Chapter 4: The Search That Found Nothing
"Search it
again."
Tran Minh Phong
stood in the middle of the west wing room and gave the same order for the third
time.
Two officers
glanced at each other. The younger one crouched to check the gap beneath the
wooden cabinet that had just been dragged away from the wall. The other ran his
flashlight along the base of the wall, tapping each brick, skipping nothing.
Nothing.
Out in the
corridor, boots kept pounding up and down. Doors hung open. Pried-up
floorboards lay scattered across the floor. Plaster dust had whitened the cuffs
of every man's trousers, and the air had turned chalky enough to taste.
The tip had come
in less than two hours earlier, and it had been specific. Contraband moved into
Hai Long Estate ahead of the seal ceremony. Hidden in the west wing, inside a
hollow cavity beside the ancestral room.
The time and the
location were exact.
The number of
guards posted around the perimeter was very nearly exact.
Only the goods were
missing.
Phong walked to
the section of wall stripped of its paneling and shone the light into it
himself. A dark hollow opened up, about half an arm deep. Apart from cobwebs
and a few crumbs of lime, it had been picked clean.
"Have you
measured it?"
The technical
officer answered. "Yes, sir. The cavity is small. It could hold documents
at most, or a single item. There is no way it held the quantity described in
the tip."
"Any sign
something was taken out recently?"
"None. The
dust is even. The cobwebs are unbroken. Nobody has touched it in months."
Phong's grip
tightened around the flashlight.
An officer hurried
in from outside, breathing hard.
"Reporting,
sir. The kitchen, the secondary storehouse, and the guards' quarters are all
clear. The three trucks parked at the rear have been checked. Shipping papers
are in order and the cargo beds are empty."
"The wine
cellar?"
"There is no
wine cellar. Only a small cold room on the ground floor. We checked the
pipework and the false ceiling as well."
"The north garden?"
"The K9 unit
finished the sweep. The dogs did not alert on anything."
Phong turned
toward the corridor.
Somewhere at the
far end, a door had been left open to the courtyard. The rain came through it
as a cold draft carrying the smell of wet stone.
The search had run
for more than an hour. The whole estate had been turned inside out. Everything
named in the tip had been checked, and the team had pushed into places the tip
never mentioned, as far as the warrant allowed.
Not one suspicious
package.
At the far end of
the corridor, Vu Khai leaned against the door frame.
He had traded the
shirt he wore at the ceremony for a black one, the collar open two buttons. A
strip of white cloth was wound around the fingertip that had been cut open
earlier.
Blood had soaked
through it into a small red dot. Khai did not spare it a glance.
From the moment
the search began, he had not obstructed anyone, had not walked away, and had
not asked a single question. He simply followed behind, watching each door
swing open, each drawer emptied, each board levered up.
That silence
unsettled Phong more than any protest would have.
Khai tilted his
head toward the broken wall.
"Are you
finished?"
Phong switched off
the flashlight.
"When we are
finished, you will be informed."
"You said
that half an hour ago."
"Are you in a
hurry?"
Khai laughed.
Nothing in his eyes joined in.
"You are
pulling my house apart one panel at a time. Am I supposed to brew tea and
invite you all to sit until morning?"
Phong crossed the
room to him.
Less than an arm's
length separated them.
"If you know
where the thing we are looking for is, this search ends very quickly."
"I don't even
know what you're looking for."
"It is
written in the warrant."
"It says
contraband."
Khai repeated the
word with open mockery.
"Narcotics?
Firearms? Counterfeit currency? A body? That word of yours covers a great deal
of ground. I wouldn't know how to help."
"I do not
need your help. I need your cooperation."
"I let you
in. My people handed over the keys. Whatever you ask, my steward answers. Isn't
that cooperation enough?"
Phong looked him
straight in the eye.
"One of your
men came close to assaulting an officer carrying out his duty."
The smile went out
of Khai's face.
"That man was
restrained."
"If Madam Vu
had not spoken when she did, it might not have ended at a single blow, Mr.
Vu."
Phong used the
family name on purpose.
He still
remembered it clearly. The man beside the wooden pillar pulling something hard
from beneath his jacket and driving toward him. And the shout that split the
hall a heartbeat later.
No one touches him!
It had not been
the command of a mistress keeping order in her own house. It was the sound of a
woman who had just watched the most precious thing she owned come within an
inch of being destroyed.
The strange part
came afterward. Khai had not looked at the man being pinned to the floor.
He had turned to
look at his mother.
Something about
that look had lodged itself in Phong and refused to come loose, and he could
not say why.
"He was in
the wrong. I am not defending him," Khai said. "File a report, take
him in for questioning. Do it by the book."
"Hai Long men
are known for following orders. When one of them raises a hand on his own
initiative, in front of Madam Vu and in front of you, I am entitled to doubt it
was impulse."
"Then
investigate."
Khai straightened
and lifted his bandaged hand toward the ransacked room.
"But
investigate properly. One cabinet hinge snapped. Three floorboards pried loose
and ruined. Four sections of paneling broken off the west wall. A ceramic vase
in the corridor knocked over by one of your men. Put all of it in the
report."
An officer
standing nearby turned to look at Phong.
"Hai Long
does not lack the money for repairs," Khai went on. "I am not asking
you to pay for anything. I only want the file to record every last thing you
did here."
Phong understood
him at once.
No evidence found,
but damage done to the estate on the very night of the succession. Let that
report slip beyond these walls and by morning the whole of Ha Cang City would
know the police had rolled in with sirens and gone home with nothing in their
hands.
Hai Long would not
be the one humiliated.
His team would be.
Phong lowered his
voice.
"You want to
hide something behind a few broken pieces of furniture?"
"I want the
truth written down in full."
"Which
truth?"
Khai looked around
the room.
"You acted on
a tip you never properly verified. You stormed into my home in the middle of a
gathering, tore the place open, and found nothing."
"The warrant
was issued through proper procedure."
"I never said
the procedure was wrong."
Khai bent down,
picked up a splinter of wood at his feet, brushed the dust from it, and set it
on top of the cabinet.
"Proper
procedure does not mean the right man."
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