Chapter
22: The Man Who Cut the Brakes
The call lasted only twenty-seven seconds.
But those twenty-seven seconds were enough to drag back every
memory of that rain-soaked night seven years ago, so vivid that Khai Minh could
have sworn he heard it all again: the tires grinding against the road, his
mother screaming his name, the shriek of metal against the guardrail before the
car plunged over the edge.
The line went dead.
Khai Minh kept the phone pressed to his ear. The long dial
tone stretched through the wide, empty room, colder than the draft slipping
under the door.
He had the lawyer Bach summoned within the hour. Khai Minh
gave the order flatly.
“Have someone trace this number. Now.”
Bach looked at him, torn between pity and worry. Khai Minh
had been out barely a day. His accounts were frozen, every servant in the house
swapped out, and even walking through the gate of his own villa meant asking a
stranger’s permission. And yet the moment a single thread surfaced, he was
already lunging for it, like a drowning man grabbing at a scrap of driftwood.
“This could be a trap.”
“I know.”
Khai Minh lifted his face.
“For seven years, every time I’ve gotten close to the truth,
someone tells me it’s a trap. If I’d backed off every single time, I’d still be
sitting in this room, doing exactly what I’m told.”
Bach let out a long breath.
“At least let me arrange someone to go with you.”
“No one from the villa can know.”
“Understood.”
Bach had already turned to go when Khai Minh called him back.
“Wait.”
“What is it?”
“Get me a recorder. The smallest one you can find.”
Bach paused a beat, then nodded.
The next morning, a car picked Khai Minh up at the rear
service gate of the villa. The driver was one of Bach’s long-time assistants,
who had been waiting at the bottom of the hill since before the sky turned
light.
Khai Minh brought almost nothing. Just his cane, his phone,
the recorder tucked into the lining of his coat, and his mother’s
leather-strapped watch, still on his wrist.
The car drove for nearly an hour before it reached the West
Docks.
The district had once been a cluster of ship-repair yards,
machine shops, and parts warehouses. Ever since the new port went up at the
south end of the city, one workshop after another had shut down, corrugated
roofs rusting through, roller doors buckled out of shape, creepers swallowing
the mottled walls whole.
The assistant stopped the car and moved to come along, but
Khai Minh shook his head.
“He said I come in alone.”
“But you…”
“Just wait here. If I’m not back out in fifteen minutes, call
Bach.”
Khai Minh planted his cane and stepped down from the car.
He followed the wall on his right, counting each step out of
long habit.
At the exact spot, Khai Minh reached out and pushed the door
open.
Inside, it was dark and cold.
The floor was scattered with small shards of metal. Every
time the tip of his cane came down, it kicked up a thin, ringing note.
Somewhere deep in the room came the faint sound of breathing, held back hard,
but not quite hidden from his ears.
“You called me here. Then show yourself.”
No one answered.
Khai Minh stood perfectly still.
“Or did you just come to hide in there and see whether a
blind man would walk into a trap on his own?”
A noise rang out. Someone had just kicked an empty bottle.
Then the man’s voice from the day before spoke up.
“They said your hearing was sharp, Mr. Lam. Even sharper than
the rumors.”
“You’re standing seven steps from me. Off to my left.”
The man went dead silent.
Khai Minh turned to face him exactly.
“Now talk. Seven years ago, who paid you?”
The man didn’t answer. He came forward slowly, his shoes
dragging across the cement floor. From the sound of his breathing and the reek
of cigarette smoke soaked into his clothes, Khai Minh put him past forty, his
health already going.
“You’re not going to ask who I am?”
“What difference does it make? Whatever your name is, you’re
still the man who tampered with my parents’ car.”
Khai Minh’s voice stayed very calm.
And it was that very calm that unnerved the man all the more.
“Don’t go thinking I’m the one who killed them. All I did was
take the money and make the car break down.”
“Make the car break down?”
Khai Minh let out a thin, cold laugh.
“My father died on the spot. My mother burned to death. I
lost my eyes. You call that breaking down?”
“That wasn’t how it was supposed to go!”
The man’s voice suddenly rose, then dropped just as fast, as
if he was afraid of being overheard.
“The original order was just to strand the car in the middle
of the road. They said this Thanh Ha woman was on her way to the lab, and they
needed to hold her up a few hours so she couldn’t get the files out in time. I
only swapped a part, made the brake fluid leak out slow. Drive careful and the
driver could still have reined it in.”
Khai Minh’s grip tightened around his cane.
“Who’s ’they’?”
The mechanic fell silent again.
Khai Minh took a step forward.
“You’re the one who called me here. Don’t start a sentence
and swallow the rest of it.”
“Vu Minh Quan.”
The name dropped into the freezing workshop.
Even though he’d guessed it long ago, Khai Minh felt his
chest cinch tight all the same.
“You’re certain?”
“He handed me the money himself.”
“Where?”
“The lot behind the Thien Ha Hotel. He didn’t come alone.
There was a man from Truong Sinh standing next to him, but he never said a word
the whole time.”
The man swallowed dry.
“Minh Quan gave me photos of the car, the schedule, the plate
number. He said all he needed was for the car to end up stuck on the road. I
took half the money up front.”
“And after that?”
“About an hour before the car set out, he called back.”
The mechanic’s voice began to shake.
“He told me the plan had changed.”
Khai Minh could hear the other man’s heart slamming, clear as
anything.
“Changed how?”
“Neither of the Lams could be left alive.”
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