“Unfortunately, it looks like the Z heading on the second plate indicates a Chinese diplomatic plate, which probably puts the numbers of potential cars at more than ten thousand. Of course, many of that number will be hundreds of miles away, but nonetheless it does not help much,” the police supervisor who’d been assigned the case said, shaking his head. “While we are not allowed to randomly stop holders of diplomatic plates, it is possible to obfuscate their entrance and exit from the island, at no more risk than a formal complaint, which is easily lost.”
Headache
Konnor began to come to, thinking he was back on his dad’s ship and they were in a rough sea. Then the time leading up to the terror of his abduction came flooding back to him.
He’d fallen asleep on the last bus as the three of them headed to get a burger, and when they disembarked he was just stumbling along after his dad, trying to wake up, when he saw a clip get tossed out the open window of a car idling next to the curb a couple meters ahead of him. As he got closer he could see it was a clip with a coin on its face tightly holding a wad of money. Stooping to pick it up, Konnor began to hand it back through the car window when the door opened silently. He felt a cool rush of air-conditioned air pouring from the interior of the car and smelled a vaguely sweet and flowery scent as two hands like vise grips swiftly nabbed him and launched him into the back seat. The last thing he remembered was something connecting violently with the top of this head. The rest was blackness.
Fighting down the adrenalin rush that accompanied the return of his memories, he silently took stock of his situation. There was a painful wetness above his ear, but his eyes weren’t covered and his hands and feet were not bound. Konnor thought better of moving and continued to lie still, listening to the conversation going on in the vehicle.
“The kid’s still out. With any luck he’ll stay like that till we hit the warehouse,” said a low, husky voice.
“This is so risky, using this stupid car. You’re gonna get us both killed,” a second, higher, shakier voice piped in.
“Just shut up. I didn’t have time to find something different. Boss says we need another head in an hour, we get another head. No questions asked.” The low voice coughed at the end of his statement. “Besides, you’re so high, how can you be nervous? Let’s just get him to the drop.”
Wax Ride
Konnor realized he still had his right hand wrapped around whatever it was he picked off the ground. His left hand was on the floor of the car, resting in something made of cloth. His mind was racing, even as he lay as still as one of the wax statues in the museum he’d just visited. From the hum of the engine and the stop-and-go jerking of the driving he figured they must be on some sort of city street with lights or at least a bunch of other traffic.
He thought about all the ways he’d seen in movies or on TV to get out of a situation like this. Cracking his eyes open, he saw a faint glow from across the floor, and almost immediately came the strong, sweet smell again. His fingers secretively explored around the floor and came upon a hard object among the fabric. Closing around it, he realized it was a knife in the folds of a jacket. The handle filled his eight-year-old hand, but he felt no hard, sharp blade. Instead there was the rough feeling of a protective case below the handle. What good would it do him if the blade was not free?
While Konnor’s panic teetered on the brink of becoming overwhelming, the gruff man yelled at the driver.
“You’re driving like a scared tourist. Get us to the docks or I’ll make sure this is your last trip into Macao!” he yelled.
The driver shouted something back, but Konnor didn’t get much more than “You can go…” before there was a violent jerk sideways and a resounding loud crash.
We’ve been hit, Konnor thought. He’d experienced it only once before when on a Jeepney in Manila. That time chaos had broken out. This time was no different.
Konnor was tossed to the floor from the seat he was sprawled across and the high-pitched voice that was the source of the sweet-smelling smoke screamed as Konnor heard glass breaking. The gruff man whom he’d been beside before now started to yell at everyone. Apparently, though, he still thought Konnor was out, because he left him alone on the floor.
As Konnor tried to stealthily remove the covering from the knife he’d found he heard the front door of the big car get yanked open, and a voice with a strange foreign accent started yelling at the driver.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, big shot! You can’t go ramming into people and get away with it!” It was a voice that sounded like some of the action movies he’d seen from America.
The driver was shouting in Chinese, which Konnor didn’t understand, but it was clear he was mad and trying to take off. Every second or third thing he said was, “Diplomatic immunity!”
There was quite a struggle going on with yelling coming from all corners of the car, and the man leaning through the window was actually making the vehicle shake.
As he lay on the floor listening there was a deafening roar from behind him and the windshield shattered in the front. At the same time, the foreigner shouted something like “Son of a bitch!” As Konnor’s hands came instinctively to cover his ears, his left hand, wrapped around the hilt of the now free blade, took on a mind of its own and buried the blade into the leg of the gruff man on the seat. As another explosive yell began, now from the only man wounded (the bullet had actually missed the foreigner on its way to shattering the windshield), Konnor launched himself from the floor, flung the door open, and started to run like hell.
“Oh, shitty driver, gun-toting diplomat, and child kidnapper, too!” he heard the foreigner bellow as Konnor’s legs pumped him away from the scene.
As he hit the first corner, he hazarded a glance back and saw a tall man halfway through the front window of the long black car, landing awkward punches. The back door came open and a bull of a man in a black suit emerged, picked the foreigner out of the front window and threw him across the street, turned toward Konnor, lifting his gun, and fired two more times. Luckily, Konnor turned as soon as he saw the man turning toward him and started down the next road. Maybe it was also lucky the man seemed to be a poor shot. Chunks of tile from the wall of the building he was running beside shattered.
Turning corner after corner, Konnor didn’t stop running pell-mell until he came upon a well-lit corner with a large, open store. He ducked inside as the store security indicated for him to slow down.
Reunited
Konnor headed to the center of the store, away from windows, and sat down on the floor with his back to a wall. His ears had stopped ringing from the gunshot going off so close to his head, but he’d started to shake. Glancing at what was still tightly gripped in his right hand, his eyes went wide at the sight of a large golden coin set in a clip holding a wad of folded bills. Quickly he stuffed the whole thing in his front pocket.
Thinking about what he should do, he remembered the piece of paper his dad made him take before the two of them left the ship that day. Benjiro had asked for it when he met them and added to it. It had the location of where the boat was docked and the address and phone number of Benjiro’s bed and breakfast.
Konnor must have looked pretty miserable, because when he showed a store clerk the phone number from the piece of paper and told her he was hopelessly lost, she placed the call for him and handed him the phone receiver.
“Hello, Hong Kong Quiet Garden B&B,” a soft-spoken man said into the phone.
The friendly voice almost made Konnor cry, but instead he answered, “Hello, is Benjiro there?”
“Benjiro?” the quiet voice asked.
“Yes, he’s staying there. In one of the rooms. Is he there, do you know?” Konnor replied. He was beginning to panic again. Why would Benjiro go back to the B&B without Konnor? Certainly he and his dad were out looking for him. How would he ever find them?
“Ah, yes, Benjiro-san. He is staying here, but he is not here,” the soft-spoken man answered. After
a few moments’ pause, he asked, “Who is this?”
“I’m Konnor, his friend,” Konnor said into the receiver, close to weeping again.
“Ah yes, Konnor. Benjiro-san and Steven-san have called here about you twice,” the voice replied. “They are very worried about you.”
Then the tears really did burst the dam and Konnor said, “I’m here, but they gotta come get me. I’m lost!”
When the sales clerk saw him burst into tears she got a slightly perturbed look on her face and crossed her arms. The voice on the other end of the phone said, “Konnor, is there someone there that can tell me where to find you?”
“Yes,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes and handing the phone to the sales clerk.
She gave him a suspicious look, but softened when she started to speak in Chinese to the person on the other end of the line. After a few minutes of intense conversation, she hung up the phone and told Konnor, “You are to wait with me, behind the counter here, for some minutes. Your uncle will come to pick you up.” Opening the swinging door to the interior of the sales counter, she pulled him by the shoulder inside. When a male counterpart walking the sales floor came over to question her, she shooed the man away and told him something in Chinese that Konnor suspected was similar to, “Go mind your own business.”
Fifteen minutes later, an elderly man entered the area of the store where he had taken refuge and began looking around. When he saw Konnor’s head behind the counter he came over and explained himself to the clerk. Five minutes later Benjiro and Steven came rushing into the area and Steven fell to his knees, hugging Konnor, who’d left the interior of the sales counter to meet him.
“Oh my God, I thought you were gone. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you,” Steven said, wiping his own damp eyes.
“It’s okay, Daddy, I’m not gone. I’m here. I’m glad you found me.” And he hugged his dad with all his remaining strength. He whispered, “Plus, Mommy would have killed you if you didn’t bring me back home, right?”
That made Steve laugh. “That would have been the nicest thing she did to me, son.”
“I’m still starving. Can we still go get the burger?” Konnor asked.
“Yes we can, Sport, yes we can.”
Everyman’s Burger
It took the police no time at all to write off the entire incident. “There’s nothing we can do anyway, even if we can find them. They have diplomatic immunity,” they told Steven.
“There’s ‘diplomatic immunity’ and there’s ‘no record of any wrongdoing’,” Steven replied. “Nothing changes if the only place this is filed is under the rug.”
“You simply don’t understand,” the policeman in charge told him.
“I understand all too well,” Steven said, heading out the door with a dismissive wave of his hand.
#
When the three travelers invited the B&B owner to join them for their much delayed burger, he happily agreed, suggesting they may want to splurge on a taxi this time.
During the taxi ride to Everyman’s they’d been talking about what happened. “They’re not all like that,” the soft-spoken B&B owner said. “But it’s a problem that’s not easily solved. More so now with the added integration.”
“It’s happened before?” Steven asked, bewildered. The police made it sound like this was a totally random act, although he’d wondered why, if it was so random, they’d jumped to attention so quickly in the first place.
“Many times, yes,” the B&B owner replied. “Among people that are aware of such things, they’re called the Black Car Triad. A group suspected of spiriting children and young people back and forth across the border for many years and for many reasons.”
When the taxi dropped them at the burger restaurant, Konnor was leaning against his dad, fast asleep.
“Hopefully a little food will perk him up,” Benjiro commented.
They were seated in a tiny booth and Konnor wedged himself between the wall and his dad and fell asleep again. They watched a couple of burgers get delivered and Steve decided Benjiro was right. One burger could probably feed all four of them. “This is my treat,” Benjiro said.
“Thank you, Benji. That’s very kind of you. Maybe just order one though; those things are huge!” Steven answered.
When the waitress came Benjiro ordered two Everyman’s Burgers, an order of French fries with secret seasoning and three different dipping sauces, a cola and three glasses of water.
When the food came, they woke Konnor up to eat and his eyes went wide.
“Oh my gosh, is that all mine?” he said excitedly.
“Umm, no. We’re all sharing it,” Steven answered.
“Oh, that’s good ’cause it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever eaten, but can you wait until I take a picture of it? I wanna fool Mom and say I ate the whole thing,” Konnor said.
After the picture was taken, they let Benjiro do the honors of dividing up the dinner and placing it on the extra plates he’d requested.
Konnor was the only one that dared pick up his portion of the burger to eat it, making the yolk from the over-easy egg that topped it run down his chin and drip back onto his plate. All of them dug into the fries, with Steven and Benjiro taking turns dunking them into a spicy curry dip and leaving the ketchup to Konnor. The B&B owner only ate the half burger. “I’m too old to run marathons. I don’t need all those extra calories,” he said, but Steven suspected he saw Konnor gobbling fries and wanted to give him his share.
When every scrap of food was gone, Konnor sat looking at his dad with an expression of anticipation.
“Okay, I know that look,” Steven said.
“What is it?” Benjiro asked.
“Ice cream…” Konnor said.
#
Back in Benjiro’s small bed and breakfast room, Konnor brushed his teeth and fell into the bed, dead to the world, while the B&B owner, Steven, and Benjiro continued to talk about the evening’s events.
“When will you leave?” the owner asked.
“Konnor and I are due at the docks in a few hours. Our ship leaves at daybreak,” Steven answered.
“Benjiro-san, you should go, too,” the owner said, when Benjiro didn’t offer any change from the original itinerary he’d given when he checked into the B&B.
Benjiro looked at Steven.
“I think I could get the captain’s permission to add a passenger,” Steven said.
The B&B owner nodded to them as he left the room. “You should pack.”
Benjiro was used to traveling lightly, and Steven and Konnor really only planned to spend a few hours in Hong Kong. Everything was ready in a quarter of an hour.
“I’ll go see about transportation,” Benjiro said.
Fifteen minutes later, Benjiro was back. “Okay, we’re ready. The owner’s niece is going to give us a ride to the dock. She’s here now, so we should go.”
Steven woke Konnor, got him to use the bathroom quickly and led him out to the car. “Are you sure it’s okay for this niece to take this risk?”
“I don’t think it’s a problem. You should see her bodyguard,” Benjiro said.
The owner’s niece was a pretty girl with dark hair pulled into a ponytail, dressed in tights, a tiny skirt, and a tight, button-up shirt. Her smile was wide, but her handshake was like iron and the calluses on her hands belied the rest of her body and feminine attire.
“Thank you very much for driving us…” Steven didn’t know her name, and her curt bow indicated she wasn’t offering it.
“It’s no problem at all. Get in,” the owner’s niece said. The boyfriend looked like a ninja, dressed all in black. He offered no introduction at all and Steven found the whole thing a little absurd, but thinking back to his son’s position just three hours earlier, he figured maybe absurd was an apt description.
The niece sped everywhere, took corners at the last possible minute, crossed multiple lanes to turn and generally drove in circles. Just about when Steven was going to as
k where the hell they were going, she stopped. They were at the gated entrance to the dock for Steven’s ship.
Cruising, After a Bruising
After they boarded, Steven left Konnor and Benjiro to have a word with the captain. Within ten minutes, he returned.
“It’s set,” he told them. “The captain says you might have to bunk with us for a night or two, or maybe until Taipei, but he’s fine with it.”
“Um, what in the world did you tell him?” Benjiro asked. He knew Steven had a stellar reputation, but even so, a captain just waving on an addition to the ship was a bit unusual.
“Eh, you know…your wife’s sister, my sister’s husband, blah, blah, blah…he’s good with it.”
Benjiro just laughed. He had no idea what ‘it’ was, but as long as the captain was good, that’s all that counted. “Wait a minute…my WIFE’s sister?”
Laughing along, Steven said, “Don’t ask, don’t tell…”
Konnor was fast asleep in his bunk before they finished joking. Benjiro headed to the deck to watch them leave, and Steven went back to work. They took their leave from Hong Kong. Good riddance, Steven thought.
#
Well underway, at the first mid-morning break, Benjiro brought a cup of strong, black coffee to Steven on deck. “So, Taipei and Shanghai left on your summer voyage, right?” Benjiro asked. “Any big plans for those ports?”
“Nothing specific in Taipei, other than spending time with Konnor and him seeing another part of my world,” Steven replied. “Shanghai is a bit more complicated.”
“Yes, I thought maybe so,” Benjiro said. “Are you going to talk to him about Julia?”
“Betts would kill me if I told him too much, but I thought I would visit a few places that she loved and maybe let him know a bit about his aunt’s life and talent. What about you, Benji? I’m sure your plan wasn’t to sail to Taipei on a freighter.”
One Fish, Two Fish, Big Fish, Little Fish_Silver Dawn Page 7
