Dragon Head

by James Houston Turner

  Wilcox maintained a pleasant smile. “Chinese sound good to you?”

  “Gee, that’s imaginative,” Jingfei replied. She pushed open the fire door and stepped outside.

  With his patient smile still fixed in place, albeit with effort, Wilcox followed Jingfei and Kai out onto a wide pedestrian walkway between more of Hong Kong’s ubiquitous office towers. It was certainly not as crowded as the bustling sidewalk in front of the hotel, but neither was it the quiet walkway he had hoped. There were hundreds of people streaming past them in both directions, men and women, mostly young, focused on their electronic devices, texting, talking, keeping to themselves, no one paying them the slightest bit of attention.

  “Okay, Spy Bill, which way so that no one sees those neon colors of yours?”

  God help the man who marries her, Wilcox thought.

  He looked in both directions. To the left was a quiet business district. Office buildings and office workers, all Asian. The kind of place where a big white guy in a Hawaiian shirt would be noticed. To the right, at the end of the block, was a more touristy section of Hong Kong. In that direction, he could see colorful banners, gaudy neon signs, and swarms of people. The kind of place they would not be noticed.

  “This way,” he said.

  Kai looked over at Jingfei. “Does he have any idea where he’s going?”

  “Take a big fat wild guess.”

  Jingfei and Kai followed Wilcox into the pedestrian chaos at the end of the block.

  “Stay close,” Wilcox said, dashing with the kids across the street to a currency exchange. Beside the thick glass window of the kiosk was a framed menu of exchange rates for various currencies.

  Taking out his wallet, Wilcox exchanged all of the cash he was carrying. It totaled just shy of four hundred dollars, which would be enough to keep them functioning until Charlie wired him some more. After receiving back a small stack of colorful Hong Kong dollars, Wilcox led the way to a small electronics shop, where he purchased a prepaid cell phone. The phone was packaged in sturdy, clear plastic. Stepping outside, he motioned the kids to follow him past a long line of customers ordering fast food from a counter. Displayed in windows flanking the counter were racks of smoked ducks hanging by their legs.

  Ahead was a flashing sign of Chinese symbols that Wilcox did not understand. Below the symbols, however, was an English word he did understand: restaurant.

  With the kids in tow, he entered the establishment.

  The decor inside was like a shrine to the Great Wall of China. Covering one wall was a mural of the wall as it followed the elevations and contours of the land. Elsewhere were collections of photos and paintings, including images of Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan, with illustrations depicting Mongol invasions. Chair rails and door trims were decorated with Chinese dragons, knots, and lotus flowers.

  Wilcox and the kids were shown to a booth.

  “Okay, boss, what’s the plan?” asked Jingfei.

  “I text Alex my new number and tell him we’re safe.”

  “And then?”

  “We eat.”

  A waitress appeared. She was slender and traditionally attired in a body-hugging dress with a stand-up collar. The dress was yellow with red trim, which accented her long black hair tied up in a loose bun. Her dark eyes were warm and friendly. She bowed politely and handed out menus.

  “Do you serve coffee?” asked Wilcox.

  “Tea,” the waitress replied softly.

  “Tea will be fine,” said Wilcox, holding up three fingers, meaning one cup for each of them. The waitress bowed politely and disappeared.

  “Can’t we get something else?” asked Kai with a sour frown.

  “Tea soothes the savage soul,” Wilcox replied, glancing at Jingfei, who replied with an exaggerated smile.

  “So does beer,” Kai replied.

  Wilcox picked up the menu and opened it. Everything was written in Cantonese. “What looks good?” he asked, looking at Jingfei.

  “Number sixteen,” Jingfei replied.

  “What is it?”

  “Trust me.”

  “What are you getting?”

  “Number twenty-two.”

  “How come you’re not getting sixteen?”

  “Because I don’t like rat tail soup.”

  Wilcox responded with a deadpan stare that showed he was not amused.

  “I’m kidding,” Jingfei said. She rotated in her seat and looked around for the women’s bathroom. It was located opposite the men’s bathroom in a small corridor toward the rear of the restaurant. “Back in a jif,” she said, sliding out of the booth.

  “What sounds good to you?” Wilcox asked while continuing to tear open his cell phone packaging.

  “Tacos,” Kai replied.

  Wilcox paused. “We’re in China and you want Mexican?”

  Kai grinned and thumbed toward the men’s room. “I gotta go pee,” he said, scooting out of the booth. “Go ahead and order. But not sixteen.”

  With a chuckle, Wilcox finished unwrapping his new cell phone, switched it on, followed the start-up prompts, then sent a text. He then placed a call to a memorized number. The phone rang several times before it went to voicemail. “Mark, it’s me,” said Wilcox. “Call me back on this number.” He then clicked off. Ten seconds later, his cell phone rang.

  “New number?” asked Mark.

  “Long story. Have you heard? Shaw’s ordered us back home. In no uncertain terms.”

  “He called and told me the same thing . . . in no uncertain terms.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That we’d take off as soon you got here. I presume that’s why you’re calling me now, to tell me you’re on your way?”

  “Officially, yes. On my way.”

  “And unofficially? Do I need to be worried about what you’re going to say next?”

  “Are you willing to go out on a limb?”

  “Is Talanov the name of that limb?”

  Wilcox did not reply.

  “Am I to presume this limb extends out over a bottomless, fiery abyss from which there is no survival and no return should it break, which it most probably will?”

  Wilcox did not reply.

  “I tell you, in all my years as a pilot . . . of all the people I have carried to every far-flung corner of the world . . . never have I been so pissed off with anyone as I am now.”

  “Mark . . . I,” Wilcox stammered, shocked Mark’s reaction. “I never meant—”

  “No, Bill, no, not you!” Mark cut in quickly. “Shaw. The man is a total douche. You’re, uh, not recording this, are you?”

  Wilcox laughed. “No, I’m not.”

  “Then what do you need me to do?”

  CHAPTER 51

  Two blocks away and nineteen floors up, Talanov heard his cell phone chime with a text message that confirmed Wilcox had a purchased a new phone and that he and the kids were safe. “Okay, let’s go,” he said, walking to the door and opening it. He waited for Straw Sandal to exit the room, and when she did, she stiffened instinctively.

  Talanov smiled at her reaction, then followed her along the carpeted hallway to the elevator. Less than two minutes later, the elevator doors opened on the ground floor and Straw Sandal led the way across the lobby toward the front door. Seeing them, the manager and all clerks stopped talking and watched. Hotel guests in the lobby likewise stopped talking and watched.

  Seated in the far corner of the lobby, three men appeared to be reading newspapers. Dressed in black T-shirts and slacks, they were seated together with the newspapers held high in front of their faces, not that Talanov would remember their faces from his previous encounter with them in San Francisco. Dragon Head, however, was taking no chances. He had underestimated Talanov before and it would not happen again.

  Once Talanov and Straw Sandal had left the hotel, two of the Shí bèi fighters rode the elevator upstairs to check Talanov’s room. If anyone was there, they were to be taken hostage. The other Shí bèi fighter followed Tal
anov and Straw Sandal, where he would report their movements to Dragon Head.

  In an alley two blocks away, Jingfei and Kai ran out the back door of the restaurant. Wilcox had been talking on his new cell phone and did not see them slip into the kitchen.

  The kitchen had been abuzz with activity, so no one stopped to look at two kids passing through. After dashing out the back door, Jingfei and Kai paused in the alley. It was narrow and littered with trash. Dumpsters stood beside rows of back doors, and the air was humid with the sweet odor of rotting garbage.

  An old kitchen worker with a wrinkled face was hosing debris into the center of the alley, where the dirty water trickled into a central channel that drained into a grate.

  Jingfei and Kai ran up to the worker.

  “Where is the Zhongzhen Martial Arts Academy,” Jingfei asked in Cantonese.

  The old man pointed to the corner and to the right.

  Jingfei thanked the man and ran with Kai to the corner, where they turned right and hurried along the busy sidewalk as fast as they could walk, one behind the other, threading their way around and between people like speeding cars on a freeway. They passed a variety of small shops and fast food outlets separated by narrow walkways between the buildings. The flow of pedestrians was like a moving obstacle course made more difficult by jutting racks of trinkets, postcards, jewelry, shoes, magazines, neckties, and souvenirs.

  “There he is . . . there’s Talanov,” Jingfei said, pointing.

  “I see him,” Kai replied.

  Jingfei and Kai bypassed several pedestrians and fell in step several feet behind Talanov and Straw Sandal, heads angled downward, in case one of them looked back. By all appearances, they were simply two more Chinese faces in a river of Chinese faces. No one knew who they were or what they were doing.

  Except someone did know.

  Four feet behind Jingfei and Kai, the Shí bèi fighter from the hotel took out his cell phone and flipped through the images taken by Xin Li in San Francisco. He had been following Straw Sandal when two kids rushed past him, slowed abruptly, then said a name he recognized.

  Talanov.

  He compared the images on his phone with the faces of the girl and boy as they looked back and forth at each other while talking, which made it easy for him to make a positive identification. With a smile, he touched a speed dial button, and within seconds, Xin Li had answered. The Shí bèi fighter relayed his news and Xin Li told him what to do. The Shí bèi fighter ended the call and slipped his phone back in his pocket. He then grabbed several silk scarves off a stand and fell in step behind the kids, who did not notice him because of the surrounding crush of pedestrians. Everyone was jostling slowly along. A river of humanity.

  They passed more racks and more stands and more narrow walkways between the buildings. They passed noodle bars and clumps of people waiting for steaming dumplings.

  Opening his wallet, the Shí bèi fighter took out some cash. At the next narrow walkway, he touched Jingfei and Kai on the shoulder and said, “You drop,” and with a smile, held out the money.

  The kids instinctively stopped to look at the man, then the money, then the man again, who smiled and politely scooped the kids to one side, out of the bustling pedestrian traffic.

  “You drop,” the fighter said again, offering them the money.

  It was a natural reaction to look at the money in the man’s hand again, and neither Jingfei nor Kai would remember what happened next because it happened so quickly. All they would remember was the blur of being shoved into a narrow walkway and being stunned with immobilizing neck chops that dropped them to the concrete.

  CHAPTER 52

  While Jingfei groaned on the pavement, the Shí bèi fighter used one of the scarves to gag Kai’s mouth. He then rolled Kai onto his stomach and used another scarf to secure his wrists behind his back. He then dragged Kai twenty feet into the darkness of the narrow walkway before returning to focus on Jingfei, who was attempting to sit up. The Shí bèi fighter shoved her back down and shook his finger. A warning to lie still and keep silent. Producing a third scarf, he used it to gag Jingfei’s mouth.

  Do something, Jingfei thought. But she was too immobilized with fear. She felt herself being rolled onto her stomach. Felt a knee brace her face-down on the dirty pavement. Felt her hands being pulled behind her.

  If only we had stayed in the restaurant, Jingfei thought as fear rose in her throat like bile. Wilcox was a dinosaur, to be sure, yet in spite of that, she trusted him as much as she trusted Zak. He was genuine, like the grandfather she always wished she’d had.

  Jingfei felt the bite of the silk scarf around her wrists. Heard Kai’s muffled groans in the distance. Oh, God, she thought.

  Suddenly, Jingfei heard an expulsion of air. An instant later, she felt the attacker collapse on her back, where he remained, heavy and motionless, like a sandbag. She craned her head and saw the man’s face. His cheek was mashed against the pavement beside hers and she could feel the heat of his sour breath. He was alive but unconscious.

  What was going on? Jingfei wanted to move out from under him but could not. She was trapped.

  Seconds later, she felt the weight of the man being lifted off her. She then saw the man being dragged by another man deeper into the walkway. Craning her neck, she saw the second man kneel down, untie Kai, and help him to his feet. She then saw the man come back and kneel beside her. Felt him gently untie her hands, then the scarf from around her mouth.

  “Are you all right?” Wilcox asked.

  Jingfei scrambled to her knees and hugged Wilcox tightly.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay,” Wilcox said, patting her reassuringly on the back.

  “We were following Alex and Straw Sandal,” Jingfei said as tears began streaming down her cheek. “We figured they’d lead us to Su Yin. To where she was being held.”

  “But that other guy must have been following us,” added Kai, kneeling beside them.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get her back,” Wilcox replied. He used his hand to dry Jingfei’s tears. “Which we can’t do if you don’t start trusting us.”

  “How can you when you’re leaving?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I heard you out in the hall. Alex said you’ve been ordered to leave.”

  “What else did you hear?”

  “You’re leaving! What else is there to hear?”

  “We’re not leaving, at least not yet.”

  “Bullshit! I heard Alex say you were leaving!”

  “Okay, yes, I admit he said that,” said Wilcox, “but there’s more to the story than—”

  “See? I knew it! You’re abandoning Su Yin!”

  “We are not abandoning Su Yin,” Wilcox replied patiently, “and if you’ll just allow me to—”

  “I heard you!” Jingfei blurted out. “Well, me and Kai are not abandoning Su Yin, no matter what you do. You’re nothing but a sycophant who blindly obeys bureaucratic—”

  “It’s Zak,” said Wilcox, interrupting. “He’s been captured, along with Emily and Ginie. The kidnappers are threatening to kill them.”

  Jingfei could not speak. All she could do is stare open-mouthed at Wilcox in the trash-littered confines of the narrow walkway.

  Wilcox described what he and Talanov had seen on the video, which had been sent to them by Angus Shaw, who was behind the kidnapping. He described Zak, Ginie, and Emily, on their knees with their hands zip-tied behind them, their faces bloodied and bruised. He went on to repeat Shaw’s threat to kill them if Talanov didn’t bring Straw Sandal back to DC for questioning. Wilcox then said that he was glad Jingfei and Kai had stowed away on board the Gulfstream, because if they hadn’t, they, too, would have been captured.

  “So when I say we are not abandoning Su Yin, I mean it,” concluded Wilcox, “which may well get Zak and the others killed if we don’t play this right, which Alex thinks we can do.”

  “How? By doing something stupid, as in going with Straw Sandal to the Zho
ngzhen Martial Arts Academy alone, which we saw him do, no doubt thinking – or not thinking, as dinosaurs are famous for doing – that he can rescue Su Yin without anyone’s help, even though he needs ours because he doesn’t speak the language but is too pigheaded to admit it, meaning it will be easy for that bitch to double-cross him, which she will do, which means he’ll get himself beat up or captured, which eliminates any chance of anyone rescuing Su Yin – or saving Zak – which means everyone loses.”

  Wilcox squinted with concentration while trying to follow another of Jingfei’s rambling sentences. “Don’t underestimate Alex,” was all he could say. “For now, let’s stick with the plan.”

  “What plan?”

  Wilcox bit his lip.

  “You don’t have a plan, do you?”

  “We’re working on one.”

  “Working on one? Come on, Bill. No way can Alex do this on his own. He’s walking into a trap.”

  “And he is willing to take that risk in order to find out what’s going on.”

  “He needs help! Needs my help, and Kai’s.”

  “And he will involve you at the right time. It’s why he insisted I let you stay and not ship you back to the States.”

  “So . . . Alex wants us here? He actually said that?”

  “Yes. But you can’t go running off like this. If they capture you, which they nearly did, Alex loses, which means Su Yin loses and they win. We need you – Alex needs you – so I am begging you to let this play out. Let Alex find out what Dragon Head wants. Once we know, then we can figure out what to do.”

  “And if they decide to take him prisoner?”

  “They need him to do something for them, so taking him prisoner is unlikely.”

  “But it’s possible, right?”

  “Yes, it’s possible, but you getting caught would have made things worse. If Alex doesn’t come back within a reasonable period of time, we go to plan B. For now, though, we stick with plan A.”

  “You don’t have a plan B.”

  “All the more reason to stick with plan A.”