Jamison exhaled heavily and said, “Someone busted the paramedic’s head and stole the truck.”
Benson nodded, “Jarvis’ boss paid the young man a very generous settlement, and also made a huge donation to the Fire Department’s Benevolent Society. So, no one’s pitching a bitch.”
“And Hanna Chao?”
“She says she was in on it from the beginning. Claims it was the only way she could get away from the people who took her son. The same people who sent the hit man to Hunter’s house.”
Jamison closed the file and shook his head. “This doesn’t smell kosher to me.”
“I hear you boss.”
The expression on Jamison’s face looked like he just swallowed a bad piece of fish, and said, “Turn the kid’s kidnapping over to the feds. And tell your friend Mr. Carson, or Hunter, or whatever the fuck he calls himself, I never want to hear his name again, and cut them all loose.”
“OK.”
Jamison’s expression softened “By the way, How’s Loman’s wife and the baby?”
“They’re fine.”
“And the Missus and your son?”
“They’re good too.”
He looked directly in Benson’s eyes and added, “Benny. I know this guy’s your friend. Stay clear of this. It’s got a stank about it. Know what I’m sayin’?”
Benson nodded and left the captain’s office.
He brought Chao and Jarvis into the interview room where Hunter was waiting. “Ms. Chao, Gentlemen. In light of Ms. Chao’s statement, Mr. Montgomery’s generous settlement with the para-medic, and his contribution to the Fire Department’s Benevolent Society, they’ll be no charges filed against any of you for the incident at the Union League. We’re contacting the FBI regarding the kidnapping of Ms. Chao’s son. I suggest you cooperate with them. Any questions?”
“Thank you, Detective,” Leonard Jarvis said extending his hand.
When they got up to leave, Benson said, “Hunter, can you hold up a moment?”
After Jarvis and Chao left, Benson closed the door, “My boss knows you’re full of shit, and so do I. A word to the wise. Whatever the fuck you plan to do, don’t do it here. Jamison made it clear he never wants to see you again.”
“Thanks, Benny.”
31
Later that evening, the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Center City, Philadelphia
Hunter and Jarvis, and Jarvis’ assistant, Wayne Clooney went to Montgomery’s hotel suite to meet with him and decide on a strategy to find and rescue Chao’s son. Jarvis had already arranged to get his top lieutenants moving on finding out where Qwon’s people were holding the boy. They had decided not to include Hanna Chao in their meeting.
“Ms. Chao and her son arrived on a private jet at Terminal F at ten hundred hours yesterday. We have video from the airport,” Clooney said as the image appeared on the over-sized flat screen monitor in the suite’s sitting room. The video showed Chao being ushered into an SUV while Qwon Du Pak and one of her men took the boy to a black Lincoln Town Car. Before Qwon walked away to get in the SUV the video showed her giving her man instructions. “It’s a shame there’s no sound,” Montgomery commented.
The image on the screen changed to the Town Car leaving the terminal and getting on the Interstate heading towards center city Philadelphia. “We were able to track the vehicle to the 8th Street Exit going north towards Chinatown. And then we lost it,” Clooney said as the screen went dark.
Jarvis picked up the narrative, “We got the license plate for the vehicle from the security video at the terminal gate. It was rented from an Enterprise rental agency at 9th and Race in Chinatown. Clooney dispatched some of our people to canvas the neighborhood. The Town Car was returned without any passengers 30 minutes after it left the airport. Based on the timing, unless they changed vehicles, we believe they’re holding the boy somewhere close to the rental agency.”
“Have we heard anything further from your people?” Hunter asked.
“Not yet,” Clooney replied.
Hunter looked at the still photos Clooney had placed on the dining table around which they were seated. Among the photos was the image of the man Qwon assigned to stay with the boy standing next to her. “How tall do you think he is?” Hunter asked.
“In comparison to Qwon, who’s close to six feet tall, I’d say he’s at least six feet five,” Jarvis replied. “Chao claims she doesn’t know the man who took her son; she never saw him before,” he added.
They studied the photo of the man in silence. His head was shaved; he had a pencil thin mustache. “Does anyone have a magnifying glass?” Hunter asked.
Jarvis took a small plastic case out of his jacket pocket. He pressed a button to open it and a magnifying glass with a light popped out. Hunter placed it over the photo of the man’s face. The image showed a jagged scar running from the corner of his right eye to his jaw.
“Can you crop the photo of his face and blow it up?” Hunter asked.
Clooney nodded.
“Do you think if we canvas the neighborhood, we can get a hit on an unusually tall Korean with a scar like that?” Montgomery asked.
Hunter shook his head, “Chinatown’s a very insular community. We’re gonna need help.”
“Got anybody in mind?” Jarvis asked.
Hunter took his cell phone from his pocket and hit a number on his contact list. “Are you aware Roger Montgomery is missing?”
Hunter listened for a few seconds and said, “Want to help us rescue him?”
He listened and smiled, “You sure it won’t fuck things up with your Boss?”
Hunter waited for a response, “OK, I’ll be there at 7 am,” and disconnected.
“Who did you call?”
“Benny. He told me he’d set it up with his boss first thing in the morning.”
As he left, he turned to Montgomery, “You can let Ms. Chao know, we’ll find her son.”
Montgomery sighed, “I really don’t believe she cares what happens to the boy.”
That was a strange comment Hunter thought as he walked down the corridor to the elevator.
* * *
7 am Thursday, June 7, 2018, Southwest Detectives
Jamison’s eyes narrowed to slits and his face flushed when Benson ushered Hunter into his office, “This better be good,” he said.
Hunter pulled the stills from the folder he was holding and spread them out on Jamison’s desk. He walked him through the sequence. “Based on the timing, we think there’s a good chance Qwon Du Pak’s people are holding Roger Montgomery somewhere in Chinatown. The PPD has a special unit there, doesn’t it?”
Jamison nodded.
Hunter continued, “If the right people ask the right questions, I’m sure someone will tell them where a six foot five Korean with a scar like that might be found. At the very least, we got a shot of finding out where the man and the boy got out of the car.”
Jamison studied the photo, and after a beat he shifted his eyes back to Hunter and said, “Maybe you’re not totally full of shit after all.”
“Boss we got to move on this fast before they hurt the kid,” Benson said.
“OK, I’ll call the Chief of Detectives and email the stills. The two of you get down to Central Detectives. By the time you get there, the Chinatown Squad will be ready for you. Mr. Carson, you’re only there to observe, OK?”
Hunter nodded.
* * *
“So, you think this guy,” Detective Andrew Wong said pointing at the photograph of the tall Korean with the scar, “and the kid may be in my neighborhood?” Except for the wire-rimmed glasses, Wong was a dead-ringer for Jackie Chan.
“There’s a good chance. The guy kinda stands out in a crowd, don’t ya think?” Benson replied. “If your guys ask around, we might get a solid lead.”
Wong nodded. “They’re already out there, poking around. You were right about having us do the canvas, the locals don’t like ‘gweilos’ asking for anything other than directions to the best Peking Duck
house. No offense.”
“None taken.”
Wong looked down at the photo again, “If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on getting some leads. Folks on the street don’t miss much around here.”
Ten minutes later Wong’s cell phone buzzed, he listened to the call, said something in a Chinese, and disconnected. “We got a possible lead.”
32
9:30 am, Chinatown, Philadelphia
Wong parked his unmarked sedan on the pavement on the ten hundred block of Spring Street, around the corner from the Joy Tsin Lau restaurant at 10th & Race. An elderly woman was waiting with one of his squad when Wong, Benson, and Hunter got out of the sedan and approached.
Hunter and Benson waited as Wong and the woman, whom he identified as Mrs. Lee, engaged in what sounded like a heated exchange in Chinese. The woman’s eyes darted from Wong to the two of them from time to time during the conversation.
When the discussion ended, Wong bowed and the woman and the plain clothes detective walked away.
“What did she tell you?” Benson asked.
“Among other things, she didn’t like your looks, but she thought your friend was handsome,” he responded.
“What about the tall Korean?”
“She didn’t like his looks either.”
“She saw him?” Benson asked.
“Affirmative. She watched him and Roger, who she ID’d from the photo my guy showed her, get out of the Lincoln and go into an apartment building on 10th Street. One of my guys is going to talk to the super. We should know if the Korean and the boy are still there and which unit.”
“We better get back-up ready just in case,” Benson said.
“Already taken care of.”
The entrance to the apartment building was between a tea room and a noodle house on 10th Street. The building was a four-story walkup. The apartments were above the retail shops and restaurants on the first floor. Wong told them there were six units on each floor. According to what the super told his man, the Korean and the boy were in a unit on the top floor, number 401, on the northwest corner of the building. As far as the super knew, they were both in the apartment.
Wong left Benson and Hunter in the apartment directly below the one in which the boy and his captor were supposed to be where two officers from the tactical squad had already been stationed. The police officers had removed a heating vent from the ceiling and threaded a flexible tube containing a miniature microphone and camera through the duct up to the vent on the floor of the apartment above them.
One of the officers maneuvered the tiny camera and listened through the earpiece for several minutes. From his expression he appeared to be confused.
“What?” Benson whispered.
“I can see the boy. He’s sitting on an easy chair watching television; there’s no sign of the Korean,” he answered softly.
“Is the boy bound?”
“Negative.” The officer relayed the information to his squad leader. He listened and replied, “Roger that.”
“They’re going to access the apartment.”
* * *
Sergeant Harry Goodman the leader of the Tactical Squad, jimmied open the door and stepped inside the apartment. Goodman was a bear of a man, six feet, three inches tall and two hundred fifty pounds. His head was totally bald and he had a gray walrus mustache. When he entered the room, he heard the boy crying and smelled the odor of urine. He walked over to Roger Montgomery who was trembling; the boy had wet his pants.
Despite being on the force for over 25 years, the sight of the frightened little boy who looked up at him with terrified eyes, almost overwhelmed him. Goodman smiled at Roger, and said, “We’re gonna get you out of here, OK?”
The boy wiped some mucus from his nose with the back of his hand and shook his head. “The man who brought me here said, if I tried to get out of the chair, I would blow up,” he said as tears flowed down his face.
Goodman shifted his eyes to the floor beneath the chair and saw the edge of some type of apparatus sticking out of the front of the furniture.
“Can I get up now?”
“Not yet,” he replied, keeping his tone low and even. He waved one of his men to approach. “Officer Silvester’s gonna make sure it’s safe for us to move you. OK?”
Silvester, a skinny short man with a sad face, smiled at the boy and flashed him a thumbs-up.
Goodman nodded to his man who laid down on the floor behind the chair and checked under it with a flashlight. After several seconds passed, he looked up at Goodman and shook his head no.
“Roger, you’re gonna have to hang in for a little longer. OK? I’m going to stay right here with you until we make absolutely certain everything’s all right.”
Roger moaned and began to sob. Goodman kneeled down and gently touched the boy’s hand. “Bring me a blanket and some water,” he asked one of his squad. “You and me are a team. We’re gonna hang here while my guys make it safe for us to leave.”
“What’s happening?” Benson asked the tech who was watching the floor above through the camera.
The officer with the earpiece held up a hand to silence him. After a few seconds he said, “There’s a problem.”
Benson and Hunter waited.
“They think the chair the kid’s sitting on is rigged with a bomb.”
Goodman gently placed the blanket over the boy and held the bottle of water to his lips. “Just take a sip now. OK?”
Within minutes of the discovery of the potential explosive device, the police began to evacuate the apartments and the restaurants and retail stores on the first floor.
The bomb disposal unit was enroute. They were on site in six minutes. The leader of the unit quickly assessed the situation and motioned Harry Goodman to come over. “Jim, could you come over here and sit with Roger for a minute?” Goodman asked Silvester.
Goodman and the head of the bomb Squad stepped out into the hallway. “Here’s the situation,” he said, “Your guy was right. There’s a device under the chair. From what I can see, there’s explosive material, probably C-4, surrounded with bags of ball-bearings, screws and other shit. It’s triggered with a pressure switch. There’s no sign of a receiver, or a clock.”
“So, the only way the bomb explodes is if the boy gets up?” Goodman asked.
“That, or if there’s a sudden movement down. The switch is depressed about a quarter of the way, too much movement either way and….” He replied without finishing the sentence.
“How big is the bomb?”
“Could be a pound of explosives, maybe more. With the ball-bearings and what-not, if it’s triggered there’s enough energy to kill the boy and blow the shrapnel through the roof and the windows.”
“Can you disconnect the triggering mechanism?”
“Two risky, if we cut the wires the bomb could blow.”
“So how are we gonna get the kid out?” Goodman asked.
“I got five dump trucks with a few thousand sandbags coming. Should be here in ten mikes. We’ll have to haul the bags up to the apartment. When we’re ready, we’ll replace his weight with a few sandbags and remove the boy,” Harding replied.
“What do you need all those sandbags for?”
“Just in case.”
` 3
Ten minutes later
When the dump trucks arrived, the members of the bomb squad, the tactical unit, and the Chinatown squad formed a human assembly line to transfer the thirty-pound bags of sand from the trucks up four flights to the apartment. After the first several hundred or so bags, the agonizing, back breaking work began to take its toll on the 75 men and women involved. All of them understood the deadly consequences of failure, so they persevered.
Hunter and Benson were standing across the street from the apartment building with Andrew Wong watching the action. Wong was in radio contact with the Bomb Squad leader.
“Do we know what happened to the tall Korean who took Roger from the airport?” Hunter asked.
Wong shook his head, “No. No one saw him leave the building, and so far, we haven’t been able to come up with anyone who saw him on the street.”
“Did the Bomb Squad give you a sit-rep?” Benson asked.
“He told me we better move from here. If the bomb goes off, we’re well within the kill zone.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Hunter asked.
“They’re going to get the kid out of there.”
* * *
It took them more than four and a half hours of exhausting, soul-killing effort, that with each and every exchange, twist, and lift of the almost 5,000 thirty-pound sandbags, punished their bodies and tested their will, until they accomplished their mission. The entire time Harry Goodman and Jim Silvester stayed with the boy.
The room had been staged for the exfiltration. The bomb squad had built a barrier of sandbags, the length of the room, three feet deep and over four feet high, two paces behind the chair. There was a heavy canvas and Kevlar sheet sitting on top of the sand bags. In the event the bomb was triggered, they would have two seconds at most to jump behind the barrier and cover themselves.
“Is this going to work?” Goodman asked Harding.
“As soon as you get the kid out of the chair, get behind the barrier and you should be fine.”
“Should?” Goodman asked.
“I’ll tell you what,” Harding replied, “I’ll stay with you.”
“You good, Jim?” Goodman asked Silvester.
He nodded.
“We got this,” Goodman said and he and Harding bumped fists.
* * *
Roger, Goodman and Silvester were the only ones left in the building. Except for the earplugs the three of them were wearing, neither Goodman nor Silvester were wearing any protective gear, both to instill confidence in the boy, who they couldn’t equip with a vest, and to enable them to more easily to execute the plan. If the bomb exploded before they could get to cover, all of them were dead anyway.
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