Hong Kong

by Mel Odom

  Some of the other Red Spears laughed at that.

  “Dumbass dropped his storm drain key on the way out, though. You wanna go lookin’ for whatever it was down there, you’ll have to get a new key from somebody else. Kang stole his from a city worker.”

  “You know where I can get a storm drain key?” I asked.

  “There’s a guy named Porter Lam who’s got keys to pretty much everything. He’s somewhere between a cop and a handyman.” She paused. “Yuen also mentioned some elf woman with crazy-colored hair who managed to scam a key. He said she hunted paracritters down there. Devil rats and shit.”

  We already knew where we could find Porter Lam, but I decided to go for broke and see if I could save some time. “Can I look around?”

  “Man, are you deaf?” Her voice raised an octave. “What the hell did I just tell you? No, you goddamn well can’t wander around our turf.”

  “Gangers gotta be here on somebody’s blessing,” Duncan whispered in my ear. “With the way the Elders run everything around here, I’m betting they’re the ones allowing this little nesting place.”

  It made sense to me. I put steel in my voice. “I’m on business for the Whampoan Elders. You’re only here because they tolerate you. They hear you’re blocking me, your ass is gonna get kicked all the way to Tsuen Wen.”

  Nervously, the ganger leader glanced around at her people. Then she turned back to me. “Okay. I’m listening. What kind of business are you on?”

  “I’m investigating the murders of the other Elders. The gunfight with the HKPF might be related.” I had a strong feeling it was. I just didn’t know which side of that the Elders had been on. They’d invited the HKPF here, and that in itself was suspect.

  “All right,” she agreed grudgingly. “We only moved in here because all the Whampoans are too shit-scared of monsters and ghosts to come back in. The Elders told us it was all right if we stayed here. Seemed happy to have us camped out, honestly.”

  I wondered at that, trying to fit it all together in my head. A picture was forming, but I was still missing too many pieces.

  “Look around,” she went on. “Knock yourself out. Just stay outta the way of our biz.”

  “Thanks.” I waved everyone forward, and we took our time about it. We also kept our weapons ready.

  On the other side of the garage, behind the makeshift barricade, we spread out and started searching. Gobbet sent out a pack of her little friends and they started turning up interesting bits immediately.

  “Over here,” Gobbet called, shining her flashlight on a drain coated with rust-colored blood that had been there for weeks. “There’s something down there.”

  Her light gleamed on something metallic. A couple of the rats oozed down into the drain and managed to bring the object back up, laying it at the shaman’s feet. She picked it up and knocked the blood away, revealing a jagged shape that might have been a vacuum-formed piece of something.

  “Looks like a fragment of heavy-duty body armor,” Duncan said as we all looked at it.

  “Definitely some kind of synthetic ferro-plastic.” Gobbet peered more closely at the scratched surface. “And there’s some kind of writing here. Japanese, maybe.”

  “Japanese?” Is0bel perked up. “You know, I’m not sure who in Whampoa Garden speaks Japanese, but Wing-Kei Kwok has a shop down in the Whampoa itself, by where we met the Elders. If anybody around here would know about armor, it would be her.”

  “Good to know,” I said.

  “Come look at the scratches and blood on this wall,” Duncan said from a few meters away.

  I joined him. In addition to the deep scratches, bullet holes pocked the concrete as well. Enough blood stained the floor that I knew several people had died here. I couldn’t help thinking about the four cops.

  “Those look like they’re made from a long bladed weapon like a sword or machete,” Duncan said. “With the number of bullet holes in the walls and cars around here, they must have just been spraying wildly. Our killer must have fought the HKPF in here and cut them apart. Since they never found a body, I’ve gotta assume the killer got away.” He inspected the action on his rifle out of habit. “I tell you what, I don’t want to have to fight this maniac at close range.”

  “Neither do I.” I looked at Gobbet, but she shook her head, letting me know her little friends hadn’t found anything further. “All right, let’s go see Porter Lam about getting a key. And we’ll also check in on Is0bel’s armorer friend. See what’s what.”

  Chapter 33

  The Most Fashionable Protection Around

  Porter Lam was only slightly inquisitive about the request for a storm drain key. After a few questions without me giving him much in the way of answers, he handed it over. The bottom line was that since we were working for the Elders, we got what we wanted.

  Is0bel led us back into the Whampoa and to Wing-Kei Kwok’s tailor shop, which was a surprise, considering she was supposed to be an armorer. When I got a look at the merch, though, I understood. Everything was armor. It was just fashionable, too. And pricy.

  “Welcome,” Wing-Kei greeted us. She was pretty and stylish herself, looking way too young to be involved in a serious business like this. “Welcome to Kwok Atelier, home of the finest clothing in Whampoa Garden. I am the owner, Master Tailor Wing-Kei Kwok. How may I serve you today?”

  The spiel died, and a true smile lighted her face when she saw our decker. “Is0bel! You have returned to us!” Wing-Kei stepped forward and wrapped the dwarf in a hug.

  They talked for a minute, catching up on old news, then I cleared my throat to get their attention.

  “Ah, sorry, Wing-Kei,” Is0bel said. “We’re actually here on biz. I’d like to catch up another time, though.”

  “Of course. How can I assist you?”

  Is0bel handed over the fragment Gobbet’s rats had recovered from the parking garage. “Do you know what kind of armor this piece is from?”

  “Perhaps.” Wing-Kei studied the piece and rubbed her fingers over the surfaces and the jagged edges. “Hmm. Japanese markings. I don’t recognize all of them, but this first one is Renraku. Fairly recognizable to anyone who’s used to seeing the name in hanzi.”

  That surprised me. Renraku was one of the biggest corps. Their top end stuff was expensive. Even their low-end merch was solid. Who the hell had the HKPF run into in that parking garage?

  “The composition appears to be high-density ferro-ceramics,” Wing-Kei went on. “Probably boron carbide with an interwoven bio-aramid mesh. The staining on the edges suggests it contained pockets of silica suspended in polyethylene glycol—similar to the commercially sold GelPak technology.”

  She knew her stuff. Duncan’s bemused expression revealed that he was impressed as well.

  “This armor could have withstood a significant amount of impact force,” Wing-Kei said. “Even standard 7.62 millimeter rounds wouldn’t have had much of a chance of penetrating it.”

  “What could penetrate it?” I asked, because something had broken it.

  She shrugged. “High velocity rounds with a tungsten-carbide penetrator would be the most common. This is the kind of thing armor-piercing, discarding sabot rounds were designed to defeat. A Dikoted melee weapon could do it as well, but there wouldn’t be the kind of splintering at the edge. Same case with EX—Explosive rounds. We’d see a spalling on the backside.”

  “A spalling?” I asked.

  “Surface failure,” she told me. “Usually fragmentation.” She tapped the fragment. “Whoever shot this off the owner came loaded with the right kind of weaponry to get the job done, that’s for certain. And you don’t carry that kind of ordnance around unless you’re sure of what you’re facing. It’s just too expensive for common carry.”

  “I didn’t expect Whampoa Garden to have a tailor shop in it,” I admitted.

  “Many people don’t.” Wing-Kei smiled. “There’s a mistaken impression that we Whampoans are only interested in technology and the Matrix. B
ut even technologists need clothing, don’t they? And many of us gravitate toward lines of work where added protection is required.” She ran a hand over a rack of nearby jackets. “I myself am a materials scientist, as well as a keen follower of fashion trends.”

  “What kind of material science?”

  “Fiber-related, of course. Primarily aramid fibers. They’re heat-resistant and strong, used a lot in aerospace and military applications, in bicycle tires, and as a substitute for asbestos. The long form of the term is aromatic polyamide.” She shrugged. “I also dabble in graphene composites and dilatants. It affords me a certain unique perspective when designing clothing that is not only beautiful, but defensive as well. I specialize in high fashion body armor. Similar to the kind crafted by SecureTech or Vashon Island, but with a much more personal touch.”

  I looked around. The armor I’d gotten on my arrival was wearing thin—multiple bullet impacts tend to do that—and it wasn’t top-of-the-line material like what I saw around me. I asked Wing-Kei to show me something affordable and durable, and ended up picking up a new cloth suit interwoven with graphene-aramid composite fibers, with just a touch of class.

  Wing-Kei told me it would offer a lot more protection than my previous outerwear. The others upgraded as well. Then we went searching for the storm drain Porter Lam had told us about, the one near the Jade Mountain restaurant.

  I hoped my new armor would stand up to whatever we were about to put it through.

  Chapter 34

  Den of Thieves

  The storm drain was in front of the Jade Mountain. We hung out in a nearby alley, waiting until the street was clear and the shadows were thick. Then I opened the drain, and we went down.

  I switched on my cybereyes and drew my pistol, not willing to take chances with anything that might be prowling the stinking depths. Rancid water sluiced slowly by us, and Gobbet’s friends acquainted themselves with the other rats lurking in the tunnels before running point for us.

  I followed the rats and didn’t feel any safer, but I knew Duncan had my six. If the tunnels behind us remained open, we were good. But there was no guarantee of that.

  Gobbet tapped me on the shoulder as I neared a T-intersection. An open doorway showed at the top of the T. “The rats say they’ve found something ahead.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I told them we were searching for signs of murder. They say they smell blood.”

  Maybe we were on the right track, but I knew there had probably been a lot of people killed in the storm drains. It was a great place to dump a body.

  I followed Gobbet’s directions into the room at the top of the T. The rats clustered around an area of the dank water inside the featureless room. I looked over the pool and spotted a glint of silver at the edge of the drain.

  I leaned down carefully. Wing-Kei had said the new clothes were soil-resistant, but I didn’t want to stain them within an hour of purchase. I hooked my finger in the silver strand and pulled it up, realizing it was a necklace.

  The pendant of a long-tailed bird in flight twirled at the end of the necklace.

  “That’s a magpie,” Is0bel whispered.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. I wrapped the necklace in a handkerchief that had come with my armor suit and tucked it in my pocket,. “I guess we’re on the right trail.”

  It also meant we were closing in on Magpie’s probable killer, the person who had taken out four heavily armed cops without getting killed. The realization was sobering.

  I followed the drains around a corner, then halted when I heard voices echoing ahead. I motioned for the others to kill their lights. We stood in the humid darkness and listened to the voices.

  “That’s Russian,” Duncan said.

  I wasn’t sure, but he’d probably know better than me. He had a better ear for languages than I did. “Can you translate?”

  He did. “A woman speaker said, ‘Yaroslav says the boat will be ready tomorrow morning. He’s gotten everything arranged with the port authority. We move the goods to his warehouse, he’ll handle loading them onto the ship, and we can get paid right then and there. I’ll be glad to be done with this filthy place.’

  “The second woman says, ‘I will, too. I hate having to hide in these damn drains. It stinks down here. I can hear the devil rats running down the walkways. It’s a mess, and it’s disgraceful. We shouldn’t have to put up with this bullshit. And Aleksandr still isn’t back from his little trip! We’ll have to leave him behind if he doesn’t return soon.”

  “The first woman again, ‘I know, Galina. Until Andrey says we’re in the clear from the triads, we can’t be seen with the goods on the street. They find us, we go back to Vladivostok in sausage casing. Those Red Dragon assholes don’t screw around when it comes to protecting their turf. Who knows? Maybe Aleksandr was stupid and they caught him. Either way, we’ll have to lug this crap through the drains for a few klicks.’”

  We’d stumbled onto a den of thieves.

  They continued talking, totally unaware of our presence. I eased forward and reached the doorway to the room where they were holed up. A few minutes later, I leaned around the door frame and peered into the room.

  Two women, one an ork, walked around the room, sorting through boxes that sat on the floor. Several of the boxes had a distinctive label: a magpie in flight that looked like the one on the necklace I’d recovered.

  The ork woman sniffed suspiciously and glanced around. I decided not to duck back, afraid the sudden movement would alert her, and trusting that she wouldn’t see me in the darkness. Her eyes locked on mine, and I cursed myself for not moving when I had the chance.

  Her hand shot down to her pistol. “What have we here?” she demanded in Cantonese. “A curious little pest come looking for things that don’t concern him. What do we do with pests, Galina?”

  Galina racked her combat shotgun and grinned mirthlessly. “We break them, Vasilisa. And then we hammer a spike through each of their throats, so anyone who sees their bodies knows not to meddle in our affairs.” She leveled the shotgun at me. “I suggest you stay where you are, pest.”

  “The Whampoan Elders know I’m down here,” I told them, going with the biggest threat I had in my arsenal. “You start a fight, you’re going to have every drone and cyber-junkie on those streets crawling up your ass.”

  “You think we’re afraid of those little worms?” Galina asked, but she didn’t sound as certain as she had before. “You think we’re afraid of you? Don’t make me laugh. We could be out of here before they ever realized you’re missing.”

  “You think those crazy chipheads will give a shit about what happens down here?” Vasilisa asked. “I don’t think so.”

  Duncan stepped around me, letting the Russian smugglers know I wasn’t alone. His assault rifle wasn’t quite pointing at them, but it wouldn’t take much of an adjustment to change that. “Make a move, shitheads. Give me a reason to put you down. You thugs think you’re so hard. I kill trash like you every damn day.”

  “We don’t care what you’re doing down here,” I said, “or what you’ve stolen. We just want to find the person murdering the Whampoan Elders.”

  “You think I give a shit about what you’re doing down here?” Galina demanded. “None of that concerns me. So why the hell should we let you live?”

  “Andrey is obviously the vor here,” I said, using the Russian word that loosely meant “captain” or “leader.” “You’re just enforcers. And I’m sure he doesn’t want a scene while you’re in Whampoa Garden.”

  Vasilisa glanced at Galina. “He’s right, Galina. Andrey would have our heads if we had to break cover before the shipment was ready.”

  “Shit,” Galina said. She lowered the shotgun, but didn’t relax. She fixed me with her gaze. “You don’t care about what we’re doing?”

  “I have a job to do,” I told her. “This is incidental.”

  “So what do you want from us?”

  “You stole
Magpie’s equipment from her shop. Did you kill her, too?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Vasilisa demanded. “And risk the Whampoans coming after us?” She shook her head. “No. We heard she’d left, but her gear was still in the shop, so we liberated it. What’s it to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” I said. “Do you know what happened to her?”

  “Like I said, we heard an empty shop was full of things we could fence easy enough, so we broke in and liberated anything we could sell. I have no idea what happened to her. I don’t live in Whampoa Garden, and I don’t want to.”

  “You took Magpie’s keycards, didn’t you?” I wanted to clear up every loose end I could.

  “Yes,” Vasilisa answered, “we did. Aleksandr took one earlier. He said he wanted to sweep the stockroom, see if there was anything worth stealing in it.” She reached into her pocket and flipped me a rectangular keycard.

  I caught it and pocketed it.

  “We don’t have time to wait for Aleksandr,” Vasilisa went on. “If you see him, tell him to catch the hell up.”

  “Sure.” I nodded. “Tell me where the stockroom is.”

  Chapter 35

  The Gourmet

  The stockroom was also next to Jade Mountain. I figured it had once been Mrs. Yang’s, or maybe Mrs. Yang owned the restaurant. Either way, we arrived there and went around back. The keycard opened the maglock without a hitch.

  Inside, we stood in a room that held the utility meters and the exhaust fan to the kitchen. I looked around the room as Gobbet unleashed her horde of furry spies.

  The rodents squealed in delight in the next room, and when I followed them there, they’d climbed the legs and chairs of a small table and descended on a gourmet meal served there. Slices of pinkish-white meat, looking like raw pork, lay covered under a light soy marinade. Other small dishes held pickled vegetables.

  I glanced around the room. The serving was generous, but it was set up for one.