Chapter 50
Mary couldn't believe what she was hearing, her breathing hitched as she tried to process what her brother was telling her, "But why, Steve? How could she do that to us all?" Steve didn't have an answer and could only hold his sister as she cried. They sat out there for hours as the sun went down and night set in. Mary had got over her shock and was now in the 'anger' stage of her grief, asking all the same questions that Steve had asked when he first found out. Steve had explained how their mother was in the wind, but that he thought Joe knew where she was.
Mary was angry all over again, "She leaves us high and dry nearly 20 years ago and then at the first sign of trouble, she doesn't do anything to help keep her own kids safe and instead makes sure that she's alright . . . But oh no, she's not done with messing with our family, she has to go and drag Uncle Joe into her sick little game. Did she even give him a choice?" Steve hadn't thought about it like that, he had just lumped Joe in with his mother's scheming. He looked at Mary for her permission,
"Shall I ring Joe now, see if he can come over and talk to us?" The young woman nodded her head in agreement,
"Yeah, I think you should. It's only right to give him the chance to explain himself after all he's done for us." Steve made the call and the siblings went to have some food, suddenly realizing how hungry they both were. Joe arrived as they were washing up the dishes, standing side by side in the old-fashioned kitchen. It crossed Mary's mind that the whole house really needed a complete revamp, it was like a relic from the past and was stopping them from properly moving forward. They moved to the living room, settling down into the large comfy sofa and armchair. Steve spoke first and he got straight to the point, sick of all the secrecy and half-truths,
"I have found out the whole story about Mom being Shelburne and her faked death. I told Mary everything, Joe. She knows that Mom is an active CIA Agent called Shelburne who accidently killed Wo Fat's mother in an unsanctioned CIA op and that she is still very much alive. I know that Shelburne has gone to ground and I'm pretty sure that she roped you into helping her stay hidden." Joe looked at the two siblings who had meant so much to him over the years, having never had children of his own. He sighed,
"You're right. Your mother came to me after she found out about John's death. She was terrified of what Wo Fat would do to her if he found out that she was the one who killed his mother. She couldn't trust anyone in the CIA and so I agreed to help her disappear. I thought I was helping you two by keeping her and all of this mess hidden. Now, I'm not so sure." He paused as a thought came to him, "Have you invited me here to ask me to take you to her?"
Steve turned to Mary, "I dunno. Are we?" Mary was deep in thought and thinned her lips as she made a face while processing everything,
"I think I'd prefer to believe that my mother died in that car wreck all those years ago. Whoever could fake her own death and leave Dad devastated and let her own children be sent away from everything they had ever known was not my mother . . . they were the actions of a selfish CIA Agent who put herself above the very people she was meant to protect. She could've somehow let Dad know that it wasn't his investigation that got his own wife killed. He would've been freed from all that guilt and maybe we'd have had at least one parent in our lives. She effectively made us orphans." Steve moved closer and pulled his sister into a hug,
"What she just said. Mom died in 1992 and I want to remember her as she was then, a loving mother who was on the school PTA and made me a packed lunch for school every day. Shelburne the CIA Agent is not my mother. You need to break free of her Joe, she's gonna drag you down too. You don't owe that woman anything, you have more than fulfilled your promise to Dad to look after us."
Joe nodded, completely understanding their position. He would travel to Japan to visit Doris in person and let her know that Wo Fat was dead and she could come out of hiding. He would also tell her Steve and Mary's decision and ask her never to contact them again. The poor kids had been through enough.
When Mary had gone to bed, Steve took Joe to one side and told him about the plan to find Wo Fat's mother and have her remains buried in the family plot. Joe listened carefully and together the men planned the military transport and how to go about the mission without alerting the Navy or any of the agencies. Steve had a final message for Shelburne,
"Can you tell Doris that when she comes out of hiding that she should be the one to make the arrangements for the re-burial ceremony – after all, it was her cock-up that caused all this pain in the first place . . . besides she was there for the first funeral and so knows which grave needs to be used. I have no plans to be there once the body has been safely delivered back to the cemetery," Steve frowned as he thought of something, "what happened to the father, Yao Fat? I don't want him coming to exact his revenge in years to come."
Joe shrugged, "When the Company pulled Shelburne off the assignment, they took Yao Fat into custody. He's never been heard from since, my guess is that he's at a Black Site somewhere or long dead." Steve pondered on this,
"Yeah, makes sense. As long as I know he'll never bother me or Mary then I don't care."
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With Joe's help, the trip to Cambodia went very smoothly. Danny accompanied Steve, as the Navy SEAL knew he would, and he realized that he couldn't have asked for a better partner when he had stormed into the detective's life and pretty much forced him to join the Task Force. They located the field using GPS and dug at the exact location marked by the coordinates. They couldn't risk drawing unwanted attention by using heavy digging equipment and so had to dig by hand in the humid conditions. Suffice it to say that Danny was not a happy camper. It took a good portion of the day, but they finally heard the tell-tale scraping sound as their shovels hit wood. Another half an hour of digging later and they had cleared all of the soil off the wooden box. Steve forced the lid off with his utility knife and as expected, a skeleton was in the box. Steve would've liked to have made use of DNA confirmation, but there was no way to do that without raising some serious red flags and so he had settled on taking basic measurements. Max had shown him how to tell a male skeleton from a female one and a very cursory examination confirmed that the coffin contained the remains of a fully-developed woman who was the same approximate height as Lei Kuan Fat.
That was good enough for Steve and he carefully sealed the remains into a special lightweight body bag that the two men had brought with them. Despite Danny's grumbling, they made much quicker work of replacing the lid of the box and shovelling the soil back over it. They raked over the site and scattered some vegetation around to break up the new expanse of bare soil. Steve remarked that in this climate, the weeds would grow back within weeks and then no one would be any the wiser that the ground had been disturbed. The sweaty pair trudged back to their vehicle with the body bag and set off on the next leg of their long journey.
The flight to Beijing was uneventful and the partners got into their rented car and drove the short distance to the cemetery. Steve's proficiency in Mandarin came in handy, it being the main language spoken in Beijing. Joe had already made arrangements with the cemetery's caretaker and Steve quickly confirmed why they were there and had the body passed over for safekeeping in no time. The caretaker assured Steve that all the arrangements had been finalised and a special blessing would be performed when the remains were re-buried in their rightful plot. Steve thanked the man and then he and Danny made their way back to their rental car. Danny caught a glimpse of a woman as she ducked behind a headstone. She stood out because she was Caucasian and tall, both attributes an unusual sight in an isolated Chinese cemetery. He steered Steve back to the car and when the other man was safely inside he patted his pockets as if he was looking for something, "Ah damn. I left my cell in that man's office. Sorry, I won't be a minute." Steve just nodded,
"No problem, Buddy. I promise I won't leave without my wing man." Danny grinned at him and jogged back to the building but quickly diverted, skirting around the edge of the graveyard and then circling back. He surprised the woman who had been hiding behind a particularly ornate headstone,
"Doris McGarrett, I presume?" She recovered quickly, having years of covert training and spycraft under her belt,
"Yes. And you are?" Danny looked her up and down before answering, she was in good shape for her age, clearly keeping up with the gruelling requirements for active fieldwork,
"That really doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that you leave that man," he vaguely waved his arm in the direction of the car, ". . . alone. He made his decision together with Mary Ann in light of all of the facts and neither of them want to see you . . . ever." Her eyes flashed dangerously as she took a quick step forward and leaned over the detective,
"You have no right to keep me from my son. I just need a chance to explain." Danny had been threatened by people far more imposing than the woman in front of him and was unfazed by her aggression,
"The facts speak for themselves. All the explanation in the world won't change the sequence of events that you put into action all those years ago. They lost their mother in 1992 and that's the way they want to keep it. You're a CIA asset who goes by the handle 'Shelburne' and of no further interest to them. I suggest you give that poor woman in the body bag a proper burial and then report into the agency – I hear they're missing an agent." Danny didn't give her time to formulate a response, he just turned and jogged back to the car. Jumping in the passenger side he waved at Steve to leave, "Sorry, the caretaker was under the mistaken impression that I speak Mandarin. Took me a while to retrieve my phone and get out of there." Steve chuckled,
"Let's go home, Danno. We need to stop Mary Ann from completely renovating the whole house – I could see it in her eyes, she's got it into her head that it will help erase the past if we modernize the place."
Danny laughed as the car set off back to the city, "Hey, don't knock it – I think she's got a point. It is kind of creepy that nothing has changed since you were a kid. I say it's way past time for something new." Steve conceded the point,
"Yeah, Buddy. Maybe it is time for a fresh start."