Hunt the Dragon

Chapter Eight

Crocker?”

“Yeah?”

“Crocker, you awake?”

He blinked into the stark fluorescent light. A man wearing a white polo shirt with CAESARS PALACE stitched across the pocket leaned over him. He had short sandy hair and a scar across one eyebrow.

“Sorry to wake you, sir. Ms. Blackwell sent me to see how you’re doing and to take you to her if you feel well enough.” He spoke in a flat midwestern accent.

“Jeri?” Crocker sat up in the bed and tried to get his bearings. “Who are you?”

“Special Agent Mike Edberg. I work with Ms. Blackwell.”

He was in a light-blue hospital room with off-white curtains pulled closed. Besides a sore back, tightness in his legs, and a small bandage on his left arm, he felt okay and rested.

“She says it’s important that she see you right away.”

“Where am I, Mike?”

“Centennial Hills Hospital, Las Vegas.”

He remembered the helicopter, the shootout, Mancini’s injuries. Having seen the inside of way too many hospitals recently, he wanted to leave as soon as possible.

“The nurse I spoke to said you aren’t a patient,” Agent Edberg added.

“Good news. Thanks.”

“You were exhausted and a little banged-up, so they gave you an empty bed to sleep in.”

He checked under the blanket and saw that his shoes, pants, and shirt had been removed, but he still had on the undershirt he’d worn to dinner with Cyndi. He’d left her waiting. Not a great way to start a relationship.

The clock by the bed read 8:42.

“I need to wash up, then check on my colleague,” Crocker said. “You know where I can find him?”

“Asleep in the room across the hall.”

“Thanks. Give me ten minutes.”

“I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

Showered and dressed in the same clothes he had worn the previous night, he found the doctor who’d been treating Mancini. According to Dr. Gupta, his teammate had suffered a concussion, cuts to his arms and face, and a contusion near his right eye. “His condition is stable,” Dr. Gupta said, “but we plan to keep him here another twenty-four hours for observation.”

“Good luck with that.”

Crocker entered Mancini’s room, if only to prove to himself that his teammate was still alive and the episode last night hadn’t been a dream. He found him sitting up in bed eating breakfast and watching a documentary about General George Patton on the History Channel.

“Enjoying yourself?” Crocker asked.

“Always. You have fun last night?”

“You bet,” Crocker answered, remembering the Pelican case and wondering what had happened to it. He’d never had a chance to open it and see what was inside.

“Excellent show, boss. Pull up a chair. General Patton was outstanding. You know what he said when he was asked what he loved most in life?” Mancini asked, shoveling a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

“What?”

“Fucking and fighting.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, in that order. And I agree, but would have to include learning as a close second.”

“Of course you would. I’ve got to check on something,” Crocker said as he headed for the door. “I’ll call Carmen and tell her you’re still as insane as ever.”

Mancini grinned. “And as horny. Hospitals have that effect.”

When he asked Dr. Gupta about the Pelican case, the doctor referred him to the admitting nurse-a big guy with a shaved head, glowing pink skin, and a gold hoop in one ear who looked like Mr. Clean.

“No, sir, no one reported seeing a black Pelican case.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’ll double-check.”

Crocker reached into his pocket and found his cell phone. The front screen was cracked, but the device still worked. Checking his texts, several of which were from Cyndi, he saw he had a recent message from his daughter, Jenny.

He pressed the number next to her name.

“Hi, sweetheart, you okay?”

Her voice burst through the line like a bubble. “Yeah, Dad. Fine. What about you? Enjoying Las Vegas?”

“Oh, yeah. Fun town. What’s going on?”

“Not much. Kenna’s boyfriend stayed over last night, so I crashed at your apartment.”

“Anytime, sweetheart. No problem. What’s Kenna’s boyfriend like?”

“Nice. Kind of a hipster.”

He smiled at himself for asking. Knew it was a waste of time, since Jenny and her friends were grown up now and weren’t going to tell him much. Still, he couldn’t help trying.

“Dad, Cox cut off your cable TV service,” Jenny continued in a serious tone. “I called them and they said you haven’t paid your bill in months.”

“Cox?” Crocker asked. “Who’s that?”

“Your cable TV provider.”

In the past Holly had handled all the household bills. Since she’d moved out, he’d missed several deadlines, not because he was short on funds, but with the travel and everything else that was going on, he forgot.

“Give me their number,” Crocker said. “I’ll call them now and pay it over the phone.”

“Thanks, Dad. Hold on.”

The admitting nurse returned to tell him that no one had seen a black Pelican case, nor was it noted on any admittance form.

“What about the vehicle I arrived in?” Crocker asked. “That seems to be missing, too.”

“We don’t keep track of patients’ cars. But if you drove it here, it’s probably still parked in the garage.”

That sounded logical. “Thanks.”

He was trying to remember the make, model, or color of the vehicle he’d arrived in when Jenny came back on the line with the Cox Communications number. She asked if he’d be home for the holiday.

“Which holiday is that?”

“Easter, Dad. It’s in three weeks.”

He checked his mental calendar, which was foggy at best. “Yeah, I think so. I was thinking of taking you to the Coastal Grill.”

It was a fib.

“Oh, cool. But…Kenna’s parents invited me. They asked if you wanted to come, too.”

“Sure, if you think that’s okay.”

He was trying to remember whether he’d met them.

“They’re excited to meet you. I’ll tell ’em. Love you, Dad. I’ve got to go.”

Apparently he hadn’t. “Love you, too.”

It seemed like just a few months ago that Jenny was adjusting to living with him and Holly after she’d moved east because she and her mother (Crocker’s first wife) weren’t getting along. Now she was a semi-independent young woman with her own car and apartment and a host of friends he’d never met. He prayed to God she wasn’t as wild as he’d been at that age. Didn’t think so, but it was hard to know.

He walked up the parking garage ramp remembering the members of his family and the passage of time. His dad lived by himself in Fairfax, Virginia. His sister, her husband, and their two children lived outside of Raleigh. His brother and his family resided in a suburb of Boston.

Even though he was limping slightly from the bursitis in his left knee and tightness in his lower back, he still felt the urge to take a long run through the desert. It would clear his head, loosen his muscles, and reenergize him. But there were duties to take care of first.

He spotted the black Escalade covered in dirt and parked near the second-tier elevator. The Pelican case was resting in back.

As he exited the lot with the case, names and faces passed through his mind’s eye like signs in a freeway tunnel. As soon as he had the time, he’d call the various members of his family and catch up. He owed them that. His father had just turned seventy-five. His younger brother was forty-one now. Nieces and nephews were graduating from high school and going to college. He loved them all, wished them well, and hoped they still remembered him.

The Caesars Palace casino lights shone bright again, and the cacophony of slot machines and games sounded more annoying than ever. Quite a contrast to the quiet hush of the desert. He preferred its cleansing heat to this sweet, refrigerated air. Jeri stood behind the desk in Walker’s office drinking coffee and eating a doughnut, looking like she hadn’t slept.

“Crocker! Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

He shut the door behind him, rested the Pelican case on the floor, and sat. “Morning, Jeri.”

It’s not that she didn’t work hard. It’s just that she never seemed to let problems interfere with her enjoyment of life. Except now. This morning she looked worried and distracted.

“You functional? You rested?” she asked, biting into her doughnut. “I hear those dudes in the penthouse got away.”

“Affirmative to all three.” He knew she was married with grown kids, and wondered how she balanced work with personal life.

“Good. Good. And that’s too bad. Have a doughnut. Pour yourself some java.” She nodded to a Mr. Coffee on a table in the corner. Under normal circumstances he would have declined, but he hadn’t eaten since the meal with Cyndi.

Jeri coughed into her hand and said, “You know I wanted to assist you guys but was working with limited resources.”

“No problem. We handled it the best we could.” He sipped the bitter coffee and took a bite of the doughnut, which tasted stale. He set it aside.

“Your teammate okay? Manny?”

“A little banged-up. He’ll be fine.”

“I appreciate everything you guys have done. We’re comping your room and expenses, so there’s no need to check out.”

“Thanks.”

She threw the empty box in the trash, stood, and wiped sugar off the front of her blue blouse. “Stay for dinner if you want. Stay over another night. This whole mission has been a disaster-no leads, just a trashed hotel suite and a shitload of unanswered questions-so who the hell cares. Follow me.”

He walked beside her, carrying the Pelican case across the casino floor to a black SUV waiting out front.

“Where are we going?”

“Followup. Probably nothing.” They sat beside each other in the back. “Why does stuff like this always happen on my watch?” Jeri asked as the vehicle jolted to life.

He figured she was referring to an incident that had happened in ’06 while she was on President George W. Bush’s security detail during a visit to the country of Georgia when some lunatic had tossed a grenade wrapped in plaid cloth onto the podium a few feet away from the president. Jeri and the other Secret Service officers had failed to notice. Fortunately for them and the president, the grenade failed to detonate.

“We got to move on, Jeri. You know that.”

“When did you start sounding like Dr. Phil?”

She looked out the window at a passing bail bond office and a massage parlor, apparently lost in thought.

“I forgot,” Crocker said, slapping the top of the Pelican case that rested near his feet. “We recovered this last night.” He popped it opened and Jeri’s eyes widened at the sight of the shrink-wrapped hundred-dollar bills packed inside.

“Shit, Crocker! Why didn’t you say something before?”

They left the case with the driver, who stayed with the vehicle as they walked into a brown brick building with the sign on the glass door that read NEVADA POWER COMPANY. Inside, a patently nervous official with a shaved head and strange-looking rectangular glasses invited them into his office.

In a pinched voice, he said, “We’ve completed a preliminary crisis report and concluded that whoever killed the lights last night did so by hacking into our supervisory control and data acquisition system.”

Crocker didn’t know what that entailed. Nor did he understand the two-page report the official handed them, which consisted mainly of computer code and terminology.

“Any idea who was behind the attack?” he asked.

The official squinted through his glasses. “In my line of work, we don’t use the word ‘attack.’ We call them incursions. Incursions are generally difficult to trace. Sometimes the people behind them are kids showing off and gaming the system. In other instances, they’re individuals or organization with more sinister motives.”

“Which category do you think this incursion falls into?” asked Crocker.

The official twitched and shrugged. “I’m a power official, not a criminal investigator. I assume you would know that answer better than me.”

Jeri yawned and covered her mouth. “Based on what we know now, none of the casinos were hit and nothing was stolen.”

“Then it’s possible the blackout was a prank,” the official said.

“Makes you wonder about the guys who ran,” Crocker commented. “Wong and Petroc.”

Jeri stopped reading the report and looked at him over the top of her glasses. “What do you mean?”

“Makes me wonder if the whole thing was planned-the blackout to cover their escape, the helicopter to meet them in the desert.” Turning to the NPC official he asked, “How often do blackouts like this happen?”

“In my eighteen years at the NPC, we’ve had a handful of minor incursions, but never one that shut down the entire system,” the official answered.

Outside, as they prepared to climb into the SUV, Jeri turned to Crocker and said, “We knew we were looking at a counterfeiting operation that included Wong and Petroc. You think the blackout was part of it, too?”

“That’s what my gut tells me.”

“You’re smarter than you look, honey,” she said, scrunching up her face in thought. “I’ll check with DC.”

Dawkins had consumed half a bottle of silky, dry Clos Fourtet 2012 and enjoyed a dinner of hanger steak with Bordelaise sauce. He even had ice cream and espresso for dessert. But the hospitality ended as the jet started its descent. That’s when the sunglassed guard roughly tied a blindfold over his eyes and handcuffed his wrists in front of him. There were no further explanations from Miss Wa. No announcements from the pilot. No further warnings or instructions.

The plane banked sharply and bounced, then touched down gently, braked, and taxied to a stop.

His stomach was in his throat now, and he felt more anxious and alone than at any time in his life. Worse than when he’d gotten lost in the foothills of the Adirondacks while camping with his father. At least then, he knew he was in the United States. Now he was almost certain he wasn’t.

“This way, Mr. Dawkins,” Miss Wa instructed.

The guard pulled him upright and wrapped some kind of parka around his shoulders. The air outside was cold and smelled of jet fuel and agriculture. People around him murmured in an Asian language: Chinese? Mongolian? Korean? He couldn’t tell.

The warm room he entered smelled of rubbing alcohol. Someone checked his blood pressure. Then he felt a cold stethoscope on his chest and back.

“Is this necessary?” he asked.

No one answered.

Fear tingled upward from the base of his spine. Now he was on a bus, thinking about the trip Nan and he had made to Beijing eight and half years ago to meet their adopted daughter. At two months of age she had been placed on the steps of a bank in southern China, clad in a pink dress and wrapped in a blanket. On what the adoption agency called Gotcha Day, he was the first to hold her. The connection he made with Chun, who they renamed Karen, was powerful and immediate. He couldn’t remember feeling happier. Now he missed her. He also remembered his older sister, who he hadn’t spoken to in months. As kids they’d played doctor, until their mother caught them partially naked one day in the bathroom of their house in Colorado.

After a four-hour bus ride he boarded a boat. The farther he traveled, the more helpless he felt. He and Nan had been married for fifteen years now. She was his rock. All he wanted was to return home and be with his family. He told himself that he would do whatever he had to in order to make that possible. He had never thought of himself as brave, but so far he had surprised himself. Despite the fear and uncertainty, he was holding it together.

The boat docked, and he was helped off and led down a path to a concrete entrance of some kind and then an elevator. The elevator descended slowly.

He heard the shuffle of shoes against a concrete floor. He smelled mildew. A door creaked open and he was led into a room and pushed into a chair. Someone removed the handcuffs and blindfold.

He blinked into the harsh fluorescent light. The walls were painted a dull shade of green. Across from him was a metal bed covered with an olive-green blanket. A young Asian woman moved in front him wearing a white shirt and baggy black pants worn high. She bent at the waist and peered at him through wire-rimmed glasses like she was studying a strange creature in a zoo.

“Welcome, Mr. Dawkin,” she said in heavily accented English. “My name is Sung. I am your assistant. I happy to meet you. It is my pleasure. Would you desire tea?”

He tried to conceal the feeling of hopelessness that was descending over him. “No, not now,” he said with a tight smile. “But thank you for the offer.” It felt like three times gravity was pushing down on every part of his body.

He could barely keep his eyes open and focused. A guard stood at the door like a statue, dressed in a baggy camouflage uniform and cap. Everything felt cold and strange.

“Would you like soda and crackers?”

He struggled to get the words out. “No thanks.”

“You looked tired, Mr. Dawkin, so I let you rest. If you need anything, push white button on wall. I…come.” She pulled the blanket back and beckoned him to the bed as if dealing with a child. He sensed humanity in her gesture. Shivering, he crossed the cold concrete floor.

He lay down with his clothes on, heard the door lock behind her, and fell asleep.