Once inside the room, Kate didn’t stop. She continued to the rear wall where a table and a set of chairs sat. There was a microwave here and a teapot as well. The room obviously served as an informal cafeteria for the temple staff. On the wall was a glossy poster of frigid Northern land, snow glistening on pine branches. Beside it was a large white refrigerator. Pistol still firmly planted in Michael’s spine, she rolled the refrigerator forward with her right hand revealing a litter of dust bunnies congregated around the base of a narrow wooden door not more than four feet high.
“Get in,” Kate said.
They were the first words she’d spoken for over an hour. Michael would have preferred she’d said something else and he definitely would have preferred that she’d taken the pistol out of his back, but regardless, he still didn’t think she was going to use it. No, Michael believed her when she’d said they needed to talk. He just wasn’t certain he wanted to bet his life on it.
“You sure you wouldn’t rather go out for beer?”
Kate opened the narrow door. “I’m sure.”
Her answer didn’t really matter, because the next thing Michael knew he felt Kate’s foot planted on his ass and he was tumbling forward down a steep set of stairs. He was able to roll through most of it and luckily the floor at the bottom was packed dirt, not concrete, but he was beginning to question his assessment of Kate. Maybe she was going to use the gun. Maybe she was just looking for the right place to do it.
“Get up.”
Kate aimed the gun squarely down at him as she descended the stairs. Some light bled in down here, enough to let Michael know that he was in a rock-walled chamber maybe twelve feet long and half as wide. The mortar was cracking around the larger rocks, moisture seeping in and making the hard dirt floor wet. Kate flipped on a bare bulb and Michael saw that the walls were no more than head high. The chamber had been cut into the earth and around it on all sides was the raised foundation of the temple. An old apothecary chest, covered in heavy dust, sat at the far end of the tiny subterranean room, a black folding metal chair open in front of it. Other than that there was nothing. Just rock and dirt. Michael pulled off his pack.
“Sit,” Kate said.
Pistol trained between his eyes, Michael sat on the cold metal chair, feeling its legs sink into the soil.
“Who are you?”
“Chase. Michael Chase.”
She cocked the gun, pulling back the integrated safety trigger. Michael noted that it was a Glock. Probably a twenty-six. Definitely a problem.
“I said who are you?”
“And I told you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Like I told you the first time, I’ve come to find my father.”
“Who’s your father?”
“Alex Chase.”
“How do you know Alex Chase?”
“He’s my dad.”
Kate looked unconvinced.
“Don’t believe me? Look at me.” Michael reached for the pocket of his cargo pants. “Look at this.”
Kate pointed her gun. “Careful.”
Michael raised one hand and slowly reached into his pocket withdrawing his wallet. He opened it up, revealing a photo of himself and his dad. It had obviously been taken several years previously. The two of them were in shorts and t-shirts, grease everywhere, arms around each other’s shoulders in front of a partially disassembled Volkswagen dune buggy. They called the dune buggy the Yellow Bomber and there was no denying that they were happy, just as there was no denying the family resemblance. It was in the blue eyes, the nose, and the chin, even the way they held themselves. Michael was his father’s son all over.
“Fine. Let’s say you’re his son. Do you know who your father was?”
“Dad? The guy who changed my diapers? The guy who brought me to the ball game? What do you want me to say?”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Look. You helped me out last night and for that I’m grateful. But the way I see it, this isn’t about me, or my dad, it’s about you.”
“Wrong. Open the chest.”
“Why?”
“Four in, third drawer down. Open it.”
Michael looked at the apothecary chest. It was so covered in foundation dust, it didn’t look like anybody had opened anything for a very long time. Michael counted four drawers in and three down. He pulled the wooden drawer open. It was empty.
“There’s a catch inside the drawer on the top panel. Pull it.”
Michael felt inside the drawer. The wood was rougher in here, unpainted, but his fingers hit something that felt like a metal spring. He pulled it and heard a click.
“Now reach around the back of the chest.”
Michael did as he was instructed. He felt it immediately. A metal box had popped out of the back panel. Placing a hand on either side of the box, Michael was able to remove it, bringing it into the light. The box was dented black metal. About three inches in depth and a little longer than it was wide, it was about the size of a standard Fed Ex parcel.
“Open it.”
The lid was hinged. Michael struggled to undo the hasp, but it was sticky. He had to apply some force, and then, unexpectedly, the hinged side of the lid came open, depositing the box’s contents onto the ground. The first thing Michael saw was a number of passports: Swiss, Canadian, German, British, and at least three others, though Michael couldn’t make out the nationalities from where he stood. There was also currency, a lot of it: bank wrapped packets of euros, pounds, renminbi, dollars. There were what looked like some cosmetic products, some hair dye, contact lenses. And there was a gun. A Browning semi-automatic by the looks of it, its muzzle dug into the dirt.
Kate kicked the Browning aside, hunching down to collect the passports. She opened the British one up first, displaying a photo of Michael’s father. He had black hair and a goatee in the shot, but there was no disputing it was him. She read the name under the photo. “Randal Harris.”
She tossed the passport to Michael, and opened up the next one. It was Swiss. Here Michael’s dad had a shaven head and appeared to be wearing green colored contacts. She read the name under the photo. “Jacob Stringer.” She tossed Michael the Swiss passport and opened the German one. This time Michael’s dad wore a blonde crew cut with a bushy mustache. “Helmuth Heimler.” She tossed the final passport to Michael without opening it.
“You want to play?”
Michael stared down at the passports he now held in hand. There was no denying that the documents were disconcerting, but he wasn’t going to let Kate have the upper hand. Not if he could help it.
“Your father wasn’t the man you thought he was, Michael.”
“There are explanations for this.”
“Name one.”
“He traveled.”
“With a gun?”
“Why not?”
“Unlikely your average foreign shoe salesman would risk bringing a firearm to China.”
“So he picked it up here. For self-defense.”
“This isn’t Texas.”
“No shit.”
Kate shook her head. “Let me guess. He needed a few fake passports too, right? For self-defense.” Kate turned her glance down to the hard packed floor. “Remember your kidnapping back in Peru? Remember the men who did it?”
Michael stiffened. “How do you know about that?”
“Didn’t you find it strange that you were a target?”
“It was opportunistic. They followed us there. For money.”
“You don’t think it had anything to do with who he was?”
Michael felt his blood run cold. “What do you want, lady? Answers? What about you? Who are you? Why do you care about my father?”