Stealing the Dragon cwi-1

by Tim Maleeny

  “You came here, then?” asked Sally.

  Jun shook her head. “Not right away, no. Me and my younger sister went to live with my aunt and uncle, here in Hong Kong. My uncle…” Jun hesitated, her eyes suddenly unfocused and very far away. “He did things to me…that weren’t very nice.”

  Sally didn’t understand but felt bad just the same. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s OK,” said Jun, “I’m fine now.” Her smile reappeared for an instant, but her eyes still held that faraway look. “One night, when I was playing with my colored pencils, my uncle came to my room and tried to hurt me.”

  Sally wanted to ask a question but was afraid to interrupt.

  “But I hurt him first,” said Jun simply.

  “How?”

  “I took my pink pencil and put it here,” said Jun, raising her small fist to her own throat. “I pushed it in…deep…and I…” her voice trailed off for a moment. “Just kept pushing.”

  Sally gasped, her eyes wide.

  “Pink was always my favorite color,” said Jun. “But not anymore.”

  Sally watched the older girl’s eyes come back into focus.

  Jun shrugged. “Anyway, my aunt sent me and my sister here.” She took off the shawl and placed it back on the hook, then turned and walked across the stage. Sally stood alone for a few seconds, trying to grasp what Jun had just told her.

  Sally was quiet the rest of the day as they toured the school, but Jun either didn’t mind or didn’t notice, never straying far from her narrative. And true to her word, there were three pools, but they looked more like ponds where you’d find koi fish than places for swimming. They were irregularly shaped and lined with plants and rocks, the largest of them almost twenty meters long and fifteen meters wide.

  “They’re connected by tunnels,” said Jun, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “So we can learn to swim underwater between the pools.”

  They passed through a series a connected buildings that Jun called classrooms, but which looked more like playrooms or gymnasiums. In one, a series of ropes hung from the ceiling, and Sally watched as girls of all ages climbed across the rafters like squirrels, then slid down the ropes like two-legged spiders. It looked fun to Sally, not what she thought school would be like.

  In another room, girls Jun’s age and slightly older practiced kendo, the Japanese martial art using wooden swords. Sally had been to an exhibition once with her father in Tokyo. The long wooden swords looked awkward in the little girls’ hands, but they handled them gracefully, striking figures made of straw with surprising power.

  Every room had at least one teacher, usually a woman but sometimes a man. They walked among the girls, giving instruction and encouragement, their voices low but firm. At other times they stood off to the side, observing as some of the older girls took on the role of instructor. Sally felt their eyes on her at every turn, even as she nodded or returned a smile from one of the other girls.

  “The teachers are always watching,” said Jun, as if reading Sally’s mind. “By the end of the first week you’ll feel like a koi fish in a bowl, someone looking no matter where you swim.” She smiled, adding, “But by the second week you won’t even notice.”

  The last part of the tour took them to actual classrooms, rows of wooden desks facing an old-fashioned chalkboard. Girls sat dutifully behind the desks, books open, eyes front. Jun led Sally to the doorway, but they stayed outside so as not to disturb the class.

  “Language classes,” said Jun.

  They had been speaking Cantonese all morning. It never occurred to Sally to try to speak anything else.

  “We can learn Japanese, Mandarin, even Russian when we get older,” said Jun. “And English, of course.”

  “I speak English,” said Sally proudly, thinking of her father.

  Jun smiled mischievously. “Do you know any bad words?”

  Sally shook her head.

  Jun looked back through the door of the classroom before answering.

  “You will.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hong Kong, present day

  “The scorpions are quite deadly.”

  The Dragon Head stood looking down into the sunken room, a perfect cube twelve feet on a side. It was, in actuality, a room within a room, set in the floor of a much larger loft space like a racquetball court dropped into someone’s living room, the ceiling removed so guests gathered around the square hole in the floor could look down and watch the game. The Dragon Head stood on the lip of the sunken chamber, his black eyes expressionless as he watched the fat man start to sweat.

  The fat man’s name was Lim, and if he heard the man standing fifteen feet above him, he was too preoccupied to answer. At the base of the wall on each side of the room was a gap maybe four inches wide, a thin line that looked like a drain. Scorpions were flowing into the room, small and incredibly fast, their legs clicking across the tile floor like castanets.

  “A single bite is not typically fatal,” continued the Dragon Head, his voice acquiring the cadence of a school teacher. “But this many, in combination, is sure to do the trick.”

  A wave of scorpions washed across the floor, their brown bodies clumping together and forming eddies in the deadly current that threatened to wash over Lim. As he scuttled toward the center of the room like a nervous crab, a heavy rope swung lazily back and forth above him, a promise of rescue just out of reach.

  The lecture resumed.

  “There are 1,300 species of scorpions worldwide, all easily identified by their elongated bodies, segmented tails, and, of course, stingers.”

  Lim shuffled his feet together and jumped, his fingertips brushing the end of the rope and knocking it away. He fell to his knees. A lone scorpion ran up his arm and he screamed, slapping it across the room before it could bite.

  “They are technically arthropods of the class Arachnida, related to spiders. You’ll notice they all have eight legs.”

  Lim shouted, a frenzied combination of anger and fear, as he hopped and kicked his way around the center of the room. The flow of scorpions through the drain had stopped, the vast army of legs, pincers, and tails seething back and forth less than three feet from where Lim stood. In reality they were as cautious of Lim as he was terrified of them, but in the close confines of the cell they seemed to lean forward, as if sizing up their prey.

  Or awaiting instructions.

  “Most people think of scorpions as desert creatures,” said the Dragon Head, his voice almost soothing now. “But they have been found in grasslands, savannahs, caves, and even rainforests. Like any strong creature, they adapt to survive.”

  This last phrase got Lim’s attention. Reluctantly, he tore his eyes away from the floor and looked up at his captor, his lower lip trembling, his face covered in sweat.

  “I told you,” said Lim, gasping. “I haven’t heard anything, I haven’t seen anything. No one has tried to sell it-no one has even heard of it. And if it was being moved in Hong Kong, I would know.”

  The Dragon Head frowned, as if he resented having his lecture interrupted.

  “That’s why I asked you,” he said simply.

  “I can’t help you, lung tau,” cried Lim, tears welling up in his eyes.

  “No,” came the reply, the man’s eyes cold and black. “You can’t.” Almost casually, he slid his right foot over a button set in the floor. A barely audible click was followed by a dull roar as the flood of scorpions resumed, the clicking and scraping sounds of the pincers and barbed tails filling the room.

  The second wave flowed over the first batch of scorpions, pushing them forward, Lim hopping frantically around the room. He crushed several dozen in the first few minutes, but he was barefoot, and after another halting skip cried out as a four-inch-long tail whipped forward and found its mark.

  “The venom is a complex neurotoxin.” The voice from above droned on. “It causes rapid breathing-”

  Lim fell to one knee as four scorpions scuttled up his right leg, stabbing as
they climbed.

  “-followed by shortness of breath-”

  Lim’s scream was cut short as a lone scorpion clambered up his back, the pincers opening and closing in anticipation, until it reached the exposed part of Lim’s neck just above the collar.

  “-then foaming at the mouth-”

  Lim tried to stand but slipped, falling forward onto his hands and knees.

  “-until, in the end, there is-”

  The tail snapped forward, its stinger lodging in the thick flesh just below the skull.

  “-total respiratory failure.”

  Lim’s scream turned into a cough and he fell forward onto his chest, his arms waving spasmodically as the scorpions scuttled and jumped toward him. The Dragon Head watched dispassionately as the scorpions moved across Lim’s body like water until he disappeared altogether.

  Shaking his head, the Dragon Head turned his back on the spectacle and sat down heavily on a couch. Switching to English, he said:

  “I feel like the nefarious Doctor Fu Manchu.”

  A voice across the room answered him.

  “Traditions are important.”

  Sitting on another couch, set back from the edge of the sunken room, the man with the jagged scar smiled. His right eye seemed to disappear and then flash back into existence as the raised flesh of his cheek rose and fell with his expression. “And besides, I think it was the fiendish Fu Manchu.”

  “Whatever you say, Xan,” said the Dragon Head, now in Cantonese. “But where did you get the scorpions?”

  “Central market,” replied Xan. “They have everything.”

  “So many?”

  “They’re prolific,” said Xan. “The female scorpion can give birth to more than thirty-five young at a time.”

  “Really?” said the Dragon Head, raising his eyebrows. “I’ll have to build that into the narrative.”

  Xan nodded. “Better than the snakes, I think.”

  The Dragon Head shrugged, then changed his tone. “Lim said it was no longer in Hong Kong.”

  “He said no one tried to sell it,” replied Xan in a guarded tone. “We can’t know for sure-”

  “It’s not in Hong Kong,” said the Dragon Head definitively, their casual banter suddenly forgotten.

  Xan nodded briefly, an understated bow. “Yes, shan chu. As you say.”

  “Don’t patronize me.” His father had preferred the more formal title, shan chu. Man of the mountain. He preferred Dragon Head. The older name might suggest wisdom, but the latter clearly said power. The power over life and death. And in the end, that was all that mattered.

  “I mean no disrespect,” said Xan evenly.

  The Dragon Head said nothing, his black eyes staring at the pit. The scraping and clicking of thousands of feet and claws ricocheted off the walls as the scorpions finished their meal. Slowly he turned back toward Xan, his eyes blacker than the shadows behind him.

  “Only those trained in the arts could have stolen from me,” he said deliberately.

  Xan narrowed his eyes but remained silent.

  “And they would not be foolish enough to stay in Hong Kong.”

  Xan stood mute, his face expressionless.

  “There is one who left,” said the Dragon Head. “A long time ago.”

  “Yes, she did,” said Xan, shifting in his chair.

  “Go ask her what she knows,” came the command. “The thief is someone who left the path.”

  “She is in America,” Xan protested.

  “Then bring a passport.”

  Xan breathed deeply before responding. “But your father-”

  “Don’t speak of my father,” came the curt reply. “I am not my father.”

  And that is the problem, thought Xan, who merely said, “Yes, lung tao. I will leave tomorrow.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hong Kong, 18 years ago

  Sally was drowning.

  She had been underwater for well over a minute, kicking hard as she swam through the tunnel connecting the first two pools. The sky was overcast, which made the water murky, and Sally could not find the bend in the tunnel that led to the second pool. Koi fish swam past as she strained her eyes against the gloom, her small hands clawing the rough surface of the tunnel wall as she searched for the opening.

  When she blinked, she saw spots and knew she was going to black out.

  Instead of panic, the realization brought a sudden calm. Her mind drifted past the koi to thoughts of her parents, dead now three years. She opened her eyes wide and let the slight current take her, feeling utterly detached from her body, her mind lucid and clear despite the pounding in her ears and the burning in her lungs. She drifted silently, holding fast to the silent wish that she would see her parents again very soon.

  The water pushed her backward toward the left side of the tunnel wall. The bend in the tunnel had always been on the right, but Sally was beyond caring. As she turned slowly in the current, she realized the koi were moving in the same direction, and as she watched, they disappeared one by one. A large gold and black fish with bulbous eyes darted past, its tail fins brushing her cheek before it swam toward a shadow on the wall and vanished.

  Sally blinked as she drifted closer and realized the shadow might be an opening, a subtle curve in the tunnel wall. She was jolted out of her morbid reverie, her senses suddenly alive with blood rushing through her ears, the stale taste of water in her mouth, and adrenaline coursing through her arms and legs. She kicked frantically toward the spot where the koi had disappeared, half expecting to slam headfirst into the wall.

  Light exploded through the water and Sally broke the surface with a loud cry. Sucking in air, she swallowed some water and started coughing violently, sinking back under the water as adrenaline fled her exhausted arms and legs.

  An iron hand snatched her by the wrist and yanked her out of the water in one strong pull, dropping her unceremoniously onto the embankment. Coughing and spitting, Sally looked up to see Xan staring down at her, a grim smile on his ruined face.

  “Well done, little dragon,” he said. “You learned to see without trusting your eyes.”

  Sally could barely talk, her lungs wracked with pain. “The tunnel…?” she began, faltering. Turning her head, she saw a small group of girls standing some ways off, watching. Jun was with them, as was her sister Lin, anxious looks on their faces.

  Xan bent closer to Sally and smiled, the electric scar jumping with delight. “The tunnel moved, eh?” he said. “You have been here almost three years-I thought it was time you learned some of our secrets, so I gave you a little test.”

  Sally sat up with some difficulty, the color returning to her face. “But if I had failed?”

  Xan’s smile broadened, his black eyes as hard and bright as obsidian.

  “Then you would have died, little dragon,” he said matter-of-factly. “Now get dressed-it is time for your next lesson.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  San Francisco, present day

  Mitch Yeung looked like a guy you could trust.

  Most of the refugees had been taken to a temporary housing facility on Treasure Island, a small patch of land bisected by the Bay Bridge on its way from San Francisco to Oakland. The island was man-made, part of a WPA project from the thirties to build the first airport for the San Francisco area. Back in the days of water-landing planes like the Pan Am Clipper, an island in the middle of the bay was the perfect location, so the navy built one by dredging mud from the bay and the Sacramento Delta. Memories of the California gold rush from decades before were still fresh enough to start rumors that silt dredged from the bay contained untold riches, so the name Treasure Island was an inside joke among the men who built it.

  Part of the island housed an old naval base, shut down after Pentagon budget cuts several years back. The low white buildings remained largely unused while city officials on both sides of the bay argued about what to do with the land. But this week no one was arguing, thankful to have a temporary home for two hun
dred refugees who had none.

  Mitch had asked Cape to meet him inside the main building, a long white rectangle set back from the road by a short lawn of brown grass. Cape heard the undercurrent of human voices as he approached, but once he stepped inside, the din was overwhelming. At least a hundred people inside a single long room with exposed rafters, the floor lined with cots, chairs, and the occasional desk. A corner had been draped off, doctors and nurses milling about on this side of the curtain. Cape assumed they’d taken those needing immediate medical attention to one of the many hospitals around the city, but the white lab coats were on hand in case anything new cropped up on the island.

  Men and women wearing a variety of uniforms and suits were scattered around the area, most holding clipboards, a few carrying tape recorders, most of them Asian. The men, women, and children from the ship sat on their cots, on the floor, and stood around in small groups. Cape noticed that the refugees talking with various officials looked very serious, even worried, but those chatting amongst themselves looked happy and relaxed. It was as if they knew their journey was almost over, the promised land just beyond that door, if only the men and women with the clipboards would promise not to send them back.

  Before Cape could get his bearings, a tall Chinese man with broad shoulders walked toward him, wearing khaki slacks and a navy blazer with no tie. As he approached, Cape took note of his short black hair, salted gray near the temples, and dark eyes sitting high on an open, friendly face. His wide mouth curved into a smile as he extended his hand.

  “Cape Weathers?” The man’s grip was firm, his hand dry and callused.

  “Mitch,” said Cape, shaking his hand. “How’d you know who I was?”

  Mitch broadened his smile. “Beau said you dressed like you were still in college.” His gaze moved from Cape’s running shoes, past his jeans, and over a black T-shirt covered by an old white dress shirt, unbuttoned and untucked. “Or a reporter,” he added.