“Very well,” Clark said. “Let’s get going before someone shows up with more meat pies.” He looked at Ismaya and gave a slow shake of his head, groaning like he was very, very tired. “Kid,” he said, “I sure wish you would have stayed home.”
Four minutes later, Chavez, Adara, and Caruso were heading north on Sam Ratulangi with the four-by-four plastic box containing the tech in hand. Oddly, the terabyte thumb drive was laser-etched CALLIOPE. Clark, Ryan, and Midas followed in the van behind them. Clark made the call and got the F-15s in the air.
“Glad you brought the ketamine,” Midas said over the radio.
“We could have,” Clark said. “But I never trust knots alone.”
“Truth,” Midas said. “Batman always figures a way out of that shit when they leave him alone. Anyhow, I don’t think the kid knew a damn thing about Ding.”
“Probably not,” Clark said. “He’ll be fine in an hour or so. By then we’ll be gone. So, let me get this straight, Ding. Suparman’s guys caught you on video during your game store recon, and then the facial-recognition software running on the cameras at the hotel across the street popped you as a possible threat?”
“Looks good so far.” Clark checked his watch. “Eagles will touch down in… eighty-seven minutes.”
Sophie Li spoke between ragged breaths, trying in vain to control her sobs. “We have got to call the police.”
She was in the backseat, staring up at the headliner while her daughter used paper towels from the SUV’s glove box to stanch the flow of blood from the wound on her arm. The gash hurt like hell, but there didn’t appear to be any major arteries clipped. They left so quickly that none of them had time to change clothes. James and Martha had grabbed jackets. Peter had on a pair of gray sweats and a white T-shirt, and Sophie still wore the Navy football jersey she used as a nightgown. The emergency go-bag Peter insisted they keep in the closet had cash, copies of their passports, a pistol, and a few snacks, but no extra clothes.
Sophie kicked the front seat. “Peter! Are you even listening to me?”
Li took a corner a little too fast, chirping the tires on the pavement. He glanced in the rearview mirror, his face glowing eerily from the dash lights. “Let’s wait on that a minute.”
Sophie bit her bottom lip to keep from screaming. “Wait? What are you talking about? Who are those people? Why were they in our house?”
“I don’t know who they were,” Peter said. “But it has to have something to do with one of my projects.”
“I think… I… They were speaking Mandarin,” James said, rocking back and forth, hyperventilating. “I caught… a couple… of words.”
Peter took one hand off the wheel long enough to squeeze the boy’s shoulder. “Slow down your breathing, son,” he said. “In fact, everyone slow it down. Count to three while you breathe in. Count to five while you exhale.” He looked in the mirror again. “You, too, sweetheart. It’ll lower your heart rate.”
“One of your projects?” Sophie asked, needing answers.
“There’s been a little trouble at work,” Peter said. “I caught one of my engineers going into the vault with an ID stolen from another employee.”
“And he wants you dead?”
“She,” Peter said. “I don’t think she’s that high up in the food chain. But it could be who she’s working for.”
“We still have to call the police,” Sophie said.
“And we will,” Peter said. “But they’ll go after the people who tried to kill us.”
“Good,” Sophie said.
“Right,” Peter said. “But this feels a little too big for our local department.”
“Then call the FBI,” Sophie said. “I don’t give a rat’s ass who you call, but I want some badges and guns here right damned now!”
“Listen,” Peter said, gripping the wheel until his knuckles went white. “Those guys were Chinese. There’s reason to believe my employee is an agent of the Chinese government. That means the people in our house were also agents of the Chinese government. They could have people everywhere. My number-one priority here is to keep you safe, not solve any crime.”
Peter made another turn, slowing now that he was in town. Sophie wished he would speed so they would get pulled over and she could get a cop to help her.
“Where are we going?” she asked, figuring it out when she saw the sign for the mechanic’s shop.
“We’re going to switch cars,” Peter said.
“Switch cars?” Sophie shook her head. Her husband had gone completely insane. “Just. Call. The. Police. Why do we need to switch cars?”
