Chapter 35: The Abduction
Nearly an hour of following.
The motorcyclist had led them across the city in a patient, indirect route that could have been evasion or could have been a standard counter-surveillance pattern — Simon couldn't tell which, and suspected that was the point. They'd crossed three different neighborhoods, doubled back twice through areas with limited camera coverage, and ended up outside a bar in a commercial block Simon vaguely recognized from the edge of his mental geography.
The Lincoln Town Car was already there when they arrived. Jerry Pan was being wheeled inside by two of his people.
The motorcyclist — Mei Ling — pulled to the curb, dismounted, and opened her bike's rear compartment.
Casey let out a low sound. "Two sidearms. She's operational."
"Those aren't commercial," Chuck said from the back seat. His voice had the specific quality it had when the Intersect was supplying detail. "The grips, the finish — those are military-issue. Not American military."
Simon had already seen the same thing in his one-percent flash of the Intersect — not a full picture, just enough to confirm what Chuck had said and add a layer beneath it.
"She's not here for Pan," Simon said. "She's here for whoever Pan has."
Sarah and Casey looked at each other.
"If she's here to extract someone," Sarah said, "we need her operational, not in custody. But if Pan's people engage her inside—"
"Then she's dead or Pan's dead or both," Casey finished. "Neither outcome works." He turned. "We can't wait for LAPD. By the time anyone responds, this is already over." He looked at Simon. "Move the car to the intersection at the end of the block. We need the sight line and we need a clear exit route."
"What about me?" Chuck said.
"You stay in the vehicle," Sarah said, checking her weapon. "Simon watches you."
"I can help—"
"You can stay in the vehicle," Casey said, with the tone he used when he was done having a conversation. "Simon."
"Got it," Simon said, and moved the Suburban.
He positioned at the intersection, cut the lights but left the engine idling, and settled in with sightlines to the bar's front entrance and the alley beside it.
Chuck lasted six minutes before he started talking, which Simon had expected. They ran the clock through conversation that Simon tracked with half his attention while the other half watched the building.
Then gunshots.
Two bursts, muffled by the walls and distance, but unmistakable.
Chuck sat up. "Was that—"
"Yes."
"Should we—"
"No." Simon kept his eyes on the entrance. "Three trained operatives are in there. We'd be in the way."
"But if someone gets hurt—"
"Then the three trained operatives handle it." Simon's voice stayed even. "Chuck. I know it's hard to sit here. But going in without a clear read on the situation means you're either a distraction or a hostage. Either makes things worse for everyone including them."
Chuck exhaled. "How are you so calm?"
"Practice," Simon said. Which was true, though the Composure skill doing its quiet work was a more complete answer.
Movement at the bar's side entrance.
Jerry Pan appeared in the alley — wheelchair propelled by someone Simon didn't recognize, moving fast for a man of ninety. Behind him, two of his people covering the rear.
Behind them: a man with his wrists zip-tied and tape across his mouth, being held by two more of Pan's security.
Chuck leaned forward. "We should help—"
"Hold on," Simon said. He was reading the scene. The captive wasn't one of Pan's people — wrong clothes, wrong posture, the specific confusion of someone who'd been taken somewhere they didn't expect to be rather than the resigned awareness of someone who understood the situation.
"That man is Pan's prisoner," Simon said. "Not his associate. He's been taken."
"Then we have to—"
Chuck was out of the car before he finished the sentence.
Simon said several things under his breath, none of which were printable, and followed him.
The alley was forty feet long and lit by a single overhead fixture. Pan's Town Car was at the far end. Two of his security were loading him into the back while the other two maintained positions with the captive between them.
Chuck reached Pan first — which was simultaneously impressive and a disaster — and grabbed the wheelchair handles with the earnest helpfulness of someone who had not fully processed what kind of organization he was assisting.
Pan looked up at him. Said nothing. The expression of a very old man who had survived a very long time by understanding immediately what anything in his environment represented.
Chuck was pushing the wheelchair toward the car.
One of Pan's security men intercepted and took the handles from Chuck with the wordless efficiency of someone reclaiming control.
Simon reached the edge of the group and assessed in two seconds: two armed security on the captive, two at the car, one floating. Five total. The captive was bound but standing, which meant the situation had mobility.
Then one of the side doors opened.
Two of Pan's people came out with the bound man between them, moving him toward a secondary vehicle.
Simon moved.
He took the first man in the ribs with a side kick — not a demonstration, a mechanical interrupt, enough force to fold him out of the grip on the captive's arm. The man went sideways into the wall.
The second man and the floating guard both turned and reached.
Simon didn't give them the reach. He closed the distance on the second man, got his hands up inside the draw, grabbed the man's wrist and collar, and used the forward momentum to dump him over his hip onto the alley floor. The impact was sufficient.
The floating guard had his weapon clear.
Simon dropped behind a dumpster.
The shot went wide.
He drew the tranq pistol from his jacket, acquired the target from behind cover, and fired once.
The dart took the guard in the neck. Four seconds later, the guard sat down against the wall with the deliberate slowness of someone experiencing an unexpected muscular systems failure, and then lay down.
Simon stood.
Chuck was staring at him from twelve feet away.
"I told you to stay in the car," Simon said.
"You also got out of the car," Chuck said.
"I got out because you got out."
"That's — actually fair."
Simon walked toward Jerry Pan, who was still in his wheelchair beside the Town Car, watching Simon with the flat assessment of a man calibrating a situation he didn't yet have complete information about.
Simon raised the tranq pistol.
"I don't have a quarrel with you," Simon said. "But the man your people brought out here isn't yours to keep."
Pan said nothing.
Simon pulled the trigger.
The dart hit Pan below the collar. Pan looked at it for a moment with what might have been mild interest, and then began the process of going under with the dignity of a man who had decided that this too was manageable.
His security moved.
Simon tracked them — two still active, both armed, both recalculating.
Then Mei Ling came through the side door at a run, two weapons drawn, and the dynamic shifted in a way that made everyone pause.
She read the alley in one sweep. Pan down. Two of his security still standing. The captive free. Two civilians — Chuck and Simon — neither of whom she'd expected.
She pointed both weapons at Simon.
"FBI. Drop it," she said in English. Then switched languages without waiting: "Who are you?"
"Someone who's on your side more than theirs," Simon said in the same language, keeping his voice low and his hands visible. "The CIA is two minutes behind me. The man you came for is free. You need to go."
Her eyes moved to the captive, who was removing his own zip ties with the focused concentration of someone who had been preparing for exactly this moment.
"You won't make it if you take him with you," Simon said. "They have the block covered. But if you go now, alone, on the bike—"
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you're doing something I think matters, and I don't want you caught for it." He held her eye. "Go. I'll handle what's here."
Mei Ling assessed him for a moment — the quick, professional read of someone deciding whether information was reliable.
Then she lowered one weapon, moved toward the alley's far end, and looked back once.
Simon met her eyes.
She went.
Simon turned to Chuck. "Give me your jacket."
"My—why?"
"Because I need to sell this." Simon took the jacket, wrapped it around his left forearm, and held the forearm in front of one of Mei Ling's pistols — the one she'd left on the ground when she'd fled.
He looked at Chuck.
"Don't watch this," he said.
Chuck watched.
Simon squeezed the trigger.
The shot went through the jacket and grazed the outside of his forearm — a burning line, nothing structural, exactly what he'd calculated. It hurt considerably more than he'd let himself expect.
He let the weapon fall, pressed the jacket against the wound, and was standing in a posture of someone who had recently been shot when Sarah and Casey came around the corner of the alley with their weapons up.
"Federal agents — everyone—" Sarah swept the scene. Her eyes went to Simon. "What happened."
"Pan's people had a captive," Simon said. His voice was steady, which took work. "Chuck came out of the car to help. Things escalated. Target fled before you arrived." He nodded toward Mei Ling's direction. "Northeast. On the bike. Probably gone already."
Casey was already on his radio.
Sarah crossed to Simon and looked at his arm. "How bad."
"Graze. Needs cleaning, probably a couple stitches." He paused. "I've had worse."
Chuck was looking at him with the expression of someone who had seen what had actually happened and was deciding what to say about it.
Simon gave him a look that communicated a great deal without words.
Chuck looked at his shoes.
"The captive," Casey said, returning from the far end of the alley where the man had been. "Who is he?"
"Don't know," Simon said. "He was gone before I could ask."
Which was true. He'd gone over the alley wall thirty seconds after Mei Ling, which was fast for a man who had been zip-tied for an unknown period of time. Fast enough to suggest training. Fast enough to suggest the captive situation was more complicated than it appeared.
Simon filed that and said nothing.
"Pan," Casey said, nudging the old man with his foot. "Out cold. How long?"
"Tranq round. Forty minutes, maybe less given his age." Simon picked up the tranq pistol and holstered it. "His people are secured. The block is manageable."
Casey looked at the scene — five of Pan's people down or secured, Pan himself unconscious in his wheelchair, the alley otherwise empty.
He looked at Simon.
"You did all of this," he said.
"Chuck helped," Simon said.
Chuck, who had contributed exactly one act of wheelchair pushing, accepted this credit in silence.
"Your arm," Casey said.
"I know."
"Get it looked at."
"I will." Simon started toward the alley entrance. "Same rate for tonight? Or is there a hazard premium?"
Casey looked at him for a long moment.
"I'll have someone meet you at your car," he said. "Medical kit and an envelope."
"Appreciated," Simon said.
He walked to the Suburban and got in, and sat in the driver's seat with the jacket pressed to his forearm and the city doing what it always did at night — moving, indifferent, enormous.
Chuck climbed in beside him.
They didn't say anything for a while.
"You let her go," Chuck said finally.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Simon said.
Another silence.
"Thank you," Chuck said. "For coming after me."
"Don't make it a habit," Simon said.
He started the engine.
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