CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER
AFTER AN EXHAUSTED MASUYO FELL asleep in the jet’s bedroom, Nash held a meeting with Temple and Thura in the main cabin.
Temple said, “Look, when you first told me your plan was to return the mother to the daughter, I thought you were out of your mind. But then I realized I didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder the rest of my life.
So, it seems to me that even though she probably wanted us as scapegoats, the fact that we got her mother out?
She’ll owe us. Now, I know the lady kills people and I wouldn’t trust her as far as I can throw her.
And believe me, I’d throw her into a fucking dumpster fire in a heartbeat, but she obviously loves her mother, so that’s got to be in our favor. Right?”
Nash nodded. “Let’s hope. But now we have to get our stories straight for when we get back. And we have to have an explanation for why Thura is still with us.”
“Do you have an explanation?” asked Temple anxiously.
“I think so. A good one.”
“It needs to be better than good, Dillon. Her bullshit meter ranks right up there with a basset hound’s nose.”
They spent the next several hours working through all the details. Nash allowed extra time with Thura to go over what to say and not say.
“If you get in trouble with a question, just blame it on the language barrier, okay?”
“This woman is. . .?” said Thura nervously.
“Yeah, she is,” replied Nash, who knew exactly what the man meant.
They all caught a couple hours’ sleep before the plane began its descent into Hong Kong.
The jet taxied to a stop at a private facility on the periphery of the main airport. They deplaned and were shuttled over to the main terminal to go through passport control. There a man approached and provided Thura with the papers he needed to enter the country legally.
Once they cleared customs and walked out into the arrivals section, Nash saw a man holding up a sign in Mandarin.
When Temple had told him Masuyo’s actual name was Dai Lu, a curious Nash had looked it up in Mandarin.
Thus he could recognize the characters on the sign.
For obvious reasons, Steers had not had her people use the name Masuyo.
Nash led the others over to the man and introduced Masuyo as Dai Lu. They were escorted out of the airport and into what looked to be the same Mercedes van that had picked up Nash and Temple when they had initially arrived in Hong Kong.
They followed the same route, taking the tunnel under the harbor and finally pulling into the underground garage of Steers’s building. They rode the elevator up to the penthouse suite and when the doors opened, Steers was standing there.
Nash announced matter-of-factly, “Here’s your mother, Ms. Steers, safe and sound.”
“Mission accomplished,” added Temple in a grander fashion.
Steers ignored this, looked at her mother, and bowed so deeply her long hair touched the floor. She straightened, took her mother’s hand, and gently led her into the apartment.
Masuyo said something in Mandarin and Steers answered her in that language.
Masuyo turned and looked at Nash, Temple, and Thura. While Steers thumbed a message on her phone, her mother bowed her head slightly and said to them, “Thank you, gentlemen.”
A female attendant quickly appeared in response to Steers’s text, and Masuyo was escorted away.
Steers watched her go and then turned to them. “Come,” she said, and led them into the next room.
They sat in chairs across from her. Nash noted that Steers’s guards had appeared from the shadows and encircled them.
Steers opened by saying, “I was told that you did not get on the plane to Bhamo. Why was this?”
Drawing on his plan Nash said, “We were ambushed. Twice. First, we were almost killed in the mountains and had to run for it, which threw off our timing. Then one of the people you hired, Amrita, tried to kill us in Myitkyina, but Thura here saved our lives.”
She glanced at Thura, who seemed to shrink under her gaze. She looked back at Nash. “Why would she try to kill you?”
“I believe she was paid off by the same people who tried to kill us in the mountains. There must have been a leak somewhere,” he added, staring at her resolutely. His implication was clear: The leak must have come from her side.
“Go on,” she said, her look unreadable.
“We left Myitkyina early and took a ferry to get to Bhamo because we figured we’d be sitting ducks if we flew on that plane. We tracked down the men you hired and saw the woman who was to take your mother’s place.”
Steers interjected, “I did not tell you about that element, so how did you know that was part of the plan?”
“You showed us a picture of your mother and they could have been twins. It became obvious that your plan was to rescue your mother, but not have the prison even realize she was gone.” He added, in genuine admiration, “It really was a brilliant plan, Ms. Steers.”
“Continue,” she said tersely, but her expression showed that his praise had pleased her.
“However, without the men knowing, Thura overheard them saying that they were going to kidnap your mother and hold her hostage. They were planning to blackmail you into paying a hundred million in U.S. dollars for her return.”
Steers once more looked at Thura. “You heard this?”
He nodded, keeping his gaze on her. “Yes. Their passports said they were Pakistani. But they were speaking English at the hotel where I overheard them. They were stupid to do so. Everybody speaks English in Burma, but Urdu or Pashto, not so much.”
“So you still call it Burma?” questioned Steers.
“Yes. What is this ‘Myanmar’ bullshit? I was born in Burma, not this other place.”
Steers actually smiled warmly at the man’s heartfelt words.
Nash was surprised at how much this changed the woman’s overall appearance. She seems. . .human. Well, almost.
Nash then gave Thura an appreciative look and took up the conversation.
“So we decided not to meet up with them, but to follow them instead. We got there before the ambulance. The team you hired shot all the prison guards when the ambulance arrived and were about to shoot your guy on the inside when I set off some homemade bombs. We managed to kill all of them and save your mother and the guard. We gave him the monies we found on the kidnappers. They obviously had no intention of paying him. We told him about their plan and then had him drive the woman substituted for your mother on to the hospital in one of the kidnappers’ vehicles.
The woman is no doubt at the prison, the guard is a hero, and the other guards and the ambulance driver and the kidnappers are dead.
So they can’t tell anyone about the substitution.
Your plan, as modified by conditions on the ground, worked to perfection.
” Nash added, “And Thura here went above and beyond the call of duty, so I told him that he would be taken care of, too. He has earned a just reward.”
Steers glanced at each of them before settling her gaze back on Nash.
She said nothing but studied him for several uncomfortable moments.
Nash felt like his mind was being x-rayed by the woman.
But he kept his expression calm and stared earnestly back until she finally said, “Thank you for successfully bringing my mother to me.”
Nash said, “And thank you for your faith in us.”
She looked at him again, conjuring in Nash that x-ray feeling once more.
Fortunately Temple said, “So where do we go from here, Ms. Steers?”
“I think showers, fresh clothes, food, and sleep are the obvious next moves for each of you,” she said, running her eyes over their dirty faces and hands, soiled clothing, and wan features.
“We will reconvene when you have sufficiently recovered.” She took up her phone and sent off various messages.
Within a minute more attendants had entered the space and led the men away.
Nash looked back at Steers as she sat in her throne chair, staring off. He knew her suggestion that they reconvene later had been made more to buy herself time to process all this than it had to do with concerns over their personal comfort.
Yet where it went from here, Nash did not know.
Perhaps now, with her actual plan foiled, neither does Victoria Steers.