"David can translate." Mother reached for her phone and dialed the senior agent.
Zack made room for David at the terminal. Before long, more and more agents stopped by to watch.
Mother turned to explain. "The hero in this game is named Jing-sh."
"Which is Chinese for zombie," David said quietly, "and zombies deal in death. The creature sucks the life force out of anyone he encounters."
"What"s the matter with you?" Mother glanced over her shoulder at him "You sick or something? You"re awfully quiet."
He scrubbed his face with one hand. "It"s this game. It"s evil."
"Maybe I can help." Todd took over Mother"s joystick. "Watch this."
Zack and David leaned into the screen while Todd moved the zombie hero through one cavern after another with its basket of eleven little gingerbread-type cookies.
"What are those supposed to be?" Zack pointed at the basket.
"Children," David said tiredly. "Jing-sh"s mission is to deliver these eleven children, more if he can acquire them while he is inside the cavern."
"Where"s he taking them?"
"I still don"t know," David sighed.
"Right. We haven"t gotten far enough in the game. All we"re doing is raking up points and winnings," Ember said.
Zack rested his chin on his fist as he watched Todd move the zombie along a stone path in a dark cave. Sometimes gold glittered along the floor or in the walls. Each time the zombie touched the gold, a display at the bottom of the screen changed.
"You guys ready?" Todd turned to his audience, his eyebrows lifted in mischief. Without waiting for an answer, he clicked on a stone wall blocking the hero"s way. As it disintegrated, it revealed Chinese lettering in two very distinct columns.
"Wow," Ember exclaimed, her long slender fingers on Todd"s knee. "Good job. Look what you found."
David scanned the script. "Stop. Don"t move a thing. Let me read it."
Everyone paused until he pointed to the first set of letters. "These are eleven names."
"The names of the children?" Todd asked.
"Possibly. But," David straightened in his seat, "that last name is not a child"s name. It says R. Richards."
"What"s the other list?" Zack asked.
David peered closer. "Numeric."
"Now watch." Todd moved the zombie hero again, pushing him farther into the cavern. As Jing-sh advanced, he pulled a root hanging down from the ceiling. A panel creaked open and a ghost materialized, wavering in and out of focus.
"It"s one of those Easter eggs I found. What"s this spooky guy saying, David?" Todd turned the volume up. "It"s talking in Chinese. I don"t understand."
David c.o.c.ked his ear toward the computer as everyone quieted to hear the ghostly incantation. "The creature is Yu Lng, the dark soul. It sounds like he"s relaying delivery instructions, but it"s in code. Four must travel to the city of stone workers. Four go to the city of the lady. Three are destined for the city of light.
Mother gasped. "Is he talking about Paris? It"s the only city of light I know."
"Then where"s the city of the lady?" Todd asked.
"New York? Maybe the lady"s the Statue of Liberty," Ember interjected.
Mother turned to Zack and David. "You guys ever heard of the city of stone workers?"
Zack shrugged. "Might be Egypt. Stone workers built the pyramids."
"Never mind. Watch this." Todd moved Jing-sh to the tunnel exit, where Todd clicked his mouse over the second square stone to the right of the arched opening.
Immediately, two gray wraiths swirled around the basket of children, chanting and buzzing. The wands in their long bony fingers emitted fiery sparks that sizzled into the heads of the gingerbread children. Childlike cries screeched above the buzzing noise of the wraiths until the sparks faded. Tendrils of orange smoke drifted over the basket. Jing-sh"s zombie face split into a toothy grin as he bowed to the wraiths.
David pushed back from the game. "I can"t watch it anymore."
His reaction sparked Zack"s interest. The game just got more and more bizarre. "What are they doing to those kids?"
Todd zoomed in to enlarge the head of one of the gingerbread children. Zack cursed. A dragon tattoo had been burned into the face of each cookie child.
"And look at this." Todd was excited now. He enlarged another head. A green dragon was burned into that child"s face. Another showed a red dragon. "Sick, huh?"
"Wait," Zack growled. "Go back to the list you found."
Todd did as he was told.
"Which of these names got the green dragon tat?" Zack asked.
"Heck, I don"t know. Wait a second." Todd flashed back to the screen where the branding had taken place. Enlarging the screen even more, he was able to decipher Chinese characters on one of the children. Everyone turned to David.
"Li Ming," he interpreted. "It"s a little girl. Her name is...Li Ming."
"Now go back to the list," Zack ordered.
"Already doing that," Todd muttered, working the joystick as fast as only a gamer knows how. Everyone leaned into the screen. Sure enough, Li Ming"s name was there as well.
"Poor Li Ming is going to...where, Todd?" Mother asked.
"Wait for it." Todd worked the keyboard, adeptly matching the names on the list to the gingerbread children in the basket. By the time he was done, they knew exactly which child was going to Paris, New York, or Egypt. They also knew each child was a female.
"Wait. Something"s not right," Zack muttered. "We"ve got three little girls with the black dragon tattoo right here in Anacostia."
"The city of stone workers doesn"t mean Egypt," David murmured.
"I know! The Masons were stone workers," Mother declared with gusto. "George Washington designed D.C., remember? He was a Freemason and pretty high up in the ranks, too. He incorporated their symbols throughout the city"s design when he put L"Enfant in charge."
"That"s a conspiracy theory," Todd muttered. "No one believes that. It isn"t true."
"Oh, yes it is," she declared.
"It"s got to be D.C.," Zack said. "That means these children are coming to Richards or he"s already got them. We"re looking at a freaking purchase order. That"s how these guys are communicating with each other. This isn"t a game. It"s e-Commerce. It"s how they"re selling children."
"Why"s his name on the whole order if he"s only getting four of the eleven?" Todd interrupted.
"d.a.m.n it," Zack hissed. Expletives he couldn"t say in mixed company sprang to mind. The evidence was clear. "Because his business is international. We need to decipher those tattoos. I"ll bet a month"s pay they"re like barcodes."
"You might be right," David said.
"Ah, guys." Todd had continued to work through the game. "I still need to know what the witch with the wand was chanting."
"I forgot. Play it again," David said tiredly. "Sorry."
Todd clicked the second square stone to the arched exit again. The wraiths repeated the chant.
David paled. "I don"t know what it means, but she said, "Even if you live, you"ll die"."
"Them poor little babies are all cursed," Mother whispered.
"Like h.e.l.l." Zack stood so quickly he knocked his chair over. He stabbed the computer screen with a condemning finger. "These girls aren"t cursed. He is. It"s Richards who"s cursed, and every person who"s working for him."
And I"m the one who"s going to put him down.
FIFTEEN.
The following morning, Mr. Quentin Burns and his wife, Amelia, were back at the attorney"s office with the prerequisite fee.
"Is that the money?" Mrs. Bradford asked when she spied the hefty aluminum briefcase.
"Yes, ma"am." Zack lifted it to hand it over but she declined, shaking her head with her lips pursed in that dried prune way she had.
"I don"t want to touch it, but I do need to see it. Please set it on my desk."
That was an odd request, but Zack did as he was told. She peered down her nose at the stacks of one hundred dollar bills when he opened the case. "You call those small bills?"
"They are to me," he replied with his best fake-millionaire nonchalance. After the revelations of the video game, he was in it to win it. Cold hard cash didn"t get turned down too often. He was willing to bet it wouldn"t today, either. "What"d you expect? Twenties?"
Ms. Bradford sniffed like she was offended by the filthy lucre. "Fine. Keep it. Mr. Richards will see you now."
She ushered them into the attorney"s office. Reginald Richards motioned them to sit in the chairs in front of his desk while he finished a telephone conversation. When he hung up, he leaned his elbows onto his desk, his lip curled as he ran his gaze over them both.
"Mr. and Mrs. Burns, or whatever your names are, you say you"re looking to buy a little girl. That right?" Attorney Richards was used to dealing in human commodities. He didn"t bother with the euphemism of adoption. A dark haired, olive skinned man, Zack pegged him about five ten, maybe two-hundred-fifty pounds. His hands were rough and calloused, not the hands of a pencil-pushing lawyer at all, and his face was just as rough. A scar on his forehead gave the appearance of a perpetually raised eyebrow. The man had jowls. He looked more like a nineteen-fifties era gangster than a lawyer.
"It"s Quentin Burns, Mr. Richards. And this is my wife of eleven years, Amelia-"
"I don"t care what your names are." Richards waved the explanation away. "Let"s get straight to the point. Your background checks came back clean. Marge says you got the dough. That"s all I care about. Most people lie about their names anyway, so it don"t matter one way or the other. What matters is you two understand what I"m going to tell you next."
Mei reached for Zack"s hand and he squeezed it, surprised she wanted any contact with him. The woman drove him crazy, cold one moment, hot the next.
"You wrote down here that you want a little girl around six years old." He glanced at the form they"d filled out the day before. "A c.h.i.n.k. That right?"
You sonofab.i.t.c.h. Zack bristled at the derogatory slur. "I"d appreciate if-"
"Yeah, whatever." Richards tossed a card across the desk. "Take this. It"s a couple foster homes you can check out. Take your pick of the litter, but I want you to know what you"re doing"s illegal. Buying babies and children is against the law. Make d.a.m.ned sure you don"t go blabbing where you got her."
"Yes." Zack answered simultaneously with Mei. She was wound so tight, her nervousness vibrated straight up his arm.
"I gotta be honest with ya. I really do this kinda stuff to save them little girls" lives, ya know." Richards waxed n.o.ble. "They got no chance of a decent life over there. You ever seen one of them orphanages in China? All they want is sons, so the baby girls gotta go somewhere. I"m here to tell ya, them places are a stinking mess. Everyone knows these kids are better off over here, no matter how they end up."
"What about the adoption papers?" Zack asked. His fist curled. He needed to get Mei out of here before he decked the lying buffoon. The image of eleven gingerbread children remained stuck in the back of his mind. Richards needed to be branded, and Zack was the man for the job.
"You get the papers when you picks the kid. You"ll come back here, and we"ll finish the deal. You got a problem with that?"
Zack shook his head. "No, sir, but I want to make sure-"
"I don"t care what you want. Get out of here. I"ve got bigger problems than a couple rich sn.o.bs who can"t even make a kid." With that snicker, he waved them to get out of his office.
As if on cue, Ms. Bradford re-entered the room and escorted them back to her desk. Just in time, too. One more minute of listening to the evil man, and Zack would"ve wreaked some vengeance for Chai all over Richards" ugly face. He wanted to.
Mei held tightly to his hand, and this time he didn"t just press his other hand to the small of her back. He pulled her close, she was trembling so hard. They"d just come face to face with one of the most despicable men he"d ever met.
"Please take a seat." Ms. Bradford motioned toward the chairs next to her desk. "Did he give you the addresses?"
Zack slanted the card at her. "Got "em."
"Just checking. He starts rambling about those poor little girls and he forgets sometimes. Reggie really is a good man."
"And pigs fly, too," Todd muttered in Zack"s ear.
Not now, Todd. I"m already mad enough for the two of us.
"If you don"t find what you"re looking for at either of those homes tomorrow, let me know. We don"t keep all the available children in one place. Security, you know."
"Tomorrow?" Mei"s voice creaked. "We can"t go until tomorrow?"
Zack tightened his grip on her.
"Certainly not," the annoying secretary replied.
"Why not?" he asked. "We"ve done everything you"ve asked, and you expect us to wait another day?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Ms. Bradford peered down her nose through her gla.s.ses at her computer screen, her fingers flying over her keyboard. "These things take time. I can hook you up with other options if you don"t want to wait, but if you give us a day, we can make sure you have more of a selection. Your choice. What shall it be?" She paused, her quick fingers suspended over her keyboard.