Conspiracy

41

“He’s coming out of the building,” said Rockman as Dean met Karr in the stairwell. “He’s turning right.”

“You really lost your calling, Rockman,” said Karr as they clambered down to the basement. “You’d be great doing play-by-play.”

“Very funny. He’s crossing the street. He doesn’t seem to have a car nearby,” added Rockman. “We’ll lose him in a minute.”

Propelled by the need to rescue Karr, Dean had had no trouble running up the stairs. Going down, though, was a different story. He felt winded, and every step jabbed at his legs. The calf muscle in his right leg cramped while his ham-strings pulled taut.

“I have a cab waiting about a block to the west,” grunted Dean, losing ground to Karr, who jogged down the steps two or three at a time. The younger man’s pants were red with blood, but it didn’t seem to slow him down.

“I got something better than a cab,” Karr told Dean, hitting the landing and turning toward the door. “Come on.” By the time Dean caught up with him outside, Karr had hopped into the truck behind the building. The truck’s motor coughed to life as Dean pitched himself into the seat.

“Just turn left on that street behind you,” said Rockman.

“Got it,” said Karr. He threw the truck into reverse, swerved into the intersection backward, and squealed the tires as he changed direction. The truck tottered sideways, then picked up steam.

“Keep us in one piece,” said Dean, still out of breath.

“Oh yeah!” said Karr. It was more a battle cry than an ac-know ledg ment; the truck continued to accelerate.

Dean slapped his hand on the dashboard as Karr barely avoided hitting a parked car at the next corner. The truck tilted on its left wheels as he veered through the intersection; Dean braced himself, waiting for the crash.

“That’s him up there, getting onto the Honda ôm. Damn,” said Karr.

The Honda ôm—the generic name for a motorbike used as a taxi and common in the city — was headed in the wrong direction. By the time Karr found a place to turn around, it was nowhere in sight.

“Rockman, get us directions to Thao Duong’s apartment,” Dean said. Then he turned to Karr. “Let’s swap places.”

“Why? Don’t trust my driving?”

“Your leg’s bleeding,” Dean answered.

“Ah, just a scratch.”

“Well, let’s give it a chance to heal.”

“You don’t trust my driving,” said Karr.

“No, I don’t.”

Karr chuckled, and pressed harder on the gas.

Thao Duong lived a few blocks away. Even from the outside, it seemed obvious he hadn’t taken the cab there; the place was dark. Dean left Karr in the truck and went up the fire escape. The window to the kitchen was open; Dean lifted it and slipped inside. Ten minutes later he was back in the truck, having planted two audio bugs in the flat and a tracking bug on the bicycle Thao kept in the hallway.

“Gotta be our guy,” said Karr as they returned the truck.

“What ever you said to him at the reception spooked him.”

“Maybe,” said Dean. “But if he is, how do we get him to talk?”

“You turn on the charm,” said Karr. “But before that, we ought to find out what he’s got locked away.”

“Yeah,” said Dean.

A light-colored sedan passed on a nearby street. The car looked like an unmarked police car, though he caught only a glimpse. They waited a few minutes, then slipped from the truck and began walking in the direction to the hotel.

“You don’t think Thao Duong’s our guy?” asked Karr.

“Seems too easy.”

“Easy?”

“First guy we check?”

“Odds are only one out of three,” said Karr. “Just as likely to be number one as number three.”

“The one thing I know about Vietnam,” said Dean, “is that nothing’s easy. And nothing’s what it seems.”

“That’s two things,” said Karr. “You can’t fool me, Charlie. I was once a mathematician.”