Doc - 19 - Chasing Midnight Read online

  I nodded. “Same thing.”

  “Then he’ll need air immediately, if it works. If it does, I’ll do the breathing while you monitor his heartbeat.” An instant later, she surprised me by ordering, “And please stop looking at your watch. There is no bomb, Dr. Ford!”

  I had my fingers on the man’s chest, feeling for a rib slot near the left nipple. I looked up long enough to say, “What?” but then refocused and speared the needle deep into what I hoped was the right ventricle of Bohai’s heart.

  “There is no bomb,” the woman repeated as I pressed the plunger with my thumb. “No canisters of poisonous gas. If people on this island die tonight, it will be from gunshot wounds.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “You have to trust me. My father was very demanding when it came to security—and to investigating his business associates.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  The woman was six inches shorter than me, but the look in her eyes was solid, imperturbable. “There are dangerous men on this island who despise one another. And they’ve panicked because they all assume they’re under attack. Nobody’s safe tonight. But if someone had planned mass murder such as you describe—my father’s staff would have found out enough beforehand to make them suspicious. And we would have canceled the trip.”

  Bohai’s security staff, I guessed, was a large, well-organized group—and unless I missed my bet, they took orders from his daughter. The probability gave the woman some credibility but also made it more likely that she was the one who had intercepted the threatening e-mail. In fact, it suggested that she had hacked the e-mail accounts of Bohai’s enemies prior to their arrival as well as the accounts of everyone on the island, mine included. A big job, but doable for someone like her.

  Because China restricts Internet access to its population, its surveillance agencies have to stay a step ahead of new Internet technology. If I was right about the woman’s service in the Chinese military, there were obvious implications about her own role in tonight’s events.

  Not that I expected Bohai’s daughter to admit anything. People in the intelligence community don’t share information without receiving something in return. It becomes habit. Like diplomats, they send vague messages. They hide truth between the lines.

  I withdrew the needle, capped it and swabbed a pinprick of blood with an alcohol pad. I started to say, “You’re leaving something out—” but then stopped as Bohai’s body spasmed beneath my hands. I leaned my ear to his chest. “We’ve got a pulse. Give him some air.”

  The startled expression on the woman’s face was a mix of disappointment and hope as she spun to resume mouth-to-mouth. Whatever emotion dominated, the hope didn’t last long.

  As I listened, the old man’s heart thumped a few times… stopped… spasmed again, then vanished into the silence of Bohai’s final exhalation. I tried a few rib-cracking compressions, but it was pointless.

  I put my hand on the woman’s shoulder and gently pulled her mouth away from her father’s lips. “You can stop now. You did everything you could.” I turned Bohai’s daughter so that she faced me. “I know it’s hard—no matter how you felt about him. Look at me. Look at me. Tell me your name.”

  “Are you sure he’s gone?” She sounded dazed. “I want to be absolutely certain before we give up.”

  “I should know your name. You knew mine from the start, didn’t you?”

  “Yes… Dr. Marion Ford. A man with an unusual past.”

  I let that go. “And yours?”

  “Umeko. In China, the surname is always given first, so it would be Lien Umeko, if I’d stuck with the old ways.”

  “Nice name. Is that what your friends call you?” I was looking at the pistol on the floor, wondering how she would react if picked it up.

  “In Chinese, it means ‘plum blossom,’ which doesn’t translate well. So, legally, I’m Umeko Tao-Lien. Back in Singapore where I live, anyway. In Beijing, it’s different because Lien is about as common as Smith in the U.S.”

  I gave her a reassuring pat and stepped away, looking around the room for the Betadine and a towel. I wanted to rinse my mouth out, too. The stink of death was on my lips. But my attention never wandered far from the pistol. When the woman stepped away from her father’s body, I would slip the thing into my pocket like it was no big deal, then sprint straight to the fishing lodge.

  I said, “Umeko, I need your help. Someone activated a jamming device—there’s no outside communication. Are you aware of that? These people know what they’re doing and they’re serious. Kazlov’s bodyguard was shot tonight. And at least two people tried to kill me. How can you be so sure someone didn’t plant an IED?”

  “If such a device existed—or if there was even a possibility—I would have been notified,” she replied, some spirit returning to her voice.

  “By whom? Kazlov didn’t hear about it until a few hours ago.”

  “A company that doesn’t have its own intelligence branch is a company run by fools. Our people in Beijing would have contacted me or my father or… or one of us.”

  I nodded at the dead man. “Maybe they did warn him.”

  The woman’s head tilted toward the floor, thinking about it before she looked up at me. “Who told Viktor about an intercepted e-mail?”

  I was picturing the stunning beauty I’d seen at Bohai’s table earlier, then replaying Armanie’s venomous reference about seeing Kazlov with her and the woman’s price. “I don’t know. Kazlov’s bodyguard wouldn’t tell me. I figured there was a reason. Wouldn’t you?”

  Once again, her chin dipped as she considered the possibilities, but then she settled it with a firm shake of her head. “No. I was in the lodge with my father all evening. Our sources would have sent a message to his cell phone or they would have contacted me. I’m sure of it.”

  “Where’s his cell phone? Let’s check and make sure.”

  “He must have lost his phone in the lodge when he fell. It wasn’t in his jacket or pants. But it doesn’t matter because—”

  “It matters to me. My best friend’s probably in the lodge and three women I know. And probably the restaurant staff, too.”

  Umeko waited patiently for me to finish before saying, “Because you’ve helped me, I’ll help put you at ease by telling you something I shouldn’t. No one is monitoring the communications on this island more closely than my father’s”—Umeko caught herself as she turned to look at the man’s corpse—“more closely than our people in Beijing and Singapore. If they contacted my father with information, they would have sent the same message to me, too. And they didn’t.”

  “They could have messaged your father just as the jammer was being activated. It’s possible.”

  “Dr. Ford, you are worrying needlessly. But if you feel so strongly, go to the fishing lodge. I’m not stopping you.”

  No, she wasn’t. But I needed that damn pistol. I could feel the seconds ticking away, which is why I found the woman’s certainty so irritating. To shake her, I said, “Then you already know about the five activists who showed up without an invitation?”

  Instead, I was the one taken aback. “Yes, of course. Your information is wrong, though. There are seven members here, not five.”

  Seven? Tomlinson made six—who was the other member? But I didn’t doubt the woman. She’d known that Third Planet had planned to crash the party, which connoted their prior e-mails had been reviewed and dismissed as harmless.

  Impressive. The information diluted some of my anxiety about an IED, yet I wasn’t fully convinced. Vladimir had been so damn sure! Then Umeko caused me to wince when, almost as an afterthought, she knelt and picked up the handgun. From the way she carried it—index finger along the barrel—it was obvious she knew how to use it.

  I tried another approach. “What about the woman at your table tonight? Is she your sister? If you’re wrong, she and a lot of others are in danger. Maybe she knows if your father was contacted.”

  Umeko’s sarc
astic laughter was unexpected. “That’s exactly what I should do. Go and find her. You’re talking about one of the richest woman in all of China. Possibly the entire world. Do you realize that? As of tonight, it’s true.”

  I said, “I don’t get it. Why would your sister inherit more than you?”

  Umeko ignored the question by replying, “Excuse me, this dress is filthy,” and walked toward what was probably a bedroom, carrying the gun. She paused only to take one of the candles. I didn’t know what to do. Was she going to slip out a window? Or slam the bedroom door and lock it?

  No, because a moment later Bohai’s daughter raised her voice so I could hear. “Sakura is much too beautiful to be my sister. The parts of her that are real, anyway. She’s my stepmother.”

  The woman with the Anglo-Malaysian eyes, I realized.

  “Not many men make that mistake, even though we’re the same age. I guess I should be flattered. And maybe I shall be—but later. Right now, I feel numb.”

  I was wondering if Umeko knew that her stepmother had been spending private time with Kazlov. But asking her now had the flavor of cruelty, so I raised my voice to ask, “Did she ever carry your father’s phone? Some wives do.”

  “You have a very orderly mind, Dr. Ford. I admire that. You’re thinking that Viktor’s bodyguard would have a reason to conceal Sakura’s name if she’d supplied Viktor with information. Particularly a secret transmission intended for her husband. I don’t like the woman. No—I despise the woman. But my father would have never trusted her with his phone or anything else of importance. Once again, I’m afraid you’re worrying needlessly.”

  I had turned my attention to Lien Bohai’s body as she spoke, suddenly aware of a detail I had missed earlier. Or… maybe a detail that hadn’t appeared until now. On the man’s rib cage, beneath the left nipple and several inches from where I’d injected the epinephrine, was a thread of blood. Fresh blood, it looked like, brief drainage from an unseen wound. I couldn’t figure it out. I cleaned my glasses, grabbed the lone candle and took a closer look as Umeko continued talking.

  “In Chinese, ‘sakura’ means ‘wild cherry blossom.’ My father believed it a sign of great fortune that his beautiful new bride, and his unattractive daughter, were both named for flowers. I thought I would never understand the stupidity of men, but now I do. Rich men marry their mistresses because they have so much in common. They are both ruthless and both are whores.”

  Umeko reappeared, wearing slacks, running shoes and a baggy colorless blouse, the pistol in her right hand. Eyes avoiding her father’s corpse, she began opening drawers, looking for something. She appeared to be in a hurry.

  “Where’s his shirt?” I asked.

  The woman was preoccupied. She opened one last drawer and then turned her attention to a leather suitcase, probably her father’s.

  “I can’t stay here tonight. Not with… with his body in the same house. You’re right, though, when you say it’s dangerous to go outside. Would you be willing to help me move his body to the courtyard?”

  Behind the couch, I had spotted Bohai’s dinner jacket. I retrieved it, then held up the man’s white dress shirt. After inspecting it for a moment, I asked, “Did you notice this bloodstain? It’s dried blood. Not much. It would be easy to miss.”

  Umeko looked up from the suitcase and shook her head. “He hit his forehead when he fell, I think. Maybe it came from there.”

  “No. It came from the left side of his rib cage”—I used a finger to point—“from what looks like a small hole. A puncture wound the size of a needle. Or an ice pick. When I injected the adrenaline, the pressure must have reopened the wound for a second or two.”

  A few seconds later, I was holding the shirt close to a candle. “There’s a tiny little hole, too. It’s tough to see because of the bloodstain. But it’s there.”

  I was picturing Sakura, the exquisite beauty, in the swimming pool, reaching to untether her hair, as I watched the stepdaughter’s expression. “Umeko, do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “No, I don’t. He had a heart attack. I was with him when it happened.”

  “You’re wrong. I think your father was murdered. The blood, and a puncture wound in his chest that matches the hole in this shirt. I can’t explain it any other way. When the lights went out, I think someone stuck him and kept going. The police can help us figure out later who did it.”

  The expression of shock on Umeko’s face was real. She seemed more overwhelmed by this than the fact that her father was dead. I turned toward the door. “Listen. We have to deal with what’s happening now. I’ve still got about twenty-five minutes, and there could be a dozen people in that building. Why take the chance?”

  The woman’s thoughts had turned inward, as if reconsidering. My guess was, she was going over the night’s events, trying to remember if Sakura had left the dining room long enough to be alone with Viktor Kazlov or had an opportunity to pocket Bohai’s phone. But then my attention shifted abruptly to a distinctive sound from outside. A metallic sound that found its way through the broken doorway: the clack of a rifle bolt, then footsteps.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered. “Do you hear something?”

  I held a finger to my lips, nodded and pointed to the door as I moved to her side. “Give me the pistol.”

  Umeko pushed my arm away, shaking her head. “Is someone coming?”

  “Give me the pistol. A guy took a shot at me ten minutes ago. I think he’s still after me.”

  The woman snapped, “And you led him here!” but then softened and said, “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

  “I’m familiar with weapons,” I told her. “If you know anything about me, you know it’s true.”

  As I watched the doorway, I felt a flicker of hope as her resolve appeared to waver. But then Umeko made a sound of exasperation and confessed, “The bloody gun’s not loaded. That’s what I was looking for. It’s Father’s pistol and he always hides the magazines when he’s not carrying the thing.”

  I hurried to blow out the candles, then took the woman’s arm. “Is there a back door to this place?”

  Yes, there was. When I opened it, though, a man blinded me with a tactical light that was clamped to the underside of a pistol. A moment later, behind us, someone else suddenly kicked the broken door off its chain.

  As I tried to shield my eyes, the man gave a simian howl that transitioned into panic when he saw what Umeko was still carrying in her hand. “Drop the goddamn gun!” he screamed. “Do it now!”

  The voice was manic fueled, an octave higher but recognizable. It was Markus Kahn.

  The video game wizard, apparently, was now lost in a new vortex. It was the fantasy that he had turned pro.

  13

  Before Kahn nearly maimed us all by taking a jar from my vest and shaking it, he painted Lien Bohai’s corpse with the gun-mounted flashlight and said to his partner, “Damn it! Wish I’d found him first.”

  The old man was lucky to die a natural death, Kahn meant. He was a nervous, sullen introvert unused to bragging or making threats, which added to the impression he was trying hard to be something he was not. But being in the presence of an actual corpse had energized him in some strange way and he couldn’t hide his excitement. Death. It was right there, within arm’s reach. And real. Not like on a video screen.

  “One of the Big Four is definitely DOA,” he said through a black ski mask as if transmitting on a radio. “One down, three to go.”

  The theatrics struck me as bizarre until I realized both men wore pin-sized cameras strapped to their heads. They were recording it all on their cell phones.

  Talas, Armanie, Bohai and Kazlov were the Big Four, of course. Kahn was talkative, frenetic, like he was amped up on Adderall. More surprisingly, he seemed eager to impress me.

  I didn’t tell Kahn that videoing their “assault” was adolescent, pretentious and tasteless. What I did tell him was that some sort of device might be detonated at midnight
, which meant that he might have less than twenty minutes to live unless they stopped playing games and did something about it.

  As I studied the reactions of the two men, I saw nothing to indicate they knew anything about a bomb. Just the opposite. The possibility that it was true seemed to scare Kahn, although he forced brittle laughter. He was visibly agitated as he panned his gun-mounted flashlight around the room, then stopped when it was pointed at Umeko’s face.

  “Do you know anything about this bomb bullshit?”

  “I wouldn’t be on the island if I believed it,” the woman replied, staying cool.

  “She doesn’t know that for sure.” I interrupted. It was 11:42 p.m., and I wasn’t going to stand here listening to any more talk. To the woman I said, “Tell them the truth. You’re not a hundred percent sure.”

  Umeko said to Kahn, “You’re blinding me with that light. Do you mind?” then took a moment to rub her eyes. “There is a small possibility that Dr. Ford is right. But it’s unlikely.”

  Kahn scratched at the ski mask, muttering, “The caviar leeches, they’re all rich. They’ve got no reason to do something so crazy. And nobody in our group has anything like that planned. So it’s bullshit. Don’t you think, Trapper?”

  His partner was even jumpier than Kahn. “Yeah, Rez. Sure,” he said. “Rez”—Kahn’s nickname. But Trapper sounded worried. He was the skinny guy I’d seen earlier in the fishing lodge, standing at the door, playing with his cell phone. Neither of them were actors and their reactions convinced me they didn’t know a damn thing about a bomb threat. It meshed with the probability that his group’s e-mails had been monitored by Umeko and her people. But if Lien Bohai’s intelligence team was so good, why were these two jerks running around with weapons, wearing masks and holding us at gunpoint?

  Kahn put the light on me. “You trying to scare us? Because it’s not going to work.”

  I said, “Why not evacuate the lodge, just to be on the safe side? If there’s even that small possibility—”

  He snapped, “Kiss my ass!” then gestured toward the dead man. “People like him are bloodsuckers who get what they deserve. Besides, after what happens to the world tonight”—nervous laughter again—“who really gives a damn?”