Forbidden City

by Alex Archer

  At five feet seven inches tall and slender, Kelly knew she didn't look imposing. She'd learned to make that work for her. Furthermore, the man probably expected her to be docile and slightly cowed simply because he was male.

  Reacting to him with anger, Kelly snap-kicked the man in the crotch and shoved him back into the room. Outraged, trying desperately to not drop to his knees or be sick, the young man reached under the windbreaker he wore.

  Kelly blocked his right hand with her left, then reached inside his jacket with her right and pulled the Sig-Sauer P220 from his shoulder holster. The pistol was double-action, so it would fire as soon as she pulled the trigger. She doubted that the chamber under the hammer was empty.

  The man flailed, trying for the pistol. She kicked him again, harder this time. The man would have fallen, but Kelly grabbed his shirt at the throat and shoved him backward. He fell, sprawling and cringing in pain.

  Three other men were in the room. Two of them played video games in the corner. The other man sat barefoot on a couch with a cell phone to his ear. He was the one Kelly had come to see. She recognized his voice from when they had spoken over the phone.

  The two men playing the video game reached for machine pistols lying on the floor.

  "No." Kelly kept her voice sharp. She pointed the Sig-Sauer at the men to underscore the command.

  Unhappily, the men drew back from their weapons.

  "Hands on your heads." Kelly reached back and closed the door behind her.

  The men complied.

  "Keep them there or I will kill you," Kelly said. She managed to find two of the locks by feel and locked them. She wasn't sure if there would be other guards. If she'd set up the operation, there would have been.

  The man on the phone looked at her. Calmly, he closed the phone and put it away, but continued to sit on the couch as if he didn't have care in the world.

  "You are Guo Teng?" Kelly kept her voice firm but even, as if she did this every day.

  "Yes." The man was barely into his twenties, a handful of years younger than Kelly. His platinum hair jarred against his skin tone. Hoop earrings dangled from both ears. He wore jeans and a T-shirt featuring a band Kelly had never heard of. "Who are you?" he asked.

  "Your six-thirty appointment," Kelly replied.

  Guo Teng grinned. "I knew you would be interesting. You speak very good English."

  Kelly didn't respond.

  "I wasn't expecting a Chinese woman," Guo said. "Are you still going to pay in American money?"

  "Yes."

  Guo started to get up, then caught himself. "May I get up to get your merchandise?"

  "Yes. But move slowly. If your door greeter had better manners, perhaps I wouldn't be so wary."

  "Oh," Guo said, smiling, "I don't think you know any other way."

  The man crossed the room to two large suitcases sitting on the table. He used a key to open the locks of one. When he lifted the lid, an assortment of hand guns and machine pistols were revealed.

  "Step away, please," Kelly directed. She'd learned that politeness never hurt. When it was extended, people sometimes accepted it and responded in kind. Other times, when she'd calmly executed someone after being polite, the survivors had been shocked – and even impressed. "Don't touch anything," she said.

  Grinning, Guo stepped back. "You aren't going to rob me, are you?"

  "No. And you're not going to rob me." Kelly stepped toward the suitcase and looked inside. She found two Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistols in a double shoulder holster. Reaching inside her jacket, she took out a white business envelope thick with cash. "The money we agreed on."

  Guo took the envelope and quickly rifled through the bills. He nodded and put the envelope into his pants pocket. "The hundred rounds of ammunition are in the bottom of the suitcase."

  Kelly got the boxes and sat them beside the pistols. Pulling up a chair, she put the Sig-Sauer on the table then ejected the magazines from the new weapons.

  The two men sitting in front of the video game started to inch slowly toward their weapons.

  "In case you're wondering," Kelly said, never pausing in loading the magazines, "I can pick up that pistol and shoot you between the eyes before you get those machine pistols off the ground."

  The men hesitated but didn't pull back.

  "I won't stop at killing one of you," Kelly promised. "If one of you behaves foolishly, you're sitting far too close together. I'll kill you both."

  The two men leaned back.

  "Cowards," the doorman snarled. "If I still had my pistol, I'd – "

  "Be dead," Guo Teng said. "Shut up and lie there. I'll kill you myself if you do anything stupid."

  The fallen man scowled but did as he was told.

  When she had the first magazine filled, Kelly shoved it into the first pistol, worked the slide to strip and chamber the first round, then popped the magazine out and replaced the cartridge that had been taken. She repeated her efforts with the second pistol.

  Standing, she took a moment to shrug into the double shoulder holsters. She slid one of the pistols into the holster and pulled her jacket on, leaving her other pistol and the one she'd captured on the table. Working quickly, she unloaded the 9 mm and field-stripped it, leaving it in pieces on the table. Taking her other pistol in hand, she walked to the door.

  "If you need anything else," Guo said, "give me a call."

  "Of course." Kelly let herself out the door and was almost running to the stairs. She moved quickly, knowing bruised egos would tempt the men to follow her.

  Seconds later, she was in her car and easing into traffic. No one had managed to tail her.

  Kelly looked at the familiar little house near the Huangpu River. Some of the tension she'd been feeling for the last few weeks – no, months, maybe years – melted away. She was home.

  She walked to her father's door, thinking that it looked smaller than it had when she'd been a little girl. Taking a quick breath to steel her nerves, she knocked on the door and waited.

  A minute ticked by, then another. There was no sound from inside the house. She checked her watch. It was after seven a.m. Her father always got up at four-thirty to go fishing.

  It's possible he's still out fishing, she told herself. Maybe he forgot I was coming today.

  Troubled, Kelly banged on the door again, louder this time. When there was still no answer, she went around to the back of the house. If things were still as they were when she was a small girl, she knew there were neighbors who were watching her. It didn't matter. No one would call the police unless something happened. Her father would allay any suspicions among his neighbors.

  At the back door, she knocked again and waited. Feeling uneasy, she walked to her father's stone garden and sifted through the raked pebbles. The extra key turned up near the right corner of the garden. Returning to the door, Kelly opened the lock and stepped inside.

  The house was small and neat. Her father had kept the curtains her mother had made, and the furniture looked the same.

  From the hallway, she looked through the door to the tiny kitchen where she had learned how to cook, then into the small dining room where they had sat on cushions and shared meals.

  The living room was immaculate. Her father's collection of vinyl records stood in the corner. He'd never had television in his home, but there had always been music.

  She was beginning to think that her father had gone out, perhaps to breakfast. Then she saw the blood.

  Kelly's heart hammered, but she steeled herself quickly. Panicking wouldn't do any good.

  She drew one of the pistols and held her position, taking the time to calm herself and to listen for breathing. Only street noises and far-off voices from outside reached her ears. Girding herself, guessing what she was going to find, Kelly slid the bedroom door aside and entered the room.

  The bedroom was small and neat. Her mother's vanity, her one luxury, occupied a corner of the room. The bed took up most of the space. Her father lay on t
he bed with a pained expression on his still face. Blood covered his body and the twisted sheets.

  Sharp emotions collided within Kelly. She sipped her breath through her mouth, unwilling to take in the scent of her father's death. Walling off the pain and confusion, she relied on her training and experience.

  Crossing the room to her father's side, taking care to stand away from the windows even though they were covered, she touched her father's face.

  He was cold.

  Looking at his neck, Kelly saw that the blood had started to settle. No longer pumping through his heart, the blood pooled and created a definite stripe, separating the pale blood-drained area from the blood-gorged area.

  She sensed movement in the other bedroom. She sank back against the wall and raised her weapon just as a shadow moved in the hallway.

  Then a hand snaked out from under the bed and yanked her feet from under her. She fell backward, slamming her head against the wall, and sliding down as she fought the encroaching blackness.

  Chapter 9

  "This is a very old language." Harry Kim studied the photograph through thick-lensed reading glasses.

  "The fact that the surface is scratched up and worn smooth doesn't help." Annja sipped her coffee and picked up another breakfast roll.

  "No." Mr. Kim ran a finger under a line. "This is a Cantonese language, not Classical Chinese." He looked up at her. "Do you know Classical Chinese?"

  "Not the language. But I know what it is. The Qin Dynasty established the written language that's become known as Classical Chinese so that Emperor Qin Shi Huang and his advisors could keep track of the various provinces they subjugated. The Qin Dynasty didn't remain in power too long."

  "No, they did not," Harry Kim smiled. "You might know more about China's history than I do, Miss Creed."

  Annja smiled back. "But I don't know the language."

  Turning his attention back to the photograph, Harry Kim shrugged. "I do. A little. The problem with language is that it changes over the years."

  "I know. Slang. References to people, places, and events. New technology. New philosophical or social thinking. All of those things get introduced into a culture and come out as new words or terms somewhere," Annja said.

  Kim nodded. "Your parents must be very proud of you."

  Normally Annja would have ducked such a statement, but Harry Kim was so honest she couldn't just ignore his generosity.

  "I don't have any parents," she said. "I was raised in an orphanage."

  Kim looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean – "

  "It's okay."

  "Family is important," he said. "One should not go through this world without it."

  "I agree." Annja walled away that old familiar pang. She'd watched Harry Kim talking to his daughter and saw their easy relationship. Having someone like that must be nice, she thought.

  Incredibly, Roux and Garin, the two men who had searched for the pieces of the sword for over five hundred years came to her mind. Actually, only Roux had looked for it. Garin had hoped it was never found. Neither man was family to her, but they shared ties that had come from the sword's reforging. Annja didn't know how deeply those ties ran, but they were deeper than anything else she'd ever had.

  "In Chinese culture, family is one of the most important aspects." Harry Kim pointed at the photograph. "That is the meaning of this belt plaque."

  "It's a family history?"

  "Partly. But it's larger than that." Harry Kim sighed. "I can't understand everything here. Cantonese is largely dependent on common usage. There are references here that I don't understand."

  Annja woke her PDA and took out the stylus. "Let's work on what you can understand. If we can't fill in the blanks, we can at least define them."

  Long minutes later, Annja glared at the sparse information Harry Kim had gleaned from the photograph. She hated being stymied.

  "Have you ever heard of a place called the City of the Sands?"

  "No. No place by that name. Not until this photograph," Kim said.

  "What about in legend or myth?"

  Harry Kim shook his head. "I'd not even heard of Loulan City before today, Miss Creed. You were the one with the knowledge of that place."

  Annja sighed.

  "You said Loulan City was near the desert," Kim said. "Perhaps it was known as the City of the Sands."

  Annja stood and stretched. That possibility just didn't feel right to her. She had no other explanation for it than that. So much of archaeology remained based on conjecture and educated guesswork. The absence of facts could be very frustrating.

  "Loulan City was at the northeastern edge of the Taklamakan Desert," Michelle suddenly spoke up from where she stood at the computer. Several Web pages were open on the screen. She'd obviously been following the discussion.

  "I know." Annja glared at the photograph of the belt plaque that refused to give up its secrets. "Sven Hedin found the ruins of the city in 1899 while he was working on an exploration of the Silk Road. That area has been explored on a regular basis."

  "A Chinese archaeological team is working a dig in that area right now." Michelle clicked on another screen, bringing it to the top.

  Annja recognized the Web site as one of the pages she often visited.

  "According to this, Dr. Michael Hu has returned to the dig site to follow up on the Chinese mummy that was found in – " Michelle trailed her finger along the screen.

  "1980," Annja said.

  Michelle looked at her. "You already knew that?"

  "I did a lot of research before I came out here. Not just on the California Gold Rush and Chinese immigration, but on things that were currently going on over there. Dr. Hu's work caught my eye."

  "You remembered that detail?"

  "I've got a really good memory. In my line of work, you have to have one."

  Michelle raised an eyebrow as she contemplated a picture on the computer screen. "Dr. Hu appears to be a good-looking man."

  Annja refused to take the bait. "He's also published a number of papers and a few books on the history of the Silk Road. He seems very knowledgeable. From what I gathered, Dr. Hu is there looking for more evidence of the Mesolithic culture that was settled there before the city sprang up."

  "Would that tie into this?" Harry Kim asked.

  "I don't see how." Annja looked at her notes again. "The belt plaque didn't come from the Mesolithic era. I think the belt plaque might be a thousand years old or more, but the Mesolithic time is generally assumed to have started 10,000 years ago, then ended when humans started developing agriculture to supply food. Those periods ended at different times for different cultures, but first began in the Fertile Crescent area in the Middle East."

  "This belt plaque also mentions the curse." Harry Kim was still studying the photograph. "Not only was the bearer of the belt plaque cursed, but so were all his progeny."

  Annja waited, feeling excitement stirring within her. "What was the curse? And why was that person cursed?"

  "If the reason is written here, I can't fathom it," Kim said. "Some of what is written here mentions a fox spirit. Are you familiar with those legends?"

  "Yes. The fox spirit was supposed to be a fairy that lived on the life-force stolen from men." Annja had learned that a variation of the legend was common to most Asian cultures. "A fox spirit was supposed to be made up of yin, the female force. She sought out yang, the male force, and fed on it."

  "Fox spirits are not always evil," Michelle said. "They can be good. Have you heard the legend of Daji?"

  Annja thought for a moment. "I can't call it to mind."

  "Daji was a character in a novel written during the time of the Ming Dynasty. The book was called Fengshen Yanyi."

  "My daughter the scholar." Harry Kim leaned back and folded his arms over his thin chest. His words carried a hint of sarcasm, but Annja saw only pride on his face. "I sent her to college to learn stories she could have learned at her grandmother's feet."

  Michelle
rolled her eyes at her father's comments. "In the story, Daji was forced to marry Zhou Xin, who was quite villainous. During her suffering, a fox spirit entered her body and forced out the real Daji. The fox spirit was just as villainous as Zhou Xin, and together they taxed the populace unbearably and invented new tortures that had never before been seen. In time, Zhou Xin's generals rose up against him and one of them founded a new dynasty. After the generals beat Zhou Xin, the fox spirit was driven from Daji."

  "What happened to Daji?" Annja asked.

  "I don't remember. I'm sure it wasn't a happy ending."

  "Fox spirits sound pretty evil to me," Annja said.

  "But they're just as often romanticized." Michelle pulled up a picture on her screen of a lovely, near-naked woman. "Pu Songling, a writer in the early Qing Dynasty, authored hundreds of stories that usually featured supernatural elements. Many of them had fox spirits as characters, and several of those were love stories between men and ghosts and spirits. The thing to remember is that a fox spirit is not one thing or the other. It depends on what a fox spirit is here to do." Michelle looked at her father.

  Harry Kim nodded. Then he smiled and shrugged. "If you believe in such things. These are enlightened times, Miss Creed. No one believes in fox spirits any more."

  Annja thought of the sword she carried and how she could summon it when she needed to. "I'm sure there are still believers."

  Harry Kim eyed her speculatively. "Perhaps you are right. I've seen things in my lifetime that I haven't been able to explain."

  "Does it say why the original bearer of the belt plaque was cursed?" Annja asked.

  Tapping the photograph, Harry Kim pursed his lips and paused. "Not exactly. There is some mention of some great wrong." He shrugged. "I can only translate that it had to do with the demise of the 'City of the Sands.' I suppose it could mean the city itself, but I would think it would be more in keeping if the person who delivered the curse were an emperor or a warlord or a leader of some kind."