California Dreaming
Chapter 12
Apprehensive eyes turn to Azra as she enters a large room holding people in folding chairs. She quickly evaluates the group that comprises her present mission. She's seen people in worse shape. They have some signs of malnutrition but not current hunger. And she doesn't observe any medical issues screaming for attention. So she can start by talking to them. She picks a Pakistani name that implies comfort and shifts her brain to Uyghur. "I'm called Inaya. I'm here to help."
Azra scans faces with expressions that range from distrust to hope. She picks one of the hopeful. "Can you tell me what happened to you?"
The woman's voice trembles. "I'm Aynur. I lived in a village in China. It was hard. The Chinese forced us to work and gave us nothing. But Russians came over the border. They said the Chinese were evil, and they could take us where we could live good lives and be paid for our work. They took us in trucks until they put us on a ship. I don't know how long we were on the sea until they finally brought us to this country. But the Russians were no better than the Chinese. Men with big guns came in and made us work. But then the men with guns left."
"Do you know why they left?" Azra asks. "Did they look scared of something?"
"They might have been. They didn't seem to care what we were doing anymore. They just went away. We could have also left once they were gone, but we didn't know where to go or what to do. And then other people with guns showed up."
"The police," Azra offers, repeating the Uyghur word in English."
"That's what they kept calling themselves. We were afraid, but they didn't try to hurt us. They gave us water and food and a place to rest. But they couldn't understand us, and we couldn't understand them."
Azra nods. "That's why I'm here. So that you can tell them your story, and they can find out what you need."
"I don't know what I need, what any of us need," Aynur admits. "If we went back to our villages, we'd be slaves again, or we might be killed for leaving. But we don't know what will happen if we stay here. Do you, Inaya?"
"I don't," Azra admits. "But I do have an idea. Now though, I can help you answer whatever questions the police and some other officials have. Then we'll find a safe place for you to stay until we can arrange the next step."
"I don't know that I can remember ever staying in a safe place," Aynur confides. "I don't think anyone else here does either. What's that like?"
Azra recalls Jack's arms around her a few hours before. "It's wonderful."
Rick finishes buckling Lily into her safety seat. "Ready to go see the whales?"
"Boris?" Lily inquires, recalling the whale in a vintage book Rick showed her at the library.
"I don't know which whales," Rick explains, "but sometimes they jump up in the water so you can see them." The toddler bounces against her restraining straps. "Jump!"
"We'll be on a boat," Rick continues. "So the whales will jump, not Lily."
"It's an hour's drive to Newport Beach. We'd better get going so we don't miss that boat," Kate reminds him. She leans back in her seat as Rick takes the wheel of their upscale rental car. "You had a really good time with John last night, didn't you?"
"You know, it's strange. All the time I was growing up, I felt like something or someone was missing. And I thought maybe that was a father. Still, Jack was only part of it. It was as if I knew I had a brother out there somewhere. But I admit, I never pictured him as a building contractor or a cop. More like someone who could be Luke Skywalker to my Han Solo."
"Luke had a sister, not a brother," Kate points out.
"And he didn't know it either," Rick muses. "In 'A New Hope,' he even competes with Han for her affections. Ugh! Anyway, in George Lucas' original plan, Luke and Han were brothers. So finding John is kind of like Luke realizing Leah is his sister. It mends a disturbance in the Force, so to speak. And having a nephew is an extra plus. I'd like to meet Henry sometime. And I think John would like to meet Alexis too."
"What are you going to tell Martha?" Kate questions.
"The truth, I guess – if the matter comes up."
"Oh, it will," Kate insists. "How long do you think it's going to be before Lily mentions her Uncle John?"
"Unka John," Lily echoes.
"Point made," Rick concedes. "But Mother is still pis… uh, angry at Jack anyway. So she'll probably just be a little angrier."
Nolan smiles as Lucy and Jackson join him in the break room for his short time away from the flood of civilians at the front desk. "You two are having a busy day. So what is that, two busts? And you're not even halfway through your shift."
"Two amateur car thieves. I could have boosted a vehicle faster than those guys," Lucy claims.
"The detectives want to lean on them to find out who they're stealing for," Jackson adds. "They think it must be a new chop shop. None of the established ones would hire screw-ups like that. So the busts won't get us any closer to La Fiera or any of the other major organizations in the city."
"Still, there are two people out there who won't have to contend with a missing car," John notes. "Good work, you two. I wish I could get back out there, but Grey wants to give it a day or two."
"Won't working the desk make it easier for you to see your brother again before he goes back to New York?" Lucy asks. "You won't have to finish a stack of reports at the end of the day."
"True enough," John acknowledges. "But I won't have anything interesting to tell him, either. He says if I have a new adventure that will appeal to his readers, he can put it in a book, disguised of course, like his wife's cases."
"You've already had more stuff happen to you in a year than most cops do in their whole careers. What kind of new adventure?" Lucy questions.
John shrugs. "To tell you the truth, I have no idea."
"So, what did you find out?" Jack asks as Azra meets him at his temporary quarters.
"Not much that we hadn't suspected. "There are definitely two different factions of Russians, armed thugs and traffickers. And they're allied with two different oligarchs. So either there was a disagreement or a double-cross. But either way, the traffickers' prisoners were left to fend for themselves. Obviously, the whole thing is a setback for Russian investment in property and in drug operations. The big boys at the Kremlin won't be happy campers."
"Which means I'll be pulled out of here as soon as the agency is sure I don't have to mop up any loose ends," Jack realizes.
"And I'll be returning to New York as soon as we get the Uyghurs situated. The paperwork is already started for refugee asylum, if for no other reason than that the Uyghurs' stories expose Chinese abuses as well as Russian trafficking. Cynical as it sounds, that's great leverage for State. So the department will be pushing the process forward. Still, it works out well for the Uyghurs. We've found a professor at USC who knows the language better than I do. And a couple of grad students come with the package. But before I leave L.A., I want to tell you about something I heard a couple of cops at the Mid-Wilshire Division talking about. One of the officers there discovered he has a brother who's a famous writer."
"Richard!" Jack exclaims. "The brother has to be the man I saw visiting Richard. Did you get a name?"
Azra winks. "I got two. One of the cops called him John, and the other one called him Nolan. So you shouldn't have much trouble taking it from there."