Outside, Waters headed for her car in the deserted parking lot. Her routine was well-established and she moved quickly, keys in hand while looking for anything unusual. Nothing. She was reaching for the door lock when a dark shape rose out of the shadows behind a nearby car and rushed at her. Waters heard the quick footsteps and turned, only to have a huge hand grab her hair and bang her head on the roof. The man jammed his body against hers and forced her against the car. She could feel his weight against her back and the hardness of his erection against her buttocks.
“Scream and I’ll cut your fuckin’ throat,” he growled. His free hand stripped her coat and handbag away.
“Don’t hurt me,” she pleaded. “Take the purse. I won’t scream.”
“That’s fuckin’ smart,” he said. He knocked her hat off and pulled her away from the car. Now she had an idea of his size—he was huge, well over six feet and close to three hundred pounds. Her hope this was a mugging vaporized when he kicked her handbag under the car and forced her toward the open field that backed the parking lot.
Tears streamed down her face from pain as he held her head back and his right hand grabbed her breasts. The hand moved lower and grabbed at her crotch. She fought against it by walking faster. “In a hurry to do this?” he rasped in her ear.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” she whispered. She was vaguely aware that she was still holding on to her car keys.
“You gonna like this.” He threw her down onto the grassy bank of a ditch and covered her, using both his hands to hold her wrists above her head. He forced his legs between hers and kicked her feet apart. He freed her right hand when he reached down to pull up her skirt. She swung blindly at him, still clutching the car keys. But he caught her arm before she could hit him and jammed it back against the ground. The car keys flew out of her grasp. “Bitch!” he growled. “Don’t move. You gonna like havin’ a man.”
He held both her wrists with one hand. “My wrist,” she gasped. “The right one. It’s broken. Please let go.” It was a lie.
“Sure, bitch. But don’t move or I’ll twist it off.” He released her right hand and she could feel his hand move down between his body and hers, pulling at her skirt. She groped for the keys while he unzipped his pants and laid his penis against her. Then he hit her in the face. Hard. “You dumb bitch. I told you don’t move.” She didn’t move until he grabbed his penis. She tried to distract his attention by wiggling and twisting her left arm, which was still in his grasp, while she groped in the grass with her right hand, searching for the car keys.
He dropped his penis and hooked a blunt finger under her panties and ripped them away. His breath was panting in her right ear and she could smell his sour odor when her hand grasped the keys. She clamped them in her fist, with the point of one key sticking out between her index finger and forefinger. She felt the head of his penis move against her inner thigh as he tried to guide its penetration. Adrenaline surged through her and she bucked against his body. She drove her right fist into his face and buried the key in his left eye.
The man’s pain filled the night with a primeval shriek. Waters shoved him away and came to her feet. But his hand reached out and grabbed her leg. A demonic fury possessed her as she kicked free. Again, she kicked at him, this time feeling her high heel break off when she made contact. Another scream, this time more animal than human, and she was free. She ran for the building, stumbling once. Ahead, she could see a man coming out of the entrance. It was Leonard. He ran toward her.
“What happened?” he shouted.
Waters swung at him, wildly, out of control. “Get out of here!” she cried. “Let me alone!” He grabbed her shoulders with both hands, holding her at arm’s length. She half-swung at him. “Get out of here,” she moaned. “Please let me alone.” Her knees gave out and she collapsed.
Gently, he guided her to sitting position on the ground and stood back, sensing she didn’t want him to touch her. “It’s okay,” he told the sobbing woman. “It’s okay.” He draped his flight jacket over her shoulders and ran back to the building entrance. He broke the outside fire alarm, figuring that was the quickest way to summon help. He ran back to her, sensing, rather than knowing, what had happened. An unfamiliar rage captured him and for the first time in his life, he wanted to kill. “Where is he?” he said. She pointed at the field just as a security police car turned into the parking lot.
“Over there!” he yelled at the squad car and pointed at the field. A second car came into the parking lot, followed by a fire truck and a crash wagon. Within moments they were safely surrounded by concerned faces. A woman paramedic helped Waters to her feet. Slowly, her breathing returned to normal as she told them what had happened. Waters straightened her skirt and tucked in her blouse. Standing there barefoot with his flight jacket over her shoulders, Leonard was struck by her composure. She had been assaulted, mauled, and terrified. Now she was reclaiming her dignity.
The paramedic escorted her to the crash wagon, helped her inside, and closed the door behind them. A security cop from the first car walked over to them. He held a plastic evidence bag with the remnants of Waters’ panties. “This is one rape suspect who won’t get away,” he said.
The chief master sergeant who was acting as on-scene commander took the evidence bag. “You found him at the scene?”
“No,” came the answer. “He had crawled into the bushes.”
“He’ll claim he was sleeping off a drunk.” There was a disgusted resignation in his voice. He had seen too many suspects convince juries they were innocent on such a minor point.
“Not this time, Chief,” the security cop said. “He’s still got a key buried in his left eyeball with Captain Waters’ key ring attached and the heel of her shoe planted an inch and a half deep in his left armpit. Let him explain that to a jury.”
Leonard watched the crash wagon pull out of the parking lot and disappear into the night. “Pontowski named her right,” he said to no one.
Pontowski drummed a tattoo on the security police report with his fingers. “You didn’t have to come in today,” he told Waters.
“There’s work to do,” she replied. He was amazed by the woman’s composure as she stood in front of his desk. Other than the ugly, fresh bruise on her left cheek, which no amount of makeup could hide, she seemed perfectly normal. “Besides, I want to make a point.”
“Which is?”
“No miserable son of a bitch messes with my life.”
“Have you heard the reports from the hospital?” Pontowski asked. She shook her head. “They’ve identified him. He’s lost his left eye. It seems you stepped in animal dung in the field and he’s got a bad infection from whatever was on your heel.” He let that sink in. “By the way, he claims he’s innocent.”
“Really?” Waters replied, her voice icy cold.
“There’s one thing that isn’t explained in the report,” Pontowski said. “Exactly what were you and Tango working on that kept you here last night?”
It was the first time Waters had heard Leonard called by that name. What was Pontowski doing? Renaming the entire squadron? The name does fit, she conceded. “We were working on a way for the squadron to go out in style,” she explained. For the first time, she became animated. “John … ah, Tango … came up with a great idea. He thinks we should put on an open house. It would be a farewell gift to the community for all their support. He says they are the stockholders and we should show them what they got for their money.”
Her enthusiasm broke through the frosty look on her face and she smiled. “John thinks the open house should be timed to coincide with our last day of flying before we stand down. We could put on an air show with the Warthogs. The closing ceremony could be the retirement of the colors with a flyby. Why don’t I get him in here to explain the details?”
Her enthusiasm was contagious and Pontowski told her to call him in ASAP. He watched her rush out of the office. An open house with an air show, he thought. It might do the trick.
“Have you got a title for all this?” Pontowski asked. “One that we can go public with.”
“We’ll call it ‘The Flight of the Thunderhogs.’ We’ll make the Thunderbirds jealous as all hell.”
Pontowski smiled at the two officers. By all accounts, both of them should have been emotional basket cases. But for some reason, both were coping and getting on with their lives. “Let’s do it,” he told them. “One thing, troops… let’s not end up being called ‘the Thunderturds.”‘
Thursday, February 15
Kowloon, Territory of Hong Kong
The nine-mile run across Mirs Bay from mainland China to the New Territories of Hong Kong had taken twelve minutes in the boat the Chinese called a Tai Fei. It had been a wet and pounding ride in the converted Cigarette offshore racer used for smuggling between Hong Kong and China. The skipper had assured Kamigami that he could have made the crossing in nine minutes if a woman had not been aboard.
The two were still damp when they reached the outskirts of Kowloon, and Jin Chu was shivering from the cold wind blowing off Victoria Harbor and bringing winter from the mainland. “We need to find a room and dry out,” Kamigami said.
“Perhaps,” Jin Chu said, “we should buy different clothes.” Kamigami agreed, for she was drawing stares from every person they passed on the crowded street. Jin Chu’s black trousers, padded jacket, and sandals marked her as fresh from the country and a newcomer to Hong Kong.
They turned down a side street lined with well-stocked shops occupied only by worried-looking owners. Near the end, he selected a small clothing stall owned by two Indian brothers. While a young girl helped Jin Chu, Kamigami watched the Hong Kongers flowing past the stall. “It is more pleasant in here,” he said to the older of the brothers.
The man smiled. “Ah yes,” he said in the distinctive singsong English spoken by Indians. “We do not have the worry. If you look, you will see most of them carry cellular telephones. That is because of the worry.” Kamigami said that he did not understand. “Ah yes,” the Indian explained. “They worry about reversion a year from July. They want to leave before Hong Kong becomes part of China. They do not trust their new masters. They carry the cellular phones to learn quickly of new opportunities to leave. There are many rumors.”
“Do you have a cellular phone?” Kamigami asked.
“Ah no. You see I have a passport from India. We can leave any time we wish. We do not have the worry.”
People were starting to hurry down the street, telephones clamped to their ears. Shouting drifted up from the main street. “There must be a new rumor going around,” Kamigami said. The Indian stepped onto the sidewalk and looked down the street. People were now pushing and running. He darted back into the stall and called to his brother. The two young men quickly moved their sidewalk displays inside and pulled down the steel shutters at the front that worked like a garage door.
“Ah yes,” he panted. “You should stay here now. It will be dangerous on the streets.” He turned on a radio and dialed an English-language broadcast station. The noise outside subsided.
Jin Chu came out of the back room where she had been trying on new clothes. The young assistant beamed with pleasure at her handiwork. She had outfitted Jin Chu in tight designer jeans, a jade green scooped-neck sleeveless blouse, and low-heeled boots. Jin Chu’s hair was pulled loosely onto the back of her neck and held in place by a matching green bow. The girl handed her a short jacket to wear and smiled. “Very pretty,” she said.
Kamigami could only stare. Changing clothes had not solved the problem, perhaps only compounded it, for Jin Chu still demanded attention. Then it came to him. It was her, not the clothes. Jin Chu was one of the world’s truly beautiful women. For a moment, there was only silence in the stall. “You do not like?” Jin Chu asked hesitantly, not sure of his reaction.
“I like,” Kamigami smiled at her, feeling like a fool and, for the first time in his life, understanding why older men made idiots of themselves over young women. Someone started banging on the steel shutters at the front with a pipe or crowbar, and he could hear fresh shouting coming from the street. The older of the two brothers motioned them to silence and turned off the lights.
“Perhaps they will go away.” They moved to the back of the store and huddled around the radio.
“… the riots that started in Tsuen Wan have now spread south into all of Kowloon,” the news reader on the radio announced in a crisp English accent. “Authorities are urging all foreigners to remain inside until order is restored. Meanwhile, leaders of the Chinese community say the situation is beyond their control and that order can only be restored if Her Majesty’s government vigorously rejects the latest proclamation by the People’s Republic of China. The same leaders are urging Her Majesty’s government to let the people of Hong Kong determine the future of Hong Kong and not impose an agreement negotiated without their participation.”
Kamigami’s eyes narrowed as he listened to the radio detail the violence, burning, and looting sweeping the New Territories. The latest bulletin reported scattered rioting on Hong Kong Island. “Apparently,” he said, “that proclamation by the PRC was the spark that started all this. Do you know what it said?”
The two Indian brothers shook their heads in unison. The banging on the steel shutters grew louder. The young shop assistant pulled a telephone from under the counter and punched at the buttons. They watched her panic turn to terror as she listened. She dropped the phone. “Very bad,” she whispered. “Beijing says that Hong Kong is now part of China. No one can leave until the nevi government has taken over. Very bad, very bad.”
The People’s Republic of China had seized the crown colony of Hong Kong seventeen months ahead of schedule.
The girl was crying. “Chinese riot and are killing whites and some of us,” she said. The “us” she was talking about were Indian merchants.
Angry shouts were coming from outside and Kamigami smelled smoke. He looked around for Jin Chu. She was gone. A surge of panic clamped his chest until she came out of the back room, dressed in her old clothes. “It is time to go,” she said. A deafening crash rocked them as the steel shutters bowed inward. They heard an engine race and gears crunch, followed by squealing tires. Again, a deafening crash hammered at them as a pickup truck smashed into the door. A hand reached through a gap at the side of the door and felt for the latch.
Before the shop assistant could scream, Kamigami was at the door and grabbed the arm at the wrist. He twisted until a bone snapped. He didn’t let go as a loud scream echoed outside the shop. Kamigami lifted the arm above his head, dragging the man on the outside up until his feet were off the ground. He forced the man’s palm open by pressing forward on the back of his hand, and with a hard slap, impaled the palm on a jagged shred of metal at the top of the door. He left the man hanging on the outside, shrieking in pain, a warning siren to the rioters that danger lurked inside. Kamigami had bought them a little time to escape.
The older of the brothers showed them out the back and into a narrow alley barely wide enough for Kamigami to squeeze through. Jin Chu surprised Kamigami by asking the merchant, “Where is the nearest temple with fortune tellers?” The Indian gave them directions to Wong Tai Sin. “You must leave now,” she cautioned the young man.
“Ah, but we must stay,” he told her, “and save what we can. It is all we own.” He rushed back into the stall.
“Please,” Jin Chu said, “we go to Wong Tai Sin Temple.” Kamigami understood it was not a request and led the way down the narrow alley.
He didn’t see the tears in her eyes. Fifty feet from the end they collided with a burly young Chinese pushing a dolly loaded with a bundle of Oriental rugs going in the opposite direction. The mail pushed at them and yelled for them to back up. Kamigami pushed on the rugs and forced the man to back out of the alley, protesting loudly in indecipherable Cantonese. All traffic on the main street was stopped and the crowd was moving in the direction they wanted to go. Kamigami used his bulk as a battering ram and they reached the temple forty minutes later.
The temple’s courtyard was an island of tranquility in the maelstrom of madness outside. Jin Chu led the way to a long, single-story arcade set against a back wall. The sign above the entrance announced that fortune tellers and soothsayers were inside. Every stall was occupied and people were lined up two and three deep to have their fortunes told and seek advice. Jin Chu walked slowly down the arcade listening to the voice of each fortune teller. Then she stopped and joined a line behind four other people. She had heard the voice she wanted.
The fortune teller was an old man Kamigami gauged to be in his seventies. He was dressed in a western-style suit with a carefully knotted silk tie. He looked up, his lined face expressionless, and saw Jin Chu standing in line. He stood and waved the crowd aside with a shaking hand, his face suddenly animated. His eyes never left Jin Chu. A silence that Kamigami could feel hung over the small group. “You must forgive me,” the old man said. “I do not know your name.” He motioned her to come forward and the woman sitting at the fortune teller’s small table willingly gave Jin Chu her seat. “I am not the one to tell your fortune so how may I help you?”
Jin Chu spoke in a language Kamigami did not understand. The old man only listened and nodded. When Jin Chu was finished, the fortune teller produced his cellular phone and punched in a number. Much to the bystanders’ surprise the call went through immediately. Now the old man spoke Cantonese and Kamigami could follow the drift of the conversation.
Dark Wing Page 9