by Adam Brookes
67
Rocky and the Clown moved for the cell door, ran out into the corridor. The Clown turned and slammed the door shut. The noise of rotors had grown louder. Mangan estimated them to be a mile away. Had they landed? He sat, his back against the wall, listening. He raised his swollen hands, the cuff biting, placed them against his lips. They pulsed with heat. He wondered if they were infected. The skin on his fingers felt distended and tight. It hurt to move them. He wondered at his own deterioration. They had done so little to him, but his strength was fading astoundingly quickly, replaced by something timorous and shaky. He forced himself to stand, tried to get ahold of himself. He jumped up and down, rolled his head on his shoulders, shook out his legs, breathed.
He listened again. The rotors were still chattering. He walked to the door and kicked it, kicked it again, put his shoulder into it. The door juddered but did not give.
And then the door was flying open and there was Rocky. He wore a golfing jacket, a backpack slung over his shoulder, his sunglasses on, failing to mask the panic. He ran to Mangan, an old man’s splay-footed run. He took Mangan’s arm, spoke in Mandarin, and Mangan smelled the alcohol on him.
“Listen. We leave now. And we go to your people. Yes.”
“Tell me what is happening.”
“We leave. I have a way.”
“You need to tell me.”
“Two helicopters. I don’t know. They are coming. Someone is coming.”
“Who?”
Rocky’s face creased in an agony of frustration.
“I don’t know. How they find us?”
“You’re not making sense. For God’s sake. Who has come?”
“Listen to me. This will make sense. We go now, back to the river. I have a way. We go to your Service. I come with you. I have so much to give. So much. Networks, Philip. I give them to you, to your Service. Whatever they want. You remember? The J-20? How we stole the skin from the Americans? Yes? I can tell you. I can tell them. The agents, everything. Protocols, finance. Everything! But if we stay here, I think the next ten, fifteen minutes become quite… unpredictable.” He gave a ghost of a grin, but the look in his eyes, behind the shades, was imploring. Mangan saw the pulse in his neck, the sweat on his lip.
“Get me out of these.” He put his hands out.
Rocky looked confused, pulled at the plastic cuff, then fumbled in his backpack, brought out a sponge bag, a pair of nail clippers, and worked at it until it snapped. Mangan tried to flex his fingers, but they were bloated, tight.
Rocky looked like an expectant child.
“You do not get out without me, Philip, you know this. So, now we go, yes. Together.”
“You’re a shit.”
“Together. To your people.”
“I’m not making you any guarantees.”
“My guarantee is what I know. That is my guarantee. Very valuable. Your Service will want everything. Everything.”
Mangan swayed slightly. He felt suddenly dazed, sick. Rocky took his arm again, began pulling him toward the door.
“Come, I have a way. You come, and then we go to your people.”
Mangan lurched out of the cell, struggled to think clearly.
“We need the laptop. My bag. We need them.”
“No time.”
“We need my passport. Handheld. Laptop. To contact the others.”
Rocky swore, yanked Mangan to the lift, then changed his mind. They took a dark emergency staircase, emerging four floors lower, in a hotel corridor. Rocky stopped, looked both ways, moved quickly to a door, waved an entry card.
In the room, the Clown stood at a window, watching the lawns, the illuminated fountains, the black river. The rotors were loud—close. The Clown turned and glanced at them, seemed unconcerned.
“Qu nar?” he said. Where are you going?
Rocky didn’t reply, tried to assert himself, walked across the room to where the laptop and Mangan’s bag lay on a bed.
“What is happening out there?” said Mangan.
“They are coming for us,” said the Clown. “That is what is happening.”
Rocky was putting the laptop in the bag. Mangan saw his own retro pistol lying on the bedside table, the star on the butt.
“What has happened? Will somebody bloody explain?”
“We thought we were coming for them. We thought we were coming for the Fans, for all their whores and cronies and bastards. But it turns out, in an unexpected irony, that they are coming for us,” the Clown said. He gestured out across the grounds. “However the fuck they found us. Two helicopters. About twenty of them, twenty-five maybe. Maybe more coming by road.”
“Where’s your… your general?” said Mangan. Rocky stopped, looked up.
The Clown shrugged.
“Somewhere outside Beijing. They picked him up at the airport. Took him to some facility, a villa, maybe. State Security has plenty of those places. Interrogation places. Very quiet. They took him yesterday, it turns out.”
He turned and looked at Mangan.
“Oh, and his daughter disappeared, too. In England, of all places. Just gone. That’s why we had to move, to set everything in motion.”
He had cocked his head to one side.
“Madeline. No sign of her anywhere. Did you have anything to do with that?”
“Don’t be bloody ridiculous.”
The Clown stood very still.
“We have Fan Ping of course, emperor of CNaC. And the bitch of a sister, Charlotte. That might buy us something, some time, maybe.”
Rocky had his hand over his eyes.
“But I wonder,” said the Clown to Mangan, “if you are still worth anything? What you might buy us. I suppose we’ll have to see.” His eyes flickered across the room, to the door.
Mangan lunged for the bedside table, the weapon, brought it up. Its weight told him it was loaded, the butt cool against his reddened, swollen hands. He levelled it at the Clown, whose expression remained unchanged.
“We are leaving,” said Mangan.
From behind him, Rocky spoke.
“Shoot him.”
The Clown’s gaze shifted to Rocky.
“You fucking whore,” he said.
“Shoot him!”
Mangan sighted on the Clown, saw the foresight wavering across the man’s face and neck, felt the trigger tensile beneath his forefinger. The Clown didn’t move, just stared, his eyes black as carbon.
Mangan brought the trembling foresight to the Clown’s neck, his chin.
I have murdered before.
“Do it, Philip.”
I murdered a man by a highway, at night, as the cars roared past.
“Do it.”
I didn’t even know his name.
The Clown’s eyes, the contempt in them.
The foresight was sliding down the Clown’s chest, stomach, groin, pulling away to the side when Mangan squeezed the trigger. The weapon barked, tried to kick free of his hand and the report clanged around the room. The Clown lurched sideways, his feet stuttering, but the round smacked harmlessly into the wall. Mangan brought the weapon up again, and the Clown was shouting something at him.
Rocky had slung the backpack and was going for the door. The Clown turned and spat at him. Rocky didn’t stop, wiped the saliva from his face with his cuff. Mangan followed him, keeping the pistol levelled at the Clown.
“You little fucking whore,” the Clown shouted. And then they were running down the corridor, Rocky leading. Another emergency staircase, down six floors. Mangan was nauseated, out of breath, knees weak.
“We need to stop. To signal.”
Rocky calculated, then pushed open a fire door. They knelt in a corridor, Mangan fumbling with the laptop, opening it, booting it, barely any charge to it. He searched for a power socket, tried to plug it in, realized he didn’t have an adapter.
“For God’s sake, faster,” said Rocky.
He found the wireless signal, went to the darknet site. His hands were shaking.
“S
o where? Where will we be? What do I tell them?” he said.
“Tell them I am bringing treasure.”
“Where?”
“You tell them. I have so much. They must take me. Please tell them, Philip.” His voice had taken on a wheedling tone. Mangan was repulsed by it, angered even.
“Jesus Christ. Where?”
“Tell them the same place we left from. By the river, the dock. Chiang Saen. Tomorrow.”
Mangan paused. Did he have it in him? He did, apparently.
“What treasure?”
Rocky stared at him.
“Forgive me, Philip, but perhaps we do not have time for this right now.”
“What treasure?”
Rocky shook his head, adopted a flabbergasted look.
As artificial as every other face you show to me.
“Networks, Philip, I will give them networks. I told you before.”
“What do you have, Rocky?”
Rocky leaned into him, close. Mangan could smell his breath, see the panic behind his eyes. Rocky was starting to gabble.
“I will give them the threads, and then they pull on those threads. They pull on them. And… and they watch the networks unravel. Europe, Japan, even America, Philip! Military, State Security operations, things I know, things I’ve heard about. Leads. Threads. I will give them this.”
Mangan looked at his colonel, this man coated in betrayal, then typed, dropped it on the site.
They crashed through a pair of double doors and were back on the casino floor, in the blue light, the golden glimmer of the tables, the air thick with perfume, cigars.
The clients were streaming for the exits, the girls in black at the poker tables were unplugging their headsets. Someone was shouting, on the very edge of panic. One of the sex show girls stood on the stage, naked, her hand up to shield her vision from the spotlight, trying to make out what was happening.
Rocky began to run across the floor, Mangan behind, the weapon stuck in his waistband. Rocky was elbowing people out of the way, and some were starting to get angry. He pushed a woman in a white silk sheath, and her ankle, perched atop absurdly high heels, suddenly gave, and she went down onto her knees with a shriek, dropping a sequined purse. Mangan felt a hand on his arm, which he flung off. People were becoming disoriented. A Russian was shouting, waving his phone in the air. A Chinese man in a gray suit was scooping up chips in great handfuls from a table. And then they were out into the atrium lobby, and Rocky was running ahead, making for huge glass doors. The heavies in cream suits were jittery, looking for direction, murmuring into their walkie-talkies.
Mangan felt it first, rather than heard it, a wave passing through the air, the panic rising, a surge of voices, a scream, and behind it a clatter, a crackle. Breaking glass. He turned. On the other side of the atrium, just leaving the casino floor, six or seven men in black fatigues, body armor, ski masks, were moving along the walls. They were loose-limbed, fit, Mangan could see. They carried machine pistols and moved easily. One was down on a knee, giving orders with hand signals. The clientele were backing away from them, some raising their hands, but the men in black ignored them.
Rocky gave a kind of squeal of fear, and they were crashing through the doors, out into the night.
68
The crowd spilled from the floodlit building. Mangan heard rotors and engines. Limousines and black SUVs were speeding away into the darkness. A group of women in evening gowns clutching purses were attempting to board a small bus. Men in suits were riding mopeds, bumping across the lawns.
They ran away from the building, past fountains, beds of orchids, out of the light. Sweat was running into Mangan’s eyes, stinging. He looked over to where he thought the river was, saw a helicopter hovering, a searchlight trained on the dock, the thunk-thunk of its rotors. Rocky was ahead of him, running doggedly, splay-footed, the backpack bouncing up and down. They ran deeper into darkness, towards the trees, and then they were forcing their way into undergrowth, out of sight. They pushed on, following the tree line, moving parallel to the river, the ground rising. Mangan was slowing, his chest pounding, ribs hurting badly now, specks dancing in his eyes.
“I have to stop,” he said.
Rocky slowed, turned.
“What? Are you mad? No stopping.”
“Just for a minute.” Mangan bent double, retched, spat. “How much farther?”
“Two kilometers. Maybe three. Something. We must go.”
“Just wait, for Christ’s sake.”
Mangan looked out from the tree line. They had gained some height. He saw that the vehicles speeding away from the complex had been stopped by a roadblock. A queue had built up, drivers leaning on their horns. The helicopter was still over the dock. He saw its searchlight, the river’s glitter. He could just make out shadowy black figures moving about outside the complex, a scattering of the clientele still on the steps, the lawns, some pulling suitcases on wheels. And then, to the edge of his vision, a flicker of movement. A man had come out of the building by a side door and was running across the lawn in the same direction Mangan and Rocky had come. Mangan touched Rocky’s arm and pointed.
“It’s him,” he said.
Behind the Clown, three of the black-clothed figures were moving fast, effortlessly. They were catching him. The Clown half-turned, saw them just yards behind him and ran for the tree line. But the three of them were with him in seconds, and one did something with a foot and the Clown was down, rolling on the grass. One of the men had him covered with a weapon. Another grabbed him by his jacket, hauled him to a sitting position. The Clown had his hands up as if trying to fend them off. They seemed to be talking. One of the men delivered a hard kick to the Clown’s midriff, but the Clown carried on talking, gesturing to the tree line. The three men in black all looked in unison toward the trees.
“Shit,” said Rocky.
“What?” said Mangan.
“He’s told them.”
“What? Told them what?”
“Where we’re going.”
Two of the men had shouldered their machine pistols and stepped away from the Clown, who sat on the grass, leaning on one hand. The third man, the one covering him, moved in closer. A fraction of a second later there was a mild tap tap sound on the air and the Clown slumped quickly to the side. The man repositioned himself. Tap tap.
Mangan felt the falling sensation engulf him, as if something deep and heavy inside him were yawling through space, drawing his stomach and heart down, and for an instant he was quite lost; he felt himself going over, caught himself with one hand in the cool damp earth, leaf litter. He held himself there, a prickling rising up his back, a flushing in the face, the feeling that his bowels would open, that he’d shit. Rocky was whispering something, the same thing over and over. Mangan couldn’t make out what it was.
More people were running now, women in gowns and mini-dresses, men in tuxedos, the croupiers, scattering across the lawn. Someone was screaming. A moped was describing a wide circle across the grounds, looking for a way out. The three men had left the body crumpled on the lawn and were loping toward the tree line. One was using a walkie-talkie. They moved with a powerful, unhurried grace. Rocky was pawing at him. He stood, stumbled on into the wet dark. Rocky had them on some sort of path, beaten earth, patches of mud, puddles, the surge and ebb of insects. Mangan felt himself retreating inward. This is how it works, an inner voice was telling him. This is how fear works, when you are here rushing through the heat and the night and the new appalling knowledge of it all.
I am present at the hatching of my terror.
They ran, upward, in the darkness, Rocky keeping a punishing pace toward the top of the rise. Mangan thought of the men coming through the trees. Rocky took them off the path, into undergrowth. It slowed them, and made their progress noisy, so they went back onto the path. After eight or ten minutes, Mangan thought he heard footfalls some distance below. He stopped, his chest a furnace, hissed at Rocky. They listened. Not so far behin
d now. Rocky, bathed in sweat, was clenching his fists. He gestured urgently, making a sign to go right. They cut off the path again, quietly. A downward slope, then a wrecked wire fence. Mangan saw a darkened building silhouetted against the night sky, Rocky running for it, up steps, through a splintered and rotting wooden doorway. A long corridor, something soft and squelching beneath their feet, and a stench of mold, disrepair.
“Where the fuck are we?”
“Quiet! Just follow.”
Mangan could see almost nothing; he blundered behind Rocky, a crunching of broken glass underfoot, up more stairs, the banister damp, slimy. A frenzied flutter of wings above him scared him. Bats? Then rotors, thunk-thunking in from the direction of the river, and everything was glowing. He looked up at shafts of light boring in through holes in the roof. He looked around himself. Rocky had dropped to one knee, staying very still, head down, one hand over his eyes to protect his night vision.
They were in a wreck of a place, wooden paneling splitting from the walls, vile, sodden carpet scattered with filth. In the sudden light Mangan saw abandoned gaming tables, a vast fu character on the wall, spilling golden chips into a red, glittering ether, streaked with slime. The rotors deafening now, the beams playing around the room.
Still. Stay still. They see movement.
The helo repositioned, the beams stalking away, playing along the outside wall now, hunting. Rocky was up and moving, through two more reeking gaming rooms of moldering baize and rusting slot machines, to a window, crouching. Mangan came up beside him. The searchlight was scanning the front of the building. And there, briefly illuminated, as the beam painted them, the three men, standing on the cracked concrete forecourt, one pointing, another checking his weapon. What were they waiting for?
Mangan forced the words out, his voice someone else’s.
“Do you have a plan? Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“There’s a boat. A fast boat. Driver is waiting. I keep him there, in case. We go there.”
Mangan closed his eyes, shook his head.
“We can’t go back on the river.”
“Yes, fast boat.” Rocky patted the air, a calm-down gesture.