by Alex Ryan
CHAPTER 19
Nèiyè Biologic Corporate Headquarters
Lintong District, Xi’an, China
1330 hours local
Xue Shi Feng returned from his lunch appointment hungry, despite stuffing himself with two extra portions of Singapore street noodles with fried beef. He was disappointed with himself. Hunger had won the midday battle, and consequently fasting through dinner would be hell. He was in such bad temper, he didn’t even look at Mei as he walked past her desk en route to his office.
She hailed him anyway.
“Sir?” she said. “A moment, please?”
He stopped and forced a smile before turning to face her. “Of course, Mei. What do you have for me?”
She rattled off five messages, informed him of one cancelation and two additions to his calendar, and finished by asking him about his visit to the hospital yesterday, all without pause.
In reply, he simply said, “Thank you, Mei, and the hospital visit was fine.”
“How is your mother doing? Did the doctors have anything new to report?”
“She was in good spirits,” he said. “But the dialysis is beginning to take a toll. I’ve never seen her this weak. If we don’t find a suitable donor soon, I’m afraid she won’t survive the summer.”
“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering a nice bouquet of flowers for her room to brighten things up,” Mei said. “I hope that’s okay.”
He smiled at her. “Of course. What would I do without you, Mei?” He turned to walk to his office, but she wasn’t finished.
“Sir, there is a gentleman holding on line one,” she said to his back. “He’s been on hold for twenty minutes, and he refused to give me his name. Do you want me to insist on taking a message?”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” he said. “Transfer the call to my private line. Thank you.”
He entered his office and shut the door behind him. On cue, the private line on his desk began to ring. He wondered if his private line wasn’t as secure as he had believed, in light of all that had happened and the involvement of the American CIA. He needed to be cautious. He picked up the handset and said, “Yes?”
“You have a delivery in the basement,” a male voice said.
“Understood. Anything else to report?”
The caller hesitated a beat before answering. “Not at this time.”
The statement was a lie, but Feng deciphered the subtext. The team in Hong Kong had still not recovered Foley, and the team leader was delaying in hopes that his next report could be good news. A foolish game, but that was human nature.
“Very well,” Feng said and hung up the phone. Without bothering to look at his computer, he headed for the private elevator located at the back of his office. He realized he was rubbing his hands together and stopped himself, again frustrated with his lack of discipline. He entered the stainless-steel elevator, turned a key, and pushed the lowest of the three unmarked buttons at the bottom of the stack. The elevator descended rapidly, and moments later, he felt a heaviness in his gut and legs. The cab stopped twenty meters beneath the ground level of the Nèiyè Biologic headquarters building, a stately glass-and-steel edifice designed to Yao’s tastes. The door swished open, and he exited. A black-clad security guard—holding a short-barrel rifle across his chest—straightened immediately.
Feng ignored the guard and strode past a half dozen brushed-metal doors before stopping at the last door on the left labeled “Mechanical Room.” He removed the key card hanging from a lanyard around his neck and swiped it across the reader. The door opened with a metallic click and then a hiss from the positive-pressure ventilation system. All the rooms on level zero had precision-engineered ventilation systems. Level zero was not depicted on any of the building’s official engineering or architectural plans. Its construction and existence were the company’s second most closely guarded secret, and it was only accessible via two of the building’s twelve elevators. Level zero was, in the truest sense, a shadow company that existed within Nèiyè Biologic. He walked past the rows of air-handling units, circuit-breaker boxes, compressors, water pumps, and stainless-steel pressure vessels until he reached another door. This access point required dual authentication. He swiped his security badge, and then a red image of a handprint appeared on the black glass screen beside the reader. Feng placed his palm on the red outline, watched it turn green, and then heard another click-hiss as the metal door opened.
The clean room looked like any operating room in any hospital in the Western world, save for the cement floor and the absence of bright light. A row of locked cabinets hung bolted to the far wall over a countertop and wash station with a pedal-operated faucet. A long metal operating table was pushed up against the wall to his left; atop the table lay a tray of polished stainless-steel surgical instruments. Only three people in the company had access to this room, and only three people understood its purpose. But Yao never came down here. He didn’t appreciate the beauty of pain, nor did he understand the tenets of leadership. From the very beginning, he had happily delegated the responsibility of discipline and punishment to Feng.
Over the years, Feng had come to think of this room as his own private sanctuary. A place where he could speak candidly and be himself. A place where he could liberate his demons and hone his surgical skills. Having access to a place like this changes a man . . . changes him for the better.
In the center of the room sat the condemned, a black hood over his head and his arms strapped to a metal chair with leather restraints. The chair was similar to a phlebotomist’s workstation, with wide, flat armrests. The legs of the chair were positioned directly over a round, metal floor drain. The man strained against the restraints, bobbing and cocking his head in an effort to try to see the new arrival through the hood. Feng noted the raspy breathing and saw his hands begin to shake in terror and anticipation. Feng walked to the table and picked up a single instrument. This one looked like an ordinary letter opener, only its 304 stainless-steel edge was honed extrathin and razor sharp.
“Who’s there?” the man asked, his voice muffled through his black shroud. “Is someone there?”
Feng didn’t respond but instead walked over to the prisoner, stepping so his footfalls could easily be heard by the condemned. As both a practitioner and disciple of the Five Pains methodology, Feng understood torture. Were Chancellor Li Si alive today, Feng would happily debate the great man on the merits of adding a sixth pain.
Anticipation.
Feng reached out a hand and stroked the back of the prisoner’s left hand. The man gasped and tried to recoil, but the restraints held fast at the wrist. Feng began to circle the chair as he spoke. “Have you ever heard of Prader-Willi syndrome?”
“What? No . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Prader-Willi syndrome,” Feng repeated. “It’s a rare and devastating genetic disorder in which certain genes are deleted or unexpressed on chromosome fifteen. I can even tell you where: location Q eleven to thirteen. In my case, just four little genes are missing,” he said, shaking his head. “It turns out that only four microscopic snippets of DNA are all it takes to turn a man’s life into a living hell.”
“I’m sorry about your disorder,” the man in the chair said. “If you could please remove the hood, we could discuss why I’m here. If it’s money you want, I can pay.”
Feng ignored him. “The physical manifestations of Prader-Willi include poor muscle tone, behavioral problems, cognitive disabilities, impaired sexual development, short stature, and my personal favorite—chronic and omnipresent hunger. I’m not sure what hunger feels like to you, but for me it is torture without respite.”
“I’m sorry. I can only imagine how horrible that must be for you.”
“Can you? Can you really imagine what that feels like?”
“Yes, yes. I can empathize. It must be terrible.”
Feng smirked and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think you can possibly i
magine what hunger feels like to me. As a child, I used to think that a wolf lived inside my belly, always howling and licking, scratching and biting. No matter what I ate, how much I ate, or how often I ate, the wolf was never satisfied. What choice did I have but to appease him? When you’re seven years old, and you’re so hungry you can’t suppress the discomfort long enough to read a book, or play a sport, or even sleep through the night, what choice do you have but to eat? And so I ate. I ate with the same ferocity as the beast in my belly. And by age nine, I was morbidly obese. I was obese and hungry and angry. You see, most people with Prader-Willi are dim-witted—which, in my opinion, is actually a kindness—but not me. No, not me. Fate had other plans for me. I understood the repercussions of my actions. I chose to overeat, despite the knowledge of its futility, despite the knowledge that it was slowly killing me, one pound at a time . . . and despite the fact that my condition made me a target for ridicule.”
Feng paused and stared at the man in the chair. As he talked, he felt his burden begin to lighten. The routine was always the same. The hooded stranger took on the role of a priest behind the curtain; this torture chamber became his confessional.
“But then one day, a boy in my class showed me a great kindness—he saw me struggling to control myself at lunch, and he offered to give up his lunch if I would do the same. ‘Instead of talking and dining together,’ the boy said, ‘we will talk and fast together.’ It was the first time I had ever skipped a meal. It was the first time I had ever deprived the wolf. That boy taught me the meaning of self-control, of discipline, of willpower. That boy changed my life, and his name was Yao Xian Jian.”
The hooded man had stopped struggling against his bindings now. His breathing had normalized . . . He had been drawn into the story. This pleased Feng.
“With Yao’s help, I learned how to meditate. I learned how to focus my qi and resist the call of the wolf. Yao introduced me to kung fu, and we learned from the same teacher. Over the next five years, I gained control of my weight, improved my muscle tone, and honed my mind and body into what they are today.”
“Are you still hungry?” the hooded man asked, taking Feng by surprise.
“Always,” he growled.
“Then how do you do it?”
“Discipline, willpower, and self-control—that is how I cage the beast.” Feng suddenly grabbed the hooded man under the jaw and tilted his head back. “Do you know why you are here?”
“No. I’ve operated the ship exactly per the contract.”
Feng let go of the man’s jaw and resumed circling the chair. As he walked, he drew his finger lightly across the flat surface of the long, narrow blade. “Rule number one, never lie to me. For each lie you tell, you will be punished.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the man stammered.
“Your reckless departure from Hong Kong harbor during a storm resulted in the loss of sensitive cargo. Because of your negligence and stupidity, you have exposed our operation to the authorities.”
“The weather is beyond my control,” the man cried. “We had patients. They told me if I didn’t keep the schedule, people would die.”
“The ship had electrical shore power, did it not? Despite what they said, the choice to embark into such a storm was within your control as ship’s captain. Properly fixing the shipping container to the deck was also under your control. But you were easily intimidated, impatient, and lazy, which tells me that you lack discipline and self-control. I do not tolerate such weakness in myself, and I do not tolerate it in my employees. If I permit undisciplined behavior, it will spread quickly within the empire like a cancer. Cancer must be excised. You will serve as both an example and a warning to others.”
“No!” the boat captain screamed. “Please, I can make this right, I promise.”
“I know you can,” Feng said softly into the man’s left ear through the hood. “You are hereby sentenced to the Five Pains.”
Feng smelled the stench of urine as the man’s bladder let go.
With his left hand, he pulled the back of the hood, forcing the boatman’s head back and his face up while pulling the fabric taut across the face—the outline of eye sockets becoming clearly visible. Without hesitation, Feng sunk the blade into the man’s left eye, careful to plunge the blade only a centimeter or two, lest it travel too deeply and enter the brain, making the rest of the ceremony moot. He spun the blade around in a short circle, pulled it out, and then plunged it into the right eye as the man howled in agony. The deed complete, Feng pulled the blade out and then removed the hood from the man’s head. The boat captain was blind now, his eyeballs having been burst and his optic nerves severed, the visual machinery necessary to register even the light in the room completely destroyed. Blood and clear liquid streamed down the man’s cheeks and dripped from his chin after mixing with the bubbles of saliva from both corners of the man’s mouth. With an expert flick of the wrist, Feng removed what was left of the mutilated eyeballs and heard them splat onto the concrete floor.
“Stop! Please, stop. I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I have a wife and children!” the man shrieked.
Feng placed the blade onto the instrument table. He picked up a flat bar of ink-stained needles preloaded in the pattern for the symbol of failure. It would take far too long to tattoo the condemned creature’s forehead longhand, but he did yearn to try that someday. He needed to slow down, force himself to take the time to savor each stage of the Five Pains.
After completing the forehead tattoo, he debated with himself what to cut off next: nose, hands, or genitalia? His eyes fixated on the bone saw, and a wave of anticipation washed over him, sealing the decision. He clasped down on the man’s right hand, pinning the arm to the armrest. Then he drew the saw blade across the wrist as the boat captain screamed. He felt blood spray onto the back of his hand and then glanced absently at the clock on the wall. He had hours until his afternoon meeting with Yao. Plenty of time. He smiled and began to saw slowly back and forth, this time putting his weight into it.
“The second pain,” he said softly, and while the condemned man screamed in agony in the soundproof room, the wolf in Feng’s belly went silent.
CHAPTER 20
Best Western Grand Hotel
23 Austin Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong
1844 hours local
Nick’s chest burned liked hellfire along the knife wound. The lidocaine injections Dash had given him earlier for his stitches had long since worn off, and now even the lightest touch of the cotton T-shirt he wore was irritating. The combination of pain, lack of sleep, and being cooped up in Dash’s hotel room all afternoon alone had put him in a foul temper.
He glanced at the bedside alarm clock for the tenth time in ten minutes.
Where the hell are they?
To his growing dismay, he hadn’t heard from anyone since the team had separated six hours earlier. He’d resisted the urge to call Dash for the past hour, but now the desire to check in with her was becoming overwhelming. Clutching the burner phone in his right hand, he began to pace the room. Using his burner was probably safe, but there was no way to know with certainty. Any electronic communication he initiated put her at risk and should be reserved for only true emergencies.
Jesus, dude, relax. They still have fifteen minutes, he told himself.
But he couldn’t relax.
Whoever was gunning for him had come after him three times, twice in broad daylight in the center of a major metropolitan area. Which begged the question: was his adversary insane or untouchable?
Possibly both.
The door lock clicked.
Nick tensed and turned to face the door. The door opened, and Dash walked in with a paper sack in her right hand and Commander Zhang in tow. She smiled broadly at Nick, and he smiled back. Zhang shut the door behind them and engaged the dead bolt.
“Welcome back,” Nick said.
“How is your chest?” Dash asked, walking straight to him. She handed him the paper bag with
her left hand and immediately pressed the back of her right hand to his forehead.
“It aches, but other than that, I feel fine,” he said.
“Your forehead is cool to the touch,” she said. “That’s a good sign.”
“You pumped me full of antibiotics. I should hope so.”
“Any bleeding under the incision?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Let me see it,” she said.
He obliged and lifted his shirt. Like a good doctor, she studied the wound and gently probed with her fingers. “It looks okay.”
“What did you bring me?” he said, letting his shirt fall and lifting up the bag.
“Dinner,” she said with a smile. “I figured you were probably hungry.”
“Starving.” He opened the bag, and the unmistakable aroma of cheeseburger and French fries filled his nostrils. His stomach immediately growled with approval, and he reached in and pulled out a McDonald’s quarter pounder with cheese wrapped in paper. “You got me Mickey D’s?” he said with a boyish grin.
She grinned back. “What’s the American expression . . . calming food?”
“Comfort food,” he said and took his first giant bite. “Thank you, Dash.”
“You’re welcome.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and gestured for him to do the same.
He complied while inhaling another giant bite of burger.
“So,” he said with his mouth full of food, “what did you accomplish?”
“We made a list of all the possible facilities that could satisfy the criteria for organ harvesting, transplant surgery, and the storage and disposal of dozens of corpses,” Dash said. “As you suggested, morgues were high on our list.”
“Any luck?”
“We visited three facilities this morning and sent teams to nine others,” Zhang said, taking over Nick’s job as dedicated room pacer. “And we found no evidence of foul play. This afternoon, we will make surprise visits to another dozen.”