He kicked sand in the man’s face.
Then said to Kong, “Let’s go.”
They rowed back to the Predator, raised the anchor and took off.
IN MACAU, Kong called Emmanuelle the first chance he got. “Guotin Pak has one of the original paintings,” he said. “He has the original Claude Monet, the one called ‘Poppies.’”
“How do you know?”
“It’s a long story, I’ll tell you later,” he said. “Here’s the important part. You need to get over there now and find it. Otherwise someone else is going to beat us to the punch.”
“We already went through that place,” Emmanuelle said.
“I know, but somehow we missed it.”
A pause.
“Meet me there,” Emmanuelle said.
“I can’t,” Kong said. “I’m stuck in Macau and I’m supposed to have supper with someone. If I bolt out of here, it’s going to look suspicious. Then I have something else going on tonight that’s going to keep me tied up until after dark. I’ll call you as soon as I’m free. But you need to get over there right now. In two or three hours it will probably be too late.”
Okay.
She’d go now.
“Be careful,” Kong said. “If someone else shows up, get the hell out of there. They’re not the kind to play nice.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t screw with them.”
“I said okay. So where should I look? Do you have any idea?”
“I don’t know,” Kong said. “All I know is that Pak has it, he definitely has it. He might have stashed it off-site, in a locker or something. Look for strange keys.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll try to break free in an hour or two and give you more details on what’s going on,” he said. “Right now I have to run.”
“Be careful.”
“You too. By the way,” Kong said. “If you find it, don’t screw me over.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t find it and then pretend you didn’t find it,” Kong said. “If you do, I’ll know.”
“I’m not going to screw you over,” Emmanuelle said. “If we find it, you more than earned your share.”
Chapter Ninety-Three
Day Eight—August 10
Monday Afternoon
______________
AS SOON AS PRARIE STEPPED INTO THE ALLEY, a man grabbed her and held a knife to her ribs. “Just give me a reason,” he said in French. She stared into his eyes to gauge how serious he was. Those were the same eyes she saw just seconds ago in the printout of the man who had been asking about them. How did he know she would be coming out this way? Did he pay the elderly lady off? Was it a trap?
“Just do as you’re told,” he said. “I’m here to protect you.”
“Bullshit!”
“Just give me two minutes and you’ll understand.”
He led her to a car and made her get in the passenger seat.
“Don’t even think about shouting. I’m sorry to be so rough,” he said. “I need you to listen while I tell you what’s going on. The woman you’re with—Emmanuelle Laurent—killed your father. You’re next unless you come to your senses.”
“Bullshit.”
“Let me show you something,” the man said. He pulled a picture out of his wallet and stuck it in Prarie’s face. It showed him and Emmanuelle with their arms around each other, smiling. “She used to be my lover,” he said.
PRARIE FLASHED BACK TO MOMENTS AGO, in the lobby when she asked Emmanuelle if she knew the face in the printout.
Emmanuelle said, “No.”
That was a lie.
Emmanuelle had just lied to her, not more than two minutes ago.
“What did she do, to get you to cooperate?” he asked.
Prarie didn’t know whether she should actually talk to the man or not. Then, suddenly, something about him felt right. Here was actually here to help.
She could tell.
“She told me she was with an insurance company,” she said.
The man grunted.
“That’s so like her,” he said. “She’s a genius when she needs to be. Trust me, there is no insurance company. That’s nothing more than a blatant lie. She’s out to get five original paintings and stick them in her own pocket. Once you outlive your usefulness, she’s going to do the same thing to you that she did to your father.”
Prarie swallowed.
“She’ll be coming out any minute.”
The man cranked over the engine.
“Too bad for her, we’ll already be gone.”
HE PULLED INTO THICK HONG KONG TRAFFIC and said, “I can’t believe you’re still alive.”
“Me too, actually.”
“You’ve had close calls?”
Prarie nodded.
The man shook his head in disapproval. “Emmanuelle would put your life on the line a hundred times if she thought it would be to her advantage.” A pause, then, “Trust, me, I know from firsthand experience.”
Prarie studied his face.
It was a good face.
“What’s your name?”
“Sebastian,” he said. “Sebastian Dexteau. I’m from Paris.”
“I already figured that much. Me too.”
He smiled.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “You can’t believe what I’ve gone through to find you. And I can’t believe I actually did. My suggestion is that we go straight to the airport and put you on a plane right away.”
“Good idea.”
They drove that way.
“What are you going to do, after I leave?” she asked.
He grunted.
“I don’t even want to tell you,” he said. “You’ll think I’m nuts.”
She cocked her head, curious.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Okay,” he said, “but no laughing out loud. You can do it quietly, to yourself, but don’t do it out loud. You need to promise.”
She promised.
“What I’m going to do is try to save her,” Sebastian said, “before she gets in so deep that she can’t get out.”
Prarie studied him.
“You still love her,” she said.
“Regretfully, yes.”
Silence.
Then Prarie said, “You’re going to need help.”
HE LOOKED AT HER SKEPTICALLY.
“You want to stick around to kill her, for killing your father,” he said. “She’s crazy and she deserves it, but I can’t let you do that.”
Prarie exhaled.
He was partly right.
“I need her to look me in the eyes and apologize,” Prarie said. “That won’t bring him back, I understand that, but maybe it will bring me some closure.”
Sebastian looked skeptical.
“It won’t,” he said.
Chapter Ninety-Four
Day Eight—August 10
Monday Night
______________
MONDAY NIGHT IT STORMED. A monsoon rain poured out of a black Hong Kong sky. Fan Rae gave Teffinger a kiss shortly after dark, handed him some rope, reminded him she was going to be his sex slave when she got back in a couple of hours, and then left. Teffinger followed her in the Honda quite a ways to a place called Aberdeen Harbour. There, Fan Rae parked her car and headed towards the water on foot.
Teffinger followed, silently with a heavy heart, knowing that life as he knew it was minutes away from ending.
The rain was hard.
But it was also warm.
He didn’t care about it.
Fan Rae took a position in the shadows and stared across the water. Teffinger wasn’t sure what she was fixated on. The boat at the end of the dock, directly across the water, appeared to be an old decommissioned steel vessel that had been converted into living quarters.
Lights were on inside.
The rest of the boats on the dock were dark and abandoned.
<
br /> He should have brought binoculars and cursed himself for not having the foresight. Someone was on board the steel vessel. Every so often, a dark silhouette passed behind one of the window coverings.
Teffinger’s heart pounded.
D’Asia?
Was the silhouette d’Asia?
A dog laid on the deck, quiet but not asleep; unfettered by the storm and maybe even liking it after the heat of the day.
SUDDENLY A DOOR OPENED and a woman stepped out, holding a bowl in her hands. The rain was coming down too hard to get a good look at her, but she had the same posture and size as d’Asia. She set the bowl in front of the dog, patted him on the head and went back to the door. Just before it closed, the light caught her just right.
D’Asia!
It was definitely d’Asia!
“I’ll be damned.”
Then something unexpected happened.
The black silhouette of a man appeared on the roof of the boat. He jumped down on cat feet, directly next to the dog, and stabbed a knife in the back of the animal’s head before that head even raised halfway up. The canine flattened without making a sound.
Then the man crept towards the door.
The door that d’Asia had just gone in.
He opened it, stepped inside and shut it behind him.
Teffinger ran as fast as his legs let him to the end of the dock and dived into the water. As soon as he got to the surface he broke into his most powerful overhand stroke.
SECONDS LATER, he muscled his heavy soaking body onto the dock, bounded onto the boat and busted through the door.
D’Asia was on her back.
Her face was bloody.
Her eyes were terrified.
A man was on top of her, straddling her chest.
He had a knife to her face, taunting her before he killed her.
Teffinger took two steps towards him and hurled his body through the air.
The man recoiled lightning fast.
Teffinger felt the knife sink into his chest.
He twisted.
The knife came with him.
As he pulled it out, the man ran towards the door.
Teffinger got a better look at him.
He was big, almost as big as Teffinger and strong as a python.
Teffinger’s instinct was to let him go
His other instinct was to kill him.
The man was on the deck by the time Teffinger got to him.
He hurled his body through the air and caught the man on the back.
They tumbled over the side and fell into the water.
The entire world went black.
Teffinger heard nothing.
He saw nothing.
Then the man had his head in a stranglehold.
He pushed him even farther underwater.
Teffinger fought and twisted and pulled frantically at the man’s arms. It did no good.
Air.
Air.
He needed air!
Chapter Ninety-Five
Day Eight—August 10
Monday Night
______________
TEFFINGER WENT INTO SOMETHING like a crocodile death roll and broke free. Then rage took over. He held the man underwater with every ounce of strength he had. After a long time, the man stopped moving. Teffinger didn’t care. He kept him there, under the surface, for second after second, making absolutely positive he was dead.
Then he let go.
To his surprise, he was quite a ways from the boat.
He swam towards it, on his back, keeping his head above water where the air was.
Air.
Air.
So sweet.
He barely had enough strength to drag his beaten body out of the water and onto the dock.
Then something weird happened.
He heard noises, desperate noises, coming from inside the boat.
He went in and what he saw he could hardly believe. Fan Rae and d’Asia were locked together on the floor, bloody, trying to kill each other with their bare hands.
D’Asia saw him and shouted, “Nick! Help me!”
Fan Rae turned her head, saw him and shouted, “Teffinger, help me!”
He stood there frozen.
Then he made a split-second decision and punched Fan Rae in the face.
She made a terrible gurgling sound, tried to get to her feet, and then collapsed.
Teffinger pulled d’Asia to her feet.
She hugged him tighter than he had ever been hugged before.
Her body felt so absolutely perfect against him.
Then she cried.
Teffinger stared at Fan Rae. She laid there not moving with her eyes closed, either unconscious or dead.
Chapter Ninety-Six
Day Eight—August 10
Monday Night
______________
TEFFINGER BENT DOWN to see if Fan Rae was breathing. As he kneeled over her, an insane pain suddenly exploded on the back of his head and then everything went black.
He awoke some time later.
Everything was pitch-black.
He was sitting in water.
He couldn’t move.
He realized he was tied and struggled against the ropes until his skin ripped.
It did no good.
There was no getting out.
He was dangerously close to engines.
They were running and pumping water into the boat.
He was in the engine compartment and the boat was sinking.
“Nick, are you conscious?”
The words startled him.
He thought he was alone.
“Fan Rae?”
“Yes,” she said. “D’Asia did this. She’s killing us.”
Teffinger shouted.
Help!
Help!
His voice bounced off the walls and got sucked into the engines. No one would be able to hear him. He was in the bowls of the boat, with the compartment door shut, surrounded by a steel hull.
“I’ve already been shouting for ten minutes,” Fan Rae said. “It’s no use. I’m sorry I got you into this. I really am. This is my fault. I need to tell you something, while we still have time.”
“Tell me what?”
HER WORDS WERE JUMBLED and her brain wasn’t moving in a straight line, but she answered questions when Teffinger asked them and, by the time she was finished, he understood what she wanted to tell him.
D’Asia was a hit woman.
She murdered people for a living.
All of her assignments came through a woman named Kam Lee, who owned a dungeon. Kam Lee wasn’t the one who hired her, though. She was just the conduit. Someone else was the boss. But he or she would never disclose themselves, for security purposes.
D’Asia wanted to know who the boss was, so she’d have some leverage if she ever outlived her usefulness. She hired a private investigator by the name of Tanna Fan to find out who he was.
“Tanna Fan?”
“Right, she’s my sister,” Fan Rae said.
Tanna started the investigation by going after Kam Lee, who was the most direct link to the boss. She broke into Kam Lee’s house. She broke into Kam Lee’s dungeon. She took los of Kam Lee’s papers and got lots on information but didn’t come up with the link. Unfortunately, in the process, she got captured on a security tape. Kam Lee didn’t know who was breaking into her stuff, or why, but told the boss about it.
“He then, in turn, hired d’Asia, through Kam Lee, to find the woman and bring her to the dungeon for an interrogation, after which she would be killed.”
D’Asia had developed a fondness for Tanna by this point, so they had a discussion and made a deal.
D’Asia would capture Tanna and bring her to the dungeon. Tanna would be interrogated but wouldn’t say who she was working for or why. Afterwards, d’Asia would take Tanna somewhere to kill her.
“The deal was, though, that d’Asia wouldn’t really kill her,” Fan Rae said. “She would
really let her go and then report back that the job had been done and that the body had been disposed of.”
They then executed that plan to perfection.
Obviously, Tanna couldn’t be in Hong Kong any longer so she changed her name and moved to Rome. She didn’t tell anyone that she was still alive, except for Fan Rae. That was absolutely necessary because if the boss ever found out that d’Asia deceived him, she would be killed herself.
So Tanna disappeared.
Her body never showed up.
Everyone thought she was dead.
End of story.
EXCEPT THAT THE STORY DIDN’T EXACTLY END THERE.
“I knew that d’Asia was a hit woman because she had confided in Tanna who in turn confided in me,” Fan Rae said. “I also owed d’Asia a favor, for letting Tanna live. It turned out that I drew one of the murders that d’Asia subsequently committed. I misdirected the investigation so she wouldn’t be discovered. That’s something I’m not proud of.”
Time went on.
Nothing happened.
Everything was status quo.
The problem was that Tanna had a P.I partner by the name of Lily Yip, who actually thought Tanna had been murdered when she disappeared. Lily Yip got obsessed with finding Tanna’s killer. She theorized that it was the hit woman who Tanna had for a client. Lily’s theory was that the hit woman killed Tanna because Tanna knew her identity and posed a threat. Lily set out to find this hit woman.
Somehow she got some information that the woman had been assigned to hit a man in Denver, a man by the name of Nick Teffinger.
“That’s right,” Fan Rae said. “D’Asia didn’t go there to get your help. She went there to murder you.”
Lily Yip followed her to Denver.
She hung outside Teffinger’s house.
She waited for d’Asia to show up.
She went in, in the middle of the night, and tried to kill her. “That’s when you interceded,” Fan Rae said. “D’Asia got the upper hand and managed to kill her.”
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