Restless Soul - Alex Archer [92]
“How old are you, Nang?”
He replied, “Twenty-two,” after she repeated the question with a trace of venom in her voice.
He looked a little older than that. She would have put him at thirty. Maybe smuggling was a hard life. “Old enough that you should know not to get mixed up in something like this. Old enough not to wave a gun around unless you really know how to use it.”
“I can use a gun,” he retorted.
“Oh, you can pull the trigger. You just can’t aim.” Or maybe he just didn’t want to kill anyone. Maybe he could find redemption.
She put her palm against his chest, the little use of force serving as well as if she’d set a heavy anvil on him. He didn’t budge, and the sweat beads multiplied on his face. She could hear his ragged breath, and the snores of the old man she’d propped up against the wall; she hoped she hadn’t hurt him too badly. She didn’t hear sirens, and she thought she would have by now, from the alarm she’d tripped in the other room.
“The police aren’t coming, are they?” she asked.
Nang shook his head.
“Who is?”
He shrugged and she pushed harder against him.
“Men who work for my uncle,” he said. “The alarm summons them.”
“How many?”
Another shrug. He shook nervously. “I…I do not know. I just know that if trouble comes, the men come. They should be here soon.”
She removed her hand and stepped back. He looked at his lap, not wanting to meet her angry gaze. Kim was still unconscious, and she had no way to tell how long he would be out.
“Nang, I want to be gone before those men you mentioned arrive. Understand?”
A quick nod. He still avoided looking at her face.
“So you’re going to talk quickly. Then I’ll be away and you can go about your business.” She paused. “I don’t want to hurt you. But if I have to—”
“What do you want to know?”
“Who is behind all of this?”
His shrug was more exaggerated this time.
Annja growled from deep in her throat and stepped to the desk, sticking her passport and wallet back in her fanny pack and strapping it on. She picked the crumpled business cards off the floor and flattened them as best as she could, then stuffed them back in her pocket. She took her camera, too, which they seemed to have repaired or at least jury-rigged to view the pictures.
“Try again,” she said. “Who is behind this?”
Nang set his chin against his chest and mumbled something.
“Pardon…I couldn’t hear you.”
“Lanh Vuong.”
The name didn’t mean anything to her.
“Is that the Sandman? I heard your uncle talk to someone named the Sandman.”
“No.”
“So who is Lanh Vuong?”
He let out a great sigh, sounding like sand blowing in the dry wind. “An old and powerful man,” he began. “An important one where I come from.”
“Tell me more.”
He hesitated a bit too long, and she closed her fist.
“Where is Lanh Vuong?”
“Hue.”
She didn’t need to pull the card out of her pocket. She remembered that one of the business cards was for an antiques store in Hue, Vietnam.
“Vietnam?” Annja wanted to be sure.
“Hue, Vietnam.”
The desk had maps stacked on the corner. She pushed against his chest again and turned her back on him, searching through the maps and finding one produced by National Geographic in 1967 that showed Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and part of Burma.
“You’re Vietnamese, right, Nang?” Annja looked over her shoulder to see him nod. “Then I’ve got a new idea.” Grabbing a selection of maps, and the only set of keys she saw on the desk, she slung her backpack over her shoulders, returned to Nang and tugged him up by his collar.
He looked noticeably paler, and his face was even sweatier.
“You’re coming with me,” she said.
He started shaking, and she let out a disappointed sigh. She’d thought a smuggler should have a little more backbone. “To…Hue? Going…to…Hue?”
It was her turn to nod. She nudged him out the back door and toward the muddy Jeep, just as a silver Hilux Vigo pulled into the far side of the