The next morning, we decided to head up to San Francisco. I looked up the Chinese consulate on the internet. There appeared to be street parking near the entrance on Laguna. Getting there seemed easy enough, I could take 101 to the Central freeway to Van Ness to Geary to Laguna. Jefferson Square Park was only two blocks away, so I could take Max for a walk there. Max spends most days cooped up in my apartment; so, I try to take him with me whenever I can.

We loaded up my Ford and put Max in the backseat. We got to the freeway at the peak of morning rush hour. It was bumper to bumper all the way into the city. After about half an hour at maybe twenty miles per hour I said, "I think we're being followed."

Rogue turned and looked behind us. "Yeah, it looks like about half of Silicon Valley is behind us right now." She turned back and finished, "And the other half is in front of us."

"No, you see that black Escalade about two cars back?"

"What about it?"

"I thought I spotted it in the parking lot when we left this morning. I don't know anyone in the apartment complex who owns an SUV like that and the driver looks Asian."

"OMG an Asian in an SUV on 101 at rush hour. You only see that like — everyday. Wake me, when we get to the city." She feigned sleeping.

"Sarcasm, you must be feeling better."

We eventually got to Laguna and actually found a place to park about a block down from the consulate.

"I'm going to take Max for a quick walk down to the park to do his business. You can stay here and keep an eye on the consulate. If our guy shows, call me on the cellphone."

I leashed Max and we headed to Jefferson Square which was just out of sight around the corner.

"Have fun," Rogue bid us adieu.

Max did his business in the park and I bagged it, trashed it, and we headed back to the car. When we got back, the car was empty and Rogue was not in sight. The car was unlocked, so I locked it. Max and I started walking down the street back toward the consulate. I thought that maybe she'd had to use the restroom.

There was no traffic on the street when the black SUV swerved around the corner and pulled to the curb next to me. The door opened and three young Asian guys jumped out of the car and grabbed me. To make the telling of this part easier, I'll call them the three stooges. The guy in charge had a bowl cut so he will be Moe. The stocky one had a buzz cut so he will be Curly. The third guy I really didn't get a good look at but I'll call him Larry to complete the trio.

I tried to shake them off but before I could do anything Larry had my wrists secured behind my back with cable ties. Max started for Larry, but then Curly grabbed him by the collar and began scratching the dog's back. Max is more of a lover than a fighter and the affection Curly was showing made him want to believe we were not in any real danger.

"That's a good con cho. You're a good boy," said Curly. "What do we do with the dog?"

"Take him too," said Moe.

"We didn't bring a hood for the dog," Curly said. I guessed he was trying to be funny.

"Let's go!" commanded the driver. Larry dragged me into the third-row seats and sat next to me. Curly loaded Max in on top of me then flipped the seat up and got into the second row next to what I realized was Rogue gagged and hooded. Moe got into the front seat next to the driver. Larry shoved a gag in my mouth, secured it with tape and pulled a hood over my head as the car accelerated.

The hoods were actually old pillow cases. I could still see a little through them, but not well enough to tell where we were going. I figured that was their purpose. They certainly weren't to keep us from identifying our captors because I'd already seen their faces.

#

We drove for probably a couple of hours. I lost track of the turns, changes in speed and traffic stops. For much of the time I could hear traffic. Our captors didn't talk much and they didn't turn on the radio, probably so as not to provide any clues to their backgrounds or identity. Eventually the traffic sounds died out. Shortly after that we pulled off the paved road and came to a stop.

Moe snapped at Curly, "Do not turn on your cellphone to play that stupid Pokémon game. We have a job to do."

We were hustled out of the car and walked over some fairly rough terrain. I could feel twigs beneath my feet and occasionally stumbled over the rocks, roots, and rises in the rugged real estate. We were walked for maybe another hour. I was pushed to the ground. My hands were still secured behind me and I was still hooded.

"Listen carefully Mr. Farley." It was Moe's voice. I think he was stooping down to make sure I could hear him. I could feel his voice on the hood over my face. His halitosis penetrated the cotton fabric.

A voice I recognized as the one I called Curly said, "I thought we weren't supposed to use any names?" Definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

"Our names, stupid." Moe's voice was directed away from me for this remark and then it returned. "Farley, this is a warning. You're in over your head. You're out of your league. You're lucky this time, maybe someone find you here or maybe not. If you do get back alive, you drop this whole thing or next time you out here permanently. Understand?" He punctuated the rhetorical question with a slap to the back of my head. "Drop your investigation of the Chinese, no looking into anything connected to this." I could tell he stood up, because I could no longer feel his breath in my face. "Now, you no move for ten minutes, then I no care what happens." It seemed like he was intentionally using broken English, probably to further disguise his identity. It wasn't even a good attempt at broken English.

I heard them walk away and then start to run. I counted to three hundred Mississippis to make sure they were gone, and then shook the hood off my head. Rogue was next to me. She was squirming and trying to yell through her gag. Max came over and licked my face.

We were in a small clearing in the woods. The stooges were not in sight. No one was. I slipped my wrists under my butt and around my legs. With my hands in front I was able to remove my gag. I took the hood off Rogue and pulled the gag out of her mouth.

"Undo my hands," she said urgently.

The stooges had left me my cell phone and pocket knife. They either intended for us to escape all along or they were complete idiots. In my mind, the jury was still out on that verdict. With my hands still bound together at the wrists, I fished my knife out of my pocket, got it opened and used it to cut the cable ties on Rogue. She then took the knife and freed me. She gave me back my knife and immediately ran into the woods. I thought maybe she'd seen someone and was running after them. I started to follow.

"Stay there!" she yelled. "I have to pee."

I did too. Once she was out of sight, I used the nearest tree. It was a twenty-two Mississippis pee. I once had a forty-five Mississippi pee after an all the shrimp you could eat buffet. Ripley told me he once had a sixty Mississippis pee. I suspect he counts faster. I know for a fact, he always has to one up me.

As I relieved myself, I tried to relieve my mind by reviewing the recent turn of events. This kidnapping was clearly intended to discourage our investigations. It might even have worked if it were not for the fact I needed to resolve this mystery in time for Rogue's next chemo. We had used up two days of our twenty-one-day time limit.

When Rogue returned, I was checking my cellphone for coverage.

"What now Mister thank-god-I'm-a-country-boy?"

I considered putting the gag back in her mouth. "We can either try to backtrack our way back to the road or try to get some elevation so we can figure out where we are. Since I've never done any tracking, I'm not too optimistic about backtracking."

"Do you think you'll be able to spot a landmark from higher up?

"No, but I think I might get some cellphone reception. The terrain blocks the line-of-sight to the GPS satellites and even if I got that, I still need cell tower connectivity for my mapping app to work."

"I don't see any path that clearly goes uphill. So, are you going to climb a tree?"

Rogue was right, the terrain around us was sort of rolling so, I couldn't be certain of which way was ultimately uphill. Climbing a tree would be the only sure way to get elevation. I scanned all the trees in the area. None of them looked climbable. They were all mostly evergreens with few or no branches on the lower trunks.

"Let's give backtracking a shot," I sighed. I was not optimistic.

It was actually easier than I thought. Occasionally there'd be disturbed branches or a foot or paw print in loose dirt. More importantly, Max quickly figured out we were following our captors and he had no problem at all picking up their scent. So, we left the trail-blazing to him. He was probably hoping to get some more scratching from Curly. Hopefully, he wasn't following a squirrel.

"So, what are we going to do when we get back? Are we really going to take on the Chinese?"

"Those guys weren't Chinese."

"What do you mean?"

"They were Vietnamese."

"How do you know they were Vietnamese?"

"The stocky guy called Max 'con cho' which is Vietnamese for dog. I had Vietnamese neighbors when I was a kid. For a long time, I thought 'con cho,' was their dog's name until they explained it to me. They also looked more Vietnamese than Chinese. The differences are small. I suspect the pillow cases and broken accents were to keep us from noticing."

"So, the Chinese hired a Vietnamese gang."

"I don't think so. I don't think Vietnamese would ever work for the Chinese. And if they were working for the Chinese, I don't think they would have mentioned it. I mean, why confirm our suspicions that the Chinese are involved? I think somebody wants us to think the Chinese are behind this. Now, I'm beginning to doubt the Chinese are involved at all."

"Why would someone want us to think the Chinese are behind this?"

"Possibly because they knew we already suspected the Chinese and they want to keep us on the wrong track?" I speculated.

"What about the Chinese guy in Disneyland?"

"Yeah, that's a puzzler. We've got a lot more digging to do. Are you up for it? Things are starting to get a little extreme."

"Are you kidding? Extreme is the dream!" she said genuinely excited. "Chuck, Shakespeare was wrong. Cowards don't die many times. Cowards never really live. This is living, Chuck." I gave her a puzzled look wondering if she was really the adrenaline junkie she was making herself out to be or was she just that desperate for a distraction from her cancer?

She responded to my look saying, "Of course, clearly, Bette Midler is more your speed than Shakespeare." Then she sang the verse from "The Rose" that goes, "It's the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live." She smiled and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "You're the best thing that has ever happened to me." I was left even more confused.

By the time we got to the road, our captors were long gone. We did have cellphone reception. I got our location from GPS. We were in the Santa Cruz Mountains on a backroad just off highway seventeen. I called Ripley to come get us which he did and dropped us back in San Francisco in front of the consulate where we'd left the car.

#

That night we all gathered at my place for pizza and to catch everyone up. After telling everyone about our kidnapping, I wanted to get everyone's feelings on the situation.

"This is turning out to be more dangerous than I think any of us thought. Does everyone still want to pursue this?" I asked.

"Holy hopping horny toads!" Pixie exclaimed. "We are like real detectives now. I'm definitely in!"

"Sure, count me in too," Ripley said more resigned than enthusiastic. He was still just following Pixie's lead.

Jean cautiously nodded her agreement. She was aware of the deal I had made with Rogue and I think she was with me in doing whatever it took to keep Rogue on track with her treatments. "Are you going to call the police about the kidnapping?" she asked.

"I don't know what good it would do. I'm pretty sure the stooges were just a gang for hire. I doubt the police can find them," I said. "Besides the police said they'd shoot me if I bothered them again."

"You know, we should all put those apps on our phones that allow us to track each other's location in case something like this happens again," Jean suggested.

"That's a good idea. I'll take care of it," Ripley volunteered. "I'll text everyone where to get the app and what to do."

"Okay, this is what we know so far," I began to recap. "Someone has imbedded a spyware module in an error message handler and they have installed the handler in the Advanced Comms software library. They tried to use my project to cover their tracks. As a result, that project is now a carrier of the spyware."

"Maybe they were using your project to get their spyware into a secure environment. Won't it be moved into the SCIF when it's completed?" Ripley asked.

"A skiff? Why would you put it on a boat?" Rogue asked.

"SCIF is an acronym for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, basically a secured area for working on classified material. And yes, that project's software will be moving into one. But SCIF software rarely connects to outside networks." I tried to imagine how anyone could connect to spyware in a SCIF. "I suppose, it's possible, someone is just trying to spread the code to as many places as possible. The spyware could have been in the original First Tech software. We don't know when the malware first appeared. If it was in the original First Tech software, that could indicate our culprit is attacking both companies."

"Someone could even be planning to install it in other companies," Pixie suggested. "Or maybe they already have. There is no telling how far it has spread."

"Good point," I nodded agreement. "We also know that someone is trying to discourage our investigation."

"It has to be someone who was aware we were investigating as early as our Disneyland trip," Rogue pointed out. "That was when that guy started following you. Also, it has to be someone we told about his being Chinese. Since our captors seemed to want to perpetuate that idea."

"That narrows it down to one of us or someone we've told. This includes Martin or someone he told," I concluded. The girls were easily ruled out since they were the ones who initiated the investigation. Although Ripley has the necessary software skills and connections to both First Tech and Advanced Comms, I ruled him out, because, well just because he's Ripley. Anyone who knows him like I do would understand. He is completely incapable of doing anything nefarious. That pretty much just left Martin.

"Martin's hiring us so easily is beginning to seem suspicious," I added.

"You think he did it just so he could keep track of what we were up to?" Rogue asked. "Then he hired the thugs to kidnap us to discourage the investigation or at least put us on the wrong track."

"That is possible. Martin is that devious. He is starting to look really good for this, but how do we prove it?"

"Are we breaking in to another house?" Rogue asked half kiddingly.

"That may not be necessary. What if we told Martin that Bernard had figured out who planted the software, but was not telling us?"

"If Martin is behind the spyware, you're thinking he might do something to try to silence Bernard?" Jean asked.

"Or at least, he might do something to try and find out how much Bernard really knows. We just have to be on the lookout and hope he does something to give himself away."

"We can't set Bernard up like that," Jean argued.

"Well, not without warning him," I agreed. "But if Martin is behind all this, we're going to need a new employer for our detective work. So, we go to Bernard and convince him to hire us to trap Martin. If he agrees, we propose to use him as bait. I think he'll go for it."

"You got Martin to hire you to investigate Bernard and now you want to get Bernard to hire you to investigate Martin. You're rather devious yourself, at least for an engineer that is," Jean quipped.

"From a psychologist, I'll take that as a compliment," I returned the quip.

I wondered what Martin really might do. "Bad boy, bad boy whatcha gonna do? / Whatcha gonna do when we come for you?"

#End Chapter Nine