“Who? What?”
“Child labor,” she said grimly. “I could be wrong, but they’re small enough to be a child. Left here, alone. Unthinkable.”
“There’s a child in there?” He took the flashlight from her. “I don’t see anything. Just a shadow of . . . Andra?” He gripped the flashlight. “This is a bit of a stretch. Let’s . . .”
She was running her fingers over the doorknob before pulling a long metal instrument from her pocket.
“Andra, no!” His hand covered hers. “What the hell are you doing?”
“We have no choice. No time,” she clarified. “If there’s a child in there.”
“Andra, there’s not. Think. There can’t be.”
“I know what I saw.”
“What you thought you saw.”
She turned around, facing him with a stubborn look on her face that she knew matched the tone of her voice. She’d used that same determination in their past conversations. She knew it wasn’t fair, hitting him with the grit that had been one of her strongest traits all her life. But she wouldn’t back down—couldn’t, from anything.
Silence seemed to breathe around them. Something rustled behind them and they both turned as a breeze blew a few sheets of litter across the alley and against a rusted Dumpster.
“You’re right,” he said and he dropped his hand.
She smiled at him and turned back to the lock. He’d do anything to protect her. She knew that as surely as she knew she needed to pick this lock. It was an enticing thought for someone who valued her independence over all things—a man who was concerned for her safety.
“Got it,” she whispered a minute later and slid the tool back into her pocket as she opened the door. Inside it wasn’t as dark as they’d expected. Lights that hadn’t been visible from outside flickered sparsely through the darkness and faintly lighted the warehouse further ahead of them. The interior seemed somehow longer and deeper than it had from the outside, but it was hard to tell without more light.
“This is breaking and entering,” Max muttered. “We could be deported or worse.”
“Probably worse,” Andra said. “But the alternative if we don’t . . . Whether I saw a child or not, we need to see this factory and we have little time.”
“And that’s pretty much the only thing that has me agreeing to this insanity.”
“Come on.” She waved with her free hand. The other held the flashlight. The light spun off metal vats that were five feet tall and about that wide, and off to the right was a heavy piece of steel machinery that sprawled across the factory floor. Stacked around it were clots of plastic in plastic blue tubs.
“The machine that molds the doll pieces,” Max said as he picked up a piece of plastic. He turned it around. “A head without hair.”
“Sewn on by hand, later.” Andra pointed to where a shadowed line of sewing machines stood an aisle over and twenty feet or so away.
“Your child, Andra?” he said with irony in his voice as they both faced a life-size, child-like floor model. “Wax? Seems odd. What did they need it for?”
“Damn it, I’m sorry, Max. More than likely plastic.” She ran a hand over the three-foot model that was propped on a stand. “Bloody creepy.”
“Breaking and entering,” Max muttered, as if repeating it would make it right.
“Shhhh.” Andra swept the light further down the line, where more tubs in red and blue were stacked along what looked like various workstations. “It looks like much of this is done by hand.”
“A common fact in China,” Max said. “Human labor is cheap.” To their right more vats lined a wall and past them doll limbs were stacked in eerie alignment.
“Unbelievable,” Andra muttered as row after row of plastic doll arms were illuminated in dusky rows that reached toward the ceiling. She grazed them with the light and then swept past them. “I can’t believe any of this.” A small shriek had Max spinning around. Andra had one hand over her mouth as she took one step back and then another.
“Andra, what’s wrong? What is it?”
“Max, I . . . oh, my God.” She spun around, falling into his arms. The flashlight hit his shoulder blade as her arms flung around him.
He reached back and took the flashlight from her and shone it over her shoulder to the vat in front of them. What he saw made him pause and hold her tighter—an arm, a hand. It was a man’s arm from the size of it, and it wasn’t moving. Gently he disengaged her arms. “Stay right behind me.”
She took a step back. “He’s dead,” she said bluntly. “I’m sorry for acting like a complete idiot. At least I think . . . he’s not moving. He . . . there’s blood.”
Max took a step closer. He could see that it was a male, Asian, mid-forties, tall. He leaned down and tentatively touched the body, reaching for the hand, checking for a pulse. “Still warm.”
“Dead?”
“Dead,” Max said firmly.
“Harry Lord?”
“I don’t know. He’s wearing jeans and a shirt that screams designer. Obviously not a worker.” He turned around. “You’re all right?”
“As good as I can be.” She folded her arms. “Designer?”
“Not that I know much about clothes, but I know what I can’t afford.” He stood up. “I suspect this is Mr. Lord. What I know is that there’s nothing we can do for him. I’d check for ID but . . .”
“Leave it for the authorities. We need to get the hell out of here,” Andra said firmly.
“Agreed but not before we take a look at the office.”
“Whoever did it could be here.”
Max took her hand. “I think we would have known that by now. Still, let’s do this quickly.”
He led the way down aisles that became darker the deeper they ventured into the plant. The space was small for a factory, with only one central conveyor belt and vats lining it on either side. With eerie precision, the light skipped over the porcelain heads that lined the belt. Finished dolls sat on another shelf.
“They’re the same,” she said, the quiver in her voice only slight now.
“And yet subtly different.”
The flashlight skimmed over them and she could see the slight differences Max had alluded to, from a hairstyle to the cast of the face. They were an old-fashioned design combined with a uniquely modern idea.
Fifty feet in, near the back of the building, they found an office.
“This isn’t much bigger than my living room,” Andra said as Max ran the flashlight’s beam over the six-by-ten-foot area. The office was tucked in a corner just behind the conveyer belts. Inside the austere room there were two filing cabinets against one wall, a photocopier and a scarred wooden desk against another.
“Check the desk,” Max instructed. “I’ll see if there’s anything in the filing cabinets.”
A few moments later he emerged with a file folder in his hands. “I think I’ve found our link,” he said.
Shadows shifted and a soft scrape of metal was clear in the hollow silence as something moved on the factory floor. He put a finger to his lips. “Stay here,” he whispered and disappeared into the darkness outside the office. Then, seconds later, the light wavered and went out, throwing the room into darkness. Something clattered to the floor.
She heard a grunt and then a crash that seemed to reverberate around her. The desk shoved roughly into her hip and something sharp hit her arm before crashing to the floor. She grabbed her elbow and felt something slick, like blood. She tripped and rammed up against something solid that she assumed was the photocopier or printer she’d seen earlier. The lights flickered on as the office door slammed and a shadowy figure dashed across the factory floor. Then the lights went out and they were thrown again into darkness.
“Max!” A sob sounded somewhere nearby, and it was a full minute before she realized that it was the sound of her own voice. She put a hand over her mouth and took a slow, shaky breath.
“Andra.”
“Max, where are you?�
�
There was thumping and muffled sound as Andra began to feel her way along the edges of the darkened room. She bumped into what might be a desk and bit back an expletive.
Footsteps shuffled in the darkness and her knee throbbed. She reached behind her and felt for the flashlight Max had dropped.
There was another bang.
“Andra!” Max whispered.
“Right here.” She fumbled in the dark and finally found the flashlight. Her fingers slipped on the cool metal as she fumbled for the on switch. Finally light cleared the darkness and swept across Max’s worried face.
She moved the light from his face to sweep the floor as she stood up.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I think so.” He crouched down beside her. “And you?”
“A bruise on my knee, a cut. That’s about it.” Her laugh was shaky. “Bumped into the photocopier and banged my knee a bit but I’m okay.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. He got the doll, didn’t he?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“We’ve got to go after him.”
Max took a step back. “No!”
“No?”
“I don’t want you anywhere near this guy. I mean, he almost took me down.” Max spread his hands as if to emphasize his point. “The doll’s gone. He wrestled it out of my hands. But the jump drive is in my pocket, so whoever it was may not have gotten what they were after, at least not all of it.”
“I hope you’re right. But even if you are, we still need the doll, Max. It may hold more clues. We have no choice but to follow, and quickly, before we lose his trail.” She began to move toward the door but stopped to glance back at where he stood. She looked quickly at the desk. “Maybe we can come back. Finish the search.”
“I doubt if there’ll be another opportunity to come back or anything to come back for. There’s surprising little in this office now.” Max grimaced. “There’s no point chasing him. He’s long gone, but we’ve got to get out of here. Who knows what or who might follow.”
“So despite breaking the law and breaking in, we have nothing. Less than nothing—we’re missing the doll.”
“Not exactly.” He held up a file folder. “Presto. Drawings of our doll.”
She took the file folder from him. “Max, there’s nothing here.”
“No!” He took the file folder from her. “He took the drawings.”
“Damn it! Let’s go after him.”
“No.” Max grabbed her wrist, his touch gentle and yet firm. “Like I said, we need to get out of here.”
She turned and swept the flashlight over a row of dolls’ heads, hairless, their gleaming brown eyes seeming to follow them in the shallow light.
Andra shuddered. “They give me the creeps,” she muttered.
Minutes later, when they pushed the small side door open, the night air that met them was warm and humid, and for a moment it was silent, like none of the chaos within had ever happened.
A car’s lights blinked in the junction of the alley maybe two hundred feet away, and they froze before it disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the mutating edges of darkness. Max raced across the parking lot, disappearing briefly into the shadows. Andra shivered, clutched her arms around her, and tried not to spin like a frightened top while attempting to watch every direction at once.
Minutes later, Max returned with the doll in his hand and Andra blew out a sigh that quickly changed to shock. “He knew,” was all she could say.
Max held the doll in both hands. “Obviously he did. He knew there was supposed to be a memory stick in the doll, and when there wasn’t, he threw the doll away.”
Inside the factory lights flickered on.
“Let’s get out of here.” The words were becoming a litany of the night and this time they spoke them as one as they stepped off the relative safety of the parking lot and into the murky blackness of the alley. The flashlight flickered, blinked and went out.
Traffic rumbled in the distance, as nearby a dog barked. Andra jumped and moved closer to Max. She shivered. Whoever was out there knew of them and they knew so very little of him.
• • •
The body rolled into the trash pile with a soft thump. Le dusted the side of his pants as he slipped the gun with its silencer into a holster inside his jacket. He bent down and slipped a hand into the corpse’s jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of folded papers.
“No respect,” he scolded the body. “You have no idea what you took.” He’d been too late to help but not too late to prevent this thug from taking the plans to Fu’s most recent work. He gave the corpse a kick before turning and walking away.
But as he stepped into the Audi, Le shuddered. The memories were with him at virtually every moment. She was dead and the thought of that ached somewhere deep and hidden inside him. It was like Fu’s death had taken something from him, something he could never retrieve. For as long as she had been alive, there had been hope. Hope for the two of them and the relationship he had cherished for so long. Their time together replayed easily in his mind. Memories and images of her as a girl were as clear as if they had just happened. And those memories kept him awake many nights. He could never remember a time when he hadn’t loved her. Fu, she’d been a force like no other woman he had ever known.
Something tight and painful knotted in his chest. He had never imagined that he would lose her. That he could no longer be physically close, he could accept; that he would never see her again was a reality he couldn’t accept and yet couldn’t escape. Killing was almost a relief, for in a way it was like keeping Fu safe—to safeguard her secrets.
Chapter Eleven
The alley was dark and crowded on both sides by crumbling three- and four-story apartments that butted the edges and made the alley feel tight and breathless.
Faceless children cried in the darkness. A grate wavered with formless shadows that slipped through the broken metal slats. A rat emerged, hesitated, and then slipped back through the sewer grate. Andra choked back a small sound that lodged somewhere between a strangled whisper and a scream.
Max walked at a brisk pace that she easily matched. Around them the damp night air steamed with the uncomfortably raw scent of sewer mixed with stale food and rancid cooking oil.
“I wish I could remember more of what was in that file folder. Hell! I can’t believe it was stolen. They were plans. I presume for the dolls but I didn’t get any details,” Max griped.
“All we can do now is get out of here.”
“You’re not going back to that apartment. You can’t.”
“I know, Max.”
“I don’t know if my hotel room is a better option.”
“We have no choice, it’s Aberdeen. I’ll let Lin Su know we’re taking him up on his offer.” She pulled out her phone.
“Whoever attacked us could be nearby,” Andra whispered after she ended the call.
It was an hour later when they finally arrived on a dock crowded with yachts that were mixed among the classic junks and sampans that people had lived on for generations.
Andra took out her phone and punched in a number.
“Lin Su? Yes, it’s me, Andra.”
She disconnected after a brief conversation. Five minutes later the sound of an engine cut faintly over the lap of the waves and rustle of canvas masts as the boats in the harbor creaked and shifted and settled in for the night. A small motorboat pulled up and a man with white hair that stuck out along the edges of a small straw hat maneuvered the little boat easily against the dock.
“Max, meet Lin Su. He was a good friend of my father.”
Max shook the man’s damp, arthritic-knuckled hand. There was tenacity and strength in the man’s grip. “Where are you taking us?”
Lin Su pointed in the other direction beyond the yachts and toward the collection of ancient junks, where clothes hung on lines that stretched across decks and dogs barked.
Water lapped dark a
nd thick around them and the smell of oil was choking. Boat lights sparked glimmers of light that skidded off the surface of the water.
The boat backed away from the dock and spun into open water. Behind them yachts gleamed under the harbor lights, and as the boat plied its way through the water, the light dimmed and the harbor lights slowly disappeared until only the boat lights flickered across the water. About a half a mile out the dimness was broken by the lights from two huge barges. They floated high above the water and above the sails and jibs of the other anchored boats.
“Jumbo Seafood Restaurant and Tal Pak Floating Restaurant. Combined, they’re the biggest floating restaurants in Hong Kong,” Andra explained. “A small ship, really. Not quite as garish as it once was . . . or maybe just loud in a different way,” she said with a light edge to her voice.
Waves splashed over the boat’s prow and Max wiped his free hand across his forehead. The water smelled like a combination of salt, oil and seaweed.
“Where are you taking us, Su?” Andra asked.
“Jumbo Seafood Restaurant. You said you needed a computer. I don’t have one. Tom up there does. They’re closed for repairs, have been for days—opening again tomorrow.” He stood and the boat rocked precariously. “By the way, we’ve left a trail toward the airport.”
“We?” Andra frowned.
“For anyone who’s looking for you, it looks like you’ve got a ticket out of here straight through to Singapore.”
“Singapore?” Andra stood up and the boat rocked dangerously again. She sat down. “You don’t have that kind of money, Su.”
“No, but someone else has an interest in this.” He shrugged. “The money arrived a few hours ago and a phone call right after that with the suggestion to get the tickets to Singapore.”
“Suggestion?” Max asked.
“He left no name.”
“What’s going on?” Andra stood up again, and this time the boat rocked alarmingly.
“Hey!” Max clutched the side of the boat with one hand and Andra’s wrist with the other. “I don’t want you falling in.”
Legacy of Fear Page 7
