Rogue Angel: Forbidden City

by Alex Archer

  Both of them were young. One was clean-shaven and the other had a short beard and long hair. They introduced themselves as Dobbs and Carew. Neither of them put their lever-action rifles away.

  Carew, the long-haired ranger, stepped down and separated Annja from her backpack. Then he asked for identification.

  Annja complied, but the whole time she was distinctly aware that Huangfu or his men could have been only a short distance away with a sniper rifle. You've been reading way too many thrillers, she told herself ruefully. But the truth of the matter was that lately she'd been living a life not far off from those fictional heroes.

  "Are you okay, Miss Creed?" Carew handed her identification back. He spoke in a pleasant baritone.

  "Yes."

  "You're not hurt?"

  Annja shook her head. She wished she was back in her loft in Brooklyn. Before she'd left she'd just got the third season of Gilmore Girls on DVD and was looking forward to watching it. A bath, a glass of white wine, and an episode or two of the show and she could have slept like a baby.

  Instead, her mind was filled with questions. She'd explored the belt plaque by touch but she still hadn't gotten a good look at the piece.

  "You said there was a helicopter?" Carew looked at her.

  Annja met the ranger's gaze. "There was. It left the area about ten minutes after I called you."

  Carew nodded. "You said the bodies of the three men this Huangfu fella killed were up near Volcanoville?"

  "Yes." Annja dreaded the next few hours. In her experience any time she dealt with law enforcement agencies she had to tell the same story over and over and over again.

  "We've got a team over there looking into that. In the meantime, let's get you out of here." Carew held the stirrup out for her to mount the extra horse.

  With easy grace, Annja pulled herself into the saddle and leaned down to gather the reins. She was glad to be going, but she knew her ordeal was far from over.

  Chapter 4

  Darkly tinted windows in the conference room blunted the sun. Ngai Kuan-Yin stood in front of the windows and gazed out over the Bund. The early afternoon tourist crowd was making its way through the stores and shops along Zhongshan Road

  .

  The wharves and docks just beyond them were also full. Among the historic buildings, the bones of the old walled city of Shanghai – which had been the international settlement area where the English and French had lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – remained visible if someone knew where to look.

  Normally such a sight would have brought peaceful thoughts to Ngai. He owned many of the shops along Zhongshan Road

  and had an interest in several others. Many of the fishing boats were among his holdings, as well. Ngai's family had been in Shanghai for generations.

  But Ngai wasn't happy. He was in a murderous rage, though his calm demeanor didn't allow it to show.

  "Mr. Ngai, what do you wish to do?" The voice was soft and offered no threat or rebuke, though he knew the question had been offered because he hadn't responded when he'd been asked minutes ago.

  Slowly, Ngai turned to face the ten men seated at the long conference table. For the past twenty years, the men at that table had helped him build an empire of his father's pharmaceutical company. He owed all of them something. They, in turn, owed him their lives. Without him, they would have been nothing.

  To a man, they wore dark business suits that looked neat and professional. All of them were lean, hard men. Much like Huangfu Cao.

  Ngai courted that image. His tailored black suit fit him like a glove. He was in his early forties and still followed the discipline of the sword and the warrior. Silver threaded his black hair. His face, unlined and cruel, had graced the covers of international magazines about wealth and business.

  Calmly, Ngai sat at the head of the table and turned his attention to the matter at hand. "I have been informed by Huangfu Cao that he has lost the belt plaque he went to recover. The woman archaeologist, Annja Creed, has escaped with it."

  "Does the woman know that we – " Hong stopped himself " – that you are involved?"

  Hong was in his eighties and grew more frail with each passing day. When Ngai had been younger, Hong had taught him in all subjects. Whenever Ngai thought of his old teacher, he remembered him as a strong young man, clever and fearless. Times had changed as age had robbed him of his strength and confidence.

  "No." Ngai barely kept himself from exploding. He was no longer young and no longer foolish. "I have not been compromised." He glared at the old man in warning.

  Hong cleared his throat, then spoke softly. "Perhaps it would be better if you were to let this go."

  Ngai tried to restrain himself and couldn't. All of his life while his father had railed at him to get his education and to keep his imagination from running away with him, Ngai had thought only of the treasure that might one day be his – if he was smart enough and daring enough.

  Ngai glared at the old man. "I will not give this up. The treasure is out there. That is why the government has sent in their archaeological teams."

  "Those teams," Hong said, "have been sent in to discover what secrets Loulan might hold."

  Ignoring the old man for the moment, Ngai switched his attention to Yuan. "You have spoken with Suen Shikai?"

  "On several occasions, sir. I have made every offer to him that you suggested."

  "He still refuses to sell it?"

  "He does."

  Ngai leaned back in his chair. "Then we will take it from him."

  Silence was heavy in the room.

  "Do you hear yourself?" Hong asked.

  "It is the only way," Ngai stated.

  "Suen Shikai was a friend of your father's."

  "He's not a friend of mine."

  Sorrow touched the old man's features. "He has been a friend to me also."

  "Can you convince him to give me the map?" Ngai knew the old man had tried.

  "You know I was not successful."

  "I do. Today you will have to choose between friendships."

  Hong frowned. "Is Huangfu still in California?"

  Reluctantly, Ngai nodded.

  "Then there may yet be another chance to get the object from the American archaeologist. If you're patient."

  "If I am patient," Ngai said forcefully, "then I am only giving our government more time to discover the treasure that rightfully belongs to my family."

  Hong's lips tightened in disapproval.

  "Suen Shikai will be a bad enemy to make," Yuan said.

  "Then I will not make him an enemy," Ngai said. "I will make him a corpse." He glared at Yuan. "See that it is done. Today."

  After only the briefest hesitation, Yuan bowed his head. "It will be as you say."

  "You're dismissed."

  Without a word, nine of the men left the room. Only Hong remained when the conference room door closed.

  "Well," Ngai said angrily, "you might as well say what's on your mind."

  "This course of action you've chosen for yourself isn't good," Hong said.

  "It suits me perfectly." Ngai glared at the old man. "I've always been aggressive."

  "You call your actions aggressive. I say that they're impetuous."

  Ngai narrowed his eyes. "And I say that you're flirting dangerously with insubordination."

  "Perhaps you inherited your willful ways from me."

  "My father always insisted he was to blame."

  "Your father only provided your bloodline," Hong said. "I trained your mind. In my youth, I, too, was weak."

  "Do you mean the wine and women you chased after?"

  "No." A faint smile twisted Hong's withered lips. "Those are follies of a young man. I pursued them with no less zeal than your father. And you."

  Ngai nodded.

  "I was weak because I accepted your father's offer to educate you rather than remain with the university."

  "If you had remained with the university, you would have been livin
g in the streets by now."

  "Or maybe I would have been living with a son or grandson of my own who loved me." Hong's eyes were sad. "Your father's appointment afforded me a lavish living that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else. I chose to live that life alone so that I could spend it all on myself. Now I have neither sons nor grandsons."

  "Having regrets?"

  "Pointing out the downside of a life lived selfishly."

  "I would rather live my life selfishly and have all that I might rather than give it away." Ngai smiled. "Perhaps you are responsible for this after all."

  "Me?" Hong lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

  "You were the one who told me all those old stories of the Three Kingdoms, of Cao Cao's treasure that was lost to the City of Thieves."

  "The City of Thieves is a myth."

  Ngai hated hearing the old man say such a thing. When he had been a boy, Hong had filled his head with dozens of stories of the thieves who struck along the caravan roads, including the Silk Road, and made off with incredible treasures. He'd imagined streets paved in gold and jewel-encrusted houses. As he'd grown, he scaled the visions of treasure back, but he still believed there were hidden rooms filled with gold, silver and fantastic gems.

  Ngai had spent a small fortune ferreting out information about the City of Thieves. It was also sometimes referred to as the City of Assassins for the men emperors and warlords had hired to kill their enemies. For a time in the second and third century, while all the turmoil of the Yellow Turbans was taking place and the Han Dynasty was collapsing, the thieves had struck hard and fast, claiming vast treasures.

  Then – they'd disappeared. And no one knew the reason why. Hong had said that the thieves had gathered enough gold to set themselves up as kings in Africa or the Middle East.

  Ngai didn't believe that. He had hired historians to track the tales he'd been able to find. Although the history of those periods was spotty at best, there'd been no mention of the thieves leaving China.

  "Even if the stories of the City of Thieves are true," Hong said, "have you forgotten the curse?"

  "I choose not to believe in the curse." Ngai knew the story well. There had been an emperor's tax collector who had killed an old man and his wife. Before the old woman had died, she had cursed the tax collector. He and the emperor's gold had disappeared. One of the guards had survived long enough to talk about the fox spirit that had descended upon the carriage and killed all the guards.

  According to legend, the emperor's greed had summoned vengeance from the celestial plane. Divine retribution for the old woman's death had come in the form of the fox spirit. The stories told that the fox spirit had grown aware of the City of Thieves and had destroyed it.

  "You can't simply choose to believe whatever you wish." Hong sounded put out.

  "How many fox spirits have you seen?" Ngai asked the question in a mocking tone.

  "None," Hong assured him. "I have been fortunate."

  Ngai made himself a drink. "Spirits don't exist. They are myth only."

  "How are they any less believable than the City of Thieves?"

  Ngai turned to face the old man. "In the studies that I have undertaken, and paid others to do on my behalf, I became aware of two objects that could lead me to the City of Thieves. One of them is Ban Zexu's belt plaque. The other is the map that Suen Shikai has."

  "If either man knew where the City of Thieves lay, don't you think they would have gone there?"

  "A man has to be strong enough to hold on to his treasure. Doubtless, these men were not. Neither were their fathers before them."

  "Unless their fathers spent what little gold there was before they were born," Hong said.

  "No!" Ngai spoke more sharply than he wanted to. Emotion was weakness, and he hated to let the old man know how much what he said bothered him. "They were not strong enough to get the gold. It's still there."

  "And if it's not?"

  Ngai didn't reply. He couldn't fathom the gold not being hidden somewhere near the archaeological dig sites around the old city of Loulan.

  "If it's not there," Hong spoke softly, "then you will have killed your father's friend for no reason."

  "He defied me," Ngai replied. "That's reason enough."

  ****

  "Shikai, do you have any good fish?"

  Suen Shikai pulled his small fishing boat onto the shore of the Huangpu River, then looked up at the woman standing on dry land. He was wet from the waist down from walking the boat to shore.

  "I do have good fish, Mai." Suen took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and mopped his face. The weather was particularly humid along the river.

  Mai was overweight and in her forties. She had a husband and three children to care for, and that took all of the hours of her day. She lived in a tenement building not far from where he kept his fishing boat. Whenever he went fishing she came out to offer to buy fish.

  Mai's efforts to buy fish amused Suen. She knew he taught music at the university, but she looked at the simple life he chose and felt certain that he wasn't making enough money to feed himself. Mai blamed his state of disrepair on Suen's generosity toward his daughter, Kelly, who had gone to school in the United States. The woman believed that Suen gave all his money to an ungrateful daughter who was ashamed of her father's poor ways.

  But he also knew that Mai figured she could buy fish from him more cheaply than she could anyone else on the river or in the local markets. She had never matched market prices, and Suen had never expected it. She had a hungry family to feed.

  "I would like two fish." Mai cautiously opened her worn purse and reached inside for coins.

  Suen smiled at her. He liked her. In the mornings, sometimes she would bring him a cup of tea and rice cakes when she came to buy fish and they would talk for a time. She liked his stories about people he had met and of the places he'd seen. He'd been to the United States nine times.

  "You're in luck. I caught four." Suen reached into the boat and brought out a stringer of fish. He loved fishing and spent hours at it when he could. While he was out on the water, he listened to the sounds of the city all around him.

  Some days he read books of poetry or he would reread some of his favorite letters from his daughter. Mostly, though, he took his guitar and practiced his music. He was currently going through what he called his Bob Dylan phase. Kelly laughed at him when they talked over the phone whenever he mentioned that.

  Mai examined the fish, then frowned in disapproval. "You were unlucky. These are small."

  "Not too small to eat." Suen didn't take affront at the comment. Mai was always trying to find ways to defray the cost of the fish.

  "Not too small to eat, but two will no longer do. I must have three."

  Suen shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can only let you have two."

  "You're going to eat the other two?" Mai looked at him suspiciously.

  "Yes."

  Frowning again, Mai said, "You're going to get fat."

  Suen didn't think there was a chance of that. He was not quite six feet tall and had always been thin. His hair and beard had gone solid gray ten years or more ago.

  "I'm not going to be eating them by myself," Suen said.

  Suspicion and resentment knitted Mai's eyebrows. "Oh, then you have a girlfriend?"

  "No." Since his wife had died four years earlier, there hadn't been anyone that Suen had been interested in like that. He had his teaching job and he had his music. Perhaps it wouldn't have been enough for someone else, but for him it fit perfectly. "My daughter is going to join me tonight."

  "Ah," Mai sniffed. "This is the one who went to live in America?"

  "Yes." Suen only had one child.

  "Why is she coming here?"

  "To visit."

  "Hmmph. She doesn't do that very often."

  Suen shrugged. "She comes when she can. Her work keeps her busy."

  "A good daughter would find a way to visit her father more often. There is no excuse. She should be her
e. To take care of you in your final years."

  Suen smiled. "Truly, Mai, I hope that I am not in my final years."

  "You're not getting any younger."

  "I suppose not."

  Mai offered to buy the two fattest fish, and Suen agreed to let her. The two smaller fish would make a fine dinner for him and his daughter.

  He left his boat, knowing that no one would bother it, and walked up the embankment following the crooked steps with his guitar hanging over his shoulder. The walkways were made crooked because everyone knew that ghosts could only walk in straight lines.

  Suen didn't believe in ghosts, but he appreciated the craftsmanship that went into the building. As he trudged along, carrying the fish in the basket he'd brought, he looked out over the city. He was sixty-two years old. His daughter had come to him late in life, and she'd truly been a gift from the gods. But even in his lifetime, Shanghai had changed. He loved the history of the city, the good and the bad, and he hoped that it was never truly lost.

  At the top of the hill, the Bund began in earnest. Shops and merchants' pushcarts filled the thoroughfare. Voices carried an undercurrent of pleading and feigned insult, haggling and desire.

  Suen lived a few blocks away. He was looking forward to his daughter's visit. It had been almost two years. The last time she'd come, he'd had to nurse her back to health. Her work had nearly gotten her killed. He had asked her then to step away from it, but she hadn't been able to.

  Though he had never told her, he thought maybe her work was the result of the curse that had been put upon his family. It was the only thing that made sense to him. He had wanted to tell her about the curse, but he didn't think she would believe him. More than that, the story had been passed through generations of his family. It was time for it to die.

  Since that visit, there had been several phone calls and e-mail. Neither of them mentioned her work.

  Suen was lost in thought when a van screeched to a halt on Zhongshan Road

  . He paid no heed because he knew he was safely out of the street.

  Footsteps slapped the pavement, coming close to him. Suen turned, but by then it was too late.