Badge of the Death Game

Chapter 012

Half an hour after leaving the truck, the three of them were sitting in a small restaurant two streets from where Howard had parked it and walked away.

The others had been pointed toward the nearest police station with the address written on a scrap of paper in Howard's hand. Whether they made it, whether the station was trustworthy, whether the consulate would respond in time: none of those questions had answers Soren could provide, and spending energy on them wasn't going to change the outcome. He'd done what he could. The rest was theirs to navigate.

He was working through a plate of fried fish and rice when the restaurant door opened and Evan and Howard came in together, slightly out of breath.

"All sorted," Evan said, sliding into the seat across from him and pushing a new phone across the table. "I called the consulate. Told them there's a group of nationals who just got out of a scam compound, currently at a police station in Port Morrow. They said they'd make contact immediately."

Soren picked up the phone, checked it over. Both Evan's and Howard's numbers were already saved. He pocketed it and nodded. "Good. Your cousin?"

Evan's expression shifted into something between sheepish and genuinely worried. "His phone's disconnected."

Soren set down his chopsticks. "Disconnected."

"Yeah." Evan rubbed the back of his neck. "I know. I know what you're thinking."

"Every hour we stay in this city is an hour the Blake family has to work out what happened on that highway and start looking. The truck is at the police station now. Our faces and documents are in the scam compound's records. It won't take them long."

"I know his address," Evan said quickly. "We could go directly. If he's home, we're fine. If he's not, we wait."

Soren looked at him for a moment, then at the half-eaten food on the table. Evan hadn't eaten since before the compound. Neither had Howard, from the look of him. The body he was operating in hadn't exactly been well-fed to begin with, and the morning's events had burned through whatever reserves were left.

"Finish eating," he said, and pushed back his chair. "I'll be outside."

The street outside the restaurant was the ordinary midmorning texture of a mid-sized city that had no particular reason to be in a hurry. Motorbikes moved in loose clusters. A vendor was arranging fruit on a folding table near the corner. The architecture was low and sun-bleached, the kind of city that had grown by accumulation rather than design, one building added to the next over decades until the whole thing cohered into something that worked without being planned.

Soren walked slowly and kept his hands visible and thought about contingencies.

Evan's cousin was the primary route out. If that didn't work, they needed a secondary. In a port city, the secondary was almost always the same thing: someone who moved people and goods across borders without asking too many questions about either. That kind of person didn't advertise, but they also didn't hide, not entirely. They existed in the spaces between legitimate commerce, and the people who knew where to find them were usually the people who operated in those same spaces.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a wallet he'd taken from the highway. It was thick with local currency, still faintly damp at the edges. He counted enough of it to be visible, folded it loosely, and walked.

It took less than five minutes.

Three young men peeled away from a doorway and fell into step behind him at a distance that was meant to look casual and didn't quite manage it. Soren turned into a side alley without breaking pace, walked to the first bend, and stopped.

He had the Beretta 92F out and leveled by the time they came around the corner.

All three of them stopped simultaneously, the way people do when the situation has changed faster than their bodies have processed. They looked at the g*n. They looked at Soren. One of them started to say something.

"Don't," Soren said pleasantly, and called Howard.

________________________________________

Ten minutes later, Evan and Howard arrived at a jog, slightly winded, to find Soren standing in the alley with three young men sitting against the wall looking as though they were reconsidering several recent life decisions.

"Ask them," Soren said to Howard, "if they know anyone in the people-smuggling business. Boats, border crossings, that kind of work."

Howard relayed the question. The answer came back quickly, with the particular eagerness of people who wanted to be helpful.

"They say they don't personally," Howard said. "But their boss does. They'll take us to him."

"Tell them we don't need the introduction. We need a name, a number, and an address."

Howard translated. There was a brief, fervent discussion among the three, and then the information came out in a rush, considerably more detailed than requested. The boss's name, his address, his phone number, the number of children he had and which school they attended.

"They're very thorough," Howard observed.

"People tend to be," Soren said, "when the alternative is unclear." He pocketed the information and looked at Evan. "We won't use this unless we have to. But we have it."

Evan nodded, then glanced at the three men still sitting against the wall. "What do we do with them?"

"Leave them." Soren holstered the Beretta and walked back toward the street. "They're not going to report this to anyone whose attention we want to avoid."

________________________________________

Twenty minutes later, a tuk-tuk dropped them outside a small Christian church on a street that was marginally more active than the one they'd left, with the occasional European face visible among the foot traffic, which was unusual enough to notice.

"The address is just behind the church," Howard said, relaying what the driver had told him. "The gate's too narrow for the vehicle. We walk from here."

They paid the driver and went through the church gate on foot. A white-haired priest appeared from the entrance before they'd made it three steps, moving with the unhurried welcome of a man who considered greeting visitors a genuine pleasure rather than a professional obligation.

"Good afternoon. Welcome. Is there something I can help you with?"

English. Soren felt the small, reflexive relief of a language he didn't have to work for.

"We're looking for a friend," he said. "We were told he lives behind the church. We don't want to intrude, just borrow the path."

The priest's expression brightened with recognition. "You must be friends of Mr. Hale's family."

Evan stepped forward. "My cousin's name is Noah. Michael Hale is his father."

"Of course, of course. The Hales have been with us for many years. Wonderful people, very generous to the church, even when things are tight." The priest smiled with the particular warmth of someone who genuinely meant it. "Come, I'll show you the way."

He led them through a small garden and past two outbuildings, and the churchyard cemetery opened up on the left, its headstones weathered and tilted at comfortable angles, the grass between them long and undisturbed. On the far side of it stood a two-story house that had clearly been built for function rather than appearance, its plaster patched in several places, the window frames painted at some point in the past decade and not since.

Evan went quiet for a moment, looking at it.

"Mr. Hale is usually out at this hour," the priest said, "but his son should be home. Knock and see. If there's no answer, you're welcome to wait inside the church. It's quiet today."

"Thank you, Father," Soren said. "We appreciate it."

"God bless you all." The priest turned and made his unhurried way back through the garden.

Evan walked to the door and knocked. "Noah! Noah, it's me!"

A pause. Then from somewhere above them, a second-floor window opened and a young man leaned out over the railing, headphone cable hanging loose around his neck, with the slightly unfocused expression of someone who had been interrupted mid-task.

He looked down at Evan, and his face changed entirely.

"Cousin! What the hell are you doing here?" He disappeared from the window and they heard him taking the stairs at speed. The door opened, and he came out with his arms already open, pulling Evan into a hug with the unceremonious force of someone who had genuinely missed him. "I thought you were that guy from next door coming about the rent again."

Evan laughed, and there was something raw and unguarded in it, the particular release of a person who has been holding themselves together for a very long time and has finally found somewhere safe enough to let go. He hit Noah on the chest once, hard. "You told me you were doing great out here. This is doing great?"

"I embellished a little," Noah said, grinning. Then he looked past Evan at Soren and Howard, and the grin became something more cautious and appraising. He pulled Evan a step aside and lowered his voice. "Who are these two? I'm serious, cousin, you can't be too careful out here. People run all kinds of games on mainlanders."

Evan's expression settled. "Soren saved my life. If it weren't for him, you'd never see me again."

Noah looked at Soren for a moment with the recalibrated attention of someone updating a first impression. Then he stepped back and opened the door wider.

"Come in, all of you. Sit anywhere. I'll put the kettle on."