The Genesis Illusion

Chapter 44

There are thousands of offices and apartments above the ground-floor businesses in the lower Chinatown area. Entrances are often through unmarked doors between businesses. Narrow flights of stairs lead to the first and second floors. Inside long hallways connect formerly separate buildings and conceal modern apartments and high-tech offices or meeting rooms.

Three young-toughs, NY City gang wannabe's, slouched on the western-style furniture in a well-appointed apartment in one of these anonymous locations. "Hey guys, we've got an assignment to take this Paul Jacobs out of action," the gang leader said. "Our bosses don't want him poking his nose into their business anymore."

The other two stared at the self-appointed leader reaching for their weapons tucked into their pants. "No, we can't hurt him. They just want him taken out of action." Relieved, other two took their hands off their weapons. "We need to either take him and hide him away for a while or divert him so he focuses on something besides their business activities. Anybody have any ideas how to do that?"

"You sure they don't want us to kill him?" the second thug said.

"No, they said they don't want him hurt," the leader said. "They only want him out of the way."

"That's good. You know the government here uses the death penalty for almost everything. If they caught us we'd be worm food for sure. It's not worth the risk."

"They want him to stop looking into what they are doing. They're not ready for anyone to know their business right now."

"What can we do?" the third thug said. "We can't take him either. The penalty for kidnapping is death."

"True, so that makes it hard for us to do what they want."

"Hell, I can't risk the death penalty for a little of cash," the second thug said. "It's not the same as stealing credit cards or jewelry. You get a few years in jail for that. But the death penalty. Forget it. I'm not doing that."

"Okay, okay, settle down," the leader said. "We've got to come up with a plan or lose the bosses trust. We don't want to do that. They've been good to us. Real good."

"Maybe we can get him working on something else?"

"Yeah, or maybe we can scare him. If he thinks were going to take him, he'll stop and go underground. He's not a pro like us."

"He'll probably go to the police."

"Then the police will be after us. How do we stop him from going to the police? Maybe we could fix it so the police are after him."

"Yeah, yeah, I know how to do that," the third thug said. "We can fix him real good. The police will do our work for us. They'll track him down and lock him up at least for a while. That'll put him out of action. This guy will be so scared he won't be able to speak. Trouble will be all over him."

"Whatever we do we better do it quick," the leader said. "The bosses expect us to take care of it right now not in two weeks. You know what happened the last time they wanted us to do something for them. They used a special power. Lyn Do did their dirty work, but he didn't want to. That power is strong. Now he's on the run. The government is after him for kidnapping and even murder. Either way it's death for him if he's caught."

"Yeah, so if we don't do something right now we'll end up doing something even worse because of their power," the second thug said.

"Okay, we know what we must do," the leader said. "Let's stick our heads together and come up with a plan. We don't want to be living in no jungle or hunkered down in a godforsaken place hiding from the police."

"I've got it. They'll lock him up for sure."