Episode 112. Part 4
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We do a Cortex search.
Christian: Fake identities are very hard to get, I imagine. One that would stand up to scrutiny when they do a background check for a wealthy house would be very hard to get.
Nika: That I’ll buy.
Christian: They don’t want to accidentally employ assassins or spies. And there is a whole lot of that intrigue going on in the noble and the richer families in the Core.
Nika: Although a woman traveling with a small child would be under much less scrutiny.
Christian: I agree.
A search nets us 100 names for Vail and its variants. None of them are titled. It looks like Emma may not be of the nobility, putting to bed that particular theory. Nika’s of the opinion that this is a plus, if Vail is her real name. Christian starts looking up laundry services under the name of Vail and its variants. Nothing there. As for Miss Tolson identifying the laundry van by its logo, nothing there, either. Christian asks her why she was certain it was a laundry service van and Miss Tolson replies that napkins and laundry was what it seemed to have in the logo. She’s drawn it on the paper Christian’s given her. There are Chinese symbols and the design of it was worn away in some places, possibly scraped off. One thing, though. Now that she thinks about it, Miss Tolson does remember something else.
Miss Tolson: One thing that did seem strange was the guy used her name. He said “Em,” got her attention and then yanked her into the van.
Nika: Did she struggle?
Miss Tolson: There wasn’t much chance, but she did struggle.
Can Miss Tolson describe the man that snatched Emma? Height, weight? Hair, skin color?
Miss Tolson: Well, he was, like…I mean, a normal person, fair-ish, kinda swarthy…dark hair, but, um… no beard.
Christian: Dark haired, clean-shaven, swarthy.
Right. That’s only about what? half the men on this planet?
Rina: You know, what’s interesting is that he didn’t say “Emma”. He said “Em”.
Christian: Which indicates a fair amount of familiarity.
Rina: Is she accustomed to being addressed this way?
Miss Tolson: As “Em”?
Rina: Yes.
Christian: What do you call her when you refer to her by name?
Miss Tolson: We’ve always called her Emma.
Nika: What did her mother call her?
Miss Tolson: I don’t remember. I don’t remember seeing her mother much, but I know that we didn’t have children as ‘hired’. The only children that stayed were servants’ children. I feel bad that we haven’t talked about her mother. She doesn’t say much about them.
Arden: Does she have a diary?
Miss Tolson: No. Not that I know of.
Obviously, the kidnapper knew Emma, and yet we’re no closer to knowing the true identity of both than before.
We’re back to square one.
Before we can spin our wheels any deeper in the mud, we get a call. It’s from Emma. She sounds breathless and scared when we pick up.
Emma: Who is this? I need to talk to Hildy. Please. I need to talk to Hildy.
Arden: She’s not here at the moment. This is Arden. What can I do for you? I know you’re in trouble, but what can I do?
Emma: Dr. Arden, I’m…I’m with some people and they want money….and I don’t have any money.
Arden: What kind of money do they want?
Emma: I don’t know. They just…. I told them that…that we didn’t have any, that we’re not with the Tolsons anymore…But they don’t believe me and they want… (sighs) …They say they need five thousand credits.
Nika and everyone else is listening over Arden’s shoulder and Nika suppresses an outraged yelp. We motion everyone to silence and the call continues.
Arden: Can I talk to them?
Emma: They don’t—
The call abruptly ends.
Rina: Crap!
Christian: (not liking it) They knew her by name. I apologize in advance, but we’re going to search her stuff.
Nika: I’ll go with you.
Emma’s got very little. A few changes of clothes, nothing much more than that. Certainly nothing out of line for a servant girl to have. We also check Miss Tolson’s belongings. Again, nothing turns up. We can leave the Maltese Falcon/Frantic scenarios firmly out of the picture, thanks, and we’re fairly sure we’re not being Gaslighted. It’s a straight-up kidnapping, and we haven’t a thing to go on as to getting the girl back. At least, not without giving in to the kidnappers’ demands. Of course, there is a chance this is a scam, that Emma’s a willing participant. It’s possible that even Emma’s dead mother was involved initially, but died before she could complete her move.
And now we’re drifting into wacko territory again.
Christian tries something a little more down-to-earth. He asks Rina if she can hack into the Cortex at the pay phone Emma used, to try to pull up the number she called—all without attracting attention. Rina agrees to try and Miss Tolson is tasked to take her there.
Nika: Christian.
Christian: Yes, dear?
Nika: If Rina gets nothing out of this Cortex box, I’m laying it on the table for everyone to have a discussion about, but frankly, I’m inclined to leave her here and keep goin’.
Mike: (tongue-in-cheek) Leave Rina here? Just because she can’t find a phone number?
It’s a weak joke and no one responds to it. As for Emma, harsh as it sounds, we’re too small a crew with too few resources to keep putting ourselves on the line for passengers. Mike quietly leaves the room as the rest of us argue the pros and cons. Nika stands her ground.
Nika: Doing good in the Universe is one thing, but this is getting ridiculous.
Rina: We can always report her to the police. But first, let’s see what I can hack.
Can we report this to the police and leave Miss Tolson right out of it? Not likely, since the police will want to talk to the witness…which would be Miss Tolson. Nika growls—damn, why does hauling cargo have to be so wuo de mah complicated?
Rina: I’ve already sent a text message to Omar asking him what he can do. He’s got assets on the street.
Christian: We’ve already got a detective working the case, we’ve got Omar, we’re gonna hack the box.
Rina looks around, does a head count…
Rina: And Mike’s just pulled a fade. God knows what he’s doing.
Christian: (surprised) I didn’t even notice he was gone.
Rina: He’s like that.
Nika: Wonderful.
Arden’s detailed to go with Rina and Miss Tolson
Rina: And for the record, I never leave the ship without my knife, my gun, and my vest on. It’s like I'm Huck Finn, bad shit happens to me whenever I leave the gorram raft.
Rina exits the room with Nika laughing, to go do just that. For his part, Arden fetches his bag and straps his gun to his hip. Nika watches them leave and turns to Christian.
Nika: Oh, by the way, we brought you lunch.
Christian: What is it?
Nika: Pad Thai.
Christian: Bad Thai?
Christian nearly drops the takeout box and Nika laughs again. It’s the dumplings from Mama Liu’s. Joke! Because sometimes, the only thing you can do when the shit hits the fan is laugh.
Miss Tolson wasn’t entirely accurate in her description of the restaurant, as we see when we arrive at the place. It’s actually more like a bar open to the sidewalk, with stools for the patrons to sit on at the counter. Anyone going to the pay phone will fall under their scrutiny, much less anyone trying to hack into the Cortex on it. Arden gins up a distraction at the rear of the ‘restaurant’ so Rina can gin up a hack at the front of it.
He finds a way to trip and raise a ruckus. People look his way and Rina gets to work. Three seconds into it she realizes that it’s going to take more than a quick plug-in to break into and behind the counter, the cook yells out to her.
Cook: Hey, whaddya doin’ with the phone?
Rina: The damn thing took my quarter! I swear to God!
Cook: No refunds!
She slams it with an open palm on one side, while on the other she yanks her leads and hack board and stuffs it into her pocket, shielding the action with her body. If she had world enough and time, she’s sure she could make the phone tell her all its secrets. But as things stand now, she’s got to walk away. And fast. And she does, swearing.
Rina: I’m gonna beat the fuckin’ refund outa this goddamn thing. Godammit…!
Cook: Leave the phone alone or yer payin’ for it!
Rina: Grahhh…!
And she storms up the block, trusting Arden and Miss Tolson to join her there around the corner. They do and she reports the exercise a wash.
Arden: I say we wait and let Terry work his magic.
Rina: Mm-hm. And I’ve got someone workin’ it on my end, too. I just hate standing around doing nothing.
Arden: We’ve got Hildy out in the open. Let’s get her back to the ship.
Rina: Definitely.
We make it back without mishap. The overall mood aboard is glum. We get a call a couple of hours later and Christian answers it.
Christian: Hello?
Male Voice: We wanted to give you first option to buy. If you’re interested, bring five thousand or the equivalent to the Shin de Xiao Restaurant.
Christian: When?
Male Voice: Tonight.
Christian: When?
Male Voice: (slowly, as to an idiot) Tonight.
Christian: Well, tonight is twelve hours long. When?
Male Voice: Figure it out.
The call ends on a slam from the other end.
Nika: There is no way we’re comin’ up with money to ransom her back.
Arden: The jewelry
Christian: We don’t need the money. They said the equivalent.
Nika: And what do they think we own that’s equivalent to five thousand credits?
Arden and Christian together: The jewelry.
Christian: Or the car. But…the jewelry.
Nika: I’m not entirely convinced that her jewelry is worth that much.
Christian: Her jewelry is worth several thousand—it might not be five thousand, but several thousand. Unless they’re very good fakes. Which they could be. But if they’re good enough to fool me, then…
Nika: Fine. You know what? If Hildy wants to do it, I say it’s up to her.
Christian: Which we will tell her.
Arden: I’m going to leave another message for Terry.
Arden leaves.
Christian: (continuing) We don’t have to give them the jewelry. We have to show up.
Nika: Honey, if I show up, people are dyin’.
Christian argues for going anyway. It’s a chance to learn something that we don’t currently know. The kidnappers said they’d give us first option to buy. Nika demands to know what that even means. That if the kidnappers don’t get paid, they’ll recoup their losses by selling her to someone else.
Nika: And that’s my problem why! I’m sorry—no, seriously—this is getting way, way out of hand, guys.
Christian: All right. If you don’t want to get involved, that’s fine. That is your choice.
Arden: There are too many variables going on right this moment. If this was a simple kidnapping, that’s one thing. But this does not seem like a simple kidnapping. Why would somebody pick a random person off the street to kidnap?
Christian: It wasn’t a random person off the street. They knew her name.
Nika: They knew her name, they picked her up specifically.
Rina: She recognized them.
Nika: And now they’re gouging her girlfriend for five thousand credits. You know what? If Hildy wants to pay it…..
Christian thinks back on everything he’s heard and seen, and tells the crew what he’s deduced. Of Emma’s distress he has no doubts—she’s not faking it for the cameras. She’s been kidnapped. But the ransom call, however, had an interesting hitch. The man on the phone got flustered when Christian insisted on a time for the meet. Lost his cool. As if he didn’t know what to say…not the mark of a professional job. The bastards are following a script. Good news is: we’re not likely dealing with slavers. Bad news: Amateurs are hard to predict and the deal might go south in a hurry.
Christian: They’re not good at adjusting on the fly, which is good. You know why?
Arden: That’s all we do.
Christian: That’s all we do.
All we need to do is get someone to go to the restaurant ahead of us and sit down, to watch our backs when we arrive. But the bad guys might already know what we look like—we haven’t been too careful about hiding our faces from the public. So who do we send? Nika suggests Arden’s friend, Gibbs.
Christian: I honestly would feel better if Mike were here right now.
Nika: Speaking of…
Christian: Because he can actually be invisible.
Rina: In fact, he may be invisible right now and in this room. (laughs) He’s disguised as air.
Nika: In any case, they won’t know your detective friend, so maybe he can go and sit in the restaurant while we go.
Arden: I am waiting for him to call me back.
Christian: Why don’t you call him?
Arden: I’ve already left two messages.
Christian: It shouldn’t’ve taken this long. I hope he’s okay.
Arden: (Not yet) He’s a professional.
Christian: (acquiescing) Okay.
Nika: And we are probably not his only case. Especially considering this is a favor to a friend and not a paying gig.
Christian: Okay. So. Do we have a plan?
Rina: You’re looking at me?
Christian: I’m looking at all of you.
Arden: For what?
Nika: A plan? Don’t look at me. The last plan I had went notoriously wrong.
Terry Gibbs calls us back. Arden fills him in on what’s happened: we’ve gotten two calls, one from Emma and one from the kidnappers telling us they want 5K and that we’re to meet them at the restaurant tonight.
Gibbs: That’s an interesting choice of restaurants.
Arden: Why’s that?
Gibbs: It’s a Tong hideout.
Nika: It’s a what?
Rina: Oh, fuck me….
Arden: What does that mean?
Gibbs: The Tong are a criminal syndicate.
Rina: It’s where they congregate.
Nika: That’s what I thought he was going to say. I’m pretty sure that I’ve heard about them.
Rina: (to herself, pissed) I knew it, I knew it….
Gibbs: This is going to add another level of…(how to say it?)
Arden: Complexity.
Gibbs: And danger.
Nika: And annoyance.
Gibbs: You know I’d do anything for you….but…
Here comes the back-off.
Arden: I would have no problem if you wanted to back off from this.
Christian: Is this something to do with the Tong? Or is the Tong being there just a coincidence? I mean, after all, people are actually going to eat at this restaurant who aren’t Tong.
Arden: Not many.
Christian: Sure there are. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to stay in business.
Gibbs: Yeah.
Christian: The Tong is probably using the restaurant to launder money, so they’ll want as many non-Tong eating there as possible.
Gibbs: I’ll look into it. Go ahead with whatever they suggested so far.
Arden: Like they said, they want us to be there tonight.
Nika: Sometime.
Gibbs: I’ll be there, too. I’ll try to get there before you.
He ends the call and we devise a plan. Arden, Christian and Rina will go with the jewelry to the restaurant. Nika will stay outside on sniper duty: if things go bad, she can start shooting so we can grab Emma and get the hell out. As for Mike? No telling what he’s up to, he isn’t here to ask.
For certain, we are willing to give up the jewelry for the girl. It’s a shame, but if we can make the trade, we will and hope the girls can make it on their own without the jewelry. We’ll carry an example of the jewelry in the bottom of Arden’s doctor’s bag and have Rina carry the rest in her map bag, the one she uses to haul her tools around in, for security. If the kidnappers like what Arden’s shown them, we can have Rina hand the rest over. If they don’t like it, then we run for it with Emma and the girls’ grubstake would be safe. Or at least as safe as Rina can make it.
We give Miss Tolson strict orders. She is not to answer the Cortex or the door. She is not to leave the ship. If she leaves, for whatever reason, we will not look for her but take off without her. Period. Actions thus decided, we don our armor and grab what guns and comms we’ve got, lock up the ship behind us, and hit the streets for the restaurant.
Kore, Eavesdown Docks
18:30 hrs, local time
We decide to walk it, the better to get the lay of the land and to separate into our different groups as needed. It’s a three mile walk and it takes us under an hour to make it.
Nika finds a way to the roof of the apartment building opposite the restaurant. Buildings in this part of are five stories tall, and the restaurant itself occupies the fourth and fifth floors of the building it’s in. This makes the angle of fire a little easier on Nika, five floors above the ground across the street. There still are any number of variables that might make it difficult for her to act as sniper—intervening people or architecture, streetlight glare off the windows, curtains, and so on. She hits the roof, chooses her spot, kneels and starts assembling her weapon.
Given the height of the buildings and the congestion of street parking, visibility for Rina is going to be limited. We decide to have her wait in the lobby downstairs of the restaurant. She’ll be able to better listen in on the conversation upstairs over the comms. We check our gear one more time, walk the rest of the block to the restaurant and go in.
The lobby is a plain box of a room, with no features beyond the stairs going up, an elevator, a few potted palms and an aquarium, and a bench. There is someone sitting on the bench with a newspaper and it’s obvious he’s Tong muscle. Christian turns to Rina and uses his most pompous and officious tone.
Christian: Wait here until we come back.
She nods and sits as far away on the bench from the Tong muscle as possible. Back off, buddy, nothin’ to see here, just waitin’ for my Boss. The elevator dings! when Christian presses the call button and he and Arden enter. The Muscle pulls up his jacket collar and whispers into it and Rina tries not to twitch: of course he’s not talking about her, specifically, but the fact that Christian and Arden are on their way up. She listens in, hears the Chinese, and translates. She was right, it’s a warning that her crewmates are on their way up and that they should be checked. Frisked, is what he means, and Rina hopes that nothing happens when they do.
Looking through her rifle’s scope, Nika finds the angle of fire sucks. Badly. Which is probably why the Tong chose that particular building and height off the ground for their restaurant. She turns the gain on her ear piece up a little more. There may be a chance she can still use her rifle if she can listen in on what she can’t see happening.
Christian and Arden are stopped when they get off the elevator by the Tong muscle, and more muscle is waved over to frisk them. Christian and Arden pre-empt them by showing them their guns right off the bat. They search Arden’s bag and remove his scalpels.
2nd Floor Muscle: Do you have a reservation?
Christian: We are meeting someone here. A potential new client. Any table will do, thank you.
It’s a pretty big restaurant, filled with people eating and talking and having an enjoyable evening. For dining out, it’s perfect. For anyone wearing a wire, it’s a nightmare—the ambient noise is loud enough to make any eavesdropping difficult. Christian surreptitiously turns his comm on anyway, to give Nika what he can to work with. If nothing else, if he started screaming, she can at least start shooting.
Arden and Christian are shown their table and they sit down. Just like everybody else here, thanks. On the roof across the street, Nika starts walking around looking for a better line of sight for her rifle.
After a little while, a familiar-looking scared girl and the man holding her by the elbow approach Arden and Christian’s table. Looking him over, Christian sees the man is pretty much as Emma described him. Caucasian, dark hair, sorta swarthy. Non-Tong-ish. Mediterranean, maybe. Ever the gentleman, Christian rises and greets Emma.
Christian: How are you?
Emma: (quietly) I’m….really sorry about all this.
Christian: Please sit down. Our waiter hasn’t arrived yet.
Kidnapper: You prepared?
Christian: To order? Yes.
Arden: I recommend the Pad Thai.
Christian: I hear it’s delicious.
It’s a Chinese restaurant and it’s not on the menu.
Christian: In that case, I’ll have the Dim Sum Yum.
Arden: I’d prefer something a little less spicy, thanks.
Christian: And ginger dressing salad.
Arden: And crab rangoons.
Christian: Yes, definitely.
The kidnapper is annoyed by the banter. Of course, it’s a deliberate ploy by Christian and Arden to put him on the defensive, to shake things up. And as we expected, the guy sticks doggedly to the script.
Kidnapper: All right, guys. I don’t know what you’re pullin’, but if you’re not prepared, I’ll have to talk to some of our other potential clients.
Christian: Your other potential clients?
Kidnapper: Yes.
Christian: Yes. I’m sure you have many of them, considering you are not slavers.
Arden: Of course, he’s not slavers.
Kidnapper: But perhaps we know such slavers.
Christian: Who doesn’t?
Kidnapper: Listen, I know that you know that you’ve got money. Either you’re gonna pay or not. What are you gonna do?
Christian: Actually, I’m curious. Why? How do you know?
Arden: How do you know we have money? Considering the two girls are on the run.
Christian: Not to mention the fact that we’ve been eating protein paste for the last week.
Arden: Yeah, yummy.
Kidnapper: She told me about the jewelry.
Arden: Yeah.
Kidnapper: Lots of jewelry.
Arden: Not worth that much.
Kidnapper: Well, then, you won’t have that much trouble parting with it.
Arden: Sure.
Christian: Well, then. How do you want to arrange this?
Kidnapper: Why don’t you hand it over to me and I’ll hand her over to you?
Arden: We have only one sample of it.
Kidnapper: Well, then. You need to go get it.
Arden: Is it your man in the lobby?
Kidnapper: Oh, yeah.
The kidnapper’s lying. The guy in the lobby was pure Tong. They’d never work for a two-bit unimaginative round-eye like him.
Christian: Really?
Kidnapper: We have an arrangement with the owners of this facility. This is why I wasn’t afraid to bring her down here.
Arden: (to Christian) You give him what you have and I’ll go downstairs and give him the rest. I just don’t care anymore.
Arden gets up and leaves for the elevator and Christian pulls the sample from Arden’s bag. Christian looks over the restaurant, watching for the kidnapper’s accomplices. He might have been stupid enough to come alone, but Christian’s not counting on that happening. Christian spots a table with three likely candidates and realizes he and Arden are outnumbered two-to-one. If Emma has any fight in her, the odds might be bumped closer to even…but Christian’s not counting on that happening either. That’s assuming, of course, that the Tong in the restaurant don’t kill us outright.
As Arden is walking off the restaurant floor, he gets brushed hard by a man in waiter’s whites. He doesn’t even stop to acknowledge Arden but moves on. Arden checks his wallet, looks up and does a double-take.
It’s Mike.
Looks like our odds just got a little more even.
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