River of No Return : A Jake Trent Novel (9781451698053) (21 page)

40

TRAM VILLAGE, CHINA. OCTOBER 27.

9 A.M. BEIJING TIME.

Xiao sat in his office perched above Main Street and tapped a pen on the rough cedar desk. How had he let Canart outmaneuver him? If the whole transaction blew up, he could face extradition to the United States. He couldn't let that happen.

He hadn't been in direct contact with Meirong for months.
Falling for the American senator. Foolish child.
That was the moment he'd lost control of the situation. It wasn't that he particularly cared with whom his daughter slept, but he had to be certain where her loyalty lay.

He'd tried to call the whole thing off. Get her home, find someone else he could trust to develop the chip. Someone with better resources, who could assure him that he would make the money he deserved.

They had made quite the team—the savvy, powerful father and
the brilliant-but-unpredictable daughter. Xiao had long known his daughter's intellect was his most valuable asset. Alone, she wasn't capable of using it to her best advantage, but he could help. Win, win.

With Meirong's new lust-driven allegiance to the senator, Xiao risked losing her, but there was no other way to play it. Ever since his wife's death, he'd longed for closure. Along with his will to ­survive—to
flourish
—solving his wife's murder was one of the things that drove him. He would never be satisfied until he knew who killed her, and why. And that was information Senator Canart said he possessed.

So he'd let the deal play out, at least for a reasonable amount of time.

The last remaining issue was what to do with Charlotte Terrell.

When Xiao entered the Wapiti Suite, Charlotte was at the window, watching trucks roll in from the main gate. He waved at the giant, dismissing him. Charlotte didn't acknowledge her captor.

“There is television, you know.” Xiao sat on the bed. Charlotte didn't respond. “What you looking for, Ms. Terrell?”

Charlotte walked over to the bed and stood over him defiantly. “What the hell is this place?”

Xiao stood, walked past her, and went to the window. “Do you see this?”

“The food trucks, yes.”

He chuckled. “Beyond the trucks.”

“Clouds.” Charlotte joined him.

“No clouds. Smog. The city. Do you know population of China?”

Charlotte shook her head, not following.

“Something like one and a half billion.”

“That's a lot of people.”

“True. But that's not the worst part. In the late eighteenth century, the entire world's population was less than that. Yet one scientist was horrified at the power of population. Do you know why?”

“No.”

“Because population growth is geometric, while sustenance is finite. Meaning, in a matter of time, any population outlives its welcome, so to speak.”

“And then?”

“Then we don't know. Chaos. Some say the strongest survive. But I am realist. And what do realists do?” A smile came to his face. “They buy insurance.”

“So, what are you saying? Tram Village is a colony?”

“When my daughter was fourteen, she showed me a calculation. A prediction. It has been spot-on. It won't be long before this country collapses. Man running like wild dog looking for a carcass. People killing one another, God only knows. But when it does collapse, I will be prepared.”

“Good for you.” Charlotte left him at the window.

Xiao turned to face her. “And so will you, should you remain prisoner.”

“You think you and your daughter will survive the end of the world in a country club?”

“It's only insurance, should we fail.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“Meirong has her ways, but the public finds them hard to swallow.”

“Why don't you just kill me?” Charlotte was sitting on the corner of the bed with her head in her hands.

“The same reason I built this very place we sit.”

“Insurance.”

“Now you're starting to understand.”

“But you are from a family of politicians—important men. Won't your government protect you?”

“It's a convenient story.” Xiao laughed. “Your husband told me he grew up in cow shit. I grew up in much worse than that.”

41

WEST BANK, SNAKE RIVER. OCTOBER 26.

2 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

Jake was pounding his fist on the fly-tying table and muttering profanities into his phone.
Pick up, pick up!
J.P. was just outside the front door smoking, so when he heard the beep, Jake tried to hush his infuriated tone.

“Divya, what the hell is going on? Two people are dead. I'll do whatever you want, but you have to tell me what's going on!”

“What a fucking week, man.” J.P. stepped back inside.

Jake hurried and ended the call. “Yeah. You doing okay?”

J.P. shrugged and looked at his phone, and Jake knew why. “When's next visiting hours?”

“Two hours for ICU.” J.P. plunked down on the couch and switched on the TV. Animal Planet was on, and Chayote came over to see what sort of prey might be flitting about on the magic window.

“I hate these commercials,” J.P. said at the break.

“
Help support the ASPCA.
Call now
,” urged a dried-up C-list celebrity. “
They need your help
.”

Chayote was barking at the still shots of flea-ridden dogs, accompanied by a Sarah McLachlan tune.

“I'd bark too, buddy,” J.P sympathized. “Those shih tzus are snobbish little bastards, even with flies on their faces.”

Jake was deep in thought about Esma, the chief, and the dead janitor, but J.P.'s comment got his attention. He looked up at the TV.

“That's not a shih tzu,” he said, standing up and hurrying to the kitchen counter where the laptop was charging. “That's a shar-pei.”

Shar-Pei. The code
name for the Chinese social-control experiment in 1999. The
GPSN experiment.

Jake opened the computer. J.P. joined him at the counter, peering over his left shoulder. He typed “Detective Tim Rapport Rick Canart” into Google.

“Son of a bitch.” Jake didn't even need to open any of the results. The two names appeared together in multiple contexts. High school football recaps, articles of incorporation for various businesses, and Idaho state and county legislation.

Jake fumbled through his wallet to find Rapport's card. He took his phone from his pocket and dialed the station in Salmon, Idaho.

“Police, nonemergency. How can I help you?” It was the ancient secretary.

“I need Detective Rapport, please.”

“One moment.” Hold music. Billy Joel, elevator-style.

C'mon.

“Sir?” The centenarian was back. “May I ask who's calling?”

Shit.
“It's Jake Trent.”

A pause. “Regarding?”

“I think I left a jacket in the detective's office.”

“I'll be right with you.”

Billy Joel again. J.P. gave an inquisitive face. Jake held up his forefinger, telling him to be patient.

“He's out of the office,” the woman said. “And I didn't see any jacket.”

“Thanks.” Jake pressed End.

“We've got a problem,” he said to J.P. He dialed another number.

“Layle. Tell me about the wolf.”

Jake stood there listening to the deputy chief with an astonished look on his face.

“
What?
” J.P. whispered.

“Right,” Jake said into the phone, “we need to get ahold of Noelle right away and see what the biologist said.” A pause. “But I think it'd be better if you called.”

Jake ended the call and walked with the laptop back to the couch. J.P. followed. Chayote sensed the excitement and jumped up to join them.

Jake searched for pictures of wolf fur but didn't find a detailed enough picture. The general coloration looked similar to what he remembered—banded segments that ranged from light to dark. Black tips.

He was getting antsy, tapping on the armrest of the couch, thinking of what else he could do from home.
Nothing.

“What?” J.P. asked again.

“Feel like playing sidekick again? I'll bring you up to speed in the car.”

J.P. stood up. “Hell yeah. That is, if you tell me what's going on.”

“Bring Chayote.”

* * *

On the ride, Jake filled J.P. in with enough information to stop him from asking more questions. Or so he thought. The Mariner was still in the driver's-side door sleeve. When they hit Moran Junction, Jake pulled it out, loaded a round in the chamber, put the safety back on, and tucked it into the space between the driver's seat and the center console.

“What's with the gun these days?”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“So do all retired lawyers carry limited-edition Glocks?” J.P. was pushing Jake further than he had in all the time they'd known each other.

“Only the ones who own bed-and-breakfasts.”

J.P. stayed quiet for a moment, hoping for an elaboration. When it didn't come, he spoke again. “C'mon, man.”

They still had twelve miles before the turn up the Buffalo Fork. Jake decided to give him a bone. “You know the story, basically.”

“The Office of Special Investigations? I've googled it.”

“Ninety percent of the job description was finding and prosecuting those who had committed crimes against humanity—Nazis first, and then as they died off, Bosnian Serbs and Hutus in Rwanda. People like that.”

“People who committed genocide.”

Jake nodded. “A lot of paperwork and negotiating with the International Criminal Courts to root them out.”

“And the other ten percent?” J.P. was looking at the Glock.

Jake took a deep breath. “As civilian experts on war crimes—academics, really—we could get into places the US military couldn't. We consulted foreign governments, attended diplomatic summits, things like that.”

“Summits? With a Glock?”

Jake let out a forced laugh. “That's where my story becomes classified.”

J.P. turned and looked Jake in the eye. “Hit me with it.”

“When the US government lost hope that its courts or the ICC would be able to prosecute one of these criminals using the formal legal process, we occasionally . . . A select few of the prosecutors, including me, were tasked to carry out the legal process ourselves. In an informal way.”

“Judge, jury, and executioner.”

Goddamn, he put
that succinctly.
“Yeah,” Jake said. It was the first time he'd revealed the true nature of his prosecutorial career to anyone outside the Big Office.

“What about in Philly?” Apparently J.P. wasn't satisfied.

“Different deal in the small office. We were investigating domestic organized crime, police and political corruption, things like that.”

“But you needed a gun.”

“In that office, prosecutors are trained law-enforcement officers. We can't always trust the local authorities on the ground.”

They made the left turn up Buffalo Fork Road. The scarecrow's decrepit hunting camp was only a mile or so ahead, on the right.

“And you're carrying it now because you know something?”

“I'm carrying it now because I
don't
know something.”

A few hundred yards before the driveway, Chayote started whining and scratching at the window. “Hold on, buddy,” Jake said.

Jake eased the 4Runner toward the house, all the while scanning the property, looking for the tall man. Visibility was good—Jake could see the whole way past the house and to the riverbank—and there was no sign of him.

“Shut up, Chayote.” J.P. blew in the dog's face, which made him sneeze.

“Let him be,” Jake said. He left the 4Runner forty yards out from the ramshackle camp. “Wait here.”

Jake had the Mariner drawn, but at his side, concealed. He approached the shack carefully, looking through the makeshift tarpaulin windows, front and back. Next, he checked the garage—still no white Tercel. Walking back to the vehicle, he tucked the Mariner into the back of his pants and pulled his shirt over it.

He opened the passenger door. “We're good.” Before J.P. could exit, Chayote jumped over his lap and bounded off, headed upstream of the structure.

“Hey!” J.P. shouted. “Get back here!”

“Let him go,” Jake said. “I know where he's going.” Chayote showed no intention of listening anyway.

“Come with me.” J.P. followed Jake around the side of the shack, toward the riverbank. The ground in the shade of the building was still frozen from the night before, crunching under their footfalls.

Around back, Jake stopped and muttered, “Of course.”

“What?”

“I should have known.” Jake stooped down and looked at a narrow pair of tire tracks that went around the other side of the camp. “He's gone. Let's go find Chayote.”

“Who's gone?” J.P. hurried to catch Jake, who was walking fast upstream.

“I don't know him, or exactly what his role is. But he was a person of interest, and we missed it at first. And now he's gone. He had an old ATV back there that he uses to get around.”

Up in the distance, Chayote was furiously digging, pausing occasionally to wolf down whatever scraps he deemed edible.

“What's he up to?”

“I'll show you.”

When they arrived at the burial site, Jake sternly called off Chayote, who reluctantly slunk away with his crimson-red muzzle to chase mergansers in the river.

Chayote had dug a hole only six inches deep, but the carcass of the animal was becoming exposed. Jake took a rock from beside the grave site and unearthed a broad shoulder of tan, brown, and black fur.

“The wolf?”

Jake stood. “Let's go see what we can find in the cabin.”

They beckoned Chayote and he tromped along below them in the river shallows.

Jake tried the back door, where they could enter without any neighbors or passersby noticing, but it was locked. So was the front entrance, but the door featured a small window.

“Got it,” J.P. said, and gladly plowed his elbow through the glass.

“Nice one.” Jake reached through and unlocked the door.

The smell of mildew filled the air. The interior was spartan. No TV, no computer or microwave. The kitchen consisted only of a Coleman propane range and a Tupperware washbasin. No running water. In the living area, nothing but a long couch, a cheap sleeping bag, and a few dog beds scattered on the floor.

Jake bent down. The dog beds were coated in fur similar to that of the carcass. But was it wolf, or a heavy-coated breed like a husky?

Along the south wall was a long desk with two mismatched chairs. The lack of dust in spots suggested things had been recently moved from the desk's surface. Jake opened a large drawer, filled mainly with disorganized letters and maps. From the bottom, he pried an 11x16-inch framed document, set it on the desk, and wiped the dust off. It was a diploma.

The University of California, proudly confers upon ERIC WILLIAM YOUST the degree of Philosophiae Doctor in Applied Science and Technology

Jake took a picture with his phone to note the name and put the framed document back in the drawer.

“Look at this.” J.P. crossed the dingy hardwood floor toward Jake. He handed him a framed picture of the cabin on a snowy day. A slim Asian woman stood near the front door, flanked by two large wolves with grizzled gray coats.
The woman Divya and Layle are
after.

He handed it back to J.P. “Bring it with us.”

The place was mostly bare—cleaned out by the scarecrow upon his quick exit. Jake took a few pictures of the interior and opened the rough wooden door to the garage.

The light in the garage was dim—a single fluorescent bulb illuminated a workbench in the very back. As they made their way in that direction, a series of hurried clicks carried through the garage doorway from the main cabin. The latch on the front door was being tested against the strike plate.

“Hell was that?” J.P. stopped dead in his tracks.

“Quiet!”

Jake cautiously turned to face whatever might be coming. He reached behind his back and gripped the Glock. Another series of frantic jiggles, then a hard push. Jake pulled the gun and silently moved back into the main cabin, squaring himself to the front entrance.

The visitor made a few more weak attempts.
Click. Click. Click.
Jake peered through a roughly shaped Plexiglas window. No vehicle in sight.

Scratch. Scratch.
J.P. began to chuckle from the garage. Jake replaced the weapon in his waistband, stepped forward to the door, and opened it.

Chayote rushed in, ignoring Jake, more eager to sniff every piece of furniture and floor that had been touched by the canines of unfamiliar scent. Jake took a quick look around outside and shut the door.

“Shoulda shot him,” Jake muttered as he came through to the garage. “Let's make this quick.”

Jake and J.P. combed through boxes of old clothes, records, and broken electronics under the workbench. Jake noted a crate of 10W-30 motor oil, wondering whether the ATV was a four-stroke. If it was, the scarecrow had no need for regular synthetic and had lied about owning a car—possibly an old Tercel.

“What's all this?”

J.P. was crouched down, inspecting his fingertips. Tiny flecks of bronze glimmered in the vague light. Jake took a closer look.

“Copper wire ends, looks like.” Jake looked around the bench, which he now noticed was littered with similar scraps.

“Your boy is a real handyman.”

“Looks like it. Let's get out of here.”

Jake left the cabin dragging the heeler, who was preoccupied growling at an especially furry corner of the couch.

There was a dried-up mud puddle where the driveway met the road. Jake put the 4Runner in park, jumped out, and snapped a picture of a set of skinny tire tracks.

When he got reception near Moran, he dialed a phone number for only the second time in a decade.