Dragon Head

by James Houston Turner

  “What do you mean?”

  “For one thing, it let you know we weren’t lying. For another, it let you know how much you mean to me, and that I will always be there for you.”

  “What about Emily? Not to rub it in or anything, but she pays all the bills and definitely wants us out. She said so herself, and that she’s already called some friend of hers down at the Juvenile Justice Center.”

  “13:5, remember?”

  “No disrespect, Zak, but Emily’s word seems to carry a lot more clout than God’s. I mean, yeah, I know God will never desert us, and I know you don’t want to, but we can still get the boot if Emily gets her way.”

  “And I’m trying my best to be the peacemaker and not doing a very good job. I guess that’s because I’ve never been much of a peacemaker before, and I’m not sure how to do it. Back in the day, if someone caused us trouble, I’d break them in half. Problem solved. Then God came along and began teaching me a new way. A kinder way.”

  “Kind doesn’t mean wishy-washy,” said Jingfei. “No woman wants a pajama boy. I mean, you don’t need to be a Neanderthal, either, but don’t be afraid to be a man. Women want men to be men.”

  Zak drew back and squinted hard at Jingfei. “Since when do you know about men? Do we need to, you know, have the talk?”

  Jingfei slugged Zak on the arm. “Ew, no, shut up!”

  Zak grabbed both kids in a bear hug and laughed.

  Seeing Talanov and the others approach, Kai looked up at Zak and said, “Can Alex really get Su Yin back? I mean, he has to go to China, but does he even speak Chinese? How will he get into the country?”

  Zak stiffened slightly – hopefully not enough for the kids to notice – because he wondered the same things, too.

  But now was not the time to introduce doubts. Now was the time for reassurance.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll figure it out,” Zak replied.

  He just hoped the kids believed him.

  CHAPTER 36

  “Shaw will never agree to this,” Wilcox was saying when he and Talanov joined Zak and the kids outside the motel room. Straw Sandal’s legs were free although her hands were still taped behind her. The cool evening winds had picked up and were rustling the leaves of some nearby trees.

  “Don’t ask for his permission,” Talanov replied.

  “And exactly how am I supposed to get away with something like that?”

  “Get away with what?” asked Zak.

  “Alex wants me to steal the company jet and fly him to Hong Kong,” said Wilcox, throwing up his hands and turning away, then spinning back around again. “There is no way that I can do that. I can’t just steal a jet.”

  “Why not?” asked Kai. “You’re from the CIA. You can do whatever you want.”

  Wilcox growled and shook his head.

  “Good point, Kai,” agreed Talanov. “Bill can do whatever he wants.”

  “That is bullshit and you know it,” Wilcox fired back.

  “You told me they made the Gulfstream available to you,” said Talanov. “So they can hardly accuse you of stealing something they gave to you in the first place.”

  “They loaned me the Gulfstream for the express purpose of flying you and Straw Sandal to DC, which, in case you’d forgotten, is east of here. Hong Kong is west. I doubt me saying, ‘Oops, I got turned around,’ will get me very far, except maybe to Leavenworth for twenty years.”

  “You’re the spy king, figure it out. Now, come on, let’s head inside. We have a lot to discuss.”

  Muttering and fuming, Wilcox followed Talanov and Straw Sandal into the motel room. Jingfei and Kai were next, followed by Zak, who made a quick scan of the parking lot before entering the room and closing the door.

  Ginie and Emily stood when the group entered. They had been sitting on one of the beds, watching a news report about the near-misses over the Pacific. Streaming along the bottom of the screen was a ticker tape report about the community center murders, the kidnapping, and the shootings at the Sour Dough Pizza Parlor.

  Talanov introduced the women to Wilcox before making Straw Sandal sit in a stuffed chair by the window. He then switched off the television and turned to face the group.

  The first order of business was filling the group in on what he knew, namely, that he had been targeted by a Chinese crime lord named Dragon Head, who was responsible not only for the murders of Amina and Ramona, but also the kidnapping of Su Yin. No, he did not know why he had been targeted, although he would find out when he got to Hong Kong, which was where he was taking the woman seated in the corner of the room, who would be exchanged for Su Yin.

  “I’m going with you,” said Ginie.

  “Out of the question,” said Talanov.

  “Look, I understand why you want us tucked safely away in the mountains,” Ginie replied. “You can’t be worried about our safety while trying to navigate the challenges you’ll encounter. I can help. I speak the language.”

  Talanov again refused, saying, “Bill has a friend in the Hong Kong CIB. She’ll help me. He’s known her for years.”

  “What’s the CIB?”

  “Their Criminal Intelligence Bureau. It’s like our FBI.”

  “Is this friend planning to accompany you everywhere you go? Do you know and trust this person? As a law enforcement official, will she go along with whatever it is you’re planning to do, which I doubt will be totally by the book?”

  Ginie paused to let her words sink in.

  “Alex, think,” she continued. “If you need speed and stealth – and I’m guessing not everything you’re planning will not be by the book – then you’ll need someone to help who is not part of the system. Someone you trust. Someone who can translate what’s being said around you.”

  “Ginie’s right,” said Jingfei, “except I’m the one who should go. I speak the language fluently and Su Yin is my sister.”

  “The fact that Su Yin is your sister is precisely why you shouldn’t be going,” countered Ginie. “You’re too emotionally involved.”

  “Ginie, you don’t speak the language, not fluently, anyway. I mean, yes, you speak a little, but nowhere nearly as good as me.”

  “And you’ll be arguing with Alex every step of the way. I know you, Jing. You throw some of the worst tantrums I’ve ever seen, especially when you don’t get your way.”

  “And you’re injured,” Jingfei fired back. “You look like a zombie with that splint on your nose. Everywhere you go, people will stare.”

  “Enough, both of you,” said Talanov. “Neither one of you is going. Bill and I can handle this ourselves.”

  “Really?” asked Jingfei, stationing herself in front of Talanov and confronting him eye to eye. “I heard you and Spy Bill over there arguing outside, and let’s just say he’s not exactly in favor of your harebrained scheme.”

  “Spy Bill?” asked Wilcox with a raised eyebrow.

  “In fact,” Jingfei continued without missing a beat, “Spy Bill said helping you could land him in Leavenworth. So you’ll excuse me if I’m not exactly brimming with confidence about you two handling this on your own.”

  “We’ll manage,” Talanov replied.

  “You’ll manage? Did you not hear what Spy Bill said? He’s been ordered to fly you back to DC. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order!”

  “What’s with the Spy Bill stuff?” asked Wilcox irritably.

  But Jingfei didn’t let up.

  “But let’s say Spy Bill is willing to throw his career down the tubes and help you out. How do you think the suits in DC are going to respond when they find out Spy Bill has stolen the company jet and flown it to China in the middle of a national security crisis . . . with China? Do you think they’ll be sympathetic and understanding? Will they say, ‘Aw, that’s okay, Bill, we understand. You needed to help out a friend.’ But let’s say by some miracle that Spy Bill gets away with it. What do you plan to do when you get there? Ginie is right. You don’t speak the language, and Spy Bill’s cop friend may
not be the look-the-other-way kind of friend you need her to be.”

  “Are you finished yet?” asked Talanov.

  “You need help!” cried Jingfei.

  “Maybe so, but it’s not going to come from you,” stated Talanov. He worked the screen of his phone, found the image of Su Yin, and held it up for Jingfei to see. “They have your sister. Do you get that? Your sister. I can’t negotiate her release with an emotional teenager tagging along. It’s why doctors don’t allow family members in the operating room. They can’t handle it. They freak out. They get in the way.”

  Jingfei snatched Talanov’s phone and showed him the same image of Su Yin. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

  Talanov reached for his phone but Jingfei batted his hand away.

  “Believe me, it’s not what you think,” she said while working the screen. “Photos are usually shown as part of the message. But not this one. It came as a link to an attachment – a seven-megabyte attachment – when photos are normally no more than two. Do you know what that means?”

  Jingfei glanced up when Talanov exhaled impatiently.

  “Precisely. You haven’t got a clue,” she said, working the phone some more, then showing Talanov the screen again, which was filled with computer code.

  “I have no idea what I’m looking at,” said Talanov, his frustration growing.

  “It’s a code that activated your camera,” said Jingfei, working the screen again, then holding it up again for Talanov to see. “Any idea what this is?” When she spoke, the screen showed an oscillating graph of her voice.

  Talanov glanced uneasily at Wilcox.

  “It’s spyware, you moron, installed as an executable virus that you activated when you opened Su Yin’s photo. That means they’ve been watching everything, hearing everything, recording everything. They’re tracking your every move!”

  Jingfei threw the phone on the floor and stomped on it.

  “You’re a dinosaur,” she shouted while Talanov watched her smashing his phone into pieces. “You’ll get us killed. Get Su Yin killed. You. Need. Help!”

  Talanov stared down at his phone lying in fragments on the carpet. If Jingfei was right, he did need help, because he didn’t know the first thing about hacking, spyware, and viruses.

  But he was not about to accept help from a hotheaded kid who had just destroyed his phone. Jingfei was smart, no doubt about that, and she had just proved it, and he knew he could use her help.

  But she had also just proved what a liability she could be. Cool heads, not hot ones, were what he needed, which meant he would have to figure out another way to compensate for his technological ignorance.

  Bending down, Talanov began picking up the shards of plastic and electronic components. He tried fitting them together, knowing it was a futile attempt, and with a sigh of resignation, walked over and dropped them into the trashcan.

  “Well?” Jingfei asked.

  “You’re going to the mountains,” declared Talanov.

  Jingfei glared at Talanov, then ran over to Zak and grabbed him by the hands. “Talk to him,” she pleaded. “Tell him to let me go. Su Yin’s life is on the line. He’ll get her killed!”

  Zak looked over at Talanov, who shook his head, and with a heavy sigh, he looked back at Jingfei, his eyes saying what his mouth could not.

  “I hate you, hate both of you!” Jingfei shouted, storming out of the room.

  “Jingfei!” Zak shouted to the sound of the slamming door. He started to go after her but Ginie gestured for him to stay, saying that she would go. Motioning for Emily to come with her, the two women hurried after Jingfei.

  Standing near the door into the bathroom, Kai watched Ginie and Emily leave. Watched Zak close his eyes in anguish. Watched Talanov rub his forehead anxiously. Watched Wilcox staring up at the ceiling with a hopeless look on his face. He then looked over at Straw Sandal, who was sitting in her chair with a smirk on her face.

  “Seems pretty simple to me,” said Kai, drawing everyone’s attention. “I mean, I know I’m just a kid, but why does it have to be either/or? Alex wants Bill to fly him to Hong Kong. Bill says he can’t because he’s been ordered back to DC. But if that happens, Su Yin gets killed. And neither one of you wants to give in.” He paused to make eye contact with each of the men. “So, why can’t you do both?” he asked, looking at Wilcox. “Why can’t you fly Alex to Hong Kong, help him get my sister back, then fly him to DC? I mean, sure, you might get yelled at, but isn’t saving a life worth getting yelled at?”

  “It’s not that simple,” said Wilcox.

  “Kai’s right, why not do both?” said Talanov. “Like one of those round-the-world tickets.”

  “Because she gets off in Hong Kong,” enunciated Wilcox while nodding toward Straw Sandal, “and we lose our ability to question her. We need to find out what she knows, as in why they wanted to find you, and why they tried killing Diane.”

  “You’re still assuming the two are connected.”

  “They have to be. Aside from you as the common denominator, what other common denominator do we have? China. Specifically, Dragon Head.”

  “And I’m telling you that may not be the case. It may be but it may not be, and if you assume Dragon Head is the one who tried to kill Diane, you’re blinding yourself to the possibility that someone else is behind it.”

  “All the more reason to question Straw Sandal,” countered Wilcox. “To find out what she knows.”

  “Why not question her on our way to Hong Kong? You’ve interrogated prisoners before. Do it on the airplane. You know the drill.”

  “The drill, as you call it, cannot take place in a comfy seat aboard the company jet. It can only take place in a concrete cell in Cuba, where Straw Sandal knows she will never see daylight again unless she cooperates.”

  “And Su Yin? Will she ever see daylight again? Will she see her family again? I seem to remember you convincing me to join Diane’s committee because it was the right thing to do. Well, this is the right thing to do. Like you yourself said, national security is not just some abstract term. It’s about people. People like Su Yin Cho. We have to do this, Bill. We have to go to Hong Kong. You know it and I know it. It’s the right thing to do.”

  CHAPTER 37

  “If we do this,” said Wilcox, “and I cannot believe I’m actually entertaining that possibility, my career is finished. In the sewer.”

  “Not if we succeed.”

  “Which is a mighty big if.”

  “There are huge risks either way. The question is, which choice carries the greatest opportunity for success? DC isn’t that choice. On the surface, it may appear to be the best option, and for you personally, it probably is. You’ll be obeying your orders. But if you truly want to stop Dragon Head, Hong Kong is where we need to go. Shaw will get angry and make threats, but in the end, it will all go quietly away because we will have delivered. We will have averted a national security crisis and saved a little girl’s life. They may even give you one of those stars on the wall.”

  Wilcox snorted and shook his head.

  “Please,” pleaded Kai, his desperate eyes on Wilcox.

  “Come on, Bill, let’s do this,” said Talanov.

  Wilcox looked like he was physically chewing on something sour until, finally, he growled with resignation. Talanov grinned and clasped Wilcox on the shoulder just as a knock sounded on the door. Zak went to the door and looked through the peephole. When Jingfei cocked her head and made a face into the peephole, Zak chuckled and opened the door.

  Jingfei entered with Ginie and Emily.

  “Are you guys okay?” asked Zak.

  “We had a good talk,” replied Emily. “We worked a lot of things out.”

  Jingfei approached Talanov and shuffled awkwardly in front of him. “I know I can be a handful,” she confessed, “but it’s only because I know I can help. But you won’t let me, and that frustrates me because I’m good at the stuff you need. I talked it over with Emily, and she said it was okay wit
h her if I went along. But she said I could go only if you and Zak agreed, and that I had to promise to do what I’m told, that you were the boss. So I’m asking you to please let me go.”

  “I can help, too,” said Kai. “I can do stuff Jing can’t.”

  “Kai, don’t mess this up!” shouted Jingfei.

  “He needs my help, too,” argued Kai. “Sure, you’re good at the tech stuff, but I know the streets, and if Alex and Spy Bill have to split up, I can go with one of them and you can go with the other. I speak Chinese, too. Maybe not as good as you, but good enough to keep them out of trouble.”

  “I can handle this on my own.”

  “No, you can’t. They’re old white guys, Jing. They’ll stand out like a pair of marshmallows.”

  Talanov sat Jingfei and Kai on the edge of the bed and knelt in front of them. “I’ve never been called a marshmallow

  before,” he began.

  “No offense,” said Kai, “but it’s true. You’ll stand out. Big time. Me and Jing won’t. We’re Chinese, which means we can get stuff done without attracting attention. If someone’s talking behind your back, or if they’re lying to your face, we’ll be there to tell you the truth.”

  “I agree,” said Talanov, “and of the surface, your reasoning makes sense. But if you come with us, I would be worried about something happening to you.”

  “And if something happens to you?” Jingfei asked. “What then?”

  “Bill will be there. So will his friend, Alice.”

  “And if something happens when Alice or Bill isn’t around?”

  “We’ll figure it out,” said Talanov.

  “You’ll figure it out?” exclaimed Jingfei, jumping to her feet.

  Talanov stood. “I need you to quit fighting me on this. You’ve seen what these people can do.”

  “I’ve seen how easy it was for them to put a virus on your phone. Will you be able to see the next trap they set? You may trust Alice, but I don’t, and it’s my sister’s life we’re talking about. You need to let us come with you.”

  “What happens if they kidnap you?” Talanov asked in return. “They kidnapped Su Yin, and right now, Su Yin is their only leverage, and Straw Sandal is ours. Right now, we have a chance. But if they kidnap one or both of you, everything changes. Please, go with Zak to the mountains.”