Jack motioned for Laura to pause and they heard the sound of the Fat Man panting as he slowly climbed upwards. They allowed a little more space between them before continuing. On the fourth level, they heard the men leave the stairwell and walk down the open corridor.
Seconds later, Jack heard the sound of a knock on a door. He peered around the corner and saw the men being let into an apartment part way down the hall.
“I'm going to give you the cell,” he whispered to Laura. “Go back out and try to figure out where we are and call Sonny. Make sure you're far enough away when you do. I don't want anyone hearing an English voice.”
Laura nodded and took the phone and started to descend the stairs. Seconds later, she returned and grabbed Jack's sleeve. “Come on, hurry,” she said. “Someone is coming up the steps behind us.”
Jack and Laura went up another level and listened to the sound of two people approaching from below. Their footsteps
indicated that they also headed down the same corridor as the Russians.
Jack and Laura went back down to watch and saw the figures of a woman and a child venturing down the hall. The child pointed to the apartment door that the Russians had entered. The woman bent over and whispered to the child who then scurried back toward the stairwell.
Jack and Laura quickly retreated once more and heard the child running down the stairwell toward the exit before returning to their position to watch.
The woman knocked on the apartment door. It opened a crack and a short conversation in Vietnamese took place. The door closed with the woman remaining in the hall.
Seconds later, the solitude of the apartment building came to an abrupt end. The woman screamed in Vietnamese and the door rattled with the pounding of her fists. Voices shouted out from nearby apartments.
Another explosion of voices came from inside that apartment, with a man yelling in Vietnamese while the Fat Man yelled in Russian. Jack heard Moustache Pete say, “Make that bitch shut up!”
“Fuck you!” yelled the woman in the hall. “Give me Chi ... or I'll stand here and yell all night!”
“She sounds like an American!” whispered Laura.
The woman turned and Jack saw her face and said, “She's Caucasian all right. Looks like she's only in her early twenties. Whoever she is, she's liable to get herself killed if she keeps this up.”
“Just love foreign travel, don't you?” said Laura.
Jack caught her meaning and replied, “Yeah, especially the part where we're not allowed to carry guns.”
The apartment door opened again and another heated exchange took place in Vietnamese between the woman and a
man in the apartment. A neighbouring apartment door opened and another man stuck his head out to see the commotion.
Seconds later, Moustache Pete appeared holding a girl by the wrist. He flung her into the hall and stepped back inside, slamming the door shut behind him.
The girl started yelling and Jack guessed she was about eleven or twelve years old. The young woman grabbed her by the wrist and started for the stairwell, but the girl was crying and dragging her feet as she tried to return to the apartment.
The woman ignored her demands and spoke harshly in Vietnamese as she dragged the girl down the hall.
Jack and Laura stepped back before following the woman and girl down the stairwell. They stopped at the exit and watched as the woman argued with her just outside the door. The woman cursed in English, but continued to speak Vietnamese.
“What do you want to do?” asked Laura.
Jack shook his head in wonderment and said, “I don't know who this young lady is, but I think we should talk to her and explain who we are.”
“Could blow our whole case if this gets back to the guys upstairs.”
“She has guts trying to save this kid. I think we can trust herâlet's hope we can do it quietly.”
Jack and Laura stepped out onto the sidewalk and Jack took off the green helmet he had been wearing.
The woman and girl quit talking and stared at the new arrivals.
“Excuse me,” said Jack quietly. “Does this girl speak any English?”
“Not really,” the woman replied,” looking at them suspiciously. “Her name is Chi. She only knows the basic manners and to say hello. Who are you?”
“We are both police officers from Canada.”
“From Canada!” the woman said in amazement.
“Yes. We are what are sometimes referred to as Mounties. My name is Jack Taggart and this is my partner, Laura Secord.”
“I know what the RCMP is,” she replied. “I was born in Calgary. My name is Tarah Mulligan.”
“You're Canadian!” It was Jack's turn to be amazed. “What the hell are you doing in Hanoi?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing, but first, do you have any identification?” she asked.
Jack stepped closer to discreetly show his badge. Chi knocked Tarah's arm out of the way and saw the badge.
“Công an!” the child gasped.
Jack knew it was Vietnamese for police and put his finger to his lips, but Chi immediately started yelling and broke free and ran back toward the apartment.
“Laura,” said Jack. “Grab her and shut her up!”
Laura grabbed her around the waist with one hand and put her other hand over her mouth.
Chi kicked and flailed her arms and started yelling again.
“She bit me!” said Laura.
“Slap a sleeper on her!” ordered Jack.
“We're not allowed to useâOh, man ...”
Laura wrapped an arm around Chi's neck, while using her other arm in a pincer-like move to restrict the flow of blood to the carotid arteries in her neck.
“You sons of bitches!” yelled Tarah. “You're killing her!” she said, making a grab for Laura as the child went limp.
“Jesus, not you too,” muttered Jack, moving toward Tarah.
“What the hell! Put me down!” demanded Tarah.
Jack set Tarah on her feet and she angrily looked around. She was now half a block away from the apartment and on the street around the corner from the lane.
Chi was standing looking at Laura, who was holding her by the hand and saying, “See? Tarah is okay now. She was just taking a nap.”
Jack looked at Tarah and said, “I'm sorry. But there are two men in that apartment that we have spent a lot of time trying to catch. They traffic in human flesh ... children,” said Jack, pointing to Chi for emphasis. “We've come a long way and can't afford to jeopardize our investigation at this point.”
“How long was I out?” asked Tarah, blinking her eyes.
“About ten or fifteen seconds. Are you okay?”
Tarah glared at Jack and asked Chi a question in Vietnamese.
Chi nodded that she was okay.
“Did you have to do that to us?” asked Tarah.
“I'm sorry, but I didn't see any other option. I want to catch these guys. Right now, we still don't have enough evidence to convict them. If they know we're on to them, we lose everything. I really want them to go to jail.”
“They should be in jail,” said Tarah.
“Does your neck hurt?”
“I'm fine,” admitted Tarah, while massaging her neck with her hand. “I wouldn't have known I was out, except suddenly you were carrying me and I'm here instead of down there,” she said, using her thumb to point toward the lane. “You freaked me out.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Jack.
“I used to teach in Calgary, but got tired of all the spoiled, snotty little rich kids who think the world owes them a favour. I came here and found kids who really need help. I'm a volunteer with The Blue Dragon Children's Foundation.”
“I never heard of the Blue Dragon,” said Jack.
“It was started by a man out of Australia,” said Tarah. “In Vietnam, it is the only social work program for street kids. I operate a soup kitchen just a couple of blocks from here. Some kids don't have any parents or others are from poor families. I entice the children with food, soccer games, music, artsâanything that works. The idea is to try to educate them so they'll have a better option than ending up in prostitution. At the soup kitchen, we teach them to cook and how to be waiters and waitresses.”
“Sounds impressive,” said Jack.
“If you have time, we have a restaurant called Koto that is run almost entirely by our kids who are older and have been through our program. Many will be able to get jobs in some of the best hotels and restaurants around. We also teach them English, so they'll have an advantage over the others.”
“I admire you for having the courage to step forward and do what is right. You've got a lot of guts.”
Tarah shrugged and said, “If anyone saw these children ... how much they need help ... the look on their faces when you do get through to them. Believe me, it is worth it.”
“What do you know about the men in the apartment you just went to?” asked Jack.
“One of the street kids told me that Chi was being taken and sent to live with some family in America. She's an orphan here, so I guess it sounded pretty good. When I heard the name of the Vietnamese man who took her, I knew it was probably a lie. He has a reputation for being involved in drugs and prostitution. I found out where Chi was and got her back. No big deal.”
“What you did was a hell of a big deal,” said Jack. “Think maybe we can walk to your soup kitchen and talk?”
“Sure. For a donation, I'll also make you breakfast.”
When they reached the soup kitchen, Tarah brought them inside a long narrow room with a wooden table lined with chairs. They sat down, but it was apparent that Chi was going to try to escape as soon as she could. Tarah argued with her in Vietnamese and Jack asked her what she said.
“I told her she was too young to end up in some brothel in America. She doesn't believe me and says she is being adopted by a rich family and will later work in a nice hotel. Yeah, right! Like I haven't heard that story before! She's only twelve years old, so ...”
Chi made a dash toward the door, but Tarah grabbed her by the arm and made her sit down.
Jack told Tarah about another child, by the name of Hang, who also headed to America last January on a boat and ended up murdered in Surrey.
“Hang?” questioned Tarah. “It is not that unusual a name
here. What did she look like?”
“She had an extra thumb,” said Jack.
Tarah was visibly shaken. “I knew a kid like that. Used to come here once in awhile with her younger sister. She quit coming around Christmas. I asked the younger sister where she was and she told me Hang had been sent to live with relatives in Saigon. Maybe it is just a coincidence. Agent Orange had caused a lot of birth defects. There are manyâ”
“I have a picture of her,” said Jack, pulling out his wallet. I must warn you, it was taken after she was murdered. It is awful to look at.”
Tarah took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before nodding and reaching for the photo. She looked at the picture and immediately started to sob. Chi also looked, but was too frightened to cry and hugged Tarah and asked her a question in Vietnamese.
“Why is she like this?” asked Tarah, ignoring Chi and pointing to the picture. “Her face ...?”
“She was held captive for months by a sadist and tortured,” said Jack quietly. “Maybe you should explain that to Chi.”
Tarah explained the situation to Chi, who immediately started crying. Tarah hugged her and gently whispered to her. Eventually Chi quit crying but she kept her arms around Tarah. There was no longer any fear of her returning to the apartment.
“Would you ask Chi, please, how many others were in the apartment we were just at?” asked Jack.
Tarah spoke with Chi briefly and Jack saw the surprise register on Tarah's face.
“She says there were about forty young women,” said Tarah. “Chi guesses that most of the others are between the ages of sixteen to twenty-two. There were also two foreign men and three Vietnamese men in the apartment.”
“The two foreign men are the ringleaders,” said Jack. “They're both Russian.”
“I had no idea there were that many people in there,” said Tarah. “I thought it was just a couple of women and Chi who were going.”
“Maybe just as well for you that you didn't know,” said Jack. “Do you know where Hang's father is now?”
Tarah nodded and said, “His name is Bien. He lives with his mother in a room off an alley in the next block. He works as a tour guide now. He speaks good English. Are you going to tell him?”
Before Jack could reply, Tarah said, “Or maybe I should.”
“We both should,” said Jack. He glanced at Laura and said, “Hand me the cell back, I'm going to call Sonny.”
“Who is Sonny?” asked Tarah.
“A Vietnamese policeman who has been working with us,” said Jack.
“Just a minute,” said Tarah. She spoke with Chi, who nodded and left the room.
“I sent her to get Bien,” continued Tarah. “I told her just to say that I had some urgent news. You might want to speak with him before he talks with the Vietnamese police. The relationship between the police and the people here is very different from Canada. He might be more forthcoming talking to us alone at first.”
“I understand,” said Jack.
“Oh,” said Tarah, “but I guess you need the police to get the people in the apartment before they ...”
“They can wait,” said Jack. “I'll talk to Bien first. From what we know, the Russians will have probably have left the apartment by now. All they do is take a quick look to confirm the ... quality of the merchandise ... and leave. We need to let things proceed like normal for the bad guys and hope we
can get more evidence. Perhaps with the Russians talking to the boat captain or paying him. Something to prove their involvement. Their being in the apartment is not enough.”
“It might be enough here in Vietnam,” suggested Tarah.