“Who are we saving? Peter and Ben are already back in the U.S. The police will probably send you back, too, and close down the film festival, and you’ll be okay while I’m left here to take the brunt of the fallout.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Teddy said.
The van stopped before the conversation could continue and two officers came around to the back to unhook them from the floor and take them into the station. Instead of going through the front entrance and heading to the interview rooms, as he’d done on his last visit to the police station, he and Dale were led through the back entrance into the booking area with the street criminals and hooligans.
Teddy turned to find Dale, but she was already gone, being led out a different door. Despite his encouraging words, privately Teddy admitted to himself that Dale was right: this was starting to feel like failure. But as soon as he was about to trade optimism for pessimism, he saw an opportunity developing. He was dumped into a holding cell, and the arresting uniformed officers were replaced with two other uniformed officers who just so happened to be the cops he’d talked to earlier after the production office fire. They had seemed very interested in the movie business.
“Hey there, remember me?” Teddy asked the officer facing him.
“Mr. Big Man Movie Producer. I remember you. Looks like maybe you’re living out too many scenes from a movie in real life.”
“Life has certainly gotten complicated,” Teddy said. “It’s all a big misunderstanding, of course, and I’m sure it’ll be sorted out when all the lawyers and powers that be get together. In the meantime, I wondered if you might be able to help me with a phone call I need to make.”
“You movie people! Your films spread that stuff about guaranteed phone calls in jail — nowadays everyone arrested starts whining about their phone call and their rights. It’s a courtesy in both countries, applied at the discretion of the jail staff.” This was obviously a sore point for the officer.
“Can I hope for your discretion in this matter?” Teddy asked.
“Need to make some kind of big-time movie phone call?”
“The movie business doesn’t shut down just because one of the producers gets caught up in some foreign drama,” Teddy said.
The cop was nodding along as he headed toward the cell, taking out the swipe card that would open Teddy’s cell.
“These sorts of things might not happen to you as much if you had some local police on your set to keep everyone safe and keep those lines of communication open with those powers that be.”
Teddy couldn’t tell if the guy was angling for a legitimate change in career or if he was looking for some kind of juiced up fake position that amounted to a bribe, but Teddy made sure the cop knew he would help any way he could. The officer handed Teddy an older model flip phone, then disappeared. Teddy dialed Millie, hoping she wouldn’t ignore a call from an unknown number.
After two rings, she answered. “This is Millie.”
“I need your help.”
She paused. “I feel like a bartender with a tab that’s never going to be paid.”
“People like us, in this business, we’re family. You want to help family, right?”
“That would make you the weird uncle that only shows up once in a while, right?”
“I’d make a Man from U.N.C.L.E. joke, but I feel like it would be wasted on someone your age.”
“Just get to the favor, old man.”
“I need you to convince Arrow Donaldson to bail me out of jail,” Teddy said.
Millie made a choking sound on the other end of the line and took a second to recover before speaking.
“Your faith in me is heartening.”
“My faith in you is situational. You know what to do.”
40
Li Feng thought she knew Macau. She realized quickly that she held the naïve perspective of the pampered daughter of a wealthy family and an executive of a powerful company. Being driven around in a car and escorted by security was different from navigating in the shadows on her own. Still, she’d managed not only to find Billy Barnett, the film producer who had given Arrow Donaldson so much headache, but to follow him undetected.
She first found him by accident when she went looking for Kwok Lin, an old fool who imagined himself as some kind of movie industry strong man, but who also was known to hoard street gossip, especially related to out-of-towners and tourists. Luckily, she didn’t have to listen to him sing karaoke at the bar he’d adopted as his office. As she arrived, she saw an American leaving with a Chinese woman she recognized as a security assistant from Arrow Donaldson’s casino.
Suspecting this man was Billy Barnett, she followed him to be certain. Her suspicion was confirmed when he went from the karaoke bar to an office that turned out to be a film production office. When Billy Barnett left the office and went back to the casino, she had planned to approach him to ask for help. She stopped herself because of the security assistant from the casino. Why were they together? Maybe Billy Barnett wasn’t the right person to help protect her from Arrow after all. She needed more time to think.
With nowhere to sleep or shelter that night, she broke back into the secure bunker with the code the driver had given her, then left the security pad disabled so she could come and go as she pleased. The next morning, her course of action was decided. She would confront Sonny Ma on her own, and kill him instead of having others do it for her. Sneaking around in the shadows, hiding and trying to disguise herself, had reignited her dormant criminal instincts. She craved more. There was no way she could get to Sonny Ma on Arrow Donaldson’s turf, so she stayed in the shadows and watched for a moment of weakness she could exploit.
41
Millie was at the Macau Business Aviation Center saying goodbye to Quentin when she got a call from her mystery man. Despite their banter, he really wasn’t a mystery to her, but she didn’t let anyone know how much she was aware of his background. She’d been working in the president’s national security office when she’d met the man for the first time. He’d called himself Fred Walker, and though she’d known right away that the name was fake, she hadn’t asked any questions.
Fred Walker had wanted her to go undercover to help him with a mission for the president. It had turned out to be pretty exciting, even if she hadn’t realized how much she craved the excitement at the time. She received credit for killing a terrorist, though in truth that had been accomplished by her mysterious colleague. But her new reputation for keeping cool in the line of fire got her moved over to the CIA director’s office, where Fred Walker came calling again. By that time, she’d found her unrealized desire for adventure and an outlet for her natural curiosity. She wasn’t going to let Fred Walker go unchecked a second time. She still didn’t know his real name, but she knew his main identity was as movie producer Billy Barnett, and she had suspicions that he also occasionally used the alias of Mark Weldon to do stunt work and character acting.
From working with Lance, she’d also managed to deduce that Fred/Billy/Mark had once been one of the most wanted men in the country. He’d done something terrible and then redeemed himself by doing something equally terrible, but for the right team this time.
Now he was calling her to ask another favor. She looked forward to one day calling in all of his favors, but for the time being she listened to his quick burst of conversation before he hung up. It only took her a few seconds to come up with a way to help her mystery man, and to let Arrow know she was on to him. Two birds with one stone.