Weecho: First Shots

Chapter 20 - Duck and Cover

He spun Juna around and pushed her back up to the deck and inside, slid the glass door shut and cut through the bungalow. He’d left the front door unlocked when he let her in. Yanked it open, looked outside, stepped back in and shut the door. 

“What?” Juna said. 

“More company.” 

Weecho peered through the peephole, saw the lights blink off on a couple of vehicles pulled up on the embankment. Men were getting out and coming this way, starting across the plank walkway. 

“Bedroom,” he said, and they ran for it. 

In the tight little room Juna started for the closet, but Weecho pulled her back. Under the bed was a better place if they wanted to see who and what. 

They both wriggled under, facing out, and Weecho tugged down the bedspread. There was just enough space between the hem of the spread and the rug on the floor to see down the hall to the front door and part of the living room. 

The door opened and a man came in, big dark outline filling the entrance. He flicked on the hall light and Weecho could see it was the big Asian guy he’d ducked at the harem. Yoon’s goon. The guy went into the living room, made sounds like he was checking around. Back at the door, two suits came in, young guys, stocky builds, buzz-cuts like you see on security details. Which figured because next came Senator Gatchel and then some older guy, and then the five-foot-zero figure of Yoon himself. After them another Asian guy came in and shut the door. 

One of the suits checking out the hallway snapped his eyes toward the bedroom and came straight for it. Weecho pulled Juna back under the bed as far as they could get. The light went on and they heard the closet door slide open. Then slide closed. They’d lucked on not being in there, but knew what was next. 

The suit flipped up a corner of the spread and peered under the bed. No harem legs swinging to distract him. Weecho closed his eyes so the whites wouldn’t show, hoped Juna was doing the same. And maybe that was enough. Maybe the two of them blended with the dark. Or maybe the guy wasn’t bent down far enough. Whatever, he dropped the spread and shut off the light and went back out. 

They waited until they were sure he’d rejoined the others, eased themselves back to where they had a view. The second Asian guy turned off the hall light and Weecho could see from the flickering in the living room that the first guy had lit candles, keeping the light low so as not to draw attention from outside. 

From under the bed they heard the glass door to the deck slide open, saw somebody’s shadow step inside. 

“Ah,” Yoon said, “here is Mr. Lynch now.” 

It was Lynch’s Donzi they’d seen pulling in. 

“Senator Gatchel,” Lynch said, “a pleasure to see you again.” 

“A pleasure to see you, too,” Gatchel said, sounding almost like he meant it. “Allow me to introduce Mr. Bigsby.” 

Weecho nudged up the hem of the bedspread so they could see Lynch shaking hands with the older man. 

“Welcome to our safe house,” Lynch said. “Modest but secure.” 

Playing it up for this Bigsby.   

Weecho wondering who the man was when, Christ, his cellphone rang. 

Had it on low in his shirt pocket, fumbled it out before everybody in the house could hear the thing. “What,” he whispered. 

“It’s Dara. Where are you?” 

“I can’t talk.” 

“Okay, listen. They found the bug in Yoon’s library.”