by A. H. Wang
Georgia flinches as if he had slapped her. “I—”
Lambert throws up his hand, continuing, “You know, I had Hank do a background search on all the candidates I had in mind for the job. Out of all of them, you were the one I thought would share my views on this. You lost your daughter. Don’t you wish that had never happened to you? If you were given a chance to make a difference, wouldn’t you make sure other parents would never experience what you went through?
“Think about it, Georgia. We’ve just made the most significant scientific discovery in history.” His eyes grow wide, his voice filled with fervour. “Think about what the elixir could mean for the world. The frailties of our bodies hold us back as a species. Imagine how much we could actually achieve, what we could evolve into, if we could live forever.”
At this, Charlie shakes his head. He can see Georgia’s resolve is already wavering, but he is unwilling to give in so easily. Something does not add up.
“If this is all true,” he counters, “and your intentions are completely benign, then why did you send the mercenaries after us?”
Lambert’s brows knit together. “What mercenaries?”
“The men who attacked us,” Georgia exclaims, gesturing to Charlie, “when I first found him at the Grand Hotel in Taipei. They were armed.”
Momentary confusion flashes across Lambert’s eyes, but he swiftly reins it in. He casts a quick glance behind him, and Charlie follows his gaze, seeing nothing in the dull blackness of the cave.
“I never sent any armed men,” Lambert says.
“I don’t believe that,” Georgia rebuffs. “Who else would know that I was searching for Hsu Fu?”
The billionaire utters an exasperated snort. “Look, Georgia, I’ve done a lot of despicable things in my lifetime. If I have my eyes on a goal, there’s generally not much I’d let stand in my way of achieving it. But in this case, I actually believed in you, erroneous as that proved to be. I didn’t send those men because I genuinely had confidence that you were on my side. At least, on the side of science. Plus, Hank was meant to keep an eye on you.”
“If you did not send them, who did?” Charlie demands.
Lambert opens his mouth, but whatever he intends to say is silenced as a large knife is thrust through his throat from the back. Charlie recoils with shock as blood splatters his face. In the haze of the moment, he dimly registers Georgia’s strangled scream.
He watches in stupefied silence as Lambert falls to his knees, holding his throat as he takes shallow, gasping breaths. He coughs spasmodically as red foam bubbles and splutters from his open mouth. Blood gushes down the front of his T-shirt as his startled eyes fixate on Georgia. He lunges towards her.
She takes an instinctive step back, and Mark Lambert collapses face-first on the ground, his strangled, gurgling sounds reverberating through the heavy air.
Trembling, Charlie lifts his gaze to look at the figure standing behind Lambert, and his whole body goes cold as familiarity of the killer’s face sinks in.
69
Georgia finds herself unable to move. The horror of the moment paralyses her, and she cannot seem to tear her eyes away from Mark’s convulsing body. Within seconds, he is motionless and silent. The pungent scent of blood fills the air as it begins to pool around him.
Tears stream down her face as a wave of nausea hits her. With a thick swallow, she forces the taste of bile back down her throat. She looks up at the assailant, who is now crouched beside Mark’s body, wiping his large blade on the back of the dead man’s shirt. He smiles up at her as if to exchange pleasantries.
“Sorry you had to see that, Professor. But really, he was going on a bit,” he says by way of explanation. He cocks his head to the side. “Admittedly, I’ve been itching to do that for the better half of the last ten years. There is nothing compared to that tactile feeling of sinking a blade into human flesh.”
Something in the soft cadence of his British accent and the light timbre of his voice triggers a jolt of recognition in her. She gasps in disbelief, a sudden sense of vertigo overcoming her.
“Hank?”
His smile widens into a grin. He nods at her. “Smart girl, Georgia.”
Astonished, she gapes at the man with whom she has developed a rapport through friendly phone calls over the past few months. There are so many things about Hank in person that surprise her, and topping that list is the fact that he’s Chinese. Then she realises that his last name, Law, is used both as an English and a Chinese surname, though the latter is usually spelt as Lo or Lau. In their phone exchanges, his perfect Londoner’s accent, soft-spoken voice, and congenial nature had her picturing him as a skinny, young gentleman with a mild disposition. But the person who is before her is the exact opposite of that.
Short and stocky, Hank’s sturdy build and stance makes her think of a vicious bulldog. His head is cleanly shaven and his round face sports a goatee, the well-trimmed facial hair partially concealing a long, deep scar down the side of his right cheek. He is fully equipped in black tactical gear, just like the men who pursued her and Charlie at the Grand Hotel. But the most arresting thing about him is his dark eyes, aglow with a brutish glimmer.
Hank lets out an amused snort. “Now this, this is what I call a reunion, in the truest sense of the word.” His glacial stare shifts to Charlie, and he gestures to Mark’s corpse with a flick of his knife. “Does this scene remind you of something, Hsu Fu? Hm? I have to say, it’s all a bit poetic, finishing just like the way we started all those years ago. Must feel like déjà vu, no?”
Georgia swivels to look at her friend, whose face is as impassive as ever. “You know this man?”
But Charlie does not move, does not utter a sound or even give away his emotions with a twitch of his eyebrows. Nor does he respond to her question as he fixes his gaze on the man before them.
It is Hank who answers her instead. “How rude of me. Allow me to introduce myself, Professor Lee.” He chuckles, spreading his palms. “Lambert introduced me to you as Hank, but the poor fool, he didn’t even know who I really am. The name I was born with is known to you. It is Wang Jian.”
She blinks. Wang Jian? The general?
She turns to Charlie. “You told me he was dead?”
“He was,” his replies in a whisper. “I killed him.”
Hank sniggers. “Correction. You thought you killed me. At least, you gave it a good try.”
“How?” Charlie utters, his face unreadable.
Hank, or Wang Jian—whoever this man is—smirks at them with amusement. “That night, in your witch friend’s hut, you slit my throat with a sword, yes. But you didn’t cut me in the same way I did our billionaire here. And, unlike me, you aren’t so skilled in the art of killing. I’m a man-at-arms—I’ve always been—and I’ve had eons to hone this single skill. I know exactly which arteries to go for to bleed a person out in seconds.”
He taps at the base of his throat, in the hollow where his collar bones meet. “The fastest way to kill a man is to stab him right here, straight through to the spine. Or, you can go for the arteries just behind the windpipe. If you simply slice a person across the front of his throat, it takes him forever to die.”
Still crouched down, Wang Jian looks up at Charlie as he makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “Now, unlike you, I tend to pride myself in my professionalism. When I set out to kill someone, I make sure they are well and truly dead. Leaving loose ends, my friend, is like forgetting to pay your taxes. Sooner or later, it always catches up to you.”
He stands slowly, rising to his full height, and though the man is not tall at all, Georgia feels as if he is looming over her.
“And you, Hsu Fu,” Wang Jian continues, “you left a lot of loose ends that night. You didn’t stick around to watch me die, and that was a mistake. That’s why you weren’t there to realise you didn’t quite cut me right, or to see me crawl over to the bloody head of your witch friend. I drank her blood, you know. Then I smeared it all over my wound.
It was a long shot, I realised, but what did I have to lose by that point? I felt life slip from my body, and I closed my eyes, fearing it hadn’t worked and I was sure to die that very night. But it did work. I woke up days after, caked with dried blood, two rotting corpses by my side.”
“How—” Charlie finally speaks, shaking his head with disbelief. “How did you find me?”
“Well.” Wang Jian rubs the back of his bare scalp playfully as he paces back and forth in the cave. “I must say, you were actually pretty difficult to track down. After I woke up in that witch’s hut, I spent years sailing up and down and all around Okinawa, trying to find this damned island you went on about. I got there in the end—the Senkaku Islands. But what did I find? Nothing. Birds and rodents and rocks.”
He stops his pacing, wagging his knife at Charlie. “That was a good one. You fooled me there. Imagine my rage when I scoured the entire place and found no signs of the Immortals.” He lets out a soft laugh. “I swore I would hunt you down, however long it took me. I searched all over the world, but every time I believed I was close, I always ended up a few steps behind. You covered up your tracks pretty well, I’ll give you that. But eventually, I asked myself: What is the one single weakness of an immortal man who is almost invisible?”
Charlie’s expression is a mixture of realisation and fear. He throws a quick glance at Georgia, whispering, “Loneliness.”
Wang Jian nods, exhaling as he closes his eyes briefly. “Loneliness. Yes. Believe me, I know it well. It creeps in over the years like a fungal growth that moulders and spreads until it has seeped into every crack of your soul.”
He scratches his goatee, running a finger down the length of his scar. Redirecting his icy stare at Georgia, his face twists with a menacing smile.
“So, I began to plan. It was an elaborate and carefully thought-out strategy that took years to perfect. First, I needed someone like Lambert. A conceited, power-hungry control freak rich and influential enough to pull this whole charade off. A billionaire with a keen interest in history and antiquities, and someone with the right amount of personal motivation to see it through. It took a little time, but I found a good fit.
“It took me years to work my way into his most trusted circles. That was what took the most time, and one of the more annoying tasks I had to carry out. All these years I had to call him ‘sir’, and carry out all the dirty work he threw my way. It was humiliating, how over-qualified I was for the job.
“Of course, the final piece of the puzzle,” Wang Jian says, nodding at her, “was you.”
“Me?” Georgia shrinks under his stare.
“Yeah,” he says with a smug grin. “I am sorry to tell you this, Georgia, but you’ve been a pawn in my plan all this time. A vital part of the scheme, but a pawn, nonetheless.”
Wang Jian begins pacing again, waving his knife about casually. “I spent years slowly feeding Lambert just enough information to pique his interest, but not so much that it made him suspicious. Who do you think ‘discovered’ the Oracle bone that held the information of Hsu Fu’s whereabouts? Or told Lambert of the Hata scrolls? Or even convinced him you were the perfect person for the job? Who do you think orchestrated it so you were so desperate for money, you had no choice but to accept Lambert’s offer? Every detail, every clue, it was all set up carefully so you couldn’t say no. You are a clever girl, Georgia, but I know people. In the end, you were predictable.”
Georgia feels her insides roil, the skin on the back of her neck prickling with intensity as she absorbs his revelation. Wang Jian has been watching her every movement, understanding her weaknesses and strengths, figuring out exactly the right buttons to push. An icy, stinging wave washes over her as she imagines him waiting patiently in the shadows, plotting the right moment to strike.
“Do you see the beauty of this grand scheme?” Wang Jian stops his pacing to stand before her, his palms outstretched. “The perfection of it all?”
She shakes her head, finding her voice at last. “I don’t understand. Why me?”
Wang Jian jerks his chin back, the look of surprise almost comical in his features. Then he cackles loudly, as if suddenly realising the joke she is not privy to. He looks to Charlie.
“Seriously? You mean you haven’t told her yet?”
“Told me what?” She turns to watch the tall man beside her, who is still staring at Wang Jian wordlessly. “Charlie? Told me what?”
“Oh, this...” Wang Jian laughs, rubbing his scalp playfully. “This is just too much.”
Georgia glares at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Georgia.” Wang Jian shakes his head, grinning. He gestures to Charlie with a jerk of his head. “You think the fact that he lives just down the road from your grandmother is a coincidence? Or that he just happened to donate his most recent collection to your best friend and sweetheart? Did you honestly believe it would be so easy to track Hsu Fu down, all by yourself, within a matter of months? I’ve been searching for him for over two thousand years, and this is what I do. I hunt people.”
He chuckles, the sound sending a chill down her spine.
“No, Georgia.” He taps at his temple with a finger. “Use your professor brain. Hsu Fu wanted you to find him.”
“Yes, because he needed my help to find this cave,” she says, hearing the tremor in her voice.
“Maybe.” Wang Jian shrugs, amusement gleaming in his dark eyes. “But trust me, that was not the only reason.”
She turns to look at the man beside her. He has been awfully quiet since Wang Jian showed up.
“Charlie,” she demands. “What’s he talking about?”
Her friend, the man she has grown so fond of over the past few weeks, exhales a long sigh. He turns to gaze at her, a forlorn expression on his features.
“I did not tell you the full story, Georgia,” he admits. “I am sorry.”
70
Charlie sighs, feeling apprehensive. He looks intently at Georgia’s face, noting every minute movement of her delicate features to gauge her reaction.
“Do you remember how I told you about Hsu Jen?” he begins.
Georgia knits her brows, confusion written all over her face. “Your daughter?”
“Yes,” he confirms. “Hsu Jen was fifty-five when she died. As I told you, I was away on a voyage at the time, searching for the elixir. Even though my daughter had lived a happy, fulfilling life, leaving behind four children and six grandkids, I felt as if the centre of me had been gouged out. I lived like a hollow man for a long time. That was when I decided to distance myself from the family. Gradually, from being the grandfather that was forever young, to the green-eyed ancestor, I became family lore, a legend. Eventually, they forgot about me altogether.
“But from time to time, I checked in on my family without their knowledge. After all these years, all the centuries of living like a nomad with minimal possessions and emotional attachments, I still found myself insolubly drawn to kinship. Of course, I made a deal with myself: I would only ever observe, and never interfere with their lives. It was important that they did not know about me; I felt it would only put them in danger.” He pauses, taking a deep breath before he imparts the next piece of information. “Your grandmother… it took me a long time to find her, what with all the chaos going on in China during that time.”
“Amah?” Georgia asks, looking perplexed. “What’s she got to do with this?”
Charlie observes her studiously as he says, “She was the last descendant of the Hsu lineage I could track down. Most of them died in the Sino-Japanese war, or the Second World War. The remaining few perished during the Great Famine in China, or were persecuted during Mao’s Cultural Revolution a few years later. Your grandmother almost died herself during the Nanjing Massacre; and even though I had promised myself that I would never do it, I could not help but take her to the hospital when I found her unconscious and dying after being raped and stabbed by the Japanese soldiers. In the end, I am glad I did what I did, becau
se otherwise I would not be standing here, with you.”
Georgia does not speak. She blinks blankly at him, making Charlie doubt whether she will process the implications of what he is unveiling.
He lets out a long sigh. “Look, what I am trying to tell you, Georgia, is that I have been watching you since you were a little baby. That is how I also know of Ethan, and why I decided to make this donation to his museum—”
“Bloody hell, will you just get to the point already,” Wang Jian interjects, shaking his head with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. The general turns to Georgia, who stares at him with wide eyes. “Want to know how I found you, Georgia? I mapped all of the Hsu descendants, one by one. You are the last of his clan. You should have seen this family tree, it was magnificent. I reckon your assistant probably thought so too.”
“Sarah?” Georgia says, visibly alarmed.
Wang Jian nods, smiling. “You should know she is very loyal to you. Not many people can hold their ground during my interrogations. But Sarah, she never caved. Feisty woman if I’ve ever met one. And believe me, I’ve met a fair few in my lifetime.” He chuckles.
“Where is she? What did you do to her?” Georgia demands, terror lacing her shaky voice.
“Oh, I only grabbed her to see if she knew where you were.” Wang Jian waves his hand dismissively. “I’ve stashed her somewhere safe. But by the time anyone manages to find her, she’ll be long dead. A shame really; she’s got real spunk about her, and I admire that.”
At Georgia’s horrified expression, the general continues, “Look, if it’s any consolation, she was lucky I located you from your phone, otherwise I might’ve had to use more traditional methods to extract information from her. Hsu Fu knows what I mean: he had his fair share of torture back in the day.”
Charlie clenches his fists by his side, and all of the hatred he had ever felt for the general comes rushing back.