Chapter 36

 

“Just remember, you must—absolutely must—be back before we leave for the airport,” Pen said.

Amber nodded impatiently.

“Take your ticket and passport with you. I can manage your bag, but we can’t take the chance you won’t be able to check yourself in if we become separated. We’ll leave the hotel at noon. If you can’t be back here by then, go directly to the airport.”

Amber gave an irked smile. “Yes, Mom.”

Pen ignored the sarcasm. They were all tired and the circumstances were wearing them down. Amber mumbled a small “Sorry” and went back to her own room. She scooped clothing from the closet and dresser drawers and smashed it into her suitcase. She tossed in her bag of toiletries, made certain her documents and iPad were in her tote bag, and wheeled the large suitcase across the hall to Pen’s room.

“Just in case,” she said before turning away. She called over her shoulder, “I will be back in time.”

Out on the street she took a deep breath. For all her bluster, this was a huge city and she felt barely confident about smoothly negotiating her way around with public transportation and her limited knowledge of the language. She watched for the correct bus, the one that would get her to Tong Chen Enterprises with only a couple of stops along the way. She could have easily walked the distance but as Pen had reminded her, time was of the essence and it was way too scary to think of missing the flight and having to straighten out the resulting mess.

Settled into a seat, she calmed down. Yeah, maybe she should have gotten an earlier start, but it was only ten-thirty. Plenty of time. The bus roared into the left lane. Uh-oh, this didn’t seem right. She looked at the lighted printing above the front window but the writing was all in Chinese characters. Had she accidentally boarded an express bus? Shit.

She twisted in her seat, watching the neighborhood disappear as the bus entered the ring road. Oh god. She forced her pounding heart to slow down then reached for her phone. Her finger scrolled through the contacts before she paused to think about the situation. What was I thinking? Telling Pen she was lost—she’d never hear the end of it. She’d best figure this out on her own.

Maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad. She would get off the bus the very next time it stopped and figure it out from there. Surely, someone could tell her how to get back. She told herself not to worry about it.

I’m smart and competent and I’ve done a fair amount of travel. I can do this.

The bus stayed on the ring road nearly twenty minutes, every one of them taking Amber farther from her destination and closer to missing her flight, every mile diminishing her bravado. Finally, it pulled to the curb outside a train station. She got off and looked around for any signage she could read. The few signs in Roman lettering didn’t help much. The destinations all contained the same set of letters—Qingsun, Chondau, Guisang. Even if she could remember the name of the neighborhood she needed to reach, the train was probably not the way to get there.

She had paused near a vendor, a man cooking a massive wok full of noodles on a portable cart. An impatient Chinese man who looked close to a hundred pushed her aside to get to the food. She stepped aside and rummaged in her deep tote bag for the address of Tong Chen Enterprises. Where had that scrap of paper gone? She remembered tucking it into the coin pocket of her wallet. Operating by feel she undid the clasp and touched the little slip.

Luckily, the first time she went there she’d asked the hotel concierge to copy the English version of the name into Chinese characters. When the pushy old man stepped away with his cup of noodle soup, Amber held up the address to the vendor.

“Can you tell me how to get to this place?” she asked, remembering belatedly to repeat the question in Mandarin.

The vendor squinted at the paper, made a dismissive gesture and turned away. Amber felt a surge of panic. The blare of a car horn caught her attention. Behind her, across a wide median and divider, idled a line of taxis. It was a risk-your-life move as she dashed between cars to cross over to them. The driver of the first car she came to gave her a tired look.

She held out the slip of paper with the address. He read it and nodded.

Hěn yuan. Very far away. Shit—how far?

She was running low on cash. Duōshǎo qián?

He named a figure, which she barely understood. What option did she have? She nodded and got into the back seat. He clicked the button on the taxi meter and pulled into the stream of traffic. As the money ticked away, she vowed she would never, ever admit to Pen how harrowing this little adventure had become.

She decided to visualize Clint’s office, the layout and the types of paperwork she’d seen, envisioning herself arriving there and finding something of value to their mission. There were huge rolls of blueprints on a big table, a diagram of the jobsite on one wall. When Clint was there he’d worked on a computer. Had he left it at the office or was it a personal one he carried everywhere? She had no way to know so she kept her thoughts positive. All this effort had to be worth something. Surely, Clint didn’t pack up everything in the office every night and take it to his hotel. There must be important documents somewhere in that office.

It was eleven-thirty when the taxi deposited her in front of Tong Chen Enterprises. She approached the front door with all the confidence she could muster.

“Miss?” a voice said in English. A uniformed guard stood at a small podium inside the door. “Your employee badge?”

Badge? She’d never had a badge when she came the first time. Of course, she’d arrived with the morning rush of employees and most likely had scooted on past the checkpoint without realizing she was expected to stop.

“My badge.” She patted her chest where a lanyard might hang, if she’d had one. “Oh, no! I must have left it at my desk when I stepped out for lunch. It’s the temporary offices of Redwing Holdings … Clint Holbrook is my boss. Do you want to come up with me? It’s in my desk drawer.”

Amber gave the whole spiel as quickly as possible with a little California-girl spin and a series of hand gestures indicating upstairs. The guard’s patient smile stayed in place but she could tell he didn’t get half of what she said.

“Please go ahead,” he said.

Whew. Thank goodness—aside from the fact she’d lost another two minutes. She rode the elevator with three men in business suits, one of whom must have just finished a large serving of garlic.

Clint’s office down the hall on the tenth floor was dark. She wondered what would happen with the construction project he’d begun. Most likely, the work would continue under the supervision of the second-lowest bidder. She tried the doorknob but of course it was locked. However, it was a cheap lockset and she was willing to give breaking and entering a try.

With a scan of the corridor in each direction she pulled a plastic card from her wallet. Thinner than a credit card, it would, she hoped, have the flexibility to be maneuvered between the door and the jamb … and, yes. It worked.

She slipped inside, locked the door behind her and left the lights off in case someone who knew the situation came along and noticed. The large window in Clint’s private office provided almost enough light—enough for her to see the project diagram on the wall and the heavy roll of blueprints on the table. Aside from that, no computer. It looked as if he’d had the good sense to take it back to his hotel each night, although Amber snickered a little, remembering the totally inadequate security on the machine.

She opened the top desk drawer, finding only blank stationery and a handful of ballpoint pens imprinted with the company name. Who actually uses letterhead anymore, she wondered as she shuffled through the pages. Email and attachments were ubiquitous these days. The next drawer excited her a bit as she spotted a leather portfolio of the sort a man would use to carry important documents. Sadly, however, there was nothing inside but a fresh yellow legal pad. She tossed it back into the drawer.

She looked at the time. 12:15. She’d already missed her airport ride with Pen and Gracie. This recon of the offices had certainly been a wasted trip. It appeared every trace of Clint Holbrook had been removed.

Amber set her bag on Clint’s desk and pawed through it. Clearly, she would accomplish nothing further here, so her mission now was to get herself to the airport so she could leave the country. The cab ride would cost at least three-hundred-fifty yuan but her wallet was empty of cash and the other compartments in the bag yielded no money either. She would have to find an ATM somewhere. The plane would begin boarding in an hour.