Take No Names, page 23
“Okay, that sucks,” Jules admits amiably. “I’ve had alienating experiences, too. But some people were nice to you, right?”
Lai scowls and switches back to Mandarin.
“Tí wài huà,” he says. —We’re off topic. You have the recording, plus your confessions. That’s not enough to prove anything.
—The third part is visual evidence, Jules says. —We go back to the APEX compound in Las Lomas tonight, break into Pearce’s office, and record a geotagged video showing how much painite he’s collected.
—Their counter-narcotics operation in Las Lomas is conspicuous, Song Fei points out. —A video showing painite there, combined with my audio recording of Pearce, could be persuasive.
—You approve of this plan? He stares at her goggle-eyed.
—I think the evidence may be adequate to expose APEX. She speaks carefully. —It would be very difficult to obtain.
—Intruders B and C can do it, I mutter to Lai’s knees, trying to sound as deferential as possible. —But they need a way out of that compound.
Lai gives me a look like I’m dog shit on his shoe.
—And you expect us to provide that.
—Just sixty minutes with your helicopter.
—Your audacity is astounding.
I tip my head back and forth. —Forty-five would probably do.
Lai turns to Song. —You’re the security expert. What is your assessment?
She paces a few steps away, studies the floor, paces back.
—I believe they are competent. After all, they bypassed our protocols this morning, she says ruefully.
Lai scrunches up his face and furiously scratches the back of his neck. —One hour in the helicopter. We hand you off to your cartel friends. You disappear to a secret location. Then when will you release your video?
—I can edit it pretty quickly. It’d be best to have a first-person account from Song Fei, too. Jules thinks on her feet. —We don’t have time to do that now, but we could send the car back for her. The same drop-off spot at the Hipódromo. Tomorrow at noon. No tracking. No communications devices.
Lai looks to his subordinate again.
Song Fei squares her shoulders. —I am not afraid.
—But you have to announce partial forgiveness of the airport loan first, Jules says, —and a training program.
—Debt forgiveness is not on the table!
—These are NGAP’s conditions to play along. They’ll drop the protests and support the airport, Jules continues patiently. —You only have to forgive thirty percent of the debt. And train Mexican people to use your technology and work alongside your staff at the airport. Half the workforce has to be local. And not just the bottom half. Every level.
—You think I can make that kind of decision on my own? he exclaims.
—If you announce it publicly, Beijing wouldn’t dare contradict you, I say. —It would be too messy.
—You’re asking me to make a unilateral decision that would enrage my superiors!
I jump to my feet.
“We’re asking you to live up to your words!” I shout in English, knowing he understands me perfectly. “You’re always claiming that China will be a different kind of world leader, but that’s a lie! You’re not different—you just want power, market access, puppet governments. How do you sleep at night?”
“I sleep very well!” he roars back at me. “How you Americans love to lecture. You forget who wrote the rules! You criticize our friendship with Myanmar, and what about your alliance with the Saudis? You say we must not build bases near your borders, and you station thirty thousand troops in Seoul. Fifty thousand on Okinawa! How stupid do you think we are?”
Our faces are inches away from each other on opposite sides of the bars. Lai’s pulse pounds furiously in his temple, and I feel my own in my ears. But my eyes fall away first. I can’t defend my country to him. I know how poor an example the United States has set.
It’s Jules who answers him. She switches back to his native language to do it. She speaks softly, her cuffed hands wrapped around the bars. —You’re right. Everything you said is true. I don’t think you’re stupid. But the Mexican people aren’t stupid, either. They’re already marching in the streets. She takes a step back from the bars and shrugs. —If you do this, you’ll show them that China can be more than merely the latest empire in town. And at the same time, you’ll be exposing American hypocrisy at the highest level.
—And if you refuse, Pearce’s false flag story will stick, I point out. —China will look like the aggressor. And you’ll probably lose the airport anyway.
He looks from me to Jules and back, his jaw clenched, his nostrils flared. Then he slams his palms against the bars, grabs the nearest office chair by its back, and flings it across the room.
It smashes into a row of monitors, sends them crashing to the floor.
“Fuck you both! You’re already dead!” He jabs a finger back toward us. “Nobody tells me what to do!”
He storms out of the room, slams the door hard enough to shake the bars of our cell.
The security center falls silent. I slump onto the bench. Song Fei sits on the floor, rests her head against the wall, and closes her eyes. We spend a few minutes like that, digesting.
Then Song Fei’s phone buzzes. She reads a message. She turns to look at us.
There’s the slightest of smiles on her face.
36
Song Fei stands on the landing skids and gives the pilot explicit orders over the intercom.
“Bié guǎn qítā de zhǐlìng. Jiù zhè xiē. Míngbai ma?”—Do not obey any instructions other than what I’ve just told you. Got it?
“Míngbai”—Got it.
“Rènhé yìwài zhuàngkuàng, zhíjiē liánxì wǒ”—If anything unexpected occurs, contact me right away.
“Míngbai.” He keeps a straight face, maintains his professional demeanor. But he seems less than totally comfortable with the situation.
She gives him a thumbs-up, pats the side of the helicopter, and takes off her headset.
“Nàme wǒmen míngtiān jiàn, ba,” I shout—So we’ll see you tomorrow?
She puts the headset back on and says, —What did you say?
—We’ll see you tomorrow?
Her eyes go down and to the right. —You made a good argument. I think Lai Yixun likes the concept of saving the airport and embarrassing the Americans. But if he announces the debt forgiveness without the approval of the party leaders, they could give him a relatively severe punishment.
—What are you saying? I shout.
—If I don’t make it, make your video without me! she shouts back. —You can save a lot of lives.
—But NGAP will kill us if he doesn’t meet their conditions!
—Then I hope he does!
And before I can respond, she takes the headset off again, sets it next to the binoculars on the seat across from me, and slams the door shut.
—Ready? the pilot says.
Jules and I exchange a look. Then she gives him a thumbs-up.
“No going back now,” she says. “We have to do what we can.”
I nod, queasy to my core, as the helicopter rises into the night sky and Song Fei shrinks beneath us, the white dot of her face framed by her black hair and jumpsuit. She stands there, looking up at us, at the edge of the big yellow circle painted on the helipad, perched atop the Baoli Tower like a graduation cap.
“Are you okay?” Jules asks.
“My shoulder hurts like an alligator bit me,” I say. “But I don’t feel sleepy anymore.”
I guess there’s a faint smile on my face because Jules says, “Even if she shows, she’s not going to make out with you.”
“I hadn’t talked to a girl in a year,” I say.
“Woman,” she corrects.
“Love will keep us alive!”
She rolls her eyes and says, “I loathe the Eagles.”
I check Dad’s Casio: forty minutes past midnight. Preparing the helicopter ate up a lot of our time. Mark must be wound tighter than a rat trap by now. The window that NGAP promised us at the house behind the APEX compound will close in less than half an hour.
Fortunately, helicopters don’t sit at traffic lights. It only takes us three minutes to fly from La Reforma to Las Lomas. And then I’m staring down at the mansion, the dark lawn, and the pool house. The same place I woke up eighteen hours ago. But now it feels like a different city, a different life.
The pilot’s voice pipes into my headset.
“Dì yī ge dòngzuò?”—First maneuver?
“Děng yí xià”—Wait one second. When I pull the door open, the roar of the rotors grows even louder. I grab the binoculars from the seat across from me. The pool house is dark. Good. There are lights on in the mansion, but none on the second floor. Even better.
“Hǎo a. Dì yī ge dòngzuò,” I say—First maneuver.
The pilot drops us toward the earth. Close, closer. He levels off about two hundred meters above the south side of the mansion. The main entrance. Across from the pool house. Close enough that we’re loud on the ground.
So Mark and Sun can hear us. And so anyone walking around the grounds will be looking at us, trying to figure out what we’re doing here, while behind them Mark and Sun clamber up the cypress tree that overhangs the pool house.
I set a timer on Dad’s Casio for sixteen minutes. Stare down at the roof of the pool house. Come on. Come on. Come on. There.
A flashlight blinks up at us. Five pulses. Short long short long short. The starting signal.
I hit start on my watch and heave an exhale.
“Dì èr ge dòngzuò”—Second maneuver, I say to the pilot, and the helicopter climbs back into the sky.
I fall back into my seat and share a grim smile with Jules. Nothing to do now but wait. For the first three minutes, Mark and Sun are lying flat by the top of the stairs, waiting to see if Pabst and Miller heard them drop onto the roof.
If they did, and they came up to investigate, they might be fighting right now. That’s Sun’s responsibility. Nothing I’d worry about. He’s already studied their hands, their eyes, their gaits. And with Jerry’s night vision goggles on his face, he has another advantage. If things get hairy, he’ll use Mark’s knife or Ken’s suppressed pistol. Nothing lethal, we agreed. Perhaps a slash across the Achilles tendon. A bullet in the calf. Just like how I shot him at that house in Pasadena.
I check my watch.
13:16 to go.
Pabst and Miller could already be bound and gagged. Or they didn’t hear a thing. They’re still in the pool house. Perhaps they moved back to the mansion this afternoon. Sun and Mark tiptoe down the stairs along the outside of the building. The windows are dark. The coast is clear.
They sit tight for another two minutes, crouched at the corner of the house, to avoid getting ahead of schedule. We can’t see them, and they can’t talk to us. If they move on the mansion too soon, they could stir up trouble before we get down there to haul them out.
So we wait a few more excruciating heartbeats.
And the next time I look, the Casio says 9:42. They should be moving across the lawn now, crawling on their bellies so they’re not silhouetted against the light from the pool. Sun first, using those night vision goggles to watch where they’re going. Mark behind him, the bodycam strapped to his chest, capturing great footage of dark grass dragging along the lens. No real danger here. Even if someone’s out for a midnight stroll, he won’t be expecting them. A couple of quick kicks, a jab in the throat, and a palm strike to the elbow crease. The fifth point of the lung meridian, where qi pools.
That’s how Sun explained it to me after I saw him knock someone unconscious for the first time. Back then, in my dorm room at San Dimas State, it seemed like the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Now I’m hoping that I never have to see it again.
7:32.
They should be at the back door now. Sun’s pulling off the night vision goggles. Punching in the code—and praying, praying, praying that it hasn’t been changed since last night. Opening the door a millimeter, listening for footsteps on the other side. Someone’s there. A quick skirmish—and hopefully a quiet one. Or no one’s there. Wait another minute.
5:00.
Now the tricky part begins. They’re slipping up the stairs to the second floor. Is the hallway empty? Probably. But what about Pearce’s door—is there a strip of glowing light beneath it? Or is it dark? Is it locked?
If it’s locked, time to get creative. Mark’s only experienced in picking padlocks. Maybe he can handle a deadbolt. Or maybe they’re using the hammer and screwdriver from the tool kit in the Pozolería, taking the door off its hinges—quickly, quietly! If they have to kick it in, they kick it in. Still, locked is better than unlocked.
Because if it’s unlocked, that means Pearce is in there. Mark hangs back. Sun tiptoes up to the door. Knocks twice. Does his best impersonation of Miller’s Brooklyn accent. What did we decide? Keystone! Need ya downstairs! Make it sound urgent but confusing. A prank? A crisis? An important phone call? What’s up? Pearce sticks his head out. Sun’s already gone. Down the other staircase at the far end of the hallway. Calling him again. Or fighting someone he encountered. But he’s armed and resourceful. Hopefully he can handle it.
3:00.
Sweat pours down my face. My heart’s going like a jackhammer. Jules’s eyes tick back and forth between my watch and the window like the pendulum of Pearce’s grandfather clock.
“Zhǔnbèi dì sān ge dòngzuò!”—Prepare third maneuver! I shout into my headset.
“Shòudào!”—Copy!
Mark has to be in the room by now. He’s picking the padlock on Pearce’s African blackwood box. Sun’s guarding the door. Or fighting on the stairs. Leading Pearce and whoever else on a chase through the mansion. Mark’s opening the box. Making sure his bodycam gets a good shot of the contents before he shoves them into his pocket. Not rubies. Not costume jewelry. Painite.
Or he can’t pick the lock. They’ve been discovered. Sun’s barricading the far stairwell with furniture, firing shots over people’s heads. Mark smashes the box to bits with the hammer. Or he shoves it into his backpack. Not ideal. Not good at all. When we get it open later, what will viewers say? Deepfake. Camera tricks. I know how they did that. It doesn’t prove anything.
Still, better than nothing. And regardless, Dad’s Casio says 1:00 now. Time to go.
“Kāishǐ xiàluò!”
We drop through the air toward the mansion again, this time faster. Low enough for the rope to reach the ground. And now we’re on the other side of the compound: the north side, by the pool house.
As we descend, I lean out the door. Jules grips the back of my belt with her left hand and a grab handle on the ceiling with her right. One end of the rope is fastened to a bulkhead inside the helicopter. The other end is tied around the handle of a teakettle that we borrowed from the security center, giving the rope some tossable weight. We also tied four loops in the rope, six feet from the end.
If everything goes right, Mark and Sun will be hanging from those loops for three or four minutes until we can land at the drop-off point: the Hipódromo de las Américas. A racecourse, two miles to the north, where NGAP promised to station a vehicle to smuggle us out of the city.
“Gāodù jiǔshíwǔ mǐ”—Altitude ninety-five meters! the pilot announces.
—Twenty meters to the south! I tell him.
—Copy!
—Ten to the west!
—Copy!
I clear my mind, exhale my breath, and underhand the kettle onto the lawn.
It lands where I want it: in the grass, near the side of the pool, across from the pool house. Where there’s some light for Mark and Sun to see it. But as far from Pabst, Miller, and Pearce as possible.
—Ascend on my mark!
—Copy!
The timer on my watch hits zero and starts beeping, barely audible over the noise of the rotors. Nothing happens. The mansion remains dark. Beep. Beep. Beep. I click it off and sit forward in my seat, leaning out the open door. Jules hovering at my shoulder.
Nothing. More nothing. But lights begin blinking on in the neighboring houses. A helicopter flying very low, not going anywhere. Conspicuous. And then a light snaps on in the pool house.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Jules is chanting.
The back door to the mansion swings open and Sun sprints out, Mark right behind him. They disappear into the dark of the lawn. I turn and see Pabst and Miller in front of the pool house, looking up at us, trying to figure out what the hell Longdai’s helicopter is doing above them. They don’t see Mark and Sun, who remain cloaked by darkness as they approach the pool.
And more lights blink on in the first floor of the mansion.
I squint down at the lawn, seeking their shapes moving through the dark—there they are! Then the back door of the mansion flies open again and a blond head rushes out. Pearce, with a scoped rifle in his hands. And in front of the pool house, Pabst pointing, his mouth open, his words drowned out by the thump of the rotors. Miller out of sight. No—coming back out the door with a pistol in each hand. He tosses one to Pabst and lifts the other in front of him in both hands, aiming into the shadows on the other side of the pool.
Muzzle flashes in the dark: Sun fires first. Art’s revolver—louder, more of a deterrent, better for this stage, we decided. Warning shots only, we agreed.
But Miller and Pabst both crumple to the ground.
Jules shrieks into her headset. Her hands fly to her mouth. Most of my fingers are already clamped between my teeth. I pull them out so I can yell at the pilot as Mark and Sun reach the rope and grab hold of the loops.
“Shàngshēng! Shàngshēng!”—Ascend! Ascend!
And as we begin to climb, I see Pearce in the light of the colonnade, taking aim across the dark lawn. Drawing a bead on Mark and Sun as they swing skyward. The crack of the big-bore rifle rends the air.
I see Mark’s back spring into an arc. And I scream—NO!
