The Scarlet Crane: Transition Magic Book One (The Transition Magic Series 1) (16 page)

Wu asked, “Which creature are you Zhi? Your attempts a year ago killed four children. Now, in your haste, you killed three more.”

“We discussed this when you put me in command. We understood the cost of unlocking Transition, embraced it. Why do you now back away?”

Wu began shuffling back to the courtyard entrance. He was quiet for several minutes. “Lung cancer is killing me. I have perhaps six months. My death encroaches on my thoughts, like a desert consuming a grassland.”

Finally, fortune smiles on me!

“Then we must recover a sufficient number of the escaped children so that I can cure you,” Zhi said.

“Spare me your false concern. I’m no longer certain I wish to bargain with the snake.” He stopped and turned to Zhi. “You will live, at least for the moment, while I continue my reflection.”

Zhi heard a small click and felt a sharp jab through the back of his jacket. His muscles went rigid, as if he’d pissed on an electric rail. He fell, abandoned to a hungry darkness.

Hoeryong

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

The cargo truck’s engine screamed. Thanna and the other kids had been locked in unalloyed blackness for hours as the truck jolted, rocked, and battered them. The rancid smell of puke filled her nose and twisted her stomach.

Are we going home?

She didn’t believe that, any more than she believed the three girls who had left the dorm to do magic for Uncle Rong were still alive. But her mind wouldn’t let go of the question. Fear and hope warred within her until she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

Suddenly, the truck slammed to a stop like it had hit a wall, tires squealing, children tumbling toward the front of the cargo hold. The incessant roar of the motor ceased. Thanna heard a wet sniffling, realized the sound was coming from her, and swiped her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. A chorus of soft weeping surrounded her.

The door at the back of the truck slammed upward to reveal the silhouette of a man in a military uniform. Several others stood behind him, pointing flashlights at the truck. Behind them, in the middle of the road, sat a menacing helicopter, its blades slowing to a stop.

The man yelled, “Out! Everyone out, now!” It was Uncle Rong, Thanna realized. He sounded furious, like a mad dog ready to attack. Soldiers pushed and shoved the kids into a shivering cluster next to the side of the truck. Thanna found herself at the front of the group, a couple of meters from Uncle Rong.

She glanced up at the stars sparkling in the night sky. The storm that had swirled around the school had vanished. Kids were crying and screaming, hanging on to each other. Rong’s sharp growl made her jump and snapped her attention back to him. “Quiet or you’ll be punished.”

Thanna reflexively turned to the children and translated his Mandarin into Vietnamese. She put one finger before her mouth, signaling the kids who didn’t understand either language to be quiet. When she turned around, Rong was standing a half-meter away, his face red with rage. “I told you to be quiet!” He slapped the left side of her face, then the right, knocking her to the ground. “Up! Stand up!” Thanna pushed herself upright, glaring at him.

Rong hissed, “Get your insolent Transition eyes off me.” He drew back to strike her again.

Thanna slowly faced the ground, watching the blood from her nose dribble into the snow.

Instead of another blow, she heard him order, “Bring them.”

She lifted her head enough to peer through her eyelashes and see what was happening. The soldiers dragged Principal Chu-hua and the major who’d helped her to the front of the group. Chu-hua was sobbing like one of the young ones. The major was quiet. His uniform was torn, and his face was swollen. Stringy ropes of blood and spit drooled from his mouth.

Rong withdrew a pistol from the holster at his belt. “On your knees.”

Rong’s soldiers pushed the bloodied man to the ground.

Chu-hua collapsed and lay flat before Rong, arms outstretched. “Please Colonel, spare us. We were trying to protect the children.”

Rong’s men pulled her to her knees, next to the major.

“Children, look at me,” Rong said. Soldiers moved through the group, forcing each child to face forward.

Thanna raised her head but stared past Rong, into the dark. Her heart was racing; the feeling of nausea she’d had in the truck had returned, stronger. She was dizzy.

Rong walked over and stood an arm’s length away from her. “This is what happens when you defy your Uncle Rong.” He raised his gun and pressed it against Thanna’s forehead. “BANG!” he shouted. Thanna jumped, the world spun around her. Rong bent and whispered in her ear. “You’re dead as soon as you finish Transition.”

He walked back to Principal Chu-hua and shoved the barrel of his pistol between her lips. “Defy me again, and you shall wish for death.” In one fluid movement he withdrew the gun, turned, and shot the man at her side through his right eye. Brains, hair, and bone flew from the back of his head.

Thanna bent as if she’d been punched and vomited. She felt the world around her closing in, crowding her, narrowing her vision until the world blinked out.

Zurich

The Swiss Confederation

John had just been seated for breakfast in the cafe of the Storchen hotel when a familiar voice rang across the small dining area.

“Jeez, don’t you ever do anything different?” Stony asked, crossing the room to his table. “Always breakfast at eight, always at the hotel. And in Zurich, for God’s sake. Hundreds of great little spots, and you eat here.”

John jumped from his chair and pulled her into a fierce hug. “Great to see you, kiddo, even if you still run sentences together. Glad to have you back.” He tapped her amethyst nose stud with a fingertip.

I wonder if I look as tired as she does?

Their young server came to take their order. Her name—Emma—was engraved on a silver pin shaped in a silhouette of the hotel. She wore red flats with crisp white slacks and an oxford cloth shirt.

When they’d finished ordering, John asked Emma to move them outside. The cafe faced a covered terrace that projected ten meters from the back of the hotel to the Lammat River. It was empty, apparently not considered an option by the early risers at the Storchen. But the winter morning was warm, and John sought the privacy the terrace would afford.

Emma led them to a table next to a waist-high wrought iron railing with arabesques that reminded John of the gates at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The green fragrance of the narrow, slow-moving river whispered of renewal.

Stony closed her eyes, tilted her face to the sun, and breathed deeply. “So much nicer than D.C. in the winter.”

“Zurich is nicer than D.C. pretty much all the time. Speaking of which, did the Swiss provide the information they promised about Heritage Trading?” John asked.

“A little,” Stony said. “As usual with them, secrecy trumps need. There are two businesses registered in Zurich as Heritage Trading. Both are listed as Import/Export Merchants. Both are freelancers and not part of any larger company.”

“Did you get the names of the owners?”

“Nope. The government keeps ownership a secret.”

John frowned. “This isn’t a whole lot more than we could find in the local phone book.”

“They did cough up something we in the business might call a clue.”

“Well? You waiting for me to say please?” John asked.

Stony grinned, “Aw, how sweet of you to offer.” She nodded toward Emma, who was approaching with their food. “In a minute.”

Emma placed their breakfasts before them, refreshed drinks, and scooted back to the warmth of the cafe.

“Jesus,” Stony said as she bit a piece of her pastry. “This is way better than donuts. I’d kill for this chocolate.” She closed her eyes in pleasure. “The city requires companies to report which countries they do business with. Only one of the two companies listed China.”

“Any information about what they buy and sell?”

“They both appear to specialize. One of them concentrates on ancient Chinese furnishings, the other on high value books.”

John said, “Okay, we’ll start with the obvious, the one doing business in China.”

“Are we getting help from the State Department or the local police?”

“I want to go it alone. We’ve had nothing but trouble with leaks when we’ve involved anyone else. Even though the embassy folks in Bangkok were helpful, I still ended up in a bad spot.”

“You get shot at and you go all introverted. So what’s next?”

“We need to plan the details, but I want to try scaring the shit out of the Swiss broker. We’ll use some local PIs to help us figure out who we’re dealing with, and then we confront him. Tell him we have solid information he’s trafficking in children for a secret Chinese program. That we treat traffickers the same way we treat terrorists. And as agents for the DTS and the FBI, we’ve got international jurisdiction to arrest his ass. His only option is to cooperate or we haul him away to Guantanamo. Plus we’ll share his identity with the Swiss government, Interpol, Europol, Der Spiegel, The New York Times, yada yada.”

“When did we get jurisdiction to make arrests outside the U.S.?” Stony asked.

John grinned. “We’re crazy Americans. Very unpredictable. Dangerous.”

“Hard to imagine the head of a trafficking ring would spill his guts at a few threats.” Stony hesitated. “But maybe it’ll work—he’ll probably be afraid of pissing off the Chinese, and the threat to go public would definitely do that. And Guantanamo scares people big time.”

“Once we choke off the supply of kids, we can figure out how to destroy the program at its source. I talked with Marva late last night. She signed off, but needs to give her boss a heads up and let him know this may go public. She’s approved paying for the private investigators to give us a hand.”

Emma returned to clear the table and invite them to remain on the terrace as long as they wished.

“Change of subject,” John said. “What was the big mystery that triggered your need for more time before we reconnected?”

Stony sighed, gazed out over the river, and back to John. “It’s a hell of a thing and I’m not sure what to make of it. Let’s take a stroll.”

* * *

After retrieving their jackets from their rooms, they left the hotel and strolled north on the historic Weinplatz, toward its namesake square and fountain.

“No sign of a tail,” John said. “I think the leaks are sealed, thanks to your work in D.C.”

“Maybe.” Stony led them to a bench near the river, overlooking the Rathausbrücke crossing and the Zurich town hall on the opposite bank. A row of carefully restored three- and four-story burghers’ homes, trimmed in shades of buff and Wedgwood, lined the far side of the river.

“Dish, do you know Leo Burns?” Stony asked.

“Sure. Why?”

“How well do you know him?”

“I worked with him, maybe ten to fifteen years ago. He’s a solid guy. Dependable, but not much imagination. What’s Leo got to do with anything?”

“Leo intercepted me coming into the building from a lunch run. Secretive and nervous. He said he had some information you needed. He set a meeting for the next day at the Washington Monument.”

“Strange,” John said. “You went, right?”

“Yeah. When we met, he seemed more than secretive, like he was afraid of something. He spooked me. He told me he knew about our investigation and gave me enough specifics that I believed him.”

“Who was his source?”

John’s cell interrupted with “Hail to the Chief”—the ringtone he used to flag text messages from Marva.

“Hold up, sorry.” He glanced at the phone and frowned, annoyed. “She wants me to call her in an hour and a half from a secure line at our Consulate.”

And only me.

He put the phone away. “Go on.”

“Here’s the thing. Burns told me the DTS is running a black op that uses children for magic, just like the Chinese.”

John shook his head. “Bullshit. Has to be.”

“Pretty much my reaction. I pushed back but couldn’t shake him. Dish, he said to tell you he got the story from William Oden. Apparently some ‘eyes only’ cable for the director went missing and, as the senior guy, Oden was tasked to find it. Which he did. He had time to skim it before the DTS security chief found him and grabbed it. The chief gave him shit for looking at it, even though he had the clearance.”

“Why did he tell Burns about it?” John asked. “That’s a bigger offense than reading the damn thing.”

“Who knows? Burns did say they were both drunk.”

John stared for several minutes at the people crossing the Rathausbrücke. Stony’s story bled the warmth out of the morning sun. “Oden is a good guy. He wouldn’t make shit up. What’d he say when you checked with him to confirm Burns’ story?”

“Nothing. He’s dead. According to Burns, Oden died of an overdose three days after they talked about the cable. And Burns swears Oden wasn’t the suicide type.”

John felt his world turn upside down.

I’m losing my footing on this goddamned case.

His voice dropped, as soft as a whisper, “You know, I used to wonder if Oden and Burns were lovers. It was obvious they were very close. Or maybe I just misread them.”

“That fits with how Burns was acting. He was bereft, more even than from losing a good friend. One last thing.”

“Jesus,” he complained. “What else?”

She stared at him. “According to Burns, the cable recommended you and I be surveilled.”

“Damn.” John glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to get to the Consulate for my call with Marva, so let’s set this aside for now. Can’t do anything about it anyhow. You plan the Heritage surveillance. From here or somewhere else outside. Let’s not trust anyplace inside the Storchen. I’ll call when I get done.”

He hastened back to the hotel and flagged a taxi for the drive to Dufourstrasse 101. The U.S. Consulate was in a commercial building on a quiet street among the trees and tidy homes of a residential neighborhood. The first level of the compact five-story structure was an open garage, essential since on-street parking was non-existent.

He pushed through the double glass doors into a barren, gray entry the size of a small living room. Two cameras, their baleful red eyes blinking, hung from the ceiling grid, scanning the front of the elevator. An office directory listed the Consulate on the top floor.

The elevator tortured him with “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” played by a sleepy harpist. John escaped through the doors as soon as they opened, approached the counter, and showed his credentials. He was escorted to a spartan conference room that had obviously been cloned from those at the State Department. He punched Marva’s number into the AV control center. The flat panel monitor popped to life, disclosing Akina sitting alone in Marva’s conference room.

“John! How are you? How’s Stony?” Akina asked.

John smiled. Akina and Stony had similar speech patterns. “We’re fine, Akina.”

“Give her my best. I’ll get the director for you.” She disappeared from view.

A couple of minutes later Marva slipped into the empty chair.

“Hi, John. All well in Zurich?”

“Fine. What’s up?”

Enough with the happy talk.

The DTS Director interlaced her fingers and rested her hands on the conference table.

Uh oh. I’m not going to like this.

Marva asked, “Have you talked with Stony yet about how you want to approach the Zurich operation?”

“Yeah, we were talking about it when I got your text.”

She frowned. “That will complicate things a bit.” She paused momentarily. “No sense beating around the bush. My boss gave the President a heads-up on your plans. Long story short, the President won’t sign off on pressuring the Zurich contact by threatening to expose a Chinese connection. He wants no mention of China.”

“What? You know China’s the only leverage we have. Without it, there’s no reason for whoever’s running Heritage to give us anything.”

“Doesn’t matter. You don’t have enough facts to risk pissing China off. Too much of a political hot potato. My orders are clear, and so are yours. The decision is final.”

“Not enough facts? Are you kidding?” His voice climbed in frustration. “What’s he want? Some dead kids? Would that satisfy everyone?”

“Cut the shit, John.”

“I’m just getting warmed up, Director.”

“Another thing,” Marva said. “I have no budget for Zurich PIs. Approach the guy in the open, ask your questions, and be done with it.”

“Dammit Marva, you’re killing this investigation. We might as well quit and head back to D.C. Why’re you doing this? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Just do your best, John.”

“Do my best, but don’t do anything.”

What the hell have we tripped over?

“One final point. We never had this conversation. The President was never involved in any discussion about China or Transition or trafficking. Find another reason to give Stony about the change in direction. None of this gets to her. Am I clear?”

John was silent for several minutes. “Don’t try this shit with me, Director. I’ve been in D.C. almost as long as you’ve been alive. I know this game. We’ve gotten too close to something. And you can’t simply shut us down, because you don’t want to be accused of killing the investigation if this ever gets out. Even though that’s exactly what you’ve done.”

“That’s quite enough, Agent Benoit. Call me tomorrow with an updated plan. Now go do your job.” She broke the connection.

I gave her clear cause to fire me, and she passed. She’s shutting us down and covering her ass.

* * *

As John rode back toward Zurich’s Old Town he replayed the conversation with Marva in his mind, searching for anything he might have missed, any hidden message.

He came up with nothing.

This fucking pisses me off. Quince is dead. Stony and I could have been killed. If China figures out how to use magic, the U.S. is royally up a creek. And I’m supposed to kiss off our only lead and shut down the investigation. Shit.

He called Stony’s cell. “Meet me at the bench.” He disconnected before she could ask questions.