It was darker inside than out. Glock in one hand, Maglite in the other, Kate immediately checked for a security system, but found none. The wall where such a keypad was generally mounted was bare. Kate then shut the door behind them leaving Michael to stare into the full height decorative mirror at the end of the corridor. Kate put a finger to her mouth and motioned with the Glock. Michael realized that she was about to clear the area and didn’t presume to follow. Instead he stood at the ready, listening to Kate move through the rooms. There weren’t many of them and it didn’t take long. By the time Michael had estimated that the apartment probably consisted of a galley style kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and two baths, she was back.
“Nobody here.”
“Probably why he has that big mirror. So he doesn’t get lonely.”
“It’s a feng shui thing,” Kate said. “The Chinese don’t like dead ends. They trap Sha Chi.”
“Sha who?”
“Sha Chi. Bad energy.”
“From the vibe I’m getting the mirror didn’t work.”
Michael continued down the hall into the living room. Even in the shadows, everything about the place screamed bachelor pad. A shiny black leather couch did time alongside two jade end tables and a fake electric fire burning in the hearth. The walls were covered in gaudy prints, Chinese landscapes and the like, a set of beaded curtains covering what looked like a sliding glass door to the balcony. The curtains were printed in a tropical beach scene, a scantily clad woman bent longingly over a mai tai. The illustration was so evocative, Michael could have sworn that the woman was gyrating, the palms ruffling in the breeze above her. It took Michael a moment to realize that the woman actually was moving, a breeze blowing at the long strands of beads.
“I thought you checked the place.”
“I did. The sliding door is locked.”
“Then why’s island girl hulaing?”
Kate put a finger to her lips and moved silently toward the sliding glass door, Glock at the ready. As she tried the door Michael could clearly see it was latched from the inside. Keeping her Maglite low, she flashed it outside onto the balcony, circumscribing an arc around the apartment before she stopped cold.
Kate mouthed a single word. “Window.”
Michael followed the beam of light to the wall behind the couch. There was a window all right. And it was open. Michael hadn’t seen it at first because it was hidden behind a printed pull down blind, but now with the breeze ruffling the blind, there was no mistaking it. It was small, probably two by two, with an oxidized aluminum frame and the screen popped out. Just the right size for a person to enter or exit the space. Michael stepped around the couch to get a closer look, but caught his toe on an obstacle in the darkness, lurching across the heavily padded floor before regaining his balance.
“Are you all right?”
Michael stared down at the floor for a long moment. “I’m fine,” he finally said.
“Then what is it?”
Michael returned his gaze to the base of the couch where a familiar man lay on his side, a bullet hole in his forehead, blood draining from the exit wound onto the heavy carpeting.
“Chen,” Michael said. “He’s dead.”
Chapter 13
It wasn’t the first time Michael had seen a dead man, and he was certain it wouldn’t be the last, but the way Kate whipped through Chen’s bedroom drawers disturbed him just the same. Chen had been a bad apple, that much was sure, but something about the situation still called out for a modicum of respect, or so Michael felt. Kate, however, was more practical in such matters. Emptying the final drawer, she moved onto the closet, sweeping the clothes within it away as if she already had an idea what she was looking for — something big.
“Did you search his pockets?”
Michael held up a car key. “No wallet, just this.”
“Keep it,” Kate said. “We may need it later.”
“You want to tell me what it is you’re looking for?”
“Your dad marked Chen as a player. The factory’s coordinates confirm that. The question is why?”
Michael stepped back into the living room where the breeze continued to blow in from the open window, undulating the bead curtain girl under her plastic palm.
“Might as well be asking her,” Michael said.
“Lot of good that will do.”
But Kate must have thought there was something to Michael’s suggestion because she opened the sliding glass door, continuing out onto the patio.
“Same as before. One slightly rusted garden set, floral table cloth, no umbrella.”
Michael stepped onto the small balcony behind Kate. A metal railing enclosed the six-by-twelve-foot concrete deck. There was a gap of maybe four feet and immediately to the right sat Chen’s neighbor’s balcony, identical in every respect to Chen’s except the end of the corridor running along the perimeter of the building sat adjacent to it. Michael peered down at the patio table. Like Kate said, a long floral table cloth was draped over it, its legs reaching down to the concrete below, four dirty upholstered chairs pulled around. Michael turned back to the door. Then, something, he wasn’t sure what, made him take a second look at the table. It was hard to see in the low light, but the surface of the table wasn’t level, it was almost convex, sloping down from a higher center. Michael put his hand down on the table. He was right about the incline. You’d be hard pressed to balance a Margarita on it.
“What?” Kate said.
“Nothing,” Michael replied, still staring at the table. And like that Michael lifted up, pulling the cloth up from the table like a magician revealing a cage of tigers. Only there wasn’t a tiger in this cage. There was a top.
* * *
The object sat cradled within the rusty patio furniture legs exactly where the table top should have been. It was a metallic capsule approximately four feet in diameter, turned out like an oversized version of the retro children’s toy. The capsule had engraving around its perimeter, and a bulb at its base, again like a toy top. Except this top had obviously been exquisitely crafted out of some very expensive metal — platinum or the like. All in all, the thing sitting there between the cheap patio furniture legs was the equivalent of looking at a Ming vase in a dumpster. It just didn’t fit.
“It matches the blueprint,” Kate said.
“The blueprint was an airplane.”
“Not all of it,” Kate said.
Michael rapped the capsule lightly with his fist. It rang hollow. “Good. I’m glad that’s settled. For awhile there I thought you were actually going to keep me in the loop.”
Kate took a breath. “I’m not a hundred percent on this, but my best guess is it’s an original scale model of the Horten’s power plant — the cold fusion reactor your father and I were looking for.”
“That some dead guy is using for patio furniture?”
“Like I said, I’m not a hundred percent. But I will be.”