Thursday, August 15, 2024—7:55 PM
It was a humid night, and darkness, with help from an overcast sky, came like a falcon descending on its prey. Not familiar with the road, nor where it led, Landon guided her away from the two police cars that had entered from the main road behind her. With the lights of her SEC off, she drove carefully, trying to miss the ruts and voids in the tightly packed dirt road. She had purposely left behind Silas’s cell phone so that neither Sapptoso nor his associates could track her by pinging the phone. Although tracking her was a foregone conclusion, since those chasing her always appeared to know her location.
Her heart was raging, having discovered the five drugged children in the panel truck but not Jia Kun. In another time or place, one of those kids could have been her daughter, who would now be in her protective arms. But that wasn’t the case. Her muscles were tight as she contemplated how close she had come to fulfilling her mission, only for it to have apparently failed … so far. And now her busy mind could not quell the wild thoughts of what she might discover over the next few hours. She might never see Jia Kun again, or she might see her daughter badly beaten and bloody, or discover that she’s been enslaved on a Russian trawler to a sex-crazed Russian oligarch. What a horrible mother she had been. And then there were the incessant police, whom hopefully she had just lost in the darkness behind her.
“Landon? … Copy?”
There was no answer. Yet, another vexation. What if she lost contact with the Embassy? Could she really go this alone, with no backup, blinded by the dark and mystery?
“SEC One. Over.” Landon finally answered.
“Landon, I’m nervous about how long it’s going to take to get to Dr. Funzini’s.”
“I did talk with him and explained your situation. He will meet you at his lab as you requested. But why this Funzini? He’s in the heart of the city, and you were right, the city’s congested.”
Sabriya tried to explain. “The blood’s gone out of Jia Kun’s trail, and there’s a chance Funzini can give me a transfusion. Aside from the sex trade, of which there are many tendrils, Anya, unnerved me by confirming that Sapptoso is an agent not just for brothels, but also for organ harvesting out of the country. For that, he needs an operating room and immunology support, which means a testing lab. Funzini was at the Queen’s banquet and wanted to help. He runs a large medical laboratory. If his lab offers immunological testing for organ matching … the legal kind, he might be able to match incoming lab requests to a Mannu address, which could pinpoint Sapp’s operation. Find me a fast way to his lab, and then on to Mannu district.”
Landon didn’t respond for several moments, which only raised Sabriya’s tension. But when he did: “Sabriya, you may not have a choice of how to get there, at least not an unfettered one. Vinnie just handed me an APB telex from Meijing police. The police behind you are not going to be a problem. Instead, the greater metropolitan police are setting up a perimeter with 10-40 assets, along the northern perimeter of the city, right where you’re headed. They’re looking for, quote, ‘a female on a silent cycle in tactical gear.’ The 10-40 code means there won’t be any visual clues like sirens or flashing lights to warn you of their approach. They’ll be upon you before you know it … no alerts that they’re present.”
“Too bad for me. Guess I should have packed a ballroom gown and heels as a disguise.”
Minutes later, following Landon’s directions, Sabriya crossed the first major intersection on the northern edge of Meijing. The sheer volume of traffic and pedestrians tempted Sabriya to remove her helmet for greater peripheral vision and, in the process, to discard the face shield’s progressive darkening, which protected her eyes from the sun as it rose. But night was falling, and that reminded her of the helmet’s thermal scanning mode, which she toggled on with an obscure button, probably added to the SEC’s instrument cluster as an afterthought. Instantly, anything with a modicum of heat was outlined in her visor with thin green lines, while retaining the object’s natural light signature. The thermal imaging sub-system didn’t allow her to see in the dark, but it did allow her to distinctly make out objects with any level of warmth, such as cars, human beings, and even fresh animal fecal deposits. The enhanced visuals gave her a sense of invincibility, at which she smiled but quickly shook off the delusion.
Two late-model BMW sedans idled on a side street by the curb, their engine and exhaust heat signatures plainly visible. As she passed, the sedans pulled into traffic behind her and followed uncomfortably close. They were not the police.
“Landon, two black BMWs just pulled out and are following me extremely close. I can’t see in their smoked windows … wait, now a motorcycle like the one that followed us to Minu Cun, a Suzuki, just did a U-turn and fell in behind the two cars.”
Paranoia set in like the green lines on her visor, to say nothing of how her arms, abdominals, and legs quickly tightened in readiness.
To lose the Beamers, she wanted to accelerate, but two lanes of dense traffic and a row of gigantic concrete tree pots housing red Japanese maples down the middle of the boulevard restricted her options. In an emergency, there were the sidewalks, but they were packed with people and carts carrying packages. Cars, buses, trucks, scooters, and bicycles were everywhere, weaving in and out. As she dodged one vehicular or pedestrian, another cut her off. When signal lights halted all motorized traffic at an intersection, a tsunami of pedestrians, delivery bikes, and tricycles deluged the streets from every direction.
Then, it started to happen. The sedans on her tail found opportunities to ram her cycle from behind, trying to knock her off the road, although there was no “off-road” margin on which to force her. Each time she thought she found an opening, it closed. Finally, with a hard bump from the Beamer behind her, she shifted her weight so as not to fall, squeezed the throttle, and slipped through a narrow corridor between lanes and vehicles, her right and left rearview mirrors rubbing like insect feelers caressing the cars or trucks on either side. No sooner had she exited the corridor than a bus pulled in front of her, and diesel exhaust filled her helmet. She swerved onto the shoulder for cleaner air, only to be stopped abruptly by a food vendor on a tricycle ringing its bell. The bus moved ahead a little and passed a parked bus, allowing Sabriya to drop into another between-lane corridor and accelerate, her mirrors ricocheting again off the sides of the buses, already in need of new paint. She had managed to lose the broad Beamers, but the Suzuki motorcycle followed her through the gauntlet.
Enough was enough. “Landon, hope you can follow me.” She caught a break in the traffic and dashed sharply to the right into Meijing’s Old Town’s narrow streets, barely wide enough for modern cars and mostly frequented by bicycles and by small motorcycles. There were low-hanging electrical wires and laundry lines overhead, just high enough to duck under. Neon signs jutted out from entrances, parked bikes, and trash thrown into the street created an obstacle course. Was she being followed? She was pretty sure she was, though her rearview mirrors were twisted, and she dared not turn so far around to look behind. She had turned on her headlights and was distressed that her taillights were on as well, but she needed to see where she was going. Ducking under a hanging rug, her mirror scraped against a brick wall, and she nearly came to a stop to kick a plastic crate out of the way.
She saw it, the motorcycle was not far behind, though it was not trying to engage in such close quarters. Trying to gain separation, Sabriya accelerated. But at the same instant, a woman with a large basket of fresh produce entered the street. Sabriya quickly zigzagged and missed the old lady, but the bike’s passing presence scared the grandmother to the point of toppling the produce onto the street. Sabriya felt bad, but noticed that the woman and the basket had delayed the cycle behind her. Now if the guy would only stop to help the old lady. No? Well, a few seconds gained.
The narrow old-town street emptied out into an open-air Night Bazaar with brightly lit stalls featuring local foods, arts and crafts, and handmade goods. Couples walked hand in hand, lovers embraced, children played hide-’n-seek, and a meandering band of street musicians playing bamboo drums, finger cymbals, a lute, and a loud double-reed Chinese oboe or suona, drifted among the shoppers and stalls. Oh, how nice it would be to visit this with David some evening … but not tonight … I’m busy.
Trying to avoid the more leisurely and refined contributions to culture, she raced through the Bazaar, zigzagging awry, hoping to gain ground and lose her devoted follower. But just as she accelerated around a stall, she zagged through a shallow pool of water, and her SEC skidded nearly out of control and slammed against a light pole, bruising her thigh. Quickly regaining control, she kept going, dodging a food cart, and seeing a dark area on the horizon ahead, only to hear the screaming of adults and children and a crash of chaos behind her. A quick look revealed her pursuer sliding sideways on the ground, destroying a stall of ceramic pottery and sending the stall keeper into a rage, who descended on the cyclist with a large shard of broken ceramic, taking him out of the chase and perhaps to a hospital.
Anxious to disappear, Sabriya turned toward that dark area on the horizon to find a ramp down into an underground parking structure, hopefully with an exit on the other side. What normally would echo with the sounds of a motorcycle’s exposed engine, exhaust, the high whine of RPMs, and the rapid expansion of exhaust gases that created a motorcycle’s sharp, boisterous sound … the SEC was silent except for the squeal of tires as Sabriya rounded corners searching for the opposite exit. The concrete pillars, low ceilings of hard concrete beams, and narrow passageways restricted by hard concrete walls gave her pause, and having descended into the darkness, she now had to find a way up and out. To her right, a spiral ramp turned upwards. Turning sharply toward it, her rear tire slipped outward and clipped a pillar; her lights flickered on and off, but up she went in a tight spiral, not knowing what disaster would greet her at the top.
Turning off the ramp, out of the structure, and onto an access road—there was only one way—she headed for an automatic security gate that was closing. Ducking low, she slipped under it and out into a warehouse district with only one way back to the city through a labyrinth of large brick buildings, loading docks, and parked semi-trailers. Slowing to gain her bearings and reconnect with Landon, the welcome calm and quiet was shattered when two police cruisers rushed at her from around a corner, their lights flashing and blocking her exit. She stopped dead in the patrol cars’ headlights, blinding her. Two police jumped out of the patrol cars and stood behind their passenger doors, their service weapons drawn and aimed directly at her, while a loudspeaker barked, “Get off the cycle, remove your helmet, and put your hand in the air. NOW!”
Years of Wing Chun conditioning taught her to channel the fear that rose at times like this into rational thought and control. Assessing a fight-or-flight response came naturally to her, but right now neither was an option. She glanced to her right and left for flight options. To her left, between two buildings, there was a narrow sidewalk through which her SEC could easily pass, but not the patrol cars. She could also escape around the rear end of each car—there was room—or she could return through the parking structure. But she was pretty sure that her SEC was not nearly as fast as even the poorly aimed bullets from those guns. On the fight side of the equation, she was packing, but she was not so dumb, nor did she feel the necessity to outshoot a squad of police who had beaten her to the draw. “Landon, you can’t see what I see, but you do know where I am.”
“What do you see, Sabriya?”
“You can track me without the helmet, right?”
“Right.”
“I’m cornered by two Meijing police squad cars, and at least that many drawn weapons. Helmet’s coming off. Talk to you on the other side, wherever that is. Tell David.”
Sabriya appeared calm and collected as if being cornered by a couple of guns backed by perhaps trigger-happy cadets at close range was a regular occurrence. A close look indicated that the Glock 17-toting cadets were shaking.
Sabriya was surprised by how calm and relaxed she was. Her heart was steady, although beating a bit faster than normal.
She smiled innocently at the two young men shaking their pistols at her, knowing she had not broken any laws and that her actions over the past few hours were justified, at least in self-defense, although proving that might take some time.
What kept her mind swirling was how she would rescue Jia Kun from a jail cell. These cops were not going to believe she was tracking down human traffickers and trying to rescue a secret daughter, let alone that she was the wife of the British ambassador, although he might come and bail her out if she promised not to buck his authority. She may have appeared calm on the outside, but inside, she was paddling like a duck trying to avoid the large mouth of a hungry Goonch catfish. Options poured through her mind, but none made sense. She was without recourse. Or was she—St. Michael, deliver me from evil.
There was not much she could do without risking her life, her reputation with the Palace, or destroying David’s career, if she hadn’t already done that. The thought of her failure, not just of losing her daughter, but of obliterating the career of the most wonderful man she had ever met, was eating away at her insides, and in spite of her efforts at control, tears collected in her eyes. It was not in her nature to do whatever men demanded. Oh, it was part of her past, but not of her present, which was evident in the current predicament. Had she gone along with David’s demands, she would not have been confronted with the demands of these men, men with guns.
