River of No Return : A Jake Trent Novel (9781451698053) (28 page)

55

JACKSON, WYOMING. THE SAME DAY.

2 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

Esma was still. It was over.

Who designed this cruel machine?
J.P. thought.

Her blood was on the bed, but her body was not. A tangle of cords remained in a nest by her pillow. J.P. stared at it, still in shock. Then he let out a sigh of relief and looked to the corner of the room, where Layle was helping soothe Esma while the doctor stitched up her incision.

On the floor next to the bed lay an unusual looking device. Small like a pill and shiny chrome. It hadn't buzzed or sparked or done anything movie-worthy. Instead, it clicked softly every thirty seconds or so, and continued doing so now on the linoleum.

Layle must have noticed J.P. staring. “Don't touch it.”

J.P. walked over and crushed it like a bug with his size 12 Timberlands. Then he sat on the bed to catch his breath.

It had been a blur to J.P. Deputy Layle had raced into the hospital room, hollering about Esma's heart attack and threatening to “take the damn thing out myself!”

The doctor then resisted, while J.P. looked on in horror.

Layle took out his phone and called Jake. No answer. He left a short voice mail. “Jake! They won't listen!”

“I'll call security if I have to!” the doctor shouted.

Layle had finally seen enough; he pinned the MD against the wall and spoke calmly but sternly. Their faces were only an inch apart. “Listen to me. That woman right there is going to die. You can choose to be either a hero or a hindrance.” He tossed the man to the ground and approached Esma.

“Fine! Don't touch her!” The doctor stood up and shouted into the hallway for local anesthetics and an extra hand.

A careful incision was then made four inches above her left breast while J.P. and Layle held her down. With the help of a surgical assistant, a thoracoscope was inserted into Esma's chest cavity.

“No history of heart disease?” the doctor asked the assistant.

“None.”

“Okay, there's something here. Confirm, please, that she doesn't have a pacemaker.”

“No pacemaker.”

“Oh my God.” The doctor was frozen for a second. “You're right. It's something . . . I don't know . . . man-made.”

“Hurry!” J.P. shouted.

The doctor startled and got back to his task. He reached in carefully with his hemostats and removed the device. For a second, he held it in front of his eyes in amazement.

Click.
Click.

“
Shit!” The doctor dropped the chip, hemostats and all, into a surgical tray. “Thing shocked me!”

“Nobody touch it!” Layle kicked the whole tray to the ground.

It was a peculiar-looking object, like something from a sci-fi film. Two short nodes on one end, and two tiny wires leaving the other.

“Pretty sure it's dead,” the doctor said. J.P. was still standing over the crushed mess of tiny wires. “We're going to take her to a clean room. Give us ten minutes.”

J.P. only nodded. He walked out to the waiting area with Layle, who, after helping him sit, brought over a Styrofoam cup of ice water. J.P. gulped it down.

“You're okay.” Layle was kneeling on the tile in front of J.P. “Look at me. You're okay. We did it.”

“Fucking nightmare,” was all J.P. said, and Layle laughed.

“No shit.”

Dr. Antol bustled through the waiting room in street clothes, saying, “I'll be right back with you,” and headed back toward the ICU. The surgical assistant had called for her.

The color started to return to J.P.'s face. “How did you know?”

“Jake called me.”

A few minutes later, Dr. Antol returned to the waiting room.

“C'mon back,” she said in a soothing voice.

Esma's new room was only a few doors down. Layle waited outside while Dr. Antol took J.P. in.

“We gave her an injection for the pain, so she's sleeping now. She'll still have to be treated with antibiotics. A two-day course, at least.”

“And?”

“I'd be lying if I said we've ever experienced something like
this.” She looked into his desperate eyes. “But, I'd assume with that thing gone, she's not at risk anymore. How did this happen?”

“Some other time.”

The doctor left J.P. alone with Esma.

He slid a chair over from the window and sat. He leaned forward, rested his head on the bed at Esma's side, and started to cry.

56

IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO. THE SAME DAY.

3 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

Wright crossed Heise Road, to where Jake and Divya had gathered out of Meirong's view.

“You all right?”

Jake had another snowball to his nose and was listening to the voice mail from Deputy Layle. He still stared toward the industrial park, keeping an eye on Meirong without her getting wind of it. That would cost more lives.

“I need your help to go get her.” Wrong timing by Wright.

Jake growled back at him. “We backed off to stop her from killing an innocent person. Isn't one enough? She's too volatile to aggravate at this point.” Jake glared at the assistant director. His menacing gaze and twisted nose made Wright look down. There was silence for a moment.

Jake put the phone back in his pocket and spoke up. “You got
what you wanted, right? She's trapped—can't leave that compound without us knowing.”

“I'm sorry for anyone who died and their families, Jake.”

“Bullshit.”

“You don't know what my orders are.”

“You're not acting on orders. There's something in this for you.”

The towering Wright shook his head. “You think this makes me happy?”

Jake gave him a puzzled look.

“I can't get Charlotte Terrell back, Jake. I'm sorry. My orders are to keep Meirong.”

“Keep her?” Divya was intrigued too.

“I was charged with making sure she didn't disappear again, or worse, escape back to China. There was no way I could stop Xiao from taking the Terrells, and your friend . . . I didn't even know about your friend, Jake.”

“But you worked with Xiao? Schue told me everything.”

Wright chuckled. “I was a UC, Divya, a plant. I spent a few years in China getting as much information as I could on the technology and the Shar-Pei program. You know we can't share that information with other agencies.”

Jake didn't know whether to believe the man or not, but it didn't really matter. “So Xiao will just end up killing Charlotte, like he did the chief?”

“Probably not. If he kills her, he loses his bargaining power for Meirong, and the Chinese government rains hell upon him for losing her.”

“So Charlotte's a prisoner, indefinitely.”

“That's my guess.” Wright was taking intermittent glances back toward the building.

“What if more people are implanted, like she said?” Divya's voice waivered. Jake realized they were all in over their heads.

Wright just shrugged. He turned back to the laboratory building, where the crown jewel of Shar-Pei was unraveling.

“Why?” Jake shouted into the breeze.

Wright looked over his shoulder. “Because she's a threat to us if she goes home and an asset if she's here. Cold logic. I have to detain her now, Jake. With or without your help.”

“I'm not one of your kind anymore.”

Wright got in his car and went back down the hill to complete his mission, by force.

* * *

Jake got out of the shower at 5 p.m. Divya was gone.

He found her at the lobby bar, where she was having a gin and tonic.

“I could use something too.”

“Let's finish our drinks and get somewhere private.” She drained her cocktail.

Back in the room, Jake listened intently to Divya's explanation of Shar-Pei, Xiao, and Tram Village. He was focused now on Charlotte.

“What about a precision strike, a few men go in and get her?”

“We would never get the green light with Wright in charge. Besides, it would be way too risky. As soon as Xiao saw American forces, he would hole up with her or kill her.”

Jake agreed with Divya, especially on the latter point, but let his thoughts develop.

He stood up from the bed, a focused look on his face. “What if it wasn't Americans who were striking?”

“What, like a Trojan horse?”

“Not exactly. Let's go get my truck.”

57

IDAHO FALLS, IDAHO. THE SAME EVENING.

5:45 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

Assistant Director Wright was on his way to Salt Lake City, where there were facilities to detain and question Meirong, who was cuffed in the backseat. Jake and Divya were in the 4Runner a hundred miles behind him. As much as Jake despised Wright, he was their only chance to save Charlotte.

* * *

The drive from Idaho Falls was just over two hundred miles—the first few dozen of which followed the meandering Snake River on its way to the American Falls Reservoir. Farms eventually gave way to rolling sage slopes and mountain ranges south of Pocatello. Except for the highest mountain passes, the roads were dry. Easy driving.

Northern Utah was much the same until Tremont and Brigham City, where hay, corn, and barley farms dominated the landscape.

A text lit up the dark cabin of the SUV. Divya picked up Jake's phone.

“From J.P.,” she said.

Jake panicked, swerving over the rumble strips. “Lemme see.”

“She's okay.” Divya held the phone in front of her. Astonished.

“Lemme see.”

Jake had slowed to twenty-five miles per hour.

“She's alive, J.P. says. They got to her just in time.”

Jake exhaled loudly. “How did . . .” He stopped, overwhelmed.

Divya reached over and put her hand on his shoulder. “I don't know. But Esma's okay. You have missed calls from both J.P. and Layle. Must've been when we were in one of those deep valleys. You did it.”

“Thank God.” Jake went quiet for the next thirty miles. Then, out of nowhere: “Thank God.” Again.

* * *

They stopped just outside a small town in the Bear River area to refresh.

“You think it will work?” Divya had just returned to the parked 4Runner from a Conoco, where they stopped to get trail mix and coffee.

“I do.” Jake took one of the steaming cups from her and opened the door. “Thanks for the coffee.”

He pulled back onto Highway 15, headed south. They were approaching Ogden, where the northern reaches of the mountains that laid claim to Utah's most famous powder snow began to rise to their left. The grayish outline of the peaks was visible against the dark eastern sky. The snow line here was higher than up north,
and the weather in the valley, where the road ran, was warmer—in the upper forties, even though the sun had set.

They arrived in Salt Lake City at 10:30 p.m. It had taken some wheedling to get Wright to agree to let them come, and that was accomplished by Jake's threatening to take the thing public.

The hectic nature of a city always caught Jake by surprise. The roads were wide and full of cars, even at night. The inky-black darkness of the western sky was polluted by glowing signs and parking-lot streetlamps. Businesses, mostly big-box stores and megagroceries, were still open and bustling.

The small detention center for women where Meirong was being kept was located between the famous Temple and Capitol Hill, on West 300 North, a dreadfully unimaginative moniker.

Jake pulled in to the campus after receiving a visitor pass for himself and Divya at the front gate. The building was low—just three stories—and its landscaping surprisingly elaborate, reminiscent more of a suburban hotel than a prison. The only giveaways were the high fence around the perimeter and the powerful xenon flood lamps.

On the way inside, Jake pondered his chances. He had no viable avenue other than to appeal to Wright's sense of decency. That and his ego. The plan was reasonable, Jake thought, and would allow the assistant director to bury Terrell's death with one last heroic act.

* * *

They were buzzed in by an imposing Latina woman in her early forties who wasn't happy to be there.

“Thanks,” Jake said.

The woman responded only, “Follow me.”

Wright was sitting in an interrogation room—bright but austere. A place that might make you reconsider your decision not to cooperate.

A metal table sat in the middle of the room. Wright sat on an orange padded desk chair on one end and gestured for Jake and Divya to take a seat at the other, where there were two unpadded stools.

“So,” Wright started, “Divya says you have a plan to get Chief Terrell's wife out of China.” He too was sipping on a large coffee.

Jake cleared his throat. “What do you know about Tiananmen Square?”

The assistant director frowned and took a swig of coffee. “I was there from early April to the middle of May, when things got too hot.”

Jake tried to hide his surprise. “And how would you describe it?”

“Chaotic. Hell, scary. I don't know. What are you getting at?”

“The Chinese have a history of political protests. Riots, really, for social equality. I think we can use that to our advantage.”

He swallowed a gulp of coffee. “How?”

At least he's hearing me out.

“I think if we could leak information regarding Tram Village and the plan to perpetuate a dynasty of Shar-Peis, we could set off a chain reaction that might topple the place—a localized social revolution that would allow us to sneak in with as few as four or five men to get Charlotte out.”

Wright was rubbing his stubble, looking unconvinced. “And when you say men, you mean who? You're not going to go. I'm not going to go.”

“CIA with Special Forces.”

“And we'd need a heli or two?”

“Yes, sir.”

A long sigh. “What about recoil? We can't destroy our relations with China for one woman's life.”

This was why Jake hated the CIA, and politics in general. “Blame the dead senator. He leaked it, and the US had to respond to a citizen in danger. No choice.”

Wright was quiet. Jake and Divya exchanged looks. She mouthed something that might have been
Good
in his direction. Jake shrugged, thinking:
Worth a shot.

Wright cleared his throat. “Impossible.”

Jake's shoulders slumped, the last bit of hope starting to escape.

“You've been with the agency too long,” Divya blurted at Wright, who betrayed no emotion. “Let's go, Jake.” Divya stood up.

“Do you have a family, sir?” Jake was still sitting.

“A wife and one son.”

“What if her life was at risk? What if your son were to grow up without a mother? Would you want CIA hard-liners to dictate her fate?”

Wright shook his head. “I would want you to dictate her fate, but no man is bigger than the machine, Jake.”

Jake stood, but maintained glacial eye contact as he started to the door.

“I do appreciate everything. Both of you. But I've got a huge mess to clean up.”

Jake heard Wright's words as the door to the interrogation room slipped closed behind him.

They were silent until Jake started the car.

“What do we do now?” he asked Divya. He didn't look at her.

“I don't know.”

Divya returned her rental car and opted to fly out of Salt Lake. She called United, but there wasn't a flight available for twenty-four hours.

Jake felt guilty leaving her alone. “You can keep me company on the ride if you want. Fly out of Jackson.”

She agreed, hugging him and saying over and over again, “I'm sorry.”

“Are you going to stay with the agency?” he asked on the long ride home.

“I don't know. Might take a little break.” A pause. “Jake, I tried to do it right.”

“It's okay.” From his days at the Office, Jake knew how it felt.