Wednesday, August 14, 2024 - 4:00 PM
The Ambassador’s wife had no sooner strapped on her SEC helmet than David’s voice was in her head.
“Sabriya. Sabriya. Can you hear me?”
A shiver ran up Sabriya’s spine. David’s voice was present and clear, as if he were literally inside her helmet. She flicked the toggle switch on the bike’s console to activate the full duplex comm channel. “Yes, David. Have you been trying to communicate with me?”
“No. I knew you had just put on the helmet. Landon’s system seems to know your every move and mood. You’re done with the Queen, right?”
“Yes, I just left her.”
“Good, then return to the Embassy right away. I repeat, return right away.”
“Don’t you want to know what happened with the Queen?”
“Yes, but I suspect she’s not able to help find Jia Kun, or someone was not willing to let her help. So, come back.”
“You’re right that she can’t help. But I’ve got a few things to check out.”
“Cabbage Avenue is not one of them, I hope.”
“I hope it is.”
“Sabriya, that’s a dangerous place for a woman. We’ve been told to stay away.”
“David, you’ve never been there, have you? Or are you telling me you know it all too well?”
“No, I don’t know it at all. You know that.”
There was a pause in their conversation as Sabriya left the Palace grounds and headed southwest toward that part of the city where Cabbage Avenue was famous.
“Sabriya, we’re tracking you. Turn around. Come back to the Embassy. Leave Cabbage Avenue to Landon or one of the guards.”
“Well, David, I’m glad you’ve never been there, but I’m sorry to say, I have. And if my darling Jia is there now, she won’t be for long. Give me 20 minutes, and perhaps I’ll come home with my daughter. How’s that?”
“No, don’t do that.”
“What? Not come home with my daughter? You should meet her. Sweet gal. Didn’t you want to be the father of my children? I think you said that one time. Did you not mean it?”
“Sabriya, if you don’t return right away, and we’re tracking you, you may not be able to ever return.”
“Is that a threat, David?”
David didn’t answer.
“That’s not happening, darling. I am coming back, but not until I find my daughter. And you’re right. I may get blood on my hands, but it won’t be my blood or Jia Kun's. Every minute that goes by, Mi’s life is in greater danger. I’m glad you’re safe back in the Embassy. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. But I would be a nervous wreck if I were with you and not out here looking for my daughter, and neutralizing the jerks that took her.”
“Sabriya, don’t do that! You’re in no position… you’re not the police….and remember the MI6 reports of Peallagore’s border dispute with the Chinese. If you start poking around up there, you’re likely to run into the PLA, and then I’ll have some serious explaining to do with the Prime Minister. That’s why we sent both Jack and Hannah with you before. You don’t have them now. You’re on your own. Come back immediately. I demand it.”
“David darling, what good did Jack and Hannah do? Sorry, Jack and Hannah, if you’re listening. But in spite of their presence, we neither saw, attacked, wounded, nor killed any of your fearsome PLA soldiers.”
“No, but I’ll bet they saw you, and now you’re vulnerable.”
“I can’t move swiftly or quietly with a regiment.”
“Sabriya, I love you, but I will not allow you to do this. You must not.”
“How can you stop me, David? I love you, too, but right now, I love my daughter more. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Your life’s in danger, Sabriya.”
“How nice of you to think of me, darling.” But Sabriya’s tone was not tender, and David didn’t reply, as Sabriya raced along all too familiar roads to brothel row, which at one time she had called home.
Ten minutes later: “Sabriya?” It was Hannah’s voice in her head now.
“Hannah, that you?”
“Yes, ma’am. David is mad, and I’ve never seen him mad before.”
“So am I, Hannah, but not at David, just disappointed. Gotta go, I’m close to my destination.”
Sabriya had been searching the SEC’s console for the helmet’s mute button. She found it and toggled the comm link off. There was something ironic and frightening about turning away from Hannah and David and turning back to her life on Cabbage Ave with Jia Kun..
Wednesday, August 14, 2024 - 4:30 PM
It was late afternoon when Sabriya drove her SEC down Cabbage Avenue, the street from which she and Jia Kun had escaped eleven years ago. She had been determined never to return to this place. Yet, here she was, ready to attempt another escape for Jia Kun if not also for herself if she was careless enough to fall into malevolent hands. It was that thought that made her recheck her rearview mirrors, as she had on and off for the past 30 minutes. Yes, she was being followed, or so it seemed. The Suzuki Sport motorbike, driven by a man in dark clothes and a distinctive helmet, was careful to stay at least 100 yards back. She recalled their trip to Miwu Cun and Jack’s suspicion that a man on a motorbike had followed them. Was it the same man? Her heart skipped a beat, wondering if she was being pursued, and if so, by whom, all the while trying to quell doubts that she should have come alone on this junket into hostile territory. But who else could she have relied on? Indeed, David was not going to let Jack or another British agent take on her cause. It was also clear that the Palace was too shy and the new Parliament too slow. All the while, it was certain that Jia Kun and Dao’s captors were not going to wait for bureaucracy to change its stripes.
Sabriya slowly cruised Cabbage Avenue. She rechecked her mirrors and caught a glimpse of the Suzuki. It was time to find out for sure. She turned left into an alleyway. Fifteen meters in, she quickly turned around, stopped, and readied her cycle to head back out onto Cabbage Avenue. She watched the traffic pass. A moment later, the Suzuki and its rider appeared, waited for traffic to clear, and turned left into the alley. But it suddenly stopped, recovered, and continued down Cabbage Avenue. He saw me, Sabriya thought, but I got a good look at him—short, thin, not Pellagorian or Chinese, perhaps Filipino.
Sabriya immediately accelerated her SEC and followed the Suzuki except that the Suzuki driver didn’t like the role reversal. He sped off and tried to lose Sabriya before ducking into a side street. He’s doubling back, she thought. Who is he? Was he the same man who followed them to Miwu Cun? She decided not to follow or confront him, but return to her survey of Cabbage Avenue. She was sure the Suzuki would show up again; she’d need to be extra vigilant. She remembered too well what her life was like here, years ago.
FLASHBACK
September 1981
Cabbage Avenue was a narrow street with corrugated galvanized-iron-walled buildings lining both sides of the dirt roadway; bare light bulbs hung over the building entrances, and corrugated aluminum roofs overlapped. When it rained, Cabbage Row, as it was named then, sounded like a war zone, and the water cascaded into the unpaved street, creating rapids that could easily knock a man down and flush him away. And oh, how she had wished the men that came in all shapes, sizes, and cleanliness she was forced to share a bed with each night would find justice in those fugacious muddy waters. But she rarely heard the muddy rapids as she cowered in her cell after a beating because she had not met her quota. Her body bruised, her stomach growling from hunger, her loins raw from assaults. The wash basin was empty, but there were tears that washed her face, and a rag she kept beneath the mattress, thin and torn.
She quaked at the remembrance, which seemed so far away in time and distance. But it was here that such things took place, as her life was repeatedly threatened. Today, the road was wide, underground storm sewers kept it safe, and when night fell, colorful neon signs lit the entrances to restaurants, bars, and dozens of innocuous entertainment establishments. Although the Avenue glowed in festive hues, the dark underbelly was evident in the names inscribed by luminous tubes pitching unlisted menu items—Companion Karaoke, The Velvet Kettle, Golden Lotus Society, No Questions Bar, and Private Hour Lounge. Through windows, Sabriya observed scantily clad girls waiting tables, and outside entrances, muscular men stood in dark suits, admitting elite businessmen and rejecting rambunctious youth. She passed an older man in an expensive suit, strolling hand in hand with a girl young enough to be his granddaughter, wearing a short skirt and unstable sky-high heels.
Prostitution in Pellagore was technically illegal, but rarely prosecuted, unless business proprietors blatantly promoted their off-menu offerings. Brothels, strip joints, love hotels, and the like hid behind legal businesses such as restaurants, hookah lounges, nightclubs, karaoke bars, hotels, and even massage parlours. She looked for the Iron Spoon and the Backroom Wok, and while she found the buildings, they had been remodeled, enlarged, and no longer appeared to be faux fronts for brothels in the back. In fact, there was no back where dark rooms and secretive alley entrances had once been the norm. In the streets, one could still buy cheap souvenirs and street food, but what was really for sale kept to the shadows and was not for the faint of heart. As long as the sex industry mainly stayed underground, the illicit was taxed and tolerated. The tolerance was no doubt often directly proportional to the backsheesh paid to the police and their captains.
The scent of spicy kabob, noodles, and exotic spices pedaled by street vendors wafted into her helmet and made her mouth water. It reminded her of how, years ago, the only food she often ate was given to her by generous noodle-and-meat vendors.
The more she surveyed her surroundings, the more problems presented themselves. Unless she had reasonable suspicion of exactly where Jia Kun was being held, there was no sensible way Sabriya, by herself, even with guns blazing, could investigate dozens of establishments and demand entry and search for her daughter. She also had no evidence that Jia Kun's abductors had actually brought her here to Meijing. Jia Kun could be in China, as far as Sabriya knew. Finally, it was unlikely that a 12-year-old girl would be trafficked directly into a brothel as a prostitute, but kept as a domestic servant until she matured and then put into active service. Yes, there were pedophilia perversions involving young girls. Still, most of that dark world involved, unfortunately, young boys with men, a diabolical situation that reached back to the Greeks, if her reading of Socrates and Plato was accurate. She shuddered at the thought.
So, where exactly was Jia Kun? If she were sequestered in the back rooms along Cabbage Avenue, she’d need more information. Perhaps then she could solicit the Queen for a squad of soldiers to raid the place and rescue her daughter. But until the King got his act together and shut this whole street down with rigorous efforts to discover and arrest the criminal gangs involved, she had to admit she, alone, was in no position to start knocking down doors.
The more she thought about Jia Kun's situation, the more likely it was that she’d be trafficked into domestic servitude for a few years in Vietnam, China, or the Philippines. She’d be drugged, of course, and smuggled out, with no passport or identification, such that, if escape was possible, she’d have a hard time proving who she was or where home was. In five years, if she developed into a sexually appealing teen, then the drugs and coercion could find her a prisoner in a brothel. Sabriya’s mind wandered in depression and disgust at the vast possibilities, and she realized how naive she was to suggest to David that Jia Kun might be found at The Iron Spoon or Backroom Wok.
After an hour of wandering the environs of Cabbage Avenue and watching her back, Sabriya was tired and dejected, but hardly willing to give up. If she went to Miwu Cun, as was her plan, would she find there a clue that would lead her to her daughter? And would the Suzuki man follow her? She would know soon enough.
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