Mark Gilleo - Sweat

Peter came out the door as Senator Day tried to quiet the crowd. Al stepped from the building next, Wei Ling sandwiched safely between himself and Jake, who brought up the rear. Detectives Wallace and Nguyen were in pursuit, flashing their badges at anything that moved as they forced their way to the exit. Through the door, Wallace pointed down the stairs at Jake and Wei Ling. Nguyen moved in.

The crowd quieted slowly, Senator Day’s hands waving up and down, begging for silence. His lips moved first, his mouth opened in slow motion, and then he doubled over as blood sprayed from two new holes in his chest.

The echo of three rapid-fire gunshots was the start to a full scale riot. The media scattered, cameras rolling in every direction. Trees, the sun, stairs, and legs caught in shaky frames on film. Senator Day’s body tumbled down half a flight of stairs before coming to rest on his right side, shoulder and head below his feet. The AWARE group and their homeless friends lost their urge to protest, bodies running in every direction. Among the madness, running with a pronounced limp, was a six-four Asian in a business suit.

Nguyen caught Jake from behind and pulled him to the side as Wallace pushed through. “Get inside,” Wallace said, pulling Jake and Wei Ling by the arms as the Capitol Police poured from the Russell Building.

Al looked at Jake, who had Wei Ling in his grasp, and nodded. “You got her?”

“Yeah, Al. I got her.”

Al jumped over two crouching reporters and joined the Capitol Police at the senator’s side. Blood stained the white marble, a trail moving down the staircase like a broken Slinky.

The screams for 911 mixed with the overall hysteria in the air. Twenty seconds after the gunshots, the 911 emergency switchboard lit up like the Vegas Strip. ***

Chow Ying got on the Metro at Union Station and rode until New Carrollton, Maryland. He got off the train and took the pedestrian bridge over the subway tracks. He waited ten minutes and boarded the northbound Amtrak Metroliner. He found a seat in the back row next to the toilets and bought a ticket from the conductor as the train picked up speed leaving the station. He peeked inside his jacket pocket to check on his passport and his money. New York City was next on his list. After that, it was anyone’s guess. Maybe San Francisco. Chow Ying pulled the phone from his pocket and checked for messages. Six in the last half hour. Chow Ying knew he was dead already. He had known it for weeks. When the gentle Mr. Wu had asked for his passport in New York, Chow Ying knew his time was short. He knew too much. C.F. Chang would never let him live. And if he wasn’t going to live, then he was going to his grave knowing that he had taken away the one thing that C.F. Chang wanted. C.F. Chang had made the kill easy. Instructions, timeline, transportation, identity cover. All the authorities had to do now was find the car.

Chapter 49

Jake squinted as he came out of FBI headquarters. He rubbed his temples and the bridge of his nose before putting his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun. He looked at the trees that lined the street, and turned away from the sun’s western position to admire a light blue sky. He inhaled deeply and took in a dose of smog and thick humidity. After forty hours of interrogation in dimly lit rooms without windows, nature’s canvass was a pleasant shock to his system.

The white Dodge Caravan was parked at the corner, beyond the steel barrier that lifted vertically from its position flush with the pavement of the street. Al was leaning against the grill of the van, the seat of his jeans cleaning off a thin layer of dead bugs plastered to the flat front of the vehicle.

“Thanks for coming,” Jake said, walking slowly, taking in the sights.

“I guess I was your one allotted phone call,” Al said smiling.

“Yeah. When did you get out?”

“They questioned me for a few hours and let me go pretty quickly. The privilege of professional courtesy. That and the fact I still have a few friends around town. I tried to get you out sooner, Jake. I pulled every string I had and promised a few things I would have never been able to deliver.”

“Thanks for trying.”

“You okay?”

“I will be,” Jake said confidently.

“Didn’t know it was going to turn out the way it did.”

“No shit. Neither did I.”

“Senator Day getting shot wasn’t in the plan.”

“How is he? They mentioned inside that he was hanging in there.”

“Well at least they didn’t keep you completely in the dark.”

“There were a couple of good guys in there. A lot of assholes, but a few nice people.”

“Looks like Senator Day is going to make it. Chalk it up to the good doctors in D.C. having a lot of practice with gunshot wounds. He caught two shots in the chest. A third shot missed and hit a reporter in the leg. The senator is still in Intensive Care, but he’s going to survive. Politically, he may not.”

“I don’t think either of us is sad about that.”

Both men looked down the street toward the Mall.

“So what did they grill you on?” Al asked.

“Everything. Things about the Asian guy, my father, about Senator Day, about Wei Ling. They grilled me on Marilyn’s death.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told the truth.”

“The whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

“Most of it. Given that the senator had just been shot, they were most interested in what I knew about him. They wanted to know about the girl. What my father knew. They wanted to know why I turned my father over to the FBI for illegal exports, and how he thwarted their raid. They actually started accusing me of trying to blackmail the senator. Then they dropped that threat and moved on.”

“There is a reason for that.”

“They didn’t give me one.”

“The guy who shot the senator left a note in his car implicating the head of Chang Industries, a guy by the name of C.F. Chang. The note implicated him in the attempted murder of Senator Day with the intention of influencing the Overseas Labor Special Committee. The note also implicated him for the murder of an American doctor in Saipan. This C.F. Chang is a big fish, Jake.”

“And the guy who fired the gun?”

“They haven’t found him yet. They have him on tape getting on the Metro at Union Station. Whoever he is, he’s got big balls. The guy admitted to being hired by a well-connected Chinese family to assassinate a U.S. senator. He won’t get far. But he obviously didn’t want to go down alone.”

“I don’t get it, Al.”

“What’s that?”

“If this guy came to the U.S. to kill the senator, then why did they keep Wei Ling captive? What’s the point? Seems like a contradiction.”

“I’m sure the FBI is asking that same question. Or if they aren’t, they will be shortly.”

“Where is Wei Ling?”

“She’s fine. Kate is with her. Amnesty International is giving her the velvet glove treatment. She is staying at the Mayflower. We can stop by and see her anytime. Amnesty International is planning to make you their official Hero-of-the-Month.”

“What about our sleight of hand in the charter terminal in Saipan?”

“Technically, we didn’t break the law,” Al said.

“We bent the hell out of it.”

“Is that what you told them?”

“I told the truth. I told them I went to Saipan to see the girl and couldn’t get into the sweatshop facilities. I told them that when I arrived at the general aviation terminal the girl was there. I asked her if she wanted to come to Washington and she made the decision to come to D.C. voluntarily. I told them I consulted with a State Department representative who happened to be at the airport at the time and that he told me I wasn’t breaking any laws by bringing the girl back to D.C.”