Honey of a Day

It doesn't matter how fast you beat your wings, when you're beating the bushes in hundred degree heat you've got to hydrate. Move over tourist!

Honey of a Day

Working the pollen
A golden honey bee lands
To get a cool drink

© 2006 Jim Ross

Kid Me, You Die (Chapter 3)

Kid Me, You Die

PART 1 The Plan Develops

CHAPTER 3--Nailed

The morning was born windswept with etched horizons and a sun that promised to shine all day. A helicopter accompanied the cacophony of wind, sail, and boat noises, low overhead. It couldn’t have been nicer sailing weather, but it could have been a nicer day.

I take full blame for it. But I had to tell Gronke why I was accepting and that meant laying out the CIA’s intentions--at least as I knew them. And what Chuck had told me yesterday, more than made up for his faux pas with the phone.

“You’re saying the Chinese can not only clone a human being, but they can do it inside an artificial womb--and they can accelerate the process.”

“With Gronke’s new technology. That’s what I’m told. Deliver a person at any stage of life.”

“You’re talking Sci-fi, dammit. This is nuts. Look. Gronke wants me to keep the Chinese from smuggling some goodies on the no-no list into China. From what I understand, the most the stuff can do is help them make nuclear weapons. They can already do that!”

“Just hear me out,” he said. “It’s possible that what’s going on is unrelated. But--Gronke is supposedly readying a chip for commercial modems that is several hundred times faster than what’s currently available--”

“Yeah, yeah. He told me that. And they’re building a factory in China to make them.”

“Somehow, the technology is the missing link for this alleged Chinese cloning process. And this Ma Gao Huang--we’ve connected him with the Chinese Minister of Science and Technology.” “I don’t know why I’m biting, Chuck, you’re so full of it. But if this nonsense is true, all the Chinese have to do is wait in line and buy one or cop some off the assembly line. It’s not viable.”

“Maybe they need one before production. I don’t know. Don’t ask me to psyche out why they want to take the thief’s approach.” He shrugged. “I’ve been asked to pass the info along.”

“Thanks. I’m informed. One more stunt like that with the phone, and the recording’s hitting the directors desk.”

“Yeah, right.” Chuck checked most of what he wanted to say, but spluttered, “What the hell makes you so special?”

Payback time. I smiled. Chuck’s whole animosity toward me seemed based on my wealth, and I threw it at him.“Money.”

“Prick. You’ll never be a Senator.”

“I think you’re right, agent. Which means I won’t be able to give you a campaign button. Sorry.”

“Just keep your eye on this Ma character.”

So that was all the company wanted? The conversation had gone from mere smuggling, to a government seemingly over anxious to possess a new technology, to Chuck's jealousy of me, to playing PI sleuth games with this Ma Gao Huang. Gronke would get me involved there.

Now, as I watched Gronke pace along the steeply sloping deck of the Sweet Wind, his forehead deep-knitted, I wished I hadn’t relayed so much of Chuck's conversation to him.

He had given me the curious mixture of alternating smiles quickly fading that confirmed he knew the kinds of cases I took, knew who I dealt with, and the unassailable fact that his life was threatened. These thoughts and God knows what others made him absentminded to his presence on deck, and what I was doing.

“Starboard tack!” I shouted, pointed to the boom, then patted my head.

Reggie stood patiently by the spinnaker rig as I rapped the coaming signaling Gronke to return to the safety of the cockpit.

Gronke nodded and began weaving his way toward me, foaming salt water streaming along the low-riding port side, accompanying him as he came.

His face remained taut as he lowered himself into the cockpit, his eyes angry as he dropped to the cushions.

“Beautiful day, eh,” I tried again. I certainly believed it.

I felt Reggie’s eyes on me and turned amidship. That happy sailor smiled with over-white teeth through stretched leathery cheeks, anticipating the tack, ready to deploy the spinnaker for a run at Angel Island. At least somebody was having fun. He loved it when he didn’t have to captain the boat and could just enjoy a good sail.

I turned the helm and the Sweet Wind came about as satisfying as her name.

As the deck leveled, Reggie payed out the sheet and the sail filled with the snap of a good flag. Suddenly we were thrust forward by the crisp wind funneled through the Golden Gate; a curious sense of stillness accompanied the tack as the wind noise dropped and we sped east.

I would have been as happy as Tarzan yodeling on jungle vines, but the sullen man by my side thrust his hands into the colorful windbreaker I’d given him.

I had only known him for twenty seven hours now, which consisted of one phone call, a visit to The Aerie, lunch, and--I looked at my Rolex chrono--little more than two hours sailing on the bay. He had a problem, no doubt, but there was time, I thought, to plan for it.

Suddenly a strange, stiff-winged gull swooped across the cockpit, squawking. It seemed out of control, almost robot-like.

“Duck!”

Gronke rose instead and the gull careened off his Giants’ baseball cap skewing it over his eyes. The gull narrowly missed clubbing the mizzen boom as it stabilized its flight. It hissed as well as squawked as it rose and circled the boat.

Reggie slapped his sides. “That’s the weirdest!”

Too weird. And the gull’s beak seemed fixed as it squawked.

Gronke merely straightened the black and orange cap as if nothing unusual had happened. Either he was a man so focused on a quest that mountains could shatter and not deflect him, or he was just out of touch. My bet, contrary to experiences so far, was on the former condition.

Something nagged me as I followed the gull’s crazy path overhead, It circled and seemed determined to stay with us. Too determined, not like any gull in my experience. Unfortunately, two and two didn’t come together quick enough. It was a robot!

The device disintegrated in a concussion that blew the telltale off the mast. Sails shredded. Metal fragments drove themselves into the deck while fiberglass splintered. It was as if a hundred carpenters fired nail-guns at once. Gronke cried out and slumped beside me.

I reached for him as Reggie tumbled into the cockpit, his face streaked with blood from numerous cuts.

“I’m okay. I’m okay,” he said grabbing the helm.

Brave soul, his pain was written in his pinched moves.

As I cradled Gronke’s head, I looked up. The helicopter was moving off in the direction of San Rafael. Hughes job, I thought. Black and Red paint job. No numbers visible.

“Tiburon,” I shouted, and Reggie fired up the auxiliary engines. We came about, sails luffing.

Gronke moaned as I stretched him along the cushions. His wounds were ghastly and impossible to assess. We had to hurry. And I had to stop the bleeding. But the mizzen and a crazily flapping spinnaker threatened to capsize us. I quickly struck them, then applied tourniquets, and turned my attention to Reggie . . . who was gray beneath his bloody, rigid face. “Can you manage those tourniquets while I call this in?”

“Sure, boss.”

Reassured by the determined glint in his eyes, I dropped into the cabin and punched up the Coast Guard for help. I gave them coordinates and the helicopter’s line of flight, and hurried topside.

Reggie was worse when I returned. He protested as I laid him on the opposite cushion, then passed out.

* * *

“Roger, echo-tango. Bullis ranch strip. ETA 7 minutes.”

“Roger Ground one. Will keep helo occupied ‘til you arrive. Over.”

“Ground one out.”

Huey ET12, dispatched within minutes of Rick’s mayday signal hovered in the sun above and behind the small black and red Hughes built helicopter as it landed on a graded pad. Radar had immediately vectored the bogey, and the Huey pilot had no difficulty converging on it. The Marin County Sheriff’s Department now cooperated in the hunt on the ground.

The black and red helicopter flared, kicked up dust as it settled, then its rotors slowed.

As the doors opened and two people exited, the Huey pilot switched from intercom to loudspeaker. “This is the US Coast Guard. Stand b--”

The helicopter on the ground disintegrated in a brilliant fireball; the explosion rocked the Huey hard. Fragments of aircraft, bomb and people pinged and smeared off the Huey, as the pilot fought to regain control.

“Echo-tango, echo-tango,” came through the headset, “Ground one. Do you copy?”

“I read you, Ground one. Bogey blew up. Repeat . . . blew up.”

“Copy that. ETA four minutes.”

“We’ll be here, ground one. Over.” The pilot shook his head and adjusted the helicopter’s pitch for a landing nearby the flaming debris.

* * *

The task of tending both men and boat proved possible. Tiburon came up fast, but it seemed an eternity. Bloody foam spanned Gronke’s lips.

Help descended on us at the dock--and the media. Those vultures. God knows how they do it.

Medics carted Gronke and Reggie off immediately, but I needed to get a fix on the Coast Guard’s activities, and held the medics at bay--somewhat. They moved me to a bench on the dock while a lieutenant rattled some questions--essential to my mayday--off. A paramedic daubed at superficial wounds while another stuck me with a needle.

“Any word--” I started when an enlisted man bounded over to the lieutenant, whispered something in his ear, and he moved off, leaving me to the mercy of the medics.

A non sequitur. One of them grinned a devilish smile and with a nod to his partner, shoved me, protesting, into an ambulance. All my bulk and I couldn’t fight back--the shot! Oh well. It was a ride and I needed to be with Gronke and Reggie. And the Coast Guard didn’t rush around like these fellows if they weren’t on to something. I’d just have to come back to it. As a gauzy precursor to a nice doped sleep--just as we approached Grimes Medical Center-I remembered I’d talked to Neusom and Kristi about Gronke, but only Kristi about sailing. Who had Gronke told?

Kid Me, You Die (Chapter 2)

PART 1 The Plan Develops

CHAPTER 2--Rick Brought In

Between jobs, time drags. I’d just finished a nasty hostage case in the Middle East and was ready for some unstructured f . . . u . . . n!

I snapped my fingers as an idea loomed: Reggie Hernandez . . . he is one of the most interesting individuals I know, and always good company.

“Yes,” I shouted, as I padded back to my silent glass-walled fourteenth floor aerie.

I punched in Reggie’s cellular number and he picked it up immediately.

“Hey, amigo,” I said, “the boat out on charter?”

“Not for you, boss. When you want it?”

“About five minutes ago?”

He snorted. “How about tomorrow?”

“Come on, Reg.”

“I’m out at the Farallones. I guess I could feed the charter to the killer whales and be back by three.”

“Funny,” I said. “Set it up for tomorrow.”

He said “Naturlich,” and rang off. But that still left the rest of the day.

I looked outside past sheets of tinted glass. The sky was a thin gray shell arching across the horizon with a yellow blob where the sun should be, rings of lemon-to-gray light radiating from it. A strange sky, one I had seen in mainland China a long time ago, but never again until now. I shivered.

Looking back, I could still see the security guard assigned to protect me, leaning dazed against a cinder wall, blood trickling down his ear, as I defended myself from an attack, all silhouetted by that sky. He lived and got credit for saving me. We never did learn the assailants motives beyond a “Yankee go home” diatribe. I reached into a drawer and pulled out a bottle I’d been nursing with the dregs of a raspberry Arizona in it, twisted the cap off and hoisted it to the sky. Here’s to you, bro, wherever you are!

Now, staring at the phenomenon outside I couldn’t help likening the Earth to an egg being candled. What grade were we making? Then Mickey Mouse squeaked, I grabbed the handset, and . . . the burgeoning reverie burst as an unfamiliar voice on my most private line bolted me upright.

“Rick Caber?”

“Who is this?” I asked and flicked the switch on the recorder.

“My name is Herb Gronke.”

“Of G.I. International?”

“That’s me,” he laughed nervously. “Are you Rick Caber?”

No names, no numbers, no anything until I knew what was going on. “How did you get this number?”

“I . . . well . . . I’d like to see you. I’ve got a job for you.”

“Sir, I know your reputation. I’m flattered you want to hire me, but unless you tell me who gave you this number, I’m hanging up.”

He brayed nervously. “I have it on good authority you’re the man I need.”

I winced. A Watergate era man covering up again.

“On three. One . . .”

“Wait, wait. I’m not supposed to say. Is it really that important?”

“Two . . .”

“God help me,” he rasped, “the CIA.”

“Who at the CIA?” It could only be one man but I wanted it recorded.

Silence. Then, “Charles Neusom.”

I squinted hard at the smile on Mickey Mouse’s plastic face. Agent Charles E. “Chuck” Neusom, had done it again, and no doubt with malice aforethought. I penned a quick note to get the number changed.

I could almost hear Neusom say, “Shit, what do you care? All your money. Get a new line. Hell, buy a phone company.” I would give him the chance to say that to my face. But even Neusom needed a reason to do it . . .. “The CIA isn’t a referral service, Mr. Gronke.”

“Please don’t hang up. I’m confused. I have a problem with Customs and suddenly Mr. Neusom is in my office telling me to call you. But I do have a problem, and he did give me your name.”

My antenna continued to wave as Gronke, the electronics industry myth metamorphosed into a man. Would he continue to plummet? I hoped not, but as the saying goes, one never knows.

“What is the problem?”

“Can we get together to discuss it. It’ll be easier.”

“A short rundown, please.”

There was a noticeable pause and he cleared his throat. “Well. I’ve got a contract with the Chinese . . .”

I swivelled again and glanced at the blob outside.

“. . . To supply them with manufacturing equipment. I’ve got wind their resident representative is going to salt the shipment with, uh, unlawful-to-export parts. I need to keep that from happening.”

“Smuggling?”

“Right.”

“Why is the CIA involved in smuggling?”

“I don’t know. I thought you’d know. I’m just trying to stop my company’s export license from being revoked.”

“You thought I worked for Chuck Neusom?” I couldn’t suppress the laugh. “You can rest assured I do not work for the CIA.”

“Can we please get together and discuss my problem?”

Obviously Neusom was involved in something greater than smuggling--something he hadn’t told Gronke about. My ticket into the problem was the blown telephone number.

“You free now?” I relented.

“Yes. Where do I meet you?”

He had my number, I thought, he might as well see where I spend some of my time.

“You know the Caber building, in San Jose?”

“Of course. It’s the tallest one there.”

“Ask for me at Caber Limited on the fourteenth floor. How long will you be?”

“Less than an hour. I’ve got some things to do before I leave.”

Done deal, we hung up. Whatever was happening, I noticed the boredom was gone.

I punched Win Dunn’s number at Caber Ltd. on the fourteenth floor and underscored my note to blast Neusom.

Win wasn’t there. His assistant, Meg Taylor, was.

“I’m having a visitor in about an hour. A Mr. Herb Gronke, from G.I. International. No need for security. Please show him up. No escort. And don’t buzz me.”

“Yes, Mr. Caber.”

“And we have to give Mickey Mouse a new number.”

“Yes, sir. Normal distribution.”

“No, I’ll give you a new list. Let’s just change the number.”

“Yes sir.”

That meant the fourteenth floor would be screening calls for awhile. Rick Caber making more work for people. It couldn’t be helped.

We rang off, and for the umpteenth time I remembered the insulation those people unwittingly supplied me.

Win had said, “The fourteenth floor literally separates your public from your private life. Unless you’re in your office down here, you don’t even want these people to know you’re in the building.”

“It doesn’t seem fair, Win. They keep us afloat.”

He screwed up his face but held his own council.

“Let’s just say,” he said, “that you keep all of us afloat.

Financially, yes. Interest on my estate brought in one hundred million plus a year. It funded the whole organization.

“Let’s talk bonuses for them, Win.”

He laughed. “Like we do every year.”

“They deserve it,” I said and meant it.

“You’re the boss.”

It was nonsense, of course. Win Dunn was Caber Ltd., just like Artie Durban had his place as guardian who raised me after my parents were murdered when I was nine. Just like Reggie ran the boat . . . just like goobers beneath a vine. My estate collects chlorophyll so they can produce peanuts. All, it seems, so I can run amok trying to cure the world’s ills--at least attempting to fix the Humpty-Dumptys broken by it.

* * *

I padded past offices filled with everything but people and was brought up short by the lobby chimes. Backtracking, I saw Kristi’s gorgeous self slipping into her office.

“Hey there,” I said, coming up to her doorway.

She smiled and I was ready to hand over the keys to the kingdom.

“Hey there, yourself,” she said as she rustled through a drawer. Her briefcase rested awkwardly on top of a book I had placed there, earlier. A stack of letters I’d seen then were now scattered on the floor.

“What’s the hurry?” I asked as I replaced them.

“Oh . . .” she warbled, “I forgot some notes and I’ve got to get back to the library. They’re pulling up some old papers for me.”

“Back for lunch?”

“I won’t even be back today,” she said. “Sorry.”

“We still on for the trap shoot, tonight?”

“Of course.” She found what she was looking for and stuffed it in the briefcase.

Not wanting to, I said, “Hey. It’s not that important.”

“I want to go.”

She jerked the briefcase up and sent the book flying into the letters.

I pinned them down in time.

“Okay. Just know I’m easy.”

Kristi grabbed the book and read a note I’d smacked on it.

“Funny,” she said, referring to the dash of sarcasm I’d penned. It inferred she spent more time writing than with me. Then she headed toward the door.

“I’ll mail these, if you want,” I said, tapping the letters. “They seem to want to take a trip.”

“Thanks.”

Her features softened and she leaned my way for a kiss on the mouth. It was delicious, not nearly enough, and thoroughly out of place and time.

“You’re sweet,” she finished.

I didn’t feel sweet.

“Hey,” I called after her. “Want to go sailing tomorrow?”

“Can’t. I’ve got an interview. Can’t pass it up.”

Of course not. I nodded.

She waved in time for the lobby door to separate us again. One brief encounter with my enamored rattled me again. Before I could enjoy the memory of her kiss long enough for it to turn to self-pity, a man walked into the lobby.

It was a man well past middle-age, trying to look forty. And he looked puzzled.

I’d seen the look before. After entering Caber Ltd. on the fourteenth floor you’re ushered into an office with my name emblazoned on the door. You cross a fully furnished room, sans life, past all this executive paraphernalia and are told, “In here, sir, it’s Mr. Caber’s elevator.” First timers almost always had the look now plastered on Gronke’s face.

“Herb?” I held out my hand.

Gronke nodded as we shook hands.

"You're certainly secretive," he said.

“Just private,” I said, “Come on in.”

He followed me through the lobby, past the vacant receptionist station, and we turned right, into my office. Outside, I noticed the invisible candler had edged his solar blob higher overhead, but the overcast remained solid.

“Hey,” he said, “these are some kind of digs.”

He seated himself on an overstuffed black sofa and I took up the other end, spreading an arm across the back and tucking a leg beneath me.

“I’ll show it to you when we’re through if you like. Now--”

“Customs called about an alleged plan to smuggle goods from G.I.’s Sunnyvale plant, into China. Ma--that’s Ma Gao Huang, the man responsible for the problem--according to Customs, he’s purchased some parts for the machines I’m selling them that will allow the machines to make parts for nuclear missiles. Big no-no, even though the Chinese already make the weapons.”

He shrugged.

“Anyway, G.I.’s stuff has been blessed by the Department of Commerce.

“The approximate plan is for Ma to take possession of the illegal parts and . . . either pay off someone at the freight forwarder’s to pack them in with G.I.’s shipment--naturally without adding the extra parts to the Bill of Lading--and just before the container is sealed . . . or . . . for Ma's people to install the parts on the equipment sometime after final inspection--either at the factory, or at the forwarders. Since the Chinese Higuan--customs--is a stickler for count and don’t pay too much attention to what the stuff is, it’s believed that the parts will be installed before the shipment arrives in China.”

Gronke gestured with his hands which I interpreted as “I’m clueless how they plan to do that.”

“Regardless of Ma’s ploy,” he said, “U.S. Customs plans to intercept the shipment after it’s been sealed, probably on the docks, and inspect it.”

“How did our Customs discover all this?” I asked.

“The part supplier called them. It seems this has happened before. Other people, other countries.”

“I’m not surprised. Why doesn’t the parts supplier simply refuse to sell Ma the parts?”

“Customs says that Ma--who owns a valid California company has signed an affidavit swearing the parts are for use in the U.S.”

“What counts for me, is that Customs plans to jerk G.I.’s export license if any illegal parts are found.”

Ma . . . Gao . . . Huang? I thought the name out as I spoke it. Depending on the Chinese characters employed, it could mean Big Yellow Horse.

“Can you contact someone in China? Get them to stop him?”

“This deal is being orchestrated by him, not me. I’d just be stirring up trouble I can’t afford.”

“How broke are you?” I asked.

His eyes bulged as if he were surprised anybody but his accountants knew of his problem. But he cleared his throat and said, “If G.I. doesn’t exercise the Letter of Credit within three months . . . the LC in three months . . .”

His Adams apple worked. “G.I. International will be bankrupt without a prayer of bailout. And,” he added, “Just when we’re ready to introduce a new chip.”

The never ending story. I asked why he didn’t borrow against the new technology and dump the Chinese and was told he had done so early in the game. Nothing was left.

His eyes telegraphed a plea as he got to my role in all this.

“What I’d like you to do is learn what the shipment is all about, document and photograph it through production. Verify what leaves the factory, stay with it at the forwarders, and so on.”

It sounded like a bad episode of Mission Impossible. One glance, though, reaffirmed for me, his belief that smuggling was the problem. That was not, as they say, an option.

“Any ideas why the CIA contacted you?”

“None.”

I believed him.

Standing, I said, “Wanna grab a sammich?”

“You’ll take the job?”

“I’ll think about it.”

He exploded. “What does it take for you to say ‘yes’, dammit? I need you.” The edge in his voice was sharp as he rose. Our eyes locked.

“Information that your life is in danger.”

Big, culturally significant international company. CEO and founder steered onto an investigator about a nuts and bolts problem, by the CIA? Hooey. My take framed a financially troubled company in a survival bid buried in a game of international intrigue. The only questions I had were whether Gronke was culpable of a crime, and whether he was in any physical danger--from any source. The former I’d wheedle from him over lunch if he went, the latter, from a needed call to agent Neusom.

That took him back. He blinked and recognition sharpened his features. “The CIA,” he whispered.

I nodded. “I need to make a call first. Now. How about some lunch?”

“Okay,” he said, his word, wooden.

He allowed me to guide him down the hall. What he saw at the end of it brought him back.

A thirty foot long balcony snaked from the glass curtain wall to a two story inner wall that dropped to the fifteenth floor. A wide, spiraling staircase broke the line and wended its way down, connecting the two floors.

Below us, foot-square Spanish tiles extended out of sight. On some of them, in front of what had been a freight elevator squatted my three favorite rides.

“I’ll be damned,” he said, and shook his head.

“The XK-E is a nineteen sixty one model 1,” I informed him as we headed down the stairs. “Supposedly, dad was the guy who made Sinatra wait in line. “That other beauty is an XK8.”

“What the hell are they doing up here?”

“I work on them.”

“You use the floor as a garage?”

“And other things.”

“Why the Bronco?” he asked, staring at my sporting buggy.

“Surfin!” I said putting on my best Jim Carrey voice.

He laughed.

“Otherwise, it’s kind of Spartan,” I said. “I put that steel beam around the floor for safety, but basically this is my workshop.”

“It looks like an airy auditorium.”

I nodded. “It could be used for that. Get in,” I said and pointed at the XK-E.

He laughed again as he slammed the door. “You must have the highest garage in the world.”

I hadn’t thought about it. Fun Guinness Record notion, though. I slid onto the beige leather seat and latched the door.

Gronke ran his hands lovingly over the dash.

Suddenly I yearned to help him.

“Look. I should have an answer for you tomorrow,” I told him. “I’m also taking my boat out. You feel like a day on the bay.”

He rose like a starving trout to a dry fly.

“I’d like that.”

“Done,” I said and told him the time and place.

“I’ll be there.”

The pristine 3.8 liter engine fired up, issuing its throaty Jaguar roar, as I punched the remote garage door opener.

As I concentrated on aligning the car in the elevator, Gronke said softly, as if to himself, “You’re sure having more fun with your business than I am.”

Blue blood money. Impetuous youth. I was sure of it. Just as sure as I knew I’d take the case. In the after-light, this case glared a protean truth: arm yourself, Caber, the instant Mickey Mouse squeaks.

Outside, the sun edged over the Caber Building as if tracking my moves.

© 2006 Jim Ross

Kid Me, You Die (Chapter 1)

PART 1 The Plan Develops

CHAPTER 1--Others Scheme

“More time for my work,” Yu Xi croaked. His rheumy eyes strained to focus through heavy cataracts.

Li Pin, China’s Vice Minister of Science and Technology murmured an emphatic assent.

“The Gronke microchip will let it happen.” Yu Xi chuckled. “I will be the first man cloned.”

Li Pin cleared his throat. “Minister Yu, can Hu Bang really accelerate the learning process of a developing fetus?”

A brittle silence greeted Li Pin’s question, and he felt a drop of perspiration run coldly down his back. He forced his eyes to meet the Minister‘s levelly, unthreatening.

“I want to believe!” Yu Xi exploded. He pounded his armchair with a bony fist. “You have seen his work.”

“Yes,” Li Pin agreed. The shock of seeing Hu Bang’s flexible, artificial womb and feeding mechanism that allowed birthing of clones at any age had left Li Pin reeling. A twenty-year-old clone in twelve months?

Li Pin shuddered. Without transferring data to the fetus, the technology would only produce twenty-year-old infants. International censure would be unanimous.

Yu Xi’s sharp-edged voice pierced Li Pin’s muse. The Vice Minister found himself staring at Yu Xi’s quivering finger.

“Get this microchip to Hu Bang.” With the command, Yu Xi sagged into the chair and sighed.

“Yes sir.” Li Pin grinned without malice and exposed cigarette stained teeth.

“Hah. I wonder if I will live long enough to shake hands with my clone and tell him, ‘It’s your job now. Get on with it!’”

Nonsense, Li Pin thought, Yu Xi would die soon then he himself would take over, not some mythical clone. Li Pin laughed dutifully and decided more bootlicking was in order. “Speeding the learning process with a modem chip. Amazing.”

Yu Xi glared at him and flicked a dismissive hand. “Tell me when you have it.”

Li Pin nodded, rose, and scuttled happily from the room. He had a call to make.

* * *

“When you send parts?” Ma Gao Huang demanded in Pidgin English over the phone.

“One week, Mr. Ma,” returned the American voice. “Next Wednesday.”

“No later.” Ma Gao Huang’s voice rose. “You get it? You got da point?”

“I’ll call you the instant they ship.”

“Good. Good. No late.”

“No late.” The American voice sighed.

They hung up and Ma laughed at having made the American speak pidgin. Life’s little pleasures, he chuckled, like recruiting Gronke’s greedy son-in-law, Farber, into his schemes.

Ma Gao Huang shook his head. Right now he had Farber chasing down a secretary for him. “Mis-ter-ess.” Ma Gao Huang pronounced the word aloud, and laughed again.

So far he had turned down three candidates. One of them appealed to him, but she had bridled when he touched her shoulder. He couldn’t get rid of her fast enough. Perhaps the next one . . . He swallowed hard just as his private line rang.

“Wai?” He answered in Chinese.

“Lao Ma?” a cultured Chinese voice said.

“Yes. How may I help you?”

“Li Pin here. I trust you know who I am.”

“Vice Minister? How are you?”

“Fine, fine. I have a proposition for you. Can you come to Beijing and talk with me?”

“Of course. I can leave tomorrow if you wish.”

“Good! You will be met at the airport. Good-bye.”

Ma’s heart raced as he cradled the phone. The Ministry calls me now! Power surged through him and he felt as strong as his name, Great Yellow Horse. He slapped his desk once, hard, as he speculated about the summons. Whatever they wanted, Ma Gao Huang could feel his purse swell--and his need for a woman, grow. But first things first.

He lifted the phone again. “Yang Lin, book me a flight to Beijing for tomorrow. Open return.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ma Gao Huang broke the connection without cradling the phone. If Farber couldn’t come through with a woman, he’d drive to the city, but he’d give the man another chance. He punched in Farber’s extension number.

* * *

A dusty gray Fiat sporting myriad dents and no hubcaps tailed Li Pin’s gleaming Mercedes to Beijing International Airport and ground to a stop a discrete distance behind it on the passenger loading ramp.

Li Pin’s driver slid out, said something to a policeman while gesturing toward the car, and trotted into the terminal. Lennie Takara’s eyebrows rose. A dignitary? Why no entourage? He pursed his lips, then settled in to wait and wonder. It wasn’t long. Five minutes later the driver returned, sagging under the weight of luggage gripped in both hands, while a tall Chinese man in a rumpled suit accompanied him. Definitely unexpected.

The mole at Sci-Fi--as Lennie affectionately dubbed the Ministry of Science and Technology--only said that Li Pin wanted his driver to collect someone arriving from the states. Lennie had surmised the usual car and driver scenario: a wide-eyed salesman is about to be seduced by Chinese bureaucracy. Wrong. This man was too local and savvy-looking to fit the profile. Lennie’s hand snaked toward the broken glovebox door, snagged the Minolta and burred several auto-wind pictures, once as the driver slipped the man’s luggage into the trunk and once more as the driver held the door and the man ducked into the car.

Lennie waited to grab a shot of the Mercedes license plate before twisting the ignition key and nearly lost the car in traffic as a result. Not for long. He dodged several angry taxi hawkers, missed a shiny Toyota bumper by inches, and slipped the Fiat into position two cars behind the Mercedes.

Where to next, gentlemen? I’ve got lots more film.

* * *

The photo ratcheted from the fax machine and Chuck Neusom recognized the face on it before it dropped into his waiting hand.

“It's Ma Gao Huang, Lennie.”

“That chips it. Something Gronke makes is on Sci-Fi’s ‘buy’ list.”

“But what? Gronke makes communication gear. Modems.”

“Don’t care. It’s gotta be for the cloning project.”

“Fill me in.”

Lennie outlined what he knew and ten minutes later when they hung up, Neusom beamed.

He gripped the fax and headed straight to Frank Holder’s office.

“Just in from Beijing.” Neusom flicked the picture across the desk. “Now Ma Gao Huang is involved with Sci-Fi’s cloning project.”

“You’ve been listening to Takara again. Look, I thought Ma Gao Huang was a penny ante smuggler.”

“Not really “penny ante”, Frank, and now the stakes have risen. Lennie says Yu Xi wants a part that’ll help his program. That’s all I know. But, if what Lennie says is true, Ma’s importance has just shot off the chart.”

“Why?”

Neusom cleared his throat. “The Chinese are reported to have cloned a human--or are getting ready to. Supposedly they can accelerate the process and deliver babies at any age, but . . . regardless of their age at delivery they’re still babies. And--”

“--Gronke is in the data transfer chip-making game.”

“Tada.” Neusom spread his arms. “That’s why you’re the boss. Just believe that whatever ‘the part’ is, it won’t be on our approved export list. Someone has got to get inside Gronke’s plant to see what he’s working on.”

“You.”

“Whoa! How about Rick Caber? Keep me out here coordinating things.”

“Caber’s a civilian, Chuck, remember?”

“Not quite. Listen. Gronke contacted the D. O. C. about Ma Gao Huang’s smuggling and asked for help, right? All I have to do is slip Caber’s name to Gronke and he’ll hire him. Gronke’ll think he’s satisfying Commerce by hiring a PI to keep the smuggling from happening.”

“And--?”

“Caber’s a good snoop. He’ll learn we put Gronke up to hiring him, but so what? By then he’ll be on the job. Politically we’re clean—we’ll be nowhere around.” Neusom smiled. “Just muscle-bound, money-mad, high-society PI, Rick Caber.”

“What crap!”

“Well you know he won’t just sign up. And Gronke’s got the key. Scuttlebutt says that if Gronke doesn’t get on top with his new modem, the company is history. Caber’s a sucker for that.”

Holder sighed. “You got a plan?”

“Not much. I get in Gronke’s face and hand him my card with Caber’s private number on it. He’ll think he knows what’s going on and make the call.”

“And Caber will be in our faces--” Holder snapped his fingers. “--that fast.”

“It doesn’t matter, I tell you.”

“He’s lucky to have a friend like you, Chuck.”

“That’s what I think.” Neusom smiled. “It’ll look good on the budget, too.”

“Hmm. The Chinese will no doubt have someone tabbing Ma Gao Huang. Any known baddies? Wouldn’t help to get Caber hurt.”

“Just Ma Gao Huang. It’s rumored he sliced a prostitute in Hong Kong. Gets his jollies from running small fry around and he--“

“--seems to be coming up in the world.”

“Is Caber a go?”

Holder hesitated. “Ok, but when he’s clued, bring him in to see me. Otherwise the job is yours.”

“You got it. Thanks, Frank.”

Neusom trotted to his office whistling, wondering what he had gotten started, what his own role would be, and . . . and whatever. Let’s you and him fight. He laughed as he remembered Dr. Eric Berne’s three-party game in Games People Play.

Neusom scanned his office, and seeing nothing to keep him there, shrugged into his jacket and left to see Gronke--unannounced.

He admitted he liked his own style.

* * *

CONTENTS (CONTINUED)

CHAPTER 2--Rick Brought In
CHAPTER 3--Nailed
CHAPTER 4--Secrets Told
CHAPTER 5--Thunder Rolls
CHAPTER 6--The Minister’s “Son”
CHAPTER 7--A Flower for Ma
CHAPTER 8--Rick Acts on a Plan
CHAPTER 9--Others’ Strike
CHAPTER 10--Rick Strikes Back

PART 2 EXECUTION

CHAPTER 11--Somebody Always Dies
CHAPTER 12--Mad as a Bull
CHAPTER 13--Who Has His Visa Jerked
CHAPTER 14--Losing a Friend
CHAPTER 15--Howling for Blood
CHAPTER 16--The Villain Escapes
CHAPTER 17--Discovers a Friend?

© 2006 Jim Ross

The development of Kid Me, You Die can also be seen at the JIM ROSS site.

Kid Me, You Die (Synopsis Update 1)

Rick Caber is enlisted by an international businessman to stop a Chinese partner from ruining his famous company. Smuggling, theft, political intrigue, and murder, all surrounded by the latest genetic development secrets, make Rick scramble until the death of an associate galvanizes him to pursue the fugitive to China. There, stripped of his allies, unable to speak the language, Rick must find the criminal and bring him to justice--while the criminal plays cat-and-mouse with him, and the governments of both China and the USA urge the players along. More prey than hunter, Rick must find a way to prevail--and survive.

See Kid Me, You Die Synopsis dated May 7, 2006.

© 2006 Jim Ross

Steel Kisses Synopsis

Wealthy daughter of slain Chinese businessman attempts to assassinate Rick Caber in revenge for her father’s death. Her simplistic enterprise jeopardizes an international arms deal, and as Caber unravels the lethal threads his enemies multiply.

© 2006 Jim Ross

Bricolage War Now Steel Kisses

Bricolage War has always made sense to me as a title for the story, as Rick is always making due with whatever resources happen to be available to solve his problems; also there's the subject of his erudition, but it seems to me that "bricolage" is just too abstract. Steel Kisses has just the visceral edge I'm looking for in this thriller genre story. Hope you think so too.

© 2006 Jim Ross

Kid Me, You Die Synopsis

Unscrupulous Chinese businessman tries to wrest high tech company from Silicon Valley entrepreneur when a product is developed that will assist in accelerating the cloning process.

See Kid Me, You Die (Synopsis Update 1) dated May 15, 2006.

© 2006 Jim Ross

It Took Jeppetto . . .

This blog is dedicated to the ongoing struggles of Rick Caber's creator, Jim Ross, to inflate the character and animate him with as few puppeteer strings visible as possible.

This is not said to inflate Jim Ross but to help Jim understand the Jeppetto effect with his Pinnochio and the hard work required to achieve it.

© 2006 Jim Ross