Not intrusive. Just there.”
“Aberdeen Harbour. He was calling you from Aberdeen Harbour. And look,” she said, her voice rising a little with excitement as she clicked on the picture of his daughters that had been sent that evening. “See how that wall curves? You can’t see much of it, but it definitely curves. I didn’t focus on it right away, but that’s exactly how the wall curved on the junk in the museum.”
She caught her breath and her eyes grew huge. “What?” he asked.
“It fits. It all fits,” she breathed.
“What fits?”
“Tai O. Mong Kok. Aberdeen Harbour. The tong one of the kidnappers belongs to. It all fits.”
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“Tai O is known as the Venice of Hong Kong now, but it started out as a fishing village. A Tanka fishing village on the southwest part of Lantau Island. And though Aberdeen H
arbour is miles away, on the southwestern side of Hong Kong Island, the boat people there are mainly Tanka. And remember I said that tong is made up of former boat people?”
“Tanka?”
She nodded. “That’s why they spent a night in Tai O. That’s why they moved to Aberdeen Harbour. Even stopping off in Mong Kok makes sense, because it’s well known that certain sections of Mong Kok are run by triads. Whoever he is, that kidnapper has underworld connections in all three places, people who will let him hide out there with your daughters. And that’s not all.”
She pulled up her map software, with the locations where all the pictures had been taken marked with small pushpins. “Those two Aberdeen pictures. Different GPS coordinates, but not all that far from each other. They’re on a boat, Dirk. See? The one from last night here on the promenade—the boat was docked there when that picture was taken. The second one out in the middle of the harbor. That’s where they are. They’re on a boat in Aberdeen Harbour.”
“How do we get there?” Dirk’s face was grim. Determined. Mei-li put a restraining hand on his arm, but he shook it off. “No,” he rasped. “Don’t tell me to be patient. Don’t tell me to call the police or RMM or anyone. My daughters are in Aberdeen Harbour, and I’m going after them.” He strode toward the study door and was halfway across the living room before Mei-li caught up with him.
“Wait,” she pleaded. “I’m going with you. But don’t go off half-cocked. We have to have a plan. They’re armed, remember? At least one of them is—the American. And you saw those sketches of him, his eyes? He’s a killer. He’ll kill your daughters in a heartbeat if you don’t exercise caution.”
Dirk was obviously chomping at the bit, but after a moment’s reflection he said, “Then what do you suggest?”
* * *
The smell of the ocean permeated the midnight air, a combination of sea salt, drying fish and even less-pleasant notes that made Dirk’s nostrils twitch. People lived here year-round with this odor, and Dirk knew if he lived here, too, he’d eventually get used to it the way people who lived around cattle feedlots in the United States noticed nothing unusual. It was an annoyance he told himself to ignore.
Waves lapped at the harbor walls, rocking the clusters of boats anchored there and in the middle of the bay, some lashed together for security. Aberdeen Harbour was an anachronism, decrepit boats that in some respects looked little changed from two hundred years ago juxtaposed against a backdrop of ultramodern, high-rise apartment buildings not far from the shore.
The light given off by those high-rises, even this late at night, was better than moonlight for seeing your way, Dirk realized, as he and Mei-li crept down the pier to where the RMM boat waited. He took a moment to thank God for Mei-li and RMM. Mei-li for preventing him from dashing to the rescue like some half-assed action-adventure hero—a move destined to get his little girls killed—and RMM for springing into action and putting this plan together in just over four hours. Four hours that had chafed his patience raw, knowing his daughters were here somewhere...just out of reach.
But his patience had paid off. He didn’t know exactly how RMM had done it, but they’d narrowed the numerous boats in the harbor down to three potential targets. Some kind of heat sensors? he wondered. Specialized night-vision goggles? He knew the US military had equipment classified as top secret that had been used to take down what the US called “high-value targets.” RMM must have the same kind of equipment, he told himself. Legal or illegal?
Probably illegal, he decided. Mei-li had told him RMM did what it had to do and damn the consequences. He didn’t care. Whatever it took to rescue his daughters, he would do, and more.
“Mei-li? DeWinter?” A deep male voice queried in an undertone calculated to reach just as far as they were...and no farther.
Dirk looked to where the voice appeared to be emanating from within the boat and saw nothing. Then a shadow moved, and the outline of a man took shape. He was nearly as tall as Dirk himself and just as fit. He was dressed all in black from head to toe, and his face and the backs of his hands were smeared with something resembling black greasepaint.
Mei-li stepped onto the boat and launched herself at the other man, hugging him fiercely. And Dirk was taken aback for a moment. Then she turned to Dirk and whispered, “Dirk, meet my brother, Jason Moore. Jason, this is Dirk DeWinter.”
The other man held out his hand. “DeWinter,” he acknowledged.
Everything coalesced in his mind, and Dirk realized this wasn’t just Mei-li’s brother, wasn’t just Sir Joshua Moore’s son. This was the man Mei-li had described as the “fabulously wealthy” founder of RMM. The man who’d been helping him behind the scenes. Who else would Mei-li have trusted enough to confide in?
He shook the proffered hand. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you and your organization have done,” Dirk said. When Mei-li’s brother shot a sharp glance at her, he quickly clarified, “No, she didn’t tell me who you are, but I’m not stupid. She also told me RMM does whatever it has to do. ‘Let us have faith that right makes might,’” he quoted softly, “‘and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.’”
A faint smile crossed the other man’s face. “If you can quote Abraham Lincoln from memory,” he said, “then Mei-li was right about you.” His smile disappeared, and his eyes turned hard and cold. “We’re just about set. I’ve got men in the water checking out the three boats we identified. As soon as we know which one, we can make our move.”
“Not without me.” Dirk’s voice was quiet, but there was a thread of steel running through it. It wasn’t bravado. And it wasn’t machismo. But he wasn’t about to risk anyone but himself taking on the kidnappers. Because if anything happened to his daughters in this rescue attempt, it wasn’t going to be because he wasn’t there to keep them safe.
Jason Moore assessed him silently, then nodded. “I understand.” He reached over to the console of the boat, then slapped a tube into Dirk’s hand. “Better smear some of this on your face and arms, then,” he said. “No sense standing out if you can help it.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later Dirk sat in the stern of the boat, ready and waiting. Mei-li sat beside him. They’d stopped at her apartment before coming here, and she’d changed into an outfit as black as his. She’d also bundled her hair out of the way with one of those clips women used when they were more concerned with neatness than style. When Dirk had finished applying the black greasepaint to himself, she’d taken the tube and mimicked him.
He couldn’t help but smile. She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, smeared face and all. But she was so much more than that. She was the woman who’d breathed life into the empty husk of a man he’d been since Bree had died, and he couldn’t imagine life without her now.
He picked up her hand and stared at it. So small. So delicate in appearance, just like Mei-li herself. But she was a woman who could move mountains with these hands. A woman who’d decided—for God knew what reason—that he needed rescuing just as much as his daughters did...and had done just that.
He raised her hand and kissed her palm. “Thank you,” he said simply. “No matter what happens tonight...thank you.”
A tiny splash of something that wasn’t a wave was the only warning they received before a lithe male body in a wet suit lifted itself over the side of the boat. He was joined by another. Then another.
Jason Moore came out to meet them. A soft exchange in Cantonese passed between the four men. Then Jason turned to Dirk. “We found it.”
He asked a question in Cantonese of one of the wet-suited men, who nodded and said, “Hai.” More patter followed, and when he was done Jason clapped him on the arm in a universally recognized gesture meaning “Well done.”
“They’re all sleeping,” Jason explained in an undertone. He grabbed a pen and notepad and sk
etched the layout of the boat that was their target. “The kidnappers are here and here,” he said, drawing their sleeping bodies. “Your daughters are here and here in the stern, right up against the back wall. But see how the stern curves up at a sharp angle? No way to get a man up there through the back wall without making some noise. Can’t risk it. A frontal assault is the only way. Take out the kidnappers before they can react and retaliate.” He glanced at Dirk. “Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“We know one has a gun. This one,” he said, identifying the body on the left. “The other one might. But we can’t go in blasting. Yes,” he said with a small smile when Dirk raised his eyebrows in a question. “Guns are illegal in Hong Kong, but we do have them. We just can’t risk using them in that confined space, not with your daughters there. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Jason assessed Dirk again. “The space is too small for more than a three-man assault team.”
He pointed at himself, then at Dirk. But before he could point to one of the three wet-suited men, Mei-li said quietly, “I’m going in, too.”
Dirk and Jason simultaneously said, “No.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mei-li said, looking from one man to the other, incredulity obvious even beneath the greasepaint. “You’re both turning all macho, protective idiot on me?” Staccato Cantonese flowed out of her in a steady stream addressed to Jason, then she turned to Dirk and said, “I’m the smallest one here. In a frontal assault—you on one side, Jason on the other—I’m the best chance we have of slipping between the two of you and reaching your daughters. These men,” she added, gesturing toward the men in the wet suits, “I suggest they go back in the water surrounding the boat. Then, if one or both of the girls ends up in the harbor...”
“Makes sense,” Jason said.
Which put Dirk on the spot. No way did he want Mei-li in the line of fire. He’d never survive if he lost her, too. “Don’t think of me,” she said softly, her eyes meeting his. “Think of what’s best for Linden and Laurel.”
